Learning by Doing Good
An overview of the projects completed by the 2021 cohort of UBC's Urban Ethnographic Field School (UEFS)
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1
Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House (DTES NH)
The DTES Neighbourhood House is a grassroots community organization that focuses primarily on food security (Right to Food) through their programming as well as educational, leadership, social, and recreational opportunities for DTES residents.
UEFS students at the DTES NH have contributed to the organization's hot meal programs through work at the urban farm and Chinese senior's garden, as well as with the Let's Speak Up initiative which aims to foster various forms of civic engagement in the DTES.
As an organization that is firmly entrenched in the community that it works within, students approached the concept of community in various ways in their ethnographic work, utilizing different authors that had been previously discussed in the course in their analyses. Students also grappled with media portrayals of the DTES neighbourhood, and explored different forms of collaborative sources from the DTES in their research.
2
DTES NH Urban Farm
Started in 2020 through a partnership between Dr. Patrick Moore, UEFS professor of Anthropology, and the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House (DTES NH), the urban farm has provided produce for thousands of free healthy meals during the past growing seasons.
The urban farm provides: a safe programming space for all ages; a green space for community members to get involved with; organic produce that goes into thousands of meals at many different kitchens in the DTES including the NH; an Indigenous medicine garden where traditional local plants such as tobacco and fireweed can be grown and shared by/with Indigenous community members, an example of sustainable urban farming, partnership with Hives for Humanity, and an urban space for two of their beehives.
UEFS students have been involved with the farm since the beginning, assisting with the planning, set-up, and first growing seasons in 2020 and in 2021, with its continuation and expansion through hands-on assistance with daily operations at the farm as well as contributing to new initiatives such as increased multilingual signage and a virtual farm tour.
3
UBC Learning Exchange
The UBC Learning Exchange is one of UEFS's oldest community partners. Before the pandemic, the field school was run out of the learning exchange space in Downtown Vancouver.
Combining their academic work with experiential learning at their Learning Exchange placement, UEFS students worked on a project relating to the ABCD (Asset Based Community Development) perspective, creating a series of adaptable workshops for BC high school teachers to use in their classrooms. It is intended for delivery in high school social studies courses, but could also be taught in specific upper-level humanities offerings such as Social Justice 1 and Urban Development 12. Students also created workshop packages complete with resources and educational material, allowing the teachers to teach the workshops to students with minimal preparation.
Two other students working with the Learning Exchange created instructional videos for the Research Access Portal website to assist those with low digital literacy in navigating the research portal. This made the website more accessible and easier to use as research sites can be tricky to navigate for those who are not familiar with them.
Additionally, as this was the largest group of students, the last group worked on a project evaluating online infographics with the goal of being able to identify what makes an infographic accessible and helpful to different demographics. Students conducted a small focus group with peers and analyzed the graphics in terms of language, imagery, and informational clarity. Their final deliverable was an infographic handbook with a set of accessibility guidelines for the Learning Exchange and other non-profit social media teams to use when creating their own infographics for social media.
4
Gordon Neighbourhood House
The Gordon Neighbourhood House (GNH) has served as a community hub for Vancouver's West End for the past 80 years. GNH is involved with many different kinds of community service projects that work to build connection and opportunity in the neighbourhood. Similarly to many of the other UEFS partner organizations, the GNH is actively engaged in addressing food (in)security, and has been featured as a partner organized by Vancouver Food Runners.
During their placements with the GNH, UEFS students engaged with their food security and community building activities by running a series of educational workshop that worked to compliment existing programming. Workshop topics ranged from ‘how to grow your own herb box’ to meal prepping, with a popular workshop being ‘seize the seasons’, where participants learned tips and tricks for cooking/working with seasonally available local produce year round. The UEFS student-led series focused on gardening skills, sharing knowledge of the benefits of local and seasonal eating, meal prepping techniques, and healthy eating.
Working on projects relating to food security, food dignity, and food literacy, students were able to gain first hand experience with frameworks that had been covered in class. Additionally, UEFS students working with the GNH, in person and virtually, grappled with conceptions of 'the field' and issues of positionality to their research and their coursework. They also considered issues of liminality in the distinctions between being 'producers' and 'consumers' of ethnographic work, as well between 'participants' and 'observers' in their research/work placements.
5
Lettuce Harvest
Lettuce Harvest Foundation is a grassroots organization that works to address the complex and intersectional issues of the climate crisis, lack of access to healthy and nutritious food in many urban centres, and ecological crises caused by food production. Working within the challenging real estate landscape of Vancouver, Lettuce Harvest attempts to repurpose unused private lawn space into productive garden plots, staffed by volunteers. The produce that is grown is split between the plot owner, the volunteer gardeners, and local food security initiatives.
UEFS students working with Lettuce Harvest had the opportunity to learn about how the organization runs behind the scenes, and how gain insight into their operational culture as a new organization. As their primary volunteering projects, students contributed to grant writing initiatives that led to a Food Justice 101 workshop.
Academically, students were able to explore the application of ethics and positionality while writing their ethnographies. In their writing, students utilized Dorothy Smith's work on Institutional ethnographies, particularly relating to the translocal components of workplaces.
6
Riley Park Community Garden / Little Mountain Neighbourhood House
The Riley Park Community Garden is a food security project of the Little Mountain Neighbourhood House (LMNH).
Like many of the other field school participants, the 2021 Riley Park student team conducted their research and worked with LMNH both in person and virtually. As one of their placement projects, UEFS students engaged in the multicultural values of the Riley Park community that led a community Eid event on zoom. They also had the opportunity to work on a Jane's Walk project, honouring urban activist and sociologist Jane Jacobs, that promotes walkable neighbourhoods and cities planned for and by people. Student participation in this project allowed them to see an application of community centered urban design that they had engaged with previously in course texts.
In tandem with their in-person work, students explored conceptions of community, digital literacy, and how their presence as researchers impacts their engagement with their community partner organization in their ethnographic writing. Students were able to collect and make use of their own research material to enrich their writing, citing not only published academic work, but their own interviews, fieldnotes, and photographs gathered during their placements.
7
Food Stash
Photo: CityNews
Food Stash Foundation is a local non-profit founded in 2016 that aims to reduce food waste in Vancouver. Their mission is to "reduce the environmental impact of food waste and bridge the food insecurity gap that exists within our community." Food Stash rescues over 70,000 pounds of food per month that would have gone to waste by redistributing it to their 30+ partner charities and 100+ members.
UEFS students working with Food Stash were able to learn about practical, local sustainability projects that target food waste and food insecurity. In their placement, students worked on a presentation targeted at elementary and middle school aged children to provide age-appropriate education on Food Stash and food insecurity in Vancouver.
Students working with Food Stash applied an intersectional lens to their work with the organization as well as in their academic writing, and grappled with aspects of liminality in community service work. Through their work with Food Stash, students were able to gain insight into how one's intersecting identities such as race, class, gender, immigration status, disability, income, and education, can impact one's experiences with food security in Vancouver. Students were also able to explore the ethical concerns of working with children in their academic as well as in person projects.
8
Exchange Inner City (EIC)- Community Economic Development
Exchange Inner City (EIC) is a community backbone organization created by Vancouver City Council that focuses on community economic development initiatives and policies that supports 55+ community/nonprofit organizations, local residents and policy makers who are working together to foster a vibrant and inclusive economy in Vancouver's inner city.
While working with EIC, UEFS students created a map for the organization to visually represent their relationships with their partner organizations. Students sorted the connections into 3 sectors - housing, employment, and tech, and explored the connections and intersections between these sectors. Importantly, they also created a final report for EIC documenting their findings.
While working with EIC, students challenged their previously held biases about the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood and what service organizations in this area looked like, and what services they performed. By working with an organization that does not do front line work, and instead provides backbone, coordinating services between organizations working towards shared goals, students were able to gain experience with a different kind of community organization in the DTES.
9
NICCSS Vancouver Rent Bank
The NICCSS Vancouver Rent Bank (VRB) offers short-term, no-interest loans to families and individuals in Vancouver who are at risk of eviction or essential utility disconnection.
In a first-time partnership with the Vancouver Rent Bank, UEFS students undertook the creation of a statistical report of all VRB applications whose applications were submitted between January 2020 and April 2021. Students were able to work closely with the Executive Director, and conducted an in-depth interview with a case manager to assist their research.
Stepping outside the normal curriculum to go above and beyond for their community partner, the UEFS students learned how to do statistical analysis with SPSS software to apply to their data relating to housing insecurity in vancouver. Through the UEFS network, with the help of Dr. Kemple, they were able to connect with a past UEFS student, who is now a PHD candidate, in learning how to work with statistical models. Their project utilized both quantitative and qualitative forms of data, and students were able to learn about the complementary relationship between these two data forms.
What do the UEFS participants think about their experience?
Maeve McAllister (Anthropology) - Community partner: Lettuce Harvest
"The Urban Ethnographic Field School was the most rewarding aspect of my undergraduate degree. The chance to learn and directly apply theory and methods to a project I felt committed to and deeply valued was integral to my future in anthropology. The anthropology department at UBC does an excellent job promoting interest and developing ideas in an array of areas, but the UEFS is uniquely positioned to expose students to on-the-ground research and work in communities which was, for me, a transformative experience. The structure of the Field School is highly supported and instructive while still providing ample opportunity for individual growth and independent learning. I would recommend it to anyone interested in meaningful, engaging anthropological experience."
Meghna Vijai (Anthropology) - Community partner: The Downtown East Side Neighbourhood House's Urban Farm
"Participating in the Urban Ethnographic Field School allowed me to fully realize the intersections between the theoretical concepts I was introduced to in the classroom and their real-life consequences. Even in the uncertainty of the pandemic, we were able to create such strong connections not just with each other, but with our respective communities as well. It was an excellent opportunity to see the capacity of anthropology for rendering boundaries permeable, while retaining the importance of collective identities. The way we were challenged to mould together narratives with both creativity and intellect was truly transformative – I discovered so many new things about myself and the world around me in just six weeks. I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to go beyond the regular classroom experience and test their capacity for something different."
Liva Behji (Sociology) - Community partner: UBC Learning Exchange
"UEFS anchored me into a profound period of chrysalis, fully integrated me with the ANSO department, gifted me with several of my most cherished friends and, above all, fundamentally grounded me in my degree. I felt so buttressed by the teaching team from the beginning of the course to beyond it. The community we cultivated was one of creative collaboration and service above self; I felt unfettered and supported as a learner and blossoming researcher. I will be forever thankful for this opportunity and the ways it has shaped my path as a student and as a human."
Vannia Flores Forsyth (Anthropology) - Community partner: Gordon Neighbourhood House
"I consider UEFS one of the most important milestones in my life as an anthropology student. This field school experience brought to light skills I had completely ignored in the past and invited me to rethink my beliefs and assumptions about scholarship. Although deeply involved in academic endeavours, the support received from the faculty and the student community helped me engage and drive my efforts into places I'd never thought of myself as capable of. Day after day, logging into our Zoom room and seeing my instructors and TA's smiling into their cameras, and into the little boxes on my screen, was all I needed to keep going and not give up on the challenging aspects that arise through the course of this program. Even though our community hailed from different corners of the world, the feeling of connection prevailed thanks to the sustained efforts by the faculty to develop relationships between students. A lot of the connections I made with classmates during this program have turned into close friendships I will forever be grateful for."
What do our Program Partners think of collaborating with the Field School?
Program Partner: Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House
"We always look forward to the UEFS program. The students come to us prepared to work hard, challenge themselves and grow as critically reflective learners. Their enthusiasm and ability to quickly integrate into our diverse and dynamic team is always an asset. Field School students bring sensitivity and respectful curiosity that supports the building of strong relationships that enhance our presence as a welcoming community space." - Rory Sutherland, Executive Director
Program Partner: UBC Learning Exchange
"The UEFS is such a unique and special partnership that we at the UBC Learning Exchange are incredibly proud to partner with each year. The students bring a wealth of knowledge, experience and energy to their partnerships in community, but also engage as active learners throughout the process, which speaks to both the high level of student the program attracts and the work the amazing faculty team do in preparing and supporting them. Many students have come back to volunteer or work the with us in a number of ways after completing the course, and we know they will be able to draw upon their experiences in the UEFS to make valuable contributions in and with community, throughout their studies and beyond." - UBC Learning Exchange Staff Member
Participants' Project Highlights:
This section will soon be updated with more highlights from student projects.
A video recipe created by Vannia Flores Forsyth (2021 UEFS participant) for the 'How to Grow' workshop series at Gordon Neighbourhood House. For more information about the workshop series, please click here .
A diagram depicting the links between Food Stash and its stakeholders. Taken from the ethnography written by Cal Creasy (2021 UEFS participant).