Skip to main content

IRIS Fellow Mark Winfield releases book on the environment and Ontario

Published by

Published January 31, 2012

by iris_author

York Prof’s new book explores crucial link between Ontario’s environment and economy

TORONTO – A York University professor’s new book offers the first comprehensive study of Ontario’s environmental policy and what it may spell for our future.

Blue-Green Province, which launches Feb. 9, 2012, explores the relationship between the environment and Ontario’s society, politics and economy through the Progressive Conservative dynasty of premiers Drew, Frost, Robarts and Davis, the “quiet” and “common sense” revolutions of Peterson, Rae and Harris, through to the McGuinty era.

Authored by Mark Winfield, associate professor in York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES), the book includes examinations of the 2011 federal and provincial election outcomes and their implications for future environmental and energy policy in Ontario and Canada.

“The province is searching for a way to regain its pre-eminent status in Confederation, but its managerially-oriented government has seemed unable to articulate a compelling vision for the way forward,” says Winfield.

“Ontario is facing tests that will require vision and leadership, including the declining US market for our exports, difficulties for export-oriented industries posed by a rising Canadian dollar, the regional impacts of climate change, and the rural-urban split evident in the outcome of the 2011 election. We’re also facing challenges stemming from a federal government oriented towards the interests of western Canada, and the need to recover Toronto’s role as the anchor of the Greater Golden Horseshoe and as an emerging global city,” Winfield says.

The book focuses on the interplay between levels of public concern for environmental issues and the ideological orientation of the province’s Liberal, Progressive Conservative and NDP governments in understanding their approaches to environmental issues. Its findings have implications beyond Ontario, and help to explain for the recent behavior of the federal Conservative government towards the environment.

Despite the fact that environmental policy has become increasingly important in Ontario politics, very little scholarship has been devoted to exploring the development of that policy or the crucial relationship between the environment and the province’s wider political economy.

“I believe this book fills a significant gap in our understanding of factors that have shaped our environmental policy and will continue to inform it in future,” Winfield says.

Blue-Green Province: The Environment and Political Economy of Ontario is published by UBC Press. Winfield is co-chair of the FES Sustainable Energy Initiative and a Fellow of York’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS).

 

Posted in: Events | IRIS News

Disability advocate Jeff Preston to stage a ‘stairbombing’ at York

Published by

Published January 31, 2012

by iris_author

Jeff Preston, co-creator of webcomic Cripz, advocates fighting for disability rights in creative ways and will explain how in a talk Feb. 7 at York.

In “Battle Lines Drawn: Resisting Ableism Through Creative Intervention”, Preston will explain how to use cultural warfare – online publishing and publicity stunts such as stairbombing and chair mobbing – to put the lie to common myths and stereotypes about disability, with humour.

Right: Jeff Preston in a snowbank, in a photo on his website getmobilized.ca

Following his talk, his hosts, Access York’s Disability Education & Awareness Subcommittee, are taking his advice and staging a stairbombing on the Keele campus. They will block off a major stairwell using caution tape and place a sign stating: “Caution: These stairs are out of service. Inconvenient, eh? This is only one example of what persons with disabilities experience every day."

Preston made headlines when he drove his electric wheelchair from London to Ottawa to raise awareness about inaccessible transportation. In 2010, Preston and Clara Madrenas created Cripz, an online comic strip about two high school boys in wheelchairs that aims to entertain through humour while satirizing myths about disability.

Left: Image from webcomic Cripz

The disability advocate gives talks in which he argues that mainstream media, from “Daredevil” to “Glee”, rarely speak to the lived experience of disabled persons. Such TV shows are based more on the skewed perspectives of nondisabled creators, who draw heavily on stereotypes infused with pity and paternalism when portraying disabled characters.

Hear Preston speak in Winters College dining hall, 001 Winter's College, Feb. 7 from noon to 2pm. To attend, RSVP by Feb. 3 to kaley@yorku.ca.

This event was organized by Access York with assistance from the Centre for Human Rights, the Office of the Vice-President Students, and the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability.

Posted in: Events

2012-13 OntarioGreenSpec.ca Home Sweet Home Challenge

Published by

Published January 30, 2012

by iris_author

The 2012-13 OntarioGreenSpec.ca Home Sweet Home Student Challenge will launch on January 10, 2012 via the website www.hsh-competition.ca.  The challenge scenario will be posted on the website at that time, along with all guidelines and entry forms. Hint: this year's scenario involves designing a small, efficient residence for a famous comedian in a quirky location.

The Student Challenge is open to all full-time students at accredited post-secondary institutions in Ontario, and is particularly well suited to students of architecture, engineering, construction, environmental technologies, design, and related fields. Success in this competition demands rigorous product specification research and technical design considerations, as well as attention to marketability and aesthetics.

Team entries are encouraged (up to four members) and may be inter-disciplanary and/or inter-institutional.  The entry fee is $50 per team.

The Challenge will remain open for a full year to engage all semesters.  The closing date is March 1, 2013, with awards the following month. At the awards function, student finalists are recognized alongside their professional counterparts in the parallel Home Sweet Home Competition, and provided with other career-networking opportunities.
 http://hsh-competition.ca  [Look for the Student Challenge section]

Thank you!

Jill Thompson, B.A., B.E.S.
Project Manager, Home Sweet Home Competition and Student Challenge
OntarioGreenSpec.ca (c/o Mindscape Innovations)

P:   Ext 224. (647) 367-2938 / (613) 366-1922 / or toll-free (877) 394-6589
E:   jill@ontariogreenspec.ca
W:  www.ontariogreenspec.ca / www.hsh-competition.ca

Click here to go to the Home Sweet Home Competition Facebook page (no login required).

Office Hours: M-F / 1-5pm or by appointment.

Posted in: News | Opportunities

Celebrate Research Month this February 8th

Published by

Published January 30, 2012

by afdubreu

 

The following appeared in the January 30th edition of YFile.

Research Month this February will celebrate the achievements and diversity of York University’s research community.

Every Wednesday throughout the month, Vari Hall Rotunda will play host to displays and demonstrations featuring the University’s faculty and graduate researchers. Drop by to learn what they are up to. IRIS will be on display February 8th!

"Research Month provides an opportunity for the York community to share knowledge and ideas as we celebrate excellence in research and scholarship at the University,” said Robert Haché, vice-president research & innovation. “We invite students, staff and faculty to drop by Vari Hall on Wednesdays in February to explore the many research projects and to learn more about the range of research activities at York.”

The Research Month index on York's Research website contains complete information about the researchers and research centres and institutes participating in the event.

Social sciences and humanities research – Feb. 1, from noon to 2pm.

Confirmed participants include:

Science and engineering research – Wednesday, Feb. 8, from 10am to 2pm.

Confirmed participants include:

Health research displays will be showcased Wednesday, Feb. 15, from 10am to 2pm, and fine and performing arts research will be featured Wednesday, Feb. 29, from 10am to 2pm. Check back often for more information by clicking here.

Want to participate?

Do you have completed works, prototypes, technology or works in progress that you could demonstrate? Do you have graduate or undergraduate students working with you who could assist and help talk about the work? If you have other ideas, VPRI would love to hear them.

Interested faculty members or research centres should contact Arielle Zomer in the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation at ext. 21069 or azomer@yorku.ca. Note that space is limited and allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Posted in: IRIS News | News

The YCISS Afternoon Seminar Series

Published by

Published January 27, 2012

by iris_author

Resource Extraction and Capitalist Accumulation in Angola and Nigeria

The turn of the millennium has brought profound change in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea. In Angola and Nigeria, the region's two major oil producers, there has been considerable economic growth that is expected to continue for several more years. This talk focuses on the state promotion of 'local content' in the oil industries. Interviews and case studies of indigenous oil companies are used to ask whether local content policies are markers of a new and potentially successful variant of the developmental state. If this variant is successful in developing more capitalistic social relations of production, what does local content as a new strategy of elite accumulation mean for security and development in the Gulf of Guinea region?

Jesse Ovadia
PhD Candidate, Political Science
York University

31January 2012
1:30 – 3:00 pm
764 York Research Tower

Posted in: Events

Problematizing “Field-work”

Published by

Published January 26, 2012

by iris_author

CERLAC presents
Problematizing “Field-work”
A Seminar on Knowledge, Power and Self-reflection

Thursday February 16, 4 -6 PM 
280A York Lanes
York University

Presentations:
C. Susana Caxaj: “Constructions and contradictions in research with a mining-impacted indigenous community”
Nadia Hasan: “Containing fieldwork: Locating the 'field' in academic knowledge production”
Robert Kohls: “The epistemology and ethics of member checking: Simply a question of voice?

The notion and practice of “field-work” are usually taken from granted and treated as a technical question (i.e. how to “properly” gather “the data”). However, many critical perspectives have shown that the (social) sciences are implicated in power relations. Thus, “field-work” needs to be interrogated in nuanced ways. Where is the “field”? Why are some countries frequently treated by scholars as producers of the “state of the art” (theory) while others are imagined as the place to gather data and do field-work? Does “field-work” finish when one arrives back to Pearson? Should this “epistemology of the adventurer” be challenged? Why “the poor”, “indigenous communities”, “subaltern groups” are seen, studied, talked about, and conceptually dissected while ethnographies and studies of the rich and powerful are rare? And what kind of ethical and epistemological commitments does that entail?  Are graduate students of Canadian universities really that “privileged” in comparison to the “people” they “study” or the story is in some cases more complicated than that? What does the common lament about “how privileged we are” actually “do”, both politically and ethically? In sum, in what sense “field-work” can be seen as a power relation and academia as politically relevant? Our presenters will address some of these and other issues through their own research experience.

More details, including presenter bios and abstracts: 

Posted in: Events

css.php