Department of Sociology Graduate Theses
Recent Submissions
-
Towards a Theory of Ambient Capitalism: An Inquiry into How Data Creates ValueTowards a Theory of Ambient Capitalism: An Inquiry into How Data Creates Value
By asking foundational questions about data, specifically how it creates value in the market economy and the form in which it is traded in the market economy, this text constructs a new, more theoretical model to understand ... -
Down the TikTok Rabbit Hole: Testing the TikTok Algorithm’s Contribution to Right Wing Extremist Radicalization
(EN) Using a new moderately conservative TikTok profile, and insight from an auto-ethnographic exploration, this study suggests TikTok’s loose guidelines, inaction, and recommendation algorithms have the potential to ... -
UNDERSTANDING THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS OF STRUCTURED INTERVENTION UNITS – CAN STRUCTURED INTERVENTION UNITS SUCESSFULLY TRANSFER FROM LAW INTO PRACTICE?
Research indicates through perceptual and sensory deprivation as well as social isolation, including restrictions on a prisoner’s freedom of association, assembly and movement, solitary confinement leads to the creation, ... -
The Role of Formal Education in Advancing the Goal of Reproductive Justice: A Case for Comprehensive Sexual Education in Ontario
Equitable access to formal education relating to human development and sexual health is integral in achieving reproductive justice at community and provincial levels. Reproductive justice is an important social goal as it ... -
To Protect or To Punish: Illuminating Pathways from Care to Criminalization
This dissertation undertakes an in-depth analysis of the compounding effects of the child welfare and criminal justice systems on young adults (ages 18 to 24) in Ontario. The research is informed by qualitative, critical ... -
Balancing Biomedical Progress Against Reproductive Justice in the Case of Human Germline Genome Editing with CRISPR-Cas9
CRISPR-Cas9, the Nobel-prize winning gene-editing technology, has been heralded as the biggest biotech discovery of the century. It touts the ability to one day effectively remove mutations from the human germline genome ... -
The Coming Swarm: Process and Embodiment in the Possibilities of Human Interactions with Military Swarming Technology
A number of states including the United States, China, Israel, Russia and the United Kingdom have been developing swarming drones or anti-swarming capabilities since the late 2000s. In the US, the OFFensive Swarm-Enabled ... -
“COVID-19 'VACCINE' IS A LITERAL INTRACELLULAR HIJACKING NANOTECHNOLOGY VIRUS”: AN ANALYSIS OF THE PROLIFERATION OF COVID-19 CONSPIRACY THEORIES ON R/CONSPIRACY
Conspiracy theorists are often portrayed in the media, popular culture, and academia as buffoons and idiots, paranoid, extremist, and even violent. While instances of such traits within some conspiracy theorists is certainly ... -
LAW ENFORCEMENT PERCEPTIONS OF YOUTH DIVERSION: A CASE STUDY OF THE DURHAM REGIONAL POLICE SERVICE
Enacted in 2003, the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) began the transition into a new era of youth justice in Canada (Bala 2015). As a result, the CJS saw a drastic increase in the use of extrajudicial measures and decrease ... -
Volunteering the Valley: Designing Technology for the Common Good in the San Francisco Bay Area
How can digital technologies be designed for good rather than harm? Dozens of civic organizations under the “tech for good” banner have emerged in recent years to address exactly this question. Although these organizations ... -
Chinese Canadian Perceptions of the Social Credit System
In 2014, China announced that they would be implementing a Social Credit System (SCS) in hopes of encouraging trustworthy behavior between Chinese citizens, corporations, and government agencies (State Council, 2014). ... -
Intelligence-Captivated Policing: Real-Time Operations Centres and Real-Time Situational Awareness in Canadian Police Services
Over the last decade a new organisational entity has appeared in Canadian police forces. Based on post-9/11 US homeland security and developments in digital surveillance technology, real-time operations centres (RTOCs) ... -
(In)visible Systemic Injustice: A Qualitative Inquiry into Women’s Experiences of Gender Discrimination in the Canadian Military
Government bodies housed in Canada are not void of their own systemic issues. The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) is not any different possessing a traditionally gendered patriarchal white dominant culture that is resistant ... -
Re-imagining Canada’s Child Welfare Paradigm: A Collective Ethnographic Case Study of Canadian and Finnish Child Welfare Systems
This dissertation analyzes state-family relations in Canada, and collectively alongside Finland, as they relate to mothering and child welfare. In response to calls from the Canadian Federal Ministry of Child and Youth ... -
Outsourced Authoritarianism: The Commercialization of State Control in Chinese Mayor’s Hotlines and the Internet-Opinion Industry
How is the market engaged in the grassroots governance of authoritarian China? My work addresses this question by exploring state-market collaborations in the industry of Internet control and the system of Mayor’s Hotline. ... -
The Knowledge Instruments in Smart City Legitimation and Critique: A Pragmatic-Sociology Assessment of the Case of Sidewalk Toronto
In recent decades, the smart city concept has gained momentum in policy and popular discourses. Largely a long-term marketing effort grounded in private technology firms such as IBM and Cisco (Söderström 2014, Hollands ... -
Should the Rainbow have Black and Brown Stripes?: (Anti)-Racism and Coalitions in Toronto’s Rainbow Community
My dissertation research undertakes an in-depth analysis of queer (anti)-racism in Toronto’s rainbow community. My study is informed by ethnographic research methods, including semi-structured interviews with those who ... -
The Debate Surrounding the Use of Biometric Registration by the UNHCR on Refugees
Over the past two decades, there has been a disturbing rise in the refugee population with over 65 million people displaced from their homes as of 2019. This alarming increase has been due to terrorist activities, civil ... -
More than Getting Wasted: A Description of Youth Emergency Department Visits Attributable to Alcohol Use at Kingston Health Sciences Centre from 2013-2017
The objective of this study is to describe youth presentation to the Emergency Department (ED) for alcohol-related issues. Current alcohol-related research relies on self-reported data of individual-level alcohol consumption. ... -
The Sociology of Emotions in Medical Practice: An Ethnographic Case Study of Health Care Interactions
Typically, medical training does not prepare healthcare workers to deal with emotions in medical practice, which can cause them to shut down emotionally and withdraw from patients as a way of protecting themselves. Recent ...
RSS 1.0