鈥�91亚色 is delighted to see that professors Girard, Hyndman, Johnson, Petrowska Quilico and Heffernan have been recognized by the Royal Society of Canada,鈥� said Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation. 鈥淭hese exceptional researchers embody our vision to enhance our impact on the social, economic, culture and overall well-being of the communities we serve.鈥�

Royal Society Fellows

Philip Girard
Osgoode Hall Law School

Philip Girard鈥檚 prize-winning work on the legal history of Canada has shaped the field and redefined its agenda for the 21st century. Tracing the roots of today鈥檚 legal pluralism to the historic encounter of two European empires with Indigenous peoples in northern North America, he stresses how this pluralism allowed Quebec civil law to flourish on a continent of common law and now creates space for the renaissance of Indigenous law.

Jennifer Hyndman
Centre for Refugee Studies
Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change
Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

Jennifer Hyndman studies geographies of forced migration, ethnography of the international refugee regime, feminist geopolitics, critical refugee studies and extended exile. Her research addresses violence in relation to diaspora and displacement among Tamils and other people on the move, international humanitarianism in war zones, as well as refugee and migrant inclusion in Canada.

Michele Johnson
Department of History
Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

An international leader in Black history, Michele Johnson is esteemed for rigorous and methodologically innovative studies of cultural production and performance, race and racialization, gender relations and labour among persons of African descent in the Caribbean and Canada. Equally committed to networking and communicating with multiple audiences, Johnson has employed her global prominence to benefit students and scholars around the world, and to promote wider community engagement with Black history.

Christina Petrowska Quilico听颁.惭.
Department of Music
School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design

Appointed to the Order of Canada 鈥渇or her celebrated career as a classical and contemporary pianist and for championing Canadian music,鈥� Christina Petrowska Quilico, professor of musicology and piano performance at 91亚色, has opened the ears of students and audiences with numerous premieres of music of our time, featuring many women composers and repertoire ranging from baroque to the present in solos, chamber works, 45 concertos and on over 50 internationally acclaimed CDs.

RSC College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists

Jane Heffernan
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Faculty of Science

Jane Heffernan is a recognized international leader in infectious disease modelling. Her Modelling Infection and Immunity Lab tackles important questions in mathematical epidemiology and in-host pathogen dynamics, using mathematical and computational modelling to ascertain key characteristics of pathogens, individual hosts, and populations that allow for disease spread and to determine public health and medical intervention strategies that will be needed to contain or eradicate an infectious disease.

These 91亚色 faculty are among 89 new Fellows who have been elected by their peers for their outstanding scholarly, scientific and artistic achievement, and 51 new members of the RSC College. Recognition by the RSC for career achievement is the highest honour an individual can achieve in the arts, social sciences and sciences. The RSC College consists of mid-career leaders who provide the RSC with a multigenerational capacity to help Canada and the world address major challenges and seize new opportunities, including those identified in emerging fields.

鈥淭his year, the Royal Society of Canada welcomes an outstanding cohort of artists, scholars and scientists, all of whom have excelled in their respective disciplines and are a real credit to Canada,鈥� says RSC President Jeremy McNeil.

On Friday, Nov. 19, the RSC will welcome the Class of 2021 new RSC Fellows and new members of the RSC College and present awards for outstanding research and scholarly achievement.

The post The Royal Society of Canada elects five 91亚色 professors into its ranks appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Hyndman was in Sri Lanka within months of the 2004 tsunami. She saw first-hand not only the devastation wrought by the tsunami, but the complications of delivering humanitarian aid in areas of Sri Lanka and Indonesia that were already conflict-riddled and impoverished. She also witnessed how the natural and man-made disasters intersected to change the political dynamics of both countries 鈥� a peace accord in Indonesia and the end of war in Sri Lanka between the government and the Tamils.

Her experiences led to聽the recently released book, and companion videos by Hyndman and geographer and humanitarian aid worker聽Arno Waizenegger,聽 and . To watch the first video, enter the password, "Lhokse". Waizenegger also co-wrote聽one of the book's聽chapters with Hyndman.

The earthquake-triggered tsunami is estimated to have killed or displaced more than one million people 鈥撀爐hree women for every man 鈥撀燼nd billions in donations flowed in for relief efforts. Dual Disasters addresses pre- and post-humanitarian aid concerns and offers suggestions that are still relevant today.

鈥淚 examine two war zones that were then hit by the 2004 tsunami and trace how the conflict and the environmental disaster shaped one another in terms of outcomes,鈥� says Hyndman of 91亚色's Department of Social Sciences in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, who has studied humanitarian emergencies, conflict-related human disaster and displacement for more than a decade. For the book, she focused specifically on Sri Lanka and Aceh, Indonesia.

Left: Jennifer Hyndman

The book examines the inequitable聽delivery of humanitarian aid, but also looks at聽how the聽cultural and political situation in both countries played into that. If more aid聽was given to the coastal areas of Sri Lanka, because of their tourist appeal, than to the people in the hinterland, who are hardest hit by war, that imbalance created a 鈥減otential and real threat to peace.鈥澛燬imilarly in聽Aceh, Indonesia, international tsunami aid聽was earmarked exclusively for tsunami survivors and not for civilians who had lost their homes and livelihoods in the decades old conflict. This became the cause聽of tensions and threats recorded in the book by Hyndman and her research assistants.

The problem was that聽aid agencies had little latitude to spend donated money.聽As it's often designated for specific things,聽some agencies collected more money than they could ethically spend, she says. That led to the hiring of sub-contractors who not only didn鈥檛 necessarily do the best job, but it also made it more difficult to monitor the funds. This could be remedied if donors gave aid agencies more leverage to spend their donations where needed, says Hyndman, associate director of the .

In addition, aid workers can unintentionally become wrapped up in the politics.聽鈥淵ou need to pay very close attention to the political climate, otherwise you can become a political player in what you think is a humanitarian operation.鈥� That can play out in as simple an act as talking to people living on one side of a road. What the aid workers may not聽realize is that the people on one side聽of the road are enemies with those on the opposite side, and the workers are seen as allies to one side only.聽鈥淭he unintended result is that humanitarian aid can actually fuel a conflict or create tensions."

Or, as in the case of the water pumps, what seemed like an easy and fast solution 鈥� provide villages with water pumps so they no longer had to dig wells 鈥� turned out to be not so聽simple in an area of Sri Lanka where tensions were already high between various factions. Bringing in water pumps heightened conflicting interests, instead of聽making聽life easier. 鈥淪o unintentionally, a benign water project can fuel a war.鈥�

It is just as important for aid workers to be aware of a country's cultural practices.聽One aid agency built much-needed, but culturally inappropriate聽housing. The new houses only had one room, when two were required to keep the women separate from the men. Hyndman says many of these issues could be avoided by providing regional cultural and political sensitivity orientation and training to humanitarian aid workers.

Competition between aid agencies for donor dollars was another issue raised by the book, but it has, at least in Canada, been addressed to some extent. Care Canada, Oxfam Canada, Oxfam Quebec and Save the Children formed a coalition after the 2004 tsunami to work together.

鈥淚t鈥檚 an excellent step in the right direction,鈥� says Hyndman.

For more information, visit the .

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Jennifer Hyndman: Humanitarian aid can fuel a war if not done carefully appeared first on Research & Innovation.

91亚色 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亚色鈥檚 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.

鈥�Envisioning will capture and contribute to history-in-the-making of distinct but linked struggles at a key moment of national and global change,鈥� says Nicol. 鈥淥ur 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.鈥�

(CURA)聽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.

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

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

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

鈥淭hese grants highlight the excellence of our country鈥檚 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,鈥� 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亚色
• 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亚色
• Pride Uganda Alliance International (PUAI)
• Rainbow Health Ontario
• Sangini (India) Trust
• Sexual Minorities Uganda
• Sexuality Studies Department, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, 91亚色
• 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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Due to what is sometimes called the CNN effect聽鈥� the rapid transmission of images and news 鈥� the media can have a huge impact on global aid response to a disaster. The most dramatic images of suffering attract the most funds and push other, more protracted emergencies, off the radar.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami represented a dual disaster for Aceh province in Indonesia and for Sri Lanka, both wracked by another kind of disaster 鈥� civil conflict 鈥� before the waves hit.

In her film Hidden in the Limelight of the Tsunami: Aceh's Silent Disaster, to be screened tomorrow in 102 Accolade East Building at 6pm, 91亚色 social scientist and geographer聽Jennifer Hyndman explores how media coverage influenced global response and relief efforts following the 2004 tsunami that devastated Indonesia鈥檚 northern province. While support poured in for the victims of this natural disaster, the damage caused by a protracted and violent conflict between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement was ignored.

Released five years after the tsunami, Hidden in the Limelight offers valuable lessons for aid operations and presents original research on what happens when environmental disaster comes on top of human-made disaster.

Environmental disasters cannot be separated from human ones, says Hyndman, who studies聽humanitarian response in conflict and disaster zones. Like the recent earthquake in Haiti, the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami provides evidence that the legacies of conflict, poverty and inequality shape the impact of disaster. Likewise, global media coverage of such emergencies conditions the aid provided.

Hidden in the Limelight is funded by the . If you miss the March 2 screening, view the film . The password is Lhokse.

Hyndman is resident faculty member in the Centre for Refugee Studies and a professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies' School of Social Work.

Republished courtesy of YFile 鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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