CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS:
Planning as if Community Matters
Amanda Johnson, a doctoral student at UW in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, Bill Stewart, a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, and I are using participatory research techniques to engage citizens in an accessible, outreach initiative designed to understand stakeholder perceptions of landscape change in Waterloo Region. Research prticipants are given single-use disposable cameras and asked to photograph desirable and undesirable landscapes in their immediate communities. After the pictures are developed, face-to-face interviews are conducted with the participants during which the photos are used to elicit stories about landscape change. To bring closure to the project, all participants take part in a citizen-centred assembly during which photographs and stories will be presented by the participants themselves. This final stage is meant to facilitate social learning among participants. These accessible techniques are being used to engage diverse audiences unaccustomed to being involved in public consultation efforts in a meaningful dialogue about landscape change. This research project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Diana Parry, a faculty member in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo and a member of the Centre for Behavioural Research and Program Evaluation, Jennifer Kacynski, a research associate, and I are examining the role of place in the development of social capital for the purposes of furthering health and well-being. We believe that third places – informal gathering places apart from home (the first place) and work (the second place) – play an important role in facilitating the development, maintenance, and sustainability of social relationships. The consequence of investments in social relationships is social capital, which can be used to gain access to resources embedded within the social networks that form, thereby helping people who are dealing with cancer to “get by”, “get ahead,” or alternatively “fall behind”. We aim to explore the role of place in this process by studying members of Gilda's Club, a venue in Toronto that serves as a meeting place where people living with cancer, as well as their families and friends, join with others to build social and emotional support as a supplement to their treatment of choice. The objectives of this project are to (1) understand the lived experiences of people dealing with cancer and the role of Gilda's Club in their lives; (2) explore the role of place in facilitating social capital development; (3) understand how social capital impacts upon individual health and well-being, both positively and negatively; and (4) work with Gilda's Club to build greater capacity for understanding how place and social capital impact upon the health and well-being of people dealing with cancer. This research project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Social Capital and the Fesitval of Neighbourhoods
Felice Yuen and Amanda Johnson, doctoral students at UW in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, are assisting me in conducting an evaluation study on behalf of the Social Planning Council of Kitchener-Waterloo and the Organizing Committee of the Festival of Neighbourhoods (FoN) to examine the spin-off effects of community improvement grants awarded to neighbourhoods associated with the FoN since 1994, the inaugural year of the FoN.
The FoN is an initiative designed to encourage residents of Kitchener to build stronger relationships with their neighbours and celebrate their community. The initiative invites citizens to plan events or projects in their neighbourhoods that bring people together and are open to everyone in the neighbourhood. These events or projects can be anything from a community BBQ to a street party to a neighbourhood cleanup day, as long as the events bring people together. Registered events are entered into a random draw for a $10,000 capital improvement grant from the City of Kitchener. This research project is funded through a seed grant provided by the University of Waterloo and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.