HCRN affiliate scholar Diana Parry was quoted in a recent newspaper article featured in the National Post about motherhood and parenting young children. Drawing on her research with users of Momstown.ca, a social networking site for young mothers, Dr. Parry commented, “[An online mothers] group helps [young mothers] shift through the copious amounts of information and decide ‘what’s going to work for me?’” For more details about the article, please check the following link:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/31/what-to-ignore-when-youre-expecting-no-such-thing-as-a-perfect-baby-so-forget-advice-books-experts-say/

HCRN Director Troy Glover and doctoral student Debjani Henderson will be presenting results from the African Canadian Youth Leadership Project at the Eighth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry in Champaign, Illinois, on May 19th. You can view the program details at http://www.icqi.org/docs/QI2012%20Preliminary%20Program.pdf. Here is the abstract that was accepted for presentation at the Congress:

Critical Newcomer Pedagogy and the Performative Practice of Hope

Troy D. Glover & Debjani Henderson, University of Waterloo

Consistent with Denzin (2009), this presentation locates performance ethnography within a racialized pedagogy by exposing and critiquing the experiences of settlement that operate in the daily lives of ethno-cultural newcomers to “multicultural” Canada. The tableaux at the centre of this performance text moves from the global to the local to the personal interplay of culture, politics, and pedagogy. It seeks a form of polycultural performative praxis that inspires and empowers newly arrived immigrants and refugees to interrogate the cultural logics of the settlement experience through performance. The subsequent staging asks newcomers, ‘Where have I been?”, “where am I now?”, and “where do I go from here?” In so doing, their performance is treated as “a way of acting on the world in order to change it” (Denzin, 2009). It introduces a critical newcomer pedagogy that forwards a polycultural citizenship and acts as a vehicle for enacting a politics of hope.

Any questions about this presentation can be directed to Troy Glover, troy.glover@uwaterloo.ca

HCRN Director Troy Glover and Doctoral Student Debjani Henderson will be presenting a poster at the National Metropolis Conference, an annual forum for researchers, policy makers, representatives from community and settlement organizations to get together to share and exchange knowledge and experience in the field of immigration and settlement (see http://www.metropolis2012.net/home for program details). As Troy and Debjani described it, their poster “reports findings from the African Canadian Youth Leadership Project, an innovative research endeavour in Kitchener, Ontario, designed to utilize novel participatory techniques, formatted as a three-day intensive leadership experience, to encourage newcomers of African descent to engage in a critical “reading” of the urban Canadian landscape. The conference takes place from February 29th to March 3rd, 2012 in Toronto.

Members of the Healthy Communities Research Network are scheduled to present papers at the 47th Annual Canadian Sociological Association Conference at the University of Waterloo/Wilfrid Laurier University in Spring 2012. Here are the abstracts associated with those presentations:

Dog as Avatar: Exploring canine-inspired camaraderie in dog parks

Taryn Graham & Troy D. Glover

In spite of the perceived decline of face-to-face interaction in Western industrialized societies (Putnam, 2000), dog owners have emerged as those more likely to engage in casual conversation with members of the broader community (Guégin & Ciccotti 2008; McNicholas & Collis 2000; Messent 1983; Wells 2004). Dog owners, in this sense, serve as salient community builders in their neighbourhoods. With this in mind, it is no surprise that the literature on pets as social conduits tends to privilege the positive benefits of such interactions and fails to acknowledge the reality that some dog owners face tension, judgment, and sometimes even exclusion.

Using a grounded theory approach, the purpose of this qualitative study was to critically explore (1) the nature and outcomes of social interactions in dog parks of the Greater Montreal area, and (2) assess the implications associated with this process for both human and animal well-being. Participants (28 females and 7 males) were asked to disclose specific demographic information about themselves and their dog(s), as well as share both positive and negative stories about their experiences in dog parks.

Similar to online gaming communities, where users experience a shared virtual space through an avatar (Crawford, Gosling, & Light, 2011), findings from this study suggest that owners experience dog parks through their pet insofar as the dog becomes a social, interactive representation of self (Meadows, 2008). In short, this presentation opens discussion about anthropomorphism (attributing human qualities to non-human species) as a social buffer for the inherent human need to experience a sense of belonging.

Questions about this presentation can be directed to Taryn Graham, taryn.graham@uwaterloo.ca.

Mother-to-virtual-mother: Changing Canadian communities and the online networking experiences of women with postpartum depression

Caitlin M. Mulcahy, Diana C. Parry & Troy D. Glover

Research is clear that the quality of women’s experiences of motherhood is inextricably linked to their relationships with other mothers (Nelson, 2009). However, cultural changes including women’s increased participation in the paid workforce, geographical distance between kin, and increased rates of single parenthood have resulted in mothers mothering in relative isolation from one another (Gaudet, Cooke & Joacob, 2011, Postmontier & Horowitz, 2004, Gallagher, 1997). Interviews with twenty-two Southern Ontarian new mothers and members of “Momstown.ca” – a social networking site focused on connecting mothers online in order to meet face-to-face – revealed these social and cultural changes have resulted in women experiencing motherhood as overwhelming and isolating. In particular, this research found that women experiencing postpartum depression (PPD) were struggling alone without a supportive community around them. However, mothers experiencing PPD reported becoming members of Momstown allowed them to build a social network that provided company, camaraderie, and community, resulting in better support, the ability to negotiate dominant discourses surrounding motherhood, and improved mental health. We conclude that services like Momstown could be viable, alternative interventions for women with PPD, enabling mothers to negotiate the social and cultural changes that are currently leaving them isolated and alone.

Questions about this presentation can be directed to Caitlin Mulcahy, cmmulcah@uwaterloo.ca.

Check out @Troy_D_Glover for posts on all matters associated with healthy communities. #tweetsworthreading

HCRN Director Troy Glover will be delivering a public lecture called “Toward a Welcoming Community: Engaging Newcomers” at the Forest Heights branch of the Kitchener Public Library at noon on Wednesday, February 15, 2012. Details about the lecture are available at http://ce.uwaterloo.ca/Lecture_Series.html. The lecture is based on research Troy is conducting with newcomer youth of African descent in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. 

HCRN Director Troy Glover returned from the Ontario Camps Association’s Annual conference in Richmond Hill, Ontario, where he facilitated a practical workshop for camp professionals called ”From ‘Come Out’ to ‘Outcome’: Creating Outcome Logic Models for Meaningful Programming.” An enthusiastic group of thirty participants learned the relevance and importance of outcome measurement and the practical skills associated with implemeting it in camp settings. Troy has done similar workshops with the Canadian Camping Association, Tim Horton Children’s Foundation, the YMCA of Canada, and the Cambridge and K-W YMCAs. With the growing emphasis from fundraisers to achieve outcomes for participants, not just produce outputs, this workshop is helpful in educating staff and motivating them to adopt an outcome-oriented approach to program planning. If you or your organization is interested in learning more about this workshop, please contact Troy at hcrn@uwaterloo.ca  

On October 25, 2011, Troy Glover served as a panelist at the National Recreation Summit in Lake Louise, Alberta. The Summit, a joint venture of the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association (and its Provincial/Territorial member associations), the Inter-Provincial Sport and Recreation Council (ISRC), and several Federal agencies, focused on Recreation, Community and Quality of Life. It provided an opportunity to examine current and anticipated strategic challenges facing public recreation (including parks) and the range and types of opportunities that could enhance the growth and impact of recreation services at national, provincial/territorial, and municipal levels. Special attention was given to identification and assessment of ways in which community engagement strategies and actions can improve the delivery and quality of public recreation services at local levels.

In the spirit of this theme, Troy made a presentation to delegates that compared and contrasted the active living and healthy communities movements and argued an active, healthy communities movement requires a greater focus on the whole community rather than just on specific problems. You can access slides from his presentation at http://lin.ca/resource-details/20229.

At the end of August 2011, HCRN researchers Troy Glover, Amy Chapeskie, Roger Mannell, Steven Mock and Hannah Feldberg released a report to the Canadian Camping Association on their five-year study of summer camps in Canada. Findings from the report were presented in October at the 2011 International Camping Congress in Hong Kong. The study shows participating in accredited summer camps in Canada leads to positive social integration and citizenship, greater environmental awareness, improved self-confidence and personal development, higher emotional intelligence, and better attitudes toward physical activity. A copy of the report can be found at the following Web page:

http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~tdglover/PDF%20Files/CSCRP%202011.pdf