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Books by Steven High

This handbook explores the political economy and governance of the Americas, placing particular e... more This handbook explores the political economy and governance of the Americas, placing particular emphasis on collective and intertwined experiences. Forty-six chapters cover a range of Inter-American key concepts and dynamics. The flow of peoples, goods, resources, knowledge and finances have on the one hand promoted interdependence and integration that cut across borders and link the countries of North and South America (including the Caribbean) together. On the other hand, they have contributed to profound asymmetries between different places. The nature of this transversally related and multiply interconnected hemispheric region can only be captured through a transnational, multidisciplinary and comprehensive approach. This handbook examines the direct and indirect political interventions, geopolitical imaginaries, inequalities, interlinked economic developments and the forms of appropriation of the vast natural resources in the Americas. Expert contributors give a comprehensive overview of the theories , practices and geographies that have shaped the economic dynamics of the region and their impact on both the political and natural landscape. This multidisciplinary approach will be of interest to a broad array of academic scholars and students in history, sociology, geography, economics and political science, as well as cultural , postcolonial, environmental and globalization studies.

This series presents distinctive works that challenge conventional understandings of not only who... more This series presents distinctive works that challenge conventional understandings of not only who speaks for history but also how history is spoken, and for whom. In an era when the possibilities for collaborative research and public engagement are almost limitless -when the term history can at once embrace deeply personal life stories and the broad scope of a public museum exhibit -the need to explore new methodological models and assess their ethical implications has never been so vital. This series, unique in its focus, provides the pivot for a transformative vision of historical practice.

Table of Contents Introduction PART I: LIVING IN AND WITH RUINATION Chapter 1 Arthur McIvor, Uni... more Table of Contents
Introduction

PART I: LIVING IN AND WITH RUINATION
Chapter 1 Arthur McIvor, University of Strathclyde, “Deindustrialization Embodied: Work, Health, and Disability in the UK since c1950.”
Chapter 2 Robert Storey, McMaster University, “Beyond the Body Count? Injured Workers in the Aftermath of Deindustrialization.”
Chapter 3 Lachlan MacKinnon, Concordia University, “Environmental Justice and Worker’s Health: Fighting for Compensation at the Sydney Coke Ovens, 1986-1990.”
Chapter 4 Andrew Parnaby, Cape Breton University, “Growing Up Even More Uncertain: Children and Youth Confront Industrial Ruin in Sydney, Nova Scotia, 1967.”
Chapter 5 Jackie Clarke, University of Glasgow, “Afterlives of a Factory: Memory, Place and Space in Alençon.”
Chapter 6 Lucy Taksa, Macquarie University, “Romance of the Rails: Deindustrialization, Nostalgia and Community.”

PART II: THE URBAN POLITICS OF DEINDUSTRIALIZATION
Chapter 7 Cathy Stanton, Tufts University, “Keeping “the Industrial”: New Solidarities in Post-industrial Places”
Chapter 8 Sylvie Contrepois, Centre de Recherches Sociologiques et Politiques de Paris, “Regeneration and Class Identities: A Case Study in the Corbeil-Essonnes-Evry Region (France).”
Chapter 9 Tracy Neumann, Wayne State University, “Goodbye, Steeltown: Planning Post-Steel Cities in the US and Canada.”
Chapter 10 Andrew Hurley, University of Missouri – St. Louis, “The Transformation of Industrial Suburbs since World War II.”
Chapter 11 Seamus O’Hanlon, Monash University, “Selling ‘Lifestyle’: Post-Industrial Urbanism and the Marketing of Inner-city Apartments in Melbourne, Australia c1990–2005.”

PART III: THE POLITICAL-ECONOMY OF DEINDUSTRIALIZATION
Chapter 12 Steven High, Concordia University, “Deindustrialization on the Industrial Frontier: The Rise and Fall of Mill Colonialism in Northern Ontario.”
Chapter 13 Andrew Perchard, Coventry University, “‘A little local difficulty’? Deindustrialization and “Glocalization” in a Scottish Town”
Chapter 14 Jim Phillips, University of Glasgow, “The Moral Economy of Deindustrialization in post-1945 Scotland.”
Chapter 15 Andy Clark, University of Strathclyde, “‘They were almost stealing our identity and taking it over to Ireland’: Deindustrialization, Resistance and Gender in Scotland.”
Afterword

Survivors of terrible events are often portrayed as unsung heroes or tragic victims but rarely as... more Survivors of terrible events are often portrayed as unsung heroes or tragic victims but rarely as complex human beings whose lives extend beyond the stories they have told. The contributors to Beyond Testimony and Trauma consider other ways to engage with survivors and their accounts based on valuable insights gained from their work on long-term oral history projects. While the contexts vary widely, they demonstrate that – through deep listening, long-term relationship building, and collaborative research design – it is possible to move beyond the problematic aspects of "testimony" to shine a light on the more nuanced lives of survivors of mass violence

This book tells the story of the Montreal Life Stories project, a community-university research a... more This book tells the story of the Montreal Life Stories project, a community-university research alliance that recorded the remembered experiences of survivors of mass violence now living in Montreal. Like the project itself, this book reconfigures the conventional relationship between those who have sought refuge and rebuilt their lives in Montreal and those who seek to record, understand, and transmit these life stories.

Titles in this series are multi-disciplinary studies of aspects of the societies of the hemispher... more Titles in this series are multi-disciplinary studies of aspects of the societies of the hemisphere, particularly in the areas of politics, economics, history, anthropology, sociology, and the environment. The series covers a comparative perspective across the Americas, including Canada and the Caribbean as well as the United States and Latin America.

Papers by Steven High

the country in many respects. It signaled a shift in the dominion's orientation away from Great B... more the country in many respects. It signaled a shift in the dominion's orientation away from Great Britain and towards North America. Canadian and American goods supplanted old British favourites, and traffic regulations requiring automobile owners to drive on the left side of the road were revised to the North American standard. Most importantly, the war brought full employment to a country in desperate need of economic relief. Newfoundland's close proximity to North Atlantic shipping lanes and to the Great Circle route used for transAtlantic aviation made it of tremendous strategic value to the allies. This fact came to the world's attention with the signing of the famous destroyers-for-bases deal on 2 September 1940. 2 In exchange for 50 aged destroyers, Great Britain agreed to lease base sites on the island and in other British territories in the western hemisphere.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt read his message to Congress inside his rail car only after it pu... more President Franklin D. Roosevelt read his message to Congress inside his rail car only after it pulled out of Charleston, West Virginia, and rolled along the Kanawha River on September 3, 1940. He waited for the newspapermen traveling with him to file into his small sitting room that normally sat seven or eight comfortably but now had to accommodate twenty. By all accounts, the air was thick with expectation and the U.S. president reveled in the history of the moment. His first words were to say that he was about to announce the most important event in the defense of the United States since Thomas Jefferson’s purchase of Louisiana. He grinned at his captive audience—“flourishing his ivory cigaret [sic] holder, professorial, relishing the historicity of the scene”—and told those gathered that the United States would send fifty aged destroyers to embattled Britain in exchange for base sites in the Western Hemisphere.2 The House of Representatives would, he said, be informed of the deal...

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Thousands of people streamed into Woodford Square in the heart of Port of Spain on the morning of... more Thousands of people streamed into Woodford Square in the heart of Port of Spain on the morning of April 22, 1960 to hear a speech by Eric Williams, chief minister of Trinidad. This was not unusual. Ever since the People’s National Movement (PNM) swept to power in 1956, just eight months after its formation, thousands had regularly converged on the square to hear Williams and other PNM leaders speak on the issues of the day. These outdoor lectures were so popular and so frequent that they became known collectively as the “University of Woodford Square.” April 22, however, was not a typical day at the people’s university. It was to be the day that Williams proclaimed the independence of the British West Indies.2

Urban History Review

This article explores the structural violence of deindustrialization and the urban losses that re... more This article explores the structural violence of deindustrialization and the urban losses that result. It is a global story of mass displacement and dispossession but also an intensely local one that has devastated the working-class. But much of this history is submerged under a dominant, postindustrial, discourse that instills not only a sense of inevitability but of progress and where the ravages of deindustrialization, when recognized at all, are safely contained to rust belt zones or inner-city areas. These twin processes of “invisibilization” can even co-exist within a metropolitan area like Montreal where deindustrialization’s lasting effects are at once too diffuse and too localized to be noticed, further privatizing the pain and hurt that results. In exploring the internalized despair produced by the structural violence of deindustrialization, the article invites us to consider the ways that public recognition or non-recognition structures the public conversation about what’...

Table of Contents Introduction PART I: LIVING IN AND WITH RUINATION Chapter 1 Arthur McIvor, Uni... more Table of Contents
Introduction

Urban History Review

Histoire sociale/Social history

FACETS

Various multiple-disciplinary terms and concepts (although most commonly “interdisciplinarity,” w... more Various multiple-disciplinary terms and concepts (although most commonly “interdisciplinarity,” which is used herein) are used to frame education, scholarship, research, and interactions within and outside academia. In principle, the premise of interdisciplinarity may appear to have many strengths; yet, the extent to which interdisciplinarity is embraced by the current generation of academics, the benefits and risks for doing so, and the barriers and facilitators to achieving interdisciplinarity, represent inherent challenges. Much has been written on the topic of interdisciplinarity, but to our knowledge there have been few attempts to consider and present diverse perspectives from scholars, artists, and scientists in a cohesive manner. As a team of 57 members from the Canadian College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada (the College) who self-identify as being engaged or interested in interdisciplinarity, we provide diverse intellectual, cultura...

LEARNing Landscapes

Oral history as a field of research, teaching, archival collection, community building or engagem... more Oral history as a field of research, teaching, archival collection, community building or engagement, truth and reconciliation, and creative practice, emerged with the diffusion of the tape recorder in the 1960s and 1970s. This was a time of enormous social and political upheaval. As a result, oral history was quickly taken up by feminists, working-class and queer activists, racial minorities, and other marginalized people who sought to record the hidden stories that would otherwise be lost. This article introduces readers to the field of oral history, its methodology and ethics. Oral history is a creative practice, open to adaptation and experimentation. As it is a place of listening across difference, oral history interviewing presents itself as a unique learning landscape. Several pedagogical examples are also shared.

20 & 21. Revue d'histoire

Partout dans le monde desindustrialise, le desespoir silencieux durant des decennies a laisse pla... more Partout dans le monde desindustrialise, le desespoir silencieux durant des decennies a laisse place a une revolte ouverte a l’encontre des elites politiques et culturelles. Aux Etats-Unis du moins, un debat agite les progressistes – definis au sens large comme les « liberal centrists » et les « social democrats » – sur les causes profondes de ce phenomene. Cet article propose de repondre a ces questions en mobilisant le champ interdisciplinaire des deindustrialization studies et en examinant ce que celui-ci peut nous apprendre des racines historiques et des causes sous-jacentes de l’ascension de Donald Trump. Les lecons politiques que nous serons amenes a tirer de l’histoire recente constituent un enjeu de taille.

Digital Studies/Le champ numérique

... 2011-05-26); buying lasix germany by Ufiredh Ufiredh Ufiredh (2011-05-26); celebrex buy by Po... more ... 2011-05-26); buying lasix germany by Ufiredh Ufiredh Ufiredh (2011-05-26); celebrex buy by Posafyne Posafyne Posafyne (2011-05-27); generic viagra sale by Gintovilas Gintovilas Gintovilas (2011-06-02); buy propecia online ...

Urban History Review

Until the 1950s, most black men in Montreal worked for the railway companies as sleeping car port... more Until the 1950s, most black men in Montreal worked for the railway companies as sleeping car porters, dining car employees, and red caps. The city’s English-speaking black community took root in Little Burgundy because it was close to Windsor and Bonaventure train stations. The area between Saint-Henri and Griffintown, north of the Lachine Canal, in the city’s Southwest Borough, was once known by many names. “Little Burgundy” was invented in the 1960s by city officials to describe their urban renewal plans for the area. If employment mobility was foundational in making this community, it proved just as central in its unmaking in the 1960s and 1970s. The shift from trains to cars and trucks had a two-fold impact on Little Burgundy. First, employment levels collapsed with the decline of passenger train travel, leaving many black men unemployed. Then the state built a highway through the neighbourhood to facilitate the mobility of mainly white suburban workers and consumers making thei...

Labor

The radical restructuring of the international division of labor has meant that huge swaths of Eu... more The radical restructuring of the international division of labor has meant that huge swaths of Europe and North America have experienced painful deindustrialization since the 1960s. In itself, this is nothing new, as capitalist development has always been geographically uneven. It is also a global phenomenon, with newly industrialized areas experiencing decline soon after the initial areas. What differed in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s was the scale of the unfolding crisis in North America and Europe, as industrial heartland areas lost their economic raison d’être. Millions of industrial workers were displaced, leaving once vital economic centers stricken. Across the industrialized world, union density plummeted. For example, the rate of unionization in the United States dropped from 34 percent in 1973 to just 11 percent in the 2000s (or a little over 6 percent in the private sector). It was in this crisis atmosphere that the cross-disciplinary study of deindustrialization emerged, as did industrial heritage as a preservation impulse and an area of further research. Indeed, the term deindustrialization was coined in the 1970s and then taken up by researchers and anti – plant closing activists in France, Germany,

Labor

Abstract:Sociologist Beverley Skeggs argues that the shift from redistributive politics to the po... more Abstract:Sociologist Beverley Skeggs argues that the shift from redistributive politics to the politics of recognition has placed considerable emphasis on the "individual morally authorizing themselves through their own experience." Indeed, Skeggs claims that "the wounded attachment is premised on the belief that the experience of pain, hurt and oppression provides greater epistemological authority to speak." If wounding and pain become the measure of injustice, those hurt by structural violence and inequality are usually ill-positioned to be seen or heard. With this in mind, this article shifts our attention to the violence regularly inflicted on industrial workers in a capitalist economy, taking Sherry Lee Linkon's notion of the half-life of deindustrialization and applying it to the long-term emotional fallout of job loss revealed in oral history interviews conducted with industrial workers in Detroit, Michigan. These interviews reveal a kaleidoscope of emotions, ranging from fear and anxiety to pride, irony, absurdity, loss, confusion, defiance, hope, shame, and, most of all, betrayal. Oral history interviews make clear that class values and working-class identity in Detroit were inculcated in childhood within blue-collar families. Men and women grew up in an industrial culture where trade unionism was a badge of honor. The actions of employers are therefore read through a moral lens; you can hear the hurt in people's voices. In some cases, their sense of themselves as displaced workers was reforged in the fires of deindustrialization into a new class identity.

One Job Town

activists, are electing to spend a semester abroad in Cuba and in Fernández Tabío’s discussion of... more activists, are electing to spend a semester abroad in Cuba and in Fernández Tabío’s discussion of the exponential growth in Canadian visitors over a quarter century, even if they are mostly snowbirds flocking to Varadero’s resorts. Canadian–Cuba connections continue to grow both in expected and newer ways. This diplomatic historian recognizes the inherent risks and shortcomings in critiquing such an interdisciplinary volume with much impressive scholarship. I will only offer two. Many of its contributors sympathize with Cuba’s revolution, some to a point of unfairly assigning to Ottawa primary responsibility for any bilateral problems, arguing it should be empathetic towards Cuba for its unique external pressures. From this perspective, Canada should treat Cuba as special, exempting it from human rights concerns, despite three decades of Canadians’ insistence that human rights be a centrepiece of their country’s foreign policy (albeit inconsistently applied). Many countries have considerably worse records in that regard, and us pressure has exacerbated Havana’s actions. Nonetheless, especially under Fidel Castro, Havana was often unjustifiably heavy-handed towards dissent, making it difficult for Ottawa to justify to Canadians warmer relations towards it. The second gap is that the United States remains in the background, even though, as the title suggests, it has cast a continuous shadow over the Canada– Cuba relationship. Rodríguez and McNeil make the United States a key reference point in their analyses, and Bolender correctly places exile violence in the larger narrative of American anti-Castro efforts. Still, the Canada–us side of Rodríguez’s triangle merits greater illumination and is the focus of this author’s research. Realist concerns have necessitated that Ottawa factor in American interests concerning Cuba, whether in asserting Canadian autonomy or in following parallel paths, influenced not only by power asymmetry but also by like-mindedness shaped by geography, history, and a democratic capitalist outlook. These two critiques aside, this volume fills important spaces in our understanding of this unique relationship. john m. dirks Trinity College, University of Toronto

History, Memory, Performance

Journal of the Canadian Historical Association

During the economic slowdown of the 1970s and early 1980s, Ontario trade unionists literally wrap... more During the economic slowdown of the 1970s and early 1980s, Ontario trade unionists literally wrapped themselves in the maple leaf flag in order to defy foreign-owned companies that wished to abandon workers with little or no compensation on plant closings. The workers' efforts were not in vain, as the flag's teflon-coating at least partially prevented economic displacement from sticking. Indeed, the Ontario workers' strong national identification with Canada proved to be effective in pushing reluctant politicians to regulate plant shutdowns, thereby mitigating some of the worst effects of job loss.

Deindustrialization Syllabus , 2022

Deindustrialization has marked a crucial rupture in the lives of tens of millions of working-clas... more Deindustrialization has marked a crucial rupture in the lives of tens of millions of working-class families across the old "industrialized world." The scale of the body count is staggering. Fundamentally, deindustrialization is a process of physical and social ruination, as well as part of a wider political project that leaves working-class communities impoverished and demoralized. Not only is the social world of the factory floor destroyed, so too is the wider economic and social structure that validates working-class lives. In a post-industrial era, industrial workers are assigned to the past, not the present. Working in partnership with the transnational "Deindustrialization & The Politics of Our Time" project (deindustrialization.org), this course will explore the politics of industrial ruination and gentrification in transnational perspective and examine the social, economic, and cultural consequences of this transformation. Trump, Brexit, and the rise of right-wing populism will be examined. Required Readings: Students are required to read and take notes each week. Undergraduate students read the equivalent of 4 articles per week, master's students 5 articles, and doctoral students 6 articles. These readings can be found in required books as well as in articles found in the library's electronic database or on course reserve.

Many thanks to all those who provided feedback on the draft syllabus a few months ago in an Acade... more Many thanks to all those who provided feedback on the draft syllabus a few months ago in an Academia Session. It changed quite a bit as a result.

Students enrolled in this seminar will participate in the second year of Right to the City, a uni... more Students enrolled in this seminar will participate in the second year of Right to the City, a unique pedagogical initiative that brings together students from History (this course), Art History (Dr. Cynthia Hammond – Industrialization and the Built Environment), Theatre (Dr. Ted Little – The Neighbourhood Theatre), and Art Education (Dr. Kathleen Vaughan – Studio Inquiry) to study the post-industrial transformation of Pointe-Saint-Charles, a working-class neighbourhood adjoining the Lachine Canal with a long history of community mobilization and resistance. Students will be based in the neighbourhood throughout the term (at Share the Warmth and St-Columba House), working in partnership with community groups as well as the Arrondisement du Sud-Ouest and the Bibliothéque Saint-Charles.

Using an existing archive of databased oral history interviews, photocopied documents, and material gathered by the class last year in the making of the La Pointe: The Other Side of the Tracks audio walk (for more on the work from last year see this short video: https://vimeo.com/113236371 ), students enrolled this year will collaboratively produce an online memoryscape of Pointe-Saint-Charles as well as a series of virtual interpretative panels for the proposed “piste historique” being considered by the Arrondisement du Sud Ouest in Parc Saint-Gabriel. Working with students in the other classes, you will also explore the intersections of oral history and theatre as well as the visual arts. Our work together this term is again supported by a curriculum innovation grant from Concordia University with additional funding from SSHRC and the Canada Research Chairs programme.

The Canada Research Chair in Urban Heritage at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) , in pa... more The Canada Research Chair in Urban Heritage at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) , in partnership with the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling and Concordia University, is hosting the third biannual conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies from June 7-10, 2016 in Montreal, Québec. You are invited to submit session proposals by July 1st (individual paper proposals are due November 1st), for more information see the attached.

Submissions to the 2016 ACHS Conference should bring innovative reflections and interdisciplinary methodologies or approaches to the critical enquiries about how and why heritage is, has been or could be made, used, studied, defined and managed, and with what effects, if any, on a society, a territory, an economy. Contributions might, for example, explore the reconstruction of narratives, the reconfiguration of social relations, knowledge production and cultural expressions, the transformation of the environment or the (de)valuation of the land. We particularly welcome papers that go beyond canon theories to interrogate discipline-based norms about heritage, and the assumptions that orient practice or decision-making. In this respect, this conference aims to continue important debates about heritage as a domain of politics and citizenship, a living environment, a source of identity and an assemblage of human-non-human relations.

As the conference wishes to expand boundaries of critical heritage studies, through research-creation or other means, it will welcome non-traditional proposals dedicated to the development of knowledge and innovation through artistic or multimedia expression and experimentation. Proposals may be submitted in French or English.

All stories emerge in the midst of complex and uneven relationships of power, prompting certain q... more All stories emerge in the midst of complex and uneven relationships of power, prompting certain questions about production: Who tells the stories and who doesn't? To whom are they told and under what circumstances?" -Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith. Human Rights and Narrated Lives 2

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2019

This is a draft (pre-submission version) of the published version of the paper that was published... more This is a draft (pre-submission version) of the published version of the paper that was published in January 2019 in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Authored by Steven High, Lysiane Goulet-Gervais, Michelle Duchesneau, and Dany Guay-Bélanger,