Caroline Andrew

Acculturation and Nutritional Health of Immigrants in Canada: A Scoping Review

Although recent immigrants to Canada are healthier than Canadian born (i.e., the Healthy Immigrant Effect), they experience a deterioration in their health status which is partly due to transitions in dietary habits. Since pathways to these transitions are under-documented, this scoping review aims to identify knowledge gaps and research priorities related to immigrant nutritional health. A total of 49 articles were retrieved and reviewed using electronic databases and a stakeholder consultation was undertaken to consolidate findings. Overall, research tends to confirm the Healthy Immigrant Effect and suggests that significant knowledge gaps in nutritional health persist, thereby creating a barrier to the advancement of health promotion and the achievement of maximum health equity. Five research priorities were identified including (1) risks and benefits associated with traditional/ethnic foods; (2) access and outreach to immigrants; (3) mechanisms and coping strategies for food security; (4) mechanisms of food choice in immigrant families; and (5) health promotion strategies that work for immigrant populations.

Inequitable walking conditions among older people: examining the interrelationship of neighbourhood socio-economic status and urban form using a comparative case study

BackgroundSupportive neighbourhood walking conditions are particularly important for older people as they age and who, as a group, prefer walking as a form of physical activity. Urban form and socio-economic status (SES) can influence neighbourhood walking behaviour. The objectives of this study were: a) to examine how urban form and neighbourhood SES inter-relate to affect the experiences of older people who walk in their neighbourhoods; b) to examine differences among neighbourhood stakeholder key informant perspectives on socio-political processes that shape the walkability of neighbourhood environments.MethodsAn embedded comparative case study examined differences among four Ottawa neighbourhoods that were purposefully selected to provide contrasts on urban form (inner-urban versus suburban) and SES (higher versus lower). Qualitative data collected from 75 older walkers and 19 neighbourhood key informants, as well as quantitative indicators were compared on the two axes of urban form and SES among the four neighbourhoods.Results and discussionExamining the inter-relationship of neighbourhood SES and urban form characteristics on older peoples walking experiences indicated that urban form differences were accentuated positively in higher SES neighbourhoods and negatively in lower SES neighbourhoods. Older people in lower SES neighbourhoods were more affected by traffic hazards and more reliant on public transit compared to their higher SES counterparts. In higher SES neighbourhoods the disadvantages of traffic in the inner-urban neighbourhood and lack of commercial destinations in the suburban neighbourhood were partially offset by other factors including neighbourhood aesthetics. Key informant descriptions of the socio-political process highlighted how lower SES neighbourhoods may face greater challenges in creating walkable places. These differences pertained to the size of neighbourhood associations, relationships with political representatives, accessing information and salient neighbourhood association issues. Findings provide evidence of inequitable walking environments.ConclusionFuture research on walking must consider urban form-SES inter-relationships and further examine the equitable distribution of walking conditions as well as the socio-political processes driving these conditions. There is a need for municipal governments to monitor differences in walking conditions among higher and lower SES neighbourhoods, to be receptive to the needs of lower SES neighbourhood and to ensure that policy decisions are taken to address inequitable walking conditions.

Identity matters: Aboriginal mothers’ experiences of accessing health care

Abstract This paper reports on research examining how service providers’ perceptions of Aboriginal women’s identities contributes to their experiences of accessing preventive care during pregnancy and parenting in an urban setting. An intersectionality paradigm was adopted to conduct a secondary analysis of purposively selected transcripts of exploratory interviews with Aboriginal women. Findings indicate that how Aboriginal women identity as mothers was perceived by service providers was the focal point at which women described positive or negative experiences of accessing care. These conclusions challenge nurses’ understandings of developing therapeutic relationships with marginalised populations and highlight the necessity of examining how perceptions of identity shape issues of oppression and discrimination within therapeutic relationships.

Women and the Welfare State

The article presents a reinterpretation of the welfare state dealing with the role played by women in the development and on-going function of the welfare state. Three roles are emphasized: womens organizing and the role of womens organizations in pressuring for the measures making up the welfare state, women as workers in the welfare state and, finally, women as clients of the welfare state. Having described these roles, the current politics of the welfare state are examined in order to illustrate the importance of understanding the relations between gender and politics.

Partnerships for women’s safety in the city: “four legs for a good table”

Ten years after the first Reclaim the Night marches in the late 1970s began to galvanize women around the right to move freely in public and private space without fear of violence, a local governance-based movement to promote women’s safety developed in European and Canadian cities and was later diffused to Africa, Asia and Latin America. This movement drew on urban planning and design as a means to promote women’s empowerment. Partnerships developed around a framework we have titled “four legs for a good table”: community advocates to push for change; local politicians to galvanize government resources; “femocrats” to capture local policies and programmes for emancipatory ends; and researchers to gather evidence around the problem and to document efforts around solutions. This paper traces the collective history of this loosely coordinated movement. Focusing on three case studies, we mark the advancements of theoretical frameworks and practical tools as the women’s safety movement internationalized, and reflect on achievements and challenges.

Urban Contestation in a Feminist Register

Abstract Approaches to urban contestation that challenge the dichotomy between institutionalization and opposition, and understand contestation as including engagement, are explored. The emphasis is on how recent forms of feminist analysis and critical scholarship open up a conceptual terrain for such thinking, and the discussion is grounded using further details of City for All Women Initiative/Initiative: une ville pour toutes les femmes (CAWI-IVTF), which is seen to be a concrete, successful case. Its tactics and strategies are noteworthy because of the manner in which ideas drawn from feminist and progressive organizing in other (including non-urban and non-Western) contexts have been incorporated. CAWI-IVTFs successes are most striking in relation to women who previously felt alienated from local politics. The organizations rationale, strategies, and tactics provide insights into how women active in this network create new spatialities, and how their interactions in space are producing new political subjects.

Ethnicities, citizenship and feminisms: Theorizing the political practices of intersectionality

This article explores the present state of theorizing about the political practices of the intersections of feminisms and ethnicity. This particular question raises the larger question of the political practices of difference, or the ways the intersections of multiple identities can be translated into political practice. The article looks first at the way in which this issue has emerged, both from the political practice of the Canadian womens movement and from the intellectual challenge of postmodernism. Following a brief examination of Canadian feminist writings on the analysis of intersections of gender and ethnicity, the text looks at the political practices of intersectionality through the question of citizenship and the relationship between the public and private spheres. Although some interesting arguments are to be found in the literature about the potential for the development of coalition politics that take account of difference but also of common citizenship, it is not at all clear that this wi...

Leisure, the local state and the welfare state: a theoretical overview.

Abstract Until recently much of the study of local public leisure services in the U.S.A., Canada and the U.K. has not dealt systematically with the role played by the local state within the welfare state. The role of the local state with respect to leisure is, of course, pivotal in that it is at that level that the bulk of public leisure services are delivered. Moreover, given that state intervention in leisure is an increasingly accepted aspect of the welfare state, the role of the local state within the welfare state is crucial to any understanding of public leisure policies and programmes. Hence, it is argued that a more theoretically informed analysis of public leisure ought to be concerned with models of the local state and the relationship of the local state to the central welfare state. Toward this end, a review of liberal, neo-weberian, and neo-marxist models of the local state is undertaken. This is followed by an attempt to align these models with compatible theoretical approaches to the welfare...

Welfare Hot Buttons: Women, Work, and Social Policy Reform

ent spheres of life. The authors’ main concern is with exploring what these transitions have meant for gender relations in the region, whether they will exacerbate or lessen inequalities, and the ways in which women and men have experienced and responded to them. The authors provide nuanced answers; while inequalities and conditions have worsened for women in one area, there have been positive effects in other respects, affecting gender relations in multiple ways. One consequence of structural reforms has been the greater political awareness and mobilization of women, as they bear primary responsibility for areas hard hit during the transition, such as domestic care and provisioning. At the same time, however, restructuring also has resulted in a disproportionate burden on women’s reproductive labor. As women take on more reproductive responsibilities, states withdraw services while minimizing social unrest. Furthermore, although politics and legislation are more engendered in Latin America today, Craske notes that as more countries pass legislation to grant women more rights, gender equity is still not a reality. Laws are not necessarily practiced, given the gender and cultural ideologies that still govern people’s lives. The authors present a detailed and balanced analysis of the conditions that have affected women. For example, they discuss the specific ways in which restructuring has affected men. Chant notes that structural adjustment, economic liberalization, and global competition have translated into precarious working conditions and lower incomes for everyone. Thus, male labor instability is increasing, and their labor force participation has declined in several countries, not because women are taking their jobs but because job creation has been slow. This situation has had serious consequences for gender relations, as men find it increasingly difficult to maintain their formerly privileged position and in some cases have responded to their economic instability by drinking, abandoning their families, or engaging in domestic violence. Although the authors present enough evidence to support the point that Latin American women today shoulder larger burdens and responsibility than in the past and that the economic transition has been difficult on men as well, they conclude on an optimistic note. Chant observes that despite the precarious conditions in which many Latin American women live, today they have a stronger political voice, more institutional support to advance their interests, and greater access to education and employment. The authors also observe, and I agree, that gains in one area are tempered by losses in others and by the maintenance of gender ideologies and the status quo. This book should be compulsory reading for those interested in furthering their understanding of Latin America, gender roles and relations, development and change, and neo-liberal economic restructuring, although given the depth and coverage of themes, it should have a wider readership. I also would recommend it to those concerned with issues of social and economic justice globally.