Articles tagged with: research

• New paper co-authored by Julia Baird: “Fostering ocean empathy through future scenarios”

  Saturday, September 04, 2021 | By Samantha Morris

  A new access paper co-authored by Geography and Tourism Studies Assistant Professor, Dr. Julia Baird, titled “Fostering ocean empathy through future scenarios” was published in People and Nature. This paper is open-access and is available to download here.

  Abstract:

  1. Empathy for nature is considered a prerequisite for sustainable interactions with the biosphere. Yet to date, empirical research on how to stimulate empathy remains scarce.
  2. Here, we investigate whether future scenarios can promote greater empathy for the oceans. Using a pre-post empathy questionnaire, participants (N = 269) were presented with an optimistic or a pessimistic future scenario for the high seas in a virtual reality (VR) or written format.
  3. Results showed that post-test empathy levels were significantly higher than pre-test levels, indicating that future scenarios fostered ocean empathy. We also find that the pessimistic scenario resulted in greater empathy levels compared to the optimistic scenario. Finally, we found no significant difference between the VR and written conditions and found that empathy scores significantly decreased 3 months after the initial intervention.
  4. As one of the first studies to empirically demonstrate the influence of a purposeful intervention to build ocean empathy, this article makes critical contributions to advancing research on future scenarios and offers a novel approach for supporting ocean sustainability.

  Video Abstract: “Fostering ocean empathy through future scenarios”

  Citation:

  Jessica Blythe, Julia Baird, Nathan Bennett, Gillian Dale, Kirsty L. Nash, Gary Pickering, Colette C. C. Wabnitz. (2021). Fostering ocean empathy through future scenarios. People and Nature. Online: https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10253

  Tags: journal article, Julia Baird, oceans, open access, research, survey, Sustainability, water
  Categories: News

• Flight PK404: 32 years after the disappearance of the plane a Canadian researcher relives his narrow escape

  Thursday, August 26, 2021 | By Samantha Morris

  FROM THE HIGH ASIA HERALD | By: Dr. David Butz

  

  On the morning of August 25, 1989, I was walking from the Park Hotel to the Gilgit Airport, feeling happy, excited and satisfied. I had successfully completed a three-month research season in Shimshal village of Gojal, upper Hunza followed by a few days’ relaxations at Karimabad and Gilgit, and was now beginning my journey back home to Canada. Moreover, through a stroke of good fortune (and the influence of well-positioned friends in Gilgit) I had managed to secure a confirmed seat on Flight PK404, travelling from Gilgit to Islamabad (never an easy feat). This was my first chance to make this journey by plane, after nine previous long and uncomfortable trips on the Karakoram Highway by bus, public van, or private vehicle. I was in high spirits.

  As I was walking to the airport with my heavy backpack and other luggage a Danish friend (Micael Junkov) who was working in Gilgit pulled up in a Toyota Hilux pickup truck to enquire where I was going. I told him I was headed for the airport to catch a flight to Islamabad. Micael said I’m driving to Islamabad today. Why not come with me? I replied, “because I have a confirmed booking on this morning’s flight”. Micael looked at the sky and observed, “I don’t think the flight will operate today, because the weather is cloudy. Either come with me now or take your chances”.

  Flights from Gilgit only fly in fair weather, even today, and the road journey takes a full day, so he wasn’t willing to wait to see if the plane would depart with me onboard. Micael was more familiar with flying from Gilgit than I was, so I accepted his invitation and hopped in the truck, thereby unknowingly saving my life. As it turned out, Flight PK404 departed from the airport, lost radio contact nine minutes later, and subsequently disappeared along with its 49 passengers and five crew members. Thirty-two years on, no trace of the plane has since been discovered.

  When I arrived in Islamabad I took a taxi to a cheap hotel in Rawalpindi to relax for a few days before catching my international flight to Canada. I didn’t have access to a radio or TV and didn’t happen to buy an English-language newspaper, so I remained unaware of the plane’s tragic and mysterious disappearance and my own narrow escape. In those days using a PCO (Public Call Office) to make international telephone calls from Pakistan was complicated and time-consuming, so it was fully two days later that I managed to place a call to Canada to confirm my arrival date and time with my partner Nancy. That’s when I learned of the tragedy. Nancy had heard of the plane’s disappearance the day it happened and spent two anxious days wondering if I had been on the flight.

  

  Ghulam Muhammad Baig, popularly known as G.M. Baig. Photo credit: Dr Inam Baig

  Several people we knew were on board, including Ghulam Muhammad Baig, popularly known as G.M. Baig, owner of a bookstore in Gilgit that served as a hub for local intellectuals and a haven for many foreigners travelling through Gilgit in those days.

  I offer my continuing condolences to the families of the passengers and crew, who have still to learn any details of their loved ones’ fate. I often wonder who among the standby passengers was given my seat (no doubt to their delight), thereby inadvertently trading their life for mine. I later learned that several other Pakistani friends also had confirmed seats, but made the same decision as I did to make the trip by road given the cloudy weather and the likelihood that the flight would be cancelled.

  For many years subsequently, Nancy and I avoided flying between Gilgit and Islamabad, preferring the discomfort of public transport by road. In the past decade or so we have flown this route numerous times (it is breathtaking), but always with a heavy dose of trepidation. To date, I have made the journey between Gilgit and Islamabad 40 times, eight times by air and 32 times by road. One of those eight flights was in summer 2010 when much of Pakistan was under water, and the Karakoram Highway was impassable in many places because of torrential rains and flash floods. I was among an assortment of foreigners, VIPs and military personnel who were airlifted from Gilgit in C-130 military cargo planes. Although the stakes were not high for me (it was just a matter of catching my scheduled international flight), this was another exciting flight.

  Heartfelt thanks to Micael Junkov and the hand of fate. Together they allowed me to trade an early death at the age of 28 for a pleasant 14-hour drive down the Karakoram Highway in a private (and air-conditioned) vehicle. Without their intervention, I would have missed a lot.

  

  Dr David Butz is a Professor of Geography and Tourism Studies at Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Studies in Social Justice.

  STORY FROM THE HIGH ASIA HERALD

  Tags: David Butz, flying, geography, Gilgit, graduate studies, Pakistan, reflection piece, research, tourism, travel
  Categories: News

• Social Sciences faculty members recognized for outstanding contributions

  Tuesday, June 22, 2021 | By Samantha Morris

  FROM THE BROCK NEWS | by Amanda Bishop

  

  Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director Hannah Dyer is the recipient of the Faculty of Social Sciences Award for Excellence in Teaching.

  Associate Professor Hannah Dyer in the Department of Child and Youth Studies (CHYS) is the recipient of this year’s Faculty of Social Sciences Award for Excellence in Teaching.

  Dyer, who also serves as the Graduate Program Director for CHYS, says that she felt “honoured and overwhelmed” not only to receive the award, but also to be nominated by her colleagues. She was recognized as part of Brock’s Virtual Spring Convocation on Friday, June 18.

  “I was also immensely grateful when I read the supporting letters that students wrote,” she says. “It reminded of the important ways they contribute to intellectual communities at Brock and truly, make it a wonderful place to teach.”

  Dyer is a critical theorist of childhood with a concentration in art/aesthetics, social conflict, queer theory and psychoanalysis. In 2020, she published The Queer Aesthetics of Childhood: Asymmetries of Innocence and the Cultural Politics of Child Development.

  She first came to Brock in 2017, having previously worked as an Assistant Professor at Carleton University. She says that she polished her classroom skills while teaching at the University of Toronto and Sheridan College as a PhD student.

  “The pairing of these two teaching positions — being an instructor at a college and at a research-intensive university — offered me the opportunity to create curricular offerings that welcome many students into conversations that may otherwise be alienating,” says Dyer.

  She was attracted to Brock because of the CHYS Department’s large size and transdisciplinary approach, as well as the then-newly created PhD program.

  To enhance transdisciplinary thinking for her students, Dyer works hard to include media and cultural production in her courses, using critical analysis of everything from political campaigns to art exhibits to explore social commentary and symbolism.

  “In showing students how to treat film, digital media, music and novels with as much value as other scholarly texts and textbooks, I aim to assist them in making meaning and theory from their everyday experiences and relationships,” says Dyer. “The residue of these lessons is felt months after the course has ended, as is evidenced by emails from students who have read a book or watched a show that has then reminded them of our course and its theoretical foundations.”

  Dyer believes that teaching is an “ethical and urgent task that can usher in new and more just worlds,” and says the experience of transitioning courses to online delivery at the onset of the global pandemic showed just how fluid both teachers and learners need to be.

  “It reminded me that I am a continuous learner myself in a world that is being reshaped by crisis, and in the altered terrains of education that come in its wake,” says Dyer. “My syllabi are often framed by questions I’d like the class to consider while we move through the semester, and they are meant to provoke thought rather than resolution — to remind both teacher and student of the social and political urgencies that drive our critique.”

  As such, Dyer treats her classroom as a “site of reciprocal care” and is diligent about meeting the needs of her students.

  “I am concerned with the care needed to foster a supportive environment for students who are otherwise marginalized, so my assignments and modes of assessment take seriously the needs of students whose communities and subjectivities have historically been mistreated by institutions of higher education,” says Dyer. “My courses are imagined as both events and processes, whereby learning happens for both student and teacher. The teacher is tasked with an ethical duty to demonstrate why learning new things matters for both the student and the teacher.”

  Earlier this year, the Faculty of Social Sciences also awarded its top honours for research, the Distinguished Researcher and Early Career Researcher of the Year.

  Professor Andrea Doucet of the Department of Sociology and the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies was named the Faculty of Social Sciences Distinguished Researcher for 2020. Doucet holds a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Gender, Work and Care and recently began work on a SSHRC Partnership Grant entitled Reimagining Care/Work Policies (2020-2027).

  The Faculty chose to name two Early Career Researchers of the Year for 2020: Assistant Professor Jessica Blythe of the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC), the faculty lead on the Niagara Adapts Innovative Partnership, and Assistant Professor Julia Baird of the Department of Geography and Tourism Studies and the ESRC, who holds a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Human Dimensions of Water Resources and Water Resilience.

  Ingrid Makus, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, says the Faculty’s award winners have all continued to do extraordinary work in spite of the circumstances of this extraordinary year.

  “At a time when we are collectively being moved to reimagine the society around us, these exceptional faculty members have redoubled their efforts to expand and share knowledge around urgent issues,” says Makus. “Hannah Dyer’s creative and conscientious approach to teaching and the significant research contributions of Andrea Doucet, Julia Baird and Jessica Blythe have a clear, positive impact on the world around us. Their ongoing work is a source of great pride for the Faculty, and it is our pleasure to recognize them for their achievements.”

   

  STORY FROM THE BROCK NEWS

  Tags: awards, Faculty of Social Sciences, Julia Baird, recognition, research, Social Sciences
  Categories: News

• Public symposium to share Brock research on mental health

  Tuesday, April 20, 2021 | By Samantha Morris

  FROM THE BROCK NEWS | by Amanda Bishop

  

  Faculty, student and staff presenters from across Brock University will explore various aspects of mental health during a virtual public symposium on Tuesday, April 27.

  Mental health, including during the pandemic, will be discussed by Brock researchers from across the University at a public event next week.

  Perspectives on Mental Health, a free online symposium, takes place Tuesday, April 27 from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m.

  The interdisciplinary event will feature faculty, student and staff presenters from the Departments of Child and Youth Studies, Geography and Tourism Studies, Education, Health Sciences and Nursing, as well as the Student Wellness and Accessibility Centre.

  Researchers will offer their perspectives on a wide array of topics related to mental health, including:

  • experiences of nature for Canadian youth
  • perceptions of weight and bullying among adolescents
  • social and emotional learning in elementary schools
  • an urban mental health crisis at the turn of the 20th century

  Several of the presenters will focus on the various effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth, including:

  • the benefits of dog-walking to relieve pandemic stress in young people
  • perfectionism both before and during the pandemic
  • transitioning from high school to university during the pandemic
  • impacts of youth mental health on families

  Details on the presenters and a full list of presentations with descriptions are available online.

  Perspectives on Mental Health kicks off a new interdisciplinary symposium series hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences. It is intended to create more opportunities for members of the Brock and wider communities to learn about research and activities happening across the University related to various themes.

  Ingrid Makus, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, is eager to welcome visitors to these events, which are intended for a non-expert audience.

  “With this new series, we hope to explore topics from multiple perspectives,” says Makus. “This inaugural event, Perspectives on Mental Health, offers audience members and participants alike a unique opportunity to consider the theme of mental health through a variety of lenses.”

  Everyone is welcome to attend the live event. Registration is required. A link to join via Lifesize will be sent following registration.

  FROM THE BROCK NEWS

  Tags: event, Faculty of Social Sciences, Phillip Mackintosh, research
  Categories: News

• Geography graduate students share their research at the 2021 MNK: GRADconnect Conference

  Tuesday, April 13, 2021 | By Samantha Morris

  Three of our Master of Arts in Geography students shared their research at Brock’s 2021 MNK: GRADconnect Conference this week:

  • Lina Adeetuk “Rural Youth’s Perspectives on the Significance and Impacts of New Roads: The Case of Kaasa- Zogsa Road, Builsa North District, Ghana”
  • Julia Hamill “‘Molida’, that’s Shimshali Food: Modernization, Mobility, Food Talk, and the Constitution of Identity in Shimshal, Pakistan”
  •  Hannah Willms “Airbnb in the age of a housing crisis: A case study of housing affordability and vacation rental regulations in Niagara Falls, ON”

  Lina, Julia and Hannah did a fantastic job presenting at this virtual conference. We look forward to seeing their completed research in the coming months.

  Tags: graduate studies, Hannah Willms, Julia Hamill, Lina Adeetuk, MA Geography, research, Student Research
  Categories: News

• MA in Geography student receives 2020 Graduate Student Research Award

  Friday, February 19, 2021 | By Samantha Morris

  The Department of Geography and Tourism Studies is pleased to congratulate Geography Master of Arts student, Rebekah Casey (BA Tourism and Environment ’19), who was recently awarded a Faculty of Social Sciences Master of Arts Student Research Award for her research, tentatively titled “There’s No Place Like (Rural) Home: Why People Choose Rural Despite Decline.” Congratulations also to Rebekah’s MA supervisor, Dr. Christopher Fullerton.

  Tags: alumni, awards, Chris Fullerton, geography, graduate studies, MA Geography, Rebekah Casey, research, student, Student Research
  Categories: News

• MA in Geography alumna receives 2020 Best Graduate Thesis Award

  Friday, February 19, 2021 | By Samantha Morris

  The Department of Geography and Tourism Studies is pleased to congratulate Geography MA alumna, Katelyn Pierce (’20), who was recently awarded the 2020 Faculty of Social Sciences Best Graduate MA Thesis Award for her thesis titled “Detached from Our Bodies: Representing Women‘s Mental Health and Well-being with Graphic Memoirs.” Congratulations also to Katelyn’s MA supervisor, Dr. Ebru Ustandag.

  Tags: awards, Ebru Ustundag, Faculty of Social Sciences, graduate studies, Katelyn Pierce, MA Geography, research, thesis
  Categories: News

• New book examines human rights issues in tourism

  Friday, February 19, 2021 | By Samantha Morris

  FROM THE BROCK NEWS | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2021 | by Amanda Bishop

  

  Atsuko Hashimoto, Associate Professor in Brock’s Department of Geography and Tourism Studies, has co-authored a book on tourism and human rights.

  After almost a year of travel restrictions and stay-at-home mandates, many Canadians are looking toward a future when they might visit distant locales once again.

  Atsuko Hashimoto, Associate Professor in Brock’s Department of Geography and Tourism Studies, hopes that before hopping on a plane, people might first consider how travel may impinge on the rights of others.

  To help readers understand the implications of tourism across a range of topics related to human rights, Hashimoto published Human Rights Issues in Tourismat the end of December, following a historical year for both the tourism industry and human rights worldwide.

  “When we started writing this book, no one could have foreseen all the changes that 2020 brought,” says Hashimoto. “We have seen many pro-democracy demonstrations and the rise of rights activism around the world, the number of asylum seekers increasing exponentially and a global pandemic that has, for the most part, stopped non-essential travel, or ‘taking a holiday,’ resulting in many people’s rights to work being severely compromised.”

  

  Human Rights Issues in Tourism is part of Routledge’s Tourism, Environment and Development Series.

  Co-authored with colleagues Elif Härkönen of Linkoping University in Sweden and Brock Political Science alumnus Edward Nkyi (MA ’11), the book covers a background of human rights issues related to tourism, from sustainable development goals to politics, before taking deeper dives into specific issues such as human security, displacement, discrimination, privacy, free movement, labour conditions, sex tourism, the environment and Indigenous rights.

  “I like the idea that tourism is a window to what is happening in society,” says Hashimoto. “Readers may be surprised to realize how our own behaviours are, without us noticing, hurting other people.”

  Hashimoto, whose research has long focused on the empowerment of women in rural communities and other disadvantaged groups, says it’s important to acknowledge the part tourists may play in the relationships that exist between globalization, tourism and human rights.

  “Can you imagine as an international tourist that the resort hotel you are staying in used to be a local fishing village?” she says. “The villagers were removed from the area so that the hotel could be built and local access to the beach is now denied. Almost everything in the resort hotel is imported from other countries, so local suppliers benefit very little — even the traditional Indigenous souvenirs sold in the hotel have been mass produced in another country and imported.”

  Hashimoto encourages potential tourists to think of any trip they plan as a visit to someone else’s home, determining if and how their visit will benefit local people and how their mode of transportation may contribute to climate change, another serious human rights issue examined in the book.

  “You are taking a vacation for relaxation and fun, but your enjoyment should not be a burden to others,” Hashimoto says.

  STORY FROM THE BROCK NEWS

  Tags: Atsuko Hashimoto, book, Faculty, human rights, research, tourism, Tourism and Environment
  Categories: News

• David Brown presents his new collaborative research project with Niagara Falls Museum and Library

  Thursday, February 04, 2021 | By Samantha Morris

  

  Dr. Dave Brown (top left) joined researchers across Brock University’s Faculty of Social Sciences for a virtual symposium.

  Dr. Dave Brown joined researchers across Brock University’s Faculty of Social Sciences on February 4th, 2021 for a virtual symposium where he shared about his research project, “Collaborative research proposal with Niagara Falls Museum and Library: Geolocation and Interpretation of Digital Historical and Heritage Assets in Niagara”. This project was one of many funded by the Special COVID-19-Related Dean’s Discretionary Fund.

  In spring, 2020, as the disruptive potential of the pandemic became clear, the Dean’s Office sought to support ongoing and innovative initiatives by members of the Faculty of Social Sciences. As activities across FOSS were reimagined and realigned to comply with the new COVID-19 context, the Special COVID-19-Related Dean’s Discretionary Fund was created. The online symposium showcased and discussed several of the projects that were supported through this fund, including Dr. Brown’s research.

  Tags: David Brown, Faculty of Social Sciences, FOSS, funding, heritage, library, museum, Niagara Falls, research, tourism
  Categories: News

• New book chapter explores the historical micro-geography of liberal urbanism in Toronto’s Brunswick Avenue neighbourhood

  Monday, January 11, 2021 | By Samantha Morris

  Dr. Phillip Mackintosh has published a new chapter in the book Micro-Geographies of the City, 1750-1900 titled “Liberalism underfoot: A micro-geography of street paving and social dissolution – Brunswick Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, 1898–99”.

  This chapter defines liberal urbanism in the context of Toronto’s paving problem and the universally unpopular local improvements by-law, devised to rehabilitate and ultimately capitalise the modern city. It focuses on the particular case of Brunswick Avenue and how Brunswickers’ perturbations of choice dismantled community good will. The four blocks of Brunswick Avenue between College and Bloor underwent two phases of pavement installation from 1880 to 1900. The first stretch, from College to Ulster, laid a cedar block roadway in 1882, which had an expiry date of 1892. Property owners tolerated their spent cedar roadway for four years and then purchased an asphalt surface in 1896, built by contractor David Chalmers in October 1896. Curiously given the snooty reputation of the homeowners in that section of Brunswick the same neighbourhood wanted only a plank sidewalk on the west side of their new asphalt pavement despite the city engineer recommending brick.

  Read the chapter and full book here.

  Citation:

  Phillip Gordon Mackintosh (2021) Liberalism Underfoot: Paving and Social Paradox—Brunswick Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, 1898. In Alida Clemente, Jon Stobbart & Dag Lindstrom eds, Micro-Geographies of the City, 1750-1900. Research in Historical Geography Series, London: Routledge.

  Tags: book, book chapter, geography, historical geography, Human Geography, Phillip Mackintosh, research, Toronto
  Categories: News