Dr. Rai Reece
Areas of Expertise
abolition & activism; anti-Black racism, canadian black feminism; carcerality; community-based ethnography; critical race theory; equity as social praxis; misogynoir; prison health
Research
Dr. Rai Reece is an interdisciplinary scholar-activist. Her work examines how carceral processes in Canada are organized and maintained by historical and contemporary narratives and practices of colonial violence specific to anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism. More broadly, her work explores the intersection of punishment and misogynoir as legally and socially enacted via governance and white settler capitalism. A central feature of her work explores how community-based ethnographic pedagogy can be a tool for social activism and the limitations of that praxis. She conducted the first research project in Canada to exclusively examine the intersections of race, incarceration, and the meaning of Canadian citizenship as it pertained to federally sentenced Black women. Dr. Reece鈥檚 work also focuses on community-based collaboration, and she has conducted numerous anti-racism facilitations with organizations at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels. In 2016 she participated in the Walls to Bridges (W2B) Instructor Training program with incarcerated women at Grand Valley Institution for Women (GVI). Since then, she has continued to provide anti-racist training during the annual W2B Instructor training course held at GVI and she has helped train the alumni collective at GVI in facilitation skills. In 2018, Dr. Reece received the Humber College Research Excellence Award; in 2020 she was honoured as one of the 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women; in 2022 she was the recipient of the 成人大片 Faculty of Arts New Faculty Teaching Award, and in 2023 she was the recipient of the 成人大片 Viola Desmond Faculty Award.
Websites
Courses
- SOC 105 Introduction to Sociology
- SOC 490 Capstone: Specializing Your Knowledge
- SOC 507 Understanding Racism in Canada
- SOC 576 Colonialism and Anti-Blackness
- SOC 705 Law, Justice, and Abolition
- CC 8849 Everyday Abolition: Activism, Practice, and Policy
Graduate Program Membership
Community & Professional Service
- Coordinator, Walls to Bridges - 成人大片
- Member, Racialized Women鈥檚 Faculty Group, 成人大片
- Co-National Director and Collective Member, (Toronto) Collective Member
- Member, Prison Law Committee
- Advisory Member,
- Chair, Board of Directors,
- Member, National Advisory Committee
Recent Publications
Eizadirad, A., and R. Reece. 2025. Decolonizing Community Re-entry: Case Studies of Effective Programs and Services for Formerly Incarcerated Individuals in Canada. (Forthcoming).
Fleras, A., and R. Reece, R. 2024. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson.
Reece, R. 2024. Genealogy 8(3): 103.
Reece, R., and D. Edwards. 2024. Critical collaboration: black feminist methodology and praxis with (formerly) criminalized black women. In SAGE Publications.
Alexander, M., D. Edwards, H. King, L. Pinnock, and R. Reece. 2023. Journal of Prisoners on Prisons 32(1): 27-45.
Bannon, K., E. Cagulada, M. Chowdhury, r. hampton, R. Reece, V. Sztainbok, and S. Tecle. 2023. . www.rabble.ca.
Reece, R. 2022. "Black and racialized women and the canadian criminal justice system" in (pp. 87-107), edited by J. Barker and D. Scharie Tavcer. Emond.
Knight, M., R.N. Ferguson and R. Reece. 2021. Social Sciences 10: 210.
Reece, R. 2020. Journal of Concurrent Disorders 2(3): 55-71.
Gillies, K, E. Lam, T. Law, R. Reece, A. Sterling and E. van der Meulen. 2019. 鈥淯nderstanding the Work in Sex Work: Canadian Contexts鈥� in (pp. 359-379), edited by L. Nichols. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.