51³Ô¹Ï

Joined UVic Gender Studies in 2025

Most recently coming from a position of associate professor of environmental justice in syilx territory of UBC, Okanagan, I am returning to lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ land/the 51³Ô¹Ï where I completed my doctoral studies. Following familial routes and roots, and marginalized lineages of socio-ecological governance, my scholarship traces Black feminist/Afro-Caribbean socio-cultural knowledges as they encounter other communities grappling with the aftereffects of colonization. I am informed and inspired by coalitional and collaborative approaches to world-building, including through music, poetry and other cultural productions.
My current research includes a SSHRC-funded cross-Canada project entitled “Racialized Ecologies in and Beyond Settler-Colonial Canada.” I am also part of the Insurgent/Resurgent Knowledges Collaborative Team with Davina Bhandar.

Research Interests

• Transnational, diasporic and decolonial environmental justice
• Land-based learning and Indigenous knowledges
• Cultural politics of gender, race, decolonization
• Afro-Caribbean and Black Feminist ecological thought
• Insurgent/resurgent knowledges
• Speculative Indigenous /women-of-colour/queer fiction
• Abolitionist hope as discipline
• Critical Canadian Studies
• Critical University studies

Courses Designed/Taught

• GNDR 230 Environmental Justice and Gender
• GNDR 214 Reimagining the World through WOC Speculative Fiction
• GNDR 339 Black Feminist and Coalitional Ecological Thought

Selected Publications

Girvan, A. 2025. “Pedagogies of Black Feminist and Coalitional Ecological Praxis.” Contingencies: A Journal of Global Pedagogy, 3, 1.

Girvan, A. and Astrid Pérez Piñán. 2024. “Ecologies of De/Colonization: Embodied Perspectives from Caribbean Diaspora.” Studies in Social Justice. 18,4.

Girvan, A., Maya Seshia, Nisha Nath, and Davina Bhandar. 2024. “Poetic Fabulations: Chartering Relationalities of Black Flourishing, Mutuality, Inclusive Excellence, and Accountability.” Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice. Special Issue Dialogues and Reflections: The Scarborough Charter.45, 1: 25-38.

Girvan, A. Priscilla McGreer, and Makayla LeSann. 2023. “Tracing E-race-sures, Finding Reclamations: Embodied Perspectives in ‘Canadian’ Immersion.” Journal of Canadian Studies. 57, 3: 339-364.

Girvan, A. 2020. “Wayfinding with Metaphor Through Crises: A View from 2020.” In Between the Lines Editorial Committee (Eds). Sick of the System: Why the COVID-19 Recovery Must be Revolutionary. Between the Lines.

Girvan, A. 2017. “Trickster Carbon: Stories, Science, and Postcolonial Interventions for Climate Justice.” Journal of Political Ecology 24: 1038-1054. 

Girvan, A. 2018. Carbon Footprints as Cultural-Ecological Metaphors. Exon, UK: Routledge.

Girvan, A. 2014. “Cultivating Longitudinal Knowledge: Alternative Stories for an Alternative Chronopolitics of Climate Change” In M. Trono and R. Boschman (Editors) Found in Alberta: Environmental Themes for the Anthropocene. Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press.

Girvan, A. 2013. “wii 2 r ephemera: Archiving Eco-cultural Morphology” CTheory Journal, Special Issue on The Archive.

Girvan, A. 2010. “Atmospheric Alienation, Carbon Tracking & Geo-Techno Agency” CTheory Journal, Code Drift: Essays in Critical Digital Studies.