Notes from the Field

Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released their Final Report in 2015, institutions such as the University of Guelph have started to incorporate land acknowledgements into their practices, such as at the beginning of meetings or presentations. Individuals might include an acknowledgment in their email signature or at the beginning of a class they are teaching. Acknowledging the traditional territory we are on is important and can be a good step in learning about the history of the region. However, land acknowledgements run the risk of being insincere if no action is taken or if people aren’t speaking from an informed place, especially if they don’t acknowledge or do anything about their ongoing contributions towards land theft and erasure.

Nothing really prepares you entirely for being a father, let alone a father of a child with a disability.

My PhD journey began in September 2016. My start was probably a bit different from the average student’s. I pulled up to MacDonald Institute reminiscing about my graduate school days that I had finished a few years before. I thought about the classes I took and the friends I made during my MSc program in Family Relations and Human Development.

Violence against women1 is a pervasive and persistent problem, but too often it is an invisible problem. In family and community conversations, silence hangs over this topic, even though it touches the lives of most women and people who care about women.2 The reasons for this are complex, but stigma and backlash are among the reasons women do not speak out.3 Both the likelihood of experiencing violence and the risks of speaking out are intensified for women experiencing multiple forms of structural marginalization, especially disabled women, LGBTQ+ people, women, young women, and Indigenous women.4  The fact that violence against women most often occurs in private settings – “behind closed doors” – also contributes to its invisibility. With the loss of social supports and stay-at-home orders, the increase in violence directed towards women and girls during the COVID-19 pandemic has been called a “shadow pandemic” by researchers and advocates.5

In 2019, the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership (CRP) was launched to bring together a diverse community of partners to act on the recommendations set out by the 2018 Indigenous Circle of Experts We Rise Together Report. The partnership represents a seven-year program of work hosted by the IISAAK OLAM Foundation, the Indigenous Leadership Initiative and the University of Guelph. 

The purpose of celebrating and acknowledging this day is to build stronger, more inclusive communities for people with ASD. For instance, strategies to promote inclusive environments include making public playgrounds accessible, having support in place at educational settings, promoting diversity in the workplace to include these individuals, along with many more.  

A statement from the Anti-Oppression Rainbow Gender & Sexuality Diversity Cluster:

The Guelph Black Heritage Society (GBHS) is a community cultural and spiritual gathering space, providing resources and services to empower the community to connect to our Black history, present & future. A team of Univeristy of Guelph students had the opportunity to work with the GBHS. Below, one of the students from this team, Kamrani Doray, provided us with a blog post on the project and its importance to the community.

Each year the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences holds a conference meeting that brings together over 70 different academic associations to the same location. It offers a great opportunity to meet other scholars, policy makers, and practitioners to learn about research happening in a variety of fields, including the Canadian Disability Studies Association, the Canadian Sociological Association, and the Sexuality Studies Association to name a few. A past undergraduate research assistant at the Centre had the pleasure of attending this conference and shared her experience with us. The student took the opportunity to ask them what living and working well means to them. 

At its best, the web makes it easier for people to share, collaborate, and provide new opportunities for all. But for the web to truly achieve its collaborative potential, online documents and software must be accessible to all users, including those using assistive devices.