Cultural Studies Interdisciplinary Graduate Program: Projects

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https://hdl.handle.net/1974/6147

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 6
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    Beyond ‘Deserving:’ An Examination of the Moral Regulatory Function of Welfare Policing During the COVID-19 Pandemic
    (2021-06-30) Semmelhack, Isabelle
    In this paper I argue that the Canadian government’s disproportionate spending on the policing of ‘welfare fraud’ constitutes a fiscal investment in the moral regulation of the larger populous. I propose that by reinforcing divisive notions of deservedness, the government seeks to foster capitalist subjectivities, a term which I define as a complacency with limited social welfare and compliance with capitalist norms of exploitation and productivity. However, as my research findings suggest, governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have undermined the regulatory function of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving poor’ metric, resulting in the expansion of anti-poverty discourse and calls for progressive social welfare reform.
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    Neither Wild nor Domesticated: Positioning Liminal Animals through Labour Rights
    (2018-08-15) Brouwer, Daphne DZ
    Animal rights have become a mainstream part of philosophy since the 1970s, but liminal animals are still ignored by most animal studies scholars. Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka address the rights of liminal animals in Zoopolis assigning denizenship to them as they are considered to be neither wild (sovereignty) nor domesticated (citizenship). The problem with their approach is that they address the possibility for liminal animals to become citizens without explaining how this can happen. Combining Kendra Coulter’s care work approach with Karl Marx’s definition of production labour I argue that liminal animals are entitled to labour rights under certain circumstances. The strength of acknowledging that liminal animals can acquire labour rights is that their contribution to a community becomes formally acknowledged and protected, which I argue to be a possibility for a liminal animal to become a citizen.
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    Organic Surveillance: Security and Myth in the Rural
    (2016-09-12) McKnight, Stéphanie Marie-Anne (Stéfy)
    This project looks at the ways Northeastern Ontario citizens in rural communities regulate their private property through traditional and contemporary surveillance means. Through art and objects, this project allows viewers the opportunity to experience surveillance in rural areas through visual and creative ways that encourage interaction and critique. This project defines organic surveillance by looking at the ways ruralists in Markstay Ontario practice surveillance and deterrence which is influenced by characteristics of land, risks and other determining factors such as psychology, resourcefulness, sustainability, technology and private property. Organic surveillance argues that surveillance and deterrence is prevalent far beyond datamining, GPS tracking and social media. Surveillance and deterrence as methods of survival are found everywhere, even in the farthest, most “wild” and forested areas.
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    Towards an Ecological Pedagogy: Body Movement for Ecological Consciousness
    (2016-09-09) Ke, Junyu
    This paper examines the moving body as a vehicle for raising ecological consciousness. Due to the modern over-preoccupation with the pursuit of rational aims, human interactions with the surrounding environment increasingly lack conscious awareness. Consequently, in the modern world people tend to lack an ecological consciousness. Nevertheless, the human body is a rich reservoir of ecological significance. From birth, humans are woven into tremendous interconnection with the world. However, humans thrive when their sensitivity to the physical world exists in harmony with their ability to pursue their rational aims. It is the combination of these characteristics that enables humans to survive in capricious surroundings and prosper in a wide array of contexts. Today, the human species faces an unprecedented crisis that threatens to collapse the reciprocality of the ecological bonds bolstering the prosperity of all worldly beings. This paper proposes that it is no longer a rational strategy for people to remain inattentive to their embodied ecological resonance, and that the moving body is an adequate pedagogical site for raising ecological consciousness. Ritualized body movements derived from Chinese traditional cultivation systems such as Taijiquan could orient practitioners to reestablish a perceptual intimacy with the larger cosmic world, thereby raising their ecological consciousness.