IRIS » Events

Wear a sweater! Save the Planet!

magda — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:43:56 +0000

Wear a sweater. Save the Planet.

February 9^th is National Sweater Day Turn down your thermostat by 2 degrees, put on your best (or funniest) sweater and you will be doing your part to save energy and combat climate change.
Win a Prize!
sustainability@york is running a competition for best sweater(s) so for a chance to win a prize.
email your photos or youtube video links to: sustainability@yorku.ca

Events on February 9^th
· Be sure to look out for our Vari Hall table from 10am-4pm
· Visit the Absinthe pub in the evening for a sweater-themed pub night
For more information, please visit www.yorku.ca/sustainability and http://wwf.ca/takeaction/sweater_day/

Wetlands in peril: Their role in global vertebrate intelligence and a new paradigm for their preservation

magda — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:02:05 +0000

Corporate Crime and Accountability

magda — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:54:43 +0000

IRIS Fellow Mark Winfield releases book on the environment and Ontario

magda — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:20:40 +0000

Climate Justice: How do we move forward from COP17?

chun nam — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:27:48 +0000

Disability advocate Jeff Preston to stage a ‘stairbombing’ at York

chun nam — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:08:37 +0000

Jeff Preston, co-creator of webcomic Cripz, advocates fighting for disability rights in creative ways and will explain how in a talk Feb. 7 at York.

In “Battle Lines Drawn: Resisting Ableism Through Creative Intervention”, Preston will explain how to use cultural warfare – online publishing and publicity stunts such as stairbombing and chair mobbing – to put the lie to common myths and stereotypes about disability, with humour.

Right: Jeff Preston in a snowbank, in a photo on his website getmobilized.ca

Following his talk, his hosts, Access York’s Disability Education & Awareness Subcommittee, are taking his advice and staging a stairbombing on the Keele campus. They will block off a major stairwell using caution tape and place a sign stating: “Caution: These stairs are out of service. Inconvenient, eh? This is only one example of what persons with disabilities experience every day.”

Preston made headlines when he drove his electric wheelchair from London to Ottawa to raise awareness about inaccessible transportation. In 2010, Preston and Clara Madrenas created Cripz, an online comic strip about two high school boys in wheelchairs that aims to entertain through humour while satirizing myths about disability.

Left: Image from webcomic Cripz

The disability advocate gives talks in which he argues that mainstream media, from “Daredevil” to “Glee”, rarely speak to the lived experience of disabled persons. Such TV shows are based more on the skewed perspectives of nondisabled creators, who draw heavily on stereotypes infused with pity and paternalism when portraying disabled characters.

Hear Preston speak in Winters College dining hall, 001 Winter’s College, Feb. 7 from noon to 2pm. To attend, RSVP by Feb. 3 to kaley@yorku.ca.

This event was organized by Access York with assistance from the Centre for Human Rights, the Office of the Vice-President Students, and the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability.

The Uneven Process of CSR Practices in Europe: A window for public intervention?

hao — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:28:26 +0000

The YCISS Afternoon Seminar Series

hao — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:19:34 +0000

Resource Extraction and Capitalist Accumulation in Angola and Nigeria

The turn of the millennium has brought profound change in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea. In Angola and Nigeria, the region’s two major oil producers, there has been considerable economic growth that is expected to continue for several more years. This talk focuses on the state promotion of ‘local content’ in the oil industries. Interviews and case studies of indigenous oil companies are used to ask whether local content policies are markers of a new and potentially successful variant of the developmental state. If this variant is successful in developing more capitalistic social relations of production, what does local content as a new strategy of elite accumulation mean for security and development in the Gulf of Guinea region?

Jesse Ovadia
PhD Candidate, Political Science
York University

31January 2012
1:30 – 3:00 pm
764 York Research Tower

Problematizing “Field-work”

hao — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:52:29 +0000

CERLAC presents
Problematizing “Field-work”
A Seminar on Knowledge, Power and Self-reflection

Thursday February 16, 4 -6 PM
280A York Lanes
York University

Presentations:
C. Susana Caxaj: “Constructions and contradictions in research with a mining-impacted indigenous community”
Nadia Hasan: “Containing fieldwork: Locating the ‘field’ in academic knowledge production”
Robert Kohls: “The epistemology and ethics of member checking: Simply a question of voice?

The notion and practice of “field-work” are usually taken from granted and treated as a technical question (i.e. how to “properly” gather “the data”). However, many critical perspectives have shown that the (social) sciences are implicated in power relations. Thus, “field-work” needs to be interrogated in nuanced ways. Where is the “field”? Why are some countries frequently treated by scholars as producers of the “state of the art” (theory) while others are imagined as the place to gather data and do field-work? Does “field-work” finish when one arrives back to Pearson? Should this “epistemology of the adventurer” be challenged? Why “the poor”, “indigenous communities”, “subaltern groups” are seen, studied, talked about, and conceptually dissected while ethnographies and studies of the rich and powerful are rare? And what kind of ethical and epistemological commitments does that entail? Are graduate students of Canadian universities really that “privileged” in comparison to the “people” they “study” or the story is in some cases more complicated than that? What does the common lament about “how privileged we are” actually “do”, both politically and ethically? In sum, in what sense “field-work” can be seen as a power relation and academia as politically relevant? Our presenters will address some of these and other issues through their own research experience.

More details, including presenter bios and abstracts:

GREEN ECONOMY: FICTION OR PATHWAY TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT? EVIDENCE FROM GREEN ENERGY

hao — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:30:54 +0000

Paul Parker, BSc, BA, MA, PhD, Department of Geography and Environmental Management, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo
The Earth Summit was held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro with Canadian and global leaders signing conventions to protect the planet. In 2012, the Rio+20 conference will assess what we have achieved and what we need to do. Green economy has been proposed as a solution and the Ontario experience of green energy initiatives will be examined as a local case study. Energy efficiency to reduce demand and renewable sources of energy supply will be reviewed.

For more details visit: http://www.yorku.ca/rci/Site/Winter_12.html