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  The Contribution of Male Allyship to the Struggle for Gender Equity in the Workplace: A Study in Experimental Sociology

  Vajda, Tayler; Department of Sociology

  While the legal grounds for workplace discrimination in Canada and many other Western capitalist nations have been eliminated, there is still substantial evidence of gender inequality in many workplaces. Whether conscious or unconscious, practices in work settings often create unwelcoming or exclusionary environments for women. This thesis examines the impact of male allyship as a means to mitigate sexism and motivate others to respond to instances of gender bias in the workplace. Specifically, it seeks to determine if acts of allyship by a male colleague of female employees influence the behaviour of other male colleagues in a work setting. Using a vignette study, participants were asked to imagine starting at a new workplace where they were required to attend an orientation. During the orientation, an existing employee told a story about why they enjoyed working at the company. The gender and extent to which the existing employee shared a story involving an act of allyship against sexism were manipulated. Participants were then asked to imagine being employed at the company for several months. Participants were then exposed to an instance of gender bias and were asked how they would respond. It was hypothesized that participants who were exposed to a male employee who demonstrated an act of allyship against sexism would be more likely to report that they would be comfortable responding to an instance of sexism in an active or confrontational manner. It was also hypothesized that this trend would be most evident amongst male participants. Statistical analysis found participants exposed to a prior instance of allyship during the orientation were significantly more likely to think it was effective to confront a perpetrator of sexist comments (Brandon). On a more negative note, this research additionally revealed that male participants who were not exposed to an instance of allyship during the orientation were significantly more likely to support a perpetrator of sexist comments (Brandon). Several other significant findings involving levels of sexism and personality traits were also found. Implications for these findings are discussed.
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  Practicing Ecological Security and Making Multispecies Relations in Anti-Base Resistance: Insights from Environmental-Oriented Anti-Base Activists in Henoko and Takae struggles in Okinawa

  Kaho, Nishibu; Department of Sociology

  Henoko and Takae are two Okinawan villages entangled in the struggles against militarization of Henoko-Oura Bay and Yanbaru forest, respectively. These struggles highlight the problems associated with the US military bases and operations in relation to environmental justice (EJ), conservation, and ecological security concerns. Focusing on environmental-focused anti-base resistance, my research asks what activities activists engage in and how those activities relate to activists’ understanding of the problems associated with the US military bases in Okinawa. Drawing on in-depth interviews with environmental-oriented anti-base activists and participant observation in protest sites and activist communities, my research explores how activists ascribe meanings to their current resistance activities in Henoko and Takae, particularly direct action interferences, monitoring, and translocal collaborations. My analysis of activists’ perceptions, experiences, and behaviours in these activities contributes to (Critical) EJ and social movement studies (SMS) literatures by highlighting non-western forms of resistance and activists’ interpretation and articulation of their particular approaches. Additionally, informed by assemblage theory, my research investigates how activists interact with human and nonhuman entities in their activism and how those interactions shape activists’ perceptions of their relations with others and their ideas of security. My analysis reveals activists’ exceptional humility to and practice of ecological security from the ways in which they interact with the local community, those on ‘the other side,’ and nonhuman surroundings. My analysis also demonstrates how protest sites become spaces of knowledge production and relationship-building, which challenge the Japanese and US governments’ colonialist, militaristic, and anthropocentric governance and security narratives. Such findings contribute to the theoretical understanding and practical application of assemblage theory, particularly in relation to the SMS and environmental sociology literatures. The activists’ practices of ecological security and multispecies relations in Henoko and Takae can be an exemplar for EJ and other social justice activism.
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  Climate Discourse Among Canadian NGOs: Ecological Modernization, Civic Environmentalism, and Climate Justice

  Spiegel, Kate; Department of Sociology

  This research examines the websites of twenty-three Canadian NGOs using critical discourse analysis to understand: (i) What climate change discourses are dominant among Canadian NGOs? (ii) What are the goals and strategies being promoted through these discourses? (iii) How are climate issues being framed by these organizations? (iv) Who do NGOs see as the primary agents and mechanisms of change in addressing climate change? The findings illustrate three main discourses--ecological modernization, civic environmentalism, and climate justice--though the distinctions between discursive categories are often blurred as many organizations draw from multiple discursive narratives in their appeals for climate action. Ecological modernization discourse underpins much of the framing of climate change as a threat to the Canadian economy and the benefits of transitioning to a zero-carbon economy through market interventions and green innovation. Equally represented is a Canadian stream of civic environmentalist discourse. Civic environmentalism has a strong presence in how many NGOs attribute the climate crisis to an imbalance in decision-making power between elites and the rest of Canada where the solution is then to restore democracy in political institutions. Climate justice was least represented but offers a more critical understanding of the nature of the climate crisis and emphasizes the need for a broad-based movement that unifies the fights for social, economic, and ecological justice.
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  Beyond Drugs and Crime: Services Needed for Formerly Incarcerated Men in Cape Breton

  Morrison, Kirk; Department of Sociology

  This research is an institutional ethnographic exploration of the reentry of formerly incarcerated men who use illicit drugs in the Regional Municipality of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Formerly incarcerated drug users in Cape Breton have few resources available to them as they attempt to adjust to life outside prison. Facing many obstacles, they often find themselves vulnerable to denial of services, homelessness or substandard housing, social isolation and stigmatization, and, ultimately, reincarceration. Beginning with experiences as reported in interviews of previously incarcerated male drug users, as well as staff members of a local harm reduction organization, I identify the range of challenges men experience post-incarceration and how best to meet their needs. Drawing on the men’s vision for effective service provision and safer drug use policies, I make policy recommendations that will facilitate inclusion and effective reentry into society. My guiding questions are: What challenges and obstacles do men face after release? How effectively do men access welfare state services, employment, and housing and what are the specific barriers to access? What broad changes are required to avoid reincarceration and truly support the needs of illicit drug using men?
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  Breaking the silence: Exploring women's experiences of the #MeToo movement

  O'Halloran, Olivia; Department of Sociology

  The #MeToo movement encourages breaking the social silence about sexual violence online; survivors share their experiences of sexual violence under the hashtag #MeToo across social media platforms, joining with other survivors in a network of empowerment, resistance, and empathy. This thesis focuses on women’s participation in #MeToo through their video blog (vlog) postings on YouTube. I analyze 12 of the most viewed vlogs posted on YouTube under #MeToo between September 19th, 2019, and September 19th, 2020, addressing how women in this online forum represent their experiences of sexual violence, silencing, and participation in the #MeToo movement. Particularly, I investigate the affordances of participation that these women identify, as well as how they represent the #MeToo movement’s goals, what drawbacks they experience in relation to breaking the silence, and how they imagine their experiential narratives may affect other survivors of sexual violence. Through their detailed testimony on YouTube, vloggers voice and resist the structures that silenced them while encouraging other survivors to recognize and resist these structures in their own experiences. Analyzing these vlogs contributes to a greater understanding of how individual women think and feel about the #MeToo movement as they interact under the hashtag on YouTube, an online domain that is currently under-represented in research on digital feminist social movements.
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  Experiences of YMCA Day Camp Counsellors and their Perceptions of Youth

  Webster, Amy; Department of Sociology

  A large body of research examines the benefits of youth programming for children and their families, yet there is limited research that specifically focuses on day camps and the experiences of camp counsellors. My MA thesis explores the experiences of YMCA day camp counsellors and their perceptions of the children with whom they work. More specifically, I explore how camp counsellors perceive campers’ strengths, assets, and home life, the extent to which camp counsellors impose neoliberal values onto youth, and the social and developmental benefits of the camp experience for both campers and counsellors. Drawing on social capital theory (e.g., Putnam, 2000), Tara Yosso’s (2005) concept of community cultural wealth, and the “multiple worlds” model of Phelan et al. (1991), this thesis was undertaken with two broad objectives: (1) to understand the broader ideological forces that inform youth programming and the implications for creating an inclusive and equitable camping experience for diverse populations of young people; and (2), to illuminate the ways in which campers and counsellors benefit from participation in camp from a social and psychological standpoint. The study is informed by qualitative interviews with eight study participants who were previously employed as YMCA day camp counsellors for a minimum of one full summer. Semi- structured interviews were utilized to elicit camp counsellors’ experiences along with their perceptions of youth and youth programming. These interview data are triangulated with my personal experience as a YMCA day camp counsellor. My findings highlight the drive and dedication that camp counsellors have to bettering the lives of the children they worked with. In addition, the study spotlights the ways in which youth programming is informed by the dominant neoliberal ideology. Despite the noble intentions of camp counsellors, this can result in a camping experience where neoliberal values are imposed on diverse populations of youth with i little consideration of the unique challenges that might inform resistant attitudes, or the strengths and assets that marginalized youth produce within their families and communities. In spite of these limitations and concerns, camp functions as a space where campers and counsellors have the opportunity to build constructive forms of bridging and bonding social capital. Lastly, I argue that camp has a vital role to play in an age of helicopter parenting where interaction by way of electronic devices has largely supplanted face-to-face interaction. In short, this thesis reveals both the shortcomings and benefits of the day camp experience, and unveils the complexities and challenges associated with youth programming in an increasingly diverse and unequal society.
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  Dialectical Naturalism: Studies in Marxist Social Ontology

  Hayslip, Tim; Department of Sociology

  This thesis develops the thought of Marxist philosopher Evald Ilyenkov. Ilyenkov is notable for his efforts to challenge Soviet orthodoxy by locating ‘ideality’ within a classically Marxist, materialist ontology. The main argument presented here is Ilyenkov’s interpretation of Marx is one that can be constructively employed in debates within contemporary sociology and social theory. Ilyenkov’s framework is developed over the first three chapters. The second half of the introduction critiques the orthodox interpretation of the famous base – superstructure metaphor, arguing that it should be understood as referring to both the natural processes through which the human species develops its understanding of the world and how these understandings evolve as humans transform the world. The second chapter concerns Ilyenkov’s description of the philosophical development that led from Kant’s ontological dualism which recognized the importance of an ‘intellectual war’ to the advancement of science through Fichte’s individualistic but dialectical ontology to Hegel’s dialectical-idealist monism. The third chapter locates Ilyenkov’s ‘ideality’ within the Marxist social ontology of Murray Smith. This framework is then used to explore and critique the methodological development of a social scientist who moved from a ‘radical social constructionist’ position to a project of synthesizing discrete ‘social’ and ‘natural’ factors over the course of his career. The fourth chapter locates and describes the role of Ilyenkov’s ‘ideality’ within the history of global economic development and argues that a form of class warfare from above will persist into the future. The fifth chapter compares and contrasts Ilyenkov’s ‘ideality’ and Durkheim’s ‘conscience collective’. As both concepts represent attempts to describe similar but often misunderstood phenomena, they evince definite parallels but Ilyenkov’s ‘ideality’ seems more comprehensive and its location within a Marxist framework offers much greater explanatory potential than Durkheim’s system. In particular, Marxism better explains the limitations of the postwar effort to construct a more humane capitalism. The concluding chapter reviews the preceding chapters and ends not with a prediction of a utopia to come but with an optimistic call for the development of a revolutionary leadership capable of leading humanity’s creation of a socialist society.
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  Environmental Justice Activism in Context: A Case Study of the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment in Kern County, California

  Constantine, Moe; Department of Sociology

  Kern County, California is home to some of the worst environmental health conditions in the United States and to one of the oldest and most active chapters of the environmental justice movement (EJM) in the country, known as the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment (CRPE). The region, which is characterized by conservative politics, oil and agricultural production, and a long history of farm labor organizing, constitutes a challenging context for CRPE activism that attempts to address the many environmental injustices residents face. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with nine CRPE members, this thesis analyzes how CRPE navigates the historical, social, and political context in which it operates. Its strategies and goals, which center relationship-building and procedural justice, are influenced by and respond to Kern County’s particular social and political dynamics. Analyzing the contours of CRPE’s activism contributes to a greater understanding of how the organization conceptualizes and enacts 'environmental justice' (EJ) (in relation to how it is understood and deployed in different contexts), and how its EJ activists instigate change through their ability to successfully navigate the complexities of the context within which they are situated. How EJ activists negotiate politically conservative contexts to achieve some measure of environmental justice is not well understood in the EJ literature, so I pay particular attention to how Kern County’s conservatism shapes CRPE’s work.
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  Social Problems and Moral Panic: Primary, Secondary, and Oppositional Definers in the Social Construction of Canada's Opioid Crisis in Select Corporate Print Media

  Kenny, Julia; Department of Sociology

  This thesis seeks to explore the viability of a composite model of social problems using Canada’s current “opioid crisis” as a case study. Drawing on and modifying Joel Best’s (2017) and Herbert Blumer’s (1971) social problems models, I develop a four-stage composite model that aims to explain how primary, secondary, and oppositional definers construct competing claims over the discovery of a variously labeled opioid crisis. Relying on a materialist theoretical formulation of social constructionism and a critical assessment of the news media as both source and interlocutor for primary, secondary, and oppositional definers, I contend that in the making of the opioid crisis primary and elite secondary definers have a resource advantage in laying claims of expertise and “definitional dominance” over the construction of social problems. As an epistemological inquiry into the making of social problems, this study relies on the print news media as the locus for the articulation of competing claims in the construction of social problems. Respecting the social construction of the latest drug scare, I use the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail as my primary data sources. This study uses a range of theoretical perspectives—symbolic interactionism, labelling theory, and a Marxian perspective on conflict and inequality—to operationalize processes of representation at each stage of my composite model of social problems. Since the composite model seeks to make sense of “text and talk” in the making and experience of reality, this study employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze how primary, secondary, and oppositional definers engage in exclusionary and usurpationary closure while in the process of mobilizing and resisting discourses, narratives, and constructions of folk devils, as these relate to meanings of a perceived opioid crisis in Canada.
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  Doing what ‘Works Best’: Exploring the Narratives of Mothers who Work as Strippers

  Annett, Michelle Lesley; Department of Sociology

  Despite a large body of research exploring the experiences of working mothers today, there is little literature focusing on mothers who take part in stigmatized and unconventional forms of paid labour. Taking up this line of inquiry, my MA thesis project explores both micro and macro-level understandings of the narrated experiences of four women in Canada, who are both mothers and exotic dancers, with the overarching question: ‘how do these women navigate and negotiate their socially constructed identities and practices as both mothers and sex workers?’. This thesis is informed by feminist methodologies and a broad array of literatures on social reproduction, social surveillance of mothering practices, the intensification of mothering, women working in the sex industry, and occupational stigma of exotic dancing. My research consisted of four semi-structured phone interviews with women in Canada (all in the province of Ontario) who have (either currently or in the past) navigated both roles of mothering and stripping simultaneously. Through my interviews, I explored how the women in my study negotiated the work of social reproduction, the forms of support they had access to, and the barriers they have faced. My findings illuminate that due to limited access to affordable services in Canada, the mothers I interviewed rely on informal assistance from their key supports to provide necessary care work that the mothers could not fulfill due to the responsibilities of their paid work. Mothers also stress the necessity of managing their occupational stigma to comply with dominant ideologies of maternal caregiving by constructing personal communities and adopting techniques of secrecy and trust in order to enhance their ability to combine paid work and unpaid care. Overall my MA thesis offers insight into experiences, supports, and constraints that women face as they navigate the demands of paid labour, domestic work and unpaid caregiving in stigmatized and precarious conditions.
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  Whistleblowing and Moral Dilemmas in Policing: An Analysis of Police Culture and the 'Blue Code of Silence'

  Marshall, Sarah; Department of Sociology

  This thesis explores police officers’ moral experience with the ‘blue code of silence’ and whistleblowing relating to corruption, misconduct and abuses of civilians. The interview responses of five (5) Canadian police officers is presented and examined using a meta-analytical approach of symbolic interactionism and critical discourse analysis to explain the perspectives, experiences and decisions of the officers interviewed. The thesis seeks to understand the tension between proactive policing which contributes to abuses, misconduct and moral conflicts with respect to the right of the civilians to effect democratic control of police. The thesis examines the narratives of interviewees sustained by the assumptions that: a) the state monopolizes the legitimate use of force; b) bureaucracies thrive on secrecy, the protection of their members and the exclusion of ‘outsiders’; and c) discretionary authority and power tends to corrupt. Sustained by the assertion that all organizations are hierarchical, the thesis draws on Howard Becker (1967), Alvin Gouldner (1968) and Alexander Liazos (1972) to critically assess how the administrative, disciplinary and policy-makers (the “top dogs”) reflect on factors involved in abuse, misconduct, the ‘blue code of silence’ and whistleblowing. The major findings from the interviews with current and former police officers range from tactics of dissociation and denial, ‘neutralization’ techniques, rejection of policing, moral objection to covert and overt abuses and corruption in policing and enforcement of minor drug laws. Of requests for interviews with nine (9) “top dogs” (political, administrative and investigative bodies) that set policy and hold police organizations accountable, only Mr. Gerry McNeilly, director of the Office of the Independent Police Review Board (OIPRD), agreed to be interviewed. In general, “top dogs” deflected, avoided scrutiny and visibility or were contradictory and evasive about the realities of the ‘blue code of silence’. This thesis aspires to increase public understanding of policing and to facilitate strengthening accountability and democratic restraints on the institution of policing.
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  Marx at 200 – Inquiries into the Measurement of Profitability and its Determinants: The US Economy, 1950-2016

  Watterton, Josh; Department of Sociology

  Since the 1950s, various Marxist political economists have confirmed the empirical actuality of the ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’. While the present thesis contributes to the burgeoning body of empirical literature that has substantiated Marx’s law, it differs from many of them in the underlying theoretic-methodological specifications guiding how the data provided in the national accounts should be translated for purposes of empirical research. Informed by a theoretical, methodological and empirical survey of the relevant literature, the thesis engages in a value-theoretical re-specification of Marx’s fundamental value-ratios for purposes of ‘testing’ Marx’s most crucial historical forecasts in relation to the concrete post-war evolution of the global epicentre of “advanced” capitalism: the US economy. It suggests some innovative methods of measuring ‘systemically necessary unproductive labour’, the ‘composition of output’ and economic growth alongside Marx’s fundamental value-ratios: namely, the rate of surplus value, the organic composition of capital and the average rate of profit. It also proposes a unique normalizing procedure for distinguishing between components of financial profit resting on surplus-value production from ‘fictitious’ components deriving from relations of credit/debt. This ‘normalization procedure’ permits a more realistic assessment of the amount of actual surplus-value transferred to finance, and therewith a more accurate calculation of the average rate of profit for the social capital as a whole in the “era of fictitious capital.” In sum, the empirical results disclose a long-term tendency for a rising composition of capital to exert a downward pressure on the average rate of profit – a tendency that has been offset in the neoliberal era to some extent by a rising rate of surplus-value (exploitation) and by a proliferation of fictitious capital imputed in the national accounts. Accordingly, this study confirms the empirical actuality of Marx’s most crucial historical forecasts – most notably, his law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall – while also revealing the systemic roots of the deepening malaise of the US economy and of world capitalism as a whole.
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  Constructed Ignorance and Inevitable Resistance: Our Knowledge of the Clitoris

  Rath, Karly; Department of Sociology

  Drawing on Nancy Tuana’s epistemologies of ignorance, this thesis explores the ways in which ignorance surrounding the clitoris is socially and systemically constructed, and how people with clitorises resist this gendered ignorance. The researcher conducted interviews with nine women and trans people about their sexual body, knowledge of the clitoris and their relationship with their own clitoris. During the in-depth follow-ups, participants were shown an anatomical model of the clitoris and a Cliteracy art mural by Conceptual Artist Sophia Wallace. After all the interviews were transcribed, a thematic analysis was conducted. The findings suggest that ignorance—in the forms of erasure, misrepresentation and dismissiveness—is prevalent in society and participants’ lived experiences. Few knew about the full size and anatomy of the clitoris and those who did learned this information from feminist, sexual education sources online. Participants demonstrated that what they know is primarily from active, self-initiated learning. Most participants indicated that learning about the clitoris is important for experiencing sexual pleasure, which is evident when examining the ways they sought to overcome barriers to learning. While the relationship between pleasure and the clitoris is complex, most participants stated that the organ was central to their experience of pleasure, especially orgasm. Notably, most participants were queer, and many participants expressed the belief that queer people are likely to be more knowledgeable than others about the clitoris. The data is contextualized with explorations of predominant discourses within social spaces such as schools, media and the healthcare system, focusing on aspects like language, school curricula and visual diagrams. The power dynamics and gendered processes behind what is known, and, importantly, what is not known, are explored.
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  Precarious Work and Communities: The Impact of Neoliberalism on Working Class Politics

  Maich, Grace; Department of Sociology

  Precarious work, which refers to work that is poorly paid, lacks benefits, and where workers have relatively little political power, has been on the rise in North America in the last few decades. If precarious workers are isolated and unengaged, they will not be able to represent their political needs. The goal of this research is to clarify the relationship between precarious work and levels of community engagement and social support. Using feminist political economy and hegemony perspectives, this project engages with the question of whether precarious work has a direct impact on community engagement and social support and how demographic variables moderate this relationship. A quantitative analysis of 2014 telephone survey data done by the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario project demonstrates the effect of precarious work. Results show that precarious work has a large significant negative effect on social support but an inconsistent impact on community engagement. I conclude that more information is needed about participation in extra-parliamentary activities to fully understand whether precarious workers suffer from lack of political representation. However, precarious workers are clearly more isolated than other workers and this may contribute to continued intergenerational precarity.
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  Control by Proxy: The Regulation of Indigenous Peoples and Settler Labour via Canadian Anti-Sex Work Laws, 1865-2016

  Kobryn-Dietrich, Tierney; Department of Sociology

  This study examines Canada’s history of anti-sex legislation from 1865 to 2016 and demonstrates that these laws exist primarily to maintain the ideological boundaries between whiteness and indigeneity. The study forwards a theory that accounts for the ways in which anti- sex work legislation assists in a) the appropriation of land through the removal and/or isolation of indigenous peoples and b) maintaining hegemonic control over settler labour. To this end, three time periods are identified in which violent settlement and the production of white, middle- class personhood were features of the regularization of capitalist-colonial rule, and where anti- sex work laws played a vital role in the management of instabilities manifested by indigenous activism and labour discontent: the consummation of the Canadian colonial system (1850 - 1900), industrialization (1900 - 1920) and neoliberalism (1970s - current). By examining the cur- rent and historical legislative framework regulating sex work, this study aims to demonstrate how both the legal framework and its enforcement act as proxies for controlling land and labour.
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  A Preventative Intervention: Staff Experiences Providing Harm Reduction in the Niagara Region

  Omiecinski, Mark; Department of Sociology

  Harm reduction is a pragmatic philosophy and practice within health care which emphasizes disease reduction and social accessibility of health services over law enforcement and judicial punishment for drug use. There is a breadth of literature studying the impact of harm reduction practices on clients, but little on the people who facilitate these services. This project uses a political economy of health theoretical approach to examine the role of harm reduction and harm reduction workers within neoliberal state frameworks. Using an interpretive-critical analysis of qualitative interviews, this project highlights an NEP servicing the Niagara Region as a site of resistance to neoliberal restructuring which is also constrained by its policies. By providing public health care and referral to external resources such as housing, the site acts as a form of retrenchment from the neoliberal state while still being hindered by precarious labour and austerity policies in relation to funding. A key finding is that workers engage in emotional labour, boundary negotiation, and debriefing to offset burnout to better perform their labour, which is an unspoken but necessary part of the job. The findings of this research lay the foundation for future research in harm reduction labour and operation as well as emphasizing the blend between service and health care work that is necessary for effective harm reduction practice.
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  “By talking about it we can make it a positive thing”: Autistic people negotiating identity and understanding in discursive contexts

  Monroe, Hannah; Department of Sociology

  Broderick and Ne’eman write that in the early 2000s autism took hold of “the public imagination internationally” becoming a “popular cultural obsession” (2008:462). Autistic people are discursively constituted within this cultural context. My goal in this research has been to better understand the dominant and counter discourses constituting autism, how young autistic people themselves embody discursive locations throughout their lives, and how they negotiate the intelligibility of their subject positions. Previous research has looked at how autistic people negotiate diagnoses, whether they feel understood, the discursive positions they embody, and how discourse constitutes their subjectivities. Using a qualitative exploratory research design, I conducted semi-structured interviews with four individuals, ages 22, 23, 23, and 26, who identified as having been labelled as autistic at some point in their life, either by themselves through a self-diagnosis or by a medical professional. I employed thematic analysis and emerging themes were: Diagnosis, Intelligibility, Terminology, Medicalization, Identity, Life Course, and Internalizing Responsibility. This research is significant in its contribution to representations of autistic people’s perspectives. It focuses on people in their 20s and people who do not have formal diagnoses, who have been underrepresented in research. The present research also builds on previous literature by addressing when autistic people lack language to talk about oppression, how they internalize responsibility for social interactions, and their reflections on their futures.
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  "It's a Privilege": A Critical Examination of University Students' Perspectives of Animal Experimentation Pedagogy in Canada

  Interisano, Alaina; Department of Sociology

  Animal experimentation is a controversial practice that persists in university education, despite the many available alternatives to effectively replace animal models. This thesis examines Brock University students' perspectives and educational experiences of animal experimentation, to understand how students make sense of this practice as a part of their education. This research consists of six in-depth interviews with Brock University undergraduate students who engaged in animal experimentation. The results show that students' experiences of animal experimentation pedagogy have greatly influenced their attitudes and perceptions of this practice, and have instilled in them an acceptance and perceived necessity of animal models. Most notably, students explicitly highlight their instructors as highly influential in shaping their acceptance and engagement in animal experimentation. The thesis concludes with an exploration of non-animal alternative methods to emphasize how principles of humane education can be used to foster more compassionate human-animal relations.
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  Ecotourism and Human-Bear Relations in Ontario: Working for Multispecies Respect and Economic Sustainability

  Readings, Victoria; Department of Sociology

  Relations between northern Ontario’s human communities and black bears have often been violent, and hunting is promoted for economic and “safety” reasons. The Ontario spring bear hunt was previously banned but was recently reinstated, compounding concerns about human-bear conflict and bear management. Today, both human-bear conflict and the stagnation of the northern economy continue, despite increased killing of black bears in the spring hunting season. This thesis considers alternatives to the hunting of bears. Specifically, it assesses bear viewing programs and the added benefits of collaborative environmental agreements and accreditation programs. I explore the potential of these alternative programs to address human-bear conflict, to benefit local settler and indigenous communities, and to reduce resource exploitation in northern Ontario. The thesis is driven by two research questions: (i) what ecotourism policies, strategies, and programs are the most viable for Ontario? (ii) Which policies or programs offer the most potential for fostering solidarity within and across species, as well as economic, social, political, and environmental benefits for northern Ontario communities? I consider these questions by utilizing a combination of targeted, semi-structured interviews and a multispecies reimagining of an Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis (IBPA) framework. Three industry specialists were interviewed in order to interrogate the policy benefits and limitations of the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement, as well as bear viewing programs within the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary, Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary, and the Great Bear Rainforest. I argue that these programs offer important lessons and models that should be utilized and imitated in northern Ontario in order to transform interspecies relations and mitigate ongoing conflict. The results confirm the educational, cultural, and economic value and importance of guided bear viewing and accompanying habitat protection. This study also reveals areas of possibility and incentive for locales seeking to transition into ecotourism.
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  Intersectionality, Radicalism, Identity, and Community: An Ethnographic Case Study of Animal Activist Organizing in Canada

  Boyacioglu, Mehmet Emin; Department of Sociology

  This thesis is an ethnographic case study of an animal activist organization (ACT) through an intersectional feminist theoretical lens. Qualitative data regarding ACT’s demographic constitution, internal organizational dynamics, activist strategies, ethical and political principles, and relations to other animal activists in the region have been collected through participant observations, in-depth interviews with activists, and a content analysis of social media. Data gathered and analyzed through the Grounded Theory methodology demonstrate that, despite its progressive politics in terms of gender, racialization, and class, ACT reproduced some oppressive dynamics of these, such as a normative, gendered division of labour. Contrary to ACT’s principle of non-hierarchy, a co-founder became its leader due to his possession of traits valued in activist circles dominated by a white, middle-class, and masculine culture; and his politics informed by a particular radical activist subculture was adopted by ACT. Many were not allowed to join ACT for not embodying the expected activist criteria, which were exclusionary in the sense of being formulated through a white, middle-class culture. Ideological and tactical disagreements between ACT and other activists led to aggressive conflicts because of some ACT organizers’ intolerance to any aberration from the rigid understanding of ethics they upheld. As individual and organizational identities outweighed solidarity in this activist setting, the erosion of trust further severed the community. Many activists who endorse ACT’s principles of intersectionality, anti-oppression, and community-building attribute their disbandment to the failure of applying these in activist praxis, and envision a better future for animal advocacy through a flatter organizing, healthier communication, a less rigid understanding of ethics, and more respect and consideration afforded to the people in and out of the activist community.

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