Carter Vance | Carleton University (original) (raw)

Papers by Carter Vance

Conference of Defense Associations Institute: Vimy Papers, 2020

The last decade has seen a noticeable augmentation in Canada’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific r... more The last decade has seen a noticeable augmentation in Canada’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific region. Whether this activity solidifies into a durable trend or is simply another short- lived spike of interest periodically punctuating the history of an otherwise low priority for Canadian foreign policy is yet to be determined. The emergence of Sino-American rivalry as a system-level feature of and force in global politics, however, should be the impetus for a re- examination of Canada’s Indo-Pacific relations. Regional relations are, and should be, based on more than Sino-American rivalry but it is a common paradigm within which all regional states operate, including determining the nature and trajectory of regional order building with ramifications extending far beyond its geographic boundaries. Canada needs a more comprehensive and interlinked Indo-Pacific approach – one that is informed by and operates within geopolitical considerations In this paper, we sketch out and compare four possible regional orientations Canada could pursue- Minimal Engagement, US-Aligned Confrontation, Regional Involvement and Selective Minilateralism. These orientations constitute different types of strategic thinking necessary to help ensure policy activities are tethered together in meaningful and mutually supportive ways towards achieving national interests across various domains in the current international environment. The federal government is currently known to be undertaking development of an Indo-Pacific strategy, and we feel this work must be conscious of and informed by a number of trends and trade-offs identified here.

Conference of Defence Associations Institute - Vimy Papers, 2020

Like governments and public institutions across Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have enac... more Like governments and public institutions across Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have enacted a series of drastic measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are two primary, inter-linked but distinct objectives underpinning these moves. First, to protect its personnel and assets to preserve capability to fulfill defence duties during the pandemic. Second, and relatedly, to carve out capacity to support governments in their efforts to combat the pandemic if requested.

As unprecedented as the COVID-19 pandemic is, it represents the continuation of a larger trend in terms of ever-increasing demand for CAF support to domestic emergencies. Answering these requests is perfectly reasonable, as providing assistance to civil authorities during domestic disasters or major emergencies is one of eight core missions of the CAF as outlined in the current defence policy. Furthermore, a recent poll by Ipsos, commissioned by the CDA Institute, indicates 9 out of 10 across the entire country are supportive of the CAF being called upon to assist governments in their fight against COVID-19. But such domestic demands question the organization’s’ ability to meet these requests alongside others defence duties.

Once the current conditions of the pandemic have passed, a Royal Commission or other high-level review should be initiated to look at Canada’s COVID-19 response from a whole-of-government perspective. Such a review will touch on many aspects, including but not limited to public health, federal-provincial responsibilities in terms of emergency management, and the effectiveness of social programmes in responding to the economic fallout. The issues outlined in this paper make it clear that such a review must also include a separate report about the CAF’s domestic role and the distribution of duties, mandates, and resources for the organizations in Canada’s security communities.

The CAF will always be ready to defend Canada and help Canadians through a crisis, but are they properly mandated and should they be tasked with the increasing domestic duties they have been asked to take on? Is a more dedicated force, either functionally tasked to do so within the military, or a new civilian agency a better fit to meet the growing demand from domestic emergencies? These are questions that do not have easy answers. Further, they are not exclusively or even primarily questions of logistics, funding or technical capabilities. Above all, they are questions that must be answered by policymakers and the public at a more overarching political level and rest on fundamental beliefs about what their military is for.

This paper seeks to expand the work of Marxist-feminist scholars Rosemary Hennessy and Nancy Fras... more This paper seeks to expand the work of Marxist-feminist scholars Rosemary Hennessy and Nancy Fraser by placing it into conversation with the emerging work of scholars of asexuality and asexual identity. In resisting the tendency to reify the identity category of " asexual " as a newly emerging and dialogically structured identity which stands in opposition to the " allosexual, " this paper will rather attempt to determine its nature as a historically structured and contingent emergence of a particular moment in neoliberal capitalism. From this, it will argue that there need not be a tension between the notions of " compulsory sexuality " and " sexusociety " developed by scholars such as Elizabeth Emens and Ela Przybylo. It will be demonstrated that asexuality can be used as a positional tool in order to illuminate the totality of sexuality as a reified and commodified entity under late capitalism, one which is useful for understanding and resisting the capitalist historical (re)organization of human potentials for sensation and affect.

One of the most controversial and often-discussed aspects of the modern global migration system i... more One of the most controversial and often-discussed aspects of the modern global migration system is the issue of precarious labour in the context of migration. In both unauthorized migrants, in particular in the United States and Europe, and authorized guest worker regimes, most prominent in the Gulf Monarchies, employers and firms have found large pools of labour not subject to the same legal and social norms as the native workforce. This trend, which has existed since at least the post-World War II period but has been rapidly increasing in the 21 st century, has not been without controversy, from a variety of political perspectives. Precarious workers in these conditions are sometimes accused of " stealing " jobs from native-born workers or of driving down working conditions in the receiving countries. Conversely, many NGOs concerned with human rights have drawn attention to the various abusive and exploitative elements embedded within these regimes. Workers are often tied to one particular employer, may not be subject to minimum wage or other workplace legislation and often live in squalid conditions.

This paper will investigate the various controversies around the Canadian Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), with a particular focus on the effects, or lack thereof, of recent reforms to the program. In doing so, it will compare the policies and application of Canada's program to other, similar programs in developed countries in order to create an accurate portrait of the programs stated and implicit goals and how successful it is achieving them. In addition, the paper will attempt to locate the TFWP's place within the wider system of migration control policy in the Canadian context, and the extent to which it is congruent with the broader stated values of these policies.

Two of the most discussed concepts in the world of social policy within the 21 st century have be... more Two of the most discussed concepts in the world of social policy within the 21 st century have been those of food security, and related terms such as "food sovereignty". With increasing demand for food, both in amount and variety, in rapidly developing economies (most notably Brazil, India and China), along with shifts in the location of global agricultural consumption and production (for example, the diversion of some food grains into ethanol fuel production), national and sub-national governments have come under increasing pressure to develop explicit strategies for food security. These concerns are also increasingly supplemented by regional and global crisis around natural resources such as water and fertile lands, exacerbated by climate change .

This article investigates the tensions in the writings of Rosa Luxemburg as juxtaposed to her his... more This article investigates the tensions in the writings of Rosa Luxemburg as juxtaposed to her historical contemporaries in light of the debate on reformist Marxism. Primarily, her exchanges with Eduard Bernstein on the question of social revolution and with Vladimir Lenin on the question of nationality are explored. In relating these debates to present day examples of social and protest movements, as well as those for national independence, the article attempts to tease out guidance for Marxist political praxis in the current day. By close reading of the Bernstein-Luxemburg debate, it can be seen that the " reform or revolution " debate is often posited in terms that are inconsistent with those the authors originally meant. The article posits that there is no inherent tension or dichotomous relationship between reforms and revolutionary practice as consistent with the way the terms are normally used today. At the same time, it raises questions about what the practical limits of Marxism as both an analytic framework and a guide to political action are, particularly on the question of nationalism.

Antonio Gramsci’s interpretation and analysis of “hegemony,” its mechanisms, causes and consequen... more Antonio Gramsci’s interpretation and analysis of “hegemony,” its mechanisms, causes and consequences for the Left, is fundamentally an attempt to grapple with how culture and the “common sense of the epoch” (Miliband, 1990) grow out of class society and impose their ontological structure on even those whose interests it opposes. Given the continued existence and deepening of class divisions in the 21st century, an understanding of Gramsci’s work may be even more of a critical project for the Left now than when it was first written. The terrain on which political battles are conducted may have shifted in a multitude of ways, not the least of which being the influence of counter-hegemonic movements outside of traditional class struggle, but much of the operative systems of both domination and resistance remain similar. In first outlining an interpretation of Gramsci’s thinking on the question of hegemony in relation to political praxis, and then investigating the case of Greece in the post-2008 reality, this paper demonstrates that the failure of the Syriza party to resist EU-imposed austerity can be used as an example of hegemony reasserting itself over a Left project. Seen in this way, the experience of Greece contains important lessons about the necessity for the forces of the Left to build a new hegemony so as to supersede the currently dominant neoliberal discourse.

Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 2016

Local food research has been generally focused on strengthening the alternative food system by sc... more Local food research has been generally focused on strengthening the alternative food system by scaling up local agriculture, rather than advancing strategies to bridge gaps between local farmers and conventional food retail businesses. Competitive advantage theory forms the foundation of a framework based on Porter's (1985) firm (business unit) value chain for investigating food system gaps, and a logic model for promoting development by adding value throughout the alternative food supply chain. In the present study, a survey created jointly by local stakeholders investigated factors that food retail businesses consider when sourcing local food. Among the top rated factors, supporting the local economy (opportunity) and regular delivery (barrier) were seen as significant to the regional food system of the Algoma District in central Canada. Mapping these factors through the firm value chain framework revealed a high degree of interconnectedness to other factors in the survey, including importance of obtaining fresh food, consistency of supply throughout the year, and reducing overall costs of supplying affordable products. Analysis of the survey results from the perspective of a food retail business pointed to information technology and coordinated distribution methods as playing important roles in adding value to the regional food system. In addition to these results, the downtown of the study site has emerged as an aggregation point for local food, and local food may be playing a role in revitalizing the downtown. The value chain framework analysis can be applied to other localities to bridge gaps between local farmers and conventional supply chain actors.

This article explores the nature of Canada's political system as an evolving consequence of its r... more This article explores the nature of Canada's political system as an evolving consequence of its roots in classical liberal thinking coupled with the self­protecting instincts of a variety of elite interest groups. In performing this exploration, through the political economy of such issues as free trade and public versus private service provision, it argues that this system deliberately closes down certain political possibilities by institutionally underrepresenting particular communities and restricting policy sovereignty via international agreements. This creates disconnects between the common conception of democracy and its example as practiced in Canada, in both the contemporary and historical contexts. This tendency is further reinforced by the use of bureaucratic­ technocratic forms of government policy management, which have the function of obscuring government function to the average citizen. In making this argument, the paper takes the perspective that Canada is better termed " semi­representative liberalism " in its political character, concluding with the possibility of what a more truly democratic system might look like.

This article presents a critical review of the literature surrounding differing social policy app... more This article presents a critical review of the literature surrounding differing social policy approaches to employment-based programs for disabled adults between developed world jurisdictions. It looks at these policies through a lens of comparative analysis of the Employment Supports initiative in the Ontario Disability Support Program. It argues that employment policy in relation to disabilities rests on a spectrum from direct income-based support to civil rights, and that Ontario rests in the middle of spectrum in both respects, though is moving towards a more civil rights-based model. It suggests that community and employer stigma remains an underrated factor in reproducing relatively low employment rates for person with disabilities, which the current policy of support does not adequately address. More active steps must be taken by government, both at the program-level of ODSP and as part of government-wide initiatives in order to improve employment outcomes.

“Rural” areas as distinct from “urban” continue to be defined by greater personal interactions an... more “Rural” areas as distinct from “urban” continue to be defined by greater personal interactions and less emphasis on formal systems of support. This reality rests in contradiction to the overwhelming majority of social work scholarship and theory development which takes place in an urban context. As such the present-day act of being a “social worker” in a rural community can, in many ways, feel like a bad fit, back-applying the model of an urban generalist into an environment whose organic community ties the social work model itself was originally designed to substitute for. In recognition of this, it is necessary to develop a “combined” model of practice for social work with rural communities and peoples. The fundamental distinction to be made is that rural social work, in its most radical form, is less concerned with adapting persons to the Gesellschaft than it is with strengthening the capacity of the Gemeinschaft to provide the kind of support capacity it historically has, taking into account changes and challenges resulting from factors such as globalization, urban sprawl, and cultural change.

Drafts by Carter Vance

Given the wide variety of practice environments and client bases, social work as a profession in ... more Given the wide variety of practice environments and client bases, social work as a profession in total has struggled to define an encompassing model for generalist practice. This has proven especially true since the emergence of controversies in the 60s regarding the social worker as an agent of social change versus social control. This article suggests that social work be best viewed as a socially-created space which emerges from the surrounding social and personal context of workers and clients. Thus, the emergent collaboration model of social work attempts to map out a possible way of conceiving of the complexity of social work practice in the modern context. It, in the main, posits that social work can be best defined as the practice which emerges from the interaction between the various elements, the character and effectiveness of which is largely determined by the ability of worker and client to effectively communicate for goals to be met and resources to be harnessed to support client needs.

This article examines various arguments put forward in favour of a basic income program in terms ... more This article examines various arguments put forward in favour of a basic income program in terms of their underlying political logic and sought goals. In making a distinction between " libertarian " and " leftist " approaches to basic income, a number of potential problems and internal contradictions are revealed. This suggests that, though advocates of basic income programs have provided adequate philosophical and economic justifications for such an approach, they have yet to substantively engage with implementation concerns or begin to activate political movements of the precariat. Given that basic income is often justified with reference to the changing features of the labour market, in particular increased precarity, there appears to remain a disconnect between on-the-ground movements representing concerns about precarious labour and those in favour of basic income. Greater convergence and conversation between these groups will be necessary to achieve progress in the realization of basic income on a progressive basis.

The question of self-ownership, the assertion of sovereignty over one's self and one's body, has ... more The question of self-ownership, the assertion of sovereignty over one's self and one's body, has been at the heart of historical and political discourses over gender throughout time and place. Given most obviously the legal tradition of women as lacking a comparable legal personhood with men, and thereby having their personhood rendered primarily as an extension of a man's (usually their husband or father), this is not a terribly surprising area of focus. Moreover, perhaps the most deep and profoundly felt form of oppression is that which alienates a person from having a fundamental autonomy over one's actions, and a near-total denial of the validity of their agency and desires. The writing of a history of women, particularly of racialized women, thereby requires an engagement with the multitude of examples of struggle to assert, champion and ultimately regain autonomy and ownership in the face of social oppression. This history, too, is bounded up with both the shifting and positional nature of the identity vectors of both race and gender, fluid as both were across time and place, as well as the similar struggles for autonomy which existed amongst other groups. It is no coincidence that the language used by advocates for women's equality often mirrored that of the wider discourses on social rights in the times and places they were written. In the seventeenth century, for instance, " women writers were acutely conscious of the need to establish their claims to enter full humanity, and to do so by demonstrating their intellectual capacities " (Riley, 1988). This fit in with wider European trends towards Enlightenment rationalism which saw reason and the ability to engage intellectually as the highest human virtues, making the demonstrating of such faculties amongst women a pressing sociopolitical priority. At the same time, these claims to an essential equality by similarity, or equality by non-differentiation between men and women1, often elide the very real and concrete differences in life experiences by gender. Even if it is proper to " historicize rather than take as self-evident the identities of those whose experience is being Carter Vance 1 1 Keeping in mind, of course, that neither of these categories should be viewed as inherently fixed in terms of either constituting characteristics or " essences " of being. Indeed, it is striking to note that certain activities can be defined as " female " or " male " more by social context than the essential activity itself. This is the difference between a " chef " and " homemaker " cooking, for instance.

This major research paper seeks to expand upon the work of Marxist-feminist scholars Rosemary Hen... more This major research paper seeks to expand upon the work of Marxist-feminist scholars Rosemary Hennessy and Nancy Fraser by placing it into conversation with the emerging work of scholars of asexuality and asexual identity. In resisting the tendency to reify the identity category of “asexual” as a newly emerging and dialogically structured identity which stands in opposition to the “allosexual”, this paper with rather attempt to determine its nature as a historically structured and contingent emergence of a particular moment in neoliberal capitalism. From this, it will argue that there need not be a tension between the notions of “compulsory sexuality” and “sexusociety” developed by scholars such as Elizabeth Emens and Ela Przybylo and social reproduction analysis. Rather, asexuality can be used as a positional tool in order to illuminate the totality of sexuality as a reified and commodified entity under late capitalism, one which is useful for understanding and resisting the capitalist historical (re)organization of what Hennessy terms, “the human potential for sensation and affect”.

Conference of Defense Associations Institute: Vimy Papers, 2020

The last decade has seen a noticeable augmentation in Canada’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific r... more The last decade has seen a noticeable augmentation in Canada’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific region. Whether this activity solidifies into a durable trend or is simply another short- lived spike of interest periodically punctuating the history of an otherwise low priority for Canadian foreign policy is yet to be determined. The emergence of Sino-American rivalry as a system-level feature of and force in global politics, however, should be the impetus for a re- examination of Canada’s Indo-Pacific relations. Regional relations are, and should be, based on more than Sino-American rivalry but it is a common paradigm within which all regional states operate, including determining the nature and trajectory of regional order building with ramifications extending far beyond its geographic boundaries. Canada needs a more comprehensive and interlinked Indo-Pacific approach – one that is informed by and operates within geopolitical considerations In this paper, we sketch out and compare four possible regional orientations Canada could pursue- Minimal Engagement, US-Aligned Confrontation, Regional Involvement and Selective Minilateralism. These orientations constitute different types of strategic thinking necessary to help ensure policy activities are tethered together in meaningful and mutually supportive ways towards achieving national interests across various domains in the current international environment. The federal government is currently known to be undertaking development of an Indo-Pacific strategy, and we feel this work must be conscious of and informed by a number of trends and trade-offs identified here.

Conference of Defence Associations Institute - Vimy Papers, 2020

Like governments and public institutions across Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have enac... more Like governments and public institutions across Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have enacted a series of drastic measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are two primary, inter-linked but distinct objectives underpinning these moves. First, to protect its personnel and assets to preserve capability to fulfill defence duties during the pandemic. Second, and relatedly, to carve out capacity to support governments in their efforts to combat the pandemic if requested.

As unprecedented as the COVID-19 pandemic is, it represents the continuation of a larger trend in terms of ever-increasing demand for CAF support to domestic emergencies. Answering these requests is perfectly reasonable, as providing assistance to civil authorities during domestic disasters or major emergencies is one of eight core missions of the CAF as outlined in the current defence policy. Furthermore, a recent poll by Ipsos, commissioned by the CDA Institute, indicates 9 out of 10 across the entire country are supportive of the CAF being called upon to assist governments in their fight against COVID-19. But such domestic demands question the organization’s’ ability to meet these requests alongside others defence duties.

Once the current conditions of the pandemic have passed, a Royal Commission or other high-level review should be initiated to look at Canada’s COVID-19 response from a whole-of-government perspective. Such a review will touch on many aspects, including but not limited to public health, federal-provincial responsibilities in terms of emergency management, and the effectiveness of social programmes in responding to the economic fallout. The issues outlined in this paper make it clear that such a review must also include a separate report about the CAF’s domestic role and the distribution of duties, mandates, and resources for the organizations in Canada’s security communities.

The CAF will always be ready to defend Canada and help Canadians through a crisis, but are they properly mandated and should they be tasked with the increasing domestic duties they have been asked to take on? Is a more dedicated force, either functionally tasked to do so within the military, or a new civilian agency a better fit to meet the growing demand from domestic emergencies? These are questions that do not have easy answers. Further, they are not exclusively or even primarily questions of logistics, funding or technical capabilities. Above all, they are questions that must be answered by policymakers and the public at a more overarching political level and rest on fundamental beliefs about what their military is for.

This paper seeks to expand the work of Marxist-feminist scholars Rosemary Hennessy and Nancy Fras... more This paper seeks to expand the work of Marxist-feminist scholars Rosemary Hennessy and Nancy Fraser by placing it into conversation with the emerging work of scholars of asexuality and asexual identity. In resisting the tendency to reify the identity category of " asexual " as a newly emerging and dialogically structured identity which stands in opposition to the " allosexual, " this paper will rather attempt to determine its nature as a historically structured and contingent emergence of a particular moment in neoliberal capitalism. From this, it will argue that there need not be a tension between the notions of " compulsory sexuality " and " sexusociety " developed by scholars such as Elizabeth Emens and Ela Przybylo. It will be demonstrated that asexuality can be used as a positional tool in order to illuminate the totality of sexuality as a reified and commodified entity under late capitalism, one which is useful for understanding and resisting the capitalist historical (re)organization of human potentials for sensation and affect.

One of the most controversial and often-discussed aspects of the modern global migration system i... more One of the most controversial and often-discussed aspects of the modern global migration system is the issue of precarious labour in the context of migration. In both unauthorized migrants, in particular in the United States and Europe, and authorized guest worker regimes, most prominent in the Gulf Monarchies, employers and firms have found large pools of labour not subject to the same legal and social norms as the native workforce. This trend, which has existed since at least the post-World War II period but has been rapidly increasing in the 21 st century, has not been without controversy, from a variety of political perspectives. Precarious workers in these conditions are sometimes accused of " stealing " jobs from native-born workers or of driving down working conditions in the receiving countries. Conversely, many NGOs concerned with human rights have drawn attention to the various abusive and exploitative elements embedded within these regimes. Workers are often tied to one particular employer, may not be subject to minimum wage or other workplace legislation and often live in squalid conditions.

This paper will investigate the various controversies around the Canadian Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), with a particular focus on the effects, or lack thereof, of recent reforms to the program. In doing so, it will compare the policies and application of Canada's program to other, similar programs in developed countries in order to create an accurate portrait of the programs stated and implicit goals and how successful it is achieving them. In addition, the paper will attempt to locate the TFWP's place within the wider system of migration control policy in the Canadian context, and the extent to which it is congruent with the broader stated values of these policies.

Two of the most discussed concepts in the world of social policy within the 21 st century have be... more Two of the most discussed concepts in the world of social policy within the 21 st century have been those of food security, and related terms such as "food sovereignty". With increasing demand for food, both in amount and variety, in rapidly developing economies (most notably Brazil, India and China), along with shifts in the location of global agricultural consumption and production (for example, the diversion of some food grains into ethanol fuel production), national and sub-national governments have come under increasing pressure to develop explicit strategies for food security. These concerns are also increasingly supplemented by regional and global crisis around natural resources such as water and fertile lands, exacerbated by climate change .

This article investigates the tensions in the writings of Rosa Luxemburg as juxtaposed to her his... more This article investigates the tensions in the writings of Rosa Luxemburg as juxtaposed to her historical contemporaries in light of the debate on reformist Marxism. Primarily, her exchanges with Eduard Bernstein on the question of social revolution and with Vladimir Lenin on the question of nationality are explored. In relating these debates to present day examples of social and protest movements, as well as those for national independence, the article attempts to tease out guidance for Marxist political praxis in the current day. By close reading of the Bernstein-Luxemburg debate, it can be seen that the " reform or revolution " debate is often posited in terms that are inconsistent with those the authors originally meant. The article posits that there is no inherent tension or dichotomous relationship between reforms and revolutionary practice as consistent with the way the terms are normally used today. At the same time, it raises questions about what the practical limits of Marxism as both an analytic framework and a guide to political action are, particularly on the question of nationalism.

Antonio Gramsci’s interpretation and analysis of “hegemony,” its mechanisms, causes and consequen... more Antonio Gramsci’s interpretation and analysis of “hegemony,” its mechanisms, causes and consequences for the Left, is fundamentally an attempt to grapple with how culture and the “common sense of the epoch” (Miliband, 1990) grow out of class society and impose their ontological structure on even those whose interests it opposes. Given the continued existence and deepening of class divisions in the 21st century, an understanding of Gramsci’s work may be even more of a critical project for the Left now than when it was first written. The terrain on which political battles are conducted may have shifted in a multitude of ways, not the least of which being the influence of counter-hegemonic movements outside of traditional class struggle, but much of the operative systems of both domination and resistance remain similar. In first outlining an interpretation of Gramsci’s thinking on the question of hegemony in relation to political praxis, and then investigating the case of Greece in the post-2008 reality, this paper demonstrates that the failure of the Syriza party to resist EU-imposed austerity can be used as an example of hegemony reasserting itself over a Left project. Seen in this way, the experience of Greece contains important lessons about the necessity for the forces of the Left to build a new hegemony so as to supersede the currently dominant neoliberal discourse.

Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 2016

Local food research has been generally focused on strengthening the alternative food system by sc... more Local food research has been generally focused on strengthening the alternative food system by scaling up local agriculture, rather than advancing strategies to bridge gaps between local farmers and conventional food retail businesses. Competitive advantage theory forms the foundation of a framework based on Porter's (1985) firm (business unit) value chain for investigating food system gaps, and a logic model for promoting development by adding value throughout the alternative food supply chain. In the present study, a survey created jointly by local stakeholders investigated factors that food retail businesses consider when sourcing local food. Among the top rated factors, supporting the local economy (opportunity) and regular delivery (barrier) were seen as significant to the regional food system of the Algoma District in central Canada. Mapping these factors through the firm value chain framework revealed a high degree of interconnectedness to other factors in the survey, including importance of obtaining fresh food, consistency of supply throughout the year, and reducing overall costs of supplying affordable products. Analysis of the survey results from the perspective of a food retail business pointed to information technology and coordinated distribution methods as playing important roles in adding value to the regional food system. In addition to these results, the downtown of the study site has emerged as an aggregation point for local food, and local food may be playing a role in revitalizing the downtown. The value chain framework analysis can be applied to other localities to bridge gaps between local farmers and conventional supply chain actors.

This article explores the nature of Canada's political system as an evolving consequence of its r... more This article explores the nature of Canada's political system as an evolving consequence of its roots in classical liberal thinking coupled with the self­protecting instincts of a variety of elite interest groups. In performing this exploration, through the political economy of such issues as free trade and public versus private service provision, it argues that this system deliberately closes down certain political possibilities by institutionally underrepresenting particular communities and restricting policy sovereignty via international agreements. This creates disconnects between the common conception of democracy and its example as practiced in Canada, in both the contemporary and historical contexts. This tendency is further reinforced by the use of bureaucratic­ technocratic forms of government policy management, which have the function of obscuring government function to the average citizen. In making this argument, the paper takes the perspective that Canada is better termed " semi­representative liberalism " in its political character, concluding with the possibility of what a more truly democratic system might look like.

This article presents a critical review of the literature surrounding differing social policy app... more This article presents a critical review of the literature surrounding differing social policy approaches to employment-based programs for disabled adults between developed world jurisdictions. It looks at these policies through a lens of comparative analysis of the Employment Supports initiative in the Ontario Disability Support Program. It argues that employment policy in relation to disabilities rests on a spectrum from direct income-based support to civil rights, and that Ontario rests in the middle of spectrum in both respects, though is moving towards a more civil rights-based model. It suggests that community and employer stigma remains an underrated factor in reproducing relatively low employment rates for person with disabilities, which the current policy of support does not adequately address. More active steps must be taken by government, both at the program-level of ODSP and as part of government-wide initiatives in order to improve employment outcomes.

“Rural” areas as distinct from “urban” continue to be defined by greater personal interactions an... more “Rural” areas as distinct from “urban” continue to be defined by greater personal interactions and less emphasis on formal systems of support. This reality rests in contradiction to the overwhelming majority of social work scholarship and theory development which takes place in an urban context. As such the present-day act of being a “social worker” in a rural community can, in many ways, feel like a bad fit, back-applying the model of an urban generalist into an environment whose organic community ties the social work model itself was originally designed to substitute for. In recognition of this, it is necessary to develop a “combined” model of practice for social work with rural communities and peoples. The fundamental distinction to be made is that rural social work, in its most radical form, is less concerned with adapting persons to the Gesellschaft than it is with strengthening the capacity of the Gemeinschaft to provide the kind of support capacity it historically has, taking into account changes and challenges resulting from factors such as globalization, urban sprawl, and cultural change.

Given the wide variety of practice environments and client bases, social work as a profession in ... more Given the wide variety of practice environments and client bases, social work as a profession in total has struggled to define an encompassing model for generalist practice. This has proven especially true since the emergence of controversies in the 60s regarding the social worker as an agent of social change versus social control. This article suggests that social work be best viewed as a socially-created space which emerges from the surrounding social and personal context of workers and clients. Thus, the emergent collaboration model of social work attempts to map out a possible way of conceiving of the complexity of social work practice in the modern context. It, in the main, posits that social work can be best defined as the practice which emerges from the interaction between the various elements, the character and effectiveness of which is largely determined by the ability of worker and client to effectively communicate for goals to be met and resources to be harnessed to support client needs.

This article examines various arguments put forward in favour of a basic income program in terms ... more This article examines various arguments put forward in favour of a basic income program in terms of their underlying political logic and sought goals. In making a distinction between " libertarian " and " leftist " approaches to basic income, a number of potential problems and internal contradictions are revealed. This suggests that, though advocates of basic income programs have provided adequate philosophical and economic justifications for such an approach, they have yet to substantively engage with implementation concerns or begin to activate political movements of the precariat. Given that basic income is often justified with reference to the changing features of the labour market, in particular increased precarity, there appears to remain a disconnect between on-the-ground movements representing concerns about precarious labour and those in favour of basic income. Greater convergence and conversation between these groups will be necessary to achieve progress in the realization of basic income on a progressive basis.

The question of self-ownership, the assertion of sovereignty over one's self and one's body, has ... more The question of self-ownership, the assertion of sovereignty over one's self and one's body, has been at the heart of historical and political discourses over gender throughout time and place. Given most obviously the legal tradition of women as lacking a comparable legal personhood with men, and thereby having their personhood rendered primarily as an extension of a man's (usually their husband or father), this is not a terribly surprising area of focus. Moreover, perhaps the most deep and profoundly felt form of oppression is that which alienates a person from having a fundamental autonomy over one's actions, and a near-total denial of the validity of their agency and desires. The writing of a history of women, particularly of racialized women, thereby requires an engagement with the multitude of examples of struggle to assert, champion and ultimately regain autonomy and ownership in the face of social oppression. This history, too, is bounded up with both the shifting and positional nature of the identity vectors of both race and gender, fluid as both were across time and place, as well as the similar struggles for autonomy which existed amongst other groups. It is no coincidence that the language used by advocates for women's equality often mirrored that of the wider discourses on social rights in the times and places they were written. In the seventeenth century, for instance, " women writers were acutely conscious of the need to establish their claims to enter full humanity, and to do so by demonstrating their intellectual capacities " (Riley, 1988). This fit in with wider European trends towards Enlightenment rationalism which saw reason and the ability to engage intellectually as the highest human virtues, making the demonstrating of such faculties amongst women a pressing sociopolitical priority. At the same time, these claims to an essential equality by similarity, or equality by non-differentiation between men and women1, often elide the very real and concrete differences in life experiences by gender. Even if it is proper to " historicize rather than take as self-evident the identities of those whose experience is being Carter Vance 1 1 Keeping in mind, of course, that neither of these categories should be viewed as inherently fixed in terms of either constituting characteristics or " essences " of being. Indeed, it is striking to note that certain activities can be defined as " female " or " male " more by social context than the essential activity itself. This is the difference between a " chef " and " homemaker " cooking, for instance.

This major research paper seeks to expand upon the work of Marxist-feminist scholars Rosemary Hen... more This major research paper seeks to expand upon the work of Marxist-feminist scholars Rosemary Hennessy and Nancy Fraser by placing it into conversation with the emerging work of scholars of asexuality and asexual identity. In resisting the tendency to reify the identity category of “asexual” as a newly emerging and dialogically structured identity which stands in opposition to the “allosexual”, this paper with rather attempt to determine its nature as a historically structured and contingent emergence of a particular moment in neoliberal capitalism. From this, it will argue that there need not be a tension between the notions of “compulsory sexuality” and “sexusociety” developed by scholars such as Elizabeth Emens and Ela Przybylo and social reproduction analysis. Rather, asexuality can be used as a positional tool in order to illuminate the totality of sexuality as a reified and commodified entity under late capitalism, one which is useful for understanding and resisting the capitalist historical (re)organization of what Hennessy terms, “the human potential for sensation and affect”.