Territoire et actions collectives atikamekw nehirowisiwok dans l'espace médiatique québécois: légitimité politique ou persistance d'une vision coloniale?

The reception by the media of Indigenous peoples' political actions raises the issues of the discourses and representations at work in the public space. This paper examines how the Atikamekw Nehirowisiw Nation, their territorialities and political actions are represented by French‐speaking written media in Quebec. What are the discourses mobilized to apprehend the issues related to their land claims and contestation? By mobilizing a corpus of newspapers' articles published between 2000 and 2015, this study underlines the coexistence of opposed discourses. On the one hand, a colonial conception remains, reinterpreting the legal and historical legitimacy of the Atikamekw occupation and claims on the territory. On the other hand, the presence and reproduction, particularly through the words of Indigenous leaders, of an accommodating discourse towards Atikamekw's political actions cannot be ignored. The cohabitation between these two discourses highlights different sets of representations, emphasizing the ongoing colonial imaginaries in Quebec.     

Supporting food security for Indigenous families through the restoration of Indigenous foodways

Indigenous families are overrepresented among those within Canada who experience food insecurity. Studies have largely focused on northern populations, with less attention paid to southern and urban communities, including the social, cultural, and geographic processes that challenge food security. In this study, we present findings from a decade‐long community‐based study with the Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Centre (London, Ontario) to examine family perspectives related to the social determinants of food security. These topics were explored through qualitative interviews (n = 25) and focus groups (n = 2) with First Nation mothers with young children from the city of London, and a nearby reserve community. Interviewees from both geographies identified a number of socio‐economic challenges including household income and transportation. However, some interviewees also shed light on barriers to healthy eating unique to these Indigenous contexts including access issues such as a lack of grocery stores on‐reserve; loss of knowledge related to the utilization of traditional foods; and the erosion of community, familial, and social supports. Resolving these unique determinants of food security for urban and reserve‐based First Nation families will require a range of economic and culturally specific interventions, particularly those that support development and uptake of Indigenous foodways.     

Legacy databases and GIS: a discussion of the issues illustrated by a case study of archaeological site data from southeast Alberta,Canada

Many institutions and agencies are currently faced with the issue of geographic information systems‐enabling legacy databases. The problems can be acute for data sets that have been compiled through many years, using different standards and levels of recording. To explore these issues further, we report on a data quality assessment undertaken in 2002 for a subset of the archaeological site database of the province of Alberta, Canada. Our work shows that positional ambiguities in the data set can be highlighted and corrected by relatively straightforward procedures. This case study also provides an indication of the amount of work effort that will be involved in validating or ‘cleaning up’ data sets so model results and analyses undertaken with them are more reliable.     

Travelling down the road to postdisciplinarity? Reflections of a tourism geographer

Like many other forms of scholarship in geography, tourism geography has evolved as a distinct subfield of inquiry within the discipline, although the contributions of tourism geographers are perhaps more readily acknowledged in the multidisciplinary realm of tourism studies. I trace the evolving relationship of tourism geography to both the discipline of geography and to the field of tourism studies. In doing so, I reflect on such influences as the role of institutions, paradigm shifts, technology, and other factors that affect the creation and management of geographic knowledge in the twenty‐first century. The intent of this article is two‐fold: first, to appeal to geographers for greater recognition of the importance of tourism as a quintessential component of geographic study that in today's world warrants integration into core aspects of geographic enquiry; second, to use current debates within both tourism studies and geography to reflect on issues of disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and even postdisciplinarity.     

Step lightly,then move forward: exploring feminist directions for northern research

I discuss the methodological challenges that research with Aboriginal women poses in historical geography, especially in Northern Canada. Drawing a parallel between historical geography and contemporary Northern studies, I explore how the predominance of climate change as a framework for funding Arctic research creates an environment where women's specific ways of knowing and connecting with the land are not adequately captured. A gender approach that is sensitive to the issues women face in their communities reveals that their experience of climate change, as well as the concerns they have about it, are inseparable from the other economic and social issues they face. I argue for the development of a feminist research agenda in the North that allows Aboriginal partners to locate themselves in the frameworks that are constructed for producing knowledge. At times letting the project ‘fail’ may be the surest way to enable the emergence of a locally‐driven agenda that addresses the present and future needs of Northern Aboriginal Peoples.     

From interdisciplinary to inter‐epistemological approaches: Confronting the challenges of integrated climate change research

Spurred by the literature on climate change and its calls for undertaking holistic research that more fully integrates the work of biophysical and social scientists, this article responds to the question: To what extent has climate change research in Canada embraced and been guided by the theories and tenets associated with interdisciplinarity and to what extent have integrated approaches been sensitive to cross‐cultural perspectives? It provides an overview of some of the epistemological issues raised in the interdisciplinarity literature that particularly impact research development and design. Furthermore, since much of the climate change literature that claims to be integrated or interdisciplinary draws from Indigenous Knowledge (IK), additional insights are provided from this perspective. The article develops a framework that can be used to undertake and/or evaluate research in a way that acknowledges “upstream” epistemological issues. The framework is then used to evaluate a comprehensive database (n = 282) of Canadian climate change articles. It is argued that an interdisciplinary approach adds a critical voice to the literature on integrated climate change research and is valuable because of its focus on epistemology and methodology. The article advocates the creation of a space for inter‐epistemological acknowledgement in which the academy develops an ethos of self‐reflection, while simultaneously respecting and integrating parallel knowledge frameworks, such as IK.     

The folding of sport space into carceral space: On the making of prisoners’ experiences and lives

Sport and exercise are prominent activities in the daily routines of prisoners around the world, yet the spatial significance of these activities in carceral environments has not been deeply investigated. With a focus on the experiences of former federal prisoners in Canada, this paper addresses this scholarly gap by bringing together emerging trends in the literatures on sociology of sport, sports geography, and carceral geography to investigate the complex social meanings of prison sport and exercise. Specifically, we explore the folding of sports space into carceral space, often with the effect of reinforcing violent and exclusionary situations, but which also helps construct alternative spatial and temporal realities. Indeed, our overarching theoretical analysis considers how prisoners use sport to produce space in ways that assert a limited degree of agency over their daily lives and temporarily transcend their unpleasant conditions of confinement. By drawing from diverse theoretical frameworks and literatures, we advance novel arguments about the socio‐spatial significance of sport in prisons and raise some important questions for further research.     

Les victimes d’avalanche au Québec entre 1825 et 2009

Fatal avalanche accidents in Québec (Canada) 1825 to 2009 Archival research, coroner's investigations, and newspaper searches reveal the occurrence of 43 deadly snow avalanches in Québec since 1825. Historical records indicate 73 fatalities and more than 50 injuries. Sixty percent of the victims were younger than 20 years old. More than 50 percent of the victims (38 fatalities in 12 incidents) were inside or near a residential building, usually their home, mainly in the cities of Québec and Lévis. The second‐most deadly category is recreational activities, with over 24 deaths in 20 accidents. Most of these deadly incidents occurred on very short slopes (<70 metres of relief) outside mountainous areas. Only five fatalities were related to backcountry recreational activities in highlands. The inventory of avalanche‐threatened areas has never been completed in the Province of Québec and it is likely that avalanche‐prone areas are more widespread than previously thought.     

Intellectual property and the licensing of Canadian government geospatial data: an examination of GeoConnections' recommendations for best practices and template licences

In Canada, Crown copyright permits government to assert control over its works. These Crown rights have often been justified on the basis that government must assert intellectual property rights so as to be better able to control the accuracy, integrity and quality of any information that reaches the public through Crown works. In this article, the authors examine GeoConnections' template agreements for the licensing of government geographic data. They argue that not only is the basis and scope of claims to intellectual property rights uncertain, the objectives of quality control, data integrity and accuracy do not appear to motivate the licence terms. The uncertainty as to the legal basis of the intellectual property claims is significant, as licences of this kind may give support to otherwise weak downstream claims by third parties to copyright in data products generated through the use of geographic data provided by the Crown.     

Are new patterns of low‐income distribution emerging in Canadian metropolitan areas?

Recent studies on urban poverty in Canadian cities suggest a growing spatial concentration of poor populations within metropolitan regions. This article assesses trends in the intra‐urban distribution of the poor population from 1986 to 2006 in eight of Canada's largest cities. We consider five well‐known dimensions of segregation, as identified by Massey and Denton (1988) , in order to examine changes in the spatial distribution of poor populations within metropolitan areas: evenness, exposure, concentration, clustering, and centralization. These indices were calculated for low‐income populations at the census tract level using data from five Canadian censuses. Although each metropolitan area has distinctive characteristics, we were able to identify some general trends. The results suggest that, in 2006 compared to 1986, low‐income populations lived in more spatially concentrated areas, which were, at the same time, socioeconomically more homogeneous and more dispersed throughout the metropolitan area. In addition, we observed that over the last twenty years areas of poverty have been located, for the most part, in neighbourhoods adjacent to downtown cores. Nevertheless, we found that poverty has mostly increased in suburban areas located outside inner‐city neighbourhoods. Growing socioeconomic homogeneity and dispersion of low income areas in metropolitan areas reveal new spatial patterns of urban poverty distribution. These findings should be cause for concern as social isolation in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods could affect the life chances and opportunities for the residents of those areas.     

Kinds of environments—a framework for reflecting on the possible contours of a better world

One of the significant developments in the interdisciplinary field of judgment and decision making is the classification of environments as a function of (a) their capacity to enable people to learn from experience (kind environments vs. wicked environments) and (b) the consequences of having failed to understand and adapt to them (exacting environments vs. lenient environments). Based on the premise that ‘environment’ is a key geographical concept, I explore the usefulness of appropriating these classifications in geography and argue that they can stimulate normative work on the possible contours of a better world as well as illuminate in novel ways long‐standing geographical concerns with the problematic of fairness.     

Electoral redistricting and minority political representation in Canada and the United States

This article compares the political representation of visible minorities in Canada and the United States, focusing on differences in federal redistribution (redistricting) practices and constituency composition. Although the two countries both use territorially‐based electoral systems, they operate under different legal standards and institutional environments for the creation of ridings (districts). In the US, redistricting is a highly political process, yet must respect strict population equality standards. Litigation over redistricting is common, and courts adjudicate voting and representation under a constitutional system enforcing strong individual rights. In contrast, Canada's redistribution process is relatively nonpartisan, permits large population variances among ridings, places more emphasis on community rights, and is seldom subject to extensive court challenges. Despite these differences, the two countries exhibit striking similarities in the overall level of visible minority representation relative to population share. Conversely, Canada's population inequalities among ridings create a systematic disadvantage for visible minorities. Political attention to visible minority representation is stronger in the US, but the means to achieve it are constrained both by the judicial limits on group representation and the constitutional limits on the use of racial identity. Canada has a framework for political representation that could easily accommodate significant visible minority representation but lacks the political imperative to use it, in part because doing so would run counter to Canada's multicultural image of these groups as immigrants rather than as non‐white minorities.     

The shifting context of academic geography in Canada

Academic geographers are working in a system in flux. A series of interconnecting and overlapping social, political, and economic processes have resulted in a shifting academic climate for geographers and geography departments. This viewpoint brings forward evidence from multiple areas of study to provide a synthesis of this changing context. Challenges to geography include the role of “facts” and “truth” in society, neoliberal university contexts as workplaces, and generational change, among many others. This paper asks more questions than it answers, with an aim to promote an engaged and informed debate among geographers about our “place” in Canada's shifting academic context.     

Application of Landsat satellite imagery to monitor land‐cover changes at the Athabasca Oil Sands,Alberta, Canada

A major advantage of satellite remote sensing is that the imagery acquired provides a synoptic view of the landscape. Thus, repeat coverage by the satellite on a regular basis permits the detection of changes in land‐cover over time. This study demonstrates the application of remote sensing technology to the monitoring of mining activities at the Athabasca Oil Sands region of Alberta, Canada. First, we describe the techniques used to match a time sequence of Landsat imagery, both spatially and spectrally, to ensure that the spectral changes through time are due to land‐cover variations. A series of spectral trajectories were then extracted to assess changes in land‐cover through time. Secondly, a land‐cover classification was produced from the baseline 1984 imagery and, using historic and future mine extents, the classification was analyzed to determine the proportion of each land‐cover type affected through development. Results of the analysis indicate that since 1984 there has been a larger reduction in mixedwood dense and broadleaf vegetation classes than mixedwood sparse or dense conifer stands in the area. Based on the delineations of mine‐site activity, the area of woodland and wetland habitat subject to development has increased from approximately 2,520 hectare (ha) in 1984 to 32,930 ha in 2005.     

Geographies of capital formation and rescaling: A historical‐geographical approach to the food desert problem

Although the “food desert” concept has captured the public imagination and spurred public policy efforts in many North American cities, the term has been critiqued by academics for being definitionally and methodologically vague, and for providing an incomplete picture of the complexity of food access. Rather than dismiss the study of urban, inner‐city food deserts, however, scholars can study disparities in retail food access through a historical, critical political economy lens to understand underserved retail landscapes as a product of capital formation and rescaling over time. The purpose of this article is to conduct such an analysis, using the case study of a low‐income community in Kingston, Ontario. Using historical research and qualitative interviews, the major finding of this analysis is that the physical accessibility of retail food appears to have declined over time in relation to the capitalization of the retail food sector. An imperfect relationship can be outlined over three phases of Canadian urban economic history to suggest that the food desert problem emerged largely in the transition from a decentralized, small‐scale, and neighbourhood‐embedded retail food industry to the scaled‐up, disembedded industry that now dominates the landscape. This industry‐level rescaling is contributing to a new urban politics of class and consumption through subtle, everyday activities such as food shopping.     

Visualizing the directional bias in property crime incidents for five Canadian municipalities

There are three interconnected and fundamental elements that define the spatiality of crime: places, distances, and directions. Over the past 180 years, research has flourished for the first two fundamental elements with relatively little research on directionality. In this article, we develop a visualization technique allowing for the display of the directional bias for a large number of offenders that aids in subsequent analysis. We show that a directional bias in criminal activity is present overall, but is not monolithic. Consequently, urban form and understanding place play a strong role in criminal directional biases for moving through our environments.     

A Postcolonial Critique of Community Energy: Searching for Community as Solidarity in India and Scotland

Community renewable energy (CRE) represents a growing empirical and academic turn towards community‐based sustainability and climate change interventions. This paper brings together postcolonial theory and CRE for the first time to outline fundamental tensions in the conceptualisation and application of the idea of community. The understanding of community within the CRE discourse is largely: (1) location‐based; and/or (2) a community of choice that is consciously opted into. Driven by postcolonial theory, this paper counterpoises both as a form of community as contract against an idea of community as solidarity. Its central thesis is that actually existing community, contrary to how the bulk of CRE literature commonly understands it, is a combination of bonds of solidarity and emergent purposes. The paper conceptualises community as fluid bonds of solidarity that align and realign differently around different purposes.     

Making news and making space: Framing Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

How is inner city space represented and by whom? Drawing from an extensive framing analysis of print media portrayals of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside between 1996 and 2008, we offer a detailed assessment of the predominately negative portrayal of the neighbourhood, and the centrality of three frames: medicalization, criminalization, and socialization. Certain social actors are given a privileged position in the media in the representation of the inner city. Outsiders are privileged over insiders, with the neighbourhood constituted as a problematic space and its residents as passive victims. The effect is to further the stigmatization of an already marginalized neighbourhood, and to accentuate the disempowerment of its residents.     

Building local nodes in a global sector: Clustering within the aeronautics industry in Montreal

This article analyzes the mechanisms through which metropolitan governance is established in Montreal's aeronautics sector, one of the most important and innovative industries in the region. The article also examines the role of lead firms, socio‐economic actors, and public agencies from a territorial point of view. It is established that on the one hand the existence of a small number of prime producers at the local level facilitates productive linkages among businesses through subcontracting, and on the other hand, the intensive participation of intermediate socio‐economic agencies and organizations ensures a metropolitan anchoring of the sector and creates a strong territorial identity among the players.     

Fluid circulation related to post‐Messinian extension,Thassos Island,North Aegean

In the North Aegean Domain, Thassos Island contains a Plio‐Pleistocene basin controlled by a large‐scale flat‐ramp extensional system with a potential décollement located at depth within a marble unit. Numerous mineralizations associated with normal faults of Plio‐Pleistocene age are the sign of fluid circulation during extension. Two main generations of fluid flow are recognized, related to Plio‐Pleistocene extension. A first circulation under high‐temperature conditions (about 100–200°C) resulted in dolomitization of marbles near the base of the Plio‐Pleistocene basin. The dolomites are characterized by low δ¹⁸O values (down to 11‰ versus Standard Mean Ocean Water). Some cataclastic deformation affected the dolomites. Hydrothermal quartz that crystallized in extension veins above a blind ramp also has low δ¹⁸O values (about 13‰). This shows that high‐temperature fluids moved up from the décollement level toward the surface. A second downward circulation of continental waters at near‐surface temperature is documented by calcite veins in fault zones and at the base of the Plio‐Pleistocene basin. These veins have O isotope values relatively constant at about 23–25‰ and C isotope values intermediate between the high δ¹³C value of the carbonate host rock (about 1–3‰ versus Peedee Belemnite) and the low δ¹³C value of soil‐derived carbon (?10‰). The calcites associated with the oxidative remobilization of primary sulphide Zn–Pb mineralization of Thassos carbonates have comparable O and C isotope compositions. Hot fluids, within the 100–200°C temperature range, have likely contributed to the weakening of the lower marble unit of Thassos and, thus, to the process of décollement.