The Anthropologist as Expert Witness in Refugee Claims
David Murray, Professor, Department of Anthropology, York University
My recent research studies how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) asylum seekers are viewed and assessed by actors working within and around the Canadian “refugee apparatus”, a term representing how the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) is organized and functions to solidify the liberal nation-state as civilized democratic, and free through particular formations of sexual identity.
Energy Transitions and Living in the City: Adaptations and Vulnerabilities Concerning Home and Mobility in the Greater Toronto Area
Karl Schmid, PhD has taught in Department of Anthropology at York since 2006.
With a focus on the transformation of our homes and the way we move around the city, this project is asking critical questions about related but different pieces of the post carbon puzzle, including the role of smart cities, changing automobility, home energy production, energy affordability and social vulnerabilities.
Becoming Sensor: Protocols for an Ungrid-able Ecology in a 10,000 year-old NaturalCultural Happening
Natasha Myers, Assoc. Professor, Department of Anthropology, York University
Becoming Sensor (http://becomingsensor.com) is a research-creation collaboration between anthropologist/dancer Natasha Myers and filmmaker/dancer Ayelen Liberona. Experimenting with techniques drawn from art, ecology, and anthropology, they are designing protocols for an “ungrid-able ecology” of Toronto’s oak savannahs, lands that have been sites of Indigenous subsistence, ceremony, and sovereignty for millennia. Today these lands are recognized as sites of natural and scientific interest, erasing their cultural significance. The ecological restoration efforts here reproduce colonial conceptions of nature as exploitable resource. Becoming Sensor aims to decolonize the ecological sensorium by tuning into more-than-human sentience and generating kinesthetic data forms that animate the sentience of lands and bodies.
Keeping People in the Picture: Applied Anthropology in a Digital Marketing Agency
Laurie Baker, PhD, MITACS/York University Post Doctoral Fellow
Blogging at agencyanthropologist.ca Follow me on Twitter @AnthGrad
In my MITACS-funded Post Doctoral Fellowship, I’ve endeavoured to create a social media strategy and digital marketing analysis department offering unique, cutting-edge and anthropologically informed services for our corporate clients.
Language Preservation in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia
Prof. Albert Schrauwers, , Assoc. Professor, Department of Anthropology, York University
Over 700 languages are spoken in the island nation of Indonesia. Many of these languages are under threat due to the spread of the national language serving as lingua franca in the public school system. The Pamona dictionary project aims to preserve the Pamona language of Central Sulawesi by translating its vocabulary into Indonesian. The Pamona dictionary project is part of a larger effort to make anthropological knowledge available in local languages for Indonesians through an open access journal published through the York Library System.