ARRIERS FOR THE STRUCTURALLY VULNERABLE
You will provide an analysis of the issue drawing from social justice and thanatology concepts and theories. You will then present your own proposal for social change relating to that topic. This will involve conducting research on what is currently being done to address the issue as well as your own recommendations for change.
That said, each paper must provide an analysis of the operation of power in the production of injustice and inequality related to your topic of choice. This means that, you are not only identifying a problem, but are providing an analysis of why this problem exists/what contributes to this problem. For example, you might follow Harris (Chapter 11) and discuss the kinds of grief and injustice experienced by healthcare workers on the job. To do so, you will need to examine the relations of power that position healthcare workers primarily as workers who must be productive in a capitalist system with limited resources and support. You would discuss how these institutional pressures objectify healthcare workers, deny their vulnerability and relationality with patients, and how this produces negative outcomes for both patients and healthcare workers themselves.
CRITERIA
- Introduce your topic and key concepts from our course that relate to the subject. For example, you might introduce the concepts of intersectionality and structural violence to speak about the disenfranchised losses experienced by racialized communities in the medical and justice systems (see: Palmater video, Lawson reading, for example), or you might utilize these same concepts to examine the disenfranchised losses experienced by houseless people in Canada and the lack of end-of-life and hospice care available to this population. How do these concepts help us understand the social justice dimensions of grief, loss, and death as they relate to these topics?
- Discuss your chosen topic in the Canadian context and how different groups (ie. grassroots movements, NGOs, policy makers) have sought to address (or have not addressed) the issue. Here, you might want to speak about initiatives happening in your own community. Based on what you have learned in this course, are there any gaps in the responses to this issue that currently exist in the community or areas that have yet to be addressed?
- Applying course concepts (alongside potentially helpful concepts that you have learned in other courses), generate a strategy to help address this issue. You may also comment on strategies and initiatives that currently exist in the community/country that you believe should be supported or expanded. Apply course concepts to explain why this strategy would help address the issue.
- Using critical self-reflection, briefly write about your relationship with this topic, why it interests you, and/or your own evolving understanding of the issue. You can write in first person (i.e., use I) in this section only.
