Spearkers Series
2004-2005
September 21 4:00-6:00 7-162 (AECP)
Shauna Butterwick & Kaela Jubas, UBC
"What's
a Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?!"
Exploring
Women's Informal Pathways to Jobs in the IT Field:
Issues
of invisibility, identity, and isolation. Examining
the stories: work and career histories of women working in the
IT field. Broadly conceived, indicating an access and participation
in a diverse array of fields and niches. Learning pathways include
a complex mix of formal and informal learning where both serendipity
and planning are evident. This presentation will begin with an
overview of themes emerging from a preliminary analysis and then
turn focus to case scenarios about women working in the technical
communications arena.
Shauna
and Kaela are WALL case study group investigators in the project
titled "Women's
Alternative and Informal Learning Pathways to Jobs in Information
Technology"
October
13 12:00-2:00 12-274 (SESE)
Joan Eveline & Discussant
"Putting
the Spotlight on Ivory Basement Work: Essential and Essentially
Unseen"
Research on the corporatisation of universities has paid almost
exclusive attention to academic and managerial staff in the 'ivory
tower'. In contrast, this paper looks at the 'ivory basement'
of the university, in which general staff and lower-level academics,
most of whom are women, are clustered. Drawing on focus groups
and interviews, the study examines the nature of the hierarchical
division between 'basement' and 'tower', the gendering of university
rewards and spaces it fosters, and the imbalances it perpetuates,
showing a marked gap between the expertise involved and the rewards
it carries.
Drawing
on stories from ivory basement workers the paper suggests that
the university's daily functioning depends on this work being
done so well it becomes invisible. In particular, it highlights
the investments that women themselves may have in aspects of their
work remaining hidden.
Joan
Eveline teaches sociology of work, gender and industrial relations
in the UWA Business School, University of Western Australia. Her
research on women's investments in change agency, on gendered
organizations and on citizenship at work has examined primary,
secondary and service industries, including mining, call centres,
policing and higher education. Her recently published book is:
"Ivory Basement Leadership: Power and Invisibility in the
Changing University" (Perth, UWA Press, 2004).
November
4 4:00-6:00 7-162 (AECP)
Michael Riordan
"The
Unauthorized History of the World"
Drawing
on his new book, An Unauthorized Biography of the World: Oral
History on the Front Lines, Michael will speak about his
experience of engaged oral history, particularly around issues
of work. This talk will explore the difficult, sometimes dangerous
work of recovering fragments of human story that have gone missing
from the official version. Michael brings to the conversation
thirty years of experience as a writer and broadcaster, one of
many who gather silenced voices and lost life-stories. In
his book, the canvas is broad, the stakes high: the long battle
for First Nations lands in Canada, environmental justice in Chicago,
genocide in Peru, homeless people organizing in Cleveland, September
11/01 and after in New York City, gay survivors of electroshock
in Britain, the struggle to preserve a people's identity in Newfoundland,
peasant resistance to a huge transnational gold mine in Turkey.
Michael
Riordon teaches writing and has written two books of oral history:
Out our Way: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Country (BTL, 1996)
and Eating Fire: Family Life on the Queer Side (2001). He lives
near Picton, Ontario.
November
23 4-6:00 12-274 (SESE)
Sharzad Mojab
"Alienation:
A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Immigrant Women's Work
Experience in Diaspora"
(visit
again for more details soon)
Contact
WALL RESEARCH
NETWORK
252 Bloor Street
West, Office 12-254,
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6
Tel.
416.978.0015 Fax. 416.926.4751
E-mail:
wallnetwork@oise.utoronto.ca
