Ashley Frawley is a sociologist and author of two books, Semiotics of Happiness: Rhetorical Beginnings of a Public Problem (2015) and Significant Emotions: Rhetoric and Social Problems in a Vulnerable Age. Her expertise is in the public presentation of social problems and the increased policy focus on individuals, families and emotions as a route to solving them. She is a fervent defender of family autonomy and has campaigned to stop the policy encroachment into parental decision-making, which lowers the bar for often punitive interventions into family life. Originally from Canada and a member of Nipissing First Nation, she is the mother of two small children. Her hope for MCC Brussels is to open up a space for critical questioning of regressive policies that are dressed in the language of progressivism.