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MES Major Papers

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10315/28142

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 618

Open Access
Ecological Encounters in Outdoor Early Childhood Education Programs: Pedagogies for childhood, Nature and Place
(2013-12-31) Rafferty, Sinead; Leduc, Tim
This paper explores how nature, place, and pedagogical practice are perceived by educators in three Canadian outdoor early childhood education programs. Intersections between ideologies in early childhood education and interests in environmental education are introduced to highlight possibilities for collaboration in education for social transformation and ecological justice. Thematic issues and philosophical undercurrents of modern culture are explored and how they shape human and nature relations in educational settings. This research is situated in the movement to reconnect children to nature, whose goals include more outdoor play, enhancing children’s well-being and fostering environmental concern. Elements of critical theory, ethnography, phenomenology, grounded theory, and documents analysis were crafted to inform questions and code for themes that emerged from interviews with educators from the outdoor early childhood programs. Findings revealed that what the educators perceived from outdoor play was that children were more experientially engaged with movement, the land, and the local flora and fauna they encountered outside. The combination of democratic, child-led, and emergent pedagogical approaches with the educator’s conceptualizations of ecological literacy allowed children to construct reciprocal and affective ways of knowing and meaning making in the outdoors. This alternative form of pedagogical praxis, revealed from the educators’ experiences and the immersion of learning and play in the outdoors, demonstrates tangible possibilities for transformative education that honours embodied ways of knowing and reconfigures human and nature relations towards sustaining life and an ethics of co-existence.
Open Access
Mobility as a Service (MaaS) within Smart City Planning
(2022-08-31) Whiffen, Bianca; Keil, Roger
The terms ‘smart city’ and ‘smart urbanism’ are oftentimes followed by statements about an environmentally friendly, sustainable, and data-driven urban future. Statements as such can be quite assumptive and controversial because the smart city is not homogenous and can vary from location to location. However, a smart city strives to be a technologically driven urban environment that uses a collection of sensors, monitors, and devices to collect specific data and information from humans. The information collected, extracted, and analyzed within the smart city is highly dependent on human interactions with such smart technology. Once the data from the city dwellers and visitors is extracted through the use of smart technology, big corporations, companies, transit agencies, and municipalities can better predict overall usage, patterns, and flows within the smart city. Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) is an emerging form of public and private transportation that allows for MaaS users to book and pay for a trip via smartphone, website, or call centre all through a single platform. MaaS’ overarching goal is to shift away from personal modes of transportation and to reduce overall traffic congestion. MaaS covers a wide variety of public transportation options such as On-Demand Transit (ODT), Automated Vehicles (AV’s), Electric Scooters (e-scooters), etc. ODT and AV’s provide shuttle buses to connect urban dwellers to their destinations, whereas e-scooters are available for a single individual to complete their trip. Therefore, this paper intends to focus on the use of smart technology and IoT within our transportation system and the political divides transportation can create within our built environment. Additionally, this paper will explore how MaaS micromobility options are changing our urban public transportation system and how such change impacts the level of access city dwellers have to such services.
Open Access
Land, Sea, and Us: Planning for Climate Change on The Rock
(2022-08-31) Way, Margaret; Taylor, Laura
This paper discusses the impact that climate change will have on Newfoundlanders and their relationship to the land and sea around them, specifically within the Avalon Peninsula (the most eastern section of the island). As an island, Newfoundland will have different climate change concerns than many parts of mainland Canada. I approach these questions of identity, relationship, and climate change through analyzing the relationship Newfoundlanders have to the island by way of ethnographic interviews and a review of literature pertaining to the people and cultures in Newfoundland. Cultural landscape theory is employed to contextualize and understand how Newfoundlanders situate themselves in Newfoundland and relate to the landscape. The impacts of climate change are understood from both the scientific literature on the physical changes associated with climate change, and how these changes will impact the relationship between Newfoundlanders and the island. I employ political ecology to understand the environmental politics at play in Newfoundland in regards to climate change planning at the provincial level. In this paper, I find that climate change planning in Newfoundland is lacking, that change is anticipated but felt to be far off, and that the province of Newfoundland and Labrador’s connection to the oil and gas sector hinders the province’s ability to properly plan for climate change.
Open Access
An Autoethnographic Approach to Cultivating a Sense of Belonging in the Niagara Region: Weaving Place through Intersecting Historical and Cultural Threads
(2022-08-31) Van Leeuwen, Yvonne; Sandberg, Anders
The way individuals belong and develop a sense of self in the world is grounded in the history and culture of their community. Belonging is also determined by the social construct we have depending on where we are in the world. This determines how the individual moves through their world, which I reflect upon by confronting my own perspectives of my cultural beliefs, practices, and experiences. By understanding the foundation of these perspectives, I deepen my analysis of belonging through theories and concepts of sense of self and sense of place. Following an autoethnographic approach, I address my sense of belonging in place through acceptance within a community, connection to the land, and understanding place attachment in physical and social spaces from emotional and symbolic belongings. I embed my story of childhood experiences into my adulthood within the culture, politics, and society of the Niagara Region. I cultivate sense of belonging further by including art as a way to express my ecological and ontological connection to the environment, and as a means to ground myself through contemplation and metaphor. My art, therefore, is embedded throughout as a collection of photographs and paintings to situate myself in historical places that are foundational to my belonging in Niagara as I weave together the tapestry of who I’ve become.
Open Access
Eco-pedagogy, total liberation and responsible planetary citizens
(2022-08-31) Vafa, Saeid; Fawcett, Leesa
This qualitative research study explored how family, society, and the education system, by neglecting to teach animal ethics to children, encourage speciesist and anthropocentric thoughts. Moreover, this study also investigates the factors that played a critical role in making animal rights activists sensitive toward justice for animals and the barriers and misconceptions that discouraged human rights activists from being involved in veganism and animal ethics. I used Critical Animal Studies (CAS) as a theoretical framework to better understand human and non-human animal relationships. CAS helped to employ intersectionality and ethics of responsibility to challenge the dominant speciesism and anthropocentrism in human and nonhuman animal relationships. I conducted semi-structured interviews with eight Iranian human rights activists and seven Iranian animal rights activists ranging in age from 20 - 35 years. The qualitative research revealed that all participants started to get involved in human or nonhuman animal social justice activism due to experiencing oppression and human rights abuse under a religious dictatorship in Iran. Human rights activist participants never had the chance to learn about speciesism through family, society, and the education system. They have so many misconceptions about veganism and animal ethics, and these misconceptions make them avoid joining the movement. They understand the intersectionality of oppression, but they don't bring animals into their moral circle. I argue animal rights activists who want to create an alliance with other social justice movements for the total liberation of human and non-human animals from oppression should show them how the issue of justice for human and non-human animals is intertwined and interlinked.
Open Access
Recipe-as-inquiry: Critical Feminist Food Pedagogies
(2022-08-31) Ross, Jessica; Myers, Lisa
Recipe as inquiry explores how critical history research, recipe adaptation and food-centered storytelling can be a tool for social change and a form of feminist pedagogy. Employing socially-engaged arts, cooking as inquiry, and critical pedagogy methods in a food education context, this two-pronged inquiry responds to the following questions: What kind of counternarratives emerge when I use recipes as a starting point of inquiry, both as a route for historical reflection and a way to engage with embodied knowledge transmission through the process of baking and adapting recipes? and What happens when hands-on food education is combined with critical discussion around place and home? This research draws from anti-racist and anti-colonial theory, including Black feminism and Indigenous perspectives on relational knowledge, an expansion of critical geography discourse analyzing contemporary food systems, colonial food history and my own settler family history. This research situates critical food pedagogies within environmental education discourse and practice in the form of two educational outcomes. The first is a memoir and cookbook manuscript that builds both whole grain food literacy and counternarratives around Atlantic canadian food history. The second outcome reviewed in this paper also focuses on expanding whole grain food literacy through the creation of a virtual whole grain baking workshop. This digital pedagogy event involves both practical skill development and offers critical background information and storytelling about the workshop recipe and its ingredients. Recipe- as-inquiry shows how food education can be a tool for social change by increasing the accessibility of food education spaces through digital delivery and through sharing whole grain food knowledge. As expressions of radical pedagogy praxis, this research shows how food is a site of relational knowledge building and how historic relations of food and people shape our contemporary food system and the stories we know and tell about home.
Open Access
“Saving the World”, One Fair Trade Cup of Coffee at a Time?
(2022-08-31) Rosano, Giulia; Montoya, Felipe
Coffee is the second-largest globally traded commodity after oil (Murray et al., 2007). As a result, coffee has woven its way into society's social, economic, and political fabric. Unfortunately, the coffee industry has also enabled multiple facets of inequality with negative impacts on its producers because of the volatile nature of its production and markets. To aid in producer equality, the Fair Trade initiative emerged as a social movement to ameliorate the alarmingly high rates of poverty faced by small-scale farmers. Fair Trade attempts to reconfigure capitalist trade relations to ensure fairness within trade relations (Ruiz & Luetchford, 2021, p.885). The overarching objective of this major paper will be to investigate the benefits and limitations of the Fair Trade partnership. A literature review of food movements, specifically food justice, will prove that Fair Trade fits within a reformist political trend that often reproduces, rather than reconfigures, structural inequalities (Ruiz & Luetchford, 2021, p.885). The analysis in the major paper includes a comparison of the coffee industry from the perspective of coffee farmers in Costa Rica, contrasted with Ontario coffee roasters. The Costa Rician small-scale producers are active members of cooperatives and grow coffee as a stable source of income. They shed light on the realities of Fair Trade and working with cooperatives. Understanding the daily realities of producers will be vital in making recommendations on improving Fair Trade policies and practices. The second portion of the analysis will focus on Ontario’s coffee roasters. These individuals operate coffee roasters and work closely with cooperatives to maintain a highly ethical partnership. This research component aims to identify the impact that coffee roasters (in the global North) have on small-scale producers (in the global South). For this major research paper, Ontario’s coffee industry will be limited to coffee roasters who work with Global South cooperatives that sell Fair Trade and other sustainable coffees but not specifically from Costa Rica. A consensus gathered from the interviews was that they are all working collectively to make positive changes in the coffee industry. On the producer level, they work with the cooperatives to earn a fair and decent living for their family farm while challenging the injustices at general assemblies. On the coffee roaster side, both Planet Bean and Equator are challenging the status quo by delivering premium coffee and making an actual difference in producers' lives.
Open Access
Energy Efficiency in Commercial Kitchens
(2022-08-31) Ritchie, Trevor; Lakhan, Calvin
The Energy Efficiency in Commercial Kitchens course project is intended to observe the presence of energy efficiency as a curriculum in post-secondary culinary institutions. It is designed to connect commercial kitchen planning and practice with emission reduction strategies as they relate to energy use. The following reflection provides an overview of the research findings and methods used to create an energy efficiency course proposed for post-secondary culinary students. This project responds to the gap in culinary training in prospect that chefs will gain the ability to identify opportunities for energy efficiency in commercial kitchens and become activists in energy reduction endeavours.
Open Access
Solidarity: The history and future of Canadian BIPOC co-operation and co-operatives in context
(2022-08-31) Redekop, Susanna; Myers, Lisa
This paper is a reflection of my research and experiences over the course of my Masters of Environmental Studies degree, which culminated in my co-founding Freedom Dreams Co-operative Education, an organization designed to educate about the co-operative model from an intersectionality lens specific to Black, Indigenous and People of Colour communities and to enable coalition building in the solidarity economy. Culturally diverse forms of co-operation are not recognized or understood well by the Canadian co-operative sector, which has led to a dominant model of co-operatives held up by and continuing to perpetuate colonial, heteropatriarchal constructs. This is problematic in the active erasure of BIPOC contributions to the co-operative sector, ignoring the diverse, rich cultural traditions of co-operation, and leaving out demographics of groups and individuals who may benefit from the co-op model. My research was guided by the following questions: How do Canadian co-operators and co-op activists engage more diverse communities in the co-operative model and establish more equitable and inclusive co-ops? How does the co-op sector introduce tools and education to form co-ops for interested BIPOC co-operators? What is it about the Canadian co-operative model that has made it inaccessible to many BIPOC communities? Through my primary and secondary research via interviews, focus groups and a literature review I draw on what I have learned from various communities of Black and Indigenous co-operators, and engage with critical pedagogy, Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), and decolonial theory. I argue that this is a pivotal time to reassess the Canadian co-operative sector in making room for more diverse voices and action, strengthening the wider solidarity economy with co-operative action and bringing co-operative values to work led by BIPOC co-operators, youth, and allies. The key findings of this research were that culturally diverse co-operation in Canada faces barriers of language, racism, and a lack of time, resources and trust. This paper is part of a portfolio which explores these themes and connects them to the broader body of work that explores co-operatives and the solidarity economy through an intersectional lens. This portfolio also includes a an appendix of partners building solidarity economy in Canada, a business plan outline for Freedom Dreams Co-operative Education and the framework for an upcoming workshop series analyzing the 7 Co-operative Principles using an anti-oppression lens, each intended to build on this reflection paper by creating practical tools for the co-operative sector.
Open Access
Embodied Abolition: A care-centered approach to changing systems
(2022-08-31) Pruginic, Snjezana; Haritaworn, Jinthana
This paper is a reflection on my master’s research project event Embodied Abolition, which was held virtually on April 9th, 2022, in Toronto. The research project was a full day event which brought together Canada-based artists, activists and healers working within abolition frameworks, as well as individuals with lived experience of incarceration and/or the criminal justice system. My research was guided and summarized by the following question: how do we build care-centered justice systems through a process of embodied abolition? Through community based participatory research, the event, and this paper, was informed by theories of transformative justice, community accountability, radical imagination (Kelley, 2003), pleasure activism (Brown, 2019), ethical relationality (Donaldson, 2016) and the practice of somatics and Somatic Abolition (Menakem, 2020). In addition, it engaged with a rich genealogy and epistemology of abolition and community centered care-making led by queer, trans, Black, Indigenous and People of colour across North America. What the Embodied Abolition event offered was a uniquely Canadian lens to abolition organizing by highlighting the works of panelists working within Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. The panelists offered perspectives on abolition which intersected with land back movements, decolonization, disability justice, Indigenous teachings, and trans and Black experience of the Canadian justice system. The event findings highlighted a few key themes as crucial in the praxis of abolition and building of a care-based justice system. These themes were: self-determined healing, radical and loving reciprocity and relations which invite all into the conversation, and centering of voices of those with lived experience of the criminal justice system. This paper further explores these themes and connects them to the broader body of work and experiences within abolition.
Open Access
Project Accessibility Reflection Paper
(2022-08-31) Preece, Tyler; Myers, Lisa
This research considers the experiences of seven students with physical disabilities navigating physical, education and social barriers in their respective schools located in south and central Ontario. Gathering first-hand experiences was my first step towards designing and establishing a pilot project centered around better integration of students with disabilities into high school. By working with students in grade 10-12, this research invited seven participants to identify the physical, social, and educational barriers they experienced, through two workshop sessions. I introduced disability justice as a useful concept for students to reflect on issues of ableism and used photovoice as a tool for students to share their thoughts and concerns about their school environments. Employing photovoice as a research method offers students a combination of photos and words to express their experiences and identify important issues. In my workshop, I had the participants take photos in and around their schools to document the barriers they encountered daily. There were a variety of barriers highlighted by the students; some were obvious, such as stairs, lack of accessible washrooms, and poor maintenance of the landscape surrounding the school. While less obvious ones were the social and educational barriers such as a lack of access to sports clubs, interaction with peers, and a lack of opportunities to learn about disability in coursework. Throughout the research, students proposed recommendations such as; regular maintenance of elevators and landscape, reduced number of desks in classrooms, and more accessible clubs free of barriers, to name a few. These findings reflect a system in need of change; a system that, with the right amount of care and attention can open itself up to reach a wider body of people and allow them to receive the education they deserve.
Open Access
Harnessing Electric Tractors for Sustainable Farming in Ontario
(2022-04-30) Olaluwoye, Alice; Etcheverry, Jose
In the last few decades, there have been growing concerns about climate change and its effects on humans, plants, and animals. The climate emergency impacts the health and economies of all countries and people around the globe; however, it is impacting people in low-income brackets at a much greater rate (ironically, low-income people have contributed the least to create and sustain the problem). Anthropocentric greenhouse (GHG) emissions in general and carbon emissions (C02) are primarily responsible for climate change. Therefore, the immediate reduction of all those emissions is vital to solving the climate crisis. One of the most effective strategies for reducing emissions is shifting to cleaner energy sources and decarbonizing energy use in the agricultural sector (which currently is one of the big users of fossil fuels). Therefore, a key goal of this major research report is to explore the advantages and barriers associated with using electric tractors to improve rural life while tackling pollution and reducing carbon emissions in rural areas. This research adopts a case study methodology to critically analyse the viability of introducing electric tractors powered with renewable energy, such as solar photovoltaics, which can help address the climate crisis while creating tangible benefits for Ontario farmers. Data was collected from electric tractor manufacturers in agricultural sectors across Europe and North America to understand market structure and environmental benefits of transitioning to electric mobility solutions powered by renewable energy sources in the agricultural sector of Ontario.
Open Access
Urban Hydro Corridors: Advancing Sustainability Strategies in Urban Settings A Finch Hydro Corridor Recreational Trail Case Study
(2022-04-30) Nanoa, Oriana; Foster, Jennifer
The area surrounding the Finch Hydro Corridor Recreational Trail located in the northern edges of the Greater Toronto Area, is poised to see extensive urban development due to significant transit and infrastructural developments. Hydro corridor’s present a multitude of opportunities to enhance sustainability strategies in urban settings. The rate of transit and infrastructural investment in the area must accompany and balance community and ecologically centred design. Overlooked and underappreciated spaces, such as the Finch Hydro Corridor Recreational Trail site is well-positioned to provide high-performing greenspaces that provide amenities and activities for everyone to enjoy. This research proposes the best design approaches for multi-use hydro corridor revitalization with a focus on a specific transect of the extensive Finch Hydro Corridor Recreational Trail. This research employs an in-depth review of various planning studies, policy documents, urban design strategies, design guidelines, parks and recreation documentation, along with a series of site visits to accompany my research findings. This research is intended to inspire thought around urban environmental design strategies centered around underutilized industrial greenspaces. Greenspaces have become integral in shaping and benefiting civic and community life and can be credited with acting as places of refuge and respite in a bustling metropolis. Landscape performance can be defined as a measure of the effectiveness with which landscape solutions fulfil their intended purpose. This study proposes, that if leveraged well, the Finch Hydro Corridor Recreational Trail study site can be a successful area to implement multifunctional landscape design elements that enhance social, environmental, and economic realms.
Open Access
Farmers’ ecological motivations: implications for forestation in South Nation River watershed and Ontario’s mixedwood plains ecozone
(2022-04-30) Mostert, Martin; Sandberg, Anders
This paper investigates deforestation in southern Ontario’s mixedwood plains ecozone. Farmers own much of the land in the mixedwood plains, thus forestation is examined through the lens of farmers’ ecological motivations. Two research methods are employed: an integrative literature review, and key informant interviews of farmers in the South Nation River watershed. Firstly, farmers’ ecological motivations on forestation in the EU, USA, Canada and Australia are examined via an integrative literature review of peer reviewed research. Various themes and issues are explored, which differ by region, policy, economic regime, and biophysical conditions. Secondly, the South Nation River watershed in eastern Ontario is examined closely since it experiences accelerated deforestation in the early 21st century. Results of key informant interviews of farmers in the South Nation River watershed are presented and compared to literature review results, which are quite different. Are tree-cutting by-laws effective at preventing deforestation? Experiences from other southern Ontario municipalities are compared to key informants’ comments. Only one literature review article examined the role of regulations. A main driver of deforestation in southern Ontario is urbanization. The literature review contains few references to urbanization. Adjacent eastern North American regions are examined and compared to southern Ontario’s mixedwood plains. Motivational crowding out is a concern in several literature review articles. The effects of motivational crowding out on farmers’ intrinsic motivations are discussed when extrinsic conservation motivators are introduced. Motivational crowding out has consequences; programme design may minimize these.
Open Access
Sustainability in Sport?
(2022-08-31) Monton, Jenilyn; Timmerman, Peter
The sports industry- in all its glory, and its impact on the environment is hardly collectively considered. This is particularly notable in major sporting leagues and professional sports in Western societies. Information regarding sports and the environment is generic, limited and does not consider other factors or influences apart from those already mentioned in existing research and literature. The main purpose of this study is to reach beyond what is already known and to explore areas within professional sports leagues that have considerable effects on our environment with the objective of gathering enough information to determine whether a sustainable sport culture is attainable. Is there such a thing? Or is it too late? This paper focuses primarily on the NBA’s relationship with the environment as the example of a major sports league and its effects, often neglected in studies and research. Areas explored in this research paper include: The history of existing literature on sports and the environment, Arena construction; sport manufacturing and production, the influences of globalization and the media on sport, society, and their effects on the environment, actions taken by sport sectors, credible environmental frameworks, and pro-environmental action from NBA teams. This paper follows an exploratory research method, and utilizes literature reviews, an interview process and a critical analysis of current major organizations and frameworks related to the sport and environmental sustainability sector, in hopes of closing the gaps in knowledge, and to add to current literature from a different perspective that could open doors and possibilities for other research opportunities. This paper concludes by demonstrating the limitations of this research, limitations of existing research, important steps moving forward—and based on the knowledge gathered, whether a sustainable sport culture is possible.
Open Access
Granting an Ontario River Legal Personhood: Possibility and Future
(2022-08-31) Kinley, Jamie; Winfield, Mark
This paper investigates whether or not legal personhood should be granted to a river in the province of Ontario, Canada, and the feasibility of doing so given its specific legal context. The answer to this research question is reached through the insight gained from three cases, including both civil and common law jurisdictions, in which legal personhood has been granted to rivers. The Whanganui River, Atrato River, and Vilcabamba River cases will be analysed and compared for the purpose of gaining a greater understanding of this relatively novel legal tool and its potential application to rivers in Ontario. This paper considers the cultural and environmental challenges and benefits of granting rivers rights, in each case within their respective legal, cultural, and political contexts in New Zealand, Colombia, and Ecuador, respectively. In each case, different legal mechanisms were used to recognize the river’s rights. These include a court declaration, constitutional amendment, and legislative recognition. The challenges and benefits of translating these mechanisms into an Ontario legal context are discussed and guidance from the insights gained from the cases analysed. Largely for reconciliatory reasons versus the consequent impact on remediating or preventing environmental harms, legal personhood should be pursued for the Wabigoon-English River system in Ontario. Specifically, despite the advantages that the mechanisms used in the other countries discussed may confer, the mechanism best-suited to the granting and protecting of this river system’s rights in the Ontario legal context is legislative recognition. This legislation should recognize the Wabigoon-English River system as a legal person and living entity, as well as appoint ‘guardians’ to act on its behalf and in its best interests. Concomittantly, constitutional recognition of the river’s rights should also be pursued to increase the likelihood of environmental protection and governmental compliance with the legislation.
Open Access
Frontline Workers with Lived Experience and Traumatic Stress In the Homelessness Sector
(2022-04-30) Jones, Alana; Gilbert, Liette
In the last forty years, various sectors have highlighted the importance of focusing on the wellbeing of service providers. Informally amongst my co-workers in the homelessness-serving sector, many have noted there has undoubtedly been a greater emphasis in the last ten years to enhance the support offered. Specifically, we have seen the embracing of peer workers, or frontline workers with lived experience (FWLEs), in addiction and mental health, with great value on their contribution to that sector (Miler et al., 2020). While the homelessness sector has made some progress in recognizing the contributions of frontline workers with lived experiences, we need platforms to amplify their voices to ensure the sector understands their relevance. It is evident through the many discussions with my peers that the stigma of homelessness continues to impact how FWLEs navigate their places of employment and access support. It is also evident that they remain at risk of (a) traumatic events based on their history, (b) acquired traumatic experiences. This paper examines the reported experiences of frontline workers in the homelessness sector, past research, and personal experiences as frontline staff with past and current traumatic stress. At the time of writing, there has been no recent work that focuses on traumatic stress in FWLEs in the homelessness sector, and thus, there are many inherent gaps. Acknowledging this research absence, this paper presents a pivotal pathway for supporting FWLEs in the homelessness sector.
Open Access
Informing Resource Managers - Using Local Ecological Knowledge of Murre Hunters, A Case Study
(2022-08-31) Humphries, Wayne; Fraser, Gail
Thirty murre hunters in Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada were interviewed during the 2021-22 hunting season to solicit their views respecting the federal regulatory framework in place to manage the hunt and to use hunter local ecological knowledge (LEK) to identify abundance and distribution changes in the study area. The results suggest that while murre hunters believe they have historic rights to hunt murres, they generally support the regulations in place. Furthermore, hunters would be prepared to accept amendments to the existing regulations to support conservation efforts if they were provided with evidence that was consistent with their own observations. Murre hunter interviews suggest that hunter knowledge of murre biology is weak despite their extensive hunting knowledge and experience. LEK was used to ascertain hunter temporal and spatial knowledge of murre abundance and distribution in the study area. LEK was useful to identify temporal and spatial distribution and abundance within each murre hunter’s hunting territory but was limited as a methodology to quantify abundance and distribution changes within the broader context. Despite this, hunters observed in murre distribution and abundance anomalies within Bonavista Bay due to changes in bait distribution, increasing ocean temperatures, lack of ice over the past decade, hunter pressure, fishing impacts, and wind conditions that impacted their hunting success.
Open Access
Diagnosing Doug Ford’s Durability: The Discourse and Political Economy of Right-Wing Populist Environmental Politics in Ontario
(2022-04-30) Hillson, Peter; Winfield, Mark
As we approach the 2022 Ontario provincial election, political observers are apt to be somewhat confused. To most, it would seem that the current Ontario government, facing increasingly low popularity and widespread dissatisfaction with its management of the COVID-19 pandemic, has been ‘mugged by reality.’ However, as of yet polls show the Conservative Party of Ontario, (though with a dented reputation), very likely to retain power if an election were called today. This poses something of a theoretical dilemma. How do we make sense of an approach to governance that seems to have been discredited by reality, but shambles on relatively undisturbed in the discursive/political realm? With the goal of answering that question, this paper forwards a theory of the Ford government’s discursive strategy in general, and then examines how that style has persisted. It approaches this investigation using through discourse analysis, political-economic analysis, and a Gramscian analysis of hegemony. It proposes that the Ford government’s resilience can be attributed to the ability of its populistneoliberal and promethean-populist discourses to absorb and explain challenges accompanying COVID-19, changes in environmental politics, and labor market polarization in Ontario, as well as the inability of institutional discursive alternatives to provide a compelling counterhegemonic discourse that moves beyond the facilitative-managerial discourse the Ford government displaced in 2018. It concludes by suggesting that a revision of the ‘Green New Deal’ discourse that incorporates elements of deliberative democracy and a ‘green economic survivalism’ discourse might prove to be a more successful counter-hegemonic discourse.
Open Access
The Role of the Arts in Environmental Education
(2022-08-31) Hamilton, Dale; Etcheverry, Jose
My Masters Final Portfolio focuses on the arts as a tool for community engagement and environmental education. In order to explore this topic, I created and disseminated several arts-based productions/presentations/actions that served to educate the public about climate change solutions. The over-arching guiding question for my final portfolio (and this report) is: Can the arts be used to educate and inspire individuals and communities to take actions towards alleviating both local and global impacts of climate change? In other words, is it possible to encourage individuals and communities to become more engaged in climate change solutions by either witnessing or participating in multidisciplinary arts-focused undertakings? And, if so, how can the impact of multidisciplinary arts in community engagement and environmental education be evaluated and documented? My theoretical framework was that dire warnings about climate change obstacles and climate change solutions, unto themselves, are not enough, especially given that the “climate emergency” has grown only more urgent, with so many resources (of necessity) being directed to the COVID pandemic. This was also my rational in creating a video version of a one-woman show, rather than a community-engaged approach.