Current Research Projects

• Rural Women Making Change  more...

  Description:
  Rural Women Making Change is a community-university research alliance that seeks to expand our understanding of the social, economic and political processes that hinder the full participation, effectiveness and well-being of rural women and their advocates, as well as promote action for change. I am a researcher on the Migrant Workers and Trans-local Livelihoods project, which is investigating the role of transnational labour in Canadian rural communities; the ways in which gender analysis alters our understandings of these processes; the gendered nature of transnational migration; the implications of transnational labour for Canadian rural communities.

  Project Type: Funded
  Role: Collaborator

  Funders:
  CURA (SSHRC)
  

• Do Women Sing? Subjective Exclusion and Expressions of Resistance  more...

  Description:
  This study is focused on identifying and understanding subjective social exclusion and expressions of resistance among Low German-speaking Mennonite women from Mexico. In my PhD research, I described and empirically explored four forms of social exclusion – economic, spatial, socio-political, and subjective. This study seeks to examine the stories and words of Mennonite women from Mexico, in their own language, to more fully understand the ways in which they give expression to resisting subjective exclusion – of claiming self.

  Project Type: Funded
  Role: Principal Investigator

  Funders:
  SSHRC Small Grant
  Atkinson Junior Faculty Fund
  

• Educating for Work? Social Exclusion, Single Mothers, and Cultural Capital  more...

  Description:
  This project explores the relationships between formal education (or cultural capital) and paid work as the assumed route to social inclusion. Extending recent research demonstrating a disjuncture between professional credentials and earned income for most immigrants in Canada, I interrogate the extent to which level of education is associated with various indicators of social inclusion for single mothers, including position in the labour market, income, wealth, civic engagement, social networks, and health and well-being. Through the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data pertaining to the life experiences of poor single mothers in Canada, my overall objective is to deepen our understanding of the processes and outcomes of social exclusion in order to further develop a practical concept of social inclusion. This research integrates the following data analysis: 1) secondary quantitative data analysis utilizing the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID), 2006; 2) analysis of qualitative data collected through the SSHRC funded project entitled Social Assistance in the New Economy (SANE) (PI Ernie Lightman, University of Toronto).

  Project Type: Funded
  Role: Principal Investigator

  Funders:
  Atkinson Minor Research Grant, York Internal Grant
  

• Theorizing ‘Choice’ and Voluntary Social Exclusion: A Study of Transnational Livelihoods and Women from Mexico  more...

  Description:
  This qualitative research advances the inquiry of self-imposed social exclusion with the empirical study of women who migrate from Mexico for low-skilled temporary jobs in Canada’s agri-food industry. Three distinct sample sub-groups of women who engage in transnational livelihoods are included: participants of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP); and the non-sector specific Occupations Requiring Lower Levels of Formal Training (also known as the Low Skilled Worker Program, LSWP); and women such as Low German Mennonites from Mexico who move outside of regulated programs, sometimes as dual citizens (Canadian and Mexican). This project takes prior work forward with a unique sample population and three new dimensions beyond those previously studied: gender, the law, and transnationality. That is, we will explore the ways in which national legal and regulatory enactments operate gendered processes across sovereign borders. Regardless of the means by which they migrate, women engaged in temporary farm labour exercise some measure of choice by positioning themselves near the bottom of one of the lowest value segments of the labour market. For those entering Canada through guest worker programs, social exclusion is a direct result of the transnational extension of the market-state apparatus, as international legal parameters replace cultural/religious mandates. While voluntary social exclusion based on shared nonconformist beliefs is inherently paradoxical, further complexity is introduced when legal and regulatory constraints enforce mandatory social exclusion in which people seemingly choose to participate. This study will shed new light on the idea and social realities of social exclusion; deepen understandings of the role of individual and group agency in maintaining transnational livelihoods; and continue the conceptual development—in adequately nuanced and pragmatic terms—of social inclusion in policy formulation and labour market practices.

  Project Type: Funded
  Funders:
  SSHRC: Standard Research Grant
  

View Resarcher's Selected Publications