UNews - Department of Anthropology

Blackfoot Women’s Empowerment project highlights community and collaboration

caroline.zentner — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 18:18:01 +0000

When Tanya Pace-Crosschild (BSc ’98), director of the Opokaa’sin Early Intervention Society, saw a call for proposals from Women and Gender Equality Canada in 2018, she immediately recognized an opportunity to develop a project to foster the economic empowerment of Indigenous women in southern Alberta.

“Many of our families are living below the poverty line and Blackfoot women don’t have the same opportunities as a lot of other Canadian women,” says Pace-Crosschild. “We wanted to look at what economic prosperity means to Blackfoot women and how to go from economic security to prosperity, keeping in mind many of our women aren’t even at the security level.”

Pace-Crosschild reached out to her network of women, including, from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, Drs. Carol Williams (history, women and gender studies) and Jan Newberry (anthropology) and Rhonda Crow (BMgt ’99), coordinator with Indigenous Governance and Business Management at the Dhillon School of Business. They submitted a proposal and succeeded in getting $350,00 in funding for a three-year project called Blackfoot Women’s Empowerment from Security to Prosperity.

From left to right are Crystal Good Rider, Marjie Crop Eared Wolf (BFA ’09), Dr. Carol Williams, Dr. Jan Newberry, Rhonda Crow, Marsha Wolf Collar (BA ’11), Robin Little Bear, Tanya Pace-Crosschild, Coby Royal and Melissa Shouting (BHSc ’19), U of L graduate student.

“We’re really excited about Blackfoot Women’s Empowerment because it’s a grassroots initiative,” says Pace-Crosschild. “It acknowledges the voices of women, the strengths of Indigenous women, specifically Blackfoot women, and it gives us a basis to move forward. Our goals and dreams with this project are to empower women.”

Now in their final year of funding, they recently launched the Blackfoot Women’s Empowerment website, a portal for Blackfoot women to access resources to enhance their entrepreneurial skills and learn more about traditional ways of life. In addition, the website highlights two projects the group has funded — the Paahtómahksikimi Cultural Centre online craft store and the Red Woman Talks series.

The online gallery and store showcases the talents of 10 artisans and includes artwork, jewelry, accessories, clothing, moccasins and more available for purchase through the click of a mouse. Red Woman Talks is designed to be a series of seven interviews featuring Indigenous women’s successes in communities within the Blackfoot Confederacy. Still in the planning stages, the goal is to inspire, empower and motivate by having role models talk about the challenges they faced and how they overcame them on their path to success.

This fall, the Blackfoot Women’s Empowerment group partnered with the Dhillon School of Business. Starting in January, Drs. Tanya Drollinger and Katie Lafreniere will lend their expertise in promotion to the two projects.

“We needed help in marketing and developing an online presence,” says Crow. “Hopefully, it will be an ongoing partnership because we’re hoping this project doesn’t end when the government funding ends. We’re looking at sustainability and how we can ensure this becomes a permanent program.”

The project began in 2018 with the formation of an Indigenous women’s council. With the help of Coby (Eagle Bear) Royal (BA ’08), they organized a series of meetings with Blackfoot women, both on and off reserve. Along with meetings in Lethbridge and Calgary, they met with women from the Siksika, Piikani, Kainai and Blackfeet First Nations to ask them how they define economic prosperity and what it means to them.

“The results were similar to what I had expected,” says Pace-Crosschild. “Economic prosperity to Indigenous families is not just based on money. It’s based on relationship — relationship with each other, to the land, and to the resources within the community.”

Following the meetings, the women developed a community plan and were asked to submit proposals to Blackfoot Women’s Empowerment. Crystal Good Rider (Ba/BEd ’04, MEd ’10) was hired as project manager to help implement the successful proposals.

“The website was developed in response to what the women were saying in the community needs assessment,” says Good Rider. “When you empower the women, you empower the whole community. There are so many challenges, but this is one positive. Everything we do has been guided by the Blackfoot women’s voices.”

The women identified needs for including cultural content, showcasing Blackfoot women role models and providing entrepreneurial opportunities for women.

“With the website, we’ve been able to work with the Paahtómahksikimi Cultural Centre to highlight artists within the community,” says Good Rider. “With that project, we were really focused on the collective effect of their proposal.”

Newberry says Blackfoot Women’s Empowerment highlights the many connections between the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and the larger community. Almost all the women involved in the project are either employees, faculty or alumnae of the U of L.

“This is a very exciting project,” she says. “It’s been going on for a while and we’re finally seeing some of the fruits of our labour. We used an assets-based model and the projects we’re supporting definitely build on the strengths that already exist among Blackfoot women.”

Art and social change focus of first ever Arts & Science entrepreneurial co-op

caroline.zentner — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 18:25:53 +0000

Two cultural anthropology students are the first to take part in an entrepreneurial co-operative work term in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

Canvas art created by Ipaa.

Typically, students who participate in a co-op term undertake paid, full-time work for a semester or longer with an employer. With an entrepreneurial or e-co-op, students essentially work for themselves.

“E-co-ops are an exciting and unique opportunity for students to invest in their business full time while maintaining their student status,” says Lukas Neamtu, programs coordinator and instructor with Co-operative Education & Applied Studies. “Students work closely with the Co-operative Education office, Agility and local companies such as tecconnect, as they learn about entrepreneurialism and the key steps of building a business. They also gain access to an exceptional network of experts and professionals.”

Bariyaa Ipaa and Cecilia Reid, who’ve been friends since they were both students at Winston Churchill High School, launched Art with Purpose in the fall of 2015. They’re both passionate about art and social change and Art with Purpose gave them a way to bring those interests together.

Bariyaa Ipaa

“We produce and sell artworks and use the money to fund local and international community projects,” says Ipaa.

In addition to prints, stickers and cards are made from the original artworks. They also sell handmade bracelets, original paintings and painting on denim jackets. They both contribute artwork and share in the administrative duties.

They found it easy to manage their studies and their business when they were in their first year. By second year, their studies demanded more of their time and they decided to put Art with Purpose on hold. The break gave them a chance to determine how they could make their development work different from the mainstream.

“Since we started this project, the learning that comes with Art with Purpose has coincided with our studies. We’re choosing courses we think will help us improve Art with Purpose,” says Reid.

“We want to make sure that the communities involved in our projects have agency to speak for themselves and say what their wants and needs are. It’s for us to listen and help them facilitate that goal,” says Ipaa.

Reid, wanting to apply knowledge gained in the classroom, was considering doing a co-op work term for the fall 2018 semester. She spoke to Neamtu, programs coordinator and instructor with Co-operative Education & Applied Studies, who helped set up the entrepreneurial co-op. They soon met Brandy Old, program coordinator with Agility, and she helped them go through the necessary steps to establish a business. They’re also taking an entrepreneurial boot camp course through Economic Development Lethbridge.

Cecilia Reid

“The flexibility has been really great so we can grow in the direction we want. We have several mentors to help us in different fields,” says Reid.

They are currently working on a library project in Malawi. During their first year at the U of L, they participated in the Malawi field study with Dr. Jean Harrowing (BSc ’78), where they met Aaron Maluwa, a facilitator for the field study.

“He understands what his community needs,” says Ipaa. “We kept in contact with him even after the trip and decided we wanted to focus on education. Out of our own pockets, we were sponsoring five students who were orphans and didn’t have the funding to complete secondary schooling. Then we also started thinking about a library project.”

“We wanted Art with Purpose to take on something new, so we reached out to Aaron. He was interested in a library project as well,” says Reid.

“Funding this library project will benefit the girls and women in the community especially, since girls are often disproportionately underrepresented in classrooms,” says Ipaa. “Later on, this transfers into women being underrepresented in the public sphere. This project will be crucial in helping young girls pursue a future they desire and gain economic agency independently of men.”

Their goal is to raise $26,000 and they’re planning a fundraising event in February with an art show and silent auction. The event coincides with Black History Month and is intended to empower the Black community in Lethbridge but it will also be an educational event for the general population.

“What I want out of the art show is to create conversation about identity, race, gender and the Black experience,” says Ipaa.

Art with Purpose can be found on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter.

U of L grad student creates database of missing and murdered Indigenous women

caroline.zentner — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 17:14:39 +0000

As a survivor of domestic and sexual violence and with hundreds of new cases of missing Indigenous women every year, Annita Lucchesi, a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge doctoral student, started a database of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW).

“The domestic violence almost killed me and I almost became one of the women on this list,” she says. “If that had happened to me, I would want my story to have meaning; I would want it to be used in the struggle to make sure that other women and girls don’t experience that, too.”

Started three years ago, Lucchesi continually adds more names and information. The database contains almost 3,000 entries of MMIW, including their names, where they lived, if they were a mother, if other women in their family went missing or were murdered, if they experienced domestic violence and any other pertinent details.

“The idea is to have a comprehensive resource for not just researchers like me, but also for policy makers and service providers who are doing the on-the-ground work to address the issue,” she says. “In Canada and the United States, but particularly in Canada, the issue of missing and murdered native women is something that gets talked about quite a bit but there’s no reliable data or analytics for it. That’s the gap that I’m trying to fill.

So far, Lucchesi says the database does a better job of showing the holes in the data rather than providing any new conclusions. Sometimes information about missing women contained in federal or national databases isn’t shared with local forces that have jurisdiction over missing persons cases.

“In terms of a unifying trend, if anything, the database shows the diversity of cases,” says Lucchesi. “There’s no one path that puts somebody at risk or one intervention to make because these thousands of women have very different stories.”

Lucchesi learns about MMIW cases from news articles, missing persons databases, social media accounts, archival sources and family members. She also requests records from law enforcement offices.

“That’s been a really challenging and also illuminating process of seeing just how poor the records are to begin with and the kind of negligence, racism and sexism that existed in police departments,” she says.

Lucchesi hopes that making state and provincial leaders aware of the scope of the problem will eventually lead to changes.

“I don’t think I’d be doing this work if I thought nothing would ever change,” she says. “But I also understand it’s going to take a long time and the likelihood of any immense change in rates of violence anytime soon is not high. People have asked me when I’m going to be done and I say ‘When native women stop getting murdered.’”

Lucchesi is working on a doctorate in Cultural, Social and Political Thought under the supervision of Dr. Jan Newberry. Coursework completed, Lucchesi is now planning to do fieldwork in native communities, on and off reserve, in Canada and the U.S. She plans to host workshops where people will create community maps to tell stories about MMIW and how they are affected.

“The idea for the final product is to have a beautiful atlas of thematic maps created by community members telling their perspective on the issue,” she says. “This work is important because women are dying. It shouldn’t be that way and I hope it’s healing not just for native communities but all of our communities as they grapple with this in a substantive way and create something healthier and safer.”

Additional information about Lucchesi and her work can be found on UNews.

Making a difference one name at a time

caroline.zentner — Thu, 23 Aug 2018 16:28:52 +0000

When Annita Lucchesi describes herself, she will tell you her Indian name is Hetoevėhotohke’e, which means Evening Star Woman, and that she is a Heévȧhetané'e, a Southern Cheyenne woman. She’s a direct descendant of the people who come from the place where the Ho'honáéva (Rocky Mountains) meet the tóhtoo'éšé'e (prairie). Her life has been marked by abuse, but she is a survivor and is proud to be a mé’êśko’áe, a hellraiser girl —one who is always stirring things up.

Having a firm grasp on who she is and her roots has not only formed a foundation for Lucchesi personally, but has been invaluable in directing her research as a PhD student in the Cultural, Social, and Political Thought program at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

After earning a Bachelor of Arts in geography from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of California-Berkeley, Lucchesi graduated from Washington State ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in 2016 with a Master of Arts in American Studies. Several years ago, while working as an activist and advocate, Lucchesi found herself frustrated with the lack of comprehensive information regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW).

While there were many lists and sources, there was no central database that was routinely updated and shared with the general public. Those that did exist often were formed on narrow, exclusive criteria with missing gaps. As a response, Lucchesi herself began to log the names of MMIW in Canada and the United States, from 1900 to the present, gathering information from news articles, online databases, family members, social media, federal and state missing persons databases, law enforcement records and lists compiled by Indigenous advocates and community members.

As the lines of names multiplied, it grew to be a spiritual process for Lucchesi and her research became a form of ceremony.

“I came to understand myself not just as a data collector, but as a caretaker for the data and the spirits,” she says. “Maintaining the database is a process of prayer in the sense that there’s so much unhealed trauma and so much unhealed grief around these pieces; if we’re able to document and honour them and help their stories and the violence they experienced have meaning, then we may be able to resolve some of that grief and trauma.”

Lucchesi's work has garnered significant attention internationally as it has been covered by NPR in the United States, The Daily Mail in the United Kingdom and on The Stream through Al Jazeera.

For Lucchesi, the work is deeply personal. Many of the names, including those of family, friends and former students, are familiar. What’s more, as a survivor of domestic and sexual abuse, she recognizes how easily she could have been one of the almost 3,000 names recorded.

“I came to this work as a woman who almost became a victim on lists of missing and murdered native women myself,” Lucchesi writes in her thesis proposal. “If any of the men who almost killed me had succeeded, I would want to be honoured and remembered. I would want my story and the violence that I experienced to have meaning. I would want to be part of the fight for future generations of native girls to not have to go through such violence.”

Now taking her work further, Lucchesi is using the continually evolving database as a springboard for a PhD thesis — a project in which she hopes to take the information and transform it for even greater healing.

Lucchesi plans to gather stories and create an atlas of maps recognizing, honouring and addressing the geographies in which Indigenous women live and die. And while she will be a contributor as a cartographer, the intent is to create a wide collection of maps by bringing others into the process.

“Individually, each map tells its own story, but collectively they also tell a much bigger story,” she says.

Waiting first for an invitation, Lucchesi will work with local anti-violence organizations in various tribal communities in Canada and the U.S. — both on reservations and in urban areas — to host voluntary workshops. Participants will be given opportunities to share their stories, and ultimately be involved in mapping.

“People think maps are super technical, difficult to do and that you need all sorts of training, but that’s really not the case,” says Lucchesi. “When people think of Indigenous mapping they think of something pre-contact, super traditional. Certainly, it can be those things, but I’m giving people glitter glue. Mapping doesn’t have to be super fancy or historical; as long as it represents our cultures and experiences, it’s Indigenous mapping.”

Her work aligns with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's description of research creation as "an approach to research that combines creative and academic research practices, and supports the development of knowledge and innovation through artistic expression, scholarly investigation and experimentation."

As Lucchesi explains, we encounter maps every day in everything from directions on our iPhones to news articles. They are regarded as scientific and authoritative and held with respect. But mapping also provides the opportunity to create a platform where community members can tell their experiences and interpretations of what violence looks like in their community.

Lucchesi points to current examples such as a map that analyzes the life paths of individual victims in Montreal and Thunder Bay, and the changes in geography that put them at risk, or a series of maps of the night sky from varying locations, with constellations representing stories from the people indigenous to that area and the murder victims represented as stars. The possibilities are endless.In this way, mapping is highly adaptable and can build bridges that humanize narratives while staying true to statistics and numbers.

“It is designed to empower Indigenous people to tell their stories in ways that are meaningful to them and to collectively use this storytelling to organize against continued violence,” she says.

In cartography, a field dominated by white men, Lucchesi is an outlier (there were a record-breaking two Indigenous cartographers at the International Cartographic Association conference last year and Lucchesi was one of them), so the mentorship she’s received from Dr. Jan Newberry, her PhD supervisor at uLethbridge, has been immeasurable.

“Jan’s been a wonderful advocate for me,” says Lucchesi. “All of my experiences with geography have been with male faculty and male mentors, so having a woman mentor with a background in geography, mapping and space has been a really good fit. She’s been amazing.”

In that same spirit, Lucchesi is supporting other young, native women, helping them find their own roots and the personal definitions that will steer the course of their lives. As Lucchesi explains, knowing her research presents the capacity for change motivates her, even in the face of trauma and obstacles.

“I love, love, love seeing youth getting involved. For example, I’ve been able to Skype with a girls’ basketball team in Montana that is working on raising awareness of this issue by doing a community project and petitioning their tribe for change. It’s just amazing to see these girls who don’t have to do that, but choose to. To be able to talk and support them in what they’re doing is really exciting; it makes me feel like I’m doing something useful,” says Lucchesi. “Cheyenne women are known for being resilient, beautiful and immensely strong and brave. It is my aim to continue that legacy.”

Kingfisher explores models of happiness

trevor.kenney — Fri, 16 Mar 2018 16:47:37 +0000

Dr. Catherine Kingfisher, a professor and researcher in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Department of Anthropology, will present Locating Happiness: Beyond Individualism on Thursday, Mar. 22, 7 p.m. at the Lethbridge Lodge. The talk just happens to coincide with the focus of her current research project, which is aimed at a non-academic audience and specifically policy makers.

Dr. Catherine Kingfisher has always been keen on influencing public policy with her work, with her latest project designed specifically to appeal to non-��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, which include policy makers.

The project is a study of two urban collective housing communities, one in Japan, the other in Vancouver. Kingfisher is exploring, in a broad sense, the concept of happiness and what kind of constructs in today’s society serve as models for happiness. She does this against a backdrop of neoliberalism that champions the good life but places responsibility on individuals for achieving their own happiness.

Her current work is the latest progression in an anthropological career that began with her undergraduate studies at Beloit College in Wisconsin, followed by master’s and PhD studies at Michigan State ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. Her interest in the discipline can be traced back even further, rooted in a childhood that saw her raised in both the United States and the Middle East by two parents from France.

“I think I developed an early sense of cultural relativity, which is the idea that the way we live in the world is only one possibility among many. So, that’s a clear line to anthropology,” she says.

Kingfisher has been at the U of L since 1999, having come to Lethbridge after a six-year stint at ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Waikato in New Zealand where she taught women and gender studies.

Much of her early work at the U of L examined issues of power, inequality, poverty and welfare reform. In 2010, she took note of the rapid rise in happiness studies and the hyper individualization that was being championed. She was appointed a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Scholar Research Chair and also earned CREDO funding, allowing her the opportunity to attack the issue.

“I was actively looking for models of happiness and well-being and the good life that do not locate it inside people’s heads but rather in what goes on between people and in particular forms of social organization,” she says.

She spent time in Samoa and then eventually turned her focus to intentional communities in Japan and Vancouver. Urban collective housing communities construct an entirely different approach to achieving happiness because they are founded on community support and engagement – and it seems to be a model that is gaining momentum.

“We’re kind of on the cusp of this as an idea that’s taking off, and anybody I talk to is extremely interested. There’s this real sense of a loss of community ties and people really wanting that. So, I think it’s an idea whose time has come,” she says, citing studies that show how loneliness effectively kills people.

“There’s this recognition that we live in a fragmented, alienated society. I’m not saying everyone needs to move into these communities but we need to look more broadly at what kinds of models of the good life are out there that aren’t just about me talking to myself to develop a more positive attitude.”

While Kingfisher has always been keen on influencing public policy with her work, this project is designed specifically to appeal to non-��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, which include policy makers.

“The primary output of this project is not going to be academic, it’s going to be a book collaboratively produced with people in both communities,” she says.

She is also working with fellow faculty member Don Gill (fine arts) to produce film shorts that focus on everyday life in each community.

“My big agenda in this project is to spread awareness that there are alternatives out there. If there’s one alternative, there are no doubt many more, so let’s look around. It’s about spreading the word that there are these other ways of thinking about happiness and well-being that don’t just make it something that’s inside your head,” she says.

The PUBlic Professor venue is an ideal opportunity to spread that message.

“I think the format of PUBlic Professor is absolutely brilliant because it challenges ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ to translate our work in ways that demonstrate its relevance to society at large, and also gives us the opportunity to learn from the feedback we get from the audience.”

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.”

U of L researchers awarded more than $907,000 in research funding

caroline.zentner — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 17:40:49 +0000

Today, Kirsty Duncan, Canada’s Minister of Science, announced the recipients of several Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grants and seven ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers are among those who secured funding for their projects.

“I want to commend the grant and scholarships recipients whose tireless efforts help us better understand our world and our relationships with each other,” says Duncan. “Our government is proud to support these talented researchers and scholars who are pushing the boundaries of knowledge to the benefit of Canadians and our growing middle class.”

“We are extremely pleased that seven U of L research projects were successful in this competition,” says Dr. Claudia Malacrida, associate vice-president (research). “It demonstrates the strength of our researchers in the social sciences and humanities and we congratulate each one of them.”

The funding includes Partnership Development Grants, designed to foster new research with new or existing partners, Insight Development Grants that support research in its beginning stages, and Insight Grants for long-term research initiatives. The research projects are diverse, spanning the fields of visual arts, anthropology, psychology, digital humanities, finance and history and gender studies.

Dr. Dan O'Donnell

Dr. Dan O’Donnell, a professor in the Department of English, conducts research in the Digital Humanities, where tools and methods from computer science are applied to humanities fields like history, philosophy and literature. His digital tools, like the Internet, make it easy to share research information widely, but O’Donnell has found the world of research publishing hasn’t changed much, with the same major publishers running the market. He began working on building a different kind of research network called Future Commons where research is freely shared and publicly available and where corporations can still make a profit. The Partnership Development Grant, which includes three other organizations, will facilitate research to further the Future Commons network. For more information visit Future Commons.

Mary Kavanagh

Mary Kavanagh, a professor in the Department of Art, will examine nuclear anxiety in the post-Cold War era through interviews with visitors to Trinity, the site of the world’s first atomic bomb detonation. A rehearsal for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Trinity was the codename for the test blast in 1945, deep in the desert south of the Manhattan project’s headquarters in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Tourists now flock to the site during bi-annual open houses. Kavanagh, through interviews conducted at the site, plans to generate a series of art works or “chapters” that include moving-image vignettes, photographic works, book works, installations and an experimental documentary film that explores urgent questions of the nuclear age. For more information visit Atomic Tourism.

Dr. Catherine Kingfisher

Dr. Catherine Kingfisher, an anthropology professor, will explore urban collective housing communities as non-individualistic approaches to well-being. Such communities work to balance independence and interdependence by including both personal/private and shared/collective spaces, and, unlike many intentional communities, are integrated with, rather than segregated from, society at large. Kingfisher will compare communities in Tokyo and Vancouver to gain insight into how this model of the good life operates in cultural contexts that historically and ideologically have stressed different aspects of individualism and collectivism. The project is situated in the context of increasing academic and governmental interest in happiness and well-being. For more information visit Intentional Communities.

Dr. Fangfang Li

Dr. Fangfang Li, a psychology professor, will examine factors that may influence speech errors in second-language learners. She found that errors made by local students in French Immersion programs persisted over time, even though researchers expected the students would make fewer speech errors when they reached higher grades. Li hypothesizes that the errors persist because opportunities to speak with native French speakers are limited in a community where English is the dominant language. Li’s research will look at a mixed bilingual program in Edmonton to see if the second-language learners there, who have more opportunity to speak with native speakers, produce more accurate speech as they advance to higher grades. For more information visit Second-language Learning.

Dr. Yutao Li

Dr. Yutao Li, a professor in the Faculty of Management at the U of L’s Calgary campus, will explore the costs and benefits of banks’ involvement in lending networks. While greater connectivity in a network can be helpful because it gives a bank more information it can use to evaluate a borrower’s credit risk, it can also be detrimental if risk enters the financial system and spreads throughout the network, as it did during the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Li’s study is the first to investigate banks’ lending networks and the research will help build understanding about how banks’ network connectivity affects information acquisition, lending practices and quality of financial reporting. For more information visit Banking Networks.

Dr. Paul Vasey

Dr. Paul Vasey, a psychology professor, will delve into competition for mates in cultures that recognize third genders, specifically the muxes in the Istmo region of Oaxaca, Mexico and the fa’afafine in Samoa. The fa’afafine and muxes are same-sex attracted feminine males or what could be termed transgender in North America. They engage in sexual activity with masculine men who are bisexual, thus creating a competitive atmosphere for heterosexual women. In contrast, women in Euro-American cultures most often face competition from other women. Vasey and his students will conduct research in Canada and at their field sites in Samoa and Mexico to see how the presence of third-gender males affects the behaviour and psychology of heterosexual individuals. For more information visit Mate Competition.

Dr. Carol Williams

Dr. Carol Williams, a professor in Women and Gender Studies and History, and her collaborators, Linda Weasel Head, Hali Heavy Shield and Faye Heavy Shield, will assemble diverse and new historical accounts of Kainai women’s social reform work between 1968 and 1990. The researchers will engage with the Kainai community and propose a series of cultural and historical workshops for all age groups to encourage conversation and storytelling. The study hopes to challenge the colonial character of the archives as they exist and the myths of Indigenous-Settler relations. The study, in line with the recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, seeks to expand historical literacy about how Kainai women transformed their communities. For more information visit Kainai Women’s Activism.

New Take Two speaker series to focus on U of L research

caroline.zentner — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 17:34:17 +0000

As Associate Vice-President Research, Dr. Claudia Malacrida wants to demonstrate the diversity and depth of research done at a small, liberal arts institution like the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. To that end, she created a new speaker series called Take Two. Once underway, the Take Two sessions will feature two researchers who approach a topic from different perspectives.

For the inaugural talk, Malacrida will provide the community a report on the federal review panel, of which she was a member, and its findings on Thursday, Sept. 21 at 3:30 p.m. (Markin Hall Atrium). Attendees will have the opportunity to sign a petition to increase support for research funding that will be submitted to the Minister of Science, Kirsty Duncan.

Dr. Claudia Malacrida

“Part of my rationale for wanting to give this talk is to galvanize our response to the recommendations of the review panel and to garner support for the idea that fundamental research in Canada should be a level playing field for universities, regardless of their size,” says Malacrida.

Following consultations across the country, evidence gathered by the panel points to a research system that is underfed and overworked. The Alliance of Canadian Comprehensive Research Universities, to which the U of L belongs, has thrown its support behind the panel’s recommendations and is advocating for increases to annual federal spending on research and that it be distributed fairly to universities, both large and small.

The balance of the Take Two series will take a different direction, offering fresh insights on research being done at the U of L. The events will offer talks by two researchers who take different approaches to a related issue. Each researcher will have about 20 minutes to present, followed by a question-and-answer session.

“We wanted to create a novel format for the Take Two series,” says Malacrida. “We are asking these researchers to talk across disciplines in a way that will help people understand that exciting work happens here. We want to show that we have people working in all areas on campus who are contributing to our understanding of our social, cultural and physical worlds.”

The second session on Oct. 25 will focus on understanding childhood and difference. Dr. Jeffrey MacCormack (Education) conducts research on attentional issues in the classroom in children who experience difficulty socializing and regulating emotions. He’s interested in how play-based interventions can help regulate and modulate children’s behaviour in the classroom. The other speaker, Dr. Jan Newberry (Anthropology) will discuss the partnership between the U of L’s Institute for Child and Youth Studies and the Opokaa’sin Early Intervention Society. Through the Raising Spirit project, they’ve been collecting stories and images for a digital storytelling library to highlight Indigenous ways of knowing and to build community capacity collaboratively.

“Despite differing approaches, both researchers’ work is not about fixing kids who don’t fit in; it’s about changing the way we think about what ‘in’ ought to look like,” says Malacrida.

The third session on Nov. 23 brings together Drs. Maura Hanrahan and Monique Giroux (Native American Studies) to talk about their research. Hanrahan examines policy, especially as it relates to the way current approaches to Indigenous health research can operate to exclude the health concerns of Métis peoples. Giroux is both a scholar and fiddler. She studies how Métis identity is produced and regulated through dramatic works, as well as through performances at fiddling contests and cultural festivals.

In the fourth talk scheduled for Feb. 1, Dr. Chris Hopkinson (Geography) will talk about his research using LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors to create three-dimensional topographical maps used by governments and industries to assess flood hazards, manage wildlife habitat or create greenhouse gas strategies. Leanne Elias, a New Media professor, will talk about her experimental visualization of agricultural data, such as crop production.

“Elias visualizes those data through sound, light and visual images to produce art but also to convey information,” says Malacrida. “Both she and Hopkinson are working very different approaches to sustainability and environmental visualization.”

The fifth session of the series features Drs. Paul Vasey (Psychology) and Suzanne Lenon (Women and Gender Studies) talking about their research into gender, sex and sexuality. Vasey does fieldwork looking at both gender and sexuality in two cultures that recognize a third gender, the fa’fafine of Samoa and the muxes of the Istmo region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Lenon’s research focuses on the history and material aspects of marriage law, with respect to race, gender and sexuality, especially regarding same-sex marriage and polygamy.

Talks are scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m., with the Sept. 21 session taking place in the Markin Hall Atrium. Light refreshments will be provided and everyone is welcome to attend.

Newberry’s teaching excellence acknowledged by American Anthropological Association

caroline.zentner — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 16:21:19 +0000

Dr. Jan Newberry, a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge anthropology professor, is passionate about teaching anthropology and having that recognized by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) is a special honour.

“Teaching is where I really feel like my career comes together, my research and the interaction with students. It’s where I feel the most satisfied and complete in what I am doing. To have that acknowledged is tremendous,” says Newberry.

She will receive the AAA/Oxford ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Press Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Anthropology award at the AAA annual meeting from Dec. 3 to Dec. 7 in Washington, D.C. The award recognizes teachers who have contributed to the field of anthropology and encouraged others to study it.

Newberry is a cultural anthropologist who conducts fieldwork in Java, Indonesia. She has studied the politics and economics of women’s work and her current focus is on early childhood education and how that has changed as a result of globalization.

Before coming to the U of L in 2001, Newberry taught at Bryn Mawr, a women’s liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. Every year, her enthusiasm for anthropology has spread to her students, many of whom still keep in touch.

Their comments in support of Newberry’s nomination for the award describe her as a wonderful mentor, an incredible professor, and a gifted and exceptional teacher who is dedicated, kind, generous, brilliant, inspiring, creative and genuine.

Those adjectives hit the mark because, for Newberry, anthropology is a field alive with ever-changing opportunities.

“One of the things I tell my students is that anthropology is about human liberation,” she says. “Learning about other societies helps you understand your own and it helps you understand the possibilities of humanity.”

Throughout her career as a university teacher, Newberry has engaged students with new ideas that stimulate discussion and get them thinking about what it means to be human.

“That’s something I’m always endeavouring to teach in my class. I use specifics to get at what are, ultimately, these ethical and philosophical questions,” she says. “When a student says ‘You made me think’ then I’m just blown away.”

Newberry has always been committed to helping students gain real world experience. At Bryn Mawr, Newberry started Praxis, a community-based program that integrates theory and practice through community service learning. She also designed a liberal education pilot course at the U of L called Mapping Self, Career, Campus, Community. The first-year course, created when Newberry served as Board of Governors Teaching Chair and in response to a recruitment and retention project, helps engage students in their post-secondary careers.

“Teaching is how I change the world,” she says.

In addition to her duties as a professor, Newberry is also co-director, along with history professor Dr. Kristine Alexander, of the Institute for Child and Youth Studies (I-CYS), a multi-disciplinary research institute formed to build understanding of the young.

The institute has brought together researchers from neuroscience, literary studies, education and psychology, in addition to anthropology and history, to help answer the question of what it means to be a child.

One of the motivations for the institute came from a student who was taking classes from both Newberry and Dr. Louise Barrett, a U of L evolutionary psychologist who studies vervet monkeys. The student was interested in the human practice of ‘wearing babies’ or carrying infants in slings.

“Louise and I worked together with this student and we weren’t even sure we could talk to each other,” Newberry says. “We discovered, through the work on the child, that we did have much that we could say and our different perspectives were really interesting and productive. Any problem, in this case the problem of humans understood through the young, can be understood from multiple perspectives.”

For example, an evolutionary psychologist might look at the commonalities in baby carrying between humans and primates while a cultural anthropologist might look at how wearing babies is shaped by local practices, such as beliefs about when a baby should be encouraged to walk. A neuroscientist and a health practitioner might be interested in the effect the practice has on the developing brain. And a historian might consider changes in such practices across time.

I-CYS members are working to develop an undergraduate major in child and youth studies because of its broad appeal to students across faculty, disciplinary and divisional boundaries.

The plight of Ecuador’s indigenous peoples

trevor.kenney — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 20:12:04 +0000

A move by the government of Ecuador to preserve the Amazon rainforest and protect the rights of its inhabitants may ultimately do more harm than good, says ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge professor Dr. Patrick Wilson.

U of L researcher Dr. Patrick Wilson reveals potential risks of the South American country’s seemingly pro-Amazon constitutional reforms.

The Chair of the U of L’s Department of Anthropology has been investigating the seemingly progressive constitutional reforms introduced in the South American country in 2008, and their potential impact on indigenous peoples. Essentially, the new constitution aimed to enshrine in law respect for the rights of nature; the principle of Sumak Kawsay, an ancient indigenous concept meaning living in harmony with each other and the environment; and recognition of the land of the Amazonian peoples as circumscribed indigenous territories, or CTIs, which would ostensibly offer them a pathway to autonomous social and economic development.

Fast-forward to 2014: CTIs have not yet become law, meaning indigenous peoples do not have formal control over their lands. At the same time, the national government has allowed the Amazon’s natural resources to be increasingly exploited, and international companies are engaging in more mining, logging and oil exploration. Historically, Wilson says, indigenous peoples united to oppose such extractive activity in the Amazon in general. CTIs would carve up indigenous territories into smaller, more defined units, which could narrow the scope of indigenous protest, and delegitimize the efforts of those protesting against actions falling outside their own CTI. As Wilson asserts, these trends go against the constitutional articles promoting the conservation of nature and the legitimacy of indigenous people’s lands.

“Although these things are inscribed in the constitution, there are no corresponding laws. So people are still trying to figure out exactly how they are going to work, if they’re going to work,” Wilson says. “The contradictions are becoming apparent now. At the same time that [Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa] says, “You know, we need to embrace these principles of the rights of nature,” he’s expanding mining operations, and that disproportionately occurs on indigenous lands.”

Wilson’s interest in the welfare of Amazonian peoples and land dates back to his mid-1990s graduate school research on the subject. Over the last 20 years, he has gained an in-depth understanding of their land rights issues and advocacy efforts, and along the way, has formed close friendships with many of them. His current research is the outcome of his ongoing collaboration with the Quijos Nation, an Ecuadorian Amazonian indigenous nationality of about 15,000 people, and two of the nation’s leaders, Bertilda Alvarado Mamallacta and Gonzalo Alvarado Tanguila, are co-authors with him in his forthcoming research article, “Circuncripciones Territoriales Indígenas and the Politics of Nature in Ecuador’s Amazon.”

The paper discusses issues such as the lack of legal reinforcement behind the country’s new constitution, and how the government’s economic development agenda clashes with its stated aim of protecting indigenous lands. It also looks at a key assumption behind the constitution’s objectives: that indigenous peoples are inherently driven to protect the environment. Wilson says this assumption is driven by the long-perpetuated myth of the noble savage as being intrinsically in harmony with nature, and doesn’t acknowledge the complex realities and economic aspirations of Amazonian indigenous peoples.

“Indigenous peoples do tend to have a special relationship with their natural surroundings and tend to live in greater harmony with nature than other people do; yet, this does not necessarily mean that relationship equates to Western notions of environmentalism,” Wilson says.

When his research publishes, Wilson hopes it will be useful to human rights and environmental NGOs working in the region, and to the indigenous peoples themselves as a tool for self-advocacy. He says shining a light on these issues can offer up useful lessons to the international community, since natural resource harvesting worldwide usually affects marginalized populations.

“Extractive development disproportionately occurs on land of disenfranchised peoples,” Wilson says. “These kinds of things cross national boundaries...so we can reflect on our own practices by looking at what’s going on elsewhere.”

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