Graduate Theses & Dissertations

Pages

Know*ledge Constellations and Re*constellating
The purpose of this study was to explore the educational implications of a clearer understanding of the practice of using multiple, including Indigenous, knowledges when finding solutions to place-based environmental issues. The impetus for my research came from a growing sense of urgency to address environmental issues within both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Some have argued that communities will be most successful in understanding and resolving such issues if ways can be found to work with different knowledges. However, the practice of bringing together multiple knowledges is not yet consistently effective. At the same time, there is a recognised need for individuals who are able to use different knowledges to address urgent environmental concerns. Unfortunately, there is minimal programming advice based on the perspective of individual practitioners available to guide post-secondary institutions wishing to meet this need. This lead to my first two research questions: What are the key principles and concepts in a narrative describing how individual practitioners think about using knowledges when finding solutions to place-based environmental issues? and What are the implications of this understanding for teaching and learning, especially in post-secondary Indigenous-and-Environmental education? In my project, I used a relational research approach that led to a third question: How is a complexity-inspired interpretive approach suitable for exploring these questions? I had coherent conversations with sixteen practitioners who were deliberately using multiple, including Indigenous, knowledges to find solutions to place-based environmental issues. Practitioners and I co-created a Know*ledge Constellation Story to describe how they think about using knowledges in their work. In a group coherent conversation with five educators who were familiar with Indigenous-and-Environmental education, we explored the educational implications of this story. Together, we finalised a Teaching-Learning Story of Re*constellating and identified ways to prepare students to practice re*constellating, including teaching strategies and program considerations. The Know*ledge Constellation Story and the Teaching-Learning Story of Re*constellating will inform post-secondary Indigenous-and-Environmental education. Graduates from such programs will be better prepared to engage with communities to address environmental concerns, meet legislative and policy requirements, and support research efforts that would benefit from a clearer understanding of the practice of re*constellating. Author Keywords: Complexity-Inspired Interpretive Approach, Conditions of Emergence, Indigenous-and-Environmental Education, Know*ledge Constellations, Principles of Re*constellating, Teaching and Learning
Mythopoeia Sylvatica
Since British colonization of North America and the beginning of Anglo-speaking Euro-Canada and the United States, myth-making or representations of the forests have witnessed degradation and loss of old-growth forest ecosystems or intact sylvan landscapes. Canadian and American versions of the story of the North American Forests shared the same trajectory: forests as ‘wasted-land’ or the sylvan wilderness (terra nullius) divided into properties and cleared to “improve” the land for settlement/agriculture, forests as storehouses for timber and imperial expansion, forest landscapes and specific forest trees as identity politics and sources of industrial and economic power. While forests are recognized according to various stakeholders’ values today, what is commonly accepted as a forest varies widely. The meaning given to “forest” determines related terms and concepts, such as “sustainable forestry” and “reforestation.” This thesis addresses the issue of social-bioecological degradation, loss, and dis(re)membering of old-growth forests and problematizes traditional Western relationships with old wildwoods shaped by notions of space, politics, and economy. In the forest topos, the core question becomes which forest(s) are being imagined, represented, and remembered? Whose environmental imagination is shaping the landscape? As a critical topographical exploration of the North American forests through six witness trees, this thesis demonstrates how the meanings imbued in trees and wild woods come to determine the fate of the forests. It reveals how colonial values and trends persist in our societies still, and calls for an ethical social-ecological reimagining of the forests through traditions of ethical storytelling and environmental witnessing. Author Keywords: critical topography, environmental generational amnesia, environmental witnessing, forests, social-ecological systems, witness trees
the sex killer drives a panel pin into his ear-hole
I have two goals. One, to offer new insights into Vienna Actionism (VA) and their notorious performances, through Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s notion of the body without organs (BwO); and two, not simply to provide descriptions of the Vienna Actionists’ performances, but also to write what I am calling a thesis without organs. Documents from the Vienna Actionists, specifically Muehl’s Leda and the Swan (1964), Brus’ Vienna Walk (1965) and Nitsch’s O.M. Theatre (1960-present), become documents without organs; they are documents that do not simply document original performances, but re-perform original performances while acting as performances themselves. Challenging the notion of live performance as fundamentally separate from its documentation (as performance theorist Peggy Phelan argues) through what Philip Auslander calls the document’s performativity and what Christopher Bedford calls a viral ontology of performance, my thesis becomes a performance in and of itself. A thesis without organs. Keywords: performance, performativity, viral ontology of performance, body without organs, rhizome, dirt, metaphor, metonymy, Vienna Actionism, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Peggy Phelan, Philip Auslander, Christopher Bedford, Mary Douglas. Author Keywords: Body without Organs, Performance, Performativity, Vienna Actionism
Effects of Ideological Conformity on Foreign Policymaking
During the 1970s, ideological divisions caused by divergent interpretations of the American failure in Vietnam permeated the world of foreign policymaking. This led to a concern among the architects of the Reagan administration that foreign policymaking had become incoherent. They attempted to mitigate the effects of this disharmony by re-establishing a workable degree of ideological conformity within the foreign policy bureaucracy. This thesis focuses on the strategy used to improve ideological conformity and its effect on the foreign policy bureaucracy’s ability to produce well informed policy. Using case studies of two of Reagan’s ambassadors to Central America, it argues that Reagan’s strategy created a foreign policy bureaucracy that manufactured uninformed policy. The influence granted to officials who based their recommendations on regional expertise was severely curtailed. This shift produced a subsequent change in diplomatic practice, as foreign service officers adapted to the demand for allegiance to the president’s agenda. Author Keywords: American Foreign Policy, Central America, Ronald Reagan
Finding New Roads Towards Peace
This thesis provides an analysis of the Carnegie Commission’s report on the causes and consequences of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). Shortly after the closing of hostilities, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace appointed an international Commission of Inquiry to collect evidence of atrocities from the sites of war. The thesis analyzes the arguments expressed in the Commission’s report as an example of European and American attitudes towards the Balkans. The concept of Balkanism provides a theoretical framework according to which the Commissioners’ views are contextualized within the existing stereotypes of the region. Based on the correspondence available in the archives of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the memoirs and biographies of the various members of the Commission, and the information published in periodicals, this work also examines the justifications for the appointment of the Commission, the circumstances related to the investigation of atrocities and the reaction of Balkan governments to the report. Keywords: Carnegie Report, Carnegie Commission, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Balkan Wars, Balkanism. Author Keywords: Balkanism, Balkans, Balkan Wars, Carnegie Commission, Carnegie Endowment, Carnegie Report
Life in the Woods
The North American conservation movement and modern conservation model was created in part because of the exploitative commercial hunting industry that caused the collapse of species such as the bison and auk in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These historical actions continue to shape views today and the public perception of hunting can often be negative. This thesis engaged with this question of social acceptability by conducting action research to determine hunters’ motivations and how these might affect the way hunting is perceived. As part of this action research, I conducted nine in-depth interviews, a survey of 177 hunters, and a focus group to determine what the dominant motivations were for the hunters studied. I then suggest how the motivations discovered through the focus group, interviews, and survey can work towards the current and future social, economic, cultural, and environmental sustainability of hunting in Ontario. Author Keywords: Ethics, Hunting, Motivations, Ontario, Social Acceptance, Sustainability
Building wind energy landscapes
This thesis project explores landowner experiences of wind energy development through an inductive qualitative case study in Huron County, Ontario. The research included in-depth interviews with landowners focused on landscape and community change, participant observation of Environmental Review Tribunals (ERT), the gathering of participant photos, as well as relevant government and industry documents and media reports. The iterative data gathering and analysis were supported by my observations and reflections while living in affected communities and talking to participants. The study demonstrates how the health debate over wind can inform divisions between neighbours, that local politics have been given a token role as a place for resistance to wind energy development that fails to meaningfully influence projects, and that appeals are legalistic and do not provide an outlet, or place for appellants to be heard. Furthermore, the felt experience of tight knit and fragile communities were disrupted through land leases, as well as changes to the landscape. These disruptions impacted connections to, and associations with place, and are shown to have had negative emotional and physical impacts on some individuals. Supporters of wind development tied their mostly positive views of landscape change to a sense of disruption generally throughout the community. Insights from the research lead to a set of suggested actions that might improve the current situation at the levels of provincial policy, planning, local governance and industry practice. Keywords: wind energy policy, planning, landscape, Ontario, rural communities Author Keywords: Affect, landscape, Ontario, planning, Rural communities, Wind energy policy
Model for the Differential Susceptibility of Strontium Titanate
The appearance of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in oxide interfaces between strontium titanate (STO) and other materials has become a major area of study. The behaviour of the 2DEG in STO is not well understood in part because the dielectric properties of STO are not well characterized. The differential susceptibility has a major impact on the electric fields within strontium titanate, and therefore to understand the 2DEG a better understanding of the susceptibility is needed. An expression for the soft mode phonon frequency of bulk strontium titanate is derived and used to model the susceptibility as a function of spatially homogeneous electric field, temperature and wavevector. This model is used to discuss the effect of spatially inhomogeneous electric fields and the local vs. nonlocal nature of the susceptibility. The critical exponents and the free energy are determined and discussed. Author Keywords: critical exponents, differential susceptibility, quantum paraelectric, strontium titanate
Social Communicative Factors as Predictors of Symptom Severity in Autism Spectrum Disorders
Early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), while providing many benefits, presents challenges to clinicians such as predicting the stability of symptoms. Accurately predicting symptom severity allows clinicians to confidently diagnose and assign the most appropriate treatment. Little research exists to date to predict symptom severity in children with ASD who have not been exposed to treatment. The present file review examined prelinguistic skills as predictors of symptom severity in a group of young children (age: 18 – 64 months) with ASD (n = 199) who had not been exposed to significant levels of treatment. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that of the two core diagnostic features (social communicative deficits and restricted repetitive behaviours), social communicative skills best predicted symptom severity. Furthermore, social communicative gestures predicted symptom severity after age, adaptive behaviour, restricted repetitive behaviours, and functional gestures had been accounted for. Author Keywords: autism, gestures, predictors, prelinguistic, social communicative, symptom severity
Cognitive and Affective Theory of Mind in Children and Young Adolescents
Recently, a distinction has been made between cognitive theory of mind, the ability to make inferences about other's beliefs and thoughts, and affective theory of mind, the ability to make inferences about other's emotional states. The purpose of this study is to determine if the distinction between cognitive and affective theory of mind is developmentally appropriate and whether the relation between language and theory of mind is maintained when cognitive and affective theory of mind are examined separately. The sample consisted of 20 children aged 6 to 9 years, and 27 children aged 11 to 15 years. Results showed that the older group outperformed the younger group on both cognitive and affective theory of mind, and that different aspects of language were related to each type of theory of mind. This suggests the distinction between cognitive and affective theory of mind may in fact be valid in this age range. Author Keywords: Affective Theory of Mind, Cognitive Theory of Mind, Development, Language
Role of Consumption in Canada’s Economic Sustainability
This thesis addresses the interconnectedness of environmental sustainability and economic sustainability. There is evidence from the Canadian experience that market economies are extremely dependent upon consumption - the most significant factor in determining the overall level of economic activity and economic growth. Therefore, from this perspective, several periods of declining consumption would create a ‘vicious cycle’ [Kaldor, 1967] of economic decline that would be politically unsustainable. The analysis here shows that income inequality drives changes in debt-fueled consumption, and consequently, debt influences consumption. The role of income inequality as a mediating channel of sustainability via the borrowing/lending model presents evidence that ‘conventional’ debt servicing behaviour in the macro-economy can support steady-state economic growth that is, in economic terms, sustainable. Solving the conflict between the environment and the economy lies in private and public investments in new technologies and, most importantly, new social institutions that facilitate economic, political, and environmental, sustainability. Author Keywords: Consumption, Economic Growth, Household Debt, Income Inequality, Sustainability
Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Rise of State Schooling in British Columbia, 1849-1900
This dissertation examines the historical relationship between settler colonialism, capitalism, and the rise of state schooling in what is now known as British Columbia between 1849 and 1900. It aims to “unsettle” conventional views of Canadian schooling history by bringing accounts of Indigenous and non-Indigenous education into one analytical frame, and it shows how the state used different forms of schooling for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous children—company, common, public, mission, day, boarding, and industrial schools—to assist colonial-capitalist social formation in the Pacific Northwest. In combining interdisciplinary insights from Indigenous studies, historical materialism, political economy, and critical pedagogy, the dissertation highlights the ways in which state-supported schooling facilitated capitalist accumulation by colonial dispossession. The central argument of the dissertation is that between 1849 and 1900, colonial, provincial, and federal governments strategically took on greater responsibility for schooling as a way of legitimizing the state and supporting the emergence of a capitalist settler society. Author Keywords: Capitalism, Education, Indian Residential Schools, Indigenous Peoples, Settler Colonialism, Violence

Pages

Search Our Digital Collections

Query

Enabled Filters

  • (-) ≠ English (Public Texts)
  • (-) ≠ Cultural Studies
  • (-) ≠ Environmental and Life Sciences

Filter Results

Date

1974 - 2024
(decades)
Specify date range: Show
Format: 2024/03/28