0°Recent Blog Posts - Urbane Adventurer
Silencing Phil Fontaine: protest, virtue and the slippery slope
There isn’t a lot I can add to the discourse around the protest at the University of Winnipeg that shut down Phil Fontaine’s talk on Wednesday. Lots of very smart people, on both sides of the issue, have already expressed their views. But I would like to extend some thoughts into how ...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
There isn’t a lot I can add to the discourse around the protest at the University of Winnipeg that shut down Phil Fontaine’s talk on Wednesday. Lots of very smart people, on both sides of the issue, have already expressed their views. But I would like to extend some thoughts into how ...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Winter Woman
I found this poem I wrote a few years ago when I was going through my notebooks. It’s not autiobiographical or meant to represent any particular person. Just a story about a woman. —– my mother was a winter woman she sighed through the July heat brow heavy with sweat her body mo...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
I found this poem I wrote a few years ago when I was going through my notebooks. It’s not autiobiographical or meant to represent any particular person. Just a story about a woman. —– my mother was a winter woman she sighed through the July heat brow heavy with sweat her body mo...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
The Edmonton Ex-pat Care Package
Last night a fellow Edmontonian and I discussed the idea of an Edmonton ex-pat care package while we sat around a fire, celebrating my birthday. After some deliberation, and some disagreements we came up with some good ideas. There were, of course, some disagreements based on our discerning taste...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Last night a fellow Edmontonian and I discussed the idea of an Edmonton ex-pat care package while we sat around a fire, celebrating my birthday. After some deliberation, and some disagreements we came up with some good ideas. There were, of course, some disagreements based on our discerning taste...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
boxing gloves and bibliographies
Everything I need to know about decolonisation, about surviving, about breaking down barriers, about triumphing over pain I learned in the boxing ring. My uncle trained in muay thai kickboxing with Frank Lee, a renowned Edmonton trainer, in the 70s and 80s. In the 90s, my Uncle started his own gy...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Everything I need to know about decolonisation, about surviving, about breaking down barriers, about triumphing over pain I learned in the boxing ring. My uncle trained in muay thai kickboxing with Frank Lee, a renowned Edmonton trainer, in the 70s and 80s. In the 90s, my Uncle started his own gy...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Proceed with caution: policy, ‘expertise’, and research arrogance
Recently a colleague who is an attorney made a good point: “ethnography is kind of the gold standard, isn’t it?”. I’m usually prepared for people from other disciplines to critique anthropology. I wasn’t prepared for praise. “Well”, he continued, “i...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Recently a colleague who is an attorney made a good point: “ethnography is kind of the gold standard, isn’t it?”. I’m usually prepared for people from other disciplines to critique anthropology. I wasn’t prepared for praise. “Well”, he continued, “i...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Calling for another way
I’ve been sitting with some scattered thoughts over the last year and a half — I have tried to articulate them in various ways here on my blog, in my art practice, in my academic writing. Admittedly, some of the early attempts at articulating these thoughts ring a little flat now, as ...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
I’ve been sitting with some scattered thoughts over the last year and a half — I have tried to articulate them in various ways here on my blog, in my art practice, in my academic writing. Admittedly, some of the early attempts at articulating these thoughts ring a little flat now, as ...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Metis Collector©
I’ve been working on this project for the last few months. As I move through England and Scotland, I can’t help but feel that I carry with me all the generations of my very diverse family with me. And I feel, very strongly, that in some ways I’m here to ‘speak back to Empi...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
I’ve been working on this project for the last few months. As I move through England and Scotland, I can’t help but feel that I carry with me all the generations of my very diverse family with me. And I feel, very strongly, that in some ways I’m here to ‘speak back to Empi...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
‘Revitalization’ as colonialism
You know what? I have a bone to pick. Revitalization. Regeneration. Gentrification. These are rather mild and innocuous terms for what is, really, just a palatable way to express extant colonialism and oppression in a country built on the exploitation and theft of Indigenous lands. My family, on ...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
You know what? I have a bone to pick. Revitalization. Regeneration. Gentrification. These are rather mild and innocuous terms for what is, really, just a palatable way to express extant colonialism and oppression in a country built on the exploitation and theft of Indigenous lands. My family, on ...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Courtney Chetwynd — Splitting the Difference
My friend Courtney has a show up at the Yellowknife Artist Run Community Centre, running until December 23. You can listen to her discuss the show here — the work references northern landscapes, fracking, Indigenous cosmologies. Basically, it’s amazing. If you’re going to be in ...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
My friend Courtney has a show up at the Yellowknife Artist Run Community Centre, running until December 23. You can listen to her discuss the show here — the work references northern landscapes, fracking, Indigenous cosmologies. Basically, it’s amazing. If you’re going to be in ...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Devastating cuts to the Canadian Circumpolar Institute
I am running late this morning, but it’s because I’m taking a moment to protest Tuesday’s devastating cuts to the Canadian Circumpolar Institute. There is a meeting this morning with Dr. Lorne Babiuk to advocate for the Institute, so if you send letters of support they can help ...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
I am running late this morning, but it’s because I’m taking a moment to protest Tuesday’s devastating cuts to the Canadian Circumpolar Institute. There is a meeting this morning with Dr. Lorne Babiuk to advocate for the Institute, so if you send letters of support they can help ...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
On love
let us exercise these expansive hearts in our chests let us stumble but get back up let us sing and dance in the quiet of the night let us not forget that everything comes back to the greatest gift of all: love.
Published at Urbane Adventurer
let us exercise these expansive hearts in our chests let us stumble but get back up let us sing and dance in the quiet of the night let us not forget that everything comes back to the greatest gift of all: love.
Published at Urbane Adventurer
My alma mater — failing again
I cannot even begin to articulate how disappointing this is. The reason that I began to work in arctic Canada, and built a relationship with a northern community to investigate community-identified issues like food security, was because of the University of Alberta’s strong northern researc...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
I cannot even begin to articulate how disappointing this is. The reason that I began to work in arctic Canada, and built a relationship with a northern community to investigate community-identified issues like food security, was because of the University of Alberta’s strong northern researc...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
heart(h) of the city/is broken
A lot of ink has been spilled over Churchill Square. We lament the loss of the grass. We lament the broken lights put in the concrete. We lament the way the addition added to the library in the late 90s/2000s forced people onto the thin strip of concrete between the library and 102 ave, forcing &...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
A lot of ink has been spilled over Churchill Square. We lament the loss of the grass. We lament the broken lights put in the concrete. We lament the way the addition added to the library in the late 90s/2000s forced people onto the thin strip of concrete between the library and 102 ave, forcing &...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
music for the heart
Here are two songs I recently recorded. As with all things I’m sharing here — they are very much just works in progress. The first song was my first attempt to sing in English and nehiyawewin, and I know my pronunciation needs work. Working very hard to learn my Grand-dad’s lang...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Here are two songs I recently recorded. As with all things I’m sharing here — they are very much just works in progress. The first song was my first attempt to sing in English and nehiyawewin, and I know my pronunciation needs work. Working very hard to learn my Grand-dad’s lang...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
Collaboration or corroboration?
I submitted this to an Indigenous Studies conference last year, but it was rejected. (No explanation offered). Since then, however, I have given a lot more thought to the discourses that dominate Indigenous Studies these days. I stand firm by my suspicion that most work that claims to be ‘d...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
I submitted this to an Indigenous Studies conference last year, but it was rejected. (No explanation offered). Since then, however, I have given a lot more thought to the discourses that dominate Indigenous Studies these days. I stand firm by my suspicion that most work that claims to be ‘d...
Published at Urbane Adventurer
