Graduate Theses & Dissertations

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Resistance Revisited
This study examines how student activism around the closure of Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School (PCVS), an inner-city school in a medium–sized Ontario town has influenced youths’ life experiences, views on power, political engagement, and personal agency. Following a critical narrative methodology, this qualitative study, conducted four to five years after the school closure, focuses on interviews with fourteen participants who were part of the high-school group Raiders in Action and explores both what they learned from their protest and its influence on their lives over the ensuing years. The study identifies the researcher’s subjective position as a teacher and an adult in solidarity with the group’s work. Critical pedagogy, critical youth studies, and feminist approaches inform the researcher’s perspective. This project is inspired by an image of young people as citizens who actively challenge and change educational institutions to create a more participatory democracy in our city, country, continent, planet. Author Keywords: critical pedagogy, critical youth resistance, neoliberalism, school closure, student activism, youth organizing
Older Voluntarism and Rural Community Sustainability
With regards to building knowledge about rural aging, there is a gap in understanding of the diversity of older rural people’s experiences and the interaction between older rural people and the development trajectories of aging rural communities. One way to examine these experiences and interactions is through voluntarism; the activities of volunteers and voluntary organizations, which are pivotal for supporting aging in place in often-underserviced rural communities. To address this gap, this thesis features a community-based case study with a volunteer-based rural library in Ontario, Canada and was aimed at understanding the experiences of older library volunteers, examining the challenges of a rural library volunteer program and exploring how they contribute to rural community sustainability. Through surveys (n=87), interviews (n=48) and focus groups (n=6) with library volunteers, staff, board members and community leaders the findings demonstrate how older voluntarism is felt through the lived experiences of individual volunteers, poses interpersonal, operational and structural challenges, and can potentially contribute to the sustainability of rural communities. The thesis contributes to our understanding of the rural, older voluntarism and provides recommendations for ways to sustain library volunteer programs. Author Keywords:
Enhancing post-mortem interval estimates
The growth of immature insects that develop on human remains can be used to estimate a post-mortem interval (PMI). PMI estimate confidence is negatively affected by: larval killing and preservation methods altering their size, limited morphological parameters to assess larval growth and therefore age, and few available alternate species development data. I compared live specimens to preserved specimens of the same development stages to assess the effects of killing-preservation techniques on morphology, and I introduce a new method that uses digital photography to examine maggot mouthparts for stage grading of Phormia regina. Digital photographic methods enable live insects to be quantified and improve approximations of physiological age. I then use these digital methods to produce a growth-rate model for a beetle commonly found on human remains, Necrodes surinamensis, providing data for PMI estimates that was previously unavailable. Author Keywords: Forensic Entomology, Insect development, Morphometrics, Necrodes surinamensis, Phormia regina, Postmortem interval
Nitrogen Retention of Terricolous Lichens in a Jack Pine Forest in Northern Alberta
The Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada is one of the largest point sources emitters of NOx in Canada and there are concerns that elevated nitrogen (N) deposition will lead to widespread eutrophication impacts, including altered species composition, similar to what has occurred in several parts of Europe. Atmospheric deposition rates as high as 25 kg N ha-1 yr-1 have been measured close to the industrial center. The role of the forest floor in regulating these potential eutrophication effects was investigated following a 5-year enrichment study in which N was applied as NH4NO3 above the canopy of a jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb) stand in northern Alberta close to Fort McMurray at dosages ranging from 5 – 25 kg N ha-1 yr-1 in addition to background deposition of 2 kg N ha-1 yr-1. Chemical analysis of lichen mats revealed that apical (upper) lichen tissue N concentration increased with treatment, as did the necrotic tissue. When expressed as a pool, the fibric-humic (FH) material held the largest quantity of N across all treatments due to its relatively large mass. Soil net N mineralization and net nitrification rates did not differ among N inputs after five years of application. A 15N tracer applied to the forest floor showed that N is initially absorbed by the apical lichen, FH material, and the foliage of the vascular plant Vaccinium myrtilloides in particular. After 2 years, the FH 15N pool size was elevated and all other measured pools were depleted, indicating a slow transfer of N to the FH material. Applied 15N was not detectable in mineral soil. The microbial functional gene ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) was undetectable using PCR screening of mineral soil microbial communities in all treatments, and broad fungal/bacterial qPCR assays revealed a weak treatment effect on fungal/bacterial ratios in mineral soil. This work suggests that terricolous lichen mats, which form the majority of ground cover in upland jack pine systems, have a large capacity to effectively retain elevated N deposition via the formation of stable humus. Author Keywords: Biogeochemistry, Boreal Ecology, Lichen, Nitrogen Enrichment, Oil Sands
Historical Ecology and Shifting Baseline Syndrome in the Kawartha Lakes, Ontario
Archaeological faunal data, historic records and documents and recent biological data are used to construct a historical ecology for Pigeon Lake, Ontario, focusing on fish exploitation. The faunal collections of twelve archaeological sites in the Kawartha Lakes are reviewed to examine pre-contact Indigenous fishing trends and comment on the historic presence, abundance and range of a number of indigenous fish species. A review of historic documents outlines environmental, industrial, and social changes that have played a role in changing the community structure of fish species in Pigeon Lake since the arrival of European settlers in the area. Additionally, interviews were undertaken with local anglers to explore evidence of shifting baseline syndrome (SBS) in modern populations. Finally, statistical tests were performed on the interview data to explore evidence of SBS, and found that SBS is effecting modern anglers perception of ecological change in Pigeon Lake. Author Keywords: Archaeology, Canadian History, Faunal Analysis, Fish, Historical Ecology, Shifting Baseline Syndrome
Representations of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canadian Art
This thesis focuses specifically on artistic projects that address violence against indigenous women and uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine their meaning and reception. I argue that the mainstream media has negatively stereotyped missing and murdered indigenous women and that art projects have the ability to reframe their lives to the viewing public. I focus on five case studies of works, including Vigil (2002) by Rebecca Belmore, REDress (2011) by Jamie Black, The Forgotten (2011) by Pamela Masik, Walking With Our Sisters (2013) by Christi Belcourt and Shades of Our Sisters (2017), created by Ryerson University students and produced by Maggie Cywink, Alex Cywink and Joyce Carpenter. Art has the capacity to encourage activism, raise awareness and promote reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous people. Comparisons can be drawn between how the case studies of these art works have framed the lives of missing and murdered women and the dominant media images that have prevailed in Canadian society. Author Keywords: activism, art, Canada, indigenous, missing and murdered indigenous women, symbolism
Making home and making welcome
This thesis documents an oral history of the New Canadians Centre, the only immigrant-serving organization in Peterborough, Ontario. This case study builds on scholarship that critically examines immigrant settlement work in Canada. Drawing on interviews and archival research, and employing the analytical concept of home, I investigate how differently-located actors have practiced home and welcome in Peterborough in the context of settlement work. I demonstrate how the New Canadians Centre’s work consolidated as well as challenged normative discourses of home that disadvantage racialized new immigrants and privilege white settlers represented as “host.” I argue that this false binary between immigrant and host is harmful, inadequate in accounting for the complexities of people’s lives, and easily reinforced in settlement work without efforts to challenge it. I conclude that accountability to power in settlement work is crucial to envisioning a more inclusive welcome and a more just home in Peterborough and Canada. Author Keywords: home, immigrant settlement sector, migration, oral history, Peterborough, welcome
Estimating mineral surface area and acid sensitivity of forest soils in Kitimat, British Columbia
In 2012, the Rio Tinto aluminum smelter in Kitimat, British Columbia increased sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions from 27 to 42 tonnes/day. An initial study was conducted to investigate the effect of the increased sulphur (S) deposition on forest soils. A key uncertainty of the initial study was mineral surface area estimations that were applied to critical load calculations. The current study investigates the effect of organic matter (OM) removal techniques on mineral surface area and the ability to predict mineral surface area using pedotransfer functions (PTFs). Mineral surface area was measured on bulk soil samples using BET gas-adsorption. Organic matter was removed from soil samples prior to surface area measurements using a sodium hypochlorite treatment (NaOCl), loss on ignition (LOI) and no treatment. Removal techniques were found to affect surface area measurements; decreasing in the order of LOI> untreated> NaOCl. Particle-size based PTFs developed from other regions were not significantly correlated with measured surface area. A regionally-specific particle-size based function had stronger predictive value of surface area measurements (adjusted R2=0.82). The PTF that best reflected surface area measurements of bulk soil for the Kitimat area used particle-size data as well as kaolinite, the most abundant clay mineral in the region. Surface area values estimated using the particle-size PTF were applied to the PROFILE model to calculate weathering rates. Weathering rates were then input to critical load calculations using steady-state mass balance. These estimates predicted that none of the 24 measured sites are receiving SO2 deposition in exceedance of their critical load. Author Keywords: acid deposition, critical loads, mineral surface area, mineral weathering, pedotransfer functions, PROFILE
Press Rhetoric and Human Rights in The Carter Era
Jimmy Carter and his administration varied the ways in which they addressed human rights concerns internationally. There was a strong, often emotional evocation of human rights in reference to countries that were less economically, strategically, or politically important to the United States and the foreign policy goals of the Carter administration. This was not present in Carter’s approach to addressing human rights concerns in important allies, such as South Korea, or with countries where relations were fragile and important, such as China and the USSR. This ambivalence in addressing human rights in strategically important nations was compounded by Carter’s disavowal of linkage policies. It was this ambivalence that made the moral foreign policy a failure. While there were international situations out of his control, his continued leniency and unbalanced application of linkage and focus on adherence to human right practices internationally, lessened the administration’s ability to respond to international tragedy. Author Keywords: American Foreign Policy, Government Indexing, Human Rights, Jimmy Carter, Presidential Press Relations
Discontinuities in stream networks
The network composition hypothesis (NCH) suggests that i) large confluence symmetry ratios (drainage area of the tributary relative to the mainstem) and ii) landscape differences (differences in landscape characteristics between the mainstem and tributary drainages) lead to greater ecological changes below confluences. As a test of the NCH, 34 confluences were sampled in southern Ontario to examine the effects of these two factors on benthic invertebrate communities to infer the degree of ecological change at confluences. Given the typology of streams surveyed, there was subtle evidence that benthic invertebrate communities below confluences changed as a function of confluence symmetry ratio and landscape differences. This indicates that abrupt changes in stream networks are not as common as theory may suggest. Further support for the network composition hypothesis may be found by examining a wider range of stream types and examining single-species responses. Author Keywords: benthic invertebrates, community similarity, landscape characteristics, stream networks, tributary
Assessment of an adult lake sturgeon translocation (Acipenser fulvescens) reintroduction effort in a fragmented river system
North American freshwater fishes are declining rapidly due to habitat fragmentation, degradation, and loss. In some cases, translocations can be used to reverse local extirpations by releasing species in suitable habitats that are no longer naturally accessible. Lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) experienced historical overharvest across their distribution, leading to endangered species listings and subsequent protection and recovery efforts. Despite harvest and habitat protections, many populations do not appear to be recovering, which has been attributed to habitat alteration and fragmentation by dams. In 2002, 51 adult lake sturgeon from the Mattagami River, Ontario, Canada were translocated 340 km upstream to a fragmented 35 km stretch of the river between two hydroelectric generating stations, where sturgeon were considered extirpated. This study assessed the translocation effort using telemetry (movement), demographics and genetic data. Within the first year, a portion of the radio-tagged translocated individuals dispersed out of the release area, and released radio-tagged individuals used different areas than individuals radio-tagged ten years later. Catches of juvenile lake sturgeon have increased over time, with 150 juveniles caught within the duration of this study. The reintroduced population had similar genetic diversity as the source population, with a marked reduction in effective population size (Ne). The results indicate that the reintroduction effort was successful, with evidence of successful spawning and the presence of juvenile lake sturgeon within the reintroduction site. Overall, the results suggest adult translocations may be a useful tool for re-establishing other extirpated lake sturgeon populations. Author Keywords: conservation, endangered species, lake sturgeon, reintroduction, telemetry, translocation
Bringing Knowledges Together
The natural world and environmental issues present critical points of convergence between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and their knowledge systems. This qualitative study engaged with 18 Indigenous and non-Indigenous environmental practitioners in interview conversations to explore their experiences in cross-cultural environmental collaborations. The research undertakes a complexity theory approach to answer the following research questions: 1.a) What skills, values, knowledges and approaches do environmental practitioners need to enable Western and Indigenous knowledge systems to come together in addressing environmental challenges? 1. b) What does effectiveness and/or success look like in cross-cultural environmental collaboration? 2. How can post-secondary and professional development educational programs impart the skills, values, knowledges and approaches that their students need to effectively engage in work that brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and their knowledge systems in addressing environmental challenges? This study applied multiple lenses to analyze and interpret the data. The author’s own reflections as both a practitioner and researcher working and teaching in crosscultural environmental contexts were a central component of the study. Through this analysis a set of skills, values, knowledges, approaches, attributes, and roles emerged. The findings reaffirm the importance of respect, relationship, responsibility, and reciprocity as central values in Indigenous praxis and identify additional values. The application of a critical theory lens illuminated that subtle racism and microaggressions influence environmental collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. The study proposes a curriculum and program design for post-secondary and professional development contexts, that draws upon multiple pedagogies to prepare learners to work cross-culturally in respectful ways. These findings are relevant to environmental practitioners currently working in the field and contribute to a further articulation of an emerging Indigenous Environmental Studies and Sciences (IESS) pedagogy. Author Keywords: Cross-cultural collaboration, Curriculum Development, Environmental Education, Indigenous Studies, Professional Development

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1974 - 2024
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Format: 2024/03/29