Research Associates

My research focuses on sexuality education in schools in El Salvador.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: El Salvador

Keywords: Sexuality Education, Decolonial Feminist Praxis

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization:
Keywords: 

Gavin Bembridge is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in Linguistics at York University who is interested in the structure of words (i.e. morphology) and its interface with the structure of sentences (i.e. syntax), meaning (i.e.semantics), and context (i.e. pragmatics). His doctoral research aims (i) to account for Spanish verbal inflection in the distributed morphology framework, and (ii) to reduce the amount of formal mechanisms needed to account for Spanish morphology, while also extending the empirical coverage. With these goals in mind his dissertation pays particular attention to various Latin American Spanish verbal alternations:

(1) a. quisiera ~ querría ir al cine 'I’d like to go to the movies'
b. (tú) sábes ~ (vos) sabés 'you know'

In (1a) the two distinct verbal forms can have the same meaning (the conditional use of quisiera is considered archaic in peninsular Spanish), which is a problem for contemporary morphological theory which largely concerned with getting the morphemes in the right linear order. In (1b) the difference between the two verbal is in the placement in stress (i.e non-final versus final), though final stress in this context violates the expectations of Spanish verbal stress. Naturally, the issue in (1a) is how to tie these different forms to the same meaning, and in (1b) it is how to account for difference in stress placement. These issues, among others, have either (i) not received much consideration in the linguistic literature or (ii) warrant further consideration. For this reason, Latin American Spanish represent a domain in morphological/linguistics analysis that requires more attention.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Latin American and the Caribbean; Spain

Keywords: (Distributed) Morphology and its interfaces (e.g. pragmatics, semantics, and syntax), Spanish verbal Inflection, Historical Linguistics

Linn Biorklund Belliveau is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at York University. Her research interests include human displacement, violence, humanitarianism, and feminist geopolitics. The purpose of Linn’s doctoral research stem from years of working with displaced communities and non-governmental organisations, including Médecins Sans Frontières, in Mexico, Central America and many other parts of the world. Using ethnographic, participatory and art-based methods she engages feminist epistemologies and centres transnational collaborations, to question reductionist representations of people who manoeuvre cross border lives and related spaces. Her dissertation, which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Graduate Fellowship for Academic Distinction, is currently titled: Geographies of Violence and Contestation across Borders: Everyday Politics of Migrant Women at the Mexico-Guatemala U.S. Proxy Border. She also conducts research on temporary protection mechanisms, in view of restrictive immigration policies and wellbeing. Her related publications have appeared in journals such as Geopolitics; Refugee Survey Quarterly; and Conflict and Health. Linn is also a research fellow at York University Centre for Refugee Studies and Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Mexico, Northern Central America

Keywords: Human displacement, violence, humanitarianism, feminist geopolitics

Kristina Borg is a Ph.D. candidate in the Dance Department at York University. Her research is focused on Afro-Caribbean music and dance, in particular the history and practice of bachata: a dance form and musical genre from the Dominican Republic. By using ethnographic and historiographic methods, Kristina’s research aims to celebrate and understand the interconnections of the African and Indigenous-Caribbean roots of globally popular Latinx social dance forms. Central to this undertaking is a critical investigation of identity formation, nationalism, and cultural appropriation within these transnational popular dance communities.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: The Dominican Republic and Dominican/ Latin American and Caribbean Diasporic Communities

Keywords: dance, music, ethnography, history, postcolonialism

Keiron is a graduate student in York’s Development Studies program. His interests revolve around sustainable development, cultural production and sport for development. Having been involved in sport throughout his life, he has developed an interest in the concept of sport for development, at both an individual and community level. His role at the Canadian Sport Film Festival and his hands-on experience with design, photography and film production in the Toronto music and art’s industries has deepened his interest in the intersection between sport, art and development. His research will focus on how access to cultural activities like sport, art and music impact community development in the post-conflict context of Medellín.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Colombia

Keywords: Sport, art, development

PhD student in Geography at York University. Vladimir holds an MA in Political Economy from Carleton University. He has conducted research on the economic and social aspects of mining in Bolivia for a number of years. The products of his research have been published by important research institutions in that country and in some journals. His work has been a source on mining themes for Bolivian press in recent years. Previously, his work was focused on political and constitutional issues related to the Bolivian Constituent Assembly which was endowed a national award and the publication of a book.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Bolivia

Keywords: Political economy, geography, labour, mining, Bolivia

Kirsten Francescone is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology and Political Economy at Carleton University. She has an undergraduate honours degree in Anthropology from the University of Windsor and a Masters of Political Economy from Carleton University. Kirsten is currently working on completing her dissertation which seeks to understand the role of the mining economy on the social, cultural and economic organization of the colonial city of Potosi, Bolivia, a dissertation which is funded by the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Ontario Graduate Scholarships (OGS). Kirsten currently teaches two courses at Carleton University in the anthropology and child studies department. Kirsten has published several peer-reviewed journal and academic magazine in English and Spanish which seek to outline and understand the mining industry in Bolivia. Her most recent publication, published in *Latin American Policy, was *co-authored with Bolivian and York graduate student, Vladimir Diaz, and seeks to understand the history of Canadian Mining companies in the Bolivian economy and social sphere. She has been interviewed by international media sources like Aljazeera and The Guardian about cooperative miners in Potosi, Bolivia and their relationship to American miner, Coeur Mining. While in Bolivia, Kirsten works as a consultant for the San Cristobal mine miners union and is an active volunteer at the Centre for Mining Promotion Bolivia (CEPROMIN).

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Bolivia, Canada

Keywords: Extractives, labour, mineral economies, gender