MA students Caitlin Chong, Matja-Leena Corbett, and Kailey Peckford received SSHRC funding
MA students Caitlin Chong, Matja-Leena Corbett, and Kailey Peckford received SSHRC funding
UBC Sociology congratulates MA students Caitlin Chong, Matja-Leena Corbett, and Kailey Peckford who received SSHRC funding for their research projects.
Caitlin Chong – “Digital & Political Contours of Chinese-Canadian Communities”
Caitlin Chong
Caitlin Chong is a Han Chinese settler living on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Stó:lō, Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, in what is colonially known as “Vancouver.” Caitlin holds a B. A. (Honours) in Sociology from the University of Victoria. She is currently a first-year M. A. student in the Sociology department working under the supervision of Dr. Renisa Mawani. Her research interests lie within the tensions between hyphenated “Chinese-Canadian” identities/communities & sociopolitical necessitations of anti-oppressive theory and praxis, living as an unwilling yet complicit settler in the state known as “Canada.”
Chong’s project, titled “Digital & Political Contours of Chinese-Canadian Communities,” aims to discover how communities of fellow so-called “Chinese-Canadians” have engaged in digital activism and how intersecting identities affect their online social presence and political engagement. Through methods of autoethnography, critical discourse analysis, and interviewing, Chong hopes to explore how Instagram – as a social media platform and tool for organizing – has facilitated and empowered individuals to engage in digital forms of social justice activism, especially within the changing contexts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Matja-Leena Corbett – “How cultural scripts about suicide shape transgender youth’s future outlook and sense of self-worth”
Matja-Leena Corbett
Matja-Leena Corbett is an MA student in the sociology department at UBC. They completed their BA in sociology at SFU and hold an associate’s degree in creative writing from Capilano University. Their research interests are in the areas of mental health, suicide, grief, and identity.
Matja-Leena’s study aims to examine how transgender youth make sense of their own stories, identities, and sense of agency when confronted by potentially limiting narratives about their lives. Their study will explore how cultural scripts about suicide shape transgender youth’s future outlook and sense of self-worth, whether there are alternative scripts that are overlooked when popular culture, media, and social science focus primarily on the negative aspects of transgender identity and experience, and how transgender youth think about and make sense of these scripts in relation to their identities.
Kailey Peckford – “Why do straight cisgender women patronize gay spaces?”
Kailey Peckford
Kailey Peckford is a first-year Master’s student in the Department of Sociology. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Honours Sociology at MacEwan University where she conducted a critical ethnography on the gendered nature of alcohol culture in Edmonton, Alberta. Peckford is a long-time volunteer with Project Adult Literacy Society, a passionate teaching assistant, and a member of the Graduate Student Council of Sociology. In her free time, she loves to hike, go camping, and read dystopian or science fiction.
Peckford’s MA research project aims to understand straight cisgender women’s motivations for patronizing gay bars in Vancouver, British Columbia. The question of whether or not straight individuals “belong” in gay bars has received significant attention over the past decade. Although previous research has explored the reasons why LGBTQ+ patrons may exclude or evoke boundaries against straight women in gay bars, limited research has explored the reasons why straight women patronize gay spaces in the first place. Through semi-structured interviews and focus groups, this study aims to answer the following questions: Why do straight cisgender women patronize gay spaces? How do these women perceive their patronage of gay spaces?
