Critical Human Geography

In fast-paced and continuously demanding neoliberalizing academic environments, this article proposes ‘pedagogical pause’ as an important trans-pedagogical tool to disrupt cis-heteronormativity in/of postsecondary institutions. This article discusses three micro-spaces of learning outside of classrooms (communication on listservs, work on picket lines, and navigation of hallways) to argue that as virtual, temporal-political, and multi-functional spaces, respectively, these micro-spaces of learning are critical liminal spaces that hold the unexplored potential for trans-pedagogy and yet, are constant sites of misgendering. In addressing such micro-liminal spaces of learning (and misgendering), a trans perspective can challenge both the spatial limits of pedagogy and the pedagogic capacities of universities. The article deploys a critical trans-disciplinary approach to reflect on un/heard and in/visible dimensions of everyday trans discrimination and trans expression in post-secondary...

This article accentuates higher education LGBTQ+ (HE-LGBTQ+) students’ lived experiences of off-campus housing in the Deonar Campus District of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. It is observed that key urban stakeholders such as brokers, landowners, neighborhood resident families, and hostel wardens informed by cis-heteronormative moralities work in tandem in shaping the student housing market. The article argues, first, that these powerful urban stakeholders collectively contribute to two mutually feeding phenomena—”studentphobia” and “cis-heteronormative familification”—which in turn effectuate a homonegative labyrinth of representational distortions of the HE-LGBTQ+ student-image. Secondly, when compounded with an increasingly unaffordable urban housing market in the finance capital of India, it results in relatively acute experiences of “spatial dysphoria” for HE-LGBTQ+ students that cannot be comprehended within the neat binary of socio-spatial un/belonging. Met...

Lived Sound: An introduction to field recordings and spatializing listening practices (Workshop)

with Mantha Katsikana

Fed 8th at 6-7.30 pm ET

Field recording has been crucial in music, art, storytelling as well as academic research throughout the years. At the same time, the listening experience that is fundamental to the process of field recording varies across race, gender, class and able-bodiedness, across socio-cultural geographies and the sonic environments these encompass. In this 1h and 30 min workshop, Mantha Katsikana explores the various uses of field recording in music, art, story telling and academic research through a critical feminist decolonial standpoint, the basics of field recording in a variety of affordable and accessible ways, as well as the various listening practices in relation to space and lived experiences, in the context of individual and collective projects.  From sampling and sound installations, to oral histories and the creation of archives, this workshop will explore the ways field recording  and critical listening practices offer the possibility for an affective and sensory understanding of the everyday world and collective or individual experiences that are often represented in silent or “silenced” ways, providing an avenue for decolonial artistic and political expression.

In Collaboration with Biblioteka Records, The creative School- X University (previously known as Ryerson)

In fast-paced and continuously demanding neoliberalizing academic environments, this article proposes ‘pedagogical pause’ as an important trans-pedagogical tool to disrupt cis-heteronormativity in/of postsecondary institutions. This article discusses three micro-spaces of learning outside of classrooms (communication on listservs, work on picket lines, and navigation of hallways) to argue that as virtual, temporal-political, and multi-functional spaces, respectively, these micro-spaces of learning are critical liminal spaces that hold the unexplored potential for trans-pedagogy and yet, are constant sites of misgendering. In addressing such micro-liminal spaces of learning (and misgendering), a trans perspective can challenge both the spatial limits of pedagogy and the pedagogic capacities of universities. The article deploys a critical trans-disciplinary approach to reflect on un/heard and in/visible dimensions of everyday trans discrimination and trans expression in post-secondary...

This article accentuates higher education LGBTQ+ (HE-LGBTQ+) students’ lived experiences of off-campus housing in the Deonar Campus District of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. It is observed that key urban stakeholders such as brokers, landowners, neighborhood resident families, and hostel wardens informed by cis-heteronormative moralities work in tandem in shaping the student housing market. The article argues, first, that these powerful urban stakeholders collectively contribute to two mutually feeding phenomena—”studentphobia” and “cis-heteronormative familification”—which in turn effectuate a homonegative labyrinth of representational distortions of the HE-LGBTQ+ student-image. Secondly, when compounded with an increasingly unaffordable urban housing market in the finance capital of India, it results in relatively acute experiences of “spatial dysphoria” for HE-LGBTQ+ students that cannot be comprehended within the neat binary of socio-spatial un/belonging. Met...

First Peoples’ Cultural Council is located on Vancouver Island, BC and provides Indigenous communities with support and resources for cultural heritage programming, often involving language revitalization. To support ongoing advocacy and the development of a new health related language program they are interested in exploring the ways language relates to or is an indicator of health and wellbeing. Through the University of British Columbia First Nations and Indigenous Studies Practicum program, Shoukia van Beek collected various articles, websites, news clippings and books to survey the body of knowledge regarding health and language. This is the comprehensive collection of her findings.

The international US-Canada border divides and dissects the ancestral territory of the Siksikaitsitapi Indigenous nations. This thesis examines Siksikaitsitapi experiences of the border as a settler-colonial method of containment and their resistance to these processes through the reintroduction of the buffalo. The reintroduction of the buffalo to Siksikaitsitapi territory represents Siksikaitsitapi worldviews and relationship to the lands which extend across and beyond the imposed border. The buffalo are powerful within Siksikaitsitapi ways of knowing, and their return signifies a resilience in a host of sacred, social, cultural, and traditional principles that underpin Siksikaitsitapi life. This study shows that through the cross-border movement of the free-roaming buffalo, the Siksikaitsitapi are asserting their ongoing presence, relationship to the land, and sovereignty by using Indigenous-led conservation to challenge the divisive nature of the border. This research highlights ...

The international US-Canada border divides and dissects the ancestral territory of the Siksikaitsitapi Indigenous nations. This thesis examines Siksikaitsitapi experiences of the border as a settler-colonial method of containment and their resistance to these processes through the reintroduction of the buffalo. The reintroduction of the buffalo to Siksikaitsitapi territory represents Siksikaitsitapi worldviews and relationship to the lands which extend across and beyond the imposed border. The buffalo are powerful within Siksikaitsitapi ways of knowing, and their return signifies a resilience in a host of sacred, social, cultural, and traditional principles that underpin Siksikaitsitapi life. This study shows that through the cross-border movement of the free-roaming buffalo, the Siksikaitsitapi are asserting their ongoing presence, relationship to the land, and sovereignty by using Indigenous-led conservation to challenge the divisive nature of the border. This research highlights how Siksikaitsitapi thought and worldviews are continuous and offer a sustainable and meaningful practice for conservation governance. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to acknowledge that the land on which I learned and lived, and from where this thesis and research is rooted and belongs, is the ancestral and traditional territory of the Siksikaitsitapi, Niitsitapi, or the Blackfoot Confederacy. Today, as it has been since time immemorial, this traditional territory-the land, water, air, animals, and plants are all interconnected and hold significant meaning to the Blackfoot Confederacy. The central themes of this thesis, including sense of place, movement, ecology, relationships, community, and geography have been important to and practiced by the Siksikaitsitapi for tens of thousands of years before I began thinking or writing about them. I am forever grateful for and humbled by my time on Siksikaitsitapi lands, and from these experiences I will continue to grow, learn, and interrogate my relationships to the places and spaces I take up as a settler. I want to thank my thesis advisor Dr. Libby Lunstrum for her continuous support of my M.A. study and research, for her patience, motivation, enthusiasm, guidance, and endless knowledge. As my supervisor, she has taught me more than I could ever give her credit for here. She has shown me, by her example, who a good researcher and academic should be. I wish to express deep gratitude to my committee member: Dr. Peter Vandergeest, for his encouragement, substantial intellectual support, insightful comments, and hard questions. To my external examiner Dr. Carolyn Podruchny, for her enthusiasm, sincere engagement, and thoughtful contributions. My warm thanks also extends to Dr. Robin Roth whose many discussions, valuable suggestions, and expert advice have been invaluable throughout all stages of my work. I am grateful to all of those whom I have had the pleasure of working with during this project. To Mike Bruised Head,

El objetivo del presente escrito es ofrecer al lector un breve recuento de los que considero son algunos de los acontecimientos más relevantes ocurridos en las Filipinas entre 2017 y 2018. Al escribir un recuento de este tipo, muchos sucesos de distinta índole se resaltan, mientras otros se omiten. El proceso de selección es subjetivo, por ello debo señalar que mi decisión de incluir ciertos temas estuvo influenciada por mis intereses de investigación y mi intención de ofrecer un panorama lo más amplio posible de lo ocurrido en Filipinas en 2018, que comprenda procesos sociales, políticos, económicos y ambientales. Mi acercamiento a las Filipinas está definido por el tipo de relación que he establecido con este país; incluso he llegado a conocer algunos de sus procesos sociopolíticos y económicos gracias a mis estudios de maestría sobre el sureste de Asia, a mis búsquedas personales y a charlas con colegas y amigos filipinos que viven en el extranjero.

Demand for water resources has increased globally along with concerns over its protection, usage and potential scarcity. The location of abundant water sources do not always coincide with where large quantities of people reside.  As such, many regions live with the threat of water shortages. Interpretations of water scarcity from international, national and regional scales of analysis are projected onto water availability at the local scale due to large, and often intimidating, global facts. This article looks at the periurban area of Can Tho, Vietnam, to argue that the discourse around water scarcity creates the impression of a water crisis. A local scale analysis reflects that residents of Can Tho have the knowledge to use local water resources in many different ways, thus ensuring their personal water security. The assessment of water scarcity at the national and international scale does not translate to Can Tho’s current situation.

This article maps the rise of the water-energy-food 'nexus' as a research, policy and project agenda in mainland Southeast Asia. We argue that introducing the concept of environmental justice into the nexus, especially where narratives, trade-offs and outcomes are contested, could make better use of how the nexus is framed, understood and acted upon. With funding from high-income country donors, it is found to have diffused from a global policy arena into a regional one that includes international and regional organisations, academic networks, and civil society, and national politicians and government officials. The nexus is yet to be extensively grounded, however, into national policies and practices, and broad-based local demand for nexus-framed policies is currently limited. The article contends that if the nexus is to support stated aspirations for sustainable development and poverty reduction, then it should engage more directly in identifying winners and losers in natural resource decision-making, the politics involved, and ultimately with the issue of justice. In order to do so, it links the nexus to the concept of environmental justice via boundary concepts, namely: sustainable development; the green economy; scarcity and addressing of trade-offs; and governance at, and across, the local, national and transnational scale.

L’entreprise de taxi « Uber » s’est rapidement implantée dans la plupart des grandes villes du monde. Elle gagne en popularité grâce à son application mobile qui met directement en contact ses « chauffeurs-partenaires » et des clients et clientes, et offre des déplacements à des tarifs concurrentiels. Son apparition s’est produite en tension, voire en confrontation avec les principaux acteurs de l’industrie du taxi traditionnelle, car le modèle Uber, associé à l’économie de plateforme, repose sur l’idée de la libre entreprise. C’est pourquoi Uber tente par différents moyens dont des activités de lobbying, une présence dans les médias de masse et les médias sociaux, de même que le recours à des moyens juridiques afin de faire dérèglementer l’industrie du taxi. À Montréal, comme ailleurs, il en résulte une baisse de valeurs des permis de taxi et une diminution des revenus chez les chauffeurs de l’industrie traditionnelle. Face aux inquiétudes de ces derniers et à la résistance des propriétaires de permis, le gouvernement du Québec propose un projet pilote pour permettre à Uber de poursuivre ses opérations dans un nouveau cadre légal. L’objectif principal de ce mémoire est de mettre en lumière les conditions nécessaires à l’implantation et à la consolidation d’Uber dans la région métropolitaine. Pour y parvenir, nous avons fait appel à une perspective de géographie critique et en particulier aux travaux de Brenner qui nous permettent d’avancer que l’implantation d’Uber relève de trois processus de transformations sociospatiales soit la mondialisation, la métropolisation et la néolibéralisation. Nous avons été en mesure de voir que la stratégie adoptée par Uber vise la « destruction » ou le démantèlement de certains arrangements institutionnels mis en place pendant la période keynésienne-fordiste et la « création » de nouveaux arrangements favorables à la libre-concurrence et à l’économie de plateforme.

La pandémie de COVID-19 a fait croître le nombre de livraisons de repas à domicile dans la plupart des grandes régions métropolitaines du monde. Les nouvelles plateformes de livraison se disputent les espaces urbains et tentent d’attirer clients, travailleurs et restaurants. Le phénomène a aussi entraîné l’essor de travaux universitaires sur le sujet. La « plateformisation du travail » et plus particulièrement des emplois à faible revenu dans le domaine des services rend importante l’analyse de plusieurs composantes sociodémographiques des livreurs : genre, migration, jeunesse, logement et scolarisation. Le phénomène accentue la précarité chez ceux et celles qui accomplissent ces tâches, traditionnellement des travailleurs immigrants dans les villes euroaméricaines.