Journal articles by Jessica Parish
Urban Geography, 2020
This short essay, flowing through Nairobi and Toronto, represents
a transnational conversation on... more This short essay, flowing through Nairobi and Toronto, represents
a transnational conversation on what the contemporary status of
urban rivers can tell us about the endurance of coloniality in these
two spaces. Against the hegemonic bids for their “revitalization,” we
attend to these two rivers, both of which helped propel the growth of
their respective urban agglomerations, as symbols of people-centered
struggles for abolition ecologies. We aim to provoke the incorporation
of more plural understandings and narrations within the
discipline of geography, and have been struck by the similarities across
different post- and settler-colonial contexts, and, as well, the limited
lenses that attend to these environments in academic scholarship.
Accordingly, we also highlight the possibilities that emerge in thinking
jointly with urban spaces across the “North” and “South” divide, in
order to demonstrate the connected and pervasive nature of empire,
and the variegated practices that resist coloniality in cities.
Urban Planning, 2023
This article investigates the evolving concept of fiduciary duty and its role in Canadian public ... more This article investigates the evolving concept of fiduciary duty and its role in Canadian public sector pension funds' environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing practices. It contributes to the literature in the distinct but related fields of environmental gentrification and urban climate finance by bringing fiduciary debates into sharper focus. Engagement with issues surrounding investors' legal and ethical duties to invest responsibly can contribute to an enhanced understanding of the global and local mechanisms of production and reproduction of environmental and spatial inequalities, as well as strategies for creating more than just urban futures. ESG, a calculative and modelling technique used to manage investment risks, overwhelmingly focuses on physical and financial climate risks (e.g., infrastructure assets and risks associated with regulatory change). This privileges the instrumental, Cartesian view of the environment as severed from its social, historical, and relational character, a perspective that has been thoroughly critiqued in the environmental/ecological gentrification literature. However, ESG investing has also introduced a potentially productive uncertainty in the realm of financial expertise; it forces questions about what it means to invest deferred compensation in the "best interests" of workers and retirees. This article has three interrelated aims. First, it reviews recent trends in environmental gentrification and urban climate finance literature to highlight an emerging but underdeveloped engagement with ESG and fiduciary duty. Second, it shows how the rise of ESG has revealed a vulnerability in the hegemonic profit maximization interpretation of fiduciary duty and invited further, open-ended, critical-theoretical engagements with the concept of the fiduciary and their responsibilities. Finally, it offers the concept of "fiduciary activism from below" to explore how grassroots agency increasingly stages a direct confrontation with corporations, institutional investors, and shareholders in the struggles over urban space and resistance to environmental and infrastructural violence.
Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2019
In 21st century Toronto, the labour of caring for urban trees is entangled with both gentrificati... more In 21st century Toronto, the labour of caring for urban trees is entangled with both gentrification processes and the social reproduction of settler colonial space. This paper contributes to the study of environmental gentrification through a study of the social reproduction of settler colonial relations to land in the Parkdale-High Park area of Toronto. Specifically, I take up the hyper-visibility of some forms of social reproduction, in order to shed light on how the mundane, quotidian 'non-work' of living in/with/for capitalism becomes a site of privilege and a luxury pursuit for more affluent residents. The paper highlights the processes and practices whereby settler colonial urban subjects seek out 'nature' as a temporary outside where they can escape from widely accepted downsides of capitalist urbanism, including a diverse array of social and physical ills, from stress, to obesity, to ecological degradation. The paper asks: whose social reproduction does the presence of urban trees serve? In the context of 21st century financialized gentrification, cities are increasingly normalized as spaces of wealth and luxury. It is therefore crucial to pay attention to the raced, gendered, and colonial micro-politics through which urban ecologies are transformed in the service of an anti-democratic vision of the city as a space of leisure and luxury.
Recent years have witnessed shifts in the social organisation of emotional and care labour, espec... more Recent years have witnessed shifts in the social organisation of emotional and care labour, especially as they intersect with new global trends in migratory patterns and international mobility, the restructuring of social reproduction and public—private divides, as well as the flexibilization of labour markets and a resurgence of unpaid labour such as volunteer work. With a focus on emotions and affect as a central epistemological and methodological orientation, this essay aims to draw connections between three distinct but related bodies of feminist scholarship: social reproduction theory, studies of emotional labour, and emotional geographies. The paper frames these approaches relative to the project of understanding the spatial dimensions of forms of emotional and care labour in neoliberal times.
abstract While social justice advocacy has been a part of counselling psychology since its incept... more abstract While social justice advocacy has been a part of counselling psychology since its inception , its role in the field has been debated. Many professionals have called for increased attention to social justice awareness and advocacy to enable the profession to meet the expanding needs of clients. The present article proposes that a move toward prioritizing social-justice issues necessitates the inclusion of graduate students. The authors contend that graduate programming in counselling psychology must provide students with opportunities to engage with the critical discourses of critical psychology, feminism, and multiculturalism in the aim of pursuing social justice-oriented practice and research. résumé Depuis les débuts du counseling en tant que discipline reconnue, la promotion de la justice sociale a toujours fait partie des débats. Bon nombre de discussions et de contestations existent toujours quant au rôle concret de la justice sociale au sein de cette discipline. En effet, plusieurs professionnels ont attiré notre attention sur l'importance de la prise de conscience et de mise en action de la justice sociale afin de permettre à la profession de remplir les besoins d'une clientèle grandissante. Cet article suggère qu'il est nécessaire d'inclure des étudiant(e)s de 2 et 3 cycles si l'on veut faire des sujets de justice sociale une priorité. Les auteurs soutiennent que le programme d'études supérieures en psychologie du counseling doit fournir aux étudiants des opportunités de pratiquer la psychologie critique, le féminisme, et le multiculturalisme dans le but de poursuivre en théorie et en pratique une meilleure justice sociale.
Papers by Jessica Parish
Tourism and Everyday Life in the Contemporary City (Routledge), 2019
The twenty-first century explosion of day spas and yoga studios is a distinct urban phenomenon th... more The twenty-first century explosion of day spas and yoga studios is a distinct urban phenomenon that re-aligns the mundane and the exotic through the promise of escape that they offer. The City of Toronto and its “creative-class” spokespeople position the Canadian metropolis as a highly desirable space of in-migration for tourists and workers alike. However, in this paper I show that global Toronto is also a space and time from which people seek to break free, particularly from the alienation of neoliberal capitalist social relations. Drawing on a discourse analysis of promotional materials and interviews with wellness practitioners, this paper shows how the wellness industries mobilise the desire for journeying elsewhere, whilst remaining in the city and participating in the broader social
reproduction of the city and its dominant social relations. The possibility of transcending the routine aspects of capitalist everyday life is held out through the exotification of health and wellness experiences, as costly, exclusive, and at times, neo-Orientalist in character. Thus these practices do not simply represent a pluralist expansion of choice in wellness services, but are internal to the reproduction of a differentiated labour force in/for neoliberal capitalism.
3 THE YORK CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL AND SECURITY STUDIES pursues a triple mandate of research, gr... more 3 THE YORK CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL AND SECURITY STUDIES pursues a triple mandate of research, graduate teaching, and outreach. We undertake critical and theoretically-informed research that is driven by a concern with the ethical-political dimensions of national defence and international security. We recognize, as participants in policy debates, that foreign and defence policies succeed or fail based on the specifics of the people, places, and situations they emerge from and transform.
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Journal articles by Jessica Parish
a transnational conversation on what the contemporary status of
urban rivers can tell us about the endurance of coloniality in these
two spaces. Against the hegemonic bids for their “revitalization,” we
attend to these two rivers, both of which helped propel the growth of
their respective urban agglomerations, as symbols of people-centered
struggles for abolition ecologies. We aim to provoke the incorporation
of more plural understandings and narrations within the
discipline of geography, and have been struck by the similarities across
different post- and settler-colonial contexts, and, as well, the limited
lenses that attend to these environments in academic scholarship.
Accordingly, we also highlight the possibilities that emerge in thinking
jointly with urban spaces across the “North” and “South” divide, in
order to demonstrate the connected and pervasive nature of empire,
and the variegated practices that resist coloniality in cities.
Papers by Jessica Parish
reproduction of the city and its dominant social relations. The possibility of transcending the routine aspects of capitalist everyday life is held out through the exotification of health and wellness experiences, as costly, exclusive, and at times, neo-Orientalist in character. Thus these practices do not simply represent a pluralist expansion of choice in wellness services, but are internal to the reproduction of a differentiated labour force in/for neoliberal capitalism.
a transnational conversation on what the contemporary status of
urban rivers can tell us about the endurance of coloniality in these
two spaces. Against the hegemonic bids for their “revitalization,” we
attend to these two rivers, both of which helped propel the growth of
their respective urban agglomerations, as symbols of people-centered
struggles for abolition ecologies. We aim to provoke the incorporation
of more plural understandings and narrations within the
discipline of geography, and have been struck by the similarities across
different post- and settler-colonial contexts, and, as well, the limited
lenses that attend to these environments in academic scholarship.
Accordingly, we also highlight the possibilities that emerge in thinking
jointly with urban spaces across the “North” and “South” divide, in
order to demonstrate the connected and pervasive nature of empire,
and the variegated practices that resist coloniality in cities.
reproduction of the city and its dominant social relations. The possibility of transcending the routine aspects of capitalist everyday life is held out through the exotification of health and wellness experiences, as costly, exclusive, and at times, neo-Orientalist in character. Thus these practices do not simply represent a pluralist expansion of choice in wellness services, but are internal to the reproduction of a differentiated labour force in/for neoliberal capitalism.