FES Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Series

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https://hdl.handle.net/10315/13775

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Open Access
The 15-Minute City in Toronto: Insights from Lefebvre and Fanon
(2021-08) Amin, Aaminah; Kipfer, Stefan
This major paper examines the spatial and political project of the 15-minute city by drawing on the insights of Henri Lefebvre and Frantz Fanon. This research paper interrogates the 15-minute city urban vision and explores the social and spatial implications of the model. This analysis explores the different contexts where this plan is being promoted, highlighting local dynamics of socio-spatial inequality, state policy, and expectations of social life in urban areas. It applies a conceptual framework that foregrounds the works of Henri Lefebvre and Frantz Fanon which offers insight into the ways that areas can be spatially organized into hierarchical relations and be impacted by racialized and gendered dynamics of everyday life. This paper also examines the 15-minute city in Toronto within existing popular planning discourses and in the context of neoliberal policies and dynamics of socio-spatial inequality. I am engaging in a contextual reading that looks particularly at the role of the state and everyday life in influencing spatial and social relations. The aim of this research is to challenge the underlying assumptions around desirable social life and urban space and to highlight the colonial, capitalist, and neoliberal dimensions of the 15-minute city.
Open Access
A Spatially Explicit Assessment of the Biocapacity of Brazilian Forests from 2001 to 2019
(2021-12-31) Kapoor, Chaya; Mulvihill, Peter
Through the demand for resources and ecosystem services, the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide poses a striking example of how humanity exceeds the regenerative and absorptive capacity of the biosphere. The magnitude to which humans exceed this threshold is often expressed using the Ecological Footprint (EF) methodology. This approach tracks the amount of biologically productive areas on Earth for which human demands compete. Forested land is an integral component of the EF methodology since it is expected to meet multiple competing demands. This paper assesses the forest component of the National Footprint & Biocapacity Accounting (NFBA) framework – the most widely known application of the EF methodology. It investigates the forest component from a methodological and data perspective through an extensive literature review. Since the discussion of outdated input data to the forest component seems neglected in the literature, this study explores alternative datasets to estimate a key parameter of the carbon Footprint (cF), the Average Forest Carbon Sequestration (AFCS). A spatially explicit analysis involving net primary productivity (NPP) and land use datasets is conducted to generate forest metrics and timeseries data for the country of Brazil between 2001 and 2019. The results are subsequently compared to forest area and biocapacity data found in the NFBAs. The outcome of this analysis presents forest extent and productivity data in a more nuanced manner which could work towards improving the robustness of the Accounts if applied at the global scale.
Open Access
Active Citizenship Reviving and Extending Democratic Practices
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2000) Nayak, Navin Ajay
Contending that our current liberal understanding of politics is exclusive and unresponsive, this paper explores the possibilities for reviving and extending democratic practices through a renewed understanding of citizenship. In direct opposition to the passive and individualistic theory of citizenship presented in the work of John Rawls, a theory of active citizenship is retrieved through a critical synthesis of the unique works of Hannah Arendt and Chantal Mouffe. Active citizenship is presented as a practice that is anti-foundational, anti-essentialist, conditioned by pluralism and antagonism, and necessarily active. This paper was initially part of a larger project that explored how active citizenship would necessarily call into question our practice of environmental politics, particularly interrogating environmentalism's reliance on ecology and the ontological and epistemological privileges granted to Western science, arguing that democratizing environmentalism requires constructing it primarily as an ethical-political dilemma rather than a managerial-technological one.
Open Access
Alexandra Park: Dynamics of Redevelopment
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2012) Hatcher, Kirk
Mixed-income planning has become the common-sense approach to public housing redevelopment in Toronto. Based on the premise of physical design dictating behaviour, social mix theory hinges on the idea that diluting the proportion of rental tenure via the supply of privately-owned units will break apart pathologies commonly accepted as being produced by concentrations of poverty. Interestingly, both the perceived benefits of social mix theory and the pathologies assumed to be produced by concentrations of poor people are empirically unfounded. However, by exercising place-making strategies that focus predominantly on the negative social and physical attributes of low-income neighbourhoods, change appears necessary and to the benefit of all involved. In this Major Paper, I will introduce the proposed Alexandra Park redevelopment as a case study of municipally-managed gentrification and mixed-income planning. The idea of a redeveloped Alexandra Park has been sparked by a progressive councillor and an involved group of residents accustomed to transformations in the governance structure of their neighbourhood. However, without the high exchange value of its prime downtown location, private investment in this economically underutilized neighbourhood would be unlikely. Aided by the territorial stigmatization of the neighbourhood and the racialization of its residents, place-making has enabled the common-sense approach to redevelopment in Alexandra Park legitimized by the concentrations of poverty thesis. It is my position that the existing residents of Alexandra Park will not reap the assumed, yet unwarranted, benefits commonly associated with socially mixing economically polarized groups of citizens. Redevelopment, instead, will lead to revalorized land that generates revenue in the form of property taxes, and a micro-segregated neighbourhood threatened by long-term gentrification processes related to increasing property values and consequent service transformations. Federal government shifts from redistributive and protective public policies to neo-liberal policies supporting growth and privatization that have occurred over the past three decades, have enabled the downloading of public housing provision from higher orders of government to fiscally austere municipalities, forcing housing providers such as Toronto Community Housing to rely upon private investment to cover operational costs. Consequently for the current residents, however, private investment in Alexandra Park will reduce their proportional composition to half of what it is today. Its current composition comprised predominantly of visible minorities, new immigrants, and low-income households in general, combined with a high exchange value of the neighbourhood, renders Alexandra Park highly vulnerable to municipally-managed gentrification. To borrow Jim Silver’s (2011) perspective regarding redevelopment, the razing of public housing neighbourhoods is less a response to the problems within them and more a project to valorize land and implement the agenda of neo-liberal governments, which are prepared to rearrange the lives of public housing tenants in the interest of more affluent soon-to-be residents.
Open Access
An Alternative Agricultural Future for a Maitland Valley sub-watershed
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2010) MacNeil, Mark
It is well established that conventional agriculture imposes external costs on society and reduces the many benefits that agroecological systems produce, especially in highly cultivated watersheds where farm fields and larger landscape elements alike have been compromised and simplified. Conserving soil, water and biodiversity is essential to improve the ecosystem services that sustainable agroecosystems provide, including food, moderate and sufficient water flows, filtration of wastes and purification of surface and ground waters, and habitat for wildlife. Best management practices and landscape conservation objectives, when combined with support and financial incentives can reward farmers’ provision of these multiple benefits. Organic farming integrates many ‘best management practices’ in a holistic approach to improving the farm environment by minimizing external inputs and fostering natural processes. Future scenarios are a creative way to explore the impact of alternative land management approaches in a realistic manner to probe potential economic and ecological impacts over time and can be used to improve decision-making and perspective on the likely outcomes of distinct policy trajectories. This study took a future scenarios approach to exploring a sub-watershed level transition to organic agriculture in the Middle Maitland sub-watershed above Listowel, Ontario, combining geospatial, environmental, ecological, agricultural, economic and institutional factors and employing GIS and Enterprise Budgeting methods. The model permitted an assessment of some of the potential enhancements in the levels of ecosystem services provided by the farming area, combined with a model of annual net returns and a set of incentives designed to reward ecosystem services from farming over a ten-year period. The organic scenario displayed the expected fluctuations in returns over the transition period, and beef farmers (both conventional and organic) and stockless farmers (organic) faced significant financial difficulty; overall, ten year returns saw organic receive higher net returns than conventional for 5 of 6 farm types. Program payments over ten years for the conventional and organic scenarios amounted to $1 million and $1.5 million respectively, however organic program total ten year costs to government and conservation foundations increased to $2.25 million when considering more aggressive support for beef and stockless farmers. Preliminary estimates from the model indicate significant expected improvements with the organic scenario above the conventional scenario for several ecosystem services, as well as higher satisfaction of landscape conservation targets established by authorities to achieve a ‘healthy watershed’ in the Maitland Valley. This work will set the stage for further alternative agriculture scenario modeling for the Maitland Valley in other research initiatives.
Open Access
Analysis of the Quality of the Green Bonds for Climate Action
(2024-08-31) Sila Basturk Agiroglu; Lina Brand Correa
This research aims to quantify and evaluate the quality of green bonds in terms of transparency and additionality at the issuance level. The study reveals the differences between different countries and industry groupings in their green bond quality assessment and aims to provide a snapshot of the status of the market. For the purpose of this study, 241 green bonds were analyzed. The sample represents 31% of the 774 green bonds disclosed by the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) as aligned with ICMA Green Bond Principles which covers 2016 – 2022 period as updated on 25 November 2022. For each green bond issuance, the same metrics were collected through an extensive review of the publicly available green bond frameworks and their impact reporting practices. Using the data extracted and coded by the author, each issuance is scored in terms of transparency and additionality. In this study, the disclosure practices concerning the use of proceeds of an issuance feed the transparency score. On the other hand, additionality is assessed based on the presence of refinancing and if any, the share of refinancing in the total use of proceeds. Hence, an issuance may receive a high transparency score with a low additionality score in the final scoring table. Each selected metric, such as disclosure of the excluded activities from financing, affects only transparency or additionality assessment. At the same time there are some interdependencies between iii metrics. For instance, the share of refinancing in total financing is a determinant of additionality. However, to be able to assess this, there should be a disclosure of the refinancing share which feeds the transparency score. There is a growing literature focusing on the greenwashing risk in the financial markets. This research fills a significant gap in the literature in two aspects. First, it creates a green bond database focusing on detailed disclosures. To the best knowledge of the author, there is no similar database publicly available. Secondly, the analysis provides an evidence-based analysis of the quality of issuances. The results of this study indicate that there is significant room for improvement in the transparency practices of the green bonds even if they are aligned with the ICMA Green Bond Principles. Further policy development is needed to enhance the reporting practices of the issuers to limit the risk of greenwashing. Green bonds are not designed as tools to finance greenfield projects only. Any green bond can be fully or partially dedicated to refinancing. The results show that the majority of the issuances are dedicated fully or partially to refinancing. This resulted in lower additionality scores. The additionality scoring helps to distinguish financial capital dedicated to address climate change from green bond issuances structured as “nice to have” labels. In the absence of clear intentions and transparent communication of impact, no kind of label can help us in the middle of a global climate catastrophe. This iv research aims to provide evidence of the urgent improvements required in climate finance market by specifically focusing on its shining star green bonds.
Open Access
Animal Scents: Tracking the Betrayal of Animality Otherwise with/in Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and Levinas
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2002) Laskin, Lee
This book is a guide for tracking an animal in a text or in a jungle. It offers a non-dichotomous, non-totalizing, primordially ethical relation of self to animal. A relation where the self is not radically detached, disinterested and alienated from a marginalized and valueless animal other. Out of this work emerges alternative 'conceptions' of animal alterity. Conceptions where the self is fully imbedded in and has responsibility to the other, yet does not (only) appropriate its alterity into conception. Here I explore the structure, economy and dynamics of species differentiation between the human and the animal, within the realm of knowledge, and beyond, with the goal of capturing the animal otherwise-as uncapturable. The animal I am tracking recedes like the horizon upon approach, yet it could not be more intimately close to me. To help us track the trace and scent of our messianic quarry I draw on the works of Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Derrida.
Open Access
The application of ecosystem approaches in the Golden Horseshoe Region, Ontario’
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2007-12-10) Berbés, Marta
Environmental crises have prompted a re-evaluation of traditional approaches to environmental management that has often highlighted their inability to deal with the complexity of social-ecological systems. The ecosystem approach (EA) offers an alternative that combines ideas from systems theory, participatory decision-making and adaptive management. However, EAs are still relatively young both as a discipline and as a practice, and as such, their meaning is continuously being redefined. This paper assesses the current state of development and the direction of EAs in the Golden Horseshoe Region (Ontario) by analyzing quantitative and qualitative data from interviews with EA practitioners. Practitioners were involved in projects that applied EA in a variety of fronts from ecological restoration to eco-health to urban development. The survey used helped to identify the theoretical foundations and core themes of EA; the methods, techniques and tools used; and, the factors and barriers to its implementation and potential application to other contexts. Two findings emerged from this research: first, despite the diversity of practitioners and applications, the theoretical understandings of EA are coalescing into a unified view that emphasizes the principles of integration, connectivity and participation. Second, successful implementation of EAs will require a parallel shift in the current institutional setting towards more adaptive forms of governance. Despite this obstacle EA continues to spread to applications in the fields of eco-health and urban development.
Open Access
Assessing the Net Zero Measures and the Achievement of Just Outcomes in Community Energy and Emissions Planning in Canada: A Study of Three Communities in New Brunswick
(2024-08-31) Angekumbura, Malsi; Winfield, Mark
In response to the global mission of limiting warming to 1.5°C, numerous measures have been implemented throughout the world at different scales, specifically targeting the achievement of net-zero emissions by 2050. While these measures are designed to address issues related to climate change, they also create new adverse impacts and injustices in society. The concept of “just transition" emphasises the need to mitigate such impacts, paving the way towards creating more sustainable net zero communities. Community energy and emissions planning is one such measure that has gained widespread recognition internationally and in Canada which is aimed at taking climate actions in the local context to reduce emissions and overcome injustice that could emerge from the transition. New Brunswick (NB) communities are actively engaged in developing Community Energy and Emissions Plans (CEEPs) to both reduce emissions and enhance community resilience. Despite these efforts, challenges such as unclear guidance and vague conceptualizations of the concepts of net-zero emissions and just transitions still persist. These issues challenge the development of robust net-zero measures that also generate just outcomes and hinder the effectiveness of achieving their intended targets. Additionally, despite the widespread implementation of community energy and emissions planning in Canada, their academic application remains limited. To close these gaps, the current research focused on identifying the key indicators that would define what needs to be considered in the measures to reach net zero emissions and guarantee a just transition and reviewing the actions of developed CEEPs in NB from an emission reduction and a just transition-based perspective to understand the level of integration of the key considerations and to gain a better understanding of the actions that NB communities have planned to pursue in reaching their net zero targets. A literature review was conducted to identify key indicators for the concepts of net zero emissions and just transition. CEEPs of three communities in NB: the city of Fredericton, the city of Moncton, and the town of St. Andrews were analysed using qualitative data analysis i methods. The review of the literature generated 10 indicators that should be considered in the measures to achieve net-zero emissions and generate just outcomes. The case study analysis revealed that the integration of actions that would support the generation of just outcomes was significantly less than the measures for net zero emissions in the CEEPs of NB communities. And most of the actions that were identified for just transition indirectly support the indicators rather than directly addressing it.
Open Access
The Beaufort Sea Maritime Boundary Dispute: High Stakes for Canadian Arctic Sovereignty and Resource Extraction in a Changing Climate
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2012) Pomerants, Daniel
This paper analyzes the Beaufort Sea maritime boundary dispute and the risk it poses to Canadian Arctic sovereignty and resource extraction in the North as the effects of climate change become more apparent. The confluence of environmental change, national level policies, international governance regimes, and how they come together to govern the Beaufort Sea is, of utmost concern to Canada and relations with Arctic partners, including, most notably, the United States of America (US). Therefore, this paper integrates thinking from each of these fields to explore the history, status, role and future relevance of the Beaufort Sea maritime boundary dispute in Arctic governance debates to analyze the linkages between Arctic sovereignty and energy development. More fundamentally, this paper seeks to understand why the dispute has not been resolved, what a resolution may look like, and who stands to benefit, through an analysis of the role of international law as it relates to the seas to determine what this says about the current stakes and interests involved there.
Open Access
The Bicycle and Urban Sustainability
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2001) Tomlinson, David
This paper presents a rationale for promoting bicycles for basic transportation, in the context of global efforts to achieve more sustainable urban development. The importance of urban transportation systems, and the negative impacts of automobile dependence are discussed. An empirical approach to developing local sustainable transportation initiatives is presented, based on comparative study of North American and European municipalities that have successfully promoted alternatives to automobile use. The general conclusion is that the overriding freedom of movement of motorists must be restrained as infrastructure improvements that support alternative modes are implemented.
Open Access
Biodiversity Conservation in Agroecosystems: A Comparison of Surface-dwelling Beetle Diversity in Various Shade Coffee Production Systems in Costa Rica
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2001) Hall, Susan
Beetle diversity was determined in six coffee agroecosystems representing a spectrum of structural complexity including (in increasing order) a chemical free site without shade, Poró (Erythrina poeppigiana), Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus deglupta), Amarillón (Terminalia amazonia), Banana (Musa spp.), and a control site at Los Cusingos Neotropical Bird Sanctuary. At each site beetles were collected using pitfall traps while leaf litter quantities and soil properties were recorded. Beetles were not related to structural complexity per se but were more strongly affected by soil and leaf litter characteristics. They showed relatively strong co-relations to increased leaf litter, increased soil fertility and decreased soil compaction.
Open Access
“The Call of the World, A Levinasian Response”
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2007-09) Little, Ronit
This paper addressed my desire to respond to the devastation of nature through the postphenomenological thought of Emmanuel Levinas. Its intent was to describe Levinas’s event of the pre-cognitive face-to-face encounter with the radical alterity of the Other as ethical, an appeal that commands a responsible response to the otherness of the Other. The paper presents discourses that address the conceptual roots of our environmental destruction. The first discourse is a critique of the Scientific Revolution of the Enlightenment that sees the shift from a medieval world-view to one structured along scientific-rational terms as the problematic. The second looks at our relationship to nature through the work of the Institute for Social Research (the first wave of the Frankfurt School) who saw the objectifying universal character of reason itself via the concept as having led to our domination of both outer and inner nature (ourselves). The paper brings Levinas’s development of singular infinite ethical responsibility into view providing a way to move beyond the impasses of the prior discourses as well as the perceived absence of ethics in poststructuralism/postmodernism theories. Levinas’s thought offers us an insight into the realm of the environmental movement as a political and institutional response to the cry of nature as a face-to-face event. The paper has implications for planning as well as policy directions. It does so by focussing on the establishment of the first wind turbine in an urban setting on Toronto’s lakeshore by the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative (TREC) as a model for the production/ownership/management of power in Ontario.
Open Access
“Cashberta:” Migration Experiences of Somali-Canadian Second Generation Youth in Canada
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2011) Jibril, Sagal
My paper examines the circumstances that have pushed Somali-Canadian male youth from Toronto to Alberta; a region with a growing and booming economy. Once in Alberta, Somali youth are caught in situations where many are unable to work in their professional fields, or are unemployed and underemployed due to lack of skills and education. Without employment, some of these Somali youths have ended up in criminal activities—ultimately leading to their death. This paper is grounded in the migration, settlement and integration of the Somali diaspora of Canada throughout the 1990s to the present, with an emphasis on the difficult integration and settlement experience of Somali-Canadian youth. It seeks to better understand the experiences of Somali families, specifically Somali families from the Greater Toronto Area, and the barriers they have faced in their process of relocation from Somalia to Canada. Further, this paper emphasizes the experiences of Somali-Canadian second generation male youth who are impacted by the obstacles their immigrant families face upon arrival in Toronto, and how that has hindered their integration into mainstream Canada such as in the labour market, the education system and their experiences with discrimination and other systemic barriers. These families face literacy problems and therefore cannot provide necessary educational support to their children at home. They face employment barriers and housing conditions in areas that are sometimes prone to violence, and consequently do not possess the requisite political skills to assist their children in navigating the various institutions that they must interact with such as the schools, security, policing and judicial systems. All of these challenges have affected Somali youth leading to their own difficult experiences in Canada.I anticipate that this paper will add onto the paucity of research on second generation immigrant youth, specifically the experiences of Somali-Canadian males in Toronto, and the struggles they face every day, such as acute discrimination due to their race, skin color and religion, and their origins from an immigrant household usually situated in low income neighbourhoods in the Greater Toronto Area.
Open Access
Cellph Reflection: Learnings from audience engagement, education, and cellphilms
(2020) Kendrick, Caterina; Flicker, Sarah
This major portfolio is a culmination of a research project which shared participatory visual work with diverse audiences to assess the promise and impacts of participatory visual methodologies. The research project that was developed became an offshoot from the Celling Sex study, which brought together 15 cis, queer, and racially diverse young women to share their experiences trading sex in Toronto. They shared their experiences and strategies to stay safer through cellphilmming (brief videos made on a cellphone). Key themes from participants’ cellphilms were brought together in an edited film to convey the project’s findings. Screening events were then organized with eight target audiences which the participants identified— ranging from community organizations, youth groups, health providers, and the general public. My research was guided by the following question: How do cellphilms and participatory visual methodologies more broadly, open up spaces for dialogue and (re)education as part of their aim in addressing social change? Here, I tie together three journal articles that document the research process, beginning with, “Staying Safe: How young women who trade sex in Toronto navigate risk and harm reduction”. This article is a precursor to the audience engagement research and explores the agentic harm reduction strategies which the young women involved in Celling Sex implement. This paper, in a sense, is a documentation of one of the primary findings which are taken up in the Celling Sex composite film. “Screening Stories: Methodological considerations for critical audience engagement” is a paper exploring the considerations, tensions, and ethical dilemmas that come with critical audience engagement work. Very little is documented about how to assess audience response to the products of participatory visual methodologies (PVM), this paper fills that gap and serves as a resource for other PVM researchers to consider. “Screen(ing) Share: Cellphilms, Audience and Social Change”, documents the pedagogical promise that can result from engaging in audience work and reception. My portfolio is rounded out with two pieces of work that presents the findings from the project and process in more accessible ways. The first is a short booklet which presents the thematic findings from the screenings to share with the communities and organizations which were involved in the research. The second is a cellphilm which I made after the research was said and done, to reflect on what I learned through the process of setting up and facilitating screenings.
Open Access
The Changing Face of Non-Traditional NGO Governance: The Case of the Chinmaya Rural Primary Health Care and Training Centre (CRTC), India
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2004) Diniz, Lisa
Nonprofit literature suggests that non-governmental organizations (NGOs), even those that intentionally want to maintain a collectivist structure, tend to adopt bureaucratic governance features when subject to growth and accountability from funders (Handy, Kassam and Ranade, 2000). The 'The Chinmaya Rural Primary Health Care and Training Centre' (CRTC), in India, is an exception as it chooses to maintain its collectivist structure despite its rapid growth, and its reliance on international funding. As a collectivist structure, it has developed a space that allows for its staff and constituents to take a more active role in its governance, departing from traditional governance that relies on trustees or boards (Smillie and Hailey, 2001). Garreth Morgan's principles of holographic design (1986) is used to explain CRTC's overall organizational structure that allows for inclusive governance mechanisms. By critically examining governance at CRTC for generalizations that can apply to other rural-development NGOs, this paper argues that it is possible for rural-based NGOs to develop non-traditional forms of governance by deliberately maintaining a collectivist structure. This widens the traditional governance equation to include staff and constituents with direct implications on the traditional functions of the board. The paper concludes with the 'Dynamic Holographic Collectivist Governance Model.' The model is neither comprehensive nor inflexible and is designed for generic adaptability by practitioners to suit their particular environmental needs.
Open Access
Colonial natures? Wilderness and culture in Gwaii Haanas National Park reserve and Haida heritage site
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2006-10-17) Porter-Bopp, Susanne
National parks in Canada have never only been about camping and wilderness preservation. Instead these parks are hubs of political, cultural, economic, and biophysical interaction that are subject to diverse national meanings. In Canada, national park status gives the state more power to ensure environmental standards than any other provincial or federal legislation. In examining the ways in which nature is a target of changing forms of governmental intervention, I look at how national parks in Canada continue to manage lands, people and the idea of nature. One of the core ideas that continues to shape national park projects is the explicit attempt to define a natural relationship between the nature contained within these places and Canadians. I argue that the creation of national parks involves the elaboration of a hegemonic governmental nationalism that is able to exercise powers of definition. A postcolonial environmental analysis is used to examine the nineteen-year struggle leading up to the creation of Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site on Haida Gwaii, British Columbia and its aftermath. The example of South Moresby is distinct in the history of both wilderness battles and of national parks in Canada because of the use of nationalist and sovereignist strategies to stop unsustainable exploitation of an ancient temperate rainforest. In particular, I explore the ways in which the Haida Nation’s assertion of title throughout the struggle has inflected different aspects of Gwaii Haanas, including how its existence as a national park of two nations troubles conventional imaginings of national parks in Canada. The connections that I draw between nature, nation and colonialism on Haida Gwaii are the result of an interest in the ways in which colonialism continues to operate in and through state institutions and lands in Canada.
Open Access
'Community-Based Sustainable Tourism within Conservation Areas: A paradigm for environmental and socio-economic alleviation of Mexicans?'
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2008-07-30) Arroyo, Michelle
This research examines the role of community participation in the implementation of a project of sustainable tourism within a conservation area in México. It aims to illustrate the value and challenges involved in promoting community-based participation, and seeks to propose a method that can be easily used by diverse Mexican communities eager to conserve their environment without compromising their wellbeing. The field research and project took place in a Mexican oil worker community. Community members, agencies and the President of the municipality were engaged in defining the issues and my research agenda. Closing the open-air garbage dump was the major concern that the community wants to address. The analysis included: a literature review; policy analysis; formal and informal interviews with an open-ended questionnaire, analysis of an Ixhuatlán de Sureste community-based project initiative; stakeholder identification; a sustainable tourism project proposal; concluding with an evaluation of the possible conflicts that the rural community could develop if following this alternative state government initiative. This project proposal contributes to the understanding of the Mexican environment policy as a new tool of land regulation and suggests the minimum aspects which need to be achieved when implementing a community-based sustainable tourism project.
Open Access
Comparing the Experiences of Refugee Women, Unwed Mothers, Sex Workers, and Women Living with HIV Accessing Healthcare in Morocco: Narrating Citizenship and Health
(2018-04-30) Khan, Nashwa; Flicker, Sarah
Although research on women’s health has been conducted throughout Morocco there are still significant gaps that require our attention. This is a result of the ever changing political, physical, and social environment in Morocco and across the world. Furthermore, the majority of emerging literature from Morocco with a focus on women's health has traditionally been conducted in silos focusing on women from very specific social locations. Intersecting factors impact health for women in Morocco, and this study hopes to bridge some of the existing gaps and speak to women’s health in Morocco beyond the identity specific silos while also acknowledging nuances and differences in lived experiences amongst women. This research investigates, compares, and contrasts four groups of women and their experiences accessing healthcare, specifically: 1) unwed mothers 2) women who are HIV positive 3) sex workers and 4) Syrian refugee women. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews and critical narrative methods. Furthermore multiple bodies of work in the fields of public health, community health, gender studies, narrative theory, and refugee and forced migration studies were examined to supplement this research. The data was coded three times using open coding and then coded using axial coding. The results of this small qualitative study illustrate that much of the previous literature provides a good foreground for research in this field, however, the results also disrupts notions perpetuated by siloed research of the past. By examining the four groups identified together, counter-narratives are formed that illuminate new findings and challenge older ones. For instance, some studies conflated the experiences of some of the groups of women I interviewed when in fact their experiences are diverse and should be complicated. The results will be shared back with community partners, non-governmental organizations, and published in both print and digital forms that are academic and nonacademic with the goal of enhancing health outcomes for women in Morocco.
Open Access
Compromising the Environment?: The Spruce Budworm, Aerial Insecticide Spraying, and the Pulp and Paper Industry in New Brunswick
(Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, 2002) Rashid, Asaf
Continual growth of the New Brunswick's pulp and paper industry since the late 1920s eventually brought the industry into conflict with the eastern spruce budworm (Choristineura fumiferana). This paper explores the evolution of budworm management since the 1950s, through an examination of the justifications behind the chosen control strategy of aerial insecticide spraying and the development of these justifications over time; through an examination of the criticisms of the spray program and the forest management practices that were linked to it; and, through an analysis of the design of the proposed control program for assessing responses to past criticisms.