Chazan, May

Generativity, or a connection to and concern for future generations, is often premised upon the hetero-nuclear family structure and an elimination of disability, excluding queer and disabled individuals. In this thesis, I extend ideas about queer and crip futures by theorizing an alternative model of generativity that centers queer, and disabled experiences. I argue that queer crip intergenerational relationships contribute to and expand current understandings of generativity in terms of individualism, embodied knowledge, and temporalities. To do so, I used the arts-based participatory methodology, cellphilming. I worked with a group of eight queer, and disabled individuals across the life course in Fredericton, New Brunswick to create short films about aging, queerness, disability, and futures, and analyzed the films thematically. In the context of an ongoing pandemic and heightened backlash against LGBTQ+ rights, I present intergenerational relationship building as a way forward to overcome alienation and imagine a better future.

Author Keywords: aging, cellphilm, disability, generativity, intergenerational, queerness

In this thesis, I explore the question of what would make Peterborough a good or "age-friendly" place to grow old(er) from a diversity of perspectives within and outside the structures of Age-friendly Peterborough (AFP). This research further explores if and/or how AFP and the Age-friendly movement more broadly, can be used as a tool for visioning and enacting more just, equitable, and "age-friendly" aging futures. To answer these questions I used semi-structured interviews with individuals either presently or previously involved with Age-friendly Peterborough, and an intergenerational and arts-based workshop, "Imagining our Futures." From the research findings, I argue that AFP has a significant role to play in making Peterborough a better place to grow old(er), while also outlining how dominant Age-friendly frameworks are limited in their ability to move us towards aging futures that are just, equitable, and "age-friendly."

Author Keywords: Age-Friendly Communities, Age-Friendly Movement, Aging Futures, Arts-Based Research, Interdependence, Successful Aging

Drawing on pedagogies of care, queer pedagogy and Foucault's concept of biopower, this critical narrative study of six women teachers at an Ontario school uses interview data to explore how teaching affects women's bodies. Findings include the dominance of men in schools; the high rate of violence against teachers committed by students; participants' unwillingness to show bodily discomfort to students; and the profound effect of motherhood on teaching practice. I call on educators and school administrators to embed care of students' and teachers' bodies into the practices of schooling. I also propose that instead of erasing teacher corporeality from classrooms, we allow students to care for teachers' bodies as part of a healthy, reciprocal caring relationship, developing students' and sustaining teachers' capacity to care. Given the underrepresentation of women's voices speaking about violence against teachers, this thesis is also a repository for women's narrated stories of assault in Ontario schools.

Author Keywords: biopedagogies, body, care, narrative inquiry, pedagogy, teacher

This thesis evaluates a multi-stakeholder participatory planning initiative, NeighbourPLAN, in Peterborough, Ontario, and the role of the third-party broker, GreenUP, in establishing connections and networks of capacity between marginalized members of the community and contributing organizations, city, and experts. Participatory approaches to engage residents disenfranchised by traditional planning processes are believed to challenge the status quo perpetuated by top-down decision-making. I worked within two neighbourhoods involved in NeighbourPLAN to determine whether the collaborative work and brokering between stakeholders would foster increased connectedness that could exist independently and last beyond the project's timeline. The findings from this evaluation determine that, from the residents' perspectives, while the presence of the other stakeholders in these participatory planning events was valuable, there was not enough affective time to create long-lasting connections. Partners that developed relationships marked with trust and mutual benefit provide a helpful blueprint showing how serious commitment and consistency can build sustainable and meaningful connections. I conclude with a set of recommendations to enhance the connection building between diverse stakeholders and marginalized communities within NeighbourPLAN, highlighting the promising potential of arts-based and storytelling methods.

Author Keywords: arts-based methods, community engagement, Participatory action research (PAR), participatory planning, photovoice, social connectedness

This thesis centres on a series of intergenerational life history interviews with and about Jean Koning, a 95-year-old white Settler woman who has engaged in different forms of Indigenous-Settler solidarity work for over fifty years—work that is highly regarded by many Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in southwestern and central Ontario. I bring Jean's stories and perspectives, many of which stand in stark contrast to dominant discourses of "reconciliation," into conversation with scholars who examine Indigenous refusal and Settler (un)certainty. Through this, I attempt to better understand how colonial knowledge structures and ways of thinking operate in practise, how these might be resisted, and how this resistance relates to land repatriation. I argue that a commitment to unsettling uncertainty and to meaningful listening may be required by Settlers in a stand against various colonial ways of thinking, such as cognitive imperialism.

Author Keywords: Cognitive imperialism, Decolonization, Indigenous-Settler relations, Life history, Reconciliation, Settler uncertainty

This thesis documents an oral history of the New Canadians Centre, the only immigrant-serving organization in Peterborough, Ontario. This case study builds on scholarship that critically examines immigrant settlement work in Canada. Drawing on interviews and archival research, and employing the analytical concept of home, I investigate how differently-located actors have practiced home and welcome in Peterborough in the context of settlement work. I demonstrate how the New Canadians Centre's work consolidated as well as challenged normative discourses of home that disadvantage racialized new immigrants and privilege white settlers represented as "host." I argue that this false binary between immigrant and host is harmful, inadequate in accounting for the complexities of people's lives, and easily reinforced in settlement work without efforts to challenge it. I conclude that accountability to power in settlement work is crucial to envisioning a more inclusive welcome and a more just home in Peterborough and Canada.

Author Keywords: home, immigrant settlement sector, migration, oral history, Peterborough, welcome

Since 1984, poetry slams have emerged as a politicized expressive movement of performing the personal and political through poetry competitions. Slams are also discursively spatialized, often represented as "spaces" that are "safe," "inclusive," etc. In this thesis, I investigate how, why, and to what effect the Peterborough Poetry Slam produces, consolidates, and challenges such "resistant spaces." Drawing on interviews and participant observation, I consider how the slam's reiterative practices facilitate its space-making by encouraging performances that resist, reimagine, and sometimes inadvertently reify dominant societal norms. I argue that this space-making is imperfect yet productive: though not resistant space in any straightforward or static way, the slam continuously produces possibilities to challenge norms and confront power. This thesis contributes to scholarship on performative space and creative resistance movements. In an era when political resistance to power structures is often silenced, this research offers insights of potential significance to other resistant space-makings.

Author Keywords: Nogojiwanong Peterborough, performative space, poetry slam, resistance, space-making, spoken word