Toward Equity and Inclusion in Canadian Cities: Lessons from Critical Praxis-Oriented Research 9780773552616

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t o wa r d e q u i t y a n d i n c l u s i o n in canadian cities

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M c G i l l - ­Q u e e n ’ s S t u d i e s i n Urban Governance Series editors: Kristin Good and Martin Horak In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in local politics and the governance of cities – both in Canada and around the world. Globally, the city has become a consequential site where instances of social conflict and of cooperation play out. Urban centres are increasingly understood as vital engines of innovation and prosperity and a growing body of interdisciplinary research on urban issues suggests that high-­performing cities have become crucial to the success of nations, even in the global era. Yet at the same time, local and regional governments continue to struggle for political recognition and for the policy resources needed to manage cities, to effectively govern, and to achieve sustainable growth. The purpose of the McGill-Queen’s Studies in Urban Governance series is to highlight the growing importance of municipal issues, local governance, and the need for policy reform in urban spaces. The series aims to answer the question “why do cities matter?” while exploring relationships between levels of government and examining the changing dynamics of metropolitan and community development. By taking a fourpronged approach to the study of urban governance, the series encourages debate and discussion of: (1) actors, institutions, and how cities are governed; (2) policy issues and policy reform; (3) the city as case study; and (4) urban politics and policy through a comparative framework. With a strong focus on governance, policy, and the role of the city, this series welcomes manuscripts from a broad range of disciplines and viewpoints.

1 Local Self-­Government and the Right to the City Warren Magnusson 2 City-­Regions in Prospect? Exploring Points between Place and Practice Edited by Kevin Edson Jones, Alex Lord, and Rob Shields

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3 On Their Own Women and the Right to the City in South Africa Allison Goebel 4 The Boundary Bargain Growth, Development, and the Future of City–County Separation Zachary Spicer

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5 Welcome to Greater Edendale Histories of Environment, Health, and Gender in an African City Marc Epprecht

7 Order and Disorder Urban Governance and the Making of Middle Eastern Cities Edited by Luna Khirfan

6 Still Renovating A History of Canadian Social Housing Policy Greg Suttor

8 Toward Equity and Inclusion in Canadian Cities Lessons from Critical PraxisOriented Research Edited by Fran Klodawsky, Janet Siltanen, and Caroline Andrew

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Toward Equity and Inclusion in Canadian Cities Lessons from Critical Praxis-Oriented Research

Edited by

f r a n k l o daw s k y, ja n et si lta n en , a n d   c a r o l i n e a n d r ew

McGill-­­Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

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©  McGill-­­Queen’s University Press 2017 ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

978-0-7735-5100-8 (cloth) 978-0-7735-5101-5 (paper) 978-0-7735-5261-6 (eP DF ) 978-0-7735-5262-3 (eP UB)

Legal deposit fourth quarter 2017 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Toward equity and inclusion in Canadian cities: lessons from critical praxis-oriented research/edited by Fran Klodawsky, Janet Siltanen, and Caroline Andrew. (McGill-Queen’s studies in urban governance; 8) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-7735-5100-8 (cloth). – I S BN 978-0-7735-5101-5 (paper). – ISBN 978-0-7735-5261-6 (eP DF ). – I S BN 978-0-7735-5262-3 (eP U B ) 1. City and town life – Canada – Case studies.  2. Cities and towns – Canada – Case studies.  3. Social integration – Canada – Case studies.  4. Equality – Canada – Case studies.  5. Urban policy – Canada – Case studies.  6. Sociology, Urban – Research – Case studies.  7. Canada – Social conditions – Case studies.  I. Andrew, Caroline, 1942–, editor II. Klodawsky, Fran, 1951–, editor  III. Siltanen, Janet, editor  IV. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in urban governance; 8 HT127.T65 2017    307.760971    C2017-906470-3  C 2017-906471-1 This book was typeset by Marquis Interscript in 10.5/13 New Baskerville.

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Doing Critical Praxis-Oriented Research  3 Fran Klodawsky, Janet Siltanen, and Caroline Andrew Prologue: Turning the University Inside Out  25 Wendy Larner with the Productive Margins Programme section one  contexts and complexities of c ­ o l l a b o r at i v e r e s e a r c h   33

  1 Decolonizing for Equity and Inclusion in Winnipeg’s North End  38 Shauna MacKinnon and Jim Silver   2 The Challenge of Complexity: Reflections on Researching an Organizational Change Initiative Promoting Equity and Inclusion in the City of Ottawa  60 Janet Siltanen, Christine Pich, Fran Klodawsky, and Caroline Andrew   3 Context Matters: Promoting Inclusion with Indigenous Women  83 Holly A. McKenzie, Colleen Varcoe, Annette J. Browne, Marilyn Ford-Gilboe, Madeleine Dion Stout, Roberta Price, Linda Day, and Jane Inyallie   4 Supporting Local Civic Engagement through a “Community First” Approach to Foster Broader Social Inclusion in Development  111 Patricia Ballamingie, Magda Goemans, and Gary Martin

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viii Contents

section two  reconceptualizing research r e l at i o n s   135

  5 The Art of Community: Reflections on Method, Creativity, and Expertise in Street Youth Social Work  139 Jeff Karabanow and Ian G. Stewart   6 Toward Inclusion: Researching Food as Harm Reduction in an Urban Foodscape  159 Christiana Miewald, Sean Grieve, Alison McIntosh, Eugene McCann, Cristina Temenos, and Megan Woodward   7 Homelessness “in Their Horizon”: A Rights-Based, Feminist Study of Inadequate Housing and Risk of Homelessness among Families in Toronto’s Aging Rental High-Rises  180 Emily Paradis section three  examining the intersection o f   va l u e s a n d p r a c t i c e s   207

  8 Decolonizing Evaluation in Winnipeg  212 Shauna MacKinnon with the Indigenous Learning Circle   9 Research Networks and Homelessness: Contributing to More Equitable and Inclusive Cities?  235 Abra Adamo, Fran Klodawsky, Tim Aubry, Stephen Hwang, and Evie Gogosis 10 Theatre Outré and Lessons from a Welcoming and Inclusive Community  256 Tiffany Muller Myrdahl 11 Perpetuation or Remediation of Structural Violence toward Aboriginal Peoples through City Planning and Policy Processes: A Choice to Be Made  281 Mangaliso Mohammed, Ryan Walker, Philip A. Loring, and Brenda Macdougall

Closing Reflections  306 Fran Klodawsky, Caroline Andrew, and Janet Siltanen Glossary  311 Contributors  317 Index  325

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Acknowledgments

The idea for this book emerged in part from a S S H RC Partnership Development Grant–funded project that also involved the City for All Women Initiative (CAWI), the City of Ottawa, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Over many morning meetings of the Project Coordinating Committee, we grappled with the question of how to assess the early impact of a particular policy initiative – the City of Ottawa’s Equity and Inclusion Lens. We also heard about a Status of Women Canada–funded national project, led by CAWI, that involved community groups and municipal officials preparing a guide to promote equity and inclusion initiatives across the country. In the midst of this work, and combined with our ongoing engagement with issues of “right to the city,” we reflected at length on our role as researchers. We also observed how other researchers across Canada were implicated in somewhat similar yet quite diverse endeavours to reduce cultural, economic, political, and social inequalities. It is out of these experiences and reflections that Toward Equity and Inclusion in Canadian Cities: Lessons from Critical Praxis-Oriented Research was born. The women of CAWI have been an amazing source of inspiration. Their determination to improve the circumstances of women and men across difference and their optimism about the ability to do so have touched us deeply. We acknowledge their profound impact on this book. Many others contributed to the production of this book, and we give our thanks to them as well. To all of the authors and their collaborators: thank you so much for your willingness to come along on this journey of discovery. You helped shape its ultimate contours and

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x Acknowledgments

you were gracious in responding expeditiously to numerous requests for refinement. We also recognize with appreciation the institutional help of Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, the research assistance provided by Christine Pich, Asli Mahdi, and Helin Burkay, and the editorial refinements offered by Elizabeth Paradis, Emily Cuggy, and Ellen Adelberg. Thanks too to McGill-Queen’s University Press, particularly the amazing support of editor Jacqueline Mason, and the insightful reviewers that the press recruited to provide feedback on an early draft of our manuscript. Last, but certainly not least, we the editors also want to thank one another for years of sisterly support and collegial engagement.

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introduction

Doing Critical Praxis-Oriented Research Fran Klodawsky, Janet Siltanen, and Caroline Andrew The objective of this book is to promote more inclusive places in  Canada by highlighting and drawing theoretical and practice-­ oriented insights from research collaborations among academics, municipal staff, and community workers who are examining, and working to reverse, growing social and economic inequalities. This initiative features examples of a particular strand of collaborative, social justice-oriented research interested in issues on an urban scale, which we have named critical praxis-oriented research. We reflect and offer insights on its characteristics, trajectories, and implications with the intention of highlighting its value and impact. In this introduction we explain our motivations for the initiative, elaborate on what we mean by critical praxis-oriented research, and reflect on its potential and limitations. We also provide some background for the substantive contributions to follow, and discuss the ways they illustrate various pathways and challenges of research of this sort. In light of growing international attention to the cultural, economic, political, and social significance of cities, there has been an explosion of scholarly and policy-oriented analyses of research that acknowledge the multiple scales and dimensions of how social problems become manifest, and where interventions are deemed to hold the potential for greatest impact. Such challenges to more traditional approaches have included calls to interrogate and reflect upon the cultural, economic, historical, and political experiences of diverse groups within a broad range of cities, and to compare these places within their national and international contexts (Robinson 2006; Ong and Roy 2011). We see an exciting and, as of yet, unmet potential for sharing key ideas and practices among a number of

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different audiences with varied interests, including activists interested in the theoretical underpinnings of action, policymakers interested in connecting to community-level organisations and actors, and researchers of varied disciplines including geography, sociology, history, public administration, and political science, to mention only a few, interested in the relation of theory and praxis. Although various editions of Canadian Cities in Transition (Filion et al. 2015), and volumes such as Canadian Urban Regions: Trajectories of Growth and Change (Bourne et al. 2011), and Immigrant Geographies of North American Cities (Teixeira et al. 2012), have offered an important record of recent research about economic, social, and political trends and tendencies, far less scholarship examines a specific theme, approach, or issue across a range of Canadian cities, such as the growing social and economic inequalities that are emerging in lock-step with what Banting and Myles (2013) call “the fading of redistributive politics.”1 As the authors in this collection clearly document, cities and municipalities are increasingly confronted with residents who are adversely affected by housing insecurity and instability, rising unemployment and intensifying employment precariousness, and fear of personal and structural violence. Such conditions are experienced more often by those whose social positioning makes them particularly susceptible to exclusion. Scholars and practitioners seeking to redress these trends face difficult systemwide challenges resulting from broad, adverse shifts in employment structure (from manufacturing to services and information technology) as well as ideological transitions (from welfare state to neoliberalism and austerity) that reframe the efficacy of governments to address societal problems (Brown 2015; Bezanson and Luxton 2005; Braedley and Luxton 2010; Sancton 2011; Boudreau, Keil, and Young 2009). While urban-level developments are not typically seen as the root cause of problems related to housing, employment, and violence, cities are often where these issues become most visible, and where many governmental and non-governmental policy and program interventions are increasingly initiated (such as Housing First, business improvement districts, social enterprises, and local immigration partnerships). It is also in cities that scholars and practitioners, especially those who have been influenced by feminist, anti-racist, and other critical analyses, have been turning more and more to collaborative and/or participatory research practices that

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Introduction 5

acknowledge the value of working with instead of on the subjects of their focus (Phillips 2010). In doing so, they raise new questions about how to make connections among particular experiences, how research can facilitate action, and about how to meaningfully address research insights and possibilities of constructive social change at a local level in the context of the growing complexity, interrelations, and interactions of our world. In our case, an opportunity to work in partnership with the City of Ottawa, the City for All Women Initiative (CAW I), and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (F CM) through a S S H RC Research Partnership Development Grant highlighted a new object of study (a co-managed initiative at the City of Ottawa called the Equity and Inclusion Lens) and new questions for research and researchers working in partnership with cities and communities. It also brought to our attention an emerging “community of practice” that appeared to be operating across and within different Canadian cities. By community of practice we refer to a concept adapted from the field of education, which defines it as “a group of people with a shared interest whose interaction serves to increase their knowledge, understanding, or skill” (Wallace 2015). In relation to the research presented in this volume, we suggest that there is value in extending this original formulation to identify municipally scaled intra- and inter-group interactions focused on developing reflexive and self-critical research capacity to address the particularities of how specific cities are experiencing issues of inequality and searching for means to advance social justice goals. The community of practice we introduce in this volume consists of collaborations of multi-disciplinary researchers with diverse methodological and analytic expertise, whose objectives are to engage in research about urban-scale inequalities that address the inter-connections of theory, practice, and advocacy. How this research is conducted is of significance in its own right, and also makes an important contribution to the quality of the intended research outputs. As elaborated in chapter 2, involvement in this S S H RC Partnership Development Grant project challenged us to think about our knowledge and skills in new ways. We needed to balance our responsibilities to our partners, whose mandates were quite specific and results-oriented, while attempting to remain true to our own theoretical understandings and methodological orientations. Because of the manner in which our project was indirectly connected (via

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C A W I and the City of Ottawa) to a complementary project funded by Status of Women Canada, we experienced unexpected interactions with community actors and professionals working on equity and inclusion issues in other municipalities. We began to see commonalities in how research teams were engaging in knowledge production, and how notions of success in research outcomes were articulated. This encouraged us to wonder about the practices of other somewhat similarly placed collaborative research initiatives. We were curious about the extent to which our community of practice might be expanded and deepened by bringing other urban-scale, social-justice informed collaborative researchers into conversation with city and community-based professionals with related interests and mandates. The motivation for this book stems directly from our growing awareness of the potential of this cross-Canada community of practice, as we understand it, as well as an interest in facilitating dialogue about the difficulties, challenges, and opportunities that face such endeavours. In order to explore and develop this awareness, we planned a workshop for people we identified as participating in this community of practice. The workshop was an opportunity to share our experiences of doing critical praxis-oriented research, to think about how best to identify what makes it distinctive and exciting, and to plan ways to communicate our experiences. As editors, we did not see ourselves as having a specific vision or any predetermined answers to our questions. Rather, the intention was to converse with potential authors about what we share in terms of the objectives and practices of what we understand as critical praxisoriented research, and to encourage ideas about how to present this approach to research. The workshop was a significant moment in the development of this volume. It enabled us to more clearly articulate the social change agendas of the various initiatives that were the focus of the individual research programmes, and to consolidate our awareness of a critical praxis-oriented research community of practice forming in and across Canadian cities. The research offered in this volume provides glimpses into how such research is occurring in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Lethbridge, and Vancouver. We acknowledge that these places reflect a limited selection of medium and large cities in southern, English-speaking Canada, and that the research examined generally focuses on matters taking place in older, central

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Introduction 7

municipal areas. While efforts were made to reach out to a broader range of scholars, the exigencies of timing and other practical matters prevented some potential authors from becoming involved in this particular project. Here too is another rationale for emphasizing the emerging nature of the community of practice that we highlight in this volume. The discussion that follows is organized in three sections. We begin by examining our emerging understanding of what we have named critical praxis-oriented research, making connections with its conceptual and methodological underpinnings in feminist and post-positivist arguments. Next, we elaborate on broad conceptual and actual cultural, economic, political, and social conditions within which the Canadian research presented in this volume is situated. We thereby delineate a common context for all of the subsequent chapters and begin to highlight some key arguments about the growing need for critical, theoretically informed scholarship focused on urban scale interventions to further social justice concerns and objectives. Finally, we introduce the prologue that follows this introduction and critically reflects on the broader political economic context shaping possibilities for innovative research approaches such as the ones being featured here. We also introduce the substantive chapters and explain why we have organized them into three main sections: “Contexts and Complexities of Collaborative Research,” “Reconceptualizing Research Relations,” and “Examining the Intersection of Values and Practices.”

C r i t i c a l P r a x i s - O r iented Res earch In the 1980s and ’90s, feminist scholars began raising questions about the relationship between how research is conducted and what is being researched (Collins 1990; Haraway 1991; Harding 1986; Massey 1994; Smith 1988). In doing so, and along with more recent texts (Eubanks 2014; Frampton et al. 2006; Gibson-Graham 2011; Harding 2015; Hawkesworth 2006; Mitchell 2008; Naples 2003; Whitmore, Wilson, and Calhoun 2011), they have worked against prevailing norms highlighting the value of researcher detachment from their subject matter and how this is assumed to provide more objective accounts of social significance and change. We would argue that as the movement away from traditional, “positivist” understandings of the criteria of good knowledge (detached,

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objective, generalizable) towards alternative, “post-positivist” criteria (engaged, complex, contextualized) becomes stronger, and new norms of research practice become more mainstream, the possibilities for critical praxis-based research are greatly enhanced. Our interest in elaborating and exploring the contours of what we have named critical praxis-oriented research is very much informed by post-positivism and by related theoretical and epistemological discussions that explore the relations between researchers and those being researched. We see critical praxis-oriented research as a mobilization of the interconnection of knowledges derived from theory, everyday practice, and political advocacy. Its distinctiveness lies in its efforts to engage all three components more or less equally within the same initiative. This tripartite effort is perhaps best conceptualized as a mid-point along a continuum that locates community-driven research at one end and scholar-driven curiosity at the other. Whereas we see theory as typically being more heavily emphasized within scholar-driven research and advocacy receiving greater attention in community-based efforts, critical praxis-­oriented research intends to draw on both while ensuring that the research is grounded in value-driven, everyday practices. These research activities tend to be ethnographic and qualitative in orientation, and may include research described as participatory action research, community-based participatory research, or community-based research. However, we want to emphasize that the objectives of critical praxisoriented research can be compatible with other forms of research design and data production. Two common features help to identify critical praxis-oriented research: explicit and intentional efforts to critically engage with and learn from both scholarly critique and on-the-ground interventions; and research practices that critically reflect on, and attempt to re-balance, power relations in the production and valuing of knowledge. The implications of organizing one’s research around this orientation are multiple, touching upon problem framing, data generating, researcher engagement, and value specification. In regard to problem framing, critical praxis-oriented research tends to pay attention to the broad political context within which its particular concerns are situated, for both analytic and strategic reasons. Equally, it wants to take into account the potential impacts of problem framing on how a situation is assessed and interpreted (Carroll and Huxtable 2014). On the topic of data generating, there is an

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Introduction 9

obligation to think very carefully about how the ways the production of data affect what comes to be known. Data are not already available in the field waiting for our picking, as if they were mushrooms (Alvesson and Sköldberg 2009, 309). Regarding all data – both qualitative and quantitative – as socially co-constructed by researchers and research subjects has implications for the assessment of evidence and argument. The interconnectedness of knowledges suggests that a range of actors should be brought together in the research process to find ways to do research that supports common goals of knowledge production for audiences both within the academy and among larger communities of interest. This perspective also requires researchers to be engaged and aware of how they are implicated in the construction of research data – a practice known as being reflexive. Arguments have been made that the subjectivity of the researcher and the reflexive practices undertaken throughout the entire research process are important positive resources for the production and interpretation of data (Doucet and Mauther 2003; Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2012; Siltanen, Willis, and Scobie 2008; Kobayashi 2001). The examination of values is equally significant in critical praxisoriented research; it is essential, for example, to how Flyvbjerg (2001) and Flyvbjerg, Landman, and Schram (2012) identify the  possibility of doing social science research that “matters.” In Flyvbjerg’s (2001) description of research aimed at producing practical wisdom, or what he calls “phronetic social science,” the identification of values structures the central questions he promotes as relevant to research investigations: What is going on here? Is it desirable? Who gains and who loses, and by what mechanism of power? What should be done? Additionally, as Hawkesworth (2006) convincingly argues, acknowledging the specificity of any one perspective helps to construct a new form of objectivity based on the inclusion of multiple, and particularly marginalized, perspectives. Critical praxis-oriented research aims to examine whose values have the upper hand in shaping specific contexts of experience and by what mechanisms of power these values are given priority. Sorting these issues out is an important step in conceptualizing interventions with the goal of changing value structures and shifting power imbalances in society. Recognition of complexity directs our attention to the contextspecific factors and conditions that structure inequality in any

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particular time and place. Case study investigations can provide knowledge that is contextually situated, and hopefully, as a result, of more use to people within that context. Complexity and context go hand in hand as cornerstones of a research practice that aims to produce praxis-relevant knowledge. While committing to forms of research that incorporate the characteristics detailed above is important, in practice it is decidedly challenging to bring theory, research practice, and social justice commitments together, while calling as well for self-reflection on the overall process. This volume offers new insights into some of the possibilities of critical praxis-oriented research. It is clearly an emerging and currently under-specified set of research processes; there are insights yet to be drawn from the diversity of and ­commonalities among various approaches to problem framing, data generation, researcher engagement, and value specification. Moreover, as Wendy Larner so aptly suggests in the prologue, there also is value in acknowledging and problematizing the significance of the wider context within which alternatives to the traditional hierarchical model of the ivory tower university are emerging. We turn now to a brief outline of this context.

T h e B r oa d C ontent Canadian political economy scholarship that engages with existing neoliberalism and other structures of inequality offers an important backdrop to the work being featured here (Bezanson and Luxton 2006; Boudreau, Keil, and Young 2011; Brodie and Bakker 2007; Neysmith, Bezanson, and O’Connell 2005; Wallace and Vosko 2003). As a body of work, it is a rich yet fragmented resource that informs our understanding of how and why inequality and exclusion are unfolding in cities and how these trends might be contested. Four specific analytical threads (and their interactions at various scales) having to do with cities, state feminism in neoliberal times, social reproduction, and urban indigeneity are especially ­relevant. Here, we aim to briefly outline the broader scholarship on the political economy of Canadian cities that helps to situate the work presented in this volume. Urban political economy scholars have been particularly adept at exploring how neo-liberalization trends are actualized at the urban scale. Probing beyond what appears specific to a distinct locale, they

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Introduction 11

demonstrate how such trends both reflect and shape multiple unfoldings of what Peck (2010, xii) characterizes as “an open-ended and contradictory process of politically assisted market rule.” Peck, Siemiatecki, and Wyly’s (2014) study of Vancouver’s claims of urban design exceptionalism and Keil’s (2002) analysis of Toronto’s shift to being a “competitive” city are two examples. Walks’s theoretically informed and carefully detailed empirical examinations of increasing social inequalities in Canadian cities are particularly helpful for highlighting the urgent need for additional urban-scale research into these matters. Recently, Walks (2010) observed that cities in Canada have been especially affected by growing income inequality, and documented the multiple ways that neoliberal capitalism has enhanced tendencies that have contributed to this divide, such as continental investment and trade integration, accelerated increases in the incomes of managers and administrators in relation to other workers, the uneven settlement patterns of immigrants to Canada, and the withdrawal of welfare state interventions by senior levels of government. He has also demonstrated the differentiated manner in which these trends have affected Canadian cities. He notes, on the one hand, the decidedly adverse impacts of continental trade integration on the prospects of many smaller industrial cities and, on the other, the disproportionate income gains of some administrators and managers and income losses experienced by recent immigrants. He further shows that the trend toward single-person and female, lone-parent households, for whom employment status is a key explanatory factor, has exacerbated inequality in cities. These dynamics have led to an expanding polarization of individuals and households along multiple dimensions of inequality – a tendency that is particularly evident at the neighbourhood level. In this volume, chapters 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 11 contribute new insights into what spurs on this polarization, and the potential for critical praxis-oriented research to aid in interrupting such tendencies. While the value of such urban political economy scholarship is undeniable, it is important for our purposes to identify and elaborate on three important gaps in its scope of research. Feminist political economists have been essential contributors to discussions that touch on two of them: state neoliberalism and social reproduction. The third gap relates to Indigenous populations in cities. The discussion that follows explores scholarship relevant to each of these themes.

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In light of this book’s genesis in efforts to engage with the City of Ottawa on matters related to equity and inclusion, it is fitting to take note of the lively debates occurring among feminists within and beyond Canada about the opportunities and dangers of engaging the state in neoliberal times (Fraser 2009; Klodawsky, Siltanen, and Andrew 2013; Siltanen, Klodawsky, and Andrew 2015; Peake and Rieker 2013). Scholars have assessed the dramatic shifts in statefeminist relations in Canada from the 1970s to the present day, characterizing its earlier period as one in which women’s movements appeared to make significant gains in bringing governmental attention to gendered concerns related to employment, childcare, political representation, and violence against women, thereby leading to a number of policy innovations. They have also noted the substantial changes in how these relations have been unfolding since the mid-1980s, including dramatic funding withdrawals and the deinstitutionalization of state feminism, which intensified after 2006 (Rodgers and Knight 2011). Brodie (2008, 154) observes an  erasure of “the idea of gender equality” from the discourses of “political rhetoric, policy goals, and bureaucratic machinery,” and its replacement with the practice of gender mainstreaming throughout federal departments. She regards these shifts as altogether negative and associates them with the “dismantling of units with expertise in promoting equal opportunity for women and designated groups,” suggesting that “gender mainstreaming can mean that gender-based analysis is both ‘everywhere and nowhere’ in government” (Brodie 2008, 154–7). Simultaneously though, Brodie (2007, 2008) and others such as Rodgers and Knight (2011, 571), have documented the ongoing effort of women’s social movements to think about and act on feminist concerns in new ways that are less tied to federal government machinery and frameworks. They have argued that communitybased efforts have contributed significantly to maintaining the viability of women’s movements and to understanding the new ­ dilemmas that they face. In this volume, many of the authors rely explicitly on feminist conceptual and methodological approaches to investigate the situations of specific groups of women, such as the typically newcomer, mother-led families living in Toronto highrise communities that Paradis studies, or to interrogate efforts to uncover and shift the framing of both concerns and potential responses, as Muller Myrdahl does in her examination of attempts by

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Introduction 13

the City of Lethbridge to reconcile abstract inclusion efforts and a real world lgbtq rights issue. Mackinnon uses a feminist approach to trace the evolving efforts of the Indigenous Learning Circle in Winnipeg to decolonize evaluation of community-based initiatives. Canadian feminist discussions of the state are connected to but somewhat distinct from those that focus on social reproduction. Drawing upon the work of numerous scholars, LeBaron (2010) presents a compelling case for the importance of understanding how changes at the level of the household and community are integral to the dynamics of neoliberalism’s specific social and spatial characteristics (Banerjee and Armstrong 2015; England and Dyck 2012; Rose 2010; Neysmith, Bezanson, and O’Connell 2005; Bezanson and Luxton 2006; Vosko 2006). She notes how heightened dependence on wage labour and the withdrawal of welfaretype supports have resulted in circumstances in which women’s responsibilities in the realm of social reproduction have intensified and how, as a result, “socially reproductive activities which formerly took place in public spaces such as hospitals, schools, elderly homes, daycare centres, etc., have been relocated into the private household,” implying “fundamental changes in reproduction strategies” (2010, 902). In careful detail, feminist research has documented how neo-liberalized public policy has had a devastating impact on the ability of households and communities to survive and thrive, and thereby placed them under intense stress and strain (Neysmith, Bezanson, and O’Connell 2005; England and Dyck 2012). Although such social reproduction studies have typically addressed national social policy trends or household-level experiences, rather than analyze these issues on an urban scale, one noteworthy exception is Gerda Wekerle. While Wekerle acknowledges the types of neighbourhood scale income polarization trends and interactions emphasized by Walks (2006), she is equally forthright about the necessity of explicitly gendered analyses that are of sufficient depth to “challenge our stereotypes … and … demonstrate that many women engage in active place-making strategies” (Werkerle 2010, 211). Making use of diverse Canadian and feminist urban research, Wekerle reveals the disproportionate effects of governmental retreat from traditional social welfare functions on low-­ income and racialized women, but also highlights their engagement as activists with community organizations “around issues of daily life, including health care, housing, environmental conditions, and

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immigration” (221). She argues that, traditionally, citizen-centred efforts have conveyed communities’ priorities to the state through municipal governments (which were seen as more accessible), but that now, “unions, non-profit organizations, neighbourhood groups, and social movements” are increasingly excluded in favour of “corporate actors … designated as ‘community representatives’” (226). Wekerle (2010, 228) also identifies important gaps in feminist research on cities in terms of “networks of power created by the global economic and political elites of cities,” and the ways in which these networks intersect with gendered, racialized, and classed local politics. In this volume, the long-standing Winnipeg-focused community-based participatory research work documented by Mackinnon, and Mackinnon and Silver, are excellent examples of how new ­insights can be generated when academics and community-based ­experts react together to address problematic approaches to the evaluation of community initiatives or to promote more inclusive educational opportunities for marginalized citizens. In regard to issues related to indigeneity in cities, a small group of Canadian scholars has challenged a pervasive, persistent, and problematic assumption that the lives of Indigenous peoples are largely distinct from and incompatible with urban culture (Newhouse and Peters 2003; Wilson and Peters 2005; Walker and Barcham 2010; Walker, Jojola, and Natcher 2013). They have pointed to the irony of how many Canadian cities are actually situated on traditional Indigenous territories and, furthermore, that it was an intentional policy of past governments to remove Indigenous peoples from cities and locate them instead on distant reserves. Newhouse and Peters (2003) among others have noted the importance of this history, both in terms of understanding the contours of Indigenous presence in cities today and with regard to future governance challenges. “The clarification of Aboriginal rights in urban areas, particularly those dealing with self-government, represents a major contemporary challenge for governments, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal” (Newhouse and Peters 2003, 6). Several of the chapters in this collection (Mohammed et al.; McKenzie et al.; Mackinnon and Silver; and Mackinnon), offer important additions to this area of scholarship and reinforce Newhouse and Peters’s (2003) observations. In addition to the four thematic areas discussed above (urban political economy, state feminism, social reproduction, and urban

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Introduction 15

indigeneity), two recent texts of relevance to research on urban inequalities are those of Banting and Myles (2013) and Graham and Andrew (2014). Banting and Myles (2013) write primarily about the politics of social policy on a national scale. They underline the extent to which the extremely rich have gained social policy benefits at the expense of other populations across Canada, and the contributors to their edited volume attribute this trend to a complex combination of factors, including “global economic pressures, ideological change, a yawning imbalance in the political influence of business groups and unions, the decline of equality-seeking civil society organizations and think tanks, realignment in the party system, the cyclical pattern of public support for welfare, negative public attitudes towards Aboriginal peoples, realignment in the party system, a new bureaucratic politics, and decentralization in the federation” (2013, 413). Furthermore, they distinguish market trends that feed inequality, but that are often global in reach and thus less affected by federal politics, from ideological tendencies that shape domestic social policies in ways that might more readily mitigate or exacerbate income inequality. Although inequality, per se, is not the focus of Graham and Andrew’s (2014) volume about the federal government’s changing role and its interactions with municipal politics and policies, the impacts of these are certainly relevant to and compliment the concerns raised in our collection. Encapsulating the lessons put forth by the book’s contributors, they suggest three key dimensions of policy making: its relation with demographic changes in and beyond cities; the implications of the political choices of various governments – federal, provincial, and municipal – that shape how issues are framed and responded to; and the role and effects of selected policy instruments (Graham and Andrew 2014, ix). Graham and Andrew (2014) furthermore challenge the manner in which demographic change is often undertheorized, stating: “Irrespective of ideological predilections or changes in the framing of politics, major changes in the organization and composition of Canadian society may explain public policy evolution and its continuation in spite of political changes” (2014, 7). They also uniquely spotlight how policy instruments can play a somewhat autonomous role in affecting policy outcomes and future trajectories. The recognition and accentuation of demographic changes by numerous authors is important and provides a further justification for the focus of this

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volume. We suggest that it might well be interpreted as an implicit acknowledgement of the need for further urban, community, household, and individual scale research that is cognizant of the diversity of city populations.

P r e s e n tat i o n o f the Chapters It is clear from the above discussion that we would have been able to  choose from an array of rationales to group the chapters of this book, including by theoretical issues, cities, target populations, types of interventions, and general subject matter. We ultimately decided that sorting the papers to highlight themes that are central to our understanding of critical praxis-oriented research made the most sense. We identified three central themes as the core organizing framework for the book’s chapters: “Contexts and Complexities of Collaborative Research,” “Reconceptualizing Research Relations,” and “Examining the Intersection of Values and Practices.” In varying degrees, and through a variety of means, all chapters manifest the spirit and practices of the three central themes. In deciding how to allocate chapters to one of the three sections, we tried to identify for each chapter which feature of critical praxis-oriented research it highlights most vividly. We invited Wendy Larner to read and reflect on all the chapters in this volume. We place her reflections as a prologue to the main sections of the volume because the issues she addresses identify a broader context for assessing the value and limitations of critical praxis-oriented research. Larner’s prologue, titled “Turning the University Inside Out,” helps to situate this type of research within larger political and intellectual issues of how universities are being shaped as knowledge producers. The focus is global and the questions she addresses have to do with the implications of how and why universities and researchers are revising their mandates and approaches in a manner that she describes as a “participatory turn.” Larner identifies three distinct strands of this turn. The first has to do with new efforts on the part of many universities to develop “public engagement” initiatives that signal growing attention actively shaping their external audiences’ understandings of the role of higher-education institutions. A second strand involves new efforts at “knowledge transfer” and “knowledge exchange” between universities and other research intensive sites. The third strand focuses on

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Introduction 17

research practices and is most closely associated with the types of endeavours of interest in this volume, where the ethos is one of “research done with, not to, external stakeholders” (Larner, this volume). We invite readers to consider these more general issues as they delve into the research material presented in the following three sections. In section 1, “Context and Complexities of Collaborative Research,” we noted that a number of authors highlighted the benefits of both conceptual and practical insights identified in the course of collaborative research. In these cases, collaboration involved multiple voices and perspectives, as well as different working relationships and power resources, and the challenges of different political and pragmatic interests. To be successful, collaboration requires its  own attention and effort, and the contributions to this section reflect on the particular nature and processes involved in their collaboration. We open the section with Mackinnon and Silver’s research on the decolonization of educational initiatives in Winnipeg’s North End. They discuss the meaning of indigenization and how this objective shaped their own research practices, including the collaboration between academic researchers, Indigenous individuals and community Elders, and educational institutions. They credit the intellectual and practical accomplishments of their research to  the decades of Indigenous community-led collaborations that formed the foundation of their efforts to decolonize education. This is followed by Siltanen et al., who present collaborative research focused on evaluating an equity and inclusion initiative in the City of Ottawa. They elaborate on how they addressed complexity, both conceptually and methodologically, in assessing this initiative. They consider how the ethos and governance of their collaboration, composed of a formal partnership between academics, City of Ottawa managers, an all-women community organization, and a municipal advocacy organization, made a substantial contribution to the research process and its outputs. Next, McKenzie et al. reflect on the meaning of inclusion and critically examine their collaborative and reflexive efforts to revise an already established health intervention for Indigenous women who have escaped domestic violence in two B C cities. The researchers present how they worked to acknowledge and respond to the diversity of Indigenous women with whom they worked. The quasi-experimental, time-series research design of this chapter is also important in

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illustrating the range of research approaches potentially compatible with the objectives of critical praxis-oriented research. Finally, Ballamingie, Goemans, and Martin help us think about other contexts and complexities of collaboration by identifying the opportunities and challenges that emerge when working with a powerful yet community-minded neighbourhood organization attempting to influence a private housing development in Ottawa. This research also involves a reflection on the meaning and possibilities of inclusion, in this case inclusion of housing provisions for low-income families and seniors, when advocating for such considerations in the absence of any statutory obligations. Section 2, “Reconceptualizing Research Relations,” turns attention to the general interest in post-positivist research to rethink and reconfigure the relations between researchers and researched. This has been a central interest in community-based, action, feminist, and Indigenous research practices, and there has been much discussion about whether and how more horizontal relationships are possible. The practices of critical praxis-oriented research included in this section contribute to this ongoing discussion in ways that contextualize the relational issues within approaches that integrate theory, practice, and advocacy. To begin, Karabanow and Stewart offer a compelling example of youth-led research on youth homelessness in Halifax. The research uses film animation as a means for youth to identify and articulate their experience of homelessness, and in doing so also offers an opportunity to explore deeper feelings of belonging and community. That the method of investigation was informed by anti-oppression analysis was important in bringing a broader analytical edge to the material. Relational dynamics in the research process involved an ambiguity in who was teaching and who was learning, created in part through skill development among the youth in film-making techniques. Miewald and her associates address whether introducing food security provisions enhances the success of harm reduction strategies for people living with H IV/ A ID S. While primarily a Vancouver-based partnership between ­academic researchers and a community-based organization, peer researcher associates are included in the research team as a way to make better connections with research subjects. Reflection on the use of peer research assistants to achieve this goal is an explicit agenda of the chapter, and, interestingly, both lead researchers and  peer research associates offer their perspectives. This section

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Introduction 19

concludes with a chapter by Paradis, who elaborates on the efforts of researchers and community leaders to use a feminist, rights-based approach in a study of the daily lives of low-income families living in high-rises in Toronto. The use of a Community Advisory Board was the main means for the research to both include the community and be accountable to them. The chapter describes the careful planning and detailed considerations involved in creating and sustaining the Community Advisory Board as an effective resource for community input, research dissemination, and action. In section 3, “Examining the Intersection of Values and Practices,” we include chapters that highlight research interrogating whether and how professed values are realized in practice. We begin this section with Shauna MacKinnon and the Indigenous Learning Circle, and their discussion and probing of various dimensions of how community-based evaluation practices can be reprioritized to align with Indigenous values in Winnipeg. Motivated by disappointments with evaluation approaches that were designed and applied without consideration of the views, priorities, and experiences of Indigenous community members, MacKinnon and her colleagues identify the implications of this gap for the adequacy and effectiveness of community agencies. This chapter is part of an effort to provoke a reconsideration of how community interventions are assessed, and to develop assessment criteria and standards that resonate more suitably and fully with the perspectives and values of the Indigenous communities. The focus of Adamo et al.’s discussion is the tension between the homelessness crisis in Canada and the absence of government leadership in this area of essential need. The paper reports on a cross-Canada research network that brought together academic and community researchers with the aim of raising concern and fostering research on the need for action. Identifying the strengths and limitations of such a network are a key contribution of the chapter. Muller Myrdahl’s presentation of a particular homophobic incident in Lethbridge brings attention to the challenges involved in addressing the gap between institutional commitments to inclusion and the realities of continued exclusion. Her engagement with this situation is relayed from different vantage points, and these multiple perspectives help to flesh out possibilities for improvement. The paper offers a vision of what a better alignment of values and practices regarding the inclusion of sexual orientations could entail. Mohammed et al.’s chapter addresses similar but

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broader issues in the gap between what occurs as urban policies and planning and what could be possible. With a focus on Edmonton, the chapter interrogates how current practices in the city’s planning practices do not meet its stated goal of improving the lives of its Aboriginal populations, and relations between its Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal citizens. The chapter considers how government sanctioned injustices and inequalities may be recognized and addressed in light of the recommendations in the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC 2015). Together, the authors in this collection constitute a community of practice that informs our understanding of critical praxis-oriented research. As we have tried to make clear, this community of practice extends beyond the university and beyond the writers themselves. We acknowledge the pivotal contributions of equality and equityseeking community groups, and government managers and officials who help build research partnerships to advance social justice  in Canadian cities. And we hope that the research stories and reflections that inform this book might inspire others to consider contributing to this community of practice in their own future research endeavours. To that end, the book also includes a glossary of key terms. It is provided as a resource to those who may be drawn to the text because of a particular author or subject but feel unsure about unfamiliar terms or concepts encountered in specific discussions. It is provided also as recognition that the meaning of many of these concepts is fluid and contested. The definitions in the glossary are intended as starting points for further conversations among those who are working in similar areas and wish to explore their own understandings in relation to ours.

note

  1 One notable exception, however, is research on immigrant issues in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. references

Alvesson, Mats, and Kaj Sköldberg. 2009. Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publications.

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Introduction 21 Banerjee, Albert, and Pat Armstrong. 2015. “Centring Care: Explaining Regulatory Tensions in Residential Care for Older Persons.” Studies in Political Economy 95: 7–28. Banting, Keith, and John Myles, eds. 2013. Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Bezanson, Kate, and Meg Luxton. 2005. “Introduction: Social Reproduction and Feminist Political Economy.” In Social Reproduction: Feminist Political Economy Challenges Neo-liberalism, edited by Kate Bezanson and Meg Luxton, 3–9. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Boudreau, Julie-Anne, Roger Keil, and Douglas Young. 2009. Changing Toronto: Governing Urban Neoliberalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Braedley, Susan, and Meg Luxton, eds. 2010. Neoliberalism and Everyday Life. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Brodie, Janine. 2008. “We are All Equal Now: Contemporary Gender Politics in Canada.” Feminist Theory 9 (2): 145–64. – 2007. “Reforming Social Justice in Neoliberal Times.” Studies in Social Justice 1 (2): 93–107. Brodie, Janine, and Isabella Bakker. 2008. Where Are the Women? Gender Equity, Budgets and Canadian Public Policy. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Brown, Wendy. 2015. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books. Carroll, William K., and David Huxtable. 2014. “Expose/Oppose/ Propose: The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Challenge of Alternative Knowledge.” Labour/Le Travail 74: 27–50. Clement, Wallace, and Leah F. Vosko. 2003. Changing Canada: Political Economy as Transformation. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Doucet, Andrea, and Natasha Mauthner. 2003. “Reflexive Accounts and Accounts of Reflexivity in Qualitative Research.” Sociology 37 (3): 413–31. England, Kim, and Isabel Dyck. 2012. “Migrant Workers in Home Care: Routes, Responsibilities and Respect.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 102 (5): 1076–83. Eubanks, Virginia. 2012. “Feminist Phronesis and Technologies of Citizenship.” In Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis, edited by Bent

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Flyvbjerg, Todd Landman, and Sanford Schram, 228–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Filion, Pierre, Markus Moos, Tara Vinodrai, and Ryan Walker, eds. 2015. Canadian Cities in Transition: Perspectives for an Urban Age. 5th edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Flyvbjerg, Bent. 2001. Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How to Make It Succeed Again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flyvbjerg, Bent, Todd Landman, and Sanford Schram, eds. 2012. Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frampton, Caelie, Gary Kinsman, A.K. Thompson, and Kate Tilleczek. 2006. Sociology for Changing the World: Social Movements/Social Research. Halifax: Fernwood. Fraser, Nancy. 2009. “Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of History.” New Left Review 56: 97–117. Gibson-Graham, J.K. 2011. “A Feminist Project of Belonging for the Anthropocene.” Gender, Place and Culture 8 (1): 1–21. Graham, Katherine A.H., and Caroline Andrew, eds. 2014. Canada in Cities: The Politics and Policy of Federal-Local Governance. Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press. Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. Harding, Sandra. 2015. Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research. Chicago: Chicago University Press. – 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hawkesworth, Mary. 2006. Feminist Inquiry: From Political Conviction to Methodological Innovation. New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press. Keil, Roger. 2002. “‘Common-Sense’ Neoliberalism: Progressive Conservative Urbanism in Toronto, Canada.” Antipode 34 (3): 578–601. Klodawsky, Fran, Janet Siltanen, and Caroline Andrew. 2013. “Urban Contestation in a Feminist Register.” Urban Geography 34 (4): 541–59. Kobayashi, Audrey. 2001. “Negotiating the Personal and the Political in Critical Qualitative Research.” In Qualitative Methodologies for Geographers: Issues and Debates, edited by Melanie Limb and Claire Dwyer, 55–72. London: Arnold. LeBaron, Genevieve. 2010. “The Political Economy of the Household: Neoliberal Restructuring, Enclosures, and Daily Life.” Review of International Political Economy 17 (5): 889–912. Massey, Doreen. 1994. Space, Place and Gender. Oxford: Polity Press.

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Introduction 23 Mitchell, Katharyne. 2008. Practicing Public Scholarship: Experiences and Possibilities beyond the Academy. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Naples, Nancy. 2003. Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist Research. New York: Routledge. Newhouse, David, and Evelyn Peters. 2003. “Introduction.” In Not Strangers in These Parts: Urban Aboriginal Peoples, edited by David Newhouse and Evelyn Peters, 5–14. Ottawa: Policy Research Initiative. Neysmith, Sheila, Kate Bezanson, and Anne O’Connell, eds. 2005. Telling Tales: Living the Effects of Public Policy. Halifax: Fernwood. Ong, Aihwa, and Ananya Roy, eds. 2011. Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global. Chichester, UK : Wiley-Blackwell. Peake, Linda, and Martina Rieker, eds. 2013. Rethinking Feminist Interventions into the Urban. London: Routledge. Peck, Jamie. 2010. Constructions of Neoliberal Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peck, Jamie, Elliot Siemiatycki, and Elvin Wyly. 2014. “Vancouver’s Suburban Involution.” City 18 (4–5): 386–415. Philips, Susan. 2010. “‘You Say You Want an Evolution?’ From Citizen to Community Engagement in Canadian Cities.” In Local Government in a Global World: Australia and Canada in Comparative Perspective, edited by Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly and John F. Martin, 55–80. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Robinson, Jennifer. 2006. Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development. New York: Routledge. Rodgers, Kathleen, and Melanie Knight. 2011. “‘You Just Felt the Collective Wind Being Knocked Out of Us’: The Deinstitutionalization of Feminism and the Survival of Women’s Organizing in Canada.” Women’s Studies International Journal 34: 570–81. Rose, Damaris. 2010. “Refractions and Recombinations of the ‘Economic’ and the ‘Social’: A Personalized Reflection on Challenges by-and-to Feminist Urban Geographies.” The Canadian Geographer 54 (4): 391–409. Sancton, Andrew. 2011. Canadian Local Government: An Urban Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schwartz-Shea, Peregrine, and Dvora Yanow. 2012. Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes. New York: Routledge. Siltanen, Janet, Alette Willis, and Willow Scobie. 2008. “Separately Together: Working Reflexively as a Team.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 11 (1): 45–61.

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Siltanen, Janet, Fran Klodawsky, and Caroline Andrew. 2015. “‘This Is How I Want to Live My Life’: An Experiment in Prefigurative Feminist Organizing for a More Equitable and Inclusive City.” Antipode 47 (1): 260–70. Smith, Dorothy. 1988. The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Vosko, Leah. 2006. “Crisis Tendencies in Social Reproduction: The Case of Ontario’s Early Years Plan.” In Social Reproduction: Feminist Political Economy Challenges Neo-Liberalism, edited by Kate Bezanson and Meg Luxton, 145–72. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Walks, R. Alan. 2010. “New Divisions: Social Polarization and Neighbourhood Inequality in the Canadian City.” In Canadian Cities in Transition: New Directions in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Trudi Bunting, Pierre Filion, and Ryan Walker, 170–90. Toronto: Oxford University Press Canada. – 2006. “Homelessness, Housing Affordability, and the New Poverty.” In Canadian Cities in Transition, edited by Trudi Bunting and Pierre Filion, 419–37. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Wallace, Susan, ed. 2015. “A Community of Practice.” A Dictionary of Education. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://www.­ oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199679393. 001.0001/acref-9780199679393-e-1127?rskey=hjzLBd&result=209. Wekerle, Gerda. 2010. “Gender and the Neo-Liberal City: Urban Restructuring, Social Exclusion, and Democratic Participation.” In Urban Canada, edited by Harry H. Hiller, 211–33. Toronto: Oxford University Press Canada. Whitmore, Elizabeth, Maureen G. Wilson, and Avery Calhoun. 2011. Activism That Works. Halifax: Fernwood. Wilson, Kathi, and Evelyn J. Peters. 2005. “You Can Make a Place for It.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 23: 395–413.

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prologue

Turning the University Inside Out Wendy Larner with the Productive Margins Programme The rise of “critical praxis-oriented research” analyzed in this book marks another step in the long, slow process of challenging the exclusions of the “ivory tower” university. In many countries, there is now a steady move within institutions towards researchcommunity partnerships and a distinctive “participatory turn” in the production of knowledge (Facer and Enright 2016). This book focuses on the urban political economy of Canadian cities, and documents scholarly attempts to address growing social and economic inequalities through action research projects. In this context, the impetus for critical praxis-oriented research is marked by a commitment to social justice and often – although not always – the adoption of reflexive, participatory, qualitative methodologies. The chapters share the learnings of Canadian scholars who are deeply engaged in such work, examining the implications of their efforts for “problem framing, data generating, researcher engagement, and value specification” in urban political-economic research. The scholars are all explicitly advancing the ambitions of feminist, antiracist and de-colonizing approaches in vital areas such as housing, homelessness, poverty, health, and education, and they position their efforts against the backdrop of actually existing neoliberalism and other structures of inequality. There is much to be lauded in these contributions, and they offer important lessons for researchers committed to fostering social justice in Canada and elsewhere. But, rather than simply rehearsing the claims that are made in the ensuing chapters, I would like to examine the wider implications of this move towards critical praxisoriented research in Canadian urban political economy. For the

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trend towards stronger engagement between academic researchers and their partners is not confined to participatory action research, and academic-community research is not the only field in which there are increasingly porous boundaries between universities and other organisations. The ambition to “turn the university inside out” is now found right across the social sciences and well beyond. This porosity has been captured in a series of diverse ideas and wider debates such as those around Mode 2 knowledge production (Gibbons et al. 1994), academic capitalism (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004) and new forms of interdisciplinarity (Barry and Born 2013). Disparate as these discussions of changes in universities and their associated knowledge practices might appear, all are attempts to capture the rise of new forms of accountability in academic life, and all rest on the forging of closer relations between academic and non-academic groups. How does the rise of academic-community partnerships fit within these wider trends? In research conducted through the E S R C funded Productive Margins programme in the United Kingdom, we argue that universities and academics have come to this new emphasis on collaborative research through three distinct strands. First, at the institutional level, many universities are now developing “public engagement” strategies and policies. Whereas historically, civic traditions have generally been the preserve of newer institutions and/ or more applied disciplines, over the last few decades a greater number of traditional universities have begun to pay increased attention to the external audience for their academic research. The impetus for this shift in orientation is not straight forward; it draws together long-standing critiques of exploitative research practices, the changing priorities of government and funders, and demands for greater accountability of universities by multiple publics. One consequence has been a proliferation of bodies designed to support universities in their external engagement strategies; public ­lectures, science fairs, open days, pub talks, and festivals have all become established parts of the engaged academic’s lexicon. Collaborations between universities and other institutions, such as governments, cultural organisations, and industry, have become more common, and the growth of open access publishing, non-­ fiction “trade lists” and university hosted blogs have widened the audience for academic writing. The emphasis in these activities is on translation and dissemination; academics have knowledge and

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Prologue 27

through engaging with diverse publics they are able to share this knowledge. These trends often have the ambition of engaging constituencies beyond the relatively privileged groups that historically orbit around universities. The second strand of work has emerged through ideas of “knowledge transfer,” sometimes re-framed as “knowledge exchange.” Drawing on established practices in fields such as technology transfer and translational medicine, and reflecting the increasing heterogeneity of the research landscape, there is now much greater movement between universities and other research sites in firms, laboratories, and government departments. Relatedly, there has been a growth of boundary-spanning networks of knowledge brokers such as think tanks that often combine academic knowledge with proprietary procedures, particularly in the social sciences (Bastow, Dunleavy, and Tinkler 2014). Again, there are multiple impetuses for this strand of activity. Some commentators see it as rampant commodification associated with the rise of the so-called “neoliberal university” (Shore and Wright 1999), whereas others emphasize the multiple modes of accountability involved (Joseph 2014). Certainly, knowledge exchange is in part a product of new forms of funding. It is no coincidence that a new role has emerged for engaged research in the funding of both universities and community organisations during a period when more traditional sources of public sector funding for both groups are being reduced. There are now a wide range of research schemes and associated pots of money that encourage and enable people to work across the boundaries of academic/non-academic “knowledge” through secondments, exchanges, and jointly supervised studentships. The third strand, and the one that most explicitly shapes the ­contributions to this book, arises out of a multiplicity of research practices: communities of practice (CoPs), action research (AR), participatory research (P R ), and participatory action research (PA R ). Building on traditions of feminist, post-colonial, criticalrace, and participatory action research, these academics are seizing the opportunity to push community-oriented research beyond the technocratic rationality that currently places it in the limelight. There is an expectation in all of these traditions that research is done with, not to, external stakeholders. As we see in this book, this move increasingly implies something more than just participation; it suggests that research must be produced together – all are

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co-investigators, expected to contribute to changing academic research praxis and the generation of theory. This manner of study mounts a challenge to orthodox boundaries between researcher and researched. Mutual and reciprocal learning between all the parties involved, overcoming the traditional understandings of experts and expertise that privilege academics, is key to this approach. There is also a growing tendency in this manner of research to engage “beyond text” tools, using arts and media to facilitate co-production and widen the audience. Finally, whereas such ideas have long found an accepted place in disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, and social work, they are now beginning to find their way into more technocratic and applied areas such as health sciences and urban planning. While it might be tempting for cynics to link the rise of critical praxis-oriented research to changing funding models associated with neoliberalism, these three strands of activity suggest that the impetus also arises from another direction, that of seeking different “ways of knowing” (Eikeland 2012). Concepts based on partnerships and collaborative research designs are now increasingly commonplace in calls for funding research proposals, often with an aspiration for collectively produced knowledge that addresses “big  ideas” or “societal challenges.” New funding streams have also arisen, designed to promote collaborative endeavours and co-­ production between academics, public service providers, artists, and a diverse range of community groups. Collaboration, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity all appeal to the “creative imagination in the promise to open up borders and cross into new territories” (Strathern 2004, vii). Across a range of sectors, individuals and groups have turned to co-production for new creative possibilities and as a solution to a range of political tensions associated with the complex social, political, and economic orders of advanced liberal societies. I would argue that the impetus for critical praxis-oriented research is both inside and in reaction against neoliberalism. There are two further features of critical praxis-oriented research worth underlining. First, as will be seen in the chapters in this book, such research privileges the process of interaction and collaborative working over what precisely is produced. Implicit in this work is the development of systems and methods that build trust between partners, including new shared vocabulary and practices. The various authors in this volume show how the traditional research team

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meeting has been replaced by facilitated conversations, learning circles, and interactive learning spaces, as participants struggle to define shared research questions and research design. Community advisory boards are now an accepted part of research infrastructure, and more equitable ways are being devised for allocating budgets, including supporting the time of community partners as well as the university researchers. A heightened emphasis on capacity building, including the mainstreaming of peer researchers, is common. The longer-term implications of this emphasis on process are often implicit rather than explicit. For example, inevitably this emphasis means that there is considerable negotiation between all the coinvestigators – academics and community partners – and the outputs are often shaped by compromises and trade-offs so that everyone is able to get what they desire from the programme. It also underpins a change in the time frames of research, as attention to the long-term sustainability of personal and organisational relationships begin to fundamentally shape projects based on academiccommunity engagements. The second point the chapters illustrate is that new forms of ­subjectification emerge from this collaborative working. In critical praxis-oriented research, terrain partners are there to collectively identify the research problem with academics, and then to co-design the research process that ensues to address this problem. In the most embedded versions, research is carried out by peer researchers and outputs are co-produced, targeting the multiple audiences for the programme. It could be argued that the process of codesigning research between participants is intended to induce changes in behaviour amongst all concerned. In the ambition for a more horizontal engagement in which the traditional hierarchies between the academy and communities are overcome, academics learn how to give up institutional power and participate in new forms of grass-roots engagement, and community partners are able to enter new forums and learn new methodologies. Facilitation, brokerage, and translation become the activities that permeate these relationships, creating new academic and community-based subject positions that privilege relational working and emotional labour. In an era of generalized precarity there are important questions to ask about who fills these subject positions, particularly as a new generation of academics find themselves excluded from the secure labour market positions of their predecessors, and

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community activists are forced to be ever more inventive in their search for influence and funding. Advocates of critical praxis-oriented research begin from the belief that the new approaches to community-based research are fundamentally emancipatory and more inclusive, particularly when compared with other, more hierarchical approaches to policy design and delivery. They also presuppose that the emancipatory and inclusive approaches this research embodies sits in opposition to the economic and social inequalities generated by neoliberal approaches to urban political economy. This essay supports both these pre-­suppositions. However, I also suggest that the rise of critical praxis-oriented research should be contextualized within wider transformations in both universities and community organisations, and that with this wider lens, new questions about the times, spaces, and subjects of this new form of urban political economic research are emerging.

note

This essay arises from the Productive Margins: Regulating for Engagement research programme funded by the U K Economic and Social Research Council as part of the Connected Communities Programme. See www. productivemargins.ac.uk for further details. references

Barry, Andrew, and Georgina Born. 2013. Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences. Oxon, New York: Routledge. Bastow, Simon, Patrick Dunleavy, and Jane Tinkler. 2014. The Impact of the Social Sciences: How Academics and Their Research Make a Difference. London: Sage. Eikeland, Olav. 2012. “Action Research: Applied Research, Intervention Research, Collaborative Research, Practitioner Research, or Praxis Research?” International Journal of Action Research 8 (1): 9–44. Facer, Keri, and Bryony Enright. 2016. Creating Living Knowledge. Bristol: University of Bristol and AHRC Connected Communities Programme. Gibbons, Michael, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman, Peter Scott, and Martin Trow. 1994. The New Production

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Prologue 31 of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage. Joseph, Miranda. 2014. Debt to Society: Accounting for Life under Capitalism. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Shore, Chris, and Susan Wright. 1999. “Audit Culture and Anthropology: Neo-Liberalism in British Higher Education.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 5 (4): 557–75. Slaughter, Sheila, and Gary Rhoades. 2004. Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education. Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Strathern, Marilyn. 2004. Commons and Borderlands. Oxon: Sean Kingston Publishing.

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section one

Contexts and Complexities of Collaborative Research

We have identified critical praxis-oriented research as a collection of approaches that aim to engage theory, practice, and political advocacy within the same research initiative. This is an ambitious orientation to knowledge production, and attempts to meet its demands are often done collaboratively. While collaboration offers much in terms of resources, energy, and expertise, it also poses challenges for those committed to the co-production of the research process and its outcomes. Such challenges include coming to an agreement about research priorities and criteria of success, avoiding cooptation when collaborating with power, how to be meaningfully inclusive of multiple and marginalized voices, how to share or even relinquish control over the research process, and how to engage respectfully as well as critically with opposing views both within the research team and outside of it. The four chapters in this section illustrate different ways in which critical praxis-­oriented academic researchers try to address the challenges posed by doing research in collaboration with non-academic ­partners, who can range considerably in terms of power, capacity, and interests. Contexts and complexities are as much issues of research teams and processes as they are of the matters being researched. As noted by Larner (this volume), rejecting the more opportunistic and technocratic trend to research collaboration in contemporary, neoliberal funding regimes involves commitments by all parties to the research to engage in “mutual and reciprocal learning.” This key characteristic of collaboration in the context of critical praxis-oriented research is something that the four chapters in this section struggle to realize,

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and in each case, creating, nurturing, negotiating, and managing the collaboration is a substantial part of the research work. A challenge in critical praxis-oriented research is how to handle the likely tensions between collaboration and critique. The commitment to a critical orientation to research can be accomplished in the spirit of both enabling and contributing to difficult conversations about issues that matter, and by bringing multiple voices into such conversations. The productive aspects of critique can reveal and assess important interconnections of theory, practice, and advocacy. As the chapters in this section illustrate, social justice calculations can be advanced through detailed critical ­consideration of how ideas such as impact, complexity, diversity, inclusion, indigenization, and sustainability are practically mobilized in specific contexts. Attention to relations of power are central to critical praxis-­ oriented research, and requires ongoing monitoring of relations within research teams, as well as between teams and other research participants. The four chapters explore these issues from vantage points that involve collaborations with individuals, organizations, and groups that have different levels and types of power resources. Addressing questions of ethical practice is crucial when conducting research with and about individuals, groups, or communities who are in vulnerable, politically marginalized positions. Significant advances have been made in identifying research practices which nurture and sustain genuinely participatory and community-led investigations. Equally, questions arise as to how researchers who engage and collaborate with those in positions of power can steer a course that maintains advocacy interests in social justice. Although requiring vigilance against cooptation, many find possibilities within this form of engagement to influence practice, change discourse, and debate value commitments. Collaboration with multiple voices in the context of post-positivist orientations to research, and with commitments to advance theory, practice, and advocacy, offers exciting possibilities for exploring forms of knowledge generation and learning that enable movements toward “making something which might become a means of making something more” (Rowbotham 1979, 142). Common to the four chapters in this section is an understanding of social change that appreciates the significance of small steps. The authors are convinced that incremental changes can be in themselves

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immediately meaningful, and are hopeful that such changes have the potential for wider and longer-term significance. MacKinnon and Silver present research work that interrogates the meaning of indigenization as theory, as educational and research practice, and as a source and objective of advocacy. They credit the accomplishments of their research to the decades of Indigenous community-led collaborations that formed the foundation of their research on decolonizing education in Winnipeg’s North End. Collaborations involved academics, community-based organizations, educational institutions, and levels of government, and the authors share how they developed principles and practices of community-led collaboration that centre Indigenous knowledges and experiences. The chapter describes the careful and creative efforts to introduce what eventually became highly successful educational institutions and programs to the city’s North End neighbourhoods. Success is measured academically, but also, importantly, in terms of the transformational impact on individuals, their families, and their communities. Efforts are now focused on a community development project to rehabilitate the Merchants Hotel as a hub for education, housing, and community activities. As MacKinnon and Silver highlight, the principles guiding the collaboration steering this project, which includes powerful government and education partners, are ones learned from previous collaborations in which the community itself took the leading role. The chapter by Siltanen, Pich, Klodawsky, and Andrew reports on a collaboration involving academics, the City of Ottawa, the City for All Women Initiative (an all-women community-based organization), and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (an advocacy organization). They too stress the importance of preexisting research, advocacy, and collegial relationships among the research team partners in providing levels of mutual commitment, trust, and respect that facilitated productive collaborative work relations. The authors bring developments in theory, practice, and advocacy together in their commitment to maintain a focus on complexity in evaluations of the City of Ottawa’s organizational change initiative to promote equity and inclusion. Efforts to retain complexity in theory and in research practice helped to identify shifting understandings and claims regarding the origin, significance, and purpose of the equity and inclusion initiative. Doing so

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meant that alternative accounts to the current dominant narrative, particularly those stressing social justice advocacy and the significance of a more genuine community involvement, could be recovered and voiced. The research by McKenzie and her colleagues interrogates, theoretically and practically, the meaning of inclusion in the more intimate and service context of health care. They also intend to centre Indigenous knowledge, and are particularly concerned with being inclusive of the diversity of the Indigenous women involved in their health intervention research. Focused on the health needs of Indigenous women who have experienced violence in two British Columbia urban areas, and drawing on several years of relationship building, the project collaboration includes the diverse perspectives and experiences of participants, community Elders, health practitioners and the academic researchers. The collaboration is designed to be participant-led, and the authors are explicit in sharing the importance of continued reflexivity among the research team in meeting this aim. The chapter shows how a multimethods approach, which includes drawing on survey data and employing quasi-experimental, time-series research designs, can contribute to the objectives of critical praxis-oriented research. The research by Ballamingie and her team takes the collaborative possibilities and research relationships possible within the umbrella of critical praxis-oriented research in a different direction. At its heart, the research involves supporting community organizations in their engagement with a private developer. The objective is to promote a community first approach to housing development in order to foster inclusion, particularly of lowincome citizens and seniors. In this case, the academic researchers support the information and analysis needs of the community organization by funding and supervising research expertise in the form of graduate student research assistants. Theoretically and practically, the research is again a reflection on the meaning and challenges of inclusion, particularly in a context where there is little statutory or policy leverage to encourage such considerations. In addition, this research offers an opportunity to consider what it means for academics, and to commitments to social change and social justice, to engage with well-placed and reasonably influential community organizations as they attempt to influence activities in the private sector on behalf of their urban neighbourhood.

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reference

Rowbotham, Sheila. 1979. “The Women’s Movement and Organizing for Socialism.” In Beyond the Fragments – Feminism and the Making of Socialism, edited by Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal, and Hilary Wainwright. London: Merlin Press.

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1 Decolonizing for Equity and Inclusion in Winnipeg’s North End Shauna M ac Kinnon and Jim Silver

In this chapter we aim to show how a collaborative, communityled project that has involved community groups, government, and ­academics and that has been driven, at least in part, by the results of  related research, is working to improve the lives and futures of  Indigenous peoples in Winnipeg’s low-income and largely Indigenous North End. The heart of the project is an educational strategy that strives to meet the particular needs of Indigenous students and to develop their capacities and capabilities so that those who have suffered most from colonialism and racialized, intergenerational poverty can themselves become leaders in the creation of a decolonized space characterized by equity and inclusion. The project embodies the results of a decade of community-based participatory research (C B P R ) that has been carried out by the Manitoba Research Alliance and that features strong and genuine alliances between community organizations and academic researchers in ways that are consistent with the need for reconciliation (TRC 2015).

Co l o n i a l i s m , P ov e rt y, and Resis tance i n  W i n n i p e g ’ s N orth End In Canadian – and especially western Canadian – cities, colonialism is a particularly important factor in the undermining of equity and inclusion for Indigenous peoples. Winnipeg has Canada’s largest urban Indigenous population, and colonialism has been

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an important factor both in producing a city that is economically, socially, and spatially segregated, and in adversely affecting Indigenous peoples’ educational outcomes, thereby contributing to the reproduction of segregation and racialized poverty. Winnipeg’s North End is in large part an Indigenous space, and among its characteristics is a high incidence of racialized poverty with a range of associated problems: low and often very low incomes, poor housing, poor health, low educational outcomes, weak labour market attachment, exposure to street gang activity and related violence, social exclusion, racism, and the stigmatization and stereotyping of the entire community and its residents. Frequently these are internalized, leading those who are the racialized poor – in Winnipeg, primarily Indigenous people – to blame themselves for their circumstances. The resulting erosion of self-confidence and self-esteem can contribute to a sense of hopelessness, which then produces and reproduces an intergenerational form of poverty. These conditions have persisted for decades. Yet Winnipeg’s North End is a contradictory space. It is undeniable that the racialized poverty of this colonized space produces a wide range of negative outcomes, but at the same time, the North End is home to a large number of community-based organizations – neighbourhood renewal corporations, women’s resource centres, youth-serving agencies, Indigenous organizations, and social enterprises of various kinds, for example – and many of these community-based organizations, while largely unknown beyond the North End, are creative and effective in undertaking various forms of antipoverty work. Among these organizations are a number of adult, Indigenous, and post-secondary educational institutions, each of which operates somewhat differently than mainstream educational institutions. Some of the most important of these are located within a one-block area on the North End’s Selkirk Avenue. What is emerging on Selkirk Avenue can be thought of as a North End Community Campus, the next step in which is the redevelopment of the old Merchants Hotel into Merchants Corner, a large educational and student housing complex. Merchants Corner and the North End Community Campus are important parts of a process that can be thought of as the decolonization and Indigenization of education, and the reclamation of urban space, by and for Indigenous peoples

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working in association with non-Indigenous allies. It is a process that holds the promise of contributing to the promotion of equity and inclusion for Indigenous peoples in Winnipeg.

C r i t i c a l P r a x i s - O r i e nted Research We have been conducting research in Winnipeg’s North End and broader inner city for many years, as members of the S S H RC-funded Manitoba Research Alliance (M R A ) and its host organization, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. The MRA currently holds a seven-year, $2.5 million S S H RC Partnership grant titled “Partnering for Change: Community-Based Solutions for Aboriginal and Inner-City Poverty.” This is the third successive large SSHR C grant held by the M R A , the first being a three-year, $890,000 Initiative on the New Economy grant, and the second, a five-year, $1 million Community-University Research Alliance (CU RA) grant. Each of the three has had a strong focus on urban poverty and Aboriginal peoples. The principal investigator is John Loxley, Department of Economics, University of Manitoba. The research is organized into four streams: Education and Capacity-Building; Housing and Neighbourhood Revitalization; Justice, Safety and Security; and Community Economic Development. MacKinnon and Silver head the first and second streams respectively. The partnership is comprised of the following: Manitoba-based academics; community partners, particularly inner-city CBO s doing various kinds of anti-poverty work; and government, primarily the government of Manitoba. Over the course of these three S S H RC grants, the M RA has produced some fifteen books and a large number of academic articles, has contributed in several cases to significant government policy change, and has been active in using a wide variety of formats to reach an audience beyond academe with its research results. In addition, the creation of a new academic department at the University of Winnipeg, the Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies, has been the direct result of research done by the M RA, and the development of Merchants Corner in Winnipeg’s North End is also the effect, at least in part, of research done by the M RA. One of our objectives in the research we have been doing has been to immerse ourselves in the communities with which we are working in an attempt to see and understand, to the extent possible, through the eyes of those who are themselves experiencing

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racialized poverty and the ongoing effects of colonialism. We have tried to do that by developing close partnerships with communitybased organizations working in these communities, by developing relationships with people working and living there, and by designing research undertakings with them, rather than simply, from the outside, about them. We use a community-based praxis research method that, in its purest form, involves the community in every aspect of the research, from deciding what is to be researched, to conducting the various aspects of the research process, to using the outcomes of the research. A second and related objective has been to do research that contributes to solving real-world problems. As described by Klodawsky, Siltanen, and Andrew in the introductory chapter of this volume, critical praxis-oriented research aims to mobilize the interconnection of “knowledges deriving from theory, everyday practices, and political advocacy.” MacKinnon has engaged in critical praxis-­ oriented research through research and political advocacy aimed at  finding effective ways of moving low-income and especially Indigenous people into the paid labour force (MacKinnon 2014, 2015; Bernas and MacKinnon 2015a; Silvius and MacKinnon 2012), and it is likely that this work has been a factor in improved labour market outcomes for Indigenous people (Lezubski and Silver 2015). Silver has worked with people in a large and very low-income public housing project in the North End, aiming to improve the circumstances of those who live there by involving them at every step in a process of change that has produced very positive outcomes (Silver et al. 2015; Silver 2013, 2011). In addition, we and other Manitoba Research Alliance scholars have engaged in critical praxis-oriented research on education in Winnipeg’s North End (MacKinnon 2012, 2013, 2015; Silver 2006, 2013, 2015). We have worked with people and community-based organizations involved directly in creating and implementing innovative educational strategies aimed at improving educational outcomes and quality of life in the low-income North End. Through this work we have learned a great deal about what works well, and we have used this knowledge to advocate for policy change. This knowledge has contributed to the creation of a new academic department – Urban and Inner-City Studies – at the University of Winnipeg, and has assisted in making the argument for the relocation of that department off the university’s main downtown campus

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to Selkirk Avenue in Winnipeg’s North End in 2010. In addition, we have been actively involved in the creation of another innovative North End educational initiative, Merchants Corner, which is a broadly based North End community undertaking that builds on the knowledge the community has gained from its practical experience, and that we have gained from our involvement with the community and from the research that we have been doing. A future step in our community-based educational research will be longitudinal studies of Selkirk Avenue students, aimed at trying to determine the comprehensive benefits that flow from these educational initiatives. For example, we will want to determine whether, compared to their lives prior to their educational experience, graduates’ home lives become more stable, they have less contact with Child and Family Services, their children do better in school, they secure stable employment, they become more active in their communities, and whether other family members pursue educational opportunities. Our hypothesis is that a wide range of benefits are produced when low-income students attend and graduate from these programs, and that a social cost-benefit analysis would reveal that the benefits outweigh the costs of running the Selkirk Avenue educational institutions.

I n d i g e n i z i n g E duc ation The pedagogical methods used by the educational institutions that are part of the North End Community Campus are different from mainstream methods in a variety of ways. They are tailored to respond to the particular needs and conditions of students and potential students who have grown up poor in a colonized space, and who have struggled with the devastating effects that the mainstream educational system has had on Indigenous peoples (TRC 2015). Many Indigenous people in Winnipeg’s North End have had very difficult lives, have relatively low levels of formal education, and are lacking in self-esteem and self-confidence. The adverse consequences are many. One is children’s readiness for school, as measured by the Early Development Instrument (E DI ), developed by Healthy Child Manitoba. In the highest income quintile in Winnipeg, 23 per cent of children are not ready for school at age five; in the lowest income quintile it is 38 per cent; in Point Douglas in Winnipeg’s North End,

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42 per cent of children – more than four in every ten – are not ready for school at age five (Santos et al. 2012, 10–13). We see the same pattern in high school graduation data, as analyzed by Marni Brownell and her colleagues (2015) at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy. They found that more than 98 per cent of students in Winnipeg’s highest income quintile neighbourhoods – for the most part suburban and more well-off Winnipeg neighbourhoods – graduated high school within six years of entering grade nine, while in Winnipeg’s low-income inner city, the comparable figure was 55 per cent, and in some North End neighbourhoods it was closer to 25 per cent (Brownell, Fransoo, and Martens 2015; Brownell et al. 2004). The effect has been high levels of illiteracy, absence of hope for a better future, and a perpetuation of poverty. It is this challenge that the educational institutions on Selkirk Avenue seek to address through holistic, intergenerational, and decolonizing approaches. These educational institutions include the University of Manitoba’s Inner City Social Work Program, the Urban Circle Training Centre, and the University of Winnipeg’s Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies. Each works differently from mainstream educational systems in a creative effort to meet the needs of Indigenous and other residents of the North End. These educational institutions are highly successful. Almost all of their students find employment related to their course of studies, and society as a whole benefits. The University of Manitoba’s Inner City Social Work Program, for example, has graduated over 500 fully qualified social workers in its first thirty years – the program moved to Selkirk Avenue about a decade ago – and all of these graduates were raised in poverty-related circumstances (Clare 2013). The University of Winnipeg’s Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies moved from the main campus to Selkirk Avenue in 2010, and enrollment since that time has grown by 250 per cent and continues to grow steadily; its graduates are finding work in inner-city C B Os. Urban Circle Training Centre has an 85­­–90 per cent success rate, with success defined as students graduating from the program and finding employment in a related field. All Urban Circle students are Indigenous, most have grown up in difficult ­circumstances, and many were on social assistance prior to attending Urban Circle. What this suggests is that Indigenous people and North End residents will respond positively to well-designed educational opportunities – those that are tailored to meet their

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particular needs and circumstances – and large numbers will succeed. Society as a whole benefits from this as well. For example, between 1990 and 2010, Urban Circle Training Centre alone produced a cumulative net saving to Manitobans estimated at $53.5 million by moving Indigenous people who had previously been living in poverty and were outside the labour market into decent quality jobs (Silver 2013, 13). To a considerable extent, the educational institutions on Selkirk Avenue have learned how to respond to the challenges created by generations of colonialism and racialized poverty. What they have learned is the product of decades of immersion in Winnipeg’s North End, and a deep appreciation of the damage done to Indigenous and other people who live there. It is a product, also, of an abiding belief in the capacities and capabilities of all people, no matter how difficult their circumstances. The approach to education in the North End that has been developed over the years by these institutions, and others like them, is defined by what are, at least conceptually, a fairly simple set of principles. First, location matters. Many Indigenous adults prefer to learn in their own communities, alongside others who have had similar life experiences. For many, this context is a safer way to develop skills and build the confidence needed to pursue further educational and/or employment opportunities within but also outside of their communities. To attend a large post-secondary institution on the other side of the rail yards that separate the North End from the rest of the city can be overwhelming in the minds of many Indigenous people in the North End. That the institutions being described here have themselves crossed the rail yards by relocating to Selkirk Avenue, in the heart of a low-income and largely Indigenous community, makes a significant psychological and practical difference to those many North End residents who, it is clear, want to improve their education but who, in many cases, would not do so if it required leaving their neighbourhoods and entering an alien and largely colonized educational space. A number of other conceptually simple pedagogical techniques are used. Class sizes are kept much smaller than is generally the case in today’s universities. For the University of Manitoba’s Inner City Social Work program, Urban Circle Training Centre, and the University of Winnipeg’s Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies, the maximum class size is twenty-five students. This allows

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for personalized attention to students. Relatedly, a good deal of effort goes into creating a warm, friendly, personalized, and welcoming space, which is a common theme in adult education. Sabourin and Globensky (1998, 239), for example, in talking about literacy programs, but with direct relevance to all adult educational efforts, reported that “It is doubtful that there is a more important consideration in sustaining an Aboriginal literacy program than the provision of a safe and welcoming environment where learning can take root and grow.” Small classes, a warm and personalized environment in which a safe space is created for taking the risks associated with learning, and in which relationships can be built and nurtured and trust can be developed, are essential, and in this process skilled and caring instructors and other supporters matter a great deal. In addition, a holistic approach is essential. Poor peoples’ lives are complex and those complexities affect their ability to learn. A central part of the educational strategies used on Selkirk Avenue, therefore, involves supporting learners in dealing with problems outside as well as inside the classroom. Curriculum matters too. Adult learners benefit from a curriculum that is rooted in their experience and that values their experiential knowledge, and Indigenous students benefit especially from a decolonizing curriculum that teaches them about their histories and cultures, and that situates their personal struggles in the context of the broader historical and socio-economic process of colonization. While not all of  the educational programs on Selkirk Avenue are exclusive to Indigenous students, all are designed with Indigenous students in mind, and each makes use of some version or other of the principles described above. This kind of education can be, and often is, liberating and transformational. Its transformational character can be seen in three realms: the personal, the family, and the community. First, it transforms Indigenous peoples’ lives at a personal level by contributing significantly to their healing from the damage of colonization and of racism and poverty; by providing a safe space within which to develop confidence and the capacity for critical thought, and to meet others with similar as well as very different backgrounds and experiences, thus opening doors to new worlds; and, in the case of those graduates who enter the paid labour market, by liberating them from the severe restrictions of lives lived in the complex and often racialized poverty so common today in Winnipeg’s North End

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and other urban settings. One Indigenous student, now in her second year of university, said this about her first year attending university on Selkirk Avenue: When I first started Introduction to Urban and Inner-City Studies, I was very scared. I walked in not knowing what to expect. I came into the class, sat down, and looked around. I noticed that it was a mixed class – half Aboriginal and half Caucasian. This surprised me because I expected the population of Urban and Inner-City Studies to be Aboriginal given the fact that it is located on Selkirk Ave. I was very intimidated … First, because I did not know the definitions and meanings of most of the words. Second, because I felt like the Caucasian students in class would judge me and look down on me. And third, because I felt the Caucasian students would be so much smarter than I am and I would end up looking like a dumb Indian or Halfbreed. After class, [the professor] reassured me that most of the ­students were probably feeling the same way. I felt relieved and encouraged and was ready to give the class a chance and make a go of it. We had many discussions in class. We learned to trust each other … Now when I see my [nonIndigenous] classmates at the main campus, it is funny because they will be standing with their friends when they see me and they’ll shout out “HI !” Then they “high five” me in the hall while their friends stand there looking at them with a confused look. Second, in at least some instances, this form of education is transformative at the level of the family, and in the case of Indigenous people, the extended family. There is often a “ripple effect” by which, once the first person in a family takes the plunge into adult education, others soon follow, and the children and grandchildren of these adult learners do better in school. One graduate and community leader described her personal experience at Urban Circle and the Inner City Social Work program, and the ripple effect it had for her family: Once one person graduates, boy does that open a door. It’s huge! My youngest sister and my nephew went to school there so all together there were five of us that graduated from Urban Circle. My two sisters are in their last year at the Inner City Social Work program. My daughter has graduated and she’s been

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working and my other daughter is on main campus and is hopefully getting into nursing in the fall. So within a matter of … seven years … we will have five university degrees – every woman in my family will have a university degree. My granddaughter is graduating from grade twelve this year. She’s talking about what university she’s going to. My grandson who’s sixteen is talking about what he’s going to do. It’s the norm now. It’s not just a dream. (MacKinnon 2015, 155) Last, the kind of education practised at the North End Community Campus can also be transformative at the broader level of the community. Graduates become the agents of change in the colonized and often impoverished communities in which they were raised; rather than leaving them behind, many give back to those communities (Silver 2013), contributing to making the broader socio-­ economic changes that are necessary to break the cycle by which poverty produces poor educational outcomes which then contribute to still more poverty. They also contribute, in the case of the North End, to the creation of a decolonized space characterized by equity and inclusion. We have come to understand this alternative approach to education and the transformative effects it can produce by using a research method designed to enable us to hear the authentic voices of those who are students in these institutions, most but not all of whom are Indigenous. We have interviewed them using open-ended, life-story techniques that have enabled these students to describe their educational experiences in ways of their own choosing. And we have hired Indigenous people to conduct these interviews so that we can bridge the gap between interviewer and interviewee. This method is consistent with the principles that drive effective community development in Winnipeg’s inner city, primary among them is that those who know the most about inner-city conditions are not outside “experts,” but rather are those who are living the experience. Thus we have used a research method designed to enable Indigenous and other students to tell us what they considered to be important about their educational experience in Winnipeg’s North End. They have often described their experience as transformative. Similarly transformative is the experience of non-Indigenous students who come from the main campus to Selkirk Avenue. In most cases, such students have never before set foot in the North End, but meeting Indigenous students who have grown up in the area

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and are studying on Selkirk Avenue has the effect of eroding the stigma and stereotypes that many non-Indigenous people have internalized. This is an important means of “bridging the divide” that segregates the North End from the rest of the city, and of promoting the reconciliation that has been called for by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (T R C 2015).

M e rc h a n t s C o r n e r a s S y mbol of the F uture The focus on formal but alternative education as a means of moving toward Indigenous self-determination started with the Urban Circle Training Centre, which then inspired other educational programs to relocate to Selkirk Avenue. The Elders who work with Urban Circle have slowly and methodically advanced their vision of the transformation of Selkirk Avenue into an Indigenous space of learning, healing, and community development. Part of this vision included the transformation of the notorious Merchants Hotel, which for decades had been a magnet for all that is negative in the North End. In 2011 the North End community began to organize to do something about the Merchants Hotel. Previous efforts had been made to shut the building down and redevelop the space, but they had come to nothing. The 2011 attempt has been driven by the Merchants Corner Steering Committee, comprised of approximately twentyfive North End community-based organizations and businesses, including some of the Selkirk Avenue educational institutions that comprise the North End Community Campus. This effort has been an instance of genuine collaboration between North End community-based organizations that work closely with residents of the North End community, on the one hand, and formal educational institutions, including the University of Winnipeg’s Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies and C E D A-Pathways to Education, a North End high school support program, on the other hand (Mac­ Kinnon 2012). At the outset of its work, the Steering Committee debated and accepted a Merchants Corner Project Charter, the principles of which are intended to guide the process:

Me rc h a n t s C o r n e r P roject Charter 1. Co-operative connection between groups and facilities in the community and encouragement of collaborative partnerships that build on strengths and well-being of the community.

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2. Mixed use, including residential, educational, retail, and community components. 3. Sustainability on all levels including economic, environmental, social, and cultural, mindful of community wellness and spiritual wholeness toward the Seventh Generation. 4. Community Economic Development Principles including developing local resources, an inclusive process, holism, ­collaboration, and sustainability. 5. Intergenerational, with opportunities for people of all ages and stages of life including elders, youth, adults, children, and families. 6. Universally accessible, ensuring all facilities are universally accessible to all citizens. A significant aspect of the Merchants Corner project has been the role of the large institutional players who are not part of the North End – the City of Winnipeg, the Province of Manitoba, and the University of Winnipeg. While the city has not been a major participant in this process, it has contributed one of the seven lots on which Merchants Corner will be located, and the Winnipeg Housing and Rehabilitation Corporation is the developer for the student housing component of the project and will be the property manager. The city had a representative on the Steering Committee, but did not play an active role, whereas the University of Winnipeg has been more active. The University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corporation is the developer for the educational and community component of Merchants Corner. The Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies has been on Selkirk Avenue since 2010, has been an active participant on the Steering Committee, and will be – along with C ED A -Pathways to Education – one of the two educational tenants in Merchants Corner. The province of Manitoba has played a major role, participating supportively in the Steering Committee from the beginning, and providing the bulk of the funding for the project. The University of Winnipeg and the province’s contributions to the project, particularly their investments of public funds and institutional effort in a low-income area, have flown in the face of the dominant neoliberal ideology of the age. A lesson to be drawn from the lengthy process that has led to the building of Merchants Corner is that these large “outside” institutions need to work in a supportive and respectful way with innercity C B O s. Because of their size and their associated political and

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economic clout, such institutions could attempt to force their own views on the process. This has not happened in the case of Merchants Corner, and, in fact, what has worked best in Winnipeg’s inner city and North End has been the community taking the lead in shaping the vision and directing the process, while the larger institutions play a supportive role. In a previous study, an Indigenous leader in Winnipeg’s inner city described this process by saying, “I know that there is a role for people that are non-Aboriginal people and it is in the role of allies … Allies are not fixer-uppers, allies are people that will support us, walk with us, walk beside us, supporting us in turning power over to us. That is the role of allies, is to turn over their power” (Silver 2006, 165). The educational strategy embodied in Merchants Corner is likely unique in Canada in at least two respects. First, it will include a regular university department, the University of Winnipeg’s Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies, which has purposefully relocated from the downtown main campus to the low-income and largely Indigenous North End. Second, the University of Winnipeg program will fully share the classroom space at Merchants Corner with the North End after-school high school support program, C E D A -Pathways to Education. Urban and Inner-City Studies will schedule university-level classes during the day and C E D A Pathways’ high school students will use the same classroom space from 4:00 to 8:00  p.m. High school students will thus be doing their after-school programming in a university space, in their own neighbourhood, and they will see that 40­–50 per cent of the university students are, like them, North End residents, Indigenous people, and newcomers. Merchants Corner will also include thirty units of fully subsidized, rent-geared-to-income student housing, a particularly important feature given the severe shortage of decent quality, affordable, low-income rental housing in the North End (Brandon and Silver 2015). It is believed that many positive outcomes will flow from the establishment of the unique educational initiative embodied in Merchants Corner. Situating C E DA Pathways at Merchants Corner will add value to their work. For C E DA -Pathways students, seeing others with similar cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and life experiences attending university courses at Merchants Corner will normalize an experience that many have previously seen as beyond

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their reach. Doing after-school programming in a university space in their own neighbourhood, and in a building where, like them, a high proportion of university students are Indigenous people and/ or North End residents, will further encourage CE D A Pathways students. We anticipate that over time, this will lead to improved high school graduation rates and increased enrollment in and completion of post-secondary education programs. This will shift attitudes towards education in a neighbourhood where it has garnered little trust. Cheyenne Henry, academic advisor in the Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies, and herself an Anishinabe woman, envisages young Indigenous people in the North End walking by Merchants Corner in the future and saying to each other, “That’s where I’m going when I finish high school.”1 We think that the likelihood of our being able to achieve these results is increased by the fact that Urban and Inner-City Studies and C EDA -Pathways to Education are already well known to each other. MacKinnon has worked closely with CE D A-Pathways, drawing upon her previous research to collaboratively design modifications to their educational practices (MacKinnon 2012). In addition, ­several graduates of Urban and Inner-City Studies now work with C ED A -Pathways, and C E DA -Pathways high school graduates are now starting to enroll in university courses in the Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies. The creation of Merchants Corner in the North End, where once the notorious Merchants Hotel stood, will symbolize the decolonization and indigenization of that community, and will instill in it a renewed sense of community and Indigenous pride. Lest these hoped-for outcomes be seen as overly optimistic or even naïve, and given the depth and long-lasting character of racialized poverty in Winnipeg’s North End, it is useful to consider what has been achieved in the inner city, including the North End, over the past fifteen years of improved public investment in communityled initiatives. A recent analysis of customized Census of Canada data and National Household Survey data for the period 1996 to 2011 (Lezubski and Silver 2015) has found that while racialized poverty and related issues continue to be major problems in Winnipeg’s inner city, real gains are nevertheless being made. Winnipeg’s inner-city population, which had dramatically declined since 1971, is now increasing, suggesting improvements in its socio-economic conditions. Levels of educational attainment are

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improving significantly, as are inner-city unemployment and labour force participation rates and employment incomes, including those for Indigenous people. Additionally, poverty levels, as measured by the Low-Income Cut-Offs, have improved in Winnipeg’s inner city to a greater extent than in Winnipeg as a whole, and to a greater extent than has been the case in Manitoba and in Canada. Fifteen years of community-based effort and public investment in Winnipeg’s inner city has not solved the problems of racialized poverty and colonialism, but it has had a significant and positive impact. It is important to note that this process has been riddled with complexity. The community-led development strategy that now appears to be beginning to produce positive change is the product of some thirty years of hard-earned lessons gained from a variety of largely failed programs, from urban renewal in the 1960s, to the Neighbourhood Improvement Program (N I P ) in the 1970s, to the Core Area Initiatives (unique to Winnipeg) in the 1980s, and ­subsequent tripartite agreements (Silver and Toews 2009). The successful aspect of these initiatives has been their funding of community-based organizations, many of them run by and for Indigenous people, which have developed their own unique approaches to inner-city revitalization. The process has been long, complex, and to the extent that it is now showing some success, cumulative. Alternative educational initiatives have been among the most important parts of this process. Merchants Corner, and the North End Community Campus of which it will be a part, are yet another step in this process.

L e s s o n s f o r C o m m u nity Change The redevelopment of the hundred-year-old Merchants Hotel into Merchants Corner is a large and significant undertaking that will have a transformative effect in Winnipeg’s North End. This is especially the case for the innovative educational strategy at the heart of Merchants Corner, and the integration of that educational strategy into the broader Selkirk Avenue education hub. We believe that lives will be changed, families will be strengthened, and the community will become healthier. This is happening in an area of Winnipeg that has long been and continues to be stigmatized and stereotyped by, and segregated from, mainstream Winnipeg. It is true that no single initiative can on its own solve the problems

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related to colonialism and complex, racialized, and spatially concentrated poverty. Nevertheless, the North End Community Campus and Merchants Corner are examples of the kinds of changes that have to be implemented if progress to that end is to be made. What has made this kind of change in an outcast urban area possible? First, the community – a concept that is admittedly more complex than the term suggests (Ghorayshi, Graydon, and Kliewer 2007) – has to come together to identify a problem that they believe needs to be solved, and then develop a comprehensive plan that is well thought through and that is achievable. It is important that the plan be transformative, and not simply ameliorative – that is, the plan ought to be aimed at producing significant, positive change in the lives of the people in a community, as identified by the people in the community. In the case of Merchants Corner, the North End community has benefitted from the presence of a large number of  effective C B O s, led by the North End Community Renewal Corporation (N E C R C ). N E C R C is one of what, in Manitoba, are called “neighbourhood renewal corporations” (Silver, McCracken, and Sjoberg 2009), which are responsible for mobilizing lowincome neighbourhoods around change identified by residents of those neighbourhoods. This infrastructure of community development, comprised of large numbers of creative and effective C B O s, has been painstakingly developed over a thirty-five-year period, and it has created the capacity in inner-city neighbourhoods to undertake a wide variety of projects, including large initiatives such as Merchants Corner. Second, government must invest in such a project. Merchants Corner is a $15 million undertaking. At the time of writing, the provincial NDP government has invested more than $13 million. This kind of money is simply not available to low-income communities such as Winnipeg’s North End, and if large and transformative initiatives are to be imagined and implemented, then governments must be actively involved. The provincial government participated in every step of the Merchants Corner project, playing a supportive role as a member of the Merchants Corner Steering Committee. Ultimately, it responded positively to that committee’s request to first acquire and shut down the old Merchants Hotel, which happened in  April 2012, and to then commit the public funds to ­construct Merchants Corner, which was confirmed in June 2014. This activist and interventionist role played by the provincial government stands

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in stark contrast to the dominant neoliberal ideology of today, which seeks to reduce the role of government, cut public spending, and promote the virtues of individualism. Without an activist provincial government, neither Merchants Corner nor any of the other educational institutions on Selkirk Avenue would have been built. The multiple benefits that have since resulted would not have been achieved, and none of the anticipated benefits would still be possible. This is a model – the community identifies an issue, mobilizes its members, and makes fiscal demands of government – that has worked well in Winnipeg’s North End and broader inner city in recent years. Bernas and MacKinnon (2015b) have described in some detail how the community coalitions, Right to Housing and Make Poverty History Manitoba, have been successful in mobilizing around and demanding significant increases in the provincial production of social housing and in the dollar amount of the housing component of social assistance. Similar efforts and outcomes have been described in Lord Selkirk Park, a large public housing complex in the North End (Silver et al. 2015), and in the development of the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre and Children of the Earth High School (Silver et al. 2006). Third, community-based praxis research can play a useful role in such work. Merchants Corner is primarily an educational initiative, and will be an important part of the broader North End Community Campus. The establishment of Merchants Corner is, to a considerable extent, the result of efforts by the University of Winnipeg’s Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies; the establishment of Urban and Inner-City Studies was a direct product of communitybased praxis research on alternative, North End educational strategies that has been funded by the Manitoba Research Alliance. The educational character of Merchants Corner is influenced by the results of that same research, carried out by each of the authors, and funded by SSH R C via the M R A . Our research has given us a deeper understanding of the challenges, barriers, and needs of our students, the alternative educational strategies that have emerged over the past twenty-five years in Winnipeg’s North End, as well as new strategies. The research has identified and articulated what is working well in these educational initiatives and how we can build on what works, and those findings are being incorporated into the educational strategy to be used at Merchants Corner.

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C o n c l u sions At least three things follow from this analysis. First, if equity and inclusion are to be achieved in Canadian urban centres, then the citizens of those communities adversely affected by racialized poverty, colonialism, and social exclusion have to mobilize and make demands for change. Equity and inclusion, particularly in the form of decolonization and indigenization, are not likely to be voluntarily given by those who have power. Second, governments have to be supportive of such demands and invest public money in urban areas, particularly those that are stigmatized, stereotyped, segregated, and colonized. This has happened to a considerable extent in Winnipeg’s North End and broader inner city, but only because there has been a provincial government in office that has adopted an ideological stance, especially in regard to poverty and related issues, that differs sharply from the dominant neoliberal ideology of the past four decades. Third, research can play a positive and important role in this process, especially when researchers can work in a genuinely collaborative way with community-based organizations, and can secure the support of governments. When these three conditions hold – low-income communities mobilize and demand meaningful change; researchers work with the community and with government to shape the demands for change; and governments invest in what is demanded – then real change can happen. Merchants Corner represents a particularly interesting case of such change in at least two respects. First, it involves reclamation of a colonized urban space by Indigenous people and their allies. As Stan McKay, an Elder closely involved with the Merchants Corner Steering Committee, has said in a video about Merchants Corner titled Meet Me at the Merch: “For a long time we’ve been visitors in this part of the city, and people don’t realize that we now make this home. We’re becoming a people here. I think we recognize we can have our place in Winnipeg, and it’s positive.” Second, Merchants Corner can also be seen as a means by which the agents of change – Indigenous people and allies – will emerge to continue the struggle to reclaim, decolonize, and indigenize urban spaces. The innovative educational strategies that will be used at Merchants Corner, and those used in the various educational programs that have been developed and expanded in the neighbourhood since Urban Circle Training Centre first relocated to Selkirk

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Avenue a decade ago, are specifically aimed at enabling Indigenous people, and others who might not otherwise benefit from a post-­ secondary education, to do so. What is more, the educational strategy values the experiential knowledge of those who have been raised in colonized spaces and have experienced racialized poverty. In the case of Urban and Inner-City Studies, for example, the curriculum can be thought of as “urban studies from the margins,” with its focus on courses that emphasize the study of urban issues, including urban poverty and related phenomena, colonialism and its effects, as well as strategies in response to these issues through community development and public policy advocacy. Students studying at the North End Community Campus are thus exposed to these issues, and many are motivated to become involved in related struggles and causes. These decolonized students – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – then become the agents of change in a process of decolonization. Critical praxis-oriented research has played an important supportive role in the community-led process that is happening on Selkirk Avenue, which can usefully be thought of as a strategic approach to education and community development, and the movement towards decolonization and indigenization. Both the educational strategy and the ultimate goal reflect the view that the point is not to force Indigenous people to fit themselves into the dominant culture, but rather to contribute to the process by which Indigenous peoples create the urban spaces they need to live in dignity. In cities like Winnipeg, this is an essential part of what promises to be an ongoing struggle to create decolonized and indigenized spaces where equity and social inclusion can be achieved.

note

1 Interview with Cheyenne Henry, academic advisor in the Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies, 12 May 2013. references

Bernas, Kirsten, and Shauna MacKinnon. 2015a. Making a Case for a Labour Market Intermediary: The Experience of BUILD . Winnipeg: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba.

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– 2015b. “Public Policy Advocacy and the Social Determinants of Health.” In The Social Determinants of Health in Manitoba Second Edition, edited by Lynne Fernandez, Shauna MacKinnon, and Jim Silver, 295–308. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. Brandon, Josh, and Jim Silver, eds. 2015. Poor Housing: A Silent Crisis. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. Brownell, Marni, Randall Fransoo, and Patricia Martens. 2015. “Social Determinants of Health and the Distribution of Health Outcomes in Manitoba.” In The Social Determinants of Health in Manitoba Second Edition, edited by Lynne Fernandez, Shauna MacKinnon, and Jim Silver, 31–48. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. Brownell, Marni, Noralou Roos, Randy Fransoo, Anne Guevremont, Leonard MacWilliam, Shelley Derksen, Natalia Dik, Bogdan Bogdanovic, and Monica Sirski. 2004. How Do Educational Outcomes Vary with Socio-Economic Status? Key Findings from the Manitoba Child Health Atlas 2004. Winnipeg: Manitoba Centre for Health Policy. Clare, Kim. 2013. “It’s the W EC Way: Transformative Social Work Education.” In Moving Forward Giving Back: Transformative Aboriginal Adult Education, edited by Jim Silver, 61–75. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. Ghorayshi, Parvin, Heather Graydon, and Benita Kliewer. 2007. “Towards a Social Theory in Community Economic Development in the Era of Globalization.” In Transforming or Reforming Capitalism: Towards a Theory of Community Economic Development, edited by John Loxley, 34–5. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. Lezubski, Darren, and Jim Silver. 2015. “High and Rising Revisited: Changes in Poverty and Related Inner City Characteristics, 1996 to 2011.” In State of the Inner City Report 2015, 7–36. Winnipeg: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. McKay, Stan. 2014. Meet Me at the Merch. Directed by Carole O’Brien. Winnipeg: Carole O’Brien. MacKinnon, Shauna. 2015. Decolonizing Employment: Aboriginal Inclusion in Canada’s Labour Market. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. – 2014. “Making the Case for an Aboriginal Labour Market Intermediary: A Community-Based Solution to Improve Labour Market Outcomes for Aboriginal People in Manitoba.” Manitoba Law Journal 37 (2): 277–301.

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– 2013. “Healing the Spirit First: Aboriginal Second Chance Learners in Three Inner City Programs.” In Moving Forward Giving Back: Transformative Aboriginal Adult Education, edited by Jim Silver, 49–60. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. – 2012. Pathways Is My Family. Preliminary Evaluation of the Community Education Development Association (CEDA ) Pathways to Education Program. Prepared for CED A Pathways to Education and Pathways to Education Canada. Sabourin, Beverly Anne, and Peter Andre Globensky. 1998. The Language of Literacy: A National Resource Directory of Aboriginal Literacy Programs. Winnipeg: Beverly Anne Sabourin and Associates. Santos, Rob, Marni Brownell, Okechukwu Ekuma, Teresa Mayer, and Ruth-Ann Soodeen. 2012. The Early Development Instrument (EDI ) in Manitoba: Linking Socioeconomic Adversity and Biological Vulnerability at Birth to Children’s Outcomes at Age 5. Winnipeg: Manitoba Centre for Health Policy. Silver, Jim. 2015. “Education as a Social Determinant of Health.” In The Social Determinants of Health in Manitoba Second Edition, edited by Lynne Fernandez, Shauna MacKinnon, and Jim Silver, 199–212. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. – 2013. Moving Forward Giving Back: Transformative Aboriginal Adult Education. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. – 2011. Good Places to Live: Poverty and Public Housing in Canada. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing. – 2006. In Their Own Voices: Building Urban Aboriginal Communities. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing. Silver, Jim, Parvin Ghorayshi, Joan Hay, and Darlene Klyne. 2006. “Sharing, Community and Decolonization: Urban Aboriginal Community Development.” In In Their Own Voices: Building Urban Aboriginal Communities, edited by Jim Silver, 70–95. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing. Silver, Jim, Janice Goodman, Cheyenne Henry, and Carolyn Young. 2015. “A Good Place to Live: Transforming Public Housing in Lord Selkirk Park.” In Poor Housing: A Silent Crisis, edited by Josh Brandon and Jim Silver, 208–20. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba.

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Silver, Jim, Molly McCracken, and Kate Sjoberg. 2009. Neighbourhood Renewal Corporations in Winnipeg’s Inner City: Practical Activism in a Complex Environment. Winnipeg: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. Silver, Jim, and Owen Toews. 2009. “Thirty Years of Hard-Earned Lessons: Combatting Poverty in Winnipeg’s Inner City, 1960s to 1990s.” Canadian Journal of Urban Research 18 (1): 98–122. Silvius, Ray, and Shauna Mackinnon. 2012. Making Employment Work: Connecting Multi-Barriered Manitobans to Good Jobs. Winnipeg: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (T R C ). 2015. Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Ottawa: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

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2 The Challenge of Complexity Reflections on Researching an Organizational Change Initiative Promoting Equity and Inclusion in the City of Ottawa Janet Siltanen, Christine Pich, Fran Klodawsky, and Caroline Andrew

Retaining complexity in research designs and methods is a desirable goal central to post-positivist understandings of social science knowledge production. We identify the retention of complexity as an important characteristic of critical praxis-oriented research. With its aim of mutually informed theoretical and practical engagement, critical praxis-oriented research requires research practices sensitive to the nuances and specificities of context. While many endorse the importance of retaining complexity, constructing a strategy for doing so is challenging. In this chapter, we offer insights about meeting this challenge, drawing upon our collaborative research on an organizational change initiative promoting equity and inclusion in the City of Ottawa. There are substantially divergent ways to understand organizational change. One dominant approach emphasizes what Collins (2005) calls “n-step models” (take this step, followed by these steps, and you will get this result). These models present change as incremental, singular, predictable, and linear, and by doing so, they simplify and de-contextualize processes of change. Alternative approaches stress the complexity of change, and identify it as  non-linear, multi-layered, contextually specific, and often with unintended outcomes (Chia 1999; Lorino, Tricard, and Clot 2011). These latter understandings of organizational change are well

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represented in feminist literature (Metcalfe and Woodhams 2012). For example, as Bowman and Sweetman (2014, 204) argue, specifically in relation to gender equality initiatives, when the research objective is directed toward monitoring, evaluation, and learning, “capturing complexity” takes on both a theoretical and political significance. Their point resonates with the subject of our research, which is a diversity-focused equity and inclusion initiative that supplanted an earlier effort promoting gender equality. We have organized this chapter into four sections, beginning with an introduction to the partnership responsible for the research project. We then present a more detailed description of our research on the City of Ottawa’s Equity and Inclusion Lens (E I Lens), including its development from the Gender Equality Lens (G E Lens). In section three, we draw on recent developments in post-positivist and feminist research to underline the importance of retaining complexity, and describe how we tried to do so through both conceptual elaborations and research practices. Finally, we discuss how attention to different dimensions of complexity facilitated more nuanced understandings and assessments of the E I Lens, and helped to shape our report to the City of Ottawa in ways that challenged how the EI Lens had become positioned within the organization. To be clear, we do not present our research as a prescriptive model; rather, we hope to demonstrate what sorts of knowledge outcomes are afforded by research designed to retain complexity.

O u r R e s e a rc h P artnership At the centre of the story of our research partnership is the City for All Women Initiative (C A WI ), an Ottawa-based community organization with a two-fold mandate: to empower a diversity of women to make their concerns known at City Hall, and to work with the City to promote gender equality.1 Fran Klodawsky and Caroline Andrew have been academic advisors and members of CAW I’s Steering Committee from its beginning, in 2004. With Janet Siltanen, since 2008 they have been involved in conducting research with and about the organization. Our first research collaboration with CAW I was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (S S H RC) Standard Research Grant titled “Learning through difference.”2 Designed as an in-depth case study, the research explored CAW I’s organizational creativity in producing and sustaining a prefigurative

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feminist political practice that was inspiring and effective (Klodawsky, Siltanen, and Andrew 2013a, 2013b; Siltanen, Klodawsky, and Andrew 2015). This research came to an abrupt halt in 2011, however, when C A WI was confronted with a severe fiscal shortfall. C A WI’s best hope for fiscal solvency was to obtain financial support from Status of Women Canada, but this required matched funding. Because of our commitment to C A WI, we shifted gears in order to help obtain the necessary funds, and in 2012 we received a S S H RC Partnership Development Grant to evaluate the development and implementation of the E I Lens. This second research collaboration with C A WI involved the organization more formally as a research partner, along with the City of Ottawa and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Christine Pich has been a research assistant on this second project from the start. Doing research together in a formal partnership arrangement was new to us as a research team. Our research design proposed that the project be governed through a Project Coordinating Committee (P C C ), meeting monthly, consisting of individuals from each participating partner, and operating through a consensus model. There were eight core members of the P CC: three academics, two City of Ottawa managers (also with long-standing CAW I connections), a member of C A WI , C AW I’s executive director, and a  representative from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Research assistants were present at PCC meetings when appropriate, based on their duties. The mandate of the P CC was both intellectual and logistical; all aspects of the research were matters for its consideration, input, and decision-making. Over a two-year period, the PC C had eighteen meetings ranging from one and a half to three hours. Perhaps because of the solidity of existing relationships of trust and mutual respect within and between participating partners, the governance model that we proposed surpassed our expectations of how it would contribute to both the research process and its outputs. It was critical to the viability of the P CC as a governance structure that each partner had a substantive stake in the success of the project, and considerable effort was made to address the interests of each partner in ways they perceived as meaningful. This frequently involved deep listening and respectful discussions, and relied on a collective will to do well by all. Detailed minutes of these meetings became an important source of data. As its last collective task, the

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PC C was responsible for the final research report (Klodawsky et al. 2014), which the city managers involved in the P CC presented to  the Senior Management Committee of the City of Ottawa in November 2014. The final report, “Equity and Inclusion: Findings, Possible Next Steps and General Lessons,” captures the substantive learning gained from the research and directly addresses the strategic needs of the City and C A WI . It includes critical reflection on the tension between the use of the E I Lens as a tool to manage, versus as an initiative to promote, diverse claims for equity and inclusion. The report presents the evaluation of the E I Lens initiative in four sections: overall evaluation of the initiative; experience of the different EI Lens components and training; next steps in the development and implementation of the E I Lens; and general learning about factors contributing to organizational success in promoting equity and inclusion. In a later section of this chapter, we discuss how attention to complexity revealed significant concerns and issues relevant to each of these aspects of the report. We turn now to a description of the EI Lens initiative.

T h e E q u i t y a n d I n c lusion Initiative The EI Lens is one of the three main components of the Equity and Inclusion initiative underway at the City of Ottawa.3 It is designed to assist all of those working for and with the City to consider how their decision-making may affect the eleven groups identified as being at risk of marginalization. Women are one of the identified groups.4 The second component, half-day training workshops for City staff, management, and councillors, introduces relevant concepts (such as diversity, social inclusion, equity, and systemic barriers to inclusion) and provides guidance on using the Lens and other resource materials. The training program is ambitious – the commitment is to train all City staff and managers. The third component is the Diversity Cafés; these are informal information and discussion ­sessions highlighting, and led by, one of the eleven groups. The Diversity Cafés are open to any City employee who wishes to attend. The E I Lens is composed of two main parts: the User’s Guide and the Diversity Snapshots. The User’s Guide is organized around four main actions. It helps users to consider their own diversity, to review equity and inclusion questions relevant to their area of work, to

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obtain further information about the eleven groups, and to build an action plan. The Diversity Snapshots are an educational resource about the systemic barriers and inequities facing each of the eleven groups. Community members identifying with each group provided the input for the Snapshots. In an effort to avoid the reification of group identity, each group snapshot considers how the experiences presented intersect with those of the other groups. C A WI accepted a contract from the City to lead the development of the EI Lens (both the Guide and the Diversity Snapshots), and to assist in training staff and management in its use. The E I Lens grew out of earlier work, also spearheaded by CAW I, to produce and pilot a Gender Equality Lens. The G E Lens aimed to promote “equality and inclusion for the full diversity of women in the city of Ottawa” (C A WI and City of Ottawa 2008, 5). In 2005, the City’s Corporate Plan was amended to include the city-wide implementation of the GE Lens; however, this would never come to pass. The G E Lens guide was piloted in one City department in 2006 and evaluated in 2007 – a period of dramatic political change that included the election of a mayor whose primary goal was fiscal austerity. As a result, there was a significant delay in completing the full pilot of the G E Lens, and its final evaluation did not take place until the spring of 2009, when work on the E I Lens was already underway. In effect, a tool that highlights gender in all its diversity was superseded by one that highlights diversity (including gender). There are different accounts of this shift. From the perspective of those promoting gender equality, there were early signs of the City’s waning interest in a gender-focused initiative, including the fact that no lead or funds were designated to manage the G E Lens implementation (C A W I 2007). At this time, two related discussions were also happening. The development of the G E Lens had prompted other groups to propose the creation of a lens dedicated to their specific interests, and there was talk of using the experience gained from the development of the G E Lens as the basis for creating a multi-focal lens. With the GE Lens losing momentum, CAW I saw the multi-focal lens as an opportunity to keep gender equality and the diversity of women’s interests alive. However, in part due to the increased pressures on City staff to address the demands of fiscal stringency, no provisions were made for the development of a multi-focal lens in the City budget either. In 2007, CAWI began to look for external sources of support for

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such a project (CAWI 2007) and was eventually successful in securing, together with the City of Ottawa, Status of Women funding that required a partnership arrangement. Within City management, there were concerns about the operational inconvenience of dealing with multiple lenses for multiple groups. As one City manager recalls, “The problem that we have here, and I think most governments have, is that with the sub-sets of the groups, even sub-sets within the groups, it becomes crazy in terms of trying to manage that, to try and actually get something done.”5 Also in its favour, a multi-focal approach was closely aligned with the “major cultural change” launched in the City in 2008, which prioritized service excellence (Patwell, Gray, and Kanellakos 2012, 1). In the same year, work to develop the EI Lens began with support from the Status of Women funded partnership arrangement referred to above. CAWI’s role included the coordinating of input for the eleven Diversity Snapshots. The Lens was piloted starting in the fall of 2009 and was officially launched in 2010. At the start of our research, the EI Lens was roughly two years beyond the official launch. These were, therefore, early days in the implementation process. C A WI ’s urban activism involves occupying a liminal position between the community and the City. It aims to engage and partner with the City, while at the same time keeping a grassroots focus and critical perspective.6 The inside-outside positioning of CAW I in relation to the City is reflected in the research aims of our project. While we were committed to meeting certain aspects of the City’s operational needs regarding the Lens, we also sought to review the EI Lens more broadly, as an organizational change initiative with social justice concerns. This latter interest included identifying how attention to gender was faring in the shift from the G E Lens to the EI Lens. We understood our research to be aligned with change advocates both inside and outside the City. We turn now to a discussion of how we constructed a research project with the goal of retaining complexity, and why we considered this an important ambition.

C o m p l e x i t y a n d R e search Practice Research designs and methods are central to the contestation over what forms of knowledge production yield the most useful insights about social processes. As Oakley (2000), Flyvbjerg (2001),

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Hawkesworth (2006), Schwartz-Shea and Yanow (2012), and other post-positivists argue, social science research must abandon attempts to emulate the predictive, law-generating focus of natural science methods.7 Debates over appropriate research practices are also occurring in specialized research areas, such as the monitoring, evaluation, and learning of social justice initiatives (Bowman and Sweetman 2014; Brisolara, Siegart, and SenGupta 2014; Merry and Coutin 2014). Limited time and funds are often identified as factors that push research, particularly praxis-oriented research, toward formulaic, simplified, and de-contextualized strategies. However, as several commentators note, there continues to be a positivist orientation in evaluation-related research that goes deeper than expediency (Bowman and Sweetman 2014; Holvino and Kamp 2009; Merry and Coutin 2014; Hood and Cassaro 2002; Bustelo 2017). Some argue for a distinction between evaluation and research.8 Our approach was to embed various evaluation interests within a broader research design. At the heart of this design was one of the cornerstones of a post-positivist approach – an appreciation of complexity. We wanted a research approach that did not shy away from the intricacies and messiness of change processes. Table 2.1 outlines our research approach and sets out the conceptual elaboration of complexity that we used in our project, as well as the components of the multi-method research design that we followed to investigate the contours and significance of that complexity. The conceptualization of complexity was developed from our observations of the dynamics of organizational change involving the EI Lens. It hinges on four central components. First, there is context, which refers to the specific institutional circumstances surrounding the change initiative. We identified significant aspects of context within the City and the community. Attending to context is crucial for understanding the dynamics of any particular case, and also for discerning which lessons learned might be of use for equity and inclusion efforts in other contexts.9 Second, we highlight the importance of process, understood as a fluid, non-linear, and multi-layered progression. We worked with an expanded timeline, looking back to the debates and activities that led to the E I Lens, and were able to discern different trajectories of influence and development. Within the time frame of the E I Lens, we looked for moments of tension and organizational discontinuities, which added to our ability to identify shifts in how the E I Lens was understood.

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Third, our elaboration of complexity includes multi-vocality, the importance of which has been a strong claim of feminist discussions of engendered change (Espinosa 2013; Hay 2012; Holvino 2010). A focus on multi-vocality in our research enabled us to identify multiple change narratives that sometimes converged and at other times flowed in different and contradictory directions. We encountered conflicting understandings of what constitutes success and impact. We were also able to identify influences of power in the positioning of particular narratives of organizational change. The fourth component of complexity is values and the tensions between different motivations behind social change. Hawkesworth (2006) reinforces the importance of the critique made by feminist and other post-positivists regarding claims to value-neutrality in research. Attention to values plays a central role in identifying how and why certain directions for social change are marginalized or become dominant. As explained previously, our research had an advocacy aim, and this included an assessment of the contributions of the EI Lens initiative to social justice outcomes. Our decision to use a multi-method approach stemmed from the need to align our research design with our conceptualization of the complexity of organizational change.10 As table 2.1 shows, we assembled information from five main sources: a training evaluation, co-constructed mappings, interviews, documents, and insider knowledge.11 A separate team designed and conducted the training evaluation in consultation with the P C C .12 The other four sources spoke to the broader aspects of the E I Lens as an organizational change initiative. Drawing on community, City, and CAW I knowledge, we co-­constructed a mapping of the timeline, significant moments, and main actors involved in the development and implementation of the EI Lens. This helped to piece together the initiative’s history, which spanned several years, included substantial City reorganizations, and, over time, was the responsibility of various departments differently positioned in the City hierarchy. We also conducted key informant interviews with individuals identified as having had a  ­significant connection to the E I Lens at some point. We tried to connect with people involved at all stages of the process – pre-­ development, development, and implementation – and some individuals were interviewed two or three times. We facilitated one group interview with people involved in both producing the Diversity Snapshots and providing other community input. In

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Table 2.1  Research framework Elaboration of complexity Context City organization Relations Connections with other initiatives Culture Community organization CAWI Eleven groups Process Stretched timeline Non-linear Fluidity Multi-layered Discontinuities

Multi-methods T r a i ni n g e va l uat i o n Online questionnaire Focus groups Manager interviews Review of training feedback surveys C o -c o n s t r uc t e d m a p p i n g Timeline Significant moments Key actors I nt e rv i e w s Key informants Iterative Group

Mult i-voc ality Multiple perspectives of success and impact Multiple narratives of change Power relations and positions

D o c u m e nt a n a ly s i s Email correspondence Newspaper articles City and C A W I documents

Values Social justice Equality, equity Inclusion The business case

I ns i d e r k now l e dge Participant observation P C C meeting minutes

addition, we worked with many City and CAWI documents relating to the development and implementation of the EI Lens, including email correspondence directed to and from CAWI’s executive director. Finally, we made use of insider knowledge by engaging in participant observation of relevant City, CAWI, and community discussions and events. We also made recordings and took detailed notes of our PCC meetings, in which conversations, differences in understanding, and shared recollections added to our interpretations.

I n s i g h t s F ac i litated b y R e ta i n i n g C omplexity The following discussion illustrates how the four aspects of our conceptualization of complexity (context, process, multi-vocality, and values) produced insights about the E I Lens as a contribution to

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organizational change. Our aim was to identify and elaborate upon tensions in the dynamic of organizational change, as we understood them to be enactments of different views held within the City about the purpose and direction of the Lens. Each of the four aspects expanded our sense of how the E I Lens initiative was being positioned in the City, and how gender was being positioned within the EI Lens initiative. While they overlap and interconnect with each other, we will discuss the four aspects individually in order to highlight their specific contributions to the understandings of what sort of organizational change processes were underway. Context The various sources of our research contributed to a more substantial view of the organizational context in which the E I Lens was positioned, and helped us to identify different claims as to its origin and current significance. Of particular concern was an influential claim about the purpose of the E I Lens that connected it to the City’s implementation of Service Excellence. The dominance of this claim alerted us to the need to give voice to other interpretations of the origin and purpose of the E I Lens; specifically, interpretations that linked the impetus for the development of the E I Lens to the social justice ambitions underlying the GE Lens and CAW I’s efforts to have gender equality identified as an important aspect of diversity. Service Excellence was initially developed in 2007 as a core element of organizational change at the City of Ottawa in response to public pressure for increased accountability, cost effectiveness, and responsiveness (Patwell, Gray, and Kanellakos 2012, 1) and was identified as a priority within the City’s Corporate Strategic Plan 2001–2011.13 While Service Excellence was not specifically focused on diversity, an understanding of the needs of diverse communities in the city was seen as a necessary component for its success. This understanding developed into a narrative of change that aligned the development of the E I Lens with the purpose of attaining Service Excellence. When identifying the importance of addressing diversity in client service strategies, one City manager recalled: “And that was really the genesis of the Equity and Inclusion Lens.” Origin stories linking the E I Lens to the Service Excellence agenda made us aware that memories of the community, gender, and equality impulses that motivated the push for and development of the

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EI  Lens were fading. While the City certainly acknowledged and appreciated C A WI ’s significant contribution to the development of the EI Lens, within our evaluation report to the City we emphasized the importance of recollecting and preserving the extended history of how a diversity of women in the city had been agitating for greater equality in the access to and delivery of services. This led us to include, for example, an account of the development of the E I Lens that ties its origin to the City’s 1999 commitment to actions addressing women in local government and improvements in women’s access to municipal services, and to the ten-year history of CAW I’s engagement with the City on matters of gender equality, equity, and inclusion (Klodawsky et al. 2014, 10–11). Even more explicitly, Appendix 1 of the report sets out the timeline of the development of the EI Lens that begins with the launch of CAW I in 2004 and the 2005 plans to develop the GE Lens (Klodawsky et al. 2014, 24). Also of contextual importance is the rise of diversity as an operational focus for the City and an increasingly significant feature of its identity as both an employer and a service provider. The E I Lens became attached to the realization of the City’s diversity profile and was identified as contributing to the City’s designation as a top diversity employer in Canada for the first time in 2012. Although this represents significant recognition for the initiative, it also repositions the Lens in a specific way. As one City manager expressed: “It’s a diversity tool, but it wasn’t framed like that in the beginning.” The EI Lens was becoming redefined as a resource supporting the realization of the Corporate Diversity Plan (approved in 2012). As another City manager elaborated: “We felt that because we were moving forward with diversity initiatives and diversity plans we needed to have [the E I Lens] move sort of hand in hand with that.” If the E I Lens is understood as a diversity tool, the question emerges of how it addresses the equity and inclusion claims of the eleven constituent groups. In the interviews, observations, and City documents that we reviewed, women and gender were not often referred to in examples of how the ei Lens could make a difference. There was a sense that gender was less of a concern compared to the issues faced by the other groups. As an indication of how women, as a group, were positioned in relation to the other ten groups, we noted that one of the very popular and successful Diversity Cafés had not yet been organized for women.14 Our interpretation that, in the context of a focus on diversity, attention to

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gender was slipping led us to highlight, as an overall evaluation of the initiative in our report, that “greater attention is needed to assess the meaning and significance of gender within each diversity group” (Klodawsky et al. 2014, 2). This statement was also intended to encourage discussions about how patterns of exclusion and inequality work among and within the eleven groups, and what a recognition of intersectionality might mean in terms of tracking progress toward equity and inclusion. P ro c e ss Documents, interviews, insider knowledge, and the co-constructed mapping produced a timeline of our understanding of the E I Lens that stretched back to the years leading up to its development and implementation. Our research uncovered efforts to secure funding from sources outside the City and to obtain support from the community and from the City for the E I Lens. The sources provided information that helped us to map organizational responsibility and approaches to involvement, in addition to accounts of the actual processes followed in the development of the tool, and views about its transition from development to implementation. We identified two discontinuities in the movement of the E I Lens from development to implementation that were relevant to its evaluation. First, there was an organizational break in responsibility between the development of the E I Lens and its implementation. This meant that some of the expertise and knowledge gained in producing the Lens was not carried over into implementation activities, and some within the City saw this as a detriment. Second, this discontinuity signalled a reduction in community involvement in the EI Lens, and contributed to a shift in the identification of what made it valuable. As previously mentioned, a direct antecedent of the EI Lens was the GE Lens, in which CAW I also played a leading role. C AWI ’s leadership involved insisting upon ongoing community involvement in the GE Lens development, and the importance of community input into City initiatives was maintained in the development of the E I Lens. The group steering the development of the EI Lens included community members identifying with the eleven groups, and community contributors were involved in producing each of the eleven Diversity Snapshots. While men were certainly participants in the development of the E I Lens, a review of the

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contributors to the Diversity Snapshots shows that the overwhelming majority of community contributions came from women, many of whom had previous experience with the G E Lens. Practices of meaningful community involvement were identified by the community and by some City staff and managers as a crucial ingredient of the E I Lens development process and as an important learning experience for the City. Significantly, this view was voiced most strongly by community members themselves, one of whom stated: “It was an example of a true consultation, a great example of making people feel that their contribution was going to matter.” A City employee involved in the development of the E I Lens echoed this sentiment: “I think [the community still having a voice is] critical because the tool is the voice of the community and if you remove that, I don’t feel the Lens is as powerful any more. It’s just a document.” However, as the E I Lens moved into the implementation phase, community involvement declined, and any recognition of the importance of its role in the development of the E I Lens started to fade. To recall and preserve the meaningful and significant connection of the community to the E I Lens and the substantial contributions made by a diversity of women in the community to its development, the evaluation report makes a number of related points. Among other next steps, for example, it suggests that the City should “continue to engage the community in the evolution of the EI Lens Initiative providing regular updates as to its implementation and impact, inviting input to make it more effective” (Klodawsky et al. 2014, 3). Likewise, two of the learning points identifying contributing factors in the success of such initiatives highlight “democratic mechanisms and opportunities for community input” and forms of community engagement in which “equityseeking groups and community partners contribute to the creation of tools, policies and practices and keep the city informed of equity concerns” (Klodawsky et al. 2014, 4). Mu l t i -Vo c a li t y We endeavoured to include a range of voices from both the City and  the community. This approach helped to reveal what AaltioMarjosola (1994, 66) identifies as the “multiplicities of organizational realities” and, in particular, the different ways in which the

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“complexity of the change process” (Cairns and Beech 2003, 179) is understood by those involved. Bringing in a greater diversity of voices provided opportunities to see points of agreement, difference, and tension in how the E I Lens initiative was viewed and how its significance was assessed. It also helped to underline the value of multi-vocality itself as part of the process of change. As demonstrated by the comments from City staff included above, the involvement of the community was highly valued by those deeply engaged in the development of the E I Lens. Beyond indicating that community participation needed to be continued and facilitated throughout the implementation stage, our report purposefully drew attention to the multi-vocality of the E I Lens initiative’s leadership. In particular, we noted the engagement of community leaders, and their close collaboration with the City’s senior management, as a “key driver in the success of the E I Lens” (Klodawsky et al. 2014, 2). This was an effort to highlight processfocused experiences as important features of the impacts and successes of the E I Lens – ones that built upon feminist discussions of the limited nature of how evaluative criteria are often identified (Bacchi and Eveline 2010). In terms of impact, for example, we mentioned observations about increased conversation and multi-vocal dialogue concerning equity and inclusion issues in our report. These included statements from the City and community such as: “There’s way more discussion – people are talking about this. I think this is incredibly important”; “There’s proactive conversations that didn’t exist before, that’s huge”; “A point about the impact is that people are talking”; and “I think there’s definitely more talk about inclusion.” In identifying successes, we became cognizant of a tension in the use of the E I Lens in regard to the claims of the eleven groups: the danger that the Lens could become a vehicle for homogenizing equity claims and minimizing relevant differences. For the community participants involved in the creation of the Lens, this would be a significant failure because their goal was to find a means of moving forward together while promoting the specific interests of each group. To them, the success of the Lens meant “knowing that it would help all of the groups” and “finding a common agenda while at the same time keeping the specificity of the groups, honouring the specificity.” Maintaining multi-vocality was of strong importance to the community, and the City’s recognition of group specificity

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was identified as foundational to the successful development of the Lens. We were able to convey the importance of multi-vocality and underline the City’s recognition of group specificity as critical to community participation in an overall evaluation finding in our report, which states: “The City’s acknowledgement that each of the 11 diversity groups has unique claims for equity has been a key factor in their engagement. This has, in turn, allowed appropriate recognition of their unique claims to be integrated into the E I Lens and 11 Diversity Snapshots” (Klodawsky et al. 2014, 4). At the same time, the recognition of the uniqueness of each of the eleven groups awkwardly contrasts with voices acknowledging and articulating the importance of intersectionality for understanding configurations of inequality and needs for City services and ­support. Those components of the E I Lens training evaluated as contributing most to understanding issues of exclusion and inequity were the more experiential learning elements – the Diversity Wheel, the Inclusion Line-up, and the Diversity Cafés – all of which highlight the intersectional nature of identity and experience. And so, a challenge for the implementation of the E I Lens is to incorporate that intersectional insight when thinking about services, policies, and programs. One City E I Lens trainer, who acknowledged that the Diversity Snapshots must be read through an intersectional perspective, and that, in their view, this is what people who have been through the E I Lens training are doing, explained: “What’s been interesting is that after doing the training, people were thinking about it and were going, okay we look at immigrants, there are barriers … and somebody chimed in and said yeah but it’s probably going to be different for immigrant women than it is for immigrant men, and on top of that it’s probably going to be different for newcomers versus people who have been in Canada for a little while. So we need to think about that and how we address those things and maybe we need to think about how we tailor our programming a little. So you can’t do this overarching approach, you can’t necessarily do the exact same thing and yet we’re often challenged by Council to offer universal programming that could [apply to everyone].” Our report underlines the findings of the training evaluation by highlighting the significance of experiential learning, particularly its ability to give more substance to the E I Lens through its attention to the “real-world” complexities of intersectional experience, and the specificity of voices with equity and inclusion claims.

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Va l u e s : S o c i a l J u s t i c e A major tension exists in initiatives like the E I Lens between advancing and managing social justice claims. There are often many overt and subtle opportunities for political capture. Even if the impetus for these initiatives is not explicitly articulated in social justice terms, it is important to assess them accordingly. Below, we discuss three considerations relevant to our research case. First, we determined that an assessment of social justice promotion needs to include how an organization is mobilizing the terms equity, equality, and inclusion. In several political arenas, there is confusion about, and clear political strategizing around, the use of the term equity in place of equality (Facio and Morgan 2009), and the meaning of these concepts has become murkier as arguments addressing the importance of difference are formulated. Uncovering how these concepts are understood within an organization can help to identify where there is a lack of clarity, and how variations in meaning are associated with different responsibilities in the hierarchy of an organization. Doing so can also indicate what an organization is committing itself to, and can assist in gauging its actions in relation to that commitment. Once established, this mapping of meanings and influence can help to assess the impact that ambiguity and variations in understandings might have on how different change agendas are activated within an organization. For example, in the Ottawa case, equity is presented as a matter of “fairness” (C A WI and City of Ottawa 2010a, 34), and is also framed as an aspect of good business practice. While not necessarily mutually exclusive, these characterizations raise the question of whether or how far the “good for business” position extends to a social justice argument. As others have noted, using the business case to promote an equality initiative can minimize the degree of change required to fully address social justice concerns (Batliwala and Pittman 2010; Batliwala 2011; Bowman and Sweetman 2014). Second, a substantial indication of social justice progress would involve the identification and monitoring of specific equity and inclusion assessment criteria. For the E I Lens, this would require the development of assessment criteria for each of the eleven groups, and include monitoring the progress of each group within all of the others. The gender and diversity mainstreaming literature advises that attention should be paid to how outcomes of

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mainstreaming interventions are identified. For example, Ahmed (2012) describes situations in which performance measures become focused on the existence or use of a policy or tool, whereas a more stringent criterion would be to demonstrate that change has happened in how policies and programs are developed, and in how people are living their lives. For the E I Lens, it is too early to tell in which direction the initiative will move. Certainly there is an interest among management to integrate the use of the Lens into performance measures; just how extensively these measures will reach into processes of change, however, remains to be seen. In relation to these two social justice considerations, we expressed concerns in the evaluation report about “terms such as equity, inclusion and diversity losing meaning and impact” (Klodawsky et al. 2014, 4), and recommended more conceptual and practical precision when talking about specific claims such as gender equality. We also brought attention to the need to avoid regressing to a position of “managing” diversity.15 A third consideration is the important question of how participation in endeavours like the creation of the Lens affects the social justice ambitions and goals of community-based organizations. For organizations and groups partnering with the City on specific initiatives, considerations drawn from a social justice framework provide perspectives and reference points for assessing whether these efforts are well spent. This is the case for C A W I: as an organization committed to working with the local state while maintaining grassroots perspectives, C A WI is always reviewing its activities to judge whether it has travelled far enough inside the City to be effective, and yet not so far that it has compromised its own priorities and community commitments. Of critical importance in CAW I’s case is how far engagement with the E I Lens initiative advances its social justice interests and commitment to promoting gender equality.

C o n c l u d i n g T houghts Our intention in writing this chapter is to share our experience in  doing evaluation-relevant research inspired by a post-positivist orientation to knowledge production. The critiques of positivist research shared by post-positivist and feminist researchers stress the importance of retaining complexity in order to fully and appropriately understand social processes. Research designs with such a

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focus need to be open and iterative. In our research, we tried to work with complexity by using it as our entry into, and allowing it  to conceptually ground, our investigation of organizational change. The openness of our research design helped us to initially identify, and then pursue in more detail, dimensions of complexity at play in our case study of the E I Lens as an organizational change initiative. The insights generated by this collaborative work included a revised understanding of what we were investigating and how we should go about this investigation. Our approach to research practice was as much a matter of how we worked within the research team as it was about how the team engaged with the research field. The Project Coordinating Committee emerged as a dynamic gathering place for our commitments to the research and to each other. We soon realized that working together with respect for our different interests, and with the intention of making the process worthwhile for all, would be vital to the successful outcome of the project. The PC C was a significant resource for keeping the various dimensions of complexity in our research both active and manageable. In terms of the research itself, we needed to devise a flexible and varied set of sources and practices able to address the dimensions of complexity shaping the positioning of the E I Lens within the priorities and operations of the City. Where did this attention to complexity get us? Considering context, process, multi-vocality, and values directed our attention to how understandings alter over the course of the development and implementation of a change initiative. In the Ottawa case, this was partially due to waves of deep organizational shifts coinciding with the trajectory of the E I Lens. Indeed, any initiative happening over a period of years will likely be embedded in organizational dynamics that can alter and shift how it is interpreted, taken up, or forgotten. In influential quarters, the E I Lens became understood as a diversity tool that served two purposes: to support the City’s claim to be a good diversity employer, and to feed into the City’s responsibilities to realize its commitment to Service Excellence. As this interpretation of the E I Lens emerged and gained prominence, the recognition and importance of other understandings and practices identified as central to its identity at earlier stages of the E I Lens’s development declined. One such shift was a fading appreciation for  the substantial community contribution and meaningful

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community consultation involved in the creation of the E I Lens. Another was the erasure of the pivotal contribution to the possibility and development of the E I Lens made by a diversity of women advocating for gender equality.

notes



This research received financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Partnership Development Grant (Award # 8910-2011-0084). We would like to thank Beth Woroniuk for comments on an earlier version, and Helin Burkay for insights which helped us bring the paper to a close.   1 When City is capitalized, we are referring to the organization and operation of the City of Ottawa.  2 S S H R C Standard Research Grant #410-2008-981. Details available at http://learningthroughdifference.com/.   3 The most recent version of the EI Lens “Equity and Inclusion Lens Handbook 2015” is available on the CA WI website (http://www.­cawiivtf.org/publications/equity-and-inclusion-lens-handbook-2015). Two other relevant publications are also available: a community version of the Lens “Equity and Inclusion Community Handbook 2015” (http:// www.cawi-ivtf.org/publications/equity-and-inclusion-lens-communityhandbook-2015), and a guide for use by municipalities across Canada, “Advancing Equity and Inclusion: A Guide for Municipalities” (http:/ www.cawi-ivtf.org/publication/advancing-equity-and-inclusion).   4 The other groups are aboriginal peoples, Francophones, lgb t q, immigrants, people living in poverty, people living with disabilities, rural residents, seniors, visible minorities, and youth.   5 Quoted material is from individual and group interviews conducted between October 2012 and January 2014 as a component of the fieldwork for the “Intersectionality in Practice” Partnership Development Grant.   6 In a separate project we have considered how C A WI manages this boundary position. See Klodawsky, Siltanen, and Andrew (2013a, 2013b) and Siltanen, Klodawsky, and Andrew (2014).   7 Developments in feminist and post-positivist methodologies are closely related. As our references indicate, we use post-positivist as an umbrella term that includes aligned feminist methodologies and methods.

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  8 See, for example, Brisolara, Siegart, and SenGupta (2014). Mathison (2014) illustrates just how difficult it is to draw this distinction in a meaningful way.   9 See Flyvbjerg (2001) and Flyvbjerg, Landman, and Schram (2012) for discussion of whether and how context-specific interpretations are generalizable. 10 We use the term multi-methods because although we produced both qualitative and quantitative data (the focus of mixed methods), our research design strategy relied on different sources of data in order to connect with a range of conversations and practices in the City and community. 11 We did not attempt to triangulate the different types and sources of information. See Schwartz-Shea and Yanow (2012) for a critique of triangulation. 12 The training evaluation was conducted by The Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services at the University of Ottawa as part of a supervised opportunity for graduate students in community-based program evaluation. Further information about the training evaluation can be found in Klodawsky et al. (2014). 13 “The City Strategic Plan articulates the Term of Council Priorities as well as the strategic objectives and strategic initiatives that are associated with them. It is the main communications tool to inform residents of the direction and strategic goals of the City, and how these goals will be attained” (City of Ottawa 2011, 14). 14 We use this example to illustrate that choices are made between the eleven groups in terms of priorities. Women participated in Diversity Cafés highlighting other groups. 15 Sara Ahmed’s work (2012) is very insightful on how institutions ­de-politicize diversity. references

Aaltio-Marjosola, Iiris. 1994. “From a ‘Grand Story’ to Multiple Narratives? Studying an Organizational Change Project.” Journal of Organizational Change Management 7 (5): 56–67. Ahmed, Sara. 2012. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham: Duke University Press. Bacchi, Carol, and Joan Eveline. 2010. “Gender Mainstreaming or Diversity Mainstreaming? The Politics of ‘Doing.’” In Mainstreaming

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Politics, Gendering Practices and Feminist Theory, edited by Carol Bacchi and Joan Eveline, 311–34. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. Batliwala, Srilatha. 2011. Strengthening Monitoring and Evaluation for Women’s Rights: Twelve Insights for Donors. Toronto: Association for Women’s Rights in Development. Retrieved from www.awid.org/Library/StrengtheningMonitoring-and-Evaluation-for Women’s-Rights-Twelve-Insightsfor-Donors. Batliwala, Srilatha, and Alexandra Pittman. 2010. Capturing Change in Women’s Realities: A Critical Overview of Current Monitoring and Evaluation Frameworks and Approaches. Toronto: Association for Women’s Rights in Development. Bowman, Kimberly, and Caroline Sweetman. 2014. “Introduction to Gender, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning.” Gender and Development 22 (2): 201–12. Brisolara, Sharon, Denise Siegart, and Saumitra SenGupta, eds. 2014. Feminist Evaluation and Research: Theory and Practice. New York: Guildford Press. Bustelo, Maria. 2017. “Evaluation from a Gender+ Perspective as a Key Element for (Re)gendering the Policymaking Process.” Journal of Women, Politics and Policy 38 (1): 84–101 Cairns, George, and Nic Beech. 2003. “Un-entwining Monological Narratives of Change through Dramaturgical and Narrative Analyses.” Culture and Organization 9 (3):177–93. Chia, Robert. 1999. “A ‘Rhizomic’ Model of Organizational Change and Transformation: Perspective from a Metaphysics of Change.” British Journal of Management 10 (3): 209–27. City for All Women Initiative. 2007. “Integrating Equality into City Planning: An Update and Concerns.” Memorandum, October 2007. City for All Women Initiative and City of Ottawa. 2010. Equity and Inclusion Lens: A User’s Guide. Ottawa: Canadian Union of Postal Workers. – 2008. Gender Equality Lens. Ottawa: City of Ottawa. City of Ottawa. 2011. City of Ottawa Strategic Plan 2011–2014. Ottawa: City of Ottawa. Collins, David. 2005. Organizational Change: Sociological Perspectives. London: Routledge. Espinosa, Julia. 2013. “Moving Towards Gender-Sensitive Evaluation? Practices and Challenges in International Development Evaluation.” Evaluation 19 (2): 171–82.

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Facio, Alda, and Martha Morgan. 2009. “Equity or Equality for Women? Understanding CED AW ’s Equality Principles.” IWRAW Asia Pacific Occasional Papers Series, 14: 1–38. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.1469999. Flyvbjerg, Bent. 2001. Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How to Make It Succeed Again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flyvbjerg, Bent, Todd Landman, and Sanford Schram. 2012. Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hawkesworth, Mary. 2006. Feminist Inquiry: From Political Conviction to Methodological Innovation. New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press. Hay, Katherine. 2012. “Engendering Policies and Programmes through Feminist Evaluation: Opportunities and Insights.” Indian Journal of Gender Studies 19 (2): 321–40. Holvino, E. 2010. “Intersections: The Simultaneity of Race, Gender and Class in Organization Studies.” Gender, Work and Organization 17 (3): 248–77. Holvino, Evangelina, and Annette Kamp. 2009. “Diversity Management: Are We Moving in the Right Direction? Reflections from Both Sides of the North Atlantic.” Scandinavian Journal of Management 25: 395–403. Hood, Denice Ward, and Denice A. Cassaro. 2002. “Feminist Evaluation and the Inclusion of Difference.” New Directions for Evaluation 6: 27–40. Klodawsky, Fran, Janet Siltanen, and Caroline Andrew. 2013a. “Urban Contestation in a Feminist Register.” Urban Geography 34 (4): 541–59. – 2013b. “Municipal Politics in a Feminist and Community-Based Register: Lessons from City for All Women Initiative/Initiative: une ville pour toutes les femmes (CAW I-IVTF ).” Women and Environments International Magazine 92/93: 10–13. Klodawsky, Fran, Janet Siltanen, Caroline Andrew, Christine Pich, Asli Mahdi, Suzanne Doerge, Clara Frierie, Lois Emburg, Rachida Youmouri, Mai Ngo, Melissa Newitt, and Helin Burkay. 2014. Equity and Inclusion: Findings, Possible Next Steps and General Lessons. Available at: http://learningthroughdifference.com; https://drive.google.com/ file/d/0B8nMNnFZYR1HY2Vyb3JRREFnUVU/view?usp=sharing. Lorino, Philippe, Benoît Tricard, and Yves Clot. 2011. “Research Methods for Non-Representational Approaches to Organizational Complexity: The Dialogical Mediated Inquiry.” Organization Studies 32: 769–801. Mathison, Sandra. 2014. “Research and Evaluation: Intersections and Divergence.” In Feminist Evaluation and Research: Theory and Practice, edited by Sharon Brisolara, Denise Siegart, and Saumitra SenGupta, 42–58. New York: Guildford Press.

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Merry, Sally E., and Susan B. Coutin. 2014. “Technologies of Truth in the Anthropology of Conflict.” American Ethnologist 41 (1): 1–16. Metcalfe, Beverly D., and Carol Woodhams. 2012. “Introduction: New Directions in Gender, Diversity and Organization Theorizing: Re-imagining Feminist Post-colonialism, Transnationalism and Geographies of Power.” International Journal of Management Reviews 14: 123–40. Oakley, Ann. 2000. Experiments in Knowing: Gender and Method in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, U K: Polity Press. Patwell, Beverley, Donna Gray, and Steve Kanellakos. 2012. An Innovative Approach to Fostering a Culture of Service Excellence in the City of Ottawa. Montreal: IRC Queen’s University. Retrieved from www.irc.queensu.ca/ articles/innovative-approach-fostering-culture-service-excellencecity-Ottawa. Schwartz-Shea, Peregrine, and Dvora Yanow. 2012. Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes. New York: Routledge. Siltanen, Janet, Fran Klodawsky, and Caroline Andrew. 2014. “‘This Is How I Want to Live My Life’: An Experiment in Prefigurative Feminist Organizing for an Equitable and Inclusive City.” Antipode 47 (1): 260–79.

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3 Context Matters Promoting Inclusion with Indigenous Women Holly A. M c K e n z i e , Colleen Varcoe, Annette J. Browne, Marilyn Ford-Gilboe, Madeleine Dion Stout, Roberta Price, Linda Day, and J ane Inyallie

I n t r o d u ction The terms “inclusion” and “context” are used in diverse ways, particularly when addressing how health care services and programs can be made more relevant to and accessible for Indigenous people. In this chapter, we argue that meaningful inclusion requires that individuals be understood within multiple personal, organizational, and systemic contexts – interrelated historical, material, physical, socio-political, and discursive/linguistic contexts – that are continuously shifting and affecting individuals’ realities (Hartrick, Doane, and Varcoe 2015). Further, we contend that there is violence inherent in applying the concept of inclusion to Indigenous women. As Ahmed (2012) states, “‘Being included’ can thus be to experience an increasing proximity to those norms that historically have been exclusive; the extension of the norms might be not only a fantasy but also a way of being made increasingly subject to their violence” (164). This is especially true in relation to health programming and services because these have been (and continue to be) sites of race-based exclusion (Browne 2007; Tang and Browne 2008; Browne et al. 2011) and the regulation of Indigenous women’s sexuality and mothering (Kelm 1998, 2005; Lawford and Giles 2013). Moreover, the very notion of including Indigenous people within

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settler-colonial contexts reifies the colonial myth that Europeanssettlers, who built cities, institutions, and states by displacing Indigenous people and dispossessing them of Indigenous lands (Peters and Andersen 2013), have “become original inhabitants and the group most entitled to the fruits of citizenship” (Razack 2002, 1–2), with the authority to extend citizenship to Indigenous people (Dhamoon 2005). Common discourses often conceptualize inclusion as an ostensibly universal process whereby discrimination is eliminated and people who have previously been excluded from mainstream institutions, communities, and nation-states gain access to the rights and privileges of the “core” – those who have always-already been at the centre of these social structures (Dhamoon 2005).1 There is also a tendency to focus on the barriers some groups experience as the key problem, and to see improved access to mainstream institutions and processes as the solution to their marginalization. Consequently, the status quo is maintained, and the means by which the core group continues to have enhanced access to the rights and privileges of citizenship is overlooked. Meanwhile, concerns voiced by those more recently included as citizens, but still positioned at the edges of the dominant society, are interpreted as the complaints of angry “others.” Further, this conceptualization of inclusion renders invisible how people who are excluded or situated on the periphery of mainstream communities, institutions, and nations, are actually members of multiple communities; in some of these communities, they form the core that determines the terms of inclusion and exclusion (Dhamoon 2005). While dominant approaches to inclusion take for granted the goal of incorporating everyone into the supposed mainstream (dysfunctional) system with minimal change to the core’s norms, values, and practices, this is not what we advocate. It is our stance that it is possible to reimagine (and work towards) more inclusive communities, programs, institutions, and nations by disrupting and destabilizing these norms and values, and by critiquing and revealing how the core is socially constructed as inherent to mainstream society. Our goal in doing so is to rebuild communities, programs, institutions, and nations that are representative and welcoming. In order to contribute to the dialogue around inclusivity, we share the following strategies (and how we engaged them) in a university-based health intervention study with Indigenous women

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who have experienced violence and who live in an urban context – a context that for some is on their ancestral territories. The four strategies are to: 1 2 3 4

Privilege tradition, imagination, and innovation. Focus on living contexts. Emphasize healing and reconciliation. Build relationships.

To ground our conversation about inclusion, we discuss the development of “Reclaiming Our Spirits” and the processes involved in the implementation of this intervention with Indigenous women.

“ R e c l a i m i n g O ur Spirits”: An O v e rv i e w o f t h e I ntervention S tudy As demonstrated through population-based surveys, Indigenous women experience high rates of intimate partner violence (IP V) as well as high rates of violence in general, which are made possible by and are a part of colonialism, racism, and sexism (Bourassa, McKay-McNabb, and Hampton 2004; Native Women’s Association of Canada 2010; Brennon 2011; Johnson, Statistics Canada, and Federal/Provincial/Territorial Ministers Responsible for the Status of Women (Canada) 2006; Brownridge 2003, 2008; Varcoe and Dick 2008; Daoud et al. 2013; Pedersen, Malcoe, and Pulkingham 2013; R CM P 2015). Whereas any program supporting Indigenous women should focus on their views of health and wellness and take into account their unique strengths and challenges, the literature and our work with Indigenous health agencies and anti-violence organizations revealed a lack of programming and services that do this. Our team of researchers, Indigenous women, and community organizations met over several years to determine how we could best design a relevant, culturally safe, and methodologically sound intervention study. After much discussion, we decided to adapt an existing intervention, the Intervention for Health Enhancement After Leaving (iH E A L ) and to study (a) whether it was acceptable to  Indigenous women participants living in Downtown Eastside Vancouver and Surrey, British Columbia, and (b) whether this intervention supported Indigenous women participants in improving their quality of life and health. iH E AL , a health promotion

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intervention for women who have experienced intimate partner violence, was designed to be facilitated by a nurse and a domestic violence worker over a six-month period; it was tested for feasibility in New Brunswick and Ontario with promising results (Ford-Gilboe et al. 2011; Wuest et al. 2015; Ford-Gilboe et al., in review). iH E AL is a clinical application of a theory – Strengthening Capacity to Limit Intrusion (SC L I ) – that “captures conceptually what women do to survive, promote their health, and move on with their lives after leaving an abusive partner” (Ford-Gilboe et al. 2011, 199). This theory posits that women who are leaving abusive situations face a central problem: intrusion, which includes, but is not limited to, ongoing harassment or abuse, physical and mental health impacts of abuse, social isolation, reduced economic means, and personal costs associated with seeking help from services and systems that are not aligned with these women’s beliefs, priorities, and experiences. As such, iH E A L was developed to both limit the intrusion women face and strengthen their capacity to deal with ongoing intrusion. iHEA L is grounded in concepts that challenge dominant discourses: trauma- and violence-informed care (Ponic, Varcoe, and Smutylo 2016), feminism, women abuse advocacy, health promotion, harm reduction, cultural safety, social justice, and primary health care (Ford-Gilboe et al. 2011). Although attention to diversity had been an overriding ideal throughout the development and delivery of iH E A L , during its original development phase, researchers and practitioners had not explicitly considered whether the intervention could meet the needs of specific communities of women, including Indigenous women. Therefore, it was necessary to reconceptualize iHE A L to take into account the unique histories, experiences, and knowledges of Indigenous women. Using a three-phase approach, we first articulated an Indigenous lens and developed principles to guide the intervention (Dion Stout 2012; Varcoe et al., forthcoming). A key component of this first phase involved the formation of an advisory committee, the Aboriginal Women’s Expert Reference Group (AW E RG ), comprised of Indigenous women who are leaders in various contexts (academia, community, and health care organizations), to guide the conceptualization of the intervention. AW E RG members have participated actively in all facets of this project, including designing the intervention, interpreting research findings, and translating

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knowledge. In the second phase, we conducted a pilot study of the  revised iH E A L with twenty-one women in order to assess its strengths and limitations. The processes of adaptation and pilot testing have been described in detail elsewhere (Varcoe et al., forthcoming). While the revised intervention was initially referred to as  the “Aboriginal Women’s Intervention,” the lead researchers, A WER G , and other members viewed this name as distancing and  homogenizing, and it did not resonate with participants. Consequently, during the pilot process, participants renamed the intervention “Reclaiming Our Spirits.” Based on the quantitative and qualitative findings of the pilot phase, we reshaped the adapted intervention and designed a larger cohort study to examine its acceptability and efficacy. Using a quasi-­ experimental time-series design, we examined whether “Reclaiming Our Spirits” supported the 152 Indigenous women participants in improving their health, wellness, and quality of life by (a) reducing trauma- and violence-related intrusion, and (b) increasing women’s resources and capacities to limit and manage intrusion in their lives. Overall, women who participated in “Reclaiming Our Spirits” reported significant improvements in their Quality of Life, reduced trauma symptoms, and reduced depressive symptoms following the intervention, changes that were sustained six months later. “Reclaiming Our Spirits” is implemented both by nurses, who met with women one-onone, either in person or by phone, and by Indigenous Elders, who led weekly circles or group sessions in which they offered teachings founded on Indigenous cultural practices, and co-facilitated workshops with nurses. In circles and group sessions, the six components adopted from iHEAL and modified for this intervention were addressed: safeguarding, managing basics, managing symptoms, renewing self, regenerating relationships, and cautious connecting. A key feature of “Reclaiming Our Spirits” is that it is driven by women’s needs and preferences; the participants, therefore, decide how they are going to engage with the intervention. In their one-on-one meetings with nurses, women chose which of the six components was their initial priority. For example, a woman whose first concern was housing and income might focus on managing basics, whereas for a woman experiencing severe pain, managing symptoms may be her primary focus. Women also chose their extent and mode of engagement; most participated in both circles and one-on-one appointments with nurses, but some women participated in only one or the other.

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Throughout the study, we engaged in critical self-reflection and dialogue about what methods foster inclusion and are transferable to practice contexts. We also worked to mobilize the knowledge generated to shift policies, practices, and society in ways that foster inclusion. Our conversations, the project’s methodology, and our strategies for inclusion were all grounded in critical theories (including intersectionality) and in decolonizing approaches and Indigenous epistemologies (Smith 2012; Kovach 2009; Wilson 2008; LaRocque 1996, 2007; Battiste 2000; Crenshaw 1991; Young 2001; Browne, Smye, and Varcoe 2005; Browne, Smye, and Varcoe 2007; Hankivsky 2011), which demanded and supported our constant interrogation of the meaning of inclusion and of strategies to foster it. Our vigilance was not limited to our concerns about engagement between the research team and study participants, but extended to the interactions among participants and dynamics within our research team.

S t r at e g i e s to F o s t er Inclus ion a n d B e l o nging The strategies we developed are predicated on our understanding that marginalizing conditions and processes (such as racism and classism) depend on and foster social exclusion and focus on transformation. The “problem” of Indigenous women’s exclusion from communities and dominant processes cannot be understood as being within their control; rather, exclusion is (re)produced through historical and current government policies, public and media discourses, and neocolonial and neoliberal practices that protect and privilege certain people at the expense of others. For instance, Indigenous people and other marginalized groups are displaced from their communities through gentrification projects in urban neighborhoods or large scale mining or hydro projects driven by neoliberal and neocolonial forces (Boyle and Haggerty 2011; Blomley 2004). As academic and research funding processes are similarly steered by dominant policies, discourses, and practices, in designing our inclusion strategies, we also sought to overturn taken-for-granted ideas about how research should be conducted. Everyone, particularly those who are already designated by power dynamics as comprising the core of communities and who are involved in policymaking, must bear responsibility for fostering

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respectful, inclusive, decolonizing social relations. Below, we describe the four strategies we used to cultivate meaningful inclusion in “Reclaiming Our Spirits.” S t r a t e gy 1: P ri v i l e ge Tr a d i t i o n , I ma gi na t i on , a n d I n n ova t i on Our main concern about adapting iH E AL was that we risked imposing an intervention onto Indigenous women that did not reflect their needs or realities. To address this concern, we explicitly founded our reconceptualization of iH E AL on Indigenous knowl­ edges and approaches that might be most useful to diverse groups of Indigenous women living in Downtown Eastside Vancouver and Surrey, through privileging tradition, imagination, and innovation. While tradition is most often understood as old, ancient, or “in the past,” tradition is also living. The reclaiming and mobilization of certain practices considered “traditional” is contested and negotiated. For example, Indigenous feminists question the gendered and exclusionary implications of certain practices (see for instance: Green 2007; Simpson 2011). As author Dion Stout relates, tradition is “something old that is so essential it becomes new again.”2 Similarly, she describes imagination as seeing the worth of something that does not yet exist in one’s mind, and innovation as the development of novel, homegrown activities or practices to respond to situations. For example, both A W E RG and the women who participated in the pilot phase of “Reclaiming Our Spirits” guided the project by (a) selecting the specific urban study settings, (b) identifying the dynamics of violence faced by Indigenous women, and (c) articulating Indigenous knowledges and approaches. The use of resources and processes typically not considered in academic research enabled A WE R G members to engage in ongoing, complex dialogues with the university-based research team about the direction of the project. Through these dialogues, the team confronted a number of challenges, including how to navigate dynamics within the team, how to address issues of identity politics (discussed below), and how to mobilize our research to respond to evolving forms of structural violence affecting women. AW E RG was instrumental in fostering the research team’s awareness of the ways that dominating and oppressive dynamics surfaced, both subtly and overtly, despite our intentions to counteract such dynamics, and offering innovative

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and imaginative responses. Throughout the study, the research team and study staff engaged in critical self-reflexivity and difficult discussions about how our actions, conversations, and study representations (for instance, reports, publications, and presentations) contribute to and/or disrupt exclusionary and oppressive social dynamics. Indeed, privileging tradition and innovation often involves letting go of what academic researchers think we “know” and the practices associated with this knowledge. For instance, it requires non-Indigenous researchers and staff to refrain from speaking or otherwise dominating various study processes – a practice that stands in contrast with academic training and discourse. Once the team and A WE R G determined that iH E AL was promising but could not fully meet the needs of Indigenous women living in Vancouver Downtown Eastside and Surrey, we worked to articulate an Indigenous lens. In order to do so, we drew on literature about Indigenous knowledges and approaches as well as historical trauma, and on author Dion Stout’s use of Cree concepts to articulate historical and ongoing colonial dynamics and Indigenous women’s sources of resistance and resilience (Dion Stout 2012; Varcoe et al., forthcoming). As we engaged with these three streams of thought and research to redesign iH E AL , we recognized that the input of Elders living in or near Downtown Eastside Vancouver and Surrey was crucial. Accordingly, the team interviewed ten Elders, and A WE R G led the analysis of these interviews, using them to develop ten principles: (1) being Aboriginal is a strength; (2) identity is a priority; (3) history is in the present; (4) diversity is valued; (5) participation; (6) culture and tradition as a resource; (7) women in context; (8) healthy interventionists; (9) sustainability; and (10) cultural safety. Following from the “Reclaiming Our Spirits” principles we decided to formally hire Elders to partner with the nurses.3 We also used different methods to recruit and retain Indigenous research assistants and Indigenous nurses. The research team facilitated cultural safety training with the nurses, an approach advocated by some scholars (Gerlach 2012; Papps and Ramsden 1996; Harding 2013; Varcoe and Browne 2015; Gerlach et al. 2014), to ensure that participants’ knowledge, experiences, and needs remained the central focus of “Reclaiming Our Spirits” and to foster nurses’ innovation. Other methods were used to privilege imagination and innovation of Indigenous women

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participants. For example, participants directed the content of workshops, the focus of one-on-one meetings with nurses, and the overall structure of the intervention. During the study, nurses worked to shift their practice orientation from women-centred to women-led, a process that required some unlearning of their professionalized stance as “expert.” Nurses also became more comfortable with being “paid to have coffee” as a strategy for engaging with women, and the impact of supportive, non-judgmental listening for women. As the study progressed, the intervention became more women-led. Indeed, at the study completion of “Reclaiming Our Spirits,” nurses commented on how their ability to perform with the women in the lead had “evolved.” In the intervention, the Elders lead circles in which nurses co-­ facilitate group workshops about the different components of “Reclaiming Our Spirits.” Elders and other Indigenous community members are invited to share relevant traditional and cultural practices at some of these workshops, but these circles are led with the understanding that the participants, who identify with a diversity of Indigenous Nations, have different levels of knowledge about, and interest in, Indigenous cultural practices. For instance, after each cultural practice is explained, women are invited to participate in them, whether or not they have previously engaged in the practice. A number of participants who attended the circles during our study said that they benefitted from learning about traditional teachings and practices as well as the history of residential schools and colonization. One woman related, “I’ve never had an Elder in my life ever and she’s opened up doors for me like you wouldn’t believe and in relationships with people.”4 In her statement, this participant relates some ways these traditional teachings have reshaped her relations and living contexts. Our strategy to foster inclusion through privileging tradition, innovation, and imagination generated positive impacts such as this, but was also challenging. Based on our experiences, we recommend that future studies and programs (a) explicitly name dominant knowledges in relation to the context of people’s lives, (b) build structural supports for Elders and other valuable roles, (c) use detailed ongoing feedback mechanisms to draw on peoples’ innovation and imagination to tailor interventions, (d) continuously interrogate what is “known” and who is most easily positioned as a “knower,” and (e) be prepared for and embrace tension and controversy.

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S t r a t e gy 2 : F o c u s o n Li v i n g C on t e x t s Focus on evolving and dynamic contexts (taking into account historical continuities, shifts, and emergences) is necessary to foster inclusion. This requires an attentiveness to relationships among global and local forces and specific historical, sociopolitical, economic, and material contexts. The most salient characteristics of our two urban study sites were the diversity of Indigenous peoples and the extreme economic poverty faced by their residents. Built on the traditional territories of Coast Salish peoples, both urban areas are sites of community action and community building; they are also sites where Indigenous women are surveilled, pathologized, and socially disregarded (Liu and Blomley 2013; Blomley 2004). As Culhane (2003) argues, in Downtown Eastside sensationalist tropes and pathologizing narratives intersect with a dismissal of Indigenous women’s self-representations and survivance, rendering Indigenous women simultaneously invisible and hypervisible. For instance, although the Women’s Memorial March began in Downtown Eastside in 1991 to raise awareness about disappeared and murdered women, particularly Indigenous women, this important issue was overlooked or disregarded by the majority of ­Vancouver’s citizens and the police until about 2000 when an investigative journalist published a series of articles about missing women (Jiwani and Young 2006). Women participating in “Reclaiming Our Spirits,” by contrast, regularly engaged in activism and events to advocate for, and support, Indigenous women. The two study sites are “home” to a large concentration of people who have migrated (or have been displaced) both from outside and within Canada, particularly from other locations in Western Canada. Indeed, women who participated in “Reclaiming Our Spirits” were from diverse Indigenous Nations with varied local histories of colonization. We struggled with how to facilitate the intervention with these diverse Indigenous women, wanting to address the commonalities of colonialism and racism, and respect people’s identities without reinforcing the homogenizing processes that erode those identities (Lawrence 2004). Our approach was to foreground colonialism and racism, and privilege Coast Salish traditions and people – as the intervention took place on Coast Salish land – while respecting the diversity of women and traditions. We hired a Coast Salish

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Snuneymux and Cowichan Elder (author Price), who acted as the lead Elder, and subsequently, a Cree Elder, in part because she was well-established as an Aboriginal outreach worker within one of our partner organizations, and because there is a high number of Cree women living in these two urban contexts. The Elders and community members invited to circles were often Coast Salish and shared Coast Salish teachings and practices with participants. Within the circles, all the women were invited to share their own teachings and practices. We also encouraged sensitivity to the nuances of identity and privilege associated with imposed colonial categories such as “status,” refusing to reinforce dominant hierarchies by pointing to the colonial origins of these categories. As discussed above, both sites are marked by economic poverty. We worked to support women’s participation in the intervention study and negotiate its context. For instance, women were provided with lunch before each circle and nurses often took women to eat a meal while meeting one-on-one. Project funds also paid for women’s transportation to and from the intervention. Additionally, participants received honoraria in recognition of the time they contributed to interviews, focus groups, and advisory sessions. The women-led nature of the intervention also fostered responsiveness to context; for instance, women chose to spend considerable time working on the managing basics component, on tasks such as securing affordable housing, budgeting for grocery shopping, and applying for Disability Assistance and other income support programs. There has been a recent burgeoning of research in Vancouver Downtown Eastside and given the extreme poverty faced by many of its residents, research has understandably become part of the local economy (Salmon, Browne, and Pederson 2010). This study highlighted the complexity around ethics when conducting research with women who have experienced, and continue to experience, multiple forms of structural violence. It is necessary to continually reconsider how these dynamics shape research relations, especially the potential “risks” to and coercion of participants.5 We had many discussions about these tensions and adapted our study protocol during the first cohort phase in response to our own and community members’ concerns. Consequently, for future interventions, we advise (a) identifying the key characteristics of any living context that will support and hamper inclusion, (b) directly tackling

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barriers to inclusion, and (c) paying attention and responding to unanticipated contextual dynamics that emerge. S t r a t e gy 3: E m p h a s i z e H e a l i n g a n d Re c on c i li a t i on Increasingly, the violence of residential schools and its lasting impact on Indigenous individuals, families, and communities has become part of the Canadian public discourse, as illustrated by the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a six-year research and education initiative that aimed to record the history of the Indian Residential Schools, support survivors’ healing, and foster reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015). Recent conversations have focused on the nature of – and necessary actions for – reconciliation as well as what resources and processes support Indigenous communities’ and individuals’ healing. Informing our views are two commonly invoked understandings of reconciliation: The diversity of individual or collective practices that Indigenous people undertake to reestablish a positive ‘relation to self’ in ­situations where this relation has been damaged or distorted by some form of symbolic or structural violence … and the act of restoring estranged or damaged social and political relationships. (Coulthard 2014, 106–7) Further, in contrast to predominant views of healing as individual and linear, we acknowledge that healing processes are often nonlinear and multiple. There are healing practices, encounters, and moments. In Canada, public discourse about healing often focuses on Indigenous individuals and communities. However, the dysfunctional colonial relationship Canada has with Indigenous people and dominating and exclusionary relations must be transformed, which requires action within studies, programs, and institutions. Indeed, colonialism needs to be considered part of both local and global sociopolitical, material/economic, and historical contexts, regardless of whether Indigenous people are the focus of research, policy, or programming (Varcoe and McKenzie, forthcoming). Exclusionary colonial forces include the imposition of binary (male/female) gendered relations

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that erase trans and two-spirit gender identities and devalue Indigenous women in North America (Hunt 2015).6 Resisting and transforming these relations involves a reimagining of inclusionary processes through decolonizing approaches. In practice, this means considering how processes foster healing and transformation and/or reproduce colonial relations (Hunt and Holmes 2015).

Chal l e n g i n g P r ac t i c e s , Negotiating Systems, a n d T a k i n g Action The “Reclaiming Our Spirits” principles mentioned earlier in the chapter, which emphasize the importance of addressing historical and ongoing colonialism, informed the intervention content, processes, and actions undertaken by the study team. For instance, we recognized that Indigenous women face numerous types of structural and interpersonal violence beyond IP V, and, thus, we did not require that participants have left their abusive partners, nor did the interpersonal violence they had experienced need to be recent, which is the case in many other studies. Similarly, nurses received training about the connections between interpersonal and structural violence – including gendered, colonial, and racist violence – with a view towards supporting their work with participants (Smith 2005; McKenna and Larkin 2002; Bourassa, McKay-McNabb, and Hampton 2004). Our revision of the iH E A L components was intended (a) to identify and reduce the intervention’s biases, including class and cultural biases, and (b) to take into account colonial and other structural violence affecting Indigenous women living in Downtown Eastside and Surrey. For example, we revised the “regenerating families” component in a number of ways and renamed it “regenerating relationships.” First, we eliminated the assumptions that women are living with and are primary caregivers for their biological children. In training, we worked to foster nurses’ understanding of the ­systematic and intergenerational nature of the apprehension of Indigenous children by the state. Indigenous children continue to be apprehended at a higher rate today than during the peak of residential school enrollment (Blackstock, Trocmé, and Bennett 2004; Trocmé et al. 2010; Sinha et al. 2013; Sinha et al. 2011), and the child welfare system’s over-involvement in Indigenous families intersects with the broader context of structural violence (exemplified

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by the higher rates of low incomes and unsafe housing) experienced by Indigenous people in Canada (Trocmé et al. 2010; Sinha, Ellenbogen, and Trocmé 2013; Sinha et al. 2011; McKenzie et al., 2016; Trocmé, Knoke, and Blackstock 2004; Blackstock 2007). We were also mindful of the fact that many women involved in the study had experienced a diversity of childhood situations including adoption, foster care, and incarceration (Fournier and Crey 1997; Tait, Henry, and Walker 2013; Johnston 1983). These considerations led us to refocus this component on regenerating relationships with those people women viewed as important to them, whether or not they were biologically related. To support participants in dealing with violence, nurses facilitated women’s access to services offered within the existing health and social systems. Nurses attended doctors’ appointments with participants, translated medical terminology into common language, and provided emotional support. We also worked to shift nonIndigenous communities’ perceptions of Indigenous women. For instance, A WE R G, study team members, and participants worked with a filmmaker on a documentary that conveys the resiliency, generosity, and strength of women participants and showcases the project’s processes. We premiered this film at an event with participants, members of the public, policymakers, and researchers, and hope to align our knowledge translation efforts with the cities’ deliberations on relevant policies (such as housing and low-income related) as a strategy for fostering inclusion on a broader scale.

Re - C e n t r i n g a n d C o n t e xtualizing Care Transforming relations requires working to centre individuals who are often pushed to the periphery of mainstream society as well as the intervention itself to make meaningful dialogue possible. This is complex in practice, particularly because of the normalization of inequitable relations, the dynamics that sustain them, and the violence that continues to be perpetuated against marginalized people. For instance, essentializing discourses simultaneously devalue and homogenize Indigenous knowledges (Battiste 2000). While many organizations and scholars emphasize the need for more Indigenous researchers, service providers, and managers (Benoit, Carrol, and Chaudhry 2003; Surrey Vulnerable Women and Girls Working Group 2015; Lecompte 2012), there is little clear

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direction about how to meaningfully transform work environments to be respectful and culturally safe for Indigenous people. A commonly held assumption is that Indigenous people are the source of the problem on teams or in the workplace – for not being qualified, for leaving positions, or for not applying for positions (DoyleBedwell 2008). Furthermore, Indigenous people are often assumed to represent a homogenous group and to share common experiential and cultural knowledge. As the research evolved, we repeatedly revisited the axiom that Indigenous and non-Indigenous people must continually negotiate colonial and racist dynamics and the risks of perpetuating lateral violence. Throughout all phases of the study, we confronted tensions about who counts as Indigenous, what counts as Indigenous knowledge, what types of knowledges are considered legitimate, and how to expose and deal with white and colonial privilege. Consequently, some research team members and staff decided to leave or were asked to leave the study. For example, during the development phase, partly in response to these tensions, several researchers lessened their involvement. Two nurses were asked to leave: one was a non-Indigenous nurse who some staff identified as disrespectful toward Indigenous people. Another nurse had recently connected with her heritage and begun to identify as Indigenous, but this positioning created pressure for her to play the role of expert of Indigenous culture and experiences – a situation that may have hampered her relationships with participants and other staff and affected her performance. The research team also hired an Indigenous research assistant whose experiences of trauma were triggered during her work on the project. Although the research team worked to support her, she eventually decided to leave the position. These situations illustrate some of the challenges in working to transform relations. Next, we turn our focus to our methods to contextualize care to individual women in order to foster healing moments, encounters, and practices. Throughout the study, we worked to pay attention to and take into account the diversity of Indigenous women participants. The Indigenous women who participated in this intervention identify with a diversity of Nations, are of various ages, and have different educational backgrounds and sexual and gender identities. Many women are living with multiple, chronic mental health and physical conditions (such as osteoarthritis, anxiety, problematic

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substance use, and post-traumatic stress disorder, among others). We structured “Reclaiming Our Spirits” with the uniqueness of the participants and their contexts in mind to promote inclusivity. We questioned and deconstructed the norms and boundaries of who should be included in I P V research and programming and redefined the meaning of participation. For instance, women who are using substances are often excluded from violence services and groups. In recognition of the complex relationship between trauma and substance use, and that women who are dealing with violence and trauma may use various methods, including substance use, to forget their trauma for a while, within this study we worked to include all women in ways that were safe for everyone. This process proved challenging. For instance, in qualitative interviews conducted during the pilot phase, some women said that they felt “triggered” by other women who arrived intoxicated or who spoke at length about their issues with substance use during circle sessions. Some women recommended organizing two different groups of support circles: one for women who use substances and one for women who do not. We decided, however, not to risk stigmatizing women by splitting the circles for the larger study; rather, we provided additional training for interventionists about harm reduction and ways to support women struggling with substance use, an area that is notably lacking in nursing education. We also structured the circles to focus more on how women can address those issues they identified as important. Despite these efforts, we continue to struggle with how to include women who use substances while respecting and supporting women who are triggered by other women’s use or  discussion of substances. We also moved beyond conventional research approaches to participation through engaging women in multiple ways throughout the study. During the intervention, women assisted in circles and workshops, suggested or invited guest speakers, and shared information with other women. After completing the intervention, some participants became mentors to other women, recruited women to participate in the intervention, and shared their experiences during public talks and presentations. Some acted as advisors on a documentary we produced and some have agreed to do so for subsequent studies. In order to support the nurses in tailoring programming and care to participants’ contexts, we emphasized the women-led nature of the intervention and redesigned its processes on an ongoing basis.

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The nurses introduced the six different components of the intervention as a menu of items from which women could choose, and the women conferred with the nurses to determine how they wanted to engage with the intervention (by meeting one-on-one with nurses, participating in circles, or both). Some women spent considerable time working with the nurses over the phone, by text message, or in unconventional intervention locations (like coffee shops and other public places), depending on what worked best for each participant. As discussed above, the study team facilitated cultural safety training with the nurses, which emphasized developing their understanding of women’s experiences and needs within historical, material, physical, socio-political, and discursive/linguistic contexts, including addressing their own assumptions and relationships to stereotypical thinking (Doane and Varcoe 2015). Speaking about the one-on-one meetings with nurses, one participant related that an aspect of the intervention that she felt “went well was the one-toone partnership, confidante, somebody to guide you, not do it for you, but guide you.”7 Dealing with women’s parenting experiences was the least successful aspect of the intervention, illustrating the challenges of working to contextualize care within contexts of structural violence. For example, we were unprepared for the outpouring of grief, and the triggering impact of that outpouring, in a circle held a week before Mother’s Day. Recently, women who provided input into the documentary noted that while we had well-represented women who had regained custody of their children, we had not acknowledged the many more who have never, and are unlikely to ever, have contact with their children. Based on our successes and challenges of addressing colonial and other structural violence in order to foster healing and reconciliation, we suggest that any intervention project should: (a) identify key marginalizing influences in a community, including historical and ongoing colonialism, and encourage clear, open, and ongoing discussions of racializing and colonial dynamics; (b) subsequently confront those forces by tailoring programs to both the common and unique experiences of participants; (c) consider ethical processes within these social dynamics; (d) ensure that structural supports, such as paid leave and counseling, exist in workplaces, and that work environments are culturally safe; (e) continue to privilege the hiring of, and working to support, Indigenous staff; (f) and,

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simultaneously, hiring people based on their experience, knowledge (particularly Indigenous knowledge), and skills rather than on their identity; (g) as well as to work to address power and inequalities among individuals (in this case, staff, researchers, and participants) and more widely (in this case, service organizations and the public). S t r a t e gy 4: Bu i l d i n g R e l a t i on s h i ps Interrelated with focusing on living contexts is the strategy of relationship-building, and with it the negotiation of existing and emerging relations. Researchers have articulated the importance of relationships within community-based research, particularly in studies with Indigenous communities (Wilson 2008; Kovach 2009; Smith 2012; Walters et al. 2009; Baydala et al. 2006). However, these relationships are not inherently supportive or trusting; rather, they are formed through complex negotiations of power between researchers and community members (Varcoe 2006). Speaking ­specifically about the inclusion of marginalized people, as noted, Dhamoon (2005) argues that dominant understandings often ignore that marginalized people are a part of multiple communities with their own forms of inclusion and exclusion. Fostering meaningful inclusion therefore requires attentiveness to lateral violence and relationships between lateral violence and structural violence (Castellano 2009; Dion Stout 2012). Relationships among nurses, Elders, researchers, research staff, partner organizations, and participants pre-existed and continued to develop during “Reclaiming Our Spirits.” As such, the intervention was introduced and delivered within and among relational tensions. In the pilot phase of the project, for example, some nurses made dismissive comments about the cultural practices shared by one of the Elders during the circles. In response, the research leads tried to improve the nursing staff’s understanding of what it means to privilege Indigenous knowledge and facilitated discussions between them and this Elder. Although the study team worked with the nurses and this Elder to resolve the conflict, the women who participated in the intervention felt the lingering tension between them. Based on what participants expressed about how this relational tension affected participants, we attempted to clarify the

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Elders’ and nurses’ roles and responsibilities and facilitated more clinical team meetings. We intended to involve Elders in these meetings, but their schedules made it difficult for them to attend. By the end of the larger study, it was clear that regularly involving Elders in these meetings would have fostered better communication, healthier staff relations, and a more supportive environment for the participants, illustrating the need to find creative solutions to practical limitations. For instance, rather than setting the parameters around what Elders’ involvement in clinical conversations should look like, we recommend approaching Elders about how to meaningfully involve them in clinical conversations.8 Prior relationships between nurses and participants (through a partner clinical agency) also influenced the intervention and had adverse effects on a number of participants. Some women felt compelled to participate in the program, others worried that confidentiality would be jeopardized, and still others felt unwelcomed or uninvited to participate. The different methods we used to foster inclusion within circles and group events, such as the women-led approach discussed earlier, helped participants to negotiate these various relational tensions. For instance, one woman chose not to participate in the circles because she overheard women gossiping about what was said in circles. Instead, she chose to participate only in one-on-one sessions with her nurse. The implementation of “Reclaiming Our Spirits” was shaped by relationships among all of those involved. In order to foster inclusion, we recommend that studies and programs (a) take stock of existing relationships at the outset, (b) pay attention to how relations develop during the process, (c) try to anticipate how these relationships might shape exclusion, and (d) develop strategies to promote inclusion.

C o n c l u s ion In this chapter, we suggest four strategies for inclusion that are grounded in a decolonizing approach. These strategies foreground the need to address interlocking, oppressive forces in order to foster reconciliation and healing when contextually tailoring care – a key aspect of equity-oriented and inclusive research and practice. Our efforts to do so made our responsiveness to Indigenous women’s

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diverse contexts possible and further enabled the woman-led nature of this intervention. Although our research study was conducted with Indigenous women living in particular urban communities and, thus, should not be interpreted as prescriptive, the strategies we implemented and the lessons learned are useful considerations for research and programming aimed to foster meaningful inclusion within diverse contexts. We encourage others to build upon these strategies, considering the relationships and dynamics implicated in the exclusion and marginalization of specific communities, identities, and people, and to continue the conversations and work necessary to cultivate meaningful inclusion grounded in decolonization.

notes

  1 While the “core” consists of people who are framed as always being members of nation-states, communities, and institutions, each of these has a history of membership that details shifts in their inclusion and exclusion of certain people and identities over time. Our framing of certain members as “always-already” comprising the core speaks to the social construction of membership in nations, communities, and institutions membership.   2 Discussion with McKenzie, 23 April 2016.   3 There are challenges to meaningfully involving Elders in programs and studies such as these. There are wonderful matriarchs who cannot be called upon to do the work, because they have too many other commitments. Further, this work is very challenging and it takes Elders with specific skills and experiences to do it.   4 Interview with participant in “Reclaiming Our Spirits,” in AugustOctober 2014. Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (C I H R )/Operating Grant Priority Announcement, Grant number: F R N-111188.   5 Economic marginalization places women “at risk” in a multitude of ways. For instance, women may participate in research that compromises their own emotional safety in order to access small “incentives” such as food, bus tickets, and honoraria. Even if researchers or staff present women with these incentives at the beginning of an interview or program and do not make the incentives dependent on continuing (which we recommend), women’s integrity and commitment to participate, because of the incentive, may override their commitment to their own emotional safety.

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  6 Two-spirit “is an indigenously defined pan-Native North American term” that was adopted in 1994, at the Third Annual Native American Gay and Lesbian Gathering in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to refer to “a diversity of Indigenous LG BTQ identities, as well as culturally specific non-binary expressions of gender” (Hunt 2015, 109).   7 Interview with participant in “Reclaiming Our Spirits,” in AugustOctober 2014. Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (C I H R)/Operating Grant Priority Announcement, Grant number: F R N-111188.   8 Further, in this study we hired two Elders to work with women and support each other in their roles. We also recommend building ­structural supports for Elders in order to foster their involvement and healthier staff relations. references

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Lawrence, Bonita. 2004. “Real” Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Lecompte, Emily. 2012. “Aboriginal Health Human Resources: A Matter of Health.” Journal of Aboriginal Health 8 (2): 16–22. Liu, Sikee, and Nicholas Blomley. 2013. “Making News and Making Space: Framing Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.” The Canadian Geographer 57 (2). doi: 10.1111/j.1541-0064.2012.00453.x. McKenna, Katherine M.J., and June Larkin, eds. 2002. Violence against Women: New Canadian Perspectives. Toronto: Inanna Publications and Education. McKenzie, Holly A., Colleen Varcoe, Annette J. Browne, and Linda Day. 2016. “Disrupting the Continuities among Residential Schools, the ‘Sixties Scoop’ and Child Welfare: An Analysis of Colonial and Neocolonial Discourses, Policies and Practices and Strategies for Change.” International Indigenous Policy Journal 7 (2). doi: 10.18584/ iipj.2016.7.2.4 Native Women’s Association of Canada. 2010. What Their Stories Tell Us: Research Findings from the Sisters in Spirit Initiative. Ottawa: Native Women’s Association of Canada. Papps, Elaine, and Irihapeti Ramsden. 1996. “Cultural Safety in Nursing: The New Zealand Experience.” International Journal for Quality in Health Care 8 (5): 491–7. Pedersen, Jeanette Somlak, Lorraine Halinka Malcoe, and Jane Pulkingham. 2013. “Explaining Aboriginal/Non-Aboriginal Inequalities in Postseparation Violence against Canadian Women: Application of a Structural Violence Approach.” Violence against Women 19 (8): 1034–58. doi: 10.1177/1077801213499245. Peters, Evelyn J., and Chris Andersen. 2013. Indigenous in the City: Contemporary Identities and Cultural Innovation. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Ponic, Pamela, Colleen Varcoe, and Tania Smutylo. Forthcoming. “Trauma- (and Violence-) Informed Approaches to Supporting Victims of Violence: Policy and Practice Considerations.” Department of Justice (DOJ ) Victims of Crime Journal 9. Razack, Sherene H., ed. 2002. Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society. Toronto: Between the Lines. Royal Canadian Mounted Police (R C M P ). 2015. Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: 2015 Update to the National Operational Overview. RCMP.

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Salmon, Amy, Annette J. Browne, and Ann Pederson. 2010. “‘Now We Call It Research’: Participatory Health Research Involving Marginalized Women Who Use Drugs.” Nursing Inquiry 17 (4): 336–45. Simpson, Leanne. 2011. Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Pub. – 2004. “Anticolonial Strategies for the Recovery and Maintenance of Indigenous Knowledge.” The American Indian Quarterly 28 (3–4): 373–84. Sinha, Vandna, Stephen Ellenbogen, and Nico Trocmé. 2013. “Substantiating Neglect of First Nations and Non-Aboriginal Children.” Children and Youth Services Review 35 (12): 2080–90. doi: 10.1016/j. childyouth.2013.10.007. Sinha, Vandna, Nico Trocmé, Cindy Blackstock, Bruce MacLaurin, and Barbara Fallon. 2011. “Understanding the Overrepresentation of First Nations Children in Canada’s Child Welfare System.” In Child Welfare: Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice. Edited by Kathleen Kufeldt and Brad McKenzie. Waterloo, O N : Wilfrid Laurier Press. Sinha, Vandna, Nico Trocmé, Barbara Fallon, and Bruce MacLaurin. 2013. “Understanding the Investigation-Stage Overrepresentation of First Nations Children in the Child Welfare System: An Analysis of the First Nations Component of the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect 2008.” Child Abuse and Neglect 37 (10): 821–31. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2012.11.010. Smith, Andrea. 2005. Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. 2nd ed. London: Zed Books. Surrey Vulnerable Women and Girls Working Group. 2015. In Their Own Words: A Service and Housing Needs Assessment for Vulnerable Women and Youth in Surrey. Surrey, BC: Surrey Vulnerable Women and Girls Working Group. Tait, Caroline, R. Henry, and Rachel Loewan Walker. 2013. “Child Welfare: A Social Determinant of Health for Canadian First Nations and Métis Children.” Pimatisiwin 11 (1): 39–53. Tang, Sannie Y., and Annette J. Browne. 2008. “‘Race’ Matters: Racialization and Egalitarian Discourses Involving Aboriginal People in the Canadian Health Care Context.” Ethnicity and Health 13 (2): 109–27. doi: 10.1080/13557850701830307. Trocmé, Nico, Barbara Fallon, Bruce MacLaurin, Vandna Sinha, Tara Black, Elizabeth Fast, Caroline Felstiner, Sonia Hélie, Daniel Turcotte,

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Pamela Weightman, Janet Douglas, and Jill Holroyd. 2010. Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect 2008 (CIS-2008): Major Findings. Ottawa: Public Health Agency of Canada. Trocmé, Nico, Della Knoke, and Cindy Blackstock. 2004. “Pathways to the Overrepresentation of Aboriginal Children in Canada’s Child Welfare System.” Social Service Review 78 (4): 577–600. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015. “Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.” Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. http://www.trc.ca/(accessed 3 July 2015). Varcoe, Colleen. 2006. “Doing Participatory Action Research in a Racist World.” Western Journal of Nursing Research 28 (5): 525–40. Varcoe, Colleen, and Annette J. Browne. 2015. “Culture and Cultural Safety: Beyond Cultural Inventories.” In Fundamentals: Perspectives on the Art and Science of Canadian Nursing, edited by David Gregory, Christy Raymond-Seniuk, Linda Patrick, and Tracey C. Stephen. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health. Varcoe, Colleen, Annette J. Browne, Marilyn Ford-Gilboe, Madeleine Dion Stout, Holly A. McKenzie, Roberta Price, Victoria Bungay, Vicki Smye, Jane Inyallie, Linda Day, Koushambhi B. Khan, Angela Heino, and Marilyn Merritt-Gray. Forthcoming. “Reclaiming Our Spirits: Development and Pilot Testing of a Health Promotion Intervention for Indigenous Women who have Experienced Intimate Partner Violence.” Research in Nursing & Health. Varcoe, Colleen, and Sheila Dick. 2008. “Intersecting Risks of Violence and H IV for Rural and Aboriginal Women in a Neocolonial Canadian Context.” Journal of Aboriginal Health 4: 42–52. Varcoe, Colleen, and Holly A. McKenzie. Forthcoming. “Decolonizing Research.” In Women’s Health in Canada: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Policy, edited by Marina Morrow, Olena Hankivsky, and Colleen Varcoe. Toronto: University of Toronto. Walters, Karina L., Stately Antony, Teresa Evans-Campbell, Jane M. Simoni, Bonnie Duran, Katie Schultz, Erin C. Stanley, Chris Charles, and Deborah Guerrero. 2009. “‘Indigenist’ Collaborative Research Efforts in Native American Communities.” In The Field Research Survival Guide, edited by Arlene Rubin Stiffman. New York: Oxford University Press. Wilson, Shawn. 2008. Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

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Wuest, Judith, Marilyn Merritt-Gray, Norma Dubé, Marilyn J. Hodgins, Jeannie Malcolm, Jo Ann Majerovich, Kelly Stott-Storey, Marilyn FordGilboe, and Colleen Varcoe. 2015. “The Process, Outcomes, and Challenges of Feasibility Studies Conducted in Partnership with Stakeholders: A Health Intervention for Women Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence.” Research in Nursing and Health 38 (1): 82–96. doi: 10.1002/nur.21636. Young, Robert J.C. 2001. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

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4 Supporting Local Civic Engagement through a “Community First” Approach to Foster Broader Social Inclusion in Development Patricia Ballamingie, Magda Goemans, and Gary Martin

I n t r o d u c tion In 2014, The Regional Group, a development company, purchased the Oblate Lands – an inner-urban green space property in the ­central Ottawa neighbourhood of Old Ottawa East – to develop a  twenty-six-acre master-planned community named Greystone Village. A citizen organization in the neighbourhood, known as Sustainable Living Ottawa East (SL OE ), and an associated initiative, known as Innovative Housing for Older Adults (IH O A) in Old Ottawa East, have worked to influence the redevelopment of this urban property. For the past few years, we have worked closely with SLO E – as researchers of, and as witnesses and contributors to, negotiations between the citizen group and the developer. This chapter explores insights gleaned from the first four years (2012– 16) of our community-campus partnership and assesses the impact of the “community first” approach that was adopted to further social sustainability goals for the development site. Our community-­ campus engagement was undertaken as part of a larger project with Carleton University – a SSHR C -funded Partnership Grant titled Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CF ICE ), led by principal investigators, Edward Jackson, and then Peter Andrée.

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While S L O E sought to influence various aspects of the site’s redevelopment, this chapter focuses on our research engagement with efforts initiated by local residents to ensure stakeholders more extensively consider opportunities for the inclusion of seniors and affordable housing in the new development. First, we introduce the community-campus engagement (CCE ) project through which we were involved with S L O E , delineating the  ways various actors sought to foster broader social inclusion. Specifically, we describe how the partnership formed, its intended purpose and outcomes, and progress to date. Then, we reflect critically on our interactions with the community partner, identifying both possibilities and constraints associated with the approach taken. Finally, we use a self-reflexive lens to posit the strengths and weaknesses of the community first approach to CCE that we adopted. This discussion particularly considers the opportunities associated with working with powerful actors to advance a social justice agenda.

F o s t e r i n g B r oa d e r S ocial Inclus ion t h r o u g h S c h o l a r ly Engagement A C o mm u n i t y-C a mp us P a r t n e r s h i p b e t w e e n S u s t a i n a b l e Li vi n g Ot t a wa E a s t an d th e C o m m u n i t y E n v i ro n me n t a l Su s t a i n a bi li t y H u b C FIC E aims to optimize benefits to community organizations that participate in community-based research, community service learning, or other forms of C C E by adopting a community first approach – engaging in equitable partnerships to co-create knowledge and action plans for addressing pressing community issues. Community first projects are designed and implemented primarily to support community partners through a conscious effort to reposition academics at their service. More specifically, this research can be situated within the Com­ munity Environmental Sustainability (CE S ) Ottawa Hub of CF ICE , for which Patricia Ballamingie served as academic co-lead. Central to the organization of the C E S Ottawa Hub was the practice of “embedding” master’s- or doctoral-level research assistants in specific community-based projects to provide applied research support and to facilitate project evaluations, including evaluations of the C C E relationships involved. The co-authors of this chapter,

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Magda Goemans and Gary Martin, served in this regard, and were  specifically assigned to the community partner S L O E . This approach ensured ongoing access to community participants and the development, over time, of meaningful working and professional relationships. Since its inception in 2007, the citizen organization S L O E has worked to further environmental and social sustainability goals in the central Ottawa neighbourhood of Old Ottawa East. S L O E is a committee of the Ottawa East Community Association (O E CA), reporting to the OE C A on a monthly basis, but operating with a high degree of autonomy. It is comprised of a balanced gender representation of established local residents who are largely white, middle-aged, and upper-middle income professionals, many of whom have substantial expertise in fields related to sustainable development. Over the years, the group’s core membership has ranged from half a dozen to a dozen residents, but it has effectively mobilized many other volunteers from the community for individual projects. Their efforts have resulted in the implementation of a series of successful neighborhood-scale projects, several of which have become self-sustaining, independent of S L O E . These include a weekly farmers’ market and a Children’s Garden that supports community gardening workshops and playgroups, as well as various shoreline restoration projects (such as planting trees) to support the nearby Rideau River Nature Trail. With the approaching development of the Oblate Lands, S L O E members recognized the need to move beyond a project-based focus and into the realm of research and advocacy. The property comprises 12 hectares (with a large proportion of green space) of which, prior to its sale, the Oblate Fathers, an order of Catholic missionaries, owned 10.5 hectares.1 Over the past century, the Oblates offered up their property generously, inviting and allowing local residents to use the grounds for sports and shoreline recreation. When the fathers decided to sell the property in 2014,2 a development company, The Regional Group, purchased the property and renamed the site Greystone Village, with plans to build approximately 900 new housing units consisting of a mixture of single-family dwellings, townhouses, and low- and mid-rise condominium buildings.3 As the impending sale of the Oblate property became evident, SLO E members advocated for sustainable approaches to site

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redevelopment by bringing progressive and well-investigated options to the table to proactively influence the development. Working ­collaboratively, rather than adversarially, they assembled research and connected with local experts on four key themes, characterizing their process as a “Deep Green” approach (S L O E 2014). S L O E focused on fostering sustainable energy practices and shoreline restoration/stormwater management, as well as stimulating opportu­ nities for enhanced community amenities and connectivity to the wider neighborhood. Moreover, SL O E advocated for extensively incorporating seniors and affordable housing within the Greystone Village site. Overall, SL OE ’s efforts to achieve its Deep Green vision for the site have sought to influence change on various scales. Most intimately, it has pushed for the creation of a seniors’ co-housing community within the development (described more fully below), and, more broadly, SL OE has aimed to model a different dynamic in community-developer relations, and has looked for ways to use this experience to help move yardsticks at City Hall, although its primary and explicit focus was to influence the redevelopment project of Greystone Village. A research summary document that was presented to the developer, “Options and Approaches for ‘Deep Green’ Development of the Oblate Lands in Old Ottawa East,” articulates the following social sustainability goals for the site as a whole, as part of SLO E’s “seniors and affordable housing” theme: “To ensure that at a minimum the … Community Design Plan target of 25% affordable units is met; that the … development contributes to appealing options for seniors to age in the community; and that innovative housing models and financing approaches for seniors and affordable housing, including opportunities for community investment, are employed as feasible” (SL OE 2014). The group has moved through the process of working to help establish a seniors’ co-­ housing project in Greystone Village with the hope that research conducted on alternative financing and ownership options will shed light on the needs and opportunities for different models and approaches to co-housing; there is modest potential for this effort to benefit not only existing Old Ottawa East residents, but also new residents coming from other areas of the city.  To further their general advocacy goals for the redevelopment, SLO E has networked and participated in discussion sessions with representatives from the nearby Sandy Hill Community Health

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Centre and various social housing professionals, and has drawn inspiration from successful models of mixed-income housing in Ottawa. They remain aware of the waiting list of ten thousand households for social housing in Ottawa, with an average wait of five years for subsidized housing (ONP H A 2016). In early 2015, SL OE and Sandy Hill Community Health Centre initiated a more specific effort to inspire interested older adults in the area to advocate for the following: an innovative participatory process to develop high quality of life options to age in the community via housing design, amenities, social conditions, and service models; an environment that would foster mutual support and thus reduce dependence on more institutional approaches; and, a commitment to reduce economic barriers to residency to ensure that some proportion of housing would be affordable. With substantial participation from a growing number of individuals interested in supporting and/or living within housing geared towards older adults, the group began actively planning the establishment of a co-housing community for approximately forty households of older residents, to be located, preferably, on the Greystone Village redevelopment site. SLO E acted as a catalyst for this initiative, with the aim of transferring greater responsibility to potential co-housing residents over time. Funded by the Community Foundation of Ottawa, S L O E facilitated several meetings to attract and inform potential residents and create opportunities for discussion among them. It also initiated the development of two community workshops on the themes of design and financing opportunities for the co-housing community. Throughout this process, SL OE also advocated for the accommodation of a proportion of affordable housing units for older adults – a goal of the co-housing community that could be met through a combination of external funding (from government or other sources), subsidization through higher fees paid by other residents, and neighborhood-scale financing mechanisms such as community bonds. As of January 2016, potential residents of this co-housing community have taken on an increasingly significant proportion of the responsibilities associated with the initiative and have named it Innovative Housing for Older Adults in Old Ottawa East (IH OA ). I H OA seeks to foster what the group terms a “community of care” through the exchange of supportive services between residents (such as helping each other with daily tasks

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and caregiving when required). These residents would also benefit from other potential health, supportive, and recreational services that have been proposed by some community stakeholders for Greystone Village. At the time of writing, these possible services remain speculative. In general, S L O E promotes a vision of community sustainability that draws on issues of social and environmental justice, while remaining cognizant of the economic realities within which the developer operates. Several years prior to the actual sale of the Oblate lands, S L O E members contributed to O E C A work to influence the O O E (Old Ottawa East) Community Design Plan, which provides “a broad and integrated 20-year vision and guidance for the growth of Old Ottawa East” (City of Ottawa 2011a) and the O O E Secondary Plan (City of Ottawa 2011b), which links its planning to the City of Ottawa Official Plan. As the sale of the Oblate property became increasingly likely, S L O E also engaged with other neighbourhood residents and enlisted their support for its sustainability advocacy efforts, most often through community engagement and workshop events designed to disseminate ideas and solicit feedback on favored approaches. Through its many community outreach events, S L O E (and the I H O A initiative), has undertaken varied methods of fostering discussion among neighbourhood residents in order to strengthen a diverse community voice – a key aspect of community sustainability in Old Ottawa East (albeit a voice originating from those residents most likely to attend community meetings). The group has also made strategic use of the professional and social networks in which it operates to gain access to targeted and highly relevant research, to forge and expand relationships with local professionals with expertise in social and affordable housing, and to engage more closely with the developer. It has met with representatives from the provincial and municipal governments, and, as the IHOA initiative advances, the IH O A group (with guidance from SLOE ) intends to pursue further conversations with them about long-term provincial support for seniors’ health and wellness services, community-based financing mechanisms like bonds, and changes to municipal by-laws (for example, by modifying parking space requirements) to reduce the cost of affordable housing development. To date, S L O E has received encouragement from the government, but no concrete funding support. Overall, S L O E

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has proven exemplary in recognizing expertise as one of its most valuable resources, drawing on the unique research and networking skills of its core members to further its strategic ends. The group is also remarkable for its resiliency and determination. The applied research capacity offered through CF ICE augmented SLO E’s efforts. Maintaining the most direct interaction with S L O E and acting as primary points of contact, two lead doctoral research assistants, Martin (during the first year of engagement with S L O E ) and Goemans (during subsequent years) aided the group in myriad ways (for example, by developing and refining the Deep Green approach and conceptualizing affordability). First, we (Martin and Goemans) helped to expand SL OE ’s research capacity by linking SLO E to other successful models of social sustainability and by participating in discussions about core concepts associated with seniors and affordable housing. Second, we strengthened the group’s organizational capacity by providing ongoing logistical support, assisting in the day-to-day functioning of the group, distilling and summarizing the central objectives of S L O E ’s various initiatives, and assembling and distributing associated communications products. Third, we provided planning support for community outreach, engagement activities, and larger community-based knowledge mobilization events. In so doing, we assisted S L O E /IH O A to communicate expertise in socially sustainable development to the developer and to other residents, further establishing the credibility of the group. A significant output of community-campus engagement was an event that SL OE dubbed its Experts Forum, in which affordable and seniors housing were prominent themes. The group organized this event at Carleton University to present and discuss opportunities for the integration of S L O E ’s sustainability objectives corresponding to its four Deep Green themes at the Oblate site. The forum was well attended (even the developer was present) and spurred broad discussion of the possible applications of community-led research toward sustainable redevelopment efforts. As SLOE ’s first C FI C E research assistant, Martin, in conjunction with a community developer from Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, influenced and extended discussions relating to S L O E ’s more general sustainability advocacy for the Oblate site about the potential for gentrification and the displacement of lower-income residents (a significant risk in any urban redevelopment project). The concerns they raised were well received by S L O E members, and

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helped to make affordable housing a prominent theme within the group’s sustainability efforts. More recently, as part of the I H O A initiative, Goemans assisted I H O A members in articulating a vision for its co-housing community that aligns with its particular social goals, by helping to facilitate a visioning exercise to expand on several foundational goals which include environmental sustainability, community diversity, and accessibility, in addition to I H O A ’s already-established affordability goal. In general, within all of its advocacy efforts relating to affordable housing, S L O E /I H O A adopts the City of Ottawa Official Plan’s definition of affordability: “Housing, either rental or ownership, for which a low- or moderate-income household pays no more than 30% of its annual income” (City of Ottawa 2003). Over several years of the C FI C E project, S L O E has also worked with other Carleton student researchers from various academic disciplines to assemble site-specific research related to possible options for the sustainable redevelopment of the Oblate property. In addition to other C FI C E research that addresses such issues as a district energy system and low-impact development stormwater management options for the site, Carleton students have provided ongoing research assistance to support advocacy for seniors and affordable housing within Greystone Village. For instance, they have gathered research on successful models of community-­ supported social finance instruments, and compiled demographic statistics and needs assessments in regard to the existing seniors population in Old Ottawa East. In general, the developer has favourably received S L O E ’s efforts and mode of engagement. In fact, as part of a sophisticated communication and outreach strategy, The Regional Group produced an expanded brochure describing the main goals and form of the proposed development; in this document they described the development of the property as “a collaborative process” between community groups, the developer, and the city (The Regional Group 2015).4 Moreover, the developer frequently incorporated the language employed in SL OE ’s “Options and Approaches for ‘Deep Green’ Development” report, referring to S L O E ’s research efforts as “a sustainability roadmap” that “guide[s] the master planning” of the site. In addition, the developer has undertaken several concrete actions to support social sustainability as part of the redevelopment

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of the Greystone Village site: incorporating diverse tenure types (such as townhomes with separate rental unit options) that reduce housing costs for some residents; contributing substantial financial support for exploring options for affordable housing within Greystone Village (including actively negotiating with a local, private, non-profit housing organization to establish mixed-income rental housing on the site); and engaging with members of the IHO A initiative to discuss opportunities to support the establishment of a seniors co-housing community within the development. In pursuing these actions, the developer has acknowledged the connection of the site to the values voiced by some members of the wider neighbourhood.

E n g a g i n g w i t h t h e C ommunity Partner t h r o u g h a C o m m u n i ty Firs t Approach I d e n t i f yi n g C a u t i o n s a n d Oppor t u n i t i e s A s s o c i a t e d w i t h sloe ’s St r a t e g y From the outset, our approach to engaging with our community partner has been normative, value-driven, and action-oriented. We have worked with community partners who share our core values and our desire to effect change that foregrounds both ecological sustainability and social justice concerns. We have helped to manifest these, bringing community partners’ goals to fruition by providing neither dispassionate nor objective advice, but, instead, by being fully embedded in the phenomena we sought to support and investigate. Our community first approach has enabled our community partners to identify research questions and parameters, and we have modestly challenged their proposed priorities and methodologies to help support the advancement of their stated goals. As a result, the group members have largely determined how to define and accommodate affordability, whom to include in this effort, and how to engage with the developer. Throughout the process, we have been acutely aware of and sympathetic to the complex challenge of securing sustainability gains for the site; we have engaged cordially with the developer rather than (perhaps more strongly) asserting diversity and inclusion goals with the city or province. Several outcomes may yet emerge from these efforts. Optimistically, the group may secure more on-site

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affordable housing than would have otherwise been provided, and help to instigate an innovative older adult co-housing complex. Pessimistically, the group’s efforts may be co-opted by the developer, precluding more stringent opposition and inadvertently contributing to gentrification in the redevelopment. Regardless, we believe that SLO E and the OE C A have directly influenced the design of the redevelopment for the better. The design and implementation of community first projects consciously reposition academics to provide support for community partners. We have attempted to mitigate traditional power imbalances between academics and community partners by elevating the knowledge(s) derived from the lived experiences of those most directly involved, but, as a result, our day-to-day research work in support of community partners has not necessarily been critical of their efforts. The possibilities listed above demonstrate the subtle ways in which a community first approach differs from an explicitly critical praxis-oriented approach to research. This chapter reflects on our engagement, including our shortcomings, with a goal of examining how future C C E s might be enhanced. In exploring the points below, we aim to act as “critical friends” (Evans, 2015; see below) to our community partners.5 Academic engagement ideally helps to foreground discussions of affordability, diversity, and inclusion. As critical social scientists, and particularly as critical geographers, we understand social inclusion through such core concepts as the “right to the city” (Lefebvre 1968; Harvey 2008), which in this context applies to one of the last undeveloped, large green spaces in urban Ottawa, and “spatial justice,” which, for example, makes visible the injustice inherent in the physical displacement of low-income populations through processes of gentrification, and seeks to mitigate these processes in redevelopment projects (Harvey 2008; Smith 1996; Soja 2010). We also draw from scholars who elucidate the social justice imperative, such as Dale and Newman (2009, 679), who assert that “Sustainable development, if it is actually to be sustainable, should not be for some, but for all.” Along this line of thinking, The Regional Group’s green measures would ideally incorporate the “soft structure of sustainability” (Dale and Sparkes 2010); in other words, sustainable housing design must accommodate people from all walks of life and plan for the complex networks of social capital resulting from the full utilization of all the qualities, skills, and abilities of a community

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(including reciprocity, social supports, volunteerism, ecologically sound values and behaviours, and so on). Social, and not solely environmental and economic concerns, must be addressed and emphasized for sustainable housing efforts to produce a viable, durable, or equitable outcome. Academic engagement also provides greater opportunities for critical analyses that challenge perceptions. By diversifying the voices involved in discussions of what constitutes social sustainability beyond the mainstream, it expands the range of perspectives and knowledge(s) considered. Scholars suggest that a researcher take the position of critical friend to community interests within praxis, with the goal of “subject[ing] community practice to deliberate and continuing critique in order to illuminate relations of power and shape action to better achieve mutually agreed social justice objectives” (Evans 2015, 356; see also Johansson and Lindhult 2008). Evans (2015, 356) further proposes that this type of engagement should involve “examining and critiquing shared assumptions,” “gently challenging disempowering discourses” (363), and “suggest[ing] alternative strategies and futures for social change” (356). SLOE’s approach and strategies have differed from typical citizenbased responses to infill development because the group ostensibly accepted the project’s inevitability from the outset. In keeping with this perspective, it has engaged with the developer in a constructive manner, rather than automatically opposing private interests and taking a Not in My Backyard (NIMBY) approach. SLOE has adopted more of a Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) position, while seeking to influence the terms of reference and eventual outcomes of the project by establishing a strong and productive voice in the development process. Although this approach has enabled significant accomplishments to date, we reflect below on how these efforts might be further enhanced, beginning with various points of caution.

A C r i t i c a l E valuation o f a C o m m u n i t y Engagement Perhaps the most obvious risk faced by groups in civil society who  seek to work closely with private sector developers is that of ­co-optation. SL OE has proactively and strategically engaged the developer within the context of neoliberal governance – thus, on

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their own discursive terrain, pitching a “business case” for various Deep Green development innovations within a framework that often draws on carefully considered cost-benefit analyses. Moreover, SLO E members have actively communicated sustainability goals to developers in terms of “win-win” opportunities to increase market values, generate public-private partnerships, and stimulate community investment. Its push for green measures may have unintentionally enhanced the green branding marketed by the developer, which may ultimately contribute to higher property values and housing costs in Greystone Village. This could potentially exacerbate processes of gentrification already underway in Old Ottawa East that make it harder for persons with lower incomes to stay in the neighbourhood. However, it is important to note that S L O E ’s efforts in regard to Greystone Village have not been motivated by financial benefit for the group or the wider neighborhood. Rather, group members have excitedly pursued opportunities to foster greater inclusivity and social justice, with a primary goal of generating social (not economic) benefits for the broader community. Thus, in the seemingly paradoxical (and perhaps inevitable) manner undertaken by so many progressive citizen groups, S L O E has worked strategically within a neoliberal governance frame while simultaneously chafing against it. This tactic has enabled S L O E to bypass the antagonism that typically accompanies neighborhood activism related to development projects. If we are to adequately apply the lenses of equity and inclusion to our analysis of the efforts of this citizen group, we must flag the somewhat limited range of voices represented in discussions of social sustainability that have been initiated by S L O E . This critique applies to both the general advocacy for the site as a whole, as well as to the more concentrated efforts to support IH O A’s goals for a co-housing community. Discussions surrounding S L O E ’s advocacy for dedicated affordable and seniors housing on the Greystone Village site have largely taken place among existing (comparatively higher-income) residents, though the group has made notable efforts to advertise community discussion events to a wider demographic of Old Ottawa East residents (such as residents living in lower-priced rental units, church communities, and so on). As it is the citizen group that has set (well-intentioned) boundaries around the concepts of affordability, diversity, and inclusion, as well as sustainability in general, it could be argued that they have thereby

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maintained control over community discourses and actions related to defining appropriate development. Other interpretations of what an inclusive and diverse housing community looks like may exist among those residents who will ultimately occupy affordable housing units, and who have largely, to date, not been part of this discussion. The complexity of defining an inclusive and diverse community is echoed in the literature on community sustainability: social equity and inclusivity are very difficult to achieve despite the best efforts of activists (see Dale and Newman 2009; Klodawsky and Andrew 1999). SLO E’s efforts highlight the potential for very different outcomes corresponding to differing scales of initiatives (for example, advocating for social diversity within the larger Greystone Village site versus within a more intimate cohousing community).6 As each effort progresses (and as definite outcomes are far from being determined at the time of writing this chapter), it may come to pass that the less intimate/personal the scale, the more willing residents may be to provide concrete support to social diversity and inclusion efforts. With regard to the I HOA initiative, S L O E retains somewhat limited influence over its key social goals: S L O E provided initial guidance to spur the growth of the IH O A group, aiming to cede control of the initiative to potential cohousing community residents. Thus, the residents who will actually live within this housing community will ultimately have control over whether meaningful affordability measures are implemented through their provision (as co-owners of the housing community) of financial and other support for the creation of affordable units, and by determining how residents who will occupy these units will be chosen.7 As the IH O A group takes on a life of its own, it will not be possible to assess the effectiveness of social sustainability goals set by non-residents (however well-meaning) until concrete measures to support affordability are more firmly set in place by co-housing residents. At the time of writing, I HOA members had just begun a process of articulating what accommodating affordability within their housing community might mean to them. In light of the theme of this collected volume, we would encourage a deeper probing of concepts related to affordability, diversity, and inclusion among group members – since perceptions of what constitutes affordability in this particular context vary greatly. At the same time, it is also important to consider how completely diversity and inclusion goals should be expected to be

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realized by this group – especially among aging seniors who may themselves become increasingly vulnerable and require assistance at later stages of life. Opportunity costs should also be considered critically. Have the resources employed by SL OE been proportional to potential impacts on social diversity and inclusion? Would it have been more effective to use resources to advocate for other uses of the site (such as a dedicated green space or a more extensive mixed-income community)? A different approach might have been to encourage the state to purchase the land for urban green space (an outcome implicitly assumed impossible), or for the community to come together to purchase the land for a similar end (though with a scant history of such collective action in Canada, and given the significant economic value of the property, this outcome was improbable at best). Members might have advocated more generally to the city for measures within Ottawa to promote increased social diversity and inclusion across the wider urban area. Or they might have actively resisted neoliberal structures of development, rather than working constructively with the developer. Which strategy might ultimately result in the most significant impact on redistribution is difficult to determine. It is, however, important to note that S L O E was formed around concerns about sustainability issues within the specific context of its own neighbourhood, and works to achieve site-specific, tangible progress that may well result in concrete and realized material outcomes in this particular space. Having explored various challenges associated with S L O E ’s efforts, we would be remiss in not highlighting positive and promising aspects of the group’s engagement and tactics. In addition to offering a critical gaze, as researchers, we strongly contend that we have a responsibility to “water the seed” of S L O E ’s positive intentions. If committed to a fair and complete assessment, even critical researchers must highlight and celebrate positive outcomes, no matter how modest. While challenging perceptions may help to further the group’s efforts, a nuanced perspective is required, as a disproportionate focus on critique may inhibit the power and potential of this group to make even discrete but positive social changes within the proposed development. Thus, we now laud and communicate some of SL OE ’s successes – in keeping with our objective to find grains of hope in this process and help them to flourish.

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Without doubt, actors seeking to advance a hybrid of public and private interests do so within complex and contradictory neoliberal environments (Siltanen et al. 2015). In the context of Greystone Village, and with a developer (The Regional Group) that does not necessarily fit the stereotypical mould,8 S L O E has employed a tactic that contrasts with the strategies commonly used by resident groups mobilizing in resistance to private interests. This alternative approach may enable the citizen group to alter (albeit modestly) the usual course of development, leading to the meaningful inclusion, to some degree, of marginalized residents. Most significantly, through extensive research on ecologically and socially just options for Greystone Village, S L O E has effectively employed a process of alternative knowledge production in furthering its sustainability advocacy for the redevelopment site – what Leitner et al. (2007) suggest constitutes one effective method of disrupting typical neoliberal subjectivities. Specifically, long before C FIC E was involved or provided support, it accumulated and disseminated substantial knowledge supporting ideas for change ranging from mainstream actions to comparatively radical alternatives. In fact, SL OE draws on knowledge from a wide array of actors, including academics and perceived experts as well as residents with lived experience who have shared their stories with the group. SLO E also works to disrupt typical urban redevelopment patterns by fostering the conditions for “alternative livelihood practices” (Leitner et al. 2007) within the Greystone Village site, for example through the potential seniors’ co-housing community and residents’ proposed community of care. Through this framework, the IHO A group seeks to establish an intentional sharing community in which residents engage each other to exchange supportive services and foster a common experience of aging. While it could be argued that this approach employs aspects of a contemporary sharing economy that might align, in part, with neoliberal objectives of downloading responsibility to citizen groups, it is important to remember that this strategy also offers opportunities to empower residents, as they take action and consciously contribute to fostering greater spatial justice within the immediate context of their own homes and neighbourhood. From a gendered perspective, the IH O A initiative also has the potential to empower older adult female members, some of whom have voiced concerns about their spouses getting

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older and the need for additional help as they take care of declining male partners. 9 Both SL OE and I H OA actors are passionate about effecting change in a specific, localized context. In this regard, even small actions to disrupt mainstream patterns of development may, over time, have cumulative effects. As new possibilities are realized in the Oblate redevelopment, other citizen groups operating within similar development contexts may model the groups’ successful tactics. As Leitner et al. (2007, 323) posit: “A binary separation of systemic from particularistic challenges is unproductive, and does little to the complexities of contestations of neoliberalism in, beyond, and across cities.” We further argue that local contexts provide opportunities to build awareness and support among residents (Leitner et al. 2007, 323).

L i m itat i o n s a n d P o s s i b ilities Associated w i t h C r i t i c a l , P r axis- Oriented R e s e a rc h w i t h i n t he Context o f C o m m u n i t y - C a m p us Engagement For several years, C FI C E researchers have been closely involved in SLO E’s efforts, and have enjoyed a privileged vantage point from which to reflect on the group’s successes and challenges. This continued process of engagement has inspired us to really think about what we can bring to and learn from each other, as academics working with community partners in direct and intimate CCE s. We have witnessed a great deal that is to be commended in the efforts of this citizen group. SL OE ’s work is fuelled by genuine and altruistic intentions to help promote sustainability, diversity, and inclusion in the community – goals that are nevertheless tempered by the wisdom to work towards what is possible within the confines of late Western state capitalist real estate practices. Having devoted the previous section of this chapter to a critical analysis of S L O E ’s advocacy efforts, this section describes and critiques our own experiences of this community-campus engagement, as academics, in the hopes of uncovering insights that may enhance our future CCE initiatives with other partners. In contrast to other chapters in this collection, which document research with more vulnerable groups, we engaged with those who have considerable power and influence, including members of

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SLO E, the I H OA initiative, and the developer – a unique constellation of well-organized, professional, and politically savvy actors from within civil society, the public, and private sectors. As just one example of their strategic insight, in engaging with private development interests, members of the I H OA group acutely understood their power as part of a significant demographic shift of (aging) housing consumers, and the marketability of their proposed initiative. Reflecting on our engagement, a few challenges come immediately to mind. First, due to time constraints on the part of the faculty supervisor, the two research assistants (Martin and Goemans) assumed much of the direct, ongoing engagement with S L O E , while Ballamingie served as the primary point of contact with the broader C FIC E project. It proved difficult throughout the process to meaningfully connect the on-the-ground struggles to influence the redevelopment with the C C E research underway, much less with other sub-projects within the Community Environmental Sustainability Hub. Moreover, the research assistants would no doubt have benefited from closer support from and access to their faculty supervisor (from more frequent check-ins to critical reflections on the intervention and their optimal roles therein). Another factor to consider in C C E is the personality of the faculty and assistant researchers – whether these actors are extroverted and assertive or introverted and reserved. The influence of the ages and genders of the academic partners is also unclear. Further, the research assistants were inserted into the milieu without a clear mandate or “job description” and were required to create their roles as they became familiar with the project. These dynamics significantly affect power relations, how academic knowledge influences community partners’ understanding of social justice concepts, and how advocacy efforts are designed and implemented. This realization led us to ask ourselves: What responsibilities do researchers have in exposing community partners to critical scholarship and academic insights? The truth is, it can be difficult to act as a critical friend, to challenge another’s process, even when the ultimate aim of the researcher is to further the social or environmental goals of the community partners. In these cases, what does it mean to put community first? What responsibilities do researchers have to propose academic knowledge and methods to help move the community partners’ objectives forward in a positive and meaningful way? We were not always able to initiate such fierce conversations, partly

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due to time and funding constraints, but also because we were concerned that it may not be our place to do so. Thus, serving as critical friend can be tremendously challenging. To date, C FI C E research assistants have sought, in modest ways, to  make discussions of what sustainability and affordability mean to  group members central in the process, to contest mainstream assumptions surrounding affordability and social sustainability, and finally, to assist group members in exploring concepts of diversity and inclusion. Ideally, we would have also encouraged space within the group for members to expose and communicate their potentially differing values, and challenged members to more extensively consider whether their chosen methods of engagement with community members are truly inclusive. Have they attempted to access the views of all members of the community? How might they broaden the range of voices heard? This type of constructive yet critical engagement can only grow out of relationships based on mutual trust and respect (which take time to develop!). It involves a commitment to being open to and testing ideas, to considering underlying power structures, identifying potential inconsistencies, and sympathetically exploring areas where the actions of community partners may not fully align with social justice values and goals. Of course, achieving this can be difficult in day-to-day interactions, but it remains an aspirational goal – one that might even be realized in part by this chapter. A critical praxis-oriented research process offers opportunities for the researcher to expose citizen groups to scholarly concepts (and their accompanying disciplinary jargon) related to diversity and inclusion, as well as responses to/engagement with neoliberal modes of governance. However, we must also remain attentive to the impact(s) of our discourse. Both research assistants were engaged in intense graduate-level academic research and writing on community sustainability while working with S L O E . In other words, Martin and Goemans were switching back and forth between academic and non-academic worlds. How might a slippage between the particular vocabularies employed in these contexts influence power relationships between community partners and research assistants? Differing languages (such as those of policymaking and academia) may, consciously or unconsciously, intimidate or preclude understanding. They could also create boundaries around groups or ways of knowing to the exclusion of others. How might

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these manifest within these relationships – in both directions (i.e. working with the powerful)? Participation in this collection raised several questions for us. Notably, we wondered what responsibilities and cautions we should be attentive to in mobilizing knowledge that involves our community partners. Regarding ethical considerations, what could or should be revealed about the inner workings and day-to-day realities of the partner group, and how might we mitigate risks to individuals in this process? How might this critical reflection best be accomplished within the context of an open, trusting, and respectful relationship with group members? If knowledge mobilization involves a critical analysis of the group’s efforts, how can researchers balance their unique positionality (as both insider and outsider) to provide a fair and accurate critique? We recognize that our presence inevitably influences what is said (or not said) in a community context, and that our positionality affects how we relay the stories of our community partners. Moreover, both of these processes may, in turn, alter future relations with the very same community partners.

C o n c l u sion This chapter documents the efforts of a citizen group, S L O E , with applied research support from the CF ICE project at Carleton University, to encourage the redevelopment of an urban green space/heritage site in Ottawa towards the groups’ Deep Green vision. While issues of social diversity and inclusion constitute fundamental aspects of SL OE ’s interpretation of community sustainability, its approach to infill development differs from typical citizen responses in that it: (1) accepted the inevitability of development; (2) aimed to engage constructively with the developer, rather than automatically opposing private interests; and, (3) demonstrated a willingness to work within a frame of neoliberal governance. These tactics, aided by the group’s cordial relationship with a somewhat sympathetic developer, ultimately enabled S L O E to have a stronger voice in the development process. Throughout this process, SL OE has been “friendly” and modest in its contestation of a typical residential development process in Ottawa, and its efforts have been mobilized within a localized context in accordance with terms set out by the developer. The group engages constructively – often acknowledging the needs of the

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developer (for example, to generate profit and to attract other investors). As researchers who have witnessed S L O E ’s continued efforts, we contend that this approach likely secured gains in this specific unfolding development context – whether they are modest or significant remains to be seen – that would not otherwise have been achieved.10 However, the group’s alternative tactic may have also potentially dampened any concerted community opposition, thereby aiding both the developer and municipal officials, who have a lot to lose if the proposal is challenged at the Ontario Municipal Board – a time-consuming and expensive proposition. We would be remiss not to consider the lost opportunity of what this property might have become had it been protected solely as an urban green space. The site had essentially been privately owned community space for nearly a century. The Oblate lands had historically been used as a dog park, a practice area for high school and community sports teams, a picnic space with gardens and shade from large old trees, and as a quiet spot by the river. Of course, redevelopment (versus outright protection) enables various progressive urban concepts to come into being (such as a district energy grid, a seniors’ co-housing unit, and so forth). Moreover, the community, including OE C A , SL OE , and others, and the developers have ensured that the plan includes amenities, green space, public parks, a 30-meter shoreline buffer (and the naturalization of those lands), and the protection of some existing trees. We are eager for these sustainability features, along with affordable and seniors housing, to materialize to justify the losses. Ultimately, our hope in being a part of this community-campus partnership is that others seeking to influence developers for prosocial and pro-environmental ends in urban redevelopment projects might derive tactical insights from our struggles. Redevelopment and its corresponding gentrification may be inevitable, but the conscious inclusion of diversity and attention to social justice in planning and redevelopment can, at least, mitigate inadvertent outcomes and produce more compassionate and inclusive cities. Ultimately, citizen groups such as SL OE may well influence municipal efforts to advance deliberative urban planning processes in Ottawa. As an example of tangible improvement on this front, in August 2014, the city ran a one-year pilot project that admitted community representatives to early (closed door) meetings between city planners

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and developers (see Mills 2014). Whether this is sufficient change remains to be seen, but it is most certainly progress. This latest insight begs the question: Whose responsibility is it to ensure principles of equity and inclusion are realized? Several parties might be held to account: municipal officials, planners, developers, academics, environmental and social justice advocates, local citizens, and residents. In the case of S L O E and the IH O A initiative, how much could these groups reasonably be expected to achieve? It is asking a great deal of a volunteer citizen group and an associated initiative of aging adults to require full equitability and inclusivity in all they do – especially when resources are limited and powerful private interests are involved in the achievement of discrete but tangible gains. From our privileged vantage point, we can attest that SLO E moves social and environmental sustainability efforts forward with steady persistence. They constitute a force to be reckoned with – a chorus of respected voices that will be heard. In writing this chapter we aspire to bring scholarly insights into conversation with on-the-ground, citizen-based efforts, to show how academic engagement might compel even further reflection among the development’s champions.

notes

  1 An adjacent, smaller parcel of land (just over one hectare), purchased in 2013 by Domicile Developments Inc. from the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, is relevant to mention, but falls beyond the scope of our inquiry in this chapter.   2 Although some owners of faith-based properties place restrictions on the terms of sale or subsequent use, in the case of the Oblate lands, none were imposed.   3 For more details, see: http://greystonevillage.ca.   4 Interestingly, as of 26 October 2015, this characterization of the property development seems to have disappeared from The Regional Group’s website.   5 Of course, conceptualizing academics solely in service to community actors has downsides: engagement is often auto-catalytic, and workload can be difficult to manage; publishing critical perspectives can undermine community efforts; tensions between actors may be

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theoretically interesting to explore, but can also exacerbate divisions within the community; etc.   6 In doing our due diligence to vet this paper by our key community partner, our primary contact offered several critical reflections in response. Though we were not able to include them, ideally, in future writing projects, we would strive to create an iterative dialogue with our community partners.   7 For example, some group members have expressed resistance to drawing on government funding due to its requirement that tenants for affordable units be selected from among those who are first on the city’s waiting list for social housing. There is some concern that residents may be required to live in this intimate housing context with others who do not necessarily share their co-housing values related to social interactions and the exchange of services.   8 There is some evidence that the developer’s motives may not be solely profit driven. The Regional Group has committed substantial funds to exploring how affordability may be accommodated on the site, and its vice-president of land development has long occupied a position on the board of non-profit housing provider C C OC .   9 A large proportion of active members of the IHOA group are female. 10 While our observation that incremental change will result in positive outcomes may seem like a leap of faith, Regional did not alter the Community Design or Secondary plans in any way – highly unusual – and they also committed to investigate various community suggestions (including some form of social and/or seniors’ housing on the site). references

City of Ottawa. 2011a. “Old Ottawa East Community Design Plan.” Infrastructure Services and Community Sustainability Planning and Growth Management Department. Policy Development and Urban Design. Ottawa: City of Ottawa. Last modified August 2011. http:// ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/planning-and-development/community-plansand-design-guidelines/community-plans-and-studi-3. – 2011b. “Old Ottawa East Secondary Plan.” Last modified 23 September 2011. http://ottawa.ca/en/official-plan-0/volume-2a-secondary-plans/ old-ottawa-east-secondary-plan. Dale, Ann, and Lenore L. Newman. 2009. “Sustainable Development for Some: Green Urban Development and Affordability.” Local Environment 14 (7): 669–81.

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Dale, Ann, and J. Sparkes. 2011. “The ‘Agency’ of Sustainable Community Development.” Community Development Journal 46 (4): 476–92. E Q Homes and The Regional Group. 2015. “Aerial View of Development, Looking North from the Rideau River.” Accessed 11 August 2015. http://oblatesredevelopment.com/. Evans, Scotney D. 2015. “The Community Psychologist as Critical Friend: Promoting Critical Community Praxis.” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 25: 355–68. Harvey, David. 2008. “The Right to the City.” New Left Review 53 (September/October): 23–40. Johansson, Anders W., and Erik Lindhult. 2008. “Emancipation or Workability? Critical Versus Pragmatic Scientific Orientation in Action Research.” Action Research 6 (1): 95–115. Klodawsky, Fran, and Caroline Andrew. 1999. “Acting Locally: What Is the Progressive Potential?” Studies in Political Economy 59 (Summer): 149–71. Lefebvre, Henri. 1968. Le Droit à la ville. Paris: Anthropos. Leitner, Helga, Jamie Peck, and Eric S. Sheppard. 2007. “Squaring Up to Neoliberalism.” In Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers, edited by Helga Leitner, Jamie Peck, and Eric S. Sheppard, 311–27. New York: Guilford Press. Mills, Carys. 2014. “Community Reps to be Let into Capital Ward PreDevelopment Meetings.” Ottawa Citizen, 23 June. http://ottawacitizen. com/news/local-news/community-reps-to-be-let-into-capital-ward-predevelopment-meetings. Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association (ONPHA ). 2016. “2015 Waiting Lists Survey.” Accessed 22 March 2016. https://www.onpha.on.ca/ onpha/Content/PolicyAndResearch/Waiting_Lists_2015/Full_Report. aspx. The Regional Group. 2015. “Greystone Village: Oblates Redevelopment.” Last accessed 21 March 2016. http://regionalgroup.com/our-­ developments/greystone-village-oblates-redevelopment. Siltanen, Janet, Fran Klodawsky, and Caroline Andrew. 2015. “‘This Is How I Want to Live My Life’: An Experiment in Prefigurative Feminist Organizing for a More Equitable and Inclusive City.” Antipode 47 (1): 260–70. Smith, Neil. 1996. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London: Routledge. Soja, Edward W. 2010. Seeking Spatial Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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Sustainable Living Ottawa East (S LO E). 2014. “Options and Approaches for ‘Deep Green’ Development of the Oblate Lands in Old Ottawa East.” Interim Research Report. Ottawa: SLOE. Last modified 20 March 2014. http://sustainablelivingottawaeast.ca/wp-content/uploads/ 2014/03/SLOE-Interim-Report-final-March-20-2014.pdf.

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section two

Reconceptualizing Research Relations

In the large and growing field of community-based research, most writing emphasizes its positive aspects, particularly that such approaches successfully reduce power imbalances between researchers and community members and result in facilitating the inclusion of a wider range of knowledge and experiences. However, some scholars have challenged these assumptions from a variety of perspectives. Stoecker’s (2009) examination of over 200 applications to a fund for community-based research concluded: Most proposed research emphasized neither participation nor action. Grassroots community members, or organizations controlled by them, were rarely involved at the crucial decision stages of research, and instead limited to participation in collecting data. In addition, most research was proposed to produce papers, presentations or websites, rather than directly support action. (385) Janes (2016), drawing upon a postcolonial critique, extends Stoecker’s concerns by suggesting that in general, communitybased research remains “under theorized, particularly as to how power circulates between and among academic and community knowledge/work/ers” (72). Their critiques, among others (for example, Smith 2009), raise important questions for our understanding of the relation of critical praxis-oriented research to both participation and action. If we follow Stoecker’s lead for examining the level of community engagement by gauging involvement of the various parties at each

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of five stages of research – defining the question, developing the research method, gathering the data, analyzing the data, and reporting or acting on the research results – what would be and what should be the discernable differences between critical praxisoriented research and other community-based approaches? While there are no straightforward answers to these questions, we suggest that there are three distinctions that are readily illustrated in this section and in the volume more generally. The first has to do with the role of theory in helping both to conceptualize the problem and to strategize on how best to avoid cooptation. The second is about an intentionality in practice that is linked with an ethos of engagement and respect in a broad cultural sense, as much as with narrower and more pragmatic measures of involvement. The third is focused on outcomes – there is an interest in ensuring that efforts should be directed at addressing identifiable social justice concerns. At the same time, there is acknowledgement that while the goals of any one project might be modest, they should be situated both conceptually and pragmatically in larger efforts to move towards reduced inequality and greater inclusion. For these distinctions to be fully actualized, a key element likely will be the quality of interactions and relations between those conventionally conceived of as “researchers” and those regarded as “researched.” Without a measure of trust between the various ­constituencies, the probability of success is greatly reduced. And, as Janes (2016) powerfully portrays, many factors exist outside the control of individual participants and groups that too readily result in undermining the best of intentions. Three chapters in this volume – those written by Karabanow and Stewart, Miewald and her co-contributors, and Paradis – highlight the challenges and on-going struggles involved in taking researcherresearched relations into account in a critical, substantive and ­on-going manner. And interestingly, they also illustrate the unexpected, albeit often “micro” rewards of doing so. In the discussion that follows, each of the three chapters is briefly introduced in relation to the particulars of efforts to reconfigure researcherresearched relations. In all three cases, the research projects discussed are those initiated by academic researchers and as a result they fall short of a fully community-based research ideal in which community members approach researchers about a problem

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requiring research. Yet, in other ways there is evidence of ongoing efforts to challenge researcher/researched conventions. Karabanow and Stewart critically reflect on social work professor Karabanow’s engagement with a small group of homeless youth to create films about the youths’ experiences of living on the streets and the significance of the first author’s expertise in a situation where the building of trust and the perceived reduction in power differentials is central. The authors recall the manner in which Karabanow’s history of a somewhat similar project in Guatemala contributed to a store of tacit knowledge that, on the one hand, provided a more sophisticated level of expertise about how to establish an inclusive environment, and on the other helped ensure that the process was informed by an anti-oppression analysis that helped shape the film to focus on systemic forces and not on personal failures. They also reflect on how the actual act of filming, decisions about particular shots, and creation of story lines equalized the power dynamics between the street youth and the professor. Learners became teachers and teachers became learners, with the final outcome – two short films – being seen by all as produced primarily by the street youth. By understanding their own world in both its structural and personal dimensions, the youth became interested in relating to the larger society and ­building a tenuous but real sense of community. Miewald and her associates describe a project that is still in play, having to do with questions about the relationship between food security and harm reduction and whether boosting the former for People Living with H I V /A I DS might contribute to success in increasing a range of physical and mental health characteristics. The project was strongly shaped as a partnership between university-based academics and a community-based organization whose focus is “care and support for people living with H IV and coping with social disparities and concurrent health issues.” It was anticipated that the research might result in adding a food component to a harm reduction strategy for Vancouver and possibly for other cities. A key element of the approach used by the team was the integral involvement of two peer research associates who were identified as a result of a well-grounded process developed by the community partner. This process included clear stipulations about the application process, selection criteria, compensation, and

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expectations. The chapter contains an in-depth and reflexive assessment of the value of this aspect of their research thus far, including analysis of an interview on this subject between the primary academic researcher and the two peer researchers. For Paradis, the primary goal was to apply feminist perspectives on urban inequality, segregation, and polarization to the analysis of survey and focus group data about family homelessness and housing insecurity in Toronto. Community-based participatory methods were used to involve community members in both the research process and the dissemination strategy, with the goal of mobilizing knowledge for resistance. Paradis describes the Community Advisory Board (C A B ) as the project’s key mechanism of accountability to the community. Tenant representatives were recruited from grassroots groups so that both service providers and people with lived experience came from and were seen as being responsible to their organizational affiliates. Transit costs were covered and honoraria provided for each meeting and/or activity. The chapter describes both the extensive planning and thinking behind the C A B meetings and highlights the importance of this kind of careful planning to ensure both pleasurable events and results that build knowledge for resistance. The chapter’s final message is that community-based progressive social justice goals can be built into fairly traditional research projects and policy processes.

references

Janes, Julia E. 2016. “Democratic Encounters? Epistemic Privilege, Power, and Community-Based Participatory Action Research.” Action Research 14 (1): 72–87. Smith, Graham. 2009. Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation. Cambridge University Press. Stoecker, Randy. 2009. “Are We Talking the Walk of Community-Based Research?” Action Research 7 (4): 385–40.

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5 The Art of Community Reflections on Method, Creativity, and Expertise in Street Youth Social Work Jeff Karabanow and Ian G. Stewart

I n t r o d u c tion The field of social work, both as a theoretical discipline and as a set of field practices devoted to the care of individuals, families, and communities, wrestles constantly with what seems to be an almost unavoidable tension. On the one hand we work within societal structures and cultures, inevitably, in some sense, as part of the establishment (universities, government agencies, and so forth), serving as its representatives, or at least profoundly influenced by its culture, rules, and standards. On the other hand, in working with those particularly on the margins of society, for example street youth, we are conscious of, and often seek to address or even resist, aspects of the dominant culture that have, in some ways, led to that same marginalization. This tension is one facet of a more general discomfort familiar to social scientists engaged in critical contemporary analyses of the challenges of neoliberalism to social work institutions and education (Reisch 2013; Finn and Jacobson 2008), or of the literature concerning the implementation of anti-oppressive practices in research, teaching, and service delivery (Dominelli 2002, 2004; Yee and Wagner 2014; Strier and Binyamin 2014). For those working with persons and groups self-identifying as being in some sense on the outside of society, as in the case of homeless urban youth, the experience of this tension is quite personal and direct – how can one interact with those on the outside without reinforcing their

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alienation through helping or engagement (Karabanow 2004b)? Do researchers, theoreticians, and practitioners merely participate in and repeat intellectual and behavioural patterns and paradigms that intensify the distance between themselves and those in whose lives they intervene? Such reflections on the practice of social work can benefit from and contribute to the central theme of this volume: critical praxis-oriented research, particularly in contexts where the boundaries between research and intervention are blurred, as was the case with the community-based arts project discussed below. This chapter is a collaboration between specialists from two very  different fields: social work/community development (Jeff Karabanow) and history, philosophy, and sociology of science (Ian Stewart). It builds on Jeff’s many years of experience studying and working with street youth populations in urban centres in Canada and Guatemala, and the youth shelter organizations that serve them. But that same expertise comes under scrutiny in this chapter, as do the central notions of method, objectivity, and the relation of researcher to researched – concepts also at the heart of Ian’s field of science studies. Both of us share a commitment to exploring how post-positivist theoretical work common to our fields expresses itself in research practices in both the natural and social sciences, and what the implications of such practices can be for policy. Previously, we have collaborated fruitfully in analyzing organizational adaptations of street-youth shelters (Karabanow and Stewart 2015). Here, we report on a four-month filmmaking project with street youth in Halifax, Canada (see also Karabanow and Naylor 2015), led by Jeff in 2009, in which Ian was not involved. The project, which was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHR C ), was conceived as a knowledge mobilization initiative, exploring the use of artistic creation to inform decision makers, policy experts, service providers, and social work educators about the health risks and service needs of street youth. It was deeply instructive regarding the tension of social work introduced above, but something further happened during this project that was not officially foreseen by the knowledge mobilization goal, and that did not fit easily within the normal parameters established by research methodology: a complex sense of community – one that was vulnerable, tenuous, and fragile, as well as accepting, supportive, and safe – was formed around a common project of artistic creation. We

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offer up the following reflections on that experience as a contribution to broader discussions concerning the complicated and nuanced character of communities within urban social work contexts, and of the place of the researcher within these contexts. Our reflections are presented in three parts, each of which help to shape this volume’s guiding notion of critical praxis-oriented research. First, we comment on how this project constituted a fruitful departure from normal, empirical methodologies of social work research in terms of the quality of the films it produced as well as the insights we gained into how flexibility with method can open up opportunities for art projects of this kind. Second, we discuss two aspects of anti-oppressive practices that emerged as fundamental features of the micro-community formed in the process of making the films: a person-centred approach to societal disengagement, and a commitment to raising consciousness for possibilities for ­re-engagement. We then relate these to other experiences of antioppressive practices, particularly in alternative forms of social service delivery such as street youth shelter settings. Our interest in anti-oppressive practices is based on its alignment with the central commitments of critical praxis-oriented research due to a shared sensitivity to how problematic power relations can be expressed systemically, even in well-intentioned practices and methodologies. Third, we offer our reflections on the complex, explicit, and inexplicit ways that the academic and practical qualities of the profession of social work were inherent to the anti-oppressive aspects of  this arts-based project. The experience of the project actually enabled the aforementioned tension of social work to become creative, as a sense of the simultaneous presence and absence of social work expertise was in play as a form of tacit knowledge. Further, our reflections on the art of community offer an example of the central value of community itself, as a means, at least in the context of social work, of realizing the goals of critical praxis-oriented research.

T h e G uat e m a l a Background It is only fitting to honour what, for Jeff, are the origins of the artsbased approach to studying street youth culture. Back in 1996, he was commissioned by the Latin American Human Rights branch of the U N (M I NI GUA ) to bring a team of social work professionals with experience in Montreal’s youth shelter culture to Guatemala

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City to tackle issues of poverty and homelessness in that war-torn country. The experience was rich with lessons about the challenges of cross-cultural social work, particularly because the context of the project was such that North American expertise tended to be deferred to despite the team’s sensitivity to the potential for colonialist dynamics to unintentionally re-emerge (Heron 2006; Finley 2008). It thus seemed appropriate to explore a participatory approach with the team’s Guatemalan counterparts in the N G O youth outreach communities. Within a few months of acclimatizing and interacting with colleagues, a consensus formed; rather than merely employing traditional social science data-gathering and analytical methodologies, a documentary film would be produced to speak to the survival strategies of homeless youth. The decision was serendipitous, leading to a powerful experience of breaking down the supposed superiority of the North American expert, and of opening up a more genuine cross-cultural exchange concerning the common problems and approaches of social workers who work with street youth (Karabanow 2003; Karabanow and Naylor 2015). But the role of the Guatemalan youth in the making of the film was arguably even more important. The common goal of learning and exploring what was, for most of those involved, a new art form (film), meant that the project witnessed the creation of a kind of shared space of learning in which distinctions between us (Jeff and the North American social workers) and them (Guatemalan coworkers and the youth) began to fade. On a practical level, there was an exchange of ideas about how to film a scene, how and when to introduce them, and how to review and edit the footage each night. In that shared space, a new kind of freedom was experienced by the youth through the process of defining the film’s content. As they sought to tell their stories, new possibilities for self-expression arose, giving voice to their own experiences of street life and leading to new insights about how street life is a rational strategy for coping with abuse, trauma, and exploitation (Karabanow, Gurman, and Naylor 2012). These insights were very much a result of the “symbolic space” and “culture of hope” (Karabanow 2003) that emerged through the project; a kind of micro-community developed that bridged not just national or cultural boundaries, but social worker/youth client boundaries as well. Jeff had not foreseen this outcome of the art project. The experience of seeing a creative outlet become an occasion for deep insight into street youth culture

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that might otherwise be missed by conventional empirical social work techniques was one that remained with him.

F ro m G uat e m a l a C i t y to Halifax, Canada What was an unanticipated departure from traditional social work research methods in 1996, in Guatemala, became a more self-­ consciously embraced goal over a decade later, in Halifax. With the support of a S S H R C dissemination grant, from 2008 to 2009, Jeff brought together academic colleagues, non-profit community agencies, and youth and frontline service providers to design a film/art camp for Halifax street youth. Its official purpose was to further explore how a creative project could help inform theoretical work on street health and street youth identities. The filmmaking team began with Jeff, a local filmmaker, and a former social work student. A rented space in Halifax’s North End became the film studio, and in the summer of 2009 an invitation went out to seven young people with street living experience to join this team for a four-month period. Several short clips were produced as all the participants negotiated the technical aspects of learning to use the film camera, edit, act in front of the camera, integrate voiceovers, and add musical scores, alongside more content-focused discussions concerning script narratives. Ultimately, through this process of integrating medium and message, two short animated films became the signature productions of those four months. Walking through Wonderland allows a look into a friendship developing between two young homeless men, set against the surrealistic backdrop of life on the city streets.1 Whereas Wonderland focuses more on the dialogue between the two young men, This Film Is More Than Its Title presents a poetic, rhythmical narrative, expressing feelings of loneliness and betrayal, as well as profound strength and resilience, which are further c­ onveyed through the moods evoked by stop-motion animation techniques.2

D i s c u s s ion Two complementary sources of data inform our reflections that follow. The first is a set of informal notes that Jeff compiled throughout the course of the project: anecdotes of day-to-day events, conversations, and impressions. The second is the films themselves,

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Walking through Wonderland and This Film Is More Than Its Title, which not only poignantly tell stories of street life as experienced by the seven youth participants, but are also material records of the remarkable experience of community building that led to their creation. 1 . Art as Method; Method as Art Recalling the Guatemalan experience, the cooperative project of making these films lacked the features of traditional social work research bound by methodological strictures that would have placed the project’s leaders and youth into the relationship of researcher and researched. In a sense, the art was method and the method was art, as the context of the project quite radically undermined the standard relation whereby researchers apply methods of inquiry to research subjects. It was, moreover, a departure from the dominant methodological framework normally associated with social work, namely the interventionist model of seeking a desired result from a specific client with an identifiable problem (Thyer 1998, 103). It was also a retreat from the usual method-informing goals increasingly typical even of non-mainstream street youth shelter systems, such as facilitating street exiting, or assisting street youth with life skill development or employment searches (Karabanow and Stewart 2015). The project was not explicitly designed as an exercise in community building as such. Rather, it began as an opportunity to allow our youth participants to explore an outlet for creativity. Through our interactions with one another, this experience, which echoed that of the Guatemala City project, decentred selfconscious notions of the professionalism of social work methods. Jeff’s own privilege as expert – his status as provider of solutions, knowledge, or means to diagnose, correct, or improve – was undermined to a certain extent. This happened because the project permitted coexisting distinct and collective understandings and experiences of street life, both those known to Jeff and those known to the youth participants, to inform the technical and creative challenges of storytelling in the medium of film. The fields of philosophy of natural sciences and philosophy of social sciences are very familiar with the centrality (to an older conception of method) of the notion of a knowing subject who interrogates, through method, a passive object of study. Critiques of this conception, which are embraced by the model of critical

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praxis-oriented research explored in this volume, have highlighted the unstable, fluid, and complex nature of the subject/object relation in real circumstances of lived experiences of knowledge gathering and articulation, both in the natural and the social sciences (Feyerabend 1975; Latour 1993; Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 1994; Law 2004; Callon, Lascoumes, and Barthe 2009). Some social theorists, particularly those concerned with education, have adapted a metaphor from biology: the tangled systems of the stem, roots, and nodes of a plant, known as a rhizome. The metaphor, as used by Deleuze and Guattari (1987), describes how in networks of social interactions, subjectivities emerge and interact by way of dis­ continuity, rupture, and multiplicity rather than through the linear relationships of subject/object, expert/non-expert, teacher/ student (St Pierre 2004; Semetsky 2006; de Freitas 2012). These critiques of more linear models of scientific methodology challenge the abovementioned assumption about the privileged subject of research who applies such a method to research material (non-human or human). The metaphor of the rhizome evokes the tangled lines of recursive influence and relation existing within communities of persons, and nicely captures the complex and nuanced processes of interdependence and mutual learning that occurred through the creation of the two Halifax street youth films (Karabanow and Naylor 2015). The collective space of the project ensued from its non-linear lines of influence – aptly represented by seemingly chaotic images such as the rhizome – for which a kind of fundamental equality of participation more common in methodologies employed by ethnographers was key. The notion of participation as an aspect of methodology is one we return to further below. Here, it is important to stress that in this context, the meaning of participation we are alluding to is distinct from one that is increasingly discussed by social scientists researching youth, namely that of participatory research involving youth subjects. The engagement of youth as partners in social science and health care research and evaluation is a relatively new and productive development that is influencing scholars and practitioners to include youth subjects as partners in the design and implementation of research concerning issues affecting their lives. The results are positive in terms of empowering youth participants and generating novel research insights relevant for organizations, community

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organizations, and for the research process in general (Powers and Tiffany 2006). As an essentially creative outlet, the film project was a step outside of the standard framework of research methodology (including ­participatory research models), and, as in Guatemala, it was through this departure that deep insights into street culture were won. As such, the seed of a troubling yet fruitful question regarding the very notion of method itself was planted. The rich learning that took place outside of a more conventional methodological framework challenged the team’s assumptions about our own identities as supposed experts called upon to aid our research subjects, and about our self-identities as objective observers, fact gatherers, or researchers. In fact, at first the youth participants found the situation somewhat strange. “What is your agenda?” was a common question early on, and it took time for them to trust in, and entrust themselves to, a community experience that had few expectations beyond a desire to make some art. 2. Anti-Oppressive Practices and the Art of Community The second point we wish to highlight about this community of filmmakers is that sensitivities toward anti-oppressive practices (A O Ps) were engaged in the process of building the community and making the two short films. Anti-oppressive approaches to social work seek to address social divisions and structural inequalities that can be characteristic of social work practice by reconfiguring service delivery through systemic (including linguistic) changes at social, legal, and political levels (Clifford and Burke 2009; Vojak 2009; Shera 2005). Much has been written concerning the challenges and merits of teaching A O P in schools of social work (Yee and Wagner 2014; Dustin and Montgomery 2010), and this scholarship has much in common with analyses of the impact of liberalism on universities in general (Reisch 2013; Dominelli 2002). The benefits and obstacles of introducing anti-oppressive practices into mainstream social services are well documented (Strier and Binyamin 2014), as are the comparatively more successful applications of anti-oppressive practices in alternative social service settings such as youth shelters (Karabanow 2004a) and other community-based services (George, Coleman, and Barnoff 2007).

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While the many faces of anti-oppressive practices make it difficult to characterize simply, and the literature on this subject is vast and growing (McLaughlin 2005; Clifford and Burke 2009), two features of anti-oppressive practices are particularly relevant to our discussion about the micro-community that emerged within the arts project with Halifax street youth. Both are expressions of a sensitivity shared with critical praxis-oriented research regarding how problematic power relations can be systemically in play, even in wellintentioned practices and methodologies. The first is a shift away from assuming that the causes of problems faced by individuals in need of social work intervention originate in them. It is an explicit renunciation of etiological traditions seeking to brand homeless youth in moral-pathological terms that identify their homelessness as a personal failure. Instead, the focus is on the systemic social, economic, and political forces affecting individuals. AO P is thus person-centred in the specific sense that it recognizes that an individual’s story reflects their personal participation in circumstances that are to a large degree beyond their control. One consequence of this perspective for social work organizations is that anti-­oppressive practices aim to structure relationships between individuals in order to empower users of social work services, by reducing the negative effects of social hierarchies endemic in broader society on their interactions and the work they do together (Dominelli 2002). In line with this A OP orientation, alternative organizations, such as street youth shelters, can be particularly successful at fostering a “symbolic space” of belonging (Karabanow 2004b). Rather than reinforcing street youths’ alienation from and disengagement with society, the seeds are planted for individuals’ reengagement with ­society beyond the shelter’s walls by creating micro-communities of belonging and respect in which opportunities for speaking and being heard are provided (Karabanow 1999, 2008). The second feature of anti-oppressive practices relevant to the filmmaking project, which is made possible by the first, is an emphasis on consciousness-raising. It is hugely important for street youth to understand that individuals bear the marks of systemic societal pressures and forces, and to thereby see themselves holistically, as a confluence of individual traits and societal constraints. At the same time, such consciousness-raising demands that responsibility be taken for future choices and possibilities. There is undeniably a kind of engagement with society that ensues from the growth of

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understanding – an engagement with a society that they, as street youth, otherwise would know merely as alien and alienating (Karabanow 2004; Sakamoto and Pitner 2005). In ways that were not consciously planned by the organizers, these two related features of the A OP -fostered community (that street youth are partially shaped by, and come to understand themselves in light of broader societal realities) were present both throughout the process and in the final artistic creation of this project. Again, this was not so much due to a conscious methodological choice, but was the combined effect of an open space for critical reflection and creativity that participating youth were afforded, and a kind of intuitive application of artistic traditions with deep affinities to antioppressive practices: the use of popular theatre in education. For example, one particularly poignant clip from Walking through Wonderland sought to convey the experience of being on stage and under surveillance in day-to-day street life. These insights, which were quite novel to the project facilitators, were drawn from themes chosen by the youth participants, who employed surreal and ironic motifs to give them artistic content through role-playing techniques drawn from traditions of popular education and popular theatre (Conrad 2004; Jackson 2005). Another clip from the same film emerged from a drawing exercise in which participants were asked, “What could we change about our lives?” The resulting clip depicted how the social service delivery system appeared to them – confusing, bureaucratic, oppressive, and sometimes nonsensical. The powerful contribution of street experiences that youth brought to exercises like this also informed the less dialogue-based aspects of the films, especially in the case of the mood-saturated This Film Is More Than Its Title. The complex, deeply felt, often inarticulate internal emotional landscapes that street youth inhabit could find expression through images and music more than through words – a noted strength of popular theatre in educational contexts (Jackson 1980; Tofteng and Husted 2011). The expression of what is inexpressible in words, through mood and image, is especially moving when one considers that the participants’ experiences that informed these films included abuse, exploitation, addictions, broken family relations, and violence, and called forth profound courage from them to craft strategies of street survival. A O P, as an orientation and cluster of sensitivities, makes use of insights from participatory research, popularized in the 1970s, and

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much commented on and employed since. With its emphasis on models of research predicated on subject participation, traditional distinctions between the researcher and researched are broken down. In participatory research, a dismantling of the privileged status and identity of the expert is sought and achieved through a democratization of knowledge formation precisely because so much knowledge is, in fact, created by participants based on their own experiences, which they alone can sufficiently grasp and communicate (Conrad 2004; Powers and Tiffany 2006; Reason 1998). Participatory social inquiry is consistent with both aspects of antioppressive practices described above in honouring the experiences of the researched (or client), and it puts into practice the conception of the researcher embraced by critical praxis-oriented research. In our project, the youth participants did not merely provide data. They participated in forming a community in which deep insights concerning life on the street were given voice and took aesthetic shape in the form of the films. The unexpected and remarkable result was that their own quite personal stories, when given a chance to find expression in these films, took on the sort of structural, macro-dimensional approaches of social analysis encouraged by anti-oppressive practices. For example, through their own voices, youth participants were able to express a sense of alienation from social, political, and economic citizenship. For example, “We are always treated as garbage” was a sentiment often expressed during the creative process, and one that figures in Walking through Wonderland in a way that poignantly expresses a structural sense of alienation. It is a sentiment that possesses remarkable power when one considers that it is being expressed by youth who live in close proximity to actual street garbage – a situation that most of us can only imagine with difficulty. If such negative self-knowledge, formed in relation to a society from which they feel shunned, characterized much of what the youth participants brought to the art project, something else emerged in the community space that spoke to a hopefulness about the possibility of new kinds of relations. The artistic processes of role playing, script writing, scene description, and music selection involved the youth in the exercise of imagining, of playing the role of the outsider – the imagined public audience. Thus, central to their actual artistic input was the youth participants’ engagement in a reflexive activity that was as much about imagining what they look like

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as it was about expressing how they perceived themselves. We use the sense of imagining here to include the notion of image implicit in the very art form (animation). As is well attested by researchers using art in anti-oppressive educational contexts, this multivalent notion of imagining can be quite powerful (Osei-Kofi 2013). The dual aspects of anti-oppressive practices we have been discussing coalesced in the collective desire to produce films of aesthetic quality that could serve the purpose of telling a story to which society needs to listen. The youth involved in this project saw themselves as excluded from society, yet they wanted to be included. There emerged in them a profound interest in and desire for taking ownership of the aesthetic quality of the films, which meant that they also took control of the films’ eventual trajectory and reception by future viewing audiences – precisely within the society from which they felt excluded. In this sense, a kind of imaginative engagement with that society emerged simultaneously with the process of artistic self-expression. This experience, which is familiar to theatre scholars seeking to bridge the divide between the goals of aesthetic quality and pedagogical utility in art (Jackson 2005), was aptly captured in an observation made by one of the youth participants about the project’s films: “As if our ideas and stories actually mattered.”3 3 . The Presence, the Absence, and the Tacit in Social Work Expertise The sense of community formed in the process of making art with street youth in Halifax, along with its emergent elements of antioppressive practices, arose to an extent unconsciously, or at least without explicit design. We can identify the development of these elements in retrospect. But what impact did Jeff’s expert knowledge have on the process and outcome during the filmmaking project? Answering this question requires a short return to the tension with which our chapter began. Social work involves engaging, in one form or other, with oppositional relations: researcher versus researched; non-homeless versus homeless; excluded versus included in society; those with voice, agency, or authority versus those without it. In a very real sense, overcoming these binaries lies at the heart of successful front-line, alternative approaches to social services to street youth that help them exit street culture and participate more actively as citizens of their communities. The attempts of alternative social service

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organizations to orient themselves toward anti-oppressive practices, sometimes in conscientious (though also problematic) distinction from mainstream social service organizations, is seen as the key to their success (Karabanow 2004b, 2008; Karabanow and Rains 1997; Karabanow and Stewart 2015). Research in this area makes clear, for example, that street youth services usually act as surrogate families for homeless youth, providing much-needed basic amenities and safe and caring environments. They are successful precisely because they create those same spaces of inclusion and community that street youth seek to cultivate for themselves on the street. In fact, it is their (understandable) attachment to such street communities that can make it difficult for many young people to move away from street culture. Alternative organizations have realized that by minimizing the dehumanizing, bureaucratic, and oppressive elements by which street youth characterize mainstream child welfare services, hopeful pathways of return to society are opened up (Karabanow 2008). This approach of coming alongside – of bringing aid by identifying with street youth rather than imposing aid on them – that alternative frontline organizations pursue is what emerged within the micro-community of this arts project. Making these films provided the impetus, the motivation, the challenge, the means, and the context for all of the participants to become conscious of their respective and potentially overlapping identities as street youth, artists, researchers, activists, and even as citizens. The process created a kind of connectedness to each other and to everyone’s respective social contexts outside the project. As the youth observed, the community that formed reminded them of their own communities in the street. To return to the question, then, as originator and lead facilitator of the project, what impact did Jeff’s expert status have on its process and outcome? How does one engage with those on the outside without reinforcing their sense of alienation through intervention itself? How do researchers, whether as theoreticians or social work practitioners, avoid merely participating in and reiterating paradigms that intensify the distance between themselves and those in whose lives they seek to intervene? One answer comes in reflecting on the more obvious sense in which Jeff brought considerable social work experience and theoretical grounding to the project, particularly in the domain of

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alternative forms of social services. The work of creating the space for the community enjoyed in this project did not happen by itself. Clearly, Jeff’s experiences in Guatemala City and Canadian urban centres informed the very concept of the art project from the outset, and his internalized, implicit sensitivities to anti-oppressive practices were manifest in his attitude. The community did not merely emerge naturally. An instinctive feel for the time needed to build relations between street youth and project organizers was called for. Trust had to be won. From his years of observation and reflection, Jeff imagined what kind of space was needed to honour the extraordinary courage and resourcefulness of such youth, as well as their potential for community. There were struggles along the way that required leadership and a commitment to maintaining the conditions needed to enable authentic participation to allow trust and a sense of ownership of the process to grow amongst participants. Personal and relationship conflicts between youth, threats of quitting, resurfacing of past traumas, mental health and addiction issues, as well as the usual angst of youth development all needed to be dealt with. This is precisely the sort of messiness that is rarely represented in academic social work literature. And yet, as any social work practitioner knows, it is in dealing with rough edges and messy social realities that expertise can express itself most poignantly. There is a striking parallel, worth noting in passing, between social work and the sociology of the natural and experimental sciences, which attends to the complex contours of expertise in contexts of disagreement, uncertainty, and contest (Latour and Woolgar 1986, Callon, Lascoumes, and Barthe 2009). We suggest that one resource for exploring further this balance between the presence and absence of social work expertise is the concept of tacit knowledge. Originating in the work of scientist Michael Polanyi in the 1950s, this concept was initially intended to denote the expertise of the natural scientist derived from intuitive, even instinctive knowledge of natural subject matter (Polanyi 1958). The term was taken up by the social sciences, and is used in the field of social work, along with related expressions such as “practice wisdom” or “practical intuition” (Scott 1990; Rosen and Zeira 2000). Sociologists of science have moved away from the more exclusive sense of expertise conveyed by Polanyi’s use of the term, exploring the notion of tacit knowledge as a more socially embedded sense of expertise – one that situates the knowing subject in nuanced and

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complex relations of mutual dependence on other knowers, on broader social contexts, and even on the objects of knowledge themselves (Collins and Evans 2007; Collins 2010; Latour 2005). This recent sociologically informed transformation of the term is very relevant to our discussion of the simultaneous presence and absence of social work expertise within the arts-based community of this project. Jeff’s years of expertise, gained from observing how anti-oppressive practices operated in the micro-communities of street youth shelters, can be considered tacit knowledge, in this more nuanced sense. It enabled and indeed welcomed participants’ receptivity to the mutually encouraging interchange of insight, voice, and experience that typified the creative artistic process and the community of knowers – of experts-in-their-own-right – that emerged in the making of these films.

C o n c l u sion The fundamental dynamic of nearly all social work with street youth is determined by some mode or other of alteration, of changing the lives lived by street youth so that they can experience safer, more inclusive, and also healthier living environments (Karabanow et al. 2007; Kisely et al. 2008). Street youth routinely identify the features of such lives in easily recognizable terms: by having stable employment, a home, a sense of engagement with society, and personal control of resources (Karabanow 2008). And yet, it is becoming clear that the most effective experiences of working with these young people also requires a kind of suspension of social work’s unavoidable mode of alteration. This happens by coming alongside, by being present and helpful without reinforcing the distance between street youth and social workers based on a perception that one situation is worse and the other is better. The film project was an example of such a suspension in that it allowed youth participants to express themselves, to tell their stories in a context in which that distance was minimized. Their otherness was diminished in the very same process by which their sense of themselves as other and as excluded was articulated by them through artistic creativity. Although we can only gesture at it here, we suggest that what emerged was also a tentative sense of urban, civic participation, evocative even of aspects of “insurgent citizenship” (Holsten 1999; 2008).

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In manifold ways, Jeff’s professional identity as an expert in the field of social work was active and palpable throughout the project, while, at the same time, it was neither presented authoritatively nor in a manner that heightened the participating street youth’s sense of cultural alienation. We have suggested the concept of tacit knowledge as one way to understand this interplay of presence and absence of expertise. We have also pointed to the importance of the act of creating art as the foundation of this nuanced experience of community, with its intended and unintended outcomes, its explicit and implicit dimensions. The project gave rise to a micro-community that created an opportunity for engaging in critical research that was sensitive to anti-oppressive insights while still maintaining disciplinary identity, professional integrity, and expertise. In light of quite legitimate criticisms of how educational and social work institutions can propagate oppressive cultural and economic realities, we suggest that artistic projects such as this one can help us to understand and value academic privilege (and the training and sanctioned expertise that come with it) as necessary for social work research, while also offering opportunities to ally with anti-oppressive agendas. A O P s can augment and add rigor to traditional research agendas and methodologies, rather than merely oppose them. This argument amplifies the importance of critical reflection on the institutional aspects of social work, particularly our formal, university-based programs of professional qualification. Renewed focus on community-based social work, as a subject of both theoretical and practical social work education, is increasingly called for as a corrective to the impacts of liberalism on the social work profession (Dudziak 2005; Lavalette 2011; Reisch 2013). The complex ways that notions of citizenship are vital to community-based social work projects are also enjoying increased attention (Dominelli and Moosa-Mitha 2014). We offer the example of this arts-based project, and our reflections on it, as an incentive and a resource within the field of social work for a revived focus on community.

notes

 1 www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRULmGOK1bY.  2 www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8sXHdsk6Rs.

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  3 The interviews presented in this chapter are part of the fieldwork ­conducted between April and August 2009, supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHR C ) Grant (May 2008–June 2009). references

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Halifax Street Youth.” The Canadian Journal of Urban Research 16 (1): 12–32. Karabanow, Jeff, and Prue Rains. 1997. “Structure versus Caring: Discrepant Perspectives in a Shelter for Street Kids.” Children and Youth Services Review 19 (4): 301–22. Karabanow, Jeff, and Ian G. Stewart. “Reflections on Organizational Changes in Street Youth Shelters.” Organizational Cultures: An International Journal 14 (3–4): 33–42. Kisely, S., J. Parker, L.A. Campbell, J. Karabanow, J. Hughes, and J. Gahagan. 2008. “The Health Impacts of Supportive Housing for Homeless Youth: A Pilot Study.” Public Health 122: 1089–92. Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. – 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, M A : Harvard University Press. Latour, Bruno, and Steve Woolgar. 1986. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lavalette, M. 2011. “Social Work in Crisis during Crisis: Whose Side Are We On?” Canadian Social Work Review 28: 7–24. Law, John. 2004. After Method: Mess in Social Science Research. New York: Routledge. McLaughlin, Kenneth. 2005. “From Ridicule to Institutionalization: Anti-Oppression, the State and Social Work.” Critical Social Policy 25: 283–305. Osei-Kofi, N. 2013. “The Emancipatory Potential of Arts-Based Research for Social Justice.” Equity & Excellence in Education 46 (1): 135–49. Polanyi, Michael. 1958. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Powers, J.L., and J.S. Tiffany. 2006. “Engaging Youth in Participatory Research and Evaluation.” Journal of Public Health Management and Practice 12: 79–87. Reason, Peter. 1998. “Three Approaches to Participative Inquiry.” In Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry, edited by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna Sessions Lincoln, 156–84. Thousand Oaks, C A : Sage. Reisch, Michael. 2013. “Social Work Education and the Neo-Liberal Challenge: The US Response to Increasing Global Inequality.” Social Work Education. The International Journal 32 (6): 715–33. Rosen, Aaron, and Anat Zeira. 2000. “Unraveling ‘Tacit Knowledge’: What Social Workers Do and Why They Do It.” Social Service Review 74 (1): 103–23.

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6 Toward Inclusion Researching Food as Harm Reduction in an Urban Foodscape Christiana Miewald, Sean Grieve, Alison McIntosh, Eugene Mc Cann, Cristina Temenos, and Megan Woodward

I n t r o d u ction People Living with H I V /A I DS (P L W H A) who also use illicit drugs may put themselves at risk of physical, psychological, and structural violence by visiting unsafe places in order to access food, housing, and other resources. Conversely, spaces of care such as meal programs and drop-in centres may offer safety, community, and inclusion (Johnsen, Cloke, and May 2005) as well as serve as important nodes within a wider geography of survival (Mitchell and Heynen 2009). Yet, these types of places are only temporary solutions to problems caused by health and economic policies that impact the  lives of P L WH A who use drugs. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Food as Harm Reduction: Documenting the Health Effects of Food Provision for People Who Use Drugs (FaH R) is a collaborative research project that explores the role that food provision can have in reducing the nutritional harms associated with drug use. The research project also proposes ways of integrating food into a harm reduction framework. It has been designed as a community-based research project in order to address the social marginalization faced by P L WH A who use drugs and provide them with a voice through critical praxis-oriented research.

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In this chapter, co-authored by the academic and peer researchers involved in the F aH R project, we consider not only the structural barriers that can limit the ability of municipal policies to promote inclusivity in planning for food security or harm reduction drug policies, but we also reflect on our experiences of designing a research project that promotes inclusivity through community partnership and the use of peer research associates (P R A s). In this spirit, the authorial voice shifts throughout this chapter, straying, though not entirely departing, from the traditional academic writing model. We have deliberately employed this strategy to stress the central role of the P R A s in the project’s research design and execution. The FaHR study is a partnership between geographers from Simon Fraser University and members of the Dr Peter AID S Foundation, out of which the Dr Peter Centre (D P C) operates. The D P C is a not-for-profit health care facility in Vancouver’s West End that provides care and support to people living with H IV and coping with social disparities and concurrent health issues such as mental health conditions, addiction, hepatitis C, physical disabilities, homelessness, and trauma. The centre offers a broad range of services, including a seven-day-a-week day health program, a twenty-fourhour specialized nursing care residence, and an enhanced supportive housing program. Through these programs, the D P C provides access to advanced nursing care, nutrient-dense meals, support for adherence to antiretroviral therapy and other medications, supervised injection services, and counselling, as well as art, music, and recreation therapy, all in a safe place for social engagement and peer interaction. This chapter begins by providing an overview of the rationale for our research and use of a community-based research approach. We then explore the notion of inclusion in two ways. First, we present the perspectives of two of the researchers, P RAs who straddle the space between academic research and lived experience. We consider what it means for them to be included in the research process and examine some of the tensions that surfaced from their participation on the research study team. Second, we discuss how our research could address wider issues of inequality and social and spatial inclusion for P L WHA who use drugs, given the broader structural constraints that shape their daily experiences. We also highlight the potentialities and constraints of community-based research

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that arise while implementing effective interventions through praxisoriented research. Our project’s contributions to a critical praxisoriented approach to research entails our account of how the research team negotiated some of the limitations of communitybased research and our discussion of the role of community-based research in fostering social change. We conclude with some thoughts about how our research can be used to address the day-to-day needs of PLWHA who use drugs, and how it might contribute to future analyses of the wider structural constraints that shape these needs. This discussion includes our reflections on the co-constitutive relationships between municipal policies, spaces of harm reduction, and food security – which directly and indirectly affect the health and well-being of P L WH A who use drugs.

Fo o d , H a r m R e d u c t i on, and Inclusion i n t h e F aH R project Inclusion is a fundamental goal of the research processes and outcomes of critical praxis-oriented research, and participatory ­ approaches are one way of countering exclusion within this oftenopaque academic or biomedical research model (Pain 2004). Although inclusion can take many forms, the F aH R project promotes it in two ways. The first is through the active involvement of PR A s. We hired two P R A s to help administer our survey, work with academic researchers on the qualitative interview and mapping components, and assist with analysis. They provided their insight, gained through life experiences, into the potential impact on food access and health of being a P L WH A who uses drugs. Including PR A s in research projects helps to break down traditional divisions between academic researchers, subjects, and the wider community and allows for a greater diversity of perspectives to be considered in the research design. For our project, it enables everyday experiences related to issues of food security and harm reduction to be included in our analysis. At the same time, the use of P RAs in CBR is not without both practical issues and ethical concerns. Second, inclusion is promoted by the F aH R project through its foundational assumption that improved access to quality food and eating spaces can reduce the multiple forms of marginalization to which P L WHA who use drugs are subject on a daily basis, and thereby increases their inclusion in the city’s foodscape. The

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current food system that serves low-income residents of Vancouver, including P L WHA who use drugs, “does not support, and in some cases directly contravenes, the right of residents to make use of the city in the provision of their food in a way that preserves their health and dignity” (Drabble 2015, 97). Thus, creating spaces that provide food and community to P L WH A who use drugs can be viewed as important means of supporting their rights to the city as well as a right to access to food. Food insecurity is a term that describes limited or uncertain access to nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and points to structural constraints such as economic, racial, or gender inequality, housing instability, or health disparities that curtail the ability of marginalized people to sustain themselves (Heynen, Kurtz, and Trauger 2012). People who use drugs are at an increased risk of food insecurity and poor nutritional status (Himmelgreen et al. 1998; RomeroDaza et al. 1999; Anema, Wood, and Weiser 2010). This is particularly salient for P L WH A who use drugs, as food insecurity has been associated with negative health outcomes for this population, including macronutrient and micronutrient deficiencies, immunologic decline, and increased morbidity and mortality. Moreover, it can contribute to depression, increased drug abuse, and risky sexual practices, potentially enhancing the risk of H IV transmission, incomplete H I V viral load suppression, poor adherence to antiretroviral therapy, and missed clinic visits, all of which are significant causes of poorer H I V health outcomes (Weiser et al. 2011). Given the prevalence of food insecurity and malnutrition among people who use drugs, some argue that all long-term drug users should be treated as potentially food insecure (Kaufman, Isralowitz, and Reznik 2005, 29). Previous research has indicated drug use as a major barrier to  nutrition for P L W H A (Miewald, Ibanez-Carrasco, and Turner 2010), but whereas the relationship between food insecurity, drug use, and H I V /A I D S has been well documented, little work has been undertaken to explore the links between nutrition issues and harm reduction approaches. Rather than adhering to prohibitionist, moralistic, or abstention-based paradigms, harm reduction seeks to mitigate the negative health consequences of risky behaviors like drug use (which can result in blood-borne disease, overdose, death, and so forth) through pragmatic interventions like clean needle provision, methadone treatment, or supervised injection. Some

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social supports, such as low-barrier housing, have been integrated in harm reduction programs (Pauly et al. 2013), but food provision has yet to be included, and uneven attitudes toward this practice have been found among harm reduction providers (McCann and Temenos 2015). A survey of harm reduction service providers in Vancouver revealed that although food provision is part of their programming, its constitution varies greatly – from granola bars and juice as part of street outreach, to the provision of hot, nutritious meals, to the operation of participant-led community kitchens. Whereas some harm reduction service providers view food provision as a means of fostering trust and a sense of community between staff and participants, others use food as a direct health intervention (McIntosh 2015). We suggest that like other components of the drug user’s “risk environment” (Rhodes 2002, 2009), food insecurity should be taken into account in evaluations of the relative harms of drug use. To date, improvements to the nutritional status of persons who do drugs have been focused largely on interventions, such as nutritional education, but they do not take issues of poverty, inadequate housing, or reliance on charitable food programs into account. We are interested in where, how, and why people access (or do not access) food and how their strategies for doing so contribute or detract from their well-being. Using a foodscape approach, which addresses the relational and political aspects of the urban food landscape as well as intimate and everyday experiences with food (Miewald and McCann 2014; Miewald, Aiello, and McCann, forthcoming), our research seeks to describe the role of food within the wider environment in which low-income P L W H A who use drugs live.

T h e S t u dy so F aHR Writing at this time – the midpoint of the research project – gives us the opportunity to reflect on what we have accomplished thus far, to think critically about how we will conduct the remainder of this project, and to make adjustments if needed. This is a necessary part of engaged research that allows us to learn from experience. From the project’s inception, the academic researchers were interested in working with a community organization and including peer researchers in the research process. The D P C has significant

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experience with including peers in its collaborations with academic researchers and, as such, has established protocols for how to ensure meaningful and equitable participation and compensation. A human resources professional at DP C wrote a job posting with input from the academic researchers that was then advertised at AID S service organizations (A SOs) and other programs used by P L W H A who use drugs. Initially, applications were screened and ranked by a hiring committee of DP C staff, including one academic and one community representative. Interviews were then conducted with selected applicants and these were again scored based on criteria such as ability to work in a team, interpersonal skills, and interest in the subject. With the P R A s in place, the research team began its twostage research process (ongoing at time of writing in March 2016). The first stage has involved surveying a total of sixty P L W H A who use drugs, half of whom use the Dr Peter Centre and half of whom do not. The survey administered by our P RAs is designed to measure levels of food insecurity, dietary quality, health status, and social capital in order to identify the effects that illicit drug use can have on food security as well as the potential role of food programs on reducing the harms of drug use. While an academic member of the team performs an initial screening to establish respondents’ eligibility, they neither conduct nor attend the interviews. This allows the PR A s to have ownership of administering the survey. Once each survey is complete, an academic member of the team debriefs the PR A to discuss any issues or questions that might have emerged from the process. In the second stage of the project, a smaller group of respondents is asked to participate in qualitative interviews that enable further exploration of the themes addressed in the survey. Central to these interviews is a map upon which participants are asked to draw their daily routes. As we write this chapter, the mapping aspect of the research, which has been tested and refined by the academic geographers in consultations with the PRAs, has begun. Each mapping interview is co-facilitated by one academic and one PRA. Thus far, we are learning about the daily routes used to access food, harm reduction services, and other resources, as well as the negative or positive effects that these spaces and the pathways used to access them can have on the respondents’ health and well-being. This ­technique builds upon research into local foodscapes in Vancouver (Miewald and McCann 2014) and risk environment mapping

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projects conducted with sex workers and marginalized men and women in the city (Shannon et al. 2008; McNeil et al. 2014; McNeil et al. 2015). It extends this work by mapping not only sites and spaces of risk but also spaces of care (Johnsen, Cloak, and May 2005).

Co m m u n i t y - B a s e d P a rt icipatory Res earch: L e s s o n s i n L earning Although its predecessors, Action Research (AR) and Participatory Action Research (P A R ), have long been used in other fields, including anthropology and sociology, health research has only recently adopted community-based research, the most recent form of this framework. Within a health context, community-based research emphasizes community participation from the initial research design through to data analysis and the distribution of information (Hayashi et al. 2012). The use of community-based research is increasingly common in studies of certain populations such as PLWHA . In fact, it is often a fundamental part of a project’s realization of the Greater Involvement of People Living with H IV/AID S (G IPA ) principle, which emphasizes the necessity of the participation of P L WH A in all aspects of their treatment, including the design, coordination, process, and analysis of research (Guta et al. 2014; Travers et al. 2008). Canada has become a leader in using community-based research with P L W H A and other potentially marginalized groups. Examples include studies of the health effects of food security (Chittock et al. 2015), experiences of homelessness (Greene et al. 2009), and HI V prevention among women who use drugs (Shannon et al. 2008). One rationale for using community-based research in healthrelated projects is that it is a means of crafting more effective interventions because it is better able to capture the lived experiences of those experiencing health conditions such as H IV/AID S . Yet, it is important that community-based research not simply be used as a shield against community criticism or as a technique to reach otherwise “hidden” populations. A significant element of community-based research is its commitment to addressing issues of inequality, exclusion, and stigmatization (Wallerstein and Duran 2006). Therefore, outcomes of community-based research should ultimately benefit the wider community. By creating knowledge that improves our understanding of the lived experiences of P L W H A

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who use drugs, with the goal of providing meaningful and potentially disruptive information, community-based research projects hope to challenge both the political and the scientific status quo. Occasionally, this desire to overturn existing conditions and patterns extends to how research is written up. Bearing this in mind, the co-authors (academic researchers and PRAs) decided that the best way to highlight the PRAs’ experiences, for the purposes of this chapter, was through a dialogue between one of the co-authors, Christiana Miewald, and the PRAs, Sean Grieve and Megan Woodward. The dialogue (recorded on 7 October 2015) was transcribed and direct quotes have been used herein. The following section thus highlights the PRA’s voices through quotes, whereas throughout the rest of the chapter efforts have been made to blend all of the authorial voices (see also Miewald, Grieve, and Woodward 2016). Megan Woodward is a forty-four-year-old woman who was diagnosed with H I V in 2012 and who has been a member of the Dr  Peter Centre for approximately one year. Sean Grieve, a fiftyyear-old man who was diagnosed with H I V in 1992, has been a member of the Dr Peter Centre since 2012. In addition to being a P R A , he has a part-time job and has volunteered for several years with various A S O s. Our aim in hiring peer researchers is to incorporate the worldviews of individuals who have traditionally been excluded from academic and medical research because of their stigmatization. This approach has enabled us to include the insights and analyses of P R A s throughout our research with P W L H A who use drugs – unique contributions that can only come from their membership in this subject group. Although we have sought to include the P R A s’ perspectives in the research design and implementation, we have also attempted to keep two potential pitfalls in mind as the study has progressed. First, “‘inclusion’ in scientific decision making is a more complicated undertaking than is often described” (Guta et al. 2014, 257). By making marginalized individuals part of the research team, there is often the tendency to “instil in them the virtues of active citizenship and neoliberal entrepreneurialism” (Guta et al. 2014, 258), rather than to provide them with the opportunity to critique wider systems of oppression. Second, power inequalities between academic researchers and peers may create issues of trust that can affect working relationships in the project (Travers et al. 2008; Pain 2004).

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As the project has developed, Sean and Megan have provided feedback on study materials, including the wording and organization of survey questions and the details of the map to be used in the qualitative interviews. When asked to comment on the level of inclusion he has experienced throughout the project, Sean responded, “You’ve been very inclusive even down to asking us if the questions were coming off right. If we’re involved [to this level], we’re going to make sure that when we administer the survey that we get really good results back too, instead of [you] saying, ‘Now you do this and this is your role and keep your mouth shut.’” Megan indicated that she also feels very involved in all aspects of the research, from training to survey design, and by participating in the Community Advisory Committee and attending and presenting project updates at regional C B R meetings. Although these are new experiences for her, she feels that they are valuable for enhancing her self-esteem. This sense of inclusion has helped to break down barriers between the academic researchers and the P RAs, who see themselves as integral members of a team that values their input as experts on their community. Sean noted that equality has to do with valuing different perspectives and experiences: “I’m not necessarily equal [with an academic in a research project]. I haven’t had nine years of university education, but I do have twenty years of community involvement, which is just as valuable and you guys made it possible for us to feel equal.” Including P R A s in academic research presents particular challenges. For example, their participation exposes them beyond the academic realm. In our research project, this meant that P RAs had to be willing to openly identify themselves as part of an (often stigmatized) HI V positive population, and whereas they were likely “out” in some circles, to openly confirm their status in this way might have dissuaded them from participating (Howard 2015). A PR A ’s health challenges may also hamper their ability to meet the demands of preforming research. Moreover, as members of both a community and a research team, they must often “switch hats” and maintain boundaries, and can be confronted with responses from participants that may bring their own emotions to the surface. Megan’s experience of being a P R A has been quite different from what she expected. Rather than simply asking questions and recording the answers, Megan noted, “You invest so much of yourself in the interviews and the answers really affect you and you really have

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to take a lot of time with the participants.” There is a good deal of emotional work that goes into being a P RA, not the least of which is  managing one’s own feelings while being sympathetic to participants’ emotional needs. According to Megan, being a P RA has helped her to confront some of her own personal challenges as she has encountered them during the interviews she conducts with others. “Sometimes when we’re doing interviews, feelings come up like feelings of sadness, regrets, or other feelings … you can acknowledge them and work on those issues whereas before I would just push them aside, I wouldn’t really work on them.” Given that P RAs are clearly expected to take on a good deal of the emotional burden that comes with conducting C B R , emotional management – often couched in the language of self-care, which can take several forms, from talking with other peers to meditation to exercise (Howard 2015) – is essential. Furthermore, because research questions can elicit uncomfortable feelings and memories in both interviewees and PR A s, the management of emotions, by maintaining boundaries, ensuring confidentiality, and engaging in self-care, is a critical and ongoing aspect of P R A training and support. It is necessary for the P R A s to have ongoing support not only from other members of the research team, but also from a peer mentor: a trained individual who provides support to P RAs but who is not on the research team (Howard 2015). As P RAs are part of the community under study, they may be exposed to additional stressors when asked to interview someone they know or with whom they have a close personal history. In the FaH R study we have worked to ensure that the P R A s are supported through training opportunities and check-ins with a peer-mentor (hired specifically for this purpose), as well as regular check-ins with both academic research team members and DP C staff. Although P R A s are meant to represent the community with which they identify and to which they belong, their liminal status can create divisions between them and other members of the community, especially if they are thought to be receiving special treatment or access to resources. Adequate training and support prepares P RAs to navigate these situations. For example, Sean noted that he had to set limitations on his interactions with one survey participant: “I remember one survey participant saying that they really wanted to, I guess, forge a friendship with me … to discuss life and everything else further with me and I thought, ‘How do I answer that? There’s

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a boundary there that I can’t cross.’ So I said to them, ‘You know what? If I’m here [at the Dr Peter Centre] as a [regular program] participant [not a P R A ], and you want to sit down and talk, that’s cool with me.’ And I thought, ‘That’s where we can leave the boundary.’” In terms of inclusivity, this means that P L W H A are at once included in C B R studies as P R A s, and at the same time, must negotiate and construct boundaries with other community members, which can exclude them from activities or interactions they might have otherwise enjoyed. Both Sean and Megan chose to identify themselves as H IV positive at the start of each survey. Megan noted, however, that as a P RA, one cannot “cross the line about telling too much about yourself” because survey participants are not bound by the same confidentiality rules as P R A s. This disclosure boundary can be difficult to delineate and throughout the survey process P RAs must choose what to share with survey participants. Although emotional boundaries must be carefully maintained, Hardill and Mills (2013) suggest that emotions are an important component of research. Indeed, as we have suggested, emotions tend to be daily concerns for CBR teams. Employing P R A s raises questions about who controls the outputs of the research: Do P R A s have the right to be included in authorship? How will results be communicated meaningfully to P RAs and to others who participated as respondents in the research? These questions, which complicate researchers’ often-exclusive sense of ownership of their findings, have emerged in one way or another throughout the FaH R project. We have attempted to break down the usual barriers between academics and P RAs by including Sean and Megan as co-authors of this chapter and as participants in the team’s presentations at academic conferences. These forms of inclusion necessitated discussions about what academic publications and presentations entail, how they are structured, and what to expect when participating. The use of PRAs in academic research has been critiqued for doing little to challenge structures of oppression and exclusion faced by the wider PLWHA community. In fact, it has been argued that the practice upholds the “neoliberal rhetoric of self-­improvement,” and intervenes “into the lives of marginalized peers seeking to transform them into more productive citizens” (Guta et al. 2014, 257) rather than exploring wider systems of oppression. Thus, in practice, the focus of community-based research is often on changing P RA

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behaviour so they learn “life skills,” such as punctuality and time management, in addition to harder skills such as surveying and interviewing. This is evident in how PRAs must contend with both their jobs and their illness, including the potential effects of medication. For Sean, calling in sick can bring up feelings of guilt because he feels he is letting down the research team. As he expressed, “With my [other] job, I think to myself, ‘You’re nauseous, you’re not feeling well, don’t go in.’ Here though, with you guys, I feel, ‘Well, if I’m not there, then the team sort of misses out because the collaborative effort is short a person,’ even though I’ve been repeatedly told, ‘It’s just research, relax.’ That’s been my biggest challenge to get over the guilt of saying, ‘I’m not feeling well today.’” Being included as part of a research project comes, then, with opportunities as well as struggles and costs for P L W H A. Many have already been excluded from workplaces because they have been unable to balance the demands of living with H IV/AID S with the expectations of employers. However, as Sean indicated, being involved in work that is meaningful and also inclusive has evoked feelings of responsibility in him that have motivated him to show up to work even when he is not feeling well. His experience both recalls and challenges Guta et al.’s (2014) critique that community-based research is complicit in a neoliberal agenda and therefore lacks emancipatory potential. Though community-based research often aspires to be inclusive, this form of engagement necessarily comes with tensions and limitations that may prevent it from making a significant impact on inequality.

I n cl u s i o n w i t h i n V a n c ouver’ s Foods c ape f o r  P L W H A W h o Us e Dr ugs Thus far we have discussed inclusion in terms of its character within this research project and how it has been experienced by our P RAs. We now address how the project might foster the inclusion of low income P L WHA who use drugs in the city’s food provision and accessibility landscape. We explore what greater inclusion within the city’s foodscape might look like, and what role the City of Vancouver could have in creating both inclusive and exclusive spaces for P L WH A who use drugs.

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PLWH A who use drugs are among the most socially, economically, and politically marginalized populations in Vancouver, even though the city has a well-deserved global reputation for innovative policy approaches to the care of people who use drugs (McCann 2008; McCann and Temenos 2015). Many live in poverty, are homeless or marginally housed, and suffer from comorbidities. The majority of P L WH A who use drugs live in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. They are often systematically excluded from public space elsewhere in the city and, increasingly, in that neighbourhood itself, through efforts by the city to manage “social disorder” (Wittmer and Parizeau 2016). They also encounter difficulties in accessing health and other services due to their drug use and the stigma associated with their health status. The combination of having HIV /A I DS, being of low-income status, and using drugs makes securing healthy food challenging, even though these are the very people most in need of nutritious food. While some community-based organizations, such as the D P C, attempt to address the gap between the need for food and access to it by providing healthy meals in a low-barrier setting, many P L W H A who use drugs remain unable to obtain healthy food on a reliable basis. They may, thus, be forced to place themselves at greater risk in attempting to find a meal, whether it is by having to stand in lineups, which can expose them to personal harm, violence, and stigma, or by acquiring food from dumpsters, or by panhandling or stealing. One attempt to restructure this deficient foodscape is the Downtown Eastside Kitchen Tables Project’s efforts to provide nutritious options for residents, such as affordable fresh produce, which is coupled with the project’s ongoing critique of the unhealthy and undignified manner of food provision that occurs in line-ups and other practices (see Miewald and McCann 2014; Miewald, Aiello, and McCann, forthcoming). Based on interviews we conducted with harm reduction service providers, we found that some P L WH As experience a sense of inclusion by becoming peer support workers. These workers are paid staff or volunteers who assist organizations with providing services to their members. Organizations that provide harm reduction services in Vancouver face a variety of barriers, however, to including PLWHA who use drugs as peer support workers. Funding is the most significant obstacle because, although organizations would

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like to be able to provide wages or stipends (in cash or as food vouchers) to their peer staff and volunteers, major funders are becoming increasingly reluctant to support peer-staffed programming. Furthermore, in organizations that do have funding for peer positions, budgets for wages and stipends have remained largely stagnant since the early 2000s, even though other financial supports for low-income P L WH A have not increased to match the rising cost of living. Additionally, small budgets make it difficult for many organizations – particularly smaller organizations – to support peer personnel; in many cases, they simply cannot afford to employ a dedicated staff member to supervise and train peer volunteers and staff. Literature about labour in non-profit social services identifies accommodating increasingly professionalized member volunteers as a concern for staff whose time and resources are already stretched thin (Bowlby and Evans 2011). However, interviews conducted with harm reduction workers, managers, and executive directors in Greater Vancouver did not corroborate the hypothesis that incorporating peer workers was an undue burden on paid staff’s time. Instead, the interviewees were eager to highlight that engaging workers provided meaningful work opportunities for service ­participants, and helped to ensure that the services provided by these organizations were relevant to the needs of the community (McIntosh 2016). Some organizations employ P L WHA who use drugs in their food programming, often as cooks in commercial or community kitchens, but food programming has its own challenges to inclusion. Often operating out of older buildings in neighbourhoods like the Downtown Eastside, some harm reduction service providers have difficulty finding food preparation spaces that meet the city’s zoning requirements related to the size and age of a kitchen as well as its suitability for food preparation equipment use. Other organizations struggle to find staff to coordinate community kitchens, and these employees tend to be social workers, rather than people with expertise in food provision. The FaH R project seeks to enrich current harm reduction ­programs by making recommendations that frame food as an integral part of these strategies, and, more ambitiously, to make the Vancouver foodscape a more inclusive place for P L W H A who use drugs. However, the ability to create safe and inclusive spaces of

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food provision and consumption is affected by municipal policies. Since the early 2000s, Vancouver’s city government has supported a  harm reduction approach to drug use, which includes Insite – a  supervised injection site that has been shown to have a positive impact on the health and well-being of people who use drugs (Urban Health Research Initiative 2009), and on the wider citizenry of Vancouver, by providing a cost-effective public health service that also reduces street litter and petty crime in the immediate neighborhood (Andresen and Jozaghi 2012; Jozaghi and Andresen 2013). The City of Vancouver also has a food strategy, developed by city staff and the Vancouver Food Policy Council, to help guide the city to address issues of food security and sustainability (City of Vancouver 2013). It does not, however, make specific recommendations pertaining to food insecurity among vulnerable populations. Indeed, many of the entrenched structural issues that contribute to food insecurity fall outside of the direct influence of the city. Instead, the focus of its food strategy is on community-based food programs that work to address food insecurity, such as community gardens, farmers’ markets, and street vending. Whereas these measures are welcomed, to some extent, they all operate in spaces that are imbued with various degrees of exclusion, which can exacerbate the conditions and everyday stresses endured by marginalized people. As Kern (2015, 2) notes, “Alternative consumption spaces, such as farmers markets, not only help create the conditions for gentrification, they require and promote particular forms of cultural capital and socialization techniques within an aesthetic code that favours white, middle class, young residents” (see also Sullivan 2014). The city’s food strategy furthers such an agenda by not considering certain existing social policies like Vancouver’s Four Pillars Drug Strategy (a harm reduction drug policy) in its attempts to address food security. Rather than promote the inclusion of marginalized citizens, the policy inadvertently implements municipal food security strategies for the middle class while deepening the ongoing exclusion of P L WH A who use drugs, among other groups. Additionally, City of Vancouver development policies have been crucial drivers of the gentrification of the Downtown Eastside – the neighbourhood that is home to most of the city’s food insecure. There has been an accelerating erosion of spaces where P L W H A who use drugs might feel comfortable and welcome. Concern about this change is underscored by recent evidence that gentrification

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and rising housing costs are linked to increased food insecurity among low-income P L WH A in San Francisco (Whittle et al. 2015). In Vancouver, ongoing tensions between long-term residents and higher-income “gentrifiers” have been manifest in protests related to the incursion of high-end restaurants and the loss of more affordable cafes and corner stores (Aiello 2014; Burnett 2014; Miewald, Aiello, and McCann, forthcoming). Thus, through various municipal policies, the City of Vancouver contributes to food insecurity while, at the same time, it attempts to reduce the transmission of HI V through harm reduction facilities such as Insite. The city’s lack of a comprehensive strategy to address the nutritional needs of its citizens who use drugs (whether or not they are H I V positive), means that it is ignoring an important factor in both the transmission of HI V and morbidity related to H IV. A more inclusive foodscape would take into account the specific nutritional needs of P L WHA who use drugs and ensure that food is not only accessible but provided in a manner that is dignified, safe, and appropriate. The lack of policy guidance related to issues of food access for vulnerable populations thus continues to perpetuate an exclusionary foodscape for P L WHA who use drugs.

C o n c l u s ion We hope that this project initiates a dialogue about including nutrition as part of harm reduction approaches among harm reduction service and food providers, local health authorities, and other policy makers, in a manner that “reflect[s] the community’s vision of social change in both the social policy and practice arena” (Greene et al. 2009, 362). We argue that to be effective, this dialogue should address the admittedly more challenging structural issues that marginalize P L WHA who use drugs. As Klodawsky, Siltanen, and Andrew (introduction to this volume, 9) note, “Critical praxis-oriented research aims to examine whose values have the upper hand in shaping specific contexts of experience and by what mechanisms of power these values are given priority.” This type of research attempts to move away from decontextualized interventions that are meant to be widely replicable, toward more contextualized and emancipatory projects. To this end, when conducting community-based research, we should be acknowledging and documenting power imbalances between the

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various members of a research team. Despite the goal of community-based research of including community members within the research process, their inclusion is always partial and subject to conflict. We must also pay attention to the wider context of our research and provide a critique of the structural systems that lead to inequality and marginalization, and, in the community we are studying, food insecurity and ill health. For academic researchers, P R A s are an important resource for understanding the wider community, particularly because they are able to relate and communicate with survey respondents in ways that elicit responses that might otherwise not be shared with academic researchers. As they operate in a space between lived experience and the academic or biomedical sphere, P R A s are important conduits between these worlds, helping to both make sense of and disrupt research. In our case, P R A s have provided important input into research design modification. For example, they have offered their insights about the best way to structure interviews to reduce participant stress, they have helped to clarify names and terms used in the informal economy, and they have pointed out questions that might appear confusing to participants. This information is not only valuable to our entire research team, but also more broadly, for researchers who are attempting to engage with marginalized populations. The very presence of P R A s in community-based research should, ideally, hold academic researchers to account. Academics must not make assumptions or draw conclusions about lives that they are likely to never fully understand. By incorporating multi-vocality into the research process, we hope to integrate our understanding of the lived experiences P L W H A who use drugs into sound policy recommendations and into our critique of the structures that continue to negatively influence the health and wellbeing of this community.

A c k n ow l e d gments We would like to thank our partners at the Dr Peter Centre, Rosalind Baltzer Turje, Patrick McDougall, Grace Dalgarno, Rani Wangsawidjaya, our peer mentor Terry Howard, and the members of our Community Advisory Committee. This project was made possible through research grants from the Vancouver Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (S S H RC).

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references

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Hardill, Irene, and Sarah Mills. 2013. “Enlivening Evidence-Based Policy through Embodiment and Emotions.” Contemporary Social Science 8 (3): 321–32. Hayashi, Kanna, Nadia Fairbairn, Paisan Suwannawong, Karyn Kaplan, Evan Wood, and Thomas Kerr. 2012. “Collective Empowerment While Creating Knowledge: A Description of a Community-Based Participatory Research Project with Drug Users in Bangkok, Thailand.” Substance Use & Misuse 47 (5): 502–10. Heynen, Nik, Hilda E. Kurtz, and Amy Trauger. 2012. “Food Justice, Hunger and the City.” Geography Compass 6 (5): 304–11. Himmelgreen, David, Rafael Perez-Escamilla, Sofia Segura-Millan, Nancy Romero-Daza, Mihaela Tanasescu, and Merrill Singer. 1998. “A Comparison of the Nutritional Status and Food Security of Inner-City Drug-Using and Non-Drug Using Latino Women.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 107 (3): 351–61. Howard, Terry. 2015. Peer Worker Support Project. Vancouver: Positive Living BC, HIV Community Based Research Division. https://positivelivingbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Peer-Worker-SupportProject-v2.pdf. Johnsen, Sarah, Paul Cloke, and Jon May. 2005. “Transitory Spaces of Care: Serving Homeless People on the Street.” Health and Place 11 (4): 323–36. Jozaghi, Ehsan, and Martin A. Andresen. 2013. “Should North America’s First and Only Supervised Injection Facility (InSite) Be Expanded in British Columbia, Canada.” Harm Reduction Journal 10 (1): 1–9. Kaufman, Roni, Richard Isralowitz, and Alex Reznik. 2005. “Food Insecurity among Drug Addicts in Israel: Implications for Social Work Practice.” Journal of Social Work Practice Addiction 5: 21–32. Kern, Leslie. 2015. “Rhythms of Gentrification: Eventfulness and Slow Violence in a Happening Neighbourhood.” Cultural Geographies, June. doi: 10.1177/1474474015591489. McCann, Eugene, and Cristina Temenos. 2015. “Mobilizing Drug Consumption Rooms: Inter-Place Networks and Harm Reduction Drug Policy.” Health and Place 31: 216–23. McIntosh, Alison. 2016. “Staffing the Shadow State: Politics and Practicality among Greater Vancouver’s Health and Social Service Providers.” Paper presented at the annual meeting for the Association of American Geographers, San Francisco, California, 30 March. – 2015. “Politics, Practicality, and Staffing Greater Vancouver’s Harm Reduction Service Providers.” Paper presented at the 10th Annual

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Critical Geographies Mini-Conference, Portland, Oregon, 14 November. McNeil, Ryan, Kate Shannon, Laura Shaver, Thomas Kerr, and Will Small. 2014. “Negotiating Place and Gendered Violence in Canada’s Largest Open Drug Scene.” International Journal of Drug Policy 25 (3): 608–15. McNeil, Ryan, Hannah Cooper, Will Small, and Thomas Kerr. 2015. “Area Restrictions, Risk, Harm, and Health Care Access among People Who Use Drugs in Vancouver, Canada: A Spatially Oriented Qualitative Study.” Health and Place 35: 70–8. Miewald, Christiana, Francisco Ibanez-Carrasco, and Shane Turner. 2010. “Negotiating the Local Food Environment: The Lived Experience of Food Access for Low-Income People Living with HIV /A IDS.” Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition 5 (4): 510–25. Miewald, Christiana, and Eugene McCann. 2014. “Foodscapes and the Geographies of Poverty: Sustenance, Strategy, and Politics in an Urban Neighborhood.” Antipode 46 (2): 537–56. Miewald, Christiana, Sean Grieve, and Megan Woodward. 2016. “Opening Doors and Juggling Hats: The Lived Experience of Working as a Peer Researcher on the Food as Harm Reduction Study.” Paper presented at the annual meeting for the Society for Applied Anthropology, Vancouver, BC, 29 March. Miewald, Christiana, Daniela Aiello, and Eugene McCann. Forthcoming. “Urban Foodscapes: Repositioning Food in Urban Studies through the Case of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.” In The Handbook of New Urban Studies. Edited by J. Hannigan and G. Richards. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Mitchell, Don, and Nik Heynen. 2009. “The Geography of Survival and the Right to the City: Speculations on Surveillance, Legal Innovation, and the Criminalization of Intervention.” Urban Geography 30 (6): 611–32. Pain, Rachel. 2004. “Social Geography: Participatory Research.” Progress in Human Geography 28: 652–63. Pauly, Bernadette, Dan Reist, Lynn Belle-Isle, and Chuck Schactman. 2013. “Housing and Harm Reduction: What Is the Role of Harm Reduction in Addressing Homelessness?” International Journal of Drug Policy 24 (4): 284–90. Rhodes, Thomas. 2009. “Risk Environments and Drug Harms: A Social Science for Harm Reduction Approach.” International Journal of Drug Policy 20 (3): 193–201. – 2002. “The ‘Risk Environment’: A Framework for Understanding and Reducing Drug-Related Harm.” International Journal of Drug Policy 13 (2): 85–94.

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Romero-Daza, Nancy, David Himmelgreen, Rafael Perez-Escamilla, Sofia Segura-Millan, and Merrill Singer. 1999. “Food Habits of Drug-Using Puerto Rican Women in Inner-City Hartford.” Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness 18 (3): 281–98. Shannon, Kate, Melanie Rusch, Jeannie Shoveller, Debbie Alexson, Kate Gibson, and Mark W. Tyndall. 2008. “Mapping Violence and Policing as an Environmental–Structural Barrier to Health Service and Syringe Availability among Substance-Using Women in Street-Level Sex Work.” International Journal of Drug Policy 19 (2): 140–7. Sullivan, Daniel M. 2014. “From Food Desert to Food Mirage: Race, Social Class, and Food Shopping in a Gentrifying Neighborhood.” Advances in Applied Sociology 4 (1): 30. Travers, Robert, Margaret Wilson, Sarah Flicker, Adrian Guta, T. Bereket, C. Adam McKay, H.A.B. van der Meulen, Ann Cleverly, Mark Dickie, Jason Globerman, and Sean B. Rourke. 2008. “The Greater Involvement of People Living with AIDS Principle: Theory versus Practice in Ontario’s HIV/AID S Community-Based Research Sector.” A I DS Care 20 (6): 615–24. Urban Health Research Initiative. 2009. “Findings from the Evaluation of Vancouver’s Pilot Medically Supervised Safer Injection Facility – Insite.” Vancouver: British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV /A IDS. http://uhri.cfenet.ubc.ca/images/Documents/insite_report-eng.pdf. Wallerstein, Nina B., and Bonnie Duran. 2006. “Using Community-Based Participatory Research to Address Health Disparities.” Health Promotion Practice 7 (3): 312–23. Weiser, Shari D., Sera L. Young, Craig R. Cohen, Margot B. Kushel, Alexander C. Tsai, Phyllis C. Tien, Abigail M. Hatcher, Edward A. Frongillo, and David R. Bangsberg. 2011. “Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Bidirectional Links between Food Insecurity and H IV/AID S .” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 94 (6): 1729S–39S. Whittle, Henry J., Kartika Palar, Lee L. Hufstedler, Hilary K. Seligman, Edward A. Frongillo, and Shari D. Weiser. 2015. “Food Insecurity, Chronic Illness, and Gentrification in the San Francisco Bay Area: An Example of Structural Violence in United States Public Policy.” Social Science and Medicine 143: 154–61.

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7 Homelessness “in Their Horizon” A Rights-Based, Feminist Study of Inadequate Housing and Risk of Homelessness among Families in Toronto’s Aging Rental High-Rises Emily Paradis

I n t r o d u c t i o n a nd Overview Family Homelessness in Toronto’s Inner Suburbs was a mixed-­ methods project that examined inadequate housing and risk of homelessness among families with children living in Toronto’s aging rental apartment buildings.1 In Phase One of the study (November 2012 to June 2013), we evaluated the housing conditions of a large sample of families with children living in aging rental apartment buildings (N=1566). The data were drawn from a random-sample door-to-door survey of households in high-rise ­ rental apartments built before 1980, originally conducted in 2009 by United Way Toronto in Toronto’s inner suburbs (N=2800), and replicated in 2010 in the inner-city neighbourhood of Parkdale by the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership (N=400).2 For the purposes of this study, we merged the data from the two surveys, and selected a sub-sample of families with children (N=1566) for analysis. Our analysis of this data revealed that the housing of nine out of ten families in these buildings failed to meet basic standards in at least one of the dimensions of adequacy: affordability, suitability of size, unit conditions, building conditions, safety, and security of tenure. One-third of families are facing severe housing problems in three or more of these areas, placing them at risk for

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homelessness. Inadequate housing conditions and risk of homelessness are racialized and gendered; immigrant and racialized families are remarkably over-represented in these buildings and neighbourhoods, and lone-mother families face significantly worse housing conditions. In Phase Two (July to December 2013), we conducted community-based, participatory focus groups with more than one hundred service providers and thirty parents across Toronto. These discussions examined families’ housing conditions, the impacts of inadequate housing, and the prevalence of hidden homelessness among families, as well as strategies and recommendations for improving housing conditions. The detailed findings of the study have been published elsewhere (Paradis, Wilson, and Logan 2014).3 This chapter’s focus is on those analytic and methodological aspects of the project that may contribute to the development of critical praxis-oriented research to promote equity and inclusion in the city. The first section situates family homelessness in a broader critical, feminist analysis of urban inequality, segregation, and polarization. The second section describes the feminist, rights-based approach to data analysis our research team developed. As with qualitative and interpretive methods, quantitative methods involve choices and decisions in which questions of validity are situated in the researchers’ standpoint and commitments. The third section presents the community-based, participatory methods employed to engage community members in  the research process, with a focus on the study’s Community Advisory Board and focus groups. Finally, the fourth section comments upon the study’s approach to dissemination, with attention to mobilizing knowledge for resistance.

1 . S i t uat i n g F a m i ly Homelessnes s: H o u s i n g a n d F amilies i n N e o l i b e r a l Toronto While issues of poverty, inequality, housing, and homelessness are inextricably interrelated, policy and research often treat homelessness as a phenomenon unto itself. This chapter aims to foreground the connections between economic trends, policy choices, housing conditions, and homelessness for low-income families in Toronto.

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In so doing, this chapter seeks to re-insert homelessness, often framed as exceptional, into a critical, feminist analysis of the political, social, and economic conditions that produce it. Far from being exceptional, homelessness among low-income, racialized women and families is business as usual in the neoliberal city. This project defines housing and homelessness not as absolute states, but rather as changing positions along a continuum, from inadequate and precarious housing, to hidden homelessness, to ­visible homelessness and shelter use, to re-housing after a period of time in a shelter. Research on housing and homelessness among families, immigrants, and refugees suggests that households often move between different points on this continuum (Murdie and Logan 2010; Paradis et al. 2008; Preston et al. 2011). This analysis is an intervention at a pivotal moment in which – after more than a decade of theoretical and activist struggles to free homelessness research and policy from individualizing, pathologizing, and victim-blaming frameworks – policy and program responses to homelessness are re-inscribing a narrow definition of “chronic homelessness,” legitimizing market logics through costbenefit analyses, and advancing technocratic solutions that promise to “end homelessness” one person at a time.4 A key aim of this study, then, is to politicize homelessness, demonstrate its links with broader social and economic phenomena, and challenge discourses that individualize homelessness. To do this, we must first step back and consider its broader context. E c o n o mi c a n d P o l i c y Tre n d s D r i vi n g I n e q u a li t y a n d   H o me l e s s n e s s i n C a n a d a The emergence of mass homelessness in Canada and other rich countries in the West coincides with a period of increasing urban inequality and polarization. The context for these growing disparities is neoliberal globalization, whose economic trends and state policies – in short, the ever-accelerating circulation of capital, goods, and labour around the globe, and a concomitant retraction of state services – are functionally interlocked with pre-existing ­systems of dominance and oppression based on gender, race, class, dis/ability, age, immigrant status, Indigenous identity, and other social categories. Local, regional, and national legacies and

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structures shape how the global dominance of capital plays out in different geographies. In Canada, long-standing structures and practices of white settler colonialism and patriarchy secure the new economic regime, as they did the welfare state that preceded it. Historical and contemporary Aboriginal policies have produced high rates of Aboriginal poverty and homelessness (Patrick 2014), while changes to immigration policies have resulted in increasingly precarious status, employment, and housing for racialized immigrants (Goldring, Berinstein, and Bernhard 2009; Goldring and Landolt 2012; Ontario Human Rights Commission 2013; Preston et al. 2011; Sharma 2006; Sakamoto, Chin, and Young 2012). Labour market trends drive expanding rates of precarious employment and working poverty (Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario Research Alliance 2012; Stapleton, Murphy, and Xing 2012), particularly among women and racialized groups (Block 2013; Block and Galabuzi 2011; Income Security, Race, and Health Research Working Group 2011). Meanwhile, state cuts to income security programs disproportionately affect women, youth, older adults, Indigenous and racialized people, people with disabilities, and others disadvantaged in the labour market (Alliance for a Poverty-Free Toronto and Social Planning Toronto 2013; Stapleton 2013; Woman Abuse and Welfare Research Project 2004). Finally, despite Canada’s increasing incidence of poverty among renters, housing policy shifts and subsidy cuts have brought the development of social housing and private market rentals to a virtual standstill in the past three decades (Suttor 2015), directly resulting in precarious housing and homelessness. These economic and policy changes severely affect the lives and homes of low-income families. As a worker who participated in one of our focus groups explained, “It is very hard to find housing, especially housing that is affordable, in good condition, and safe. It is very difficult to find a place with all three. If you are a young person struggling to make ends meet, if you’re on O W [welfare] or O D S P [disability support] or any of that sort of stuff, or even if you’re not and you’re working, working, working to try to make it, finding those three things in one perfect package is highly unlikely. Our reality is that a lot of the young families we do support are very low income and don’t have even the ability to think about a time when they will be able to pay market rent.”5

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To ro n t o ’s G e o gr a p h y of Ra c i a li z e d a n d G e n d e re d P ove r t y These trends are not only social and economic, they are spatial. The last thirty years of neoliberal economic and policy changes have transformed Toronto from a city of mixed- and middle-income neighbourhoods to a deeply divided city whose neighbourhoods are increasingly unequal, polarized, and segregated (Hulchanski 2010; United Way Toronto 2015; Walks 2013). While a zone of high-income neighbourhoods consolidates around the city’s core, poverty is concentrated in the inner suburbs (Hulchanski 2010). The city is being reshaped by what Suttor (2015, iii) terms “sociotenure segregation,” meaning that the different locations of rental and ownership housing determine the geography of income. Development of new condominiums is booming in the city’s core, while most of the city’s aging rental buildings, which house about half of Toronto’s tenant households, are found in the inner suburbs (United Way Toronto 2011). These peripheral neighbourhoods are characterized by limited access to services, amenities, and transit, and poor walkability (Hess and Farrow 2010; Toronto Public Health 2011, 2013a, 2013b). This increasing segregation of wealth, poverty, and housing types is racialized and gendered. Immigrants and refugees, racialized groups, and lone-mother-headed families are over-represented in neighbourhoods where average incomes are low, while a disproportionate number of residents of high-income neighbourhoods are white and Canadian-born (Hulchanski 2010). One determinant of this pattern is discrimination in the private rental market, which limits the housing options available to lone-mother-headed families, immigrants and refugees, racialized persons, and persons with disabilities (Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation 2009; Ontario Human Rights Commission 2008), and forces them into areas of the rental market where they pay higher rents for housing of lower quality (Callaghan, Farha, and Porter 2002). As one service provider in Parkdale noted, “For the Hungarian Roma to rent apartments, it’s crazy. Then they charge ridiculous rents – $1,400 for a one-bedroom. Because they know they have no other options.” Growing extremes of economic inequality are matched by the increasing polarization of housing, from multi-million-dollar condominium penthouses to cardboard scraps on the sidewalk. While

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street homelessness and shelter use are the most visible forms of the lower extreme, low-income housing conditions are worsening to the point at which the difference between being housed and being homeless is getting harder and harder to discern. In our focus groups, we heard about the increasing prevalence of two or three families sharing an apartment, or a family with children occupying a single room in a rooming house. Still, poor, racialized, immigrant, and refugee mothers are making homes and forming communities in the aging rental buildings of inner-suburban and inner-city neighbourhoods (Ghosh 2014; Logan and Murdie 2014). Inadequate housing conditions necessitate creative strategies to navigate the housing system. As one participant reminded us, “You need to understand that in some cultures that is just what we do until we are ready to go to neighbourhoods. Families come together, live together, and then later buy a permanent place together. It’s a positive strategy – they have their own system going.” Others pointed out that women do what they need to do for themselves and their kids, supplementing inadequate welfare incomes with home-based cash work. Faced with abandonment by the state and exclusion from the market, families go to extraordinary lengths to care for each other. As one mother recounted, “When my friend was pregnant, her landlord stopped accepting O W cheques and evicted her with five days’ notice. She was afraid to fight it in case C A S [Children’s Aid Society] would find out. So I took her into my home, with me, my sister, our children, and her children in a two-bedroom home. She gave birth in our place. She couldn’t get employment so late in pregnancy. We never asked her for rent. All of us are in this house just trying to make it work.” Our study aimed to document low-income families’ housing conditions, identify links between their housing situations and economic and policy trends, and assist families and communities in supporting each other and demanding change. Our first step was to map the realities of families with children in aging rental buildings.

2 . A C r i t i c a l , F e m i n is t, Rights - Bas ed A p p r oac h to D ata Analysis The quantitative data for this study were drawn from a survey developed by United Way Toronto, which was conducted door-todoor with a randomly selected sample of households (N=2800) in

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aging high-rise rental apartment buildings in Toronto’s inner suburbs. Our research team employed the same research instrument and sampling method in the inner-city neighbourhood of Parkdale (N=400). The survey was designed to inform United Way Toronto’s funding allocation decisions, and to build upon its influential program of research examining neighbourhood poverty trends.6 It was a long questionnaire investigating multiple dimensions of housing and neighbourhoods. Dat a A n a l ys i s t h ro u gh a R i g h t s - B a s e d , C r i t i c a l, Feminist Lens Our challenge was to draw upon these data – collected to inform place-based programs and policies – for a different purpose: to build evidence on inadequate housing and homelessness among families, from a rights-based and feminist perspective. Our choice of this dataset, and our methods for analyzing it, were both scholarly and strategic. We knew that the use of a large random-sample dataset would provide an unprecedented picture of families’ conditions in rental buildings; we also knew it would confer the status of “evidence” on our research, elevating its legitimacy in the eyes of the policy audience we sought to cultivate. At the same time, we knew that positivist approaches tend to oversimplify or misattribute complex economic and social phenomena. In d ic ator s of I na de quat e Ho u s in g : Ap p lyin g Femin ist , R i ght s-B a se d C onc ep tio n s o f  Ad e q uacy Our first challenge was in determining what to measure, and how. In Canada, housing adequacy is typically assessed against three dimensions: affordability, suitability of size, and physical condition. Households whose homes fall short of minimum standards in any of these areas are considered by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (2014) to be in “core housing need.” A rights-based definition of adequate housing, though, takes a more holistic approach, incorporating accessibility, cultural appropriateness, location, access to services, and security of tenure alongside the criteria for core housing need. Through a human rights lens, housing is not merely a form of private property or a matter of contract law, but instead, a central element of social citizenship (Farha 2002; Porter 2003).

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Feminist scholars, meanwhile, remind us that women’s low incomes place them at higher risk of housing instability, and, moreover, that women’s homelessness takes forms that may go unrecognized (Callaghan, Farha, and Porter 2002; YW CA Canada 2013). Definitions of inadequate housing and homelessness must recognize the situation of women and girls who may be physically housed, but lack the security, ownership, control, protection, safety, and privacy considered to be fundamental aspects of a “home” (Bunston and Breton 1992; Justice for Girls 2008; Klodawsky 2006). This includes women and youth who face gender-based, homophobic, and transphobic violence in their homes, as well as women whose housing conditions are associated with the apprehension of their children by child welfare agencies. A gendered understanding of homelessness also takes into account the effects of inadequate housing on children, and the difficulties lone-parent mothers face in securing housing that is safe, affordable, and appropriate for themselves and their children. Drawing upon these broader definitions, we decided to examine six indicators of housing adequacy: affordability, suitability of size, safety, security of tenure, building conditions, and unit conditions. Each indicator was based on a variable selected or synthesized from the dataset. The process of selecting these indicators was informed by a rights-based and feminist analysis, but also had to contend with important limitations in the data, including the absence of survey questions on some dimensions of housing adequacy such as cultural appropriateness. One example of how the survey data influenced the development of our study’s indicators is the safety indicator. There were a number of questions in the survey pertaining to perceptions of safety, along with items about occurrences of crime and disorder. We opted to focus on a variable that measured changes in respondents’ daily routines in response to safety concerns. We reasoned that this would best account for the restricted mobility that is imposed upon women by the generalized threat of violence, but that often goes unrecognized or becomes normalized as routine. On the other hand, because there were no survey questions related to intimate partner violence, this safety issue was not included among our indicators, even though it is a key cause of family homelessness.7 The focus groups and Community Advisory Board offered opportunities to deepen our understanding of intimate partner violence and other issues that were not well represented in the survey.

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We set the threshold for each indicator at a more severe level than those used to define core housing need. For example, under standard definitions, housing is considered unaffordable if it costs more than 30 per cent of a tenant’s income, while in our scale the threshold was 50 per cent. In this way, we sought to further emphasize the depth of housing inadequacy families were facing, and underline the link between housing loss and homelessness. Despite our elevated thresholds, each indicator of inadequate housing was dishearteningly common in the aging rental buildings. Fully half of all families were living in an overcrowded unit; 46 per cent lived in a building in bad condition; 32 per cent were paying more than half of their household income on rent; 27 per cent were in units in severe disrepair; 23 per cent had safety concerns in their homes; and 22 per cent were facing insecure housing tenure and were at risk for eviction due to rental arrears in the previous year. R isk o f Hom e l e ssne ss I nde x: A C r it ic a l A na ly si s of “ R i sk ” The six indicators were combined into a four-part index that we named the Risk of Homelessness Index, which defines housing inadequacy and risk of homelessness on a continuum. Households were assessed based on the number of inadequate housing indicators they faced. They were determined to have: adequate housing (zero indicators of inadequate housing); inadequate housing, some risk of homelessness (one or two indicators); to be at risk of homelessness (three or four indicators); or to be at critical risk of homelessness (five or six indicators).8 Of families who responded to the survey, only 11 per cent lived in adequate housing, while 56 per cent had inadequate housing with major problems in one or two of the adequacy indicator areas. One-third of the families were at risk of homelessness, with housing that failed to meet basic standards in three or more areas of adequacy. A second challenge arose in our use of the phrase “risk of homelessness.” By definition, all families who responded to the survey were housed, but because homelessness among women and families is likely to remain hidden and may take a variety of forms, our project deliberately recognized a continuum of housing vulnerability and homelessness, which we sought to convey in our data analysis. Our approach to terminology fit with the “Canadian Definition of Homelessness” (Canadian Observatory on Homelessness 2012),

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developed by researchers and service providers, which identifies four categories of homelessness: unsheltered, emergency sheltered, provisionally accommodated, and at risk of homelessness.9 The fourth category, at risk of homelessness, includes two types of circumstances, both potentially applicable to the respondents of the survey: households who are precariously housed and facing serious problems with their housing, and those who are at imminent risk of homelessness due to violence, eviction, and other factors. Although most families included in the category “at risk of homelessness” will not end up in shelters, their housing is insecure or unstable, or it fails to meet health and safety standards. A personal crisis or widespread economic changes can lead to a situation in which such families lose their housing, experience hidden homelessness, or enter a shelter. Indeed, as we learned in the focus groups, housing loss is a common occurrence among families at risk – though it rarely becomes visible, as through families’ shelter use. The scale’s intended representation of a continuum of housing inadequacy was, however, not clear to everyone. Our use of terms such as “risk” and “index,” in particular, created an expectation among some readers that we were predicting individual families’ likelihood of becoming homeless. This challenged us to better articulate our approach – a need that, in fact, raises fundamental questions about different understandings of homelessness. Almost twenty years ago, in response to victim-blaming discourses on homelessness, researchers importantly declared that it is not a trait, but a state (Shinn 1997). Nevertheless, current preoccupations with defining and measuring that state often fall short of challenging the conditions that produce it. Housing First programs in the US, and increasingly in Canada, rely on assessment tools to determine individuals’ and families’ eligibility for subsidized housing and supports. These vulnerability assessments enable a triage approach in which scarce resources are targeted to those considered to be in greatest need. A cost-benefit analysis undergirds the assessment system: the households to which these additional support services are offered are those whose continued homelessness would cost the state more than the price of the services provided. When cities set a goal to end homelessness, they generally mean to end it one person at a time, by providing housing and supports to each household that meets a narrow definition of homeless.

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There is no question that this new commitment to providing housing and supports to the most vulnerable households signals an important shift away from maintaining people in a state of chronic homelessness. The long-term effects of entrenched homelessness, housing precarity, and deep poverty are devastating to individual health and require an urgent response. Women facing homelessness who are between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-five are ten times more likely to die than their housed counterparts (Cheung and Hwang 2004). Notwithstanding the importance of this change, a shift in service delivery protocol should not be mistaken for a useful framework that can help us understand and challenge homelessness. The new vulnerability assessment approach adopts neoliberal logics of selfsufficiency, reifying a new normal in which universal entitlements of social citizenship and standards of basic adequacy are replaced with individual responsibility to provide the necessities of life for oneself and one’s family, with state assistance available only in the most extreme circumstances. Not only is this a poor framework for identifying the causes of homelessness and the policy solutions required to end it, but it also abandons individuals and families who fall outside its narrow eligibility criteria. A focus on risk, as we define it, instead problematizes the very existence of homelessness as a social phenomenon. It raises critical questions: How does it come to be that there is a reality called homelessness? What social, political, and economic conditions produce it? How is this phenomenon defined, and what interests are served by various definitions? What social groups are most likely to find themselves in this state? Risk resides not in the families facing homelessness, but in the current social, political, and economic arrangements that render housing so precarious and inadequate for so many. To focus only on those who end up in shelters obscures the much broader reach of the forces that drive not only homelessness, but also the general deterioration of housing conditions for lowincome households. Instead of zeroing in on visible, chronic homelessness, we believe there is much to be learned from the condition we call “risk of homelessness” faced by a much larger group. Homelessness is similar to other phenomena, such as incarceration, which are framed as exceptional but are in fact central to the operations of advanced capitalist economies. In her work on the normalization of

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imprisonment among residents of specific urban neighbourhoods in Portugal, Da Cunha (2005, 163) comments that in light of the erosion of the boundaries between prison and community, prison studies must now “consider not merely the boundary between the imprisoned and the free but also the one between those whose lives include the prison in their horizon and those whose lives do not.” In important respects, residents of Toronto’s low-income, aging apartment neighbourhoods have homelessness always “in their horizon,” and the boundaries between what is understood as homelessness and the everyday conditions of their housing are becoming more and more difficult to discern. If we wish to comprehend the implications of homelessness for society as a whole, critical homelessness researchers and activists must fix our gaze on these expanding liminal spaces of deep exclusion, and account for the systems and forces that produce them. This is not only a matter of theory. It is also everyday reality, as eloquently expressed by a participant in one of the project’s focus groups: “I’ve been back and forth – private, TCH C, homeless shelters – I’ve done it all. I’ve come to the realization that everything against us will always be against us. We’re slaves to the system. The thought of someone ending up homeless because they can’t afford the rent or the hydro got too high [is no longer seen as an emergency]. There’s no faces anymore. No matter what organization you go to, there is nothing that can be done. As people we have to fight, that’s the only thing we can do.” As this mother insists, risk of homelessness is becoming normalized by an economic and political system that denies the needs, and even the personhood, of people living in poverty. That system – not the people entrapped by it – should be the focus of our interrogation.

3 . C o m m u n i ty- Bas ed, P a rt i c i pato ry Methods Toronto’s inner-suburban apartment tower neighbourhoods have been the focus of a number of program and policy interventions in recent years.10 While this attention is important after a long period of neglect and disinvestment, tenant perspectives and interests have rarely been at the centre of these large processes (Cowen and Parlette 2011). This project aimed to unsettle some of the top-down tendencies of research and policy initiatives in these neighbourhoods.

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Com m u n i t y A d v i s o r y Bo a rd: A We b of Alli a n c e s The key mechanism for ensuring the project’s accountability to the community was the Community Advisory Board (CAB) convened at the outset of the project. The C A B included tenant leaders and service providers from the study’s focus neighbourhoods. In order to cultivate a balance of power, we aimed for parity between service providers and people with lived experience of poverty and homelessness. We also knew from past experience that an imbalance of legitimacy can result when professionals represent their organizations while lived-experience members are there in an individual capacity. For this reason, we recruited tenant representatives from grassroots groups and organizations. The composition of the CAB also enhanced the project’s base of expertise; members included a housing help centre, a health centre, organizations providing settlement services, a tenants’ association, an anti-poverty group, and a grassroots women’s group. The project supported the participation of low-income members through the provision of transit fare, and honoured their time and expertise by offering honoraria for each meeting and activity attended. C A B meetings were modeled on feminist and popular education processes. We incorporated popular education activities and participatory data analysis to elicit the expertise of all members. Our wideranging discussions kept the project grounded in the differently situated knowledges of researchers, community workers, and lowincome mothers, and in our shared commitment to challenging economic, racial, and gender injustice. From our first meeting – when a resident organizer arrived early and helped the research team to set up the room and greet other newcomers – it was clear that C A B members, and particularly those representing residents, were eager to take ownership of the project and the process. Many C A B members had prior connections with each other and that first meeting was a reunion of sorts, through which the project was looped in to a pre-existing web of alliances. Those connections became a key resource for the project, both because they provided access to current information and focus group participants and because they acted as a conduit through which the project’s findings could support emerging campaigns and events in neighbourhoods across the city.

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N e i gh b o u r h o o d -Ba s e d Foc u s G rou ps : E n t e r i n g t h e C o n ve r s a t i on One aim of the project was to contribute to dialogue and networking on family homelessness in Toronto. The Phase Two focus groups were hosted by our partner organizations on the CAB; they were generous ambassadors, welcoming the research team into their neighbourhoods, organizations, and networks. The very first focus group packed the room with more than thirty service providers from the Weston-Mount Dennis neighbourhood, including those in settlement, employment, legal, health, housing, youth, and women’s services. At this meeting it became evident that far from initiating these discussions on poverty, inequality, race, gender, families, and rental housing in Toronto, we were relative newcomers to a long-standing conversation. The community leaders convened around the tables understood the project as an opportunity to make known the unjust conditions in their communities and to demand change. They also expressed concern that this project would contribute to the misrepresentation and stigma to which their neighbourhoods had already long been exposed. Some challenged the research team to reconsider the use of terms like “hidden homelessness” that, in their view, insulted residents’ determined efforts to make a home for themselves and their families. These expectations and challenges were incorporated into our analysis, alongside the more formal data gathered through the focus groups, informing the language and knowledge mobilization plans of the study. These conversations drew out the nuances and complexities that are encountered through front-line work. One key example is that of the links between intimate partner violence and homelessness among women and families. Front-line workers described the barriers women face in seeking safe and affordable housing. A worker in a service for women facing violence said, “About 60 per cent of the women [in our program] are still living in the situation, or thinking about leaving. This is because of the barriers they face in finding adequate housing and income. Most have children. For women being abused by their partner, it’s very difficult to find the resources to leave – to go to shelter, change schools. Immigration status is key, many are afraid to leave because of sponsorship.”

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Though women and families fleeing violence can receive priority for placement into subsidized housing, we heard from service providers that the requirements for police reports and other forms of documentation make this program difficult to access for many women. Settlement workers also noted that the stresses newcomers face can contribute to violence, and the subsequent interventions often just worsen the family’s situation. One explained, “[Newcomers are] living in extremely stressful conditions, parents are under a lot of stress, depression and addiction set in. Fathers may leave home or be escorted out by police in response to neighbour complaints about yelling between the mother and father … After the father leaves, the mother is left with an even lower income, then the family becomes more at risk of losing their housing.” Many pointed out that women whose status is precarious may lack access to social benefits, and fear deportation if they attempt to leave an abusive relationship. As a result of these barriers, several service providers noted that their agencies have shifted their focus away from helping women to leave an abusive relationship at any cost. A participant explained that many women are making a rational choice to stay in these situations. Given the lack of affordable and adequate housing for women leaving abuse, she said, services must work with women to assess their options and support women in managing their situation, whether or not they choose to leave. Women in such housing arrangements are unlikely to fit the criteria for Housing First programs, despite the dangers facing them and their children. Fa m i l y F o c u s G ro u p s : S i t e s f or C la i m i n g Ri g h t s The parent focus groups modeled a feminist, participatory approach whereby research participants are understood to be knowledgeable actors, and the research becomes a site for articulating counter-­ narratives, forging new alliances, claiming rights, and envisioning strategies for challenging an oppressive status quo. Through our C A B partners, the project hired and trained frontline workers and women with lived experience of poverty to assist with outreach and facilitation of the family focus groups. The project supported parents’ participation by providing an honorarium, on-site childminding, interpretation, a full meal, and transit fare. We sought to ensure that the focus group process held intrinsic

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benefits for participants. Instead of a unidirectional flow of information from participants to researchers, we worked as a team with the grassroots coordinators to plan a process whereby participants could connect with each other around shared experiences of hardship, discuss common strategies, envision alternative futures, and learn about community resources. In addition, the focus group meetings were followed by workshops on tenants’ rights offered by a local legal clinic or tenant association. Through their community networks, the grassroots coordinators assembled remarkable groups of thoughtful, articulate parents, many of whom were fiercely engaged in activism on poverty, housing, racism, immigration, and other issues in their neighbourhoods. The focus group agenda drew out their expertise, inviting them to contribute recommendations for changes to services and policies. Discussions were enriched by participation in multiple languages, requiring all of us to listen intently. Participants made connections across different experiences and built on each other’s contributions. In most cases, the meetings bore little resemblance to a formal research process; instead, they were chaotic, warm, and even celebratory gatherings where food was shared, children came and went, tears were shed, voices were raised in laughter and anger, and plans were made. As one participant commented, “We need more meetings like this.” Each focus group meeting closed with the creation of a list of demands, which we promised to include verbatim and in full in our final report and to bring to the attention of policy-makers. These lists, reproduced below, underline the necessity of housing, income, and services for families. They set out an integrated agenda for change to policies and programs in immigration, labour market, social assistance, housing, and services. At the same time, the lists insist upon dignity, autonomy, self-determination, and participation for parents and children. In other words, they demand citizenship. The complexity, groundedness, specificity, and spirit of these demands demonstrate one important benefit of critical, praxis-­ oriented research processes: the creation of environments in which experiential knowledge is valued and represented. We, parents of Thorncliffe Park-Flemingdon Park, demand:   1. affordable accommodation.   2. no guarantor for renting, especially for newcomers.

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  3. stop bullying your tenants.   4. cleaning and maintenance.   5. renovate the buildings.   6. provide basic facilities.   7. more schools and parks.   8. safety and security.   9. maintain garbage chutes. 10. independent inspection officers. 11. easy access to politicians and ministers and the concerned authorities, with good output. 12. create more job opportunities nearby – hire more people from within the community. 13. eliminate discrimination and stop asking about Canadian experience. 14. regulations for landlords. 15. politicians should act in the interest of the community. We, mothers of Parkdale, demand:   1. affordable, decent, clean, permanent, safe housing in Parkdale.   2. raise our salaries.   3. restore community services with language interpretation.   4. democracy in landlord-tenant issues – tenant committees who can speak to landlords.   5. regular city inspections of buildings.   6. daycare services and after-school programs.   7. more employment opportunities.   8. city-wide responsibility and programs for solving pest problems such as bedbugs. We, mothers of Weston–Mount Dennis, demand:   1. less bed checks and micromanaging in shelters, more participation by residents.   2. provide access to housing and O H IP for people without status, especially those with Canadian-born children.   3. locate affordable housing all around the city, and integrate it into condominiums.   4. improve security and maintenance in buildings.   5. increase subsidized programs for children.

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  6. re-define the meaning of “affordable housing” to mean housing that is affordable to AL L .  7. subsidize T T C passes. We, parents of Jane-Finch, demand:   1. affordable, decent, safe, permanent housing.   2. raise the minimum wage to $14 now.   3. inclusionary zoning.   4. enforcement of landlord obligations and building standards.   5. affordable, high quality childcare.   6. food security.   7. Pan Am games athletes’ buildings should be made accessible and affordable to Jane and Finch residents after the games. These focus groups expanded the project’s base of accountability. Many participants had ongoing contact with the grassroots coordinators, and sometimes would ask for updates on the research. While participants’ contributions in the focus groups deepened our understanding of the issues, their ongoing presence and expectations reminded us of our responsibility to communicate that understanding to those with the power to make change.

4. M o b i l i z i n g K n ow l e d ge for Res is tance In contrast with a typical academic study, our dissemination plan was focused less on formal publications than on producing knowledge that was useful to activism and advocacy. Determining the form and content of this knowledge mobilization was an iterative process, informed by the insights and demands of CAB partners and focus group participants. Knowledge mobilization was integrated throughout the study. Preliminary findings from the quantitative data analysis were presented to the service provider focus groups, enabling both the incorporation of their local insights into further analysis, and the rapid dissemination of early findings directly to those who could make use of them. A bulletin about the results of the preliminary analysis was released on National Housing Day, in November 2013,

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garnering early media attention for our key finding that nine out of ten families living in the aging apartment buildings surveyed in our study were inadequately housed. The bulletin was followed by a full report, released in March 2014, which drew broad media coverage including the front page of the Toronto Star and an interview on CBC radio’s local morning show. The report and executive summary were emailed in advance of their release to all Toronto councillors, MPPs, and M P s, as well as to city and provincial officials in housingrelated departments. In the months following the report’s release, the research team gave invited presentations to various audiences including neighbourhood service providers, city staff, and provincial policy-makers. At the urging of the CAB, the final report was summarized in a unique, infographic-based brochure that was translated into Farsi, Spanish, Tamil, and Urdu for distribution to tenants and front-line workers via partner agencies and activist groups across the city. In some neighbourhoods, partners hosted reportback meetings, where the research was presented to residents, including parents who had participated in the focus groups. A key commitment of the project’s dissemination plan was to represent the expertise of people with lived experience and practitioners in as many settings as possible. CAB members co-presented with the lead researcher at scholarly and policy venues, including a national conference on women’s homelessness, a meeting with the city’s Tower Renewal program staff, and a workshop for the Ministry of Community and Social Services. In each of the three venues, the audience saw the integration of research, practice, and lived experience as the highlight of the presentation. One particularly challenging area to negotiate was media representation. We knew from past experience that journalists typically frame articles on poverty and homelessness from a human interest angle, focusing on a single person’s story. While this approach may cultivate readers’ sympathy, it can also depoliticize issues of injustice, and undermine the agency and dignity of people living in poverty. In addition, the subjects of such stories often become targets for virulent sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and poor-bashing in online comments. After discussing these concerns with the CAB, we agreed that it was worth the risk, and a resident member volunteered to participate in media coverage. We reached out, weeks before the report’s release, to a respected journalist whose work focuses on social

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justice, and offered her an exclusive advance, including an interview at the home of the C A B member. We maintained careful boundaries: the discussion focused on the CAB member’s activism, not her personal circumstances; the journalist respected her requests to keep some details off the record; and though the editor had asked for a photo set inside the apartment, we refused, offering instead to be photographed on the street outside her building. We knew that these limitations might affect the prominence given to the story, but we hoped for the best. The morning of the report’s release, the story appeared above the fold on the front page of the Toronto Star, illustrated with a large photo showing two women – this author and the C A B member – talking together on the street, with high-rise buildings in the background. Visually, and in the story, we were represented as equals in a shared project to investigate conditions in rental apartments. The message this photo conveyed was just as important as the article’s content related to our report.

C o n c l u s i o n : L e s s o ns for Critic al P ra x i s - O r i e n t e d R e s e a rch for Equity and In c l u s i o n i n U r ba n Neighbourhoods As with any project, this study only partially upheld the ideals of feminist, participatory activist research. It was planned unilaterally – by the time community members were invited to join, the research agenda was largely set. Housed in a university, it was constrained by institutional limitations and the requirements of formal academic research. Its community-based, participatory aspects were supplementary to a fairly traditional research design, rather than its driving force. Ownership of research resources – both funds and data – remained with the institution. Additionally, the benefits of the project were overwhelmingly accrued in typical hierarchical fashion, mostly directly advancing the lead researcher’s career, and least of all benefitting participants and their communities. As Boyd (2008) and others point out, social and economic relations of power and dominance are always present in community-based, feminist research on issues of poverty, and this project was no exception. Each project is subject to different institutional constraints and contexts, and in the end, the ideals of feminist participatory research are always balanced against pragmatics. This is not to advocate complacency, but perhaps this project’s best contribution is in

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demonstrating how critical, feminist, participatory, and communitybased perspectives and approaches can be incorporated into even relatively mainstream research and policy processes. The lessons from this project are particularly timely, as cities are increasingly embracing community engagement and participatory planning, but these efforts all too often fail to make space for fundamental challenges to the status quo (Cowen and Parlette 2011). Residents of Toronto’s inner-suburban neighbourhoods are rightly wary of a culture of consultation that does not give them any real power to define processes or determine outcomes. Communities’ input is all too often invited at strategic moments, while real decisions about resource allocation and policy are made behind closed doors. At the same time, these processes of community engagement, if carried out with integrity, hold real potential to transform planning and policy in the city. This project offers some practical guideposts for communities and organizations hoping to seize some of this potential to work towards their vision of reshaping rental neighbourhoods in the interests of the families who live there.

notes



This paper is based on a report authored by Emily Paradis with Ruth Wilson and Jennifer Logan. Their intellectual contributions are central to this paper, as are those of the project’s community and academic advisory boards, the community researchers who led the family focus groups, and all those who participated.   Jennifer Logan died suddenly in January 2015 at the age of thirtytwo. In order to honour Jenn, her colleagues at the University of Winnipeg have established a scholarship in her name. Donations can be made at https://donate.uwinnipeg.ca/, specifying the Jennifer Logan Memorial Scholarship.   1 Funded by the Homelessness Partnering Strategy of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (Grant #11761368), and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada via the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership (P.I.J. David Hulchanski), based at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto.   2 The United Way Toronto study’s findings were published in United Way Toronto, Poverty by Postal Code 2: Vertical Poverty, 2011.

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  3 The full report and other knowledge mobilization products can be found at http://homelesshub.ca/resource/nowhere-else-goinadequate-housing-risk-homelessness-among-­families-torontos-agingrental.   4 The most worrisome trend in this regard, in the Canadian context, is the adoption of a Housing First framework as policy by the Conservative federal government, with the requirement that municipalities receiving federal homelessness funds re-orient their services to this model, and target those who meet a narrow definition of “chronic homelessness.” Feminist organizations have raised concerns that this definition fails to reflect the ways in which homelessness is most commonly experienced by women, girls, and families (Y WC A 2013), but much of the homelessness research and services sector has embraced this approach and the burgeoning industry of fidelity rating studies and risk assessment tools that accompanies it. In so doing, the sector risks supporting an agenda to divorce homelessness from its larger ­systemic causes, promote market-based interventions, and obscure its powerful indictment of the profound inequities inherent in Canada’s economic and social systems.   5 The interviews presented in this chapter are part of the fieldwork ­conducted between May and October 2015.   6 See United Way reports, Poverty by Postal Code 2: Vertical Poverty (2011), and Poverty by Postal Code (2004).   7 The United Way survey was not intended to explore intimate partner violence. Its focus was the connection between housing and ­elements of “Neighbourhood Vitality” such as social networks and social capital.   8 As noted above, the threshold for each indicator was set at a level more severe than that for core housing need. For example, in order to be considered unaffordable, housing had to cost 50 per cent or more of a household’s income; in order to be considered in disrepair, a unit had to have three or more areas of disrepair in the past year that the landlord had not addressed; and in order to be considered overcrowded, a unit had to have more than two persons per bedroom. For this reason, even units that were inadequate in only one of the indicator dimensions were considered to be inadequate housing.   9 The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is the new name of what used to be Canadian Homelessness Research Network (C HR N). The Definition was published when it was still C HR N, but its authorship appears to have been updated to reflect the new project name.

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10 The Priority Neighbourhoods program – initiated by the city and United Way in 2005, and restructured as the Neighbourhood Improvement Area program in 2014 – aims to provide resources and social infrastructure to these disinvested and neglected neighbourhoods in the inner suburbs. Another prominent intervention in these neighbourhoods has been Tower Renewal, which has provided financing and planning support to owners of rental buildings to undertake energy-­ efficiency upgrades. The program also includes resident engagement and community development initiatives with tenants of the buildings, along with implementation of a new zoning category, Residential Apartment Commercial, to enable commercial development at grade in these formerly exclusively residentially zoned neighbourhoods. references

Alliance for a Poverty-Free Toronto, and Social Planning Toronto. 2013. Toward a Poverty Elimination Strategy for the City of Toronto. Toronto: Alliance for a Poverty-Free Toronto and Social Planning Toronto. Block, Sheila. 2013. Who Is Working for Minimum Wage in Ontario? Toronto: Wellesley Institute. Block, Sheila, and Grace-Edward Galabuzi. 2011. Canada’s Colour-Coded Labour Market: The Gap for Racialized Workers. Toronto: Wellesley Institute and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Boyd, Susan. 2008. “Community-Based Research in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.” Resources for Feminist Research 33 (1–2): 19–43. Bunston, Terry, and Margot Breton. 1992. “Homes and Homeless Women.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 12: 149–62. Callaghan, Maureen, Leilani Farha, and Bruce Porter. 2002. Women and Housing in Canada: Barriers to Equality. Toronto: Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA), Women’s Housing Program. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. 2014. “Housing in Canada Online, Definitions of Variables.” Accessed 1 February 2014. http:// cmhc.beyond2020.com/ HiCODefinitions_EN.html#_Core_Housing_Need_Status. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. 2012. “Canadian Definition of Homelessness.” Last modified 6 December 2012. http://www. homelesshub.ca/Library/Canadian-Definition-of-Homelessness54225.aspx. Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation. 2009. Sorry It’s Rented: Measuring Discrimination in Toronto’s Rental Housing Market. Toronto: Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation.

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Cheung, Angela, and Stephen Hwang. 2004. “Risk of Death Among Homeless Women: A Cohort Study and Review of the Literature.” CMAJ -Canadian Medical Association Journal 170 (8): 1243–7. doi.10.1503/cmaj.1031167. Cowen, Deborah, and Vanessa Parlette. 2011. Inner Suburbs at Stake: Investing in Social Infrastructure in Scarborough. Research Paper 220. Toronto: University of Toronto Cities Centre. Da Cunha, Manuela. 2005. “From Neighbourhood to Prison: Women and the War on Drugs in Portugal.” In Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex, edited by J. Sudbury, 155–66. New York: Routledge. Farha, Leilani. 2002. “Is There a Woman in the House? Re/conceiving the Human Right to Housing.” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 14: 118–41. Ghosh, Sutama. 2014. “Everyday Lives in Vertical Neighbourhoods: Exploring Bangladeshi Residential Spaces in Toronto’s Inner Suburbs.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38 (6): 2008–24. Goldring, Luin, Carolina Berinstein, and Judith Bernhard. 2009. “Institutionalizing Precarious Migratory Status in Canada.” Citizenship Studies 13 (3): 239–65. Goldring, Luin, and Patricia Landolt. 2012. The Impact of Precarious Legal Status on Immigrants’ Economic Outcomes. IR PP Study No. 35. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy. Hess, Paul, and Jane Farrow. 2010. Walkability in Toronto’s High-Rise Neighbourhoods. Toronto: Cities Centre. Homes for Women. 2013. Housing First, Women Second? Gendering Housing First at the National Conference on Ending Homelessness. Ottawa: Homes for Women. Hulchanski, David, with Larry S. Bourne, Rick Eagan, Maureen Fair, Richard Maaranen, Robert A. Murdie, and R. Alan Walks. 2010. Three Cities within Toronto. Toronto: Cities Centre. Income Security, Race, and Health Research Working Group. 2011. Working Rough, Living Poor: Employment and Income Insecurities Faced by Racialized Groups in the Black Creek Area and Their Impacts on Health. Toronto: Access Alliance. Justice for Girls. 2008. More Than Bricks and Mortar: A Rights-Based Strategy to Prevent Girl Homelessness in Canada. Vancouver: Justice for Girls. Klodawsky, Fran. 2006. “Landscapes on the Margins: Gender and Homelessness in Canada.” Gender, Place, and Culture 13 (4): 365–81. Logan, Jennifer, and Robert Murdie. 2014. “Home in Canada? The Settlement Experiences of Tibetans in Parkdale, Toronto.” International

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Migration and Integration 17 (1): 95–113. Pre-publication manuscript provided to author in 2014. Murdie, Robert, and Jennifer Logan. 2010. Precarious Housing and Hidden Homelessness among Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Immigrants: Bibliography and Review of Canadian Literature from 2005 to 2010. Toronto: C ER IS – The Ontario Metropolis Centre. Ontario Human Rights Commission. 2013. Removing the “Canadian Experience” Barrier. Accessed 20 November 2015. http://www.ohrc. on.ca/en/removing-canadian-experience-barrier-brochure. – 2008. Right at Home: Report on the Consultation on Human Rights and Rental Housing in Ontario. Toronto: Ontario Human Rights Commission. Paradis, Emily, Sylvia Novac, Monica Sarty, and David Hulchanski. 2008. Better Off in a Shelter? A Year of Homelessness and Housing among Status Immigrant, Non-Status Migrant, and Canadian-Born Families. Toronto: University of Toronto Cities Centre. Paradis, Emily, Ruth Wilson, and Jennifer Logan. 2014. Nowhere Else to Go: Inadequate Housing and Risk of Homelessness among Families in Toronto’s Aging Rental Buildings. Cities Centre Research Paper 231. Toronto: University of Toronto Cities Centre. Patrick, Caryl. 2014. Aboriginal Homelessness in Canada: A Literature Review. Toronto: Canadian Homelessness Research Network Press. Porter, Bruce. 2003. The Right to Adequate Housing in Canada. Centre for Urban and Community Studies, Research Bulletin 14 (April 2003). Toronto: Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto. Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario (PEPSO) Research Alliance. 2012. It’s More than Poverty: Employment Precarity and Household Well-Being. Hamilton: McMaster University, 2012. Preston, Valerie, Robert Murdie, Silvia D’Addario, Prince Sibanda, and Ann-Marie Murnaghan, with Jennifer Logan and Mi Hae Ahn. 2011. Precarious Housing and Hidden Homelessness among Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Immigrants in the Toronto Metropolitan Area. Toronto: C ER IS – The Ontario Metropolis Centre. Sakamoto, Izumi, Matthew Chin, and Melina Young. 2012. “‘Canadian Experience,’ Employment Challenges, and Skilled Immigrants: A Close Look through ‘Tacit Knowledge.’” Canadian Social Work 12 (2): 145–51. Sharma, Nandita. 2006. Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of “Migrant Workers” in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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Shinn, Mary-Beth. 1997. “Family Homelessness: State or Trait?” American Journal of Community Psychology 25 (6): 755–69. Stapleton, John. 2013. “A Ball Player, a Cop, a Janitor and a Welfare Recipient.” Broadbent Blog, 16 January. http://www.broadbentinstitute. ca/en/blog/ john-stapleton-ball-player-cop-janitor-and-welfare-recipient. Stapleton, John, Brian Murphy, and Yue Xing. 2012. The Working Poor in the Toronto Region: Who They Are, Where They Live, and How Trends Are Changing. Toronto: Metcalf Foundation. Suttor, Greg. 2015. Rental Housing Dynamics and Lower-Income Neighbourhoods in Canada. Cities Centre Research Paper 235. Toronto: University of Toronto Cities Centre. Toronto Public Health. 2013a. Racialization and Health Inequities in Toronto. Toronto: Toronto Public Health. – 2013b. Next Stop Health: Transit Access and Health Inequities in Toronto. Toronto: Toronto Public Health. – 2011. Healthy Toronto by Design. Toronto: Toronto Public Health. United Way Toronto. 2015. The Opportunity Equation: Building Opportunity in the Face of Growing Income Inequality. Toronto: United Way Toronto. – 2011. Poverty by Postal Code 2: Vertical Poverty. Toronto: United Way Toronto. Walks, Alan. 2013. Income Inequality and Polarization in Canada’s Cities: An Examination and a New Form of Measurement. Toronto: Cities Centre. Woman Abuse and Welfare Research Project. 2004. Walking on Eggshells: Abused Women’s Experiences of Ontario’s Welfare System. Final Report. Toronto: Woman and Abuse Welfare Research Project. Y WC A Canada. 2013. Housing First, Women Second? Gendering Housing First. Last modified 28 October 2013. http://ywcacanada.ca/data/­ documents/00000382.pdf.

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section three

Examining the Intersection of Values and Practices

Philosopher of science Sandra Harding begins her recent book, Objectivity and Diversity, by observing, “Worries about objectivity just won’t go away. Issues about what should be the role, if any, of values and interests in scientific research are as old as Galileo and the Enlightenment, and as new as the recent public debates about stem cell research … and the causes of climate change” (2015, 1). She has had a long-standing, twofold quest: on the one hand, to critically probe hegemonic understandings of “value-free” scientific objectivity and demonstrate their deeply flawed and biased nature; on the other, to highlight the potential of more productive and inclusive approaches to objectivity for high quality scholarship that are informed by “certain types of diversity” and “recent feminist, postcolonial, and post-Kuhnian science studies thinking” (2015, 5). Her work and that of other feminist philosophers and social studies of science scholars have been important starting points for understanding how scholars’ values inform the approaches to research highlighted in this volume (Collins 1990; Haraway 1991; Harding 1986; Massey 1994; Smith 1988; Eubanks 2014; Frampton et al. 2006; Gibson-Graham 2011; Harding 2015; Hawkesworth 2006; Mitchell 2008; Naples 2003; Whitmore, Wilson, and Calhoun 2011). These works have raised important questions about how scientific pursuits should be conceptualized more generally. In Making Social Science Matter, Flyvbjerg (2001) recalls Aristotle’s arguments about three intellectual virtues – episteme, techne, phronesis – and argues forcefully that the third has been neglected to the detriment of useful knowledge about human interactions. He and

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his close collaborators make the case that phronesis – “practical wisdom” – is particularly well suited to the social sciences, especially when there is an interest in linking scholarship to social and policy struggles. They assert that social scientists should reject conceptualizations of knowledge production that mimic those of the natural sciences. They write that “The natural sciences are better at testing hypotheses to demonstrate abstract principles and lawlike relationships, while the social sciences are better at producing situated knowledge about how to understand and act in contextualized settings, based on deliberation about specific sets of values and interests” (Flyvbjerg, Landman, and Schram 2012, 2). At the core of their argument is a recognition that context is an inevitable aspect of understanding human relations. The implications of these insights are manifold. Both the researcher’s focus of study and their intellectual perspective are of interest when discerning how the lessons of investigating a particular problem are to be taken into account in different circumstances. Specific ideas on how such matters should be pursued are left open. Whether or not a study is compatible with a phronesisinformed perspective is rather about the nature of the problem being investigated and the stance of the researcher in relation to that problem. It is most succinctly captured in the four questions that they suggest can act as guiding principles: “(1) Where are we going with this specific problematic? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by what mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? and (4) What, if anything, should we do about it?” (Flyvbjerg, Landman, and Schram 2012, 5). As an outcome of their investigation of diverse applications of phronetic informed research, Flyvbjerg, Landman, and Schram (2012, 9) identify the notion of “tension points in social and policy struggles” as a valuable focus: “These tension points are weak spots in any struggle where disagreement creates an opening for research to sway opinion and move a decision in a particular direction. By exploiting these tension points, phronetic research can prove its relevance in specific settings and influence outcomes so as to improve social action and policy-making.” All four chapters included in this section illustrate the manner in which tension points contributed to the development of an implicitly phronetic approach. In each case, the researchers made their values explicit and reflected on how best to align them with

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their study practices. Mackinnon’s ongoing work with the Indigenous Learning Circle (I L C ) was precipitated by a sense of alienation from those institutional actors and resources that were claiming alignment in relation to community-based services for poor Indigenous residents of Winnipeg. She writes that the IL C was established to “develop … ‘promising practices’ derived from evidence understood through Indigenous worldviews and cultural and spiritual values, and [it] focuses on community-based succession planning and cultural proficiency in education and training” (Mackinnon and I L C , 213). Over time, MacKinnon and her colleagues came to focus their discussion and analysis on the implications for community agencies of the significant gap between standard, top-down evaluation approaches and those that were community-based. Mackinnon, as a long-standing ally and resource person for this group, led the writing of the chapter as part of ongoing efforts to provoke funders and other relevant institutional actors to further reflect on the choices they were making for the well-being of the intended beneficiaries. Adamo et al. offer another perspective on interactions between tension points, values, and practices. In their case, concerned about the human health toll of being homeless, coupled with a lack of senior government leadership on these matters, they ­created a cross-Canada research network in selected cities that included community agencies and university researchers from a variety of backgrounds. While the network began productively as an effort to both encourage research on issues of mutual concern and to leverage available resources for such efforts, a lack of recognition about the value of being self-reflexive resulted in their growing awareness of the network’s limitations. Muller Myrdahl’s reflections on a specific homophobic incident in Lethbridge and its aftermath illustrates a very different type of tension point and researcher location. In this case, Muller Myrdahl focuses her reflections and recommendations on the reactions of city counsellors and staff to a specific incident, juxtaposed against an evolving inclusion policy in the City of Lethbridge that is the focus of Muller Myrdahl’s reflections and recommendations. Her engagement with the situation draws on her multiple positionings: as an interested observer; as a participant somewhat connected to and impacted by the incident; and as a critical scholar of municipal inclusion policies seeking

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lessons for how this incident might lead to better practices/ outcomes both in Lethbridge and elsewhere. Mohammed et al.’s engagement with current and possible urban planning practices and processes in City of Edmonton are both similar and different from those of Muller Myrdahl. In their case too, the motivating tension for the research was a demonstrated gap between current municipal approaches to consultation and the city’s stated goals for improving Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations. In other ways though there are noteworthy differentiations in the normative arguments presented in these two chapters, and in the scholarship upon which they are able to draw. Muller Myrdahl is charting new territory in her discussion about what would be required to implement municipal practices and programmes that are explicitly inclusive of diverse sexual orientations, and why that is vital to identifying inclusive city-building efforts. In contrast, the research described in Mohammed et al.’s chapter is part of a long-standing and ongoing conversation in which the widespread, explicitly government sanctioned injustices perpetrated upon Indigenous peoples are becoming more and more widely recognized, most recently through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Report and Recommendations (TRC 2015).

references

Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Eubanks, Virginia. 2012. “Feminist Phronesis and Technologies of Citizenship.” In Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis, edited by Bent Flyvbjerg, Todd Landman, and Sanford Schram, 228–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flyvbjerg, Bent. 2001. Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How to Make It Succeed Again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flyvbjerg, Bent, Todd Landman, and Sanford Schram, eds. 2012. Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frampton, Caelie, Gary Kinsman, A.K. Thompson, and Kate Tilleczek. 2006. Sociology for Changing the World: Social Movements/Social Research. Halifax: Fernwood.

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Gibson-Graham, J.K. 2011. “A Feminist Project of Belonging for the Anthropocene.” Gender, Place and Culture 8 (1): 1–21. Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simions, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. Harding, Sandra. 2015. Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research. Chicago: Chicago University Press. – 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hawkesworth, Mary. 2006. Feminist Inquiry: From Political Conviction to Methodological Innovation. New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press. Mitchell, Katharyne. 2008. Practicing Public Scholarship: Experiences and Possibilities beyond the Academy. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Naples, Nancy. 2003. Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist Research. New York: Routledge. Smith, Dorothy. 1988. The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Whitmore, Elizabeth, Maureen G. Wilson, and Avery Calhoun. 2011. Activism That Works. Halifax: Fernwood.

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8 Decolonizing Evaluation in Winnipeg Shauna M ac K i n n o n with the Indigenous Learning Circle

I n t r o d u c t ion In the age of neoliberalism, there has been an expanded role for community-based organizations as providers of social services. Funded by the state, private foundations, and other charitable organizations, community-based organizations are required to demonstrate their effectiveness in exchange for financial support. Although community-based service providers recognize and respect the need to be accountable to their funders, they are also beginning to raise questions about the narrowly focused methods most often used to assess the value of their work. This is particularly the case for organizations that design and implement programs based on Indigenous values and beliefs. The Winnipeg-based Indigenous Learning Circle (ILC ) knows all too well that the complex issues in its community are the result of colonial, Eurocentric policies that have been deeply damaging for generations (T R C 2015). The I L C was spearheaded in 2006 by a small group of Indigenous women community leaders. It is a community-initiated, community-driven, and community-based collaborative project focused on learning and promoting Indigenous worldviews, knowledge, and experience. The I L C (unpublished document, n.d.) describes its movement and vision as “led by Indigenous ceremony, a collective development of guiding principles, community partnerships and a community commitment to fulfill the promises that our Teaching Stones represent.” Along with its allies, the I L C is committed to developing “promising practices” derived from evidence

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understood through Indigenous worldviews and cultural and spiritual values, and focuses on community-based succession planning and cultural proficiency in education and training. Much of the work that I L C members do in their community is required because of destructive past state policies, including residential school policies and the Sixties Scoop, as well as a current policy practice that is inherently Eurocentric in its design and delivery. I L C member organizations also rely on the financial support of Eurocentric institutions. This creates persistent tensions and demands continuous negotiations, as these institutions continue to assess the quality of community-based services using Western models that do not align well with Indigenous ways of knowing. Further, the enduring emphasis on Western models of research and evaluation all too often leads to programs that do not correspond well with Indigenous ways of “being and doing” (Martin 2003). Two such examples are provided in this chapter. The most prominent is the case of the Triple P Parenting program, a well-promoted, wellpublicized, and highly contested parenting program developed in Australia, which has been embraced by the Manitoba government but criticized by several Indigenous and inner-city community-based organizations. The second example highlights the federal government’s withdrawal of funding for effective inner-city youth programming and the role that Western methods of evaluation have played in setting these programs up to fail (MacKinnon 2012). Taking my guidance from the ILC, in this chapter I describe these and other critical issues identified by the ILC and other CBOs seeking holistic ways to measure the effectiveness of the services they provide. I tell the story of how Indigenous women in Winnipeg, through the ILC and other initiatives, have been quietly but persistently leading the way in decolonizing evaluation practice in their community. Their aim is to ensure that Indigenous worldviews and cultural and spiritual values are at the centre of evaluation practice. In keeping with this, I provide examples of alternative evaluation approaches and methods that are better aligned with Indigenous values, but that have yet to be fully embraced by governments and non-government charitable funding agencies. I also highlight one organization that has been able to access support, albeit to a limited extent, to develop and test an evaluation framework guided by Indigenous values. Finally, I outline potential next steps as the ILC moves forward with its plans to decolonize evaluation practices in Winnipeg.

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The ILC’s interest in evaluation stems from its concern with common evaluation practices that focus on narrowly defined quantifiable outcomes. Its members believe that this approach fails to capture the broader benefits that come from holistic, community-based programming. In the spirit of critical praxis-oriented research, community-based organizations such as the ILC are challenging Western models that continue to dominate evaluation practice. Their aim is three-fold: to develop a set of guiding principles that community organizations can collectively use to assert more control over the means by which programs and services are evaluated; to develop culturally appropriate methods of evaluation aligned with these guiding principles; and to engage governments and other funding agencies in dialogue about decolonizing evaluation practice. The work of the I L C builds on participatory research that began with Community Led Organizations United Together (CL O U T), followed by that of the Community Education Development Association (C E DA ) Pathways to Education, and other CBO s that continue to challenge neoliberal notions of success. CL O U T formed in 2003 when a group of executive directors from organizations with shared values and complementary mandates agreed that working collectively would make them stronger and more effective. At the time of its formation, C L O U T included nine C B O s providing services to individuals and families in Winnipeg’s inner city. Founding C L O U T member organizations included the Andrews Street Family Centre, C E D A , the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, the Native Women’s Centre, Ndiniwemaaganag Endaawad, the North End ­ Women’s Resource Centre, Rossbrook House, Wahbung Abinoojiiag, and Wolseley Family Place. Its mission was “to work towards an integrated community led approach to service delivery that ensures community needs and aspirations are supported through neighbourhood based capacity building solutions” (C L O U T 2008). In addition to being a founding member of C L O U T , C E D A was also represented on the I L C . Formed in 1979 by seven inner-city parent councils, C E DA ’s aim was to build a voice for inner-city parents and residents to more effectively address concerns about education and community issues. Since 2010, it has hosted the Pathways to Education Program, an afterschool program aimed at increasing high school graduation rates among inner-city youth, and at supporting them through to postsecondary education. Building on the work of C LO U T , C E DA ’s Pathways initiative has explored ways to integrate

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Indigenous ways of knowing into evaluation practices and CE D A brings this interest and knowledge to the IL C. CLOUT members, CEDA Pathways, and other inner-city community-based organizations came together in 2012 to discuss issues related to evaluation and accountability, presenting their concerns and potential solutions in a report titled “Who’s Accountable to the Community?” (MacKinnon 2012). The Winnipeg Boldness Project, a new Indigenous-led initiative, was established in 2014 to work “alongside the North End community to improve outcomes for young children in the Point Douglas community” (Winnipeg Boldness Project 2015). It, too, is invested in evaluating its work through an Indigenous lens. My interest in assessing evaluation methods and approaches through a critical lens came through my many conversations with C LO U T , beginning in 2006. An initial conversation with the past executive director of the Ma Mawi Chi Itata Centre regarding concerns about the means by which funding agencies were measuring success, as well as how success was being defined, evolved into continued and reflective participatory critical praxis-oriented research.

E va l uat i o n , N e oliberalism, a n d E q u i t y in Cities Aligned with the theme of this book – seeking equity and inclusion in Canadian municipalities –  the IL C believes that communitybased organizations working on the ground with those most vulnerable should have a greater say not only in what and how services are delivered, but also in how their impact is being assessed. In the introductory chapter of this volume, Klodawsky, Siltanen, and Andrew note that the increase in inequality across the country has come with what Banting and Myles describe as “the fading of redistributive politics” and a corresponding offloading of social responsibilities onto the community sector. As such, the retrenchment of the state in social matters has left community organizations to fill in the gaps. In theory, shifting the delivery of services from the state to the community sector makes sense in that it allows people who live and work in communities to develop programs and services that better respond to their needs. However, it is also true that the growing need for community services speaks to the failure of state policies and a fraying of the social safety net (DeFilipis, Fischer, and

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Shragge 2010). There is much written about neoliberalism’s contribution to growing inequality and, arguably, much of the work done by community-based organizations is required as a result of these failed policies. Community-based organizations are also expected to do more with less. The decline in governmental financial support means that  community-based organizations are increasingly faced with a dilemma: they want to have greater control over the kinds of services offered to their communities but recognize that, in many ways, their necessary reliance on state and charitable financial support requires them to jump through many hoops to secure funding, leaving them with very minimal control over their work. For example, in return for financial support, community-based organizations must agree to performance measures and evaluation methods that often do not align with their worldviews. In the context of neoliberalism, community-based organizations have become a means to deliver services more cheaply, but their reliance on state and charitable funding requires meeting predetermined outcomes and timelines. This can undermine community-based organizations’ flexibility and their ability to take the time needed so that “relationships can be built and trust established” (Shragge 2013, 79). Community-based organizations step up to fix problems created by the state and to fill needs, and they also believe that they can do a better job of addressing community issues. In many cases they do, but when their work is measured against indicators that have been defined by others, their true impact is difficult to see. The narrow focus of the means by which community-based organizations are expected to demonstrate their effectiveness also exemplifies neoliberal ideas. As described by Schram (2015), current trends in performance measurement are central in the neoliberalization of human services. Service organizations are both explicitly and implicitly expected to prove (through evaluation results) how they will minimize client dependence on the state and save costs. From a neoliberal perspective, outcomes are easy to quantify. Schram (2015) argues that performance measurement in the context of neoliberalism aims to steer organizations toward satisfying the interests of the market rather than building community and qualitatively improving the lives of program participants. Increasingly, organizations are expected to demonstrate two things: that programs are leading to individual

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self-sufficiency (employment), and that community-based organizations are diversifying their funding sources (both public and private) to ensure the sustainability of their programs. Some argue that these expectations let governments off the hook. One service provider described it this way: “The non-profit industry supports a government industry. [This] is completely unrecognized. They get paid more money than us, and we’re the ones on the ground doing the work. Much of what we do is necessary because people have been failed [by the social and economic model] we have in place and by governments who are not doing what is necessary” (MacKinnon 2012, 10). Another said: “When are funders going to look at systemic barriers – we are told that we have to fix people, when it’s the system, the society that is the problem – what is the purpose of welfare? If it is to provide basic needs, it is failing” (MacKinnon 2012, 10). Despite many challenges, community-based service providers remain focused on finding the silver lining within a neoliberal context over which they have little control. For the most part they do this through quiet resistance, finding ways to collectively work around narrow parameters to integrate the program content that they believe best serves their communities, and by working toward taking greater control of the means by which the impact of their work is assessed.

E va l uat i o n : W h o , W hat, and Why Evaluation can be a useful way to obtain feedback or systematically gather information about a program or service, provide accurate descriptions of it, and make judgements about its strengths and weaknesses in order to improve its effectiveness (van det Woerd 2009). Although outcome (summative) evaluation is currently of most interest to governments and other funding agencies, evaluation can also be formative (process) focused. As expanded upon later in this chapter, evaluation can be developmental in nature as well, integrating a continued process of action and reflection (Patton 2011). In the case of empowerment evaluation, the focus on continuous self-evaluation, guided by a set of core beliefs, can serve to build community capacity and increase organizational learning (Fetterman and Wandersman 2005). These approaches are more consistent with the holistic aims of ILC members, and their proper integration into current practice

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requires ongoing financial support. Community-based organizations, however, rarely receive the financial resources needed to adequately evaluate their work and they seldom have control over what is evaluated, or how; governments and other funding agencies often hire external evaluators without any input from the organizations being evaluated. Most community-based organizations receive funding from various sources, including different departments at various levels of government, as well as non-government charitable organizations. Additionally, funding agreements are often drafted specifically for individual programs, and each funding agency is typically only interested in evaluating the outcomes of the programs that they fund. As further described in this chapter, this is problematic from an Indigenous, holistic perspective of services. Common evaluation methods present a challenge for community-based organizations that aim for more than the particular objectives that are the focus of funders. Single-program-focused funding agreements, which are the norm, do not align with holistic mandates that reach across organizations. Programs do not operate within a vacuum – they are part of a network of services designed with individuals, their families, and broader communities in mind. From Indigenous perspectives, in which the concept “it takes a village” is central, no single program can claim success and a program’s effectiveness cannot be adequately assessed in isolation of other programs. Also inconsistent with this holistic approach to community program development and implementation, yet increasingly common, is the practice of requiring grant recipients to provide “evidence” as a condition of funding (Stoecker 2013). While the idea of evidence-based practice has merit in that it requires service providers to be accountable, it can also be problematic because it “anoints certain practices with ‘best practice’ status” while ignoring the local context (Stoecker 2013, 191). Community-based service providers in Winnipeg also have concerns that evidence-based, best practice models are all too often determined by people from outside of their communities (MacKinnon 2012). They wonder what constitutes evidence? How does this evidence align with their values and beliefs? Why do governments not use locally designed and implemented evaluation methods to uncover evidence of the effectiveness of local programs? Instead, governments too frequently look to programs created in far-away places and within different contexts, and spend millions of dollars to push these programs onto Winnipeg

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communities. For example, it has been estimated that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent by the Province of Manitoba to replicate and promote the Australian Triple P Parenting program. One director of a large community-based organization in Winnipeg’s inner city confirmed that she knows of many organizations and early childhood development professionals who have tried Triple P in their parenting programs, but that it did not work for them. She said that the program required literacy levels far too high for many of their participants and involved too much homework. Her organization has rejected the Triple P Parenting approach and has returned to a program that they believe has worked well for them in the past. This program, Nobody’s Perfect, has been used for years by Winnipeg community-based organizations, and while it is based on many of the same principles as Triple P, it is believed to be more appropriate to the families that they serve (MacKinnon 2012). ILC members and others also wonder why their funders, if they are so interested in evidence, do not provide adequate financial support to enable evaluation approaches that better align with ­community-based organizations’ values and beliefs and that might enable a base of contextually appropriate evidence to be built. This would allow them to demonstrate how the creation of locally designed, Indigenous-based, holistic models is a promising practice in its own right for communities with their own unique histories, needs, and challenges. As described by Astrid MacNeil of the IL C: Promising practice as viewed through an Indigenous lens is a particular way of working with one another that reflects our relationships with one another. A practice can be an activity, program or strategy that also demonstrates a conscious nurturing of a long term, mutually beneficial relationship. A practice may also be a process, an approach or a system (such as a family, community or organization). Promising practices, derived from Indigenous worldviews, cultural and spiritual values, have, for decades, been developed by community service organizations in Winnipeg’s North End. These have been implemented within a broad scope of community service organizations, have longproven efficacy, measurable outcomes, and by community consensus, are widely accepted as a “promising practice.” From Indigenous worldviews, a promising practice integrates our ways of knowing, being, doing, and feeling. We speak of “doing things

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in a good way,” based upon mutual respect. In both Cree and Ojibway languages, “promise” denotes a solemn intention, “I will show you how” (as in an apprentice), and implies a long-term relationship in that commitment. These concepts are interwoven into our understanding of “promising practices.” Promising practices require our journey through the various levels of understanding of cultural humility, awareness, knowledge, sensitivity, proficiency and cultural safety. These are concepts drawn from the Maori experience, and from our own community wisdom, knowledge and experience. (Personal communication, 22 October 2015) Community-based organizations with broad holistic mandates recognize the complexity of the contexts in which the individuals and families that they serve live. Understanding these contexts is important because it requires community-based organizations to continuously reflect on how they are responding to program participants’ needs, and highlights the limitations of programs designed with narrow objectives and easily measured outcomes. As described by one ILC member, “Most funders want the numbers, so staff have to keep track of numbers, keep track of participation” (MacKinnon 2012, 1). Program managers jump through these hoops – reporting on the numbers that funders are so interested in knowing – but do so believing that this approach makes little sense. As stated by another I L C member, also a past member of CL O U T, “Numbers don’t mean that you’re relevant, they don’t mean that you’re effective, they don’t mean that you are having an impact, they’re just numbers” (O’Brien 2011). I L C members are more interested in learning why people do or do not participate in programs, what participants perceive themselves to be gaining from their participation, and how participants think programming might be improved to better serve their self-defined needs (rather than the needs funders perceive them to have). While quantifiable data can provide a baseline of information to assess things like attendance and participation, I L C members believe that it is more important to understand peoples’ perceptions of what they have gained than to have an outsider assess whether a C B O program has achieved an externally identified desirable outcome. So, while measurable objectives, such as attaining high school credits, graduating from high school, or finding employment are

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important, and community-based organizations do not object to tracking this data, their aims are far broader and potentially transformative than can be captured by these kinds of measures of ­success. The wider transformative goals that community-based organizations aspire to achieve will not be visible unless evaluators are open to looking for them and using innovative tools that allow them to be found.

R e s i s ta n c e t h r o u g h Program Design, D e l i v e ry, a n d E valuation Community-based service is particularly important to marginalized populations for whom trust in government has been shaken. However, as previously described, community-based service providers also know that in many ways they are being used by governments to solve problems created by state policies, and to more cheaply meet government-defined objectives. As described by one community leader: “The fact that so many people can’t find a place to live, have to go to food banks because they don’t have enough income to properly feed their families, suggests that something is terribly wrong in our society … We need to evaluate that” (MacKinnon 2012, 11). Consistent with critical praxis-oriented research, community-based organizations are beginning to conduct their own research on evaluation to develop their own frameworks in an effort to shift the discourse and obtain adequate resources to evaluate progress and outcomes using methods that correspond better with Indigenous values and beliefs.

D e c o l o n i z i n g E va l uation Practice thro u g h C r i t i c a l P r a x i s - Oriented Res earch Concerns about evaluation practice extend beyond a critique of  neoliberalism. Many C B Os, and in particular those that are Indigenous-led, have long been suspicious of evaluation practices, which they believe usually “draw heavily on research methodologies that can be considered invasive when imposed by outside funding agencies” (Lafrance and Nichols 2010, 14). The approaches recently being explored and tested in Winnipeg, however, are consistent with international Indigenous evaluation work, including that of

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LaFrance and Nichols (2010), Chilisa (2012), and Mertens, Cram, and Chilisa (2013), and are guided by the work of Smith (1999). The impetus to pursue these approaches is also attuned to concerns about evaluation in Canada raised by Brant Castellano in an address to the Canadian Evaluation Society in 1997. She says: “Much of the research that has been done on Aboriginal affairs is challenged by Aboriginal people on two counts: the appropriation of voice – who has the right to speak authoritatively about Aboriginal experience; and the validity of fact and interpretation assembled by outsiders to the culture and community” (quoted in LaFrance and Nichols 2010, 14). The work in Winnipeg also aligns with Mertens’s (2009) transformative evaluation framework, which stresses that “methodological decisions [ought to be] made with a conscious awareness of contextual and historical factors, especially as they relate to discrimination and oppression” (59). In keeping with Smith’s (1999) criteria of Indigenous research methods, evaluation methods must be based on an ongoing relationship of trust between evaluators, programmers, and program users, and must ensure that personal stories are central to evaluating the impact of programs, rather than simply being add-ons that funding agencies can use for public ­relations purposes. As described by one CL O U T member, funding agencies continue to emphasize quantifiable data to demonstrate effectiveness, whereas Indigenous worldviews put greater emphasis on the value of stories, believing that “each individual story is powerful. But the point about the stories is not that they simply tell a story, or tell a story simply. These new stories contribute to a collective story in which every Indigenous person has a place” (Smith 1999, 144). In order to ensure that the story remains central to evaluation, the ILC , building on the past work of CL O U T, aims to put community-based organizations in the driver’s seat – allowing them to decide who, how, and what to evaluate – a process that began in 2006, when C L O U T began to question the evaluation expectations of their funders. Their frustration was the catalyst for a participatory action research study demonstrating how narrowly defined, mainly quantitative measurements of outcomes are not aligned with C LO U T ’s holistic aims and approaches, and how as a result these methods fail to capture the full impact their programs have on individuals, families, and community. As the coordinator of the State of  the Inner City Report project, an ongoing community-based

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participatory research collaborative, of which CL O U T was a partner, I met with C L OUT organizations early in 2006 to discuss how we might build a research project to address their concerns. Their primary interest was to tell a story about the success of their programs and participants – one that tends not to be told. We met many times during that first year, discussing what they believed the purpose of evaluation to be and how it might be done differently. The women were adamant that evaluation models and methods need to be holistic, in keeping with their holistic aims. They also wanted a more respectful, reciprocal relationship that more accurately reflected the spirit of partnership with their funders. This theme has continued to prevail in subsequent discussions about evaluation and accountability, and C B Os have much to say on this issue: If we are to move forward to a new accountability structure, we will need to have an honest discussion about “partnerships.” The term “partnerships” has been a popular buzzword for years. But what do partnerships really look like in the context of community work? Partnerships are not really partnerships unless everyone is treated equally. This is not the case in the government/ funding agency/community partnership dynamic. Governments and funders hold the power. Community-based organizations are essentially at their mercy. If they don’t do what their funders want them to do they jeopardize losing their funding. Ideally we would like to minimize the power imbalance but this may not be fully possible as long as governments and outside funders hold the purse strings. We need to at least be honest about this as we move forward. (MacKinnon 2012, 13) The IL C ’s current interest in evaluation builds on several years of dialogue about the move toward evidence-based evaluation and best practice models that emphasize the measurement of outcomes (Stoecker 2013). This new focus was troubling to CL O U T and continues to trouble the I L C . They wonder what is being considered as evidence and who decides what the outcomes should be, and they remain skeptical that knowledge generated within different contexts could lead to the best practices that funding agencies seek. Returning to the example of Triple P Parenting, in spite of the evidence provincial government bureaucrats continue to put forward, from the perspective of community-based organizations, which use

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different lenses through which to measure their effectiveness in serving Indigenous families, Triple P Parenting is not a best practice model and they continue to resist using it. Community-based organizations have also observed that while funders encourage community collaboration, when it comes to evaluation, they seem to be stuck on narrowly focused assessments of individual program outcomes, and this is not a holistic approach. As described in a 2010 study, CLOUT organizations were concerned that governments and other funding agencies seemed to be “less interested in how lives are being affected qualitatively and how participation in community-based programs might affect the lives of not only participants, but their families, neighbourhoods and the broader community” (MacKinnon and Stephens, 2010). This participatory research study, “Is Participation Having an Impact? Measuring Progress in Winnipeg’s Inner City through the Voices of Community-Based Program Participants” (MacKinnon and Stephens 2010), showed that participants themselves have much to say about how they benefit from participation in a network of services offered in the community, but that measures narrowly focused on individual programs’ outcomes fail to uncover these benefits. The study (and the process of its undertaking) led to further research collaboration on this issue, empowering community-based organizations to see that if they wanted governments and program funders to alter their expectations, they would have to demand such a change. The conversation about evaluation and the expectations of funding agencies continued and in 2012, several community-based organizations participated in a research project titled “Who’s Accountable to the Community?” (MacKinnon 2012). CBO s, including C LO U T , I L C members, and non-Indigenous allies, wanted to clarify that although they welcome the opportunity to effectively evaluate their programs in order to learn what is working and to continuously improve upon them, they remain critical of current practices, which often leave community-based organizations out of the decision-making process. They wanted to have a say in who is hired to evaluate, what methods are employed, and how evaluations are used. They noted examples of situations in which they cooperated with evaluators and were informed that evaluations have been positive, yet they had their funding discontinued with no clear explanations as to why, other than that “their objectives no longer

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aligned with government priorities” (MacKinnon 2012). In this study, participating community-based organizations remarked that there was a continued emphasis on evaluation tools that do not necessarily capture the true value of their programs as perceived by the participants, their families, and the broader community. There are exceptions. As more fully described later in this chapter, one such example is Pathways to Education Canada, which provided funding for an evaluation process for the C E D A Pathways to Education program at its Winnipeg site. An evaluation framework was built around the Indigenous practice of sharing circles. The sharing circle concept was adapted and led by a known and trusted Indigenous facilitator as a method of engaging program participants and staff in the evaluation process. Integrating this method with prescribed Pathways to Education Canada methods resulted in interesting and useful findings (MacKinnon, Klyne, and Nowatzki, forthcoming). Such contextually conscious methodologies reveal how governments and other funding institutions can demonstrate openness and respect for different approaches, and are particularly important in the spirit of respecting how Indigenous ways of knowing are integral to the process of reconciliation put forward by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (T RC 2015). But making these approaches the norm will require a fundamental shift in current practice. It is too often the case that evaluation has been used to sabotage holistic programs by disregarding the kinds of measures that demonstrate their benefits. Service providers say that it can be nearly impossible to show the kinds of outcomes governments and other funders demand. In Winnipeg, for example, when the evaluation of a youth gang prevention program funded through the Government of Canada’s National Crime Prevention Strategy concluded that the program failed to demonstrate a long-term impact and was destined to fail, a program director argued (and others agreed) that the evaluator did not collaborate with organizations to develop appropriate assessment tools. The program director provided the example of intake surveys that included what were believed to be inappropriate questions, such as “Are you in a gang?” Had they been consulted, service providers would have pointed out the problems with this and other questions. As the director noted: “Do they really think a kid is going to admit to

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being in a gang before having established any trust with program staff? Of course not – but six months down the road they might tell you that and a whole lot more. The result is that data is inaccurate and works against us. If a kid tells you six months down the road that they are in a gang and taking drugs, something they didn’t admit to when entering the program, the effect is that it looks like they became gang-involved while in the program while in reality they have made progress by being honest with us” (MacKinnon 2012, 6). Recent efforts to challenge the status quo in evaluation were taken by the I L C beginning in the spring of 2015. At that time, I was invited to meet with several community members to participate in a series of discussions and workshops that led to the development of initial community-based evaluation guiding principles. I later met with a smaller group of I L C members to refine these guidelines to ensure their alignment with Indigenous ways of knowing. Since then, the group has continued to meet to further plan how to proceed with the development of a framework and evaluation tools that will correspond with their guiding principles. They plan to make governments and other funding agencies more aware of Indigenous methods – to make tools available to organizations committed to holistic program models and the measuring of success through an Indigenous lens. The hope is that this will lead to greater acceptance of the integration of Western and Indigenous methods that respect both quantitative and qualitative outcomes, as well as an appreciation for the unanticipated outcomes that are inevitably revealed if we are open to them. Finally, it is hoped that a set of evaluation guidelines that are broadly embraced by the community will enable community-based organizations to have greater control over evaluation, including the process, methods, and the spirit in which they are conducted. Although these guidelines remain a work in progress, at the time of writing they included the following ten guiding principles:   1 Community must be the driver of evaluation. Evaluation must focus on strengths – recognizing challenges, but also individual and community resilience. • The community must be engaged in the planning and implementation of evaluation. • Cultural and lived experience must be respected.

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  2 Evaluation must be developed from an understanding of the broader context of systemic, recurring, and intergenerational trauma. • For example, the damaging intergenerational effects of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop have left a legacy of trauma for individuals, families, and communities.   3 Evaluation must take into consideration the broader social and economic context. • Interventions at the community level cannot resolve broader social and economic issues such as poverty, lack of housing, etc.   4 Evaluation must take a comprehensive approach to assess broader community impact. • It must be recognized that that while programs have individual mandates, funding arrangements, etc., they do not work in isolation of other programs. • Aligning with the goals of comprehensive community approaches, evaluation must also recognize the needs and aspirations of individuals and families who have their own hopes and dreams.   5 Evaluation must take a holistic approach. • It must be aligned with holistic programming that focuses on cultural, spiritual, physical, and mental well-being of individuals, families, and communities.   6 Evaluation must recognize that meanings of success are self-determined. • Success is not an objectively defined concept. • Individuals have their own ideas of what success means to them. • Success is not static – it is often re-defined as individuals ­proceed along their personal journeys. • Evaluation must capture the growth along the journey as itself a measure of success. • Evaluation must capture unanticipated outcomes as examples of success.   7 Evaluation models must place program participants at the ­centre of evaluation. • Each individual journey involves multiple and interconnected factors/programs/events.

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  8 The purpose of evaluation should be to improve the collective impact of individual program and coordinated program responses. • If individual community members rather than individual programs are at the centre of evaluation, it will be more ­possible to identify gaps in service and how they might best be filled.   9 Evaluation should be continuous and adequately funded. • Evaluation is not an add-on and should be embedded into program design and delivery. • Individual and community input should be ongoing. • Evaluation should be seen as a cyclical process of reflection and action involving a network of CBO s working toward ­making a collective impact. 10 Evaluators must demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the “Neechi Principles.”1 • Emphasis must be placed on local hiring, local training, capacity building, and mutual support. As reflected in these guiding principles, and consistent with the work of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (A IHEC )’s efforts to develop an Indigenous framework for evaluation, the I L C is respectful of local context. Similar to the guiding principles known as the Neechi principles, developed in Winnipeg to guide local community economic development practice, and in harmony with empowerment evaluation guidelines, the IL C wants to ensure that knowledge remains and that capacity is built and maintained in the community (Fetterman and Wandersman 2005). The ILC guidelines also align with the work of Indigenous scholars who make a case for the importance of “building capacity among Indigenous researchers and evaluators and shifting the focus of research efforts to be more responsive to local concerns” (Lafrance and Nichols 2010, 14). Moving beyond guiding principles to evaluation process, design, and methods, the I L C is particularly interested in frameworks that are participatory and transformative in their approach, aimed at empowerment, and in keeping with Indigenous world views (Mertens, Cram, and Chilisa 2013; LaFrance and Nichols 2010). For example, the hikoi model of evaluation used by the Maori is an approach that emphasizes evaluation as “a journey taken together”

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(Johnson 2013, 197). Helen Moewaka Barnes (2009, 6) explains that the hikoi model “reflects our vision of evaluation as walking alongside others in a respectful relationship each bringing different skills and perspectives, but undertaking the same journey in the same direction.” Wilson and Wilson (2013) integrated Cree teachings into the development of principles to guide their evaluation work. Consistent with the guiding principles being developed in Winnipeg, these include the foundations of relational accountability, holism, reciprocity, and community ownership of knowledge (Wilson and Wilson 2013, 343). Like the Maori, the IL C describes a vision of evaluation that builds from their core values: trusting relationships, respect, reciprocity, responsibility, cultural safety, and the importance of the whole person – mind, body, and spirit. Members also note the centrality of sharing food in accordance with their core values and as “something we shouldn’t have to defend” (Astrid McNeil, Personal communication, 15 October 2015). For the ILC , evaluation should include an element of healing for the spirit and it should be transformative. It should also be strengthsbased rather than deficit-focused, and rooted in the Seven Sacred Teachings (love, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility, truth) so that evaluation is more about learning than measuring.

T h e C a s e o f C E DA Pathways: T e s t i n g a N e w Approach Parallel to the processes of ongoing dialogue, research, and development described above, C E D A Pathways became the first program to formally take charge of evaluating its programs in a way that was meaningful to its members. While it was also the case that C E D A Pathways’ parent organization, Pathways to Education Canada, was primarily concerned with the quantitative measurement of predetermined indicators, Pathways to Education Canada, to its credit, made funds available to support the development of C E D A Pathway’s culturally appropriate participatory evaluation model designed to capture qualitative data and unintended outcomes. Pathways Canada’s willingness to do so is commendable but it is also a testament to the determination of C E D A Pathways to ensure that the voices of its community were in the evaluation process. Early in the development of the Winnipeg program, CE D A Pathways asserted its interest in a design and evaluation model that

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would capture the unique Indigenous character of the Winnipeg program model. Unlike other Pathways after-school programs mandated to support vulnerable youth through high school, CE D A Pathways is situated in a neighbourhood that has a large number of Indigenous residents, with approximately 70 per cent of CE D A Pathways students identifying as Indigenous. The legacy of residential schools has left many Indigenous people distrustful of the promises of education (T R C 2015), and this is exacerbated by the continued under-representation of Indigenous teachers and school administrators in Canada. The lack of Indigenous pedagogical approaches used in schools and universities and the enduring portrayal of Indigenous and Canadian history through a Eurocentric lens also contribute to the disengagement of Indigenous students and the weak involvement of Indigenous parents in education. When initially establishing C E DA Pathways, the community was adamant that the Winnipeg program be grounded in an Indigenous pedagogical framework. They also argued that evaluation of CE D A Pathways would need to move beyond the narrow focus on credit accumulation and graduation rates that had been the customary approach of Pathways to Education Canada. CE D A Pathways found allies in some forward-thinking Pathways to Education Canada staff who helped to make the case for a more holistic evaluation approach. As such, funds were provided to C E DA Pathways to develop an evaluation framework more consistent with its Indigenous worldview. At the same time that C E DA Pathways was exploring evaluation options, the topic of evaluation continued to be discussed in the inner city more generally, and became the focus of the 2012 State of the Inner City Report. As noted earlier, this collaboration with community organizations resulted in the study titled “Who’s Accountable to the Community?” (MacKinnon 2012). Soon after, in 2013, Pathways to Education Canada provided CE D A Pathways with further funding to refine its evaluation framework and conduct an evaluation of the then three-year-old program integrating Pathways C ­ anada’s Western-based model that emphasized quantifiable outcomes with a model that incorporated Indigenous ways of knowing developed through a participatory process. In keeping with Smith’s (1999) emphasis on the importance of the story, the model prioritized qualitative data collection through the use of directed sharing circles as a means of assessing experience and impact. The final evaluation was grounded in a strengths-based approach, highlighting the strengths of the program while also

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revealing its challenges and making suggestions for improvements that were raised in interviews and sharing circles with staff, parents, students, and other stakeholders. Although the C E DA Pathways example shows that there is some openness to innovation in evaluation among funders, there is no evidence that Indigenous evaluation and other transformative approaches have been accepted as the norm. Funding agencies continue to emphasize quantifiable outcomes measured against predetermined indicators. As a result, C BO s continue to participate in critical praxis-oriented research to build a case for evaluation models and methods aligned with Indigenous ways of knowing. Given the historical and demographic context of Winnipeg, it is appropriate that the I L C is now leading efforts to decolonize evaluation practice in the city. There is growing acknowledgement that Indigenous ways of knowing must be central to research and evaluation conducted in Winnipeg’s inner city, where a high proportion of individuals and families are Indigenous. Developing tools that can help guide community-based organizations to better assess the impact of their individual and collective work and reflect broader social justice goals can be useful to community-based organizations and governments alike.

N e x t S teps The ILC has made decolonizing evaluation a priority as it moves forward. It plans to establish an evaluation advisory committee to assist with the further development of an Indigenous evaluation model that integrates sources of data that better reflect Indigenous ways of knowing, and innovative methods of collecting this data, including the use of sharing circles, self-reflection, and storytelling (visual, oral, and written). The I L C aims to explore how they might establish a community-based Indigenous ethics process whereby research evaluation proposals could be reviewed and evaluated against guiding principles. It also plans to meet with governments, non-government funding agencies, and community organizations to build awareness and acceptance of evaluation approaches aligned with Indigenous values and beliefs. In Winnipeg, the seeds of change have been planted. While there is much more work to do, the I L C has said it will take its time to do things right. It will continue to meet, reflect, and reach out to the broader community with the aim of establishing guiding principles

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and evaluation frameworks that better reflect Indigenous worldviews. These tools will be made available to those community-based organizations that are ready to embrace more holistic means of measuring the impact of their individual and collective work. For my part, as a non-Indigenous researcher and ally, I will continue to provide support to the I L C when called upon. But the journey is theirs and they will determine where it will take them and with whom they wish to travel.

notes



Many thanks to the members of the Indigenous Learning Circle, and in particular Astrid McNeil, for their guidance and input in the preparation of this chapter.   1 The Neechi Principles were initially developed by the Neechi Food Cooperative in Winnipeg to guide community economic development work. They are broadly used in Winnipeg and are the basis from which the Manitoba Government CED Principles and Policy Lens were developed (See MacKinnon 2006). references

Barnes, Helen Moewaka. 2009. The Evaluation Hikoi: A Maori Overview of Program Evaluation. Palmerston North, NZ: Massey University. Last modified February 2009. https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/ Colleges/College%20of%20Humanities%20and%20Social%20 Sciences/Shore/reports/HMB_Maori-Evaluation-Manual-2009.pdf?ED B8EFDD55E24388A0D3EFBB42B89D2A. Community Led Organizations United Together (C LOUT ). 2008. “Forging Partnerships, Strengthening Families and Communities.” Winnipeg: CLO U T. DeFilippis, James M., Robert Fischer, and Eric Shragge. 2010. Contesting Community: The Limits and Potential of Local Organizing. New Brunswick, nj : Rutgers University Press. Fetterman, David, and Abraham Wandersman, eds. 2005. Empowerment Evaluation Principles in Practice. New York: Guildford Press. Johnson, James. 2013. “Becoming an Indigenous Researcher in Interior Alaska: Sharing the Transformative Journey.” In Indigenous Pathways into Social Research: Voices of a New Generation, edited by Donna

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Martens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, 189–202. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.  LaFrance, Joan, and Richard Nichols. 2010. “Reframing Evaluation: Defining an Indigenous Evaluation Framework.” The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation 23 (2): 13–31. MacKinnon, Shauna. 2012. “Who’s Accountable to the Community?” In Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: State of the Inner City Report 2012. Winnipeg: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Mb. MacKinnon, Shauna, and CED A Pathways to Education. 2011. “A Framework for Evaluating Pathways to Education–Winnipeg Programming.” Unpublished document prepared for Pathways to Education Canada. MacKinnon, S., J. Nowatzki, and D. Klyne. 2018. “Participatory Evaluation: The CED A Pathways to Education Story.” In Practising Community-Based Participatory Research: Stories of Engagement, Empowerment, and Mobilization. Edited by S. MacKinnon. Vancouver: UB C Press. MacKinnon, Shauna, and Sara Stephens. 2010. “Is Participation Having an Impact? Measuring Progress in Winnipeg’s Inner City through the Voices of Community-Based Program Participants.” Journal of Social Work 10 (3): 283–300. Martin, Karen L. 2003. “Ways of Knowing, Ways of Being and Ways of Doing: A Theoretical Framework and Methods for Indigenous Re-Search and Indigenist Research. Voicing Dissent, New Talents 21C: Next Generation Australian Studies.” Journal of Australian Studies 76: 203–14. Mertens, Donna M. 2009. Transformative Research and Evaluation. New York: The Guilford Press. Mertens, Donna, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa, eds. 2013. Indigenous Pathways into Social Research: Voices of a New Generation. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. Patton, Michael. 2011. Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use. New York: Guilford Press. Schram, Sanford. 2015. The Return of Ordinary Capitalism: Neoliberalism, Precarity, Occupy. New York: Oxford University Press. Shragge, Eric. 2013. Activism and Social Change: Lessons for Community Organizing. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Smith, Linda T. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. New York: Zed Books Ltd. Stoecker, Randy. 2013. Research Methods for Community Change. New York: Sage Publications.

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Shauna MacKinnon with the Indigenous Learning Circle

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (T R C ). 2015. Truth and Reconciliation Findings. Accessed 15 December. http://www.trc.ca/ websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3. van det Woerd, Kim. 2009. “Indigenous Approaches to Program Evaluation.” Aboriginal Act Now, 1–7. http://reciprocalconsulting.ca/ wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Fact-Sheet-Indigenous-Approaches-toProgram-Evaluation-May-27-2009.pdf. Wilson, Shawn, and Alexandra Wilson. 2013. Neyo way in ik issi: A Family Practice of Indigenist Research Informed by Land. In Indigenous Pathways into Social Research: Voices of a New Generation, edited by Donna Mertens, Fiona Cram, and Bagele Chilisa. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. Winnipeg Boldness Project. 2015. Accessed 15 December 2015. http:// www.winnipegboldness.ca/

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9 Research Networks and Homelessness Contributing to More Equitable and Inclusive Cities? Abra Adamo, Fran Klodawsky, Tim Aubry, Stephen Hwang, and Evie Gogosis

The formation of the Research Alliance for Canadian Homelessness, Housing and Health (R E A C H3 ) in 2003 marked a specific moment in the history of Canadian scholarship on homelessness. It was the beginning of an ambitious cross-disciplinary, multi-site effort to identify and carry out health-oriented, policy-relevant homelessness research in Canadian cities through a community-based and participatory approach. The network initiators understood communitybased participatory research to be a partnership approach that recognized the community as a significant social and cultural entity, and they emphasized the value of active community involvement throughout the research process, with the formation of communityacademic partnerships as a key element (Israel et al. 2001; Sadler et al. 2012; Wallerstein and Duran 2006; Israel et al. 2010; Crisp, Swerissen, and Duckett 2000). Such partnerships were seen to encourage capacity building through the reciprocal exchange of knowledge and skills in ways that might lead to the development of  more effective and culturally relevant responses to complex health problems (Lloyd et al. 2012; Seifer 2006; Larson et al. 2009). Partnerships between communities and academic researchers were also regarded as having the potential to enhance social networks, improve group efficacy, and encourage social action to  improve community health and reduce health disparities (Tendulkar et al. 2011; Hacker et al. 2012; Khandor et al. 2011; Khandor and Mason 2007).

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At the time of its formation and throughout most of its history, the value of such partnerships was taken as more or less self-evident, without much critical reflection about the relative strengths and limitations of this model. The challenges raised by a recent RE ACH 3 project to compare four city-based plans to end homelessness, juxtaposed with an opportunity to contribute to this book, presented an ideal opportunity to critically examine the learning that has accrued throughout R E A C H 3 ’s recent history, drawing upon insights of critical praxis-oriented research. This chapter is organized in three sections. We begin by briefly introducing and reflecting on the broad context that encouraged REACH3’s formation, as well as the specific motivations for proposing a multi-city study of municipal plans to end homelessness in 2010. We then consider the opportunities and difficulties that the network faced in its comparative examination of the plans, including the challenge of reconciling locally gathered information about each plan’s unique elements with a cross-site examination that sought to identify generalizable lessons about the effectiveness of municipal plans to end homelessness. Finally, we assess and reflect upon the lessons learned from the study – both those related to the study itself as well as the insights that we gained about the network more generally. We focus particularly on understandings that might be relevant to other national research networks that attempt to work in a collaborative and participatory manner to address urban issues.

The B e g i n n i n g s o f t h e R esearch Network The R EA C H 3 network was established with support from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIH R) by researchers from across Canada in a range of disciplines, including public health medicine, psychology, social work, evaluation and measurement, epidemiology, health services research, and geography. This group, whose expertise was in conducting research with people experiencing homelessness and other marginalized populations, initiated a series of efforts to build research relationships with a community organization in each city in which they were situated: Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver. In some cases these relationships were already established, whereas in others they were newly initiated. Community organizations were approached if they had a local leadership role in service delivery and/or advocacy

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for people experiencing homelessness and an interest in developing their research capacity and participating in research focused on homelessness, housing, and health. Between 2004 and 2011, an annual face-to-face meeting of alliance members was held in one of the five cities on a rotating basis, with one to two academic members and one to two community members attending from each city. Initially, the goals of these meetings were to build a working alliance among members, develop a set of principles to guide the partnership’s functioning, create mechanisms for effective communication among partners, and develop grant proposals to ensure the alliance’s sustainability. Three years after its creation, R E ACH 3 was awarded a five-year Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement Grant in Homelessness, Housing, and Health from C I HR . This grant allowed the group to  initiate an internal seed grant program to nurture community capacity to engage in research, to stimulate partnerships and community-based participatory research project development within and among cities, and to prepare grant proposals for submission to foundations and peer-review scientific agencies. The group developed a shared governance structure and formal review system, including an executive committee comprised of equal members of  community and academic partners elected on an annual basis to review seed grant applications. Seed grants provided funding of up  to $25,000 per project. While this funding greatly aided the group in highlighting areas of overlapping interest and the benefits of cross-disciplinary interactions, it soon became clear that its ability to address key research questions in sufficient depth would only be met by acquiring significant funds directed at in-depth research of particular problems and issues. In 2008, a particularly significant outcome of efforts to seek such funds was a C I H R grant to develop and implement an ambitious comparative longitudinal study of transitions in the health and housing status of single adults in Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver who had been homeless or vulnerably housed at the beginning of the study. The fourth and last cycle of this study was completed in 2014. Many insightful analyses based on data generated from this study have already been published or are in preparation. Among others, they address topics related to gender and mental health, comparisons in the health of Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants as well as homeless and vulnerably housed participants,

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access to health care, and projections regarding the likelihood of becoming homeless and/or exiting that status (Ecker 2017; Cherner et al. 2016; Ecker and Aubry 2016; Hunter et al. 2015; Hubley et al. 2014; To et al. 2014; Palepu et al. 2013; Palepu et al. 2012; Argintaru et al. 2013; Hwang et al. 2011; Holton, Gogosis, and Hwang 2010; Ecker 2015; Hwang 2010a; Hwang 2010b). Unfortunately though, the resources available from this particular funding envelope could not be applied to sustaining the network overall. The ability to meet face-to-face and to provide seed funding was lost in the midst of both resource and capacity challenges as attention understandably shifted in relation to this very ambitious longitudinal study. Funds for the study under discussion in this chapter were acquired in a somewhat similar fashion in 2010, as will be discussed below. However, before delving into the particulars of that study and its implications for the network itself, it is of value to turn the discussion to the context of R E A C H 3 ’s genesis and evolution.

Th e C o n t e x t o f R E A C H3’ s Beginnings R E A C H 3 was established at a time when the problem of homelessness was rapidly growing and when leadership to assertively address the problem was lacking. During this same period, significant changes were underway in how Canadian social and health research was being conceptualized and funded to encourage more targeted and strategic efforts (Office of Community-Based Research 2009). For the researchers who came to be associated with RE ACH 3, a community-based and interdisciplinary approach seemed like an attractive way to rally fragmented resources around a common and important goal. Drawing from Phillips (2010), RE ACH 3’s trajectory can be understood as one example of the various city-based initiatives that arose in the early part of the new century in Canada. The motivations for such initiatives were to promote more robust community engagement efforts to strengthen the position of municipalities vis-à-vis senior governments during a period when research dollars for social issues were scarce and where more of those dollars were being directed at specific targeted research activities, including issues such as homelessness (Giles 2014; CAU T 2013). Such efforts were rendered all the more significant because of a second important contextual factor: growing government interest

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in New Public Management (NP M ) as an approach to governance. N PM is typically defined as an approach that advocates for “better evaluation, measurement, and accountability of government operations” (Agocs and Brunet-Jailly 2010). It is also understood as “a major institutional specification of neoliberalism” that aims to encourage greater alignment between the public and private sectors, particularly with regard to a shift in the purpose of government towards serving private sector interests (Griffith and Smith 2014, 6). N PM began to gain traction federally in Canada in the mid1990s, particularly in the wake of criticism about fiscal transparency. It became an established practice after 2000, with “the general implementation of performance measures across all departments and agencies” as well as “a trickle-down process across Canadian provincial and local governments” (Agocs and Brunet-Jailly 2010, 155). This growing interest in the use of performance measures to track and refine public sector activities may help to explain recent shifts in Canadian public policy thinking about how best to address homelessness. These shifts were greatly influenced by American institutional responses to homelessness, including the rapid uptake of ten-year plans and Housing First policies and programs, as well as the prioritization by governments of chronic homelessness in program delivery and spending. The focus of both Housing First (H F ) and the American 10 Year Plans to End Homelessness has been very much about populations who experience homelessness as a chronic state, often for reasons tied to and exacerbated by physical and mental health limitations and/or substance use problems (Evans, Collins, and Anderson 2016; Mitchell 2011). Such populations are widely recognized as comprising only about 15 per cent of those who experience homelessness at some point in their lives (Aubry, Farrell, Hwang, and Calhoun, 2013; Kuhn and Culhane, 1998; Rabinovitch, Pauly, and Zhao 2016). In contrast, the majority of those who experience homelessness do not do so as an ongoing and reoccurring state of affairs. Rather, their ongoing challenge is to access and maintain decent, secure, and affordable housing. In the logic of N P M , the exorbitant costs generated by the former group in terms of emergency health and justice care costs were a reasonable rationale for governments to direct their research and programming efforts towards those who were chronically homeless in order to quickly and dramatically reduce the overall, societal costs of homelessness. Public visibility on city streets and parks of those

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populations, and the perceived negative impacts of that visibility on tourism and other forms of business, have also been identified as further reasons for this focus (Kennelly and Watt 2011). This policy direction was also influenced by a growing body of research beginning in the early 1990s that showed the effectiveness of Housing First in ending chronic homelessness (Aubry, Nelson, and Tsemberis 2015). The result has been a growing gap between the increasing knowledge and programming for those dealing with homelessness as a chronic state, and those for whom the challenge is simply finding and maintaining affordable housing. These contextual insights are noteworthy here insofar as they help to explain the likelihood of tensions between groups such as R EA C H3 and municipal, provincial, and federal government representatives. On the one hand, R E A C H 3 researchers were able to access research dollars that were particularly targeted to learning more about individuals who were facing complex housing and health challenges. On the other hand, these researchers’ interests extended far beyond those populations deemed to be most “expensive” in terms of government spending, and also encompassed those facing significant challenges in their ability to access and maintain decent, secure, and affordable housing.

Re se a rc h o n P l a n s to End Homelessnes s: Ap p r oac h e s , F i n d i n g s , Opportunities a n d  C h a l l enges In 2010, selected members of R E A C H 3 developed a proposal for a C IHR Population Health Intervention Research operating grant to evaluate the efficacy of local plans to address housing and/or homelessness related challenges in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Ottawa. The idea was to use a case-study approach to identify four main objectives: i) determining the degree to which the plans are achieving success, both in terms of implementation and goals and targets; ii) identifying facilitators and barriers to plan implementation; iii) assessing the outcomes of the plans to date, including increases in the supply of affordable housing and reductions in the number of people experiencing homelessness every year; and iv) developing a conceptual model of the factors that determine plan success. The expectation was that case studies would help to identify and evaluate the extent to which the individual plans were

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contributing to the progress that was occurring to end homelessness and to produce locally relevant data to inform future action on homelessness and housing at each site. It was also assumed that the information derived from individual case studies and comparative analyses between the four sites would enable the development of a conceptual model of plan success, with the potential to inform the future development and evaluation of local plans in other jurisdictions across Canada (Hwang et al. 2011). News of the grant proposal’s success affirmed the potential effectiveness of the R E A C H 3 network, but its timing also challenged the group’s research capacity. The agreed upon solution was to hire a half-time research coordinator whose mandate would be to lead the research endeavour, hire and supervise local research coordinators, and work with R E A C H 3 researchers and community leaders in the four cities where the plans would be investigated. The study methodology was conceived as including three main components. First, an extensive document review would be undertaken to focus on current and past plans in the four cities, as well as relevant provincial plans, policies and initiatives, and federal reports produced by the federal Homelessness Partnering Strategy and federal-provincial Investment in Affordable Housing programs. The review would also include broader documentation of housing and homelessness issues at local, provincial, and national levels, including published reports, grey literature, and academic publications. In each city, key informant interviews with representatives of municipal and provincial government, local service agencies, and non-profit housing providers with knowledge of the plans would be also undertaken once the documentary evidence had been analyzed. Finally, the study was expected to involve the collection and analysis of population level data as well as data on affordable housing and key housing market indicators across the four cities involved in the study.  R EA C H 3 members situated in the four cities were expected to act as a reference group for the research coordinator hired to carry out the study (this chapter’s first author). With their help, local research coordinators would be identified to aid with data collection and interviews at each site. They would also identify local key informants from a range of backgrounds to sit on local advisory committees in each city. The role of the advisory committees was to help local coordinators identify appropriate and knowledgeable insiders to be interviewed, and to provide an understanding of the local context,

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including changes over time in the local housing and homelessness sector. They were also expected to help identify key data sources and, where feasible, review local case study reports for accuracy and completeness. As the ensuing discussion will demonstrate, the challenges involved in conducting this comparative study were dramatically underestimated, but so too were the nature and quality of insights that the study yielded. Initially, the intention of the study was to develop individual case studies for the four sites and apply a comparative lens to identify factors that contribute to or impede the success of local plans. Built into this approach was a particular understanding of the local plans as policy and planning instruments to address homelessness. At first, we regarded these plans as largely self-contained, stand-alone initiatives that could be broken down into their constituent parts (proposed policies, programs, and such), systematically evaluated for their efficacy, and compared to one another. These assumptions had the effect of somewhat simplifying and decontextualizing the plans. Soon after we began examining them, we identified their high degree of complexity and heterogeneity and recognized the significance of the particular municipal and provincial contexts within which they evolved, noting the influence of specific and shifting governance models, intra- and inter-institutional arrangements, and unique historical legacies on their configuration. We concluded that understanding and learning from the development of each local plan required, among other things, a type of institutional and organizational analysis that would capture a constellation of relevant trends: how local systems of care and responses to homelessness had evolved over time; how the roles and responsibilities of diverse and variously empowered actors and organizations varied across local (and in some cases regional) service system(s); how new ideas, discourses, and approaches (such as H F ) were being actively taken up in policy and practice and institutionalized in different (and often partial) ways; and how each of these trends was affected by a shifting and unstable political climate at all levels of government. This was time-consuming, meticulous, detailed work that challenged the R E A C H 3 network, both in terms of available resources under the C I H R grant at the level of cross-site coordination and comparison, and the local capacity at each study site. One of the main objectives of the study overall was to assess the degree to which the plans are achieving meaningful reductions in

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homelessness and housing instability and, if possible, to identify ­factors among the four sites that contribute to a plan’s success. To determine this, the study’s proposal outlined a series of data indicators to enable cross-site comparison of population-level outcomes, including: the number of unique shelter users annually (total and disaggregated by gender, age, and so on); average length of shelter stays; number of supportive and affordable housing units built annually; housing availability and affordability in the private rental market (number of units, rents, vacancy rates, and so forth); the number of people on local social housing registries; and the number of individuals moved from emergency shelters into permanent housing each year. Alongside the challenges created by different implementation schedules, the availability of common and comparable data sets among the four cities was a tremendous constraint. Data on emergency shelter use and affordable housing builds, for example, fell under the jurisdiction and authority of provincial ministries in Alberta and British Columbia, while in Ontario, these were the responsibility of municipalities. How emergency shelter data were collected, disaggregated, and reported (and made accessible) also differed from one jurisdiction to the next. For example, Ottawa was unique in its reliance on a community agency to collect and analyze relevant information. Since 2004, Ottawa’s Alliance to End Homelessness has prepared an Annual Report Card on Housing and Homelessness that provides data and analysis of a number of key performance indicators that evaluate the state of housing, income support, and homelessness year to year, based on data provided by the City of Ottawa’s Housing Services Branch, which uses the national Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS) software (Adamo et al. 2016). Likewise, definitions of supportive and affordable housing varied significantly between the four sites and the management of social housing registries was also quite divergent. Beyond differences in available data, approaches to plan monitoring and evaluation (including indicators used to track progress, and the timing and frequency of plan review processes) proved highly variable among the four cities and resulted in significant challenges for cross-site comparisons. Despite the challenges involved, the study was able to make ­several significant contributions. First was the provision of new, datainformed insights about the impact of cities’ efforts to end homelessness and increase affordable housing. While trends observed

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Table 9.1  Local plans: timelines and targets Timeframe

Focus

Targets

Calgary’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness (Calgary Homelessness Foundation) 2008–2018 First in Canada to set a goal to end homelessness in 10 years. Implementation of Housing First based “system of care.” New Aboriginal and youth plans aligned with 10–Year Plan. Plan reviewed and updated every 3 years. Targets scaled back in 2015 Plan Update.

By 2018: 100% of chronic and episodic homeless housed (3,200 people). Stabilize 35% of transitionally homeless and individuals at risk of homelessness (9,400 households). Reduce average length of stay in adult singles emergency shelters to 10 days, and in family shelters to 14 days – a 60% reduction Reduce the total number of ­individuals enumerated in the Homeless Point-In-Time Counts by 70%.

Housing Opportunities Toronto (HOT): An Affordable Housing Action Plan (City of Toronto) 2010–2020 New housing development across the full continuum (supportive, affordable rental and home ownership). Repair/replacement of Toronto’s aging social housing stock. “Ending homelessness” not a focus on the plan.

By 2020: 6,000 new supportive housing units. 10,000 new affordable rental housing units. New rent supplements, housing allowances and/or shelter ­benefits for 70,000 households. 2,000 new affordable home ­ownership units. Revitalization of 90,000 existing social housing units.

Vancouver’s Housing and Homelessness Plan: A Home for Everyone (City of Vancouver) 2012–2021 Delivery of new housing options across full continuum. 14 sites of new supportive housing. Delivery of new non-market and market rental housing and home ownership opportunities aligned with Metro Vancouver’s Regional Plan 3 Ways to Home.

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By 2015: End street homelessness in Vancouver. By 2021: 2,900 new supportive housing units. 5,000 new affordable non-market housing units. 5,000 secured market rental ­housing units. 6,000 new secondary suites and laneway housing. 20,000 new ownership units.

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A Home for Everyone: Ottawa’s 10 Year Plan (City of Ottawa) 2014–2024 Builds on Ottawa’s Housing and Homelessness Investment Plan, adopted in 2011. Delivery of new affordable units, repair of existing social housing stock, provision of support ­services, and new partnerships.

By end of 2015: 130 new affordable housing units. 200 existing units repaired for low income residents. 100 long-stay shelter users transitioned to housing with supports. By 2024: Emergency shelter stays are 30 days or less. Achieve 40% savings in the ­funding to emergency shelters.

Sources: Data from CHF 2015; City of Toronto 2009; City of Vancouver 2011; City of Ottawa 2013.

across all four cities pointed to a stabilization of homelessness, the data clearly demonstrate that cities have not achieved significant and sustained reductions in the numbers of people experiencing homelessness annually (see tables 9.1 and 9.2). In Calgary, for example, nearly 6,000 individuals were housed with supports between 2008 and 2014 (C H F 2015) producing an overall decrease of 1.9 per cent in the size of the population for this period based on point-in-time counts. However, the number of people who were homeless increased by 10.8 per cent between Calgary’s 2012 and 2014 point-in-time counts, reversing a previous downward trend. According to the Calgary Homeless Foundation (ch f ), these trends are the result of a complex array of factors, including the limited supply of new purpose-built rental housing, rising rental costs, and very low vacancy rates, all of which were compounded by record level in-migration to Calgary and the impact of the 2013 floods (Adamo et al 2016; C H F 2014a, 4; see also CH F 2014b).  Moreover, although trends suggest an overall stabilization of the homeless population across the four cities, the incidence of homelessness among specific sub-groups – including families, youth, and seniors – has also continued to climb in some cities. In Calgary, the number of homeless families and youth grew by 31 and 30 per cent respectively between C H F’s 2012 and 2014 point-in-time counts (C HF 2014b, 11; Adamo et al. 2016).  Such evidence about the growth in homelessness among specific groups reinforced the

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Table 9.2  Housing completions and percentage of completions for rental market, 2010–2014

CMA

Freehold

Condominium

Rental

Total completions

Rental (%)

Calgary Ottawa Toronto Vancouver

34,270 20,575 74,633 24,441

17,668 8,068 77,987 53,919

2,153 1,646 7,403 11,656

54,091 30,289 160,023 90,016

4.2 5.4 4.6 12.9

Sources: Data from CMHC 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2011d, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c, 2013d, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2014d, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2015d.

network’s appreciation of the need for more targeted plans and support for initiatives that respond to the unique pathways into homelessness and the specific housing and support needs of families, youth, seniors, and Aboriginal peoples. Having robust plans in place, however, is not enough. New, longterm senior government funding commitments are necessary as well as greater attention being given to the factors that contribute to and take away from existing stocks of affordable housing. As table  9.3 demonstrates, the size of the rental housing universe (a proxy for total rental market supply) between 2010 and 2014 in Calgary and Ottawa actually contracted over the five-year period. In other words, in those cities, new construction is not even keeping pace with the loss of existing rental housing units. In Calgary, the situation was most acute with a net loss of 1,114 private market rental units (Adamo et al. 2016).  A second key contribution of the research was the insight that overall, the plans adopted in Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver were each unique in a number of important respects – their goals, priorities, targets, and timelines were locally specific. They also utilized different working definitions of homelessness (for example, chronic homelessness and street homelessness), and, accordingly, targeted investment and employed a range (and different combinations) of program, policy, and system level interventions in specific ways. For instance, it quickly became clear that Ottawa’s 2009–2014 community plan differed significantly from the plans produced in Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver. First and foremost, Ottawa’s community plan was not a comprehensive plan to “end homelessness,” but rather reflected an evolution of earlier efforts at homelessness-related service and support plans that began

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Table 9.3  Losses in private market rental stock, 2010–2014

CMA Calgary Ottawa Toronto Vancouver

Number of units in the rental housing universe

Change

Completions

Total units lost

2010

2014

2010–2014

2010–2014

2010–2014

39,408 68,145 313,993 107,587

38,294 67,878 315,841 109,217

–1,114 –267 1,848 1,630

2,153 1,646 7,403 11,656

3,267 1,913 5,555 10,026

Sources: Data from CMHC 2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2010d, 2011e, 2011f, 2011g, 2011h, 2012e, 2012f, 2012g, 2012h, 2013e, 2013f, 2013g, 2013h, 2014e, 2014f, 2014g, 2014h.

even prior to the federal government’s National Homelessness Initiative in 1999. Ottawa’s current and past plans involved shorter time frames and have been intentionally modest and pragmatic in scope relative to the plans adopted in other cities. Specifically, the goals and objectives of the community plans in Ottawa reflected what was realistic and achievable given existing funding envelopes and requirements and prevailing legislative and policy constraints, with a focus on maintaining and where possible incrementally expanding or enhancing existing programs and services that comprised Ottawa’s housing and homelessness system over its five-year timeframe. Unlike the plans adopted in Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver, Ottawa’s homelessness plan was not a mandated “city plan”; as such, progress monitoring and reporting back to Council were not established as “requirements” when the plan was adopted in 2009. Following an organization restructuring, planning priorities also “evolved” with priority assigned to the preparation of a new ten-year housing and homelessness plan. Ottawa’s trajectory was quite different to that of Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver, where protocols were in place to monitor, update, and communicate progress on the implementation of plans to decision-makers, community partners, and/or the public at large at different stages in the planning cycle. Since the adoption of Ottawa Council’s new Housing and Homelessness Investment Plan in 2011, however, monitoring and performance measurement have been assigned greater priority, with annual updates on that plan initiative released between 2011 and 2013 (Adamo et al. 2016). At a system level, key informant interviews highlighted the role played by Ottawa’s community plans in fostering greater

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collaboration and coordination across Ottawa’s service system over the last decade. Among other things, improved collaboration across Ottawa’s service system has provided the foundation for new partnerships in the delivery of services in recent years. The Supports in Social Housing Program, “The Oaks,” and Cornerstone’s new supportive housing for women were identified as noteworthy examples of new and innovative partnerships between housing and service providers that would have been “unimaginable” a decade ago (Adamo et al. 2016). Capacity development of Ottawa’s networks has also been ­foundational to system level change. The Housing Loss Prevention Network, the Street Outreach Network, the Housing Support Worker Network, and the Housing Search Worker Network, for example, have benefited from a number of capacity development initiatives. In addition to training opportunities for frontline workers and projects to strengthen service delivery networks, the city government supported the development of new tools, including an online housing vacancy listing for frontline workers and a new centralized waiting list for supportive housing, all in an effort to enhance the capacity of, and coordination across, the service system. In recent years, the capacity strengthening of Ottawa’s service networks has, in turn, provided opportunities for the diffusion of best practices in the sector (Adamo et al. 2016).

R e f l e c t i o n s o n t h e R EACH3 Study of Ho m e l e s s n e s s A c t i o n P l a n s : Lessons Learned The discussion in this section highlights the value of applying a critical praxis-oriented lens to R E A C H3 ’s efforts to promote community-based participatory research on housing, homelessness, and health in various urban settings across Canada. The opportunity to closely examine the rationales of four municipal housing and homelessness plans, while considering their specific broader contexts, has yielded important and, in some ways unanticipated, insights. Municipal governments and community-based organizations responsible for plan development and implementation have been notably efficient in some of their efforts to address homelessness as a significant social justice problem within their jurisdictions. However, the study makes clear that these actors also inevitably encounter a number of persistent barriers with the potential to

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undermine well-intentioned local efforts to reduce homelessness. One significant barrier has to do with access to resources: for cities, an increase in senior government investment would better enable successful implementation of plans to end homelessness. Moreover, the reality is that while cities have been tasked with developing plans to end homelessness, many of the drivers of homelessness and precarious housing lay beyond the jurisdiction of local authorities and organizations, and rest instead with senior orders of government. The study also revealed insights about weaknesses and strengths in the university-community participatory approach of the RE ACH 3 network. One of the greatest obstacles faced by such research partnerships is long-term sustainability (Freeman et al. 2006; Brush, Baiardi, and Lapides 2011). Time and resources are needed to maintain group morale and participation, support communication, and encourage research collaborations that continue beyond project timelines. Funding structures, policies, and procedures can impede the growth and sustainability of community-academic research partnerships (Sadler et al. 2009; Kone et al. 2000). These barriers include the lack of infrastructure grants to support relationships and team-building activities, the trend toward short-term, temporary funding opportunities, and insufficient funding incentives to support ongoing community involvement (Israel et al. 2006). In the case of R E A C H3 , a number of projects were launched and successfully completed by the network members, and some of these projects were able to access external funding to be expanded or disseminated more broadly. However, an ongoing challenge to R EA C H3 was the dynamic whereby researchers in the network acted as the main drivers of the research agenda and community practitioners participated in secondary roles, while still providing important and fresh perspectives on the interpretation of collected data. Additionally, the senior author of this chapter, acting as the research coordinator, found it very difficult to work between the sites without any face-to-face peer or collegial interaction. She was put in the position of having to investigate three of four plans from a distance (those of Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver). Lacking inperson contact with key informants and network members (including the institutions, organizations, and individuals working in the housing and homelessness sector as well as other important local and provincial government actors), proved to be very challenging.

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It was difficult to fully understand the myriad of contextual factors at play that were affecting the realization of the different city plans. The consequences of this were quite palpable – the depth of analysis was more limited and some gaps in knowledge were difficult to address from a distance. The heavy reliance on regularly scheduled teleconferences limited productive and substantive engagement – idea, experience, and context sharing that, under better conditions, might have deepened the research approach and analysis overall. It is also reasonable to think that the nature of the network’s community involvement (and the extent of its partnership with community stakeholders) might have been stronger were additional funds available to accommodate, for example, more frequent and perhaps larger community engagement and knowledge translation events. Moreover, the modalities adopted by researchers to communicate findings – namely, presentations at meetings and conferences, technical reports, and peer-reviewed publications – also limited their applicability to and usefulness for the work of community practitioners. While the considerable achievements of this study and the network that contributed to it are noteworthy, we want to close by suggesting two research practice and communication refinements for  future efforts by R E A C H 3 and similar cross-site community-­ university research initiatives. The first is to more fully acknowledge the potential value of community partners in such endeavours, including dedicating funds for their research-related contributions. Providing training opportunities and funding for community-­ partnered research is vital to ensuring that community members are able to contribute to network activities in a meaningful and sustained way. The second is to build into future research projects opportunities for discussion that go beyond the instrumental and prosaic. In addition to one or more yearly gatherings that provide opportunities to examine and reflect upon past activities and refine forward planning, the possibility of more casual discussions of unanticipated challenges or trends throughout the year should be considered. Finally, this research raises central questions for cross-national research networks that are working at the urban scale. What are the most effective approaches for conducting comparative analyses when there is substantial complexity and diversity in each of the specific research sites? Critical praxis-oriented research aims to keep the complexities of context in view as important information

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for understanding particular cases. Yet, at the same time, sharing across different site-specific data sets and policy and program interventions has the potential to provide important lessons for addressing the harms of homelessness. Further work is needed to reflect on such tensions and to review the kinds of comparisons and collaborations that aid in informing action for social change.

references

Adamo, Abra, Fran Klodawsky, Tim Aubry, and Stephen Hwang. 2016. Ending Homelessness in Canada: A Study of 10-Year Plans in Four Canadian Cities. Toronto: REACH3. Agocs, Carol, and Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly. 2010. “Performance Management in Canadian Local Government: A Journey in Progress or a Dead End?” In Local Government in a Global World: Australia and Canada in Comparative Perspective, edited by Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly and John F. Martin, 154–78. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Argintaru Niran, Catharine Chambers, Evie Gogosis, Susan Farrell, Anita Palepu, Fran Klodawsky, and Stephen Hwang. 2013. “A Cross-Sectional Observational Study of Unmet Health Needs among Homeless and Vulnerably Housed Adults in Three Canadian Cities.” BMC Public Health 13: 577. Aubry, Tim, Susan Farrell, Stephen Hwang, and Melissa Calhoun. 2013. “Identifying the Patterns of Emergency Shelter Stays of Single Individuals in Canadian Cities of Different Sizes.” Housing Studies 8 (6): 910–27. Aubry, Tim, Geoff Nelson, and Sam Tsemberis. 2015. “Housing First for People with Severe Mental Illness Who Are Homeless: A Review of the Research and Findings from the At Home-Chez Soi Demonstration Project.” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 60: 467–74 Brush, Barbara, Janet Baiardi, and Sharon Lapides. 2011. “Moving toward Synergy: Lessons Learned in Developing and Sustaining CommunityAcademic Partnerships.” Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research Education and Action 5 (1): 27–34. Calgary Homeless Foundation (CHF ). 2015. “Calgary’s Updated Plan to End Homelessness: People First in Housing First.” Calgary: Calgary Homeless Foundation. – 2014a. “Winter 2014: Point-in-Time Count Report.” Calgary: Calgary Homeless Foundation.

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Hacker, Karen, Shalini Tendulkar, Catlin Rideout, Nazmim Bhuiya, Chau Trinh-Shevrin, Clara Savage, Milagro Grullor, Hal Strelnick, Carolyn Leung, and Ann DiGirolamo. 2012. “Community Capacity Building and Sustainability: Outcomes of Community-Based Participatory Research.” Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education and Action 6 (3): 349–60. Holton, Emily, Evie Gogosis, and Stephen Hwang. 2010. “Housing Vulnerability and Health: Canada’s Hidden Emergency.” Toronto: Research Alliance for Canadian Homelessness, Housing, and Health (R E A C H3). Hubley, Anita, Lara Russell, Anita Palepu, and Stephen Hwang. 2014. “Subjective Quality of Life among Individuals Who Are Homeless: A Review of Current Knowledge.” Social Indicators Research 115 (1): 509–24. Hunter, C., Anita Palepu, Susan Farrell, Evie Gogosis, K. O’Brien, and Stephen Hwang. 2015. “Barriers to Prescription Medication Adherence among Homeless and Vulnerably Housed Adults in Three Canadian Cities.” Journal of Primary Care and Community Health 6 (3) (November): 154–61. Hwang, Stephen. 2010a. “Research Proposal: Population Health Interventions to End Homelessness.” Ottawa: Canadian Institute for Health Research. – 2010b. “Canada’s Hidden Emergency: The ‘Vulnerably Housed.’” The Globe and Mail, 22 November. Accessed 6 January 2016. http://www. theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/canadas-hidden-­ emergency-the-vulnerably-housed/article1806777/. Hwang, Stephen, Tim Aubry, Anita Palepu, Susan Farrell, Rosane Nisenbaum, Anita Hubley, Fran Klodawsky, Evie Gogosis, Elizabeth Hay, S. Pidlubny, T. Dowbor, and Catherine Chambers. 2011. “The Health and Housing in Transition Study: A Longitudinal Study of the Health of Homeless and Vulnerably Housed Adults in Three Canadian Cities.” International Journal of Public Health 56 (6): 609–23. Israel, Barbara, Amy Schulz, Edith Parker, and Adam Becker. 2001. “Community-Based Participatory Research: Promoting a Partnership Approach in Health Research.” Education for Health 14 (2): 182–97. Israel, Barbara, James Krieger, David Vlahov, Sandra Ciske, Mary Fole, Princess Fortin, J. Ricardo Guzman, Richard Lichtenstein, Robert McGranaghan, Ann-gel Palermo, and Gary Tang. 2006. “Challenges and Facilitating Factors in Sustaining Community-Based Participatory Research Partnerships: Lessons Learned from the Detroit, New York

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City, and Seattle Urban Research Centres.” Journal of Urban Health 83 (6): 1022–40. Israel, Barbara, Chris Coombe, Rebecca Cheezum, Amy Schulz, Robert McGranaghan, Richard Lichtenstein, Angela Reyes, Jaye Clement, and Akosua Burris. 2010. “Community-Based Participatory Research: A Capacity-Building Approach for Policy Advocacy Aimed at Eliminating Health Disparities.” American Journal of Public Health 100 (11): 2094–102. Kennelly, Jacqueline, and Paul Watt. 2011. “Sanitizing Public Space in Olympic Host Cities: The Spatial Experiences of Marginalized Youth in 2010 Vancouver and 2012 London.” Sociology: The Journal of the British Sociological Association 45 (5): 765–81. Khandor, Erika, and Kate Mason. 2007. The Street Health Report 2007. Toronto: Street Health. Khandor, Erika, Kate Mason, Catharine Chambers, Kate Rossiter, Laura Cowan, and Stephen Hwang. 2011. “Access to Primary Health Care among Homeless Adults in Toronto, Canada: Results from the Street Health Survey.” Open Medicine 5 (2): 94–103. Kone, Ahoua, Marian Sullivan, Kirsten Senturia, Noel Chrisman, Sandra Ciske, and James Krieger. 2000. “Improving Collaboration between Researchers and Communities.” Public Health Reports 115 (2–3): 243–8. Kuhn, R., and D. Culhane. 1998. “Applying Cluster Analysis to Test a Typology of Homelessness by Pattern of Shelter Utilization: Results from the Analysis of Administrative Data.” American Journal of Community Psychology 26: 207–32. Larson, Celia, David Schlundt, Kushai Patel, Irwin Goldzweig, and Margaret Hargreaves. 2009. “Community Participation in Health Initiatives for Marginalized Populations.” Journal of Ambulatory Care Management 32 (4): 264–70. Lloyd, G., Jennifer Cook, Syed Ahmed, Michael Yonas, Tamara CoyneBeasley, and Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola. 2012. “Aligning the Goals of Community-Engaged Research: Why and How Academic Health Centers Can Successfully Engage with Communities to Improve Health.” Academic Medicine 87 (3): 285–91. Mitchell, Don. 2011. “Homelessness, American Style.” Urban Geography 32 (7): 933–56. Office of Community-Based Research. 2009. The Funding and Development of Community University Research Partnerships in Canada: Evidence-Based Investment in Knowledge, Engaged Scholarship, Innovation and Action for Canada’s Future. Victoria: University of Victoria Office of CommunityBased Research.

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Palepu, Anita, Anne Gadermann, Anita Hubley, Susan Farrell, Evie Gogosis, Tim Aubry, and Stephen Hwang. 2013. “Substance Use and Access to Health Care and Addiction Treatment among Homeless and Vulnerably Housed Persons in Three Canadian Cities.” PLoS One 8 (10): e75133. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075133 Palepu, Anita, Anita Hubley, Lara Russell, Anne Gadermann, and Mary Chinni. 2012. “Quality of Life Themes in Canadian Adults and Street Youth Who Are Homeless or Hard-to-House: A Multi-Site Focus Group Study.” Health Quality of Life Outcomes 15: 10–93. Phillips, Susan. 2010. “‘You Say You Want an Evolution?’ From Citizen to Community Engagement in Canadian Cities.” In Local Government in a Global World: Australia and Canada in Comparative Perspective, edited by Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly and John F. Martin, 55–80. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Rabinovitch, Hannah, Bernadette Pauly and Jinhui Zhao. 2016. “Assessing Emergency Shelter Patterns to Inform Community Solutions to Homelessness.” Housing Studies 31 (8): 984–97. Sadler, Lois, Jean Larson, Susan Bouregy, Donna LaPaglia, Laurie Bridger, Catherine McCaslin, and Sara Rockwell. 2012. “Community-University Partnerships in Community-Based Research.” Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, Action 6 (4): 463–9. Tendulkar, Shalini, Jocelyn Chu, Jennifer Opp, Alan Geller, Ann DiGirolamo, Ediss Gandelman, Milagro Grullon, Pratima Patil, Stacey King, and Karen Hacker. 2011. “A Funding Initiative for CommunityBased Participatory Research: Lessons from the Harvard Catalyst Seed Grants.” Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, Action 5 (1): 35–44. To, Matthew, Kristen O’Brien, Anita Palepu, Anita Hubley, Susan Farrell, Tim Aubry, Evie Gogosis, Wendy Muckle, and Stephen Hwang. 2014. “Healthcare Utilization, Legal Incidents, and Victimization Following Traumatic Brain Injury in Homeless and Vulnerably Housed Individuals: A Prospective Cohort Study.” Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 30 (4): 270–6. Wallerstein, Nina, and Bonnie Duran. 2006. “Using Community-Based Participatory Research to Address Health Disparities.” Health Promotion Practice 7 (3): 312–23.

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10 Theatre Outré and Lessons from a Welcoming and Inclusive Community Tiffany Muller Myrdahl

I n t r o d u c tion What might it mean to think about the right to the city in queer terms, for people with bodies and practices that are considered outside of the norm to be understood as having a right to claim public space and a seat at the city’s table? Does attention to same-sex sexuality and gender-creative expression challenge our normative expectations for whose bodies are embraced by social inclusion policy? These are questions that should be confronted outright when designing and enacting social inclusion policy. Compared with other issues being addressed by municipal social inclusion policy, sexuality and queerness tend to be ignored; perhaps it is people’s discomfort with these issues and a lingering notion that they are private matters that add to a perception that sexuality and queerness are more difficult to address than other forms of social exclusion.1 Yet, one need not look far to see why attention to sexuality and queerness matters for municipal policymakers. To name but one example, the City of Vancouver Park Board is implementing actions recommended in the 2014 report “Building a Path to Parks and Recreation for All,” which are aimed at making parks and recreation facilities more welcoming and accessible for trans, gender-variant, and Two-Spirit communities. To some extent, Lethbridge, Alberta, has taken on this work, addressing sexuality as part of the city’s social policy statement, its  ambitious ten-year community action plan for social inclusion, and  other strategic initiatives being implemented by city hall. In

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Lethbridge, as elsewhere, the translation of policy from paper into everyday practice can be a tricky matter. Activating social policies must be a multi-pronged effort that involves all stakeholders at city hall and beyond. Yet, not all members of city hall may see themselves as vital to this work. For example, while frontline staff are integral to carrying out the mission of social inclusion, they may think of this work as outside their purview and beyond their existing responsibilities. As well, some may agree with certain elements of inclusion policies and disagree with others; as is demonstrated by the many cases of public officiants refusing to marry same-sex couples, queer sexuality is often a contentious element of public policy. Such was the challenge in Lethbridge in the early days of 2014, when Lethbridge city hall found itself responding to allegations of homophobia. Two local business operators, seeking to shut down a neighbouring theatre space – the only explicitly queer venue in the city – made deeply problematic accusations and involved city staff in their efforts to remove the queer-identified business. The city, in its response to the homophobic complaint, temporarily pursued a strategy that gave legitimacy to the accusations and delegitimized the queer theatre’s claim to operate as an arts space in the downtown core. Inadvertently, the city’s actions in this case were indicative of how the policy mandate for creating a welcoming and inclusive community was being taken up (or not) throughout city hall. This chapter examines this barometer. Using the theatre closure as a case in point, I show that the city’s investments in creating a welcoming and inclusive Lethbridge are at risk of being undercut by its tactics for diversity management: tactics that, by and large, ignore queer sexuality as a form of social difference that matters in Lethbridge, and that confine social policy interventions to one department within city hall. As such, this chapter exemplifies another form of “intersectionality in practice” at work within the context of municipal inclusion efforts. Like the EI Lens discussed in chapter 2, this case also highlights the tension between diversity management and social justice within inclusion initiatives, and speaks to holding municipal policies accountable for their claims of working toward social inclusion.

M e t h ods This chapter emerges out of research conducted with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (L GB T Q ) residents of Lethbridge and

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region. The project, which ran from 2010–2015, involved collecting and archiving L GB T Q oral histories and conducting interviews with local experts about the changing social landscape for queer and other marginalized groups.2 I collected twenty-six oral histories, which will be archived at the Sir Alexander Galt Museum and Archives in Lethbridge, as well as three expert interviews. The research and all subsequent analyses should be understood as critical and praxis-oriented. First, I understand my role as a researcher to work with, rather than on, communities, and I must take guidance from and be responsive to the communities with whom I work. For instance, while this project was not developed out of a need identified by L G B T Q communities in Lethbridge, its evolution was informed by comments from a Community Advisory Board made up of project participants. Although my life circumstances prevented a fully participatory research methodology (whereby, for example, oral history narrators co-construct analyses) (Cahill 2007), where possible participants have provided feedback on materials and analyses that emerged from the research. Additionally, I have focused on creating meaningful community and scholarly outputs to make the research relevant beyond the academy. Community is not an unproblematic entity, however (Joseph 2002). My situatedness – as a transplant to Lethbridge, as a thenfaculty member at the university, as a white lesbian in a partnered relationship, and as a person vaguely affiliated with the city’s gay organization, among other things – absolutely informed who agreed to participate. Likewise, the members of the L G BTQ communities who participated in this project were also politically and socially situated and may have had their own agendas for taking part in the research. None of this should be perceived as a problem to overcome; rather, it should be acknowledged as the complexity inherent in research and as the context in which data are co-produced (Maynes, Pierce, and Laslett 2008). The analysis for this chapter focuses especially on traditional and social media coverage of the theatre incident, and is informed by the observation of a performance piece, Wha’ Happened? performed at Theatre Outré in March 2014. Importantly, I both observed and participated in the social media surrounding this event; I used my role as a public scholar who has studied L G B T Q lives alongside City of Lethbridge inclusion efforts to influence the

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city’s response to Theatre Outré. This analysis should thus be understood as situated within a context of critical participation in local L G B T Q communities.

C o n t e x t o f t he Cas e Lethbridge, Alberta, is a regional centre of nearly 95,000 (City of Lethbridge 2015b).3 Located between Calgary to the north and the US border to the south, the city is the third-largest census metropolitan area in Alberta. It serves as an agricultural hub and public sector service centre to the many small communities dotting the prairie and foothill landscapes of southern Alberta and northwestern Montana. Of the top ten major employers in the city, eight are public sector employers who employ 23 per cent of the city’s workforce in government services, education, and health care (Economic Development Lethbridge 2013). To understand local efforts toward municipal social inclusion, four characteristics are key: the historical and ongoing experiences of First Nations in Lethbridge, the presence of higher education and research institutions, the legacy and continuing relevance of social conservatism, and rapid population growth. Each is discussed in turn. First, Lethbridge is located on the historical territory of the Blackfoot First Nations, and its proximity to the Kainai Nation (Blood reserve) and Siksika Nation (Peigan reserve) established under Treaty 7, has been important for First Nations communities. Historically, onreserve services have been lacking and demand for housing has far exceeded available supply (Barsh 1997, 205). Many local First Nations people have turned to Lethbridge to meet those needs. However, the housing and employment discrimination that First Nations people have faced in Lethbridge is well documented (Barsh 1997; Belanger, Weasel Head, and Awosoga 2012; Kingfisher 2007). Second, Lethbridge is also home to an agricultural research station and two sizeable secondary education institutions whose student bodies (as well as faculty and administrators) are drawn from across the province and beyond. These institutions contribute to a sizeable community of transplants and temporary residents, and growing its international student population has been and continues to be a significant goal for both Lethbridge College and the University of Lethbridge (Zentner 2014). Thus, these institutions contribute in specific ways to the diversity of the city’s population,

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as  well as the diversity of the programming that is available in  Lethbridge. Yet, despite the presence of various community-­ university partnerships and what appear to be friendly relations between the institutions and the city, a long-standing “town and gown” divide has been noted anecdotally among my research participants and in formal University of Lethbridge documents.4 This divide, and the disinterest it fosters in the city’s long-term social health, is perhaps unsurprising given the transience of the young adult student populations and early-career researchers. However, its effect on local social networks and community development should not be underestimated. Third, historically, Lethbridge has been understood as a socially, religiously, and politically conservative community. While there is more debate over this discourse today (see Muller Myrdahl 2013), there is a lingering common sense notion that the city’s dominant culture is informed by social and religious conservatism. A frequent entry point for my narrators to discuss whether and how sexual difference matters to their lives in Lethbridge was their offering of a comment like, “I’m sure you’ve heard people refer to the city as the buckle of Alberta’s Bible belt” (cf. Marlor 2000, 16). Arguably, the province’s particular culture of conservatism extends beyond Lethbridge (Banack 2014). Filax, for example, described the effect of the legacy of Christian fundamentalism on struggles over provincial human rights legislation for lesbians and gays, noting that this was also a “struggle over what constitutes a proper, normal Alberta identity and who rightfully belongs within the Alberta community/mosaic” (2004, 88). Yet, this overlooks the regional influence of faith communities such as the Mormon (LDS) Church. Using data from the 2001 Canadian Census, the last census to list the LDS Church as a separate denomination, Rosen and Skriver (2015, 105) write: “49.7% of Canada’s entire Mormon population is situated in Alberta, and 8.5% of Lethbridge … self-­identified as Mormon, far higher than the national rate of .3% and even the provincial rate of 1.7% … These numbers are important because they underscore the high population density of Mormon Church members in the area … this high LDS population density means that members of these communities will necessarily have even closer, more intense and more multiplex social networks.” Although faith-based social networks may play a smaller role in  residents’ ability to develop community, find employment, or

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achieve professional advancement today, there is an ambient religiosity that informs the social and cultural norms of the city. Political conservatism, too, is a hallmark of Lethbridge. A recent example in the Toronto Star’s 2015 election coverage illustrates this point. Querying whether the “orange wave” of the N D P could win in this steadfastly Conservative riding, journalist Allan Woods (2015) wrote: “There is a familiar saying among those involved in politics in this Alberta farming town that goes something like this: ‘A bale of  hay could get elected to Parliament if it was running as a Conservative.’” The Conservative candidate, whom Woods (2015) described as “an evangelical Christian and an aspiring politician who studied the craft at the training institute created by Reform Party founder Preston Manning,” won the election. Finally, the city’s population growth is notable. More than 22,000 people have settled in Lethbridge since 2002. Its rate of growth ranges from steady to high; the population growth forecast for 2010 to 2030 suggests an average growth of 7 per cent (City of Lethbridge Planning Department 2010). Recent figures show that the city population grew by 9.4 per cent since 2010 (Economic Development Lethbridge 2015). As the introductory chapter argues, attention to demographic change is essential to an accurate accounting of shifts in social policy and its enactments. This is particularly relevant in Lethbridge, which has experienced population growth among First Nations and immigrant and refugee communities.5 In an interview with the author (10 November 2011), Diane Randell, manager of the city’s Community and Social Development Group, asserted, “Lethbridge has been identified as one of the top ten cities to settle in for new Canadians. We’re seeing influx. So the demographic shifts and changes that I’ve seen, just over the last five to ten years, it’s definitely has been the increase in new Canadians, immigrants, and refugees. We are also seeing the migration off-reserve to move into the city.” Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey numbers confirm these points. The report shows a spike in immigrants settling in Lethbridge since 2001: nearly 3,600 immigrants arrived between 2001 and 2011, two-thirds of those having arrived since 2006 (Statistics Canada 2011a). Likewise, survey numbers list 4.6 per cent (3,770 people) as claiming Aboriginal identity (Statistics Canada 2011b). It is critical to not conflate immigration statistics with an

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increase in the city’s racial diversity since Lethbridge attracts a large number of immigrants from the UK and the Netherlands. Still, the 2011 N HS numbers estimate the visible minority population in Lethbridge at 7.3 per cent, an increase from the 2006 census (6 per cent) (Statistics Canada 2011b, 2006).

S o c i a l P o l i cy i n Lethbridge Social policy and its implementation in the City of Lethbridge are mandates of the Community and Social Development Group, whose mission includes building “the inclusive social infrastructure of the community” (City of Lethbridge 2014, 132). The most current document, the City of Lethbridge Social Policy, came into effect in July 2015. It retains much of the same policy content as its predecessor, Towards a Brighter Future: A Framework for Social Policy and the Priorities for 2009–11. This latter document also laid the groundwork for current social inclusion efforts through a series of recommendations put forward to City Council in 2008 (City of Lethbridge 2008, 13). Current social policy is complemented by Building Bridges: A Welcoming and Inclusive Lethbridge Community Action Plan 2011–21 (hereafter Building Bridges), a ten-year strategic plan aimed at “combating racism and all forms of discrimination and championing equity and respect for all people” (C MARD L C 2011, 4). This document was developed out of the city’s decision to join the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism and Discrimination and serves as a key policy feature of Community and Social Development.

Can ad ia n C oa l i t i o n o f M u nicipalities Agains t Rac i s m a n d D i s c r i m i n ation (CCMARD) The initiative behind Building Bridges emerged out of the provincial Welcoming and Inclusive Communities (W IC) program, begun in 2006, and C C M A R D,6 which the City of Lethbridge signed onto in 2007. C C M A R D is a part of an international coalition that began as a follow-up from the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. It is a U N ESC O -founded initiative that aims “to establish a network of cities interested in sharing their experiences in order to improve their policies against racism, discrimination, exclusion and intolerance” (Canadian Commission for UNE SC O 2012, 7). The Canadian arm

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of the international coalition, whose commitments have been modified to accurately reflect the roles and responsibilities of Canadian municipalities, aims to be “a platform to broaden and strengthen the ability to protect and promote human rights through coordination and shared responsibility among local governments, civil society organizations and other democratic institutions” (Canadian Commission for UNE SC O 2012, 8). CCM ARD is linked to Canadian municipalities across a variety of scales. It reports updates to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and provincially, the Alberta Urban Municipal Association oversees the uptake of W IC and C C MA R D initiatives across Alberta. Lethbridge became a signatory community by city council’s passage of Resolution 555-E Appendix C. Although the resolution had strong but not unanimous support among council members, its passage was understood to signal “the beginning of the development of a clear and public commitment to building a welcoming and inclusive Lethbridge that valued non-discrimination, equal access, full participation and inclusion” (C M A R D L C 2011, 6). Accordingly, the development and implementation of Building Bridges was facilitated through a funding allocation for Community and Social Development and the creation of a council standing committee charged to oversee the plan. C C M A R D thus became a priority of Community and Social Development and, in its focus on creating a  welcoming and inclusive Lethbridge, now aligns with other city strategic priorities like Bylaw 5650 Integrated Community Sustainability Plan/Municipal Development Plan and City Council Strategic Goal #4.

Th e T h e o ry a n d P r ac t ice of Addressing D i s c r i m i nation In terms of its approach to inclusion, CCMARD is notable for its broad vision. This was underscored in an issue of Canadian Diversity dedicated to C C M A R D’s tenth anniversary, in an article that stated: “The Canadian Coalition was the only one to add a direct reference to discrimination in its name, rather than simply including the term racism, to include other forms of exclusion” (Canadian Commission for U N E SC O 2014, 6).7 This was significant to creating a framework “for comprehensive anti-discrimination work” at the scale of the local – cities and smaller municipalities – with a vision to “enable

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the full inclusion and participation of all Canadians” (ibid.). Thus, one of the two key objectives of C C M A RD is to counter all forms of discrimination through stronger social inclusion policies. However, CCMARD’s embrace of comprehensive anti-discrimination work and its ten commitments to address racism and discrimination can be read in two different ways. The more common reading is a laundry-list approach, where each form of discrimination (for instance, racism, sexism, or ablism) is distinct and needs to be tackled separately. This reading suggests that diversity is “a set of fixed identity categories that can be managed without addressing the underlying structural dynamics of class, race, and gender” (Klodawsky et al. 2014, 20; see also Doyle and George 2008; Holvino 2008). An alternative way to frame anti-discrimination work is with an  intersectional approach, which understands discrimination to manifest in less discrete ways. This approach, often attributed to legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991), considers how different forms of marginalization inform one another and are produced in  concert. Feminist geographers (for example, Valentine 2007) maintain as well that place matters to which forms of discrimination take precedence in different contexts. An intersectional approach to anti-discrimination necessitates lateral thinking about strategies to address discrimination. Rather than focusing on racism as a singular issue that affects all racialized people in the same ways, racism must be understood to intersect with other factors like sexism, ablism, and homophobia. Structural inequalities thus manifest differently according to the myriad ways difference is produced and reinforced. Arguably, Lethbridge C C M A R D adopts a laundry-list approach to discrimination that takes as its primary concern racism and discrimination toward First Nations and other racialized communities. As ongoing racism, especially toward First Nations communities, permeates social relations in the city, this focus is understandable. However, approaching social difference as if it can be contained in discrete categories results in ignoring intersectionality and the diversity within marginalized communities; therefore, meeting the needs of a racialized person who is queer may not be successful if service provision is implicitly homophobic. As such, policy implementation is partial and fails to recognize and address how racism and discrimination impede the full participation of all members of the Lethbridge community. Consequently,

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all other strategic initiatives involving social inclusion goals are necessarily partial. This makes it difficult to address categories of social difference, like sexuality, that receive unsustained attention in city social policies. Available evaluations and performance indicators demonstrate a strong commitment to qualitative social changes within and beyond city hall (C M A R DL C , n.d., 2014). Yet, even bold visions can be limited by how diversity and discrimination are imagined and managed (Tossutti 2012). The events surrounding the closure of Theatre Outré illustrate some of these limitations.

R e n a m i n g B ordello: T h e K e r f u f f l e ov e r Theatre Outré In January 2014, Theatre Outré, a small non-profit theatre society that had been operating in Lethbridge for three years but had moved to a new space, received local and national media attention after its new neighbours lodged a complaint to their shared landlord, and subsequently the city, about the “adult” nature of the theatre as well as its proximity to children. At the core of the complaint was the content of the performances, the way that this content was assigned to the bodies of the theatre company’s members, and, essentially, the homophobic sentiment that was attached to both of these matters. Details of the incident are contentious. The summary that follows is based on information posted on Theatre Outré’s website on 29 January 2014 (which has since been removed but remains elsewhere on the web) and reports from various traditional and social media sources that incorporate interviews from Lethbridge city councillors and others. The company was preparing to launch its new space in the MacFarland Building, a historic building in Lethbridge’s downtown core. The space was to be named Bordello and would personify the theatre’s vision described on the company’s website: “We provide an uncensored and uncompromising voice to those in our community who are often considered to exist beyond the fringes of social propriety, sexual norms and gendered expectations” (Theatre Outré 2014). Significantly, the space operated by Theatre Outré was, at the time (and remains as of my writing this), the city’s only explicitly queer space, with the exception of the temporary “queering” of sites like bars, campus spaces, or community halls that host L G BTQ and gender-queer events.

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According to reports on Theatre Outré’s website, two other MacFarland Building tenants, a children’s music instructor and an insurance agent, circulated a petition to evict Theatre Outré and stop the opening of Bordello. The petition stated fears that children would be “exposed to homosexual lifestyles,” concerns about “transsexual endorsement,” and fears of “child molestation, rape, indecent exposure, and acquiring ST I s from the building’s shared toilets.” The petition was sent to the building landlord, a business person based in Calgary, who in turn shared the tenants’ issues with the theatre company, which is run by three queer, white men who are affiliated with the local university. By their own account, Theatre Outré responded by telling the landlord that they were willing to meet with the other tenants. This never transpired. Apparently unsatisfied with the landlord’s refusal to evict Theatre Outré, the tenants approached city hall to intervene in the imminent opening of Bordello. A media report featuring an interview with Councillor Jeff Carlson specifies that a complaint was filed with the city: “The city relies … a lot of it is complaint driven. Our development staff doesn’t drive around trying to find where businesses have popped up. So what happened is two people came down and said ‘do you know about this?’” (Anderson 2014). At the point at which the city became involved, the record of events becomes less straightforward. At issue is the city’s response to Theatre Outré, in light of the homophobic accusations. In Theatre Outré’s first statement exposing the incident, its theatre directors wrote on the company’s website that as a result of the anonymously filed complaint, the bureaucratic process that they were involved with to open Bordello “was road-blocked and our venue, therefore, is no longer allowed to operate for the purposes of a theatre company” until city council approval was received. Indeed, Bordello was shut down; the performances that were intended to premier in the new space were staged at the nearby Penny Building, which is owned and operated by the University of Lethbridge. When it was subsequently reopened, Theatre Outré’s space was dubbed Club Didi. However, media reports featuring city councillor Carlson denied that council approval would be necessary to re-open the space. Instead, Carlson suggested the complaint drew the city’s attention to the fact that Bordello was operating without the appropriate development permit, which prompted the city to intervene. Thus, reopening would be a matter of completing the correct permit process.

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The online trail of the closure of Bordello devolves quickly into claims that Theatre Outré was in the wrong: pundits argue that the theatre directors rallied support around claims of homophobia when in fact the closure was their own fault for inattention to the details of running a business.8 Indeed, Mayor Chris Spearman refused to acknowledge the argument that homophobia played any role in the controversy or the city’s response.9 However, it would be inaccurate to analyze this incident without thinking of it as two distinct but linked events: first, the homophobic petition, and second, the development permit. The homophobic comments of the other tenants cannot be neatly set aside: it was a homophobia-driven complaint that prompted the intervention, so these comments had a direct bearing on the emergence of the development permit. This analysis thus asks: What happened in the moment between the complaint, which set the intervention in motion, and Theatre Outré’s written statement about their closure?

M i n d i n g t h e G a p b e t w een Theatre Outré a n d  t h e City It is this moment – the one in which the city determined how it would intervene – that acts as a barometer for how the mandate for  creating a welcoming and inclusive community was enacted throughout city hall. That the city intervened and that the theatre was closed for the lack of a development permit, is not in question. Rather, the question is how the city understood and articulated the temporary closure to Theatre Outré, and whether this framework of understanding was informed by efforts to create a welcoming and inclusive community in which queer bodies are also accepted. Answering this question requires a look at the disconnection between Theatre Outré’s statement, which clearly implicates the homophobic complaint as the cause of the closure, and the responses by the city and its leadership to the incident. In Theatre Outré’s updated description of events on its website, the directors described their understanding of the city’s decision for the closure as follows: “A fledgling theatre company, in our city, who is a registered society, receives grants from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, received a grant from the City of Lethbridge, and who is on the Downtown Lethbridge B R Z [Business Revitalization Zone] website, is no longer a proper business and is now threatened with being

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called an ‘adult theatre’ which requires a City Council vote to operate its own space. This new definition of our space (which they were previously going to license as a ‘club’ with zero red tape) came about after the Mayor’s Office was notified and city hall employees visited our website.”10 As this paragraph illustrates, the theatre directors believed that the neighbouring tenants’ complaint prompted the city to shift its relationship with Theatre Outré from one of respect for the theatre’s contributions to the community, and one that did not require a change in licence from its previous location, to one that viewed the theatre as a problem in terms of regulating the city’s moral ­landscape. If their fears of being re-zoned as an adult theatre were realized, Theatre Outré would have been forced to forgo their investments in their new space and, per Land-Use Bylaw 5700 9.8, leave the Downtown B R Z . Following what Hubbard et al. (2008) call a “politics of concealment” associated with adult entertainment, adult theatres in Lethbridge are zoned as allowable “only in Direct Control Districts created for that purpose by City Council” (City of Lethbridge Planning Development 2011). The implications of this threat were two-fold: Theatre Outré’s reputation would be compromised, and being moved out of the BRZ meant that the theatre would have no access to city grants that it had previously been awarded. In other words, there were direct and indirect costs associated with being reread as an adult theatre. By contrast, city representatives – with one exception, discussed below – addressed the matter as only a regulatory issue. Statements made to media outlets by city staff, the aforementioned Councillor Carlson, and Mayor Chris Spearman, placed sole responsibility for the shutdown on Theatre Outré’s failure to acquire the proper permit for its new space. The complaint and the homophobia from which it stemmed were either not acknowledged or their relevance was refused. The city (quoted in Strapagiel 2014, n.p.) released this statement: “[When a theatre representative approached city staff on Monday, 27 January] The theatre representative was advised that, as per standard process, the application would be referred to the Municipal Planning Commission (M PC) for approval. The representative was also advised that their application would need to be filed by Jan. 29 in order for the M P C to render a decision at its next meeting … These deadlines take into account timelines to be able to advertise to the community. To this point, a development permit application has not been filed.”

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With an exclusive focus on the process that Theatre Outré should take once it had already received notice of its closure, this statement illustrates bureaucratic efficiency in its capacity to strip the message from its context and offer what appears to be an objective perspective on both the source of the problem and its resolution. Councillor Jeff Carlson went even further to distance the city from any responsibility for how it gave notice for the closure. Placing the burden of the permit failure squarely on the theatre company, Carlson rejected the idea that a homophobic complaint had played any role in the event. In news coverage reported by Stephanie Dunn on 30 January 2014 on mainstream network Global T V , Counsellor Carlson stated: “It’s basically a case of maybe not as savvy business folks trying to start a young, fledgling business and not knowing the process as they needed to go through.” Carlson was noted in another forum as “troubled that the City will be given a black eye over this situation and stresses that Lethbridge is not an intolerant place,” and the same author quoted him saying that intolerance exists, but “it has nothing to do with their development permit” (Anderson 2014). Mayor Chris Spearman followed suit. According to a CTV news report (Vogt 2014) and his personal Twitter feed, the mayor framed the issue as solely regulatory in nature. He addressed and dismissed the homophobic complaint by pointing to the city’s reputation for inclusivity, saying: “Lethbridge has a wonderful reputation for the arts and for being inclusive and yesterday wasn’t a very good day for our city but I’m glad that there has been some clarification provided.” Taking into account Spearman’s argument that, “as far as the City’s concerned, it’s a regulatory issue,” it is possible to infer that the “clarification” he mentions refers to the shift in media attention: from the homophobic comments that sparked the controversy, to the focus on the theatre’s failure to acquire a permit that ended it. Like Carlson, the mayor abdicated any responsibility for how the city intervened in the closure. This disregard for the significance of homophobia is more than a minor slight. Rather, it indicates an investment by city leaders to refuse to consider how indifference to homophobia can shape the workings of city hall. Between Theatre Outré and the city’s understandings of the impetus behind and framing of the intervention, is a gap that provides two insights about how social inclusion policies cross the corridors of city hall. First, it highlights the importance of knowledge sharing within a municipal bureaucracy, to combat the siloing of

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policy interventions and to increase their effectiveness. Second, it illustrates the need to name expressions of queer sexuality in social inclusion policy lest homophobia be swept under the rug.

L e s s o n s f r o m L ethbridge T h e S i l o s o f C it y H a ll Based on status reports, the partnerships it has established with community organizations, the number of events that have been sponsored, and the level of community participation in these events, C C MA R D has been a highly successful initiative. For instance, the 2014 Progress Report notes: “[Lethbridge] CCMARD has been modelled provincially as a best practice” and, as a result, has consulted with other Alberta municipalities participating in the W IC program (C M A R DL C n.d., 9). However, as the Theatre Outré incident suggests, more work needs to be done to ensure that social inclusion efforts are taken up across all city departments as a matter of course. For Lethbridge to fulfill its commitments to inclusion, CCMARD needs to consider how the daily practices of city hall may undermine the targets they intend to reach by 2021. Specifically, while a target like providing training opportunities to community is essential work, it is also important to look inside city hall for opportunities to train and develop support among fellow city administrators. For example, very few of the performance highlights or targets listed in the 2014 Status Report indicate conversations between departments in city hall. There are some key exceptions, such as the development of an inclusion plan with Emergency Services, and support for the development of diversity within the Human Resources office. Yet, there are few additional indications that social inclusion work is being taken up in other municipal departments. Further, it seems clear that social inclusion policy is presumed to be the exclusive domain of Community and Social Development (and, by extension, CCMARD). Within complex public sector bureaucracies, reasons commonly given for such siloing include: having a risk-averse institutional climate with more disincentives than incentives to change (Wilson 1989); the culture of the institution, which structures the norms, organizational discourses, and activities of institutional actors (March and Olsen 2005); and an organizational

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design, budgeting process, and/or inter-­ organizational barriers that enable or even encourage silos (Sørensen and Torfing 2011, 860). Ultimately, the silo effect “breed[s] an inflexibility [within organizational units] that hinders tackling inter-­ jurisdictional or ‘hybrid’ problems” (Jerolmack 2013, 203). The evidence available cannot speak to its institutional climate or culture, but structurally, Lethbridge city hall is divided into silos through its operating budget; rather than serving outcomes, the budget divides four discrete “family areas” into even smaller semi-independent units. Thus, while the city’s Corporate Strategic Plan 2011–2017 identifies working “across departments to serve the public” as a focus area for the Senior Management Team, the scope of this goal is limited to just three segments of city staff: Senior Management, Fleet Services, and Financial Services (City of Lethbridge, n.d.). In short, social inclusion policy is pursued not as a citywide mandate but as activities contained within one city department. There is one significant exception. As mentioned above, there was an important outlier to the city’s reaction to the Theatre Outré incident: city council member Jeff Coffman. Writing on his professional blog, Jeff Coffman, after the incident, he posted “A Tragedy in Two Acts,” in which he identified why conducting city business outside of Community and Social Development – permit processing, in this case – needs to be informed by inclusion policy. The 3 February 2014 post is excerpted here. He stated: “Two local business owners embarked on a homophobic attack against the Bordello and Theatre Outré. One outcome of the attack was the revelation that the Theatre was operating without a business license and a development permit. As Chair of the Municipal Planning Commission, I focused on what I believed to be a simple issue of process: Theatre Outré was operating a theatre without a business license and without a development permit, as per our Land Use Bylaw. In my mind, the resolution to this issue seemed straightforward as the theatre company need only to apply for the permits and the problem should resolve itself.” Coffman articulated what became the commonly held view of the Theatre Outré incident: that the situation involved simple cause and effect and required no further examination. This mechanistic view is essential to the policymaker’s worldview; Robert Donmoyer (2012, 801) argues that causality is the functional fiction necessary to do the work of policymaking. Yet, this view ignored the

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conditions that set the context for the incident and made it possible to ignore the dynamics that were at play. Coffman acknowledged this, while also speaking to its effect, in the same post. He wrote: “Unfortunately, my perspective ignored a tragic reality: The Bordello and Theatre Outré were attacked by two homophobic business ­owners in our city. Following the realization that the Theatre and Bordello were the targets of homophobia, there was no response on the attack from your civic leaders. I am sorry for not immediately condemning the homophobic attitudes of the business owners … [My silence] also meant that we perpetuate the unspoken belief that homophobia – in essence, all the deeper sins against otherness: racism, discrimination and exclusion – are permitted behaviours in Lethbridge. They are not!” Coffman then turned to the work of CCMARD as a solution to the Theatre Outré incident and prevention against similar events. He called on fellow residents to create a welcoming and inclusive Lethbridge by participating in upcoming CCMARD activities. In sum, Coffman underscored why attention to the homophobic complaint needed to be at the heart of the city’s response, and he invoked the need for greater sharing across city hall so that social inclusion policy maximizes its reach and effectiveness. V i s i b i l i t y Mat t e r s The Theatre Outré incident also illustrates that there is more work to be done to make social inclusion policy accountable to expressions of queer sexuality. On paper, the city has shown a commitment to LG B T Q people in its inclusion efforts. Sexual orientation is named in the city’s Social Policy and Building Bridges, and the local LG B T Q organization, OUT reach Southern Alberta, is a CCM ARD partner organization (C M A R DL C 2011). CCM ARD and O U Treach collaborated to produce two Sexual Orientation Myths and Facts sheets available on the city’s website, and CCM ARD occasionally cosponsors OUT reach events. Yet, a close reading of the city’s Social Policy and Building Bridges suggest that sexuality and gender expression are marginalized issues within the city’s social inclusion agenda. Specifically, queer sexuality is not named in Potential Actions or Anticipated Outcomes, two of the modes for evaluating the city’s social inclusion measures. This means that plan implementation does not need to explicitly incorporate marginalization faced by

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queer residents. Second, many of the Outcome Indicators listed in appendix A assume the availability of statistics that will allow the impact of CCMARD actions to be tracked, but there is no local or (current) federal census or qualitative data that identifies LGBTQ residents, so there is no way to quantify or trace an improved sense of belonging over time. Third, queer marginalization also targets those who are perceived to be queer but do not identify as such. Therefore, queer social inclusion must be evaluated in a way that captures the fullest range of how homophobia is experienced and addressed. In reality, then, queer social inclusion is by and large not evaluated. Reports of CCMARD actions and outcomes leave queer marginalization invisible. For instance, the one mention of queer experience in the 2014 Status Report is the note about a Gay-Straight Alliance presentation at the 2014 Building Bridges conference (CM ARD L C 2014, 8). The lack of reporting on improving social inclusion for queer residents does not mean that this work is being ignored entirely.11 However, the overall absence of queer sexuality in C C MA R D actions and outcomes has a clear effect: it signals that C C MA R D, and the city by extension, is not accountable to its L G BTQ residents or queer social belonging.

C o n c l u d i n g T houghts The Lethbridge Community Vision states: “We will continue to work together to ensure that Lethbridge … is recognized as being a safe, healthy, vibrant, prosperous, economically viable place where all people can fully participate in community life” (CL F S D 2014, 16). Both the vision and the city’s work being undertaken to support it are laudable, and they demonstrate that Lethbridge is not yet a place where all residents are welcomed and included. Marginalization because of queer difference can take many forms, from subtle disapproval to overt discrimination. Certainly, the city’s handling of Theatre Outré’s permit was a form of exclusion: a series of responses informed by, but ignorant of, how homophobia prevents queer residents from being included as full members of the community. Part of the city and C C M A R D’s responsibility, therefore, is to take seriously how homophobia works and what it means for queer residents to be heard. Social exclusion for L G BTQ people entails, among other things, “powerlessness regarding their ability to represent their interests” (Takács 2006, 13); in other words, claims made

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by queer bodies are refused. To be accountable to its L G BTQ residents, city social inclusion efforts need to at minimum respect queer experiences of homophobia. As well, the city needs to examine the strength of its commitment to become a welcoming and inclusive community and how its own daily practices foster or inhibit this commitment. Recent City of Vancouver decisions to foster greater inclusion for trans*, gender variant and Two-Spirit (T G V 2 S ) community members provide a relevant model for the City of Lethbridge. Aiming to reduce barriers to access and participation for T G V2S residents, the City of Vancouver participated in a consultation process that drew upon staff from a wide array of city departments, from Human Resources and Communications to Planning & Development and Vancouver Fire & Rescue Services (City of Vancouver 2016, 5). Stakeholders from more than twenty city service groups contributed to the development of recommendations for how “to make civic facilities, operations and programs safe and inclusive spaces” for the TG V2S community (City of Vancouver 2016, 6). With support from leadership, including the city manager’s office, the resulting recommendations paint a picture that is the opposite of a siloed social inclusion policy. Instead, they cut across departments as diverse as Housing and IT , and, building upon lessons learned from TG V2S inclusion work conducted by the Vancouver Park Board, the recommendations take into account that interdepartmental coordination will facilitate implementation and evaluation. By contrast, social inclusion in the City of Lethbridge is the purview of one department, Community and Social Development, and its affiliated committee, C C M A R D . As the events surrounding Theatre Outré demonstrate, the work of inclusion cannot be confined to a single unit. Moreover, they illustrate the critical importance for the city to account for how its own leadership and bureaucratic processes can function as instruments of exclusion. Raising the Pride flag at city hall for one week per year during Pride celebrations, or when it is convenient to make a symbolic gesture,12 is an empty show of support if it is accompanied by acts that impede the city’s commitment to queer social inclusion. The work of policy development that aims to actively foster a welcoming community is a massive undertaking that requires evaluation and application of lessons learned as key elements. For the City of Lethbridge, the take-aways from Theatre Outré events are plain:

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first, there must be greater active commitment to the inclusion of queer bodies, and second, the success of social inclusion policy requires that it is pursued as a citywide mandate, put into daily practice by the city at each and every level.

notes

  1 The distinction between sexuality and queerness is significant; it refers to the different theoretical and political trajectories adopted by lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer people. While it is an oversimpli­ fication to characterize this distinction as rights seeking versus politically radical, this description illustrates that sexuality and queerness challenge the boundaries of “normal” in somewhat different ways. For instance, a same-sex married couple is understood to upset mainstream social norms less than a person who challenges gender binaries or coupledom. Regardless, there remains a gap between tolerance and acceptance for public expressions of queerness; arguably, even the most mainstream of same-sex couples queer the heterosexual norm and are not immune to marginalization. In this chapter, queer is intended to encompass sexual difference and queerness while appreciating that these are not always one and the same.   2 The project was entitled The Lives of (Sexual) Others: Social Difference and Urban Change in Lethbridge, Alberta, with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (No. 4302011-294) and the University of Lethbridge.   3 The City of Lethbridge 2015 census lists the population as 94,804.   4 Minutes of the University of Lethbridge Senate Meeting, 3 February 2007, Section 10.1. Accessed 20 November 2015. http://www.uleth. ca/governance/sites/governance/files/Senate%20Minutes%20 Feb.%203,07.pdf.   5 A Rural Development Institute report (2015) documents 3,229 permanent resident landings in Lethbridge between 2008 and 2013.   6 The acronym most frequently used by the City of Lethbridge is C M A R D . I use CCMARD in the text for consistency.   7 Canadian Diversity is a publication of the Association for Canadian Studies/Association d’études canadiennes.   8 For example, this view was expressed in an online article in Alberta Venture, a magazine for Alberta’s business community, entitled “Live in a Glass House? Don’t Tweet.”

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  9 The exchange on Twitter between the mayor (@Spearmac) and several interested members of the public illustrates this point. See in particular @Spearmac tweets between 6 and 11 February 2014. 10 This description was accessed on 30 January 2014, but has since been deleted. 11 Some performance highlights in the Status Report, like the Myth & Fact sheets, addressed queer sexuality but were not categorized as such. 12 Bordello’s closure happened to coincide with the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. Many Canadian municipalities, including Lethbridge, raised the Pride flag for the duration of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. references

Alberta Venture Staff. 2014. “Live in a Glass House? Don’t Tweet.” Alberta Venture, 19 September. http://albertaventure.com/2014/09/ live-glass-house-dont-tweet/. Anderson, Drew. 2014. “Theatre Outrage Unfounded.” Drew Anderson, 29 January. Accessed 22 October 2015. http://journalistdrew. com/2014/01/29/theatre-outre-outrage-unfounded/. Banack, Clark. 2014. “Evangelical Christianity and Political Thought in Alberta.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue D’études Canadiennes 48 (2): 70–99. doi:10.1353/jcs.2014.0027. Barsh, Russel L. 1997. “Aboriginal People in an Urban Housing Market: Lethbridge, Alberta.” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 17 (2): 203–14. Belanger, Yale, Gabrielle Weasel Head, and Olu Awosoga. 2012. “Assessing Urban Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness in Canada.” Ottawa, O N : Final Report Prepared for the National Association of Friendship Centres (N AF C) and the Office of the Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians (O F I). Cahill, Caitlin. 2007. “Participatory Data Analysis.” In Participatory Action Research Approaches and Methods: Connecting People, Participation and Place, edited by Sara Kindon, Rachel Pain, and Mike Kesby, 181–7. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Canadian Commission for U N ES CO . 2014. “Ten Years of Combating Racism and Discrimination through the Canadian Coalition: Progress and Perspectives.” Canadian Diversity/Diversité canadienne 11 (4): 5–14.

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– 2012. “Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination Toolkit.” Ottawa: Canadian Commission for UNESC O. http://unesco.ca/en/home-accueil/~/media/Unesco/Sciences%20 Sociale/CCMARD%20Toolkit%20WEB-EN.ashx. City of Lethbridge. 2015a. “City of Lethbridge Social Policy 2015.” Lethbridge: City of Lethbridge. http://www.lethbridge.ca/living-here/ Our-Community/Documents/SocialPolicy2015.pdf. – 2015b. “Lethbridge Census Online: 2015 Census Results.” Lethbridge: City of Lethbridge. Accessed 22 October 2015. http://www.lethbridge. ca/City-Government/Census/Pages/default.aspx. – 2008. “Towards a Brighter Future: A Framework for Social Policy and Priorities 2009–2011.” Lethbridge: City of Lethbridge. http:// www.lethbridge.ca/living-here/Our-Community/Documents/ SocialPolicy%202009-2011.pdf. – N.d. “Corporate Strategic Plan 2011–2017.” Lethbridge: City of Lethbridge. http://www.lethbridge.ca/City-Government/cityadministration/Documents/Corp%20Strategic%20Plan.pdf. City of Lethbridge Financial Services Department (C LFSD). 2014. “Operating Budget January 1, 2015–December 31, 2018.” Lethbridge: City of Lethbridge. http://www.lethbridge.ca/City-Government/ Financial-Documents/Pages/Operating-Budget.aspx. City of Lethbridge Planning Department. 2010. “2010 PopulationProjections Medium Growth Scenario.” Chooselethbridge. Accessed 22 October 2015. http://www.chooselethbridge.ca/charts/E14%20 Template.pdf. City of Lethbridge Planning Development. 2011. “Land-Use Bylaw 5700 9.8.” Lethbridge: City of Lethbridge. http://www.lethbridge.ca/DoingBusiness/Planning-Development/Pages/Land-Use-Bylaw-5700-Draft. aspx. City of Vancouver. 2016. “Administrative Report: Supporting Trans* Equality and an Inclusive Vancouver.” Vancouver: City of Vancouver. http://council.vancouver.ca/20160713/documents/cfsc6.pdf. C M A R D Lethbridge Chapter (CMARD LC ). 2014. “Building Bridges … A Welcoming and Inclusive Lethbridge Community Action Plan 2011–2021: 2014 Status Report.” Lethbridge, A B : City of Lethbridge. – 2011. “Building Bridges … A Welcoming and Inclusive Lethbridge Community Action Plan 2011–2021.” Lethbridge, AB: City of Lethbridge. http://www.lethbridge.ca/living-here/Our-Community/ Documents/­Community %20Action%20Plan%202011-2021%20-%20

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Building%20Bridges%20-%20A%20Welcoming%20and%20 Inclusive%20Community.pdf. – N.d. “C M ARD A Welcoming and Inclusive Lethbridge 2013–14 Progress Report.” City of Lethbridge. http://www.lethbridge.ca/livinghere/Our-Community/Documents/CMA R D.ProgressReport.2014.pdf. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43: 1241–99. Donmoyer, R. 2012. “Two (Very) Different Worlds: The Cultures of Policymaking and Qualitative Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 18 (9): 798–807. doi:10.1177/1077800412453128. Doyle, Robyn, and Usha George. 2008. “Achieving and Measuring Diversity: An Organizational Change Approach.” Social Work Education 27 (1): 97–110. doi:10.1080/02615470601141235. Dunn, Stefanie. 2014. “Update: Deal Reached between Landlord and Theatre Outré After Closure Sparks Controversy.” Global News. 30 January. Accessed 21 October 2015. http://globalnews.ca/ news/1118906/theatre-outre-closure-sparks-controversy-acrossthe-country/. Economic Development Lethbridge. 2015. “Demographics.” Chooselethbridge. Accessed 22 October 2015. http://www. choose​­lethbridge.ca/business/demographics.php. – 2013. “Major Employers.” Chooselethbridge. Accessed 11 December 2015. http://www.chooselethbridge.ca/business/employers.php. Filax, Gloria. 2004. “Producing Homophobia in Alberta, Canada in the 1990s.” Journal of Historical Sociology 17 (1): 87–120. Holvino, Evangelina. 2008. “Intersections: The Simultaneity of Race, Gender and Class in Organization Studies: Simultaneity of Race, Gender and Class.” Gender, Work and Organization 17 (3): 248–77. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0432.2008.00400.x. Hubbard, P., R. Matthews, J. Scoular, and L. Agustin. 2008. “Away from Prying Eyes? The Urban Geographies of ‘Adult Entertainment.’” Progress in Human Geography 32 (3): 363–81. doi:10.1177/030913250 8089095. Jerolmack, Colin. 2013. “Who’s Worried about Turkeys? How ‘Organisational Silos’ Impede Zoonotic Disease Surveillance: Organisational Silos and Zoonotic Disease Surveillance.” Sociology of Health & Illness 35 (2): 200–12. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9566.2012.01501.x. Joseph, Miranda. 2002. Against the Romance of Community. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.

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Kingfisher, Catherine. 2007. “Discursive Constructions of Homelessness in a Small City in the Canadian Prairies: Notes on Destructuration, Individualization, and the Production of (Raced and Gendered) Unmarked Categories.” American Ethnologist 34 (1): 91–107. Klodawsky, Fran, Janet Siltanen, Caroline Andrew, Christine Pich, Asli Mahdi, Suzanne Doerge, Clara Freire, Lois Emburg, Rachida Youmouri, Mai Ngo, Melissa Newitt, and Helin Burkay. 2014. “Equity and Inclusion: Findings, Possible Next Steps and General Lessons.” Ottawa, ON: Carleton University and City for All Women Initiative. https://drive. google.com/file/d/0B8nMNnFZYR1HY2Vyb3JRREFnUVU/view. March, James, and Johan Olsen. 2005. “Elaborating the ‘New Institutionalism.’” Working Paper 11. University of Oslo. http:// www.unesco.amu.edu.pl/pdf/olsen2.pdf. Marlor, Chantelle. 2000. “Old Timers, Newcomers and Social Class: Group Affiliation and Social Influence in Lethbridge, Alberta.” Master’s thesis, University of British Columbia. faculty.arts.ubc.ca/­ tindall/CHANTE~1.DOC. Maynes, M.J., Jennifer Pierce, and Barbara Laslett. 2008. Telling Tales: The Use of Personal Narratives in the Social Sciences and History. Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press. Muller Myrdahl, Tiffany. 2013. “Ordinary (Small) Cities and LGB Q Lives.” ACME : An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 12 (2): 279–304. http://ojs.unbc.ca/index.php/acme/article/view/963/817 Rosen, Nicole, and Crystal Skriver. 2015. “Vowel Patterning of Mormons in Southern Alberta, Canada.” Language and Communication 42 (May): 104–15. doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2014.12.007. Rural Development Institute. 2015. “Immigrant Settlement Services and Gaps in Lethbridge, AB.” Community Report from Immigrant Settlement Services and Gaps in CIC’s Western Region. Accessed 14 January 2016. https://www.brandonu.ca/rdi/files/2015/02/ Lethbridge-AB-Community-report1.pdf. Sørensen, E., and J. Torfing. 2011. “Enhancing Collaborative Innovation in the Public Sector.” Administration & Society 43 (8): 842–68. doi:10.1177/0095399711418768. Statistics Canada. 2011a. “Lethbridge CA .” NHS Focus on Geography Series. Accessed 20 November 2015. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/ nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/fogs-spg/Pages/FOG.cfm?lang=E&level=3& GeoCode=810. – 2011b. “N HS Profile.” Lethbridge CY. Accessed 20 November 2015. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/page.

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cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CSD&Code1=4802012&Data=Count&SearchText= Lethbridge&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&A1=All&B1=All&Cust om=&TABID=1. – 2006. “Visible Minorities.” Selected Trend Data for Lethbridge, C A . Accessed 20 November 2015. http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/92-596/P1-2.cfm?Lang=eng&T=CMA&GEOCODE =810&PRCODE=48&TID=900. Strapagiel, Lauren. 2014. “Lethbridge’s Theatre Outré says Bordello Closed after Homophobic Complaints.” O.Canada.com, 29 January. Accessed 27 October 2015. http://o.canada.com/news/ homophobia-blamed-for-closure-of-theatre-outres-lethbridge-venue. Takács, Judit. 2006. “Social Exclusion of Young Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LG BT) People in Europe.” Brussels: ILGA -Europe. https://www.salto-youth.net/downloads/4-17-948/ReportSocial ExclusionIGLYOilga.pdf. Theatre Outré. 2014. “About Us.” Theatre Outré. Accessed 30 January 2014. http://www.theatreoutre.ca/about-us/. Tossutti, Livianna S. 2012. “Municipal Roles in Immigrant Settlement, Integration and Cultural Diversity.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 45 (03): 607–33. doi:10.1017/S000842391200073X. Trans* and Gender Variant Inclusion Working Group. 2014. “Building a Path to Parks and Recreation for All: Reducing Barriers for Trans* and Gender Variant Community Members.” Vancouver: Trans* and Gender Variant Working Group, April. http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/ REPORT-TGVIWorkingGroupReport-2014-04-28.pdf. Valentine, Gill. 2007. “Theorizing and Researching Intersectionality: A Challenge for Feminist Geography.” The Professional Geographer 59 (1): 10–21. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9272.2007.00587.x. Vogt, Jerry. 2014. “Theatre Group Staying Put.” CTV News Calgary. 30 January. Accessed 22 October 2015. http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId= 284732&playlistId=1.1663327&binId=1.1484062&playlistPageNum=1. Wilson, James. 1989. Bureaucracy. New York: Basic Books. Woods, Allan. 2015. “Shifting Alberta Winds: Why Grits and NDP Believe They Can Break 85 Years of Tory Rule in Lethbridge.” Toronto Star, 12 October. Zentner, Caroline. 2014. “Program Looks to Attract More International Students.” Lethbridge Herald, 17 January. https://www.mitacs.ca/en/ newsroom/media-coverage/lethbridge-herald-program-looks-attract-moreinternational-students.

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11 Perpetuation or Remediation of Structural Violence toward Aboriginal Peoples through City Planning and Policy Processes A Choice to Be Made Mangaliso Mohammed, Ryan Walker, Philip A. Loring, and Brenda Macdougall Reconciliation between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal peoples is  now a central focus of Canadian public discourse (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015).1 A majority of citizens in prairie cities like Edmonton believe that relations among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians remain strained, and recognize that Aboriginal people almost universally experience discrimination, racism, and prejudice more often than other groups, especially in cities (Environics Institute 2010; Newhouse 2014). Yet, a majority of Aboriginal respondents to the recent “Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study” consider the city home, and are both proud of their Aboriginal identity and seeking to become a more visible part of the urban landscape (Environics Institute 2010). This chapter argues that municipalities such as the City of Edmonton will need to recognize Aboriginal peoples as figures of sovereignty in their native city. Decolonizing the city is a hopeful and progressive means of reconciliation between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal communities, and a way to remediate the damage of generations of structural violence in the discursive and material aspects of urban life. Canada’s cities are situated in First Nations and Métis traditional territories, sometimes precisely on sites where Aboriginal communities congregated or settled prior to the arrival of non-Aboriginal settlers (Miller 2011; Morris 1991; Ray, Miller, and Tough 2000).

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For instance, the City of Winnipeg encompasses the original twentysix Red River settlement parishes: Métis people who, by 1870, represented a population of approximately 8,000 out of a total of 10,000. Similarly, the City of Vancouver is situated on unceded Musqueam lands, and the Musqueam Indian Band’s reserve is located within the current city boundaries; the City of Ottawa sits on unceded Algonquin territory. Edmonton, the subject of this chapter, is located on the traditional territories of several Indigenous nations. Historically, the Gros Ventre and Sarcee occupied the region before being supplanted by the Cree, Assiniboine, Saulteaux, Blackfoot, and Métis. Edmonton is situated at the edge of amiskwaciwaskahikan (Beaver Hills House) on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River (Goyette and Roemmich 2005; MacDonald 2009). The area of the city known today as Rossdale Flats was and is still known in Cree as pehonan, the waiting or gathering place. Its occupation first by Indigenous people and then later by fur traders, which both birthed Métis and brought them to the area, was natural because it was at this gathering space that many nations came together to trade, forge, or renew alliances, and engage in sacred ceremonies (Miller 2011). Our contemporary cities are the product of a long chain of human life and activity in specific locations. Given that Canadian cities neither sprung from the soil naturally, nor were accidentally established in locations devoid of connections to Aboriginal societies, the question of how to support the indigeneity and civic engagement of Aboriginal peoples in urban spaces is an important one. As Newhouse (2014, 43) points out, “A challenge facing municipal leaders is to find ways to help improve the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples and to make the city a more amicable and welcoming environment.” City planning, and associated policymaking, is directed at this kind of civic future seeking. In its ideal form it empowers communities to arrive at future scenarios for their city that improve upon the present. As a discipline, however, planning has been criticized for its complicity in the production and reproduction of colonial settler cities that keep aboriginality largely invisible in urban life (Walker, Jojola, and Natcher 2013), and in so doing, enact a form of indirect structural violence on Aboriginal peoples (Galtung 1980; Holmes, Hunt, and Piedalue 2014). Given the neglect of Aboriginal cultures and materiality in the urban landscape (Matunga 2013; Walker 2008), the need to

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strengthen social cohesion between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal peoples, and the absence of a coherent and principled planning framework that reconciles aboriginality with planning in the twentyfirst century city, much work remains to be done. Our chapter begins with a conceptual discussion on decolonizing the city, the need to understand Aboriginal peoples in the city in the context of their sovereignty, and the urgency of remediating the various ways that municipal structures and planning processes create and reproduce multiple forms of structural violence affecting Aboriginal peoples. After a brief discussion of research methods and the Edmonton case, results are discussed and some conclusions are presented for improving the Indigenous inclusivity of urban planning and policy processes.

D e c o l o n i z i n g the City: A b o r i g i n a l i t y and Planning f o r I n c l u s i v e C a nadian Cities Aboriginal populations are diverse, including people from many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit identities, as well as those who identify as “urban” Aboriginal or Indigenous. As cities progress further into the twenty-first century, creating inclusive cities will remain a preoccupation of planners and policy-makers. Walker and Barcham (2010) developed the notion of Indigenous-inclusive citizenship, based upon recognizing self-determination with applied statutory, policy, and practice implications. It marks a shift away from the attributes of universal citizenship, in which the idea that “one size fits all” continues to prevail (Walker and Barcham 2010). As a concept, the term “aboriginality” is used to distinguish the identity of people with a shared ancestral connection to the original occupants of a land and a shared history of having to deal with, often actively resisting or rejecting, the effects of colonization (Schouls 2003). It is also a powerful basis for collective cultural resurgence (Simpson 2011). Denis (1997) refers to aboriginality as a comprehensive cultural project that relies on Aboriginal ways of life and the inherent right of self-determination to provide insight into the relationship between Euro-Canadians and Aboriginal peoples. Research is also being conducted to understand Aboriginal peoples in terms of their relations with immigrant newcomers in urban spaces (Bauder 2011; Ghorayshi 2010; Gyepi-Garbrah, Walker, and

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Garcea 2014). A challenge in Canadian cities is that many view Aboriginal and mainstream cultures as separate and headed on different paths (Maaka and Fleras 2005). This is a notion that Maaka and Fleras (2005) contend must be resolved because the civic futures of our cities and nation-states will depend on Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people discovering ways of coexisting without drifting apart. Recognition of our mutual dependency should serve as a launching point for decolonizing processes, like urban planning, in settler societies like Canada. Denis (1997) has described the presumed cultural neutrality of state and civic processes as institutional “whitestreaming” – the structural and functional ways through which non-Indigenous perspectives are systematically privileged over Indigenous ones. Canadian municipal strategies for providing services are inclined toward whitestreaming. The assumption is that delivering the same services to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal citizens meets their needs equally (Peters 2005). Andersen (2013, 268) emphasizes that indigeneity, as a phenomenon, is far “denser” than the mere focus on “difference” among cultures can allow. Difference, he explains, should not be evoked to perpetuate stereotypes that fix Indigenous cultures in both space and time, but rather, should be used as a starting point to delve into the complex and historical positioning of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Self-governing Aboriginal urban institutions in sectors like housing, health, education, and child and family services have enriched the complexity of Aboriginal cultures in the city and pushed back against the systemic power of a white­ stream society (Peters 2005; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1996; Silver 2006). They have done so through their own urban leaders; their approaches have been consistent with Aboriginal cultural values of community and sharing (Silver 2006). By and large, urban Aboriginal organizations have focused inwardly on Aboriginal communities of interest in cities (DeVerteuil and Wilson 2010), attending to the challenges that Aboriginal peoples living in a whitestream urban context face within their families and communities, rather than looking outwardly at ways to indigenize the city overall. In this chapter, we are interested in the potential of these organizations to engage the non-Aboriginal community in the production of urban spaces that support Aboriginal density in urban areas (Andersen 2009). When planning processes enable Aboriginal cultures to develop and manifest their values

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and identities, urban space may enter a period of decolonization. Without meaningful engagement with Aboriginal peoples and their organizations, planning will most likely continue to shape cities that are colonial in nature in the twenty-first century (Walker and Belanger 2013).

Th e I n d i g e n o u s F i g u r e of Sovereignty an d  R e m e d i at i n g S t r uctural Violence Aboriginal peoples dedicate considerable effort to being perceived and heard by settler institutions and publics as legitimate subjects, or “figure[s] of sovereignty” (Chakrabarty 2012, 4) with Indigenous histories, worldviews, protocols, and practices that are valued equally alongside those of Western institutions and governments. Even though sovereignty, implicit in the right of self-determination, resides with Aboriginal peoples, it is routinely silenced through the “pernicious ignorance” (Dotson 2011, 238) of settler institutions and actors, including planners, decision-makers, and the public, and the privilege built into policy processes. The powerful force of settler ignorance disallows Aboriginal worldviews, protocols, and practices to be heard, understood, and acted upon by planning departments and public institutions generally. As we describe below, this sustains the epistemic and structural violence that suppresses Aboriginal peoples as subjects as well as the application of their self-determining autonomy in relation to the broader society (Spivak 1988). City planning influences urban development and the production of civic initiatives, services, and programs. Planning in Canadian cities is itself a cultural practice that, despite functioning to enhance many Canadians’ quality of life, has historically reinforced and reproduced Indigenous dispossession and marginalization (Porter 2010). Contemporary urban Aboriginal identities are created in the context of over a century of dedicated non-Indigenous settler erasure of much of the “materiality” (the physical quality, presence, and structure) and “memory” (such as the recall of experience, or even of the existence) of local Indigenous communities (Matunga 2013, 8). Colonial buildings, monuments, street patterns, and public spaces have been superimposed on Indigenous places, settlement sites, and resources. Planning practices supported by Western cultural assumptions inevitably reproduce paternalistic colonial

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mentalities when they merely include Indigenous communities as “stakeholders” or “voices,” avoiding the more challenging task of figuring out how consultation could be structured to account for Indigenous self-determination and cultural resurgence (Walker, Moore, and Linklater 2011). Bell and de-Shalit (2011) compare different cities and the values they project. An interesting idea that emanates from their work is what they refer to as the ethos or spirit of a city, defined as the characteristic set of values and outlooks that are generally acknowledged by people living there. They explain that cities reflect and mould their citizens’ values and outlooks in a variety of ways, such as through urban design and symbolism (Bell and de-Shalit 2011). For example, the design and architecture of prominent buildings in a city can be made to reflect its different dominant social and cultural values (Bell and de-Shalit 2011). Furthermore, public monuments are often indicators of politically important events and are a way of honouring a particular history, while the visual and linguistic aspects of street signage can potentially signify multiculturalism and minority rights in a city (Bell and de-Shalit 2011). With these various means of expressing social and political value, cities can celebrate the roles and contributions of their Aboriginal inhabitants, presenting them to all of their citizens and to the world. If urban Aboriginal peoples are viewed as civic partners in municipal visions of the future, a city’s planning and design processes can become powerful tools for reflecting the inclusion of aboriginality. Contrastingly, a societal structure – which in this case is both the planning processes used to reproduce it over time and the city itself – creates indirect harm in the form of structural violence when it limits how citizens and communities develop and express their identities. In this chapter, we use the concept of structural violence (Galtung 1980) to explore how cities and city planning processes currently work at cross-purposes with aboriginality. Structural violence – differentiated from direct physical violence – is a kind of violence that happens in the absence of a specific actor or overt intention. Rather, structural violence arises from institutions and social practices that  prevent people from meeting their needs and enacting selfexpression, indeed anything that would otherwise lead them toward a good life (Galtung 1969; Newhouse 2014). Structural violence generally emerges from the unequal distribution of power and resources, which is built into societal structures such as policies and

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laws, but can also manifest in neighbourhood segregation according to ethnicity or economic class, or anything that enables material or  discursive marginalization and oppression to persist. Legacies of  colonialism, whether cultural, environmental, or built, exhibit Galtung’s concept of structural violence, and have numerous impacts on Aboriginal well-being and identity, as well as their right to be native to the city and territory. Structural violence draws attention to issues that are subtler and more easily overlooked than those produced through direct violence. When thinking of violence, the mind is quick to think of violence resulting in physical harm or cruelty. In the process, the extent to which material and discursive inequalities and unbalanced power relations can reap devastating intergenerational impacts and trauma on oppressed peoples can easily go unnoticed. Galtung’s structural violence model and its application to Aboriginal issues in the Canadian urban context is important because it reveals the invisible violence that is part of everyday life – a violence that is often not disapproved of, but is instead supported through conventional social, economic, and political norms. Galtung (1971) also introduces a dimension of structural violence that involves an imposed conflict of interest, or double-bind, whereby the oppressed must accept some level of marginalization in order to be part of society. It is a lose-lose scenario: either they lose out because they cannot be a part of the city, or they lose out because they must accept the consequences of their status in the city. Aboriginal peoples face a dilemma whereby even though they may want to be part of the mainstream city in healthy self-sufficient communities, doing so is difficult if the non-Aboriginal citizenry does not recognize and acknowledge the devastating impacts of colonialism on Aboriginal lives, and the crucial role that Indigenous cultural resurgence must play in reconciliation (Simpson 2011). We argue here that infusing aboriginality into the ethos of the city erodes the double bind that is created by structural violence, and positions the city to foster meaningful and supportive relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples as they make their lives in the urban landscape. Bell and de-Shalit (2011, 5) explain that in the face of globalization, “many cities invest thought, time, and money in protecting their unique ethos and preserving [it] through policies of design and architecture and through the way people use the cities and interact with them.” When Aboriginal and

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non-Aboriginal citizens meet as partners, Walker (2013) argues, the city can conjure a unique sense of place for the citizenry, as both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal identities create, reproduce, and mutually reinforce a shared civic identity. It is important for municipalities to start seeing urban Aboriginal peoples as sovereign partners in the development of Canadian cities and to support the resurgence of Aboriginal cultures and viewpoints to recreate a more inclusive municipal ethos.

T h e E d m o n to n Case H i s t o r i c a l C o n t e xt of Abor i g i n a l P e o p l e s i n E d m on t on Edmonton is the largest city in Treaty Six territory, a region that spans central Alberta and Saskatchewan, and is a focal point in the urban and cultural geography of the Métis nation within Alberta, which dates back to the fur trade in the late eighteenth century. Pehonan became a natural spot for fur traders to build a succession of fur trade posts beginning in the late 1700s – Fort des Prairies, Fort Augustus, Edmonton House, and, finally, Fort Edmonton – were created by various fur companies, all of which contributed to the socio-economic composition of the Edmonton region, drawing people and goods into this central gathering place. Both the Hudson’s Bay (H B C ) and North West (N W C) Companies had long established their presence in the region, importing men to work at their posts, many of whom intermarried with women from the numerous nations who gathered and traveled along the banks of the North Saskatchewan River and throughout amiskwaciwaskahikan. By 1803 both the NWC and H BC had located posts in the area of Rossdale Flats, before moving to the area around present day Victoria Park in 1813. Finally, in 1830, Fort Edmonton was established on the current site of the Alberta Legislature. Like the First Nations of the area, the families associated with all of these posts buried their relatives along the banks of the North Saskatchewan, particularly in the Rossdale Flats part of the city. In the mid-nineteenth century, the line between being “Indian” and Métis was fluid, with everyone intermarrying and working alongside one another in fur trade occupations. What legal identity people were granted by the Canadian state was finally determined by the

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signing, or not, of Treaty Six.2 By 1824, the Callihoos and their extended family were settled in this area, and by signing Treaty Six,  many Callihoo families joined to become the Michel Band. Papaschase (also known as John Gladieu/Gladu-Quinn) and his people, a band that included his six brothers and their large families, settled permanently in the area in the late 1850s. This community was, like Michel Callihoo’s Band, comprised of former hunters and labourers for the HB C , as well as widows or former wives of H BC employees and their children. The Papaschase Band eventually also joined Treaty Six and settled on a large reserve on the south side of  the river. Métis families from Fort Edmonton remained in Edmonton, Buffalo Lake, and St Albert, taking scrip rather than treaty and settling along river lots rather than on reserves. By the 1880s, white settlers in Edmonton did not appreciate having reserves located so near to their village and petitioned to have the “Indians” removed and their lands surrendered. By the early twentieth century both the Michel and Papaschase Bands had surrendered their treaties and, therefore, their Indian status, and the City of Edmonton could begin to forget and erase the materiality and memory of its long history as pehonan (Goyette and Roemmich 2005; MacPherson 1998; Papaschase Band 2016).3 Abor i gi n a l P e o p l e s a n d t h e C i t y of E d m on t on Tod a y Given its historical context, it should be no surprise that Edmonton continues to have a significant Aboriginal population today; in fact, it has one of the largest and most quickly expanding Aboriginal populations among Canada’s large cities. According to the National Household Survey 2011 (Statistics Canada 2011), Edmonton had 41,985 Aboriginal inhabitants, second only to Winnipeg, which had 72,335. The population identifying as Aboriginal in Edmonton represents just over 5 per cent of the city’s total population. A breakdown of the statistic shows that of the Edmonton Aboriginal population, just over 50 per cent is Métis – the largest group, at 21,155 people; First Nations account for 45 per cent, at 18,855 people; and Inuit are the smallest population accounting for just under 2 per cent, or 695 people (Statistics Canada 2011). The Aboriginal population is much younger than average, with almost half of the population aged twenty-five years or less (Statistics Canada 2011).

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Edmonton has distinguished itself among Canadian cities over the past decade by taking some progressive steps toward strengthening the relationship between City Hall and Aboriginal communities. Edmonton’s city council made a declaration in 2005 to work with their administration, citizens, and Aboriginal peoples to create a more Indigenous-inclusive city (City of Edmonton 2005–2006). The declaration, supported unanimously by the city council, acknowledged its Aboriginal citizens’ contributions – past, present, and yet to come – and acknowledged past injustices that have affected Aboriginal society, such as paternalism, colonialism, and bureaucracy, that have made it difficult for Aboriginal communities to sustain traditional ways of life and ensure their positive future in this urban setting. The city also recognized the unique challenges that are consequently endured by its Aboriginal population: socio-economic disparities and disadvantages in education, health, justice, income, and employment, in addition to systemic and overt racism. Crucially, the declaration stated that Aboriginal autonomy in self-determination would be upheld in the city’s relationship with Aboriginal communities. Edmonton City Council’s declaration was followed the next year with the creation of the Urban Aboriginal Accord (City of Edmonton 2005–2006), which aimed to infuse four community-­identified guiding principles into the work carried out by municipal departments: (1) Relationships, (2) Agreements, (3) Celebrations, and (4) Renewal. Taken together, the declaration and accord sought to establish a formal standard for mutual recognition and ­respectful exchange between the city and Aboriginal communities. They give both settlers and Aboriginal peoples a foundation to stand upon and implement meaningful measures that promote Indigenous-inclusive citizenship (Walker and Barcham 2010). The city also has an Aboriginal Relations Office that works to operationalize the relationship between municipal departments and Aboriginal communities. While this research was being conducted (2013–2015), Mayor Don Iveson proclaimed March 2014 to March 2015 as “A Year of Reconciliation in Edmonton.” The city’s commitment was threefold. First, it would focus on urban Aboriginal youth by creating learning, leadership, and career opportunities for them in the public service sector. Second, the city would open dialogue on reconciliation in the workplace and develop programs to educate its staff on

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the history of residential schools and their impact on Aboriginal peoples. Third, the city would work with Aboriginal communities to develop venues that promote their spiritual and cultural practices.

R e s e a rc h Methods The research discussed in this chapter included semi-structured personal interviews carried out with twenty Aboriginal adult citizens in Edmonton.4 The purpose was to learn about their urban aspirations, experiences, and planning expectations, as well as their perceptions of how non-Aboriginal people and municipal institutions see the place of aboriginality in the city, and how Aboriginal citizens have sought to participate in municipal planning and policy development. Interview participants were recruited with the help of a local research facilitator, following a snowball sampling technique. They were also chosen to reflect the city’s diverse First Nations, Métis, and Inuit population, and included adult women and men, both younger and older. Interviews lasted roughly sixty minutes each and a fee of $40 was paid to each participant. Semi-structured personal interviews were also conducted with municipal officials and Aboriginal political and institutional officials to learn about the involvement of Aboriginal citizens and organizations in city planning, any persistent rationales for including or discounting aboriginality in municipal affairs, and about how future-seeking processes, like planning, might be improved with respect to Aboriginal communities. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed and data were organized into topical categories and then coded to establish themes and patterns. To assist with coding and identifying recurrent themes and concepts, NVivo 10 qualitative data analysis software was used. Data analysis involved classifying, comparing, and combining interview materials to extract meanings and implications, to reveal patterns, and to stitch together a coherent narrative (Rubin and Rubin 2005). The first author of this chapter, Mangaliso Mohammed, who conducted the interviews, is a new immigrant from Swaziland, where urban planning practices derived from Western colonial ideologies collide and require reconciliation with Indigenous Swazi ways of life. As a former British colony, Swaziland faces a struggle comparable to that of Canada to decolonize urban planning practices so that they reflect Indigenous worldviews and structures. Being a

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Swazi immigrant interested in Aboriginal issues in Canadian cities, Mohammed was able to draw on his experiences of urban planning processes in his home country, and on the broader history of colonization in Africa, to situate his positionality as a researcher and to open up a dialogue with the Aboriginal citizens and officials he interviewed in Edmonton.

M ov i n g A b o r i g i n a l E n gagement toward I n d i g e n o u s - I n c l u s i v e Civic Proces ses i n  E d m o n ton As cities become increasingly diverse – spaces of mixed ethnicities, cultures, and generations – it is imperative to discuss and address issues of structural violence openly in the public sphere. This chapter emphasizes the reproduction of structural violence through the unequal distribution of material and discursive power and resources, which enables the marginalization of Aboriginal communities in mainstream urban society. The process of Aboriginal engagement and consultation in city-led projects provides an example of the unequal distribution of discursive power and resources. The Aboriginal citizens that were interviewed identified and were critical of an apparent over-reliance of the city on particular “cultural experts” – a small number of “go-to” Aboriginal people that, by virtue of their office or collegial nature, are easily accessible to municipal officials when the city wants an “Aboriginal perspective.” As the city has tried to develop its own engagement processes to enable robust Aboriginal input, respondents have witnessed the same Aboriginal individuals being sought repeatedly to provide input on behalf of the large and diverse Aboriginal community of Edmonton, which they may not necessarily represent. This practice was perceived by some Aboriginal respondents as a shortcut taken by the city to fulfill its public consultation obligations related to Aboriginal-specific issues. As one respondent stated: “Right now one of the problems is they will take an agency representative as a shortcut. And that’s not necessarily representative of the people … They can’t really speak for us if they have been sitting in their office all the time. I always joke around that it is the same ten people. It doesn’t matter what the issue is, it’s the same ten people.” A city manager shared a similar view about how engagement is undertaken to fulfil planning process requirements rather than

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to  value and enhance Aboriginal participation and partnership. Despite the establishment of the Aboriginal Relations Office and the creation of the Urban Aboriginal Accord to direct and support engagement between the city and its urban Aboriginal population, the practical implementation of the measures they promote requires improvement to produce good outcomes. The nonAboriginal director of transformational projects for the city agreed, asserting, “When deciding how to engage with anybody you should always understand the reality of your audience. So I think one of the things that we are trying to get over is a cookie-cutter check-thatbox-off approach to public engagement in general. We have to start thinking more deeply about that with the Aboriginal community; that is a good place to start.” The Aboriginal participants expressed that they would like to see the city try harder to include a wider variety of voices to speak to issues facing Aboriginal communities. Edmonton’s Aboriginal citizens feel unimportant because there is little interest in involving them in discussions about issues that affect their lives and the city as a whole. A citizen who also works for an Aboriginal organization in Edmonton described this feeling: “We are so devalued. We are always an afterthought. We’re never one of the first groups people want to meet with and I’m not only speaking about the city, I’m speaking about everywhere. We are always an afterthought.” One contribution to good civic engagement made by policy tools like Edmonton’s Urban Aboriginal Accord, or by the city council’s declaration, is the clear indication of a desire for mutual recognition and respectful coexistence between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples. As the deputy executive director of an Aboriginal organization expressed: “If we are to make progress, we look at the Aboriginal Accord, when we look at all those things, then respect is the underlying thing, and go forward with that respect. Listen to us, connect with us, have talking circles with us, when all of these plans are being created, include us.” To make engagement meaningful to the range of Aboriginal voices in Edmonton, a process that entrusts considerable autonomy to Aboriginal organizations and community leaders may be required. Sharing and relinquishing some responsibilities may be a much more effective form of civic engagement than keeping the mechanisms for consultation within the exclusive control of city officials. One participant in the study, the manager of an Aboriginal

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organization, provided context for Aboriginal community engagement, explaining: “So then you check those boxes, you’re done your consultation. Well, it is much deeper than that for us. You have to consult the nations, you have to consult the people in the nations, you have to consult the leadership, you have to consult the Elders. You even have to talk to nations that are outside of that scope because they too have connections to this area, they have connections to the other nations; there is a long history of cooperation and camaraderie between our First Nations communities.” As the City of Edmonton works to improve its processes for engaging with Aboriginal communities, it should keep two dimensions of recognition in mind that may help to enable effective collaboration between the city and Aboriginal communities: the “territorially based recognition of Indigenous places” and “the recognition of Indigenous political authority” (Porter and Barry 2015, 22). While the city’s declaration, accord, and Aboriginal Relations Office have helped, consultative exercises need to be viewed as a joint effort, mutually actualizing municipal and Aboriginal autonomies and recognizing the Indigenous figure of sovereignty as a legitimate partner (Chakrabarty 2012; Fawcett, Walker, and Greene 2015). Many Aboriginal people in Edmonton feel socially and culturally excluded from the ethos or spirit of the city because there is very little in the urban landscape that reproduces their identities and cultures. The city is, therefore, a physical and discursive mechanism of structural violence (Galtung 1980) that limits how Aboriginal peoples validate their identities through the materiality and memory of the built environment and cultural landscape (Matunga 2013). Data from the interviews with municipal officials indicate that the City of Edmonton is reflecting on its own practices and is trying to improve how it includes Aboriginal peoples in its planning and community development. An Aboriginal City of Edmonton employee participating in the study described Aboriginal engagement as a developing process, still in its early stages, saying: We attempt to reflect Aboriginal history and culture through public art. We attempt to reflect Aboriginal culture and history in contributions through urban design projects. However, where things get tricky and where I think the community sees gaps, or they see themselves not necessarily reflected, is in our processes,

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so I would say that we don’t currently, as a municipality, have a lot of structures or processes in place for adequately involving Aboriginal voices in planning processes for these types of projects. We don’t have anything in place that we would call, I would say true co-production or co-management, you know, deep collaboration, and I would say that’s partly because internally, as a city, I don’t know if we have those structures or processes, but also we’re still trying to figure out the relationships within Aboriginal communities themselves.

R o s s da l e Flats After the First Nations and Métis inhabitants were dispossessed of their land in Edmonton and area by extra-legal state policies, the old gathering place, pehonan, became the neighbourhood of Rossdale, and today it is a thriving community close to downtown, along the North Saskatchewan River. It is also home to the Rossdale Power Plant, the construction of which has been a source of considerable controversy between the City of Edmonton and its Aboriginal population. As the plant was built between 1931 and 1954, archaeologists began unearthing human remains from the riverbank. From 1943 to 1981, dozens of bodies were excavated at the site; while some were left where they were found, others were removed, and what happened to them is a mystery. The remains of six people, including an infant, were moved to the vaults of the University of Alberta in 1967 without notification to any of the First Nations or Métis communities in the area. When the city and E P CO R Utilities and Electric began to expand the power plant from 1999 to 2000, the Aboriginal people of Edmonton regarded the site as a sacred gathering space and what remained of the cemetery. After hours of public hearings and difficult negotiations, two historical studies, and a promise by the city to build a memorial and to repatriate the human remains that had been taken from the site, the city approved a reburial plan, the permanent closure of a road at the site, and a memorial to the families and history of the area (Goyette and Roemmich 2005). The contestation surrounding Rossdale Flats, a historically significant site of Aboriginal settlement, suggests that much more robust forms of civic engagement are needed to enable a resurgence of

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aboriginality in the city (Denis 1997; Simpson 2011). Aboriginal interview participants reported feeling that Aboriginal engagement, at least in the recent past, has been a difficult process because they have had to fight to be seen and have their voices heard – to be considered legitimate figures of sovereignty (Chakrabarty 2012). Ignoring and silencing Aboriginal voices, especially in debates over spaces that have cultural significance to their lives, constitutes structural violence exerted by the city and its planning processes; it creates indirect harm by limiting the degree to which Aboriginal peoples can experience ontological security in  their native city. If the city and its planning processes can foster a municipal identity that equally incorporates Aboriginal and ­non-Aboriginal realities, a path toward addressing the conflict of interest identified by Galtung (1971) would thereby be created – Aboriginal peoples would be included in city life without being required to accept marginalization. One Aboriginal participant described the level of energy and organization that has typically been required of the Aboriginal community to have its voices heard at city hall, stating: “I know, again from a heritage perspective, I know that the Rossdale Power Plant – many years ago, when that whole issue – when they were talking about refurbishing it or taking it down or doing whatever, and then of course they found, well they knew from historical records that there was a cemetery somewhere in there. I know that it took a lot of fight from a lot of Indigenous and Aboriginal groups, people, and individuals to be heard in that situation. And the outcome was that circular memorial space with the placards that have the names of the people in the graves, which is I guess, it’s something.” Some respondents explained that ongoing challenges in the relationships between the city and Aboriginal communities result from a failure to recognize the historical complexity of place in Edmonton such that the significance of traditional Aboriginal territories, which often intersect with municipal areas, is ignored. The absence of adequate mechanisms to engage with Aboriginal history, paired with the fact that it continues to be routinely overlooked by the city, has fostered mistrust and apathy among the Aboriginal peoples concerning their participation in city development and place-­ making processes. A participant from an Aboriginal organization providing services in the city offered her reasons why Aboriginal

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peoples in Edmonton have generally been reluctant to engage with city hall: “I think maybe just feeling like maybe they wouldn’t be heard. I know just from past history around what’s happened with, for instance, our Rossdale Flats area, which is, you know, a very spiritual area to our Aboriginal community, just has a history of not being recognized. And our community having to really lobby and give the history, and look to them for having the understanding of the meaning of what our land means to us. So I think that all those historical things have really created a reluctance to create the relationship with the city. But again, I say it’s a changing experience and relationship. It’s growing.” If the city does not properly engage with Aboriginal peoples, it will remain unable to mitigate the local institutional histories and practices that act as mechanisms of structural violence. Consequently, Aboriginal voices will continue to be alienated and reconciliation through cultural resurgence that indigenizes the materiality and memory of Edmonton will be impeded (Matunga 2013; Simpson 2011). Putting or maintaining Aboriginal peoples in a position that requires them to fight to have their voices heard diminishes the quality of their lives in the city, forcing them to experience urban life as second-class citizens. It also creates a false sense among the public that Aboriginal people are asking for things they do not deserve or are not entitled to because they are supposedly not from the city. In fact, if the complex history of place is properly acknowledged, Aboriginal peoples should expect to see themselves and their culture reflected back to them in a city like Edmonton. Though its policies indicate a commitment to increasing Aboriginal representation and input in municipal development processes, Edmonton still needs to convince its Aboriginal communities that their opinions are important civic currency, crucial to strengthening the relations between Aboriginal and non-­ Aboriginal citizens in a city that aspires to shed its colonial legacy. Moreover, the city should establish appropriate and sufficient mechanisms for engaging with Aboriginal peoples not only on Aboriginal-specific issues but also on other aspects of city life. These mechanisms would make it easier for Aboriginal peoples to participate regularly in the urban arena without having to mobilize resources and public attention just to have their voices heard and their sovereignty recognized.

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Ab o r i g i n a l O r g a n i z ations, Culture, an d   C r e at i n g a n I n d i g e nous- Inclusive City Studying the current role of Aboriginal organizations operating in Edmonton not only reminds us of how the city reproduces structural violence, but also demonstrates how aboriginality could drive effective city planning reform. Aboriginal organizations such as the Native Friendship Centre, New In Town – Aboriginal Welcome Service, and Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society, among others, form a crucial point of connection for Edmonton’s rapidly growing Aboriginal citizenry, collectively giving voice to and addressing issues of community, identity, culture, and resource access faced by the urban Aboriginal population. These organizations provide a safe space for Aboriginal people to connect with other community members, to form social bonds, and to access resources in a non-judgemental environment. As one participant noted, the “Aboriginal Women’s Professional Association is a strong support in connecting to other Aboriginal women and finding strength in numbers, or supports … there’s a bond and there’s a connection. I’m going to call it a sisterhood. It’s family.” Trust also develops between members of Aboriginal organizations because, as Schouls (2003) explains, Aboriginal peoples connect through their shared ancestry and their shared history of dealing with the effects of colonization. The benefits of Aboriginal organizations were articulated by an Aboriginal citizen who said, “I personally feel … if you have connections through blood, through the family ties, then a person is going to trust more. If I’m going to sit and talk with one of my people when they’re coming in to get help and say, ‘Hi. Where are you from?’ That’s how we connect. And take it from there. There’s going to be that trust relationship a lot quicker.” With the deeper connections and relationships that they form among community members, Aboriginal organizations can facilitate community healing from intergenerational trauma, and establish the conditions for Indigenous cultural resurgence in response to colonial violence. Aboriginal organizations disrupt structural ­violence by challenging the legacies of colonialism and serving Aboriginal peoples in ways that build Indigenous cultural density (Andersen 2013). Many of the Aboriginal citizens interviewed in this research expressed a desire to connect more deeply with their history and

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culture, and believe that Aboriginal organizations provide a mechanism by which to do so. As one participant expressed, “Well in nonAboriginal organizations I won’t receive the cultural context, like the cultural programs that I would like. Therefore I go to the Aboriginal organizations.” Furthermore, most of the Aboriginal interviewees perceive culture as an imperative part of their life. Culture builds a sense of community that equips Aboriginal peoples to gain an internal perspective on their lives. When asked to describe the importance of culture to living a good life in the city, Aboriginal citizens speak eloquently about how it keeps them rooted to their belief systems. “Culture isn’t activities. Our culture is the way we think, and our language was the foundation of that thinking and those beliefs – the ontology and epistemology of our life – and so to me, if they don’t learn – and I don’t know my own language either – but I know my ceremony and I know the language to do my ceremonies. And if you don’t have that language and that connection, you lose the philosophies and the intent of our belief system. Ceremonies are just part of that way of life,” expressed an Aboriginal participant. Another, reflecting on culture, said, “I think if you have more of it maybe people would start realizing. Maybe they’ll start taking more pride back in themselves.” Aboriginal organizations in Edmonton play a fundamental role in fostering community so that Aboriginal citizens can connect with their culture and ways of life; they enable people to develop a sense of self-identity that, in turn, increases the extent to which they can realize their full potential as citizens of a diverse city and society.

C o n c l u sion To overcome the structural violence enacted against Aboriginal peoples through material and discursive approaches to producing urban spaces, municipalities such as the City of Edmonton will need to recognize Aboriginal peoples as figures of sovereignty in their native city. This requires an understanding of the continuity of place – the idea that the history of a municipality begins long before the arrival of white settlers, and that it is also intimately interwoven with the history of Western resettlement. Decolonizing the city is a hopeful and progressive means of reconciliation between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal communities, and Edmonton’s officials – elected and administrative – have shown a willingness and ability to take

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an  ambitious stance on the improvement of its relations with Aboriginal communities. It is time to refresh those bold positions, to renew a clear mandate to find applied ways of improving engagement, planning, and policymaking with Aboriginal peoples, leaders, and organizations as partners, with the aim of indigenizing the city, supporting cultural resurgence, and promoting aboriginality in civic processes and city form. Newhouse (2014, 46) points out that “[urban] Aboriginal lives today continue to be dominated by the colonial legacy of poverty, dispossession and exclusion. They are not lives of desperation and disconnection but ones predicated on the pursuit of Bimaadiziwin [“the good life” in Anishinaabe].” He recommends that municipal leaders engage with local urban Aboriginal leaders and community members to develop municipal policy, in addition to developing consultative and relationship-building mechanisms with First Nations and Métis communities in the region. Newhouse (2014) also recommends working closely with local urban Aboriginal organizations on areas of common municipal-Aboriginal interest, including cultural development. Importantly, he notes that municipal leaders should “celebrate and make visible the cultural presence of Aboriginal peoples in the ceremonial and cultural life of the municipality” (Newhouse 2014, 47). Calls to action in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015) focus on issues of great importance for remediating the damage of structural violence in our cities. Among these are issues related to: Aboriginal language and culture; increasing the number of Aboriginal professionals; and providing training in cultural competency, Aboriginal history, treaties and Aboriginal rights, the legacy of residential schools, Indigenous law, and anti-racism to all public servants. As noted earlier in the chapter, Mayor Don Iveson announced goals for the city in 2014 that address many of these issues and that, when achieved, would bring the City of Edmonton closer to reconciliation with its urban Aboriginal population. Throughout its work, the Truth and Reconciliation ­ Commission emphasized the need for all levels of government to renew or establish relationships with Aboriginal peoples based on the principles of mutual recognition and respect, and a shared responsibility for those relationships into the future. Also prominent was its call to repudiate persistent colonial rationales used to justify Western sovereignty over Aboriginal peoples and lands, effectively

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erasing Indigenous rights, materiality, and memory (Matunga 2013; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015). The social connections and relationships that Aboriginal organizations facilitate have made them important to enabling good Aboriginal lives in the city. Aboriginal organizations act as physical structures, cultural symbols, and social spaces of understanding for cultures that are healing from the effects of intergenerational colonial violence. They are also spaces of regeneration, where the currents of cultural resurgence that are so fundamental to reconciliation can circulate and gather momentum. Strengthening urban aboriginality is a promising way to re-balance relationships of power that have disproportionately favoured non-Aboriginal people, who continue to benefit from the legacies of Canada’s colonial past.

A c k n ow l e d gments The authors are grateful to the interview participants, who shared their knowledge and time, and acknowledge Yale Belanger, David Newhouse, Loleen Berdahl, and Lisa Baroldi for their contributions to the overall research program. This research was supported by an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

notes

  1 “Aboriginal peoples” refers to the descendants of the original inhabitants of Canada. It is the legal term used in the Constitution Act of 1982 to refer to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples. The term “Indigenous peoples” is used in this chapter as well, encompassing descendants of the original inhabitants of settler countries around the world (such as the U S A, New Zealand, and Australia), including Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Canadian discourse is continually adjusting how it positions Aboriginal affairs in this country to the international discourse on Indigenous peoples. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, for example, uses both terms, often relating the situation of Aboriginal peoples in Canada to Indigenous affairs, more generally, around the world (especially the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). The recent name change of the federal government’s Aboriginal Affairs and

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Northern Development Canada Department to Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada is indicative of shifting discourse as well. For this chapter, our decision is to move comfortably and interchangeably between the terms Aboriginal and Indigenous, and aboriginality and indigeneity. None of these terms are ideal substitutes for the proper names of the great diversity of nations that are original occupants of Canada, which we also use at times in this chapter when we are able.   2 Treaty Six was signed in 1876 after negotiations were made between the Plains and Woods Cree, Saulteaux, Assiniboine, and Crown representatives. Once the treaty was signed, the names of those people recorded on the band lists were simply added to the status register in Ottawa, thereby legally recognizing these people and their descendants as status Indians (Ray, Miller, and Tough 2000).   3 For a deeper examination of the Papaschase Cree Band, including its history through to present day and its role in the Rossdale/Fort Edmonton Reburial project, see Miller 2011.   4 The interviews presented in this chapter are part of the fieldwork conducted between July 2014 and July 2015. references

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Walker, Ryan. 2013. “Increasing the Depth of our Civic Identity: Future Seeking and Place Making with Aboriginal Communities.” In Indigenous in the City: Contemporary Identities and Cultural Innovation, edited by E. Peters and C. Andersen, 151–65. Vancouver: UB C Press. – 2008. “Improving the Interface between Urban Municipalities and Aboriginal Communities.” Canadian Journal of Urban Research 17 (1), Supplement: 20–36. Walker, Ryan, and Manuhuia Barcham. 2010. “Indigenous-Inclusive Citizenship: The City and Social Housing in Canada, New Zealand and Australia.” Environment and Planning A 42 (2): 314–31. Walker, Ryan, and Yale Belanger. 2013. “Aboriginality and Planning in Canada’s Large Prairie Cities.” In Reclaiming Indigenous Planning, edited by R. Walker, T. Jojola, and D. Natcher, 193–216. Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press. Walker, Ryan, Ted Jojola, and David Natcher, eds. 2013. Reclaiming Indigenous Planning. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Walker, Ryan, James Moore, and Maeengan Linklater. 2011. “More than Stakeholders, Voices and Tables: Towards Co-Production of Urban Aboriginal Policy in Manitoba.” In Urban Aboriginal Policy Making in Canadian Municipalities, edited by E.J. Peters, 160–201. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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Closing Reflections Fran Klodawsky, Caroline Andrew, and Janet Siltanen

The editing of this book, and the learning that has taken place as a result, are best described as ongoing journeys of discovery. We began with an idea and a goal – to gather together and raise awareness among a group of researchers about an emerging community of practice, where the favoured approach was one of working collaboratively and self-reflectively on social justice matters in cities across Canada, generally within a political economy frame of reference. At a workshop organized early on in this process, we hoped that the sharing of insights into the motivations and approaches of our individual projects would help us gain further understanding about the range and specificities of what we named critical praxisoriented research. The discussions that began at that workshop continued as we three editors worked with the authors of each chapter to highlight their own particular approaches to this form of research. At the close of this book, we find ourselves with a deeper appreciation of the still emerging and evolving notion of critical praxisoriented research and, as well, a recognition that there is much more to explore. By way of these closing reflections, we share some key learnings of what we have gained so far, as well as some thoughts about further engagements with this form of research. At a two-day workshop in June 2015, we listened to one another give overviews of the substance of our intended chapters and we provided feedback in the form of questions and requests for clarification. We also brainstormed about how to create a coherent volume that would be of wide interest. One important insight was the value of writing an introduction to provide an overview of the broad political-economic context within which all the authors were

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working. The practicalities and a hitherto unarticulated concurrence about the value of a political-economic framework for understanding what was taking place and what to do about it combined to  identify an important role for the introduction. The general acknowledgement that a political economy lens is relevant to all of the authors, despite considerable diversity in disciplinary background, subject focus, and locale, is a noteworthy insight that highlights one dimension of what this emerging community of practice holds in common. After the workshop, we also decided to reach out to Wendy Larner, an internationally respected feminist political economist, inviting her to provide some additional reflections about the volume. Her willingness to do so is greatly appreciated, and when her contribution arrived it raised additional questions about the value and limitations of critical praxis-oriented research, particularly about how it fits globally with trends to promote more collaborative ways of researching social problems. Importantly, Larner highlighted the ways that good intentions in this mode of research do not necessarily result in outcomes of benefit to those for whom the outcomes are purportedly intended. Finally, her insights helped us acknowl­ edge that the majority of “partnership” efforts highlighted throughout the book would have been far less likely without the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s turn towards supporting more collaborative types of research, beginning with Community University Research Alliance (CU RA) funding opportunities in the late 1990s, and their further institutionalization, beginning in 2008 in the form of Community-Based Research Canada and associated new funding envelopes such as S S H RC Partnership Development Grants and S S H RC Partnership Grants (Office of Community-Based Research 2009). While highly dynamic in their trajectories, recent American evaluations suggest that these initiatives remain more likely to be promoted and led by universities than by communities for a wide variety of reasons that generally reflect power differentials (MacPherson et al 2009; Stoecker 2009). Keeping this dynamic funding context in mind, it became more clear as we worked with the individual authors that our understanding and articulation of critical praxis-oriented research would be of most value if we could acknowledge and highlight key commonalities while also recognizing the diversity of both issues and approaches. As one strategy, we encouraged the authors to reflect

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more fully on their own roles and research practices. These interactions helped us to clarify and further situate our own understanding of critical praxis-oriented research and especially the recognition that our conceptualization, and the field itself, was at quite an early stage of articulation. We acknowledged that it was a particular subset of what is typically described as community-based research, community-based action research, or participatory action research, and that highlighting its distinctiveness would be a key contribution of the volume. The general explanation we arrived at was that critical praxis-oriented research was a mobilization of the interconnection of knowledges derived from theory, everyday practice, and political advocacy, and that its distinctiveness lay in its efforts to engage all three components more or less equally within the same initiative, with a focus on social justice concerns. Whereas we saw theory as typically being more heavily emphasized within scholar-driven research and advocacy among community-based efforts, we suggested that the intent of critical praxis-oriented research was to draw on both while ensuring that the research was grounded in value-driven, everyday practices. This evolving understanding coincided with on-going discussions on how best to sort the chapters: should the rationale be thematic, topical, or something else? In the end, we settled on three methodological categories that captured what we felt were the key dimensions of critical praxis-oriented research present in the volume. One was an active engagement on the part of the research partners with how contexts and complexities contributed to and helped shape a specific collaboration. A second dimension involved explicit efforts to reconfigure and reevaluate research relations among the various actors and institutions involved in the initiative. Third, there was a focus on how values and practices interacted with one another with the intent of creating research endeavours that were more than the sum of the parts. This sorting was valuable in helping us to further articulate and highlight theoretical and methodological commonalities and distinctions and to identify that critical praxis-oriented research is equally concerned about the what, the how, and the why of the research. We have found it particularly revealing that these various observations about the content of the chapters help make visible what they have in common as well as how they differ. For those who feel drawn to the nascent community of practice that we are promoting

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here, we hope that the signposts we offer will encourage such individuals to contribute to its further articulation. In particular, we think that there is much more to explore about the ways that this volume’s contributors and their peers have embarked on activities and interactions that reflect an approach to social justice goals that may be quite modest in their immediate focus, but are at the same time contributing to ambitious, long-lasting, and eagerly struggled for transformations.

references

MacPherson, Ian, and Peter V. Hall. 2011. Community-University Research Partnerships: Reflections on the Canadian Social Economy Experience. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria. Office of Community-Based Research. 2009. The Funding and Development of Community University Research Partnerships in Canada: Evidence-Based Investment in Knowledge, Engaged Scholarship, Innovation, and Action for Canada’s Future. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria. Stoecker, Randy. 2009. “Are We Talking the Walk of Community-Based Research?” Action Research 7 (4): 385–40.

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Glossary

A b o r igi na l i t y : A concept to distinguish the identity of people with a shared ancestral connection to the original occupants of a land. It also refers to Aboriginal ways of life and the inherent rights of Aboriginal peoples. In the Canadian context, Aboriginal refers to three groups: Metis, Inuit, and First Nations. A n t i-o pp r e ssi v e soc i a l wor k p ractice : An approach in social work that seeks to address social divisions and structural inequalities by reconfiguring service delivery through initiating systemic (including linguistic) changes at social, legal, and political levels. C r it ic a l p r a xi s-or i e nt e d r e s e arch : A research approach premised upon mobilization of the interconnection of knowledges deriving from theory, everyday practice, and political advocacy. Critical praxis-oriented research aims to identify values and relations of power operating in specific contexts. D ec o loni z at i on: The formal origins of the term involve processes of legally dependent territories obtaining their constitutional independence and sovereign statehood. The term is commonly used to identify the reversal of the process of imperial expansion including its political, economic, social, cultural, and linguistic dynamics.  D isc r im i nat i on: A practice that distinguishes between individuals or groups of individuals on the basis of some characteristic in a

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manner that might lead to the unequal distribution of status, material benefits, and political rights. D iv er sity : A concept that seeks to acknowledge the existence of different groups in society based on culture, ethnicity, gender, ability, age, and other markers of identity. E q u i t y a n d e q ua l i t y : These two terms tend to be used differently depending on legal and historical contexts. As a negative definition, both refer to an absence of discrimination, either directly or indirectly. In general, in Canada equity is a regarded as a means to equality. It is recognized that equity, understood as fair treatment, does not necessarily mean treating people the same. Fair treatment can be different depending on the different needs of particular groups. Eva luat i on: A way to obtain feedback or systematically gather information about a program or service, provide an accurate description, and make judgements about its strengths and weaknesses in order to improve its effectiveness. Evaluation can be outcome (summative) or it can also be formative (process) focused. Empowerment evaluation is an emerging third approach. In c lu sion: Actions and practices to achieve equal access to resources and benefits and the full participation of group members in societal activities, decisions, and available support systems. In d ig ene i t y : Indigeneity is a relatively new concept and its current meaning, in the Canadian context, is somewhat fluid. Broadly, indigeneity refers to political and legal ideas and cultural qualities evoked by being indigenous. More specifically, it refers to the postcolonial state of Indigenous people, with or without the legal definition or recognition of colonial history. I n d i g e n o u s - i n c l u s i v e c i t i z e n s h i p : A civic process based upon recognizing self-determination of Indigenous peoples. It marks a shift away from the attributes of universal citizenship, in which common and universal human rights are privileged over different needs and ways of being.

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In t er se c t i ona l i t y : The theory and approach to social and economic inequalities taking the impact of multiple and interlocked categories of race, gender, and class into account. Different from other approaches to inequality, intersectionality highlights the varying configurations and intensities that oppressive social institutions operate. Knowledge sharing: Knowledge sharing refers to the relationship between the production of knowledge and its dissemination. It entails making knowledge and experience available for organizational use and the wider public as a proactive process that involves building relationships and conduits for the sharing of knowledge (other common related terms include knowledge mobilization, knowledge transfer, knowledge translation, and knowledge brokers). N eo -c o l oni a l i sm : The term is used to highlight the persistent and ongoing relations of dependency and control between countries and groups despite the formal disintegration of colonial political rule. It refers to the new ways in which colonial logic and institutions are reproduced and sustained globally, regionally, or at an interpersonal level. N eo libe r a l i sm : A theory and ideology of modern political and economic orders geared towards productivity, efficiency, and profitability and based on the private ownership of goods, services, and resources. Neo-liberal ideology assumes that free market logic to inform decision-making in variety of venues will yield better outcomes. Neoliberalism, as a term, also refers to the political and ­economic consequences of using the free market as a lens for decision-making and policy and program development. Pa rt ici patory ac t i on r e se a rch : A collaborative approach to research that incorporates active community involvement throughout the research process. It aims at dismantling the conventional roles of researcher and research participants by actively including participants in knowledge formation of a research project. This approach challenges the privileged status of expert knowledge by placing the experience of the participants at the centre of  the research process, from the design to the dissemination of

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research findings. The degree and the form of the community involvement can take many forms (known also as community-based participatory research). Po st -posi t i v i sm : An approach to knowledge creation that breaks with positivist claims of researcher neutrality, objectivity, and the aim of prediction. Post-positivist approaches to research regard knowledge as relational, value-driven, and situational. Post-positivist researchers are encouraged to be reflexive about their role in the research, and to see the purpose of research as contributing indepth knowledge to context-specific questions. R ac ia liz at i on: The term racialization refers to the complex processes through which racial groups are formed and sustained by the overlapping of social, economic, and cultural traits. It emphasizes the unfinished and constantly changing ways in which perceived racial characteristics are associated with different actions, characteristics, and practices. R ec o n c il i at i on: A process of improving the relations among parties formerly at odds with one another due to harms that were created by the conflicts and injustices of the past. It involves actions for having satisfactorily dealt with the emotional, epistemic, and/or material legacy of the past. It is currently used in the context of coming to terms with and establishing accountability for the history of colonization in Canada as elaborated by the recent Truth and Reconciliation Committee Report (2015). Relational accountability: A way of establishing accountability in research between participants and researchers based on the connections and interactions around the project. It is defined as an ongoing negotiation process of terms of accountability including acquiring consent and is especially developed as a formal research process for conducting research with Indigenous peoples. It also applies to research with other populations at risk of marginalization. R ig ht s-ba se d: An approach extending the premises of fundamental universal human rights to different areas of unequal distribution of power, resources, and benefits including, but not limited

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to, economic development, urban planning, education, and health. This approach is premised on the recognition of rights as the central defining principle of the distribution of costs and benefits. St r u c tur a l v i ol e nc e : A kind of violence that arises from the unequal distribution of power and resources, which is built into societal structures such as policies and laws, institutions, and social practices that prevent people from meeting their needs and enacting self-expression. Whit e se t t l e r-c ol oni a l i sm : A specific type of colonialism where territorial occupation of the colonies is accompanied by the formation of a new community through replacing the Indigenous population with settlers. The settler community is premised upon the ideology of whiteness, territorial control, and removing Indigenous groups from the land. Whit es t r e a m i ng: The structural and functional ways through which non-Indigenous perspectives are systematically privileged over Indigenous ones. Whitestreaming is closely related to the concept of white privilege, which refers to the set of benefits available to individuals identified as white in the society.

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Contributors

A b r a A da m o recently graduated from Carleton University’s doctoral program in geography and environmental studies, after which she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in partnership with the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation. Her areas of research specialization include municipal land use, and housing and homelessness policy in Canada. C a r o li ne A ndr e w is the director of the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa. Her research interests are on partnerships between municipal governments and equity-seeking community-based groups. In this area she has worked on programs that focus on gender and diversity, youth and diversity, and recent immigration. Caroline is a member of the Board of the Catholic Centre for Immigrants, Women in Cities International, and the steering committee of City for All Women Initiative. T im A ub ry is a professor in the School of Psychology and senior researcher at the Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services at the University of Ottawa. He also holds the Faculty of Social Sciences Research Chair in Community Mental Health and Homelessness. Pat r ic i a B a l l a m i ngi e is an associate professor at Carleton University, cross-appointed in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies and the Institute of Political Economy. She also serves as board chair of Just Food. Her research interests include localizing food systems and sustainable communities,

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318 Contributors

environmental conflict and deliberative democracy, and aligning institutions for community impact. A n n et t e J . B r owne is a professor in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on strategies for fostering health equity, with a particular focus on implications for Indigenous populations. She is currently leading research on the impact of organizational-level interventions to improve health equity, promoting health for Indigenous women experiencing violence, and improving healthcare for Indigenous and nonIndigenous people in emergency departments. Linda Day is a member of the Oneida Nation and Wolf Clan. Linda has devoted her career to working for the advancement of First Nations people in various areas, including health, education, employment, and social welfare.  Recently, Linda was the deputy executive director at Vancouver Native Health Society. She is currently the executive director at the Aboriginal Mother Centre Society. Ma d elei ne Di on Stout , a Cree speaker from the Kehewin First Nation in Alberta, has been appointed to the Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada, National Forum on Health, Mental Health Commission of Canada, and First Nations Health Authority boards, and serves on several health-related advisory committees across Canada. Madeleine has worked as a community health nurse, civil servant, and assistant professor. Now self-employed, she adopts a Cree lens in her ongoing research, writing, and lectures. D r Ma r ily n For d-Gi l b oe is the Women’s Health Research Chair in Rural Health, Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, University of Western Ontario. Her research program focuses on intimate partner violence (I P V ), women’s health, inequities, and place, with a current focus on developing interventions to effectively address these intersecting issues, both those delivered online and in person. Ma g da Goe m a ns is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University. Her research interests involve urban natures, disaster mitigation, and climate change adaptation and she has assisted in studies on

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community-campus engagement and socially sustainable seniors’ housing and services. Ev ie G ogosi s is a research coordinator at the Centre for Urban Health Solutions (C -UHS) at St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto. Her research interests focus on the relationship between homelessness, precarious housing, and physical and mental health. Sea n G r i e v e is a peer research associate for the Food as Harm Reduction Study and the B C People Living with H IV Stigma Index Project. St ephe n Hwa ng is a professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto and director of the Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto. His research interests include health conditions and access to health care among people experiencing homelessness and interventions to improve the health of people who are homeless. Ja n e Inya l l i e is Tsekhene First Nations from McLeod Lake Indian Band. Jane is committed to increasing the health of Indigenous people. She has worked in the health field for the past three decades in both rural and urban settings. Over the years, Jane has served on numerous boards and service organizations, and has been involved in organizing community and cultural events. Jeff K ar a ba now is a professor of social work at Dalhousie University and co-director of the Dalhousie Social Work Community Clinic. His research and community practice focuses upon issues of homelessness, poverty, and marginalization. Fran Klodawsky is a professor at Carleton University, crossappointed in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies and the Institute of Political Economy. Her research interests include public policy and social inclusion/exclusion in cities, especially in relation to housing, and feminist perspectives on cities, community organizing, and housing and homelessness. Fran is a member of the Board of Multifaith Housing Initiative and of Women in Cities International, and is on the steering committee of City for All Women Initiative.

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320 Contributors

Philip Lor i ng is a human ecologist with research interests in food systems, fisheries, and community sustainability. His research spans from coastal British Columbia to the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic. He holds a PhD in Indigenous studies and an M A in anthropology, both from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  B r en da M ac douga l l , chair of Métis Research at the University of Ottawa, has been researching Metis community histories for many years. She is the author of One of the Family: Metis Culture in Nineteenth Century Northwestern Saskatchewan (University of British Columbia Press, 2010) as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. More recently, she has worked as a collaborator to build an online database of historical resources related to Metis history called the Digital Archives Database project (D AD project). Shau n a M acK i nnon is an associate professor at the University of Winnipeg in the Department of Urban and Inner City Studies. She is co-investigator with the Manitoba Research Alliance (MRA), through which she has conducted social justice oriented community-based participatory research in Winnipeg for more than fifteen years. G a ry Mart i n is a principal at I SG Inc., a sustainability consultancy which is housed in Carleton University’s social innovation lab, 1125@carleton. His research and consulting both revolve around urban planning, sustainable community development, and stakeholder engagement. Eu g en e M cC a nn  is a professor of geography at Simon  Fraser University.  He researches  policy  mobilities, urban policy-making, planning, social and health policy, and  urban politics. He is co-­ editor, with Kevin Ward, of Mobile Urbanism (Minnesota, 2011) and, with Ronan Paddison, of Cities & Social Change (Sage, 2014). He is co-author, with Andy Jonas and Mary Thomas, of Urban Geography: A Critical Introduction (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015). He has published in a range of journals and is managing editor of Environment & Planning C: Politics & Space. A liso n M cI ntosh holds a master of arts in geography from Simon Fraser University. Her thesis examined harm reduction

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service provider perspectives on the ways in which food security, food programming, and peer employment programming fit into harm reduction philosophies and services. She is interested in geographical approaches to understanding urban public health and social policy. Her research has been published in Health and Place, and presented at conferences across North America. Ho lly A . M cK e nz i e is a PhD candidate in interdisciplinary studies at the University of British Columbia. Holly’s research engages diverse methodological approaches to build relational knowledge with Indigenous community leaders, knowledge-keepers, academics, and allies around reproductive justice, injustices, and the many sites and modalities of settler-colonial violence. C hr isti a na M i e wa l d is an adjunct professor in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University. Her research interests include food security, health, urban agriculture, and urban foodscapes. M a n g a l i s o M o h a m m e d is a native of the Kingdom of Swaziland. He moved to the United States to study economics and environmental management and later completed his master’s degree in environment and sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan. Mangaliso aspires to be a community development expert, particularly in ways of incorporating ideas of indigeneity in development agendas. T iffa ny M ul l e r M y r da hl is a senior lecturer at Simon Fraser University. She is an urbanist and feminist geographer who teaches in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and  the Urban Studies Program. Her work combines interests in municipal social policy, participatory planning, and collaborative approaches to researching and responding to urban change. Emily P a r a di s, PhD, is senior research associate in the Faculty of Social Work and adjunct faculty in Urban Studies at Innis College, University of Toronto. A researcher, advocate, and front-line service provider on issues of homelessness for twenty-five years, her research has examined homelessness among women and families, human rights dimensions of homelessness and housing, community-based

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322 Contributors

research and action, and participatory interventions to address sociospatial inequalities between and within urban neighbourhoods. C hr ist ine P i c h is a PhD candidate in sociology at Carleton University. Her research interests include knowledge and unknowns, occupational and environmental health, and work and labour processes. Her dissertation research focuses on recognition processes of occupational diseases. R o b erta P r i c e , from the Snuneymuxw and Cowichan First Nations,  has worked over the past three decades to educate and raise awareness about issues affecting First Nations people. Roberta is an Elder at B C Women’s and Children’s Hospitals, Vancouver General Hospital, and with the Mmmooooooke Na Sii yea Yeaaaa (All My Relations) Program at Vancouver Native Health Society. She is also a community advisor, researcher, and Elder with the University of British Columbia School of Nursing. Ja n et Si lta ne n is a professor of sociology and political economy at Carleton University. Her recent publications in employment, gender inequality, and feminist political engagement include articles in Antipode, The International Journal of Social Research Methodology, and The Canadian Journal of Sociology. Her latest book is Gender Relations in Canada: Intersectionalities and Social Change (Oxford University Press, 2017). Jim Silve r is a professor and chair, Department of Urban and Inner-City Studies, University of Winnipeg. He has published extensively on urban poverty and related issues. His latest book is Solving Poverty: Innovative Solutions from Winnipeg’s Inner City  (Fernwood Publishing, 2016). Ia n St ewa rt is assistant professor of humanities at the University of King’s College, Halifax, with an adjunct appointment in the Department of Classics at Dalhousie University. As a science and technology studies scholar his interests include: historical and contemporary trajectories of scientific knowledge and expertise mobilization between boundaries of academic, public and governmental sectors; environmental science in public discourse; and the history of philosophy of science.

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C r i s t i n a T e m e n o s is an urban studies postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Geography at the University of Manchester. She is an urban geographer studying the relationships between social justice and the mobilization of social, health, and drug policies across cities. Her work on urban policy mobilities has been published in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Environment and Planning A, The International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Space and Polity,  and The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities. C o llee n V a rc oe   is a professor in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia. Her  research focuses on  women’s health with an emphasis on violence and inequity, and the culture of health care with an emphasis on ethical policy and practice.  R ya n W a l k e r is a professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Saskatchewan. He is co-author and coeditor of the books Reclaiming Indigenous Planning (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013) and Canadian Cities in Transition: Perspectives for an Urban Age, 5th edition (Oxford University Press, 2015). Meg a n Woodwa r d is a peer research associate with the Food as Harm Reduction Study.

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Index

Page numbers with (t) refer to tables. Aaltio-Marjosola, Iiris, 72–3 Aboriginal, terminology, 283, 301n1, 311. See also Indigenous peoples Aboriginal Women’s Expert Reference Group (AW ERG ), 86–7, 89–90, 96 academic engagement. See universities; universities, communitycampus engagement (CCE) action research (AR): health research, 165; participatory action research, terminology, 313–14. See also critical praxisoriented research; participatory research (PR) and participatory action research (PAR) activism and advocacy: critical praxis-oriented research, 8; Indigenous demands for change, 55; Indigenous women, 92; social welfare functions, 13–14 Adamo, Abra: biographical notes, 317; on research networks on homelessness, 19, 209, 235–55

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affordable housing: definition, 188; mixed-income housing in Ottawa, 113–15, 118–20, 123. See also homelessness and housing insecurity Ahmed, Sara, 76, 79n15, 83 AIDS. See food as harm reduction (FaHR ) for people with HIV / A IDS in Vancouver; HIV /A IDS, people living with (PLWHA ) Alberta: faith communities, 260; human rights legislation, 260; Welcoming and Inclusive Communities (WIC ), 262, 270. See also Calgary; Edmonton; Lethbridge Andrée, Peter, 111–12 Andrew, Caroline: biographical notes, 61–2, 317; closing reflections by, 306–9; on equity and inclusion in Ottawa, 17, 35–6, 60–82; introduction by, 3–24; on policy making and political choices, 15–16

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326 Index

anti-oppressive practices (AO Ps): about, 146–50, 154, 311; artsbased approaches, 18, 137, 141; consciousness-raising, 141, 147– 8; participatory research, 148–9; person-centred approach, 141, 147–8; power relations, 141, 147; scholarship on, 139, 146–7; symbolic space of belonging, 147; systemic forces, 147–8, 169, 175; tacit knowledge, 137, 152– 4; tensions with marginalized people, 139–40, 150–1; terminology, 311. See also homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax; social work Aristotelian virtues (episteme, techne, phronesis), 207–8 arts-based research: about, 28, 144–6, 154; as anti-oppressive method, 137; expert status, 142, 144, 146, 150–1, 154; film ­making, 18, 137, 153; with Guatemalan homeless youth, 137, 140, 141–4, 152; knowledge sharing, 140; participation, 152; power relations, 137; reflexivity and imagining, 149–50; researcher-researched relations, 28, 144–6; rhizome metaphor, 145; sense of community, 137, 140–1, 142–3, 149–51, 154; shared learning spaces, 137, 142; tacit knowledge, 137, 152–4. See also homeless youth and filmmaking in Guatemala; homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax assessment. See evaluation Aubry, Tim: biographical notes, 317; on research networks on homelessness, 19, 235–55

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AWER G. See Aboriginal Women’s Expert Reference Group Ballamingie, Patricia: biographical notes, 112, 127, 317–18; on community first approach to housing development in Ottawa, 18, 36, 111–34 Banting, Keith, 4, 15, 215 Barcham, Manuhuia, 283 Barnes, Helen Moewaka, 229 Bell, Daniel, 286, 287 Bernas, Kirsten, 54 bisexual, terminology, 275n1. See also LGB T Q people Blackfoot First Nations, 259 Bordello theatre space, Lethbridge, 265–7, 272. See also sexual orientation and theatre in Lethbridge Bowman, Kimberly, 61 Boyd, Susan, 199 Brodie, Janine, 12 brokers, knowledge. See knowledge sharing Browne, Annette J.: biographical notes, 318; on IPV interventions for Indigenous women, 17–18, 36, 83–110 Brownell, Marni, 43 Building Bridges (City of Lethbridge), 262–3, 272, 273 Calgary: R EA C H3 homelessness research network, 236–7, 240–1, 243–8, 244(t), 246(t)–7(t); rental housing, 246(t)–7(t) Callihoo, Michel, 289 campus-community engagement. See universities, community-­ campus engagement (C C E)

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Index Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism and Discrimination (CCMARD), 262–5, 270–4 Canadian Homelessness Research Network (CHRN ), 201n9 Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR): REACH3 funding, 236–7, 240 Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, 201n9 Carleton University, communitycampus engagement, 111–12, 117–18, 129. See also housing and community first approach in Ottawa Carlson, Jeff, 266, 268–9 Castellano, Marlene Brant, 222 C A WI . See City for All Women Initiative C B O. See community-based organizations C C E (community-campus engagement). See universities, community-campus engagement (CCE) C C M A R D . See Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism and Discrimination C E DA . See Community Education Development Association C F I C E . See Community First research change, organizational. See organizational change Children of the Earth High School, 54 child welfare system: housing insecurity, 185, 187; Indigenous peoples, 95–6, 99 Chilisa, Bagele, 222 C I H R . See Canadian Institutes for Health Research

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cities: about, 6–7; demographic changes and policy, 15–16; income inequality, 11; on Indigenous territories, 14, 281– 2; monuments, 286; participatory research, 4–5; planning and structural violence, 282–3; political economy, 10–11; research context, 10–11; scholarship on, 4–5; social and economic inequalities, 4–5; social policy benefits for wealthy, 15; structural violence, 282–3, 286–7, 315; values and ethos of city, 286, 287, 294; welfare cuts, 13–14, 183, 215–17, 221. See also Edmonton; Halifax; Lethbridge; neoliberal context; Ottawa; Toronto; Vancouver; Winnipeg, Indigenous peoples City for All Women Initiative (C A WI): about, 61–3; activism between City and community, 65, 76; EI research partnership, 5–6, 35–6, 61–71, 76; funding, 62, 64–5; GE Lens development, 61, 64–5, 69–72; historical background, 70, 77–8; project coordinating committee (PC C ), 62–3, 67–8, 68(t), 77; publications, 63, 70, 78n3; research on boundary position, 78n6; research on organizational creativity, 61–2; social justice evaluation, 76; training evaluation on EI Lens, 67. See also equity and inclusion in Ottawa class, social, as category: intersectionality, terminology, 313. See also homelessness and housing insecurity; income inequality;

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intersectionality; marginalized people; poverty C L OUT . See Community Led Organizations United Together Club Didi, Lethbridge, 266. See also sexual orientation and theatre in Lethbridge C M A R D, 275n6. See also Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism and Discrimination (CCMARD ) Coast Salish people, 92–3. See also Indigenous peoples Coffman, Jeff, 271–2 collaborative research: about, 3–6, 17, 27–8, 33–4; challenges, 33; funding, 27–8; knowledge sharing, 27; mutual and reciprocal learning, 28, 33–4; participatory turn in universities, 25–7; researcher-researched relations, 27–8; S SHRC funding, 307. See also community-based research and community-based participatory research (CBPR); critical praxis-oriented research; knowledge sharing; participatory research (PR) and participatory action research (PAR); research; researcher-researched relations Collins, David, 60 colonialism: about, 94–5; decolonization, terminology, 311; social exclusion, 88; white settler-­ colonialism, terminology, 315; in Winnipeg, 38–9, 213. See also decolonization community-based organizations (C B Os): critical praxis-oriented research, 40–1; evaluation

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methods, 212, 214–15; evidencebased practices, 218, 219; funding agreements, 218; funding from many sources, 217, 218; funding ties to evaluation, 216, 218, 223–5, 231; Indigenous education in Winnipeg, 39, 52–6; Indigenous organizations, 298–300; input into evaluation, 225–8; input into funding decisions, 224–5; locally designed evaluation, 218–20, 221–3, 225–8; neighbourhood renewal corporations, 53; neoliberal context, 212, 215–17, 221; network of services, 218; partnerships, 223; peer support workers, 171– 2; power relations, 49–50, 223; quantifiable outcomes, 214, 216–17, 220–2, 224, 226, 231; state external evaluators of, 218; sustainability, 217; transformative goals, 45–8, 53, 221, 222 community-based research and community-based participatory research (C B PR ): about, 135–7, 165–6; capacity building, 235; community role, 235; as continuum, 8; critique of, 135–6; decolonization in Winnipeg, 38; emotions, 169; FaHR project, 159–61, 165–6; health research, 165; housing insecurity in Toronto, 138, 191–7; inclusion, 165, 175; neoliberal context, 170; participatory action research, terminology, 313–14; partnerships, 235–6; people with HIV /A IDS, 165–6; power relations, 135; relationship building,

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Index 100; scholarship on, 165; sustainability, 249; theory, 135; ­values, 165–6. See also critical praxis-oriented research; participatory research (PR) and participatory action research (PAR); research; researcher-researched relations community-campus engagement. See universities, community-­ campus engagement (CCE) Community Education Development Association (C E DA), 214–15. See also Pathways to Education Winnipeg (C E DA) community feeling: and arts-based research, 137, 140–1, 149–51, 154; focus groups and housing insecurity, 195 Community First research (C F I C E ), 111–12, 117–18, 125– 9. See also housing and community first approach in Ottawa Community Foundation of Ottawa, 115 Community Led Organizations United Together (CLO U T), 214–15, 222–4 community of practice (CoP ): concept of, 5; critical praxis-oriented research, 5–7, 20; on social justice, 306. See also critical praxisoriented research complexity and context in research: about, 9–10, 17, 33–5, 65–6, 308; case studies, 10; complexity, 9–10, 33–5, 76–7; context, 9–10, 33–5, 69–71; critical praxis-oriented research, 60–1;

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EI Lens in Ottawa, 65–77, 68–71, 68(t), 77–8; Indigenous education, 52; Indigenous evaluation, 221–2, 226–8; Indigenous women’s health care, 92–4; multi-method research, 67, 79n10; phronetic approach, 208; political economy, 10–11; as post-positivist approach, 76–7; research design, 76–7; scholarship on, 65–6; team research, 77. See also critical praxis-oriented research; multi-method research; multi-vocality; research; values in research context in research, political. See neoliberal context cooptation by housing developers, 120, 121–2 Cowichan people, 93 Cram, Fiona, 222 Cree people: Edmonton history, 282, 302n3; Elders and women’s health care, 90, 93, 102n3, 103n8; evaluation projects, 229; Treaty Six, 288–9, 302n2. See also Indigenous peoples Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 264 critical praxis-oriented research: about, 3, 7–10, 25–31, 308–9, 311; advocacy, 8; challenges, 33–4; community of practice, 5–7; complexity, 9–10, 60–1, 65–8; concept of theory, practice, and advocacy, 8; context, 9–10, 28; critical questions on, 139–40, 208; data generation, 8–9; feminist research, 7–8; funding for collaborative research, 27–8; glossary of terms,

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311–15; knowledge production, 6; knowledge sharing, 27–8; lived experience, 8; multimethod research, 28, 79n10; multiple ways of knowing, 28; mutual and reciprocal learning, 28, 33–4; neoliberal context, 28, 170; new forms of subjectification, 29–30; notions of success, 6; participation levels, 135–6; peer research associates, 29; phronetic approach, 9, 207–9; post-positivist approach, 7–8; power relations, 8, 34, 135, 147, 174–5; problem framing, 8; process vs product, 28–9; reflexivity, 5, 9, 10; researcher-researched relations, 18, 27–9, 136–7, 139– 40, 144–5; scholarship on, 4–5, 7–8; social justice goals, 5, 75–6, 136; S S HRC projects, 5–6; theory and critique, 8, 135–6, 308; values and ethics, 9, 129; workshop on (2015), 6, 306–7. See also complexity and context in research; researcher-researched relations; values in research cross-cultural social work: expert status, 142, 146. See also homeless youth and filmmaking in Guatemala Culhane, Dara, 92 Da Cunha, Manuela, 203 Dale, Ann, 120 Day, Linda: biographical notes, 318; on IPV interventions for Indigenous women, 17–18, 36, 83–110

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decolonization: about, 311; education in Winnipeg, 45–6, 51, 55–6, 209, 214–15, 230–1; Elders’ roles, 90–1, 102n3, 103n8; evaluation of C B Os, 221– 31; Indigenous research on IPV , 88–90; institutional whitestreaming, 284, 315; mutual dependency, 284; organizations and decolonization, 298–300; power relations, 55. See also entries beginning with Indigenous Deleuze, Gilles, 145 Denis, Claude, 283, 284 de-Shalit, Avner, 286, 287 developers, private housing: collaborative engagement with, 36; cooptation of C B Os by, 120, 121–2. See also housing and community first approach in Ottawa Dhamoon, Rita, 100 Dion Stout, Madeleine: biographical notes, 318; on IPV interventions for Indigenous women, 17–18, 36, 83–110 discrimination, terminology, 311– 12. See also marginalized people; race and ethnicity diversity: about, 312; C C M A R D anti-discrimination initiatives, 262–5, 270–4; evaluation of, 74–6; Indigenous peoples, 97–8. See also intersectionality; marginalized people diversity and EI Lens in Ottawa: Diversity Cafés, 63, 70–1, 74, 79n14; diversity employers, 70, 77; diversity groups, 63–4, 69–76, 78n4; Diversity

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Index Snapshots, 63–5, 67, 71–2, 74. See also equity and inclusion in Ottawa, EI Lens document analysis: EI Lens in Ottawa, 68, 68(t) domestic violence. See Indigenous women, IPV interventions in Vancouver; intimate partner violence (IPV) Donmoyer, Robert, 271–2 Downtown Eastside Kitchen Tables Project, 171 DP C . See Dr Peter Centre Dr Peter AID S Foundation, 160 Dr Peter Centre (D PC), 160, 164. See also food as harm reduction (FaH R ) for people with HIV/ A I DS in Vancouver drug use, illicit: F aHR research project, 137–8, 159–61; food insecurity, 161–3; safe injection sites, 173. See also food as harm reduction (FaHR) for people with HIV/ AID S in Vancouver Dunn, Stephanie, 269 economy, political. See neoliberal context Edmonton: demographics, 289; early history, 282, 288–9, 302n2; Rossdale Flats, 282, 288, 295–7, 302n3; traditional territories, 281–2, 288, 294. See also Indigenous peoples, urban planning and decolonization in Edmonton education and training: antioppressive practices, 146; cultural safety training, 90, 99; EI

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Lens in Ottawa, 63, 68(t), 74; in harm reduction, 98; IPV and structural violence, 95 education of Indigenous peoples. See Indigenous peoples, education in Winnipeg; Pathways to Education Winnipeg (C EDA ) EI Lens. See equity and inclusion in Ottawa, EI Lens employment: Indigenous peoples in Winnipeg, 41, 43–7, 51–2 equality and equity: about, 312; concepts, 75–6; evaluation of, 75–6; gender equality research, 60–1; gender equality vs mainstreaming, 12; as good business practice, 75; social policy benefits for wealthy, 15; social reproduction, 13–14; terminology, 312. See also income inequality; values in research equity and inclusion in Ottawa: about, 5–6, 17, 35–6, 60–1, 76–8; C A WI partnership, 5–6, 35–6, 65; City of Ottawa partnership, 5–6; community input, 71–4, 77–8; Corporate Diversity Plan, 70; diversity employer, 70, 77; FC M partnership, 5–6, 35, 62; funding, 5, 62, 64–5, 71; GE Lens (Gender Equality Lens), 61, 64–5, 69–72; intersectionality, 65, 70–1, 73–4, 75–6; organizational change, 69; partnership for research, 5–6, 17, 61–3; Service Excellence, 69–70, 77 equity and inclusion in Ottawa, EI Lens: about, 63–5, 76–8; City’s role, 63–5; community input,

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71–4, 77–8; complexity, 35–6, 60–1, 65–9, 68(t), 76–7; context, 66, 68–71, 68(t); data sources, 67–8, 68(t), 71; Diversity Cafés, 63, 70–1, 74, 79n14; diversity groups, 63–4, 69–76, 78n4; Diversity Snapshots, 63–5, 67, 71–2, 74; education and training, 74; evaluation, 67, 68(t), 72, 79n12; evaluation of, 74–6; ­historical background, 67–71, 68(t), 77–8; implementation, 71–2; interviews and insider knowledge, 67–8, 68(t); mapping, 67, 68(t), 71; multimethod process, 66, 68(t), 79n10; multi-vocality, 67–9, 68(t), 72–4, 77–8; organizational change initiative, 65–9, 68(t); overview of research process, 66, 68(t), 71–2; PCC (project coordinating committee), 62–3, 67–8, 68(t), 77; process, 68–9, 68(t), 71–2; publications on, 63, 70, 72–3, 78n3; Service Excellence, 69–70, 77; social justice, 67, 68(t), 69, 75–6; as tool vs initiative, 63, 70–1, 77; training, 63–4; User’s Guide, 63–4; values, 67–9, 68(t), 75–6; women, 70–1. See also equity and inclusion in Ottawa ethics: critical praxis-oriented research, 9, 136; Indigenous evaluation, 231. See also values in research ethnicity. See race and ethnicity evaluation: about, 217–21, 312; community input into, 225–8; decolonization of C B O

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evaluation, 212–14, 221–31; of diversity in organizations, 74–6; of E I Lens in Ottawa, 67, 68(t), 72, 74–6, 79n12; empowerment evaluation, 217, 312; formative and summative, 217; funding ties to evidence, 216, 218, 223– 6, 231; Indigenous approach for C B O s, 219–22, 225–8; Indigenous storytelling, 222–3, 230, 231; Maori models, 220, 228–9; neoliberal accountability, 239; positivist research, 66; quantifiable outcomes, 214, 216–17, 220–2, 224, 226, 231; research vs evaluation, 66, 79n8; of social justice, 75–6; transformative evaluation, 45–8, 53, 221, 222, 228; youth partners in, 145–6. See also Indigenous peoples, project evaluation in Winnipeg Evans, Scotney D., 121 exchange, knowledge. See knowledge sharing expert status: arts-based research, 144, 146, 150–1, 154; critical questions on, 151; cross-­ cultural research, 142, 146; Indigenous peoples, 90–1, 102n3, 292; participatory action research, terminology, 313–14; participatory research, 149; rhizome metaphor, 145. See also researcher-researched relations F aH R . See food as harm reduction (FaHR ) for people with HIV / A IDS in Vancouver

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Index Federation of Canadian Municipalities (F CM), 5–6, 35–6, 62, 263 feminist research: advisory boards, 192; and advocacy, 12; and complexity, 76–7; complexity and organizational change, 60–1; feminist-state relations, 12–14, 201n4; housing insecurity in Toronto, 138, 185–91; multivocality, 67; on neoliberal context, 13–14; and post-positivist methods, 76–7, 78n7; scholarship on, 7, 207; on social reproduction, 13–14; values, 67, 207. See also post-positivist research Filax, Gloria, 260 filmmaking projects. See homeless youth and filmmaking in Guatemala; homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax Finch and Jane housing, Toronto, 197 First Nations peoples: in Edmonton, 289; in Lethbridge, 259–62, 264; terminology, 301n1. See also Indigenous peoples Flemingdon Park housing, Toronto, 195–6 Fleras, Augie, 284 Flyvbjerg, Bent: complexity in research, 65–6; phronetic approach, 9, 207–9 food as harm reduction (F aH R ) for people with H I V / A I D S in Vancouver: about, 137–8, 159– 63, 174–5; Community Advisory Committee, 167; communitybased research, 159, 165,

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169–70; community-campus engagement, 137; community organizations, 171–2; critical praxis-oriented research, 159, 161, 174–5; D P C health services, 160, 163–4, 166; drug users, 161–3; food programs, 172–3; foodscapes, 163–5, 170–4; inclusion through food access, 161–2; interviews, 164, 167–9; mapping, 164–5; partnership, 160; peer support workers, 171–2; P R A s (peer research associates), 137–8, 160–1, 163–70; research project, 159–63; safe spaces, 172–3; trust, 163; values, 174. See also peer research associates (P R A s) food security/insecurity: about, 162; community-based programs, 173; drug users, 161–3; foodscapes, 163–5, 170–4 Ford-Gilboe, Marilyn: biographical notes, 318; on IPV interventions for Indigenous women, 17–18, 36, 83–110 Galtung, Johan, 286–7, 296 gay, terminology, 275n1. See also LGB T Q people GE Lens (Gender Equality Lens), Ottawa, 61, 64–5, 69–72. See also equity and inclusion in Ottawa gender: complexity of equality research, 60–1; EI Lens in Ottawa, 63–4, 70–1, 73–4, 75–6, 78n4; GE Lens (Gender Equality) in Ottawa, 61, 64–5, 69–72; gender equality, 12, 75–6; Housing First programs,

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201n4. See also intersectionality; L GB T Q people; women GI P A (greater involvement of people with HIV/ AID S ) principle, 165 Globensky, Peter Andre, 45 glossary, 311–15 Goemans, Magda: biographical notes, 113, 117–18, 127–8, 318– 19; on community first approach to housing development in Ottawa, 18, 36, 111–34 Gogosis, Evie: biographical notes, 319; on research networks on homelessness, 19, 235–55 government and neoliberalism. See neoliberal context Graham, Katherine A.H., 15–16 Greystone Village, Ottawa, 111, 113–16, 118–19, 122–3, 125. See also housing and community first approach in Ottawa Grieve, Sean: biographical notes, 166–70, 319; on food as harm reduction (FaHR), 18, 137–8, 159–79 Guatemala: arts-based research with homeless youth, 137, 140, 141–4, 152 Guattari, Félix, 145 Guta, Adrian, 170 Halifax, 140, 143. See also homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax Hardill, Irene, 169 Harding, Sandra, 207 harm reduction: community organizations, 171–2; drug use, 159, 161–3, 174; F aHR project, 137– 8, 159; food security, 137–8,

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159–63, 173–5; peer support workers, 171–2; scholarship on, 162. See also food as harm reduction (FaHR ) for people with HIV /A IDS in Vancouver Hawkesworth, Mary, 9, 66, 67 health research: about, 83–4; ­community-based research, 165; Indigenous race-based exclusion, 83–4; Indigenous women’s sexuality and mothering, 83–4. See also food as harm reduction (FaHR ) for people with HIV / AIDS in Vancouver; Indigenous women, IPV interventions in Vancouver Henry, Cheyenne, 51 HIV/AIDS, people living with (PLWHA): ASOs (AIDS service organizations), 164; communitybased research, 165; confidentiality of PRAs, 167, 169; DPC health services, 160; DPC health services in Vancouver, 163–4; FaHR project, 137–8, 159–63; food insecurity in drug users, 161–3; GIPA involvement, 165; as peer research associates (PRAs), 167– 70; peer support workers, 171–2. See also food as harm reduction (FaHR) for people with HIV/ AIDS in Vancouver; peer research associates (PRAs) homelessness and housing insecurity: adequacy (affordable, size, safety, tenure, condition), 180, 183, 186–8, 201n8, 239–40; affordable housing, defined, 188; categories, terminology, 188–9; community-based

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Index research, 165; core housing need (CMHC), 186, 201n8; costbenefit analysis of homelessness, 189, 239; critical questions on, 190; drivers of homelessness, 249; feminist analysis, 185–91; homelessness as trait vs state, 189; Housing First, 189–90, 194, 201n4, 239–40; IPV impacts, 187, 193–4; knowledge sharing, 197–200; longitudinal study (C I H R ), 237–8; low income families, 183, 186–7; mortality rate increases, 190; neoliberal context, 181–5, 239–40; normalization of homelessness, 190–1; resistance, 197–200; rights-based definition of adequacy, 186; social housing, 183; ten-year plans, 239, 244(t)–5(t); visibility/invisibility of, 239–40; vulnerability assessment approach, 190. See also housing insecurity of families in Toronto high-rises; poverty; R E A C H 3 (Research Alliance for Canadian Homelessness, Housing and Health) homelessness and research networks: about, 19, 209, 235–6, 248–51; knowledge sharing, 27; neoliberal context, 238–40; partnerships, 235–6; recommendations on research, 248–51; reflexivity, 209, 236. See also homelessness and housing insecurity; REACH3 (Research Alliance for Canadian Homelessness, Housing and Health)

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homeless youth and filmmaking in Guatemala, 137, 140, 141–4, 152 homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax: about, 18, 137, 140–1, 143–4, 153–4; alienation, 149; animated films, 137, 141, 143– 4, 148–50, 153; anti-oppressive practices, 137, 140, 141, 146– 51; arts-based research, 144–6; coming alongside as approach, 151, 153; Halifax as location, 143; identities, 151, 153; knowledge sharing, 137, 140; power relations, 137; ­reflexivity, 154; reflexivity and imagining, 149– 50; researcher-researched relations, 140, 144–5; sense of community, 137, 140–1, 149– 51, 154; shared spaces for learning, 137; tacit knowledge, 137, 152–4; tensions with marginalized people, 139–40, 150–1; This Film Is More Than Its Title, 143–4, 148; trust, 137, 146, 152; Walking through Wonderland, 143–4, 148, 149. See also artsbased research homophobia, 209–10, 265–8, 272– 4. See also LGB T Q people; sexual orientation and theatre in Lethbridge housing: adequacy (affordable, size, safety, tenure, condition), 180, 183, 186–8, 201n8, 239– 40; affordable housing, defined, 188; government funding in Manitoba, 53–4; neoliberal context, 181–5. See also homelessness and housing insecurity;

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housing insecurity of families in Toronto high-rises housing and community first approach in Ottawa: about, 18, 36, 111–12, 129–31; Carleton University, 111–12, 117, 118, 120, 129; CCE (community-­ campus engagement), 111–21, 126–9, 131n5; CES (Community Environmental Sustainability), 112; C F ICE (Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement), 111–12, 117–18, 125–9; critical praxis-oriented research, 126–9; critical questions on, 127–9; critique of, 121–9; Deep Green vision, 114, 117, 118, 120–2, 129; developer cooptation, 120, 121–2; developer relations, 111, 114, 118– 20, 121–2, 124–5, 129–31, 131n4, 132n8, 132n10; funding, 115, 116, 132n7; Greystone Village, 111, 113–16, 118–19, 122–3, 125; IHO A (housing for older adults), 111, 115–19, 122– 3, 125–7, 131, 132n9; knowledge sharing, 125; low-income citizens and seniors, 36, 113–15, 117–20, 122–7, 130, 132n7; neoliberal context, 121–2, 124– 6, 129–30; networks of professionals, 116–17; Oblate Lands, 111, 113–14, 116, 130, 131n2; OE C A (Ottawa East Community Association), 113, 116, 120, 130; opportunity costs, 124, 130; outreach, 116–17; power relations, 120, 126–7; reflexivity, 112, 126–9; rental housing,

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246(t)–7(t); research assistants, 36, 112–13, 117–18, 127–8; Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, 114–15, 117; SLOE involvement, 111–17, 122–7, 129–31; social housing, 132n7; sustainable development, 120–2; values, 112, 119–21, 123–4, 126, 129–31 housing insecurity. See homelessness and housing insecurity housing insecurity of families in Toronto high-rises: about, 138, 180–1, 199–200; adequacy (affordable, size, condition, safe), 180–1, 183, 186–8, 201n8; C A B (Community Advisory Board), 138, 181, 187, 192–4, 198–9; community-based participatory research, 181, 191–7, 199–200; continuum of vulnerability, 182, 188–9, 191; critical praxis-oriented research, 181, 198–200; critical questions on, 190; data sources, 180–1, 185–6, 187, 199; feminist analysis, 138, 181, 185–91; focus groups, 181, 187, 193–7; gendered housing insecurity, 187; gendered insecurity, 193–4; homelessness “in their horizon,” 191; immigrant and racialized families, 181, 183–5, 193–4, 198; incentives for participation, 138, 194–5; knowledge sharing, 192, 197–200, 201n3; list of demands, 195–7; lone-mother families, 181, 184–5; media coverage, 198–9; neoliberal context, 181–5, 190; participants,

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Index 138, 192; poverty, 183–5, 187; power relations, 192, 199–200; reports, 197–8; research assistants, 194; research project, 180–2, 185–6, 192; resistance and resilience, 185, 193–4; rights-based analysis, 187; Risk of Homeless Index, 188–91; sense of community, 193–5; social justice goals, 138; United Way survey, 180–1, 185–6, 200n2, 201n7; values, 181 Hubbard, Phil, 268 Hwang, Stephen: biographical notes, 319; on research networks on homelessness, 19, 235–55 iH E A L . See Intervention for Health Enhancement After Leaving I H OA . See Innovative Housing for Older Adults I L C . See Indigenous Learning Circle immigrants and refugees: housing insecurity, 193–4; Indigenous relations, 283–4, 291–2; IPV impacts, 193–4; Lethbridge area, 261–2, 275n5; mother-led families, 12. See also marginalized people inclusion: about, 3, 161–2, 312; critical praxis-oriented research goals, 161; Indigenous inclusion, 83–5, 88, 93–4; peer research associates (PRAs), 161, 166–70; right to food access, 161–2; right to the city, 120, 162; spatial justice, 120; terminology, 312. See also critical praxis-oriented research; equity and inclusion in

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Ottawa; marginalized people; values in research income inequality: factors in, 15; neoliberal influences, 11; scholarship on, 15–16; social policy benefits for wealthy, 15; social reproduction, 13–14. See also equality and equity Indigenous Learning Circle: about, 19, 209, 212–14, 231–2; best practices, 217–18; decolonization of evaluation, 209, 213, 214, 219–20, 223, 226–7; ethics and evaluation, 231; evaluation for local context, 219–20, 226–8; evidence-based practices, 217– 18, 223; guiding principles, 214, 231–2; holistic goals, 217–18, 227, 229; list of ten evaluation principles, 226–8; parenting programs, 213, 219, 223–4; promising practices, 212–13, 218–20; quantifiable outcomes, 214, 216–17, 220–2, 231; sharing circles, 225, 230–1; storytelling, 222–3, 230, 231; transformative evaluation, 222, 228; vision and values, 212–13, 229. See also Indigenous peoples, project evaluation in Winnipeg Indigenous peoples: Aboriginality, terminology, 311; burial sites, 288, 295–7, 302n3; C C M A R D anti-discrimination initiatives, 262–5, 270–4; child welfare system, 95–6, 99; consultations, 292–4; culture and language, 299; decolonization, terminology, 311; demographics, 51–2, 282, 289; diversity, 92–3, 97–8;

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education, 230–1; Elders, 48, 55, 87, 90–1, 93, 100–1, 102n3, 103n8; evaluation principles, 226–8; food sharing, 229; “good life,” 300; healing, 94–100; historical background, 183; homelessness and housing insecurity, 183; immigrant relations with, 283–4, 291–2; inclusion, 83–5, 88, 93–4; indigeneity, terminology, 312; intergenerational trauma, 287, 298; invisibility and structural violence, 92–4; IPV against women, 85; knowledge, 96–7; living tradition, 89; Maori evaluation models, 220, 228–9; Neechi Principles, 228, 232n1; power relations, 49–50, 55–6, 88–90, 100, 286–7, 292; racism, 281; reconciliation and urban planning, 282, 284, 290–1; reconciliation and women’s health, 94–100; relational accountability, terminology, 314; research recommendations, 91, 93–4, 99–100, 103n8; self-­determination, 14, 48, 283–5, 290, 294, 296, 299; Seven Sacred Teachings, 229; sharing circles, 87, 91, 93, 98, 99, 101, 225, 230–1; social exclusion, 88; storytelling and evaluation, 222–3, 230–1; terminology, 283, 301n1; traditional territories, 14, 259, 281–2, 288, 294; T R C processes, 94, 225, 281, 300–1; Treaty Six, 288–9, 302n2; urban indigeneity, 14, 312; values, 229; visibility/invisibility and structural violence, 282–3, 285–7, 299–300; white

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settler-colonialism, terminology, 315; whitestreaming, 284, 315; whitestreaming of civic processes, 284–5, 315. See also decolonization; poverty; urban indigeneity; Winnipeg, Indigenous peoples Indigenous-inclusive citizenship: about, 283, 312; civic partnerships, 286, 288; consultations, 292–4; Edmonton policies, 290, 293, 297; factors for success, 55–6; full participation, 292–3; inclusion, 83–5; organizations and decolonization, 298–300; representation issues, 292; selfdetermination, 283–5, 290, 294, 296, 299; settler authority to extend citizenship, 84; T R C recommendations, 300–1; visibility/ invisibility and structural violence, 92–4, 282–3, 285–7, 299–300 Indigenous peoples, education in Winnipeg: about, 38–40, 55–6; CEDA Pathways programs, 48–51, 214–15, 229–31; community-based organizations, 39, 52–6; complexity, 52; critical praxis-oriented research, 40–2, 54–6; decolonization, 45–6, 51, 55–6, 230–1; Elders, 48, 55; employment, 41, 43–7, 51–2; government and institutional support, 49–50, 53–6; high school graduation rates, 43; historical background, 35; location’s significance, 44–5, 50–1; longitudinal studies, 42; nonIndigenous students, 42–3, 46,

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Index 47–8, 56; North End Community Campus, 39–40; pedagogical methods, 42–6, 55–6; poverty, 39, 45–6, 51–2; redevelopment principles, 48–9; research methods, 47; safe spaces, 45–6; school readiness, 42–3; student housing, 50; transformations in lives, 45–8, 53, 221, 222; U of M’s Inner City Social Work Program, 43, 44–7; U of W’s Urban and Inner-City Studies, 40, 41–3, 44–6, 48–51, 56; Urban Circle Training Centre, 43–5, 46–8, 55–6. See also Winnipeg, Merchants Corner Indigenous peoples, project evaluation in Winnipeg: about, 19, 209, 212–15, 231–2; CBO initiatives, 213–14, 224–5; CED A Pathways evaluation, 214–15, 229–31; CLO U T initiatives, 214– 15, 222–5; decolonization of evaluation, 218–31; feminist approach, 13; funding ties to evaluation, 216, 218, 223–5, 231; holistic approaches, 209, 212–13, 219–20, 223–5, 227, 230–1, 232n1; ILC (Indigenous Learning Circle), 209; list of 10 principles, 226–8; neoliberal context, 214–17; parenting programs, 213, 219, 223–4; promising practices, 212–13, 218–20; resistance to neoliberalism, 217, 221; sharing circles, 225, 230–1; Western evaluation, 213, 217– 21; youth program, 213. See also Indigenous Learning Circle (I L C )

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Indigenous peoples, urban planning and decolonization in Edmonton: about, 19–20, 283– 5, 299–301; Aboriginal Relations Office, 290, 293; burial sites, 288, 295–7, 302n3; consultations, 292–4; decolonization, ­terminology, 311; Indigenousinclusive policies, 290; Indigenous places, 294–7, 299; Métis, 289; need for strategies, 297; organizations and decolonization, 298–300; participation in civic processes, 292–7; reconciliation, 282, 284, 290–1; research project, 290–2; Rossdale Flats, 295–7; safe spaces, 298; selfdetermination, 283–5, 290, 294, 296, 299; settler ignorance, 285; structural violence, 282–3, 285– 7, 292, 294–5, 299; Treaty Six, 288–9, 302n2; trust, 298; Urban Aboriginal Accord, 290, 293, 297; values and ethos of city, 286, 287, 294; visibility/invisibility of Indigenous culture, 282–3, 285–7, 294–5, 297, 299–300; whitestreaming of civic processes, 284–5. See also Indigenous-inclusive citizenship Indigenous women, IPV interventions in Vancouver: about, 17–18, 36, 83–5, 85–8, 101–2; advisory committee (A WER G), 86–7, 89–90, 96; challenges, 89; confidentiality, 101; context, 92–4, 101–2; cultural safety training, 90, 99; decolonization, 88, 90–4, 101–2; diversity, 92–3, 97–8; documentary film on, 96;

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340 Index

Elders, 87, 90–1, 93, 100–1, 102n3, 103n8; emotional safety and participation incentives, 102n5; healing, 94–100; iHEAL program, 85–8, 89–90, 95; inclusive strategies, 83–5, 88–101; Indigenous epistemologies, 88; intersectionality, 88; intrusion as main problem, 86; IPV impacts, 85–6, 95, 98; nurses, 87, 90–1, 93, 95, 97–101; pilot study, 87, 89, 98, 100–1; poverty, 92–3, 96, 102n5; power relations, 100; principles of Indigenous health, 95; Reclaiming Our Spirits, as project name, 87; recommendations, 91, 93–4; reconciliation, 94–100; reflexivity, 88, 90, 91, 93–4, 98–100; relationship building, 100–1; research assistants, 90, 97, 99–100; research methods, 87–90; research recommendations, 99–100, 101, 103n8; scholarship on, 85; sharing circles, 87, 91, 93, 98, 99, 101; substance use, 98; theory, 86; tradition and innovation, 89–90; women-led processes, 90–1, 93, 98–9, 101 Innovative Housing for Older Adults (IHO A), Ottawa, 111, 115–19, 122–3, 125–7, 131, 132n9. See also housing and community first approach in Ottawa insider knowledge: EI Lens in Ottawa, 68, 68(t) intersectionality: about, 313; antidiscrimination work, 264; diversity, as term, 312; EI Lens in Ottawa, 65, 70–1, 73–4, 75–6,

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78n4; Indigenous women’s health programs, 88 Intervention for Health Enhancement After Leaving (iHEA L), 85–8, 89–90, 95 interviews: EI Lens in Ottawa, 68(t) intimate partner violence (IPV ): education of professionals on, 95; family homelessness, 193–4; housing insecurity, 187, 193–4; iHEA L program, 85–8, 89–90, 95; immigrants and refugees, 193–4; Indigenous women, 85–8; intrusion as main problem, 86; SC LI theory, 86; Toronto, 193. See also Indigenous women, IPV interventions in Vancouver Inuit: in Edmonton, 289, 291; terminology, 301n1 Inyallie, Jane: biographical notes, 319; on IPV interventions for Indigenous women, 17–18, 36, 83–110 IPV. See Indigenous women, IPV interventions in Vancouver; intimate partner violence (IPV ) “Is Participation Having an Impact?” (MacKinnon and Stephens), 224 Iveson, Don, 290, 300 Jackson, Edward, 111–12 Jane-Finch housing, Toronto, 197 Janes, Julia E, 135, 136 Kainai Nation (Blood reserve), 259 Karabanow, Jeff: biographical notes, 140, 153, 154, 319;

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Index Guatemalan arts-based research, 137, 140, 141–4, 152; on homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax, 18, 137, 139–58 Keil, Roger, 11 Klodawsky, Fran: biographical notes, 61–2, 319; closing reflections by, 306–9; on equity and inclusion in Ottawa, 17, 35–6, 60–82; introduction by, 3–24; on research networks on homelessness, 19, 235–55 Knight, Melanie, 12 knowledge: Flyvbjerg on phronesis, 207–9; natural sciences and objectivity, 66, 207–8; tacit knowledge, 137, 152–4. See also research knowledge sharing: about, 27, 313; accountability, 27; arts-based approaches, 140; documentary film, 96; funding, 27–8; housing insecurity in Toronto, 192, 197– 200; municipal silos vs sharing, 269–72, 274; networks of brokers, 27; resistance to neoliberalism, 125; tacit knowledge, 137, 152–4; terminology, 313. See also research; researcher-researched relations Kone, Ahoua, 249 LaFrance, Joan, 222 Landman, Todd, 9, 208 Larner, Wendy: prologue by, 10, 16–17, 25–31, 307 LeBaron, Genevieve, 13 Leitner, Helga, 125, 126 lesbian, terminology, 275n1. See also L GBTQ people

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Lethbridge: about, 259–62; demographics, 260–2, 275n3, 275n5; First Nations peoples, 259–62, 264; higher education and research, 259–60; immigrants and refugees, 261–2, 275n5; MacFarland Building, 265–6; queer space, 257, 265; social and political conservatism, 260–1; social conservatism, 259, 260 Lethbridge, City of: budget processes, 271; Building Bridges, 262–3, 272, 273; categories of social difference, 264–5; C C M A R D (anti-discrimination work), 262–5, 270–4; city officials, 266–9, 271; Community Vision, 273; Corporate Strategic Plan, 271; homophobic petition, 257, 265–8; inclusion policy, 209–10, 256–7, 262–5, 273–5; knowledge silos vs sharing, 269– 72, 274; permits and zoning, 266–9, 271; Pride flag display, 274; sexual orientation fact sheets, 272; Social Policy, 262, 272; Towards a Brighter Future, 262; WIC (Welcoming and Inclusive Communities), 262–3, 270. See also sexual orientation and theatre in Lethbridge; Theatre Outré, Lethbridge LGB T Q people: homophobia, 265– 8, 272–4; Indigenous identities, 95, 103n6; lack of census data, 273; lack of evaluation of queer social inclusion, 273; Pride flag display, 274, 276n12; right to the city, 256; social exclusion and powerlessness, 273; social

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342 Index

norms, 275n1; terminology, 103n6, 275n1; TG V2S (trans*, gender variant and Two-Spirit), 103n6, 256, 274; two-spirit persons, 103n6; Vancouver’s inclusive policies, 103n6, 256, 274. See also sexual orientation and theatre in Lethbridge; Theatre Outré, Lethbridge lived experience: community-based evaluation, 226–7; communitybased research, 165–6; critical praxis-oriented research, 8; peer research associates, 47, 160, 161, 166–7 Logan, Jennifer, 200 lone-parent households, 11, 187 Lord Selkirk Park, Winnipeg, 54 Loring, Philip: biographical notes, 320; on city planning and Aboriginal relations, 19–20, 281–305 low income. See homelessness and housing insecurity; poverty Loxley, John, 40 Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, 54, 214, 215 Maaka, Roger, 284 McCann, Eugene: biographical notes, 320; on food as harm reduction (FaHR), 18, 137–8, 159–79 MacDougall, Brenda: biographical notes, 320; on city planning and Aboriginal relations, 19–20, 281–305 McIntosh, Alison: biographical notes, 320–1; on food as harm reduction (FaHR), 18, 137–8, 159–79

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McKay, Stan, 55 McKenzie, Holly A.: biographical notes, 321; on IPV interventions for Indigenous women, 17–18, 36, 83–110 MacKinnon, Shauna: biographical notes, 14, 40–2, 51, 320; on decolonization of education in Winnipeg, 17, 35, 38–59; on decolonization of evaluation in Winnipeg, 13, 19, 209, 212–34 MacNeil, Astrid, 219–20 Making Social Science Matter (Flyvbjerg), 9, 207–8 Manitoba: Merchants Corner government and institutional support, 49–50, 53–5; Neechi Principles, 228, 232n1; neighbourhood renewal corporations, 53. See also Winnipeg, Indigenous peoples; Winnipeg, Merchants Corner Manitoba Research Alliance (M R A ), 38, 40, 41, 54 Maori model of evaluation, 220, 228–9 mapping: co-constructed for EI Lens in Ottawa, 67, 68(t), 71; in F aHR project, 164–5, 167 marginalized people: C C M A R D anti-discrimination initiatives, 262–5, 270–4; community-based research, 165; diversity groups in E I Lens in Ottawa, 63–4, 70–6, 78n4; food as inclusion, 161–2; intersectionality, 100; relational accountability, terminology, 314; structural violence, 286–7; systemic forces, 147–8, 169, 175; tensions with marginalized people, 100–1, 139–40,

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Index 150–1. See also immigrants and refugees; Indigenous peoples; intersectionality; L G B T Q people; poverty Martin, Gary: biographical notes, 113, 117–18, 127–8, 320; on community first approach to housing development in Ottawa, 18, 36, 111–34 media: housing insecurity in Toronto, 198–9 Meet Me at the Merch (video), 55 men: E I Lens in Ottawa, 71–2. See also gender Merchants Corner. See Winnipeg, Merchants Corner Mertens, Donna, 222 Métis: in Edmonton, 288–9; terminology, 288–9, 301n1; traditional territories, 281–2 Miewald, Christiana: biographical notes, 321; on food as harm reduction (F aHR), 18, 137–8, 159–79 migration. See immigrants and refugees Mills, Sarah, 169 mobilization, knowledge. See knowledge sharing Mohammed, Mangaliso: biographical notes, 291–2, 321; on city planning and Aboriginal relations in Edmonton, 19–20, 210, 281–305 monitoring. See evaluation Montreal: REACH3 homelessness research, 236–7; youth shelters, 141–2 Mormons, 260 Mount Dennis housing, Toronto, 193, 196–7

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M R A . See Manitoba Research Alliance Muller Myrdahl, Tiffany: biographical notes, 209–10, 258–9, 321; on sexual orientation and theatre in Lethbridge, 12–13, 19, 209–10, 256–80 multi-method research: about, 79n10; complexity in research, 67, 79n10; critical praxis-­ oriented research, 28; EI Lens in Ottawa, 66, 67, 68(t); funding, 28; multiple ways of knowing, 28; process vs product, 28–9. See also research multi-vocality: about, 67, 72–4; context and complexity, 17; EI Lens in Ottawa, 67, 68–9, 68(t), 72–4, 77–8; feminist research, 67; organizational change, 67, 72–4; peer research associates (PR A s), 175. See also complexity and context in research municipalities. See cities Musqueum peoples, 282 Myles, John, 4, 15, 215 Neechi Principles, 228, 232n1 neighbourhood scale, 13 neo-colonialism, terminology, 313. See also colonialism; decolonization neoliberal context: about, 10–11, 313; accountability, 27, 212, 239; community-based research, 14, 170; devolution of social responsibilities to C B Os, 212, 215–17, 221; evaluation of service providers, 212, 216; globalization and housing insecurity, 181–5; housing development in

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Ottawa, 121–2, 125–6, 129–30; income inequality, 11, 183, 216; individual responsibility, 169, 182; New Public Management (NP M ), 239; partnerships with Indigenous CBO s, 223; performance measures, 216–17; reduction of government role, 54; resistance to, 28, 49, 53–5, 125– 6, 217, 221; scholarship on, 13–14; social reproduction, 13–14; state-feminist relations, 12–13; terminology, 313; welfare cuts, 13–14, 183, 215–17, 221 networks, research: funding, 27–8. See also collaborative research; homelessness and research networks; knowledge sharing New Brunswick: iHEAL program for I P V , 85–6 newcomers. See immigrants and refugees Newhouse, David, 14, 282, 300 Newman, Lenore L., 120 Nichols, Richard, 222 Nobody’s Perfect parenting program, 219 North End Community Campus, Winnipeg, 39–40, 42, 47–8, 52–4. See also Indigenous peoples, education in Winnipeg; Winnipeg, Merchants Corner North End Community Renewal Corporation (N ECRC), Winnipeg, 53 Nova Scotia: Halifax, 140, 143. See also homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax Oakley, Ann, 65–6

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Objectivity and Diversity (Harding), 207 Oblate Lands, Ottawa, 111, 113– 14, 116, 130, 131n2 O EC A . See Ottawa East Community Association older adult housing in Ottawa, 114–15, 120. See also housing and community first approach in Ottawa Ontario: iHEA L program for IPV , 85–6. See also Ottawa; Toronto organizational change: complexity, 60–1, 65–9, 68(t), 76–7; context, 66, 69–71; EI Lens in Ottawa, 65–9, 68(t); feminist research, 60–1, 76–7; incremental steps, 60; multi-method research, 66, 79n10; multi-vocality, 67, 72–4; post-positivist research, 76–7. See also complexity and context in research Ottawa: gentrification, 117, 120, 122, 130; Greystone Village development, 111, 113–16, 130, 131n2; housing capacity development, 248; Oblate Lands, 111, 113–14, 116, 130, 131n2; O E C A involvement, 113, 116, 120, 130; open planning meetings, 130–1; R E A C H 3 homelessness research network, 236–8, 240–1, 243–8, 245(t)–7(t); rental housing, 246(t)–7(t); S L O E involvement, 111–17, 122–7, 129–31; social housing, 115, 132n7; traditional territories, 282. See also equity and inclusion in Ottawa; equity and inclusion in Ottawa, E I Lens;

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Index housing and community first approach in Ottawa Ottawa East Community Association (O ECA), 112, 113, 116, 120, 130 Papaschase Band, Edmonton, 289, 302n3 Paradis, Emily: biographical notes, 321–2; on housing insecurity in Toronto high-rises, 12, 19, 138, 180–205 parenting programs, 213, 219, 223–4 Parkdale housing, Toronto, 180, 184, 186, 196. See also housing insecurity of families in Toronto high-rises participatory research (P R ) and participatory action research (P A R ): about, 3–5, 148–9; antioppressive practices, 148–9; arts-based approaches, 152; expert status, 149; health research, 165; Indigenous evaluation project, 222–3; knowledge produced together, 149; researcher-researched relations, 149; rhizome metaphor, 145; terminology, 313–14. See also community-based research and community-based participatory research (C B P R ); research Pathways to Education Canada, 225, 229–30 Pathways to Education Winnipeg (C E DA): about, 50–1, 214–15, 229–31; local evaluation process, 214–15, 225, 229–31; Merchants Corner redevelopment, 48–51;

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pedagogy, 230; power relations, 49–50; programs and classes, 49–51, 214, 230; sharing circles, 225, 230–1; support by Pathways Canada, 225, 229–30. See also Indigenous peoples, education in Winnipeg; Winnipeg, Indigenous peoples Peck, Jamie, 11 peer research associates (PR A s): about, 18, 29, 175; challenges, 167–8; as co-authors of academic papers, 166, 169; confidentiality, 167, 169; critical questions on, 169; critiques, 169–70; emotional management, 167–8; FaHR project, 137–8, 160–1, 163–70, 175; inclusion in research process, 166–7, 169– 70, 175; Indigenous education in Winnipeg, 47; lived experience, 47, 161, 166–7, 175; mainstreaming of, 29; multivocality, 161, 175; peer mentors, 168; power relations, 166; responsibilities, 161, 164–8; selection of, 137–8, 164; training, 168, 170; trust, 166 peer support workers: FaHR project, 171–2 people living with HIV /A IDS. See HIV /A IDS, people living with (PLWHA ) Peters, Evelyn, 14 Phillips, Susan, 238 phronetic approach to research, 9, 207–9 Pich, Christine: biographical notes, 62, 322; on equity and inclusion in Ottawa, 17, 35–6, 60–82

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P L WH A . See HIV/ AID S , people living with (PLW HA) Polanyi, Michael, 152 policy, 15–16 political economy: context for critical praxis-oriented research, 25–6; context for inclusion, 10–11, 306–7; neoliberalism, 313. See also neoliberal context positivist research: about, 7–8; critiques of, 76–7, 207–8; natural science methods, 66, 144–5, 152–3, 207–8; objectivity, 7–8, 207–8; values, 67, 207 post-positivist research: about, 8, 314; complexity, 65–6, 76–7; critical praxis-oriented research, 8; and feminist methodologies, 76–7, 78n7; Indigenous research, 221–2; researcherresearched relations, 18, 140; terminology, 314; turn away from natural science methods, 66. See also complexity and context in research; critical praxisoriented research; feminist research; multi-method research; multi-vocality; researcherresearched relations; values in research post-secondary education. See universities poverty: and Indigenous education, 51–2; Indigenous peoples in Vancouver, 92–3, 96, 102n5; Indigenous peoples in Winnipeg, 39, 45–6, 51–2; neoliberal context, 181–5. See also food security/insecurity; homelessness and housing insecurity; income inequality

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power relations: anti-oppressive practices, 141; community-based organizations, 49–50; communitybased research, 135; critical praxis-oriented research, 8, 34, 135, 147, 174–5; housing development in Ottawa, 120, 126–7; housing insecurity in Toronto, 192, 199–200; Indigenous peoples, 49–50, 55–6, 88–90, 100, 286–7, 292; media coverage, 198–9; multi-vocality to identify, 67; partnerships, 223; peer research associates (PR A s), 166; phronetic approach, 208; researcher-researched relations, 100; structural violence, 286–7, 292; structural violence, terminology, 315; values, 9 praxis. See critical praxis-oriented research Price, Roberta: biographical notes, 93, 322; on IPV interventions for Indigenous women, 17–18, 36, 83–110 prisons, normalization of, 190–1 process in research: EI Lens in Ottawa, 66, 68–9, 68(t), 71–2, 77–8; inclusion of PR A s in, 166– 7, 169–70, 175; process vs product, 28–9. See also research queer, terminology, 275n1. See also LGB T Q people queer theatre. See sexual orientation and theatre in Lethbridge race and ethnicity: C C M A R D initiatives, 262–5, 270–4; intersectionality, 264, 313; racialization, terminology, 314; UNESC O

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Index initiatives, 263. See also immigrants and refugees; Indigenous peoples Randell, Diane, 261 R E A C H 3 (Research Alliance for Canadian Homelessness, Housing and Health): about, 235–8, 248–51; advisory committees, 241–2; case studies (four cities), 236–7, 240–3, 244(t)– 7(t), 249–50; challenges, 236, 242–4, 248–51; factors in successful plans, 243–5, 244(t)– 5(t); funding, 236, 237–8, 240–2, 249–50; longitudinal studies, 237–8; neoliberal context, 238–40, 242, 249–50; ­partnerships, 235–6; recommendations for research, 236, 248– 51; reflexivity, 236; research coordinator, 241; research methodology, 241–2. See also homelessness and housing insecurity; homelessness and research networks Reclaiming Our Spirits, as project name, 87. See also Indigenous women, IPV interventions in Vancouver reconciliation and Indigenous peoples: in Edmonton, 282, 284; reconciliation, terminology, 314; T R C processes, 94, 225, 281, 314; urban planning, 282, 284, 300–1; urban planning in Edmonton, 290–1; women’s health in Vancouver, 94–100 reflexive practice: about, 307–8; community of practice, 5; critical praxis-oriented research, 5, 10, 307–8; Indigenous women’s

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health care, 36, 88, 90, 91, 93–4, 98–100 refugees. See immigrants and refugees Regional Group, The, Ottawa: acceptance of plans, 132n10; city planning meetings, 129–30; Greystone Village development, 111, 113–14; neoliberal context, 121–2, 124–5; social sustainability, 118–20; support for affordable housing, 132n8; website, 131n4. See also housing and community first approach in Ottawa relational accountability, terminology, 314. See also researcherresearched relations research: about, 3–10; continuum of theory to advocacy, 8; critical questions on, 9, 208; data generation, 8–9, 79n10; demographic changes, 15–16; emotions, 169; evaluation vs research, 66, 79n8; funding, 27–8; Indigenous peoples, 221–2, 229; multi-method research, 79n10; participation, 135–6, 145–6, 152; phronetic approach, 9, 207–9; post-­ positivist methods, 65–6; problem framing, 8; relational accountability, terminology, 314; scholarship on, 65–6; theory, 135–6; values, 8, 9, 67. See also complexity and context in research; evaluation; knowledge; knowledge sharing; values in research research, approaches to. See artsbased research; collaborative research; critical praxis-oriented research; feminist research;

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multi-method research; positivist research; post-positivist research research assistants: critical questions on use of, 127–9; doctoral students as, 117–18, 127–9; FaHR project, 137–8; housing development in Ottawa, 112–13, 117–18, 127–9; housing insecurity in Toronto, 194; Indigenous women’s health care, 90–1, 97, 100; personalities, 127; power relations, 127; responsibilities, 117, 127–9; selection of, 137–8; tensions with, 97; trust, 128. See also peer research associates (PRAs) researcher-researched relations: about, 18, 135–7, 308; artsbased research, 144–6; capacity building, 29; coming alongside as approach, 151, 153; communications, 28–9; community advisory boards, 29; critical praxis-­oriented research, 18; Indigenous peoples, 93–4, 97; mutual and reciprocal learning, 28, 33–4; participatory action research, terminology, 313–14; participatory research, 149; power relations, 100; process vs product, 28–9; relational accountability, terminology, 314; rhizome metaphor, 145; tensions with marginalized people, 97, 100–1, 139–40, 150–1; trust, 136. See also anti-oppressive practices (A O Ps); arts-based research; expert status; peer research associates (PRAs) research networks on homelessness. See homelessness and

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research networks; R EA C H3 (Research Alliance for Canadian Homelessness, Housing and Health) resistance: housing insecurity and knowledge sharing, 197–200; to neoliberalism, 28, 49, 53–5, 125–6, 217, 221 respect. See trust and respect rights-based: rights-based analysis of housing insecurity, 19, 186–7; terminology, 314–15. See also housing insecurity of families in Toronto high-rises; values in research right to the city, 120, 162, 256 Rodgers, Kathleen, 12 Rosen, Nicole, 260 Rossdale Flats, Edmonton, 282, 288, 295–7. See also Indigenous peoples, urban planning and decolonization in Edmonton Sabourin, Beverly Anne, 45 safe injection sites, 173 same-sex relationship. See LGB T Q people Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, Ottawa, 114–15, 117 Schouls, Tim, 298 Schram, Sanford, 9, 208, 216 Schwartz-Shea, Peregrine, 66 sciences and objectivity, 66, 207–8. See also positivist research S CL I (Strengthening Capacity to Limit Intrusion), 86 self-reflexivity. See reflexive practice seniors’ housing in Ottawa, 114– 15. See also housing and community first approach in Ottawa

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Index Service Excellence program, Ottawa, 69–70, 77 Seven Sacred Teachings, 229 sexuality and sexual orientation, terminology, 275n1. See also L GB T Q people sexual orientation and theatre in Lethbridge: about, 19, 209–10, 256–7, 273–5; city inclusion policy, 209–10, 256–7, 264–5; city officials, 266–9, 271; city permits and zoning, 266–9, 271; Community Advisory Board, 258; context, 258–62; critical praxis-oriented research, 258; homophobia, 265–8, 272–4; knowledge silos vs sharing, 269– 72, 274; media coverage, 258, 265–6, 269, 271–2; research project, 257–9, 267. See also Lethbridge, City of; Theatre Outré, Lethbridge Siemiatycki, Elliot, 11 Siksika Nation, 259 Siltanen, Janet: biographical notes, 61–2, 322; closing reflections by, 306–9; on equity and inclusion in Ottawa, 17, 35–6, 60–82; introduction by, 3–24 Silver, Jim: biographical notes, 40, 41–2, 322; on decolonization of education in Winnipeg, 14, 17, 35, 38–59 Simon Fraser University: F aHR research partner, 160 single-parent households, 11, 187 Skriver, Crystal, 260 S L OE . See Sustainable Living Ottawa East Smith, Linda T., 222, 230

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Snuneymux people, 93 social class, as category: intersectionality, terminology, 313. See also homelessness and housing insecurity; income inequality; intersectionality; marginalized people; poverty social exclusion: inclusion concepts, 84; Indigenous peoples, 83–4; Indigenous women, 88; tensions with marginalized people, 100–1, 139–40, 150–1. See also marginalized people social inclusion. See inclusion social justice: about, 75–6; EI Lens in Ottawa, 67–9, 68(t), 75–6; goals of critical praxis-oriented research, 5; as good business practice, 75; housing in Ottawa, 119–20; research goals, 136; sustainable development, 120–2. See also equality and equity; inclusion; values in research social reproduction, 13–14. See also equality and equity social sciences: participatory turn in universities, 25–7; phronetic approach, 9, 207–9; tacit knowledge, 137, 152–4. See also feminist research; positivist research; post-positivist research social work: anti-oppressive practices, 141, 146–50; arts-based projects, 154; coming alongside as approach, 151, 153; critical questions on, 139–40; expert status, 144, 146, 154; interventionalist model, 144, 153; knowledge sharing, 140; messiness of practices, 152; reflexivity, 154;

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350 Index

researcher-researched relations, 144–5, 153–4; tacit knowledge, 137, 152–4; tensions with marginalized people, 139–40, 150– 1; youth shelters, 144, 148. See also anti-oppressive practices (A OP s); arts-based research; homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax Spearman, Chris, 267–9, 276n9 S S H R C (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) funding, 5, 40, 62, 111, 307 Status of Women Canada: CAW I funding, 6, 62, 65 Stewart, Ian: biographical notes, 140, 322; on homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax, 18, 137, 139–58 Stoecker, Randy, 135 storytelling, Indigenous, 222–3, 230–1 street youth. See homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax Strengthening Capacity to Limit Intrusion (S CLI), 86 structural violence: about, 286–7, 315; Edmonton civic processes, 282–3, 286–7, 292, 294–5, 299; Indigenous child welfare, 95–6; power relations, 286–7, 292, 315; terminology, 315. See also Indigenous peoples, urban planning and decolonization in Edmonton substance use, 98. See also drug use, illicit Surrey, British Columbia: Indigenous women’s health care, 92–4. See also Indigenous

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women, IPV interventions in Vancouver sustainability: equity in, 120; social and environmental sustainability in Ottawa, 114–22, 130 Sustainable Living Ottawa East (SLOE), 111–17, 122, 129–31. See also housing and community first approach in Ottawa Suttor, Greg, 184 Sweetman, Caroline, 61 tacit knowledge, 137, 152–4 Temenos, Cristina: biographical notes, 323; on food as harm reduction (FaHR ), 18, 137–8, 159–79 TGV 2S (trans*, gender variant, and two-spirit) community, 103n6, 256, 274. See also LGB T Q people Theatre Outré, Lethbridge: about, 265; city permits and zoning, 266–9, 271; closure, 267–8; funding, 267, 268; homophobia, 257, 265–8, 272; MacFarland Building tenant, 265–6; reopening as Club Didi, 266; Wha’ Happened?, 258. See also Lethbridge, City of; sexual orientation and theatre in Lethbridge This Film Is More Than Its Title (film), 143–4, 148 Thorncliffe Park housing, Toronto, 195–6 Toronto: economic inequality, 184–5; housing in neoliberal context, 181–5; low-income housing, 183–5, 202n10; racialized and gendered poverty, 184– 5; R EA C H3 homelessness

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Index research network, 236–7, 240–1, 243–8, 244(t), 246(t)–7(t); rental housing, 246(t)–7(t); Tower Renewal, 202n10; United Way housing survey, 180–1, 184– 6, 200n2, 201n7; zoning for housing, 202n10. See also housing insecurity of families in Toronto high-rises training. See education and training trans, terminology, 275n1. See also L GB T Q people transfer, knowledge. See knowledge sharing T R C . See Truth and Reconciliation Commission Treaty Six, 288–9, 302n2 Triple P Parenting program, 213, 219, 223–4 trust and respect: about, 136; antioppressive practices, 152; artsbased approach, 137, 152; communication strategies, 28–9; community partnerships, 129; critical praxis-oriented research, 28–9; evaluation practices, 225– 6; food provision, 163; homeless youth, 137, 146, 152; Indigenous peoples, 222, 298; partnerships for research, 62–3; power relations, 100, 166; process vs product, 28–9; research assistants, 128; researcherresearched relations, 136 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC): about, 94, 300–1; Aboriginal and Indigenous terminology, 301n1; reconciliation, terminology, 314;

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reconciliation processes, 94, 225, 281, 300–1 two-spirit people: terminology, 103n6; Vancouver inclusive policies, 256, 274. See also LGB T Q people universities: accountability, 26, 27; knowledge production, 16; knowledge sharing, 16, 26–7, 313; neoliberal context, 27; new forms of subjectification, 29–30; research funding, 27–8. See also SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) funding universities, community-campus engagement (CCE): community relations, 120, 131n5; critique of CCE, 131n5, 249; FaHR research project, 160; homeless research networks, 249; for housing in Ottawa, 111–21, 126–9, 131n5; public engagement, 16, 25–7, 293; research assumptions, 121. See also food as harm reduction (FaHR) for people with HIV/ AIDS in Vancouver; housing and community first approach in Ottawa University of Lethbridge (U of L): community relations, 258–60, 266 University of Manitoba (U of M): Inner City Social Work Program, 43, 44–7 University of Winnipeg (U of W): Merchants Corner redevelopment, 49–50, 54; Urban and Inner-City Studies, 40, 41–3, 44–6, 48–51, 54

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352 Index

urban areas. See cities Urban Circle Training Centre, Winnipeg, 43–5, 46–8, 55–6 urban indigeneity, 10, 14, 312. See also Indigenous peoples urban political economy, neoliberal. See neoliberal context values in research: about, 9, 67, 308; community-based research, 165–6; complexity in research, 67; critical praxis-oriented research, 9; critical questions on, 9; E I Lens in Ottawa, 67, 68–9, 68(t), 77–8; explicit statements, 208–9; Indigenous values, 229; phronetic social science, 9, 207– 9; power relations, 9; scholarship on, 207; value-neutrality in positivist research, 67, 207. See also complexity and context in research; equality and equity; inclusion; social justice Vancouver: Coast Salish traditional territories, 92–3, 282; LG BTQ and T GV2S inclusive policies, 103n6, 256, 274; REACH3 homelessness research network, 236–8, 240–1, 243–8, 244(t), 246(t)–7(t); rental housing, 246(t)–7(t) Vancouver, Downtown Eastside: City food policies, 173–4; drug use, 171–4; food insecurity, 171– 4; gentrification, 173–4; immigrants, 92–3; Indigenous women’s health care, 92–4; poverty, 92–3, 96, 102n5, 171; visibility/invisibility of Indigenous

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women, 92–4. See also food as harm reduction (FaHR ) for ­people with HIV /A IDS in Vancouver; Indigenous women, IPV interventions in Vancouver Varcoe, Colleen: biographical notes, 323; on IPV interventions for Indigenous women, 17–18, 36, 83–110 violence: Indigenous women, 85, 95. See also intimate partner violence (IPV ) vulnerably housed. See homelessness and housing insecurity Walker, Ryan: biographical notes, 323; on city planning and Aboriginal relations, 19–20, 281–305 Walking through Wonderland (film), 143–4, 148, 149 Walks, R. Alan, 11, 13 Wekerle, Gerda, 13–14 Welcoming and Inclusive Communities (WIC ), Alberta, 262, 270 Weston housing, Toronto, 193, 196 Wha’ Happened? (Theatre Outré), 258 white settler-colonialism, 315. See also colonialism; decolonization whitestreaming, 284, 315 “Who’s Accountable to the Community?” (MacKinnon), 215, 224, 230 W IC . See Welcoming and Inclusive Communities Wilson, Shawn and Alexandra, 229

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Index Winnipeg, Indigenous peoples: about, 38–40, 52–6; CLO U T initiatives, 214–15, 222–4; collaborative research, 35, 40–1, 47–9, 52; community-based organizations, 39, 52–6, 214–15; critical praxis-oriented research, 40–1, 47, 54–6; demographics, 51–2, 282, 289; Elders, 48, 55; employment, 41, 43–7, 51–2; historical background, 52; housing, 41, 50, 54; M R A projects, 38, 40, 41, 54; Neechi Principles, 228, 232n1; neighbourhood renewal corporations, 53; North End, 39, 52–3; poverty, 39, 45–6, 51–2; research methods, 47; scholarship on, 41; traditional territories, 282; youth gang prevention program, 225– 6. See also ILC (Indigenous Learning Circle); Indigenous peoples, education in Winnipeg; Indigenous peoples, project evaluation in Winnipeg; Pathways to Education Winnipeg (CED A) Winnipeg, Merchants Corner: about, 35, 48–53, 55–6; CEDA Pathways programs, 50–1; collaboration principles, 35; communitybased organizations, 55; critical praxis-oriented research, 54–6; institutional and government support, 42, 49–51, 53–6; Meet Me at the Merch (video), 55; MRA projects, 40; power relations, 49–50; Project Charter, 48–9; reclamation for Indigenous peoples, 39–40, 53–4, 55; resistance to neoliberalism, 49, 54, 55;

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student housing, 50; U of W Urban and Inner-City Studies, 40, 41–3, 44–6, 48–51, 54. See also Indigenous peoples, education in Winnipeg Winnipeg Boldness Project, 215 women: activism in community organizations, 13–14; C A WI and gender equity in Ottawa, 70; diversity groups in EI Lens in Ottawa, 63–4, 70–6, 78n4; gender equality vs mainstreaming, 12; Housing First programs, 201n4; housing in Ottawa, 125–6, 132n9; mortality rates of homeless women, 190; social reproduction, 13–14; women’s movements, 12–13. See also equality and equity; feminist research Woods, Allan, 261 Woodward, Megan: biographical notes, 166–9, 323; on food as harm reduction (FaHR ), 18, 137–8, 159–79 workshop on critical praxis-­ oriented research (2015), 6, 306–7. See also critical praxis-­ oriented research Wyly, Elvin, 11 Yanow, Dvora, 66 youth: Edmonton Aboriginal policies, 290; partners in research, 145–6; youth gang prevention program, 225–6 youth shelters: anti-oppressive ­practices, 141, 146; arts-based research in Guatemala, 137,

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140, 141–4, 152; coming alongside as approach, 151, 153; surrogate families, 151; symbolic space of belonging, 147; tensions with establishment,

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139–40. See also homeless youth and filmmaking in Guatemala; homeless youth and filmmaking in Halifax

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