Why Canadian academics shouldn’t boycott U.S. conferences

On Sept. 9, University of Ottawa political science professor Daniel Stockemer argued in University Affairs that, as Canadians, we should not spend taxpayers’ money to attend American conferences. This, he argued, was a way to push back against the trade dispute. As a Canadian from immigrant and working-class roots, I know a bit about how people’s livelihoods are at stake as a result of tariffs. But stopping trips to the U.S. won’t make a dent in that issue.  

What is more taxing is grappling with President Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim, anti-trans, anti-immigrant, racist policies that make going to the U.S. terrifying for so many. So yes, the call to boycott resonates deeply with me as a Black Canadian woman — because I have tried to live by the motto that one should not spend one’s money in places where one is not wanted. And yet, there are compelling reasons to go to the United States precisely because we are not wanted there. 

Showing up as a feminist first 

I believe in turning up in person to do good trouble. As any feminist scholar knows, we don’t ignore the work that is so obvious and needs doing — we say things that the patriarchy doesn’t want us to say aloud. Since 2022 the New York Times has been reporting that some University of Florida professors have been under attack in their fight for academic freedom as a core value at the university — a fight that goes against the Stop WOKE Act (also known as the Individual Freedom Act) by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.  

The Diverse Solidarity Economies (DISE) Collective that I belong to is also fighting for economic equality writ large and for Black social economies to be recognized, in the U.S. in particular. As a Canadian feminist and political economist, my support has meant showing up to give a lecture at U of Florida on feminist economics and racial capitalism, knowing that the professor’s students had already complained about her defying the Stop WOKE Act.  

We can’t just say ‘no’ and refuse to travel to the US; that’s a luxurious position. Instead, we need to show up and to say in person the things that some American professors cannot, because their jobs are on the line. These same professors will travel up north when my academic freedoms are compromised here in Canada as well (see my article on how human rights can be weaponized against Black women scholars). Using Canadian taxpayers’ money feels justified when, as Canadians, we engage in “good trouble” working with disruptors fighting against fascism and siding with African-American feminist scholars under attack.  

It’s just so basic: we need to do this work 

When the U.S. Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade in its 2022 ruling on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case — ending federal oversight and allowing states to regulate or ban abortions — the International Association for Feminist Economics decided to attend the Allied Social Science Associations (ASSA) conference (a major conference on economics and related fields) in New Orleans. We picketed out front and held a plenary on the very topic. We also debated boycotting the U.S., but as feminists we agreed that going to the conference was vitally needed.  

When the Harvard Business School holds an annual symposium titled Race, Gender and Equity at Work, feminist political economists go. A few years ago, I did just that, and gave a keynote address because elite institutions have been so exclusionary, and my work on cooperatives and member-owned businesses that Black people create is needed at big U.S. business schools. We should also go and remind Harvard that we admire the work of political science Professor Claudine Gay, its first Black president, who had to resign after less than a year in the job.  

A duty to participate  

Frankly, it’s just not that simple for some of us to stop going to the US; our lives are intertwined with families living there. I am connected to the United States: I was born in New York City and lived and worked for a number of years in Tampa, Philadelphia, and New York. My family in the South Bronx, and seeing my friends and collaborators, keep me going. And after too many border issues, I finally caved in and renewed my U.S. passport. I did it to minimize the issues I was having each time I crossed the border.   

While I, too, have stopped non-essential U.S. travel, there are plenty of reasons why I think showing up matters. My logic is that I am not going there for Trump or any white supremacist. I am going to the U.S. to advance scholarship, whether a dictator likes it or not. As a public professor, I feel I have a duty to participate in events that require my expertise. The fact is that there will always be bigots. One thing that we do as Black feminist scholars — at least those of us with homegrown values our mamas taught us — is show up in spaces where we are unwanted.   

Doing good trouble work 

As a professor in political science at the University of Toronto, I was invited to speak at the Women of Color Political Science Symposium in the U.S. this September. I won’t lie:  it was tricky. I wanted to cancel my trip to Boston so many times, insulted as a Canadian by the American president intent on crushing us economically. Even after telling organizers I was rethinking my trip due to the trade war and racism there, I decided that I needed to go. And I am sure glad I did go — I happened to be the sole Canadian academic present at the symposium. My presence was critical, as I was able to reach young scholars who are under attack in the academe and outside of it. Hearing traumatic stories of women political scientists being told to take off their hijabs or remove “woke-sounding” words from their research in order to keep their jobs were conversations we needed to have as Black women academics in political science. 

As a Black Canadian feminist, I have had a lot of practice going to places where I am not wanted. My rule is that if I have the bandwidth and time, I am going to do my job and keep turning up in undemocratic countries like the U.S., because as academics concerned about inequality and business exclusion, we need to turn the volume up in those places that don’t want us there or that try to silence us.  

As Canadians we cannot simply avoid going to places where folks don’t like us. We all know that this is the time our presence matters — and that we need to do this troubling and necessary work.