GAPS Newsletter #3

By admin on October 27, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment

Our third newsletter has now been released. It features:


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Yellowknife Conferences Rendezvous

By admin on August 29, 2009 | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

This past summer, Gunhild Hoogensen gave a keynote presentation to the 14th International Congress on Circumpolar Health in Yellowknife, NT. Affiliated student researchers Julia Christensen and Alana Kronstal also presented their GAPS research at the congress while GAPS and IRIS web coordinator Rajiv Rawat served on the organizing committee and secretariat. An audio podcast of Gunhild’s speech is available here.

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.


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Conference: Strengthening the Ecojustice Movement

By admin on March 13, 2009 | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

Strengthening the Ecojustice Movement:
How Will Disenfranchised Peoples Adapt to Climate Change?

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

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


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Newsletter No. 2 now available

By admin on September 30, 2008 | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

Check out our second newsletter covering April 2007 until April 2008.


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Update from Julia

By admin on July 28, 2008 | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

2008 has been a very busy year so far. I have spent the last five months in Inuvik and Yellowknife, conducting fieldwork for my doctoral research which forms part of the GAPS project. My research looks at the relationship between housing insecurity and homelessness in the Northwest Territories and how this relationship is affected by economic growth brought about through resource development. To understand the housing insecurity-homelessness relationship, participants are asked to discuss what makes them feel ‘at home’ in a place and what makes them feel not ‘at home’. This discussion helps to create a better sense of what is needed to build housing security and, conversely, what creates housing insecurity.

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


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Podcast with Brittany Hardisty-Isaiah

By dbazely on July 11, 2008 | Filed Under Podcasts | Leave a Comment

While we were in Fort Simpson, we had the opportunity to recruit several local youth to be partners with our research team. Brittany was one of them, and the following is a podcast of our discussion.

 

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Snapshots from Fort Simpson

By admin on July 3, 2008 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment












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We are FINALLY looking for non-indigenous plants in the NWT

By dbazely on June 22, 2008 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment

Milissa (Missy) Elliott has been planning her field work for months. She has been poring over maps, faxing permit applications all over the NWT, applying for extra research funds, and meeting with her supervisory committee. When I arrive at the lab everyday, Missy is invariably sitting at her computer.

After all of this preparation, it feels slightly unreal to be outside looking at plants and talking to people about changes that they have been seeing in the plants. Although I have recently spent many months in the arctic in Europe, it’s been more than 20 years since I have been in the Canadian north. (From 1980-84 I spent my summers in the sub-arctic salt-marshes of Hudson Bay, east of Churchill, Manitoba. This has since become Wapusk National Park.) Being back with Canadian northern plants and flowers is like seeing old friends after a long time. BUT, there are also changes, and we are seeing and measuring species that have come north since I was last around 60 degrees in Canada. So, not only is Missy having to improve her plant identification skills to collect her data, and learn all of those boring Latin names, BUT so am I having to learn new species!

So far, the most unexpected non-indigenous species that we have found is Siberian pea shrub or Caragana, which grows all over Fort Simpson.

- Dawn Bazely in Fort Simpson
incredibly hot and with some of
the most amazing gardens that
I have seen in northern regions.


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Julia wins Trudeau Scholarship

By admin on June 9, 2008 | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

Yellowknife native and GAPS co-investigator, Julia Christensen, just won the prestigious Trudeau Scholarship for 2008. Her PhD and IPY research is entitled Homeless in a Homeland: Housing (in)Security and Resource Development in the NWT. Julia was also profiled in a full page spread of the Yellowknifer.

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.


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First Newsletter Published

By admin on March 10, 2008 | Filed Under News | Leave a Comment

Our first GAPS Initiative newsletter has just been released. You can download it (PDF format) in its entirely here.


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