Students’ Organizations in Canada and Cuba: A Comparative Study

As a comparative case study of two different national post-secondary students’ federations, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), and the Cuban Federación Estudiantil Universitaria (FEU), this paper explores why postsecondary students organize politically. The history and present activities of each organization are reviewed to compare their work as it takes place in two very different national contexts. The paper then moves to a discussion of the political goals and motivations driving these organizations in the neoliberal present and argues that students in both organizations are engaged in similar efforts both to improve their own lives and social conditions more generally. Cet article, comme une étude de cas de deux fédérations nationales d\u27étudiants de deux pays différents, à savoir, la FCE canadienne (Fédération canadienne des étudiants) et la FEU cubaine (Federación Estudiantil Universitaria) examine pourquoi les étudiants universitaires s\u27organisent politiquement. L\u27auteure passe en revue l\u27histoire et les activités courantes de chacune des deux organisations pour comparer leurs oeuvres qui ont été accomplies dans deux contextes nationaux très différents. L\u27auteure continue à discuter les buts politiques et les motivations qui commandent ces organisations dans le néolibéral présent. Elle soutient que les étudiants dans les deux organisations se sont engagés avec un effort semblable pour améliorer leurs propres vies et d\u27une façon générale, les conditions sociales

Patriarchy at the Pink Palace: Gender and Work Inside the Ontario Legislature

This article offers an anthropological analysis of the gender politics inside Queen's Park, Ontario’s provincial legislature. Using ethnographic data, I explore how political actors reproduce larger social and historical patterns of structural sexism and inequitable distributions of power, while simultaneously producing a localized political culture of inequity inside the legislature. Résumé Cet article offre une analyse anthropologique de la politique entre les hommes et les femmes à l’intérieur de Queen’s Park, la législature provinciale de l’Ontario. En se servant de données ethnographiques, j’explore la façon dont les acteurs politiques reproduisent les modèles sociaux et historiques du sexisme structurel et la distribution inéquitable du pouvoir, tandis que simultanément une culture politique localisée existe au sein de la législature

Engineering Resistance : Energy Professionals and the 2005 Strike in Neoliberal Ontario

In the summer of 2005, the Society of Energy Professionals Hydro One Local engaged in unprecedented strike action that lasted 105 days. This article documents the strike, and explores how and why it occurred, and with such significant support and participation from the 1000 members of a union that had no militant history. I trace the build-up, progression and resolution of the strike, drawing from Society materials, media reports and ethnographic observation, as well as the insights of elected leaders, staff representatives, and rank and file members of the Society collected through interviews and written questionnaires. I conclude that government policy and management behaviour caused worker anger but that union education, organization and democracy were integral to moving these “professional” workers into job action

Covid-19 and Capital: Labour Studies and Nonhuman Animals – A Roundtable Dialogue

Animal Studies Journal 2021 10(1): Covid-19 and Capital: Labour Studies and Nonhuman Animals – A Roundtable Dialogue

Session F: Creating More Humane Jobs: Public and Private Sector Leadership

In addition to offering critiques of the industries which cause extensive animal suffering, provide lousy jobs for people, and harm the environment and public health, more scholarly and political work is needed in order to identify and cultivate alternatives. Pivotal for such efforts are what I call humane jobs: that is, work that is good for both people and animals. Inspired by the promise of interspecies solidarity, in this paper, first I elucidate the key facets of a humane jobs agenda to provide a more detailed picture of the areas of potential and need. Then I examine two of the sub-sectors which warrant further attention: animal cruelty investigations and plant-based businesses. I identify challenges, accomplishments, and areas of possibility, paying particular attention to the opportunities for leadership in the political and economic realms

Beyond Human to Humane: A Multispecies Analysis of Care Work, Its Repression, and Its Potential

This paper approaches care work through a multispecies and interspecies lens, and challenges readers to expand both their analysis and their ethical considerations in order to include animals. First I present a conceptual framework to help illuminate and unpack the care work animals do in the wild, in homes, and in formal workplaces. I then highlight the complex ways animals’ bodies, minds, and families are involved in the production of commodities for human consumption, and the implications of such practices for animals’ own forms of caregiving. Unfortunately, the fact is that for many animals, their primary experiences of care work are its repression. As a result, in the final section, I offer food for thought about the potential for care work to not only involve more empathetic embodied interactions and labour processes, but to be a springboard for expanded visions and projects of social justice which include humane jobs and recognize that “the social” is multispecies

The Organization of Animal Protection Investigations and the Animal Harm Spectrum: Canadian Data, International Lessons

This paper offers the first overview of the Canadian animal cruelty investigations landscape. First, the public and private sector organizations responsible for enforcement are explained, followed by examination of the implications of this patchwork for reporting suspected cruelty. Key statistical data are presented about the types of issues and cases and investigator responses. Initial recommendations are then proposed, and the value of the animal harm spectrum is discussed, including how it can be mobilized to strengthen the operations of animal protection work and animal welfare policy across nations