Canadian Studies Announcements

Spring Events Update:

Special Video Colloquium and Live Q&A, March 23/24

feat. Dr. Rebecca Wallace, Queen’s University

In compliance with public health directives, Canadian Studies has cancelled all in-person events until further notice. However, we are pleased to announce a pilot two-part online lecture next week, featuring our second postdoctoral finalist, Dr. Rebecca Wallace.

On Monday, March 23, you will receive an email with two links. The first will contain a recording of Dr. Wallace’s talk, which you will be able to watch on demand. We then invite you to use the second link on Tuesday, March 24, to join us for a live Q&A with Dr. Wallace regarding her research. We request that you view the recorded lecture before engaging in the Q&A.

Please note there is no colloquium tomorrow, March 17.

Further details on the talk are below; please contact us if you have any questions about this format or technical concerns.

Framing Deservingness in Canadian News Media

Dr. Rebecca Wallace, Queen’s University

Lecture | March 23 | Online

Live Q&A | March 24 | 12:30 p.m. | Online

Research on the framing of social assistance in Canadian media suggests that news coverage is “race-coded”, whereby Indigenous and immigrant welfare recipients are frequently portrayed as more or less deserving than non-Indigenous, native-born Canadians across a number of deservingness criteria. What are the effects of these frames on public opinion toward social assistance recipients, and support for redistribution more generally? And how do these frame effects potentially differ based on the recipients’ assumed race or country of origin?

This presentation reports the results of a custom-designed framing experiment that aims to understand how news frames affect attitudes toward Indigenous and immigrant recipients of welfare. The findings indicate that while the frames can have a significant impact on perceptions of recipients’ deservingness, the effects are conditioned by the beneficiaries’ identity as an Indigenous or immigrant recipient. Results, implications, and future research will be discussed.

Rebecca Wallace received her Ph.D. in political studies at Queen’s University. She holds a B.A.H. (with distinction) and an M.A. in political studies from the same institution. Rebecca’s research focuses on Canadian politics, broadly examining welfare chauvinism toward different racial minority groups and its manifestation in Canadian news media. Rebecca is a doctoral fellow at the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations and a research assistant for the Canadian Opinion Research Archive, and held a Joseph Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (2016-2019).

Big Give Results: Our Best Year Yet!

The numbers are in! Thanks to your efforts, Canadian Studies raised an amazing $54,205 in gifts and pledges from 34 donors. That’s money that will be used to support student research, host public lectures with leading experts, and promote cultural and academic exchange between Berkeley and Canada. We want to thank each and every one of you for your participation. Your support is the foundation of our continued excellence – we couldn’t do it without you!

Former Canadian Studies Speaker Dr. Michael Benarroch Named President of University of Manitoba

Canadian Studies sends our warm wishes to Dr. Michael Benarroch, who was recently named the 12th president of the University of Manitoba. Dr. Benarroch gave a colloquium at Berkeley in 2013 entitled “Weathering the Global Financial Crisis: The Canadian Experience”, where he explained how Canada avoided the sub-prime crisis in 2008.

Dr. Benarroch is an economist specializing in international trade and development economics. He has held leadership posts at several universities, most recently as provost and vice-president at Ryerson University in Toronto and as dean of the Asper School of Business at Manitoba.

For more information, please see the full UM press release.

Other Bay Area Events Cancelled

As part of the shelter-in-place order issued by the Bay Area regional authorities, all nonessential gatherings are now banned. Events which were previously advertised in this newsletter may have been affected; please contact the official event host if you have any questions.

Canadian Studies Program

213 Moses Hall #2308 WEBSITE | EMAIL

Special Colloquium Lecture:

Meet Our Postdoctoral Finalists!

As part of our mission to advance cutting-edge research on Canada, the Canadian Studies Program is excited to announce that we are close to hiring our first-ever full-time postdoctoral scholar. In a special invitation to our friends and supporters, we invite you to meet the first of our two finalists at a presentation next Tuesday, March 10.

Shared Heuristics: How Organizational Culture Shapes Asylum Policy, feat. Dr. Nicholas Fraser

Lecture | March 10 | 12:30 p.m. | 223 Moses Hall

What explains cross-national variation in asylum recognition rates? Refugee policy is unique in that it is the only form of migration policy that is codified into international law. Moreover, the United Nations High Commissioner actively monitors and guides implementation across the world. However, in many countries, bureaucratic agencies dominate the quasi-judicial process through which asylum-seekers are granted protective status.

Using a mixed methods approach that includes interviews with bureaucrats and refugee advocates in a variety of western and non-western developed countries, Dr. Fraser places Canadian asylum policy in a comparative perspective. Challenging conventional political science explanations of asylum policy that focus on international norms, party politics, or institutional rules, he shows that how bureaucratic culture accounts for patterns of very high or low recognition rates in jurisdictions where decision-makers enjoy a high degree of autonomy.

Nicholas A. R. Fraser recently completed his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Toronto, specializing in comparative politics and public policy. He holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Calgary, as well as M.A.s in political science from the University of British Columbia and Waseda University. His research has been funded by various research grants, including the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship.

Save the date – our second finalist presents Tuesday, March 17.

Don’t Forget: Big Give is next Thursday!

The Big Give, Berkeley’s annual day of giving, is almost here. On March 12, we hope you’ll show your support for Canadian Studies by making a gift of any size online. Your gift could help us win thousands of dollars in special contest prizes – at no extra cost to you!

You’ll get an email from us tomorrow with more details, but you can click here for a preview of the contests. We hope you’ll join us then!

Canadian Studies Program

213 Moses Hall #2308 WEBSITE | EMAIL

Canadian Studies Announcements

Next Week: Knowledge Borders: Temporary Labor Mobility and the Canada–US Border Region, feat. Prof. Kathrine Richardson

Lecture | March 3 | 12:30 p.m. | 223 Moses Hall

Key elements of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) deal with temporary labor mobility, and should ideally make the temporary movement of professionals easier across the border of all NAFTA countries. However, this is arguably not the case in emerging sectors such as high technology. Dr. Richardson’s book, Knowledge Borders: Temporary Labor Mobility and the Canada-US Border Region, examines the movement of technology professionals across the Canada-U.S. border, focusing on Vancouver, Seattle, and the San Francisco Bay Area. It asks whether current policy is an impediment to the development of high-tech clusters, and presents new models and policy approaches for the development of an innovation cross-border region.

Kathrine E. Richardson is an associate professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at San José State University. Her research specializes in the mobility and retention of highly skilled professionals, and how they influence the development of urban systems. She received her Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia in 2006, and did a post-doc at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. In addition to teaching, Dr. Richardson is currently working on her second book.

Plus: Two Additional Talks Coming March 10 & 17!

We’re excited to announce that Canadian Studies will be adding two special lectures to our colloquium in March, featuring the two finalists for our postdoctoral competition. We’ll be sending out a special announcement soon, so stay tuned for more information!

March 12: Get Ready to Give Big!

The Big Give, Berkeley’s annual day of giving, is approaching fast. On March 12, show your support for Canadian Studies by giving a gift of any size online. And this year, your gift could help us win thousands of dollars in special contest prizes – at no extra cost to you!

Want to learn more? We’ll follow up with how you can help as the big day gets closer, but you can click here for a preview of the contests. We hope you’ll join us then!

Cosponsored Event: Register for Housing Justice Conference at UC Berkeley, March 13-15

NOTICE: Please do not forward this invitation or otherwise share it. Attendance is limited and we’d like to privilege participation among community organizers, policymakers, students and faculty in sponsoring departments, and those actively working issues of housing justice.

We are excited to open up registration for attending “Power at the Margins II: Mobilizing Across Housing Injustice.” The gathering will bring together over 140 scholars and community organizers working on issues of housing justice from across the Bay Area, US, and other countries in discussion across 25 sessions.

Seeking a change in the current scenario where academia, activists, and practitioners perform separately, our goal is to create a dedicated space for all who engage in work at the margins of traditional housing to come together. Sessions will address a range of issues including:

· Defending and expanding affordable housing

· Legal, civil, and human rights struggles of housing and homelessness

· Intersections and alliances between housing justice and other movements including labor, health, environmental, gender, and racial justice.

· Solidarity, lessons, and collaborations between academia and community organizing

The event will take place at Wurster Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. The gathering will commence with a plenary panel “Defending Housing” Friday, March 13 5:30 – 7pm. It will then continue with full days of sessions on Saturday and conclude Sunday, March 15 at 1:30pm. For the schedule and list of panels and participants click here.

Registration is free, but limited. We encourage you to register ASAP to secure a spot. Registration is for the full day of sessions on Saturday and/or Sunday. We hope you will be able to join for both. The Friday evening plenary does not require registration and is open to the public. Click here to register!

Event Report: Mental Health and Refugees: The Eritrean Case

Earlier this month, our friends at the Center for African Studies organized a great event on mental health care for Eritrean refugees in Canada. The event, “Mental Health and Refugees: The Eritrean Case”, was co-sponsored by the Canadian Studies Program, and featured Yohannes Ferdinado Drar, a social worker at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Center.

Mr. Drar spoke about his work with Eritrean refugees in Canada, and the particular challenges they face. The event attracted a diverse audience of over 60 people, including students, faculty, and members of the local Eritrean community. It generated a lively discussion, and attendees offered many insightful questions and comments. Students showed particularly high interest in the subject.

The event also introduced many to the beauty of Eritrean culture, as attendees were treated to a coffee ceremony including traditional coffee, himbasha (Eritrean soft bread) and popcorn.

Events From Our Friends at the Canadian Consulate

March 3: Vishtèn at Freight & Salvage

Musical performance | 8:00 p.m.

Freight & Salvage, 2020 Addison St, Berkeley

For close to fifteen years, the Acadian trio Vishtèn has dazzled audiences with its fiery blend of traditional French songs and original instrumentals that fuse Celtic and Acadian genres with a modern rock sensibility and indie-folk influences. Lauded as “traditional but fiercely up-to-the-moment” (Penguin Eggs), this band from Canada’s east coast has been recognized as an ambassador of Francophone culture around the world.

Click here for tickets and more information.

March 24: Techplomacy: Global Leaders Wrestling with Big Tech

Panel discussion | 6:00 p.m. | Manny’s, 3092 16th St, San Francisco

The effects of unchecked technology growth have become apparent in the wake of major political events, privacy breaches, and social transformations. We need to make sure that our democracy sets boundaries for the tech industry—and not the other way around.

In a town hall-style panel discussion, techplomacy leaders from Canada, Switzerland, and Denmark will be available to answer questions and take suggestions about how governments can (or should) use tech policy to shape the future of our societies.

Click here for tickets and more information.

Canadian Studies Program

213 Moses Hall #2308 WEBSITE | EMAIL