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Connection and Self-Protection: Exploring Mixed Martial Art’s Impact on Young Women’s Mental Health
Get PDFThis thesis explores how young women understand their mental health in relation to training mixed martial arts (MMA), offering their insights into a traditionally male-dominated sport. Using constructivist epistemology, feminist standpoint, and trauma theories, I conducted reflexive thematic analysis of 14 semi-structured interviews with young women in Ontario. The research question was: how do young women MMA athletes perceive their mental health in relation to their training? Four key themes emerged: 1) Better Mental Health through Connection, 2) Healing from Trauma’s Effects, 3) Contending Societal Ideologies, and 4) the Onus on Women to Protect Themselves. Findings highlight MMA as a more holistic mental health practice than traditional therapies through offering empowerment, community, and a mind-body connection. Self-defense training was seen as enhancing feelings of safety which supported better mental health. Despite MMA’s hegemonic masculine culture, women navigate and challenge this environment, advocating for systemic changes to ensure safety and well-being
Assessing the Impact of CORE: Six Month Analysis of Proactive Hotspot Patrols in Ottawa
Get PDFThis study evaluates the Ottawa Police Service’s Community Outreach, Response, and Engagement (CORE) initiative, launched on August 6, 2024. The hotspot policing strategy builds on existing proactive patrols with a more targeted approach in high-crime areas including ByWard Market, Lowertown, and Sandy Hill. The research assesses its impact on crime rates and community perceptions of safety over six months, drawing on quantitative crime data and qualitative feedback from community surveys. Crime trends from August 6, 2024, to January 31, 2025, are compared to previous years. Survey responses reflect residents’ views on police presence, safety, and observed changes. Findings show mixed results: while some hotspots saw reduced crime, concerns remain about police legitimacy and the initiative’s ability to address broader social issues. The study suggests that hotspot policing, though potentially effective in targeted areas, may have limited long-term impact without deeper community engagement and strategies addressing root causes of crime
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: Foreign Lands on Stolen Lands
No full textIn this moment of Palestinian liberation – a new future is in the making; un-walled and de-fenced. Inspired by Dr. Taylor Miller’s text, “A Pause, On Possibility,” I look to “Tomorrow.” This thesis imagines a possible world and architecture of a free Palestine – beyond western, colonized, pseudo-diplomatic fantasy, and into a pluriversal imagination that encompasses its freedom and radical re-imagination of bureaucracy. I propose the design of a Musafir Khana (a “Traveller’s Room”), on unceded and never-surrendered Algonquin land along the Kìchì Sìbì (Ottawa River), in so-called Ottawa, in so-called Canada. The project imagines futures beyond subject colonial realities. A wall, a fence, a gate – these are not only material obstacles, but also limits on the imaginations of fragile colonial minds. A wall, after all, will never touch the sky, nor the Earth's core. It is always limited by its own materiality and always circumvented by emancipatory imagination
Beyond the Ground: A Speculative Approach to Housing
No full textAs market-driven expansion pushes outward and every viable piece of land is developed, this thesis looks upward—beyond the ground—to envision a society that challenges the prevailing notion of housing as a commodity. By investigating air rights and anticipating the commodification of air itself, it proposes a framework to address Toronto’s housing affordability crisis, accommodate a growing and changing population, and keep urban living accessible. This project reconsiders housing and density through a speculative lens, aiming to establish a new housing paradigm for Toronto’s future
“The Well-Adapted Immigrant”: Exploring the Relationship Between Acculturation and Wellbeing of International Students
No full textInternational student populations in Canada have grown significantly over the past 20 years. Throughout this growth, acculturation has remained the dominant framework for understanding cultural adaptation. Berry’s model of acculturation bases cultural negotiation on the maintenance and rejection of the home and host countries’ cultures; however, this study argues that researchers and service providers need to shift how we understand acculturation of international students. Acculturation is shown to involve both a degree of intentionality (or individual agency) and elements that are structural, and thus outside of an individual’s control. Furthermore, by measuring subjective wellbeing of participants, this study sought to determine the relationship between wellbeing and acculturation. All participants in this study demonstrated a high level of positive wellbeing. Instead of relating a specific acculturation strategy to positive wellbeing, I argue that a sense of belonging is the nexus between acculturation and wellbeing of international students