social class Archives | Research & Innovation

Postdoctoral fellow Stuart Henderson's book examines the hip scene in 1960s 91��ɫville

fmaquito — Thu, 26 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

How is "hip" constructed? Is a culture of dissent ultimately a by-product of prevailing sociopolitical forces? Do countercultural events influence mainstream society?

Those questions and more are at the core of Making the Scene: 91��ɫville and Hip Toronto in the 1960s, a new book by 91��ɫ postdoctoral fellow published this month by the University of Toronto Press.

The book examines the history of Toronto's countercultural mecca, 1960s 91��ɫville. Henderson narrates the development of the 91��ɫville scene from its early coffee house days when it was frequented by Neil Young and Joni Mitchell to its drug-fuelled final months.

A cultural historian Henderson is a postdoctoral fellow with the Department of History in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

“I have always found myself drawn to that form of cultural rebellion. I admired the perhaps oversimplified idea of a peace and love movement, and I really loved the music that had been produced from within the ranks of the counterculture,” says Henderson, a self-professed neo-hippie. “So, when I was thinking about how to approach Canadian cultural history, I just aimed straight at this era [the 1960s] and the people I'd always found to be fascinating.”

Left: Stuart Henderson

The true story of the 91��ɫville scene, says Henderson, is about people trying to find a space in which to "perform" a hip identity and stretch the confines that they felt had been imposed on them by society, their parents and other sociopolitical pressures. "They were all looking for something real, something authentic. In their search, they uncovered some pretty amazing stuff and had some really interesting experiences," he says. "But authenticity is elusive and certainly fleeting. It's all about the journey, not the destination, as it turns out. A central point I want people to recognize is that 91��ɫville was not a 'hippie' place. It was a place that came to be closely associated with 'hippies' but people who fit that mold were never the only people hanging around there."

In Making the Scene, Henderson takes a new look at the hip mecca and gives a voice to people not typically heard in the popular stories associated with 91��ɫville – women, working class youth, business owners and municipal authorities. Members of biker gangs, working class kids (who didn't look much like "hippies", says Henderson), media types, store owners, gallery people, artists and musicians were the 91��ɫville neighbourhood. "All of these people were there and few of them would count as 'hippies' in any conventional definition, then or now," he says.

He explores how the 91��ɫville neighbourhood came to be regarded as the symbol of hip Toronto in the cultural imagination. Henderson argues that the popular association of 91��ɫville with the flower power generation was more accurately a close association with the widespread anxiety in the mid-1960s over the "degeneration" of the middle-class baby boomers into unproductive members of society.

The expectation of the time was that the working class and racial minorities would be rebellious and problematic, says Henderson. "The fact that these [hippies] were middle-class teenagers from the suburbs who were dropping acid and growing their hair and losing their virginity was what kept journalists and municipal authorities up at night."

91��ɫville in the 1960s, he says, was always more complicated than the 91��ɫville hippies.

In writing the book, which sprouted from his PhD dissertation, Henderson says there were many memorable experiences. "I got to spend some time with [writer and activist] who was a hero of mine. She was an astoundingly committed philanthropist and activist, and she always positioned herself at the forefront of battles to protect people from a system which had forgotten them," he says. "We spent an afternoon together a few months before she died and I was just so appreciative of her desire to participate in this project at such a late stage of her illness. I'll never forget that when I asked her why she was willing to come talk to a stranger under these circumstances, she just said: 'Oh, well, I trust the process. Write a good book'."

His next project involves a cultural history of the communal residence and alternative education experiment of the era, Rochdale College on Bloor Street. "I am writing a sequel of sorts to the 91��ɫville book. I am working on a book on Rochdale College and what I have termed 'hip separatism' in the 1970s," he says. "While 91��ɫville saw people performing cultural difference right there in the open," he says, "Rochdale remained closed to outsiders and tourists and represents a certain retreat from the integrationist, even evangelical, politics of '60s-era hip youth."

Despite his fascination with the 1960s, Henderson says that if he could dine with anyone, dead or alive, his choice would be Canadian artist Tom Thomson. "I have some good buddies who died too young. It'd be nice to see one of them again, but how do you choose? So, I'll be a Canadian cultural historian and say dinner over a campfire with Tom Thomson somewhere in Algonquin Park on a star-filled night. But mostly because I really like camping."

Henderson is on Twitter under the handle .

By Jenny Pitt-Clark, YFile editor

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

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Professor Ananya Mukherjee-Reed: Rabindranath Tagore's teachings particularly relevant

fmaquito — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Although Rabindranath Tagore was a celebrated poet during his time – the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1913 – and a prominent figure in India’s struggle for independence and social justice, he is not well known outside of India today. With the 150th anniversary of his birth coming up this year, 91��ɫ political science Professor Ananya Mukherjee-Reed hopes to bring this influential intellectual to a wider audience.

To do this, Mukherjee-Reed, director of South Asian studies at 91��ɫ, became a core member of the Tagore Anniversary Celebrations Committee Toronto (TACCT), which will organize a series of events throughout the year to celebrate Tagore. The first is a tribute to Tagore in conjunction with the ’s (ROM) 3rd annual South Asia Heritage Day tomorrow. Mukherjee-Reed will deliver an introduction to Tagore at the ROM theatre.

“Our primary objective is to bring Tagore's work and his worldview into the mainstream, particularly in North America,” says Mukherjee-Reed. “His brilliant work and his profound philosophical worldviews based on equality, humanism and justice have much to offer to us today.”

Right: A photo of Rabindranath Tagore taken during his visit to Canada. Photo by John Vanderpant, Library and Archives Canada.

In addition to poetry, Tagore wrote novels, short stories, essays and plays, and composed music and became a painter in his late sixties. He was also a leading social philosopher and fought for equality and justice for all, striving to build ties beyond borders of race, class, caste, ethnicity and culture. “He had a profound influence on the making of modern India,” says Mukherjee-Reed. His ideas of de-colonization, local self-reliance and autonomy, and a cooperative way of life deeply inspired India’s anti-colonial struggle. His views have influenced Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela and Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mukherjee-Reed says as she watches the events in Egypt and Libya, she is reminded of Tagore's words. “No matter how mighty a power is and how much artillery it has at its disposal, if there is a collective will to challenge its illegitimacy, it eventually cannot endure." These thoughts permeate the vast repertoire of poetry and music that became household chants during India’s struggle for independence. "Tagore saw colonialism as one major impediment to equality, but also feared that nationalist, elitist visions of progress would be equally problematic,” she says.

Tagore had great faith in the power of youth and those who would challenge established norms. “One of our aims is to engage the young with Tagore’s ideas,” says Mukherjee-Reed. “Unleashing the creativity inherent in people, particularly the young, was something Tagore strongly advocated.”

Left: Ananya Mukherjee-Reed

His strong belief in the power of education saw him establish two universities in India. “We have a lot to learn from Tagore’s ideas of education,” says Mukherjee-Reed. The first, he named Visva-Bharati, a Sanskrit name meaning "where the whole world forms its one single nest". It brought scholars, artists and students from every part of the world together to create a community, and even touched the lives of ordinary people.

“Tagore’s objective was to break with the traditional model of the university where the elite pursued knowledge for its own sake. It was no accident that Visva-Bharati was located in a village and not in a city, not amidst the urban, British-schooled affluent classes,” says Mukherjee-Reed.

“Very close to Visva-Bharati, Tagore established the Institute of Rural Reconstruction, yet another university designed specifically to serve the rural economy. The predicament of rural India was at the heart of Tagore’s work. His views on this remain very salient in today’s India where the benefits of ‘development’ still elude millions of its citizens.”

For more information or to hear Mukherjee-Reed’s discussion about Tagore on CBC Radio’s Fresh Air and CHRY Radio, visit the website.

For more information about the performances, live music, children’s activities and poetry readings during South Asia Heritage Day tomorrow at the ROM, visit the ’s website.

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

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Professor Sheila Cavanagh publishes book on public bathrooms, sexuality, gender and segregation

fmaquito — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Few people consider the public washrooms they use as bastions of segregation, but for 91��ɫ sexuality studies Professor , these places are in fact among the last gender segregated public places in western countries.

Right: Sheila Cavanagh

In her new book , Cavanagh, a queer theorist, explores how the gendered nature of public washrooms has become a source of anxiety and political controversy in recent years.

“While talk about public facilities is often designated as out-of-bounds and not to mention crude and impolite in everyday conversation, these places condition ideas about gender and sexuality,” says Cavanagh. “Bathrooms have always been places where we segregate folks on the basis of gender, sexuality, class, disability and race.”

This segregation has a long history in North America and Cavanagh says that in the not too distant past; there were racially segregated bathrooms and water fountains in the American south. People with physical disabilities are today often desexualized by unisex facilities. “When you are physically disabled, your gender doesn’t seem to matter and you are desexualized in the built environment,” says Cavanagh.

She points out that separate bathrooms for the chamber maid or hired help were also built into many of the homes of the bourgeoisie classes. “In Toronto, bathrooms of today are often designated for ‘customers only,’” she says. “People who are homeless or street active or sex workers are frequently denied access to public facilities.”

The book is based on 100 interviews Cavanagh conducted with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer and/or intersex (LGBTQI) people living in North American cities. It delves into the ways that queer and trans communities are challenging the rigid gendering and heteronormative composition of public washrooms. Incorporating theories from queer studies, trans studies, psychoanalysis, and the work of French philosopher , Cavanagh argues in the pages of Queering Bathrooms that the cultural politics of excretion are intimately related to the regulation of gender and sexuality.

The book took four years to create – two years for Cavanagh to transcribe the interviews and another two to write and edit. “I came up with the title Queering Bathrooms in discussions with my research assistants. We felt that it was important to prompt the reader to think about how the rules governing gender in the bathroom are queer – meaning odd or unusual,” says Cavanagh. “I refer to the hygienic imagination in the subtitle because part of what it means to govern the gender of bathroom users is to clean up or excommunicate those imagined to be ‘out of place’."

What amazed her most as she compiled the book are the stories told by LGBTQI folks during the interviews. Many revealed they had witnessed or had been harassed for allegedly using the "wrong" washroom. It is no wonder, says Cavanagh, that activists must continue to campaign for more gender-neutral facilities.

"Access to bathrooms is a human rights issue and we must not police the gender of bathroom occupants," says Cavanagh. "While it is important to build gender neutral bathrooms, like the ones built at 91��ɫ by the SexGen committee, it is equally important to challenge what counts as a man and as a woman when in more rigidly gendered rooms."

The cover image of was chosen because the gender of the subject peering into the Victorian mirror is unclear, says Cavanagh. "The viewer wonders whether he/she is taking off a moustache or putting on lipstick. The slim hips and flat chest coupled with the wearing of a suit further complicates the image. I wanted a cover image that would prompt viewers to question our certainty about the gender identities of others in public spaces."

Her recommendation is not to do away with the gendered designs of bathrooms entirely but to be uncertain about what the gendered signs mean. "We must remember that there is always a gap between gender identity and the signs used to authorize our social status as gendered subjects. While gender neutral toilets are an absolute necessity, it is equally important to be creative with gender signage."

Cavanagh envisions that such creativity would allow the bathroom to become a pedagogical space where patrons would be gently challenged about their assumptions about what counts as a man or as a woman.

In addition to the book, Cavanagh says she gathered such a wealth of material that she is now working on a script for a new play, Queer Bathroom Monologues. The first iteration of the play was staged at the book launch at the Gladstone Hotel which took place in November. "It was such a hit," says Cavanagh, "that I knew I had to develop it for a larger audience."

For more information or to purchase a copy of the book, visit the web page on the University of Toronto Press website.

By Jenny Pitt-Clark, YFile editor

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

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Poverty makes us sick; Professor Dennis Raphael says it should make us angry

fmaquito — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The sky in Lawrence Heights is low and the horizon is as wide as it gets in the city; no skyscrapers here. Dennis Raphael and I were walking through the neighbourhood on a chilly day, wrote columnist :

He is a professor of health policy & management in 91��ɫ University’s Faculty of Health, and he is an observant guy. No skyscrapers?

“Downsview,” he said.

I should have known. The airport; incoming likes it low. But there are other features of the neighbourhood that are much more notable, in particular the overlapping of the maps of poverty, illness and crime.

What kind of poverty? Crushing. What kind of crime? You name it. How about illness?

Let’s talk diabetes. Everyone’s talking about it these days. The national public broadcaster even has a bunch of people eating lettuce and doing jumping jacks on TV.

Is it lifestyle? Fooey.

Raphael did a health study in a while back. His findings show that the correlation [of poverty and poor health] is not between the couch and the potato. “People who are poor don’t have the resources to be healthy. Diabetes is three or four times more likely to occur among poor people.”

He talked freely as we walked along. “We interviewed low-income people. We were struck, when we did the study, by how unable people were to access resources: the poor don’t go to ball games, to movies. They never spoke of recreation, of volunteering, of going out with friends.In other words, the poor have fewer ways to relieve their stress, and stress is a factor of the disease of diabetes, and I don’t know any poor people who are relaxed.

I was going to ask about other factors when he said something that is encouraging and ridiculous at once.

“People with life-threatening illnesses overwhelmingly say they get good health care. And most people on disability get free meds, diabetes test strips, monitors, feet and eye exams; and, overwhelmingly, they had public housing.” That’s the good news.

“But even with those pluses, we found that 72 per cent of the people we surveyed couldn’t afford the food they needed to be healthy.” He wasted no time in pointing out the irony: “The health care system will treat you fine if you keel over, but we won’t provide you with the resources you need to avoid getting sick.”

An easy fix?

“People are suffering, but I see little evidence that things are getting better.” I shivered, not from the cold. We passed a solid little building. He said, “The community health centre here is great. And the Community Care Access Centre is great.”

His proof?

“The people in our study knew about blood monitoring.” That, by the way, is a constant for diabetics. “And they knew about eating healthy food. But we found they didn’t have the money to afford the food they needed.”

That’s an outrage, or it ought to be.

I noted that some people seem to think that if you are fat, you are more prone to diabetes. Raphael hammered away at his original theme: “It isn’t whether you are fat, it’s whether you are poor.

“Countries that have low poverty rates are countries that give things like child care, tuition, decent social assistance.” These are countries where — surprise, surprise — people’s health is generally better.

“But in countries like ours, where there is a good chance of being poor, you don’t get those things — you don’t get universal child care; you don’t get good, solid employment insurance.”

Funny how we say we can’t afford first-rate social programs, and yet many of our neighbours haven’t got the money they need to be healthy. The dots ought to be easy to connect.

Raphael has published extensively about the , and the social determinants of health in Canada and internationally.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files 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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Osgoode Professor Neil Brooks launches The Trouble with Billionaires with Linda McQuaig

fmaquito — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

In their new book, The Trouble with Billionaires, 91��ɫ Professor , a tax law expert at , and Canadian author make the case that the massive fortunes of the ultra-rich – widely considered benign or even beneficial to society – are actually detrimental to everyone else.

The glittering lives of billionaires may seem like harmless sources of entertainment, the authors maintain, but such concentrated economic power reverberates throughout society, threatening the quality of life and the very functioning of democracy.

Brooks and McQuaig launch their new book today in Room 519 of the 91��ɫ Research Tower, from 12.30 to 2pm. They argue it’s no accident that the United States claims the most billionaires – but suffers from among the highest rates of infant mortality and crime and the shortest life expectancy, as well as the lowest rates of social mobility and electoral political participation in the developed world.

Our society tends to regard large fortunes as evidence of great talent or accomplishment, say Brooks and McQuaig. Yet the vast new wealth isn’t due to an increase in talent or effort at the top, but rather to changing social attitudes legitimizing greed and to government policy changes that favour the new elite.

For more information about the book, visit website or read their op-ed about .

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

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Health Policy & Management professors address health, health care and illness prevention in Canada & US

fmaquito — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Four years after it was first published, a second edition of the book has just been published, providing a fresh perspective on health, health care and illness.

Co-edited by 91��ɫ School of Health Policy & Management Professors and , along with University of Toronto health studies Professor Toba Bryant, the second edition of Staying Alive (Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc.) has been thoroughly updated.

It features a new chapter on research methodology; expanded discussions of inequality, women’s health, public health and public policy; more material on First Nations health; and a new discussion of the historical development of the Canadian medicare system.

"The first edition sold really well and there isn’t another source out there that covers the same material in one book," says Rioux, who also directs the 91��ɫ Institute for Health Research. "A second edition was needed."

The collection also includes chapters on pharmaceutical policy, social class, race, gender and care, as well as the social construction of illness and disability. In addition, it looks at approaches to promoting population health that include insights into the impact of economic forces such as globalization and privatization.

Left: Dennis Raphael

“Concerns about health and the health-care system have reached a fever pitch in Canada in recent years,” write the editors. “The public is subjected to a daily onslaught of media stories about the causes and treatment of disease and the threats to the sustainability of the Canadian health-care system.”

The book strives to bring together isolated yet important perspectives in identifying key issues in health, illness and health care, relating them to current policy environments as a means of identifying the complex origins of the problems identified and contributing in a meaningful way to their solution.

It focuses on the Canadian scene with relevant comparisons to the United States and other countries and is organized in four parts. The first part provides an overview and critical review of four major health paradigms – the epidemiological, sociological, political economy and human rights perspectives – and a new chapter on research paradigms and methodologies.

Right: Toba Bryant

The second part explores the emerging field of the social determinants of health with a focus on social class, gender and race as indicators of differential access to the economic and social resources available within a society.

In the third part, a comparative history of the Canadian health-care system is provided, along with an overview of current attempts at reform and a detailed analysis of the effects upon the system and its participants of recent trends toward privatization.

Left: Marcia Rioux

The final part considers critical issues in health and health care that illustrate some of the key themes of the volume, including gender and its interaction with health and health care; the construction of illness and disability; health policy through the lens of pharmaceutical policy and the health-care system; and public health concerns of varying national jurisdictions.

Staying Alive is expected to be of interest to a wide range of readers in the fields of health studies, nursing and social policy. In addition to traditional health sciences and sociological approaches, the book provides human rights and political economy perspectives on health, focusing on Canada and the United States within an international context.

For more information, visit the Web site.

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

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