Dr. Michael Kempa, PhD Associate Professor, University of Ottawa
Topic: The Freedom Convoy Movement: Prospects for Canadian Democracy
Michael Kempa is a social scientist (PhD. Law, Australian National University) with the spirit of an investigative journalist. Working as an Associate Professor within the Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa, his program of research draws upon Political Science, International Relations, and Sociological theory to address the ways in which states and non-state organizations variously conceive of and attempt to institutionalize "police power" in such domains as the economy, new forms of urban communal space, and international security. Trained in media through a Munk Fellowship in Global Journalism, University of Toronto, Dr. Kempa tries to take the results of his research to the broadest possible audience. He contributes written, spoken and audiovisual materials to such major news outlets as the Walrus Magazine, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Post, and Global and Mail, as well as academic publications in top-ranked social science journals, including the British Journal of Criminology (44/4: 562-581), Theoretical Criminology (12/3: 333-354), the Akron Law Review (41/1: 1-66), and the American Annals of Political and Social Science (592: 62-78). His first scholarly book, co-authored with Professor Clifford Shearing and Dr. Julie Berg, and titled Policing: Conceptualisations and Practices of Security, will be published through Routledge in the coming year.
