Yasmin Jiwani is a feminist academic and activist. In her research, she examines the intersectionality of race and gender in media narratives of violence against women and representations of racialized peoples. Currently, Dr. Jiwani is a full professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. She is the author of Discourses of Denial: Mediations of Race, Gender and Violence.
In 1979, Jiwani graduated from University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. In 1983, she attained her master's degree in sociology from Simon Fraser University. Her thesis topic was entitled “The Forms of Jah: The Mystic Collectivity of the Rastafarians.” In 1988, Jiwani received a certificate from the Summer Institute for Semiotic and Structural Studies from UBC. Four years later, she also obtained a certificate from the New Initiatives in Film & Video Program, Studio D, from the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal, Canada. In 1993, Jiwani completed a PhD in communication studies at Simon Fraser. Her doctoral dissertation was entitled “By Omission and Commission: ‘Race’ and Representation in Canadian Television News.”
From 1978 to 1980, Jiwani was a teaching assistant (TA) in the Department of Psychology at UBC. For the next few years, she worked as a TA and guest lecturer at both Simon Fraser and McMaster University. From 1986 to 1988, Jiwani became a sessional instructor in the School of Communication at SFU. From 1995 to 1998, Jiwani became a lecturer in Women’s Studies at UBC. In addition, she was a research scholar for the Centre for Research in Women’s Studies and Gender Relations. From 1997 to 2001, Jiwani worked as an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser in the School of Criminology.
Since 2003, she has been a research fellow at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University. In addition, Jiwani is an academic research associate for the Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children at University of Western Ontario. From 2001 to 2005, Jiwani was an assistant professor in Communication Studies at Concordia. From 2005 to 2012, she became an associate professor in the same department. In 2012, Jiwani was made a full professor.
From 1989 to 1990, Jiwani worked as the communications director for the In Visible Colours International Film and Video Society. For the next year, she was the Ethnic Liaison Officer for Canada’s national statistical agency, Statistics Canada, in the Pacific Region. From 1991 to 1994, Jiwani was the Coordinator of the Women’s Program at the National Film Board of Canada.
From 1994 to 1995, Jiwani became a research coordinator for the BC/Yukon FREDA Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children. The FREDA Centre represents a joint venture between grassroots community and women’s organizations and academics at SFU. From 1995 to 2001, she became the executive coordinator and principal researcher at the FREDA Centre.
Alongside Sherene Razack and Sunera Thobani, Jiwani has been involved in Researchers and Academics of Colour for Equality/Equity (R.A.C.E.). R.A.C.E. is an organization dedicated to anti-racist, anti-colonial, and feminist scholarship and praxis. In 2009, as a member of the National Steering Committee, Jiwani co-organized the 9th R.A.C.E. conference “Compassion, Complicity and Conciliation: The Politics, Cultures, and Economics of Doing Good.”
Berman, Helene and Yasmin Jiwani, eds. Faces of Violence in the Lives of Girls. London: Althouse Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0-920354-77-3
Jiwani, Yasmin. Discourses of Denial: Mediations of Race, Gender and Violence. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0774812375
Jiwani, Yasmin, Candis Steenbergen, and Claudia Mitchell, eds. Girlhood: Redefining the Limits. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2006. ISBN 978-1551642765
Scholarly journal articles
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Rape and Race in the Canadian Press: Reproducing the Moral Order.” Arts and Social Science Journal, S:1 (2014):1-9.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Posthumous Rescue: The Shafia Young Women as Worthy Victims.” Girlhood Studies 7, no. 1 (2014): 27-45.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “‘Bare Life’: Disposable Bodies, Race and Femicide in the Trial Coverage of Vancouver’s Murdered ‘Missing’ Women.” Synaesthesia 1, no. 4 (2013): 87-127. http://www.synaesthesiajournal.com/uploads/Jiwani_Yasmin_vi_n4.pdf
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Trapped in the Carceral Net: Race, Gender and the ‘War on Terror.’” Journal of Global Media Studies (Canadian edition) 4, no. 2 (2011): 13-31.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Pedagogies of Hope: Counter Narratives and Anti-Disciplinary Tactics.” The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 33, no. 4 (2011): 333-353.
Jiwani, Yasmin, Helene Berman, and Catherine Ann Cameron. “Violence Prevention and the Canadian Girl Child.” International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies 1, no. 2 (2010): 134-56.
Jiwani, Yasmin and Aliaa Dakroury. “Editorial: Veiling Differences—Mediating Race, Gender, and Nation.” Global Media Journal, Canadian Edition 2, no. 2 (2009): 1-6. http://www.gmj.uottawa.ca/current-issue_e.html
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Report Race and the Media: A Retrospective and Prospective Gaze.” Canadian Journal of Communication 34, no. 4 (2009): 735-740.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Helpless Maidens and Chivalrous Knights: Afghan Women in the Canadian Press.” University of Toronto Quarterly 78, no. 2 (2009): 728-744.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Sport as a Civilizing Mission: Zinedine Zidane and the Infamous Head-Butt.” Topia 19 (2008): 11-33.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Rules for Collaborative Research.” Wi/Journal of the Mobile Digital Commons Network 2, no. 1 (2007): 1-3.
Jiwani, Yasmin and Mary Lynn Young. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communications, Special issue on Sexuality 31, no. 4 (2006): 895-917.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “The Great White North Encounters September 11: Race, Gender, and Nation in Canada’s National Daily, The Globe and Mail.” Social Justice 32, no. 4 (2005): 50-68.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “The Eurasian Female Hero(ine): Sydney Fox as the Relic Hunter.” Journal of Popular Film & Television 32, no. 4 (2005): 182-191.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Walking a Tightrope: The Many Faces of Violence in the Lives of Racialized Immigrant Girls and Young Women.” Violence Against Women, An International and Interdisciplinary Journal 11, no. 7 (2005): 846-887.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “‘War Talk’ Engendering Terror: Race, Gender & Representation in Canadian Print Media.” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 1, no. 1 (2005): 15-21.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Gendering Terror: Representations of the Orientalized Body in Quebec’s Post-September 11 English-Language Press.” Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 13, no. 3 (2004): 265-29.
Gagnon, Monika Kin and Yasmin Jiwani. “Amplifying Threat: Reasonable Accommodations and Quebec’s Bouchard-Taylor Commission Hearings (2007).” In Shifting the Ground of Canadian Literary Studies edited by Smaro Kamboureli and Robert Zacharias, 129-149. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1554583652
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Omar Khadr, the Carceral Net, and the Muslim Body.” In Omar Khadr, Oh Canada edited by Janice Williamson, 376-389. Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0773540224
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Colluding Hegemonies: Constructing the Muslim Other Post-9/11.” In Islam in the Hinterlands: Muslim Cultural Politics in Canada edited by Jasmin Zine, 115-136. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0774822732
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Hierarchies of Worthiness: Women and Victimhood in the Canadian Media.” Briarpatch Magazine, May/June 2011: 15-19. http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/hierarchies-of-worthiness.
Jiwani, Yasmin and John E. Richardson. “Discourse, Ethnicity and Racism.” In Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction edited by Teun A. Van Dijk, 241-262. London: Sage, 2011. ISBN 978-1848606494
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Mediations of Race and Crime: Racializing Crime, Criminalizing Race.” In Diversity, Crime, and Justice in Canada edited by Barbara Perry, 39-56. Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0195432336
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Doubling Discourses and the Veiled Other: Mediations of Race and Gender in Canadian Media.” In States of Race, Critical Race Feminism for the 21st Century edited by Sherene Razack, Malinda Smith, and Sunera Thobani. 59-86. Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1897071595
Jiwani, Yasmin. “The Challenge of Identity: The Experience of Mixed Race Women in Higher Education.” Book review in Academic Matters, September 23, 2009.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Symbolic and Discursive Violence in Media Representations of Aboriginal Missing and Murdered Women.” In Violence in Hostile Contexts E-Book edited by David Weir and Marika Guggisberg. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2009.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Covering Canada’s Role in the ‘War on Terror.’” In Mediating Canadian Politics edited by Shannon Sampert and Linda Trimble, 294-316. Toronto: Pearson Canada, 2009. ISBN 978-0132068642
Berman, Helene and Yasmin Jiwani. “Newcomer Girls in Canada: Implications for Mental Health Professionals.” In Working with Immigrant and Refugee Women: Guidelines for Mental Health Professionals edited by Sepali Guruge and Enid Collins, 137-156. Toronto: CAMH, 2008.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Mediations of Domination: Gendered Violence Within and Across Borders.” In Feminist Interventions in International Communication, Minding the Gap edited by Katharine Sarikakis and Leslie Regan Shade, 129-145. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. ISBN 978-0742553057
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Gendered Narratives of War post 9/11.” In International Dimensions of Mass Media Research edited by Yorgo Pasadeos, 367-378. Athens: Atiner, 2007.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “‘Culture’ depends on who’s defining it.” The Vancouver Sun, Op/Ed, August 8, 2007.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “How We See ‘Missing Women.’” The Tyee, June 21, 2006.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Race(ing) The Nation: Media & Minorities.” In Mediascapes, New Patterns in Canadian Communications (2nd edition) edited by Paul Attallah and Leslie Regan Shade, 305-312. Ontario: Nelson Canada, 2006.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Orientalizing ‘War Talk:’ Representations of the Gendered Muslim Body Post 9-11 in the Montreal Gazette.” In Situating Race in Time, Space and Theory: Critical Essays for Activists and Scholars edited by Jo-Anne Lee and John Lutz, 178-203. McGill-Queens University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0773528871
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Tween Worlds: Race, Gender, Age, Identity & Violence.” In Seven Going on Seventeen: Tween Studies in the Culture of Girlhood edited by Claudia Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid Walsh, 173-190. New York: Peter Lang, 2005. ISBN 978-0820467719
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Walking the Hyphen: Discourses of Immigration and Gendered Racism.” In Gendered Intersections: An Introduction to Women’s & Gender Studies edited by C. Lesley Biggs and Pamela J. Downe, 112-118. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2005. ISBN 978-1552664131
Jiwani, Yasmin. (2003) “The 1999 General Social Survey on Spousal Violence: An Analysis.” In Recent Debates in Canadian Criminology edited by Ronald Hinch. 128-137. Toronto: Prentice Hall.
Jiwani, Yasmin. “Erasing Race: The Story of Reena Virk.” In Violence Against Women, New Canadian Perspectives edited by Katherine M. J. McKenna and June Larkin, 441-452. Toronto, ON: Inanna Publications, 2002. ISBN 978-0968129067
Faith, Karlene and Yasmin Jiwani. “The Social Construction of Dangerous Girls & Women.” In Marginality and Condemnation, An Introduction to Critical Criminology edited by Bernard Schissel and Carolyn Brooks, 83-107. Halifax, NS: Fernwood, 2002. ISBN 978-1552660911
Jiwani, Yasmin. “The Criminalization of Race/The Racialization of Crime.” In Crimes of Colour: Racialization and the Criminal Justice System in Canada edited by Wendy Chan and Kiran Mirchandana, 67-86. Scarborough: Broadview Press, 2002. ISBN 978-1551113036
Grants and awards
2011-2016 Co-investigator, CIHR (Canadian Institutes of Health Research) grant, Promoting Health through Collaborative Engagement with Youth in Canada: Overcoming, Resisting and Preventing Structural Violence.
2009-2012 Principal Investigator, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Standard Research Grant, Mapping Hierarchies of Race in News Stories about Female Homicides.
2004-2007 Principal Investigator, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Standard Research Grant, War Talk, En-Gendering Terror & the Mass Media.
2001-2003 Co-investigator, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Strategic Theme Grant, Social Cohesion in a Globalizing Era.
2000-2001 Principal Investigator, grant from Status of Women Canada, Pacific Region.
2000 Principal Investigator, grant from the National Crime Prevention Community Mobilization Fund.
1997-1999 Co-investigator and project coordinator, research contract from Health Canada for a national study on the links between violence and eating disorders.
1998 Principal Investigator and project coordinator, research contract from the Department of Justice Canada for a study on rural women and violence.
1997-1998 Principal Investigator, grant from the Vancouver Foundation. Research focusing on barriers to accessing services for women and children survivors of family violence.
