Category: Higher education and research

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Food and agriculture Higher education and research Knowledge mobilization Uncategorized

Turning a new leaf… Un nouveau début…

Le français suit…
 
As some of you already know, after nearly three exciting, intense years as Executive Director of Food Secure Canada (FSC) I decided some time ago to step down and take a needed breather but the news was confidential until January 24th. My last day was Friday, January 28th per the message that was shared with FSC’s membership as well as other messages the same day followed by the newsletter on February 9th.
 
I want to thank FSC’s team, volunteer board, members, partners and funders for their dedication. It’s been a privilege to serve this movement with such passionate people, organizations and networks and have policy impact. I’m proud of all that has been accomplished collectively.  I look forward to making continued contributions to food-system transformation from my perch as an Ottawa-based Senior Fellow at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia.
 
With gratitude…
 
Gisèle
 
Comme certains d’entre vous le savent déjà, après près de trois années passionnantes et intenses en tant que directrice générale du Réseau pour une alimentation durable (RAD), j’ai décidé il y a un certain temps de prendre un recul pour respirer mais les nouvelles étaient confidentielles jusqu’au 24 janvier. Mon dernier jour fut le vendredi 28 janvier tel qu’indiqué dans le message qui a été partagé avec les membres du RAD ainsi que d’autres messages la même journée et l’infolettre le 9 février. 
 
Je tiens à remercier l’équipe du RAD, le conseil d’administration bénévole, les membres, partenaires et bailleurs de fonds pour leur dévouement. Ce fut un privilège de servir ce mouvement et de travailler avec des personnes, des organisations et des réseaux si passionnés et d’avoir un impact au niveau politique. Je suis très fière de tout ce qui a été accompli collectivement. Au plaisir de continuer de contribuer à la transformation du système alimentaire en tant que « Senior Fellow »  au « School of Public Policy and Global Affairs » à l’Université de la Colombie-Britannique (depuis Ottawa).
 
Toutes mes reconnaissances…
 
Gisèle

FSC team in March 2020 / Équipe du RAD en mars 2020

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Asia Higher education and research

The Importance of the Asia-Africa Relationship

Photo by Suhyun Choi

The relationship between Asia and Africa is a longstanding one, historically, and has been growing exponentially in recent years though increased investment and trade. Chinese porcelaine from the 9th century has been found in the archaeological site of Great Zimbabwe and the cotton trade from India to Africa dates back to the time of Herodotus in the 5th century BCE. I had the pleasure of organizing a presentation at UBC on May 29th by Dr. Renu Modi of the University of Mumbai on the manufacturing of textiles – mainly kanga and vitenge (the plural of kitenge) in India for the growing African market. China is also highly involved in the manufacturing of this cloth used primarily for the garment industry. Dr. Modi presented her documentary film, Common Threads, which was featured recently in the Zanzibar International Film Festival. Approximately 40 people were in attendance. Thank you Renu!

 

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Food and agriculture Higher education and research

Botanical Gardens: Allies in Food Security and Nutrition

Thanks to Food Tank: The Food Think Tank for publishing my guest blog coauthored with Tara Moreau of UBC Botanical Garden on the role of botanical gardens in food security. Much of this is due to Norbert Steinhaus inviting me to become involved in the EU-funded “Big Picnic” project. You can access the article here.

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Higher education and research

How do we build an intentional university?

This opinion piece focuses on the Minerva Schools at KGI in San Francisco with some comparisons to other intentional universities, primarily on the west coast of Canada. The article was published by University Affairs on April 24th, 2018 and is freely available on the internet at: https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/build-intentional-university/

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Asia Higher education and research

Report from The Netherlands and Belgium

I’m delighted to have been invited to speak at the European Institute of Asian Studies in Brussels on Wednesday, January 27th. The topic of my presentation was “Women’s Access to Public Space in Asia: India, Thailand and the Philippines in Comparative Perspective” based on a recent draft book chapter based on many years of past work. Merci pour cette belle opportunité!

On Thursday, January 28th, I had the pleasure of participating in and speaking at the final event for the NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) funded CATCH Program (Continuous Access to Cultural Heritage). CATCH is an interdisciplinary research program involving computer science, humanities scholars and cultural institutions. It has been a privilege to serve on the International Scientific Advisory Board for this program over the past four years. We also took the opportunity to celebrate the career contributions of Professor Jaap van den Herik, a pioneer in computer science and digital humanities. Hartelijk bedankt!

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Asia Higher education and research Knowledge mobilization

LINGUA FRANCA?: FRANCOPHONE SCHOLARSHIP ON THE ASIA-PACIFIC

This post is inspired by my participation in the 2015 Congrès Asie-Pacifique, held in Paris this past September. Here is an excerpt with the full text available here:

While English is often thought of as the international academic lingua franca, there is significant scholarship on Asia in other languages, including French. French-language scholarship on the Asia-Pacific should be valued, particularly in Canada – a bilingual country home to a number of French-speaking Asianists who publish important works in their mother-tongue. Read more…

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Higher education and research

Innovative and Engaging Communications in and Beyond the Academy

GlobalHigherEd logo

Photo above courtesy of GlobalHigherEd.

Kris Olds, editor of GlobalHigherEd, kindly published this guest-blog on October 4th, 2015. It was also simultaneously published by Inside Higher Ed in GlobalHigherEd’s section. The full text is available here. Below is the opening paragraph.

Research and scholarship is primarily about asking and answering questions as well as conserving and constantly reinterpreting fragile and easily forgotten knowledge. When I started graduate studies more than 25 years ago, there was no talk of the world wide web, no blogs, no Twitterverse, Facebook, Academia.edu and so on. I grew up in an era of card catalogues, photocopying, typewriters and hand-written letters with supervisors and collaborators. My first experience with computers was with a mainframe “Amdahl” where you had to learn complex codes to do simple word-processing! I am convinced that the dramatic communications revolution we are experiencing is and will continue to transform research, teaching and academe beyond anything we are familiar with now in the next twenty years. So, how might we succinctly envision these changes and start to prepare for the scholarly world of the possible future? Or as I was asked recently by a university Vice-President of Research, “what are the implications of digital media for post-secondary institutions?”

 

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Asia Higher education and research

Living with Risk by Tamaki Endo

Pacific Affairs invited me to review a new book entitled Living with Risk: Precarity & Bangkok’s Urban Poor by Tamaki Endo, a Japanese scholar. It’s a great read for those with an interest in urbanization and poverty alleviation. What’s also nice is that it cites a lot of Japanese-language scholarship on these issues, which might not normally be accessible to other audiences. The full text of my review can be viewed here.

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Higher education and research

Social Science Research & Teaching Infrastructure

My contribution on social science research and teaching infrastructure in Canada and the USA was published in March 2015 by the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences (Second Edition). Here is the link to the Science Direct version for purchase and downloading.

Hats off to editor of the entire, massive second edition, James D. Wright (Sociology, University of Central Florida) for proactively reaching out to non-Americans, women, non-anglophones, and minorities to get a more complete picture of the scholarship represented. He wrote an article talking about his approach available here. Nous avenues eu le plaisir de le rencontrer il y a quelques années. Merci!

P.S. Unfortunately, despite my careful feedback on the proofs, my affiliation is incorrect! It cannot, for the moment, be changed in Science Direct and the first print run has already been done.