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Research Fellows 2010-2011

FACULTY FELLOWS

Professor Dennis Pilon

 

GRADUATE STUDENT FELLOWS

Ben Gelelbracht

Lisa Pasolli

COMMUNITY RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS 

Don Brown

 







Jerry Flexer
Jerry Flexer LLB, University of Manitoba, is a community research fellow whose research is titled: Ecovillage Cooperatives in British Columbia: A nascent and contemporary manifestation of land-based community cooperatives. Jerry’s research is an exploration of Land use laws, and economics; specifically how to achieve multi-use zoning, and how to become economically self-sufficient. 
In a ten year period Jerry has visited and lived in close to fifty ecovillages and intentional communities located in Canada, the United States, Western Europe, India, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand.  His research is aimed at exploring two of the issues around ecovillages. 
Land use laws and economics – in particular how to achieve multi-use zoning to become economically self-sufficient.

 

Stuart Hertzog








Stuart Hertzog is a community research fellow who will be looking at “An appropriate legal and organisational structure for a community media co-operative in Victoria”. Stuart is a writer, editor, and publication designer, and environment and
social justice activist.

A former professional freelance writer, editor and publication designer, Stuart Hertzog is now a committed and experienced environmental and social justice activist. His environmental campaigns have included municipal waste management, air pollution, energy, and offshore oil and gas exploration. A practicing Buddhist, Stuart worked on social welfare issues with Faith In Action, a Victoria non-denominational faith-based group. Now focussed on housing issues, he recently set up the Vancouver Island Social Housing Residents Association (VISHRA) to advocate for the rights of people receiving a housing subsidy. Politically, Stuart was a candidate for the BCNDP in 1991, then for the BC
Green Party in 1995 and 2001. An early adopter of computers and the Internet, he helped build Canada's first commercial web site in Vancouver in 1995, and
uses the Internet extensively in his campaigns. Active in the co-op housing movement in Edmonton and Vancouver, he initiated Kootenay Co-operative Radio in Nelson, BC in 1997. Stuart believes that the Internet and mobile electronic media are opening up the possibility of a more democratic media and society, and is looking forward to researching media co-operatives as a democratic ownership model for this revolution in public communication.

Tamara Schwartzentruber

Tamara Schwartzentruber's community research is titled "Economic relocalisation in the Transition Towns movement." Tamara is a musician, teacher, gardener,permaculturist, poet, dancer, and community activist, born and raised in Victoria.  Over the last two years, she has been very active with Transition Victoria: a regional initiative that is part of the international Transition Towns movement.  In response to the interrelated challenges of peak oil, climate change, and economic instability and inequity, this movement seeks to encourage a community-based transition from a high-consumption, fossil fuel dependent way of life to a low energy, locally resilient one. As well as being a member of the Initiating Committee of Transition Victoria, Tamara shares the role of coordinating the Food working group, and is a member of the Heart and Soul group, which focuses on the inner psycho-spiritual aspects of social and environmental change.

 


 

 

VISITING RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP

Panu Kalmi 

Panu Kalmi is a visiting scholar, currently an Academy Research Fellow
at the Academy of Finland and Adjunct Professor (Docent) at the Helsinki
School of Economics (HSE) that will be renamed Aalto University in the
beginning of 2010. He was an Acting Professor at HSE, Visiting Professor
at Radboud University, the Netherlands, and Visiting Fellow at Cornell
University, New York.  Dr. Kalmi’s research: Co-operative Banks in the
Financial Crisis: An International Comparison, is an analysis of the
various financial co-operatives around the world, their different
evolutionary stages and the strengths and potentials of different ways
of organizing financial co-operatives. His research has primarily
focused on two topics: impacts of employee participation on enterprise
performance and employee outcomes. More recently research has focused on
financial co-operatives.  He has collaborated with the Finnish
co-operative banking group OP-Pohjola and been involved in a project on
financial co-operatives in Uganda, and has recently started a project
investigating how the financial co-operatives are doing in the financial
crisis. 

 

 

 

Research Fellows 2009-2010

FACULTY FELLOWS

Professor Andrew Petter

The Centre for Co-operative and Community-Based Economy Studies is pleased to announce that Andrew Petter has received a six-month Faculty Research Fellowship. Professor Petter teaches Legal Process, Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties at the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria.  He joined the Faculty as Assistant Professor in 1986 after teaching at Osgoode Hall Law School from 1984 to 1986. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1988 and to Professor in 2004. He was appointed Acting Dean for 2001-02 and served as Dean of the Faculty from 2002 to 2008.  From 1991 to 2001, he represented the riding of Saanich South as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, during which time he held numerous cabinet portfolios, including that of Attorney General. His major  fields of interest are constitutional law, civil liberties and democratic reform. He has written and lectured extensively on these topics.  The fellowship will begin in January 2010, and will enable Professor Petter to assist in the development of the Centre’s program of support for the study and teaching of issues relating to the social economy in its application and relevance to the University of Victoria Law community.

**Latest News Break***  Congratulations to Andrew Petter in his appointment as the President and Vice Chancellor at Simon Fraser University starting in September 2010. See SFU news release http://www.sfu.ca/pamr/media_releases/media_releases_archives/media_01191001.html

Congratulations to Andrew Petter.  His publication titled The Politics of the Charter: The Illusive Promise of Constitutional Rights is now available.  For more details visit: http://www.utppublishing.com/pubstore/merchant.ihtml?pid=10519&lastcatid=199&step=4 

 

 

Professor David Leach

David Leach has been awarded a University of Victoria Faculty Research Fellowship. Mr. Leach is an associate professor in the Department of Writing and director of its professional writing. He lived on a kibbutz in northern Israel before completing a B.A. and an M.A. in English from UVic and Queen’s respectively. Since graduation, David has worked in journalism as well as publishing in a wide variety of local and national magazines and newspapers, as well as publishing a major book of investigative non-fiction. His investigative writing has earned him several awards. David’s fellowship will also commence in January, and will be given to his current project, Look Back to Galilee: Searching for Utopia in a Divided Land, an investigation of transition from utopian idealism to market capitalism in the kibbutzim of modern Israel.

Visit David's Blog http://lookbacktogalilee.blogspot.com/ in recognition of Israel's kibbutz movement celebrating its 100th Anniversary.

David presented as a guest lecturer in Speaker Series guest on Thursday March 18th at 4 pm at the Bob Wright Centre.  For more information on this lecture visit http://www.bcics.org/content/look-back-galilee-what-can-century-kibbutz-life-teach-canadians-about-cooperation-and-commun


Other Lectures:
June 29, 2010      “Privatization Cinema: Representing Change in the Israeli Kibbutz.” Panel talk at International Communal Studies Association conference, Emek Yizreel College, Israel

Nov. 1, 2009      “The Kibbutz Movement, Privatization Cinema and HaZorea.” Talk and Q&A at Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.


National Magazine Award, nomination, Travel (June 2010), for “Danger:  This Park is Melting”, explore Magazine.

Awards:

Northern Lights Travel Writing Award, second prize, Best Magazine  Article, Canadian Tourism Commission (April 2010), for “Danger: This
Park is Melting”, explore Magazine.

Canada Council Grant, Professional Writing, (2010-11), for travel research on a book-length manuscript, Look Back to Galilee.

Internal Research Grant, University of Victoria, (2010-11), for travel research on a book-length manuscript, Look Back to Galilee.

Travel Grant, University of Victoria, (2010-11), to give a panel presentation at the International Communal Studies Association
quadrennial conference, June 28-30, 2010, Emek Yizreel College, Israel.

 

GRADUATE STUDENT FELLOWS

Eleanor Carlson

Eleanor Carlson was awarded a Graduate Student Fellowship, which began in September 2009. A graduate from the University of Alberta in Anthropology, Eleanor’s master’s thesis research involves an analysis of historical documentation gathered over 30 years by a local food bank on Vancouver Island.  Her research title is “You Eat What You Are: Constructions of Poverty and Responses to Hunger.”  Its objective is to investigate how shifting discourses, images, and constructions of poverty, specifically those pertaining to food insecurity, influence the policies and practices of providing food-relief at a prominent food bank in Victoria, British Columbia.
Eleanor presented her paper at the American Anthropology Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA on December 2, 2009.  She also presented at the University of Victoria Anthropology Colloquium on November 30th, 2009.

 

 

Nick Montgomery

Nick Montgomery, an MA student in the Department of Political Science and Cultural, Social and Political Thought at the University of Victoria, was also awarded a Graduate Student Fellowship effective in September.  Nick’s research is titled “A Critical Revaluation of Participatory Economies: Economy as Subjectivity,” and is focused on critical approaches to the study of social movements, and the transformation of social relations.  Co-operatives form an important part of this study, as his research focuses on the creation of alternatives to dominant social, political, and economic relationships. 

 

 

 

Michael Litchfield

Michael Litchfield holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Law from the University of British Columbia. He is a lawyer and management consultant with a varied background in corporate law, organizational management, and housing. Michael’s research is focused on the area of legal structuring for social enterprise in Canada. He was awarded a Graduate Student Fellowship effective January 2010.  Michael’s research is titled: In Search of the Middle Ground: Structuring Social Enterprise in Canada. He will be investigating the current patchwork of legal and regulatory regimes governing social enterprise in Canada and will be comparing these with social enterprise specific statutory models that have recently been adopted in other jurisdictions.
PROGRAM RESEARCH FELLOWS
Na'cha'uaht Cliff Atleo, Jr.
Cliff Atleo is a graduate of Political Science at the University of Victoria and currently pursuing his Master's degree in Indigenous Governance. He is researching Indigenous community-based economies, with a particular focus on examples from British Columbia. The context and locations are important, especially as we look to compare examples from different parts of the world as Indigenous peoples work to survive in an increasingly neoliberal globalized economy. His thesis research offers an Indigenous critique of Aboriginal economic development in Canada. He was awarded the University of Victoria’s President's Scholarship in 2006-2007 and an Indigenous Governance fellowship in 2008. His research interests are in Indigenous community resurgence, alternative Indigenous economies, and identity issues. 


Kim Hardy

Kim Hardy has earned a Master’s degree in Business specializing in Community Economic Development at Cape Breton University. Kim is a Community Economic 3Development Practitioner with research interests in co-operatives and co-operative economies. Kim has six years of experience working with First Nations development corporations and rural communities on community based economic development projects in BC and the Yukon. Originally from Vancouver Island, Kim spent three years living and working in the Yukon Territory. Here, she had the opportunity to work with many different communities in capacity building, co-operative development and local economic development planning processes. More recently, she completed a research project with Ecotrust Canada examining the opportunities to use the co-op model in coastal BC Aboriginal economies. To build upon this work, Kim has joined the Centre to conduct and support research on issues concerning Aboriginal peoples. Kim is working with the Centre to support a project proposal that aims to learn about the successes of the Arctic Co-ops and reflect upon how these successes can be applied to First Nations in BC.  The aim of the project is to bring together First Nations and Arctic Co-op leaders to share experiences and increase co-op development to meet community needs. Kim has been an active member of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network participating on the BC/Yukon Council and is currently contributing to Genuine Progress Indicators Pacific as a Board Member.


COMMUNITY RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS

Ashley Akins

Ashley Akins has been awarded a Community Research Fellowship. With this fellowship, Ashley plans to research how community-based enterprises and networks can assist in the preservation and revitalization of both traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and the social economy in impoverished indigenous communities.  Ashley is a 2009 graduate of UVic, majoring in environmental studies and Latin American studies. She was remarkably active as an undergraduate, becoming the founder and president of the Q’ente Textile Revitalization Society as well as the co-founder and director of Mosqoy: Sacred Valley Youth Fund, two sustainability projects based in the Andes region of Peru that have earned Ashley a number of awards and scholarships. Q’ente is a community network that provides a fair outlet through which to sell textiles while promoting traditional art and culture. Mosqoy provides post-secondary educational opportunities to impoverished youth of the Sacred Valley.  




Susan Anderson-Behn

Susan Anderson-Behn has been awarded a Community Research Fellowship. Susan has been a member of the First Nations Working group on Pacific Integrated Commercial Fishing Initiative (PICFIC) which is a federal government program. Currently, Susan’s fellowship at the Centre will be dedicated to working on a report which examines the disconnects between the PICFI criteria and the social/environmental/community economic criteria used by First Nations.  The purpose of the report is to clearly reflect both what the First Nations feel they need from the PICFI program and what the program can provide to address the First Nations values and needs in fisheries. She has been involved in First Nations fisheries exclusively since 1998, when she started working for Yale First Nations to establish their first Fishwheel Project. She was the Director, Treaty Negotiations, Resource Management and Environment for the BC Federation of Labour and was the first Chair of the Fisheries Committee of the Treaty Negotiations Advisory Committee advising both Federal and Provincial Government around the BC Treaty Process.