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Indigenous Wholistic Abolition: Visioning Indigenous Queer, Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Futures
No full textAs a queer Métis, activist and organizer in the field of prisoners’ rights, penal abolition, and transformative justice, I have been interested in learning about how Indigenous peoples’ relationship with Aki (Land) grounds abolition theory and guides the ways that I and other Indigenous abolitionists engage in abolition. As part of this process, I wanted to speak to other Indigenous queer, Two-Spirit, trans, non-binary, and/or Indigiqueer (Q2STNBI) people about their visions of abolition and abolitionist futures through a relational Land-based lens. Therefore, I used a methodology that centres Métis worldviews and community organizing and is grounded in the ethics of relational accountability, relevance, respect, reciprocity, and responsibility. Métis methodologies and worldviews include visiting, Circle Work, food sharing, kinship, and Land. For my search, I spoke with 10 Q2STNBI friends, kin, and colleagues who had each had at least three years of experience in abolition organizing at the time of our conversations. I also had four conversations with Aki near Grand Valley Prison for Women, on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples (also known as Kitchener–Waterloo, Ontario). Throughout this process, I have considered myself to be a participant-researcher because of my longstanding work as an abolitionist organizer and because I was actively engaged in all conversations.
My meaning-making process involved ceremony and more time with Aki, which deepened my relationship with myself, my friends, kin, and colleagues, and my re-search.[1] I used a Land-based lens throughout my dissertation which included a wholistic framework: Spirit, relationship, knowledge, and action. The findings of my search included abolitionist themes that are grounded in the Spirit of Aki, which includes: Indigenous knowledges, belonging to Aki, and Aki as Teacher. In the Relationship quadrant, themes of Natural Laws, Our Bodies as Land, and relationships with humans/Creation emerged. A broader definition of abolition and transformative justice started to develop within the Knowledge quadrant and finally, movements on climate justice and Land Back emerged within the Action/Doing quadrant. All of these together represent an emerging Indigenous Wholistic Abolition, which is grounded in our relationship with Creation. Indigenous Wholistic Abolition honours the foundation and principles of Indigenous knowledges, grounding Indigenous identities, love of Aki, space and place, biidaaban, Aki as teacher, Aki as healing, body and land sovereignty, sovereign erotic, consent, Indigiqueer anti-carceral feminism and Land Back as an Indigenous queer, two-spirit, Indigiqueer movement.
In the end, this dissertation is a series of love letters. It expresses the Spirit in which I engaged in abolition work for the past 30 years. It also reflects my relationships with activists working on abolition and the collective knowledge we have built. Finally, I want to honour the love I have for people dreaming and engaging in Indigenous Q2STNBI abolitionist futures.
[1] I used the language of ‘re-search’ and ‘search’ based on the work of Dr. Kathy Absolon (2022). She explains that Indigenous re-search is about ‘looking again’ at how re-search restores Indigeneity and Indigenous epistemologies
Body-Map Storytelling: A Qualitative Exploration of the Lived Experiences of Hospital Care Amongst Street Involved Youth
Get PDFThis social work study explores the experiences of hospital care amongst street-involved (SI) youth. Given that SI youth are at a higher risk for health-related harms and experience significant barriers to health care services, they are at an increased likelihood of hospitalization. Yet, inadequate health care support for SI youth remains a critical problem in Canada. While hospital care amongst adult homeless populations has been well studied interdisciplinary, there is a scarcity of research investigating the hospital care experiences amongst SI youth. The aim of this qualitative, arts-based study was to explore how street-life contributes to hospitalization, how SI youth experience and perceive hospital care, and what solutions SI youth had for higher quality health care.
Guided by anti-oppressive practice and health equity theoretical frameworks, this study situated participants as co-producers of knowledge through the process of body-map storytelling (BMST), an arts-based method of representing experience through life-sized self-portraits. Six youth, who identified as clients of a non-profit organization in Guelph Ontario, participated in the study. Participants were invited to share their stories both visually and verbally through in-depth, one-on-one art-making sessions and interviews with the researcher. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to interpret patterned meanings produced in both visual and verbal data. Ten themes were identified, fitting within four thematic categories related to the research questions: (1) participant experiences of how street life contributes to hospitalization; (2) participant experiences and perceptions of hospital care; (3) participant solutions for higher quality care based on their lived experiences; and (4) participant experiences of BMST.
The findings shed light on how SI youth are at a high risk for serious health consequences requiring hospital care. Findings indicate that hospital systems in Ontario continue to perpetuate oppression and inequity through inadequate delivery of care. Study participants offered solutions calling for equitable, effective, and timely care delivered by hospital staff who are skilled, knowledgeable, and compassionate. These solutions map well onto Health Quality Ontario’s framework for quality health care in Ontario. Findings also suggest that application of EQUIP health care’s Equity Oriented Health Care in hospital settings for SI youth would serve as an appropriate model of care, enabling service providers to deliver care that is trauma and violence-informed, culturally safe care/anti-racist, and harm reduction/substance use health focused.
This study generates knowledge about how visual research methodologies can help empower participants by engaging them in the research process. This study encourages researchers to share their lived experience as a means of destigmatizing such experiences and minimizing power disparities between researchers and participants. This study also fills a gap in the literature by generating knowledge about what high quality and equity informed health care in hospital settings might look like for SI youth
Collison avoidance with another individual: the influence of person-specific characteristics
No full textCollision avoidance during locomotion is an important skill that people must master to successfully navigate through dynamically changing environments. Environments are cluttered with objects that are either goals (attraction points) or obstacles (repulsion points), such that locomotion must be guided towards goals and away from obstacles. While navigating towards a goal, individuals maintain an elliptically shaped ‘personal space’ between their own body and that of the obstacle(s). The size of personal space (degree of repulsion) is modulated depending on the specific situation. Collision avoidance research has typically utilized inanimate objects such as poles, however recent findings suggest that the amount of personal space required with inanimate objects is distinct from that used to avoid another person. Historically, person-to-person collision avoidance research has examined avoidance behaviours during different situation-specific scenarios, such as mutual or joint-task avoidance, passing through apertures, and interacting on various angles. Person-person research has not, however, fully taken person-specific characteristics into consideration as factors that may contribute to different avoidance behaviours. It is unknown whether humans perceive all humans the same way or if certain external-characteristics (i.e., one’s perception of others) dictate how collisions are strategically avoided with another human. Furthermore, it is unknown if behaviours are robust across all individuals or if there are certain internal-characteristics (i.e., one’s perception of self) that influence collision avoidance behaviours. The overarching goal of my PhD was to identify the person-specific characteristics that mediate changes in avoidance behaviours, in a young adult population.
To address this, five collision avoidance studies were conducted in the real world or virtual reality. The first study (conducted at Wilfrid Laurier University) examined collision avoidance behaviours when circumventing two physically different sized individuals. Results from Study 1 revealed that individuals circumvent people with a larger body size with more space at the time of crossing from the center of mass compared to a person with a smaller body size. The second study (conducted at Wilfrid Laurier University) was a follow-up focused on avoidance behaviours when circumventing an individual whose body size was artificially increased using shoulder pads. Study 2 demonstrated that when an artificial extension (shoulder pads) is added to a stationary person, avoidance behaviours are unchanged. Instead, results determined a side-bias where clearance was smaller for left-side avoidance. The third study (conducted at University Rennes II, FR), focused on determining the influence of a virtual human’s age-related (older vs younger) appearance and gait characteristics on collision avoidance strategies. Study 3 found that young adults circumvent with a larger clearance when interacting with a virtual pedestrian who possesses older adult-like characteristics. Study 4 (conducted at Université Laval) determined differences in the avoidance and gaze behaviours of athletes and non-athletes during an avoidance task with a virtual pedestrian who unpredictably steered to a new direction. Avoidance and gaze behaviours were different between athletes and non-athletes during early planning, but similar during late planning. Unpredictable steering behaviours of an approaching pedestrian led to a larger clearance at the time of crossing. Study 5 (conducted at Wilfrid Laurier University) was aimed at determining if an acute nociceptive stimulus (via topical capsaicin cream) alters avoidance behaviours. Cutaneous discomfort on the lateral aspect of the arm did not alter young adults’ avoidance behaviours. However, a learning effect was observed as avoidance was different during the first trial.
Together, these studies suggest that additional perceptual factors are considered when avoiding collisions with other people. The results of this dissertation demonstrate that during obstacle avoidance tasks, one’s personal space is influenced by, 1) the external-characteristics of an opposing pedestrian, and 2) the internal-characteristics of oneself. Understanding the typical behaviours for circumventing pedestrians and knowing how specific external- and internal-factors influence personal space provides the necessary groundwork for understanding how these behaviours are altered with age or disease. Furthermore, this work provides valuable information about human inter-personal distances (i.e., proxemics), which may be applicable to re-designing the simulation models of interactions between pedestrians used by engineers to expand crowd simulations, to develop architectural plans for urban centers, design robots to safely navigate unfamiliar environments, or properly plan exit routes in buildings
Workplace Wellbeing and Sense of Mattering Among Small and Medium Enterprise Workers in Canada
Get PDFSmall and Medium Enterprises (SME) are an under researched area when it comes to workplace wellbeing in Canada. The current research used the Job-Demands Resource Framework (JD-R) to study how a Community Psychology concept, sense of mattering, relates to workload, and indicators of wellbeing (i.e., burnout and flourishing). Specifically, this study tested whether sense of mattering moderates the association between workload and both burnout and flourishing. Moderated mediation models were also tested to see if workload is indirectly associated with burnout and flourishing through distress, while being moderated by sense of mattering. Questionnaires were administered to 2,500 Canadian SME workers at a single time point. No interaction effects were found for mattering as a moderator. Greater workload was directly associated with higher burnout and weaker sense of flourishing. Workload was indirectly associated with burnout and flourishing via distress. Post-hoc analyses revealed that workload had an indirect effect on burnout via mattering and distress. The findings of this study expand on prior research by testing specific interacting components of the JD-R theory and incorporating relevant community psychology principles. These findings may also have practical applications for understanding and improving individual wellbeing and organizational outcomes
Review of For King and Country: The British Monarchy and the First World War by Heather Jones
Get PDFReview of For King and Country: The British Monarchy and the First World War by Heather Jone
Review of A Samaritan State Revisited: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Aid edited by Greg Donaghy and David Webster
Get PDFReview of A Samaritan State Revisited: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Aid edited by Greg Donaghy and David Webste
Coordination Chemistry Using Strategic Design of Ligands for Switchable Properties
Get PDFCoordination-driven self-assemblies are multifunctional molecular systems that provide an efficient method for miniaturization towards functional devices with diverse applications. Herein, the synthesis of novel pyrazole-based ligands suitable for construction of coordination assemblies is reported. These were designed using a strategy that incorporates the presence of both cationic and anionic coordination sites, and a third site for further functionalization. This design strategy has been used because there is still a knowledge gap for controlling the directionality of weak molecular forces in the presence of stronger competing forces. The structural characterization of these ligands, their Hirshfeld surface analysis, and select coordination complexes with first row transition metal cations are discussed. Chapter 2 of this thesis describes the synthesis of a new ferrocene-substituted aminopyrazole molecule that would be suitable for use as a redox-active ligand for coordination to other metal cations with unpaired electrons. Chapter 3 of this thesis describes the synthesis of three new pyrazole-based ligands with small variations to peripheral ligand substituents. Detailed analysis of the crystal packing has been undertaken to account for the observed variations in fluorescent properties. Chapter 4 of this thesis describes efforts to synthesize boron-dipyrromethene (BODIPY) analogues for environmental sensing
Making Our Society Whole: Can Interfaith Conversation Counter Rage-Farming with Love-Farming?
Get PDFConspiracy Theories and Religion: Christian Nationalism and the Rise of North American Populism
Get PDFSupply Chain Managerial Processes and Models for Transportation and Facilities Resources Second Edition (2024)
Get PDFSmooth and efficient flows goods through supply chains depend on two crucial physical resources: supply chain facilities such as warehouses and transportation (e.g., trucks, trains, ships, airplanes, and pipelines). This textbook, Supply Chain Managerial Processes and Models for Transportation and Facilities Resources , is designed to give students, professionals, and others a comprehensive understanding of the intricate workings of those two resources.
The book is particularly relevant to logistics and transportation courses in post-secondary business programs: both upper-level undergraduate courses and graduate/MBA courses. The book can also be used in courses outside of the traditional post-secondary educational system: e.g., continuing education for individuals seeking a solid foundation of knowledge about supply chain facilities and transportation.
Organized into six chapters, this book takes you on a journey through the design, operation, and strategic decision-making processes within a transportation and logistics network