Women's community organizing experiences in Sudbury, Ontario: an exploratory look
Year:
2005
Author :
Publishing Company:
, McGill University
Abstract
This qualitative study examines sixteen women's understanding of their experiences in community organizing in a northern urban context. While most front-line community organizing is done by women, there is a paucity of research giving voice to their particular realities. Similarly, there is little information describing community organizing in a northern urban context. The study's conceptual frameworks draw on theory and research from rural and northern social work, activist mothering, feminist social policy, diversity and exclusion, and the social construction of identities. It follows a feminist research paradigm. The study illustrates women community organizers' sense of place and their perceptions of the politics of language, cultural and linguistic tensions, and the influences of northern economic and geographic realities. The research findings demonstrate the processes of community organizing in a northern setting, community organizers' demoralization because of increasingly less generous social policy environments, and the challenges of racial and linguistic divisions in community organizing. The study challenges the urban lens dominating social work education and highlights the legitimacy of community organizing within social work education. It discusses future research possibilities for cross-cultural community organizing involving minority francophone and ethnocultural populations as well as the relativity of notions of oppression within francophone spheres.
Theme :
WomenFrancophonesOntario
Database: This is a bibliographic reference. Please note that the majority of references in our database do not contain full texts.
- To consult references on the health of official‑language minority communities (OLMC): click here