Vancouver

Materialities, moving images and the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games

by Angela Piccini

“Kink, Pot, and Sushi: On Representing Vancouver in Bruce Sweeney's Films,” in World Film Locations: Vancouver, ed. Rachel Walls. Bristol, UK: Intellect, Limited (forthcoming 2012).

by Ger Zielinski

Social Justice and Video: Imagining as a Right in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

by Jessica Hallenbeck

Parks and Nature Places Around Vancouver

by Anny Schaefer

Co-authored with Valentin Schaefer and other naturalists from Nature Vancouver; chapters in a book

The Derelict, the Deserving Poor, and the Lumpen: A History of the Politics of Representation in the Downtown Eastside

by Jesse Proudfoot

(2011) In Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971. Stan Douglas. Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press.

Immediately to the left of Stan Douglas’s photo-mural Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971, a series of portraits and... more Immediately to the left of Stan Douglas’s photo-mural Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971, a series of portraits and quotations proposes an interpretation of the Woodward’s site and its historical significance. Adorning the entrance to one of the chain stores, they depict local residents and their answers to questions such as, “What do you think of the changes going on in the area?” and “What do you think about the Woodward’s development?” Considering that the piece was created by the developers, it is unsurprising that it offers a sunny interpretation. The carefully chosen faces of marginalized Downtown Eastside residents, new middle-class arrivals, and community leaders all speak of the positive impacts of the new development and the ongoing gentrification of the neighbourhood. Couched in the language of “social mix,” their quotations extol the virtues of “diversity,” misleadingly implying that the Downtown Eastside—one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in the city—somehow lacked diversity in the past. The quotes trumpet the social housing component of Woodward’s, even though the number of housing units is a fraction of what community groups argued was necessary. And they make fallacious claims that the new businesses are employing Downtown Eastside residents and helping them to “get off the streets”—as if the problem of poverty in the Downtown Eastside was the result of too few minimum-wage jobs. Writing on Douglas’s piece in the Walrus, Leigh Kamping-Carder remarks that real-estate developers often forget that neighbourhoods like the Downtown Eastside are palimpsests—spaces continuously written over by different social groups throughout their history. Pace Kamping-Carder, what texts like those described in the previous paragraph suggest is that developers are in fact acutely aware of the histories of the places they seek to remake, at least insofar as it helps them sell condominiums. (...)

Interviewing Enjoyment, or the Limits of Discourse

by Jesse Proudfoot

(2010) The Professional Geographer 62, 4. Pp. 507—518.

This article addresses how psychoanalytic methodologies can be used to conduct and analyze semistructured interviews.... more This article addresses how psychoanalytic methodologies can be used to conduct and analyze semistructured interviews. Drawing on my work as a research assistant during the summer of 2006, I discuss the process of interviewing soccer fans who attended televised broadcasts of the FIFA World Cup soccer matches in cafe ́s in Vancouver, British Columbia. The research examined the emotional geographies of nationalism and consumption using the Lacanian psychoanalytic concept of enjoyment. Reflecting on the intersubjective and embodied dimensions of the interview process, this article discusses the difficulties of capturing and conveying interviewees’ enjoyment. Specifically, I explore how enjoyment, which is partially extradiscursive, disappears when articulated and represented through speech. I assert that psychoanalytic attempts to methodologically grasp enjoyment must be attentive to not only how subjects represent their enjoyment through discourse but also to their tears, ecstatic chanting, and celebration; that is, to the enactment of enjoyment itself.

COMMUNICATIVE REGIONALISM AND METROPOLITAN GROWTH MANAGEMENT OUTCOMES A CASE STUDY OF THREE EMPLOYMENT NODES IN BURNABY …

by Laura Tate

Review of Adrienne Burk's "Speaking for a Long Time: Public Space and Social Memory in Vancouver"

by David Hugill

BC Studies

Pro-Sports, Anti-Olympics: Reclaiming the games, from the Games

by Tyler Shipley

Shipley, Tyler.  "Pro-Sports, Anti-Olympics: Reclaiming the games, from the Games," The Bullet, No. 314, Feb 13, 2010.  (also available at ZNet.)

Intertextuality, the referential illusion and the production of a gay ghetto

by Vincent Miller

Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 6, No. 1, February 2005

This paper challenges Lefebvre’s distinction between Representations of Space and Spaces of Representation. Most... more This paper challenges Lefebvre’s distinction between Representations of Space and Spaces of Representation. Most current work in this area has assumed modernist conceptions of power, thereby interpreting representations of space (conceived space) as the property of the powerful who alone possess the ability to abstract space for their particular ends. Contrary to Lefebvre, I suggest that representation and abstraction are not the agents of state capitalism alone but are also manifested in ‘counter’ discourses. As an example of a ‘counter discourse’ I draw upon a series of editorial articles written in a local gay-oriented newspaper about a gay enclave in Vancouver, Canada. I argue that these depictions cloud the distinctions as practised between conception, abstraction and the imaginary in urban space. They also serve to promote one interpretation of space above others, and in that sense they colonize the experience of everyday life in their own way. The act of ‘speaking for’ presupposes a certain power, and in these cases, highlights the fact that the power of representation and abstraction does not only occur at the state or ‘system’ level. I suggest that by overcoming the assumption of a zero-sum ontology of power, one can see how a variety of agents in the urban context engage in the attempt to carve out their ‘own’ spaces of stability in the urban social imaginary.

Key words: space, representation, power, newspapers, gay space, Lefebvre.

Listening Eyes

by Jaleen Grove

Artwork and artist's statement published in Visual Communication Quarterly

The relevance of Alinsky? Hong Kong in 1970s and 2000s versus Vancouver in 1970s

by Kit Lam

Community Development Journal, 2011; doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsq060

Hong Kong sees a new wave of community organization and resistance brought by urban redevelopment and social work... more Hong Kong sees a new wave of community organization and resistance brought by urban redevelopment and social work reform after 2003. Its goals resemble that of anti-urban redevelopment community organizing in Vancouver in the 1970s. Yet the community organizers and residents painstakingly opt for unprecedented professional means. This strategy works exceptionally well to achieve Alinsky's original goals. This article compares these scenarios to analyse the considerations and effectiveness of this new strategy.