Front of House Experiences within COVID-19: An analysis of a Coffee Shop in Vancouver

Front of House (FOH) Coffee Shop employees in the COVID-19 pandemic, by nature of their work, are required to share indoor spaces in close proximity to customers and co-workers, who could be potential carriers of COVID-19. Due to the possibility of this spread, safety measures have been implemented on the scales of the BC government, coffee shop chains, and individual coffee shops (within chains), to hinder and prevent the spread of COVID-19. This presentation will delve into the corresponding effects of these implemented safety measures on FOH workers regarding their workloads, and interactions with customers, within a single café in Vancouver.Findings from changing customer interactions due to COVID safety measures, will be discussed as impacting the work of baristas in terms of (1) prolonging customer-by-customer interactions, (2) elevating the status and power of workers through BC mandates, and (3) increasing the emotional workloads of workers.Impacted workloads will also be discussed in terms of increased cleaning and sanitation practices, and fluctuations in café busyness, due to safer-at-home orders. Key findings encompass the following:1. The pandemic has caused an overall trend of lengthening customer-by-customer interactions, due to losses of customer freedoms within the café.2. During periods of busyness, the workloads of FOH coffee workers has increased compared to pre-COVID, making rushes more exhausting and stressful.3. Fluctuations regarding café busyness and, lengths of customer interactions, has made the work of these workers less stable, and more unpredictable. Making their workspaces a place of constant change and adjustment

Women, Work, More: Migrant Women & Transnational Loving — with Evelyn Encalada Grez

A transnational labour scholar, co-founder of Justicia for Migrant Workers, and assistant professor from SFU\u27s Labour Studies Program, Evelyn Encalada Grez joins this episode of Women, Work, More to speak about migrant women and their experiences of transnational loving.   Evelyn explores the pains that accompany migration, from separating families to the often temporary loves that migrant women find while working within Canada. Despite these pains, Evelyn speaks about the forms of agency that migrant women enact throughout their migration — that often revolves around reasserting their power over their bodies and sexualities.   As the episode continues, Evelyns speaks about her past projects that have aided in re-empowering migrant workers and migrant women within their migration. She also shares the changes that need to be made to undo the exploitation inherent within temporary labour migration programs.   Throughout the episode we hear quotes from migrant women whom Evelyn has encountered and interviewed as part of her research. These quotes came from Evelyn’s transcribed interviews and are voiced by readers in both English and Spanish. These do not feature the voices of the migrant women who initially spoke these words in order to maintain their anonymity

Community Building & Racial Justice — with Lama Mugabo

“What I see that\u27s hopeful coming out of this pandemic is that I think we\u27ve revitalized our ability to work in solidarity.”   Lama Mugabo joins Below the Radar to speak to building community and solidarity, from Rwanda to Hogan’s Alley. Lama is a Rwandan-born community organizer and planner with deep roots in the Downtown Eastside and the Black community in Vancouver.   In this episode, Lama joins host Am Johal to speak to his work around reconstruction and community building Rwanda, following the genocide of 1994. A co-founder of Building Bridges with Rwanda, Lama talks about fostering awareness and international solidarity with Rwandans, Canadians, and the diaspora community.   Having worked for decades in the Downtown Eastside community, Lama draws connections between his work internationally and locally. He shares his experiences of engaging community with Hogan’s Alley Society around housing, discriminatory street checks, and rebuilding the once-thriving Black community that was displaced for the construction of the viaducts. Lama also speaks to how the COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of the human right to housing, a need for increased welfare rates, and how growing food in community promotes health and connection

Climate Justice & Inequality: Centring Justice in the Climate Emergency — with Anjali Appadurai

Community leader and climate justice activist Anjali Appadurai joins Am Johal for the second instalment of Below the Radar’s Climate Justice & Inequality series. Anjali is a Climate Justice Lead at Sierra Club BC, the Sectoral Organizer for the Climate Emergency Unit, as well as the founder of Padma Centre for Climate Justice. Anjali and Am talk about the growth of the climate movement, and shifting the focus from being ‘green’ to centering justice for all in the fight against climate change. They speak about lifting up the youth and Indigenous leaders at the forefront of the struggle, as well as how to get involved and make the movement accessible to all

United We Can — with Ken Lyotier

Ken Lyotier tells stories from his early days in the Downtown Eastside and how he came to found United We Can, an initiative by binners, for binners. United We Can creates economic opportunities for those who rely on collecting and returning recyclables for their income. In this episode of Below the Radar, Ken is in conversation with host Am Johal about building community in the neighbourhood, advocating for policies and resources to benefit binners, and reaching across difference to support our neighbours and make progressive change

Environmental Law and the Politics of Extraction — with Eugene Kung

Environmental lawyer Eugene Kung joins Below the Radar’s Climate Justice & Inequality series to discuss pipeline politics in BC and the role of law in fighting the climate crisis. Eugene shares about how law has been wielded as a mechanism for enacting colonialism, and the various ways it can instead be a tool for effecting major change and upholding human rights.   Eugene discusses different legal strategies to mitigate climate change — from legislation and law reform, to legal challenges against extractive energy projects that drive pollution. He speaks to a positive shift that has seen more Indigenous nations asserting their own laws and sovereignty in decision-making, as caretakers of their lands.   He and Am also discuss how to decentre whiteness and Western perspectives in the climate justice movement and the importance of connecting environmentalism with other social movements and systemic issues

Toast, Jams & Anti-Fascist Karaoke — with Andrea Creamer

An artist, community organizer, and a former staff member and longtime friend of SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Andrea Creamer joins Below the Radar to catch up with your host, Am Johal. They talk grassroots arts organizing, her experiences as a fine arts student in SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts and at the University of Toronto, and taking a community-centred approach to healthcare and wellness.   Andrea has a long history of working in community and bringing arts programming to the public. They chat about her involvement in the artist-run Toast Collective in East Van, as well as Super Cool Tuesdays, a community arts program Andrea facilitated for many years out of the Interurban Gallery in the Downtown Eastside.   Bringing a lens of centring community care and access to arts and culture, Andrea is deeply interested in how community connection and social prescribing can promote community health and wellbeing. She and Am talk about her work with the Burnaby Primary Care Networks, which brings together the City, the health authority, and the community to support access to primary care and allied health services, as well as vital social supports and services

Decolonizing Climate Justice — with Khelsilem

Squamish Nation Councillor and community leader Khelsilem joins Am Johal on this first episode of Below the Radar’s Climate Justice & Inequality series. In this episode, they discuss the climate crisis as a result of the colonial project, how climate change hits hardest for those already at a disadvantage, and the spaces where colonialism has existed within climate movements.   Khelsilem speaks to his critique of fossil fuel infrastructure, the false narrative of individual responsibility, and the role governments play in worsening the crisis through policy decisions that favour oil and gas. We also hear about innovative affordable housing projects, such as Squamish Nation’s Sen̓áḵw Development, and how to build climate-friendly design into new housing models

Reframing Heritage in Vancouver — with Javier Campos

Javier Campos joins host Am Johal to discuss reframing the way we think about heritage. Javier is an architect and Principal Designer with Campos Studio, as well as the current president of Heritage Vancouver Society. Together, they explore what heritage means today as a living and changing concept. They discuss the dark roots of heritage, and how heritage has been deployed to erase and exclude the histories of communities who have been dispossessed and harmed by the settler-colonial project.   In this conversation, Javier speaks to the idea of heritage as cultural production. Heritage should empower communities to drive change within their neighbourhoods, and to rewrite and shape their stories. Javier also speaks about taking an ecologically-minded approach to architecture, working with the critical regionalist tradition and passive design

Women, Work, More: Working Mothers & the Pressures of Motherhood — with Amanda Watson

SFU Sociology and Anthropology Professor Amanda Watson, joins Alyha Bardi to speak about her recent book, \u27The Juggling Mother: Coming Undone in an Age of Anxiety.\u27   Amanda speaks about our cultural fascination with the figure of the juggling mother, explores the ableism and racism behind this depiction, and scrutinizes the immense pressures of motherhood that are often ignored — from juggling work and home life, to breastfeeding, to acting unencumbered at work.   Amanda also discusses depictions of mothers as the “gender neutral CEO” — and explores how misogyny, white liberal feminism, and gender socialization, have led us to accept these very ideas involving motherhood that do more harm than good.   The episode ends with Amanda and four working mothers sharing some advice with working mothers, present and future. They speak to their visions for making work better serve parents, reshaping cultural ideas of motherhood to alleviate pressure, and placing greater value on the labour of mothers