The 40-minute film will screen Wednesday, Oct. 19, from 12:30 to 2pm, in the Nat Taylor Cinema, N102 Ross Building, Keele campus.

Right: Tracy Kim Assing

Assing will be on hand to discuss the film and answer questions. The film is a personal exploration of her roots in Arima, Trinidad. Through the film, she examines Trinidad’s indigenous history and the inner workings of the organization which represents these indigenous descendants - The Santa Rosa Carib Community, whose queen, Valentina Medina, is Assing’s great aunt. The community is the only recognized group representing indigenous descendants in Trinidad and Tobago.

The film explores how the story of indigenous people has been recorded, as well as the structure of the Santa Rosa Carib Community, its politics and its beliefs. The future seems uncertain and the Santa Rosa Carib Community may soon have to find a new Queen, but what does it mean to be the Queen? What does it mean to be Carib in Trinidad?

Until now, Amerindian descendants have depended on the stories of their grandparents and great-grandparents for their history, while the indigenous story of survival has been written out of the history books.

Assing’s work on indigenous culture has been published in the Caribbean Review of Books and Caribbean Beat magazine, where she has also served as a contributing editor. She is currently contributing editor for magazine.

The Amerindians premiered at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in 2010. It is being presented by the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean, Aboriginal/Indigenous Studies, the Department of Humanities, Latin American & Caribbean Studies at 91��ɫ and the Department of Social Science.

For more information, visit the CERLAC website.

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

The post Filmmaker examines what it means to be indigenous appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The project, Youth and Community Development in Canada and Jamaica: A Transnational Approach to Youth Violence, popularly known as “Project Groundings”, opened with two youth forums in Kingston and St. Mary, Jamaica on July 28 and 31. At both of these events, black youth from Jamaica and Canada confronted the systemic violence that marks their lives and initiated a conversation about how they might interrupt these complex patterns of violence.

Right: 91��ɫ Professor Andrea Davis addressing a youth forum in Jamaica

Andrea Davis, deputy director of CERLAC and the project’s principal investigator, says, “Many youth lack the language and cultural awareness necessary to respond to their environment in a critical and transformative way, and often end up perpetuating forms of social violence themselves.” By bringing Jamaican youth into a conversation with Canadian youth, Project Groundings “seeks to facilitate critical national and transnational dialogue that can open up avenues of collaboration among youth across their shared cultural boundaries,” says Davis. This transformative dialogue seeks not only to change the behaviour and action of youth, but also to increase public awareness, affect public policy and contribute to the ongoing body of research on youth violence.��

In the project’s opening National Youth Forum in Kingston, Jamaican youth grappled with the unique challenges they face, including sexual violence against women, victimization based on sexual orientation, access to education, unemployment, socio-economic disparities in the administration of justice and the absence of effective platforms from which to voice their concerns.

Above: New research��uses art forms, such as drama, to explore the effects of violence on black youth in Canada and Jamaica��

The second youth forum in Woodside, St. Mary, examined the specific concerns faced by rural youth.��Here, youth identified a lack of facilities and resources, including poor roads and inadequate transportation, as their greatest challenges. While they recognized the necessity of agricultural pursuits, they also pointed to the lack of crop diversification and financial compensation as major deterrents leading them off the land.

The question of violence was also central to the Woodside forum, which closed with an impromptu commemoration of the life of Shauna Kaye Shaw, a community youth leader murdered earlier this year. In defiance of the fear brought on by her death, Woodside youth committed to resume youth activities.

Right: Jamaica Youth Theatre performing The Pickney Dem a Dry

As Peter Cumming, coordinator of 91��ɫ’s Children’s Studies Program and president of the Association for Research in Cultures of Young People, says, “The most exciting development in the research team’s first sessions in Jamaica was the moving demonstration of Jamaican youths’ eager and serious engagement with issues of violence through their sharing of their own experiences, their animated discussion about possible solutions for societal violence, and their strategic use of the arts, particularly theatre, to represent and confront the enormous pain caused by violence.”

One example of the use of the arts was Jamaica Youth Theatre’s (YRT) performance of the skit The Pickney Dem a Dry. The skit explores the grief of a mother who learns of the death of her daughter on the streets. While it begins as a personal mourning, it quickly mounts into collective suffering, a disturbing yet inspiring memorial to young people who have died violently. This performance powerfully deployed a poem, a clothesline on which the names of murdered youth were hung and chants based on street graffiti to acknowledge a shared humanity among youth – “We all bleed red”. It also challenged everyone as individuals and nations to “Live up! Live up!”

Left: Toronto youth Ebthihal Nabag (left) and Nabi Shash from Nia Centre for the Arts participate in a youth exchange

“I was humbled by the honesty and courage of these young people,” says Davis. “Being able to see the transformative elements of the research and the way young people from both countries embraced and empowered each other was enormously fulfilling.”

This innovative approach to youth violence is funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada and brings together researchers from 91��ɫ, McMaster University, the universities of Guelph, Ottawa and Waterloo, as well as the University of the West Indies (Mona campus). It also includes three community partners – JYT in Kingston, the Woodside Development Action Group in St. Mary and Nia Centre for the Arts in Toronto,

The project will host a second youth forum, workshop and photo exhibit in Toronto Oct. 28 and 29.

For more information, visit the CERLAC website or e-mail Andrea Davis at aadavis@yorku.ca.

By 91��ɫ graduate student Jan Anderson

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

The post Art helps youth in Canada and Jamaica open up about violence appeared first on Research & Innovation.

“Caribbean Religion and Female Esthetic” will take place Thursday, March 10, from 12:30 to 2:30pm in the Conference Centre on the fifth Floor of the 91��ɫ Research Tower, Keele campus.

In particular, Duncan will look at the religious dress in the Spiritual Baptist faith as a site of meaning-making and identity construction. Drawing on ethnographic research, multiple associations of religious dress, including modesty, leadership and African diasporan religious identities are discussed.

“My research suggests that religious clothing is simultaneously material culture, artistic production and narrative in cloth, linking contemporary life experiences in large urban centres, to which Caribbean people have emigrated, and Caribbean past,” says Duncan.

Left: Carol Duncan

She is the author of This Spot of Ground: Spiritual Baptists in Toronto (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008) and co-author of Black Church Studies: An Introduction (Abingdon Press, 2007).

The event is co-sponsored by Founders College, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, the Department of Humanities, Vanier College, African Studies, Culture & Expression and Religious Studies.

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

The post CERLAC sponsors lecture on Caribbean women's religious dress March 10 appeared first on Research & Innovation.

At the undergraduate level, international studies student Margaret Bancerz won for her essay “Counter-Hegemony and ALBA: The Answer to the FTAA”, while at the graduate level, Osgoode Hall Law School PhD candidate (IMBA '08)��won for her paper, “The Convention on Biological Diversity, Indigenous Peoples and Conservation of Biodiversity”.

Evaluators called Bancerz’s paper comparing two economic trade pacts in the Americas today “an excellent example of counter-hegemony”��with “extensive documentation from a wide variety of sources.” They went on to say, it provides “both an in-depth description (substance, activities and historical narrative) involving the two treaties, drawing on empirical data taken from official sources, as well as a significant critique, based on what seems like a very extensive reading of a wide variety of secondary sources (historical, economic, social and political).”

For Becker’s paper,��evaluators��said it was��“very well argued, very well researched and very thoughtful work on an important issue” and prize-worthy in terms of “quality of writing, level of sophistication of the analysis and coherence.”

The essays were nominated by 91��ɫ faculty members and each was evaluated by��a different��committee comprised of Fellows from the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean (CERLAC). Both prize-winning papers are available online as part of CERLAC's Baptista Prize-Winning Essays Series.

The other undergraduate student papers nominated for the 2010 prize were: Jan Anderson's “Searching for Black Canadians: Contestations over Citizenship”; Laura Liberatori's “Handling Venezuela: The Rise and Success of the Hands off Venezuela Campaign"; Nadine Ramharack's “Overcoming Adversity: The Life of Jaffroon Ali, 84 Years and Counting”; and Adrian Reyes' "Corporate Social Responsibility and Due Diligence: The Case for Ex Ante Human Rights Impact Assessments".

Paulo Ravecca was the other graduate-level student nominated for his paper "Political Science and the Politics of Science in Latin America".

The Michael Baptista Essay Prize was established by the friends of Michael Baptista and the Royal Bank of Canada. This $500 prize is awarded annually to both a graduate and an undergraduate student at 91��ɫ in recognition of an outstanding scholarly essay of relevance to the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the humanities, social science, business or legal perspective.

The Michael Baptista Essay Prize��& Lecture are named in honour of Michael Baptista in recognition of the areas central to his spirit and success: the importance of his Guyanese/Caribbean roots, his dedication to and outstanding achievement at the Royal Bank of Canada and his continued and unqualified drive and love of learning.

For more information about the essay prize, visit CERLAC’s Michael Baptista Essay Prize��& Lecture web page.

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

The post Winners of the 2010 Michael Baptista Essay Prize announced appeared first on Research & Innovation.

“Listening to Paintings: Cultural Mythologies of Gender in the Caribbean”, part of the Caribbean Lecture Series, will take place Thursday, Nov. 11, from 12:30 to 2:30pm in the Conference Centre, 519 91��ɫ Research Tower, Keele campus.

Right: Patricia Mohammed

Mohammed’s research explores the ways Caribbean people’s understanding of class, ethnic and gender identities influences the culturally specific ways in which they produce and live.

Her research interests, which have largely focused on gender and feminist theory, are now amplified through the lens of visuality. She is interested in the reading of the image, whether still or moving, and in understanding what the Caribbean has created as an esthetic as a result of its peculiar New World history.

Mohammed's publications include Imaging the Caribbean: Culture and Visual Translation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Gendered Realities: Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thought (University of the West Indies Press, 2002), Gender Negotiations Among Indians in Trinidad, 1917-1947 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) and Caribbean Women at the Crossroads (University Press of the West Indies, 2000).

The Caribbean Lecture Series is presented by the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean (CERLAC).

For more information, visit the CERLAC website.

The post CERLAC sponsors talk on Caribbean cultural mythologies of gender appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The first conference attracted over 70 presenters from Canada, the United States, Europe and Latin America, who presented in 20 themed panels over a two-day period. Expert faculty members helped ensure rich debate and provided timely feedback, and selected papers were published in the CERLAC Working Paper series. CERLAC intends to continue the conversations begun in 2008. It is inviting submissions for its second conference to be held March 11 and 12 at 91��ɫ.

Recognizing the diversity within the region, creative and critical paper, panel and alternative presentation proposals are welcome on any aspect of study of Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole and/or its constituent parts. This conference represents an outstanding opportunity to recognize and explore emergent innovative research by graduate students in all disciplines. This includes, but is not limited to, the social sciences, humanities, fine arts, environmental studies, law and business. CERLAC is also seeking contributors whose work can open fruitful dialogues and exchanges across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

The individual submission application form is available online. This form includes a request for a list of five carefully chosen keywords and a 250-word (maximum) abstract for papers, panels or alternative presentations.

The application form for panel proposals is also available online. CERLAC encourages applicants to submit themed panel proposals as a way to bring colleagues together to discuss current research and advance a particular field.

The deadline for the submission of abstracts and panel proposals is Nov. 15. Those planning to present in alternative formats, for example, film, dance, visual arts or music, they are encouraged to contact CERLAC earlier.

For more information or to submit completed application forms, contact CERLAC at lacsconf@yorku.ca.

Applicants will receive confirmation of acceptance by mid-January. Presenters will be asked to submit their papers by March 1.

The post Call for papers: CERLAC Graduate Student Research Conference appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The workshop will run from 9am to 5:30pm, on Thursday, Sept. 16, at the International Conference Centre, 5th Floor, 91��ɫ Research Tower, Keele campus. Anyone wishing to attend should RSVP to migrationconf@gmail with their name and institutional affiliation by Sept. 14.

Right: Professor Luin Goldring

The workshop's goal is to discuss the production, negotiation and implications of precarious status in the Canadian context, and��to contribute to and inform Canadian and international debates on immigration, citizenship, social inclusion and rights.

“I think the research will highlight the vulnerability of people with precarious status,” says Goldring, co-organizer of the workshop with Professor Patricia Landolt of the University of Toronto. “There’s a tendency to think about people with precarious status as somehow different, but they’re not. People hire them all the time; they are part of our society. It’s time to start thinking about them and paying attention to these issues.”

People with precarious status encompass both legal and unauthorized status, but all are vulnerable. Goldring uses the example of temporary workers: if they complain about poor working conditions, they risk being fired and falling out of status or not being rehired. If that happens, they have limited recourse. Yet, employers are looking to hire people with precarious status.

Researchers from various disciplines from Ontario, including several from 91��ɫ, will analyze the production of precarious status in Canada, including temporary workers, failed refugee claimants and non-status. They will address the everyday experiences of people living with various forms of precarious status and analyze the negotiation of migratory status in specific institutional settings and sectors, including schooling, health care, social service provision and academic research. Invited commentators will present the key points and discuss the papers, followed by brief author responses and an open discussion.

The event’s co-sponsors include 91��ɫ’s Office of the Vice-President of Research & Innovation, , the International Network on Migration & Development, as well as 91��ɫ’s Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean, Centre for Refugee Studies and Graduate Program in Sociology.

For more information,��including speakers and topics, click here.

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

The post Immigration workshop to address issues faced by people with precarious migratory status appeared first on Research & Innovation.

If you are lucky enough, you might get a chance to see the dynamic circle dance that the (UNESCO) has called "a masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage" – the samba de roda. It is here in Salvador and its surrounding countryside that 91��ɫ dance Professor Danielle Robinson (right) engages with the music, dance and culture of samba de roda, the history of which is rooted in rural Brazil and its plantation past. Robinson is drawn to the improvisational character of samba de roda "as a way of moving, thinking, adapting and living."

In this practice, "the music and dance are held together by shared syncopated rhythms, a collective history of colonization and an overall ethos of joy," said Robinson. "People switch between dancing, playing, singing and clapping as the spirit moves them.��No one can just watch, everyone eventually ends up in the circle, which is a powerful, inclusive community space."

��Dz����Բ��Dz�’s -funded research aims to emphasize samba de roda’s improvisational character and the consequent diversity of movements. Throughout her research, Robinson seeks to understand how participants imagine and embody their relationships with the "roots" of samba, how they distinguish themselves from other movement and dance practitioners and how increasing cultural tourism is changing the practice profoundly, thanks to the recognition from UNESCO.

All of the original materials, including music recordings, music scores, interview transcriptions and translations, video documentation and still images, will eventually be held in the Clara Thomas Archives��& Special Collections��in order to promote further research. A parallel collection will also be placed at the Federal University of Bahia in the new Brazilian Popular Culture Research Centre (Centro de Estudos das Tradições Orais Brasileiras) that is currently being planned.

Robinson adds that the people she is working with in Salvador da Bahia want to collaborate and contribute, not be treated as passive research subjects. For this reason, the culminating book, with its numerous forms of writing by lifelong sambadores, includes interviews, song lyrics and essays, as well as writings by local Brazilian researchers.

Although ��Dz����Բ��Dz�’s research aims to speak to ethnographers, especially those working in dance and music of the African diaspora, Robinson also hopes "to offer another model of decolonizing research to other scholars working cross-culturally."

Throughout her academic career, Robinson has focused on experiences of identity, industry and appropriation as lived by participants in popular African diasporic dance practices like samba de roda. In particular, she is interested in "community-based dancing and its ability to construct, navigate and contest social divides and stereotypes." Growing up in the southern United States just after segregation ended, she is especially invested in understanding race relations and their manifestations in expressive culture.

Before joining 91��ɫ’s Dance Department in 2005, Robinson taught at the Federal University of Bahia�� in Salvador, Brazil, as well as at the University of California, Riverside and the University of Texas, Austin. Her articles have been published in Dance Theatre Journal, Dance Research Journal, Dance Chronicle and Dance Research. At 91��ɫ, she is cross-appointed to the 91��ɫ & Ryerson Joint Graduate Program in Communication & Culture. She is a Fellow of 91��ɫ’s Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean, the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples and Winters College. Her varied research and teaching experiences have led to what she considers one of the high points of her career so far. In 2009, she received the Faculty of Fine Arts Dean’s Junior Teaching Award.

By Jacquelin Chatterpaul, Faculty of Fine Arts research officer aide

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

The post Dance Professor Danielle Robinson researches the samba de roda's cultural significance in Brazil appeared first on Research & Innovation.

If you’re United Way of 91��ɫ Region (UWYR), you collaborate with 91��ɫ’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit.

This summer, three 91��ɫ students will gain valuable experience through internships with UWYR’s Community Engagement��& Research Committee.

As part of their experience with the UWYR, the interns will��review literature focusing on the impact of growth and change on human services and various responses to address its impact. They will also��conduct social asset mapping within 91��ɫ Region’s identified geographies of growth. And finally, they will��identify, refine and pilot potential neighbourhood assessment tools for future consultation and engagement activities with residents, community groups, service providers and��other key stakeholders.

Their findings will inform the way in which UWYR plans and delivers investments in communities experiencing rapid growth to further its community impact: helping youth grow up strong, enabling individuals and families to achieve economic independence, and improving the well-being of individuals and communities.

The graduate student interns bring a variety of social science research experience to bear on this project.

Jessica Carriere, who��is working with Professor Gerda Wekerle in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, is researching the social aspects of city planning within major Canadian cities as she works toward completing the Master in Environmental Studies Planning Program. She hopes to work in social planning and development at the municipal level, assisting in the creation of new policy-led strategies aimed at strengthening public involvement in decision-making processes and encouraging investment in social infrastructure.

Left: Jessica Carriere

Nausheen Quayyum, has completed a master of arts in development studies under the supervision of Professors Ananya Mukherjee Reed and Eduardo Canel and will begin doctoral studies in the fall. She has previous experience as a research intern working with (Dhaka), (Toronto) and the University of Toronto’s Health��& Human Rights Program.

Right: Nausheen Quayyum

Silvia D’Addario is a doctoral student in the��Graduate Program in Geography. Under Professor Valerie Preston’s supervision, D’Addario was a graduate researcher on the 91��ɫ��Infrastructure Project, which assessed the supply and demand of social infrastructure for three vulnerable populations – recent immigrants, low-income residents and seniors in 91��ɫ Region. Her doctoral studies explore the gendering and racializing intersections of work and residence for immigrants in suburban Toronto.

Left: Silvia D’Addario

The Knowledge Mobilization Unit’s internship program, funded in part by a Social Sciences��& Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Knowledge Impact in Society grant, awards 12 internships each year to 91��ɫ graduate students based on an internal competition.

More than��24 students have been placed to date, including 91��ɫ alumna Tammy Lowe (née Miller) (MA ’08) who was supervised by Professor Barbara Crow while completing her master of arts in communication��& culture. Through her internship placement with , Lowe used her��master's class and thesis work to conduct a needs assessment to understand and inform a communications strategy and new Web site for the non-profit organization. Lowe was recently hired as a campaign manager with UWYR.

Right: Tammy Lowe

With the SSHRC grant now concluded, the internship program is jointly supported by UWYR and the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation. It is just one way in which UWYR and 91��ɫ work together to make research accessible and of benefit to 91��ɫ Region residents.

“We share with 91��ɫ a vision for a healthy and sustainable 91��ɫ Region that uses evidence-based research to inform support for public services,” says Daniele Zanotti, CEO of United Way of 91��ɫ Region. “For us, knowledge mobilization is priceless.”

Submitted by David Phipps, director of the Office of Research Services, and Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer

The post Graduate students mobilize research to benefit communities through United Way of 91��ɫ Region appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The deadline for nominations for the 2010 Michael Baptista Essay Prize competition is Aug.��29. Nominations are��limited to 91��ɫ students only.��Winners receive��$500��and essays selected to receive the prize will be considered for publication by the Centre for Research on Latin America��& the Caribbean (CERLAC) at 91��ɫ.

The essays may be from a full- or half-course during the 2009-2010 academic year or a summer 2009 course. Major research papers at the graduate level may also be nominated. Submissions should be no longer than 35 pages, including all references, tables, figures and notes.��Deadline extensions are available in instances where significant rewriting is required to shorten the work to within that limit.

The papers submitted will be reviewed by two to three faculty readers with research interests in Latin America and the Caribbean. Both the prize winners and the nominating faculty members will be advised of the decision by the end of October 2010.

To make a nomination, request a nomination form by sending an e-mail to��cerlac@yorku.ca. The nominated paper and accompanying form should be submitted to CERLAC,��8th Floor, 91��ɫ Research Tower,��no later than Aug. 29. Also send an electronic copy of the paper by e-mail to cerlac@yorku.ca.

Only faculty members can nominate a paper. Students cannot be self-nominated. Students who have received outstanding grades on their papers should bring the existence of this prize to the attention of their instructors, so that they might nominate the paper if they so choose.

The prizes are funded by the friends of Michael Baptista and the Royal Bank of Canada, where he was a senior vice-president until his untimely death.

For more information, contact the CERLAC office at 416-736-5237 or e-mail cerlac@yorku.ca.

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

The post CERLAC issues nomination call for 2010 Michael Baptista Essay Prizes appeared first on Research & Innovation.