Introducing Common Concern: Conversations on Anti-Asian Racism and COVID-19

Welcome to Common Concern: Conversations on Anti-Asian Racism in the Wake of COVID-19. This is a special Below the Radar series produced in collaboration with Toronto Metropolitan University and SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Common Concern is a mini-series that considers the historical context, and short and long term impacts of a rise of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic, through the lens of academics and community organizers. In this introductory episode, Canadian Journal of Communication editor Stuart Poyntz is joined by Sibo Chen to discuss the origins of Common Concern, as an offshoot of Sibo’s ongoing research, the potential for podcasting as an accessible vehicle for knowledge mobilization, and the development of this special series in partnership with Below the Radar. Bios: Sibo Chen Sibo Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University. As a critical communication scholar by training, his areas of interest include Public Communication of Climate and Energy Policy, Risk and Crisis Communication, Transcultural Political Economy, and Critical Discourse Analysis. Currently, he serves as Executive Board Members of the International Environmental Communication Association as well as the Canadian Communication Association. Stuart R. Poyntz Stuart R. Poyntz is Professor and Associate Director of the School of Communication and a Director of the Community Engaged Research Centre (CERi) at Simon Fraser University. His work in participatory research has largely involved teenagers in informal learning spaces and art institutes. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Queensland University of Technology, Griffith University, Hong Kong Baptist University, and the University of British Columbia, and was President of the Association for Research in Cultures of Young People. Stuart's research addresses children’s media cultures, theories of public life, social care and urban youth cultures. He has published five books, including the forthcoming monograph, Youthsites: Histories of Creativity, Care and Learning in the City (Oxford UP), and has published widely in national and international peer-reviewed journals, including Oxford Review of Education, Popular Culture, Journal of Children and Media, Canadian Journal of Communication, Cultural Studies, Studies in Social Justice, Journal of Youth Studies, Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, and in various edited collections.