Sociology

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Open Access
Psychonalysis, Fantasy, Postcoloniality: Derivative Nationalism and Historiography in Post-Ottoman Turkey
(2014-07-09) Ercel, Erkan; Canefe, Nergis
Probably nowhere are the themes of tolerance and multiculturalism more prominently at display than in the recently flourishing literature on Ottoman religious-ethnic communities in Turkey, wherein Ottoman rule, particularly the Millet System of the 15th -17th centuries, is romanticized by Turkish nativist historiographers as a perfect model of peaceful coexistence distinguished by exemplary hospitality and multicultural tolerance toward the Other, the “minorities”, be they Jews, Armenians or Greeks. In this dissertation, I investigate the role of these nativist historians and their historiography in the recuperation of Turkish national imagery, as well as the pitfalls of this sort of remembrance. While doing so, I draw upon the psychoanalytically-inspired concept of fantasy and postcolonial theory to demonstrate how the fantasy of Ottoman tolerance as a melancholic attachment to the past deals with the empire’s loss by pointing to internal and external enemies as threats to the unity and coherence of the nation. Domestically speaking, this fantasy promises to bring back the golden age in as much as enemies new and old will be eliminated on the way to restoring the nation’s power. At the same time, this fantasy takes on an international significance as it captures the essence of the reaction to the European imperative: “you should become multicultural and liberal like us.” The fantasy of the Ottoman Tolerance beats its European Other at its own game by claiming: “we were already multicultural.” Seen in these terms, the analysis of the nostalgic literature on Ottoman peace can illuminate how the “Occident/Western” and “Oriental/Derivative” (i.e. the Ottoman and Turkish) formations of the national imaginary are constructed, remembered and contested in the contemporary Global South. In light of these discussions I will question the conditions and possibilities of the ethics of remembering the Empire, and of entertaining a different relationship to the past in contemporary politics in Europe and Turkey. The key concern of my work is then to inquire into alternative ways to remember the Empire without remaining trapped in the fantasy of Ottoman tolerance, or its obverse, the fantasy of Oriental/Ottoman Despotism.
Open Access
Adorno, Hegel and the Philosophical Origins of Classical Social Theory
(2014-07-09) Fuller, Brian Wayne; Singer, Brian C J
The central claim of my dissertation is that the work of Theodor Adorno offers a valuable framework for reevaluating the philosophical heritage of classical social theory. In his ongoing engagement with the philosophy of German Idealism, and with Hegel in particular, Adorno’s philosophical, sociological, and cultural critical writings involve a critical rethinking of the relationship between subject and object, and between individual and society. I make two primary arguments to substantiate my claim. The first is that Adorno’s work must be understood within the context of the philosophy of Kant and Hegel. In particular, I show that Hegel’s critique of Kantian philosophy structures Adorno’s own understanding of the work of philosophy and of critical social theory. In the first part of the dissertation, I review the substance of Kantian epistemology, and of Hegel’s critique (Chapter 2); I then demonstrate that the Adorno’s critical philosophical procedure is grounded in his reading of Kant and Hegel (Chapter 3). My second primary argument is that Adorno’s attempt to articulate a critique of classical social theory is hampered by his own philosophical commitments. Through a juxtaposition of Marx’s critique of Hegel’s practical philosophy with Adorno’s own critique of Hegel (Chapter 4), I show that Adorno’s commitment to the negativity of the dialectic entails a conception of social theory that has not sufficiently addressed the implications of its materialist transformation. Adorno’s work relies upon a reduction of Hegel that remains problematic and unacknowledged. Next, I use a reading of Durkheim’s own philosophical commitments, through the lens of German Idealism, to show that Adorno’s immanent critique of Durkheim reproduces the aporiae that it seeks to rescue (Chapter 5). In the conclusion to the thesis (Chapter 6), I employ a discussion of the common themes and problems of Adorno’s critical-philosophical interpretation of classical social theory to suggest a reconsideration and renewal of its Hegelian heritage.
Open Access
Scientism, Humanism, and Religion: The New Atheism and the Rise of the Secular Movement
(2014-07-09) LeDrew, Stephen Harry; Hadj-Moussa, Ratiba
This dissertation examines the New Atheism as a secular fundamentalism that is both a utopian ideology and a social movement. It situates New Atheist thought within the context of the historical development of atheist thought and outlines the features of the ideology it promotes. It also examines the New Atheism’s role in the secular movement through research on major movement actions, campaigns, and debates on goals and strategies. It argues that the New Atheism comes into conflict with two other movement discourses: secular humanism and libertarian rationalism. These ideological conflicts are propelling the movement away from the New Atheism’s aggressive critique of religion toward more a more accommodating and inclusive approach that emphasizes basic humanistic values.
Open Access
Subjective Experiences of Expats in Vietnam: Linking Relative Social Position, the Habitus and Practice to Cross-Cultural Adaptation
(2014-07-09) Minot, Severine Eleonore; Nijhawan, Michael
This study examines the subjective experiences of expatriates in Vietnam, considering their relative social positions and dispositions as they adapt to local structural and cultural conditions. It explores how markers of differentiation related to nationality, race/ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, marital/relationship status and parenting influence the subjective negotiation of positionality, the constitution of habitus and adaptive practices. It is driven by three questions: i) how do factors of distinction affect the experience of expatriates? ii) how are relative social positions, dispositions and practice involved in the adaptation process? And iii) can long-term expatriation or successive expatriations prompt forms of adaptation that have a significant impact on the configuration of personal and social dispositions? Key concepts are drawn from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, although I propose complementary notions in order to heed expatriates’ subjective experiences and account for a potentially transformative habitus. Leaning more heavily on a phenomenological approach, the analysis focuses on the role of relative social positions and dispositions (dimensions of habitus) in the adaptation process. Structural and cultural conditions, along with deeply internalized ways of thinking/acting/being born of socialization, are taken into account, although emphasis is placed on the substance of narratives: the articulation of located perceptions, desires and needs, the apprehension of cross-cultural challenges, and the ramifications of adaptive and reflexive practices. This project draws on the results of 26 months of field observations, a survey administered to 300 respondents, 39 semi structured interviews and three thematic focus group sessions. The pairing of descriptive statistics and frequency analysis on one hand, and qualitative analysis on the other, is an unusual approach that generates complementary inferences. This study confirms that social positions and dispositions affect the subjective experiences of expatriates; that some adaptation strategies are deployed to accommodate, rather than challenge, dimensions of habitus, while other attitudinal adjustments mark an evolution in social actors’ dispositions. In some cases at least, it seems that relatively conscious reflexive and adaptive practices lead to the development of cross-cultural awareness and intersubjective engagements with profound effects on respondents’ practices and identities.
Open Access
The Micro-Politics of Border Control: Internal Struggles at Canadian Customs
(2014-07-09) Cote-Boucher, Karine; Sheptycki, James
This dissertation explores the remaking of Canadian customs from the point of view of border officers tasked with processing trucks and commodities. Historically employed for tax collection, border authorities have gradually been incorporated into security provision and trade facilitation. This has entailed the pluralization of public and private actors who have a stake in border regulation as well as the design of a series of organizational reforms, new customs programs, border technologies and intelligence-led policing strategies. As a result, there has been a disembedding of borderwork and a displacement of decision-making away from ports of entry. Frontline security professionals negotiate these changes in ways that have consequences for our understanding of border priorities. In response to the consequences of this new division of labour, including their loss of clout in the security field, customs officers attempt to maintain their hold on border responsibilities by relying on their discretionary powers. Meanwhile, they emphasize the potentially dangerous aspects of their work over the more administrative by deploying an enforcement narrative––one that has recently found its concrete application in their union's successful campaign to obtain arming for its members. While an analysis of the "pistolization" of borderwork indicates the progressive adoption of a policing sensibility by border officers, an examination of their restructured professional socialization reveals the emergence of distinct generational approaches to borderwork. Hiring and training play a central part in shaping "old ways" and "new ways" of doing borderwork. Anchored in divergent temporalities of border control, these internal categorizations of skills and attitudes point to the new registers of distinction mobilized by officers as they negotiate a transitioning security field.
Open Access
Expert Interventions for Democracy: The Historical and Epistemological Foundations of International Democracy
(2014-07-28) Christensen, Michael Jacob; Kurasawa, Fuyuki
The subject of this dissertation research is the field of professional organizations in North America that promote and assist democratization movements around the world. These organizations use a form of specialized expert knowledge to help activists, politicians and civil society organizations build democratic institutions. Specifically, this research investigates how historical academic debates shape the everyday practices of professionals in this field, and how these practices in turn shape contemporary debates. The study adopts a mixed methods approach by combining an intellectual history of democracy research and qualitative interview research with professionals working in the field. By examining the everyday practice of expertise, this dissertation contributes to emerging scholarly debates spanning the intersections of the sociology of knowledge, political sociology and international development studies by asking an ancient question. How can democracy be a collection of popular political ideals, yet also the object of specialized, technical or social scientific knowledge? According to the findings of this research, the contemporary practice of democracy assistance emerged out of debates about this paradox and, more importantly, organizations within this field rely on the insoluble nature of democratic theory and practice to justify expert interventions in countries struggling for democracy.
Open Access
Mapping the Division of Labour in Long-Term Residential Care Across Jurisdictions
(2015-01-26) Laxer, Katherine Erika; Armstrong, Pat
Despite the international emphasis on care in private homes, the demand for long-term residential care is rising given the growing number of older persons and those living with severe disabilities. Rising acuity levels of residents have resulted in calls for more training for care providers and concerns have been raised about the supply of workers, drawing attention to the working conditions, pay, benefits and status attached to work in long-term residential care. This industry is a link in the international care chain, with wealthy countries seeking workers from poorer countries. Yet, cross-national data sources provide limited information on the long-term residential care labour force, reflecting the value attached to the sector and the level of concern about the well-being of the labour force. Data that are available indicate that care is prioritized, divided and measured in different ways in different contexts and that there are varying degrees of precariousness experienced by workers. The evidence from the data also suggests that the public not-for-profit sector and unionization are critical shelters for the mostly women providers. Using a feminist political economy approach, this thesis outlines data available from statistical sources in Europe and North America with a case examination of four countries: Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Sweden. It critically maps the comparative data on the supply of labour in this industry of health and social care, as well as on their locations and relations. It illustrates the extent to which the framing of care in conventional terms, influenced by both neoliberal and medical notions of care, limits the statistical infrastructure in terms of its capacity to adequately measure workforces involved in long-term residential care and to provide a basis for addressing the continuing supply of labour in this sector.
Open Access
Early Modern Speculative Anthropology
(2015-01-26) McFarlane, Craig John; Singer, Brian C. J.
I argue seventeenth century social and political theory, while having the explicit goal of justifying new social, political, and economic arrangements, depended upon and demanded a division of the world into the distinct and separate ontological realms of nature and culture populated, respectively, by the non-human and the human. The explicit point of this move was to create a normative realm for the human free from the inhuman forces of nature. However, this division had severe normative consequences for both humans and non-humans. I focus on four sets of texts in order to demonstrate how this division and separation took place. First, I discuss Charles Butler's The Feminine Monarchie, first published in 1609, as an example of a transitional text which denies the split between nature and culture, but which draws upon concepts that demand such an ontological split. Second, I discuss Thomas Hobbes's political works (The Elements of Law, De Cive, and Leviathan) focusing upon how the movement from the state of nature to the commonwealth depends upon a transformation of the "human animal" into the "human animal." The production of both the human and the non-human is the primordial task of the sovereign. Third, I discuss Samuel Pufendorf's Elements of Universal Jurisprudence, Of the Laws of Nature and Nations, and On the Duty of Man and Citizen focusing upon his distinction between physical entities and moral entities; the latter of which depend upon what he calls "properly human action," but which does so inconsistently. Fourth, I discuss John Locke's Two Treatises of Government focusing upon how his theory of property functions to legitimate the domination of the non-human by the human. Finally, I discuss how the modern division between the human and non-human is untenable, that it leads to perverse consequences, and suggest that the distinction between both human and non-human as well as nature and culture ought to be abandoned in favour of an ecological social science.
Open Access
Remaking the Nation-State: Multiculturalism, Neoliberalism, and Urban Revitalization
(2015-01-26) Rosa, Vanessa Anne; Mongia, Radhika
My dissertation, Remaking the Nation-State: Multiculturalism, Neoliberalism, and Urban Revitalization, investigates the revitalization of two low-income housing projects in Toronto, Canada: Regent Park and Lawrence Heights. I situate my investigation at the intersection of nation-state/nationalism studies and urban studies and argue that processes of urban revitalization are an important site for the production of national identity and state practices. I examine links between revitalization projects and the construction of the Canadian nation-state by tracing how discourses of multiculturalism and neoliberalism gain currency in urban revitalization projects. In particular, I investigate the links between historical urban processes of development and revitalization and North American projects of nation-state formation. I explore this entanglement by tracing what I identify as three distinct technologies that shape and are embedded in the revitalization planning process: discourses of diversity, surveillance, and consultations. I argue that the emphasis on participation of both culturally diverse and entrepreneurial subjects in community consultations and community policing integrates residents into rituals of democracy that are enmeshed with national ideals. My investigation maps this set of social processes to show how they ultimately reproduce exclusion and disparity by regulating diversity, normalizing community policing, and mandating consultations. Through my ethnographic research, I also trace how residents negotiate these processes and make meaning of participation that creates space for their own understandings of surveillance and consultation. My exploration locates the Canadian context in relation to broader examinations of nation-state making and as such can help us to understand the management of sociocultural difference and the neoliberal production of inequality in the contemporary moment.
Open Access
Gladue Courts: Navigating Contradictory Orientations to Rehabilitate and Punish
(2015-01-26) Cifelli, Michael Paul; Lawrence, Bonita
This research thesis details a year-long observation and analysis of Gladue (Aboriginal-specific) courts in Toronto from April 2013 – July 2014. The primary focus of this project is the way Gladue courts reconcile and interpret contradictory demands to both rehabilitate and incarcerate Aboriginal peoples in light of legislative and judicial requirements. Utilizing a discourse analysis methodology for observations and transcripts, this thesis sought to analyze how rehabilitation and punishment is conceptualized and implemented in Gladue courts given recent legislative changes. The overall effect is that neo-liberal and paternalist principles are chosen and applied depending on the individual circumstances of the case, with new punitive policies left for the most egregious offenders. This application underlines a law and order policy that is concerned with pragmatic/practical concerns and which leads to a discursive framework that objectifies Aboriginal peoples through racist/colonial conceptions of intrinsic victimization.
Open Access
Adaptation Narratives: Climate Change and Environmental Politics in Mexican Costal Communities
(2015-08-28) Vazquez Garcia, Luz Maria; Vandergeest, Peter
This dissertation explores some key challenges the Mexican government and international organizations such as the World Bank may face when implementing climate change adaptation initiatives in coastal lagoon communities in the Mexican state of Tabasco, in the Gulf of Mexico. My analysis of the government’s climate change adaptation initiatives, scientists’ explanations, and fishers’ views on local environmental changes is based on political ecology approaches to environmental narratives, and critical literature on climate change. It outlines the interaction among three environmental narratives: that produced by the Mexican government and its allies who are re-orienting environmental programs into climate change adaptation programs; scientific narratives on coastal environmental processes including coastal erosion; and the narrative produced by poor fishers who are dependent on lagoon and coastal resources for their livelihoods, and who blame the off shore oil industry for most of their environmental problems. Scientific accounts of coastal environmental change tend to support more the position of fishers than the government, which produces a need for the government to be selective in how it uses science to justify its adaptation programs. The dissertation then examines the challenges that state initiatives of this type face when they interact with local environmental politics involving fishers and the state-owned oil industry. While fishers blame the oil industry for environmental problems, government adaptation programs seek to enrol fishers and the oil industry together as vulnerable to the local effects of climate change such as coastal erosion and increased frequency of hurricanes. I discuss how through processes of simplification, state agencies render complex political issues into technical problems, but how, in light of local conflicts, climate change adaptation interventions become highly political on the ground. I also argue that climate change policy analysis must be done in light of past and failed state interventions in Tabasco, which have resulted in what scholars have called a “harmful development” for fishers and ecosystems (Tudela, 1989).
Open Access
Governing Irregular Migration: Logics and Practices in Spanish Immigration Policy
(2015-08-28) Moffette, David; Pratt, Anna C.
Since the first substantive changes to Spanish immigration laws in the 1980s, immigration to Spain and the policies designed to govern it have changed greatly. The pace of this continuous transformation has recently slowed down, offering a good opportunity to reflect on the ways in which irregular migration has been governed over time. Taking stock of more than three decades of debates in the Spanish Congress, laws, policy documents, interview findings and practices, this dissertation offers a sociological analysis of the messy process of immigration governance in a border country of the European Union. The dissertation starts by analyzing the early problematizations of irregular migration in Spain, understood as the result of discursive and non-discursive practices that provide specific ways of thinking about and acting upon objects. Complicating the assumption that policy shifts are a straightforward result of changes in the political orientation of ruling parties, the dissertation traces the existence of three intersecting sets of logics and practices that have shaped Spanish immigration policy over time: (1) culturalization: a set of logics and practices intimately tied to the history of Spanish colonialism and governing migrants as cultural subjects; (2) labouralization: a set of logics and practices that attempt to manage labour migration flows and frame irregular migrants as workers who contribute to the national labour market; and (3) securitization: a set of logics and practices focused on the defence of state sovereignty, the prevention of irregular entry and the framing of irregular migrants as potential threats. The organization of heterogeneous practices into three broad categories acts as a heuristic device to show how various complementary and at times contradictory logics and practices work together to create a practical regime of migration governance based on a long probationary period during which irregular migrants are scrutinized and policed. Ultimately, this dissertation posits the existence in Spain of a regime governing immigration through probation. This regime entails the rescaling of bordering practices across space and time, the deployment of a space of legal liminality in which irregular migrants are kept, and the use of conditionality and discretion in the assessment of desirability.
Open Access
Hearing the Voice From the Veil. An Ethnographic Inquiry Into the Mourning For Lady Zainab By Toronto Shiites
(2015-08-28) Hirji, Ali Abbas Mehboob; Nijhawan, Michael
The religious flux experienced by Indo-Pakistani Shiites in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) raises insightful questions about how and why their lamentation assemblies are modified. Although the martyrdom of Hussain and his companions at the siege of Karbala has an existential importance to Shiite mourning, a premium is also placed on the narrative of Lady Zaynab, the first granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad. I use the veneration of Zaynab as my guide into explaining ritual change within this Shiite diaspora. Zaynab was Hussain’s comrade in spirit and, in the absence of Zaynab, Hussain’s resistance was futile – her strength of mind, compassion and dedication make her the cornerstone of Shiite belief and the driving force behind the panorama of Shiite mourning rituals and assemblies. These mourning rituals are discussed through my participation in them during my formative years in Dubai, the strict formulae to our mourning and the socioeconomic, political circumstances within which our mourning transpired. Through the authoritative discourses that mediated our mourning, I highlight the ritual change I unexpectedly witnessed upon migrating to the Greater Toronto Area, how it is received by the elder members of the Shiite diaspora and the fluid interpretations of Shiite mourning within the context of ritual theory, identity and diaspora.
Open Access
Making it Work: A Study of the Decision-Making Processes of Personal Support Workers in Long-Term Residential Care
(2015-08-28) Day, Suzanne Louise; Armstrong, Pat
This dissertation explores the decision-making processes of personal support workers (PSWs) in long-term residential care (LTRC). These workers are lowest in the LTRC labour hierarchy, performing the majority of "hands-on" care. Research has shown that PSWs have little input in formal care planning and organizational processes, but retain some limited control over how they work on a daily/nightly basis. Given this, my study asks: where can PSWs make decisions, what factors shape their capacity to decide and, when they can make decisions, what are the factors that these decisions respond to? I use a feminist political economy framework to answer these questions, and begin by examining broader social, political, economic, and historical features of the LTRC landscape on a global, national, and provincial level. Located on this landscape is “Riverside Home”, a multi-unit LTRC facility in a large urban city in Ontario. My analysis draws on data from a rapid ethnography conducted at this site, obtained through my participation as a student researcher on the project Re-Imagining Long-Term Residential Care: An International Study of Promising Practices. I use both observations of and interviews with personal support workers at Riverside Home, examining their daily/nightly experiences of care work including feeding residents, bathing/grooming, toileting/continence care, and clothing/laundry. My analysis demonstrates that PSWs experience a narrowed capacity to make decisions about care, and both regulations and restructuring have impacted their workload, work organization and working conditions. However, amidst this narrowed capacity to decide, PSWs make numerous important decisions throughout their daily/nightly care work, including adjusting the tempo of their work, prioritizing tasks, rearranging their workload, and coping with abuse. My findings demonstrate that PSW decision-making in LTRC is a complex social process shaped by and in response to social location (i.e. the intersecting variables of race, gender and class), work organization, regulations, LTRC (re)structuring, and models of care. By locating PSW decision-making within these multi-layered “nested” contexts, I demonstrate that the conditions of PSWs’ direct care work in LTRC are neither natural nor inevitable, and thus are transformable for the benefit of both workers and the residents they care for.
Open Access
Re-Conceptualizing "Contributing" Homelessness and Unpaid Labour in a Neo-Liberal Climate
(2015-08-28) Choy, Mary Rebecca; Gazso, Amber M.
The goal of this research was to challenge notions of “contributing” in active citizen discourse. This was done by exploring how individuals experiencing homelessness give back to their communities while surviving through social exclusion and life on the streets. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals who experienced homelessness between the ages of 40-64. This research found that respondents gave back to others through various forms of labour in ways that were mutually beneficial. Contributing to the well being of others helped respondents to cope with homelessness by gaining opportunities, resources, information, networks and developing a sense of well being, confidence or support. The findings suggest a need to re-conceptualize “contributing” in ways that recognize alternative forms of citizenship activities and participation. By doing so, all people, including people without homes, can be recognized as contributing citizens in their communities.
Open Access
From the Incinerator to the Bank: A Feminist Qualitative Study of Private Cord Blood Banking in Canada
(2015-08-28) Haw, Jin-Young Jennie; Weir, Lorna
This is a feminist, qualitative study of private umbilical cord blood banking in Canada. Drawing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 12 women who banked cord blood, 6 key informants from 4 different private cord blood banks, and 3 healthcare professionals, I consider what private cord blood banking can tell us about contemporary biopolitics, the production of biovalue in corporeal materials, the promise of “biological insurance,” and the social actor of neoliberalism. My research makes several key contributions to sociological literature on stem cell science, health and contemporary biopolitics. First, I make a feminist, empirical contribution to social science scholarship on private cord blood banking specifically. Second, I expand on the biovalue literature by demonstrating the social production of biovalue in a specific cord blood unit. I show that the production of biovalue in cord blood units is a social process that involves tensions and negotiations between women, private banks and clinicians across different expert discourses and profane knowledges. Third, I critically examine the metaphor of private cord blood banking as “biological insurance.” Private cord blood banks emphasize the future, speculative promises of regenerative stem cell therapies and market their services as a form of insurance. Contrary to this position, I show how in some cases cord blood fails to provide the protection it promises. Fourth, this study challenges contemporary literature on the active subject in health. I argue that women’s experiences of cord blood banking show that the conventional interpretation of the active subject as a rational, calculating subject that engages in contemporary health strategies in a hopeful manner requires revision. I show that women act as precautionary actors who bank in a context of uncertainty and fear. By providing an in-depth, empirical examination of women’s experiences of private cord blood banking, I offer a feminist, critical account of a contemporary biopolitical strategy in the Global North: health optimization through private tissue storage. I challenge biopolitics scholarship that presents an over-generalized, acritical account of contemporary biopolitics and argue for greater analytic and empirical attention to the everyday experiences of people who engage in health optimizing practices.
Open Access
Negotiating Colonial Encounters: (Un)Mapping the Policing of Indigenous Peoples' Protests in Canada
(2015-08-28) Dafnos, Democratia; Williams, James W.
This dissertation adopts an analytic concept of settler colonial pacification to examine shifts in the policing of Indigenous peoples’ protests in Ontario from the mid-1990s to 2013. Following the high-profile conflicts at Oka/ Kanesatake, Gustafsen Lake/ Ts'Peten and Ipperwash/ Aazhoodena, the Ontario Provincial Police and RCMP introduced several reforms, which were promoted as guarding against the escalation of violence during protests: relationship-building with Indigenous communities, negotiation-based protest policing, measured response, and intelligence-led policing. These have been adopted in the context of an intensified national security environment based on the protection of critical infrastructure. My project situates these reforms in the context of the Canadian state’s ongoing project of settler colonialism. For a critical understanding of policing, colonial relations must be foundational to the analysis and the police institution must be situated in the context of ongoing colonialism because of its historical foundations in constituting settler colonial order. Through open source texts, records obtained through access to information requests, and interviews with law enforcement and government personnel, this dissertation (un)maps institutional policies, practices, tensions and disjunctures in the implementation of reforms. I trace the practices and interconnections of three institutional clusters of policing: front line police forces, the intelligence and national security nexus, and Indian Affairs and the emergency management apparatus. These processes are organized through and reinforce the symbiotic depoliticising logics of (1) liberal legalistic discourses of rights, and (2) security discourses of prevention and management. I argue that these contemporary practices can be understood as settler colonial pacification strategies that simultaneously work to suppress Indigenous nationhood and (re)produce the Canadian nation-state. Deployed in governing Indigenous peoples, these practices reveal the persistent settler state concern with asserting sovereign authority. As settler colonialism is an ongoing process, there are historical continuities and discontinuities in pacification practices. Shifts and disjunctures in policing practices reflect the inherent instability and anxieties of settler colonialism and the paradox of liberal democratic policing vis-à-vis Indigenous self-determination struggles.
Open Access
The Eastward Expansion of the European Union: Perspectives from University Students in Belgrade, Serbia
(2015-08-28) Golubovic, Jelena; Winland, Daphne Naomi
This thesis explores how the eastward expansion of the European Union (EU) affects the lives and identities of university students in Belgrade, Serbia, a post-socialist, post-conflict, and non-EU country. This study involved qualitative interviews of 17 students aged 20 to 30, a generation that grew up during the 1990s when the Yugoslav secession wars made Serbia isolated from Western Europe politically and economically. A central question of this project is what it means to live in a non-EU state in Europe as the EU expands to include more post-socialist and Eastern European states. This study finds that participants tend to identify as belonging in Europe despite Serbia’s geopolitical position on the outside of the EU, and explores how the issues of emplacement and exclusion affect participants’ perceptions of everyday life in Belgrade as they compare it to how they imagine life to be like in the EU.
Open Access
Political Genealogies of a Generation: Kin, Movement and Party in the Greek Diaspora
(2015-08-28) Pendakis, Katherine Laura; Nijhawan, Michael
This dissertation is about the struggle of one generation of men in the Greek diaspora to come to terms with––and act within––political genealogies that had shaped their everyday lives since childhood and with which they remain in an ongoing relation of (dis)identification today. The Greek civil war (1946-1949) had bestowed upon these men an inheritance of polarized associations: nationalism, religiosity, order, on the one hand, and anti-Greek communism, on the other. Their childhood and adolescence in the post-civil war years were shaped by state practices that polarized the Left from the Right. By the time of the dictatorship in 1967, which was the catalyst for many to leave, families in Greece had experienced decades of institutionalized marginalization. The focus here is on the intersection of this legacy with the political activities and sensibilities of those who arrived in Toronto and mobilized themselves against the Greek regime. While the anti-dictatorship movement they created was originally heterogeneous, it became concentrically organized around the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK) and the leadership of Toronto-based professor Andreas Papandreou. After the fall of the dictatorship in 1974, PAK became the foundation for a new political party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), with Andreas Papandreou as leader once again. Emerging as the hegemonic articulation of the left, PASOK became the first socialist party to govern Greece in 1981. Practically speaking, this meant that those anti-junta activists returning to Greece from Canada after the fall of the dictatorship found themselves navigating opportunities and trajectories that would have been inconceivable just a few years prior. The problem to be investigated in this dissertation is twofold: First, to what extent does the civil war have a legacy in the narratives of men who migrated to Canada in the 1960s and 1970s and how is this expressed? Second, how are political subjectivities constructed in these accounts from the vantage point of the ambiguous present-as-crisis? These questions are approached through ethnographic observations and interviews with those who were involved in the anti-dictatorship movement and either stayed in Toronto or returned to Greece after the fall of the military junta.
Open Access
Universities, Community Engagement, and Democratic Social Science
(2015-08-28) Bourke, Alan Gerard; Erwin, Lorna
The purpose of this dissertation is to identify and compare differences between institutional conceptualizations of community engagement with the understanding and practices of faculty engaged in community-based research (CBR), and analyze the implications of these differences. The study contrasts the model of community engagement that is being promoted by universities and the granting agencies (specifically the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) with what community-engaged researchers experience it to be, with a view to developing an analysis of the relationship between individuals and the political economy of research in which they work. In Canada, universities are being encouraged by the federal government to assume greater responsibility for economic development and to translate knowledge into products and services for the market—while at the same time being tasked to work with communities in alleviating the social and economic excesses of the market. Drawing upon a qualitative, interview-based research design, my main line of argument is that there is a contradiction regarding the democratization of knowledge production between universities and communities that the institutionalization of community engagement promises—and the aligning of this process of knowledge production with market-driven forces and outcomes. The concern addressed in the dissertation is that the emancipatory intentions of community-based research are being co-opted by the entrepreneurial and managerial ethos influencing and structuring the "doing" of research. Such developments necessitate an interrogation of the institutional contexts in which participatory and community-engaged research are becoming positioned within the market-driven and performance-based governance of university research.