Hello, I’m Willow.
I'm a consultant, trainer, and researcher combining my lifelong belief in the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion with a dedication to meaningful inquiry for positive outcomes for my clients and their communities.
I am many things; I am white settler of English, Scottish, and Dutch ancestry. I am an academic, a mother, and an Atlantic Canadian and a global citizen — an identity shaped by my lived experiences growing up in a culturally-diverse town in Labrador. It was a complex cultural world and I was simultaneously surrounded by a family that embraced diversity, by strong Indigenous influences, as well as by intense racism in the larger community.
Commitment to equity and inclusion
My upbringing, combined with the international and intercultural experiences that I sought from a young age, cultivated my dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion - and to fostering connection and understanding across difference. This dedication is engrained in Social Fabric Institute Inc., where we aim to address:
A lack of intercultural understanding;
Weak social ties;
Racism (individual, organizational, societal);
Lack of equity, inclusion, and belonging for equity-seeking groups.
Many communities — including St. John’s, NL and the Halifax Regional Municipality, NS, where Social Fabric Institute is most active — struggle to address these challenges. We help organizations and individuals create, strengthen, and repair relationships through facilitating conversation around diversity-related issues, reinforcing connections between various cultural communities, and offering a professional perspective on diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies and approaches.
Professional values
So many of my professional values come back to who we, as a society, want to be together and what I believe it takes to get us there. First and foremost, I strongly believe in the importance of collaboration and I am so honoured that I get to work with such a great team at Social Fabric Institute Inc. Secondly, I believe in the importance meeting clients where they are, but then helping them navigate sometimes challenging, but always essential questions and conversations. Finally, I have very high standards for the work I do and I ensure that those efforts are evidence-based, that they centre lived experience, and that they have the potential to lead to meaningful change.
In addition to my work with Social Fabric Institute, I volunteer with projects which further community building, belonging, inter-racial justice and healing. As I work to deepen and broaden my own embodied anti-racist practice, I continue to commit myself to understanding my own privilege more deeply and responding to racial inequities and other forms of oppression.
Education
I have an MA in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford (England) and a PhD from the University of New Mexico. My dissertation focussed on the cultural changes faced by individuals and communities as a result of immigration to rural Newfoundland. I achieved Professional Facilitation Certification at the Centre for Management Development at Memorial University in 2005 and in 2013 completed a University of British Columbia course, Training for Intercultural and Diversity Trainers. I am also trained in the Circle Way and employ elements of it as a framework to decolonize the way we meet. Finally, in 2021 I participated in Education for Racial Equity’s 9-month Reparative Communal Consultation for White Bodies, facilitated by Carlin Quinn and Resmaa Menakem; Practicing somatic abolitionism has become an important part of my daily life.
Published work
Anderson, W.J. (2017). Compelled to share: Exploring Holocaust and residential school survivors’ stories. In C. Kraenzle & M. Mayr (Eds.), The changing place of Europe in global memory cultures - Usable pasts and futures (pp.179-199). Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-39152-6_10
Anderson, W.J. (2012) ‘Indian drum in the house’: A critical discourse analysis of an apology for Canadian residential schools and the public’s response, International Communication Gazette, 74(6), 571–585. doi: 10.1177/1748048512454824
Anderson, W.J. (2012). Immigration to rural Newfoundland: Individual and community change (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/1928/21043
Oeztel, J.G., Ting-Toomey, S. & Anderson, W.J. (2013). Conflict communication in contexts: Organizing themes and future directions. In J.G. Oetzel & S. Ting-Toomey (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of conflict communication: Integrating theory, research, and practice (815-829). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Inc.
The Labrador flag’s spruce twig represents the three peoples of Labrador (Innu, Inuit, and settler) and how central they each are to the future of that land.