Suzanne Mills - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Suzanne Mills
The Extractive Industries and Society
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2018
This paper explores the spatial politics of racism and inter-worker competition through a case st... more This paper explores the spatial politics of racism and inter-worker competition through a case study of Indigenous employment during the construction of the Voisey’s Bay mine in northern Labrador. Over the course of construction, the building and construction trades unions (BCTUs) sought to restrict the hiring of local Inuit and Innu workers by challenging the legitimacy of place-based entitlements to work. Inuit and Innu workers had preferential access to employment as a result of unresolved land claims and the ensuing Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBA) between the Voisey’s Bay Nickel Company and both the Innu Nation and the Labrador Inuit Association. IBA provisions that local Inuit and Innu be hired preferentially ran counter to the unions’ organizational structures and cultures, which privileged worker mobility and skill. The BCTUs used the geographic incompatibility between the scale of Indigenous claims and that of construction worker organization to justify a competitive app...
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2016
Previous research has understood the migrations of gay men and other queer people through a lens ... more Previous research has understood the migrations of gay men and other queer people through a lens of identity development, whereby relocation is driven by processes of coming out and consuming particular urban amenities. Meanwhile, labour geographers have largely overlooked sexuality, seeking to understand work-related migration in relation to gender, race, citizenship and the collective organization of workers. Drawing on the migration narratives of gay-identified men living in Ottawa, Canada, and Washington, DC, USA, we argue that the norms governing gender and sexuality within various workplaces, economic sectors and locales continuously influence migration related to work and inextricably linked processes of social reproduction. In particular, we explain how the affective needs of gay workers both deflect them from and attract them to particular locales and workplaces. In their migration destinations, gay workers tend to also transform the norms of social reproduction within work...
... PMF Services de rédaction inc. Translation: Lexi-Tech International ... They noted that while... more ... PMF Services de rédaction inc. Translation: Lexi-Tech International ... They noted that while some investigations used a gender-sensitive approach (eg, MacKenzie 1987; Grass 1987; Grass and Hayter 1989; Stanton 1989; Hayter and Barnes 1992; Hay 1993), ...
Canadian Forest Service, …, 2003
... systems that will adapt to the changes through both autonomous and planned adaptations. In th... more ... systems that will adapt to the changes through both autonomous and planned adaptations. In the ... resiliency, and vulnerability; ... so that informed regional adaptation strategies can be developed in response to potential climate change and variability" (Mortsch & Quinn 1998: 52). ...
McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, Sep 15, 2022
We report on the results of six different graduate student projects, each of which examined diffe... more We report on the results of six different graduate student projects, each of which examined different aspects of pattern and process in the boreal forest understory as part of the EMEND (Ecosystem Management Emulating Natural Disturbance) experiment conducted in northwestern Alberta. Vascular and non-vascular understory plants were examined, as were wood-decay and ectomycorrhizal fungi. The wood decay fungi Armillaria sinapina was found to be infecting 90% of healthy hardwood trees in pure hardwood-dominated forest stands. As the number of hardwood trees present in a stand increased, the presence of A. sinapina infecting both hardwoods and softwoods increased. A. sinapina was more likely to be present in larger diameter, deciduous logs, which were in contact with the ground. A. sinapina occurred in the forest floor in the form of rhizomorphs and its presence was not dependent on basic soil nutrients or moisture. It is unknown if A. sinapina could be a problem in regenerating mixed-wood stands but our finding of its widespread occurrence in healthy stands suggests the need for awareness of the potential for outbreaks.
McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, Aug 28, 2019
also helped with logistics and organizing interviews on site. Both Jodi Evers and Kim Radbourne p... more also helped with logistics and organizing interviews on site. Both Jodi Evers and Kim Radbourne provided helpful comments on the report and Elders Agnes Corston, Eva Lazarus and Josephine Wesley provided important insights at the beginning of the project. The Ontario Building and Construction Trades Council endorsed the project and assisted with BCTU contacts. Over the course of the project several research assistants provided invaluable assistance:
The Canadian journal of native studies, 2006
ARCTIC
This article adopts a cross-cultural lens to understand why Inuit women enter and leave mining jo... more This article adopts a cross-cultural lens to understand why Inuit women enter and leave mining jobs in Inuit Nunangat (Inuit homelands), Canada, using Nunavik as a case study. Previous research has often depicted Indigenous women as either victims of mining or as anti-mining activists. Interviews with ten Nunavimmiut women (Inuit women of Nunavik), who had worked or were currently working at one of two mines in Nunavik, complicate these portrayals. As a team consisting of settler and Inuit scholars, we draw on Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit principles to extend previous understandings of Indigenous women’s pathways through, and out of, mining employment. Women’s descriptions of mining employment were ambivalent. Inuit women applied qanuqtuurunnarniq (resourcefulness) in using mining work to share with others, connect with Inuit culture and community after moving to southern cities, and participate in language and skills training. However, over half of the women interviewed ultimately left ...
Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 2020
Using Statistics Canada’s 2011-2016 Labor Force Surveys, this paper examines the spatial dimensio... more Using Statistics Canada’s 2011-2016 Labor Force Surveys, this paper examines the spatial dimensions of precarious forms of employment (PFE) in Canada. We first compare different PFEs across a range of geographies including national, provincial, census metropolitan areas and urban/rural areas. The results show that different PFEs exhibited distinct spatial patterns across space and scale. Second, using logistic regression models, results show that patterns in PFEs were reinforced by factors such as immigration status, gender, age, education, and income. These models further confirm that spatial variations in PFEs were robust even when controlling for socio-demographic and socio-economic effects. Taken together, these marked spatial patterns advances our understanding of the spatial divisions of precariousness in Canada.
Work, Employment and Society, 2021
This study examines the relation between customer abuse and aggression, the gender and sexual exp... more This study examines the relation between customer abuse and aggression, the gender and sexual expression of workers, and labour control in low-wage services. In-depth interviews with 30 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)1 low-wage service sector workers reveal how customer abuse and aggression works in consort with management strategies to reproduce cis- and heteronormativity. Customer abuse and aggression disciplined worker expressions of non-normative gender and sexual identities, leading to concealment and self-policing. Management was complicit in this dynamic, placing profitability and customer satisfaction over the safety of LGBT workers, only intervening in instances of customer abuse and aggression when it had a limited economic impact. It is posited that customer abuse and aggression is not only a response to unmet expectations emanating from the labour process but is also a mechanism of labour control that disciplines worker behaviour and aesthetics, directly a...
The Extractive Industries and Society
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2018
This paper explores the spatial politics of racism and inter-worker competition through a case st... more This paper explores the spatial politics of racism and inter-worker competition through a case study of Indigenous employment during the construction of the Voisey’s Bay mine in northern Labrador. Over the course of construction, the building and construction trades unions (BCTUs) sought to restrict the hiring of local Inuit and Innu workers by challenging the legitimacy of place-based entitlements to work. Inuit and Innu workers had preferential access to employment as a result of unresolved land claims and the ensuing Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBA) between the Voisey’s Bay Nickel Company and both the Innu Nation and the Labrador Inuit Association. IBA provisions that local Inuit and Innu be hired preferentially ran counter to the unions’ organizational structures and cultures, which privileged worker mobility and skill. The BCTUs used the geographic incompatibility between the scale of Indigenous claims and that of construction worker organization to justify a competitive app...
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2016
Previous research has understood the migrations of gay men and other queer people through a lens ... more Previous research has understood the migrations of gay men and other queer people through a lens of identity development, whereby relocation is driven by processes of coming out and consuming particular urban amenities. Meanwhile, labour geographers have largely overlooked sexuality, seeking to understand work-related migration in relation to gender, race, citizenship and the collective organization of workers. Drawing on the migration narratives of gay-identified men living in Ottawa, Canada, and Washington, DC, USA, we argue that the norms governing gender and sexuality within various workplaces, economic sectors and locales continuously influence migration related to work and inextricably linked processes of social reproduction. In particular, we explain how the affective needs of gay workers both deflect them from and attract them to particular locales and workplaces. In their migration destinations, gay workers tend to also transform the norms of social reproduction within work...
... PMF Services de rédaction inc. Translation: Lexi-Tech International ... They noted that while... more ... PMF Services de rédaction inc. Translation: Lexi-Tech International ... They noted that while some investigations used a gender-sensitive approach (eg, MacKenzie 1987; Grass 1987; Grass and Hayter 1989; Stanton 1989; Hayter and Barnes 1992; Hay 1993), ...
Canadian Forest Service, …, 2003
... systems that will adapt to the changes through both autonomous and planned adaptations. In th... more ... systems that will adapt to the changes through both autonomous and planned adaptations. In the ... resiliency, and vulnerability; ... so that informed regional adaptation strategies can be developed in response to potential climate change and variability" (Mortsch & Quinn 1998: 52). ...
McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, Sep 15, 2022
We report on the results of six different graduate student projects, each of which examined diffe... more We report on the results of six different graduate student projects, each of which examined different aspects of pattern and process in the boreal forest understory as part of the EMEND (Ecosystem Management Emulating Natural Disturbance) experiment conducted in northwestern Alberta. Vascular and non-vascular understory plants were examined, as were wood-decay and ectomycorrhizal fungi. The wood decay fungi Armillaria sinapina was found to be infecting 90% of healthy hardwood trees in pure hardwood-dominated forest stands. As the number of hardwood trees present in a stand increased, the presence of A. sinapina infecting both hardwoods and softwoods increased. A. sinapina was more likely to be present in larger diameter, deciduous logs, which were in contact with the ground. A. sinapina occurred in the forest floor in the form of rhizomorphs and its presence was not dependent on basic soil nutrients or moisture. It is unknown if A. sinapina could be a problem in regenerating mixed-wood stands but our finding of its widespread occurrence in healthy stands suggests the need for awareness of the potential for outbreaks.
McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, Aug 28, 2019
also helped with logistics and organizing interviews on site. Both Jodi Evers and Kim Radbourne p... more also helped with logistics and organizing interviews on site. Both Jodi Evers and Kim Radbourne provided helpful comments on the report and Elders Agnes Corston, Eva Lazarus and Josephine Wesley provided important insights at the beginning of the project. The Ontario Building and Construction Trades Council endorsed the project and assisted with BCTU contacts. Over the course of the project several research assistants provided invaluable assistance:
The Canadian journal of native studies, 2006
ARCTIC
This article adopts a cross-cultural lens to understand why Inuit women enter and leave mining jo... more This article adopts a cross-cultural lens to understand why Inuit women enter and leave mining jobs in Inuit Nunangat (Inuit homelands), Canada, using Nunavik as a case study. Previous research has often depicted Indigenous women as either victims of mining or as anti-mining activists. Interviews with ten Nunavimmiut women (Inuit women of Nunavik), who had worked or were currently working at one of two mines in Nunavik, complicate these portrayals. As a team consisting of settler and Inuit scholars, we draw on Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit principles to extend previous understandings of Indigenous women’s pathways through, and out of, mining employment. Women’s descriptions of mining employment were ambivalent. Inuit women applied qanuqtuurunnarniq (resourcefulness) in using mining work to share with others, connect with Inuit culture and community after moving to southern cities, and participate in language and skills training. However, over half of the women interviewed ultimately left ...
Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 2020
Using Statistics Canada’s 2011-2016 Labor Force Surveys, this paper examines the spatial dimensio... more Using Statistics Canada’s 2011-2016 Labor Force Surveys, this paper examines the spatial dimensions of precarious forms of employment (PFE) in Canada. We first compare different PFEs across a range of geographies including national, provincial, census metropolitan areas and urban/rural areas. The results show that different PFEs exhibited distinct spatial patterns across space and scale. Second, using logistic regression models, results show that patterns in PFEs were reinforced by factors such as immigration status, gender, age, education, and income. These models further confirm that spatial variations in PFEs were robust even when controlling for socio-demographic and socio-economic effects. Taken together, these marked spatial patterns advances our understanding of the spatial divisions of precariousness in Canada.
Work, Employment and Society, 2021
This study examines the relation between customer abuse and aggression, the gender and sexual exp... more This study examines the relation between customer abuse and aggression, the gender and sexual expression of workers, and labour control in low-wage services. In-depth interviews with 30 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)1 low-wage service sector workers reveal how customer abuse and aggression works in consort with management strategies to reproduce cis- and heteronormativity. Customer abuse and aggression disciplined worker expressions of non-normative gender and sexual identities, leading to concealment and self-policing. Management was complicit in this dynamic, placing profitability and customer satisfaction over the safety of LGBT workers, only intervening in instances of customer abuse and aggression when it had a limited economic impact. It is posited that customer abuse and aggression is not only a response to unmet expectations emanating from the labour process but is also a mechanism of labour control that disciplines worker behaviour and aesthetics, directly a...