Canadian Observatory on Homelessness

This article, derived from a three-year ethnography of distributed medical education provision in a Canadian university, explores the ways in which information and communication technologies are used by teachers and students in their everyday work within technologically rich teaching environments. The environments being researched are two university campuses: a campus at the main university site and a satellite campus in a neighbouring province. The article seeks to contrast dominant, institutional discourses of technology use in higher education teaching with the everyday practices of staff and students. The article concludes that there is a gap between policy and practice in distributed education and that the teaching and learning experience and context of staff and students in different sites need to be analysed in depth, in terms of: whether the experience of learning across sites can be positioned as being comparable; the extent to which technology ameliorates learning and teaching; and understanding the work done by staff.

Health systems are not simply pluralistic, nor is dualism limited to mind/body. This timely edited collection explores the complex relationship between marginalized and mainstream medicine in a globalized world, using rich ethnographic case studies from South Asia and Europe. The collection advances theory on the asymmetries between different health systems given their increasing contact and need for negotiation. The pervasiveness of biomedicine and market capitalism, the editors contend, has deepened the tension between 'the global and the local', and further complicated how this tension is negotiated in the everyday operation of differing health systems. In addition to the common themes of pluralism, dualism, and asymmetry, each chapter also makes its own unique contribution. Laurence Kirmayer explores the history of mind/body dualism and its pervasiveness in the West. According to Kirmayer, despite variations in epistemology and ontology, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) gets lumped into one overarching 'hybrid invention'. He argues that mind/body duality is overly restrictive and instead we should allow mind and body equal 'play'. He also provides an analysis of the political, economic, and social factors influencing CAM, which could be made even more complex by including the ways biomedicine might possibly be influenced by CAM, notwithstanding contextual issues of power and hegemony. Johannes Quack examines spirit possession through Indian categories and ontologies, questioning the categories that separate and bind notions of dividuality and individuality. He suggests that spirit possession is learned and context-specific – arguing that Indians do not become spirit possessed in therapeutic settings where it is not considered appropriate, such as a psychiatry ward within a hospital. In his case study, patients 'play both games' depending on the setting and expectations of conduct. This implies a sense of performativity and implicit agency that is being enacted on some level. Francis Zimmerman explores dualisms of East/West, medicine/alternative medicine, and challenges the ideological division between tradition and modernity. He also challenges the dualism between rational and metaphysical, health/disease, and death/life as being overly simplistic. This ambitious chapter highlights important tensions and interplay between the many binaries he examines, and could benefit from narrowing its focus. Using a retrospective narrative of one well-educated, middle-class Indian woman, Harish Naraindas explores the presence and pervasiveness of the language of 'risk' in relation to childbirth in South India, the US, the UK, and Germany. He argues that childbirth is one of the most 'successful' examples of medicalization. In the Indian context, danger and risk are purposely accentuated by the state, particularly in relation to non-biomedical forms of care during childbirth. He highlights tensions between 'local

This article is derived from a three-year ethnography of distributed medical education at one Canadian University across two Canadian provinces. It explores the ways in which students and staff work inside the technologically rich teaching environments within which the curriculum is delivered. Drawing on data constructed through observations, interviews and photographs, the article seeks to explain how the key concept of comparability of provision is accomplished. The article concludes that the education received at both campuses is comparable. However, simply to attribute this comparability to the technology itself is to ignore the central role that is played by the staffacademic, administrative and audiovisual. The article concludes by arguing that, notwithstanding the fact that people will always respond to technologies in unanticipated ways, the curriculum within which they are enfolded is sufficiently robust to accommodate such practices whilst at the same time maintaining the quality of the provision.

This thesis explores the ontological content of the integration of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in biomedical education, through a critical exploration of "CAM" policy related documents from the World Bank, the World Health Organization and Health Canada, as a means of contextualizing "CAM" in biomedical education. It also interrogates curriculum documents from a project that seeks to standardize "CAM" in biomedical education. This thesis suggests that there are ontological parallels to the colonial era conversion of indigenous medicine evoked in the contemporary 'integration' of CAM in biomedical education. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED

Indigenous First Voice is utilized to explore the Two-Eyed Seeing/Etuaptmumk principle to theorize the integration of Indigenous medicines into health care in Canada. In particular we draw on Fournier’s account of a recent cancer experience and exploration of her awakening identity as a métis woman to illustrate some of the tensions that need to be negotiated to avoid being absorbed into a dominant Western biomedical way of understanding health and wellness; we juxtapose her sensory experiences of using Indigenous healing alongside biomedicine for cancer care and call for a dynamic and multi-eyed seeing framework which more accurately captures the intended nature of the Two-Eyed Seeing/ Etuaptmumk principle.

This article, derived from a three-year ethnography of distributed medical education provision in a Canadian university, explores the ways in which ICTs are used by teachers and students in their everyday work within technologically rich teaching environments. The environments being researched are two university campuses: a campus at the main university site, and a satellite campus in a neighbouring province. The article seeks to contrast dominant, institutional discourses of technology use in higher education teaching with the everyday practices of staff and students. The article concludes that there is a gap between policy and practice in distributed education and that the teaching and learning experience and context of staff and students in different sites need to be analysed in depth, in terms of: whether the experience of learning across sites can be positioned as being comparable; the extent to which technology ameliorates learning and teaching; and understanding the work done by staff.

Current research on telepresence tends to engage a celebratory, taken-for-granted view of technology as a vehicle for improved communication and a mere backdrop against which communication unfolds. However, a growing body of literature interrogates the neutrality of technological environments in education. This paper considers the practice of lectures within distributed (multi-campus) medical education. Applying a sociomaterial theoretical lens, we analyze ethnographic data from a three-year study focused on the use of telepresence technology in the undergraduate medical program at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. Our research question was: How are material telepresence tools, processes and spaces enmeshed with student learning in the distributed lecture? We identified three sociomaterial complexities related to the practice of asking questions in this context: 1. Material presence and process of the button and screen in asking questions; 2. The ways in-class questions d...

This thesis explores the ontological content of the integration of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in biomedical education, through a critical exploration of "CAM" policy related documents from the World Bank, the World Health Organization and Health Canada, as a means of contextualizing "CAM" in biomedical education. It also interrogates curriculum documents from a project that seeks to standardize "CAM" in biomedical education. This thesis suggests that there are ontological parallels to the colonial era conversion of indigenous medicine evoked in the contemporary 'integration' of CAM in biomedical education. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED

Research involving and impacting Indigenous Peoples is often of little or no benefit to the communities involved and, in many cases, causes harm. Ensuring that Indigenous research is not only ethical but also of benefit to the communities involved is a long-standing problem that requires fundamental changes in higher education. To address this necessity for change,

This Photo Essay explores my experience with cancer and healing using Indigenous traditional medicines. I use Photo First Voice, a form of autoethnography, to story my 'living' experience with cancer, which includes getting in touch with and honouring my Indigenous roots (Algonquin/French) attending healing ceremonies, and becoming an Oshkaabewis (a healer's helper) myself. I integrate photographic images into this essay to illustrate my experiences and to enhance the meaning of the words I have committed to these pages. Each image represents a different aspect or level of knowledge and healing. These images and text are followed by a discussion in which I weave fragments of experience together to narrate a living (inter)relationship with the earth, towards a more balanced whole. Indigenous medicines set in motion major changes in my life, which are fundamental to my ongoing healing. In this context, the term 'medicine' refers to Indigenous knowledges that contribute to healing, healing ceremonies, teachings, and plant medicines (mainly Ojibwe).

This Photo Essay explores my experience with cancer and healing using Indigenous traditional medicines. I use Photo First Voice, a form of auto-ethnography, to story my experience with cancer, which includes getting in touch with and honouring my Indigenous roots (Algonquin/French) attending healing ceremonies, and becoming an Oshkaabewis (a healer's helper) myself. I integrate photographic images into this essay to illustrate my experiences and to enhance the meaning of the words I have committed to these pages. Each image represents a different aspect or level of knowledge and healing. These images and text are followed by a discussion in which I weave fragments of experience together to narrate a living (inter)relationship with the earth, towards a more balanced whole. Indigenous medicines set in motion major changes in my life, which are fundamental to my ongoing healing. In this context, the term medicine refers to Indigenous knowledges that contribute to healing, healing ceremonies, teachings, and plant medicines (mainly Ojibwe).

This Photo Essay explores my experience with cancer and healing using Indigenous traditional medicines. I use Photo First Voice, a form of autoethnography, to story my 'living' experience with cancer, which includes getting in touch with and honouring my Indigenous roots (Algonquin/French) attending healing ceremonies, and becoming an Oshkaabewis (a healer's helper) myself. I integrate photographic images into this essay to illustrate my experiences and to enhance the meaning of the words I have committed to these pages. Each image represents a different aspect or level of knowledge and healing. These images and text are followed by a discussion in which I weave fragments of experience together to narrate a living (inter)relationship with the earth, towards a more balanced whole. Indigenous medicines set in motion major changes in my life, which are fundamental to my ongoing healing. In this context, the term 'medicine' refers to Indigenous knowledges that contribute to healing, healing ceremonies, teachings, and plant medicines (mainly Ojibwe).

This Photo Essay explores my experience with cancer and healing using Indigenous traditional medicines. I use Photo First Voice, a form of autoethnography, to story my 'living' experience with cancer, which includes getting in touch with and honouring my Indigenous roots (Algonquin/French) attending healing ceremonies, and becoming an Oshkaabewis (a healer's helper) myself. I integrate photographic images into this essay to illustrate my experiences and to enhance the meaning of the words I have committed to these pages. Each image represents a different aspect or level of knowledge and healing. These images and text are followed by a discussion in which I weave fragments of experience together to narrate a living (inter)relationship with the earth, towards a more balanced whole. Indigenous medicines set in motion major changes in my life, which are fundamental to my ongoing healing. In this context, the term 'medicine' refers to Indigenous knowledges that contribute to healing, healing ceremonies, teachings, and plant medicines (mainly Ojibwe).