Why Does Labour Matter?
The Past, Present, and Future of Labour
and Labour Studies
Education as Resistance: How we teach about and learn from class struggle
Roles of Resistance in the Classroom: Teaching and Learning About Class Struggle
John-Henry Harter
This presentation will examine how role plays, games, and simulations can be used in the classroom to challenge dominant discourses around class and working-class resistance. John-Henry will be using roles plays from his book (cowritten with Mark Leier) Roles of Resistance: Game Plans for Teachers and Trouble Makers to demonstrate how we can teach in a way that does not ignore the working class as agents of their own history and thus challenges the structures that oppress us.
Boycotts and Physical World Activism
Andrea Samoil
Many post-secondary students today practice online activism. While this medium has its strengths, including ease of engagement, it can have serious limitations in building solidarity. This paper will discuss how boycotts, a form of activism most students are familiar with (such as the week long Amazon boycott 7 to 14 March 2025), provide a way to discuss historic successes and failures of protests movements. Boycotts provide a familiar starting point to encourage students to consider creative forms of resistance and solidarity in the present.
- Jordan Thompson
Biographies
John-Henry Harter is a lecturer in history and labour studies at Simon Fraser University. He is an award-winning teacher whose research and teaching focuses on both environmental and labour history as well as pop culture and teaching. He has published in both academic journals and popular magazines. He lives with his partner and two dogs on the West Coast of what we call Canada. When not teaching or writing he is consuming far too much coffee and reality TV.
Andrea Samoil ‘s research focuses on modern Alberta labour history. She has taught history courses at Simon Fraser University (SFU), written a short popular history of the Gainers strike for the Alberta Labour History Institute, and contributed to Roles of Resistance: Game Plans for Teachers and Trouble Makers. She was part of the 2019 research assistant organizing drive by the Teaching Support Staff Union at SFU.