UNews - Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council SSHRC

Social sciences and humanities researchers secure greater than $1.175 million from SSHRC

trevor.kenney — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:30:55 +0000

The breadth of research excellence at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge is reflected in the latest funding announcement from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), with 10 ULethbridge researchers representing four Faculties and one School all earning support for their work.

On behalf of the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, Karim Bardeesy, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, announced in Edmonton Tuesday more than $289 million in support for 1,788 social sciences and humanities research projects and partnerships across Canada. The funded projects span a diverse range of topics — including climate change adaptation, economic recovery, social justice and impacts of emerging technologies on society — that will generate new knowledge and enable partnerships to help translate insights into solutions for people and their communities.

“Research in the social sciences and humanities is the cornerstone of a resilient, forward-thinking society,” says Bardeesy. “This announcement reflects our deep commitment to Canadian research. By supporting these projects, we are empowering scholars to develop the vital insights and collaborative solutions needed to build a more resilient, equitable and innovative future for everyone.”

The ULethbridge Faculty of Fine Arts, Faculty of Education, Dhillon School of Business and Faculty of Arts & Science, along with the School of Liberal Education combined to earn $1.175 million in SSHRC funding support through Insight Grants, Insight Development Grants and Partnership Engage Grants.

“This funding announcement really highlights the excellent work being done throughout the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ,” says Dr. Dena McMartin, ULethbridge Vice-President Research. “When students come to study here, they are being educated and work alongside nationally funded researchers across multiple disciplines, many of which lead their fields in research initiatives. Congratulations to those who earned this valuable support from SSHRC for their respective projects.”

McMartin also notes that Faculty of Education Dean, Dr. Lisa Starr’s project, was the top ranked SSHRC project in Canada, followed closely by Faculty of Fine Arts Dean, Dr. Heather Davis-Fisch, and her drama project.

Insight Grants

Dr. Heather Davis-Fisch’s (Drama, $413,116) project addresses the problem of English-Canadian theatre historiography's reliance on textual analysis, scripts, and print documents, which has marginalized historically significant practices, particularly from underrepresented communities. Her research team will partner with galleries, archives, and museums to explore how alternate performance histories emerge from the analysis of archival objects and materials.

Dr. Kaylan Schwarz (Liberal Education, $69,014) is investigating the construction of feminist identities, and the social contexts which inform them. Combining visual methods, participatory methods, and intergenerational approaches, her project seeks to develop understandings of feminist representation and placemaking in the Canadian Prairies.

In Sierra Leone, girls and young women are often trapped in a cycle of dependency, health complications and poverty. Dr. Lisa Starr’s (Education, $368,933) project is aimed at reshaping gender dynamics for young female teachers in Sierra Leone by redistributing resources, expectations and responsibilities among new teachers. The intent is to study the impact of an integrative approach on Gender Transformation in teachers' personal lives and teaching practice, including their sense of professional identity and agency.

Insight Development Grants

Dr. David Balcarras (Philosophy, $26,354) seeks to address a fundamental question in philosophy of language: how words come to have meaning. By combining historical perspective with technical analysis, his project aims to clarify how best to explain the unbounded nature of linguistic meaning in finite human terms. If successful, it promises a deeper understanding of what linguistic meaning really is and how language and thus inquiry itself are possible.

Dr. Katharina Stevens (Philosophy, $41,957) proposes a project that will establish the foundation for developing a normative theory of voice allocation in interpersonal argumentation. Decisions on whom we give voice to argue with us, who we listen to and to whom we respond meaningfully significantly impact the way in which deliberation in the private and civic sphere proceeds. Normative argumentation theory aims to provide guidance to everyday arguers that will enable them to argue well in all senses of the term, and in all contexts.

Dr. Abdlmutaleb Boshanna (Dhillon School of Business, $51,253), whose expertise includes corporate governance, corporate disclosure, sustainability, natural language processing (NLP), textual analysis, and machine learning, proposes a project investigating whether firms use tax sustainability disclosure (TSD) as a strategic communication mechanism to navigate fiscal uncertainty and signal investment intentions after major tax reform.

Dr. Rhiannon Mesler (Dhillon School of Business, $77,198) is delving into the world of AI-mediated systems, noting that everyday customer service decisions — such as refund approvals, late-fee enforcement, fraud flags, and service recovery responses — are increasingly shaped by these systems. The project advances the concept of moral outsourcing: the displacement of responsibility for unfavourable but procedurally defensible outcomes from human decision-makers onto AI systems.

Dr. Monique Giroux (Music, $34,275) is examining intergenerational music teaching and learning through an in-depth qualitative case study of the Kenosee Lake Kitchen Party and Fiddle Camp (KLKP), an intentionally intergenerational, community-centred fiddle camp in Saskatchewan. The central research question asks how intergenerational teaching and learning are enacted at KLKP, and how these practices may support both continued musical engagement and the care and continuity of traditions.

Academic Freedom (AF) is the focus of Dr. Dan O’Donnell’s (English, $75,000) project. Academic Freedom, as it is currently understood from a legal and policy perspective, assumed its current form in statements written in late 1960s and early 1970s. This model has recently struggled to accommodate a broader and more contested set of expectations surrounding freedom of expression and inclusivity — his project proposing to address contemporary questions by contextualizing the debate, intellectually, historically, and from a legal and policy perspective.

Partnership Engage Grant

Dr. Andrea Cuéllar’s (Anthropology, $48,825) and co-applicant Dr. Lars Hallström (Political Science), both with the Prentice Institute for Global Population and Economy, are partnering with the Oldman Watershed Council to co-develop the Socioeconomic Pillar of its updated State of the Watershed assessment. The project will analyze socioeconomic indicators relevant to watershed governance, develop reproducible open-source methods for future assessment updates, and translate the findings into accessible narratives and visualizations. It will also support the development of a First Nations-led framework to guide Watershed assessment. The resulting Socioeconomic Pillar will provide a fuller understanding of the social and economic factors influencing land and water stewardship across the Oldman watershed.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge study examining movement and activity levels in older adults seeking participants

trevor.kenney — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 21:53:08 +0000

While multiple research studies have shown how important it is to avoid long bouts of sitting and incorporate movement into your every day, older adults — like many others — often fail to achieve these goals. A new study from Dr. Paige Pope at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge aims to develop strategies to get older adults moving more.

Pope, a health promotion researcher in the Department of Kinesiology & Physical Education, is now recruiting participants for her Move More, Sit Less study. Designed for adults 65 years or older, the study looks to provide participants with a greater awareness of their sitting patterns and help them establish realistic strategies to decrease or break up their sitting time.

Research has shown older adults (aged 65 and older) spend more time sitting than other age groups.

“Sitting is something we all do. Many people spend the majority of their day sitting, without realizing the total amount of time they spend doing it,” says Pope.

Research has shown older adults (aged 65 and older) spend more time sitting than other age groups, averaging 9.4 to 9.9 hours sitting during their daily waking hours.

“This is concerning because greater sitting time is linked with numerous health concerns that are more prevalent among older adults. These include functional limitations, reduced mobility, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and all-cause mortality,” says Pope, citing a recent study by fellow ULethbridge kinesiologist Dr. Jennifer Copeland.

Move More, Sit Less will take place over a 13- or 21-week timeframe and help participants gain a stronger understanding of how to change their habits and incorporate more movement throughout their day. It also seeks to give researchers a deeper look into how older adults’ sitting time and sitting patterns are related to important aging factors such as fear of falling, quality of life and feelings of vitality.

Pope has already run one group through the study, which uses brief informative messages to reinforce movement goals and records participants’ activity through an activity tracking device. The feedback from the first group has been positive.

“As a senior, and having mobility issues, sometimes moving is hard to do. Because of this, when I look at the motivational messages in the envelopes, and the notes that I leave for myself, I can stimulate myself and others in the building where I live to move and have fun,” says one participant.

Another notes how tracking sitting and moving patterns makes you much more aware of how often you are inactive.

Pope is looking for participants who can stand independently or with an aid, read English fluently, and can commit to a 13- or 21-week timeframe. Eligible participants will receive informative messages with tips and strategies to get them up and moving more; wear an activity tracking device; and receive a detailed summary of their activity patterns at the end of the study. Participants are also eligible to receive $40 in $10 increments throughout the study.

For more information, contact the Psychology for Active Living and Sports Lab at PALS@uleth.ca, or by calling 403-332-4435.

This research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Research project examines happiness and well-being in intentional communities

caroline.zentner — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 20:25:40 +0000

As scholarly research and policy initiatives have more recently focused on happiness, Dr. Catherine Kingfisher, an anthropologist at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, couldn’t help but think about well-being at a community level.

“A lot of the literature in happiness studies, which is a fairly new area of scholarship, is focused overwhelmingly on the individual,” says Kingfisher. “From an anthropological perspective, too much emphasis on the individual is a problem because EuroAmerican forms of individualism are not culturally universal. So, I started asking myself what other approaches are out there that might allow us to broaden our perspective.”

After exploring several possibilities, Kingfisher settled on intentional communities, specifically urban collective housing communities, which are gaining in popularity yet remain understudied. Like other intentional communities, urban collective housing communities locate happiness and well-being, at least in part, in particular forms of social organization. But they are unique in two ways.

“The first is that they’re urban,” says Kingfisher. “Unlike other forms of intentional community, like ecovillages and spiritual communes, they are integrated with the wider society rather than segregated from it. At the same time, they are critical of mainstream society and try to create something that can respond to the kinds of loneliness, fragmentation and isolation they see as characteristic of society today.”

The second feature of these communities is that they are neither exclusively collectivist nor exclusively individualist. Residents have their own apartments, complete with a kitchen and bathroom, but the housing community also has common kitchen, eating and meeting areas, shared gardens, laundry rooms and play areas for children.

“What is unique about these places, and what has real policy implications, is that they’re hybrids,” says Kingfisher. “There’s a balance — a constant negotiation, really — between what is considered personal and private and what is considered public and collective. In these communities, happiness and well-being are constructed as simultaneously social and subjective, not one or the other.”

Kingfisher, who was awarded more than $111,000 over four years from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, has chosen two communities: Kankanmori in Tokyo and Quayside Village in Vancouver. The study will focus on how the relationship between interdependence and independence is negotiated, and on how the idea of balance is mobilized in everyday practice. It will also compare how the model of urban collective housing plays out in a society that has historically emphasized individualism, like Canada, and one that has historically emphasized collectivity, like Japan. This comparative analysis will provide insight into how ideas morph as they travel across cultural space and how they are translated and assembled in specific contexts of practice.

“They have the exact same model — they want to create a community where people can have their own space but also have community — but this plays out in very different ways, given the cultural context,” she says.

On her preliminary visits to the collective housing communities, Kingfisher found distinct differences in the way things are done. In Japan, a strict line divides personal from common space while the line is fluid in Vancouver. The two communities handle conflict in different ways, too. In Quayside Village, people are encouraged to express their feelings when conflicts arise while Japanese culture values controlling one’s emotions.

The project is designed to be collaborative in nature. One unique methodological feature involves bringing two members of each community to visit the other.

“This will allow community members to learn about other approaches and reflect on their own ideas and approaches,” says Kingfisher.

An additional aspect of Kingfisher’s study will have residents documenting life in their community through video recordings. Kingfisher will supply the equipment and Don Gill, a U of L Fine Arts professor and project collaborator, will act as an artistic consultant and visit both sites to facilitate the production of film shorts. Each community will also choose two residents to participate in a 10-day exchange to the other community in the study. They’ll be looking at how each community handles conflict and how they negotiate the boundary between the personal and the social. The eventual outcome will be a non-academic book in Japanese and English, along with film shorts.

“It’s fascinating and one of the reasons I want to bring people from each site to the other is so they get a sense of how things are done,” she says. “It gets them to reflect on how they are operating themselves and they get new ideas or they get their own ways of doing reinforced or validated.”

UNews - Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council SSHRC

Social sciences and humanities researchers secure greater than $1.175 million from SSHRC

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��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge study examining movement and activity levels in older adults seeking participants

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Research project examines happiness and well-being in intentional communities

Related Topics

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge study examining movement and activity levels in older adults seeking participants