Fernwood Basics Series – serie

As more women enter male-dominated faculties such as engineering, there is a growing need to understand the set of social processes that impact upon them and the continuing need for curriculum reform. This understanding is crucially important for engineering students because of the increasing demand put on them to work in team-based environments in which they will need the collaborative skills of shared interaction, decision-making and responsibility.

This book is not about feminism. Rather, feminism is the basis of the discussion, an example of how understanding oppression must consider a number of barriers. Euro-Canadian feminists rarely address the circumstances that are unique to First Nations’ women, instead working with the assumption that all women are a part of a similar struggle. Ouellette attempts to confront these barriers. Throughout interviews with a number of women, she highlights the following four questions. To what extent do Aboriginal women understand, experience and articulate their oppression? To what extent do colonized women perceive racism as the source of their oppression? To what extent do Aboriginal women view male domination within their own Aboriginal societies as the source of the oppression? How do Aboriginal women articulate racism and gender oppression?The author argues that there will always be a dichotomy between European and Aboriginal thought. This book makes an important contribution toward a greater understanding of Aboriginal thought and an Aboriginal perspective on society.The Fourth World theory is an integrate part of the “Circle of Life” philosophy of Aboriginal people. In keeping with oral traditions, these teachings are passed on at gatherings and in private conversations. They compromise a distinctly Aboriginal worldview.

Critical research, writing and advocacy by legal academics and practitioners, NGOs, indigenous peoples and eco-feminists has existed on a global scale since the 1960s, but not until the 1990s did criminologists begin to examine environmental crime in a more concerted way. This late entrance by criminologist has much to do with who is involved in environmental crime–namely upper strata, mostly “white” men who run corporations and state agencies and the perception of environmental crime as soft crime. There are “critical” criminologists who are attempting to enforce existing legislation and policies and/or promote public education. For these reformists, debates tend to centre around prospective strengths and weaknesses of criminal law, civil law and self-regulating and other methods of policing and protecting ecosystems. Other criminologists examine how the “toxic” or “criminogenic” nature of capitalism enables states to facilitate and perpetrate environmental harms with virtual impunity. Toxic Criminology is the work of an assemblage of academics, activists, politicians and legal practitioners, all of whom harbour a wide range of interests and involvements in the study of, and resistance against, environmental wrongdoing. Individually and collectively, the authors address theoretical, politico-economic, legal, cultural and human dimensions of crimes and harms against the Canadian environment.

Countering recent interest in promoting tax cuts in Canada, this study examines how taxation helps define the nature of a political community and the values of a political culture. By comparing two Saskatchewan tax reports from the early 1960s and the late 1990s, this treatise demonstrates how assumptions about taxation policy reflect and shape conceptions of democracy and citizenship and contends that tax cuts promote an individual-centered rather than a society-based policy that affirms community values.

As the fisheries have dramatically changed in Newfoundland and Labrador, so has the work and learning experiences of women fishers. Restructuring, work and learning are not gender neutral. Women Fishes These Days explores women’s lives in the restructured fishery, their workload and work responsibilities, work relations, professionalization and training. It also, through a series of interviews with women fishers, looks at the impact on their identity, their autonomy and, particularly, their health.Brenda Grzetic incorporates statistical data from the Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board, Statistics Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Marine Institute to further clarify the relationship between fisheries restructuring and the changes in women’s participation in the fisheries workforce, access to fisheries resources, involvement and status in professionalization measures and in fisheries-related training.

All too often the police do not get the right person. Wrongful convictions are framed as mistakes or failures of the justice system. However, many of the wrongfully convicted are from among the poor and visible minority groups. The law then becomes an ideological mask relieving us of the responsibility of engaging with the real issues that underscore wrongful convictions. MaDonna Maidment illustrates how the desire to get a conviction and paint the police and the courts in a positive light often means that false evidence and court decisions based on prejudice and racism lead to innocent people being convicted. “The official version of the law,” says Maidment, “despite its claims of impartiality, neutrality and objectivity, is a tool of the state and its elite club members designed to maintain the illegitimate domination of society.” Turning back to the very sys-tem that got it wrong in the first place therefore should be a non-starter.

The Indigenous people of Nova Scotia, the Mi’kmaq, have been dispossessed of their lands and, since the early 1820s, confined to reserves. African Nova Scotians have also been dispossessed of lands originally granted to them by white colonial governments and settled in communities with names like Africville, Preston or Birchtown. Yet “the story of Africville, and other stories of dispossession,” argues author Paula C. Madden, “cannot be told and understood outside the context of the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. To do so would be to erase and cover over Mi’kmaw stories and their very existence within the territory/nation.” Madden concludes that “Mi’kmaw people resisted the dire conditions of their lives and their demands for justice were generally ignored. The (provincial) state’s insistence on pinning their fortunes to that of African Nova Scotians by forced collaborations such as the Transitional Year Program and the Indigenous Black and Mi’kmaq program did not serve them well in creating programs specific to the needs and desires of their community. It also created a situation in which African Nova Scotians failed to appreciate the meaning of their relationship with the Crown, thereby causing resentment and at times anger between the two communities.”

This book is a critical analysis of a Muslim group in Canada that has been working to challenge Islamophobia in their community. An important part of their anti-racist work involves dealing with the internal conflicts and dilemmas created by the differences among the members of the group. The coalition has been successful in developing several educational initiatives, in part, because they have been able to negotiate internal differences in ways that do not fragment the group. Through discussions with members of the coalition the author explores the tensions that arise from these internal differences, and in doing so demonstrates the diversity of Muslim identity – and challenges the stereotypical image that has permeated the West for centuries.

The adoption of Aboriginal children into non-Aboriginal families has a long and contentious history in Canada. Life stories told by First Nations people reveal that the adoption experience has been far from positive for these communities and has, in fact, been an integral aspect of colonization. In an effort to decolonize adoption practices, the Yellowhead Tribal Services Agency (YTSA) in Alberta has integrated customary First Peoples’ adoption practices with provincial adoption laws and regulations. Introducing this unique agency, the authors outline the history of First Nations adoptions and, through an interview with a YTSA Elder, describe the adoption ceremonies offered at YTSA. Themes that emerged from interviews with adoptive parents and youth who have been adopted through this new integrated practice are also explored, and important recommendations for policy and practice in First Nations adoption are offered.

In February 2001, a woman from the Congo was admitted to a hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, with a serious illness of unknown origin. Very quickly, the rumour spread that she was carrying the deadly Ebola virus. Even though it was equally quickly determined that she did not carry the virus, the rumour spread like wildfire throughout the Canadian media. Through a content analysis of four major Canadian newspapers and interviews with journalists, medical practitioners and members of the Black community, Charles T. Adeyanju shows that it was the potent mixture of race, gender and immigration, not a real health problem, that lay at the heart of this public panic.

This book is an institutional ethnographic investigation of the Ontario Works program and the problems that it creates in the lives of people on social assistance. Ontario Works is a work-for-welfare program that was implemented in Ontario in 1996 as part of the neoliberal restructuring of the welfare state. The book shows that Ontario Works has not, in reality, been used to help people on assistance and rather has been used as another means of facilitating an attack on them, while providing subsidized and cheap labour for companies and social agencies.

Bullying in schools has garnered significant attention recently, but despite this, little has been said about the occurrence of homophobic and transphobic bullying in Canadian high schools. Get That Freak fills that gap by exploring the experiences of bullying among youth who identify or are identified as queer. Through interviews with recent high school graduates in British Columbia, Haskell and Burtch share stories of physical, verbal and emotional harassment, and offer important insights into the negative outcomes that result from the experience of being bullied. Challenging the familiar image of these youth as helpless victims, this book also recognizes positive outcomes: moments of resistance, friendship and inner strength. Finally, the authors make recommendations for challenging homophobic and transphobic bullying in high schools and supporting students who experience this form of harassment.

Youth between sixteen and twenty-four are considered the fastest growing segment of the homeless population in Canada. While much has been written about street engagement and street culture, little attention has been paid to how youth move away from the street. Giving prominence to the voices of the street youth themselves, Leaving the Streets explores the attempts of street youth to exit street life, examining the motivations and challenges, as well as the supports and barriers that aid and hurt the youth through this process. From shelters and programs to mental health and drug use, this book examines the services that are available, and those that should be available, to help street youth find housing, income and the strength needed to start a new life.

Once mainly breadwinners and disciplinarians, fathers are becoming increasingly involved and invested in their children’s lives. Edward Kruk examines how this changing role has affected fathers’ experiences of divorce and the loss of children that too often follows. This book offers a glimpse into the emotional loss that fathers suffer and their perspectives on what is best for their children in the divorce transition. Ultimately, Kruk argues, children benefit most from the love and support of both parents, and we need to ensure that fathers continue to play a meaningful parenting role after divorce.

When your doctor takes a blood sample for analysis, where does it go? Does it find its way to your local, publicly owned hospital? Does it take a longer journey to a private, for-profit lab in the next city? Chances are, you’ve never given it a lot of thought. In this daring exposé of the laboratory system, Sutherland investigates its historical and contemporary development in Canada and argues that the landscape has been heavily influenced by the private, for-profit companies – to the detriment of the public health care system.

Canadian laws pertaining to pornography and bawdy houses were first developed during the Victorian era, when “non-normative” sexualities were understood as a corruption of conservative morals and harmful to society as a whole. Tracing the socio-legal history of contemporary obscenity and indecency laws, Kramar and Jochelson contend that the law continues to function to protect society from harm. Today, rather than seeing harm to conservative values, the court sees harm to liberal political values. While reforms have been made, especially in light of feminist and queer challenges, Kramar and Jochelson use Foucault’s governmentality framework to show that the liberal harm strategy for governing obscenity and indecency continues to disguise power. Click here to download the Bedford Addendum.

What happens when a woman’s identities as a Christian and as an embodied sexual woman collide? What impact does a conventional Christian view of sexuality have on women’s sexual lives? Through conversations with thirty-six Protestant women, Good Girls, Good Sex explores how both religious values and communities shape women’s sexual experiences and the role of social class and race in this shaping. In their stories, the women reflect on how they handle conflicts between their religious views and their sexual desires, and how they satisfy those desires while simultaneously negotiating a conservative Christian message and more liberal secular messages. Sonya Sharma finds that, although the idea of the “good girl” is a common thread throughout the narratives, many of the women challenged the notion of “no sex before marriage” and saw their sexuality and insights into their church community as a means to challenge systems of patriarchy that persist in these spaces.

Although there have been many equity initiatives to encourage women to train and work in the trades, Canadian women still represent less than 3 percent of tradesworkers. Why does this disparity continue to exist? In Men & Women and Tools, Marcia Braundy – herself a tradesperson – explores this issue by focusing on male resistance to the inclusion of women in technical work. Early in her research, Braundy conducted an interview with several male and female tradespeople. Finding this interview rich with deeply ingrained notions of masculinity and female roles, Braundy constructs a short play from their words. Deconstructing the play line by line, this book weaves together scholarly research and lived experience to explore the historical and cultural origins of the ideas expressed. View with compassion the challenges of the vulnerable underbelly of male resistance to women in trades and technology, so clearly expressed in a group interview and honed into a play. Performed by professional actors and videotaped by an amateur at the Brave New Play Rites Festival.

The number of children labelled ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) has been on the increase since the term entered common medical parlance thirty years ago. Through a deeply personal narrative and an analysis of Michel Foucault’s theories on truth, power and knowledge, The Ancient Mariner Speaks argues that the ADHD label has contributed to the pathologizing of children’s, particularly boys’, behaviour and the further marginalization and exclusion, rather than inclusion, of students in the classroom.

In the arena of extreme sports, BASE jumping is among the most dangerous. BASE jumpers leap from fixed objects such as bridges, skyscrapers and cliffs, and freefall for several seconds before parachuting back to earth. Men On The Edge offers a wide-ranging sociological analysis of gender and voluntary risktaking as it unfolds in the context of BASE jumping. This book challenges highly individualistic accounts of voluntary risk taking and extends early attempts to explain the gendered participation in the sport by drawing on wider debates about modernization, individualization, community formation, gender relations and the sociology of the everyday.