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While performing fieldwork in Fort St. John (July 2019-August 2020), I attended two traditional funerals organised by Doig River First Nation, a Dane-zaa First Nation of North-eastern British Columbia. As per the Dane-zaa tradition, drumming, singing, and dancing around the fire were key components of both funerals. Nevertheless, there was an essential difference between the two ceremonies. The 2019 funeral celebrated for Janice Askoty was a blended ceremony where traditional practices were performed alongside a Christian liturgy. Such a ceremony underlined existing tensions between community members regarding faith and systems of beliefs. These tensions were absent in the 2020 funeral celebrated for Annie Oker, where there was no Christian liturgy. Drawing on my observations and using the concept of syncretism, in this paper, I highlight how indigenous cultural practices, symbols, and beliefs have been integrated with Christian practices to the point that new blended practices have been established. At the same time, I point out how some traditional practices (i.e. drumming, singing, and dancing around the fire) have not been modified by external influences, surviving until now. In conclusion, I describe how colonialism's legacy still manifests itself during funerary celebrations and how community members perceive, face, and counter it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few historical studies of government’s interest in student achievement exist and, of those that do, most concern themselves with relatively short periods of time, a decade or two in general. This discussion takes a longer view of measurement practices in one jurisdiction, British Columbia. Based on archival records, it examines testing and assessment developments in Canada’s westernmost province from the establishment of public education in 1872, to 1999, when narrow test‐based approaches to measuring achievement gave way to broader assessment practices based on formative, anecdotal, and portfolio reporting strategies. The study illustrates that government’s interest in measuring student achievement – and thereby demonstrating public accountability for educational expenditures – is anything but new and may be traced in an unbroken line of concern that stretches back to the Victorian Era and to the earliest days of public schooling in the province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh.) is an ecologically valuable and suitable new reforestation species in British Columbia (BC). An understanding of birch's genecology is important to deploy it successfully. Eighteen paper birch populations (49–55°N) were collected from five distinct geographic regions in BC to determine whether observed variability in spring bud phenology was due to genetics, the growing environment or their interaction. Seedlings were grown at three common gardens in Prince George (53°45′N), Salmon Arm (50°47′N) and Victoria (48°29′N) to observe the bud break. Further a controlled photoperiod, a root zone temperature and a translocation experiment from the northern to central garden were conducted to investigate the effect of photoperiod and root temperature on birch bud break. Results revealed that timing of spring bud phenology in paper birch is under genetic and environmental control, following climatic clines based on latitude from south to north. Bud flush at the southern common garden was on an average 25 days earlier and required 177 more growing degree day than the northern common garden. Conversely, our controlled experiments and seed source translocation experiment showed that the signal for the onset of spring bud flush is controlled by air temperature, soil temperature, and photoperiod. These results allow us to characterize spring budburst phenology of paper birch and begin to consider seed zones and seed zone transfer guidelines for BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cumulative effects assessments in Canada are increasingly expected to include social impacts from resource development and land-use actions on people, their communities, and livelihoods. As processes and methods for assessing cumulative social effects develop, it is important to understand the capacity needs for implementing such an assessment. This paper explores the regulatory and professional capacity required to assess cumulative social effects of resource development projects. Semi-structured interviews were completed with professionals involved in environmental assessments for hydroelectric development in British Columbia and Manitoba, Canada. A number of key capacity needs are identified in terms of the availability regulation and guidance, the professional expertise needed, and understanding responsibilities and management for cumulative social effects. The paper concludes with a discussion of capacity needs and recommendations for improvements to support the implementation of a social cumulative effects assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the growing body of work on precarious labor, immigration, and social gerontology by examining the racialization of precarious employment across the life course. In particular, the authors examine the impact of precarious employment and discrimination among racialized older immigrants in Canada. Racialized older immigrants are more likely to be disadvantaged by the effects of lifelong intersections of economic and social discrimination rooted in racialization, gender, ageism, and socio-economic status. Drawing from a narrative-photovoice project that focused on the life stories of older immigrants living in Quebec and British Columbia, this paper presents the in-depth stories and photographs of four participants to highlight how intersections of race, gender, age, immigration status, and ability shape and structure experiences of aging, labor market participation and caregiving relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The letter to the editor responds to a recent paper by Armstrong et al. that discussed pre-colonial land use by Indigenous peoples in northwestern British Columbia. The authors of the letter reject the characterization of their own scholarship as racist and argue that Armstrong et al. misrepresented their findings. They emphasize that Indigenous peoples in southern New England did have ecological impacts on the landscape, but these impacts were primarily local in scale. The authors also highlight the importance of understanding the scale and variability of Indigenous peoples' ecological impacts for conservation and land management strategies. [Extracted from the article]

In 1953, Bellingham's KVOS-TV aired its first broadcast--Queen Elizabeth II's coronation--to audiences in northwest Washington State and southwest British Columbia. KVOS was the second television station in Washington and the first in British Columbia. As the station--and the popularity of television--grew, KVOS turned a persistent focus to attracting television audiences in the Vancouver metropolitan region and Vancouver Island. The station established a subsidiary in Vancouver in 1960 to produce commercials for local Canadian advertisers. This subsidiary grew into a full-fledged film production studio, Canawest Film Productions, which produced commercials, industrial films and animation for clients on both sides of the border. For a brief period, KVOS and Canawest fostered a unique relationship among an American broadcaster, Canadian and American advertisers, and cross-border audiences. Canawest was shuttered in 1977 after the Canadian legislature passed Bill C-58, ending tax deductions for Canadian companies advertising on American TV stations. This paper gives insight into the cross-border design of KVOS as well as Canawest's role in producing audiovisual material in the 1960s and 1970s. In doing so, this paper reflects on the tensions between culture and economics in the face of financial incentive and policy intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the space of two years, selling cannabis in Canada went from being a criminalized activity to an essential service. However, the broad recognition of its relative safety compared with other intoxicants and potential medical benefits are outpacing regulatory strategies to manage its responsible use. The paradoxical normalization of cannabis is based on its contested legal, moral, and cultural status. This paper makes three contributions. First, based on secondary data analysis, we present qualitative data from cannabis insiders in the province of British Columbia (B.C.), focused on their perceptions of cannabis as medicine, consumer good, and nuisance crime. Second, we consider tolerance and aversion related to cannabis normalization by linking the perceptions of these insiders with past and recent research. Finally, we argue that the lack of legal spaces to consume cannabis exacerbates concerns about impaired driving, nuisance crime, and stigmatization. Applying levels of stigma to areas of cannabis liberalization can assist efforts to describe the paradoxes of normalization. These appear to result from older protection-based policies, which may have the effect of prolonging what they seek to disrupt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the history of Sikh feminist thought and practice as envisioned by the founder of the Sikh faith, Guru Nanak. We contextualise the historical significance of the time Guru Nanak lived in and that of his profound feminist thought. By citing recent case studies and controversies including the 2015 preacher Hari Singh Randhawa Wale at Dukh Nivaran Gurdwara in British Columbia, Canada and the active prohibition for females gaining access to perform kirtan at Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, we argue that Guru Ji's 'radical' feminist philosophies have not been understood or realised in practice to their fullest capacity within the Sikh faith. We connect this to an overall lack of opportunity for representation of women within the diasporic gurdwara spaces for faith maintenance and questioning. We include in this paper an overall argument for the need to push boundaries and interpretations by using Sikh feminist thought within Sikh vichaar and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of mounting global climatic pressures, negative emission technologies (NETs) for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are increasingly proposed as necessary for meeting climate targets. While initial work has identified the potential of terrestrial NETs, a diverse set of marine/ocean-based NETs are gaining new and particular attention. Emerging studies on the feasibility of marine NETs are urgently needed, especially to explore the logics that public groups use to judge different approaches, and to ensure that design and governance of these technologies align with public values and priorities. This study explores factors of interest in understanding public views on four marine NETs, both perceptions of climate severity and urgency, and beliefs about marine environments. It uses a quantitative survey to explore how a representative sample of people in British Columbia, Canada and Washington state, United States evaluate four marine NETs: coastal restoration; ocean alkalinity enhancement; ocean fertilization; and offshore direct air carbon capture and storage. We find that perceived severity and urgency of climate change predicts greater comfort with all NETs studied, and views of marine environments as adaptable, fragile and manageable vary in predicting both greater and lesser comfort. Drawing upon these insights, the paper offers reflections on the conditional thinking linked with emerging views of marine NETs, concluding with methodological suggestions for future research on public perceptions as concerns the deployment of ocean-based CDR near and long term. Incorporating these insights into policy for ocean-based CDR will be important to ensuring responsible governance of these technologies. Key policy insights Incorporating research on public perceptions will be important to the design of marine NETs and accompanying policies. Public groups in both British Columbia and Washington expressed high levels of comfort with coastal restoration, some comfort with offshore direct air carbon capture and storage, and some discomfort with ocean alkalinity enhancement and ocean fertilization. Perceived severity and urgency of climate change predicted greater comfort with all approaches; this evidence aligns with a small but growing body of scholarship indicating openness to environmental intervention amongst public groups concerned with climate impacts. Beliefs about marine environments, namely whether they are 'adaptable', 'manageable' or 'fragile', also predicted comfort, suggesting that CDR in ocean contexts requires further examination regarding public perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the present Covid – 19 pandemic moves through Indigenous communities in Canada, it has been argued that continued mineral extraction or pipeline construction will potentially exacerbate the virus' spread among Indigenous people residing near work camps or construction areas. Listing these operations as essential puts an onus on local Indigenous people to take part in consultation with extractive industries. British Columbia is one province that listed extractive operations as essential during the pandemic. It also recently enacted consultation protocols meant to guide concerned Indigenous communities and extractive industries on proper consultation procedure to limit Covid - 19's spread while ensuring these projects continue. Nonetheless, the paper argues that British Columbia's consultative guidelines adhere to a necropolitical dynamic through which Indigenous people are required to take part in government policy meant to limit their own independence. The Crown holds license to decide when Indigenous communities are given a reprieve from taking part in consultation and when they are obligated to participate once again. This is done without "consulting" with Indigenous peoples themselves and how they view a process that limits their logistical and regulatory strength. This paper argues that Self Determined independence is being diminished through multilayered repression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food insecurity is widely documented among people living with HIV (PLWH) worldwide, and it presents significant challenges across the spectrum of HIV care and support. In North America, the prevalence of food insecurity among PLWH exceeds 50%. In the province of British Columbia (BC), it exceeds 65%. It comes as no surprise that food has become an essential tool in supporting and engaging with PLWH. Over the past decade, however, a shift has taken place, and food has become an incentive to boost uptake and outcomes of prevention, testing, treatment, and support. To explore this practice, we drew on a qualitative case study of incentives in the care and support of PLWH. This paper presents the findings of a targeted analysis of interviews (N = 25) that discuss food incentives and explores two main themes that shed light on this practice: (1) Using food to engage versus to incentivize and (2) Food is more beneficial and more ethical. Providers perceived food more positively than other incentives, despite the goal remaining somewhat the same. Incentives, such as cash or gift cards, were considered ethically problematic and less helpful (and potentially harmful), whereas food addressed a basic need and felt more ethical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent environmental studies, the examination of extreme events has great impact. The block maxima of environment-related indices can be analyzed by the tools of extreme value theory. For instance, the monthly maxima of the fire weather index at stations in British Columbia might be modeled by GEV distribution, but it is questionable whether the underlying stochastic process is stationary. This property can lead us to different approaches to determine whether there is a significant trend in the past few years' data or not. One such approach is a likelihood ratio based procedure, which has favorable asymptotic properties, but for realistic sample sizes it might have large decision errors. In this paper, we analyze the properties of the likelihood ratio test for extremes by bootstrap simulations and present a simulation-based procedure to overcome the problem of small sample sizes. We also propose a return level calculation method. Using our theoretical results we reassess the trends of fire weather index monthly maxima in selected stations of British Columbia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been ebbs and flows, since 1982, with the growth of Restorative Justice (RJ) practices in British Columbia (BC), Canada. To date there are more than seventy plus organizations that offers RJ practices in BC. Using in-depth key informant interviews, along with surveys, this research seeks to understand the genesis and praxis of RJ in BC. This study finds that the local community's involvement was of paramount importance to the growth of restorative justice. Key findings include the contribution of Community Justice Initiative Langley, Community Accountability Programs and SFU's Centre for Restorative Justice. A number of emergent themes are discussed in the paper that include the role of the written RJ script, and standardization. The findings are significant for a number of reasons, first of all, it reveals the role of community, government and university collaboration. Secondly, emergent themes discussed in this paper illustrate the tensions within RJ praxis in BC where learning and growth are creating new understanding and insight. A detailed analysis on standardization debate and scripted vs non-scripted model of RJ are also discussed. This paper concludes that future research needs to focus on the relationship between restorative justice and Indigenous justice in BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the coverage of Indigenous topics in K-12 education in British Columbia (BC) using curriculum documents and course enrolment. It focuses on curriculum documents published between 1995 and 2010 and mandated in public education from 1995 to 2019, and argues that Indigenous topics were marginalized in the curriculum overall. Motivated by decades of work by Indigenous leaders and educators to grapple with non-Indigenous people's prejudices, ignorance, and lack of understanding, the British Columbia Ministry of Education has increasingly recognized the importance of integrating Indigenous topics into core curricula and has offered all students Indigenous Studies course options. However, coverage remained marginalized in the core curriculum and recent curricular revisions have relied increasingly on teachers' voluntary integration of Indigenous topics and meaningful consultation with local Indigenous educators and communities, for which insufficient support and resources are provided by the Education Ministry. The paper explores challenges to the curriculum's ability to combat prejudice, eliminate discrimination and promote tolerance, understanding and good relations among Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the specific example of the attempts of the municipal government of Vancouver in 2018 and the provincial government of British Columbia in 2014 to apologise for historical anti-Chinese legislation in Canada, this paper illustrates how Cantonese migrant networks shaped and were shaped by the politics of white supremacy in Pacific white-settler nations, and argues that historical narratives about historical anti-Chinese discrimination that erupt at these moments of apology and reconciliation aspire to shape future politics by producing historical frames for civil society that are broadly inclusive and based primarily neither on ethnic identification nor shared exclusion in the past but on aspirational narratives of more inclusive belonging in the future. They also provide at the same time a narrative of belonging for migrants who trace ancestry to very different parts of China and with divergent identities and migratory pathways to identify with each other's histories and to belong to a 'Chinese' diasporic past and future marked by resistance to racism and white supremacy in Pacific settler colonies such as Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Included in this future are Chinese who were excluded in the past, allowing those who identify as Chinese a path for belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consideration of climate change in environmental assessment (EA) in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, British Columbia, Canada. Based on an analysis of recent EA applications, results show that climate change is considered, to some extent, in all phases of EA for most LNG projects. However, stakeholders indicate a dissatisfaction with practice – often based on expectations about EA that exceed what it can deliver as a project-based tool, and sometimes based on an incomplete understanding of existing climate change legislation and targets. Results also indicate inconsistent application of existing climate change requirements across project EAs. Notwithstanding proponents often addressing climate change in their EA applications, climate change tends to receive little attention in project decision and approval conditions. The paper concludes with recommendations for better practice climate change consideration in EA that is commensurate with the scope and scale of project-level issues, complemented by more strategic EA and economic instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In resource-based communities, housing can be a contributing asset or challenge to attracting and retaining workers and families. In Kitimat, BC, Canada, a housing crisis threatened vulnerable, low income, and middle income residents during a period of rapid growth associated with renewed industrial investments. Even though housing policy and public housing provision falls under provincial government jurisdiction, the crisis response was largely mobilized by local stakeholders. Drawing upon a five year tracking study, this paper traces the rise of new governance arrangements to address local housing pressures. These governance arrangements fostered greater community awareness of housing issues; strengthened relationships across community, industry, and some senior government stakeholders; and renewed local housing assets. This collective capacity to manage housing pressures, however, remains vulnerable due to public policy incoherence that undermines or fails to adequately support local governance initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes to expand current thinking about rephotography and how it might focus on a specific geographic terrain, thereby validating research conducted from 2018 to 2020 in Vancouver, Canada. The research site is located in the False Creek Flats post-industrial district, a district currently undergoing urban regeneration while pursuing a major restructuring programme (to be completed in 2037). The programme is being undertaken by the City of Vancouver. This paper attempts to identify the transformational dynamics that characterise the urban area by drawing primarily on two visual sources: photographs taken in situ and research conducted in Vancouver's visual archives. After taking composition into account, these sources will play a key role in mounting a proposal that highlights narrative rephotography. The montages produced will then make it feasible to construct a narrative that runs counter to the official version: a city which has no past. The montages strive both to reintroduce a temporal arc that will subsume the almost-forgotten millennial history of the area and to depict one of its likely futures. Indeed, in contrast to the promising future set forth in the urban regeneration plan, another uchronia is, paradoxically, reconnecting with its aquatic past, as global heating accelerates rising water levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the preliminary results of a one and a half-year ethnographic study conducted in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The research focused on participants' experiences of their bodies in the context of yoga as a health practice—specifically how they conceptualised their musculoskeletal bodies in this practice through ideas of systems, fragments, and materiality. It argues that participants' larger narratives about health and healthy bodies inform how yoga as a health practice is embedded in discourses of body work where yoga, health, and particular notions of bodily-ness become a project for the transformation of the self into a particular idea of what a body is or should be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing awareness of the negative school experiences of trans students, more schools in North America are working to support such students and create more inclusive educational environments. This paper analyses how 60 educators in British Columbia, Canada talked about the involvement of trans students in decision-making processes at their school. It focuses on a prominent narrative, the ‘student in charge’ narrative, which suggests that educators should follow the lead of the young trans person to best support them. By centering the expertise of trans student, this narrative has the potential to disrupt cisnormativity in schools and traditional understandings of youth as unreliable. However, educators have also to negotiate dominant discourses about undue adult influence, young age, safety and gender fluidity that tend to undermine their initial commitment to young trans people’s self-determination. This paper analyses the effects of these contradictions on how educators respond to demands for recognition by trans students, and discusses the limits of student-led change. It concludes by arguing for more systemic changes that do not require the presence of trans bodies and instead offer possibilities for educational spaces in which all students would experience fewer pressures of gender and sexual conformity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 30 years ago, the first Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) were formed to undermine the hegemonic heteronormativity of public educational institutions in North America. Despite the challenges that these student clubs pose to the heteronormativity of school spaces, the practices they employ have rarely been examined by geographers. This paper, therefore, expands upon the interdisciplinary literature on GSAs from within education and a smaller geographical literature on education and sexuality by examining the practices of suburban public high school GSAs on the peripheries of the Vancouver city-region in British Columbia, Canada. It argues that GSAs in suburban secondary public schools play valuable social supporting and activist roles for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and two-spirit (LGBTQ2S) youth as spaces of "surplus visibility" – a means of challenging invisibility through the generation of excessive presence. Using empirical examples from two case study peripheral municipalities (Surrey and Burnaby) six dimensions of GSA actions are examined to illustrate how surplus visibility is produced (through administration, decoration, participation, sociability, reconnaissance, and activism) but also how its 'excesses' are regulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments have a key role to play in implementing climate innovations as they have jurisdiction over a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions. Meeting the Climate Change Challenge (MC3) is the first longitudinal study exploring climate innovation in Canadian municipalities. A tri-university research collaborative, it focuses on British Columbia (BC), whose voluntary efforts to set and meet climate change goals were far more ambitious than those offered by the federal government (and almost any other province in North America at the time). These efforts included introducing a carbon tax and the Climate Action Charter voluntary agreement in 2007. Since then, 187 of the 190 local governments in BC have signed the Charter to take action on climate change. Research in the first phase of MC3explored the dynamics of innovative local responses to the coordinated suite of government legislation, complimentary policy instruments, financial incentives and partnerships with quasi-institutional partners. In the second phase, the 11 original case studies were revisited to explore the nature of transformative change in development paths and indicators of change. Methods include sentiment analysis, decomposition analysis of regional/local emissions, and modelling relationships between climate action co-benefits and trade-offs. This paper provides a synthesis of research outcomes and their implications for environmental governance at multiple scales and the potential of policy innovations to accelerate transformation towards carbon neutral economies. Key policy insights Local governments are on the front line of identifying indicators of change in current development paths and policy innovations to effect the necessary changes for transformation to carbon neutral economies. Barriers to transformational change include lack of coordination or concerted action across multiple scales of governance, electoral cycles and large swings in leadership, and lack of policy coherence across governance levels. Drivers of climate innovation include leadership at multiple levels of governance. Understanding the co-benefits (and trade-offs) of climate actions is important for integrated strategies that achieve broader sustainability goals, as well as accelerating more innovations on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coast Salish ethnohistory describes how various locations associated with settlements were used for defense within the Salish Sea region of southwestern British Columbia. During times of conflict, these linked places formed defensive networks that functioned to maximize defensibility at both the settlement and allied settlement scales. Examining the distribution of such defensive networks in time and space provides insights into the role of conflict in broader social contexts including territorial and tenurial claims expressed through territoriality. In this paper, we explore the relationship between defensive networks and expressions of territoriality among the ancestral Tla'amin-Northern Coast Salish. Combining visibility analysis with an index of site defensiveness, we find that Tla'amin defensive networks were in place from at least 900 years BP. This in turn suggests the longevity of territorial and tenurial claims expressed through defensive territoriality, as noted in the ethnohistoric record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A surgical readiness assessment is a major step in the medical journey of trans people seeking gender-affirming surgery. Much of the peer-reviewed literature surrounding surgical readiness assessments emphasizes the perspectives of academics and clinicians, leaving the voices of trans and gender diverse patients largely unheard. Aims: This paper foregrounds patient experiences with surgery readiness assessments to discuss the tensions, challenges and opportunities they generate. Methods: We conducted a thematic analysis of 35 in-depth interviews with trans people who accessed or were seeking to access gender-affirming surgery in British Columbia. Results: We developed three main themes to capture participants' narratives of their surgical assessment experiences. The first, assessments as gatekeeping, explores the stories of people who described their assessments as outdated and even discriminatory processes. The second, assessments as a barrier to care, discusses the informational missteps, bureaucratic regulations, economic issues, and geographic concerns that made assessments difficult to access. The third, assessments as useful, includes positive stories about assessments that often involved feeling supported by an assessor and feeling prepared for the next steps. Discussion: These narratives demonstrate how much variation exists among people's experiences of readiness assessments for gender-affirming surgery. No matter how their actual assessment turned out, many participants approached their appointments with a great deal of anxiety and trepidation. We attributed this stress was to challenges ranging from lengthy wait times, arbitrary medical gatekeeping, a lack of access to knowledgeable and supportive providers, unclear or changing administrative processes, and insufficient communication. To address these challenges, it is crucial for the medical system to create more accessible pathways with centralized, up-to-date information for people trying to access assessments. Patients are best served by multi-disciplinary gender-affirming teams that provide individualized care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the emergence of early childhood education outdoor programs in British Columbia, Canada. The story told follows paths not dissimilar from how one might observe children on a walk to the park. While the park is the destination, it is the journey to the park, of picking up pebbles, looking at flowers, and finding sticks, that enlivens and binds the journey. Through our consideration of stories from a number of outdoor programs, we weave patterns that join their emergence and consider how their stories might sustain and encourage educational action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western ideologies of literacy continue to affect outsiders' understanding of Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest. The acquisition of print literacy and even the Christian beliefs of the main literacy teachers – missionaries – did not, in fact, assimilate Indigenous people in the ways the ideology promised. They have their own uses for and theories of literacy. As they combine two worlds and two powers – that of literacy and modernity and that of tradition and nature – they engage in what has been called cosmopolitics. However, early signs of this activity were erased by anthropologists who defined authentic stories as pre-contact and often filtered out signs of modernity, literacy, English language knowledge, and any content likely to offend their readers. However, a few seriously inauthentic early stories which explain Indigenous understandings of the centrality of 'paper' for colonial rule made it into print, and these stories are now being used to revitalise oral cultures. Western ideas about literacy and authenticity absorbed by contemporary non-Indigenous scholars and our 'expert' literacy skills continue to make it difficult for us to understand oral stories, even those about literacy aimed directly at us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canadian government recently sanctioned a supervised consumption site (SCS) that is currently in Vancouver, British Columbia. The government is open to sanctioning more sites across the country; however, by law the federal health minister must consider whether such facilities are supported by local governments representing the cities where the sites are proposed to be located. Until 2016, the government of Canada's largest city, Toronto, did not support SCSs. Drawing on Lenton cannabis policy research, this study analyses government documents, policy papers, scientific reports, and newspaper articles and secondary literature to identify some of the significant barriers that minimised the likelihood that Toronto's council would support SCSs between 2003 and 2016. The report compares conditions in Toronto to those of Vancouver where SCSs have enjoyed council support since 2001. This study find that three conditions play an important role in explaining why SCSs were supported in Vancouver 14 years before they were endorsed in Toronto: (1) Strong public support; (2) Favourable electoral conditions; and (3) Law enforcement support. Changes in Toronto surrounding these conditions help explain why its council endorsed SCSs in 2016. This study concludes that Lenton's research holds utility as a socio-legal theory of municipal drug policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Snow fall and melt events are complex meteorological phenomena that help chart the effects of climate change and impact many critical environmental processes including hydrologic and biogeographic systems. Daily snow maps, derived from MODIS imagery, provide managers and researchers with vital snow cover information, but only at spatial scales of 500 m or more. Finer resolution time series maps, however, retain large temporal gaps, particularly during recurrent cloud cover. This paper's authors have developed the novel algorithm MODSAT-NDSI to harness the strengths of both coarse and finer spatial resolution imagery by fusing MODIS and Landsat normalized difference snow index (NDSI) data. Daily 30 m snow cover maps were thus generated for 2000 - 2017 with an overall accuracy of 90%, using 33 validation sites distributed throughout south-central British Columbia. Snow cover trends were analyzed across stratified elevation bands and land cover types, revealing that snow cover persists under lower elevation forests for an average of 23.5 d longer than in adjacent open areas during spring. We conclude that the MODSAT-NDSI approach captures temporal and spatial advantages of freely available snow cover datasets and can be modified to suit a variety of novel investigations relating to snow cover or other spectral indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substantial historical research indicates that during World War II Canadian schools were considered optimal sites for fostering nationalistic sentiments in teachers and learners. Policymakers directed educators and students to collect scrap metals, purchase war savings certificates, salute the flag, and undertake marching drills. These wide-reaching directives give the impression that schools were considerably reshaped during the war. Nevertheless, since much of the literature has used official information sources, such as curriculum documents and government missives, it is unclear to what extent teachers implemented such directives. No Canadian scholarship has tapped the memories of former teachers to determine their compliance in promoting nationalistic sentiments and activities. Nor have existing histories categorised activities by geographic area (such as rural versus urban; coastal versus inland) or school level (elementary versus secondary). Thus, the “unity of purpose and experience” implied by some of the literature may be overemphasised. This paper challenges the suggestion that throughout Canada all children and teachers in schools fervently engaged in nationalistic behaviour during World War II. To supplement government perspectives found in newspapers, magazines, curricular documents, and other Department of Education sources, I interviewed two dozen teachers who taught in 40 schools throughout British Columbia between 1939 and 1945. Despite policymakers’ intentions, there were many factors influencing schools’ abilities to support the war effort. These included a community’s geographic proximity or access to centres of larger war-related activity, such as munitions factories or collection stations; the values and social circumstances of families and communities; and teachers’ individual preferences, often reflecting their career stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines increasing privatisation of education in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Conceptually, the paper is informed by theories of privatisation and social justice; and methodologically, it uses policy analysis to examine documents and financial records obtained from government departments. The paper critically analyses education policy that has enabled the emergence of private sources of revenue (tuition fees and for-profit revenue) and the establishment of school and programme choice. Analysis of levels of international student tuition generated by school districts in the province reveals differential capacity to produce such revenue. The authors argue that this differential capacity is leading to the development of a fourth tier within a pre-existing three-tier K-12 education system in British Columbia. The article concludes with a discussion of implications related to social justice in education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper develops a typology of boundaries faced by public police organizations. Following trends in police organization structure and developments in organization theory, the paper focuses on the work-unit level as the locus of organizational boundary activity. Treating boundaries as sites of negotiation that arise when overlap occurs between units inter- and intra-organizationally, the paper focuses on operational aspects of public policing in creating typological categories. The typology elaborates three boundary types: scarcity, proximity, and technical/systemic. These can each be subdivided into two further categories: physical and virtual. Using examples from recent fieldwork in British Columbia's Lower Mainland District, the paper provides examples of each boundary type and suggests common strategies for boundary negotiation. In using the typology to understand public police as organizations within a complex web of similarly organized actors, the paper emphasizes the particular importance of informal and personal contact networks for comprehending boundary activity in public police work. The implications of this finding for the challenges of twenty-first century-policing are explored, and a future research agenda is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2011, the government of British Columbia (BC) has focused on building the Canadian province’s economy through the development of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) sector. In service of this endeavour, the government launched theSkills for Jobs Blueprint, which attempts to more clearly align BC’s education system with resource extraction industries. In this paper, I argue that at the heart of this policy is the idea of education for, through, and as extraction. Conceptually, ‘extraction education’ focuses onsupply(what we can take out of the earth, institutions, and individuals) rather thandemand(what is needed to put into the educational system to meet needs of the land, institutions, communities, and individuals), and is problematic on environmental, economic, employment, equity, and educational fronts. In theorising ‘extraction education’ I extend Freire’s ideas on ‘banking education’ and briefly explore dialogic, problem-posing counters to it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Housing First is a model and philosophy for housing homeless people in immediate and permanent housing. In order to implement and deliver Housing First, research is essential to understand the system of support services as they currently exist. Guided by principles of community-based participatory research, this paper presents the findings from a senior-focused deliberative dialogue workshop in Metro Vancouver, Canada. Participants (16 service providers and 1 service recipient) identified services and resources available to support seniors in maintaining housing and barriers and facilitators for accessing services. Broadly, data were organized into seven themes: (1) Housing; (2) Home support; (3) Transportation; (4) Information availability, accessibility, and navigation; (5) Cultural diversity; (6) Discrimination; and (7) Funding and financial support. Results found that affordable housing that adapts to changing health conditions, income supports, health services, homecare, transportation, and culturally appropriate and nondiscriminatory informational resources are among the supports most needed for persons as young as 50 years old to succeed under the Housing First model in Metro Vancouver. Barriers to Housing First service provision, including rigid eligibility criteria for chronically and episodically homeless, should be revised to better support the growing number of older adults who are newly entering homelessness in Metro Vancouver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines relations between transnational activities and immigrant integration in Vancouver. From a large survey, associations are noted between a set of transnational practices and economic and socio-cultural indicators of integration in Canada. These associations depart considerably from comparable studies in the United States and the Netherlands, identifying transnationalism with recent migrants and poor socio-cultural integration, while relations are weak and inconsistent with economic integration. The most transnational profile in the Vancouver survey is shared by business immigrants originating from East Asia, and the second part of the paper comprises an ethnography of this group, interpreting how their spatial practices and identities as business people sans frontières place them at odds with the state's attempt to reproduce integrated national citizens. These general themes are examined in more detail in relation to their holding of global assets in potential non-compliance with Canadian tax law, and their sojourner habitus, in which serial mobility limits participation and identity with Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the evolution of INSITE, North America's first supervised injection site, first opened in 2003, and subjected to continuous empirical and political scrutiny from that date to the present. This analysis considers the relevant global history of supervised injection sites, and key events in the Canadian timeline. The article canvasses the origins of INSITE and its support by the Liberal government of Canada from 2003 to 2006, the change of federal government in 2006 and the decision of the Harper Conservatives to refuse to grant a continuing exemption to INSITE. The paper considers three court decisions, one by the B.C. Supreme Court in 2008, followed by a B.C. Court of Appeal decision in 2010, and, ultimately, the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in the fall 0f 2011, a decision that ordered the federal government to grant an operating exemption to INSITE. The paper examines how empirical evidence was presented to governments and to the courts, and how both governments and the judiciary interpreted the relevance of empirical evidence in the formulation of law and policy. The paper concludes by comparing the parallel experiences of Vancouver's INSITE with the MSIC in Sydney, Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A widespread rule of sex work is that payment occurs before service provision. Drawing on a subset of data collected as part of an ethnographic study conducted in metro Vancouver, Canada, this paper explores the temporal and gendered connections between payment and financial violence in a semi-criminalised indoor sex industry. A detailed examination of the timing of payment with 51 independent indoor sex workers reveals the gendered nature of the violence and its direct connection to anti-violence strategies indoor sex workers employ. We found that women (including transgender women) (n= 26) and men (n= 25) use payment schedules to minimise potential violence, but in divergent ways. Sex workers adhere to, negotiate and reject the golden rule of payment in advance based on different experiences of gendered violence. Through a gendered relational analysis, we show the contextual relationship between men and women as they negotiate payment schedules in their sex work interactions. These findings offer insight into the significance that the timing of payment has in sex workers’ anti-violence practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is the first of a two-part series. It presents a research study that aimed to provide a more contextual description of the commonly applied definition of interprofessional education (IPE) offered in 2002 by the Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE) in the UK: 'when two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to improve collaboration and quality of care.' The study confirmed and consolidated key characteristics of IPE by exploring the meaning of with, from and about. The words with, from and about were regarded as complex. Words describing learning with each other included active engagement, co-location and equally valued. Concepts linked to learning about included knowing about people outside their professional role and interaction. Learning from others was characterized by trust, respect and confidence in others' knowledge. Although learning about others was described as the first part of learning with, from and about, there were mixed views on whether learning with or from formed the second part of the definition. Based on this work, the second paper in this series presents a proposed taxonomy for IPE that may serve to inform emerging applications for IPE in the context of education, service delivery and policy. This research contributes to an emerging understanding of IPE that will support competency development and sound curriculum design, continuing professional development and evaluation of the impact of IPE and collaboration on health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with drug addictions have among the lowest rates of adherence to HIV medications (i.e. HAART) of any infected population, which is often explained through reference to the instability associated with problematic drug use and the ‘chaos’ that is assumed to characterize the lives of people with addictions. Many studies examine the links between addiction and adherence from the perspective of HIV-positive populations, but few explore how HIV care providers think about addictions, their impact on adherence, and how to incorporate the complex health needs of drug-using populations into comprehensive HIV care practices. Using qualitative data from a pilot study on adherence to HAART among people with drug addictions in Vancouver, British Columbia, this paper examines how eight HIV care providers (i.e. physicians, pharmacists, and community-based service providers) approach these interconnected issues. Our findings illustrate that while addictions often complicate adherence to HAART, this is not a universal reality, and the kinds of drugs used as well as the individual capacities of these patients also factor significantly in their adherence success. The organization of the HIV care environment, which is highly stratified and provides certain professionals with more resources and structural capabilities to deliver comprehensive care than others, also plays a large role in our participants’ abilities to address the health needs of their clients with addictions. We recommend that the current HIV care delivery system be adapted to ensure more integrated care and greater equity across the different groups of providers working in the field of HIV care. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Canada and other western nations there has been an unprecedented expansion of criminal justice systems and a well documented increase in contact between people with mental illness with the police. Canadian police, especially in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), have been increasingly at the forefront of discourse and regulation specific to mental health. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, this paper to explores this claim through a case study of four Vancouver Police Department (VPD) policy reports on 'Vancouver's mental health crisis' from 2008 to 2013, which include recommendations for action. Analyzed is the VPD's role in framing issues of mental health in one urban space. This study is the first analysis to critically examine the VPD reports on mental health in Vancouver, BC. The reports reproduce negative discourses about deinstitutionalization, mental illness and dangerousness that may contribute to further stigma and discrimination of persons with mental illness. Policing reports are widely drawn upon, thus critical analyses are particularly significant for policy-makers and public health professionals in and outside of Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northeast British Columbia (BC), Canada, is the site of a fast-growing shale gas industry that is a cornerstone of the current provincial government's economic policy. In this paper, we explore the perspectives of local First Nations (members of Treaty 8) regarding governance of this industry, focusing in particular on the experiences of the Fort Nelson First Nation (FNFN). Based on findings from 15 in-depth interviews with staff from four Treaty 8 First Nations, the Treaty 8 Tribal Association, oil and gas companies, and the Government of BC, we argue that current governance processes fail to adequately protect the environment and treaty rights. We also explore the diverse tactics that the FNFN is using to gain influence over shale gas development within its territories as the Nation seeks to achieve “balanced development” that protects the local ecology and treaty rights while maximising local economic benefits. Through an array of tactics and collaboration with diverse actors, the FNFN has been partially successful in challenging industry's social license to operate and has brought the provincial government back to the table to negotiate new decision-making arrangements on a “government to government” basis. Still, the regulation and management of a fast-paced global industry are a vast burden for a small community to bear. The FNFN's work has also shown the need for further research on how local efforts for equitable and environmentally sustainable approaches to shale gas regulation can be scaled up, institutionalised, and used to create political opportunities in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Known for a large concentration of unlogged watersheds and the presence of the white spirit bear, British Columbia's Central Coast was also a key site in a larger re-imagining of the possibilities for government-to-government (G2G) planning between Indigenous peoples (First Nations) and the state. This paper explores the evolution of G2G planning: how external forces within the broader institutional system were interpreted and embodied in the strategic actions of various collaborative actors. Significant legal changes coalesced with an unstable timber market to fundamentally alter the discursive and political terrain of British Columbian natural resource planning. New coalitions and alliances were formed, and previously held conventions regarding both the process and outcomes of planning were challenged. These changes are analysed through the Institutional Capacity Development Framework, which frames institutional change as a measure of actors' ability to mobilise existing and emergent institutional resources. As one of the few empirical studies to apply the framework, this paper proposes several modifications to improve its conceptual clarity and to underscore the importance of changing political identities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reflects on the methodological challenges of co-managed research as experienced from a non-Indigenous perspective. In 2003, Tl'azt'en Nation and the authors initiated a toponymy study that involved finding a curricular use for Dakelh place names. In this article, we chronicle our experiences with negotiating and managing this study with Tl'azt'en Nation. Some events are specific to the topic; others are characteristic of co-managed research in general. We offer insights into what it means as non-Indigenous researchers to enter discursive territory that is charged with emotion and cultural sensitivity, and also explore the often contentious issues that can arise in Indigenous research, particularly oral history, ethnohistorical interpretation, and cultural representation. The paper concludes by discussing the opportunities and challenges of co-managed research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study interrogates ostensible differential deployment of an increasingly ubiquitous tool of policing in Canada – the Taser. Taser-related deaths are problematized as evidence of a teething new urban terrorism essentially against the downtrodden. The paper argues that a combination of intersecting factors: gender, low socio-economic status, mental illness, drug use, and ethnicity are fundamental to who gets tased by the police. The paper investigates the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekański at Vancouver airport as a quintessential ‘media event’. It highlights the concomitant disarticulation of the police as repositories of order and their re-articulation as insouciant villains. Dziekański's death, the paper contends, inter alia benefitted from the Canadian ‘cultural feeling rules’ in a manner that earlier recorded Taser-related fatalities did not. In addition, the paper argues that if the current trend continues, not only will the downtrodden continue to bear the brunt of Taser injuries and fatalities, but there may be scant public outcry accompanying such gory incidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from fieldwork conducted to examine the roles played by ferry mobilities in the lives of residents of ferry-dependent islands and coastal communities of British Columbia, Canada, this paper focuses on three elements of spatial mobility assemblages: motives, costs, and frictions. In doing so, this paper contributes to the growing literature on the politics of mobility constellations. Data shed light on the transformative, but contested, power of spatial mobilities. To analyze these dynamics the analysis builds upon Ingold's ideas on wayfaring to highlight how practices, representations, and experiences of ferry mobility exercise their transformative power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the links between language, social difference and political domination in the practices of parental school choice at the heart of a global city, Vancouver. Vancouver is a highly diverse city, especially in terms of language. Its inner city is replete with multiple languages whose exchange values are not equal. In this context, our case study of two elementary schools observes that white middle-class parents choose a predominantly white school - whose students are non-ESL and have a second language choice of French - in a socially and ethnically mixed inner city neighbourhood, creating a stark imbalance in the student population of local neighbourhood schools. This paper examines parents' accounts of their choices, which they rationalise on the basis of linguistic competency and differentiation from multilingual others. We draw from Pierre Bourdieu's theory of language and symbolic power and Ghassan Hage's spatial theory of nationalist practice to understand the linguistic dimension of school choice rationalisation made by white middle-class parents. In the context of these insights, we argue that the way anglophone white middle-class parents choose their children's schools is intricately linked to active processes of reproducing a stratilingual society in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that the coding and ordering of sexuality and space through definitions of which sexual practices and which representations of sexuality are morally appropriate in public space can be usefully understood as a problem of governance. We argue that attempts to hide or make visible specific sexualities in public space are complicated and politically charged because, while written regulations are relatively cut-and-dried, their implementation, by planners, judges, et al., involves significant discretion and leads to contingent, contestable outcomes. Furthermore, the politics of governing sexual morality and public space is made more problematic when the place where a hegemonic norm of behaviour or morality is publically challenged is an iconic park that attracts intense media attention. The paper elaborates these arguments through two interrelated case studies: a debate over the appropriate location of an AIDS memorial in Stanley Park, Vancouver and the reaction to the killing of a gay man who cruised the park for sex. We conclude by linking our argument to recent statements about the future of geographies of sexuality, arguing for analyses that acknowledge both the contingences and potentialities of categories like 'the state,' 'governance,' and 'public space' and also their structural tendencies and their ongoing association with sexual repression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the home support resources in British Columbia have decreased. Specifically, nonmedical tasks such as housekeeping and meal preparation have been severely restricted and are no longer available for hospital discharge planning with elders who are returning to the community. This paper applies analytical deconstruction to three aspects of a case example of an elderly couple: the technical and bureaucratic aspects of who gets home support and what kind, the socially constructed aspects of gender roles and the performance of unpaid labor, and the personally informed aspects that involve an elder's life experiences, social supports, and personal values. The paper then employs a feminist poststructuralist framework to suggest discharge planning implications for social work, using the case as an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]