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Accolades and Awards

Congratulations to our faculty and student alumni who received grants and recognition for their work and collaborative research projects!

Dayna Nadine Scott (Osgoode/EUC) with project co-director Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark (UVictoria) received a for their project on Infrastructure Beyond Extractivism: Material Approaches to Restoring Indigenous Jurisdiction to explore novel approaches that will restore Indigenous governing authority over lands and waterways. The funding will enable Scott and her collaborators to continue support for Indigenous land defenders across several bioregions who are working to build up and restore vital infrastructures in their territories. Scott’s own project continues in partnership with Neskantaga First Nation which is launching a new youth-focused Lake Sturgeon Stewardship program, Namekaa Gaagige, in the face of extractive pressures in the Attawapiskat River watershed due to the proposed development of the Ring of Fire. The project aims to generate insights about the relationship between infrastructure and jurisdiction, and to evaluate strategies for reclaiming and restoring Indigenous jurisdiction over lands and waters through the generation of vital infrastructures against extractivism. The research team is composed of critical scholars and land-based practitioners from across distinct North American bio-regions who have deep experience working in Indigenous communities in order to generate infrastructure that restores Indigenous jurisdiction. In collaboration with key university-based programs and research institutes (Yellowhead Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University; University of Toronto's Geography and Planning Department; and the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement at the University of Victoria), the partnership is poised to generate ground-breaking new policy pathways for materializing infrastructure beyond extractivism. and YFile News).

Joseph Mensah and Valerie Preston are co-applicants in Philomina Okeke-Ihejirika's (University of Alberta) SSHRC Partnership Grant titled I am because we are - amplifying Sub-Saharan African immigrants' resilience and ability to thrive. The project will undertake innovative, cross-sectoral research partnership to challenge, expand and make more inclusive current approaches to immigration research and service provision.

Valerie Preston is also a co-applicant in Stephen Gaetz's (91��ɫ) SSHRC Partnership Grant titled The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness that will mobilize partnerships with academics, policy-makers, service providers and people with lived experience of homelessness to prevent and provide solution to this problem.

Andil Gosine received a for his project on Colin Robinson's Unfinished Work. The interdisciplinary project examines historical and contemporary articulations of sexual autonomy through consideration of the intellectual, literary and political legacy of Colin M. Robinson -- the Black, Queer, Caribbean-American writer and activist who made formidable impacts during his prolific and enduring engagement in social justice movements in the United States. Through documentation and analysis of Robinson's life and work, the project will bring together different genres and contexts in which he worked: literary arts, social services, human rights advocacy, politics, and Queer, Black and feminist communities.

Gosine also received earlier a for Nature's Wild in relation to his recent book (Duke University Press, 2021). In this knowledge mobilization project, Gosine engages with questions of humanism, queer theory, and animality to examine and revise historical and contemporary understandings of queer desire.

Ute Lehrer received a SSHRC Insight Grant for her research on High-rise living, public space and COVID-19 in the Greater Toronto Area. The research examines high-rise living in the years before and during COVID-19 and how shared space has been used and altered in high-rise buildings. Throughout the pandemic, public space has been spotlighted as an important part of urban everyday life: (a) as a physical space where inhabitants have had to implement safe distance between one another; and (b) as an important social space where new ways of coming together have gradually taken shape. The project explores how people have experienced shared space and amenities in residential high-rise towers, and how people have developed new places and processes for social interaction within high-rises in the constrained context of COVID-19.

Lehrer and EUC postdoc Murat Ucoglu also received a grant with Seyfi Tomar as industry partner on How to Create Affordable Housing Models in Toronto? The Discussion on Missing Middle and Financing Redevelopment. The project aims at analyzing what kind of policy change and urban redevelopment strategies could be created to increase the housing supply by creating an affordable housing policy in Toronto. It will primarily focus on the discussion of missing mid-rise and missing-middle in Toronto, and will look for what kind of housing models would be the best choices to create affordability in the city.

Luisa Sotomayor, with Lina Brand Correa as co-applicant, received a SSHRC Insight Grant for her research on Vertical Peripheries: Planning and citizenship in Colombia's commodified periurban housing towers. The research project in Canada and Colombia investigates the implementation and effects of Colombia's market-based housing policy as it restructures the country's metropolitan peripheries. It aims to understand how commodified social housing affects peripheral urbanization, urban planning processes, and ultimately, residents' everyday lives.

Sarah Flicker is a co-applicant in Ciann Wilson's (PI, Wilfrid Laurier University and ES PhD alumna) SSHRC Insight Grant on Living Memories: Community-based Storytelling of Indigenous and Black Histories and Realities in Canada.

Lisa Myers is a co-applicant in Suzanne Morrissette's (PI, OCAD University) SSHRC Insight Grant on Relationships, reciprocity, exchange: Indigenous and BPOC relationality and accountability within Indigenous territories.

Sarah Rotz received the 2022 Julian M. Szeicz Award for Early Career Achievement. The award is presented annually by the in recognition of research achievement and career potential by a Canadian geographer at an early career stage. Sarah's work is grounded in environmental justice applied to land and food systems. Much of her research aims to situate political economic processes -- such as agri-food industrialization, financialization and policy - within the lens of settler colonial patriarchy and racial capitalism. She also draws from anti-colonial, feminist and community-based methodologies to engage in accountable and reciprocal research practices for more just and sustainable land and food futures. She has published on topics ranging from political economy and ecology of farmland tenure and data capitalism in agriculture to intersecting gender inequities in academic research. Her work also critically examines the role of public and private institutions, including government ministries, research institutes, funding agencies, and industry sectors in maintaining and reproducing structural injustices.

Glen Norcliffe received the . Norcliffe’s undergraduate studies at Cambridge coincided with the “awakening” of geography led by figures such as Peter Haggett and Richard Chorley. He continued his graduate work at the University of Toronto where Leslie Curry and Emilio Casetti were pointing the discipline in new directions. His doctorate at Bristol University, supervised by Michael Chisholm, confirmed his focus on industrial geography and regional growth. He joined 91��ɫ in 1970 and 52 years later is still a faculty member, although his research interests have evolved to embrace social, political and cultural constructions within economic geography. He is currently working on the sport economy, technology (especially for the disabled), and interpretations of extractive peripheries.

Honor Ford-Smith received a 2022 Honorary Associateship Award from the . The honour is conferred by the scholarly association in recognition of an individual's significant and sustained contributions to theatre and performing arts in Canada. Ford-Smith has made fundamental contributions to Canadian and Jamaican theatre, connecting theory and praxis of decolonization through performance arts and practice. A co-founder and first artistic director of , established in 1977, she profoundly contributed to developing Jamaican community theatre, with a special focus on women’s rights, poverty, race and imperialism. The company’s initiatives revolved around economic and social justice and the Collective was involved with influential NGOs and Jamaican governmental organizations. Her theatrical projects focus on memory and urban violence extending the role of theatre into the sphere of social justice, by spilling out onto streets to give voice to Black and racialized communities that are the targets of structural violence and social inequality.

Jamilla Mohamud (MES alumna) received the 2022 President’s Award: Young Planner from the Canadian Institute of Planners.  Mohamud is an urban planner with Urban Strategies in Toronto. She is a frequent lecturer, panelist, and media commentator, while volunteering on several committees with the aim of raising awareness of the intersecting issues affecting historically disadvantaged populations. A founding member of the leading the development of the BPUA’s submission to the Province of Ontario’s Housing Affordability Taskforce, she was nominated, and successfully selected, to represent the BPUA on the OPPI Anti-Black Racism in Planning Task Force. As issues of racism, colonialism and equity broaden the priorities of planners, Mohamud is among our young leaders redefining what it means to create inclusive, healthy communities. 

Kean Birch received a on Rethinking Canada's Competition Policy in the Digital Economy with the (CIGI). The partnership will analyze how the imperatives and implications of the digital economy impact market competition and innovation, especially when it comes to the monopolistic control of personal and corporate data. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a policy and regulatory proposal for submission to Canada’s Federal Government as part of their recently announced review of the Competition Act. Canada has the opportunity to learn from what other countries and jurisdictions (e.g. EU, USA, Australia) are doing around the world when it comes to rethinking their competition policies. The partnership will examine how these other countries are rethinking their approach to competition in the digital economy in order to contribute a policy proposal to the Federal Government's review of the Competition Act.

Jose Etcheverry received a sub-grant from the to collaborate on research/evaluation, education, community engagement, and grant opportunities for the 7-Generation strategy work. The Legacy Project is a social venture focused on research, education, and social innovation. Since 2000, it has worked with children, youth, adults, elders, schools, libraries, organizations and communities across Canada and the United States. Its work connects the dots between psychosocial, economic, and ecological wellbeing, pioneering 7-Generation Strategy. The Project’s 7-Generation work, starting in Markham, involves bringing together young people and older adults to enrich each other’s lives as well as to make a difference in their community. The ultimate goal of the 7-Generation work is systems innovation that interconnects and addresses multiple issues simultaneously – ranging from the wellbeing, empowerment, lifelong learning and social inclusion of older adults to children’s mental health, learning, belonging and wellbeing to generational issues like social cohesion, equity, and climate change. Other collaborating organizations include Social Services Network, Markham Public Library, and the City of Markham. Partners include United Way Greater Toronto; Intergenerational Schools International; and Generations United.

EUC Research in the Media

In the week leading up to the 91��ɫ convocation, EUC launched a new webpage and social media campaign highlighting several students who completed their Senior Honours Work in the past academic year. The webpage consists of a landing page and individualized profile pages with a short blog detailing their respective senior honours projects as well as short videos describing their student experience and research work. Special thanks to Sarah Costa for her creativity and initiative in proposing this project and to Gail Fraser, Liliana Piccone, Ann Tsirgielis and Paul Tran for the guidance and support! 

Publications and Reports