The Department of Law and Legal Studies is pleased to announce that undergraduate student Samira Amid is a recipient of a 2021 杏吧原创 University Student Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Award valued at $10,000. Congratulations!

Samira鈥檚 winning research project is entitled A Qualitative Study of the Relationship Between Police and Racialized Male Youth Living in Canadian Social Housing Communities. She designed the research proposal as part of an assignment for her LAWS 3908 鈥� Approaches in Legal Studies II. Professor William H茅bert, the course instructor, is thrilled to be her EDI research supervisor this summer.

This project is designed as the preliminary portion of a larger ethnographic study that would explore how policing shapes gang involvement among racialized youth in social housing communities, which Samira plans to continue researching as a Master鈥檚 student. This project emerges from professional and personal experiences that have influenced her awareness of how the policing methods used in social housing communities negatively impact racialized youth, a group already facing significant structural barriers and institutionalized oppression across social institutions. Samira explains 鈥淢y intention with my research is not to further stigmatize these youth but instead, to redress their biased portrayal and underrepresentation in academic literature and broader society.鈥�

Congratulations Samira!

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Collaboration between Law Professor and Public Affairs and Policy Management BA Student

Each year, Undergraduate students in the Faculty of Public Affairs have the opportunity to pursue a summer research project of their choice under the guidance of a 杏吧原创 faculty member through the 杏吧原创 University Research Opportunity Program (CUROP).

This year, one of the successful applicants was 杏吧原创 Bachelor of Public Affairs and Policy Management (BPAPM) student, Maeghan Macpherson, whose project was supervised by the Department of Law and Legal Studies’ Professor and Associate Chair, Stacy Douglas.

Professor Douglas notes that 鈥淐UROP is an excellent program for keen students to try their hand at primary research. It is the best way to put your academic training to use and to see what intellectual work can do in the world. I am so proud of Maeghan and her project; it shows how academic research can contribute to community efforts to make lives better.鈥�

Programs like these highlight students’ abilities to take part in programs outside of their area of study, much like how students can take law courses without needing to be in a Law program.

Read more about this project and the CUROP program: CUROP: Systemic Barriers to Social and Legal Support in Ottawa.

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Congratulations to PhD candidate Jay Ramasubramanyam, who has been awarded a research grant from the Humanitarian Response Network (HRN) to support his cutting-edge research on global humanitarian issues!

With new drivers of displacement gaining prominence worldwide, there has been a push for an impending need to include evolving grounds of 鈥榩ersecution鈥� within the narrative of forced migration. It is within this evolving narrative that my research project will feature. Jay’s project will analyze the extent to which humanitarian practice in general has been adapted to extend beyond normative characterizations of forced migration to protect a new brand of 鈥渃risis migrants鈥�. Based on past case studies from Zimbabwe, Albania, and countries in the South Pacific, Jay will analyze how emerging social, political, economic and environmental crises in contexts like Venezuela and the Maldives are impacting decisions on both internal and cross-border crisis migration.

杏吧原创 the Grant

The Humanitarian Response Network of Canada (HRN) is a vibrant community of practice made of 32 Canadian humanitarian organizations. The HRN seeks to share lessons learned with the view to strengthen the quality and efficiency of humanitarian action by creating a conversation around key humanitarian policy issues and practices. To support these efforts, the HRN is running a pilot program to provide six grants of $2,500 each to support graduate student research on issues relating to humanitarian policy and practice, including, but not limited to, research on:

• Themes emerging from the World Humanitarian Summit
• Gender and emergencies
• Disability and inclusion in emergencies
• Education during emergencies
• Innovation in humanitarian practice

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Thanks to 1125@杏吧原创 and its spotlight on undergraduate research conducted by Khadija Ahmed, a fourth-year student who is completing a Combined Honours in Law (with a concentration in Transnational Law and Human Rights) and Women’s and Gender studies.

Khadija is a member of this year’s cohort of the , a program that provides 10 selected 杏吧原创 students with the opportunity to participate in a four-month (January to April 2016), hands-on learning experience that applies their skill development directly to civic issues facing our community, provides local and global connections, as well as professional field experiences.

In the article “Khadija Ahmed 鈥� Harness the law to achieve social change”, 1125@杏吧原创 asks Khadija about her idea of social change: 鈥淚 see that lawyers, litigators, all the people involved with law, they fundamentally shape society. That鈥檚 the way I would like to approach social change through law.鈥�

Khadija is also one of the students presenting Wednesday, March 23rd at the Undergraduate Showcase (at 4:00 pm in River Building) as part of FPA Research Month.

Read the full article on Khadija’s development and research on social innovation here: /1125/2016/khadija-ahmed/

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Congratulations to PhD candidate Kanatase Horn, who has been awarded a New Sun Graduate Bursary!

Mr. Horn’s research focuses on Aboriginal over-representation in the criminal justice system in urban contexts (with a focus on the city of Ottawa). More specifically, he is focusing on restorative justice/alternative justice programs, and their effectiveness in urban spaces. The crucial element in his research is the idea that a program’s effectiveness is intimately linked to the program’s ability to assert sovereignty/jurisdiction over urban spaces in order to reclaim them as Indigenous space, which challenges the colonial legacy of viewing urban spaces as settler/civilized spaces. In other words, Mr. Horn’s research will explore the interwoven relationship between reclaiming of urban spaces as Indigenous spaces through political processes, and reducing Aboriginal over-representation in the criminal justice system.

杏吧原创 the Bursary

The New Sun Graduate Bursary is awarded annually to First Nations, Inuit and M茅tis students at the masters or doctoral level who are studying in fields such as aboriginal governance, public administration, social work, architecture and environmental studies. Preference is given to those candidates who have demonstrated a willingness to use their knowledge and skills to benefit First Nations, Inuit and/or M茅tis communities. These bursaries are awarded by the Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs upon the recommendation of a committee representing all graduate fields of study. Eligible recipients must be Canadian Citizens or permanent residents of Canada, and must meet OSAP’s Ontario Residency requirements. Recipients must also demonstrate financial need.

The bursary was established in 2008 by Joy Harvie Maclaren (BSC ’44, LLD ” McGill University). Joy was born in Calgary in 1922 and is a passionate supporter and advocate of Aboriginal and Inuit peoples. Continuing the legacy of her father, who was given the honorary title of 鈥淥ld Sun鈥� in 1962 by the Blackfoot nation in Alberta, Joy was given the name 鈥淣ew Sun鈥� by elders from three Aboriginal tribes; the Blackfoot nation in Alberta, the Mohawk nation in Akwasasne, Quebec, and the Ojibway in Ontario. A special naming ceremony was held at 杏吧原创 University鈥檚 Alumni Park in 1993 to recognize Joy鈥檚 commitment to promoting aboriginal culture and education across Canada. By establishing the New Sun bursaries for Canadian First Nations students, Joy is continuing her father’s tradition of supporting the further education of Canadian First Nation people’s in universities across Canada.

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Congratulations to PhD Legal Studies student Safiyah Rochelle, who has recently been awarded an Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS)!

Safiyah’s research interests include the construction of racialized bodies within legal regimes, legal imaginaries and knowledge, and violence and visuality.

Her current project focuses on analyzing photographs of Guantanamo Bay detainees, with the aim of understanding how such pictures become instrumentalized, the relationship between racialized bodies and practices of visuality, and the role of photography and visual evidence in practices of violence and subordination.

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Congratulations to PhD Legal Studies student Jessi Ring, who has recently been awarded an Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS)!

Jessi’s primary research interest involves focusing upon feminist engagement in technology and digital spaces. Currently, her work is focused on analyzing 鈥楾he Hacker Ethic鈥欌�攁 set of practices and ideals that define many hacktivist gatherings鈥攁nd analyzing its oppositional intents and results. In particular, she is exploring how these set of ideologies and practices are used to resist certain power structures (e.g., capitalism) while simultaneously maintaining others (e.g., patriarchy).

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Congratulations to MA Legal Studies student, Alexa Dodge!

Her paper entitled, 鈥�Genital Culture: Exploring the Cultural Importance of Genital Surgery in the West鈥� received the Oxford University Book prize for best paper on a feminist legal theory topic. As part of this prize, Dodge receives $200 towards books from Oxford University Press.

In this paper, Dodge demonstrates how Western discourse vilifies cultures that engage in female genital mutilation (FGM) without realizing how the Western practices of intersex surgery and cosmetic vaginal surgery are also culturally imbued practices that can be seen as forms of genital mutilation.

Dodge argues that the cultural influence of the West needs to be recognized so that we can better perceive how the agency of Western subjects is also directed and confined by our cultural context. Western society is often conceived of as 鈥渘ormal鈥� and 鈥渦n-cultured鈥� in comparison to the third-world, which is seen as abnormal and cultured. The use of Western society as the reference par excellence by which to measure other cultures needs to be questioned. Western society is also a cultured space wherein subjects are regulated and controlled and, in this case, where the importance of gender norms and the ideal of the perfect, 鈥渘ormal鈥� vagina regulate women and their bodies.

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In her Ontario Graduate Scholarship-winning research proposal, MA Legal Studies candidate Rosemary Parker suggests that the historical myth of the Arctic as a mysterious, masculine, unknowable space is currently being challenged by a diverse range of human and environmental factors. She proposes that these changes have provided an opportunity for state leaders to reinterpret and/or reconstruct the myth of the Arctic in order to levy support for northern sovereignty-seeking initiatives. Rosemary also seeks to reveal counter-narratives for the Arctic that are being developed by non-state actors in response to the emerging state myths. Ultimately, she seeks to demonstrate how these narratives and counter-narratives are shaping the domestic and foreign laws of Canada, Russia, and Denmark. This project grows out of her broader interests in societal change, conflict, and lawlessness.

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