Inaugural EUC Seminar Series features conversation on Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe food systems
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Assistant Professor Lisa Myers‘ Finding Flowers project presents the inaugural Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change (EUC) Seminar Series Seminar Series, “Miijim: Food as Relations.”
Miijim is a fall and winter conversation series presenting renowned Indigenous, Black and People of Colour food scholars, growers, artists and advocates who will gather virtually from across Canada. Discussions will cover the interconnections between art, earthwork, planting, cultivation and harvesting experiences that decenter colonial frameworks, while thinking through labour and power relations related to food justice in urban and rural communities.
The fall segment of this series features conversations on Indigenous food sovereignty; Black and Indigenous food relations; Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee food systems; learning from Manoomin; and art and migrant worker justice. Conversations will continue into the winter semester turning to art related themes including animal-plant-human relations; food and gardens as remediation; gardens as art as relations; and community food stories.
The series will continue on Nov. 10 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. with a conversation on “Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe Food Systems.” Considering that food systems are specific to cultures, nations and territories, this conversation brings together medicine and food scholars Joe Pitawanakwat from Wikwemikong First Nation, William Kingfisher from Rama First Nation and Chandra Maracle from Six Nations of the Grand River, to consider this specificity and to add nuance and complexity to the potentially flattening term “Indigenous food system.”
The final fall 2020 event in this series include will take place on Nov. 24 with a conversation on migrant workers and food justice. The series will resume with additional events in 2021.
For any questions contact Finding Flowers research associate Dana Prieto at prietoda@yorku.ca.
The Finding Flowers project is part of Lisa Myers’ EUC graduate class “Food, Land and Culture.”
Call for proposals: Sustainable and Inclusive Internationalization Virtual Conference
The Sustainable on the Go conference will focus on the theme of “Reimagining Approaches in Higher Education in an Era of Global Uncertainties” and aims to bring together scholars, international mobility professionals and practitioners, policy makers, sustainability experts and other stakeholders to discuss the evolving status of international mobility in higher education in Canada and globally. Participants will critically reflect on where we are now, and to what is required to collectively build a future vision of international mobility that is inclusive, innovative and responsive to the global sustainability challenges of our times.
International mobility in practice: institutional, national, and regional responses
Greening student and scholar exchange: concrete ideas and practices
Leveraging technology and digital learning: can we experience “abroad online”?
Mobility programs beyond academics: global and community engagement
Inclusive student exchanges and experiences
Assessment of intercultural development in mobility programs
Proposals can be submitted as academic papers, practitioners’ reports, think (envision) pieces, poster presentations and creative arts from Oct. 5 to Nov. 15.
New seminar series begins with look at Indigenous food sovereignties
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A new seminar series by York University – Miijim: Food as Relations – is a conversation with renowned Indigenous, Black and People of Colour food scholars, growers, artists and advocates.
“Miijim” is an Anishinaabemowin word that translates loosely to food. Discussions will cover the interconnections between art, earthwork, planting, cultivation and harvesting experiences that decenter colonial frameworks, while thinking through labour and power relations related to food justice in urban and rural communities.
Lisa Myers
The series will run in the fall and winter terms with presenters gathering virtually from across Canada. The Finding Flowers Project, with co-principal investigator Assistant Professor Lisa Myers, will present this inaugural Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change seminarseriesas part of the graduate class “Food, Land and Culture.”
“These conversations bring together people who do important work with food and medicine plants across communities,” says Myers. “They have offered so much to how I understand miijim, and I am struck by their generosity to be in conversation and to share their work for our seminar series.”
The fall segment will feature conversations on Indigenous food sovereignty; Black and Indigenous food relations; Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee food systems; learning from “manoomin” (wild rice); and art and migrant worker justice. Conversations will continue into the winter semester turning to art related themes, including animal-plant-human relations; food and gardens as remediation; gardens as art as relations; and community food stories.
The series will begin on Oct. 6 and run from 2:30 to 4:30 pm, presenting a conversation on Indigenous Food Sovereignties. The conversation will bring together Secwepemc artist, curator and co-creator of Bush Gallery,Tania Willard,in conversation with Secwepemc Dawn Morrison, founder and curator of the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, and Mi’kmaw professor and Indigenous land and food justice advocate Sherry Pictou. The presenters will consider their work in defence of Indigenous sovereignties, in relation to the reclamation of land, medicines, foods and plants.
This conversation, and all future ones, will be held on Zoom and live-streamed through Facebook. Register on Eventbrite for the zoom link: https://miijimfoodasrelations.eventbrite.com.
MIIJIM conversation series fall 2020
Oct. 6 – Indigenous Food Sovereignties
This conversation will bring together Secwepemc artist, curator and co-creator of Bush Gallery Tania Willard in conversation with Secwepemc Dawn Morrison, Secwepemc founder and curator of the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty, and Mi’kmaw professor and Indigenous land and food justice advocate Sherry Pictou, to consider their work in defense of Indigenous sovereignties, in relation to the reclamation of land, medicines, foods and plants.
Oct. 20 – Black and Indigenous Foods in Relation
This conversation opens up the decades of work by Cree scholar Professor Priscilla Settee in Indigenous Food Sovereignty with Leticia Ama Deawuo’s work at Black Creek Community Farm and her personal research on food history connecting with her grandmother and African/Indigenous foods.
Oct. 27 – Learning from Manoomin (Wild Rice)
Bringing together James Whetung from Curve Lake First Nation and Jana-Rae Yerxa from Couchiching First Nation to discuss manoomin cultivation and harvesting in relation to Anishinaabe food systems, governance and the reclamation of land and waters.
Nov. 10 – Haudenosaunee & Anishinaabe Food Systems
Considering that food systems are specific to cultures, nations and territories, this conversation brings together medicine and food scholars Joe Pitawanakwat from Wikwemikong First Nation, William Kingfisher from Rama First Nation and Chandra Maracle from Six Nations of the Grand River, to consider this specificity and to add nuance and complexity to the potentially flattening term “Indigenous food system.”
Nov. 24 – Migrant Workers and Food Justice
This conversation is grounded in artistic practices that raise important considerations of labour and living conditions of those workers who grow the food that fills the grocery stores. We will bring together activist and advocate Evelyn Encalada, and Justice 4 Migrant Workers member Tzazna Maranda to consider their calls to action through art and activism.
Debate and book launch on the menu for this week’s McLaughlin Lunch Talks
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McLaughlin College invites the York University community to come and listen to interesting speakers as they share their knowledge on a variety of topics during the popular Lunch Talks Series. The long-running series continues this year in a virtual format via Zoom.
Students who attend six or more Lunch Talks throughout the year will receive a Certificate of Participation, while those who attend 10 or more will receive a Certificate of Honour.
On Sept. 23, attendees can watch and participate in the Inaugural Debate on the Future of Higher Education.
The sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting and immediate pivot to virtual, remote and and online modes of learning have raised serious questions regarding the future course of higher education. In the face of necessary social distancing measures and the resulting turn to virtual instruction, some have observed that the traditional modes of higher education where face-to-face instruction predominated will be replaced inevitably by video conference, online platforms and asynchronous instruction, while others have noted that the future of higher education still lies in its long well-established and distinguished past of in-person instruction.
At this talk, a panel of speakers will consider whether the COVID-19 pandemic will change inconvertibly the future of higher education from the traditional in-person on site mode of delivery to remote and/or online virtual modes of delivery.
James Simeon
The panel will be moderated by James Simeon, head of McLaughlin College, and will include Charles Hopkins, the UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education towards Sustainability at York University and an advisor to the UN University’s Institute of Advanced Studies in Sustainable Development; Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt, a professor in York’s Department of Dance; David Leyton-Brown, professor emeritus in York’s Department of Politics; and Jennine Rawana, head of Calumet College, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at York and an executive member of the LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research.
Following the presentation, participants will have an opportunity to ask questions and cast a vote for or against the question.
On Sept. 25, York community members are invited to attend the online official book launch for Terrorism and Asylum, edited by Simeon.
This book explores terrorism and asylum in all its interrelated and variable aspects and permutations. The critical role terrorism plays as a driver in forced displacement, within the context of protracted armed conflict and extreme political violence, is analyzed. Exclusion from refugee protection for the alleged commission of terrorist activities is thoroughly interrogated. Populist politicians’ blatant use of the “fear of terrorism” to further their public policy security agenda and to limit access to refugee protection is scrutinized. The principal issues and concerns regarding terrorism and asylum and how these might be addressed, in the public interest while, at the same time, protecting and advancing the human rights and dignity of everyone are offered.
The event will be moderated by Simeon and will feature a presentation including Joseph Rikhof, an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Common Law of the University of Ottawa who will be speaking about his chapter in Complicity in Exclusion for Terrorist Crimes, and Selina March, an interdisciplinary researcher holding an MA in Refugee Protection and Forced Migration Studies from the University of London, who will be speaking on her chapter in the book In the Name of the Law: Securitization in Contemporary U.S. Immigration Policy.
The next talk in the series, titled “Justice for Syria in German Courts,” will take place on Oct. 7.
Schulich’s McEwen Building receives OAA 2020 Design Excellence Award
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The Rob and Cheryl McEwen Graduate Study & Research Building at the Schulich School of Business, York University, has been named a recipient of The Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) 2020 Design Excellence Awards.
“We are very pleased to have external peer review confirm that we have achieved a very high standard of accomplishment for the McEwen Building, as this was always our intent,” said James McKellar, professor of real estate and infrastructure, and associate dean, external relations.
Rob and Cheryl McEwen Graduate Study & Research Building
The biennial OAA Awards program recognizes and celebrates building projects that demonstrate architectural excellence, creativity and sustainable design. A jury of design and architecture experts selected 10 winners. Each of the 10 award-winning projects will be showcased later this month on OAA’s YouTube channel. Members of the public will be able to vote for their personal favourite and the top selection will receive a People’s Choice Award.
Designed by the international architectural firm Baird Sampson Neuert Architects, the Rob and Cheryl McEwen Graduate Study & Research Building is one of the most environmentally sustainable academic buildings in North America. The $50-million building has a number of leading-edge technical features at the forefront of environmental sustainability, including a 27-metre high solar chimney for radiant heating and cooling, a green roof and rainwater recapture system.
This year’s award recipients will be honoured during a special online Celebration of Excellence taking place on Oct. 1.
York research calculates that humans have overshot sustainable use of Earth’s resources
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As of this past Saturday, humanity has overdrawn its ecological account for the year. Known as Earth Overshoot Day, Aug. 22 marked the day when humans will have used as much from the Earth as the planet can renew in a year. York University produces the data that informs this calculation.
The good news is that Earth Overshoot Day this year arrived 21 days later than in 2019. Coronavirus-induced lockdowns around the world have reduced wood harvests and the burning of fossil fuels. Even so, the world will demand more from nature than can be renewed this year.
York University has partnered with the Global Footprint Network to calculate the ecological footprint and biocapacity of every nation on the planet. This data is needed to determine Earth Overshoot Day.
“At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us the true scale of our global interconnectedness, we have an opportunity to leverage partnership and collaboration to overcome complex global challenges like inequality, COVID-19, and of course, climate change,” said President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda L. Lenton. “York is proud to provide leadership through an international research collaboration like the Ecological Footprint initiative that helps countries determine whether they are on track to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, and gives us the data to calculate Earth Overshoot Day.”
A message from Lenton for Earth Overshoot Day can be found on YouTube.
Eric Miller
Eric Miller leads a team of researchers and graduate students in York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies to produce the National Footprint Accounts for the Footprint Data Foundation, a Canadian not-for-profit organization.
Miller and his team measure the carbon footprint, the amount of built-up land or urban sprawl, how much forest is used for timber and paper, how much cropland and pasture is used to produce food and the amount of seafood fished every year. These all add up to humanity’s ecological footprint.
“As we emerge from the pandemic, we must rebuild our economies for well-being and sustainability,” Miller said. “We need regenerative economies that use natural resources at rates that can be sustained.”
York’s measurement of the Ecological Footprint helps to inform individuals, communities, and governments to make better decisions on how to better manage resources, reduce economic risk and improve well-being.
COVID-19 pandemic prompts rescheduling of COP26
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Professor Idil Boran (second from the left) hosted a panel at COP25 panel. Image courtesy of Professor Christina Hoicka
Since March 2020, there has been much discussion about what the COVID-19 pandemic means for other global problems facing humankind, especially climate change. The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has responded with a call for action for a climate-resilient recovery from COVID-19.
Professors Dawn Bazely (York University’s Designated Contact Point for the UNFCCC) and Idil Boran (annual Head of Delegation since 2012) have been closely monitoring the situation and will be keeping the York University community regularly informed via YFile.
COP Participants at the 25th conference of the parties. Photo courtesy Photo credit: UNFCCC photo desk
The UNFCCC has rescheduled its key meetings. The 26th Annual Conference of the Parties (COP26) originally planned for November 2020 in Glasgow, Scotland, has been postponed until November 2021. Details are available here.
York University holds observer status as a member of the Research and Independent Non-Governmental Organizations (RINGO) constituency. Since 2009, when Bazely obtained Observer Status for York University, she has issued an annual call for expressions of interest from members of the York University community interested in attending the Conference of the Parties (COP) to form the annual delegation. This year’s call has been postponed until summer 2021.
Professor Idil Boran (second from the left) hosted a panel at COP25. Image courtesy of Professor Christina Hoicka
By joining York University’s UNFCCC COP delegation, which changes in its composition annually, an attendee at the COP is granted access credentials. Although the number of credential spots have varied since 2009, they are limited, due to the demands from the growing number of accredited observer organizations. Consequently, not all students, faculty, staff and other members of the York community with an interest in attending a COP can be accommodated. Nevertheless, Bazely and Boran try their best to give as many people as possible a chance to experience the annual two-week COP, for the benefit of their research interests.
The York University protocol for participation in the delegation consists of five steps:
Call for expressions of interest in joining the York delegation, published in YFile.
Submission of an expression of interest outlining the applicant’s research plan.
Selection based on the attendance quota [availability of spots] granted by the UNFCCC and relevance of COP attendance for the applicant’s research.
Prior to attendance: participation by the applicant in training about best practices and UNFCCC code of conduct (mandatory for first-time attendees).
After attendance: post-participation report and participation in the debrief to the York University community.
Updates on COP26 will be posted in future issues of YFile.
New book explores interwoven areas of energy, environment and the economy
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Hassan Qudrat-Ullah
A new book co-edited by York University Professor Hassan Qudrat-Ullah and Muhammad Asif from Glasgow Caledonian University addresses the vital and interwoven areas of energy, environment and the economy within the field of sustainability research.
Dynamics of Energy, Environment and Economy: A Sustainability Perspective (Springer, 2020) explores issues such as energy security, depleting fossil fuel reserves, novel energy technologies and climate change, as well as the dynamic global response from the perspective of policy, technology and economics.
Dynamics of Energy, Environment and Economy: A Sustainability Perspective
“Unified by the common goal of making better decisions in the sustainable production and consumption of energy, this book provides unique and innovative insights and modeling-based solutions for sustainable energy policy design and assessment,” said Qudrat-Ullah. “Innovation solutions to a variety of issues in dealing with energy-environment-economy interaction are provided with a focus on energy availability, adequacy, affordability and acceptability.”
According to the authors, the book examines successful integrative solutions in the discourse on complex climate change and energy dynamics; includes methods, techniques and perspectives for socio-economic and environmentally oriented energy supply systems; and features “sustainability insights” including novel solutions for sustainable performance through energy production and consumption systems.
The text will serve as reference book for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, academics, policy makers, NGOs and developmental sector professionals within related fields.
York University named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers eight years in a row
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York University has been named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers for 2020, an honour it has achieved eight consecutive times for initiatives such as sourcing sustainable food options.
More than 30 per cent of the food York purchases is local, sustainable-certified, Fair Trade or Rainforest Alliance-certified. In addition, it has its own 2,000-square-foot community garden on the main campus.
“York has integrated its commitment to sustainability into its research, teaching and decision making, including linking it to our understanding of our ecosystem with our Social Procurement Policy,” said Carol McAulay, vice-president finance and administration. “We have established a framework of values and principles to advance the long-term health and vitality of our communities and to recognize that our procurement processes can have positive and sustainable social impact.”
The title of Canada’s Greenest Employers recognizes national leaders in developing not only a culture of environmental awareness, but exceptional sustainability initiatives.
Each year, the editors of Canada’s Top 100 Employers choose the organizations that will be named Canada’s Greenest Employers based on the development of unique environmental initiatives and programs, their success rate in reducing the organization’s own environmental footprint and in engaging employees in these environmental efforts. They also look at how closely the institution’s public identity is linked to these sustainable initiatives, and their ability to attract new employees and clients as a result.
Additional York sustainability highlights
• York’s Social Procurement Policy provides unique opportunities to reinforce the University’s vision and policies, as well as its role as an anchor institution to create a responsible and sustainable supply chain process,
• It has built a culture to embrace social procurement at the University while leveraging its purchasing power to benefit local economies.
• The University offers more than 500 courses related to sustainability and the environment across several faculties.
• Its Eco-Campus in Costa Rica is next to the Las Nubes Forest Reserve, part of the largest rainforest ecosystem in Central America, and is dedicated to education and research on neotropical conservation, eco-health, community well-being and sustainable livelihoods for neighbouring communities.
• In addition to offering a mix of transportation options, York also hosts an annual Bike to York Day, maintains three on-campus bike repair stations, two car-share operations, online carpool-matching and preferred parking for car-poolers, and has two new subway stations connecting the campus to the city.
• York uses PV solar panels, rainwater recapture systems and maintains several green roofs on campus buildings, as well as offering electric vehicle charging stations.
• New buildings are constructed to meet LEED Gold certification and there are LED lighting retrofits, water-saving fixtures, a formal ZeroWaste program, which diverts 68 per cent of waste from the landfill, plus a FreeStuff residence exchange program for students and a battery recycling program,
• York University also holds an annual Earth Day campus clean-up event, a weekly farmers market, an Oasis clothing bank and its print services are Forest Stewardship Council certified for paper sourcing, double-sided printing and advocating the use of e-documents.
Pollution Reporter empowers citizens and addresses environmental data limitations
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Smoke coming out of an industrial pipe.
Roughly 40 per cent of Canada’s petrochemical production takes place in an area known as Chemical Valley in Sarnia, Ontario. Located on the traditional territory of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, the region is home to an Imperial Oil refinery, one of the oldest facilities of its kind in the world.
That refinery, and the emissions it is responsible for, are the focus of Pollution Reporter, a new mobile app designed by a group of researchers including Reena Shadaan, a PhD candidate in York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies.
Developed by the Environmental Data Justice Lab at the Technoscience Research Unit (TRU) at the University of Toronto, Pollution Reporter aims to empower citizens by helping them link emissions directly to polluters and potential health harms, and to give community members a simple way to report pollution to the Ontario Spills Action Center. As an Indigenous-led lab guided by the protocols of Indigenous data sovereignty, the TRU doesn’t collect any data from the app.
Pollution Reporter team members Vanessa Gray, left, Reena Shadaan, Kristen Bos and Michelle Murphy
Pollution Reporter users can search emissions data related to the refinery by pollutant, health category or symptom. This includes under-represented health harms, such as hormone disruption, low-level effects, subclinical impacts (such as feeling a bit foggy), intergenerational effects and persistence in land and bodies, categories that, according to the app developers, are often neglected in government health research but are well-known and felt in communities.
Pollution Reporter aims to give community members a simple way to report pollution to the government
As a research assistant at the TRU and part of the lab’s environmental data justice team, Shadaan co-lead the creation of Pollution Reporter. Her role involved data research and working with an app development company, Reflektor Digital, to turn the team’s vision into reality.
Shadaan has been active in the field of environmental justice, having worked with survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster and focusing her current research on occupational hazards impacting discount nail salon workers, however this is her first time working on an app. She became involved with the TRU after the encouragement of her PhD supervisor, Dayna Scott.
Shadaan says learning how to convey complex information in a simplified way for the app, in contrast to the academic writing she is used to, has been an exciting learning experience, and has strengthened her own understanding of government and industry-produced pollution data.
Previously, those interested in the pollution in their community, or in any region, relied on information from the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI), a federal government agency responsible for an inventory of the emissions data that companies are required to collect and report annually.
With Pollution Reporter, created as part of a broader environmental justice project called “The Land and the Refinery:Past, Present, and Future,” Shadaan and her colleagues hope to make information about pollution and health harms more accessible, and to make connections between polluters, emissions and potential health impacts more transparent and explicit. Their aim is to highlight industrial and governmental responsibilities for pollution-related harms
The app includes health harms typically overlooked in government research but well-known in communities
Shadaan says that while the NPRI is a helpful resource, the information it contains and the way it is conveyed is limited and inaccessible. Information about hazardous chemicals associated with specific facilities can be found, but she says they often have complex names and lack descriptions of basic functions and effects.
With much of the existing data on pollution and health harms behind paywalls and conveyed in difficult language, Shadaan hopes the app will make understanding chemicals less off-putting. She cites her own example, having recently read about the effects of a chemical that impacted a gland located at the posterior of the ocular globes.
“They could just say it’s behind the eyeball,” Shadaan explained.
Shadaan sees the project, which she and her colleagues began working on in early 2018, as a success so far, but hopes to see it grow. There are plans in the short term to include data from other facilities in Chemical Valley, and eventually to expand beyond the region.
