Author: convergencejournal

sheryl-ann simpson

(((Sheryl-Ann is a student of city and regional planning who mostly researches questions of urban inequality and community organizing and activism. She also makes and organizes weird little performances and interventions that celebrate the everyday. This zine is one of those rare moments where the two get to come together.)))

This zine was presented during the Art in Action exhibition as part of Study in Action 2012, Montreal. To view more of the series go to http://flic.kr/ps/QTUB8

Sooooo this zine sort of came out of a blog post I wrote for a job I don’t have anymore, and that never actually got posted at least in part because my old boss was… well let’s say ‘incompetent,’ but at any rate the post was complaining about Chris Rock’s movie Good Hair, and I include it below, but basically the point is the zine has almost nothing to do with hair, hope you’re not too disappointed.

Disclaimer, I’m going to to that thing I hate where you complain about a movie before you’ve seen it, but here goes: I’m just not very excited about Chris Rock’s Good Hair.

To be honest I’m a bit bored of movies made by men about women, but more importantly what’s up with the media continuing to obsess over Black women’s bodies while they completely ignore our lives. Sometimes it’s pretty benign and we just miss out on an interesting conversation. One example that Tokumba Bodunde and Courntey Young pointed out during their session at WAM! 2009 was the controversy surrounding Michelle Obama’s official portrait. So much time was spent talking about her arms that no one seemed to have time to ask about the choice to have Thomas Jefferson staring down at her in the background.

There are also more intrusive conversations about Black women’s bodies that end up impacting lives in more consequential ways, for example providing the justifications behind welfare laws that aim to control everything from what women eat to who they do, do not sleep with and marry, and their choices to have or not have children.

The story behind Good Hair is that Chris Rock’s daughter came home one day wanting to know why she didn’t have ‘good hair’, and I understand it’s satire, but I’m just not sure how a movie where her dad warns a young woman in India that ‘if she ever sees a Black woman she should run’ or risk having her hair stolen is really going to improve his daughter’s choices as she grows up.

And frankly I’m not sure if it does more good than harm to introduce another opportunity for people to sit around and talk about women, women of colour and Black women’s bodies. I can’t help but think it would be be better if white men* and others, would spend their time learning to understand the history of Black women as workers, thinkers, caregivers, artists … rather than sorting out the difference between cornrows and weaves.

So here’s a chance. Enjoy!!

*this whole tirade was pretty much just a reaction to a pre-review by Channing Kennedy at RaceWire that you can read at [http://colorlines.com/archives/2009/08/chris_rocks_good_hair_could_se.html] and then maybe join me in a big what now?!

angela davis

Angela exists in an in-between world of being a public figure (read famous), an amazingly well-respected academic and revolutionary turned continued and committed activist. Former Black Panther caught up in the arrests and FBI searches of 1970, Angela grew up in the same Birmingham community as Condoleezza Rice, but obviously went in a very different direction. A prof. at Santa Cruz and strong supporter of the prison abolition organization Critical Resistance, she’s basically just amazing, and you should know about her!!

“It is both humiliating and humbling to discover that a single generation after the events that constituted me as a public personality, I am remembered as a hairdo.”

trey anthony

OK this one was hard, because this isn’t really a drawing of Trey, but of the character Joy who Trey created for her award winning play and then TV series: ‘Da Kink in My Hair’. I’ve never seen the play, but the TV show is a deeply funny show ostensibly about a Jamaican hair dressing shop in Toronto, but it’s really about everything you don’t talk about in the West Indian community: mental health, abuse, queer folks, inter-raced families and relationships, and everything you do: food, gossip and of course which island in the best island. Trey credits coming out to her family as a huge part of writing the play and lives her everyday life with thin tight dreads. Joy is boy-mad and wears a different bright, elaborate wig everyday!

Also, every Black actress/actor, singer, dancer, spoken word artist etc in all of Canada seems to make an appearance on the show.

ma rainey

Ma Rainey was born in Columbus Georgia in 1886, the perfect moment to bring the world the blues before it was even the blues. In 1904 Gertrude Pridett married Will “Pa” Rainey and soon after she started a career of vaudeville and recording that saw her travel extensively around the south and the northeast. She drew in huge crowds (both Black and white even in the south) as a performer, and as a recording artist she worked with then young artists such as Bessie Smith, and T Bone Walker.

One of her hits “Sissy Blues”, is a blues about having her man stolen by a sissy who she just can’t compete with. Sissy’s not an insult here, just a description of her no doubt fabulous male competition. And a friend pointed out that it’s a pretty good example of just how everyday queer culture was in African American life back in the day.

In the 1930s her career began to slow down as talking pictures killed off vaudeville. She moved back to Georgia in 1935 and passed away in 1939, and sad-but-true, in spite of her many successes her death certificate registered her occupation as housekeeper. But we all know she was the mother of the blues – who felt that the blues “were expressive of the heart of the south, and the sad hearted people who toiled from sun-up to sundown.”

sylvia hamilton

Growing up in Toronto or Montreal, it might be easy to believe that Black Canada started in the 1970s with West Indian, and African immigrants. Growing up in the prairies it’s a bit harder to believe that, but in Nova Soctia it’s absolutely impossible to labour under this misconception.

The history of Black Nova Scotia is a rich one, with freed Canadian slaves, as well as Loyalists, escaping slaves and refugees from the US, and Sylvia Hamilton’s films tell the story of where their decedents are today. Her films give you the opportunity to eavesdrop on some of the best conversations, from her early shorts about Black mums and daughters, to her later films about all-Black schools in Nova Scotia. She’s the kind of filmmaker who manages to get out of the way, and let people speak about their own experiences and histories in their own words.

Take a look for yourself at the the National Film Board site (which is just generally so amazing!) 
www.nfb.ca/explore-all-directors/sylvia-hamilton

Also look her up on wikipedia, which you couldn’t do a few months ago
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Hamiton

abc poster series
al blair

These posters were presented during the Art in Action exhibition as part of Study in Action 2012, Montreal. To view the series online, go to http://www.abcposters.wordpress.com

Inspired by Justseeds’ fantastic People’s History posters, this poster series pays tribute to Montreal’s present.

Feeling ill-equipped as a relative newcomer to Montreal from small-town Quebec, without sufficient time to research adequately, I found it difficult to represent moments of Montreal’s past or history in ink. However, depicting aspects of its present, many of which I have become personally interested and invested in seems more of a tangible task.

These posters are anchored in the present moment- often referring to events that occured within the past three years. They are contemporary illustrations of struggles that are rooted in Montreal’s past, and will soon become part of Montreal’s people’s history.

al blair

(((Al is a graphic designer, artist, and recent graduate of McGill University. She is particularly interested in the study of space and how it affects mental health.)))

introduction
Cities are spaces of battle. For years, the militarization of urban landscapes has made city streets, workplaces, schools, and homes into spaces of war. In these landscapes, urban residents are often called upon as combatants, and, unfortunately, sometimes number among the list of casualties. Indeed, processes of militarization have caused long lasting physical and psychological impacts on urban populations—especially on marginalized communities. In this essay I want to explore processes of militarization and talk about trauma as disability. I propose that urban struggles for demilitarization and resistance against violent structures and technologies of war require a critical disability analysis that acknowledges the realities of trauma, and makes space for taking care of both individuals and communities. This analysis will permit a clear confrontation of (dis)ableism within struggles of resistance against hegemonic systems of power, and allow for radical forms of accessibility within these struggles and political movements.

part 1: disability and processes of urban militarization
I use the term “militarization” to at once refer to and root this essay in a sociological and geographical study of war. Militarization takes places as a discursive process—one that involves the reproduction of norms and technologies that perpetuate cycles of violence and harm within urban communities (1). As mentioned in the introduction, a significant aspect of militarization is the way in which urban residents are looked at and acted upon within a militarized landscape. Urban residents are seen as potential enemies to the state. They can be called upon as combatants at any time. Consequently, they are also likely to suffer the violences of injury and trauma, and be counted among the casualties of urban battlespaces.

The notion of “battlespace” supposes “a boundless and unending process of militarization where everything becomes a site of permanent war” (2). Using this framework, I will explore how militarization processes violently disable urban communities. In this paper, I use the term “disabling” to refer to the processes through which environments disable bodies. Here I am referring to how these bodies experience environments in a way that does not enable them to live the fulfilling, liberatory lives they seek to experience. Disability at once interprets and disciplines bodily variations, determines a relationship between individual bodies and their environments, and prescribes a set of norms and practices that produce both the able-bodied and the disabled as two distinct, hierarchized categories (3). It is an extremely broad category that encompasses a multitude of lived experiences and identities that cannot and should not be reduced or simplified. In this paper, I do not claim to extrapolate knowledge across all experiences of disability, but rather seek to specifically study the relationship between militarization and disabling processes in an urban context.

1.1 structural militarization, gentrification and processes of exclusion
The structural transformation of city space is perhaps the most tangible way in which militarization is established. When historians and geographers attempt to locate the beginnings of urban militarization, they often refer to the colonial reshaping of the cities of Algiers and Constantine in Algeria during the late 19th century (4). In order to facilitate the control and colonization of these cities, the commanding general at the time, Robert Bugeaud, ordered the systematic annihilation of entire neighbourhoods so as to replace the windy, narrow streetscapes with European-style architectures, wide avenues, and grid-like street systems. The latter were designed to enable colonial troops and policing forces to easily access the city core in order to crush insurgencies (4). Not unlike present-day gentrification strategies of spatial reclamation, transformation, and exclusion, these tactics of militaristic destruction and reconstruction formed a large part of the colonial war effort. They facilitated the control of indigenous, urban populations.

The militarization of urban environments is an inherently disabling process. Highly militaristic spatial monitoring and infrastructure inhibit bodies from gaining free and liberatory access (5) to urban space. To develop this point further let us consider, as mentioned above, the similarity between urban military colonization strategies of the 19th century and modern-day militaristic gentrification processes. The simultaneous structural and economic cleansing that takes place through gentrification systematically pushes away marginalized communities from the city-center—making the city inherently less accessible to non-normative, unwanted, or undesirable bodies. Through gentrification, individuals, families, and even entire communities are forced out of their neighbourhoods. Through gentrification, they are barred from the very spaces of social and cultural production, of sociality, wherein their own identities were formed. This represents an erasure of people—on both a physical and a psychosocial level—from public, urban space. Erasure through non-access is an extremely disabling process.

1.2 technological militarization and the normalization of violence
A second form of militarization occurs through technological input. At their root, military technologies monitor and identify bodies, as a means of controlling potential security threats (6) and maintaining state power (1). Today, urban technologies of militarization include satellites, surveillance cameras, militarized police or “riot” squads, police cavalries, aviation surveillance, chemical weapons such as tear gas and pepper spray, biometrics and facial recognition technologies—all of which direct the colonizing gaze inwards, towards urban residents (7). In order to focus on the insidiousness of militarization in urban life, I will turn to examining less obvious technologies of war making. Among many other technological advances, cellphones and the Internet were initially developed as military tools (8). It is through the study of these superficially apolitical technologies that I want to explore the advent of a “new” technological militarization within urban spaces, and how (dis)ableism is perpetuated. “New military urbanism,” as described by geographer Stephen Graham, is the usurpation of normalized systems of consumption and mobility – such as streets, cars, trains, airplanes, schools, hospitals, borders, shopping malls, cell phones, or Internet systems – for the purposes of militarized control (1). For instance, state-sanctioned policing efforts can use technologies of communication such as cellphones or email accounts—integrated technologies upon which urban populations have become dependent for the smooth functioning of political and social economies as well as for immediate communication and social connection—to tap into data and information about bodies, movements, actions, and ideas (1).

The process through which these technologies become normalized is similar to the way in which inaccessibility becomes justified. Normalized technologies are those that become embedded in urban space through constant discursive processes of justification. Drawing on the work of critical disability scholar Tanya Titchkosky, I would argue that military technologies rely on a “dis-education of the sensorium” (9) of urban populations. The sensorium of urban populations has been trained to “sense and make sensible the legitimate participants [in urban society] with their legitimated “normal” accommodation expenses”—at the expense of non-normative or subversive bodies that confront the question of access on a very regular basis (9). To illustrate the above point, I offer the example of security cameras in public spaces. At present, building designs are created with camera networks in mind. Employees may even request that cameras be installed in their work spaces for their own safety. Despite these justifying narratives (9), cameras still present a deep threat to many communities in an urban setting. Be they people without immigration status, already-criminalized youth in schools, homeless people, or politicized individuals who employ subversive tactics of resistance against oppressive systems of power—the safety of these communities is threatened by the proliferation of security cameras and the constant gaze of the police state. Here, the notions of “safety” deployed by those who are deemed to have “legitimate accommodation expenses” rely on the criminalization of non-normative and potentially threatening and/or disruptive bodies. These bodies are thus “included” in security justification narratives as “excludable types” (9). That is, these communities are both erased from narratives of public security and included within these discourses as threats to security. Theirs is an “absent presence” (9)— and indication of the relationship between the “dis-education of the sensorium” (9), and the expulsion and erasure of non-normative bodies.

part 2: radical accessibility and communities of support in contexts of war
In urban battlespaces, bodies are constantly watched, vilified, controlled and repressed. Further, as communities have to negotiate through disability, infiltration, internalized violence and self-policing, the work of resistance becomes an increasingly difficult task. In this section I intend to address some of the ways demilitarization struggles can be informed by a critical disability work, and vice versa.

2.1 radical accessibility within battlespaces
A.J. Withers has proposed the notion of radical access: “real and meaningful inclusion of all people, including disabled people” (5). But what does it mean to think about radical access in a context of war? How can we make battlespaces more accessible? Critical disability analysis asks who is missing from struggles of demilitarization. Who is not present in organizing circles, meetings, and social spaces? Who is not able to conform to crisis-based work ethics that lead towards burnout, stress and anxiety? Who is not included in discussions of warfare strategies and resistance? Bodies that cannot access spaces of resistance are those that remain marginalized and (re)victimized. Inaccessibility, in this case, is unacceptable.

For all bodies to be included there is a need to acknowledge disability at all times in anti-violence movements. Instead of perpetuating narratives of justification for the absence of disabled bodies (i.e. “We regret to say that the venue of this queer dance party is inaccessible to wheelchair users”), communities can sharpen their analyses and shape priorities accordingly. Paired with these discussions is a need for radical networks of support, especially given the traumatic nature of anti-violence struggles. Failure to recognize the immediacy of mental health needs in crisis situations, such as mass arrests, deportations or expropriations, views these situations from an ableist lens. This, unfortunately, is seen time and time again. To address this issue, there is a need to incorporate discussions of radical support—both for individuals and for communities as a whole—into imaginations of radical accessibility and demilitarization. The creation of networks of support and anti-ableist, radically accessible spaces should be an integral part of anti-violence and demilitarization struggles.

conclusion
Though cities are violent battlespaces, there is the potential to create spaces in which and from which demilitarization can take place. For cycles and technologies of violence to be confronted, however, there is a need to understand the ways in which they are normalized and perpetuated. In this essay I explored the structural and technological ways in which militarization disables individuals and communities. I presented the urban process of gentrification as an example of how marginalized and politicized populations get attacked and uprooted from spaces of kinship, support, resistance, and survival. Living through and dealing with the violence of exclusion can be an extremely traumatizing and disabling experience—one that requires further conversations about radical accessibility. Demilitarization is about more than changing infrastructures, taking down cameras and keeping police outside of neighbourhoods; it is also about how we think of bodies, how we support each other, how we frame demands and do our work. In asking “who is missing?” disability analysis interrupts normative processes of violent exclusion—even within communities of resistance.

references

1. Catherine Lutz, quoted in Henry A. Giroux, “The Terror of Neoliberalism: Rethinking the Significance of Cultural Politics,” College Literature 32 (2005): 1-19.

2. Graham, Stephen. “Cities as Battlespace: The New Military Urbanism.” City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 13 (2009): 383-402.

3. Garland-Thomson, Rosemary, “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory,” Gendering Disability ed. B.G. Smith (London: Rutgers UP, 2004), 73-103.

4. Graham, Stephen. Cities, war and terrorism: towards an urban geopolitics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

5. Withers, A. J. Comment on Radical Access. If I Can’t Dance Is It Still my Revolution? http://still.my.revolution.tao.ca/access

6. Graham, Stephen. “Postmortem City: Towards an Urban Geopolitics.” City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 8 (2004): 165-188.

7. Williams, Kristian. Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America. Cambridge: South End Press, 2007.

8. Leiner, Barry M. et al. “A Brief History of the Internet.” Cornell University Library Site: Network and Internet Architecture Database. January 23, 1999. Accessed December 4, 2011. http://arxiv.org/html/cs/9901011v1

9. Titchkosky, Tanya. “To Pee or not to Pee?: Ordinary Talk about Extraordinary Exclusions in a University Environment.” Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers Canadiens de Sociologie. 33 (2008), 37-60.

10. Chouinard, Vera. “Body Politics: Disabled Women’s Activism in Canada and Beyond.” In Mind and Body Spaces: Geographies of Illness, Impairment, and Disability, edited by Ruth Butler and Hester Parr, 269-295. New York: Routledge, 1999.

11. Rodriguez, Dylan. “Dylan Rodriguez and Setsu Shigematsu: Radio Interview.” East306 Blog. Last modified January 24, 2011. http://east306.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/adrienne-hurley-interviews-dylan-rodriguez-and-setsu-shigematsu-doug-smith-interviews-setsu-shigematsu/

sarine makdessian

(((Sarine is a public servant and perpetual student with a passionate interest in migration studies, community economic development, post-conflict memory, and history and literary ethnography.)))

This paper was presented at Study in Action 2012, Montreal. 

The prevalence of technology and transnational migration enable people to connect and thrive on social media networks. Although our society embraces high-tech marvels, nowadays we lament that, through them, we have lost the art of conversation. Thus, many face social isolation and feel disaffected in their surroundings through a lack of engaged dialogue, a diminished sense of belonging, and as a result, feel disinclination towards community building. Indeed, the factors that mitigate the prevailing urban experience interest me profusely and have guided my burgeoning research interests. Several years ago, my disaffection with living in the urban landscape led me to seek communities that promote civic dialogue and that are agents of change through public conversations.

Accordingly, I am interested in exploring the role of public conversations in the fast paced, harried, and constantly connected society that we inhabit. Researchers argue that belonging and participating in social networks does not enhance support systems nor strengthen friendships, but instead leads people to experience further alienation and social isolation. (Goleman 9) Thus, my objective was to conduct fieldwork at one of the last public spaces that engaged citizens of various backgrounds – age levels, socioeconomic status, cultures, and diverging interests – to connect and weave meaningful dialogue.

Since early 2009, I have been intermittently involved with the University of the Streets Café, a Concordia University initiative housed at the Institute in Community Development that claims to “take learning out of the university and into community spaces and cafes”. The Institute in Community Development was founded in 1993. The Café’s program coordinator, Elizabeth Hunt¹, shares the raison d’être of the Institute:

The Institute invites citizens within the university’s walls and develops programming that stretches beyond the fabled ivory tower, creating a learning space—a bridge between the university and the larger community that contains it—where activists, community workers, funders, decision-makers, volunteers and other everyday folks learn alongside students, professors, and administrators. All this learning takes place under the assumption that each participant has something to contribute, each person is a citizen (in the sense of community member, not in terms of nationality) and that each citizen plays a crucial role in responding to the social and economic challenges of our communities.

The University of the Streets Café has been a focal connection for socially inclined “citizens to pursue lifelong learning and engagement through public conversations”². As a regular participant, I have been witness to what Elizabeth calls “conversations for a learning society” that foster liminality, mutual reflections and exchanges among participants and that have led to civic engagement. In pursuing my fieldwork on the Café, my primary objective was to explore the role of public conversations as transformative agents of change. More particularly, I sought to obtain insight on the emergence of collaborative learning, how citizens engage collectively, and the manner in which participants negotiate the resolutely complex life and times they inhabit.

Based on my research, academia has not embraced the role that public conversations play in community settings nor has it held the gaze of scientific inquiry. Therefore, it is my hope to join sundry researchers and community educators in a discussion on the informal learning that occurs in conversation circles. Consequently, the field research that I have undertaken will endeavour to contribute to an eclectic, budding group of voices that are steadily rising in converging fields of inquiry.

conversation cafés
The University of the Streets Café, broadly based on SFU’s Philosopher’s Café model, promotes conversations that have a fluid purpose through a defined structure. It caters to informal learning and developing a “more informed and connected community”³ through an active citizenry that does not seek public policy initiatives. In fact, participants range from university students to professors and an assorted array of community members who represent various socioeconomic status, cultural, academic, and working class backgrounds with the sole desire to exchange ideas and knowledge.

There are several initiatives in North America that espouse the café culture (Davetian) and popular education model (Carr), but whose focus and approach may differ from the University of the Streets Café considerably. The World Café is a prominent example that is cited by café culture enthusiasts, but whose mission and structure is worlds apart from our ethnographic focus. Thus, at the World Café, “intimate conversations at small café-style tables or in small conversation clusters link and build on each other as people move between groups, cross-pollinate ideas, and make new connections around questions that really matter to their life, work, or community” (Tan & Brown). In Seattle, Conversation Cafés are reminiscent of our model. Their mission is to stimulate community, endorse democracy and learning through public conversations. (Conversation Cafés website Hunt)

conversations for a learning society
Founded in May 2003, the University of the Streets Café has organized more than 350 public conversations on a variety of topics of ardent, public interest and societal concern in a multitude of community spaces – cafés, community centres, museums, parks, art galleries, and yoga studios. During a typical conversation, the number of participants equals 30 to 45 on average, but this season’s second conversation, an immensely popular conversation entitled “Beyond Business as Usual: Has Occupy changed us?” gathered 75 concerned students, community organizers, and anarchists – young and old.

The structure of the University of the Streets Café is straightforward. Public conversations are scheduled at 7pm on most weeknights and last two hours. During my conversations with the coordinators, their intention became clear: conversations are purported to be free, held in public and community spaces that are easily accessible by public transportation and open to the public. Although the conversation model is fluid, each conversation is nonetheless structured, and thematic conversations are organized ahead of time. There is a moderator whose role is to ensure the conversation runs smoothly, that there are no lulls during the evening, and that each participant has the opportunity to converse and take their space – should they wish to do so. Furthermore, the role of the guest(s) is to provide their expertise, knowledge, perspective, or take on the discussion topic. After ruminating for 15 minutes, the floor is open to the participants and as Hunt writes in her notes, then the guest becomes another participant. Hunt reiterates the objective of the public conversation. She writes:

“Once a guest has presented and the conversation has been initiated by the
moderator, the scope, content and various orbits and (trajectories of the discussion
are) largely directed by the interests and intelligence of the group. In fact, the bulk
of the two hours (usually 90 minutes) is devoted to the larger conversation that is
influenced by all present.”

(Hunt 3)

As one of the last vestiges of community, the role of public conversations is to fulfill a communal void and social alienation that our increasingly micromanaged and corporatist lives continue to experience. Indeed, people seek out the public conversation model for ceaseless reasons, but through my fieldwork, I was able to observe several possibilities for the resurgence of such community-based models of communication.

In an age of technological prowess and access, our society has demonstrated a diminished capacity to connect authentically and profoundly with one another. Despite the prevalence of social media networks, the art of friendship has become muddled. In a recent conversation, “Best friends forever: what does authentic friendship look like?”, many participants illustrated the deficiencies of modern relationships. Indeed, one modern 20 something said it best: “friends are those with whom you hangout when you’re not involved”⁴.

conclusion and reflections
This study offers a cursory insight into the role of social learning and the public conversation model as alternative pedagogies. My research demonstrates that community-based initiatives provide a salient learning model in innovative and social justice oriented settings while reigniting the art of the conversation.

endnotes

1. Elizabeth Hunt, program coordinator, is doing an MA about public conversations and informal learningUniversity of the Streets Café website: http://instdev.concordia.ca/our-programs/university-of-the-streets-cafe/about-the-program/

2. University of the Streets Café website: http://instdev.concordia.ca/our-programs/university-of-the-streets-cafe/about-the-program/

3. Craig Paterson, Deliberative IDEAS: Conversations with a Purpose. http://delibcaideas.org/?page_id=3

4. Field Notes, Feb. 27: http://fieldnotes.sarinemakdessian.com/2012/02/best-friends-forever-what-does-authentic-friendship-look-like/

references

Brown, J. & Isaacs, D. (2005). The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations that Matter. San Fransisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Carr, D. (2011). Open Conversations: Public Learning in Libraries and Museums. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio.

Davetian, Benet. (n.d.) The History and Meaning of Salons. November 7, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.bdavetian.com/salonhistory.html

Goleman, Daniel. (2007). Social intelligence: The revolutionary new science of human relationships. New York: Bantam.

Hunt, Elizabeth (2008). The University of the Streets Café: Conversations for a Learning Society. Unpublished Manuscript.

Hunt, Elizabeth (2009). Understanding Public Conversations: Lessons from the University of the Streets Café. Unpublished Manuscript.

Kerka, S. (1997). Popular Education: Adult Education for Social Change. ERIC digest no. 185, 4.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

Philosopher’s Café. http://www.sfu.ca/philosopherscafe/

Rodin, J., & Steinberg, S. P. (Eds.). (2003). Public Discourse in America: Conversation and Community in the Twenty-First Century. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Rough, J. (2006). Transforming the Public Conversation. Wise Democracy http://www.wisedemocracy.org/breakthrough/TFthePublicConversation.html

Tan, S., & Brown, J. (2005). The World Café in Singapore: Creating a Learning Culture Through Dialogue. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 41(1), 83-90. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/236301702?accountid=10246

University of the Streets Café. http://instdev.concordia.ca/our-programs/university-of-the-streets-cafe/

Wallace, J. (2000). A popular education model for college in community. American Behavioral Scientist, 43, 756-766.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge, UK & New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W.M. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: a Guide to Managing Knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

kelly pennington

This paper was presented at Study in Action 2012, Montreal. 

(((Kelly is an Urban Planning undergraduate student at Concordia. In addition to working with Right to the City, she is a collective member of Le Petit Velo Rouge. She is currently engaged in mobilising around the Quartier de Grands Jardin urban revitalization project.)))

The idea of citizen participation is a little like eating spinach: no one is against it in principle because it is good for you. Participation of the governed in their government is, in theory, the cornerstone of democracy – a revered idea that is vigorously applauded by virtually everyone. The applause is reduced to polite handclaps, however, when this principle is advocated by the have-not blacks, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Indians, Eskimos, and whites. And when the have-nots define participation as redistribution of power, the American consensus on the fundamental principle explodes into many shades of outright racial, ethnic, ideological, and political opposition.

Sherry R. Arnstein 1969, 216

In the spring of 2011, public consultations were held regarding a revitalization plan for the west end of Montreal’s downtown known as Shaughnessy Village or, as it has been rebranded, the Quartier des Grands Jardins.  A special planning program (or SPP) was jointly created by the City of Montreal and the table de concertation du centre-ville ouest, a coalition meant to represent community organisations, residents, private actors and local authorities (Table 2010).   Over seventy groups and individuals voiced their opinions throughout the process of consultations, and many more attended informational and question sessions.  Over nine months have passed since the sessions were held and the only acknowledgement thus far has been a summarized documentation of the opinions presented; no mention of intentions to adhere to these demands or concerns has been formally made.  Through reflections on my experience with the Quartier des Grands Jardins consultation process, I seek to show that, within the context of neoliberal governance, public consultation is simply a process of self-legitimization that coopts democratic ideals in order to legitimize decisions already made, renders less important other means of protest, and ultimately holds no one accountable to the public which is meant to be represented.

the neoliberal city: a (very) brief overview

In past decades, the role of cities, as well as the way in which they are governed, has undergone a massive shift. This can be viewed as the move from a managerial, distributive role to an entrepreneurial one seen in tangent with the fall of Fordism (Harvey, 1989), but is also as representative of shifting geographies of scale.  In the context of globalization, the role of nations has become increasingly negligible; power has shifted not just in the ways of supranational bodies and corporations, but additionally towards cities and city regions (Agnew et al, 2001).  Lacking the fiscal or political capacity to assume this new responsibility, cities have further placed the onus on “professionalized quasi-public agencies empowered and responsible for promoting economic development, privatizing urban services, and catalyzing competition among public agencies” (Leitner et al,  2007, 4). These dynamics are posited as moves towards cost reduction, increasing flexibility, accountability, as well as greater efficiency of public administration (Elzina, 2010), and a hegemonic discourse contingent on a technocratic vision of city managing; governance as opposed to government.  It can be seen as a move from centrist, hierarchical planning in favour of a more decentralized approach, not as a means to promote democratic processes, but in order to avoid bureaucracy (Swyngedouw et al, 2002).  Consequently, in order for citizens to engage in decision-making, they must “understand how to perform actively as a citizen in order to claim a right to the city, […] be entrepreneurial and to develop the capacity to be an active agent in claiming their urban space” (Ghose, 2005, 64).  The devolution of state authority has resulted in decreased accountability towards the public, placing the burden on those who must actively seek out their ‘right to the city’.

quartier des grands jardins: the consultation process

The Quartier des Grands Jardins project was proposed as an attempt to revitalise an area which is seen to be showing signs of urban decay.  With plans to promote built heritage, improve quality of life and stimulate economic activity (Arrondissement de Ville Marie), one of the key goals seems to be linking the urban socioeconomic fabric of the city of Montreal which, currently, experiences a slight glitch in the ostensibly labelled no-man’s land that is Shaughnessy Village.  The plan, created by the borough and the previously mentioned table de concertation, is a classic example of inner-city gentrification.  While the project’s rhetoric is brimming with grand claims of stability, sustainability and so-called “quality of life”, a critical reading confirms that the ultimate goals are maintaining a competitive edge and the attraction of capital through becoming more appealing to “the outsider, the investor, developer, businesswoman or –man, or the money packed tourist” (Swyngedouw et al, 2002, 545-6). Given the composition of the table de concertation, this comes as no surprise.

In its mandate, the table stands for citizen democracy and representation of owners, renters, investors, students, merchants and community organisations alike (Table 2010). The board, however, tells a different tale.  Of the six that sit on the board of directors, five have direct economic stakes in the area, speaking for; educational institutions, developers, and the city of Montreal.  The larger board of twenty-four consists mainly of development firm CEOs, real estate owners, corporations, city committee members and large institutions; only one resident and four representatives from community organisations sit on the table de concertation (Table 2010).  These so-called community representatives have been tasked with creating a plan which embodies everyone’s interests, but it is evident that the main goals seek to increase economic vitality; social welfare is supposedly going to arise via trickle down benefits.

Throughout the process of consultation, public opinions proved to be decidedly diverse.  Many spoke of issues of green space, personal security and general deterioration, others presented more critical views on the lack of affordable and social housing, increased police presence and the questionable roles of certain institutions. While demands for trees on traffic islands and concerns about safety (for some) in public parks were met by the commissioners with serious questions and concerns, demands that would radically change the plans were acknowledged by silence.  There was a general disinterest in engaging with issues that significantly questioned the SPP (special planning program), leading us to believe that the consultation process, though effective for less political or symbolic decisions – such as green space and bike paths – is an ineffective route to questioning larger issues of urban governance.

public consultation or citizen placation?

The widespread adoption of the language of participation across a spectrum of institutions, from radical NGOs to local government bodies to the World Bank, raises questions about what exactly this much-used buzzword has come to mean. An infinitely malleable concept, ‘participation’ can be used to evoke – and to signify – almost anything that involves people.

Cornwall, 2008, 269

The process of consultation is in and of itself a necessary step towards the democratization of decision making; previous top-down methods of policy writing and implementation certainly left little room for citizen input.  Nonetheless, this new trend towards participation has become a “hegemonic discursive resource” (Moini, 2011, 151) for the stabilization of neoliberal policies that have been shown to have little impact on actual policy, effectively becoming a tool by which projects achieve public approval under the guise of democratic process (Moini, 2011).

In the late ‘60s, Sherry Arnstein famously described what she called the “Ladder of Citizen Participation”. It included eight “rungs” of participation within three categories: non-participation, degrees of tokenism and degrees of citizen power (Arnstein, 1969). Ranging from manipulation and therapy to citizen control, the ladder provided a skeleton in order to “cut through the hyperbole” (217) and understand the different degrees of citizen power given through various mechanisms.  Public consultation falls in the middle, under the category of tokenism.  While it provides a necessary platform for voices to be heard, “there is no follow through, no ‘muscle’, hence no assurance of changing the status quo” (217).  In the case of Montreal, this is a harsh reality.  Although the official policy regarding public participation notes that follow-up measures are necessary, the only official process is the re-evaluation of the consultation process itself, not of the issues brought under public scrutiny (Ville de Montreal, 2002). It therefore comes as no surprise that, over a year since the consultation, there has been no public recourse regarding the concerns brought forward.

Moreover, the inclusion of citizens in such “community” roundtables as the table de concertation is meaningless without mechanisms in place to ensure that groups are accountable to citizen voices. While Montreal has claimed it would attempt to provide information to the greatest number of people, especially “those who are often marginalized or difficult to reach” (Ville de Montreal, 2002, 2) not only is there little evidence that the city is making this effort, but this overlooks the fact that much of the population would not feel comfortable, doesn’t have the time or simply wouldn’t be allowed to contribute to formalized means of public engagement. Working parents with little free time, those who feel their opinion is not sufficiently refined or important and those who are unwelcome in private spaces, such as many affected homeless people in the case of the Quartier des Grands Jardins, are just some who are excluded by the nature of the process.  Due to the fact that Montreal deems public consultation the “appropriate practice [for the] exercise of participatory democracy” (Ville de Montreal, 2002, 2), these people are left with no other ‘proper’ means of voicing their opinions.  By making other forms of resistance “less acceptable than seeking a seat at the consultation table” (Cornwall, 2008, 282), the city delegitimizes all other methods of democratic intervention.

The use of terms such as “participatory” and “democratic” have become significant tools in the branding of projects as products of a collaborative process. Such cooptation allows developers and city officials to “claim that all sides were considered, but makes it possible for only some of those sides to benefit” (Arnstein, 1969, 216).  When coupled with the fact that cities are increasingly managed by small partnerships and governing bodies, the rhetoric frequently exalts this new scale of decision making: local people enacting self-determination. This can be used to “lend a moral authority” while decisions remain “open to being selectively read and used by those with the power to decide” (Cornwall, 2008, 270). Expanding on this, it has been stressed that the decisions that are influenced by citizens “tend to remain trapped at the micro-local level and to avoid questioning power structures […] envisig[ing] the citizen as a mere user of public services” (Sintomer and de Maillard, 2007, 523). The crisis of such democratic processes is in this inherent watering down of political stances so as to meet the palates of the majority while fringe concerns and opinions are seen to be less important or relevant.  By necessarily excluding so many from a process that is seen to be the only platform for resistance, marginalized voices are even less likely to be heard. As a result, the floor is cleared of those less controversial proposals as dissenting opinions are pushed elsewhere. Creating the image of a more unanimous voice makes it even easier for decision makers to demonstrate citizen support while exclusion of more radical opinions allows policy to be depoliticised, upholding the technocratic paradigm of neoliberal efficiency.

conclusion: what next?

The process by which cities adopt and promote the ideals of participation represent a cooption of democratic principles used to endorse projects which have already been planned.  In essence, “what citizens achieve in all this activity is that they have ‘participated in participation.’ What powerholders achieve, is the evidence that they have gone through the required motions of involving ‘those people” (Arnstein, 1969, 219).  With the shiny seal of public approval, the neoliberal city can claim citizen participation without the bureaucratic inefficiencies of true democratic process.

So what happens next? Are we to demand that the city reform its policies to assure action on all demands? Are we to amass numbers too large to ignore? First, we must acknowledge the simple fact that everyone’s interests will not be voiced or heeded, no matter the structure for expressing them.  Cities are increasingly diverse spaces which inevitably represent many differing opinions.  Any process that seeks to highlight the desires of the majority will unavoidably result in marginalization. So is the best option to create the majority?

Perhaps for those who wish to combat larger systems of neoliberal urban governance, the process of consultation is not the most effective path.  While it is not without value, participation also gives clout to the systems we are attempting to change by acknowledging that, in order to change things, we must first ask permission or find ourselves a seat at the table. Direct democracy may be best sought by acknowledging that “the core of the right to the city is more generally the right to inhabit the space, a right opposed to the right of property and profitability” (Purcell, 2008, 179).  These rights will inherently clash with the growth machine of the neoliberal city, hence the space for action may not be within its own mechanisms for participation. The public consultation process remains a step in the right direction.  However, within the context of neoliberal urbanism, the chances for meaningful change are marginal.  By creating a means for already made plans to achieve a stamp of approval, cities can create a guise of democratic process without any true form of accountability to what is being demanded, rendering citizen participation a tool of self-legitimization for the neoliberal city.

works cited

Agnew, John, Allen J. Scott, Edward Soja and Michael Storper. 2001. “Global City Regions.” In Global City Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy, edited by Allen J. Scott, 11-30. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Arnstein, Sherry R. 1969. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35: 216-224.

Arrondissement de Ville-Marie. 2011. “Special Planning Program: Quartier des Grands Jardins.” Last modified March, 2011. http://ocpm.qc.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/P47/3a1.pdf 

Concordia Community Working Group. 2011. “Mémoire Oral: Dans le cadre des consultations publiques du PPU Les Grand Jardins.” Last modified March, 2011. http://ocpm.qc.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/P47/7a38.pdf 

Cornwall, Andrea. 2008. “Unpacking ‘Participation’: Models, Meanings and Practices.” Community Development Journal 43: 269-283.

Elzina, Aant. 2010. “Systematic Limitations to Citizen Participation in Dominant Policymaking Regimes: The Case of Urban Planning.” Paper presented at Implementation in Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research, Practice and Teaching Conference, Geneva, September, 2010.

Ghose, Rina. 2005. “The Complexities of Citizen Participation through Collaborative Governance.” Space and Polity 9: 61-75.

Harvey, David. 1989. “From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation of Urban Governance in Late Capitalism.” Geografiska Annaler 71: 3-17.

Leitner, Helga, Eric S. Sheppard, Kristin Sziarto, and Anant Maringanti. 2007. Contesting Urban Futures: Decentering Neoliberalism. In Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers, edited byHelga Leitner, Jamie Peck and Eric S. Sheppard, 1-25. New York: Guilford Press.

Moini, Giulio. 2011. “How Participation has become a Hegemonic Discursive Resource: Towards an Interpretivist Research Agenda.” Critical Policy Studies 5: 149-168.

Peck, Jamie, Nik Theodore and Neil Brenner. 2009. “Neoliberal Urbanism: Models, Moments and Mutations.” SAIS Review 29: 49-66.

Purcell, Mark. 2008. “Recapturing Democracy: Neoliberalisation and the Struggle for Alternative Urban Futures.” New York: Routledge.

Sintomer, Yves and Jacques de Maillard. 2007. “The Limits to Local Participation and Deliberation in the French ‘politique de la ville’.” European Journal of Political Research 46: 503-529.

Swyngedouw, Erik, Frank Moulaert and Arantxa Rodriguez. 2002. “Neoliberal Urbanism in Europe: Large-Scale Urban Redevelopment Project and the New Urban Policy.” Antipode 34: 542-577.

Table de concertation du centre-ville ouest. 2010. Last modified 2010 http://ocpm.qc.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/P47/3b.pdf

Ville de Montreal. 2002. “The Challenge of Participation: Montreal’s Public Consultation and Participation Policy.” Last modified 2002 http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/page/prt_vdm_fr/media/documents/consultation_participation_en.pdf

carly seltzer

(((Carly is an undergraduate student at Concordia University studying at the Simone De Beauvoir institute. Her interests as both a researcher and a community volunteer are in the areas of homelessness, HIV/AIDS and Indigenous issues)))

This paper was presented at Study in Action 2012, Montreal. 

Author’s note: This paper addresses the issue of the varying degrees of homelessness amongst Inuit women who have migrated from Nunavut to Montreal. It focuses on addressing the structural factors that contribute to experiences of homelessness, as well as the lack of adequate, appropriate and accessible social resources within Montreal available to Inuit women. This research is contextualized in the decades long Nunavut housing crisis, and examined in relation to the incidence and prevalence of homelessness amongst Inuit women within Montreal today. This issue is also examined through the ways in which it is related to and perpetuated by the prevalence of racism, discrimination, stigmatization, criminalization and the deserving/undeserving dichotomy. While volunteering at Chez Doris, a daytime shelter for women located in Montreal, this issue was brought to my attention by the workers and members of the organization.
As a non-indigenous researcher, I aim to be an ally to Indigenous communities in both the academic and community context. I identify as coming from a model of solidarity work, and acknowledge my positionality in the academy as privileged. Although this research in no way reflects directly the lived experiences of Inuit women, the framework and analysis that has been developed is influenced by conversations that took place between myself and individuals from Chez Doris.

The rates of homelessness amongst Inuit women in Nunavut and Montreal are rapidly increasing, and the relationship between Inuit women’s homelessness in the rural north and the urban south of Canada are inextricably linked. Women and youth continue to comprise the majority of homeless Inuit peoples today both in Nunavut and in southern urban centers. Homelessness among Inuit women in the rural north and urban south is rooted in structural factors such as a severe shortage of affordable, safe, and sustainable public housing due to inadequate federal, provincial, and territorial housing policies; a lack of adequate, culturally appropriate social and community services such as shelter organizations; and flawed social assistance programs based on exclusionary, discriminatory policies. It is through accessible, affordable, and sustainable subsidized public housing on and off reservations in both Nunavut and Montreal, in conjunction with adequate social and community services and social assistance programs, which have the potential to provide long-term solutions to this systemic problem.

With regards to housing policy, the Canadian federal government states that a “fundamental entitlement of all Canadians is the provision of adequate shelter” (Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council). Yet First Nations, Inuit, Métis and Aboriginal populations of Canada are not given this entitlement, and Nunavut is a prime example of what happens when the federal government is ignorant of its own previously stated obligations.

In Canada today, women are the fastest growing homeless and at-risk population and there are more women represented in the Native homeless population than in the non-Native homeless population. For example, in the Greater Vancouver Regional District 35% of the Native homeless population is female versus 27% amongst the non-Native homeless population (Native Women’s Association of Canada.). The federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments must take responsibility and respond adequately to this reality. Through partnerships between governments and existing social and community services and social assistance programs, both the immediacy of homelessness and the underlying root causes must be addressed.

The population of Inuit people in Canada has drastically increased since the 1980s, and there has also been an increase in Inuit migration from the rural north to southern cities. Today over half of the Inuit population in Nunavut live in overcrowded conditions and 38.7% are considered to be in core need because they do not live in and cannot access proper housing (Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council). The annual fiscal budget of Nunavut is less than half the amount required to bring overcrowding down to levels comparable to the rest of Canada, and it would take at least three thousand public housing units to obtain such levels (The Government of Nunavut). The lack of affordable subsidized rental units in the public sector and on reserves in Nunavut is a major factor which contributes to the prevalence and incidence of homelessness throughout the territory.

The housing crisis is a major factor in many women’s choice to migrate south from Nunavut. The wait lists to receive public housing in Nunavut can be as long as ten years, with tenants paying up to 25% of their income on rent alone (Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council). The severely long wait list also means that women in abusive relationships can potentially be stuck in their situation unless they choose to be homeless. Despite the existence of some shelter organizations throughout Nunavut, there is no transitional housing and many women end up cycling from abusive situations into public housing and then into shelters; but when their allotted time in the shelter expires they often go back to the same abusive situation or inadequate public housing unit. Nunavut needs to implement priority-housing policies which would ensure that women who are in violent and abusive relationships could be prioritized, since they comprise the majority of those in immediate need of housing in the north. The housing crisis in the north can only be adequately addressed through the immediate intervention of federally funded social assistance and community programs with money specifically allocated to shelter organizations, second-stage or transitional housing and affordable subsidized public housing, developed in partnership with Inuit organizations and coalitions.

Other major reasons for migration include the severe shortage of jobs in Nunavut and domestic and sexual violence, which has been linked to over-crowded living conditions. Reasons for migration tend to stem from the idea that there are better resources in urbanized cities such as affordable housing, employment, education, and medical assistance. However, the lived realities of Inuit women who migrate from Nunavut to Montreal are often characterized by varied experiences of homelessness due to discrimination and a severe shortage of these resources in urban centers. Women who are at the highest risk of homelessness are those fleeing abusive relationships, and many Inuit women who migrate from the north have already been deeply affected by homelessness. Upon migrating to Montreal, many women cannot escape poverty and homelessness because they are not eligible for social assistance due to various regulations and requirements, and because of the stigma against alcohol or drug use and perceived mental illness. High unemployment, low levels of education, language and cultural barriers, issues of mobility, racism and discrimination, domestic, sexual, and substance abuse are all structural factors, which perpetuate cycles of homelessness amongst Inuit women in urban centers.

Income Support is a social assistance program which aims to temporarily support women, but its framework is embedded with flaws and limitations. For Inuit women the concept of assistance based on a headcount of biological children doesn’t mesh with the Inuit cultural norm of sharing resources, which means that women could have more people dependent on them than just their biological children. If women only have access to substandard and unsafe housing, they remain at risk of other consequences such as having their children taken away by social services. Furthermore, according to the Income Support policy, women must be assessed as having made “productive choices” within two months of receiving Income Support (Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council). Thus, Inuit women migrating from the north who have experienced severe homelessness rooted in systemic factors and who seek support in urban centers are not seen by Income Support policy to be ‘deserving’ unless they can prove they have made ‘productive choices’. The ambiguity of what counts as a ‘productive choice’ creates an opportunity for service providers to make decisions about who receives social assistance based on discriminatory, judgmental, and uninformed opinions. Policies like this are embedded in and emerge out of dominant discourses that perpetuate cultural normativity and an assimilationist mentality tied to a colonialist legacy. The idea of a woman having to exemplify and prove that her choices are ‘productive’ is horrifically subjective, problematic, and offers an automatic window of opportunity for the government to stop giving social assistance to an individual at any given moment. The inclusion of Inuit women’s organizations as active partners in the creation of public policy within social assistance programs is essential in ensuring that their voices are heard within the framework of the policy.

A common response to the lack of affordable, safe, and sustainable subsidized housing is to provide temporary shelter and support in the form of social and community services. Native women and youth already under-utilize the existing shelters and programs in both urban and rural environments, and there is a severe lack of Native shelters for women that address the specific needs of Native women in a culturally appropriate way and within a framework sensitive to the historical context of colonialism. Native women with mental health and/or substance use issues often find emergency shelter spaces difficult or impossible to find in rural and urban settings and are left with nowhere to go. There is also often a lack of services and programs that are accommodating and appropriate to Native women with children.

Discrimination in social services is a major contributing factor in the perpetuation of Native women’s homelessness. Through research conducted through census reports and case studies it is apparent that a “majority of homeless Inuit tend to avoid using several of the shelters and charitable organizations because they are discriminated against by non-Inuit workers and homeless persons” (Kishigami 2). This reflects an experience common among Native women from all over Canada. In Montreal, where a large population of women accessing shelters are Native and specifically Inuit, it is necessary to note that shelters’ views on issues such as family violence and homelessness in Native communities are often filtered through what is referred to as a “justice” lens. This implies that the shelters don’t necessarily work to incorporate a Native emphasis on healing in their mandates or in the services provided, even though the majority of the women accessing the shelter in Montreal are Native (and predominantly Inuit). In urban centers Native women frequently encounter resources such as shelters and social assistance programs that fail to acknowledge the importance of specialized services that are informed by Inuit culture, values, and ideology.

The Native Friendship Center in Montreal is a shelter specifically for Inuit, First Nations and Métis women, whose mandate is informed by Native beliefs, traditions, culture, and history. Social workers at the shelter help homeless Native people prepare the documents necessary to access Quebec welfare, which consists on average of about $550 per month. This amount of money is nearly impossible to live on without compromising basic needs such as food and clothing, and this is why available subsidized housing provides a more sustainable solution to supporting those who are on social assistance.

In the north, people living in shelters cannot receive social assistance. Most shelters only accept women on a long-term basis based on accounts of physical abuse and violence in their households. Shelters that do exist lack adequate training for their staff and confidentiality in their services, have a limited capacity of bodies that are allowed in the shelter, and have a flawed student-housing program. An even greater barrier to the shelter system in northern Canada is the ways in which shelters are funded. Often they are funded by INAC (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada), which receives lower rates of support than shelters funded through other sources. This puts greater limitations on the creation and implementation of specialized services geared towards meeting the needs of Inuit women and their children. It is extremely difficult to track homelessness in the north because many people don’t access services, largely because they feel that these services are judgmental (Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council).

Culturally appropriate services are necessary in order to be able to address and meet the needs of Inuit women in rural and urban centers. This relates directly to the importance of addressing the need for adequate support systems that emphasize Inuit values of family ties and sharing. In order to address the structural aspects of homelessness in a way that offers sustainable solutions, a social and community service would ideally provide resources that directly address poverty and the lack of affordable, sustainable and safe housing; sexual and racial violence; and education and employment opportunities. The federal and territorial governments should support these kinds of resources and allocate adequate funding to both urban and rural areas where homelessness is prevalent.

We must continue to generate more comprehensive research which addresses Inuit, First Nations, and Métis women’s homelessness and the structural factors that contribute to and perpetuate it in order to further develop a clearer understanding of the determinants of women’s homelessness in both northern Canada and southern urban centers. This research is critical to developing effective theories of change and to demonstrating the severity of the problem to the federal government, in hopes that they will act on it accordingly and adequately. Improvements must be made to existing social assistance programs, and care models should be implemented in social services for Native women that are informed by Native cultural traditions, history and ways of life and which provide opportunities for education programs and affordable daycare for their children. In order to consistently and effectively address homelessness, it is necessary to provide better funding to service agencies to allow them to keep appropriate records and to access and share statistical information. It is also crucial that the federal government continues to examine and actively address the issue of homelessness in northern Canada, specifically amongst Inuit people, and especially women and youth.

If the federal government recognizes homelessness as primarily structural, then it can also create more appropriate and effective policies to address issues such as affordable housing and adequate funding to community and social services. The relationship of homelessness and specifically of Inuit women’s homelessness to public awareness is also something that needs to be addressed through public education. This is an immediate call for action and a demand for legislative changes to end discrimination against homeless Inuit women and to work towards improving the structural factors that cause homelessness. These issues include: the national shortage of affordable, safe, and sustainable public housing due to inadequate federal, provincial and territorial housing policies, the lack of adequate and appropriate social and community services such as shelter organizations, and the inadequate and exclusionary social assistance programs which are based on unaccommodating policies, in the hopes of eventually putting an end to homelessness.
references

Kishigami, Nobuhiro. “Homeless Inuit in Montreal.” 2008. National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan. 1 April, 2011 http://www.minpaku.ac/staff/kishigami/ueban.Inuit.ICASS.pdf

Native Women’s Association of Canada. “Aboriginal Women and Homelessness, An Issue Paper.” 20-22 June. 2007. Prepared for the National Aboriginal Women’s Summit.
1 April, 2011 http://www.laa.gov.nl.ca/laa/naws/pdf/nwac-homelessness.pdf

Native Women’s Association of Canada. “Second Stage Housing for Native Women.” 7 September, 1993. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. 30 March, 2011. http://www.nwac.ca/sites/default/files/reports/SecondStageHousingforNativeWomen.pdf

Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council. “The Little Voices of Nunavut”. January 2007. North of 60 Territorial Report. 30 March, 2011. http://ywcacanada.ca/data/publications/00000010.pdf

jillian sudayan

(((Jillian is a U4 Music Education Undergraduate at McGill University. Her experiences as a second-generation Filipina born in Montreal, Quebec helped shape her career endeavors and her artistic expressions)))

Canada’s multiculturalism policy promotes the acceptance and celebration of diverse cultures and promises great opportunities for all Canadians, sounding positive in theory. The Canadian Multicultural Act states that it “encourage[s] the preservation, enhancement, sharing and evolving expression of the multicultural heritage of Canada” (1988, 5.1.e). However, Canada’s model of multiculturalism has been challenged on several sides. Most notably, Quebec has openly disagreed with federal multiculturalism policy and follows its own model of interculturalism (Fleras & Elliot, 2002). Aboriginal peoples also reject the idea of a reductionist multicultural policy, preferring a multi-nation framework that recognizes their collective right to special status and entitlements (Fleras & Elliot, 2002). Multiculturalism is a highly contested concept, both in terms of its theoretical approach and its practice. In practicing music education as well, we must question this policy. The current music education curriculum remains structured around Eurocentric minority perspectives that do not reflect Canada’s racial, ethnic and cultural diversity. As a form of historical documentation, musical education has the potential to promote cultural practices that students of different backgrounds can identify with. While the current curriculum is guided by Canadian multicultural policy, this paper critiques this curriculum and demonstrates how it can promote internalized forms of oppression in elementary and high school aged youth. In framing music education as a tool for dominant perspectives, educators as well as community members can then reflect on the impact they will have on students’ identity of self as well as their connection to society.

Within the past century, Canadian society has seen an increase in immigration for social and economic development. Although Canadian demographics are changing and forcing the country’s citizens to consider new ways of living together, Fleras & Elliot state that “for most of the modern era, Western societies [have embraced] the universal and the uniform as a basis for living together.” Similarly, a participant in Walker’s discussion group (cited in Morton) “wondered if multiculturalism was simply a ‘reaction to immigration’ rather than a strategy to better appreciate and respect ethnic diversity”. Multiculturalism policy can be seen as the result of decisions made by a ruling class that has a limited understanding of the immigrants that have chosen Canada as their country of residence. Fleras & Elliot, note that “multiculturalism has been criticized as a paternalistic solution to the ‘problem’ of minorities”, and have argued that multiculturalism is a concept that is contradictory “politically and economically” in that “it has the potential to actually compromise minority rights and shore up vested interests, even when it is intended to do the opposite”.

The realities of racial discrimination, classism, and sexism are evident within the music education curriculum as well. With regards to cultural diversity in music education, Schippers explains that “taking a serious interest in musical genres in music education accelerated considerably in the 1980s, when government and educational policies started recognizing the importance and realities of cultural diversity more widely.” However, by drawing from the expanding repertoire and musical genres that have been made available to music educators, there is a “construction of musical difference” and “process of categorization” (Koza, 2009). Koza argues that the construction of musical difference is “an effect of power and is accomplished by the materialization of categories or styles of music…(playing) a role in the systematic inclusion or exclusion of people.” According to Koza, “people’s bodies have been sorted and ordered through a process of differencing that materializes them as raced, a method of categorization that can be applied to music”. Music is often labeled according to its country and/or culture of origin. Categorizing people as well as music, however, “systematically advantages some groups of people while disadvantaging others” (Koza, 2009), thus demonstrating the ways in which music education also lends itself to the perpetuation of racial inequities.

Now, let us analyze the effects of teaching music education within a multicultural framework. Schippers explains that the “methods of teaching, as well as approaches to concepts such as tradition, context, authenticity, and the position of the music in society are strongly influenced by the institutional environment.” In the music curriculum, students are expected to “understand how to hear, replicate and create the similarities and differences that distinguish one musical style from another, to identify the style, genre or even the probable composer of unfamiliar works” (Koza, 2009). It is normal for teachers to instruct the way that they themselves have been trained; however we must question teachers’ choices in repertoire with regards to what is viewed as the correct or incorrect method of understanding music. In Canadian society “a single musical culture, Western European art music, is perpetuated through most collegiate programs in music” (Campbell, 1996). Elliott outlines two weaknesses in the music education curriculum as follows:

(1) it is often biased from the outset by its reliance on the ‘aesthetic’ perspective inherent in the notion of ‘teaching from musical concepts’; and (2) the music chosen for study in this curriculum tend to be limited to styles available in the contemporary musical life of the host culture (16).

Given these assertions, critical questions arise with regards to the multicultural curriculum in Canadian schools. For instance, what values are being taught to students about musical practice in the classroom and their participation in society? One could argue that students are required to learn music by “following the leader,” which in the context of North American music education, “sanctions a hierarchical and, paradoxically, a rather undemocratic view of society” (Elliot, 1989). The music education curriculum can thus be viewed as assimilationist. Elliot identifies this type of curriculum by its “exclusive concern with the major musical styles of the Western European ‘classical’ tradition, the ‘elevation of taste’ and the breakdown of minority students’ affiliations with popular and/or subculture music where the ‘classics’ are considered superior to the musical products of minorities and subgroups.” Musical repertoire apart from the Western European “classical” tradition can be seen as emphasizing “musical diversity rather than human diversity” (Morton, 2000). What then, can be said about music from Indigenous cultures and other cultures from around the world, which are not included in the category of traditional Western European art music? Where do other genres such as Rap and Hip Hop find themselves in the music curriculum? How can we understand music categorized as “other” and students’ relationship to it?

Morton describes the confusion concerning ethnicity and diversity that “originates from shifts in population demographics which continue to shape the Canadian population, while the music teaching profession remains relatively middleclass, white and female.” In order to gain a variety of perspectives and experiences, schools must take seriously the way that people identify themselves and identify with others (McGowan, 1998). It is important to understand how we identify ourselves, and the ways in which social values and biases are reflected back to us. Taylor (cited in Morton) describes the politics of recognition as follows:

Our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others, and so a person or a group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or a contemptible picture of themselves. Non recognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being (252).

As stated by McCarthy, Hudak, Allegretto, Miklaucic and Saukko, “if it can be argued that young people construct their identities through social formation of boundaries, then it is important to uncover how social, cultural, and political boundaries are created and lived through popular music.” Elizabeth Ellsworth (cited in McCarthy et al., 1999) argues that “the task of liberatory education is not to eliminate difference, but rather to create a dialogue across differences such that alliances may be formed in the struggle against oppressive social institutions and structures.” Moreover, Hudak explains that “racial formation is socially constructed (and continually contested) within the parameters of existing relations of power within the school (and societal) context.” Students live within contextual social structures with which they identify, measuring their value against a certain standard. Hall (cited in Dimitriadis and Kamberelis, 1999) states that “identities are recognized as multiple, complex, porous, and shifting sets of positioning, attachments, and identifications through which individuals and collectives understand who they are and how they are expected to act across a range of diverse social and cultural landscapes.” Viewing an individual’s identity in the larger social context of the classroom, as well as in comparison with larger social formations, is “always tentative and partially unstable because they are continually constructed within particular configurations of discursive and material practices that are themselves constantly constituting and reconstituting themselves” (Dimitriadis and Kamberelis, 1999). This definition of student identity, which highlights the fluid but contested forms of discourse and pedagogy, is consistent with Canada’s social context which is marked by changes in demographics, economic, social and political formations. If we are to identify Canada’s diverse population according to its multicultural heritage, then why is there a line drawn between “us” and “them”? Furthermore, are students of color building a sense of identity in the framework of multiculturalism that is actually harmful for them and their understanding of the society they live in?

Music educators, as representatives of the existing musical structure, deal with choices that must take into account several of these contradictions. They must make choices that are considerate of their students’ well-being and learning with knowledge taken from their own training. On the one hand, they are asked to use styles of music making that are not from the traditional Eurocentric music program for addressing the multicultural classroom and curriculum. On the other hand, music educators are not always aware of the implications that these styles and teaching methods may have on their students. Left to address the classroom and curriculum with its several contradictions, Schippers declares that “it is not the music teachers of the world who are to blame; the main weaknesses lie in teacher training”. Campbell’s description of American music educators’ multicultural education training can be applied to Canadian music educators as well:

A single musical culture which is Western European art music, is perpetuated through most collegiate programs in music. Yet upon graduation and placement in their first teaching positions, music educators are confronted with school wide missions to teach subjects globally and from a multicultural perspective. The canon of musical works they learned in their undergraduate studies do not often transfer, even in part, to the expectations of school personnel for music repertoire and programs. Principals, parents’ groups, and the public at large who press for more culturally diverse curriculum have teachers of music scrambling for music they never learned and songs they never knew. Workshops, clinics and seminars become important means for learning something of musical cultures with attention to repertoire that is easily accessible and readily learned. Thus, while Western European art music is common musical language of those trained in American conservatory–styled colleges and universities, it is increasingly viewed by teachers as only one of the many musical cultures (admittedly with its own rich diversity of historical and contemporary styles) to be experienced and learned by students in elementary and public schools (2).

Music education, as a structure that simultaneously upholds dominant structures and places demands on its educators to teach with a global and multicultural perspective, does not prepare educators well enough to deal with their multiethnic classrooms. Schippers states that “in any teaching situation, they are required to take position consciously with regard to the cultural setting they are in, sensitive to the choices open to them with regard to tradition, context, and authenticity, and choose their approach to teaching accordingly.”

There must be sensitivity towards the students, in addressing the different identities at play within a society that includes people of different cultural backgrounds. For music educators, what may seem to be innocent in their methods of teaching and choices of repertoire must be analyzed further to understand the potentially harmful implications that these choices may have on their students in the near and far future. Koza’s critical analysis on the state of music education provides some possible ways of addressing the tension in the existing music education curriculum which sustains the dominant Western European perspective. She sends an invitation to all music educators:

Continue to listen for Whiteness (and their white privilege), not to affirm it, but to recognize its intitutional presence, understand its technologies, and thereby work toward defunding it. Not only is it important that music educators talk substantively about race in discussions of school music, but also that we explore multiple ways of thinking and talking about music, learning, teaching and quality (93).

Living in a country that claims to be a multicultural society, we are asked to have a global and multicultural perspective on the world. This also affects how we teach in the educational system. However, is it even possible to consider multiculturalism as a policy that is fitting for the whole of Canadian society? Music education must address the growing diversity in its classroom, and to be wary of the ways in which it covertly and overtly excludes minority perspectives.

references

Canadian Multiculturalism Act. SC 1988m c.31

Campbell, P. S. (1996). Music in Cultural Context: Eight Views on World Music Education. Reston, Virginia: Music Educators National Conference.

Dimitriadis, G., & Kamberelis G. (1999). Talkin’ Tupac: Speech Genres and the Mediation of Cultural Knowledge. In C. McCarthy, G. Hudak, S. Miklaucic & P. Saukko (Eds.), Sound Identities: Popular Music and the Cultural Politics of Education (pp. 119-150). New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.

Elliot, D. J. (1989). Key Concepts in Multicultural Music Education. In T. Rice & P. M. Shand (Eds.) Multicultural Music Education: The “Music Means Harmony” Workshop (pp. 9-18). Toronto, Ontario: Institute for Canadian Music.

Fleras, A., & Elliot, J. L. (2002). Engaging Diversity: Multiculturalism in Canada, Second Edition. Toronto, Ontario: Nelson Thomson Learning.

Hudak, G. M. (1999). The “Sound” Identity: Music-Making and Schooling. In C. McCarthy, G.

Hudak, S. Miklaucic & P. Saukko (Eds.), Sound Identities: Popular Music and the Cultural Politics of Education (p. 447-474). New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.

Koza, J. E. (2009). Listening for Whiteness: Hearing Racial Politics in Undergraduate School Music. In T. A. Regelski & J. T. Gates (Eds.), Music Education for Changing Times: Guiding Visions for Practice (pp.85-95). London, New York: Springer Science+Business Media.

McCarthy, C., Hudak, G., Miklaucic, S., & Saukko, P. (1999). Anxiety and Celebration: Popular Music and Youth Identities at the End of the Century. In C. McCarthy, G. Hudak, S. Miklaucic & P. Saukko (Eds.), Sound Identities: Popular Music and the Cultural Politics Education (pp. 1-15). New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.

McGowan, M. O. (1998). Diversity of What? In R. Post & M. Rogin (Eds.), Race and Representation: Affirmative Action (pp. 237-250). New York: Zone Books.

Morton, C. (2000). In the Meantime: Finding a Vision for Multicultural Music Education in Canada. In B. Hanley & B. A. Roberts (Eds.), Looking Forward: Challenges to Canadian Music Education (pp. 251-272). Canada: The Canadian Music Educators Association.

Schippers, H. (2010). Facing the Music: Shaping Music Education from a Global Perspective. New York, New York: Oxford University Press.