Dr. Gillian Creese, Dr. Oral Robinson, and Dr. Emily Huddart Kennedy
Last month, UBC Sociology held a Book Launch Party to celebrate some of our faculty who published new books during the pandemic. Students and faculty met at Koerner’s Pub to recognize these accomplishments and hear readings from our faculty’s latest books. After a long time of doing research and writing remotely, it was wonderful to come together to share what we had learned.
Thanks to Professor Emily Huddart-Kennedy who organized the event.
You can read more about our faculty’s recent books below.
Gillian Creese
Gillian Creese
Gillian Creese
“Where Are You From?”: Growing Up African-Canadian in Vancouver
University of Toronto Press, 2019
Metro Vancouver is a diverse city where half the residents identify as people of colour, but only one percent of the population is racialized as Black. In this context, African-Canadians are both hyper-visible as Black, and invisible as distinct communities. Informed by feminist and critical race theories, and based on interviews with women and men who grew up in Vancouver, “Where Are You From?” recounts the unique experience of growing up in a place where the second generation seldom sees other people who look like them, and yet are inundated with popular representations of Blackness from the United States.
This study explores how the second generation in Vancouver redefine their African identities to distinguish themselves from African-Americans, while continuing to experience considerable everyday racism that challenges belonging as Canadians. As a result, some members of the second generation reject, and others strongly assert, a Canadian identity.
Dr. Oral Robinson
Oral Robinson
Migration, Social Identities and Regionalism within the Caribbean Community
Palgrave McMillian, August 2020
This book offers a theoretical and substantive analysis of intra-Caribbean migration, perception of regionalism, and the construction of identities among Caribbean nationals. Through a multi-methods study in the 15 member countries of the Caribbean community, Oral Robinson explores how intra-Caribbean migrants experience living within different member countries, and how these experiences and perceptions influence ideas about citizenship, belonging, and identity. Responding directly to the lack of scholarship on how Caribbean nationals feel about integration and/or free movement within their own countries and other Caribbean countries, this volume attempts to understand Caribbean societies historically, theoretically, and methodologically; proposes bases of social identities in the Caribbean; and examines how intra-Caribbean migrants negotiate their identities and narrate their lived experiences as intra-Caribbean migrants. The book offers policy solutions based upon its findings, reconciling practice, theory, and migration policies in the Caribbean.
Dr. Emily Huddart-Kennedy
Emily Kennedy
Eco-Types: Five Ways of Caring About the Environment
Princeton University Press, October 2022
Why acknowledging diverse eco-social relationships can help us overcome the political polarization that undermines our ability to protect the environment
When we picture the ideal environmentalist, we likely have in mind someone who dedicates herself to reducing her own environmental footprint through individual choices about consumption―driving a fuel-efficient car, for example, or eating less meat, or refusing plastic straws. This is a benchmark that many aspire to―and many others reject. In Eco-Types, Emily Huddart Kennedy shows that there is more than one way to care about the environment, outlining a spectrum of eco-social relationships that range from engagement to indifference.
Drawing on three years of interviews and research, Kennedy describes five archetypal relationships with the environment: the Eco-Engaged, often politically liberal, who have an acute level of concern about the environment, a moral commitment to protect it, and the conviction that an individual can make a difference; the Self-Effacing, who share the Eco-Engaged’s concerns but not the belief in their own efficacy; the Optimists, often politically conservative, who are confident in their relationship with the environment, doubt the severity of environmental problems, and resent insinuations that they don’t care; the Fatalists, who are pessimistic about environmental decline and feel little responsibility to adopt environment-friendly habits; and the Indifferent, who have no affinity for any part of the environmental movement.
Kennedy argues that when liberals feel they have a moral monopoly on environmental issues, polarization results. If we are serious about protecting the planet, we must acknowledge that we don’t all need to care about the environment in the same way.
