This thesis explores how introducing intersectional theory to self-identified activists in a Swedish folkbildning context challenges the theory/practice-divide. The study has been carried out through thematically structured discussions with students and teachers at Kvinnofolkhögskolan, Gothenburg, Sweden. In this thesis I argue that the deconstruction of the theory/practice-divide is dependent on perceptions of what theory and practice entails, students’ expectations of Swedish folkbildning in general and Kvinnofolkhögskolan in particular and pedagogical considerations on how to teach intersectionality intersectionally.Additionally, the thesis addresses issues of institutionalization, feminist pedagogy and the broadening of intersectional theory. Finally, the thesis highlights the need for extensively addressing the issue of the theory/practice divide in the curriculum, for students and teachers to discuss what is perceived as theory and practice respectively and for teachers to consider time and place as part of an intersectionally aware pedagogical practice.

This dissertation, “‘Hire the Handicapped!’: Disability Rights, Economic Integration and Working Lives in Toronto, Ontario, 1962-2005,” argues that work significantly shaped the experience of disability during this period. Barriers to mainstream employment opportunities gave rise to multiple disability movements that challenged the social and economic framework which marginalized generations of people with disabilities. Using a critical analysis of disability in archival records, personal collections, government publications and a series of interviews, I demonstrate how demands for greater access among disabled people to paid employment stimulated the development of a new discourse of disability in Canada. Including disability as a variable in historical research reveals how family advocates helped people living in institutions move out into the community and rehabilitation professionals played an increasingly critical role in the lives of working-age adults with disabilities, civil rights activists crafted a new consumer-led vision of social and economic integration. Separated by different philosophies and bases of support, disability activists and allies found a common purpose in their pursuit of economic integration. The focus on employment issues among increasingly influential disability activists during this period prompted responses from three key players in the Canadian labour market. Employers embraced the rhetoric and values of disability rights but operated according to a different set of business principles and social attitudes that inhibited the realization of equity and a ‘level playing field.’ Governments facilitated the development of a progressive discourse of disability and work, but ultimately recoiled from disability activism to suit emergent political priorities. Labour organizations similarly engaged disability activists, but did so cautiously, with union support largely contingent upon the satisfaction of traditional union business first and foremost. As disability activists and their allies railed against systematic discrimination, people with disabilities lived and worked in the community, confronting barriers and creating their own circles of awareness in the workplace. Just as multiple sites of disability activism found resolution in the sphere of labour, the redefinition of disability during this period reflected a shared project involving collective and individual action.

White supremacist racism is systemic to the structure of society in the United States. White people often minimize, rationalize, deflect, and deny contemporary acts of racism. However, there have been many whites who have actively opposed racism. As new conditions of racial segregation and inequality emerge in the United States, it is increasingly imperative that we consider which factors lead some whites to commit to antiracism. In this research, I examine how a selection of young white adults negotiate their racial and antiracist activist identities in the era of colorblindness. Utilizing feminist qualitative research methods, I explore my sample’s understanding of the factors most influential in raising their race consciousness. Employing in-depth interviewing techniques, I find that early life racial messages and the quality of interracial contacts one maintains throughout their lifetime have the greatest implications for influencing young whites’ involvement with antiracist activism.

Feminist activism has a rich history in Canada, but mobilization on the issue of violence against women specifically gained considerable momentum during what is often referred to as the “second wave” of the feminist movement. Since this time, the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec have seen a proliferation of both grassroots and public policy responses to intimate partner violence and sexual violence. This study is an effort to construct a feminist history of the activism that occurred between 1970 and 2010, as well as to make sense of feminist claims-making strategies using a social constructionist approach to social problems and to make sense of feminist activism as a social movement using social movement impact theory. In constructing a feminist history, documents from the Canadian Women’s Movement Archives were consulted and interviews with current and former feminist activists were conducted. The historical component of this study focuses on how feminist activists first recognized and responded to the problem of violence against women. This analysis suggests that throughout the last forty years, feminist activists have engaged in a multi-pronged project of providing feminist services for victims of intimate partner and sexual violence, advocating for social and legal change as the “official” response to violence against women, and conducting their own research on the extent and nature of violence against women. Various strategies were used in this process, including forming partnerships and coalitions, but activists also faced challenges from within and outside the movement, including internal debates, struggles to fit in, and backlash from counter movements. The final chapter discusses how the history of feminist activism on violence against woman cannot easily fit into strict constructionist approach to understanding social problems and, as a social movement, is difficult to evaluate given the myriad goals, mechanisms for reaching those goals, and interpretations of success associated with the movement. Future research directions are also suggested, including looking at evidence of claims-making from other sources; bridging the gap, theoretically and pragmatically, between the “mainstream” feminist movement and other streams of women’s activism; and, more conceptual work on feminist movements and the separation between intimate partner and sexual violence.

This thesis looks at the state of marriage equality activism in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 26, 2013 decisions in United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry. Some scholars, such as Gerald Rosenberg, argue that Supreme Court decisions can never affect “significant social change,” either directly or indirectly, while others argue that such decisions can be hugely important in directly affecting policy. My focus is on how activist organizations, which have a substantial track record of directly affecting policy, are influenced by changes to the political environment stemming from major Court decisions regarding social issues. After examining how past litigative efforts such as Baehr v. Lewin and Goodridge v. Department of Public Health have affected the LGBT rights movement, and marriage equality activism specifically, I discuss how organizational strategies have changed minimally, but the political environment in which marriage equality activism is operating has shifted quite a bit, especially in terms of framing and legal precedent. I conclude that Court decisions can indeed have a significant impact on social change by affecting the way in which it is possible for activists on both sides of the issue to shape and deliver their message to the general public, legislators, and courts in future litigative efforts.

This research examines the population of formerly incarcerated people as activists in the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted Persons Movement. Applying a Personal Authority Framework, this work examines the role of race within organizing, the limitations of the voices of formerly incarcerated people, the role of the ally within the movement, the power that formerly incarcerated people do have and how they use it, and the necessary aspects and attributes of a movement. I conducted fourteen in depth interviews with formerly incarcerated individuals and their allies, all of which self-identified as activists. Given that the prison populations in the United States is the highest in the world, as is the populations of formerly incarcerated people, this work demonstrates the important role of activism in their lives and the importance of their personal stories and authority for an activist movement to be successful.

This qualitative inquiry focuses on exploring youth subjectivities in relation to a curriculum focused on diversity issues. This curriculum is housed within a community camp called Youth Combating Intolerance. Using a unique methodology called pedagartistry, the youth visually narrated their experiences being young activists and the challenges that run alongside. Drawing on ideas of becoming, multiplicity and reflexivity, the youth described a spectrum of experiences relevant to youth, educators and those invested in practicing from an anti-oppressive praxis. / Graduate

The segregation of disabled people is often perceived of as a form of oppression that acts as a means of exclusion from mainstream society. Disability rights activists and theorists have worked to end segregation as a form of oppression using the social model of disability and drawing on feminist theory. Feminist use of disengagement as a tool for empowerment is one component of feminist theory that has been left unexplored as it relates to disability. This work explores the role of segregation within the disability rights movement and within the development of the activist identity for disabled people. Based on the individual and collective experiences of six participants, all of whom are activists who attended segregated summer camps, I use a thematic analysis to reframe segregation as Empowering Exclusivity. This reframing has the potential to shift the strategic goals of the disability rights movement away from binary understandings of integration and segregation and towards a critical analysis of full inclusion and empowerment. / Graduate / 0700 / 0453 / julia.munk@gmail.com

Urban redevelopment in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, marginalizes low-income residents and threatens them with displacement. Site visits and an analysis of discourse suggest that gentrification and the establishment of new restaurants in the area have also contributed to a commodification of poverty. The impacts of restaurant gentrification provoke resistance, and the opening of a new restaurant accused of inviting voyeurism and objectifying neighbourhood residents has resulted in an indefinite picket out front. Interviews show that picketers are endeavouring both to stop gentrification and to win social housing and needed services for the area, while also attempting to create social, economic, and political change at a larger scale. The picket draws attention to the effects of restaurant gentrification on the neighbourhood and the disproportionate influence of the state apparatus on the Downtown Eastside, yet also seeks to preserve a heterotopic space as an alternative to a neoliberal urbanism. / Graduate / 0615 / burnettk@uvic.ca

The thesis discusses the mediating role of socioeconomic factors in risk debates through an examination of the decontamination and demolition of Fulham Power Station in 1983-1984. The power station was built between the wars by and for the people of Fulham. Located on the Thames in the neighbourhood of Sands End, it generated electricity and provided employment until 1978, when it was sold to a property development company. During the decontamination, a quantity of asbestos was released into the environment. A protest group was formed to secure better standards of work at the site. The group never had more than a dozen active members. All the members were middle-class. At the time of the decontamination and demolition, Sands End was a poor neighbourhood. A majority of the local population faced many 'social' as well as environmental hazards. Amongst these were sub-standard housing, unemployment, under-employment, low wages, inadequate work and educational skills and crime. The thesis discusses whether the neighbourhood's socioeconomic problems had any bearing on the character and dynamics of the power station debate. It suggests that the social geography and economic status of Sands End had two major effects on the debate. Firstly, gentrification provided the neighbourhood with a (small) middle-class constituency receptive to issues of environmental risk, such as the long-term health implications of airborne asbestos dust. Secondly, the neighbourhood's pressing social and economic problems mitigated against a wider involvement in the campaign. Most residents were too preoccupied with meeting their social and economic needs to become actively involved. The thesis also suggests that the population's experience of Fulham Power Station as a source of 'convenient' electrical power, employment and civic pride may have made it difficult for those native to Sands End to accept the activists' construction of the power station as a source of danger.