Principal Investigator: Lisa Myers

Funding: York Research Chair

Term: 2021-2026

The research will focus on contemporary Indigenous art considering the varied values and functions of elements, such as medicine plants and language, sound, and knowledge. A project team will be built to consider the culturally specific approaches of contemporary Indigenous media artists, and to understand and constitute collections/archives of Indigenous media art. Specific activities will include: 1) researching the ‘informal archives’ that result from Indigenous video art and film production in order to articulate preservation protocols and the function and care of Indigenous collections; 2) leading research creation as a form of inquiry into Indigenous archival content; 3) mobilizing knowledge using digital arts (image, audio and video) to constitute new collections that reflect social histories and language revitalization (this will involve using the Wild Garden Media Centre at EUC); and, 4) gathering a media arts research cluster of Elders, scholars, students, and communities to work with and create Indigenous archives.

Website: https://lisarosemyers.com/home.html

Principal Investigator: Tarmo Remmel.

Funding: NSERC Discovery Grant.

Term: 2021-2026.

The project is developing an explicit logic and corresponding software to extend morphological segmentation to depict a true 3D characterization of landscapes. Methods will be subject to sensitivity analysis and will be used to compare the effects and recovery of landscape processes such as fire, harvesting, and forest road building activities, and to identify critical structural differences among them. Improvements will benefit appraisals of database accuracy, carbon accounting, and inform forest management planning.

Website: https://www.yorku.ca/remmelt/research.html

Principal Investigator: Jinthana Haritaworn

Funding: SSHRC Insight Grant.

Term: 2021-2026.

The project examines the contributions that multiple marginalized communities are making to help their societies survive and recover from the pandemic. It proposes that those who have experienced and, often, led intersecting movements for justice are in an ideal position to innovate critiques and responses that can benefit everyone. The objective is to explore alternative paradigms of quarantine that create greater safety for all, and to make contributions to scholarly debates on intersectionality, social movements, queer activism, archives, HIV/AIDS, polyamory, affect and mutual aid, as well as public debates on health education, police violence, transformative justice and community organizing.

Principal Investigator: Gregory Thiemann

Funding: NSERC Discovery Grant.

Term: 2021-2026.

The proposed research involves testing hypotheses around the environmental drivers and ecological consequences of individual specialization, using the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) as a model species and target for conservation. As a long­-lived top predator in a dynamic habitat, polar bears demonstrate several characteristics that promote individual specialization: interspecific competition is low, intraspecific competition may be strong, and individual foraging behaviour is highly variable. As a species that relies on the annual sea ice as its primary habitat, the polar bear is also vulnerable to demographic decline attributable to climatic warming. By identifying the factors contributing to individual fitness in an Arctic top predator, the research will lead to advancement in animal ecology and inform policy and action aimed at the conservation of polar bears, a species of significant cultural and economic importance in Canada.

Principal Investigator: Deborah McGregor/Co-Investigators: Lisa Myers and Alan Corbiere

Funding: SSHRC Insight Grant.

Term: 2021-2025.

The project aims to define what it means to "live well" from a self-determined Indigenous perspective. Building on previous SSHRC-funded research, the project team will focus specifically on the Anishinaabek concept of mino-mnaamodzawin (well-being with all life) as a
framework for envisioning Indigenous-derived climate futures for the benefit of not only Indigenous peoples but of all society and the natural world. The project will document and advance existing understandings of mino-mnaamodzawin in the face of climate change (knowledge gathering); revitalize Indigenous (Anishinaabek) knowledge, and share Indigenous climate change knowledge with Indigenous communities, governments, policy-makers, academics, climate scientists/researchers, ENGO's, and the public.

Co-Investigator: Joseph Mensah

Funding: IDRC

Term: 2023-2025

The project aims to examine the interrelated factors that determine women’s livelihood challenges and opportunities in the context of COVID-19. The project draws on the case of women bushmeat traders in Ghana involving both qualitative and quantitative data collection instruments and the participation of key stakeholders in Ghana’s bushmeat trade. The project is expected to result in an improved understanding of an insufficiently known livelihood activity for women; an increased awareness of the issues among stakeholders and policymakers; mobilization of efforts and resources to enhance the well-being of women; participating in the bushmeat trade particularly and to promote gender and health equity in Ghana generally. It will also draw lessons from the study to provide input into the country’s COVID-19 recovery programme and provide training and material interventions to improve bushmeat processing and selling sites – all with the goal of advancing the wellbeing of women in the bushmeat trade.

Co-Investigator: Jose Etcheverry

Funding: Legacy Project

Term: 2022-2025

The Legacy Project is an independent systems research, education, and innovation group. It draws on multidisciplinary research in the natural and social sciences, as well as Indigenous worldviews and knowledge. The project stewards 7-Generation bioregional work through social and ecological regeneration on Turtle Island, specifically in the Greater Tkaronto Bioregion (GTB), and learn with and from other bioregions around the planet.

Website: https://legacyproject.org/

Project Investigators: Luisa Sotomayor and Lina Brand Correa

Funding: SSHRC Insight Grant

Term: 2022-2025

This interdisciplinary research project (Canada, Colombia, urban planning, anthropology, development studies, and ecological economics) will investigate the implementation and effects of Colombia's market-based housing policy as it restructures the country's metropolitan peripheries. Specifically, the project aims to understand how commodified social housing affects peripheral urbanization, urban planning processes, and ultimately, residents' everyday lives. Adequate and affordable housing is a fundamental component of societal wellbeing (UN Sustainable Development Goal 11). Yet millions, both in the Global North and South, live in woefully inadequate housing or are burdened with insurmountable debt to access better shelter. In Colombia, the context post the 52-year armed conflict and a continuing migration crisis, are exacerbating the housing crisis. The project aims to: (1) elucidate state-market relations in the Colombian low-cost housing policy; (2) examine the national housing policy implementation and subsequent municipal planning responses in relation to the production of peri-urban residential projects; (3) assess the extent of residents' agency and citizenship; and (4) determine what types of needs are satisfied or hindered by the new apartment units and by collective life in the tower complexes.

Website: https://cider.uniandes.edu.co/es/boletines/boletin-130/vertical-peripheries-proyecto-financiacion-programa. Project photo & credit: Residential Developments, Social Interest Housing, Ciudadela Nuevo Occidente, Medelin. Credit: Federico Arévalo, Vertical Peripheries.

Project Investigator: Ute Lehrer

Funding: SSHRC Insight Grant

Term: 2022-2025

High-rise buildings have long been a significant form in urban development. But this form of living comes with its own challenges and the COVID-19 pandemic of the last two years has magnified some of the problems for life in close proximity. While a large body of work has emerged that seeks to understand the implications of verticality for urban living, very little has been said about the role of shared amenity spaces in high-rise buildings. There is an urgent need to systematically analyze the lived experience of high-rise residents and explore interventions in urban planning and building management that can improve vertical living. The aim of this research project is to examine high-rise living in the years before and during a period of crisis and how shared space has been used and altered in high-rise buildings. Throughout the pandemic, public space has been spotlighted as an important part of urban everyday life: (a) as a physical space where inhabitants have had to implement safe distance between one another; and (b) as an important social space where new ways of coming together have gradually taken shape.

Project Investigators: Roger Keil (York), Xuefei Ren (MSU) and Philip Harrison (WITS)

Funding: Urban Studies Foundation

Term: 2022-2023

This is a pilot study of a larger comparative project on the complex effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban governance intended to initiate a systematic comparison of vulnerability and governance in post-pandemic city regions. At the pilot phase, the research team will study three cities— Chicago, Johannesburg, and Toronto. At the later phase beyond USF seed-funding, the project will expand the comparison to include cities in Germany, Brazil, China, and India. The study examines the critical role of municipal institutions and their civil society partners in mobilizing resources to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and improve health and economic equity. Focusing on urban regions, the research will examine how the pandemic altered or exacerbated existing patterns of vulnerability, how municipal institutions, in conjunction with civil society groups, have alleviated the devastating consequences of the pandemic, and how their interventions have evolved after the acute phase of the pandemic.

Project website: https://www.yorku.ca/research/project/cityaftercovid/