• Negotiating Change: Community-Based Mental Health and Addiction Practice in NWT
• Conferences & Presentations: Learn about where and when the IPY GAPS team has been presenting!
• Sub-project Updates: The latest developments in GAPS research projects
• Ecojustice & Adaptation: An emerging network of activists, First Nations, and academics from the Global North and South
• International GAPS: News from our Norwegian and Russian GAPS colleagues.

• Evolution of GAPS: Community consultations change the course of the project
• Team Workshop: What exactly is Human Security?
• Sub-project Updates: Find out what the GAPS researchers have been doing in NWT
• Interdisciplinary Research: Using human security to manage invasive nonindigenous plants
• Conferences: Researchers have attended many conferences – get the scoop on what they presented and where!
• Major Events: Ecojustice Conference at York University, and Our North/ Our Future Youth Workshop in Tuktoyaktuk, NWT.

In November, Gabrielle Slowey will be heading up a panel discussion around Oil and Development at the Northern Governance Policy Research Conference, also in Yellowknife. Julia and Alana will also present, along with Yellowknife-based GAPS researcher Jessica Simpson. Rajiv is also part of the secretariat for this conference through his continuing work with the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research in Yellowknife.

Two-Day Conference
April 16-17, 2009

April 16th – Founders Assembly Hall
April 17th – The Underground

Community activists and activist scientists from Brazil, India, South Africa, and Arctic Canada  will share stories of local vulnerabilities to climate change, and discuss strategies for addressing inequities in climate change causation, mitigation, funding, and education.

Sponsored by Environment Canada, International Polar Year, York International, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, & IRIS

• Download the event poster (pdf)

For more information please contact the conference coordinators:

Annette Dubreuil (afdubreu@yorku.ca) or
Jennifer Jew (jenjew@yorku.ca)

Phone: 416-736-2100 ext 33631
347 York Lanes, York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3
Canada

Research has been going very well, with a great deal of interest and participation from community members. Community organizations such as the Inuvik Homeless Shelter, Inuvik Interagency Committee members, Yellowknife Homelessness Coalition members, and the Centre for Northern Families have provided an incredible amount of support and input over the course of this project. It has indeed been a collaborative effort. I would like to say a big “Mahsi Cho!”, “Quyanainni!”, and “Thank you!” to these groups and individuals.

In the fall, I will conduct fieldwork in the community of Paulatuk to get a sense of how these issues within the context of a small, settlement community and how they connect with housing insecurity and homelessness in larger centres. Without a doubt, homelessness in the territory is the result of a complex web of factors that link communities together. For example, homelessness in Yellowknife can be reflective of issues in much smaller, remote communities. Homelessness is a territory-wide issue.

Of incredible importance are the two research assistants who have provided a great deal of help and support to this project. Kate Snow, an Inuvik high school student, worked closely with me on that portion of the project. Currently, I am working with Gilly McNaughton, a local student and youth worker, here in Yellowknife.

- Julia Christensen
Inuvik & Yellowknife, NT

The Trudeau Scholarship is Canada’s most prestigious doctoral level award. Congratulations Julia!

Below is a short profile from the Trudeau Foundation web site:

Born and raised in the Northwest Territories, Julia Christensen is committed to making a positive and meaningful contribution to northern peoples and places.

Through her doctoral research, Julia explores the link between housing insecurity and homelessness in the context of northern communities. “Housing is integral to human wellbeing,” she says. “It defines our access to community, services, work opportunities, and relationships.” Julia’s doctoral research is rooted in the recognition that housing is a right, and that its tenure is an expression of social inclusion and citizenship. “By allowing a significant portion of our population to live without their most basic needs met,” she asserts, “we allow our neighbours to be disenfranchised and excluded in the most fundamental way.”

Julia has a broad range of northern research experience, nationally and internationally. In addition to her doctoral studies, she is co-investigator of an International Polar Year project on “The Impacts of Oil and Gas on Peoples of the Arctic Using a Multiple Securities Perspective”, contributor to the University of Århus-based “Metropolia Arctica” project in Denmark, and contributor to the University of Tromsø-based “Human Security in the Arctic” initiative in Norway.

Julia is co-director of Northern Students/Northern Research, an initiative to promote community-based research by building bridges between northern student researchers and northern communities; and, co-director of the Canadian Youth Steering Committee’s Time Capsule project aimed at presenting life in the North through the eyes of northern youth using photography and other art forms.

As a freelance journalist and consultant, Julia has valuable experience exploring techniques for effective communication and community participation. To broaden the accessibility of her research, Julia works to reach a wider audience with popular writing, visual media such as photography and community research workshops.

Northern youth art, writing to join International Polar Year snapshot
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2008
CBC News

Young people from across Canada’s North will be invited to write, photograph, draw and paint their way into International Polar Year research by taking part in a time capsule project that aims to document the region through the eyes of its youth.

The time capsule is part of the current International Polar Year research project, which launched in March 2007 and runs until 2009. It is being organized by IPY’s Canadian youth steering committee, which includes Yellowknife native Julia Christensen.

“It’s the youth that are going to inherit this world, and it’s the youth whose perspectives, you know, really need to be heard in this International Polar Year,” said Christensen, currently a post-graduate student at McGill University, in an interview.

“Its main aim is really to provide a snapshot of what life is like in the North from the eyes of northern youth, so that 50 years from now, during the next International Polar Year, we can look at that perspective and understand sort of how far have we come.”

Christensen said the time capsule will seek photography, artwork and creative writing from youth, so that their views are documented alongside those of scientists, politicians and other community members.

“We’re sending art supplies and also disposable cameras, so that we can get some grassroots projects where youth will go out with cameras and with their art supplies and basically provide us with a visual snapshot of what, you know, a day in the life of a young person is in a northern community,” she said.

The capsule, once completed, will tour northern communities before being stored at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, where it will stay sealed for the next 50 years.