Faculty Research and Publications

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Intervening in the context of white settler colonialism: West Coast LEAF, gender equality, and the Polygamy Reference
(Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, 2016) Lenon, Suzanne
In November 2011, the British Columbia Supreme Court released its judgement in Reference re: s.293 of the Criminal Code of Canada, upholding the prohibition on polygamy as constitutional. The Polygamy Reference, as it is known, concluded that the pressing and substantial objective of s. 293 is the prevention of harm to women, to children, and to the institution of monogamous marriage. This paper analyzes the submissions made by the feminist legal education organization, West Coast LEAF, one of the few feminist 'voices' taken seriously by the court. The apprehension of polygamy's harms was central to the Reference case. West Coast LEAF offered one of the most nuanced interpretations of how the criminal prohibition on polygamy should be interpreted with respect to harm. Yet as this paper argues, its position conceals and is underpinned by racialized relations of power that, however unwittingly, give weight to and indeed require the racial logic of white settler state sovereignty articulated in the Polygamy References' overall narrative.
Intimacies/affect
(Mount Saint Vincent University. Institute for the Study of Women, 2015) Lenon, Suzanne; Luhmann, Suzanne; Rambukkana, Nathan
Abstract not available.
Radically rethinking marriage
(Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, 2016) Barker, Nicola; Lenon, Suzanne
This special issue of the Onati Socio-Legal Series offers inter-disciplinary, feminist perspectives that collectively ‘re-think’ the institution of marriage, not only in the field of legal discourse and institutions but also in the humanities and social sciences as well as through activisms. With a focus on jurisdictions in Europe, North America and Africa, the articles included in this issue challenge normative assumptions about marriage, reconsider forms of conjugality, re-write judicial interpretations and problematize legal and activist interventions and reasonings.
Studying with, without guarantees: reflections on the risks of taking learning from the classroom to the land
(Institute for Critical Education Studies, 2020) Granzow, Kara; Lenon, Suzanne; Kirbyson, Emily
In this paper, we discuss an assignment we developed whose goal was to “unsettle” settler consciousness and critically foster a grounded politics of location amongst our postsecondary students. We analyze some of the important and sundry risks of taking learning from the classroom to the land, focusing on some of the assignment’s assumptions, effects, contradictions and complications. Drawing upon Moten & Harney’s urging of a “studying with and for,” Stuart Hall’s “politics without guarantees,” and Leanne Simpson’s “land as pedagogy,”we present our experiment in teaching as an exciting opportunity for learning – one that though rooted in aspirations towards more decolonial presents in our classrooms, is still always also deeply implicated in who gets made as a subject with access to the goods and protections of the colonial present within and outside of the university.
Unpacking inclusion and building queer(er) alliances: an interview with OmiSoore H. Dryden and Suzanne Lenon
(Upping the Anti, 2016) Lenon, Suzanne
What's so civil about marriage? The racial pedagogy of same-sex marriage in Canada
(Darkmatter Journal, 2008) Lenon, Suzanne
Abstract not available
White as milk: Proposition 8 and the cultural politics of gay rights
(Mount Saint Vincent University. Institute for the Study of Women, 2013) Lenon, Suzanne
As part of the U.S. federal elections in November 2008, voters in California narrowly passed Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that eliminated same-sex marriage rights in that state. Against this political-legal backdrop, the movie Milk, based on the life of gay activist Harvey Milk, was released to audiences across North America. Proposition 8 and its aftermath infused social and cultural meaning into the critical acclaim Milk publicly received, and the movie itself became a way to both galvanize and anchor support for gay (marriage) rights. I contend that there is a particular racialization of queer sexuality and proximity to whiteness that links this moment of law and culture together. The paper examines the “knitted-togetherness” of the film’s racially normative representations and the racializing of homophobia that occurred on both sides of the Proposition 8 debate, one that continues the protracted fractioning of race as separate from sexuality within mainstream lesbian/gay politics