2021-2022 Laurentian University SSHRC Grant Recipients

Amount Awarded: $130,556 + $15,000 SPRI supplement

Dr. Kerry McGannon, Full Professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, was awarded a 2021 Insight Grant, from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for her project titled Expanding Understanding of Motherhood and Sport in Socio-Cultural Context: A Narrative Analysis of Stories in the Digital Landscape. Dr. McGannon and her co-investigators, Drs. Ann Pegoraro from the University of Guelph and Andrea Bundon from the University of British Columbia, are undertaking a critical exploration of digital media sources, in relation to motherhood and elite sport. 

A growing number of Canadian elite athlete mothers’ stories across multiple sports are gaining visibility in the media, as they navigate a sport career. Dr. McGannon and her research team are using narrative inquiry to understand and theorize digital media forms as mediums of human interaction, through which athlete mother identity meanings are (re)created in stories. During this three-year research project, they are seeking to 1) gain a contemporary understanding of digital media portrayals (i.e., news media, Instagram) of intersecting Canadian elite athlete mother identities (e.g., race, sexuality, age, (dis) ability), 2) explore the implications of these identity portrayals (e.g., psychosocial, behavioural, ideological) within digital stories, and 3) build capacity in digital literacy for stakeholders (e.g., academics, policy-makers) related to gender equity and women's sport from research findings. From these connections, new avenues (i.e., digital storytelling, narratives) can be opened for practical recommendations concerning gender equity and women's sports engagement.

This project was also awarded the Sport Participation Research Initiative supplement in 2022.

Awarded Amount: $296,936

Dr. Diana Coholic, Full Professor of Social Work in the School of Nursing and Allied Health Professions, is a recipient of a 2021 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant for her project entitled Investigating the Implementation of an Arts-Based Mindfulness Group Program in Elementary and Secondary Schools. With co-investigators Drs. Robert Schinke and Hoi Cheu of Laurentian University, and Dr. Mark Eys of Wilfrid Laurier University, Dr. Coholic will work with young people, their caregivers, and school systems, to assist youth to build resilience and wellbeing by helping them develop their capacities in mindfulness-based practices. 

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) in schools can help young people learn skills such as focus, non-judgment, and the healthy expression of feelings in order to improve emotion regulation and coping. It has been argued that MBIs in schools have great potential to improve educational and psychosocial outcomes for young people. 

Building on the past successes of their 12-week Holistic Arts-Based Program (HAP) for young marginalized people, the research team will study the benefits of HAP within school systems in cooperation with school boards across northeastern Ontario and beyond. The goal of this 3-year project is to study the benefits and effectiveness of HAP at school for young people, and also how teachers, school-based helping professionals, and caregivers experience learning about and/or facilitating the program. The team’s objectives are to:  

1. teach young people mindfulness skills & concepts that could lead to improved resilience including abilities to focus, cope, and engage in effective relationships;  

2. train teachers, social workers, early childhood educators and other school-based personnel in arts-based mindfulness methods, which may impact the resilience of school systems;

3. investigate the delivery processes and outcomes of different formats of HAP (traditional 12-week program, whole class format, imbedded in the curriculum); and, 

4. educate parents/guardians in arts-based mindfulness methods, which may reinforce the students’ learning and improve family systems. 

As of February 2022, HAP is being facilitated in elementary and high school classrooms within four school boards: Rainbow District School Board, Sudbury Catholic District School Board; Conseil scolaire public du Nord-Est de l’Ontario and Conseil scolaire catholique du Nouvel-Ontario.

Amount Awarded: $48,316

Dr. Amirmohsen Golmohammadi, Associate Professor in the School of Business Administration, received a 2021 Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for his project titled The Role of Government in Developing Successful Green Alliances. 

To mitigate the substantial investment costs of improving the sustainability of their operations and products, firms can form alliances with their competitors who are facing similar challenges. Government and non-profit organizations can help eliminate drawbacks associated with these alliances, such as high costs and conflicts, by investing in platforms that promote collaboration between firms, and by leading these alliances. During his two-year research project, Dr. Golmohammadi will study what factors make a government/NPO-­led alliance successful in terms of development and dissemination of green technology, and how governments can use these alliances alongside other mechanisms, particularly environmental standards and pollution taxes, to effectively improve firms’ sustainability.

Amount Awarded: $60,000

Shannon Bassett, Assistant Professor at the McEwen School of Architecture, received a 2021 Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for her project titled Reducing Risk, Raising Resilience: Recovering the Public Spaces of Shahjahanabad Through Participatory Conservation and Ecological Urbanism. With her collaborator, Associate Professor Anuradha Chaturvedi from the School of Planning & Architecture (SPA) in Delhi, who is also the current Chair of the of Architectural Conservation Department there, Professor Bassett’s project will address, through action-oriented design research, the issues currently being faced by Shahjahanabad, the old walled city of Delhi, which faces architectural decay and degradation, in addition to the ecological fragmentation of a once ecologically resilient urban fabric and cultural landscape, with its innovative and sustainable interconnected public space system(s).

Five study zones for priority contextual design interventions have been identified for this two-year project, representing a range of architectural and urban typologies. The research team will undertake mapping, 3-D scanning and drone documentation of heritage buildings and urban fabric through photogrammetry, as well as interviews. The overall goal will be to develop intervention solutions, in collaboration with partners and stakeholders, of an economically viable and feasible participatory model for up­gradation, through architectural and urban interventions and appropriate ecological and cultural landscape planning strategies that meet the contemporary needs of the diverse communities within the settlement. Professor Bassett also ran a Graduate Studio at the McEwen School of Architecture during the Fall 2021 for which this was the architecture and urban design project. MsoA graduate students in her Studio had the opportunity to work closely with both Professor Anuradha Chaturvedi, as well as Smita Datta Makhija, Architect and Partner at AVESANA, based in in New Delhi, as well as the current Chair of ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) India North Zone in New Delhi. Students also worked with GATE scholars from SPA Delhi. She will run a similar graduate studio in the Fall 2022 at the MsoA.

Amount Awarded: $73,273

Dr. Elia Eliev, Adjunct Professor in the School of Liberal Arts (former Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Thorneloe University), received a 2021 Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for his project titled Imagining Otherwise: Queer Futurities in Contemporary Art from Post­ Civil War Lebanon.

The research project investigates the many aspects regarding queerness and queer masculinities in Post-Civil War Lebanon. More specifically, it addresses the emerging and shifting visual representations of queer masculinities as they are artistically performed in a selection of contemporary photographic and video artworks. Informed by queer theories, decolonial theories, and critical race theories, Dr. Eliev will shed light on the use of aesthetics strategies that compellingly empower queer and gender-nonconforming individuals by using a cross-section of local strategies that operate in­between, rise beyond and even toy with stereotypes of gay men, essentialist imagery, and binary identifications. By doing so, the artists reimagine and open up a multiple and layered local model of queerness, which can enable agency within the larger LGBTQI+ community, while also considering the pressure points and concerns of a transnational language of queer.  

Amount Awarded: $33,456

Dr. Sara Torres, Associate Professor of Social Work in the School of Nursing and Allied Health Professions, received a 2022 Connection Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for a project titled Knowledge Mobilization Focusing on Protective Factors for Children's Welfare: The Case of Urban Indigenous, African Nova Scotian, and Immigrant and Refugee Communities. With this grant, Dr. Torres will disseminate the findings of a project that ended in 2021 which identified for the first time the support systems and strategies to strengthen the capacity of three communities (families from Urban Indigenous, African Nova Scotian, and immigrant and refugee populations) in the Halifax Regional Municipality to mobilize to prevent the entry or re-entry of children into state care.

During the year, Dr. Torres and her research team* will organize a series of interactive educational and outreach activities seeking to raise awareness and to foster dialogue between and within communities, with health and social services providers, policy-makers, and culturally specific organizations, on how to serve and engage with families and children. They also aim to identify strategies that will prevent further over-representation of Urban Indigenous, African Nova Scotian, and immigrant and refugee populations in state care in Nova Scotia. Activities will include community-specific forums and group meetings for hard-to-reach community members; public events and information tables at different locations for community members and organizations; and online and in-person webinars, community dialogues and guest lectures for social work and law students, social workers and policy-makers. 

*Research Team 

Co-investigators

Dr. Barbara Ann G. Hamilton-Hinch, Dalhousie University

Dr. Nancy M. Ross, Dalhousie University

Collaborators

Jemell Moriah, Nova Scotia Association of Black Social Workers

Naiomi Metallic, Dalhousie University

Wenche Gausdal, Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia

Winnifred Grant, Government of Nova Scotia

Awarded Amount: $24,986

Dr. Louis-Philippe Rochon, Full Professor of Economics in the School of Liberal Arts, and Editor-in-Chief of the Review of Political Economy, received a Connection Grant in 2021 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for his knowledge mobilization project titled Monetary Policy, Income and Wealth Distribution.

With this grant, Dr. Rochon is to organize a two-day workshop in partnership with the Young Scholars Initiative on the impact of monetary policy on both income and wealth inequality. During the workshop, speakers from six different countries will discuss the various ways in which monetary policy affects income distribution, through its various channels, both in the short and the longer term, as well as its impact on women and visible minorities. Participants are expected to come principally from economics, but also from sociology, anthropology, and from social sciences at large. 

Rochon is also a co-investigator on two other SSHRC-funded Connection projects. The first, with principal investigator Dr. Simon Tremblay-Pepin of Saint Paul University, was a workshop on the precise nature of fiscal, monetary and ecological policies in a post-pandemic world held in Montreal on February 16-17, 2022. The second will be a workshop on the economic challenges of economic growth, led by Principal Investigator Dr. Salewa Olawoye (Laurentian University alumna and Assistant Professor at York University), to be held July 12-15, 2022 at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Amount Awarded: $17,673

Dr. Tanya Shute, Assistant Professor of Social Work in the School of Nursing and Allied Health Professions, received a Partnership Engage Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in 2021 for her project titled Data Collection Practices in Consumer/Survivor Initiatives in Ontario. With this grant, Dr. Shute is working with the Ontario Peer Development Initiative (OPDI), the provincial association representing the Consumer/Survivor Initiatives (CSIs) sector, to assess the available data being collected by CSIs in Ontario and to improve their data collection. 

CSIs are consumer-operated mental health services, founded on mutual aid and empowerment, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care as complementary programs providing services that range from mental crisis supports to social /recreational activities. Dr. Shute and her collaborators (Dr. Laura Hall from Laurentian University and Drs. Celina Da Silva and Eva Peisachovich from York University) are working with OPDI to help them ascertain CSIs’ current data collection practices and types of data collected to see how practices can be improved and data can used to produce meaningful evidence of the effectiveness of CSIs. This research support will help inform OPDI’s decision-making as they look to make service improvements and apply for funding. Dr. Shute and her research team also intend on pursuing the subject area with further future research.