Our Students

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• The production of Iran as a national state spacetime: Late development and formal subsumption

Public Art Studies

Aitak is a contemporary artist who utilizes clay bodies and installations to depict intricate political and social narratives drawn from personal and collective stories. Academically, she is interested in the intersection of public art and political expression, and in exploring the connection between freedom of expression and the arts in the public realm. Additionally, she values leading community art initiatives, connecting them to social studies and advocacy within her academic and artistic practice.

Supervisor: Andil Gosine

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• Exploring and recreating ecologies that take shape between plants and people

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• Sights of Contestation Part II: Body

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• The fractured horizons of Black Caribbean world-making in the midst of crisis

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• The anthropocentrism of settler colonialism and the survivance of land

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• Recipes as Inquiry: (Re) visiting baking recipes from Mi’kma’ki and New Brunswick

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• Revitalizing traditional foods and sharing lifelong food skills

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• The Arts as a form of knowledge production

More than Access: The urban governance of water quality in Lusaka, Zambia

Hillary Birch is a PhD student in Environmental Studies where she studies how projects of global health intersect with processes of urbanization that shape flows of water in a city and change its quality, focusing on a case study of Lusaka, Zambia. At York, Hillary is a Dahdaleh Global Health Graduate Scholar in Planetary Health, and she holds an SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. She has master’s degrees in urban governance from Sciences Po, Paris, and in political science from McGill University.

Supervisor: Roger Keil

No Pipeline to Utopia: Ideology, Disavowal, and the Politics of the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX)

My project analyzes the politics and discourses surrounding the TMX as a network of the fantasies of Canadian settler colonialism and fossil capitalism. I examine the settler origin myths, scapegoats, conspiracies, and climate disavowal, and denialism that serve to conceal socio-ecological antagonisms and foster consent for extractivism in Canada.

Supervisor: Ilan Kapoor

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Sights of Contestation Part I: Unconscious

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• The Role of Informal Networks in the Protection of Public Transport in Nairobi

How Indigenous philosophy and practice may transform the way we make and view movies

Moore is Kanyen'kehà:ka (Mohawk), a fluent Kanyen'kè:ha speaker (ACTFL intermediate/high), and an enrolled member of Six Nations of the Grand River territory. She is an independent filmmaker, podcaster, and educator. Moore is also a founding member/co-owner of The Aunties Dandelion: a media-arts collective informed by traditional Onkwehòn:we (Indigenous) teachings and focused on revitalizing communities through stories of land, language, and relationships.

Supervisor: Cate Sandilands

Knowledge Mobilization: From Knowledge to Action in International Development

My research aims at exploring options for knowledge mobilization (KMb) practice and build the capacity to engage in it more effectively at the community level in Latin America. I propose to include the exciting developments in the field to support co-production models in the service of social justice. My research also incorporates and analyzes a lifetime of professional practice in newcomer and health services delivery to develop a robust contribution to the field of KMb.

Supervisor: Felipe Montoya

Shallow Depths: Reproductions of nuclear landscapes and anomalies of consent in Chalk River, ON

Laura has a Master's degree in Environmental Policy and is a Ph.D. candidate in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, where her research engages with an environmental justice framework and considers the viability of consent-based mechanisms for more just approaches to impact assessments.

Supervisor: Dayna N. Scott

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• Sights of Contestation Part III: Images

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• When HIV and COVID-19 pandemics collide in Black communities in Canada

Learning with humanimals: Exploring diverse rabbit-human interactions in the animal shelter

I am interested in how animals can be understood as subjects and teachers as opposed to mere learning tools for human pursuits, which is how they are often seen. Departing from my decade of experience working in animal shelters, my research explores how rabbits and humans can learn-teach together in this setting. I use common worlding and decolonial theory as my theoretical framework to counter Western, instrumentalized views of animals and learning-teaching.

Supervisor: Leesa Fawcett

Park Perceptions and Racialized Realities: A photovoice exploration of experiences in greenspaces

The Park Perceptions and Racialized Realities project explores the experiences of racialized residents in public urban greenspaces in two Toronto neighborhoods. This photovoice research project was conducted in collaboration with Greenchange, Jane/Finch Centre, and the St. James Town Community Co-operative.

Webpage: https://www.yorku.ca/euc/research-projects/park-perceptions/

Supervisor: Sarah Flicker

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• Exploring the experiences of racialized residents in two Toronto neighborhoods
• Green spaces, mental health, and well-being in the time of COVID-19

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• Performing a repertoire of resistance, disruption, and inspiration
• SIHub as a model to develop the next wave of innovative leaders

Activist/Socially Engaged Arts, Social/Environmental Movements, Leadership/Scholarship from Margins

Phyllis Novak (she/they) is a social arts curator, researcher, and strategist, trained in theatre performance with an interdisciplinary arts practice. She is the founding Artistic Director of SKETCH Working Arts (1996-2021) and is now working on her PhD at York University Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, in Arts and Social and Environmental Movements, centering community activist scholarship from the margins. She was an inaugural fellow of the 2015 Toronto Arts Council Cultural Leaders Lab.

Supervisor: Lisa Myers

Sex and Disability: Theatre as a Tool of Liberation and Sex Education

Supervisor: Sarah Flicker

Critical Design Pedagogy for Social Wellbeing

Supervisor: Justin Podur

The political ecology of private sector investment in nature-based solutions to the climate crisis

For the past 20 years, Simon has worked in the field of international development and humanitarian action, as a researcher, policy analyst, and project manager. Most recently he has supported communities, governments, and NGOs to develop innovative solutions to the climate crisis, especially in contexts affected by compound risks such as chronic poverty and inequality, biodiversity loss and land degradation, conflict, and forced displacement, with a focus on Eastern and Southern Africa.

Supervisor: Stefan Kipfer

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• Exploring democracy and justice within low-carbon energy initiatives

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• The utility headquarters as a symbol of eco-modernism