Each Friday we are able to participate in some of the amazing group sessions held by the University of Victoria’s Community Based Research Lab. This week’s session, October 27 at 1:00 (CST) will be Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe.

Encounters with State of Emergency Declarations: Investigating the Edges of Democratic Participation through Community-Engaged Research 

This week’s guest speaker is Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe (UVic, Public Administration), who will talk on: Encounters with State of Emergency Declarations: Investigating the Edges of Democratic Participation through Community-Engaged Research.

The presentation can be assisted in person at the Community-based Research Lab in the Geography Department, DTB – Room B323

Sarah is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria. She primarily teaches in the Community Development program and her research focuses on environmental justice, public engagement and community-engaged research. Sarah is a board member with the Climate Disaster Project, author of the forthcoming book with UBC Press Life against States of Emergency: Revitalizing Treaty Relations from Attawapiskat and leads a research team examining vulnerabilities to extreme heat exposure events in the Capital Regional District. Drawing upon her lived-experience, she is currently writing a manuscript entitled Hot Mess: Becoming a Mother during a Code Red Climate Emergency, under contract with Fernwood Press. More information about her research interests is available at www.sarahmariewiebe.com.

Summary: When state of emergency declarations become the norm, the health of democratic societies is called into question. This presentation brings a feminist critical discourse analysis lens to investigate the political environment of two distinct yet related emergency scenarios. The first draws upon a ten-year project that involved arts-based community-engaged research with members of the Attawapiskat nation to challenge predominant, hegemonic narratives framing the community as constantly in crisis. In conversation with a knowledge democracy approach, findings from this project centre counterstories grounded in the lived-experiences and stories of community-members, including former Chief Theresa Spence, as discussed in Wiebe’s book Life against States of Emergency: Revitalizing Treaty Relations from Attawapiskat, forthcoming with UBC Press in 2023. This presentation will offer some reflections and lessons learned about the politics of framing and reframing through this participatory, mixed media approach. The next scenario bridges this research with the current climate emergency crisis, highlighting some avenues for future research and collaboration, while raising and responding to critical questions about the implications of state of emergency declarations for political participation.