Graduate Theses & Dissertations

Barriers and Facilitators to Indigenous Knowledge Incorporation in Policy Making
The inclusion and application of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) has become a central and often demanded element of policy making involving Indigenous peoples. However, there are very few examples that exist in the literature and elsewhere that show how IK can be effectively integrated into decisions, policies, and programs. In response to these challenges, this research explored what processes are used to incorporate IK into policy and their effectiveness through the development of a framework that sought to identify critical factors related to IK inclusion. The framework was then applied to evaluate IK incorporation opportunities in the Nunatsiavut case, focusing on the development of the Nunatsiavut Government's Environmental Protection Act. The case study analysis was used to test and provide adaptations to the initial framework. This research identifies the importance of governance structures and processes, community participation and engagement approaches, and IK research and support programming in enhancing opportunities for IK to be integrated and reflected in policy outcomes. The Nunatsiavut case largely supported, but in some cases challenged critical factors of IK incorporation identified in the framework. The findings of this study are valuable for policy and decision makers (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous) regarding approaches and programs that can assist and support IK inclusion into policy processes and decisions. Author Keywords: environmental assessment, Indigenous Knowledge, Inuit Knowledge, Nunatsiavut, policy, self-government
Canadian Refugee Policy
This dissertation is an inquiry into the politics of the frame in Canadian refugee policy. It is focused on "framing," thereby taking up the stance of critical policy studies while pressing the contribution of Donald Schön and Martin Rein in a critical and politically inflected direction. The dissertation unfolds as a political history of Canadian refugee policy that provides a "contextual mapping," relevant to both inquiry and action in regard to the framing of refugees. The main argument is that twentieth- and twenty-first- century refugee policy in Canada is a story of three shifting meta-frames: beginning with humanitarianism (in the inter-War years and the post-World War II period); shifting to neo-humanitarianism (beginning in the late 1970s, in connection with the rise of neoliberalism); then shifting again (beginning in the 1990s) to securitization. The concept of a meta-frame here is analogous to that of a "metacultural frame" in Schön and Rein, but accents political rather than cultural dimensions. This concept is developed in a manner suitable to a political history by illustrating how meta-frames both become stable and change. With humanitarianism, the refugee was typically portrayed in ambivalent terms - both deserving of and entitled to protection, while also posing a burden for the national interest. In the context of neo-humanitarianism, this ambivalence began to wane, and the refugee was more typically portrayed as a potential criminal. With securitization, especially as it has become entrenched and intensified, the refugee has been more typically portrayed as a potential terrorist. The analysis includes a focus on the particular importance of ambivalence and contingency in the politics of the frame. Securitization has become so deeply entrenched since September 11, 2001 that it appears virtually fixed in place. However, it may still become possible in moments of contingency for refugee advocates to destabilize the securitization meta-frame and help shift the framing of refugees into a more hospitable register. Author Keywords: ambivalence, contingency, humanitarianism, neo-humanitarianism, refugees, securitization
Motivating Policy Responses to Climate Change
This research investigates urban climate governance through a case study of climate change adaptation policy making in the Canadian municipality of Vancouver, British Columbia (BC). It investigates the context in which the City of Vancouver was motivated to develop its climate change adaptation strategy (CCAS) by exploring the motivating factors and drivers behind the formulation of this plan. The research approach involved content analysis of policy documents underlying the CCAS as well as interviews with key politicians and policy makers familiar with the strategy. I conceptualize the development of the CCAS using Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework, leading me to conclude that the convergence of three streams, namely: 1) knowledge of local climate change impacts and their cost to city assets, 2) political leadership and 3) green policy coordination in the City of Vancouver, created an opportunity that was seized upon by policy champions to address adaptation. Author Keywords: adapting cities to climate change, climate change adaptation policy, climate change adaptation policy formulation, local climate governance, municipal adaptation plan, urban climate governance
An Emprirical Investigation into the Relationship Between Education and Health
Health literature has long noted a positive correlation between health and levels of education. Two competing theories have been advanced to explain this phenomenon: (1) education "causes" health by allowing individuals to process complex information and act on it; and, (2) education and health are merely correlated through some third underlying characteristic. Determining which of these two theories is correct is of importance to public policy. But that task is empirically difficult because, from the standard, static perspective, the theories are observationally equivalent. We exploit a way in which the two theories have different implications regarding the sort of behaviour we should observe over time. We use smoking as a measure of health behaviour and find that smoking rates between "high" and "low" educated individuals expand when information is hard to process, and then contract as it becomes more easily processable. This approach is then repeated using physical activity as a measure of health-related behaviour to address limitations of the smoking model. Our novel approach to estimating the differences in the behavioural responses to changes in the processability of health-related information, across education groups, provides strong evidence in support of the view that education and health are causally linked. Author Keywords: applied statistics, education, health economics, public health, public policy, smoking
Learning From One Another
Biomaterial technology and utilizing bioproducts can contribute to Canada's economic growth while moving towards sustainable development. Canadian bioproducts are commonly developed within universities but Canada's record of transferring university technology to market has been less than optimal. In an attempt to offer new ideas for improvement, qualitative data analysis from comparing stakeholder interviews in Canada and Brazil regarding university technology transfer through biomaterial spin-off development identifies the enablers and barriers to success. This thesis offers modality changes that if implemented will contribute to increasing university spin-off development in Canada to achieve economic growth and sustainable development. These modality changes include: 1) Create research network alliances; 2) Incorporate university commercialization activities into faculty performance measurement; 3) Implement a general business class as a pre-requisite to all degree requirements; 4) Restructure funding programs from one time sums to phase based implementation; 5) Establish a pre-incubation program in addition to the traditional incubator. Author Keywords: biomaterials, Brazil, Canada, policy, university spin-off, university technology transfer
An Analysis of Zoning By-laws and Urban Agriculture in the City of Peterborough, Ontario
Urban agriculture (UA) is becoming increasingly prevalent in Canadian cities. Despite this municipal zoning by-laws often do not address UA explicitly. Using eleven interviews of urban agricultural participants a case study of the City of Peterborough’s zoning by-laws and the barriers they might present to UA was conducted. Research suggests that UA can provide many benefits to urban areas. The analysis found that the City of Peterborough’s zoning by-laws do not directly address UA. In order to enable the development of UA in the City of Peterborough its zoning by-laws will need to be redesigned to address and regulate UA directly. Author Keywords: By-laws, food systems, land use, municipal planning, urban agriculture, zoning
Workplace Bullying in Ontario Healthcare Settings
This thesis builds on scholarship that highlights how expected gender roles serve to both normalize and obscure forms of violence and hostility in health care workplaces. An analysis of 25 labour arbitrations involving cases of bullying reveals how gender relations is a factor in these grievances and relevant policies in Ontario health care facilities. Reinforced by underlying expectations around women as nurturing and men as aggressive, responses to bullying are found to reflect and reproduce embedded gendered power inequalities in labour. While bullying in the workplace is often treated in policy discussions as an individual and identity-neutral phenomenon, this research provides evidence to the contrary. As a consequence, we must interrogate existing legislation and policies, asking how we can develop approaches that account for, respond to, and mitigate the causes of bullying rooted in unequal power relations, including gendered ones. Author Keywords: gender, health care, labour arbitration, policy, workplace bullying, workplace harassment
Socioloegal Mediation of Rave Sound System Technologies
The central scholarly contribution of this dissertation develops through bringing the theories of Michel Foucault to bear in a sociolegal study of rave culture's criminalization by the United Kingdom's 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. My methodology develops rave as a cultural keyword. This keyword navigates through a quasi-materialist definition of rave as a cultural codification of sound system technologies. I theorize the way in which sociocultural discourse indexes aestheticized representations and the cultural mythologies that rave sound system's technical mediation generate. These ideas trace the facticity of the legal documentation of rave’s criminalization. I inform this sociolegal history by situating Foucault's work on the genealogy of liberalism as a practical toolkit for associating the legal discourse on rave culture with the genealogy of festival. This opens up a dialogue with the work of Mikhail Bakhtin's theorizing of the festival’s ambivalent political climate. Such ideas are useful in documenting rave as an enduring mimicry of the tension between State and civil society. Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 1559 painting, “The Fight Between Carnival and Lent”, captures this tension beautifully. The aptness of reading rave's criminalization in relation to Bruegel’s portrayal of landscape is accomplished by returning to Foucault, who defines liberalism's political technologies in relation to Judaeo-Christian precedents. I explore how these political technologies, pastoral power in particular, are helpful in tracing rave's genealogical relation to the festival's sociotechnical cartography. Author Keywords: Bakhtin, Carnival, Christianity, Festival, Liberalism, Materialism
Role of Policy in Arctic Food (In)Security
Hunger is a significant concern in Canada, and even more so in the North, with 52% of Inuit adults in Arctic regions experiencing some level of food insecurity in 2012. Policy deficiencies are argued to, at the least, be partly responsible for this issue. This qualitative exploratory project aimed to answer the question: What is the role of food-related policy(ies) in household food security? A review and analysis of policy documents and academic literature at three jurisdictional levels, using the case of food insecurity in Nunavik, Québec, was conducted. The study identified 281 policies facilitating and 139 policies acting as barriers to food security. The highest proportion (27%) of facilitators related to economic accessibility of food and the highest proportion of barriers (93%) related to political accessibility of food. Only one previously identified factor influencing household food security in the region had a corresponding policy barrier associated with it. The study suggests that what is considered ‘food policy’ differs significantly between jurisdictions. Many of the same policies that act to facilitate some aspects of food security act as barriers to others. Policy barriers tend to be difficult to identify by their very nature. As a result, policy plays a complicated role in Nunavik food security status, representing a positive influence in some regards and a negative one in others. Author Keywords: Arctic, Food, Food security, Inuit, Nunavik, Policy

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