EUC Research Update - May 2023

Accolades, Achievements, and Awards

Congratulations to our faculty, students and staff who recently received recognition for their research!

Roger Keil was guest speaker at the IEAT/FUNDEP Chair at the Instituto de Estudos Avançados Transdisciplinares Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (The Institute of Transdisciplinary Advanced Studies - IEAT of the Federal University of Minas Gerais - UFMG, Brazil) where he gave three major public lectures at the University and met with colleagues, students and policy makers on the the topic of infectious disease and extended urbanization.

Along with his international research team of the Urban Studies Foundation grant on The city after COVID-19: Comparing vulnerability and urban governance in Chicago, Toronto, and Johannesburg, they will hold an event this May releasing the preliminary results of Addressing the Aftermath: The Governance of Urban Inequality During and After COVID-19, co-sponsored by the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research and the City Institute.

Jennifer Korosi received new funding for her NSERC Alliance co-application with William Quinton from Wilfrid Laurier University for the Discontinuous Permafrost Alliance (DPA) project. The project is developing and mobilizing knowledge on permafrost thaw in the Dehcho and elsewhere in the subarctic, creating new, practical and customized predictive tools and strategies to adapt to permafrost thaw, and providing interactive training to decision makers and other users.

Ute Lehrer will give a keynote address at the "2023 International Research Forum on Multi-owned Properties" on Thursday, May 25. The conference is organized by the City Futures Research Centre, UNSW, Sydney, Australia and UBC. The International Forum brings together researchers from around the world to share work on multi-owned properties, including condominium, strata property, common interest developments, and homeowner associations.

Linda Peake received collaborative funding from University of Toronto for the Summer Institute in Urban Studies, May 22-26. The summer institute is a global event focused on training senior graduate students and early career scholars in the leading theoretical perspectives in Urban Studies.

The summer institute involves the participation of numerous EUC faculty members, including: Kean Birch, Ranu Basu, Raju Das, Mahtot Gebresselassie, Liette Gilbert, Roger Keil, Stephan Kipfer, Ute Lehrer, Louisa Sotomayor, Valerie Preston, and Patricia Wood.

Cate Sandilands has recently published two short stories. The first, "Anna, Knitting," published in The New Quarterly 166, was shortlisted for the Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award. It is part of her in-progress research-creation project that engages with the life and work of Jane Rule (1931-2007). Some of the stories in the project dramatize Rule's relationships with her many and varied correspondents; others take her writing and thinking in new directions relating to social, political and environmental issues that have become more focal since she largely stopped writing in the 1990s. "Anna, Knitting" is one of the latter. It takes Harry and Anna, two characters from a series of stories Rule published in popular magazines such as Chatelaine, and reimagines them as they might respond to climate change. The second, "Revolutions," published in Pulp Literature 38, won the Raven Short Story Prize. Of the story, prize judge Leo X. Robertson wrote: "Exquisite descriptions transport the reader. This piece so well-encapsulates that post-university time in life when you're brimming with desire to change the world without having many tools to do so. Beautiful, melancholy, highly recommended."

Sandilands will be chairing a session at Congress on Reckoning with Extraction – Jointly-Sponsored with ALECC on May 28 from 3:30-5pm, ACE 013 and will do a presentation on Dear Jane Rule: Writing (with) a Life in Letters” on May 29, 8:30-10am, ACE 002. The two events are part of the ACCUTE Conference at Congress 2023 at York University from May 27-June 2, 2023.

Briann Dorin, PhD student in Environmental Studies, received scholarship funding from the American Society for Enology and Viticulture-Eastern Section (ASEV-ES). The funding is dedicated to students who are working toward careers in viticulture and enology. Dorin's research is focused on enhancing pollinator conservation efforts in agricultural systems. She completed an MSc in Plant Sciences, Viticulture, and Oenology at Brock University researching remote sensing in Niagara vineyards and has an HBSc in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from the University of Guelph.

MES student Lauren Castelino with EUC staff Rosanna Chowdhury and Joanne Huy received funding from the Sustainability Innovation Fund (SIF) to host an annual Green Career Fair at York University to engage students and Greater Toronto Area (GTA) youth.

The EUC and Green Career Centre collaborative event will lead discussions on transitioning to net zero emissions and showcase green career paths and organizations championing initiatives towards this goal. 

The ultimate goal of the project is to prepare underrepresented youth for green careers through nurturing an environment where people have a stronger sense of connection, inclusion and wellbeing.

Tim Hampton, Director of IT in EUC also received SIF funding to coordinate a study into the merits of large battery electric storage at York University. The goal is to determine if a large battery system can reduce York’s carbon footprint, electricity costs and improve power reliability.

The project team includes EUC Professor Mark Winfield, Lassonde Professor Hany Farag and Steven Prince, Director of Energy Management at Facilities Services.

Anna Zalik and PhD alumnus Asume Osuoka are members of the Environmental Commissioners and Expert Working Group of the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission who recently released the report An Environmental Genocide: Counting the Human and Environmental Cost of Oil in Bayelsa, Nigeria. This landmark investigation lays out the true cost of Big Oil in Bayelsa State. From surveys by forensic scientists to oil spill data to extensive testimony from communities, it includes overwhelming evidence about the damage and devastation to land, lives and livelihoods. Incidentally, Zalik was interviewed by VOA News and recently had a scholars' hub talk on Ecological futures and energy infrastructure across continental North America which is now available for listening and viewing on YouTube.

Publications and Reports

Amuchastegui, M., Birch, K., & Kaltenbrunner, W. (2023). The Intersections between Sociology and STS: A Big Data Approach. Sociological Perspectives, 0(0).

Baltruszewicz, M., Steinberger, J.K., Paavola, J., Ivanova, D., Brand-Correa, L.I., 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.

Flicker, S. and MacEntee, K.(2023). Cellphilm as a Participatory Visual Method: Mobilizing Opportunities for Research, Teaching, and Social Change. Routledge Taylor & Francis.

Florko, K.R.N., Ross, T.R., Ferguson, S.H., Northrup, J.M., Obbard, M.E., Thiemann, G.W., Yurkowski, D.J., and Auger-Méthé, M. (2023). The dynamic interaction between predator and prey drives mesopredator movement and foraging ecology. bioRxiv 04.27.538582.

Fraser, G.S., A. Chreston, K. McDonald, L. Gentile and R. Toninger (2023). Loss of a species: Reproductive success and contributions to nest failure of black-crowned night-herons at Tommy Thompson Park. Paper presented at the 66th Annual Conference on Great Lakes Research | May 8–12, 2023.

Fraser, G.S. and J. Rush (2023). Responses of carnivores at Tommy Thompson Park in relationship to nesting colonial waterbirds. Paper presented at the 66th Annual Conference on Great Lakes Research | May 8–12, 2023.

Hyndman, J. (2023). Filling a Critical Gap: Refuge at 40. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, Vol. 39, No. 1, 1–4.

Kapoor, I. (2023) Global Libidinal Economy (co-authored with Gavin Fridell, Maureen Sioh, and Pieter de Vries, SUNY Press.

Kusno, A. (2023). Middling urbanism: the megacity and the kampung in Changing Asian Urban Geographies. Urbanism and Peripheral Areas. Routledge Taylor & Francis.

Oliver, V. and Flicker, S. (2023). Declining nudes: Canadian teachers’ responses to including sexting in the sexual health and human development curriculum. Sex Education. April.

Olusola, A., Ogunjo, S. & Olusegun, C. (2023). The role of teleconnections and solar activity on the discharge of tropical river systems within the Niger basin. Environmental Monitoring Assessment 195, 476.

Phelps, N. A., Maginn, P. J., & Keil, R. (2023). Centring the periphery in urban studies: Notes towards a research agenda on peripheral centralities. Urban Studies, 60(6), 1158–1176.

Razavi, N.S., Adeniyi-Ogunyankin, G., Basu, S., Anindita Datta, de Souza, K., Tsz Ting Ip, P., Koleth, E., Marcus, Miraftab, F.J., Mullings, B. Nmormah, S., Odunola, B., Pardo Burgoa S., & Peake., L. (2023). Everyday urbanisms in the pandemic city: a feminist comparative study of the gendered experiences of Covid-19 in Southern cities, Social & Cultural Geography, 24:3-4, 582-599.

Robin, T., Rotz, S,. & Xavier, A. (2023). Indigenous food sovereignty in Ontario: A study of exclusion at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Yellowhead Institute.

Rotz, S., Xavier, A., & Robin, T. (2023). “It wasn’t built for us”: The possibility of Indigenous food sovereignty in settler colonial food bureaucracies. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 12(3), 1–18. 

Sandilands, Cate (2023). Anna, Knitting. The New Quarterly. Issue 166.

Sandilands, Cate (2023). Revolutions. Pulp Literature. Issue 38, Spring 23.

Scott, D.N. and Tesaro, L. (2023). XII. 5 The regulation of toxics and environmental justice: the uneven distribution of pollution. Chemical Risk Governance, 12, 89. Edward Elgar Publishing. Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Law. Michael Faure (General Editor).

Sotomayor, L. and Zheng, C. (2023). Who Drinks Bubble Tea? Coethnic Studentification in Toronto’s Chinatown. Housing Policy Debate, March.

Wu, F. and Keil, R., Eds. (2023). Changing Asian Urban Geographies. Urbanism and Peripheral Areas. Routledge Taylor & Francis.

EUC Open Events at Congress 2023 at York University

York University is hosting the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences 2023, in partnership with the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Congress is the largest academic gathering in Canada, and one of the largest in the world.

YorkU has an exciting lineup of cultural and academic programming activities under the themes Arts@Congress and Community Engagement and Connections and below is a list of EUC-related open events at Congress 2023 at York University from May 27-June 2, 2023.

Note that this listing only includes open programming at Congress that directly involves members of the EUC community. Many EUC faculty and students are also presenting their work at association conferences within Congress.

SUNDAY, MAY 28, 2023

14:00 - 16:00 EDT, Accolade East-ACE 102, by Talking Treaties Collective (including Martha Stiegman)
Film Screening Series: By These Presents: “Purchasing” Toronto

Screening of By These Presents: “Purchasing” Toronto (2019, 30min) by the Talking Treaties Collective. The film is an absurdist examination of the Toronto ‘Purchase’, a controversial treaty between the British and Mississaugas covering much of modern-day Toronto.

Organized in three acts, By These Presents uses dance, large-scale puppetry, and humour to chronicle the opening chapter of the city’s colonial history.

Originally commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art as a three-channel video installation, By These Presents will be screened as a 30min film through Vtape.

MONDAY, MAY 29, 2023

18:30 EDT, 519 Church Street Community Centre, Organized by the Sexuality Studies Association

Keynote lecture by Andil Gosine: “chicken: a queer, visual ecohistory”

In this keynote presentation, Professor Andil Gosine elaborates key contentions in his recent book Nature’s Wild: Love, Sex and Law in the Caribbean, including his call for rejection of complicity with the historical onus put upon marginalized subjects—including queer, poor and non-white people—in the Americas to prove themselves “human, not animal.”

Drawing upon artistic representations of the chicken and related interdisciplinary scholarship—e.g. on the entwinement of anxieties about bestiality and sodomy in law—and integrating autobiography that references his own experiences with chickens (as well as his own artwork), Dr. Gosine will weigh the tensions and choices we experience and face about our “wildness” in the midst of global ecological crisis, through discussion of visual artworks that have sprung from his text and which centre an interdisciplinary analysis of the chicken and its genetic precursor, the Sri Lankan junglefowl. Some of these works will make their public debut at the keynote, including Dr. Gosine’s textile tapestry “Chicken,” and his collaborative diptych completed with London-based painter Angie Quick.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2023

10:00-12:00, Accolade East, ACE 102
Stories of Food Sovereignty: From Earth to Tables with Deborah Barndt, Lauren Baker and Alexandra Gelis

Climate crises, a global pandemic, food riots, diet-related diseases - all are telling us that the industrial food system threatens our health and the survival of the planet, and deepens systemic inequities, racism, and poverty. Since 2015, 13 food sovereignty activists – youth/elders, rural/urban, Indigenous/settler, Canadian/Mexican – have shared stories of their efforts to transform the food system. The four videos to be presented at Congress reflect the dialogues among collaborators. An accompanying book, Earth to Tables Legacies: Multimedia Food Conversations Across Generations and Cultures, will be launched on May 31 at 2:15 as part of the Canadian Food Studies Association conference. The Legacies Project has been supported by SSHRC Connections grants and the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, with co-directors and co-editors: Professor Emerita Deborah Barndt, alumna Dr. Lauren Baker, and PhD candidate Alexandra Gelis.

EUC KEYNOTE EVENT:  Indigenous Knowing and Climate Futures

15:00--17:00 EDT, Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, York University

This panel brings Candis Callison and Deborah McGregor, two distinguished Indigenous researchers and communicators, into conversation about our planet’s future and how Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing can make the threat our planet faces from climate change, and ways of confronting it, matter to broader publics both inside and outside the university. Award-winning author Naomi Klein will respond.

Candis Callison, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Journalism, Media & Public Discourse, UBC;
Deborah McGregor, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice, York University;
Naomi Klein, Professor of Climate Justice, University of British Columbia;
Moderator: Carlota McAllister, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University

Followed by a reception, 5-6.30pm. In-person attendance is encouraged, but to view via zoom webinar instead, register HERE. This event initiates EUC’s Climate Seminar Series for 2023-24. Co-sponsored with the Environmental Studies Association of Canada and the Centre for Climate Justice, UBC.

THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 2023
14:00-16:00, Accolade East, ACE 102

VeRONAka and Rahyne: Identity, Naming, Relationships, and Healing Through Speculative Arts Film Spaces with Paulette Moore

VeRONAka is a ten-minute fictional live-action comedy/drama that explores the true story that our Mohawk clan mother gave COVID-19 a Mohawk name so we can be in relationship with the virus, understand why it is here and ask it to leave.

Rahyne is a ten-minute animated film about an Afro-Indigenous non-binary teen whose identity is united through two water spirits. Both films were created as companion speculative art spaces to explore intersections between identity, naming relationships and healing.

Discussion moderated by Kahstoserakwathe Paulette Moore, EUC PhD student and owner of The Aunties Dandelion media organization.

RECURRING DAILY EXHIBITS:  MAY 27 – JUNE 2, 2023

8:00 - 15:30 EDT, Scott Library, The Collaboratory
Reckoning and Reimagining: Deborah Barndt’s Engaged Use of Photography

Photographs have always been central to Professor Emerita Deborah Barndt’s research, education, and community engagement. Over the past year, Barndt engaged a team of five graduate students in a process of “participatory archiving,” critically revisiting the places, people, and processes represented in her photographs captured over five decades of transnational research and activism. This exhibit represents a critical reflection by Barndt on the shifting contexts in the photos and on her role as a white outsider researcher, documenter and facilitator in communities marginalized by class, race, gender, and Indigeneity.

8:00-19:00, Rob and Cheryl McEwen Graduate Study & Research Building, 3rd Floor
The Gallery of Risk (Representing Risk)

This project is a 10x3 pop-up, interactive Gallery that presents the findings of a collaborative study, For the Record (4theRecord). The study features the narratives of racialized and LGBTQ2S+ young women and nonbinary youth to examine the shifting meanings of risk as young people navigated relationships during COVID. Racialized and LGBTQ+ young women and non-binary youth are routinely cast as 'at risk.' The overarching goal of this outreach project is to exchange knowledge and disseminate the narratives of racialized and LGBTQ2S+ young women and nonbinary youth on how they navigated friendships, school, family, and sex during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Led by PIs Angela Norwood (Design) and Jen Gilbert (Education), the research team includes Laina Bay-Cheng, York’s AVP Faculty Affairs, and Sarah Flicker from the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change.