- Geography Program,
University of Northern British Columbia
3333 University Way
Prince George, BC, CANADA V2N 4Z9 - 2509605875
- University of Northern British Columbia, Geography, Department Memberadd
- Social Geography, Critical Geography, Social Sciences, Gender, Anthropology, Area Studies, and 17 moreDevelopment Studies, Geography, Human Geography, Transnationalism, Immigration, Refugee Studies, Displacement, Political Violence, Forced Migration, Guatemala, Genocide, Rape as a Weapon of War, Refugees and Forced Migration Studies, Geographies of Displacement, Central American Diasporas, Guatemalan Genocide, and Canadian Immigration Policyedit
- Catherine Nolin is a Professor of Geography & Chair of the Department of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences at... moreCatherine Nolin is a Professor of Geography & Chair of the Department of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada. Our Department is part of the new Faculty of Environment. I am also affiliated with the following Graduate Studies programs:
- Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (MA NRES Geography stream & PhD program)
- Interdisciplinary Studies (IDIS)
and
Between July 2020 & July 2022, Catherine served as Chair of the Conference of Latin American Geography (CLAG). CLAG is the premier organization for geographers engaging in research in Latin America and the Caribbean and works to foster research, education, and service related to Latin American geographical studies. Catherine is a long-time insurgent researcher and social justice advocate, including more than 25 years grappling with the afterlives of the Guatemalan genocides. Catherine has worked with Grahame Russell of Rights Action for almost 20 years to organize and facilitate field schools to Guatemala for undergraduate and graduate students. Catherine and Grahame Co-edited the book "Testimonio: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala" published by Between the Lines Press in October 2021.edit
What is land? A resource to be exploited? A commodity to be traded? A home to cherish? In Guatemala, a country still reeling from thirty-six years of US-backed state repression and genocides, dominant Canadian mining interests cash in on... more
What is land? A resource to be exploited? A commodity to be traded? A home to cherish? In Guatemala, a country still reeling from thirty-six years of US-backed state repression and genocides, dominant Canadian mining interests cash in on the transformation of land into “property,” while those responsible act with near-total impunity.
Editors Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell draw on over thirty years of community-based research and direct community support work in Guatemala to expose the ruthless state machinery that benefits the Canadian mining industry—a staggeringly profitable juggernaut of exploitation, sanctioned and supported every step of the way by the Canadian government.
This edited collection calls on Canadians to hold our government and companies fully to account for their role in enabling and profiting from violence in Guatemala. The text stands apart in featuring a series of unflinching testimonios (testimonies) authored by Indigenous community leaders in Guatemala, as well as wide-ranging contributions from investigative journalists, scholars, lawyers, activists, and documentarians on the ground.
Editors Catherine Nolin and Grahame Russell draw on over thirty years of community-based research and direct community support work in Guatemala to expose the ruthless state machinery that benefits the Canadian mining industry—a staggeringly profitable juggernaut of exploitation, sanctioned and supported every step of the way by the Canadian government.
This edited collection calls on Canadians to hold our government and companies fully to account for their role in enabling and profiting from violence in Guatemala. The text stands apart in featuring a series of unflinching testimonios (testimonies) authored by Indigenous community leaders in Guatemala, as well as wide-ranging contributions from investigative journalists, scholars, lawyers, activists, and documentarians on the ground.
Research Interests:
Series Editors’ Preface Transnational Ruptures: Gender and Forced Migration, by Catherine Nolin, is the ninth title to appear in the Ashgate series “Gender in a Global/Local World.” The series takes advantage of critically engaged new... more
Series Editors’ Preface
Transnational Ruptures: Gender and Forced Migration, by Catherine Nolin, is
the ninth title to appear in the Ashgate series “Gender in a Global/Local World.”
The series takes advantage of critically engaged new feminist and gender studies
scholarship in the turn towards the global. This turn has produced an increased
concern with the (gendered) impacts of globalization and contingent international
processes. All volumes in this interdisciplinary series pose alternative, gendered
questions to mainstream discussion of global processes and local responses.
This volume is no exception. Transnational Ruptures is truly a global/local
project. It contributes to a further round of transnational migration scholarship,
applying a transnational optic to refugee studies in particular (its theoretical
innovation) and to the landscapes of refugees from Guatemala in particular (its
methodological contribution). While the refugees in the study reside primarily in
Canada, comparisons are drawn with regional migrants living in other contexts,
particularly the United States. The comparisons are particularly revealing of how
state policies structure transnational experiences, both in contexts of origin for those who remain behind and in the new locations where immigrants reside. Gender, as well as political violence, are shown to be central organizing principles of the refugee immigrant experience.
In demonstrating the relevance of transnationalism to refugee studies, Nolin
takes us well beyond the temptation to conflate place with community and
community with identity, a not uncommon feature in migration studies. Instead,
with a geographer’s insistence on place making as a social and political process, the author charts a course through the “rupturing” and “suturing” of ties, both physical and material, social and personal, experienced by refugees whose migrations commence from political violence. Forced into exile, refugees are often unable to sustain the kinds of transnational connections to their places of origin that the new transnationalism literature describes for many immigrants. For example, remittances, now considered a definitive feature of many transnational migration flows, are less a feature of the transnational connections for the subjects in Nolin’s study, a finding that directs us back to the harsh realities of racialized labour markets and the persistent “income gap” experienced by new immigrants. Further, through careful attention to the spatialization of immigrants lives, the insight that refugee social spaces are not necessarily geographic, offers significant challenge to the literature on immigrant communities which can over-read geographic proximity as “community”.
With this insight Nolin’s work follows on from Women Migration and Citizenship, edited by Tastsoglou and Dobrowolsky, its predecessor in this series, Transnational Ruptures: Gender and Forced Migration to contribute further detailed examples of the gender differentiated experiences of citizenship, here provided through heart-wrenching accounts of refugee social isolation. Methodologically, Nolin’s multi-scaled, multi-method, multi-sited, qualitative study, provides a model for interdisciplinary transnational studies, not only of refugees, but other immigrant populations as well. The study has significant implications for researchers and policy makers concerned with the problems and challenges confronting refugees and immigrants in an increasingly unequal yet globally connected world.
Pauline Gardiner Barber
Marianne Marchand
Jane Parpart
Transnational Ruptures: Gender and Forced Migration, by Catherine Nolin, is
the ninth title to appear in the Ashgate series “Gender in a Global/Local World.”
The series takes advantage of critically engaged new feminist and gender studies
scholarship in the turn towards the global. This turn has produced an increased
concern with the (gendered) impacts of globalization and contingent international
processes. All volumes in this interdisciplinary series pose alternative, gendered
questions to mainstream discussion of global processes and local responses.
This volume is no exception. Transnational Ruptures is truly a global/local
project. It contributes to a further round of transnational migration scholarship,
applying a transnational optic to refugee studies in particular (its theoretical
innovation) and to the landscapes of refugees from Guatemala in particular (its
methodological contribution). While the refugees in the study reside primarily in
Canada, comparisons are drawn with regional migrants living in other contexts,
particularly the United States. The comparisons are particularly revealing of how
state policies structure transnational experiences, both in contexts of origin for those who remain behind and in the new locations where immigrants reside. Gender, as well as political violence, are shown to be central organizing principles of the refugee immigrant experience.
In demonstrating the relevance of transnationalism to refugee studies, Nolin
takes us well beyond the temptation to conflate place with community and
community with identity, a not uncommon feature in migration studies. Instead,
with a geographer’s insistence on place making as a social and political process, the author charts a course through the “rupturing” and “suturing” of ties, both physical and material, social and personal, experienced by refugees whose migrations commence from political violence. Forced into exile, refugees are often unable to sustain the kinds of transnational connections to their places of origin that the new transnationalism literature describes for many immigrants. For example, remittances, now considered a definitive feature of many transnational migration flows, are less a feature of the transnational connections for the subjects in Nolin’s study, a finding that directs us back to the harsh realities of racialized labour markets and the persistent “income gap” experienced by new immigrants. Further, through careful attention to the spatialization of immigrants lives, the insight that refugee social spaces are not necessarily geographic, offers significant challenge to the literature on immigrant communities which can over-read geographic proximity as “community”.
With this insight Nolin’s work follows on from Women Migration and Citizenship, edited by Tastsoglou and Dobrowolsky, its predecessor in this series, Transnational Ruptures: Gender and Forced Migration to contribute further detailed examples of the gender differentiated experiences of citizenship, here provided through heart-wrenching accounts of refugee social isolation. Methodologically, Nolin’s multi-scaled, multi-method, multi-sited, qualitative study, provides a model for interdisciplinary transnational studies, not only of refugees, but other immigrant populations as well. The study has significant implications for researchers and policy makers concerned with the problems and challenges confronting refugees and immigrants in an increasingly unequal yet globally connected world.
Pauline Gardiner Barber
Marianne Marchand
Jane Parpart
Research Interests: Human Geography, Social Geography, Transnationalism, Refugee Studies, Qualitative methodology, and 12 moreImmigration, Gender, Political Violence, Forced Migration, Central American Diasporas, Transnational migration, Feminist Geography, Genocide, Rape as a Weapon of War, Guatemala, Refugees and Forced Migration Studies, and Guatemalan Genocide
This chapter begins by describing international political economy as a broad theoretical approach in human geography and the types of issues it sheds light on. In particular, we focus on its deployment in our own research fields of... more
This chapter begins by describing international political economy as a broad theoretical approach in human geography and the types of issues it sheds light on. In particular, we focus on its deployment in our own research fields of critical development and health geography. Turning to COVID-19, we describe how the pandemic has brought into much sharper focus the inequitable and discriminatory foundations of these systems. In particular, we outline three spaces of contagion foisted upon Central American asylum seekers and survival migrants in the time of COVID-19. These contagion spaces include detention centres constructed to ‘contain’ migrant mobility, modes of mass transportation used to funnel migrants ‘home’ following mass deportations and the ‘physical distancing’ and self-quarantining lockdowns facing these migrants as they are returned to their respective places of origin. Together, these spaces reveal the extent to which wider political economic forces have put survival migrants at an elevated and cumulative risk of catastrophe—what we regard as a death trap of discriminatory systems intended to serve dominant political and economic interests. We conclude by discussing a future political economy research agenda on COVID-19 and similar situations that might follow it, in which geographers are well positioned to offer grounded yet scalar accounts of structural violence and inequality.
Research Interests:
To Witness To witness, listen, and write well about the cries and silences of life in contemporary Río Negro and Pacux is to write about post-genocide realities of struggle and strength. It is to write about pain and social suffering, on... more
To Witness
To witness, listen, and write well about the cries and silences of life in contemporary Río Negro and Pacux is to write about post-genocide realities of struggle and strength. It is to write about pain and social suffering, on one hand, and brutality and structural violence on the other. To carry out this daunting task, Nathan Einbinder opened his mind to critical questions of the deep connections between ‘development’ and violence and grappled with ensuing violent geographies at the scale of the individual to those at the scale of the community, nation, and onto the dominant transnational worlds of the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and the American government.
To witness, listen, and write well about the cries and silences of life in contemporary Río Negro and Pacux is to write about post-genocide realities of struggle and strength. It is to write about pain and social suffering, on one hand, and brutality and structural violence on the other. To carry out this daunting task, Nathan Einbinder opened his mind to critical questions of the deep connections between ‘development’ and violence and grappled with ensuing violent geographies at the scale of the individual to those at the scale of the community, nation, and onto the dominant transnational worlds of the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and the American government.
Research Interests:
In Central America, contemporary and overlapping crises of resource extraction, export-driven crop production, gang violence, and survival migration are some of the devastating legacies of the region’s internal armed conflicts that... more
In Central America, contemporary and overlapping crises of resource extraction, export-driven crop production, gang violence, and survival migration are some of the devastating legacies of the region’s internal armed conflicts that culminated, in Guatemala, in state-directed terror and genocide in the countryside. The physical erasure of Indigenous Maya communities and progressive, mostly urban, Ladinos is central to these crises; an almost forgotten component of contemporary studies of neoliberal development and escalating violence. In this chapter, I explore some the human dimensions of structural violence, and the accompanying suffering that delayed justice, violence, and impunity creates among surviving family members. I draw on three illustrative cases in the contemporary search for justice, truth, memory, and historical clarification, particularly among the search for the disappeared.
Research Interests:
The Maya population accounted for the largest number of lives lost during Guatemala’s internal armed conflict. The State labelled them as the “internal enemy” and guerrilla sympathizers, thereby justifying their mass slaughter.... more
The Maya population accounted for the largest number of lives lost during
Guatemala’s internal armed conflict. The State labelled them as the “internal
enemy” and guerrilla sympathizers, thereby justifying their mass slaughter.
Agamben’s concept of ‘bare life’ is used to explain how the State legitimized the
massacres of the Maya. Exhumations conducted by the Guatemalan Forensic
Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) within the Cobán CREOMPAZ former
military base are the case study for our argument that the active process of
exhuming is an act of place making and re-dignifies the victims. Landscapes
of fear and terror frame our interpretation of CREOMPAZ’s geographies of
violence.
Key words: mass graves, Guatemala, place making, “bare life”
Guatemala’s internal armed conflict. The State labelled them as the “internal
enemy” and guerrilla sympathizers, thereby justifying their mass slaughter.
Agamben’s concept of ‘bare life’ is used to explain how the State legitimized the
massacres of the Maya. Exhumations conducted by the Guatemalan Forensic
Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) within the Cobán CREOMPAZ former
military base are the case study for our argument that the active process of
exhuming is an act of place making and re-dignifies the victims. Landscapes
of fear and terror frame our interpretation of CREOMPAZ’s geographies of
violence.
Key words: mass graves, Guatemala, place making, “bare life”
Research Interests:
Since 2005, more than 78 Maya communities representing approximately one million Guatemalans have held referendums called consultas comunitarias, which ask the community whether they are in agreement with mineral, hydroelectric, and/or... more
Since 2005, more than 78 Maya communities representing approximately one million Guatemalans have held referendums called consultas comunitarias, which ask the community whether they are in agreement with mineral, hydroelectric, and/or other megaprojects in their traditional territory. Participation in the consultas is a form of resistance to the granting of mineral rights to corporate interests. In Canada, where much of the Guatemalan mining investment is based, “socially responsible investment firms” (SRIs) promote corporate respect for Indigenous rights. Based on interviews and participant observation, we highlight the perspectives of Maya consulta organizers in three communities that have undertaken consultas to resist the mining licenses of the Canadian mining company Goldcorp, Inc. We argue that a strict policy of corporate respect for the right to free, prior, and informed consent of affected communities is a minimum requirement for Maya acceptance of SRI legitimacy.
Research Interests: Human Geography, Social Geography, Development Studies, Natural Resources, Human Rights, and 11 moreDevelopment Geography, Critical Geography, Indigenous Peoples Rights, Extractive industries (Economic Anthropology), Indigenous rights, Guatemala, Critical Development Studies, Mining and Development, Indigenous peoples and extractive industries, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and ILO Convention 169
Neoliberal development schemes of mining, oil extraction, and hydroelectric projects, are embraced by post-conflict Guatemala as the way forward on the path to democratization. At the same time, the Canadian government's pro-business,... more
Neoliberal development schemes of mining, oil extraction, and hydroelectric projects, are embraced by post-conflict Guatemala as the way forward on the path to democratization. At the same time, the Canadian government's pro-business, pro-mining stance, through its Embassy’s activities, is shaping the very nature of the “development model” for this Central American country. Neoliberal development models are often associated with human rights abuses and an unwillingness to incorporate local knowledge or allow for locally-driven, smaller-scale development. In this paper, based on fieldwork in the summer months of 2004, 2006, and 2008, we argue that large-scale resource development by Canadian mining companies and their Guatemalan subsidiaries on Maya traditional territories, lands to which they have limited rights, is negatively affecting local indigenous peoples’ lives and realities. Through a rights-based approach to our analysis of ‘development’ we highlight the silenced voices of Maya community members in opposition to what they identify as unsound development practices and President Óscar Berger’s need to “protect the investors” rather than the lives of his country’s own citizens.
Keywords: Canada; development; natural resources; Guatemala; indigenous; neoliberalism; mining
Keywords: Canada; development; natural resources; Guatemala; indigenous; neoliberalism; mining
Research Interests: Human Geography, Development Studies, Corporate Social Responsibility, Human Rights, Economic Development, and 8 moreNeoliberalism, Mining, Guatemala, Extractive industries, Q'eqchi' Maya, Human Rights Based Approaches to Development, Canadian mining, and Indigenous peoples and extractive industries
On 25 February 1999, Guatemalans received the much anticipated report of the United Nations-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), Memory of Silence, which detailed wartime atrocities and decades-long American support of... more
On 25 February 1999, Guatemalans received the much anticipated report of the United Nations-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), Memory of Silence, which detailed wartime atrocities and decades-long American support of the Guatemalan army. This document followed the earlier release of the Catholic church's own REMHI report (Recuperation of Historical Memory Inter-diocesan Project), Guatemala: never again . Using the recently released reports and databases of the CEH and REMHI, we explore the significant use of testimonio as a tool of shared witnessing, collective remembrance, and individual recollection of the special brutality directed against Maya women. Through testimonio, the outcomes of visible and invisible terror and violence in Guatemala are articulated as personal, social and geographic spaces of terror, all of which are gendered and racialised. With the civil war officially over, Maya women of Guatemala see the spaces of terror diminish. Given debates over testimonio, however, the grounds for assault and denial remain fertile.
Research Interests: Human Geography, Genocide Studies, Gender, Empowerment, Embodied Memory, and 13 moreSocial Memory, Indigenous Peoples, Feminist Geography, Testimonial Literature, Trauma, Genocide, Rape as a Weapon of War, Guatemala, Enforced Disappearance, Mayas, Truth Commissions, Guatemalan Genocide, and Rape As Weapon In War
Nearly every major extractive industry player has adopted voluntary CSR policies or social sustainability statements and a growing body of consultants, socially responsible investors, and NGOs are debating how to promote it. However,... more
Nearly every major extractive industry player has adopted voluntary CSR policies or social sustainability statements and a growing body of consultants, socially responsible investors, and NGOs are debating how to promote it. However, ongoing violations of human rights beg the question: is talking in terms of CSR useful to those trying to seek justice for harms committed by Canadian multinationals?
Research Interests:
It was the middle of May, just days into the rainy season when we made the trip to Lote 8, one of the dozens of Maya-Q’eqchi’ villages scattered within, and against, the steep and perennially green Sierra de Santa Cruz in far eastern... more
It was the middle of May, just days into the rainy season when we made the trip to Lote 8, one of the dozens of Maya-Q’eqchi’ villages scattered within, and against, the steep and perennially green Sierra de Santa Cruz in far eastern Guatemala.... María Magdelena Cuc Choc, one of our interpreters, herself an active community member, helped frame the day to come. As the sister of jailed activist Ramiro Choc and sister-in-law of recently murdered Adolfo Ich Xaman, she explained her experiences of suffering at the hands of the mining industry. “We want these monsters out of here. We don’t care where they go,” she declared.
Research Interests:
Guatemala is one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America, and increasingly so for women. Since 2000, a plague of violence has been sweeping Guatemala, and its capital Guatemala City, in particular, where approximately half of the... more
Guatemala is one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America, and increasingly so for women. Since 2000, a plague of violence has been sweeping Guatemala, and its capital Guatemala City, in particular, where approximately half of the homicides are concentrated. One central aspect of contemporary violence sees Guatemalan women targeted for murder and mutilation in urban and rural areas – a phenomenon called femicidio/femicide and/or feminicidio/feminicide – simply for being women ‘out of place.’ In this paper we argue that the individual and collective violent experiences of women in Guatemala are important for understanding how violence affects the negotiation of space and security (Pain & Smith, 2008) and how the State largely enables the murderers to live in a “killer’s paradise” (Portenier,
2006).
2006).
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
No Means No: After saving their land once from the Prosperity mine, the Tsilhqot’in First Nation in central BC are still fighting for their way of life against a second open-pit proposal
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs function in countries around the world and usually transfer cash to the mothers of the beneficiary children in order to facilitate women’s ‘development’ and ‘empowerment.’ In most cases, the World... more
Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs function in countries around the world and usually transfer cash to the mothers of the beneficiary children in order to facilitate women’s ‘development’ and ‘empowerment.’ In most cases, the World Bank and the governments of the respective countries jointly operate these CCT programs. Since 1992, in Bangladesh, CCT programs operate via two broad education-based programs: the Female Secondary School Assistance Project (FSSAP) and the Primary Education Development Program (PEDP). Mainstream development thinkers and World Bank experts claim the exemplary nature of these programs in achieving their objectives including: delaying the marriage age for girls, increasing school enrollment, enabling employability, and enhancing empowerment within the household. However, critical development thinkers have found sufficient evidence that, instead of developing and empowering women, CCT programs are using women as ‘conduits of policy’ or as ‘workhorses’ in the name of gender-based development. Based on fieldwork done in northern Bangladesh in 2014, guided by feminist qualitative methodology, and through the analysis of testmonios of 13 mothers of the beneficiary children and girls, the present study found no corresponding empirical evidence to suggest any improvement in the wellbeing of women. On the contrary, women recounted concerns with the low quality of their children’s education, and experiences when the stipend money adversely affected them. This study concludes that CCT programs are at best ineffective in meeting the stated goals, and at worst, aggravating structural violence against women in Bangladesh.
"The global mail-order bride (MOB) industry is a booming legal business based on the spousal sponsorship of women in countries of the Global South by men in countries of the Global North, often facilitated by international introduction... more
"The global mail-order bride (MOB) industry is a booming legal business based on the spousal sponsorship of women in countries of the Global South by men in countries of the Global North, often facilitated by international introduction agencies. Many women settle with their new husbands in rural communities and a growing number are settling in communities of northern British Columbia.
In this paper, we highlight the unique and little understood social and spatial geographies of MOB settlement and integration (or lack of) into rural and remote northern B.C. We explore the highly gendered hidden avenues of immigration and settlement of MOBs in northern B.C., with specific focus on the experiences of women living in the “periphery."
We will provide a brief overview of this marriage industry. We will then review the goal of our recent study, with special attention paid to the study region of northern B.C. We will introduce the field work we conducted in the summer of 2008 and focus on two “transnational ethnographies” (Nolin 2006) of MOBs
living in northern B.C. We conclude with some final discussion points."
In this paper, we highlight the unique and little understood social and spatial geographies of MOB settlement and integration (or lack of) into rural and remote northern B.C. We explore the highly gendered hidden avenues of immigration and settlement of MOBs in northern B.C., with specific focus on the experiences of women living in the “periphery."
We will provide a brief overview of this marriage industry. We will then review the goal of our recent study, with special attention paid to the study region of northern B.C. We will introduce the field work we conducted in the summer of 2008 and focus on two “transnational ethnographies” (Nolin 2006) of MOBs
living in northern B.C. We conclude with some final discussion points."
Research Interests:
Imagine for a moment the following scene. A group of more than 250 people gather together at the Prince George Civic Centre on March 17, 2007 to celebrate 30 years of immigrant and refugee settlement services offered by the Immigrant and... more
Imagine for a moment the following scene. A group of more than 250 people gather together at the Prince George Civic Centre on March 17, 2007 to celebrate 30 years of immigrant and refugee settlement services offered by the Immigrant and Multicultural Services Society (IMSS), headed by the Baljit Sethi, a highly skilled Indo-Canadian immigrant woman herself, for those same thirty years. Everyone joins the dance floor as soon as Cuban-Canadian musician Alexis Puentes of the Alex Cuba Band starts singing “Que Lo Mismo” which reached the Top 10 on BBC Radio and helped garner him the 2006 Juno Award for Best World Music Album. Puentes is Smithers, BC-based and loving it. The celebrants appreciate the Spanish lyrics, written 14 hours north of Vancouver, and inspired by the vast and striking beauty of the Northern British Columbia (BC) landscape. The Cuban musician’s
enthusiasm for the possibilities of building a dynamic life north of 53° is infectious and reinforces the theme of celebrating diversity and the spaces of inclusion and innovation that shape this region, which barely registers on the Canadian immigrant settlement scene.
enthusiasm for the possibilities of building a dynamic life north of 53° is infectious and reinforces the theme of celebrating diversity and the spaces of inclusion and innovation that shape this region, which barely registers on the Canadian immigrant settlement scene.
Research Interests:
"In 2006, immigrants constituted 19.8 percent of Canada’s population (Citizenship and Immigration Canada 2007). By 2011, immigrants will account for all net labour force growth, and by 2026, all net population increase (Bollman, Beshiri,... more
"In 2006, immigrants constituted 19.8 percent of Canada’s population (Citizenship and Immigration Canada 2007). By 2011, immigrants will account for all net labour force growth, and by 2026, all net population increase (Bollman, Beshiri, and Clemenson 2007; Metropolis 2003). The importance of immigration, valued by sheer numbers, presents itself clearly in the composition of this country. Crucial to the nation’s growth, immigration helps define and distinguish Canadian culture, supports the health of the economy, and comprises the better part of population increase in Canada each year. With its yearly target of establishing immigration levels at approximately 1 percent of the total population, the Canadian government has recognized the long-term benefits of accepting newcomers. As such, we are obliged to consider how the benefits of immigration are spread across the diversity of Canadian lives and landscapes.
The overall goal of this project is to develop a better understanding of the complexity of regionalization in British Columbia (BC) and to develop recommendations and opportunities for community-based solutions to attract and retain immigrants. The following section is a literature review describing the factors underlying immigrant decisions about destination, settlement and leaving rural regions or small towns."
The overall goal of this project is to develop a better understanding of the complexity of regionalization in British Columbia (BC) and to develop recommendations and opportunities for community-based solutions to attract and retain immigrants. The following section is a literature review describing the factors underlying immigrant decisions about destination, settlement and leaving rural regions or small towns."
Research Interests:
Through a transnational lens, I draw attention to the spatialization of Guatemalan refugee and immigrant settlement in Canada and highlight the relatively local and immobile lives, yet highly transnational social relations, that... more
Through a transnational lens, I draw attention to the spatialization of Guatemalan refugee and immigrant settlement in Canada and highlight the relatively local and immobile lives, yet highly transnational social relations, that characterize their experience. Part of the challenge of understanding Guatemalan refugee transnationalism of the 1970s through the 1990s is the necessity to understand the political and policy context that refugees and immigrants fled from and entered into when they arrived in Canada. Of central concern are issues of Guatemalan political violence, Canadian foreign and immigration policies, socio-economic circumstances, and spatial concentration or dispersal of settlement--all of which factor into the vastly different experience and form of transnationalism than the more thoroughly documented American- and Mexican-destination scenarios.
Research Interests:
This article examines the ruptures and sutures of Guatemalan refugee transnationalism in the context of settlement in southern Ontario, Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. Political violence became deeply imbedded in `community' relations and... more
This article examines the ruptures and sutures of Guatemalan refugee transnationalism in the context of settlement in southern Ontario, Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. Political violence became deeply imbedded in `community' relations and subsequently ruptured the social fabric of Guatemala. Through the optic of transnationalism, this research examines the ways in which Guatemalans in Canada work to transform, rely on, and create new primary social relations that stretch across borders when face-to-face `community' connections are no longer possible. Transnational ruptures rather than transnational flows are evident due to varying legal status, the continuing instability, impunity, and insecurity associated with living conditions in Guatemala. Ruptures are reinforced by low income levels (in both countries) leading to lack of communication, and the physical distance between the two countries that inhibits regular travel.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Colom, Yolanda. 1998. Mujeres en La Alborada. Guerrilla y Participación Femenina en Guate-mala, 1973-1978. Testimonio. Guatemala: Editorial Artemis & Edinter. ... Nelson, Diane M. 1999. A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in... more
Colom, Yolanda. 1998. Mujeres en La Alborada. Guerrilla y Participación Femenina en Guate-mala, 1973-1978. Testimonio. Guatemala: Editorial Artemis & Edinter. ... Nelson, Diane M. 1999. A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala. Berkeley: ...
Research Interests:
"The vast majority of Guatemalan refugees in Mexico are Maya Indians from various regions of the country. The aim of this research is to examine the pattern of displacement from these diverse regions in the early 1980s and contemporary... more
"The vast majority of Guatemalan refugees in Mexico are Maya Indians from various regions of the country. The aim of this research is to examine the pattern of displacement from these diverse regions in the early 1980s and contemporary avenues of return for the Guatemalan Maya, with particular emphasis on the refugees' choice of resettlement location and government and military intervention. Documents produced by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Mexican and Guatemalan government organizations created to facilitate the return process, were examined along with reports and communiques issued by the representatives of the Guatemalan refugees in Mexico. Also, human rights workers and members of non-governmental organizations working in Mexico were interviewed for their critical analysis of the return process and insight into the motivating factors influencing the decision-making by the refugees.
At every stage in the process of flight, exile, and return, expressions and representations of Maya identity illuminate the complex web of cultural continuity and change. One of the most compelling conclusion of this research is that the meaning of "being Maya" differs between individuals in different times and different places and that a metamorphosis of identity is evident according to two factors: (1) as the sites of representation shift from rural Guatemala to exile abroad; and (2) as time passes. The primacy of place in the construction and representation of Maya identity is highlighted to reveal the intimate connection the Maya have with ancestral land or land they have transformed by labour, a bond strong enough to pull Maya refugees home to often precarious resettlement conditions."
At every stage in the process of flight, exile, and return, expressions and representations of Maya identity illuminate the complex web of cultural continuity and change. One of the most compelling conclusion of this research is that the meaning of "being Maya" differs between individuals in different times and different places and that a metamorphosis of identity is evident according to two factors: (1) as the sites of representation shift from rural Guatemala to exile abroad; and (2) as time passes. The primacy of place in the construction and representation of Maya identity is highlighted to reveal the intimate connection the Maya have with ancestral land or land they have transformed by labour, a bond strong enough to pull Maya refugees home to often precarious resettlement conditions."
Research Interests:
It is also possible that your web browser is not configured or not able to display style sheets. In this case, although the visual presentation will be degraded, the site should continue to be functional. We recommend using the latest... more
It is also possible that your web browser is not configured or not able to display style sheets. In this case, although the visual presentation will be degraded, the site should continue to be functional. We recommend using the latest version of Microsoft or Mozilla web browser to ...
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Issues of place and identity have never been straightforward, but given the increasing levels of movement across national borders and the development of transnational social fields, the shifting nature of Maya identities both within and... more
Issues of place and identity have never been straightforward, but given the increasing levels of movement across national borders and the development of transnational social fields, the shifting nature of Maya identities both within and across borders and boundaries is becoming more evident. It is well documented that Maya identities have been and continue to be rooted in the local geography of their community and surrounding lands. The displacement of thousands of indigenous Guatemalans in the early 1980s, caused by “racial” and economic marginalization, over thirty years of civil war, and state terror has led to a people out of place — that is, out of “their place” in the world. Contemporary Maya are now one of the most dispersed indigenous populations in the Americas.
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In this talk, Catherine Nolin will explore the ways in which doing geography differently - passionately - with heart - with vulnerability - and collaboratively is the kind of geography that empowers, transforms and sheds light on those... more
In this talk, Catherine Nolin will explore the ways in which doing geography differently - passionately - with heart - with vulnerability - and collaboratively is the kind of geography that empowers, transforms and sheds light on those parts of the world, those issues, those people who are seen as peripheral but are central to a rethinking of development, violence, power and place. Guatemala. Northern British Columbia, downtown Prince George. Women. Indigenous people. Rural communities. Immigrants. Mail-order brides. Informed by feminist geography and with commitments to social justice and human rights, in this presentation, Dr. Nolan will illustrate the value of learning geography through the soles of our feet through field-based learning, transformative education opportunities, collaborative research, deep connections between teaching and research, and a commitment to social change. Doing geography that breaks our hearts is one way to honour the work of Suzanne Mackenzie and the many feminist geographers who have a vision of something better.
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The ancestral lands of several Maya Q’eqchi’ communities located in the Department of Izabal innortheastern Guatemala, are part of Canadian-owned HudBay Minerals Inc.’s nickel mining concession. As a result, the communities live with the... more
The ancestral lands of several Maya Q’eqchi’ communities located in the Department of Izabal innortheastern Guatemala, are part of Canadian-owned HudBay Minerals Inc.’s nickel mining concession. As a result, the communities live with the violence, threats, and insecurity that accompany nickel mining exploration and exploitation on their lands.Through centuries of use throughout Latin America, testimonio evolved as a fundamental tool to capture critical problems and situations of marginalized sectors. Testimonio represents in Guatemala the detailed telling of a community’s collective memory of events or experiences of oppression and/or exploitation. Researcher solidarity is an essential characteristic of testimonio along with a commitment to conduct research that is aimed at raising social awareness and creating social change.
Preliminary research conducted over the summers of 2008 and 2010 employed testimonio to document the forced and violent evictions experienced by the Maya Q’eqchi’ communities of Loté Ocho, Loté Nueve, La Paz, and La Unión between October 2006 to January 2007. The power of the recorded testimonios is demonstrated through our formal human rights violation complaint submitted to the Canadian Government and two lawsuits filed against Canadian companies HudBay Minerals Inc. and HMI Nickel.
Ongoing research will use testimonio to document Maya Q’eqchi’ connections to their ancestral lands, Maya Q’eqchi’ perceptions of mining development, and Maya Q’eqchi’ perceptions of mining as it affects their connections to their ancestral lands.
Preliminary research conducted over the summers of 2008 and 2010 employed testimonio to document the forced and violent evictions experienced by the Maya Q’eqchi’ communities of Loté Ocho, Loté Nueve, La Paz, and La Unión between October 2006 to January 2007. The power of the recorded testimonios is demonstrated through our formal human rights violation complaint submitted to the Canadian Government and two lawsuits filed against Canadian companies HudBay Minerals Inc. and HMI Nickel.
Ongoing research will use testimonio to document Maya Q’eqchi’ connections to their ancestral lands, Maya Q’eqchi’ perceptions of mining development, and Maya Q’eqchi’ perceptions of mining as it affects their connections to their ancestral lands.
Research Interests: Geography, Human Geography, Development Studies, Critical Geopolitics, Political Ecology, and 9 moreQualitative methodology, Political Violence, Postcolonial Theory, Environmental Justice, Guatemala, Critical Development Studies, Testimonio, Climate Politics, and Global (North/South) Environmental Politics
Concealed within the active CREOMPAZ Regional Training Command for Peacekeeping Operations in Cobán, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) has exhumed over 300 remains. From site 1, the FAFG... more
Concealed within the active CREOMPAZ Regional Training Command for Peacekeeping Operations in Cobán, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) has exhumed over 300 remains. From site 1, the FAFG exhumed 276 remains in 21 graves; one grave contained women and children and the others contained men with eyes blindfolded, hands and feet tied. Who are these individuals buried in clandestine graves with hands tied and eyes covered and why are they buried within a former military garrison?
The FAFG – CREOMPAZ Base exhumation is one example of the shift from despair to hope that the country is experiencing. This excavation represents a chance at uncovering the truth from the Guatemala internal armed conflict (1960-1996) where over 250,000 individuals were killed or disappeared and the role that the Guatemala military played in state terrorism. These graves comprise the disappeared; those whose family members have no knowledge of the fate or whereabouts of their loved ones. Testimonies collected by the FAFG indicate the location of the graves and there are at minimum 335 reported individuals missing from the Cobán area during the internal armed conflict. Currently, a small team of organized archaeologists and excavators are uncovering the truth buried within the former military garrison. Based on fieldwork in May – July 2012, the poster presentation will outline the significance of this excavation and reflections from days spent brushing away the dirt and exhuming the truth in the CREOMPAZ Base.
The FAFG – CREOMPAZ Base exhumation is one example of the shift from despair to hope that the country is experiencing. This excavation represents a chance at uncovering the truth from the Guatemala internal armed conflict (1960-1996) where over 250,000 individuals were killed or disappeared and the role that the Guatemala military played in state terrorism. These graves comprise the disappeared; those whose family members have no knowledge of the fate or whereabouts of their loved ones. Testimonies collected by the FAFG indicate the location of the graves and there are at minimum 335 reported individuals missing from the Cobán area during the internal armed conflict. Currently, a small team of organized archaeologists and excavators are uncovering the truth buried within the former military garrison. Based on fieldwork in May – July 2012, the poster presentation will outline the significance of this excavation and reflections from days spent brushing away the dirt and exhuming the truth in the CREOMPAZ Base.
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University of Northern British Columbia's NRESi Community Advancement Award is awarded to a person who has demonstrated a broad influence on the development of natural resources and/or the conservation of our environment, through... more
University of Northern British Columbia's NRESi Community Advancement Award is awarded to a person who has demonstrated a broad influence on the development of natural resources and/or the conservation of our environment, through interdisciplinary research or service to communities in the central-north of B.C.
These contributions will have gone well beyond the nominee’s normal job-related duties and will set an example for all British Columbians in sustainable landscape and/or resource management.
Nominees for this award may be from government, non-government organizations, universities, contract researchers, or other associations.
A recipient of the Community Advancement award will have clearly demonstrated substantial contributions and achievements.
These contributions will have gone well beyond the nominee’s normal job-related duties and will set an example for all British Columbians in sustainable landscape and/or resource management.
Nominees for this award may be from government, non-government organizations, universities, contract researchers, or other associations.
A recipient of the Community Advancement award will have clearly demonstrated substantial contributions and achievements.
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This chapter begins by describing international political economy as a broad theoretical approach in human geography and the types of issues it sheds light on. In particular, we focus on its deployment in our own research fields of... more
This chapter begins by describing international political economy as a broad theoretical approach in human geography and the types of issues it sheds light on. In particular, we focus on its deployment in our own research fields of critical development and health geography. Turning to COVID-19, we describe how the pandemic has brought into much sharper focus the inequitable and discriminatory foundations of these systems. In particular, we outline three spaces of contagion foisted upon Central American asylum seekers and survival migrants in the time of COVID-19. These contagion spaces include detention centres constructed to ‘contain’ migrant mobility, modes of mass transportation used to funnel migrants ‘home’ following mass deportations and the ‘physical distancing’ and self-quarantining lockdowns facing these migrants as they are returned to their respective places of origin. Together, these spaces reveal the extent to which wider political economic forces have put survival migrants at an elevated and cumulative risk of catastrophe—what we regard as a death trap of discriminatory systems intended to serve dominant political and economic interests. We conclude by discussing a future political economy research agenda on COVID-19 and similar situations that might follow it, in which geographers are well positioned to offer grounded yet scalar accounts of structural violence and inequality.
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In Guatemala, Maya activists and their supporters describe the growing presence of Canadian mining interests as the ‘4 th conquest’ – after the 1524 Spanish invasion, the 19 th century establishment of the plantation economy, and the... more
In Guatemala, Maya activists and their supporters describe the growing presence of Canadian mining interests as the ‘4 th conquest’ – after the 1524 Spanish invasion, the 19 th century establishment of the plantation economy, and the 1960-1996 internal armed conflict that culminated in state-directed terror and genocide in the countryside. The transformation of land to ‘property,’ through the violent dispossession of indigenous people, is central to these ‘conquests.’ Contemporary neo-liberalized mining law and development strategies continue the trend through the granting of mineral and property rights without consultation with, or consent of, affected communities. In this presentation, based on field work in Guatemala in 2008 and 2010, we examine the various legal and illegal ways in which the Guatemalan state, companies, and transnational organizations strip Maya indigenous communities of title and access to land as well as the ongoing resistance to such incursions. Using Goldcor...
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Page 1. GeoJournal 55: 5967, 2001. © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 59 Transnational ruptures and sutures: questions of identity and social relations among Guatemalans in Canada Catherine ...