Quantifying Ecological Processes Predicting Barren-Ground Caribou (Ɂetthën; Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus) Occurrence Across a Heterogenous Northern Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area.

Northern ecosystems are experiencing a period of rapid and unprecedented change, with implications for species distributions, mammal community dynamics, and habitat associations. Understanding the ecological processes that shape species distributions is crucial for developing effective conservation strategies that can adapt to such change. This study examines drivers of barren-ground caribou occurrence, a species of cultural and ecological significance, across Thaıdene Nëné Indigenous Protected Area, an ecologically intact landscape of high habitat heterogeneity straddling the treeline of the Northwest Territories. I use spatial and temporal variation in caribou detections generated by camera traps to test the relative importance of apparent competition, top-down, or bottom-up ecological processes across biologically relevant seasons and areas of varying environmental heterogeneity. This is accomplished by regressing weekly detections of caribou against habitat covariates and/or the occurrence of heterospecific ungulates and their shared predators using generalized linear mixed models, each representing a specific ecological process and scale. As predicted, my results suggest this is a primarily bottom-up driven system. Caribou were negatively associated with taiga-type landcovers across all seasons regionally and showed more varied habitat associations locally. I found evidence for a localized seasonal shift in the relative importance of ecological processes, where top-down pressures exerted by gray wolves were the dominant driver of winter caribou occurrence. The hypothesis-based models used in this study failed to adequately explain spring caribou occurrence at the local spatial extent, suggesting unmeasured or no ecological processes govern caribou detections at that spatiotemporal scale. Future work could consider traditional knowledge and additional ecological variables (e.g., movement facilitation, insect harassment) to further refine spatiotemporal models of caribou occurrence. Effective caribou stewardship must be adaptive and context-sensitive, identifying when and where key ecological processes exert the strongest influence on the species. By determining the contexts in which bottom-up and top-down processes dominate across different spatiotemporal scales, this research can help inform management strategies within Thaıdene Nëné and contribute to broader ecological theory regarding the drivers of species distributions

The Passion: My Father and Garbage

The Passion begins with a poem about my father\u27s preoccupation with picking up trash as a life\u27s mission and continues with a combinative reflection and interview to elaborate on the origins and persistence of this essential act

Art/Place Making in a Settler Colonial Context: A Critical Place Inquiry on the Haldimand Tract/Kitchener-Waterloo From a White Settler Perspective

Although critical place scholars implicate artists in settler colonial processes of placemaking, there is little information on how white settler artists (WSAs) might use their creative practice to support practices of accountability and solidarity with Indigenous resurgence. This research responds to this gap by investigating the creative practices of WSAs located on the Haldimand Tract/in Kitchener-Waterloo (KW), and how they might approach critical, contextual practices in their creative work. A critical place inquiry was combined with ethnographic research principles and a transformative critical research paradigm. Six WSAs participated in mobile interviews, which took place in a location significant to them. To locate myself, I engaged in critical listening positionality after each interview, generating a soundscape, photos, and written reflections. Through qualitative analysis, key findings emerged including: moving towards practices of accountability in creative practice as WSAs, moving towards practices of solidarity with Indigenous resurgence in creative practice as WSAs, and creative practice is relational: situating self, relationship with others, land, place, and systems of settler colonialism. Findings indicate that WSAs creative practice can support practices of accountability and solidarity with Indigenous resurgence, however methodological and practical movement building is needed

Three Walks Along Wascana Creek

Three Walks Along Wascana Creek recalls the author\u27s walking along Wascana Creek in Regina, Saskatchewan, in June 2021

Beach Finds

This photo series, Beach Finds, is all from the beach of my hometown in Rocky Harbour, Newfoundland, from walks I took in the early spring of 2021. Particularly after storms, there would be an abundance of garbage washed ashore. I found a stick from a Buried Treasure ice cream treat that I had not seen since the 1980s; fabric flowers that had blown from the town’s seaside cemeteries into the water and back to land; hand-woven fishing nets that were now grounded; a tampon applicator that reminded me of the first one I ever saw as a child, on that same beach; and various litter from the town’s Main Street, right where the tourist lookout is, snarled in bare rose bushes. Rocky Harbour is centrally located in Gros Morne National Park, which is known for its epic and pristine beauty. My photos are about more intimate moments of discovery and seeing beauty in, or despite, garbage

HEAVEN IS QUIET AND TECHNOLOGIES ARE EVERYWHERE: CHINESE COSMOTECHNICS AND DYADIC APPROACHES TO INTERNATIONAL STRUCTURE

What constitutes the “practical” nowadays and how is it to be assessed? Can the concept of cosmotechnics, how technologies align with broader cosmic goals, be refined by recourse to Chinese traditions? In responding to these questions, I argue for a relational approach that considers technology and practical thinking, or techno-praxis, as a lens for interpreting political affairs. Drawing from philosopher Yuk Hui’s concept of cosmotechnics and the Neo-Confucian ti-yong (essence – function) dyad, a framework is proposed that synthesizes the technological and practical (qi-yong) in a dyad of its own. This dyad aims to provide a diagnostic cosmopolitics by focusing on notions of practicality and power, which are also reshaped by changes in dominant cosmotechnics. While qi-yong and techno-praxis form the primary dyadic center of this framework, how and in what fashion they relate are the other major theoretical foci of the dissertation. This involves making explicit the patterning of technical activities as an analytical space, and as part of general theorizations of patterning and their significance. Drawing on Gregory Bateson’s theory of cultural contact and schismogenesis, I conceptualize “dyadic patterning” as to how dyads are shaped through polarities of activity. Whereas common-sense understandings of politics primarily center the relational sensibilities of political groupings or state actors, techno-praxis as a dyad shifts towards the relation between technics/technicians/administrators and practices of power negotiation, with dyadic patterns between them at times reciprocally generative, symmetrically competitive, openly complementary, highly distanced, lopsidedly consuming, etc. This theoretical and genealogical construction of qi-yong/technopraxis culminates in two case studies, studying: (1) the patterned relations of technics and practices via readings of Chinese IR theorists, and (2) CCP approaches to technology under Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping. These cases also attempt to bring Yuk Hui’s cosmotechnics into conversation with IR and the political practicalities of elite power. Following Yuk Hui’s contention that the ti-yong dyad of “Western science, Chinese culture” forwarded after the Opium Wars remains dominant, there remains a desperate need for responding to how technics and technologies are integrated with human activities and practices, with practices of power being the focus of this project. In so doing, I hope to not transcend (or discard) binaries like East/West, mind-body, or techno-praxis, but to seek the variety of possible relations and how their changing patterns can be constructively engaged from within

Moral Identity: From Theory to Research

Moral identity, often defined as the importance or centrality of moral values to a person’s sense of self, has long been understood to play an important role in moral functioning. However, critical gaps remain regarding its development, cross-context stability, and behavioural significance. This dissertation addresses these gaps in three empirical studies, providing new insights into the nature and function of moral identity across the lifespan and in daily life. The first study (Chapter 2) explores developmental trends in moral identity, testing predictions from moral identity goal theory (Krettenauer, 2022). Using a cross-sectional sample spanning adolescence to old age, the study finds that with age moral identity becomes increasingly informed by abstractly rather than concretely construed values, and increasingly underwritten by internal rather than external motivation. The second study (Chapter 3) examines the stability and malleability of moral identity using experience sampling methods (ESM). By tracking momentary fluctuations in moral identity salience in a sample of Canadian university students over the course of a week, the study demonstrates that moral identity varies significantly within individuals across contexts while also showing stable between-person differences. Further, it shows that within- and between-person differences are related to a variety of morally relevant events experienced in everyday life. The third study (Chapter 4) also employs ESM to explore how moral and immoral action undertaken in daily life can be independently predicted by both within-person fluctuations and between-person differences in the salience and motivation of moral identity. It finds that while variation at both of these levels in moral identity is predictive of discrete actions and behavioural dispositions, this relation is more consistently found and stronger at the within-person level. Moral identity motivations are also found to be uniquely predictive of behaviour, in context-dependent ways. Together, these studies provide a comprehensive view of moral identity as a dynamic construct that develops over the lifespan, exhibits trait-like stability while also responding to situational factors, and profoundly influences behavior. By bridging developmental, socio-cognitive, and individual difference perspectives, this research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of moral identity

Timing of migration and seasonal movements of Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus) in relation to water temperature in the Kakisa River and Upper Mackenzie River, NWT: Results from an acoustic telemetry study.

Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus) are a cold-water salmonid that inhabit waterbodies throughout the circumpolar regions of the northern hemisphere. In the last decade, Ka\u27a\u27gee Tu First Nation members as well as local sport fishers, have observed lower catches of Arctic grayling during their annual spawning run in the Kakisa River, NWT. Many potential causes of this decline have been hypothesized including climate change and over harvesting. Outside of the general annual spawning activity in the headwaters of the Kakisa River, the ecology of the population, including post-spawn habitat use and migratory patterns, remained understudied. To address these knowledge gaps, acoustic transmitting tags were surgically implanted into 76 adult Arctic grayling in the spring of 2022. An acoustic receiver array of 27 receivers were deployed throughout the Kakisa River and Beaver Lake, a wide section of the Mackenzie River. In addition, three receivers deployed in southwest Great Slave Lake, part of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ (DFO) ongoing fisheries monitoring programs, were also incorporated into the study. Tagged adults were monitored between April 2022 and October 2023. The recovered array of eight receivers captured 10,015 detections of 65 grayling over the study period, providing new insight into the migration patterns, timing of seasonal movements and thermal habitats of adult Arctic grayling in the upper Mackenzie region. The telemetry data revealed new information previously undocumented about grayling movements in the watershed including the dates, water temperatures and ice conditions of entry and exit by grayling into the Kakisa River from Beaver Lake, as well as data on how long grayling remained in the Kakisa River post spawn. Prior to the study, relatively little was known about the migration destination of Kakisa River grayling. The telemetry study found that a number of iii individuals occupied Beaver Lake throughout the summer and fall presumably to carry out summer feeding activities post spawn. In addition, several individuals were found occupying and migrating through Beaver Lake during the winter. Individuals were also tracked migrating to Great Slave Lake, indicating that some grayling travel over 70 km from their natal spawning grounds to reach summer and overwintering habitats. The study provides new information on the post spawn migratory behaviour, particularly with respect to summer feeding and overwintering ecology. The information gathered as part of this study, along with future work on Arctic grayling in the upper Mackenzie River, will be important for predicting and managing the potential impacts of climate and other stressors on this ecologically, socially and culturally important fish species

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Public Perceptions of Victim Forgiveness and Offender Reparative Effort

Passing judgment is an inevitable aspect of human behaviour, particularly in cases of severe wrongdoing or crime. These assessments can affect the individuals implicated in the transgressions, including the victim and offender. This research enhances our understanding of how third parties judge offenders and victims of crime, exploring whether offender participation in rehabilitation, offender remorsefulness, and the victim\u27s forgiveness following a crime influence the third party\u27s judgement of the victim and offender. Participants were presented with a scenario depicting a significant transgression, after which they responded to prompts concerning their perceptions of the event and the people involved. The findings reveal that participants placed considerable importance on offender rehabilitation. This was evidenced by examining their perceptions of fairness, empathy toward the offender, the participant\u27s extent of forgiveness, and the likelihood the offender would re-offend. These findings suggest that actions speak louder than words

Tenacious Resins and Residues: Oil Propaganda in Architectural Digest During the Energy Crises of the 1970s

Architectural Digest was first published in 1920 by John C. Brasfield, a California-based publisher. In 1933, the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast and has since become a popular design magazine, particularly in North America, known for its visually vibrant and abundant advertisements. Car advertisements are among the most recurring ads featured in the magazine. Through an archival investigation of Architectural Digest magazines from 1973 to 1983, I investigate how, if at all, car advertisements in the magazine reflected the 1973 and 1979 oil crises. The 1979 global energy crisis was a period of high energy prices and supply shortages that occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution and lasted until about 1983. The crisis was triggered by a number of factors that went all the way back to October of 1973 and the Arab-Israeli war which itself triggered the energy crisis of that year, lasting until at least 1976. I situate this study in Saskatchewan and Alberta, which is where the magazines I investigate physically originated. Thinking with and through these magazines, I read them and their car advertisements to unlearn the way in which they maintain false good life fantasies, and socially and environmentally unjust narratives