Rai Reece
Associate Professor
Department: Sociology
Office: JOR-329, Jorgensen Hall
Phone: 416-979-5000 x556154
Email: rreece@torontomu.ca
Education: Honours BA (York University), MES (York University), PhD (York University, Women’s Studies)
Discipline: Race, Gender & Justice
Areas of Expertise:
Abolition & Activism
Anti-Black Racism
Canadian Black Feminism & Misogynoir
Carcerality & Prison Health
Community-Based Ethnography
Critical Race Theory
Equity as Social Praxis
Dr. Rai Reece is an interdisciplinary scholar-activist whose work examines how carceral processes in Canada are organized and maintained through historical and contemporary narratives and practices of colonial violence, with particular attention to anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism. Her research explores the intersection of punishment and misogynoir as legally and socially enacted via governance and white settler capitalism, as well as the possibilities and limitations of community-based ethnographic pedagogy as a tool for social activism.
Dr. Reece conducted the first research project in Canada to exclusively examine the intersections of race, incarceration, and the meaning of Canadian citizenship as they relate to federally sentenced Black women. Her work is grounded in community-based collaboration, and she has facilitated numerous anti-racism initiatives with organizations at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels.
Since participating in the Walls to Bridges (W2B) Instructor Training program with incarcerated women at the Grand Valley Institution for Women (GVI) in 2016, she has continued to provide anti-racist training during the annual W2B Instructor course. She has supported the GVI alums collective in developing facilitation skills.
Dr. Reece has received several recognitions, including the Humber College Research Excellence Award for her work on“One Seed at a Time”: Evaluating the Impact of the Horticulture Technician Pre-Apprenticeship Program on the Lives of Incarcerated Women. She was also named one of the 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women (2020) and has received the TMU Faculty of Arts New Faculty Teaching Award (2022) and the TMU Viola Desmond Faculty Award (2023).
Scholarly Calling
My interdisciplinary teaching and research broadly focus how carceral logics are relationally organized by racial capitalism and white supremacy, and how carceral processes in Canada are maintained by historical and contemporary narratives of white settler colonial violence.
My areas of research are centrally grounded in Black Feminist Thought, Critical Race Theory, and Abolitionist Feminism. A further central organizing feature of my teaching and research is grounded in community-based engagement and expanding the reach of education to people who are incarcerated.In this capacity, I am the Coordinator of Walls to Bridges at TMU (W2B@TMU), a program designed for incarcerated and non-incarcerated students to learn together, and I also provide annual anti-racism training for the Walls to Bridges (W2B) Instructor Training program with incarcerated women at Grand Valley Institution for Women (GVI).
I firmly believe in fostering critical, liberatory, anti-colonial, and anti-racist pedagogies both inside and outside of classrooms to deeply reflect and hold space for personal, interpersonal, and collective care for ourselves and our communities.
Drawing synergies between my teaching and research provides real-life examples for my students. Witnessing this pedagogy in practice is caring for oneself and each other in the classroom and beyond.
Related Content
- 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. Unequal Relations: A Critical Introduction to Racism, Gender, Immigration, and Coloniality, 9th edition. (external link) Toronto, Ontario: Pearson.
- Reece, R. 2024. Critical race theory: A multicultural disrupter. (external link) Genealogy 8(3): 103.
- Reece, R., and D. Edwards. 2024. Critical collaboration: black feminist methodology and praxis with (formerly) criminalized black women. In Sage Research Methods: Diversifying and Decolonizing Research. (external link) SAGE Publications.
- Alexander, M., D. Edwards, H. King, L. Pinnock, and R. Reece. 2023. Walls to Bridges: Evolving Our Work Within Carceral Spaces by Rupturing Racism and Oppression Through a Participatory Process. (external link) Journal of Prisoners on Prisons 32(1): 27-45.
- Coordinator, Walls to Bridges - TMU
- Member, Racialized Women’s Faculty Group, TMU
- Co-National Director and Collective Member, Walls to Bridges (external link) (Toronto) Collective Member
- Member, Pivot (external link) Prison Law Committee
- Advisory Member, Women’s HIV/AIDS Initiative (external link)
- Chair, Board of Directors, HIV Legal Network (external link)
- Member, Black Health Matters (external link) National Advisory Committee
For the latest updates, please visit the faculty page linked below.
Selected Media & Activities
Join Dr. Rai Reece as she co-moderates Youth Motion: Excellence, Activism, and Entrepreneurship, a youth-driven webinar by Keep6ix Org, empowering marginalized youth and providing support to prevent involvement in the justice system.
Talking Black Studies: Meet Dr. Rai Reece. Organized by the Creative School, this video highlights Black faculty and allies at TMU who will be teaching courses in the Black Studies minor, which launched in the Fall of 2022. Reece discusses the course she is teaching, SOC705: Law, Justice & Abolition.