Gradzette The university of mANITOBA’S GRADUATE STUDENT Magazine November 2014
U-PASS referendum could signal new era of transportation
Gradzette THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA’S GRADUATE STUDENT MAGAZINE
November 2014
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Gradzette c/o The Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation 105 University Centre University of Manitoba Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2 General inquiries and advertising Phone: (204) 474.6535 Fax: (204) 474.7651 Email: editor@gradzette.com Editor: Ryan Harby Copy Editor: Bryce Hoye Designer: Marc Lagace Contributors: Leila Mostaço-Guidolin, Marc Lagace Cover: Ryan Harby
The Gradzette is the official student magazine of the University of Manitoba’s graduate student community and is published on the first Monday of each month by the Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation.
The Gradzette is a democratic student organization, open to participation from all students. It exists to serve its readers as students and citizens. The magazine’s primary mandate is to report fairly and objec¬tively on issues and events of importance and interest to the graduate students of the University of Manitoba, to provide an open forum for the free expression and If you have a passion for writing, jourexchange of opinions and ideas, and to stimulate meannalism, photography, or illustration ingful debate on issues that affect or would otherwise be the Gradzette is looking for individuof interest to the student body and/or society in general. als to get involved with the produc tion process of the U of M’s graduate The Gradzette serves as a training ground for students instudent paper. terested in any aspect of journalism. Students and other interested parties are invited to contribute. Please contact The Gradzette currently offers 10 the editor listed above for submission guidelines. cents per word for freelance articles, $7 per photo/graphic used, and $30 The Gradzette reserves the right to edit all submissions for images used on the cover. Freeand will not publish any material deemed by its editorilancers will be added to a contact al board to be discriminatory, racist, sexist, homophobic pool and emailed with potential aror libelous. Opinions expressed in letters and articles are ticle, photo, or graphic assignments solely those of the authors. when they become available. The Gradzette is a member of the Canadian University Interested applicants please send Press, a national student press cooperative with members your resume and at least two (2) refrom St. John’s to Victoria. cent work samples to editor@grad zette.com. All contents are ©2014 and may not be reprinted without the express written permission of the Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation.
Freelance
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November 2014
Understanding the Early Bronze Age in a more holistic way Researcher Profile: Jon Ross Leila Mostaço-Guidolin hat can relics of the past tell us about the thoughts and beliefs of the people who invented and used them?
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a view to undertaking research relating to the ceramic material being excavated.”
Ross has been involved with the Safi excavations for a number of years. Tell es-Safi was a Palestinian village. One of the largest pre-classical sites in the Levant, archaeological excavations reveal that the area had been inhabited since the 5th millennium BCE, continuously from late Prehistoric through Modern times.
A whole host of scientific analytical techniques are currently being deployed at Safi to investigate how the inhabitants of an early city, in the southern Levant, organized their space and daily lives. It is the first large scale excavation of an Early Bronze neighborhood that is systematically integrating all the specialist perspectives to analyze microscopic and macroscopic data.
Ross has been involved with the Safi excavations for Archaeology is a bit like putting together a puzzle that a number of years. Currently he and his colleagues has lots of missing pieces. And that is almost exactly are in the midst of excavating an Early Bronze Age what Jon Ross, a PhD student in the department of neighbourhood. anthropology at the University of Manitoba, has been “We have exposed several buildings and an alleyway,” doing during his studies. said Ross.
The Tell es-Safi/Gath (southern Israel) excavation project was recently awarded a large SSHRC grant by Ross’ specific role on the project is to explore how the Canadian government for the excavation of the ceramic production was originated at Tell es-Safi and Early Bronze Age remains. And that is how Ross got investigate the nature of craft specialization. involved with this project. “Considerable quantities of restorable pottery have “Prof. Greenfield from the anthropology department been unearthed, as well as various flint tools, and of the University of Manitoba was eager to take me on architectural features. Notable finds made this year board as a funded PhD student for the project, with included: a complete miniature votive juglet, nice
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examples of Canaanean blades, grinding stones, and light of the different spatial distribution patterns of a midden (rubbish pit) containing equid (donkey) production debris, tools, and facilities tied directly to manufacture. In the absence of direct evidence of remains and fish teeth,” said Ross. production, researchers are left to make inferences via But why is Ross so interested in pottery? the standardization hypothesis. “We are not interested in big palaces, monumental “According to the standardization hypothesis, the public buildings, and unusual exotic finds. There was presence of large numbers of highly standardized, a time when archaeology was really into that; now we homogeneous products (exhibiting little variation) is are interested in the ordinary and every day.” indicative of a single production group. Archaeologists Pottery was a significant invention historically, used have come up with different ways of measuring in the construction of lighting, cooking, and storing standardization, and variation, including various types food; for serving food and drink, transporting goods, of compositional analysis that measure the chemical and also for ritual purposes, to name a few. makeup of the ingredients used to make the artifacts.” By studying several aspects of the relics, archaeologists Having a fairly homogeneous product used or are able to understand specific aspects of the society. consumed across a large region is indicative of According to Ross, craft specialization is one concentrated (specialized) production, said Ross. important venue: “That is how craft production is usually studied, and “[Craft specialization] is where individual households it wholly focuses on the objects and the technology. no longer produce all the goods they consume. My goal is to reconstruct the production process, Producers are reliant on exchange relationships looking at each step in the manufacture sequence and outside of the household in order to maintain their questioning the choice of particular techniques, and subsistence. To put it simply, we are able to track tools.” differential participation in economic activities.” The object of Ross’ study is no longer narrowly Ross’ studies are novel because traditionally, research focused on the artifact, but the technical decisions on craft production and specialization focused on made by the potter during the process of manufacture the objects themselves and the associated purpose and the social networks they belonged to. they served, and may not have always been so “The aim is not only to explain how the technology focused on their place in the economies of the day. worked, but to explore how it fits into the wider Craft production is usually identified and studied in cultural context.”
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U-Pass
REFERENDUM RESULTS
From the desk of the cro
34%
v ote r t u r n ou t am ong gr adu at e st u den t s
59%
in f av ou r of GSA p ar t icipat ion i n t h e U-P ASS i n it iat iv e
Dear Graduate Students, We are pleased to announce that voting for the UPASS Referendum ended at 8:00 pm on Thursday, October 30, 2014 with an astonishing 34.2% of graduate students casting a vote – double the number of students who voted in the general election of 2014. We would like to thank everyone who participated in the Referendum. With 59% voting in favour of participating in the UPASS, UMGSA will begin conversations with City Hall to move this mandate forward. Joseph Dipple and Karalyn Dokurno Fort Garry Chief Returning Officers University of Manitoba Graduate Students’ Association
“On lin e voti ng w as ex t remel y v alu abl e to in cr ease me mb er par t icipati o n,” said UMGSA pr esident, Lau r a Rempel . “Th e r e sul ts of [ UMGSA ’s] r efer en dum wi l l be t h e si g na l to cit y h all whethe r w e w ill wa nt to par t icipate i n the f u t u r e or no t.” Information courtesy of UMGSA
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From right to left: Shawna Ferris, James Blanchard and Nahanni Fontaine
Photos by Marc Lagace
“Giving the Red Light the Green Light” Visionary Conversations series looks at legalizing prostitution in Canada Marc Lagace
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he issue of legalizing prostitution in Canada was the latest topic discussed as part of the University of Manitoba’s Visionary Conversations speaker series.
department of women’s and gender studies. Ferris, the author of Street Sex Work and Canadian Cities: Resisting a Dangerous Order, is researching and teaching in the areas of sex work/prostitution, decolonization, and violence against women. She is currently working to develop three related digital archives: the Sex Work Database, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Database, and the Post-apology Indian Residential School Database.
The open panel discussion topic, titled “Giving the Red Light the Green Light – Would Legalizing Prostitution Change Canada?” came about in the aftermath of a 2013 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that struck down the country’s anti-prostitution laws. The outcome of the ruling put pressure on Nahanni Fontaine is the special advisor on parliament to re-examine how prostitution is aboriginal women’s issues for the province, with a particular focus on missing and murdered aboriginal legislated in Canada by the end of this 2014. women and girls. Fontaine has served the aboriginal The discussion was held on campus at the Robert B. community regionally, provincially, nationally and Schultz Theatre in St. John’s College on October 15, and was moderated by U of M president and vice- internationally on various boards and committees, including the United Nations Working Group on chancellor Dr. David Barnard. The panel included the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous three experts who shared their specific professional Peoples. Fontaine is Ojibwa, from the Sagkeeng First viewpoints with the audience. Nation in southern Manitoba. James Blanchard, a professor in the faculty of health The format of the discussion allowed each speaker sciences and the director of the Centre for Global roughly 10 minutes to address the impact that Public Health within the faculty of medicine, prostitution legalization in Canada might have, provided leadership over the past fifteen years for the based on their particular fields of study. From there, design and implication of public health programs related to sexual disease and reproductive health in the floor was opened to the audience for a question and answer session that lasted roughly an hour. India and other countries in Asia and Africa. Blanchard spoke first, and while he admitted outright Shawna Ferris is an assistant professor in the 6
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that he lacks experience with the sex trade in Canada, overview of “whore stigma” and “the role that it has he outlined a sketch of his experiences overseas in preventing us from having evidence-based policy working with women who engage in sex work. and laws around sex workers in this country.” In December of 2013, the Supreme Court struck “Sex work is illegal in every country in which down laws that banned street soliciting, brothels and our sector has worked,” said Blanchard. “In each people living off the avails of prostitution. circumstance, the illegality increases the risk and “These laws were struck down because the Supreme vulnerability of women in sex work.” Court deemed them unconstitutional in that they Workers in these countries are forced into dangerous prohibited sex workers from protecting themselves situations and often sought out pimps to protect them —safety and security of the person was one of the from the police, said Blanchard. He argued that we major proponents of that case,” said Ferris. need to ensure laws focus on protecting sex workers. The House of Commons has drafted Bill C-36, an “The standards for assessing laws concerning amendment to the Criminal Code that is now before prostitution should be clear: will this protect or the Senate. The bill seeks to once again criminalize the purchase of sexual services, prohibiting anyone endanger women in sex work,” said Blanchard. from “materially benefiting from another person’s He used a program in India that seeks to provide sex work,” as well as sex workers ability to advertise, a range of health and social benefits for every sex publicly negotiate or work indoors. worker as an example of something we lack here in “Bill C-36, in short, is not a protective law,” said Canada. Ferris. “It constitutes a more draconian approach to “Canada can and must do better,” said Blanchard. prostitution than the laws that were already struck “A supportive legal environment is necessary, but down, and is a more draconian approach than we not sufficient. Better support for community- have ever seen to prostitution in Canada.” based organizations who are focused on supporting Ferris attributed the attitudes shown toward sex women in sex work would show that Canadians and workers to the stigma associated with prostitution our government have a true concern for their well in Canada, which results in “severe fear or hatred being.” or loathing of sex workers, or the so-called sexually Next, Ferris spoke about the laws the Supreme transgressive.” Court struck down, the new prostitution-related “Whore stigma—or whorophobia—is a special laws the government is proposing, and provided an
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disgust that is reserved specifically for people who conscious, methodical and strategic choice to prey engage in prostitution,” said Ferris upon and sexually assault—or rape—the most “And, as many of us in the room will also know, marginalized, disadvantaged and oppressed women it’s also reserved for just about any woman who in our society. All the while justifying to himself with transgresses any of the various number of sexual the ridiculous mythologies on why these women or girls are prostituting themselves.” restrictions on women in this society.” The most controversial speaker was saved for last. Fontaine focused her time on the specific impact that colonialization had, and continues to have, on all indigenous populations — but especially indigenous women and girls.
“Legalization would only further forcibly situate indigenous women and girls within the savagely violent space in which many indigenous women and girls go missing and/or murdered” – Nahanni Fontaine “In these lands—these indigenous lands — prostitution did not exist within our territories prior to contact,” said Fontaine.
Fontaine argued against the legalization of prostitution in Canada, stating the sexual exploitation of indigenous women and girls is “predicated upon the Canadian colonial experiment” and related to a “colonial legacy of poverty, cultural and traditional disconnect, lack of access of opportunities for education, healthcare and housing.” “Legalization would only further forcibly situate indigenous women and girls within the savagely violent space in which many indigenous women and girls go missing and/or murdered,” said Fontaine. “Where indigenous women and girls are regarded as less than.” Fontaine’s hardline stance against legalization struck a nerve with many of the people in attendance, including former UMSU representatives Steven Stairs and Amanda McMullan, and one active sex worker who voiced her opinions on a woman’s choice to engage in prostitution. It was also noted that the panel would have greatly benefitted by the inclusion of someone engaged or formerly engaged in the sex trade industry.
The full session, including audience questions, can “Prostitution was not something intrinsic to be found on YouTube. indigenous peoples ways of being, or understanding. In fact, there was nothing in indigenous languages to The Visionary Conversations series began in 2011 as a way for University of Manitoba researchers denote the concept or exercise of prostitution.” and distinguished alumni to bring the University Fontaine argued that the illusion that women choose community and public at large together for discussions to engage in sex work is accomplished by “positioning on issues that affect our world. prostitution as a legitimate and longstanding human The next talk scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 26, is “A or male right and experience.” Culture of Conflict — What Have We Learned About “The narrative of choice circumvents womens’ or War?” The discussion will once again be held at the girls’ lack of choice and the push and pull factors Robert B. Schultz Theatre in St. John’s College and, as from which their exploitation derives themselves,” always, is open to the public. said Fontaine. “The only people who exercise choice are the predators, offenders and pedophiles who make a
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