2017 was a particularly successful year for the Faculty of Arts’ Insight Grant applicants. Our eight successful applicants (57%) received a total of more than $1.5 million in research funding. As a result, eight new Insight-funded research projects will be undertaken in the Faculty of Arts over the next 5 years.
Annette Desmarais (Sociology): Changing Farmland Tenure and Food Sovereignty on the Canadian Prairies.

Dr. Annette Desmarais
Responding to urgent calls from farmers’ organizations, communities, politicians, and academics, this project investigates the Canadian implications of the global “land grab” of farms by agri-business corporations and other financial entities, in order to determine the ways in which financial investment in farmland is changing on the Canadian prairies. Specific objectives include documenting changes in farmland ownership patterns in the Canadian prairies, analyzing the social impacts and environmental implications of changing farmland ownership, and examining social and policy responses to these changes. The research will provide a Canadian perspective — currently sorely lacking — to the international network of scholars and civil society groups involved in land issues research and policy development.
Robert Hoppa (Anthropology): Reconsidering Old Age in Medieval Denmark: New Palaeodemographic Reconstructions.

Dr. Robert Hoppa
The question of how long humans lived in the past has been explored by physical anthropologists primarily through the analysis of human skeletal remains recovered archaeologically and the subfield of palaeodemography (the study of the changes in pre-modern populations to determine the influences on the lifespan and health of earlier peoples). Accurate and reliable estimation of individual chronological age and life history events can help paint a picture of overall living conditions and well-being in past populations. This research examines trends in aging adults associated with indicators of disease and trauma in both rural and urban settings from the early to late Medieval period in Denmark.
Brooke Milne (Anthropology): The Analytical Quandary of Chert Quarries: A Multi-Scalar Approach using GIS Modelling, Archaeo-Geophysics, Lithic Provenance, and Debitage Analysis to Understand Palaeo-Eskimo Lithic Technological Organization and Novice Skill on Southern Baffin Island.

Dr. Brooke Milne
Stone quarries are important archaeological sites where we can gather information on mobile hunter-gatherers. However, there tend to be few studies on them. As a result, beliefs about the economics of general quarrying activities are frequently based on hypothetical models that few researchers have questioned. Milne’s research has shown that these models do not accurately reflect actual processes of quarry use, toolstone acquisition, or the social implications of quarry visits in the seasonal movement of people across the Arctic landscape. This project seeks to locate, investigate, and connect Arctic stone quarries back to related habitation sites to better understand not only the movement of people, but also the technological and social aspects of tool construction and use.
Raymond Perry (Psychology): Motivation-Enhancing Treatments and Mind Mapping: An Attribution-based Intervention to Facilitate College Students’ Engagement and Persistence in Online Learning Environments.

Dr. Raymond Perry
With the arrival of online learning technologies, postsecondary institutions have opportunities to provide motivationally-enhancing treatments to large numbers of students in undergraduate programs or in campus-wide academic assistance programs and teaching and learning centres. However, to date, little has been done to build “motivation-enhancers” that can help improve an individual’s motivation to change into these initiatives to encourage student engagement and persistence. This program of research will develop student-centered motivation interventions for online learning environments and instruction. Results will benefit students, instructors, and academic departments, and counter the “massification” of higher education.
Nicole Rosen (Linguistics): Mapping linguistic variation in the Canadian Prairies.

Dr. Nicole Rosen
Perhaps because of the geography, settlement patterns, and ethnic make-up of the Canadian Prairies, very little is known about Prairies English and how it fits into the standard template of Canadian English nationally. This project investigates language transfer effects and the influence of geographic, social and linguistic isolation on language variation, change, and transmission on the Canadian Prairies. Settler populations (including Mennonites, Hutterites, Ukrainians, etc.) were largely isolated for decades, developing their own linguistic and social identity, but switched to English mid-twentieth century, due primarily to societal and economic pressures. We are currently at a point in history where we can still interview generations who spoke a heritage language as their first language, but this population is aging. It is urgent to gather data on second language transfer, language use, and identity now, before only standard Canadian English speakers remain.
Myroslav Shkandrij: The Ukrainian “Galicia” Division: Framing the Narratives.

Dr. Myroslav Shkandrij
This project analyzes a controversial episode in the Second World War and the conflict’s aftermath – the origin, activity, and postwar fate of the Ukrainian “Galicia” Division of the Waffen-SS. Ukraine, Russia, and Poland support contesting narratives of the episode. The challenge today is to produce a balanced account of wartime events and postwar discussions that merges the available information, including archival sources, personal accounts, and media coverage. This study uses the theoretical and methodological tools developed by collective and cultural memory studies, and by literary studies, to examine the evidence and differing past narratives.
Katherine Starzyk (Psychology): The socioemotional reconciliation barometer: a tool for tracking reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Dr. Katherine Starzyk
Reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians is an urgent and compelling task for Canadians. Supported by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, this project seeks to understand how Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians conceive of reconciliation, and to then develop a rigorous reconciliation barometer appropriate for Canada. Although such barometers of reconciliation exist in three other countries, they cannot be directly imported for use in Canada because of cultural and historical specificities. In extensive consultation with a variety of stakeholder groups, Starzyk will design a barometer for Canada that will enable researchers to track the state of reconciliation in Canada. This research will be of interest to academics, on-the-ground practitioners working at non-governmental agencies, governments, political organizations such as the United Nations, social groups, and media—as well as the general Canadian public.
Lori Wilkinson (Sociology): Finding home: the secondary migration of refugee children, youth and their families in Canada.

Dr. Lori Wilkinson
Since 2004, Canada has welcomed over 122,000 refugees, the second highest of all industrialized nations. However, we know very little about refugees’ lives once they have arrived in the country. Evidence suggests that new refugees migrate between provinces at higher rates than other newcomers do, especially within their first three years after arrival. We do not know the extent to which this occurs, how it may differ among refugee groups, or by type of family unit. This project will assess the extent to which secondary migration occurs among refugees and identify trends among those who do move. It will pay particular attention to the experiences of children, youth, and their families. The results of this project will allow for the development of new theoretical frameworks that can contribute to more understanding of secondary migration, and will allow governments, aid agencies, and policy makers to better meet the needs of newcomer refugees.