Centre for Feminist Research Archives | Research & Innovation

Gender Equality in Low-Carbon Economies

ls1207 — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 19:58:50 +0000

Written by Elaine Coburn, Director of the Centre for Feminist Research, 91��ɫ

Bipasha Baruah

(91��ɫ PhD 2005) is Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Global Women’s Issues. She is also a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. Professor Baruah specializes in interdisciplinary research at the intersections of gender, economy, environment, and development; gender and work; and social, political, and economic inequality. Her current research aims to understand how to ensure that a global low-carbon economy will be more gender-equitable and socially just than its fossil-fuel-based predecessor. She has published one book, Women and Property in Urban India, (University of British Columbia Press 2010) and more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, encyclopedia entries, working papers, policy briefs and professional reports, in journals like World Development, Feminist Economics, Development in Practice, Water Policy, and Labor Studies. Her work can be found .

In her presentation at the Centre for Feminist Research at 91��ɫ, “Gender Equality In Low Carbon Economies: Continuities, Contradiction, Disruptions”, 91��ɫ alumni and Canada Research Chair Bipasha Baruah observes that, “Globally, women represent only 22 per cent of the oil and gas industry and 32 per cent of the renewable energy workforce. Women are particularly underrepresented in the energy sector in jobs that require science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) training (28 per cent) compared to non-STEM technical jobs (35 per cent) and administrative positions (45 per cent).” For Baruah, this underrepresentation is not only a problem but an opportunity, as nations around the world are confronted with the urgent need to re-orient the energy sector for environmental sustainability. In developed, emerging and developing economies, the energy sector can be transformed to support more sustainable energy -- and better jobs and more equity for women.

This is true in the developed nations, like Canada, where skill shortages in the renewable energy sector are a challenge but, Professor Baruah emphasizes, also an opportunity, “to train, recruit and promote women, Indigenous peoples, new immigrants, workers with disabilities, and other groups that have historically been marginalized in the energy sector.” This requires support for women to obtain degrees and diplomas in the better-paid science and technology fields, for instance, but also more flexibility for women who take maternity and parental leave to return to work and mandatory quotas for women in upper management and administrative positions.

Developing nations face their own challenges in the energy transition, but some offer useful models for ways forward for the rest of the world. In a chapter with Rabia Ferroukhi and Celia García-Baños López published in 2021, “Global Trends in Women’s Employment in Renewable Energy,” Professor Baruah and her colleagues point to Zambia’s gender-transformative approach as one helpful example. “Zambia’s National Energy Policy identifies measures to mainstream gender considerations in all energy access programs” they observe, “and highlights the role of women not only as beneficiaries but as also active energy providers and entrepreneurs within the sector.” They conclude that “This is a good example of a[n]…approach that views women not simply as primary end users and beneficiaries, but as actors in the design and delivery of energy solutions.”

If the energy transition to sustainable industries is necessary and urgent, Professor Baruah’s work is a reminder that there is hope in this transition for creating a more gender-just world. This will require women’s active role as decision-makers, not just in the energy sector but in the social, political and economic structures that now reproduce inequities. They can and must be transformed to bring about both environmental sustainability and gender equity in the critical years ahead.

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Bearing Witness to Climate Change in Treaty 8 Territory

ls1207 — Sat, 12 Mar 2022 21:54:32 +0000

By Elaine Coburn, Director of the Centre for Feminist Research

Dr. is Assistant Professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at 91��ɫ. A member of Bigstone Cree Nation in Treaty 8 territory, her research focuses on the political economy of oil and gas in Alberta. She is a co-investigator on the SSHRC-funded (Partnership Grant) Corporate Mapping Project, where she completed research with the Parkland Institute on Indigenous experiences in Alberta’s oil industry and its gendered impact on working families. Angele is also a member of the Just Powers research team, a SSHRC-funded Insight Grant, enabling her to produce a documentary called Pikopaywin: It is Broken. Featuring stories on the land, Indigenous traditional land users, environmental officers, and elders bear witness to the impact that the fossil fuel industry, forestry and climate change has on traditional Treaty 8 territory. With Dr. Deborah McGregor, Osgoode Hall Law School and Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change (EUC), Angele is co-investigator on the project, funded by 91��ɫ.

“The ways that bureaucracy deals with Indigenous peoples is to assign a group of experts to talk to us and the rest simply continue as they always have,” observes Professor Alook. Government, often working hand in hand with corporations, together speak to Indigenous peoples. “But they do not consult us,” continues Professor Alook, “Nor do they respect their treaties with us.” In the words of community Elders, the consequence is that the land that makes up Treaty 8 territory is now broken, devastated by oil and gas wells and the infrastructure that supports them.

In the film produced by Professor Alook, Pikopaywin: It is Broken, she speaks to Elders from her community who bear witness to the devastation that the oil industry has wrought. “We care for the water. We care for the land. Because it is our diet, it is our livelihood,” emphasizes Elder Albert Yellowkneee. Since the oil industry has destroyed much of the land that gives life and livelihood, Yellowknee fears that he is the last generation to experience the land in this way: “What about my children, my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren? Will they have a place to go out into the woods and meditate? Like we do?” For Professor Alook, such conversations were difficult: “Elder Albert brought me and the film crew close to tears. Because he has a trapline, which has been in his family for many generations, and it has been literally cut down, destroyed, by the oil and forestry industry. He is no longer able to offer traditional, land-based teachings in the same way. We are no longer able to practice our treaty rights.”

To create a future for the children of Bigstone Cree Nation in Treaty 8 territory means challenging the government, for its failure to respect treaty rights. This demands confrontation with corporations, who fail to consult with the Bigstone Cree Nation in Treaty 8 territory, much less respect Indigenous self-determination. If this is a very unequal struggle, it is a vitally necessary one. As Elder Verna Orr observes, “If we have no trees, there is no life out there.” And she continues, “My hope is for people to stand together, pray together and be strong. And hopefully, the government and the oil companies will stop taking our trees.”

Pikopaywin: It is Broken is available through the website.

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Funding supports 91��ɫ project to advance gender equality in pandemic recovery

ls1207 — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 17:22:48 +0000

A project out of 91��ɫ that will advance gender equality in the social and economic response to COVID-19 is one of 237 projects to receive funding under Women and Gender Equality Canada’s $100-million .

“Creating Space: Precarious Status Women Leading Local Pandemic Responses” is a collaborative, two-year project that brings together five organized research units (ORUs) and six researchers representing five 91��ɫ Faculties, as well as 10 partners, working on issues of equity, diversity and inclusion to advance a feminist response to the impacts of COVID-19 through systemic change.

The project was awarded $667,609 and aims to centre precarious status women’s experiences to support self-determination and accelerate systemic change to reduce gender-based violence, promote workplace health and safety and increase economic security.

Associate Vice-President Research Jennifer Hyndman says the successful application was made possible through a groundbreaking collaborative effort. “Such collaboration across Faculties, schools, and disciplinary boundaries is unprecedented among the ORUs at 91��ɫ,” she said.

The community-based project will be led by Professor Luann Good Gingrich (director, Global Labour Research Centre; Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies) and Professor Heidi Matthews (Osgoode Hall Law School), the project's co-principal investigators, along with four research directors: Professor Elaine Coburn (director, Centre for Feminist Research; International Studies at Glendon Campus); Professor Deborah McGregor (Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice; Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change/Osgoode Hall Law School); Professor Gertrude Mianda (director, Harriet Tubman Institute; Gender & Women's Studies at Glendon Campus); and Professor Yu-Zhi Joel Ong (director, Sensorium: Centre for Digital Art & Technology; School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design).

“Our project will take advantage of this unprecedented moment of significant appetite for new ways of thinking and living together that are more just and sustainable,” said Matthews. “As devastating as the pandemic has been for women and gender-diverse individuals, particularly those from Indigenous nations and racialized communities, it has also pried open space to dismantle the otherwise rigid status quo structures that work to marginalize these groups.”

The ORUs supporting the project include (top to bottom, left to right): The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and its Diaspora; the Jack & Maie Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security; the Sensorium Centre for Digital Arts and Technology; the Global Labour Research Centre; and the Centre for Feminist Research

“Creating Space” involves five 91��ɫ ORUs – the Centre for Feminist Research, the , the , the , and – and nine community partners representing female temporary foreign workers, asylum seekers, Indigenous women and undocumented frontline workers: ; .; ; Black Creek Community Health Centre; ; ; ; ; and . The project will also be supported by its international human rights law collaborator, the .

The multidisciplinary team brings together expertise in labour, digital arts, international law and human rights, Indigenous legal traditions and knowledges, feminist and Indigenous methodologies, and migration and Black diaspora studies.

“We are committed to a collaborative approach that emphasizes relationships and mutual learning, and opening space for creativity and innovation to reimagine the legal and economic systems that create status insecurity for many women in Canada,” said Good Gingrich.

Funding for this project highlights 91��ɫ's efforts in working to support gender equality during the COVID-19 recovery. Sara Slinn, associate dean research and institutional relations at Osgoode Hall Law School, said "Osgoode is very proud to be involved in this timely and important project."

LA&PS associate dean research and graduate studies, Ravi de Costa, said the grant is a testament to the strength of social science and humanities research at 91��ɫ – not only in LA&PS, but across the University. He commended Good Gingrich and Matthews for putting together a "superb" group of researchers from five faculties.

"The research they will do in this project will provide a critical and largely missing understanding of the effects of the pandemic on some of the most marginalized members of society.”

The project will:

design collective, autonomy-focused, and locally rooted strategies to address economic insecurity, frontline workplace safety and systemic gender-based violence
launch a new human rights initiative to devise innovative legal arguments that disrupt dominant legal paradigms by supporting Indigenous-led self-determination
create a participatory, experimental multimedia digital framework to shift the public conversation and accelerate systemic change around gender and status precarity.

Good Gingrich and Matthews say they anticipate cross-Canada impact. Researchers and graduate students contributing to the project will work with partner organizations to build capacity and support mutual knowledge exchange. This work will shape transformative policy, innovative and critical strategies for legal intervention, and change the conversation on a national level.

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91��ɫ's Centre for Feminist Research publishes policy brief on human trafficking

muellerm — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 08:00:00 +0000

In July 2017, 91��ɫ's Centre for Feminist Research released a policy brief on human trafficking. , edited by CFR Research Associate and Professor in Social Science Kamala Kempadoo and PhD candidate in Anthropology Nicole McFadyen, with assistance from Phillip Pilon, Andrea Sterling and Alex Mackenzie, and research contributions by 91��ɫ graduate students in Gender, Feminist and Women's Studies, Development Studies and Socio-legal Studies.

The editors describe their goals in producing this groundbreaking work: "To go beyond sensationalism and heart-rending accounts of violence and to try to prevent more harm, we put together this policy brief, based on evidence and experiences. We draw on recent research undertaken in Canada by recognized (feminist) scholars as well as the expertise of community workers and organizations that are engaged with anti-trafficking around the country.

"We speak to the complexity of the issue, attempt to correct some of the common mistakes that circulate, and offer what we think are sound recommendations. We hope it offers an antidote to misinformation, exaggeration, and unfounded reports and that it can serve as a guide for people who are genuinely interested in creating a safe, just, and gender-equal world where human rights and dignity are respected for all."Organizations that were consulted:

Maggie’s Toronto Sex Worker Action Project
No One Is Illegal (Toronto)
PIVOT Legal Society (Vancouver)
POWER (Ottawa)
Stella, l’amie de Maimie (Montréal)
SWAN Vancouver

Documents and other resources from the Canadian Council of Refugees, Butterfly: Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Network (Toronto), the Migrant Sex Worker’s Project (Toronto), the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, No More Silence (Ontario), and the Stepping Stone Association (Nova Scotia) were also consulted, with permission.

To learn more about the Centre for Feminist Research, visit the .

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Book looks at how feminist thinking has shaped what we know

fmaquito — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 08:00:00 +0000

How has feminist thinking shaped what we know? Osgoode Hall Law Professor Mary Jane Mossman and 91��ɫ women’s studies Professor Meg Luxton examine that question in their new co-edited book, Reconsidering Knowledge, launching Friday.

The launch will take place March 23, from 2 to 3:30pm, Founders Senior Common Room, 305 Founders College, Keele campus.

Reconsidering Knowledge (Fernwood Publishing) also explores current ideas about feminism in relation to knowledge, education and society, as well as the future potential for feminist research and teaching in the university context. It emerged from the Feminist Knowledge Reconsidered: Feminism and the Academy lecture series held at 91��ɫ in 2009.

Connecting early stories of women who defied their exclusion from knowledge creation to contemporary challenges for feminism in universities, this collection assesses how feminist knowledge has influenced dominant thinking and transformed teaching and learning.

Mary Jane Mossman

It also focuses on the challenges for feminism as corporatization redefines the role of universities in a global world. The essays reflect on both historical and contemporary themes from a diversity of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. These essays are united in their exploration of how feminism’s continuing contribution to knowledge remains significant, even fundamental, to the transformation of knowledge in the academy and in our world.

Meg Luxton

Mossman, director of feminist legal studies at the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies, is the author of The First Women Lawyers: A Comparative Study of Gender, Law and the Legal Professions (Hart Publishing, 2006). Luxton is also the co-editor of Neoliberalism and Everyday (McGill-Queens University Press, 2010).

The event co-sponsors include Professor Enakshi Dua, director of 91��ɫ’s Centre for Feminist Research, and Professor Sonia Lawrence, director of Osgoode’s Institute for Feminist Legal Studies.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Celebrate Research Month this February

fmaquito — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Research Month this February will celebrate the achievements and diversity of 91��ɫ’s research community.

Every Wednesday throughout the month, Vari Hall Rotunda will play host to displays and demonstrations featuring the University’s faculty and graduate researchers. Drop by to learn what they are up to.

"Research Month provides an opportunity for the 91��ɫ community to share knowledge and ideas as we celebrate excellence in research and scholarship at the University,” said Robert Haché, vice-president research & innovation. “We invite students, staff and faculty to drop by Vari Hall on Wednesdays in February to explore the many research projects and to learn more about the range of research activities at 91��ɫ.”

The Research Month index on 91��ɫ's Research website contains complete information about the researchers and research centres and institutes participating in the event.

Social sciences and humanities research – Feb. 1, from noon to 2pm.

Confirmed participants include:

Assets Coming Together for Youth: Linking Research Policy and Action for Positive Youth Development
Canadian Business Ethics Research Network
The City Institute at 91��ɫ
Professor , Department of Sociology, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
Professor – Children as Peacemakers
The Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migration of African Peoples
, Department of Humanities, Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
The Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies
The 91��ɫ Centre for Asian Research
91��ɫ Centre for Education and Community

Science and engineering research – Wednesday, Feb. 8, from 10am to 2pm.

Confirmed participants include:

– Professor , Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health
The Faculty of Environmental Studies
IRIS
Four Grad students from Professor 's lab, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science & Engineering
Professor , Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering, Faculty of Science & Engineering
Professor , Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Faculty of Science & Engineering
Professor Gunho Sohn, Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering
Professor , Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Faculty of Science & Engineering

Health research displays will be showcased Wednesday, Feb. 15, from 10am to 2pm, and fine and performing arts research will be featured Wednesday, Feb. 29, from 10am to 2pm. Check back often for more information by clicking here.

Want to participate?

Do you have completed works, prototypes, technology or works in progress that you could demonstrate? Do you have graduate or undergraduate students working with you who could assist and help talk about the work? If you have other ideas, VPRI would love to hear them.

Interested faculty members or research centres should contact Arielle Zomer in the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation at ext. 21069 or azomer@yorku.ca. Note that space is limited and allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis.

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Research Jobs: Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights project seeking coordinator

fmaquito — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

The Centre for Feminist Research, home to Professor Nancy Nicol's , is seeking a project coordinator. More details, including salary details and how to apply, are available in the Research Jobs section.

Please note that only resumes submitted through the described process will be considered.

The posting closes April 13, 2011.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer

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Yonge Street covers Professor Nancy Nicol's SSHRC-funded global gender identity discrimination project

fmaquito — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Toronto helped lead the world in its embrace of diversity when the first same-sex couple to be legally married in North America was wed here in 2003. That local tradition of re-examining legal attitudes to gender issues will carry on as 91��ɫ Professor Nancy Nicol [Faculty of Fine Arts] has received $1 million in funding to study the criminalization of sexual orientation and gender issues across the globe, wrote the weekly online news magazine :

The funding, to be delivered over five years, comes courtesy of the federal government's . According to the announcement of the award, Nicol will lead a 22-member team to "explore how LGBT and human rights groups resist criminalization of sexual orientation and gender identity," especially in the developing world of the global south.

"Our work will combine documentary and participatory video with qualitative interviewing, focus groups, legal data research and analysis, and a limited use of surveys," Nicol says in a release. "We plan to make a unique contribution to documenting and analyzing criminalization, asylum and resistance to criminalization within and beyond regions."

The project also received coverage .

A complete overview of the project and its partners is available in the Research News archives. The project is based in the Centre for Feminist Research at 91��ɫ.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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91��ɫ-led global project to examine criminalization of sexual orientation

fmaquito — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Nancy Nicol’s team receives $1 million to study LGBT human rights around the world

91��ɫ visual arts professor Nancy Nicol will lead a major international project on the impact of criminalizing sexual orientation and gender identity, with $1 million in funding over five years from the (SSHRC).

The award will fund Envisioning Global LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Human Rights, a collaborative project that will foster international research links between Canada and the global south.

Nicol, a professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts and faculty associate in 91��ɫ’s Centre for Feminist Research, will lead a 22-member research team as they explore how LGBT and human rights groups resist criminalization of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The researchers will also study the implications for human rights policy formation, social services, and immigration and refugee policies.

“Envisioning will capture and contribute to history-in-the-making of distinct but linked struggles at a key moment of national and global change,” says Nicol. “Our strategic alliance of partners has proven capacity in international LGBT human rights work, with grass roots partners in Canada and the global south. Our work will combine documentary and participatory video with qualitative interviewing, focus groups, legal data research and analysis and a limited use of surveys. We plan to make a unique contribution to documenting and analyzing criminalization, asylum and resistance to criminalization within and beyond regions.”

(CURA) awards, among the largest awarded by SSHRC, bring postsecondary institutions and community organizations together as equal research partners to jointly develop new knowledge and capabilities, provide research training opportunities, and enhance the ability of social sciences and humanities research to build knowledge in areas that affect Canadians and their changing communities.

“91��ɫ has developed a strong record in leading national and international collaborative research projects on key social issues,” said Stan Shapson, vice-president Research & Innovation. “Through its connections to the Faculty of Fine Arts, , the Center for Feminist Research, and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies’ Department of Sexuality Studies, this project reflects the interdisciplinary strengths 91��ɫ offers in human rights research and the success of our researchers’ collaborative focus with local and global partners.”

Nicol’s research team includes 22 researchers and 32 partner organizations. The co-applicants include four 91��ɫ Professors: , director of the Centre for Feminist Research; Jennifer Hyndman, associate director of the ; and .

Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science & Technology), announced the funding on March 25. Nicol’s project is one of nine large-scale research projects funded through SSHRC’s CURA program at a total cost of $8,993,254.

“These grants highlight the excellence of our country’s talented researchers and recognize the importance of fostering collaboration to keep Canada at the leading-edge of research, development and innovation in the 21st century,” said Chad Gaffield, president of SSHRC.

For a complete list of CURA awards, visit Web site.

Project Partners:

Africans In Partnership Against AIDS (APAA)
Alliance For South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP)
ARC International
Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black Cap)
Center for Feminist Research, 91��ɫ
Coalition of African Lesbians
Egale Canada
Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW)
Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK)
Global Alliance for LGBT Education (GALE)
Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film and Video Festival
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC)
International Lesbian and Gay Law Association (ILGLAW)
Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG)
Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana (LEGABIBO)
Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies
Naz Foundation (India) Trust
Naz International Foundation in conjunction with Maan AIDS Foundation
Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI)
Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION)
Osgoode Hall Law School, 91��ɫ
Pride Uganda Alliance International (PUAI)
Rainbow Health Ontario
Sangini (India) Trust
Sexual Minorities Uganda
Sexuality Studies Department, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, 91��ɫ
Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD)
The 519 Church St. Community Centre
The Inner Circle
United and Strong
United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM)
University of Witwatersrand

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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Centre for Feminist Research is hiring a centre coordinator

fmaquito — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The Centre for Feminist Research invites applications for its centre coordinator position. Details about the posting are available in Research Jobs.

Applications are due by Wednesday, January 12, 2011.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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