Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies

In a world fractured by crises and profound inequalities, how can we confront attacks on truth? How can we envision and build a future where justice, freedom, and peace transcend nation-state and other artificially constructed borders? This theme explores intersecting global crises—rising authoritarianism, ecological collapse, militarism, genocides, the destabilizing of truth, and widening inequalities—through the lens of transdisciplinary knowledges, radical imagination, and collective action. This year’s programming acknowledges not only the historical trauma, but also the voices, resistance, and resilience of marginalized communities in addressing these pressing issues. We believe this work is important to reclaim human dignity in the face of misinformation and neoliberal commodification of peace. Uplifting artistic and creative expressions, storytelling, and grassroots activism, we invite a radical reimagination of justice, amplifying subversive strategies, including disability justice, to envision a world rooted in dignity, equity, and sustainability. Our goal is to learn about and explore possibilities to forge a just future that prioritizes care, truth, and planetary peace.

Harsha Walia (she/her) is a Panjabi Sikh organizer and writer based in Vancouver, Canada. Formally trained in the law, she has been involved in migrant justice, feminist, anti-racist, abolitionist, anti-capitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements for over two decades. She has been involved in collective organizations such as No One Is Illegal, Defenders of the Land, Vancouver Status of Women, STATUS Anti-Imperialist Coalition, Women's Memorial March Committee, Olympic Resistance Network, Radical Desis, Downtown Eastside Housing Justice Coalition, Weaving Our Worlds and more. Walis is the award-winning author of Undoing Border Imperialism (AK Press, 2013) and Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism (Haymarket, 2021). She is also the co-author of Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration and Red Women Rising: Indigenous Women Survivors in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Her writing and analysis regularly appear in newspapers and anthologies locally and internationally. Along with Alejandro Zuluaga, she is also the co-creator of the short film “Survival, Strength, Sisterhood: Power of Women in the Downtown Eastside.”

In her day jobs, Walia has served as Project Coordinator at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Center and the Executive Director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, and she continues to work in the anti-violence sector. She was named one of the most influential South Asians in British Columbia by the Vancouver Sun, one of the ten most popular left-wing journalists by the Georgia Straight, and is the winner of numerous awards for her advocacy and community work.