Browsing by Author "Smart, Alan"

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    A Choice under Constraints: Child Labour in Hong Kong from 1950 to 1971
    (2016) Lau, Nga Yee; Smart, Alan; Adorjan, Michael; Jameson, Elizabeth
    This is the untold story of child labour in Hong Kong from 1950 to 1971. Based on 31 interviews conducted mostly with former child labourers and archival research, this thesis examines the many facets of child work from former child labourers’ perspectives. This study aims to broaden our understanding of the post-war economic miracle, child work experiences, and why children worked and contributed to the household economy. While the world was eager to stop child labour, the influx of Chinese newcomers kept it alive. Although some children chose to work out of filial motivations, they made their choices under duress and debased socioeconomic conditions. Family circumstances, limited education access and the lack of poor relief were among the constraints that reinforced their choices. This research enriches the mainstream narrative of Hong Kong’s economic success by documenting the toil and sweat of the post-war generation that built contemporary Hong Kong.
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    Cultivating School Food Community: An Ethnography on Nutritional Wellbeing in a Calgary Public School
    (2019-01-18) Cottle, Tamara; Hayashi, Naotaka; Smart, Alan; Elliott, Charlene; ell
    The nutritional health of Canadian children has declined over the last 30 years. Public health campaigns and health education programs have been developed to address increased rates of obesity and overweight in young people. Schools are popular sites for health education programming in this regard. Although policies and initiatives have been used to improve student nutritional health, low-nutritional value foods (LNVFs) continue to proliferate in the school food environment (SFE). Critical Medical Anthropology (CMA) considers the social, political, economic, and environmental factors that interact with the body to impact overall health and may help shed light on why young people continue to consume LNVFs in school. CMA is both a theory and practice that can be used for improving health and wellbeing in communities. This thesis utilized CMA in an ethnography at a school in Calgary to better understand what factors influence food choice among students. Interviews, group discussions and participant observation were conducted between January 2015 and June 2015. Through collaborative initiatives including a garbology study and a cookbook project, students, teachers and researcher uncovered valuable information to help inform future food programming in schools.
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    Customs control over illicit international trade: The impact of different forms of illegality
    (associazione nazionale universitaria degli antropologi culturali, 2015) Smart, Alan
    This article examines a process central to the anthropological understanding of the state, how smuggling persists despite diverting a large portion of the revenues critical to the operation of state organizations. Developing the author’s prior typology of basic reasons why illegal practices persist, the article argues that there are five distinct types of smuggling, related to factors such as the social legitimacy of the activity. Legitimacy appears to make control much more difficult, but the availability of profits is also a key factor that can operate in the absence of social legitimacy, and which can contribute to the corruption of state officials. The result of intensified enforcement crackdowns also differs between the types, affecting the nature of the organization of smuggling practices. I conclude that the exploration of diversity among smuggling practices demonstrates the advantages of avoiding a treatment of illegality in general terms, and to pluralize the concept to understand the diverse motivations and forms that illegal practices can take.
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    Data-Driven Governance, Smart Urbanism and Risk-Class Inequalities: Security and Social Credit in China
    (2020-04) Curran, Dean; Smart, Alan
    This paper contributes to the politicization of the smart urbanism and data-driven governance by making visible some of the potential inequalities emerging from these transitions through a provisional risk-class analysis. To pursue this analysis, it focuses on the case of smart urbanism and its associated process of data-driven governance in China, focusing specifically on the manner in which Chinese smart urbanism, in terms of its security measures, including widespread use of facial recognition, and the roll-out of social credit scoring, is affecting inequalities. This paper proposes risk-class analysis as a toolbox that can pose new questions in the search for what types of potential risks and inequalities emerging from smart urbanism and data-driven governance as is being rolled out in the Chinese context.
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    Does formalization make a city smarter? Towards post-elitist and post-humanist smart cities
    (2017-08) Smart, Alan
    This paper brings together two bodies of research on development strategies that are rarely considered together: smart city strategies (SCS), and the formalization of informality. Both are common practices for cities that want to be seen to be at the cutting edge of urban fashion. Both strategies have also been criticized as top-down and corporate friendly initiatives that undermine local vernacular practices. Smart city proponents beg the question of what makes a city smart, and in doing so neglect forms of intelligence that do not involve sophisticated technology controlled by technical and corporate elites. I argue that argue that cities can be “smarter” (if by that we mean anything other than the quantity or density of information and communication technology) in a variety of ways, including (1) citizen engagement (Leontidou 2015), (2) low-tech but effective architectural and urban design, and (3) high-tech (currently emphasizing distributed cognition through studding cities with sensors monitored with big data analytics). The paper concludes with a research agenda towards non-elitist and non-humanist smart cities.
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    Dollars and sense: corporate social responsibility in Canada's oil industry
    (2001) Hamlet, Nicole Marie; Smart, Alan
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    Ethnographic perspectives on the mediation of informality between people and plans in urbanising China
    (Urban Studies, 2018-01-16) Smart, Alan
    In this introduction to some of the themes of this special issue on People and plans in urbanising China, I draw on Herbert Gans’ prescient comments about the importance of informality in med- iating between plans and the various groups of people, users and planners, who shape their for- mation and implementation. Informality is even more important in the governance of cities in China. Comparing contemporary Chinese cities with Hong Kong, I suggest that informal responses, both in society and within government, can produce significant changes in plans that may increase the effectiveness or appropriateness of urban governance. Careful ethnographic research is required, however, in order to access the subtle and non-public nature of such inter- actions and their consequences. This commentary draws out some of the themes from articles included in this special issue, and highlights how informality intersects with plans and the people who create them and are influenced by them.
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    Experiences of the new economy in Calgary
    (1998) Low, David Kenneth Cameron; Smart, Alan
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    Exploring Indigenous Women’s Dietary Practices with the Women Warriors Program: Social Determinants and Resilience in Seeking Wellness
    (2018-12-21) Sampson, Megan Beth; Smart, Alan; Leason, Jennifer; Fellner, Karlee D.
    Indigenous women (First Nation, Métis, and Inuit) experience nutrition-related chronic illness at disproportionate rates when compared to both Indigenous men and the Canadian population at large. Negative social determinants of health stemming from recent and historical injustices contribute to this reality. Indigenous women’s position in Canada is distinct as they may face marginalization on the basis of sex, race, and socioeconomic status. Despite these realities, Indigenous feminist literature demonstrates that Indigenous women are often at the forefront of anticolonial movements and attempts to improve wellness within their communities. This research investigates what Indigenous women’s dietary practices reveal about their distinct experiences, needs, preferences, and values relating to food and health. It took place on Treaty 6 territory in the city of Lloydminster and its surrounding rural areas, and includes the experiences of Cree and Métis women. Current public health initiatives targeting individual behaviours are ill-equipped to respond to the larger socio-political roots of problematic dietary practices in Indigenous contexts. These include colonial assaults on Indigenous food systems which have resulted in trauma, food insecurity, and the transition away from traditional foods toward store-bought, processed alternatives. My intent in conducting this research was to engage Indigenous Women in conversations about how these factors impact them, how they cope with or combat them, and what supports they seek out and offer to others in light of such experiences. Literature relating to social economy and social capital, the social determinants of health, anticolonial theory, Indigenous perspectives of health and wellness, and Indigenous feminism frame findings collected through interdisciplinary ethnographic methods that include participant observation, dietary recalls, supportive network mapping, and personal narratives. Underlying the research design is the recognition that Indigenous women’s voices should be prioritized in efforts to improve health equity. This study was conducted in partnership with Women Warriors, a holistic wellness program for Indigenous women that promotes cultural safety in its design. Beyond informing future programming, the findings have implications for initiatives and services aimed at improving Indigenous women’s nutrition, access to traditional foods and food knowledges, and wellness more broadly.
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    Formalization as confinement in colonial Hong Kong
    (2016-08) Smart, Alan; Smart, Josephine
    The nature of informal economies is structured by conflict between governmental strategies of confinement, to places, times, and how things are done, and the transgression of these confines by informal actors in pursuit of survival or advantage. We examine the influential development program of formalization in the context of these conflicts. Informality can be formalized in two ways, by eradication and by regularization. Building on our past ethnographic research on informality, we use released confidential Hong Kong colonial government documents to explore the informal discussions among policy makers about how to respond to informal practices, and how their understanding of street vendors influences their chose of confinement strategies. While insisting on eradication for squatters, various forms of regularization were attempted for street vendors.
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    From Homeownership to Homelessness and the Housing in-between: An Examination of Migrants’ Housing Experiences in Calgary
    (2013-10-02) Turner, Alina; Smart, Alan
    This thesis explores the role of housing, migration, the state, and the global economy in Calgary, Alberta using multiple research methods. The analysis draws on interview and participant observation data with migrants from India, Romania, Ethiopia, and Newfoundland, as well as housing providers and policy makers. The author also relied on her experiences working in the housing and homelessness policy field for eight years. The ethnographic approach was complemented by quantitative analysis of census, housing market, and program level data, along with public policy analysis. The theoretical framework draws on housing careers, political economy, and urban anthropology literature, particularly the ongoing debates on structuration, the state, and global cities. The main findings explore the link between migration and housing experiences, the meaning of home from migrants’ perspective, informal and formal housing, homelessness and housing stress, and the role of the state and public policy. Analysis sheds light on the relationship between migration and housing experiences, particularly probing the role of homeownership. By exploring the impact of state policies and global processes on migrants’ housing options and experiences, the study considers neoliberal policy development and implementation as part of the broader restructuring of cities and its impacts on migrant groups. The focus on the macro-dimensions of the housing market and state policies is complemented by an exploration of governance mechanisms and institutions and their intersection with individual migrants, policy makers, and housing providers. This exploration demonstrates that a grounded ethnographic approach to migration and housing can provide important insights into the restructuring of cities brought about by neoliberalism, contemporary governance processes, and urban informality practices.
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    Gift to a Former Mentor: Hong Kong's Contribution to the Rise of China and the Consequences of That Rise for the Current Relationship
    (Hong Kong Sociological Association, 2015) Smart, Alan; Yeung, Godfrey; Lui, Tai-lok
    Hong Kong made a crucial contribution to China's rise, but in the last fifteen years the balance of influence has shifted. Quantitative dominance in foreign investment since reforms began in 1979 was, and apparently still is, a key part of Hong Kong's contribution to China's rise. The qualitative significance of Hong Kong's role in integrating China with the global capitalist economy through providing market knowledge and contacts was even more critical. The central importance of Hong Kong investment in the 1980s was that it provided not what China wanted (higher technology and modernization of state enterprise} but what it needed (a way to take advantage of China's vast stocks of unproductively utilized labour). However, our focus is not on Hong Kong's contribution to China's rise. Instead, we concentrate on the implications of that rise for Hong Kong.
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    Hybrid Ethnicity in the Urban Built Environment
    (2018-06-29) Hassonjee, Insia; Monteyne, David; Keough, Noel; Smart, Alan
    The interface of one ethnicity with another has always resulted in an exchange of ideologies, lifestyles and architecture (Wood, 2008). This phenomenon is an integral part of history and ethnic landscapes were and are part and parcel of the urban environment (Krase, 2002). Today, this exchange of ethnic identities is associated with globalization and migration in an urban scenario. This research explores ethnic expression and inhabitation in the northeast neighbourhoods of Calgary and the impact of this on people, their perceptions and experiences of the built environment, and on city planning and policies. The built environment of northeast Calgary is compared to the parameters of interculturalism, evaluating the area for evidence of intercultural place making. The immigrant populated northeast neighbourhoods of Falconridge, Castleridge, Taradale, Martindale, Coral Springs and Saddle Ridge are explored in this study. The enquiry is done through detailed qualitative interviews and cognitive mapping exercises with residents of the neighbourhoods, out of which a set of themes are derived and discussed. The principles of interculturalism are compared to the social and physical environment of these neighbourhoods. The evaluation reveals themes favourable to both ethnic clustering and intercultural placemaking. Multicultural experiences of residents of the northeast neighbourhoods are evaluated in their international and Canadian context. Based on this analysis, recommendations are provided for revised policies and urban planning practices to be reviewed to accommodate the hybrid intercultural urban environment of today’s Canadian cities with participatory planning as a fundamental tool in consultation processes.
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    Immigrant entrepreneurship and transcultural dynamics – A study of Chinese businesses in the grocery and restaurant sectors in contemporary Panama and Belize
    (2015-05) Smart, Josephine; Smart, Alan
    This paper focuses on Chinese dominance in the grocery and restaurant sectors in Panama and Belize. Drawing on data collected in 2015 and 2013 respectively, we examine emerging and expanding economic and social linkages between China and Central America. Rapid expansion of Chinese ownership in the grocery retail sector in Panama and Belize provides a focus to explore the conditions, practices and specific entanglements of transnational social, cultural, policy and economic links that shape the economic and social integration of recent Chinese immigrants in these two countries, and its impact on local people and society. First, we are interested in whether the scale of a Chinese enterprise operating across cultural boundaries influences business practices. Second, we are interested in how kinship networks, regional ties and dialectical origins affect migration decisions, and how these processes contribute to social, economic and political integration of Chinese immigrants in the host countries.
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    Makers in the Workshop
    (2019-10-31) op'tLand, Raymond Michael; Hawkins, Richard W.; Davis, Charles H.; Smart, Alan; Parker, James R.; Keough, Noel
    Makerspaces have grown as sites of innovation since the turn of the 21st-century, but the processes and methods by which they have directly contributed to innovation have been underexplored. Makerspaces exist as communal hi-tech workshops that draw on networks of knowledge in order to create their community, and they live and die by this community as well. Building on literature on both innovation and communication, this dissertation will examine the communities at three specific makerspaces in the Calgary area, and ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation will inform the rich text that serves as the data for the case study approach. By examining the development process at makerspaces, this research asks 1) how are the ideas and inspirations for the development of a new technology transferred between developers and their collaborators, 2) what sources of inspiration and new knowledge do the developers use for both the subjective and functional components of their design, and finally 3) what is the role of the makerspace as a third place where developers can collaborate and share ideas during the development process? This research contributes in three areas: 1) it informs current theories on innovation on the processes that involve subjective elements in the process of innovation; 2) it advances the literature on makerspaces and their communication processes, especially their study in Canada, and 3) it initiates and advocates for the development of a critical maker studies, as a counterpart to much of the literature in the area published to date.
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