Knowledge from the Margins: Reimagining Universities through Decolonial, Community, and Critical Scholarship

Universities are often portrayed as central sites of knowledge production, innovation, and social transformation. Yet some of the most significant insights into inequality, justice, migration, race, gender, sexuality, and social change emerge from spaces that have historically been marginalized within academic institutions. Community organizations, activist networks, care settings, and the lived experiences of migrants, racialized communities, Indigenous peoples, LGBTQI+ communities, and other historically excluded groups generate critical forms of knowledge that challenge dominant epistemologies and conventional understandings of expertise. These perspectives invite us to reconsider who produces knowledge, whose knowledge is recognized as legitimate, and how knowledge can contribute to social transformation.

This panel invites contributions that explore the production, circulation, and mobilization of knowledge from the margins. We are particularly interested in work that examines how marginalized communities act not only as research participants but also as knowledge producers, theorists, educators, and agents of change. Contributions may address questions related to decolonial, anti-racist, feminist, queer, trans, and intersectional approaches; community-based and participatory research; epistemic justice; activist scholarship; health and care; migration and displacement; and collaborations between universities and communities. We welcome theoretical, empirical, methodological, and reflective papers that engage critically with the opportunities, tensions, and contradictions involved in creating more equitable and accountable forms of knowledge production. By fostering dialogue across disciplines, sectors, and forms of expertise, the panel seeks to examine how knowledge emerging from the margins can challenge institutional boundaries, reshape academic practices, and contribute to imagining more inclusive and socially engaged futures for universities and research.