Week 10 – Weekly Assignment
The theme of my photos is “sustainability“. I decided to take photos around my home community of Tsawwassen (“Land Facing Sea”), which is the territory of the Tsawwassen First Nations (TFN), who have occupied the land since about 7000 BC. It is among one of the only treaty agreements in B.C.
The reason I chose to take photos surrounding the theme of “sustainability”, is because of the dynamic context of Tsawwassen wherein it is the original territory of indigenous peoples, yet faces massive settler suburban expansion under the guise of living a more “wholesome” lifestyle. The community thus faces massive contrasts on the theme of sustainability, and a lot of hypocrisy. You will hear from many Tsawwassen settler residents, that the community was enticing because of the lower home prices, ability to have a yard, and the beauty and connection to nature you can find within the community (at any point, you are only a few minutes from the beach and farm land, yet only 20 minutes from the city). Much of Tsawwassen therefore resembles the photos below, which can present it as a pinnacle of “green” living. Yet, much of the community is still hugely unsustainable in many senses of the word. South Delta has among the lowest transit ridership in the province, and in the recent transit referendum, the majority of residents voted “no” to expansion, despite having limited transit options as it is. Moreover, urban planning within the community is centred around planning for cars – streets are wide, most families have at least two cars, and there are few bike and pedestrian lanes despite the community being very small and thus easily walkable. In the recent federal election, the ironies within the community became evident. Much of the community’s concerns surrounded development happening in the Tsawwassen, which was hurting local business and destroying agricultural land. A primary point of contention here, was the development of a new mega-mall being built on Tsawwassen First Nations land, which includes the introduction of stores such as Walmart. Interesting about this, beyond the clear disregard for the TFN’s sovereignty and right to self-determination, was that settler residents have been urbanizing Tsawwassen since they occupied the land, and often without consultation from the TFN. Meanwhile, the TFN has continually been on the forefront of sustainability, recently voting against the development of an LNG pipeline which would have given TFN residents each a significant sum of money. The dynamics between sustainability, suburban living, and indigenous land rights is therefore complex in Tsawwassen and rapidly developing. Without this background of the community, the photographs could be easily misinterpreted, showcasing suburban living and much of Tsawwassen as both “green” and straightforward.
Taken a few minutes from my house. The Icelandic ponies enjoy open grazing spots and organic feed.
Centennial Beach, a popular beach near my house, often voted among the top 3 beaches in the lower mainland. Here, there are ample green spaces, recycling options and clean beaches. Yet, Centennial Beach is nearly inaccessible via public transit and a large portion of the park is taken up by parking lots.
A typical Tsawwassen street, clearly not as “green” as the previous photos. You may be able to see the multiple cars in each driveway, and the wideness of the roads and how most of the houses on the street are single-family dwellings with large, wide yards.
Week 8 – 03/08/2016
This week was a really positive week for us, following the bump in the road we encountered a few weeks back. After running our shifted research by Jessica and the SPC, she was excited and extremely supportive of us, which was a really great feeling. After I spoke with Carrie Sundahl, it seemed as though our option of focusing on seniors in the community, may be a bit tricky. This was because to me, the issue seemed to lie with a lack of efficiency in the use of transportation systems, rather than a lack of infrastructure all together. With that, we agreed as a group that we would all love to focus on the issue of transit barriers faced by youth. Jessica had told me I should get in touch with Matt Neufeld, from the SPC/Boys and Girls Club, which I did on Thursday. Matt confirmed that youth in the city face huge transportation barriers when trying to get to work, and directed us to another organization who will have insights on youth employment. My main question at this point, is how feasible a shuttle bus would be, in terms of location overlap (i.e., are youth trying to go to similar places for work, or are employment places diffused?). I haven’t had a chance to contact the organization yet, but we are thinking that I should check in with Dave Preepers first, as he’ll have more insights into this.
One thing I am noticing as our reserach become more specific, is the need to come up with questions beforehand. Generally, I am quite good at cold-calling and coming up with questions as the conversation flows; now, we require certain information to move forward – but have to identify just what that information is.
Week 7 – 02/28/2016
This week was a really exciting week not only in light of our great guest lecturers, but also because of the progress we have made in terms of our research question/process. While last week proved to be a bit difficult, as it seemed we did not really have a direction anymore, this week Jessica put us in contact with a handful of great resources, including Dave Preeper of the Child Development Centre, and Carrie Sundahl with the “Better at Home” seniors service. Both provided valuable insights into what research direction we could take. After speaking to both of them, it seems that both youth and senior demographics in the community, are in need of more accessible transit. For the youth side, this encompasses a lot of different dynamics. Dave highlighted how because full-time work is outside the city, these jobs are often inaccessible to youth who cannot afford cars or transit (which is ultimately unreliable or unusable for them). As such, barriers to financial resources and employment continue, as they are unable to take up such employment. For Carrie, seniors have a handful of transport services available to them, however it seems that they face various gaps such as poor infrastructure or scheduling. Both areas are hence incredibly important, though as someone who is interested in youth issues, I admittedly am quite interested in exploring more of what Dave had to say. Since I was in highschool, I have been involved with an organization that provides support and leadership opportunities to youth, and often “at risk” youth (I quote “at risk” based on the interesting comments that Dr. Hunt had regarding the stigma of being labelled as “at risk”).
By the same thread however, I reflected this week about the ethics of potentially working with youth, not only as an outsider and researcher within the community, but also as someone who may be among the same age. Much of this thus required a critical reflection on my positionality. One aspect of positionality I’ve never quite focused on, was my age. While age gaps may inherently create a research power dynamic, the notion of having little to no age gap, but having various other differences (race, class, gender, etc.), could create an interesting environment to work in. I can’t quite articulate why it seems this would be an issue, I think my main concerns stem from fears that research participants themselves would feel uncomfortable, and fears that various power dynamics that accompany certain identity markers, would be perpetuated.
Week 6 – 02/21/2016
Given that this week was reading week, it was a bit of a whirlwind! I was abroad on a delegation where I had limited access to internet, and limited time to communicate with the group – which made things rather difficult. Nevertheless, I was grateful that my group was willing to take on responsibility for the initial components of our timeline, and acting as communications officers for the week. This was especially important seeing that this week we encountered a few bumps in the road. Adele spoke to Carol Archie, who is a social worker with the Williams Lake Indian Band, and who lives on the Williams Lake First Nations Reserve. Her insights into a few social issues which play into hitchhiking in the area, made it clear to us that a carpool pilot program running from the Reserve may be unfeasible for us. This was a bit of a challenge, as we had poured quite a bit of energy into thinking this option out. Nevertheless, it was also clear that we should listen to those who have expertise and experience within the community, instead of trying to implement what we think is best. Surely, this would not be an ethical or responsible way to go about research. This experience also made me think about various problematic initiatives that different actors have undertaken with indigenous communities in the past. For instance, a few years back the provincial government undertook an inquiry regarding missing and murdered indigenous women in B.C., and the inquiry was ultimately seen as problematic, as the province failed to appropriately consult with the families involved. This was ultimately a disservice to the victims and their families, as it did not seem to take into account those voices which mattered most. In order to avoid similar patterns, it is critical that we take Carol’s advice, and speak to others within the community who have experience with this topic.
Beyond this, the week also consisted of building a timeline of Williams Lake and the SPC. Again, because I was away, my group members were kind enough to take on a lot of the initial research and action items. Now that I’ve returned home, I’ll be helping to finish up the project, and contributing as much research as needed to complete the assignment. I am hoping to meet with my group either on Monday, or Tuesday so that we can decide a course of action for Thursday, regarding our shifted research focus.
Week 5 – 02/04/2016
Week 5 already, how time flies! This week in class, we discussed the advantages, disadvantages and logistics behind focus groups. While I had participated in one focus group in the past (in high school), I have never really had time to think about the ethics, organization and value of this method. This is where I found the actual re-enactment of a focus group extremely helpful. Despite the fact that it was a mock focus group, the element which stood out most to me was the notion of discomfort. This partially was because the group was a mock group, and because we had to stick to a “character” that we may or may not personally agree with, but also because it became clear that the makeup of a focus group should be given the utmost attention. I found that the opinions that some of the characters had to abide by, were either encouraging or discouraging of certain dialogue. To rephrase – I can now understand how someone may feel uncomfortable to share their opinion in certain group situations. While this is not to say that this was my actual experience with the activity (in fact, I actually through it was quite fun), it was an actualization that I had, nonetheless.
Our group has recently discussed the possibility of running focus groups when we visit Williams Lake. We thought it would be a valuable means to gather understanding of various safety issues, transportation accessibility, etc. Taking what I learned from the activity then, we are definitely going to have to consider how we can maximize our focus groups capacity to be a “safe space”, where participants can share their experiences/views freely and comfortably. Second, depending on the topic of which the focus group intends to address, we may have to look into finding an independent moderator. This will require some more brainstorming. Finally, I found that being in character made the focus group a tad difficult – it was hard to stay in character when you yourself may have opposing views.
Another thing that came up this week, was the need to narrow down our research scope. We met with Leo on Thursday and discussed the importance of thinking feasibly. We may have ideas in our head about wanting to implement a carpool program from scratch in certain areas of Williams Lake which need it most, but the feasibility of this will likely become tedious, hence it would potentially be easier to identify already existing informal networks of carpooling, and work outwards from there. We have been trying to get in touch with our community partner, but unfortunately have not been able to do so this week. We’re hoping to be in contact by next week at the latest, so that we can actually begin the research process. In the meantime, we’ll work on researching the context of Williams Lake.
Week 4 – 01/27/2016
This week was an exciting one for the group. In addition to having a guest lecturer in class, our group met at Seedlings on Thursday, with Stella – who worked with the SPC last year on transportation research. Stella had a lot of great insights that not only provided us with some more context regarding Williams Lake, but also provided us with context regarding some of the difficulties we might encounter. For one thing, she mentioned that we should prepare to run into challenges. Last year’s group for instance, found it quite difficult to navigate the transportation structure in Williams Lake, due to the various organizations outside the city, who are ultimately responsible for the day-to-day running of activities.
Another key note, was the idea of trust. She cited that some indigenous residents in Williams Lake may be hesitant to meet with us because of a lack of trust between us. This is understandably so – there is no denying that settlers/academics have caused great harm to communities by assuming they know how to “fix” an “issue”, thereby perpetuating the colonial system… And regardless of how well meaning this project may be, there are inherent issues with going to Williams Lake (as outsiders) and attempting to present “prescriptions”. This is certainly where positionality comes in as well.
Finally, I found Stella’s insights to really highlight the need for a narrow project scope. There is so much complexity surrounding transportation in Williams Lake, and so many factors that influence accessibility, safety, feasibility, etc. – that it would be far too much to take on researching a carpool project for the entire community. Instead, we’ve decided to try and focus on a particular group or community organization. For isntance, Stella mentioned that many participants at the local Boys and Girls Club find themselves with limited transport options, and often resort to hitchhiking. Perhaps we could thus focus on the implementation of a carpool program solely for the Boys and Girls club. I’ve just emailed Jessica about this, asking if she is able to identify certain groups who may be useful to look into.
Week 1 – 01/17/2016
This past week was an exciting one for our group. After embarking on our group walk, we spoke to our community partner on Thursday and established which project we would take on. We decided that it would be great to undertake a research project which focuses on developing a carpool system for the residents of Williams Lake and the neighbouring communities. We were eager to head this project, because it seemed to encompass various things we were all interested in, and it builds off of last year’s project as well as affects community members in a fairly direct way. We were all quite excited to speak to Jessica on the phone and the gears started turning with how to get started. We assigned certain sections of the project to each group member, and we will continually re-convene to share information and questions.