This thesis investigates the potential and emerging roles of the Social Economy at the level of global governance by examining how transnational civil society (TCS) has organized in an attempt to influence global policy-making. One of this study’s principal aims is to glean insights into the dynamics of civil society coalitions, gaining a better understanding of how they combine the collective knowledge, resources and strengths of members and drawing out some of the “best practices” and challenges inherent in past civil society alliances. This study seeks to explore the complex nature of the relationships that exist among civil society actors and the unique challenges such groups face in forming partnerships by examining these relationships through the lens of Inter-Group Conflict Theory. A Case Study of one TCS partnership, the Make Poverty History (MPH) campaign, is conducted and an Inter-Group Dispute Resolution Analysis of MPH is carried out.

In this thesis I evaluate the role of Inuit governance in Nunavut's political space. To do this, I critically examine the practice of political consultation, as it is a site where government and Inuit communities interact. This thesis begins with an overview of the government structure in Nunavut and its consultation process. It then shifts focus to discuss the principles and practices supported within Inuit governance. A political and conceptual gap will be revealed. In response to this gap, I introduce and explore the Kitchen Consultation Model, a community based consultation model inspired by the principles and practices of Inuit governance. This model provides Inuit communities with a political framework to support dialogue and interaction within the community, supporting Inuit communities in designing solutions to address their challenges. This thesis ends with a discussion on the role of Inuit governance within the broader Indigenous context

This thesis examines the link between international exchange programs, cross-cultural communication, and conflict resolution. Through a case study of the Canada World Youth Core Program, my research sought to answer the question: How do the participants of the Canada World Youth Core Program perceive their adaptability, cross-cultural communication, and conflict resolution skills to have been developed or improved as a result of their participation in the program? I asked eleven former Canadian participants of the program to share their stories of conflict and challenges throughout the exchange, which resulted in rich and detailed qualitative data. My findings suggest that increased opportunities to engage in cross-cultural communication through international exchange programs, such as Canada World Youth, can increase an individual’s adaptability, cross-cultural communication, and conflict resolution skills. I therefore conclude that such programs are an important component to the Canadian educational system, and should be supported, promoted, and made widely available to Canadian youth.

Building on the premise that Canadian government thus far has been incapable of enacting a working model of how to implement sustainability, this thesis defines Canada’s basic environmental position and takes it as a starting point to a prospective shift in our national value system. Using a case study of a the Detroit River International Crossing Project, a government-initiated development project in Windsor, Ontario, and a careful analysis of publicly available documents, it measures Canada’s stated values with respect to the environment against the project’s actual pathways of action, thereby unearthing the embedded value system which governs environmental ethics and policies in Canada. Also, this thesis will draw comparisons with the value system of the Walpole Island First Nation – a representative Indigenous community located near Windsor – in order to present alternative ways of relating to the earth and of conceptualizing environmental ethics and policies.

Original poems in English and Spanish.

This thesis critiques the dominant theorization of Canadian sanctuary as expressed by Randy Lippert. Particularly, I contend that Lippert’s Foucaudian analysis offers an impoverished understanding of sanctuary recipients by insisting they are political only insofar as they embrace bare life and become a silent spectacle. To re-conceptualize the political role of recipients, I evoke Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière’s notion that politics is constitutive of an interruption. I suggest that, living in a borderland between citizenship/non-citizenship, sanctuary recipients draw critical attention to their own exclusions and thus enact the political interruption par excellence. However, Arendt and Rancière’s stipulation that this interruption must be visible also limits political efficacy for recipients for it necessitates that they must expose themselves as helpless spectacles. I argue that this uncontested commitment to visibility is also dominantly expressed by theorists, such as Jenny Edkins, who are concerned with agency for other abject subjectivities. Troubling, this dedication to visibility results in the same apolitical formulation of sanctuary recipients that Lippert offers. As an alternative, I conclude that a type of (in)visible interruption offers a more a fruitful way to understand political agency for sanctuary recipients, and indeed for other seemingly abject figures.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels continue to be at the centre of debate regarding the value of the series with respect to children’s literacy. Informing this debate are two perspectives: on one hand is the argument that Harry Potter encourages children to read and write; on the other hand is the position that the novels possess little inherent literary quality. Neither side has investigated the novels’ messages about literacy itself. To investigate these messages, this study applies a critical text analysis to the series’ depictions of literacy practices, defined here according to a sociocultural model encompassing reading and writing, speaking and listening, and viewing and representing. Critical perspectives form the theoretical foundation to this study. Critical social theory frames literacy practices within their social contexts; thus, this study organizes literacy practices according to their primary functions for characters in the novels: exchange, notification, domination /empowerment, and restriction. Poststructuralism, informed by Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, highlights the relationship between social practices and power. This study thus considers how characters undergo or exercise different kinds of power when they engage in literacy practices. This examination of literacy and power exposes the ideological assumptions behind literacy, revealing literacy practices to be sites for characters to experience and contest power. The novels also show that power over literacy is power over access to information, knowledge, and self-expression, and thus, over individuals and the world around them. The series suggests the importance of ownership of literacy, as well as encourages readers to be aware of the ways in which literacy practices can be tools of both oppression and empowerment. Arising from the study are implications regarding the nature of literacy and its relationship with power. Harry Potter shows that literacies are contextual, multiple, and value-laden social practices that participate in the making and unmaking of our social world. This dynamic mediation occurs through the operation of different kinds of power accompanying literacies: individuals experience passive socializing power through their exposure to literacy practices; individuals exercise active power on the world around them through literacies; and potential power residing in all forms of literacy makes other forms of power possible. For educators facing the decision whether or not to include the Harry Potter series in classrooms, understanding the novels’ messages about literacy is a beginning. Awareness of how characters in the series use literacy in the production and exercise of power will give teachers insight into the complexity of the role and function of literacy for children. Adopting a critical literacy approach in the classroom will help teachers encourage children to participate in discussions that specifically address the nature of literacy, its relationship with power, and the ideological assumptions that accompany its participation in society. This study also recommends that teachers specifically increase the presence of viewing/representing literacies in the classroom so as to highlight individuals as active agents of social reform.

An original full-length theatrical play in three parts, Hand of Jane deals with themes of faith, family and responsibility to the past, and examines human spiritual evolution through the story of a father and daughter, and Jane, a mystical guide loosely based on Jane Goodall.

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that help and hinder the relationship between Canadian Forces (CF) veterans and their partners, from the perspective of the partners. Six wives and one girlfriend of former CF members were interviewed using Flanagan’s (1954) qualitative critical incident technique. Interviews yielded 17 helping incidents and 24 hindering incidents. Categories were created to comprehensively cluster the incidents. The helping categories were: supportive behaviours, collaboration, reconnecting, positive time apart, and compromising. The hindering categories were: communication difficulties, aggressive and intimidating behaviour, burdened with responsibility, inconsiderate behaviour, failure to provide support, and feeling ashamed of partner. Few links were found with regard to military employment; instead, the categories are consistent with past research exploring important relationship factors. Implications for counselling are provided, and future directions discussed.

This thesis examines Marianne Moore’s poetic project of creating hope within a modern context. Building on an initial discussion of Moore’s skeptical perspective, I go on to argue that Moore’s work fosters a desire both to believe in something unknowable and to maintain faith in a goodness that cannot be realized on earth. Moore posits a more demanding hope than one based on the search for truth and namelessness; she gives hope a meaning beyond the feeling that allows people to keep going. Moore’s hope requires a guarded vision of the future, a capacity for visualizing both the real and the imaginary, and, especially, careful observation. Actively manipulating the possibilities of language while recognizing their limitations, Moore transforms hope into an action, a pursuit of ethics and a focus on something other than the self.