Department of Anthropology Archives | Research & Innovation

Fourth annual anthropology lecture looks at rocks, stones and other vital things

fmaquito — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Hugh Raffles is a professor of anthropology at Eugene Lang College at The New School for Social Research in New 91��ɫ City.

Raffles will deliver a special guest lecture today titled, "Rocks, Stones & Other Vital Things" as part of the fourth annual lecture hosted by the Department of Anthropology at 91��ɫ. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Founders College Senior Common Room, 305 Founders College at 4:30pm.

Right: Professor Hugh Raffles

Raffles will speak about his new ethnographic project that explores the lives of rocks and stones. There are currently two central problems that anthropologists face. The first is familiar to anthropologists: What are the forms of life enacted by objects that, in the Western philosophical tradition, are commonly considered inanimate? The second, although related, may be less familiar: What can we learn from stones? Raffles explores these questions ethnographically, assuming that they are susceptible to empirical investigation. His research considers a limited set of cases, two of which are introduced in this talk: the ancient monuments of the British Isles and the Chinese "scholar's rocks".

Professor Jody Berland of the Division of Humanities and the Graduate Program in Communications and Culture, and Professor Peter Timmerman of the Faculty of Environmental Studies will respond briefly to the talk before discussion is open to the public.

Raffles' research and writing on the cultural and historical anthropology of "nature" explores connections among people, other beings and "inanimate" phenomena. He is the author of Insectopedia (Pantheon Books, 2010) and In Amazonia: A Natural History (Princeton University Press, 2002).

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology, the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Environmental Studies, and the Office of the Master of Founders College.

For more information, contact Margaret MacDonald at maggie@yorku.ca.

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

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91��ɫ's youth homelessness report covered by Canadian Press and QMI Agency

fmaquito — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

A 91��ɫ report is calling for , emphasizing the potential role that family members can still play in supporting youngsters in need, wrote :

The report said it's estimated that roughly 65,000 young people are homeless or living in homeless shelters throughout the country at one time or another during a given year.

, associate dean of research and professional development in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Education, used to work in the youth homelessness sector in the '90s. He said the approach in Canada has remained much the same since — namely, the focus on provision of emergency services.

“The longer I’m involved in this issue, the more upset I am that we allow 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds to languish in emergency shelters rather than to provide them with better solutions and better options,” he said. He co-authored the report with , an associate professor in 91��ɫ’s department of anthropology, and researcher Tara Patton.

Gaetz noted that other countries, such as Australia and the U.K., have evolved approaches focusing on prevention and moving individuals out of homelessness and into housing. He said while emergency services are needed, the real emphasis should be on preventing young people from becoming and remaining homeless.

He said research in Canada is pretty consistent in showing that between 60 and 70 per cent of young people come from households where they’ve experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Yet even in situations where they’re leaving households where they may have been abused, it doesn’t mean their relationship with all family members has soured, he noted.

Even though family conflict is probably at the core of the majority of youth homelessness, it doesn’t mean that those relationships are irreconcilable, Gaetz said. In certain cases, there may not be a history of abuse but perhaps family conflict which can often be addressed. That means more intensive support is needed for both the youngster and their family.

“If there’s conflict parents may not know what to do. There may be anger management issues that need working on; there may be mediation. There may also just need to be a cooling-out period.”

The report profiles the Family Reconnect program run by , which operates three shelters in the Toronto area and works with homeless and at-risk youth aged 16-24 to get them off the streets permanently.

The program provides youngsters with support through various channels, including counselling, to help get them on track to potentially return home or move into the community, ideally with family support.

Between 2005 and 2010, the program helped 376 clients. Among them, 62 per cent of youth became more actively involved with family members and 14.5 per cent reconciled with a family member after repairing a damaged relationship.

Parents are also able to benefit from the program.

Gaetz said it will require a unified approach from all levels of government to develop strategic responses to homelessness.

At the provincial level where funding is controlled for most service delivery, they recommend establishing an inter-ministerial working group that spans all sectors. They’re also asking municipal governments to develop strategic plans to address youth homelessness.

“I really believe that the knowledge is there about how to do this and, in many cases, the commitment is there to do things differently.”

also covered the report April 13.

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

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Professors Gaetz and Winland: Family largely ignored in Canada's response to homeless youth crisis

fmaquito — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

The role of family in ending youth homelessness is largely ignored in Canada, according to a report released yesterday by 91��ɫ, though there is evidence that family reconnection works in Australia and the United Kingdom and in one exceptional program in Toronto.

Some 65,000 young people are homeless or at risk of homelessness across Canada. In Toronto, approximately 1,700 youth are on the streets on any given night, about half of them in emergency shelters.

Right: Report co-authors Daphne Winland (left) and Stephen Gaetz

“In Canada, we really need to radically reform our approach to youth homelessness,” says , associate dean of research in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education and co-author of the Family Matters report. “We need to be much more strategic in how we address the problem, and this means placing a greater emphasis on prevention, family reconnection and rapid re-housing efforts. This not only improves lives, it’s also more cost effective.”

Prevention programs, including family mediation and support for the development of healthy family relations, are likely to produce longer-lasting results and a quicker exit from the streets, according to the report. Such interventions, which cost about $7,000 a year per youth, make better financial sense than putting a young person in a shelter for a year at a cost of more than $20,000. Unfortunately, such programming is rare in the sector, it says.

One exceptional initiative that the report says should be scaled up and replicated is the Family Reconnect Program, run by Eva’s Initiatives in Toronto. The Family Reconnect Program offers youth and their families access to free individual and family counselling to help them understand the nature of family conflict and resolve or better mitigate family problems. As a result, many youth decide to go back home, while others go into independent housing, supported by their community or family.

“The shelter system provides critical services, but it should never be the only option,” says Rachel Gray, director of the National Initiatives Program at Eva’s Initiatives. Between 2005 and 2010, the Family Reconnect Program helped 376 clients: 62 per cent of youth became more actively involved with family members; 14.5 per cent reconciled with a family member after repairing a damaged relationship; and the housing situation improved for more than 40 per cent of participants.

The Family Matters report also details the success of national youth homelessness prevention programs overseas that could serve as models for Canada. In Australia, work is done with school and community-based services to engage young people and their families before youth become homeless. In the U.K., family mediation programs help move young people out of the shelter system and back with their families or their community in a safe and planned way.

Part of the challenge in Canada is that emergency shelters are largely designed to provide young people with protection from abusive family situations. While this focus on protection is essential, given that 60 to 70 per cent of homeless youth flee households where they experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse, the potential role of family or extended family members to help youth move on with their lives is largely ignored.

Left: According to the report, prevention programs, including family mediation and support for the development of healthy family relations, are likely to produce longer-lasting results for homeless youth

“For many young people who become homeless, family still matters,” says report co-author , a professor in the Department of Anthropology at 91��ɫ. “Just because one comes from a household characterized by abuse, doesn’t mean that there are no healthy or redeemable relations within the family.”

Given the gaps in the current Canadian response to youth homelessness, Eva’s Initiatives is launching an online toolkit that will give youth service providers across the country detailed information about how to incorporate prevention strategies into existing programs.

However, much more remains to be done if Canada is truly committed to ending youth homelessness, the report says. It calls for concrete measures and increased funding at the national, provincial and municipal levels to make prevention integral to Canada’s response to youth homelessness.

The Family Matters report and executive summary are available online as part of the Homeless Hub Research Report Series on the website. The report, which includes detailed recommendations, also tells the personal stories of youth and families who have benefited from the Family Reconnect Program.

The Homeless Hub Research Report Series is a initiative based at 91��ɫ, highlighting the work of top Canadian researchers on homelessness. The goal of the research series is to take homelessness research and relevant policy findings to new audiences.

works with homeless and at-risk youth ages 16 to 24 to get them off the streets permanently. They operate three shelters in the Greater Toronto Area that house 114 youth each night. Eva’s also operates the Family Reconnect Program, which works with young people in a protected environment to support their efforts to address family conflict in a way that helps them move forward in their lives.

By Janice Walls, media relations coordinator at 91��ɫ, and Micol Zarb, Media Relations at Eva’s Initiatives.

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

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Popular Empire series resumes after two-year hiatus on Feb 3

fmaquito — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

After a two-year hiatus, the highly popular Empire series of interdisciplinary talks returns to 91��ɫ's Keele campus this Thursday. Empires II is a joint project of the Departments of Anthropology, History and Sociology in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and offers University community members an opportunity to participate in free talks that examine the concept of empire from a number of perspectives.

"Empires II – Empire and its Subjects" happens on Thursday, Feb. 3, from 2:30 to 4:30pm in the History Common Room, 2183 Vari Hall. This session examines the ways in which the three different departments define and approach the concept of empire as it relates to its subjects. Thursday's talk will highlight points of commonality and differences between these different disciplines.

Sociology Professor Lesley Wood will present the first portion of this three-part talk with "Policing Protest in an Age of Empire".

Left: Lesley Wood

, an anthropology professor who also teaches in the Faculty of Education, will deliver the next section of the talk with "Unsettling Racial Landscapes: 'One Hundred Men', Colonial Agricultural Workers in Post-war Rural England".

Right: Dan Yon

The talk will wrap with Daniel Bullard, a PhD student in history in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Graduate Studies. Bullard's talk is titled "Finding the Subjects of Post-Empire: One Case Study".

The goal of the talk is to help build intellectual bridges among professors and graduate students in history, anthropology and sociology, and to enrich conversations between their disciplines. All members of the University community are also invited to attend the event.

Light refreshments will be served.

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

Panel to examine the future of Science & Technology Studies today at 12:30 pm

fmaquito — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The Institute for Science & Technology Studies (STS) will host a panel discussion today at 12:30pm in the Delaney Gallery, 320 Bethune College. The panel will examine the future of Science & Technology Studies.

Participating in the panel are University of Western Ontario Professor William Turkel; University of Toronto Professor Michelle Murphy; Queen's University Professor Sergio Sismundo; and 91��ɫ Professor Darrin Durant. It will be moderated by 91��ɫ anthropology Professor Natasha Myers.

A professor of history, Turkel is also the project director, for the Social Science & Humanities Research Council of Canada Strategic Knowledge Cluster . His research and teaching draws on, integrates and tries to extend a number of different disciplines, including environmental and public history, the histories of science and technology, 'big history', science and technology studies, computation, and studies of place and social memory.

Murphy's research interests include the history of technoscience, sex, gender, race, environmental politics and capitalism in the United States through transnational and post-colonial theoretical perspectives. She is the author of Sick Building Syndrome and the Politics of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience and Women Workers (Duke University Press, 2006), which examines history of low-level exposures and the production of uncertainty in twentieth century American environmental politics, with a focus on labor and office buildings.

Sismundo's research explores the philosophical consequences of seeing science as a thoroughly social activity. He is examining how historical and sociological work on the practice of science affect our views of a diverse set of issues in the philosophy of science, from the realism/anti-realism debate to the scope of standpoint epistemologies.

Durant's primary field of research concerns nuclear waste disposal, specifically debates over technical assessments and policy-making priorities between credentialed experts, the lay public and social movements. His theoretical interests focus upon the links between topics in STS (such as lay public involvement in technical controversies) and political philosophy (such as different notions of democracy, the issue of minority and majority rights, the controversy over the role of social identities in democratic decision-making, the perils of counter-cultural thinking, and the unfortunate withering of the idea of a common good).

Meyers is an anthropologist working in the field of science and technology. Her research examines the lively visual cultures that thrive in contemporary life science laboratories and classrooms. She is curious about how laboratories operate as spaces for producing scientists and tracks how pedagogy and training shape forms of knowing, ways of seeing and modes of embodiment in the practical cultures of technoscience.

The panel is free and open to the community. For more information, visit the Science & Technology Studies website.

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

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Professor Zulfikar Hirji publishes book exploring Muslim diversity

fmaquito — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 10:00:00 +0000

For more than 1,400 years, Muslims have held multiple and diverging views about their religious tradition. Yet especially since Sept. 11, 2001, Muslims are commonly portrayed as homogeneous and dogmatic.

In his new book, , 91��ɫ anthropologist challenges that view. The 253-page volume published by I.B. Tauris and launched at Harvard University this fall features essays by world-class scholars that explore Islam and Muslim societies and cultures from a range of perspectives.

The book arose from a seminar series on Muslim pluralism hosted at the London-based Institute of Ismaili Studies in 2002 and 2003 in response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, explains Hirji in his editor’s note. “Since that moment, words and images concerning Islam and the histories, beliefs and practices of Muslims have proliferated globally.”

This complex portrait of Islam “challenges the notions that Muslims everywhere are the same or should be the same,” wrote Hirji. Like the seminar series, the book aims not to present the social fact that Muslims are diverse, he added, but to examine how Muslims frame their own diversity over time and in different contexts.

As a social historian as well as an anthropologist in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Hirji is interested in how Muslim societies express their sense of community. He has contributed the first of eight essays in Diversity and Pluralism in Islam, “Debating Islam from Within: Muslim Constructions of the Internal Other”.

Hirji co-authored and co-edited , a comprehensive account of Ismaili history and intellectual achievements, set in the wider contexts of Islamic and world history. He has co-edited Places of Worship and Devotion in Muslim Societies, expected out soon. He has also recently completed a 25-minute film on Tehreema Mitha (see YFile May 7, 2009), a classical and contemporary dancer from Pakistan, and is working with the Textile Museum of Canada on an exhibition of Muslim material culture and heritage in Africa to open in May.

Right: Zulfikar Hirji

At 91��ɫ, he teaches senior undergraduate and graduate courses on Islam and Muslim societies, visual anthropology and the anthropology of the senses.

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91��ɫ anthropology prof wins prestigious North American award

fmaquito — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ anthropology Professor (PhD '07) has been named the recipient of Public Anthropology’s prestigious Eleanor Roosevelt Global Citizenship Award. Named to honour the former first lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt, the award celebrates her role as chair of the United Nations committee that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Left: Karl Schmid

The award recognizes Schmid's participation in Public Anthropology’s Community Action online project as well his wider activities in the public sphere. According to Robert Borofsky, director of the Center for Public Anthropology and a professor of anthropology at Hawaii Pacific University, less than one per cent of faculty teaching introductory anthropology courses across North America receive this award.

"Professor Schmid is to be commended for how he takes classroom knowledge and applies it to real-world challenges, thereby encouraging students to be responsible global citizens," says Borofsky. "In actively addressing important ethical concerns within anthropology, Professor Schmid is providing students with the thinking and writing skills needed for active citizenship. Congratulations to Professor Schmid, the Department of Anthropology and 91��ɫ on this honour."

Seven of Schmid's students .

Schmid’s research focuses on southern Egypt, especially Luxor, a city which is being rapidly transformed into a transnational tourism zone. Luxor (site of ancient Thebes) has been reconfigured as a World Heritage Site visited by more than five million tourists each year. Schmid documents how the rapid transformation of the city centre has been accomplished by tearing down dozens of public and residential buildings to recreate a 3,500-year-old "avenue of the sphinxes" between two major ancient Egyptian temples.

He is also a collaborator in supported by through the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Major Collaborative Research Initiatives program. The project involves a team of international researchers conducting the first comprehensive, comparative analysis of urban expansion and the creation of suburbs in diverse locales around the world.

Among Schmid's recent publications is the article "Doing Ethnography of Tourist Enclaves: Boundaries, Ironies, and Insights" published in the journal Tourist Studies.

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

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91��ɫ undergrads win North American contest for debating legacy of anthropology research

fmaquito — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Who should be the beneficiaries of publicly funded anthropological research?

That was the question 91��ɫ students in Professor ’s second-year Public Anthropology class addressed in their submissions to the – a North America-wide contest involving 4,000 students in 21 schools.

Seven students in Schmid's class won awards for their op-ed pieces, which debated the ultimate legacy of anthropological research. Their writings focused on the role of publicly-funded research conducted by cultural anthropologists and specifically addressed the ethical question: Should these researchers be held publicly accountable for explaining how those they study have benefited from their research?

The award winners are: Nicole Collver, Vanessa Fallone, Fatima Khan, Kate McFeeters, Amanda Mountford, Sardar Saadi and Colin Savoie.

Above: Seven 91��ɫ students are the winners of the 2010 Public Anthropology Competition. From left, Colin Savoie, Nicole Collver, Vanessa Fallone, Kate McFeeters, Amanda Mountford, Fatima Khan and Sardar Saadi

"Anthropology has a principle called 'Do no harm.'" says Schmid. "Students were asked to think it through and decide if they agreed with a position posed by anthropology Professor Robert Borofsky, director of the Public Anthropology Center in the United States. He asked if there should be a requirement for anthropologists at the end of their research to create a public statement outlining to what extent they have fulfilled the obligations that were laid out at the beginning of their research."

Students in Schmid's class had to construct their argument and write it in a non-academic style intended for publication in North American newspapers. The focus of the competition was to improve students’ critical thinking and writing skills.

Left: Karl Schmid

A contract faculty member in the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and a member of the City Institute, Schmid encourages his students to enter the competition. His course addresses the role of anthropology in the contemporary world and poses the question: How can anthropology apply its methods and insights to local and global problems of inequality, injustice and human suffering?

Competition award winners were judged by their student contemporaries across North America. Students were also graded separately for the course on the following critieria: a clear expression of the point of the article, persuasiveness, thoughtful organization, clarity and ease of comprehension by non-academic readers and, finally, a polite and respectful tone – as opposed to righteous indignation.

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

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Professor and anthropologist David Murray examines homosexuality and hate around the world

fmaquito — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Why does homosexuality incite vitriolic rhetoric, hate and violence around the world, and does homophobia operate differently across social, political and economic terrains? Those are just some of the questions examined in the book , edited by 91��ɫ anthropology Professor .

Published by Duke University Press, Homophobias looks at these questions through critical interrogations and analysis of diverse sites where homophobic discourses are produced, including New 91��ɫ City, Australia, the Caribbean, Greece, India and Indonesia, as well as American Christian churches. The idea is to uncover the complex operational processes of homophobias and their intimate relationships to nationalism, sexism, racism, class and colonialism.

In the book's preface, Murray notes that the term "homophobia" had moved into the global sphere. This got him thinking about the term's meaning and the existence of homophobia. "Homophobia had gone global, and to be accused of being homophobic was to be accused of something more than just not liking homosexuals; furthermore, this accusation now carried potentially serious economic and political repercussions." He hopes the book will be the initial step in answering some of the questions the term homophobia raises.

Left: David Murray

Murray gathered researchers from a diverse range of ethnographic sites "to demonstrate how homophobia is a phenomenon that has no centre or origin, but more importantly, to examine how, or if, a transnational, comparative and ethnographically informed perspective might extend, challenge or change our understandings of homophobia."

In part one – "Displacing Homophobia" – some of the issues the contributors examine include homophobia in New 91��ɫ's gay central, American Christian homophobia and homophobia as racism. In part two – "Transnational Homophobias" – they look at homosexual hate in Jamaica, political homophobia in Indonesia, as well as the Barbadian media. In examining these issues, Homophobias provides innovative analytical insights that expose the complex and intersecting cultural, political and economic forces contributing to the development of new forms of homophobia.

Murray, the director of the Graduate Program in Women’s Studies at 91��ɫ, is the author of .

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

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Video: Interdisciplinary panel of researchers on China's distant past, present, and future

fmaquito — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Interest in China is strong, and scholars and students alike continue to be intrigued by the country, whether viewing it through the lens of the past two or 2,000 years. That intrigue proved evident on Thursday, Jan. 28, when a record 110 people crowded into a room in 91��ɫ Lanes for the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) monthly Research Matters event.

The focus of the event was on China, and attendees were anxious to get insight from researchers on the country's history, culture and rising international prominence. To watch the presentations online or click through an edited version of the speakers' onscreen presentations, visit the Research Matters Web site.

Martin Singer (right), dean of LA&PS and a historian of China, opened the session and recalled how his own fascination with China began when he was an undergraduate student. Despite some skepticism from family and friends about the career prospects of specializing in such an area, Singer went on to pursue graduate studies in Chinese history at the University of Michigan. Before Singer became a professor at Montreal's Sir George Williams University in 1972, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau surprised Canadians with his journey to China and the relations he established. The PM's visit was quickly followed by a visit by US President Richard Nixon. These high-level delegations clearly indicated that China's importance was rapidly increasing on a global scale.

Though China and Canada were just beginning to develop a mutual understanding of one another in the 1970s, Singer noted, "91��ɫ was a powerhouse of China-related activity at the time." He welcomed the continued commitment to sinology today, pointing to the tremendous wealth of expertise on China in LA&PS and across the University.

Joshua Fogel (right), Canada Research Chair in the History of Modern China in the Department of History, reached deep into the past to illuminate the historiography of a 2,000-year-old golden seal, originally given by Emperor Guangwu to an emissary from Japan in 57 CE – the first known material object exchanged between China and Japan. It was unearthed in 1784 in a Japanese farmer's field and, since then, there has been much debate about its true nature and the implications of the characters inscribed on it.

Some scholars believe that the seal is authentic and holds great significance, while others claim that it is an outright forgery. Fogel is writing a book on the debate, which he hopes will shed some light on the true meaning of the seal and its implications.

Professor Lee Li of the School of Administrative Studies discussed why Chinese companies seem to enjoy a competitive advantage in world markets. His research looks beyond the commonly held belief and superficial claim that China's economic dominance originates simply in its low-cost labour. If low-cost labour was the key to such success, Li argued, then why aren't other developing economies experiencing the same advantage?

Li asserted that the advantage Chinese companies enjoy results from a number of interconnected factors, including cost-leadership; a diverse bundle of valuable resources; efficient production methods; a robust, domestic market demand; strong cultural and related industries; and a focus on developing partnerships with Western companies that enable them to learn and adopt various manufacturing, management and research-and-development innovations.

Right: Professor Lee Li discusses his research into China's competitive edge on the global stage

The two speakers following Li talked about their research on China in a much more experiential way. Both professors have deep ties and have developed long-term relationships with the country and its people.

David Lumsden, chair and undergraduate program director in the Department of Anthropology, spoke about the contingent nature of the research enterprise, the serendipitous opportunities that have led to his projects and how he came to be a China scholar. Lumsden was the master of Bethune College from 1983 to 1989 and credits his initial interest in the country to fellow scholar Rod Stewart and visiting international students. In 2006, he embarked upon a two-year sabbatical at Southwest University in Chongqing, China, where he taught graduate students and conducted research on the impact of Chinese reforms on peasants and migrant workers flooding into cities. Lumsden received the Great Wall Friendship Award, China's highest award for foreigners, in 2008.

Left: Professor David Lumsden

The final speaker was Professor Bernie Frolic of the Department of Political Science, director of the Asian Business & Management Program in the 91��ɫ Centre for Asian Research and the Schulich School of Business. He also worked as first secretary, cultural, at the Canadian Embassy in China in the mid-1970s. Frolic discussed the subject of the book for which he is currently doing research: contemporary Canada-China relations. He detailed his difficulties in accessing information from government files and the restrictions placed on his ability to record what he had access to.

Left: Professor Bernie Frolic

Frolic noted the essentially consistent nature of Canada-China relations, regardless of political leadership in Ottawa, from the 1970s until 2005. Engagement between the two all but ended at this time and only recently have relations improved. One of the greatest challenges, he lamented, has been accessing information about the current government's relations with China. As a result, the best he could do with all of his research was to deliver an approximate depiction of relations. He noted, "I settled for an impressionistic painting rather than a photograph."

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

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