Search results for ""Fernwood Publishing""

This book analyzes the benefits, practices and challenges of Mi'kmaw and Maliseet Language Immersion programs, illustrating how these programs provide a solid foundation of worldview, ethics, values and identities that are essential for improved academic success, and examines the Honouring Traditional Knowledge Project, a two-year project to seek Elders' views on how to include them and traditional knowledge in all aspects of community economic research and development.

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This volume explores Indigenous measures of economic development in First Nations Atlantic Canadian communities that are of relevance for First Nations peoples. Many of the challenges faced by these communities and their local, regional and national leaders in advancing economic development relate to experiences of diverse and complex issues – most of which clash with federal policies that increasingly call for centralization, standardization and uniformity. This volume illustrates the key challenges in establishing and maintaining socially responsible economic development that is beneficial for Aboriginal communities.

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The past two decades have witnessed the emerging role of grassroots social movements and community-based peacebuilding as key sites of transformative political and cultural engagement. Merging Fires offers case studies of grassroots alliance building between non-Indigenous activists and three Indigenous communities: the Chippewa of Nawash, the Grassy Narrows First Nation and the Anishinaabe Grand Council of Treaty #3. These Canadian examples offer insights into the challenges, limitations and complexities of transformative, community-based alliance building and raise critical questions about power, knowledge and pedagogy at the grassroots level.While this analysis is uniquely Canadian in scope, Merging Fires is of great political relevance in light of the Idle No More movement as well as similar decolonizing initiatives occurring globally. Rick Wallace’s research methodologies and ethics of solidarity are starkly different from many mainstream academic approaches, and his documentation of on-the-ground efforts at peacebuilding fills an important gap in the field.

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Called to his dying father’s bedside, Gabriel Golden’s life is turned upside down after receiving his mother’s journal. The journal chronicles his mother’s life in post-war Britain, her genteel upbringing and her eventual marriage to Gabriel’s father, a complicated man raised in an aggressive, Jewish family who drinks to escape financial worries. Gabriel is shocked as the novel reveals dark secrets about his parents’ relationship, shaking Gabriel’s preconceptions about his father – and himself.Based on a true story and winner of the H.R. Percy Novel Prize and the Beacon Award for Social Justice, Turn Us Again is a powerful exploration of the dynamics within family relationships, enticing the reader to embark on a journey towards a more complex understanding of the issue of abuse.Read the review by The Chronicle Heraldhere.

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Demonstrations are without a doubt the most common form of political expression, more so in democratic nations - where its legitimacy competes, relatively happily, with more conventional forms of participation such as the vote - than in non-democratic countries, where demonstration accompanies attempts to revolt and overthrow.In this book, which includes updated information from the original French version, the authors offer a sociological and historical analysis of this political mode of action, with its norms and rules, its myths and legends, its glorious episodes and its darkest hours. But most of all, beyond a classic interrogation on the place of demonstration in the repertoire of contemporary action and political struggle, Demonstrations is also an analysis of the demonstrators themselves, providing us with insight into their passions and convictions.

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The gender gap refers to the differences in public opinion and political participation between men and women: the proportion of seats held by women in Canadian legislatures appears to have plateaued or even declined at all levels of government, and gendered differences in political behaviour and participation impact public policy, political outcomes and democratic fairness in Canada.Mind the Gaps provides a multifaceted examination of the role of gender in traditional politics, social movement politics and the media in Canada. This edited collection provides an interdisciplinary examination of the gender gap in Canada, and brings together knowledge, viewpoints and case studies on gender and politics, providing readers with a greater understanding of the various gender gaps that exist in Canada politics.

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Habitat loss, the extinction of species, severe droughts, rapidly diminishing polar ice, hugely powerful and destructive storms – how have we arrived at such a precarious point in the environmental history of our planet? In Television and the Earth: Not a Love Story, Jennifer Ellen Good argues that one of the fundamental reasons for the wholesale neglect and destruction of our environment is television – or, more precisely, the stories told on television. Stories have always been vital to how we make sense of the world, but in the historical blink of an eye, mediated communication changed the source and content of our stories. And no mediated storyteller continues to have a greater impact on our lives than television. Exploring the essential, and essentially devastating, role television’s celebration of materialism plays in our world, this book arrives at the conclusion that there is nothing more responsible for environmental degradation than the materialism of the affluent countries of the world - and nothing teaches materialism more effectively than television.

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A corrupt mining company, repossessed gravestones, a man’s fractured past, mysterious notes posted to lampposts and murder deep in the highlands of Guatemala. In Tailings of Warren Peace, Stephen Law effortlessly weaves these elements into a powerful story of love and memory, exploring how the past haunts us and how solidarity can save us all. Mysterious, passionate and powerful, Tailings of Warren Peace shows us the interconnections that exist between us, transcending social class, culture and geography.

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From the Introduction:History is full of stories of the oppressed rebelling against the oppressor, only to reinstate an equally oppressive system. What we learn from oppression is how to oppress. If we want a truly transformative politics, then we must take up methods that embody the kind of world we want to create; we have to change deeply embedded beliefs and behaviours.In this engaging and passionate book, long-time community organizer Joan Kuyek offers important insights and concrete tools to encourage people to get involved in social justice action at the community level. In Canada, activists are frustrated with their inability to effect change in the global economic system, overwhelmed by the number and complexity of issues and too often unaware or dismissive of the efforts of other activists. As a result, social forces for justice and the environment are fragmented and ineffective, and the economic elite grows more powerful. Community Organizing argues that it does not have to be this way. Suggesting that most of our attempts at change and community-building fail because we cannot get along with each other, Community Organizing starts at the community level to describe how we can work together and create organizations based on dignity and respect. It provides strategies to build movements from the community to assert democratic political power and tools to create a culture of hope in this time of despair. This book offers the means to reclaim political power in Canada.

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How do social justice and environmental activists determine or define their effectiveness? This unique consideration shares the stories of eight diverse social justice movements-including the Alberta College of Social Workers, the Calgary Raging Grannies, Oxfam Canada, and the Youth Project of Halifax-as they contemplate their own achievements. Revealing that success is not measured only in large-scale social reform, but is also found in moments of connection, such as in building relationships and raising awareness, this record provides meaningful insights into the struggle against neoliberal capitalism. A contribution to the movements challenging the domination of free market ideology, this book will offer a space for reflecting on the impacts of activist groups.

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From science channels and documentaries to fictional and children's programming, television brings a myriad of scientific discoveries and theories into the homes of people around the world. While television is an important intermediary between society and its understanding of science, this record argues that the science we learn on the tube is inaccurate, misleading, and, sometimes, even dangerous. Dealing with issues such as tobacco consumption, global warming and Intelligent Design-as well as a host of pseudoscientific pursuits like UFOs, ghosts, and the afterlife-this illuminating account examines how producers' pursuit of ratings and profit trump any desire to provide the Audience with an accurate knowledge of science.

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In the 1980s, following decades of booming business, the global steel industry went into a precipitous decline, which necessitated significant restructuring. Management demanded workers’ increased participation in evermore temporary and insecure labour. Engaging the workers at the flagship Stelco plant in Hamilton, the authors document new management strategies and the responses of unionized workforces to them. These investigations provide valuable insights into the dramatic changes occurring within the Canadian steel industry.

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Through in-depth qualitative research with African Canadians in three Canadian cities-Calgary, Toronto, and Halifax-this study explores how experiences of racism, when combined with other social and economic factors, affect the health and well-being of this segment of the country`s population. With a special interest in how racial stereotyping impacts black men and boys, the book presents stories of racism and violence and describes how reactions to racism differ across a range of social and economic variables. In addition, the discussion rejects the notion that black communities are homogeneous and provides a detailed examination of three distinct communities: Caribbean, immigrant African, and Canadian black.

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An ethnographic study of Ontario Works-a jobs program for welfare recipients-this reference points to unsolved problems going back to 1996, when the program was voted in as part of the neoliberal restructuring of the welfare state. Key findings show that the assigned jobs often complicate the lives of the workers; that the workers provide subsidized and cheap labor for companies and social agencies; and that workers don`t get enough assistance in keeping jobs or building skills.

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Combining ethnology and memoir, this fascinating book describes the issues surrounding childbirth and motherhood for disabled women. The author, a paraplegic, tells about her own hunt for medical advice before getting pregnant-and then about the normal births of her two children-before widening the conversation to other disabled women and sympathetic members of the medical community.

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Spotlighting one man's choice to abandon security for chance, this biographical memoir relates the inspiring story of John St. Amand, who left a promising career as a sociologist-along with handsome health and retirement benefits-to take on the turbulent life of a union organizer. Documenting one of his first campaigns in which he crisscrossed industrial Cape Breton signing up workers to the new Canadian Miner's Union, this narrative recollects how, because of his preferred mode of transportation, he became known as "the guy in the green truck." Forming a tribute to a courageous fighter who banished any thoughts of defeat in the face of lost campaigns and worked tirelessly to bring hope and justice to the oppressed and neglected, this exploration portrays Amand's steadfast dedication to all working men and women.

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Taking a closer look at the industrialized world, this revealing study claims that Canada is in the midst of an economic crisis of global proportions-and that Nobel Prize–winning economists failed to see it coming. This accessible survey tackles the roots of this monetary disaster with a collection of in-depth essays, showing how the global capitalist economy-dependent on hyper-extended credit, fueled by systematic deregulation, and rooted in the contradictions of a mad drive for unlimited profitability-must inevitably end up in such a predicament. From recession to depression and market adjustment to billion-dollar stimulus plans, this reference also proves that there are ways out of this economic conundrum that do not involve saving those responsible.

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Exploring the prospect for "postraciality," this anthology of essays seeks to inform discussion and debate about the possibility of postracial politics-those that are neither oblivious to the importance of racial classification nor the persistence of racism and injustice. Conceptualizing this type of politics as a set of interrelated institutional and cultural changes that can neither be separated from historical relations nor reduced to the past, this compendium collectively prioritizes complexity over simplicity, progress over retrenchment, unity over diversity, and polemics over dogmatism. Analyzing historical records and highlighting new directions in the studies of race and race relations in Canada, this volume provides a valuable postmodern perspective on social identity.

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Chronicling the horrific story of the Agent Orange experiments near Oromocto, New Brunswick, this shocking history reveals the tragic accounts of numerous families who lost loved ones due to military testing. Depicting the initial spraying of the deadly defoliant near Gagetown, this document portrays how the United States military, searching for a terrain similar to Vietnam, began conducting tests in this area. Although the Americans discontinued their trials in the late 1960s, this record uncovers more than an additional decade's worth of continued use by Canadian forces, who discovered it was cheaper to clear brush and kill trees with a dangerous chemical than to hire workers to perform the task. As this astonishing study demonstrates, what they did not know at the time was that Agent Orange also killed people. Hundreds of locals suffered and died, and cancer and other diseases ran rampant among military personnel and civilians who worked on the base. This stunning recollection investigates the stories of those who didn't survive as well as their relatives' daunting struggle to obtain compensation for their suffering and loss, exposing countless years of government complicity.

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Documenting a black professor's account of his own professional experience, this study describes what it feels like to be a nonwhite academic in one of the "big three" disciplines in the humanities-English, history, and philosophy. Challenging the notion that today's Canadian universities have successfully addressed the issues of diversity, this argument warns that if professors of color cannot see academia as a liberal bastion, it can only be even more forbidding for students of color. Demonstrating how integration policies are manipulated when it comes to hiring visible minorities in the university, this reference highlights aspects such as merit that are commonly used to deny employment. Positing that institutions should deliver on their stated policies instead of hiding behind formalities, this emboldened examination will surprise those inside and outside of the academic field.

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Exploring key aspects of the economic, health, and social conditions of the largest hard-rock-mining center in North America-and in the world-this account investigates the hinterland mining town of Sudbury in Northern Ontario, Canada. Deconstructing the myth that the enormous mineral wealth of the Sudbury Basin has brought prosperity to the town's cultural and educational welfare institutions, this overview analyzes the impact that globalization and corporate power have had on the working people, how and why resistance has emerged, and why alternative directions are needed. Uncovering the truth behind a well-maintained and attractive physical infrastructure, this examination offers important lessons for other mining and resource communities.

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Peak oil and climate change were mere hypotheses only a few years ago. This book brings together some of Canada's and the world's leading authorities to explore the origins of twin crises of our times and to evaluate the various solutions being advanced. What emerges is an engrossing discussion that is critical, sophisticated and plain spoken, challenging and controversial. "Energy Security and Climate Change" will be of interest to those seeking an introduction to the issues, as well as those looking for a greater depth of analysis.

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In recent years politicians, academics and social commentators have discussed and debated aspects of the "risk society." For some, embracing a risk frame fulfils a socially productive role in that it helps identify and manage a range of harms and fears. However, as this multidisciplinary collection illustrates, peeling back the veneer of this often highly technocratic discourse reveals a series of moral judgments about the constitution of risk and its role in organizing contemporary society. Exploring a broad range of case studies - including young women in conflict with the law, child soldiers, welfare recipients, genetic testing, biotechnology and new technologies - the contributors explore whether the concept of risk has undermined our sense of trust in society, effectively eroding the definition of citizenship, marginalizing particular people and groups, needlessly heightening societal fears and rendering invisible social inequalities.

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Kitchin helps readers pick their way through the minefield that stands in the way of all who seek to find clarity as to the ethics of Internet research. The Internet poses new challenges to researchers, and the author clearly discusses these challenges in all their complexity. Issues of copyright, privacy and ethical use of Internet materials loom large. Kitchin analyzes contradictions between the federal Tri- Council Policy Statement and university-based research ethics boards and offers a simple solution to policy makers who grapple with the ethics of internet research.

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Pregnant drug users are the focus of this new study that argues that women who abuse substances should not be treated differently during their pregnancies but should instead be treated the same way as women who have medical problems with obstetric consequences. The social issues that produce drug abuse during pregnancy are discussed, and valuable information about top practices and policies for caring for maternal drug users is provided.

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"Canada's reputation as an international champion of human rights falls appallingly short when it comes to the question of workers' rights. While we are among the first nations to sign international labour conventions, too often we break them when they prove inconvenient at home. This timely and valuable publication chronicles a list of these abuses, and challenges us as a nation to reclaim our once shining international reputation." - Ed Broadbent, Former MP.

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The "economic elite" has long been thought to cooperate at a corporate level to impact state and national policies and programs at the expense of the Canadian citizenry. However, this work reveals the expanding reach of the elite and their current encroachment into the noncorporate arena as yet another opportunity to exert their formidable influence. Citing the increasingly unified and class-conscious aspects of the group, this text reveals the degree to which this minority continues to prosper, dominate, and threaten Canadian democracy through numerous unifying mechanisms: corporate director interlocks; concentrated economic ownership; ties to the mass media; and the many business-oriented think tanks, philanthropic foundations, and corporate policy organizations. Maintaining that these existing relations need not be considered inevitable, the author challenges concerned citizens to come together to disrupt the political and economic status quo.

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Based on Leon Trotsky's real-life imprisonment in Amherst, Nova Scotia, this adventure tells the tale of 13-year-old Russian Alexi Gertoff and his chance meeting with Lev, Leon Trotsky's son. In the spring of 1917, Lev has come to Amherst to help his father escape from the wartime prison camp and Alexi becomes involved in this dangerous attempt to reunite Trotsky with his family. Following the fast-paced trip of these two young men, this tale is full of unpredictable twists that make for an absorbing read full of suspense and adventure.

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During the National Post's first year of publication, it claimed that Canada's supposedly exorbitant taxes were causing great damage to the economy and had produced a form of "tax rage" among the middle class. In contrast, Larry Patriquin suggests that the paper's writers were engaged in a dubious form of "reasoning" in order to promote an ideology that mostly benefits the wealthy. This involved presenting the Post's aspiration for tax cuts as the "agenda of the people" when, as this book demonstrates, the vast majority of citizens receive little or no benefit from low levels of taxation. In advancing its case, the Post published a stunning collection of factual and logical errors that were incessantly repeated in editorials and columns. Yet in 2000, the federal Liberal Party surrendered completely to the bogus "tax rage" invented by the Post and, as a result, the Liberal's fiscal policy became inseparable from right-wing platforms. Patriquin categorizes these errors to better illustrate why the arguments are flawed. He structures the chapters in a point-counterpoint format to serve as a guide for readers on how to, and how not to, develop and defend an argument.

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Debunking the common perception that immigrants are admitted into a new country because of the host country`s generosity and willingness to provide refuge and security, this collection of immigrant case studies suggests that immigrants are admitted to serve a host country`s economic interests or to make good on a national debt. The firsthand experiences of Ghanaian women, migrant sex-workers, foreign-trained professionals, and Canadian aid workers reveal that the host country often reaps benefits from immigration. The impact of policies and regulations on real people are thoughtfully explored in this biting indictment of the selfish motivations that power admittance and rejection cater to in the immigration process.

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A multidimensional understanding of the nature of fundamentalism is presented in this exploration of fundamentalism`s manifestations in economics, nationalism, ethnic relations, gender politics, and religious practice. While religious fundamentalism has been a particularly potent cultural force in contemporary times, other spheres have been affected by this revival of extreme positions. How fundamentalism is used by the powerful to retain privileged positions and how it can be attractive to subordinate groups as a strategy for resisting oppression are among the issues discussed in this incisive examination.

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This history of Vancouver`s Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) examines the processes and pitfalls of coalition building at the urban level. The role of politics in the era of globalization is a key issue discussed, with emphasis on how electoral politics and processes must adhere to democratic values. COPE is examined as a microcosm illustrating two central tensions in leftist politics: the problem of building coalitions between diverse social organizations and the role of electoral politics in broader leftist projects. COPE`s involvement in recent urban elections in Vancouver shed light on the success of leftist agendas.

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This in-depth study of globalization`s effect on Atlantic Canada considers not simply the gross national Product and its measures of the economic trends of the corporate elite, but the social indices that track globalization`s impact on working people, the working poor, people on social assistance, and the elderly. Healthcare, education, the environment, and the local economy demonstrate the affluency (or desperation) of communities, and it is argued that these measures reflect the devastating effects of free trade and privatization in Atlantic Canada. A positive vision for the Canadian and international economy that emphasizes human need over corporate greed is outlined to promote social change.

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This critical text on pedagogy addresses how classroom dynamics change when a teacher introduces controversial issues and challenges the tacit privileges perpetuated by accepted perceptions. Teachers learn how to deal with the stigma of challenging accepted norms and how to respect students who have different viewpoints. Power, control, and vulnerability are among the ideas discussed in detail to prevent teachers and students from being relegated to a marginal position when canonical concepts in a discipline are questioned.

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Historically, social work and psychology professions have pressured and coerced Aboriginal peoples to follow the euro-centric ways of society. The needs of Aboriginal peoples have not been successfully addressed by helping professioan due to a limited attempt to incorporate Aboriginal perspectives and practices of helping. Michael Hart briefly discusses colonization from an Aboriginal perspective, ontological imperialism, social work's role in colonial oppression, and the dynamic of resistance. Seeking Mino-Pimatisiwin encourages Aboriginal concepts, values and perspectives to be effectively incorporated by helpers trained in counselling, supporting, and teaching disciplines.Micheal Hart uses his own personal and professional experiences and that of other Aboriginal helpers. Throughout the book he outlines ways of adopting an Aboriginal Approach to helping. The closing chapter examines one such approach, the sharing circle, and how it can be used to guide practice with individuals, families, and groups in several contexts.

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Intended for practitioners, researchers, and students interested in contemporary perspectives on child sexual abuse, this volume offers a description of current Canadian research and intervention efforts on topics that include treatment for young victims, understanding mothers of children who have been sexually abused, grooming patterns of offenders, family systems approaches to treatment, criminal prosecution in child sexual abuse cases, and the use of community notification programs.

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Mindfulness, a way to alleviate suffering by realizing the impermanence of the self and our interdependence with others, has been severed from its Buddhist roots. In the late-stage-capitalist, neoliberal, solipsistic West, it becomes McMindfulness, a practice that instead shores up the privatized self, and is corporatized and repackaged as a strategy to cope with our stressful society through an emphasis on self-responsibility and self-promotion. Rather than a way to promote human development and social justice, McMindfulness covertly reinforces neoliberalism and capitalism, the very self-promoting systems that worsen our suffering.In Mindfulness and Its Discontents, David Forbes provides an integral framework for a critical, social, moral mindfulness that both challenges unmindful practices and ideas and provides a way forward. He analyzes how education curricula across North America employ mindfulness: to help students learn to succeed in a neoliberal society by enhancing the ego through emphasizing individualistic skills and the self-regulation of anger and stress. Forbes argues that mindfulness educators instead should uncover and resist the sources of stress and distress that stem from an inequitable, racist, individualistic, market-based (neoliberal) society and shows how school mindfulness programs can help bring about one that is more transformative, compassionate and just.

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