Join Annahid Dashtgard, Bones of Belonging publisher and Dundurn Press President Kwame Scott Fraser, and psychotherapist and author Farzana Doctor for this authentic no-holds barred conversation, where the curtain of whiteness is pulled back to reveal the steep price of conformity.
Cultivating belonging could be voted the top human challenge for the twenty-first century. Meeting it is not going to come from facts alone, but will be driven by stories—all of our stories, but especially the ones yet untold.
Drawing inspiration from Anima CEO Annahid Dashtgard’s recent book Bones of Belonging: Finding Wholeness in a White World, this intimate discussion pulls in an array of voices on different themes of what it means to belong as racialized individuals—in a profession, to a country, even within our own skin.
Sharp, funny, and poignant stories of what it’s like to be a Brown woman working for change in a white world.
I take a deep breath, check my lipstick one last time on my phone camera, and turn on my mic. It’s about ten steps, two metres, and one lifetime to the front of the room. “Hello,” I repeat. “My name is Annahid — pronounced Ah-nah-heed — and shit’s about to get real!”
In a series of deft interlocking stories, Annahid Dashtgard shares her experiences searching for, and teaching about, belonging in our deeply divided world. A critically acclaimed, racialized immigrant writer and recognized inclusion leader, Dashtgard writes with wisdom, honesty, and a wry humour as she considers what it means to belong — to a country, in a marriage, in our own skin — and what it means when belonging is absent. Like the bones of the human body, these stories knit together a remarkable vision of what wholeness looks like as a racial outsider in a culture still dominated by whiteness.