Profiles

Many countries today make gender issues a priority. That's a testament to the impactful gains made by gender advocates the world over.

But deep-rooted issues remain – among them, the wage gaps between men and women, inequalities in land ownership and access to other resources, stagnant and declining women's labor force participation, and violence against women.

Heart-to-heart connections, an openness to differences, and busting myths are all part of being interculturally competent. Dr. Andrea Paras, Associate Professor at the University of Guelph, believes intercultural competence is learned, not instinctive. In other words, it must be taught…and she's committed to helping it flourish.

For travelers, India is a site of curiosity.

For international students, it's a destination likely to reveal new knowledge.

And for multi-instrumentalist Mark Spagnolo, India was the site of a gig that reverberated like no other.

Sustainability has reached its tipping point. With climate change and global warming causing worldwide environmental degradation – and disproportionately affecting marginalized peoples and regions – an increased push is occurring for products, packaging, and industrial practices to become more sustainable and to create less waste.

That’s where researchers such as born-and-raised in India Dr. Manjusri Misra come in. She’s providing cutting-edge training and opportunities for our world to become much more environmentally conscious, moving forward.

In academia, there is often a perceived separation of science and social science, with people expected to focus on one or the other. Elisa Cooper, a MSc candidate at the University of Guelph, made a leap by combining benefits of different fields from her undergraduate education in Water Resources Engineering (also at the University of Guelph) with her master's in Capacity Development and Extension.

In the third year of her International Development degree, Chloe Zivot was offered a unique opportunity, to become an intern at the Office of the Advisor to the Supreme Court of India appointed Commission on the Right to Food. She had the opportunity to live in India’s capital, New Delhi, for four months, and truly immerse herself in Indian culture.

The search for new knowledge often takes a researcher down a fascinating path. For example, when feminist Geography and Development researcher Dr. Josie Wittmer was in India gathering information for her doctoral thesis, Women's work in the 'clean city': Perspectives on well-being, waste governance, and inclusion from the urban margins in Ahmedabad India, she expected to engage with women waste-pickers on their own perceived wellbeing (in contrast to accounts of waste worker’s biological determinants of health). Women waste-picker participants in her study also wanted to talk about changes in their everyday work activities, which were resulting from emerging policies and urban planning initiatives.

Water is an element, so its scarcity is more likely due to poor management than it simply disappearing. Dr. Bharat Punjabi, a Research Fellow at the Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto, ponders India’s growing water scarcity at a picturesque, lush and expansive farmland outside Mumbai, India, where problems stemming from uninformed policy and governance is affecting farmers’ livelihoods.

Social change conjures up an array of topics: politics, activism and development, among them. But what about music, or theatre? How do these art forms connect with activism and social change?

When G. A. Easwar first arrived in Canada 26 years ago with his wife Shagorika and his two young sons, he was astonished at the vast differences that separated the Canadian landscape from his home in India. During his early years in India and later in Dubai, Easwar was surrounded by local members of the Indian community – a stark difference to Canada, where the South Asian community was much smaller in the mid-1990s.