Graduate Student Profiles

Daniel Banoub,

caballer@yorku.ca

In April 2009, I completed B.A. at Memorial University in St. John's, NL. I  started my M.A. at York in September 2009. My interests, broadly, include: political economy, historical anthropology, and visual anthropology, with an ethnographic focus on rural Newfoundland. My current research is focused on Fogo Island (off the north coast of Newfoundland) between 1949 and 1969. Newfoundland, in that period, was in the process of several massive transformations: the provincial government, under the reign of Premier Joey Smallwood, was seeking to modernize and develop the province - at any cost. I am looking at how those processes unfolded in the communities on Fogo Island and, more importantly, how they were resisted, culminating in the opening of co-operative fish processing plant. A series of documentary films, produced by the NFB with the direct participation of the locals, I think (and hopefully can prove!) was an integral part of the resistance movement. Other interests include: beer, django reinhardt, woody allen and the food network.

Ferdinand Caballero,

caballer@yorku.ca

Broadly, my research interests include the anthropology of space and place, urban studies, architecture, material culture, migration, and religion. For my current research, I intend to conduct a study that will be situated in a chosen urban centre in Canada, where there is a significant volume of immigrants from Southeast Asia (The Philippines). This study will investigate the connection of ethnic identity-construction instantiated in ‘inscribed spaces’. This thesis research will either support or challenge the current conditions of ‘Canadian Multiculturalism’.

In addition to my academic interests, I also find the delight in consuming spicy cuisines and indulge myself in travelling— especially in the old cities of the Mediterranean and Southeast Asia.

Sebastian Campos,

scampos@yorku.ca

Sebastian is a technophile with a profound interest in how humans interact with and communicate through technology. He is especially interested in cyberspace cultures, particularly those of online video games. His Master's research is based on the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) MapleStory, wherein he is exploring the centrality of the virtual body in shaping one's online experiences. His work focuses on the regulation and disciplining of the virtual body through processes of enculturation that aim to produce 'legible' and ‘fit’ cyber-bodies.

Sebastian earned his Honours BA in Social Anthropology / Humanities at York (2008), and his other academic interests include early Christianities as well as late-nineteenth and twentieth century eugenic movements. In his free time, he enjoys competitive and cooperative gaming, plays bass guitar, and listens to loud rock music.

Jessica Caporusso ,

jesscapo@yorku.ca

Inspired by embodiment, sensation and affect, my research investigates pedagogies and practices of self-making in the context of audio engineering and sound recording in the Greater Toronto Area. I am particularly committed to exploring the establishment of multi-sensory ways of acquiring knowledge, through engaging modalities of the senses, affect and through phenomenological experience. My current research in sound production is principally concerned with various dimensions of performance, "serious play" and tacit knowledge. Other interests include science & technology studies, videogames and loitering in various Toronto bookstores and cafes.

Daielle Coghlan ,

danie@yorku.ca

Interested in ethico-aesthetic-paradigms, I am currently engaging with installation art, mixed media drawing, dance, visual painting, and a graphic novel produced and performed by artists who have exiled from regions dominated by political violence and presently live in Toronto and Montreal. In these events, I am tracking in and through situations and networks how these different practices of art speak about the body as a witness and response to political violence. Other academic interests include art, science & technology, and critical disability studies. My leisurely activities are painting & drawing with mixed media, sci-fi, hiking, gardening, ceramic painting, and learning about the lives of insects, plants, and marine life. 

Megan Cotton-Kinch,

meganck@yorku.ca

I’m interested in the racial politics of development: my Masters research is specifically focused on Canadian mining companies in Guatemala: what are the effects on local, often indigenous, people, and for the country of Guatemala? Is this reflective of a Canadian national project?  This entails looking at intersections of race, political economy, law and culture. I’m also affiliated with the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean here at York.  When I’m not doing anthropology I am probably off somewhere thinking very nerdy thoughts.

Claire Dalmyn,

cdalmyn@yorku.ca

I am using my MA thesis research into practices and subjective experiences of practitioners of BDSM (bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadomasochism) to critically interrogate cultural logics of power, pleasure and pain. In this project I am concerned with “queering common sense”, in exploring not only contemporary “commonsense” knowledges and beliefs concerning pain, power and desire in erotic and other contexts, but how these notions come to gain currency and, in both theoretical and practical terms, what constitutes the “common” “sense”. This project will emphasize the lived realities, knowledges and embodied, sensual and affective experiences of practitioners, specifically women and trans people playing in the queer women's network in the Greater Toronto Area. My goal is to not only “work” BDSM with the “tools” of anthropology, but to “play” anthropology with the theoretical and methodological “toys” of BDSM.

I moved to Toronto on the trail of the killers of my father and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture I've . . . wait, that's wrong. I moved here in 2008 after completing my Honours B.A. at the University of Winnipeg. In my remaining copious spare time I write, knit and design knittable things, and I'm contemplating taking up the accordion.

Malissa Farnham,

malifarn@yorku.ca

My Master's research involves documenting the experience of homeless youth in Ontario, looking at the ways in which history and institutional forces shape their everyday lives. My field work takes place at a youth shelter in York Region where there has recently been an upsurge of research on homelessness mostly pertaining to addictions and mental health issues. My aim is to use anthropological methods and analysis to open up overlooked aspects of the everyday experience of youth poverty and unemployment in this particular region. Currently I am working with participants on creative and collaborative ways to document pathways to/from homelessness.

Robert Ferguson ,

rferg@yorku.ca

I joined York University's MA program in September of 2009. Generally, I am interested in virtual ethnography and the Internet's potential as a medical technology. My research focuses on how the Internet and online health information is used by medical professionals and patients to enhance, negotiate, or challenge the face-to-face clinical encounter. I am also interested in how the Internet is used as a media for public health communication and epidemic surveillance. My primary interest is in websites like webMD and patientslikeme.com. I am also interested in the views of doctors and doctors-in-training on the potential benefits and limitations of the Internet as a medical technology in their practices.

Lauren Harding,

leh@yorku.ca

I came to anthropology via English, as I found that despite my literary focus, it was the people who produced, read, critiqued, valorized and disseminated 'stories' which caught my interest. Graduating from the University of Alberta with a double major in Anthropology and English for my BA, I hope to fuse these two interests in my research at York. My studies focus on the ongoing ramifications of  British colonialism in contemporary societies, especially around issues of modernity. My current research project revolves around Canadian conceptions of wilderness (vs. civilization), as rooted in colonialism and manifest in current tourism practices and Canadian cultural myth-making. My field site is in my beloved Rockies, where you may encounter me roaming the backcountry, hanging out with the locals at the pub, or swapping bear stories around a campfire.

Jenna Hossack,

jhossack@yorku.ca

I started my MA at York in 2009 after completing my Honours BA at the University of Toronto Scarborough. My research interests lie in sexual health and health promotion/education, specifically, sex education in high schools. I plan to investigate the dimensions of policy, curriculum, teacher training, and both formal and informal education and dissemination of knowledge about sexual health in the construction of sexual governance in school communities. Where, what, and how are students learning about sex? What do they think they should know? How do educators feel about teaching it? What kind of atmosphere or culture is in schools around sex? How do students learn, create and share knowledge about sex? How do students conduct themselves in such a culture in light of their own experiences? As the product of a small town who is now intensely attached to Toronto, I am also interested in the contrasts between the experiences of rural and urban schools.

 Things other than sex ed that I'm preoccupied with include feminism, food (especially baking), public spaces and playing rugby with the Toronto Scottish RFC.

Ryan T. Johnston,

rtj@yorku.ca

Broadly speaking, I'm interested in human-animal relationships and issues of the environment. My current research is concerned with the socio-cultural politics of tiger conservation efforts. One of the main objectives of my research is to encourage understanding beyond the human so as to more fully acknowledge the entanglement of all forms of life. Additionally, I am interested in the areas of conservation biology, symbolic systems, semiotics, post-humanist theory, and science & technology studies.

Dylan Mackie,

dmackie@yorku.ca

What is a body? Better yet, what can a body do? These are enormous questions that we continue to ask.  My research is focusing on the nature of experimental systems, particularly how bodies fit into experiments.  Bodies are experimented on, but the bodies of experimenters are woven into the experimental apparatus.  I am interested in the nuanced, complex, and affective movements/intensities of bodies within experimental systems.  More specifically, I am interested in the connections and intersections drawn between the use of electric stimulus and the human nervous system.  Broadly speaking, my interests lie in an anthropology of the body woven through medicine, science, art, and performance.  I completed BA (Hons) in Anthropology from SFU in 2007.

Shalanda Phillips,

shalanda@yorku.ca

Shalanda Phillips is a graduate student of social anthropology at York
University. She is fixated on modes of moving and the multifaceted theoretical terrain texturing the bodies therein. Her current research is principally concerned with embodied, sensuous, and affective practices approached through an ethnographic engagement with spun fire in the Greater Toronto Area. Alongside her scholarly interests, she also plays with and without fire through various mediums: hoop, staff, rope dart, and poi. Her interests more broadly deal with various dimensions of play, including published work on multi-partner sexual play and, more recently, a phenomenological inquiry into the sensory dimension of spinning fire.
Miss Phillips also enjoys the finer things in life: pubs, pints, and Star Trek.

Ben Prichard,

ben3@yorku.ca

I am interested in solution oriented anthropology. As such, I am currently in the process of writing a thesis on opiate addiction in semi-rural towns. I hope to use this document to help a group named Helping Addicts Restore Themselves advocate for a detox center in Parry Sound. I will be attending law school at the University of Western Ontario or Osgoode Hall in the coming academic year.

Emily Simmonds,

simms@yorku.ca

I successfully completed an undergraduate degree in anthropology at York University in the spring of 2007.  During my final year of study I worked full time as a Junior Analyst for The Health Results Team of Information Management.  Currently, I am working towards the completion of my Masters degree. Broadly speaking my research interests is the ways in which anthropology has addressed and framed the relationship between identity production, movement and sovereignty. In order to explore how these ideas are linked my work focuses on the passport. Other research interests of mine included security, militarization, and visual culture     

Niki Thorne,

thornecs@yorku.ca

Niki is an activist anthropologist. She's keen on social justice, and is also quite fond of Gramsci. A couple years ago she had an undergraduate student research award (USRA) from the McMaster Experiential Education department, through which she was able to conduct activist research around the reclamation of Kanonhstaton (Douglas Creek Estates). After a soul crushing, three month long strike, she's turned her research focus from big acts of organized resistance to the smaller, creative day to day ways people contest hierarchical and patriarchal structures of domination--how do we embody resistance? Currently, she's also involved in the First Nations Solidarity Working Group of CUPE 3903, and the Extractive Industries Research Group here at York.

Nayrouz Abu-Hatoum,

nayrouz@yorku.ca

My area of interest is drawn from my personal experiences with movement, fragmented belongings, bordered spaces, violence and conflict. In my Master thesis I dealt with the notion of ‘home’ and ‘exile’ through the experience of diasporic Muslims in Toronto. Drawing on that I intend to investigate for my PhD ideas and notions of belonging in constantly transforming border zones spaces. My empirical encounter will take place in Palestine around the Israeli-built apartheid wall in Palestinian lands, where I intend to explore creation of new spaces of belonging and resistance to state power.

Karen Angus ,

kangus@yorku.ca

Broadly speaking, I am interested in the affective and embodied dimensions of productions of scientific “knowledge”. My Masters degree, also undertaken at York University, explored sites of difference as they intersect with the affective aspects of dance.  My PhD research will expand on this by exploring these dimensions as they contribute to attempts to produce “human-like” artificial intelligence.  What is the template for thinking about humanity that is informing these efforts?  What kind of understandings of humanity are projected onto and derived from artificially intelligent beings?  How are these ideas transformed through processes of trial and error?  How are inequalities and categories of difference being reproduced and how are they being subverted in attempts to mechanically produce a human-like machine? As intelligence is commonly cited as the singular factor that separates humanity from non-human animals, I aim to glean insight from this project into the changing understandings of human cognition, and therefore, of humanity.

Anisa Anwar,

ananwar@yorku.ca

Medical Anthropology becomes a major focus of my research interest through my M.Phil. research among the Santals of Northern Bangladesh where I examined Santal reproduction practices, specifically women’s perspectives on their body, pregnancy, childbirth, infertility, and postpartum experiences. From 2000-2002, I completed M.Phil degree in Social Anthropology from University of Bergen, Norway. For PhD my current research interest lies in exploring the community and cultural understanding of preventive health care practices regarding breast health care among the first generation newcomer Bangladeshi immigrant women in Toronto. I plan to build on this research by exploring attitudes towards health care specifically breast cancer prevention and to investigate changes, if any, in past and present attitudes towards breast cancer awareness and available treatment. I started my career in teaching Social Anthropology at SahJalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh in 1999. Later on I worked as a contract faculty in Anthropology Department at Cosumnes River College, LosRios Community College District of California (2005-2007) and at California State University, Sacramento (2006-2007).

Kamal Arora,

arorak@yorku.ca

I began the PhD program in Social Anthropology in 2009. I hold a BA in Communication and English Literature from Simon Fraser University (Canada) and an MA in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies/University of Sussex (United Kingdom).  For my MA research I examined the impact of communal violence on Sikh widows in North India during the politically volatile 1980s, by conducting fieldwork in Amritsar and New Delhi. For my dissertation research I aim to continue this work by exploring, through a feminist anthropological lens, the impacts of political violence on militant Sikh women in Amritsar as well as Sikh women in New Delhi.  My interests lie in the intersections between religion, kinship, ethnic identity, agency, violence and the nation-state. I also have a number of years of experience working in university research settings, community development and international development, both in Canada and in New Delhi in various fields.

Melissa Atkinson-Graham,

matkigra@yorku.ca

Fascinated by what is know of matter and what can be know of matter, my research interests focus on the involvements between substances, surfaces, forces and the processes that constitute the materiality of bodily being. My Master's thesis project, The Body in and of Craniosacral Therapy, ethnographically examined these themes through questions of embodiment, energy, healing, pedagogy and practice in the alternative and complementary health field of craniosacral therapeutics. In terms of my dissertation research, I am interested in expanding upon these questions more thoroughly in order to flesh out the political, historical, and sociocultural entanglements that shape the materialization of bodies in both biomedicine and alternative health. To this end, I am interested in exploring the ways in which sentience has been modeled and propagated in and through molecular and cellular bodies in biomedical research and alternative health practices. More broadly, my research interests take form in relation to such topics as affect, sensation, phenomenology, body politics, performance, pedagogy, risk and representation, visual culture, and contemporary art. 

Umit Aydogmus,

uaydogms@yorku.ca

My area of interest lies at the intersections of neoliberalism, employment, citizenship, religious movements, politics and changing discourses of adult education, urban governance, poverty, social policies and constellations of new govern mentalities in Turkey. Specifically, I am interested in the enhanced role of Istanbul metropolitan municipality led institutions, and their particular discourses of citizenship, employment and society, from the mid-1990s onwards under neoliberal globalization. I developed particular interest about these issues during my graduate (MA) education at Bogazici University in Department of Sociology (Istanbul/Turkey) and 2nd Masters Study at Lund University in the Program of Development Studies. I took my undergraduate degree in Sociology at Bogazici University. In addition to these issues, I am interested in social and political theory, civil society organizations, creative industries and communities, urban politics, social movements, gender, affect and masculinities, action research and participatory ethnographies, political anthropology and visual/media anthropology. In my spare time, I usually work on my latest translation; wander in the streets of Toronto, exercise, read, cook and travel.

Laurie Baker,

lbaker@yorku.ca

My current research interests include the appearance and use of audio/visual technology by mega churches primarily in the southern United States. Amongst other aspects of ritual and religion, I am interested in looking at the ways that narratives of conversion are displayed via large screens at the head of the congregation and the affect this display may have on new attendees, sometimes referred to as seekers. The relationship between an affective and somatic religious engagement that is mediated through audio/visual technology figures prominently.

Heather Barnick,

hbarnick@yorku.ca

Currently, my intellectual interests circle around the anthropology of media, visual culture, and the intersections between science, technology, and the imagination. I am fascinated by the ways in which scientific narratives of “sensory systems” become templates for the hardware and software design of virtual spaces (simulators, video games, online Role Playing Games) which aim to train, condition, and captivate bodies. My PhD research at York University concentrates on Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) in Shanghai, China as sites of nation-building, pedagogy, and entertainment. As China attempts to grow its domestic online gaming industry, I am curious about how the processes and intended outcomes of game design transpire and transform in a variety of contexts including: universities, Internet entertainment providers, and among players themselves. As much as I think there is room for critical reflection of virtual gaming technologies, I am also a fan and so much of my “non-academic” time is spent playing World of Warcraft and keeping up to date with the latest news in Second Life.

Samantha DeVries,

sdevries@yorku.ca

I joined the PhD program at York University in 2009.  My research interests include gender, work, mobility and labour migration.  I conducted my MA thesis research in rural Nepal amongst Tamang women from the district of Makawanpur. During my field research, I investigated cultural attitudes towards women's mobility, young women's aspirations to migrate in search of paid work and the work Tamang women do in a rural context.  For my doctoral research, I plan to explore the factors that motivate Tamang women to migrate, to examine how they are able to mobilize social networks and resources in order to migrate, as well as to investigate the challenges that women face once they decide to migrate in search of work.  I am also interested in investigating cultural attitudes towards women’s mobility and how this is related to cultural attitudes about gender roles, appropriate female sexuality and women’s decisions regarding labour migration.

Laura Eramian,

eramian@yorku.ca

Within the broad fields of political and legal anthropology, my research interests are in political violence. I am specifically interested the effects of such violence on everyday life as well as state-level efforts to address/redress the past. My doctoral research deals with these kinds of questions in contemporary Rwandan society. I am looking at the relationship between memory, both individual and collective, and social relationships among Rwandan genocide survivors of the intellectual and professional classes. I concentrate on how survivors navigate their current social relationships amid daily reminders of the 1994 genocide, including sites of violence, génocidaires recently released from prison, and the absences of friends, family, colleagues, and neighbours.

Nelson Ferguson,

nfergus@yorku.ca

Nelson Ferguson’s interests lie in relation to human movement across the globe, especially in regards to labour migration. He has done previous multi-sited fieldwork for his Masters degree exploring the lived experiences of Mexican migrant laborers in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Program. During that time, he lived and worked on a decorative tree farm alongside 22 migrant labourers, and completed his research in Mexico by sojourning with several of his co-workers and their families.  His PhD research switches from an exploration of transnational labour migration to an examination of intra-national labour migration, by looking at the current movements of workers from the Atlantic Provinces to the oil industry of Fort McMurray, Alberta. He plans to combine his theoretical interests in political economy and phenomenology to examine both the impacts of economic factors upon individuals involved in such movements as well as how individuals respond to and negotiate such economic circumstances. When Nelson is not busy in anthropology-land, he enjoys mountain biking, martial arts, kayaking, and wall-climbing.

Alicia Grimes,

amgrimes@yorku.ca

Alicia is a PhD student studying under the supervision of Shubhra Gururani. Currently in the San Francisco Bay area conducting fieldwork at TransFair USA, Alicia is exploring practices of fair trade certification and how they configure the terrains in which the fair trade movement in North America is negotiated through its consumer markets. Combining theoretical contributions from political economy of consumption and social audit literatures, her research also examines fair trade certification as an exercise in ethical and economic accounting, one rooted in wider political struggles over what makes consuming ‘fairly’ socially relevant in an era of intensified and accelerated global economic integration. Her extra-curricular interests include photography, dance, regular dental hygiene, and savouring a variety of delectable cheeses

Michael Connors Jackman,

samizdat@yorku.ca

I joined the PhD program in social anthropology in 2007. My doctoral research focuses on the construction of queer publics, the politics of affect, and media activism in Canada in connection with The Body Politic, a Toronto-based gay liberation magazine published by Pink Triangle Press from 1971–1987. I am concerned with how the political ambitions and energies of those involved with the magazine have been transformed and redeployed since the 1970s. In particular, I am interested in the reterritorialisation of queer desires and changing notions of community in the urban Canadian context. This research is an extension of my Master's work on queer artists and AIDS activism in Atlantic Canada. I hold a BA from the University of King's College, as well as a BA (Honours) and an MA from Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Ryan James,

I’m studying Toronto's Regent Park, the oldest and largest public housing complex in Canada. My dissertation is about the politics and economics behind the current demolition and rebuilding of Regent (or "revitalization", as the city calls it), and how this is experienced in everyday life by residents. This is a work of urban anthropology that draws on critical planning theory and social geography.

Besides academic business, I like barbecuing, teaching my kid the alphabet, and playing Australian Rules Football with the Hamilton Wildcats.

Siobhan McCollum,

mccollum@yorku.ca

Water security -indigeneity - gender. I began the PhD program in 2008, researching how identity politics help to secure access to scarce resources in the context of a struggle for safe water by Maya women in  Toledo District, Belize. I am interested in the co-construction of society and nature, and the political ecology of water in Central America and the Caribbean.  My MA work examined discourses of poverty in a Belizean village undergoing an abundance of development interventions, examining how villagers conceptualized poverty despite the textual representation of the entire village as "poor."

Susan McNaughton

mcnau@yorku.ca

I completed an MA in Fine Arts-Dance on the creation and performance of bharatanatyam performer Lata Pada’s multi-media dance work Revealed by Fire before coming to anthropology. The ghost of the devadasi who hovers over bharatanatyam lured me to anthropology where I completed an MA looking at the ways in which gender roles were played out among temple participants and between participants and metaphorical participants, the deities, in the Ganesh Temple, Canada’s oldest Hindu temple. My current doctoral research concerns the conditions under which particular kinds of religious subjectivities emerge among the Tamillian diaspora in contemporary society and what the effects, more broadly, of such self-cultivation might be on civil society.

Rhiannon Mosher,

rmmosher@yorku.ca

Working under the supervision of Daphne Winland, I am currently conducting my fieldwork in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. My research investigates questions of nationalism, citizenship, autochthony, immigration, and integration: What does it mean to be ‘Dutch’ in the Netherlands today? How is belonging constructed, negotiated and deployed in the current context? I intend to explore these themes from the perspective of those considered ‘native Dutch’; voices which have been surprisingly absent from most current social science research on contemporary migration, integration and nationalism, yet undeniably central to such debates across policy, political, academic and public spheres. This project continues to ask the questions that have intrigued me since my Master’s work at Dalhousie University, where my thesis examined the experiences of citizenship, transnationalism and im/migration among South Asian professionals in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When I’m not pondering important anthropological questions, I enjoy being crafty, 19th century English literature, and exploring my new city in search of charming canal-side cafes and picturesque views.

Elysee Nouvet,

nouvet@yorku.ca

Visual anthropology, sensations, suffering – As a PhD student, my research in Nicaragua explores how sensations as cultural forces materialize relations in the present and orientations to the past and future in the everyday lives of one neighbourhood’s economically and socially marginalized residents. Part written monograph, part film, my dissertation also pursues a long-standing interest in the possibilities and limits of evoking the sensory, while contributing to current debates on the value and ethical challenges of visualizing violence and the body cross-culturally.  

Karen O’Connor,

koconnor@yorku.ca

My M.A. research discussed constructions of supposedly ‘necessary’ and ‘moral’ police violence against sex workers in coastal Ecuador as embodiments of mestizo nationalisms infused with neo-colonial resonances.  My multi-sited Ph.D. research may consider the ways that bodily sensations of pain and pleasure are experienced through various engagements with violence, neoprimitivism, and expressions of sexuality, gender, race, and class in practices of body suspension.  My current pastimes include glamorous late-night diaper changes, watching reality T.V., and reading and writing fiction.  

Jillian Ollivierre,

jilli@yorku.ca

I am interested in the South-South movements of goods, images and ideologies that connect India with the island of Trinidad in the Southern Caribbean.  There, Trinidadians, particularly but not exclusively those of Indian descent, consume a ‘modern,’ globalized and mediated ‘Indianness’  (especially in the form of ‘Bollywood’ film, film music and fashions) in ways that are complexly articulated to the island’s ethno-political context.  I am particularly interested in the gendered, sexualized and racialized implications of this consumption.   Located at anthropology’s critical intersection with Media Studies, Caribbean Studies and South Asian Studies, my work aims to contribute to a growing literature complicating dominant ‘West-to-rest’ framings of globalization in contemporary times.

Michelle Switzer,

mswitzer@yorku.ca

My PhD research explores how this current political conflict highlights local practices of border-shaping through an examination of the political mobilization of Uruguayan environmental activists against the construction of a foreign-owned pulp mill in Uruguay on the border with Argentina.  Specifically, I am interested in understanding how these activists negotiate their space within a context of strong national support for the mill and the increasingly neoliberal politics of Uruguay’s left-wing government.

I completed my M.A. in Geography at Queen’s University between 2003 and 2005. I completed my B.A. in geography in 2001.  Prior to starting my studies at York, I worked as the Community Outreach and Communications Coordinator for a small Canadian international development agency with a regional focus in Mexico and Central America.

Michelle Wyndham-West,

mwywest@yorku.ca

I am a fourth year PhD student conducting an ethnographic study – across multiple “fields” – of Ontario’s tripartite health prevention policy for cervical cancer, including the HPV vaccine.  I am investigating the networks of public health policy. Networks function as a methodological tool to “follow” health policy narratives as they are developed across institutions; received, refuted or amalgamated by women in their everyday lives; and contested in everyday resistance and public advocacy.  Thus, I am examining the central notions of biological citizenship, risk and gender. In addition to pursuing my PhD, I spend most of my free time keeping up with our two boys.

Jaime Yard,

jdyard@yorku.ca

Jaime Yard is a doctoral candidate in the department of Anthropology at York University. Her dissertation in progress, "Interrupting Wilderness: Un-Settling the Social-Natural Landscape of British Columbia,” is an ethnography of the changing discursive and material construction of nature on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, an area undergoing a large-scale economic base shift from logging, fishing and mining to recreational/retirement property development.