Assistant Professor
aziz [dot] choudry [at] mcgill [dot] ca (E-mail)
Phone: 514-398- 2253
Room 314, Education Building
Areas of interest
- Social movement learning; informal education; popular education; critical adult education; community education; labour education;
- The construction and production of knowledge(s) in social movements and community organizations, NGOs, trade unions and im/migrant workers’ organizations;
- Research for social change; activist/community research methodologies, institutional ethnography/political activist ethnography;
- Anti-racist education; global education;
- Anti-colonial, Third World, and Indigenous thought/scholarship; critical race feminism;
- Globalization and the political economy of international aid, trade and development .
Description of research/teaching activities
My research focuses on learning in social action and knowledge production in activist/social movement milieus. I examine issues of power and knowledge in local and transnational community organizing/NGO/social movement networks, and histories, knowledge and theory ‘from below’. I explore questions of education, development, social justice and resistance through a critical, interdisciplinary, anti-colonial lens which connects theory to practice. My research and teaching commitments are balanced with, and informed by involvement in community and social justice activities, such as the Immigrant Workers Centre, Montreal, for which I am a board member.
I am currently the holder of a SSHRC standard research grant, ‘Exploring the role of activist research non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in research and knowledge production for social action’, Board Member/North America Regional Representative, Research Committee on Labour Movements (RC44), International Sociological Association, and co-editor (with Anila Asghar and Teresa Strong-Wilson) of the McGill Journal of Education. I serve on the global spokescouncil for Interface, and on the editorial board of Labour, Capital and Society. I co-organized the New Voices in Labour Studies conference held at L'Université du Québec à Montréal in March 2012.
Selected Publications
Books
Choudry, A., and Kapoor, D. (eds). (forthcoming, 2013). NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects. (12 chapters) London: Zed Books.
Choudry, A., Hanley, J., and Shragge, E. (eds.) (2012). Organize! Building from the local for global justice. (22 chapters). Oakland.CA/Toronto.: PM Press/Between The Lines.
Choudry, A., and Kapoor, D. (eds.). (2010). Learning from the ground up: Global Perspectives on social movements and knowledge production. (14 chapters). New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Choudry, A., Hanley, J., Jordan, S., Shragge, E., and Stiegman, M. (2009). Fight Back: Workplace Justice for Immigrants. Halifax: Fernwood Press.
Book chapters
Choudry, A., and Kapoor, D. (forthcoming, 2013). Introduction: NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects. In Choudry, A., and Kapoor, D. (Eds). NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects. London: Zed Books.
Choudry, A. (forthcoming, 2013). Another NGO is possible!? Compartmentalization, complicity and conquest in the ‘global justice’ movement. In Choudry, A., and Kapoor, D. (Eds). NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects. London: Zed Books.
Choudry, A. (forthcoming, 2012). Building counter-power from the ground up: Contesting NGOization through social movement learning and knowledge production. In Hall, B.L., Clover, D. E., Crowther, J. and Scandrett, E. (Eds.). Learning and education for a better world: the role of social movements. Rotterdam: Sense.
Choudry, A. (in press, 2012). Neoliberal immigration and Temporary Foreign Worker Programs in a time of economic crisis: Local/global struggles. In Caouette, D., and Kapoor, D. (Eds). Challenging Colonization, Development and Globalization: Social Movement & Critical Perspectives (Chapter 9). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.
Choudry, A., Hanley, J., and Shragge, E. (2012). Introduction: Organize! Looking back, thinking ahead. In Choudry, A., Hanley, J., and Shragge, E. (Eds.) Organize! Building from the local for global justice (pp.1-22). Oakland.CA/Toronto.: PM Press/Between The Lines.
Choudry, A., and Kuyek, D. (2012). Activist research: Mapping power relations, informing struggles. In Choudry, A., Hanley, J., and Shragge, E. (Eds.). Organize! Building from the local for global justice (pp.23-34). Oakland.CA/Toronto.: PM Press/Between The Lines.
Choudry, A. and Shragge, E. (2012). Disciplining dissent: NGOs and community organizations.. In Montesinos Coleman, L., and Tucker, K. (Eds.). Situating Global Resistance: Between Discipline and Dissent (pp.109-123). London: Routledge.
Choudry, A., and Thomas, M. (2012). Organizing migrant and immigrant workers in Canada. In Ross, S, and Savage, L. (Eds.). Rethinking the politics of labour in Canada (pp. 171-183). Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Press.
Choudry, A. (2011). Learning in struggle, Sharing knowledge: Building resistance to bilateral FTAs. In Kapoor, D. (Ed.). Critical Perspectives on Neoliberal Globalization, development and education in Africa and Asia/Pacific (pp.31-48). Rotterdam: Sense.
Choudry, A. (2010). Against the flow: Maori knowledge and self-determination struggles confront neoliberal globalization in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In Kapoor, D and Shizha, E. (Eds.). Indigenous knowledge and learning in Asia and Africa: Perspectives on development, education and culture (pp.47-62). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Choudry, A., and Kapoor, D. (2010). Learning from the ground up: Global perspectives on social movements and knowledge production. In Choudry, A. and Kapoor, D. (Eds.). Learning from the ground up: Global perspectives on knowledge production in social movements (pp. 1-13). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Choudry, A. (2010). Global justice? Contesting NGOization: Knowledge politics and containment in anti-globalization networks. In Choudry, A. and Kapoor, D. (Eds.). Learning from the ground up: Global perspectives on knowledge production in social movements, (pp.17-34). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Choudry, A. (2009). Challenging colonial amnesia in social justice activism. In Kapoor, D (Ed.). Education, decolonization and development: Perspectives from Asia, Africa and the Americas (pp. 95-110). Rotterdam: Sense.
Choudry, A. (2007). Not under the same sky: Bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), agriculture and food sovereignty. In Satyanarayana Prasad, P. (Ed.).. RTAs and FTAs – Legal Perspectives (pp.199-242). Hyderabad, India: Amicus Books/Icfai University Press.
Journal articles
Choudry, A., and Thomas, M. (under review). Labour struggles for workplace justice: Migrant and immigrant worker organizing in Canada. Journal of Industrial Relations.
Choudry, A. (in press, 2012). Struggles against bilateral FTAs: Challenges for transnational global justice activism. Studies in Social Justice.
Choudry, A. (2011). On knowledge production, learning and research in struggle. Alternate Routes, 23, 175-194.
Choudry, A. and Shragge, E. (2011). Disciplining dissent: NGOs and community organizations. Globalisations, 8:4, 503-517.
Choudry, A. (2010). What’s left? Canada’s ‘global justice’ movement and colonial amnesia. Race and Class, 52:1, 97-102.
Choudry, A. (2010). Fighting FTAs, Educating for action: The challenges of building resistance to bilateral free trade agreements. Journal for Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, 2: 1, 281-308.
Choudry, A. (2010). Troubling the proletarianization of Mexican immigrant students in an era of neoliberal immigration. Cultural Studies of Science Education 5, 2, 423-434.
Choudry, A. (2010). A Not-So-Flat World? Dominant and alternative accounts of globalization. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 24:3, 382-397.
Choudry, A., Hanley, J., Jordan, S., Shragge, E., and Stiegman, M. (2009). Respect et résistance. Revue du CREMIS, 2 (4), 7-14.
Baltodano, C., Choudry, A., Hanley, J., Jordan, S., Shragge, E., and Stiegman, M. (2007) Becoming an immigrant worker: Learning in everyday life. Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education 20 (2), 99-113.
Choudry, A. (2007). Transnational coalition politics and the de/colonization of pedagogies of mobilization: Learning from Indigenous movement articulations against neo-liberalism. International Education, 37, (1), 97-112. Download PDF.
Other publications
Choudry, A., Mahrouse, G., and Shragge, E. (2008, May/June). Neither reasonable nor accommodating. Canadian Dimension, 42: 3, 16-18.
Choudry, A. (2008). Migration and Free Trade Agreements: “Free trade”, neoliberal immigration and the globalization of guestworker programs. International Migrants Alliance 2008 Founding Assembly Documents (pp. 21-30). Hong Kong: International Migrants Alliance.
Edited Journal
Labour, Capital and Society, 45. (forthcoming, Fall 2012). (co-edited with Thomas Collombat). Special Issue: New voices on labour precarity and resistance.
McGill Journal of Education, 44 (1), Winter 2009. Guest editor. Special Issue: Learning in social action: Knowledge production in social movements.
Invited keynotes, talks and presentations
Choudry, A. (2011, December). (Invited paper presentation). Mapping the resistance against bilateral free trade and investment agreements. Workshop: Trade unions, free trade and the problem of transnational solidarity. Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, UK.
Choudry, A. (2011, May). Learning from the ground up: On education and informal learning in social movements and community organizations. Invited keynote at Cultivating Community conference. Concordia University, Montreal.
Choudry, A. (2011, March). (invited paper presentation) Theorize This! On knowledge production, learning and/in struggle. Varieties of Socialism, Varieties of Approaches conference. Critical Social Research Collaborative, Carleton University, Ottawa.
Choudry, A. (2011, January). Learning from the ground up: Knowledge production and social movements. IDS visiting speakers series, International Development Studies, St Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada.
Choudry, A. (2010, October). Cities in struggle: Learning, knowledge production, research and resistance from the ground up: Invited keynote at N-AERUS (Network-Association of European Researchers on Urbanization in the South) XI Conference, L'École de la Cambre, Brussels, Belgium.
Choudry, A. (2010, July). Sites of resistance, learning and theorizing: Knowledge production in local/global social activism. Invited presentation, Development Planning Unit, University College London, London, England.
Choudry, A. (2010, May). Learning from the struggle: Challenging NGOization and the professionalization of social change. Invited presentation, Local and Global Social Justice Movements panel, Equity Issues @ Congress 2010 Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Congress of the Humanities & Social Sciences, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
Choudry, A. (2010, May). Global crisis, working class households and migrant labour. Not the G-20 – Recovery and New beginnings. Struggles for immigration and labour justice. Invited opening plenary presentation, Historical Materialism 2010 Conference, York University, Toronto, Canada.