EUC Research Update - January 2023

Accolades and Awards

Congratulations to Linda Peake on being awarded the American Association of Geographers’ (AAG) Lifetime Achievement Honors for her scholarly contributions to feminist and urban geographies, and for a career dedicated to extending equity, diversity and inclusion at her institution and across the discipline of geography. Peake’s four decades of scholarship have spanned feminist, social and urban geography, studies of race and racism, and mental health. Her early research was focused on feminist urban geography and led to co-edited volumes such as Women, Human Settlements, and Housing (1987) and Women in Cities (1988). In the 1990s, her perspective broadened to include race and sexuality and engaged the idea of intersectionality, a hallmark of Peake’s scholarship, long before this term came to be commonly used and understood in geography. Peake has also helped shape these fields through her editorship of Gender, Place and Culture (GPC), Social and Cultural Geography and as associate editor on the AAG Encyclopedia. See YFile News coverage.

EUC is part of York's Catalyzing Interdisciplinary Research Clusters (CIRC) program which aims to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, global research excellence and world-class training opportunities towards advancing York’s contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The 3-year project, Geomatics for Analyzing Climate Change Effects on Ecosystems and Human Populations, led by Tarmo Remmel, aims to examine the shifting trajectory of climate change and its impacts in Canada, beginning with investigations across boreal regions and their impacts on large urban centres.

The interdisciplinary team (which includes Katie Kish, Jennifer Korosi, Eric Miller, Justin Podur, and Joshua Thienpont from EUC) draws on expertise from across ecohydrology, limnology, forestry, biogeography, wildlife biology, urban pollution modelling, methodological expertise in geomatics, and leadership in sustainability analytics. The cluster involves collaborating researchers from the Faculties of Lassonde, Science and LA&PS, and is in line with UN SDG 13 on Climate Action.

Jose Etcheverry is also part of Lassonde's School of Engineering CIRC project on Social and Business Implications of Introducing Micro-mobility Vehicles (at York) Implications for Disruptive Technologies and Experiential Education led by Andrew Maxwell, with co-PIs Marina Freire-Gormaly, Lassonde School of Engineering, Pilar F Carbonell (LA&PS), and Manos Papangelis, Lassonde School of Engineering. The project is in line with UN SDG 10 on Reduced Inequality.

Along with colleagues from LAPS and AMPD (Patrick Alcedo, Dance; Marissa Largo, Visual Arts; Ethel Tungohan, Politics) Philip Kelly was awarded a Philippine government grant to support the development of research and creative programming in Philippine Studies at York in 2023. The grant will support student awards and stipends, visiting speakers from the Philippines, cultural events, and enriched acquisitions at the York Library. York is one of a select group of universities worldwide to receive such support, alongside NYU, Michigan, London/SOAS and others.

Luisa Sotomayor with graduate student Akanee Yamaki received a MITACS Accelerate grant for their project on "FairbnbTO: De-financializing housing through platform cooperative innovation." The research internship will identify opportunities and challenges to establishing and growing a sustainable revenue stream to help Kensington Commmunity Land Trust to support, protect, and increase affordable housing in Kensington market.

The collaborative project will also identify challenges and opportunities enabling residents in Kensington market and nearby areas to supplement their income by renting space in their own homes as Fairbnb.coop hosts and prioritizing young working adults, seniors, and racialized residents; demonstrating a sustainable and replicable model for raising revenues for community land trusts in Toronto and other Canadian cities facing housing affordability crisis; building awareness around community land trusts and co-operative models through host and guest networks; and ensuring short-term rentals in Kensington market and nearby neighbourhoods do not remove long-term housing stock from the market.

The Hill Times' list of Top 100 Best Books for 2022 included Patricia Wood's co-authored book Unstable Properties: Aboriginal Title and the Claim of British Columbia (co-authored with York Geography PhD alumnus David Rossiter). The book investigates Aboriginal claims to Crown land – to reframe the issue as a history of Crown attempts to solidify claims to Indigenous territory. The book puts critical human geography at the service of the goal of educating Canadians about the history of settler colonialism by demonstrating that understanding different conceptualizations of land and territorialization is a key element of meaningful reconciliation.

The Hill Times list also featured Canadian Labour Policy and Politics, edited by John Peter and Don Wells, featuring chapters co-authored by Philip Kelly and Steven Tufts.

Publications and Reports

Ali, S.H., Connolly, C., and Keil, R. (2022). Pandemic Urbanism: Infectious Diseases on a Planet of Cities. John Wiley and Sons.

Baltruszewicz, M., Steinberger, J.K., Paavola, J., Ivanova, D., Brand-Correa, L.I., and Owen, A. (2023). Social outcomes of energy use in the United Kingdom: Household energy footprints and their links to well-being. Ecological Economics, Volume 205, 2023,107686, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107686.

Birch, K., & Ward, C. (2022). Assetization and the ‘new asset geographies.’ Dialogues in Human Geography, 0(0). 

Biorklund, L. and Hyndman, J. (2022). Refugee Studies has always been critical. In Routledge Book of Immigration and Refugee Studies. 2nd Edition. 348-357.

Coleman, K. and Korosi, J. (2023). Limnology and diatom ecology of shallow lakes in a rapidly thawing discontinuous permafrost peatland', http://hdl.handle.net/10315/39723.

Coppella, L., Flicker, S., and Goldstein, A. (2023). “Make sure I hear snoring”: Adolescent girls, trans, and non-binary youth using sound for sexual wellbeing boundary-making at home during COVID-19. Wellbeing, Space and Society. Volume 4, 100117.

Das, R. (2022). The Good and the Bad in David Harvey’s Popular Marxism. Critical Sociology, 0(0).

Gebresselassie, M. (2022). Wheelchair Users’ Perspective on Transportation Service Hailed Through Uber and Lyft Apps. Transportation Research Record, 0(0).

Hughes, A.C., Tougeron, K., Martin, D.A., Menga, F., Rosado, B. HP, Villasante, S., Madgulkar, S., Gonçalves, F., Geneletti, D., Diele-Viegas, L.M., Berger, S., Colla, S.R., de Andrade Kamimura, V., Caggiano, H., Melo, F., Guilherme de Oliveira Dias, M., Elke Kellner, E., and Vitor do Couto, E. (2023). Smaller human populations are neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for biodiversity conservation. Biological Conservation, Volume 277, Elsevier. January, 109841.

McGregor, D. (2023). The Role of Traditional Environmental Knowledge in Planetary Well-Being. Osgoode Digital Commons.

Phelps, N. A., Maginn, P. J., & Keil, R. (2022). Centring the periphery in urban studies: Notes towards a research agenda on peripheral centralities. Urban Studies, 0(0).

Kipfer, S. (2023). Urban Revolutions: Urbanisation and (Neo-)Colonialism in Transatlantic Context. Historical Materialism Book Series, Volume: 262.

March, L. and Lehrer, U. (2022). Common Areas, Common Causes: Public Space in High‐Rise Buildings During Covid‐19. Urban Planning, 7(4), 352-363.

Norcliffe, G. et al. (2023). Routledge Companion to Cycling. 1st Edition. Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.

Olusola, A.O. and Adelabu, S. (2022). Implications of Rainfall Variabilities in Light of Climate Change on Crop Production in the Sudano-Sahelian Belt of Nigeria. In: Naddeo, V., Choo, KH., Ksibi, M. (eds) Water-Energy-Nexus in the Ecological Transition. Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation. Springer, Cham. .

Olusola, A.O., Adedeji, O., Akpoterai, L., Ogunjo, S.T., Olusegun, C.F., Adelabu, S. (2022). Flood Assessment Along Lower Niger River Using Google Earth Engine. In: Dubey, S.K., Jha, P.K., Gupta, P.K., Nanda, A., Gupta, V. (eds) Soil-Water, Agriculture, and Climate Change. Water Science and Technology Library, vol 113. Springer, Cham.

Pasternak, S., Cowen, D., Clifford, R., Joseph, T., Scott, D.N., Spice, A., Stark, H.K. (2022). Infrastructure, Jurisdiction, Extractivism: Keywords for decolonizing geographies. Political Geography. 102763.

Saad, A. (2022). Worlds at Stake: Climate Politics, Ideology, and Justice. Fernwood Publishing.

Smyth, A. (2022). Proceeding through Colonial Past-Presents in Fieldwork: Methodological Lessons on Accountability, Refusal, and Autonomy. Antipode.

Terry, M. and Hewson, M. (2022). The Emerging Role of Geomedia in the Environmental Humanities. Lexington Books. Rowman & Littlefield.

Terry, M. (2023). Speaking Youth to Power: Influencing Climate Policy at the United Nations. Palgrave Studies in Media & Environmental Communication. Palgrave, Macmillan.

Victor, P.A. (2023). Escape from Overshoot: Economics for a Planet in Peril. New Society Publishers.

Wood, P.B. and Rossiter, D. (2022). Unstable Properties: Aboriginal Title and the Claim of British Columbia. UBC Press.

Events and Media Coverage

EUC has launched its winter research seminar series on FOOD SOVEREIGNTY NOW! Indigenous Perspectives on Seed Sovereignty. Organized by Martha Stiegman and co-sponsored with SeedChange and York's Centre for Indigenous Knowledges and Languages (CIKL), Indigenous seed keepers, activists and scholars discuss the importance of seeds and biodiversity in Indigenous food systems, and share their work that strengthen Indigenous seed sovereignty. The first online panel discussion (link to video) on January 19th featured Dr. Priscilla Settee (University of Saskatchewan), Alejandro Argumedo (Swift Foundation), and Kahehtoktha Janice Brant (Kenhte:ke Seed Sanctuary & Learning Centre). The second online panel discussion (link to registration) on Intellectual Property Regimes, Seed Laws & Farmers’ Rights will be held on February 9 featuring Marvin Gómez (Honduras) SeedChange, Mamadou Goita (Mali) - IRPAD and Larissa Packer (Brazil) GRAIN.

Distinguished Professor of Indigenous Design and Planning, Dr Ted Jojola (University of New Mexico) visited EUC this January, to share his work on Placeknowing and Rematriation: Indigenous Design and Planning. Throughout his research career, Prof. Jojola has published on Indigenous community development, education, planning and architecture, building an approach that unites place-based cultures and Indigenous agency towards a better understanding of the significance of life in Indigenous planning.

A champion of the 7 Generation Model as a tool to understand reciprocal learning, Prof. Jojola aims to shape meaningful dialogue and better outcomes for our collective futures. The 7 Generation Model challenges contemporary norms in planning, which often focus on time-based targets, and instead prioritizes a framework that values the continuity of life. This allows for ancestral learning to inform the present to build a collective vision for the future.

Mark Terry launched two books on January 20th at the Arts and Letters Club, Toronto. The Emerging Role of Geomedia in the Environmental Humanities (2022), edited by Mark Terry and Michael Hewson, provides the latest scholarship on the various methods and approaches being used by environmental humanists to incorporate geomedia into their research and analyses. Speaking Youth to Power: Influencing Policy at the United Nations (2023) examines the methods and approaches currently being taken by the global community of youth in influencing environmental policymakers of the United Nations.

Stefan Kipfer was recently joined by University of Toronto Professor of Geography and Planning, Kanishka Goonewardena, and York Professor of Politics Laam Hae for a discussion of his book Urban Revolutions: Urbanisation and (Neo-)Colonialism in Transatlantic Context (2023). In the book, Kipfer shows how the struggles over pipelines in Canada, housing estates in France, and shanty towns in Martinique force us to understand the (neo-)colonial aspects of capitalist urbanization in a comparative and historically nuanced fashion. After a detailed dialogue between Henri Lefebvre and Frantz Fanon, Kipfer engages creole literature in the French Antilles, Indigenous radicalism in North America and political anti-racism in mainland France.

Stefan Kipfer and Luisa Sotomayor penned an article titled "Did Someone Say Housing Supply? A View from Toronto" in The Bullet noting the housing crisis in Canada, particularly in metropolitan regions such as Toronto. The authors provide evidence of the crisis and how it has grown based on available mainstream accounts. Though measures have been implemented to mitigate or confront the housing crisis - the authors noted that “increasing the housing supply” has become the only widely audible recipe offered in response to the housing crisis in Ontario and British Columbia.

New episodes of the Anti-Empire Project podcast hosted by Justin Podur explore: the attempted coup in Brazil; Germany before World War 1; the 1905 Russian Revolution; the Russo-Japanese War of 1905; the overthrow of Peru's president; and Russia in 1900. The podcast discusses diverse topics (war, occupations, coups, ecology, education) united by a celebration of people and the planet, opposition to Empire, and the idea that understanding and learning can make a better world.

Mark Winfield shared his analysis of Ontario's housing plan in The Conversation/National Post. In this article, Winfield pointed out that Bill 39 which was passed in late 2022 by the Government of Ontario allows mayors of Toronto and Ottawa to pass bylaws related to provincial 'priorities'. One of such priority is providing 1.5 million new homes to address the shortage of housing. However, the bill has put in jeopardy the province’s land-use planning and local governance structures in favour of development interests.