Colonialism, Health, and Sickness
This project includes articles and a book manuscript in preparation that examine the role of epidemic disease and ecological change as integral to northern colonialism. The book manuscript is focused on the the Mackenzie and Yukon Rivers and their tributaries between 1860 and 1940. Other articles arising from this work address the subject more broadly with particular attention to polio, tuberculosis, and cancer.
Publications from this project include:
Northern Exposures:
Science, Indigenous Peoples, and Northern Contaminants
I am a co-applicant with colleagues from MUN, Wilfrid Laurier University, Trent, and the University of Toronto, on this SSHRC-funded project led by Dr. Arn Keeling (Geography, MUN). This project investigates the environmental history and cultural politics of pollution and toxicity in Canada's northern regions, offering an opportunity to examine the historic and ongoing impacts of contaminants on northern Indigenous communities.
My research for this project has examined historical constructions of food hazards and anxieties. See for example:
Woman and children cooking bannock in frying pan over kerosene lamp fire near Igluligaarjuk (Chesterfield Inlet), Nunavut, August 1946.
Credit: G. Hunter / National Film Board of Canada. Photothèque / Library and Archives Canada / PA-141906
Since 2017, I have taught an introductory course HIST 123 ~ Plague: Disease and Epidemics in History, a one-semester course that examines how diseases arose historically from the interactions of humans with other organisms and their environments, and how changing ecologies have shaped human experiences with disease. A current syllabus for this lecture-based course is available as a pdf here.
I have previously taught a senior and graduate seminar on health and environments in Canadian history. A previous syllabus from that course is available as a pdf here.