Kate Cairns
Biographic Data
| ID | 173166 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kate Cairns |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kate |
| FAMILY NAME | Cairns |
| SIGNATURE | CAIRNS K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6889-8545 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 332 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Caring about water in Camden, New Jersey
This paper examines the heightened demands of social reproduction amidst the slow violence of environmental harm. In doing so, it contributes to feminist scholarship bridging environmental and reproductive justice. Through a case study of water provisioning in Camden, New Jersey, the analysis reveals the added burden of gendered care-work under racialized conditions of environmental insecurity, where many suspect threats to community health but a…
Social reproduction theory revisited
Social reproduction theory names at least two distinct traditions, one of which has a long history in educational research. Social reproduction theory in education emerged out of a concern with education’s relationship to capitalist inequalities. By contrast, social reproduction feminism developed out of feminist interventions regarding the role of women’s unpaid care-work in the reproduction of capitalism. In this paper, we suggest that the rene…
Feeling environmental justice
This paper contributes to scholarship exploring the affective politics of environmental education. Building on Nixon’s (2011 Nixon, R. (2011). Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Harvard University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) conception of slow violence, I argue that the slow violence of ecological destruction presents not only a representational challenge but also a pedagogical one: how to confront violent systems that d…
Reclaiming Community
Children, reproductive labor, and intergenerational solidarity
The Polluted Child and Maternal Responsibility in the US Environmental Health Movement
Early exposure to environmental chemicals is associated with multiple health problems, including neurological and reproductive disorders. In response to this problem, the environmental health movement has emerged as a leading authority on strategies of self-protection, or what we call “precautionary consumption.” In this essay, we use discourse analysis to examine two decades of environmental health reports and advice from a key organization in t…
Relational Foodwork
This paper explores the interdependency of food relations through young people's accounts of food insecurity. Drawing on ethnographic research with a youth urban agriculture program in Camden, New Jersey ( USA ), I show how young people articulate experiences of food insecurity through the lens of maternal foodwork, describing efforts to support mothers who are struggling to provide in the context of poverty. As these teens articulate efforts to …
Youth, Temporality, and Territorial Stigma
The concept of “territorial stigmatisation” identifies the role of symbolic denigration in the production of marginalised places. In this paper, I draw on ethnographic research with a food justice organisation in Camden, New Jersey, to examine youth's responses to territorial stigma. The analysis demonstrates how Black and Latinx youth rewrite the story of Camden in a way that locates the “good” within it, using narratives of the city's prosperou…
On (not) knowing where your food comes from
Fast-Food Kids
Food, media and space
Connecting to food
School gardens are widely celebrated as spaces to promote health and sustainability by connecting children with their food. While scholars have assessed the effects of gardening in practice, media discourses play a key role in constituting this site. This paper examines how the school garden is discursively constituted within American and Canadian newspaper coverage. The analysis reveals specific forms of connection that are said to flourish in t…
Food and Femininity
Over the space of a few generations, women’s relationship with food has changed dramatically. Yet – despite significant advances in gender equality – food and femininity remain closely connected in the public imagination as well as the emotional lives of women. While women encounter food-related pressures and pleasures as individuals, the social challenge to perform food femininities remains: as the nurturing mother, the talented home cook, the c…
The Moral Geographies of Children, Young People and Food
Jamie Oliver is a polarizing figure. To some, the food-celebrity-turned-school-food-campaigner is a relatable home cook who should be commended for his efforts to get healthy food into schools. To
The Family Behind the Farm
As increasing toxicity of Manitoba lakes garners public concern, the environmental impacts of pork producers have come under scrutiny. In this context, the Manitoba Pork Council launched The Family Behind the Farm, a series of advertisements and testimonials featuring pork producers and their families. We examine how this campaign operates affectively to distance the family farm from industrial pork production. Building upon geographical literatu…
Choosing health
Both here and elsewhere
Girls' studies have made an important contribution to the literature on subjectivity and schooling in neoliberal times; however, girlhood studies within Western contexts remain predominantly urban in focus. This article brings an analysis of place to debates about gendered subjectivity formation by exploring gendered patterns within rural students' imagined futures. Drawing upon ethnographic research with grade 7/8 students in rural Ontario (Cana…
Empathic Care for Children with Disorganized Attachments
The Mall” and “the Plant”
This article explores how conceptions of choice and visions of the future are constructed within the context of specialized arts programs in two Canadian public high schools. The authors consider how discourses of the arts are implicated in the way that possible futures are envisioned differently, delimiting the range of choices available to students. Their analysis shows how choices are unequally distributed and possible futures unequally constr…
The Sense of Entitlement
The Sense of Entitlement
The first time Cameron visited the Toronto Creative and Performing Arts School (CAPA), he fell in love. It was the song ‘Jellicle Cats’ from his favourite musical that enamoured him to the idea of attending a specialised arts high school. Star-struck with the students’ performance, he began to see himself as one of them. ‘They were so amazing! I was in awe’. He thought, ‘to be in that group one day would be incredible’. At that moment, Cameron fe…
Ethnographic locations
The feminist post-structuralist emphasis on social location has yielded crucial insights within debates about power and reflexivity in educational research; however, spatial location is also at play in the formation of educational ethnographies. Reflecting upon various aspects of a research project with rural students in Ontario, Canada, this paper explores three key elements of what I call the geography of ethnography. These include: (1) the spa…
Feeding the ‘organic child’
In this article, we examine the gendering of ethical food discourse by focusing on the ideal of the ‘organic child’. Drawing from qualitative focus groups and interviews with Canadian mothers of various class backgrounds, we find that the organic child reflects the intersecting ideals of motherhood and ethical food discourse, whereby ‘good’ mothers are those who preserve their children’s purity and protect the environment through conscientious fo…
The subject of neoliberal affects
This article contributes to debates about subjectivity formation in neoliberal times by analyzing the emotional geographies of students’ imagined futures. Drawing upon ethnographic research in a white, working‐class rural Ontario school, I examine students’ participation in The Real Game, a career education program that attempts to prepare grade 7/8 students for their adult futures. A curricular tool that espouses neoliberal tenets of flexibility…
Youth, Dirt, and the Spatialization of Subjectivity
Canada's rural idyll is embedded within the colonial legacy of a white settler society; however, little research has examined how class and gender uphold this articulation of rurality and whiteness. This article draws on ethnographic research with white, working-class rural youth to develop an intersectional analysis of rural imaginaries. The analysis shows how youth construct their own rural identities through racialized representations of urban…
Feeding the ‘organic child’
In this article, we examine the gendering of ethical food discourse by focusing on the ideal of the ‘organic child’. Drawing from qualitative focus groups and interviews with Canadian mothers of various class backgrounds, we find that the organic child reflects the intersecting ideals of motherhood and ethical food discourse, whereby ‘good’ mothers are those who preserve their children’s purity and protect the environment through conscientious fo…
Caring About Food
This article draws on interviews with 'foodies'-people with a passion for eating and learning about food-to explore questions of gender and foodie culture. The analysis suggests that while this culture is by no means gender-neutral, foodies are enacting gender in ways that warrant closer inspection. This article puts forward new empirical findings about gender and food and employs the concept of 'doing gender' to explore how masculinities and fem…
Choosing health
On (not) knowing where your food comes from
Food, media and space
The methodological dilemma
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, CanadaOnline publication date: 05 October 2010To cite this Article Cairns, Kate(2010) 'The methodological dilemma: creative, critical and collaborative approaches toqualitative research', International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23: 6, 755 — 758To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2010.508475URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2010.508475
The Family Behind the Farm
As increasing toxicity of Manitoba lakes garners public concern, the environmental impacts of pork producers have come under scrutiny. In this context, the Manitoba Pork Council launched The Family Behind the Farm, a series of advertisements and testimonials featuring pork producers and their families. We examine how this campaign operates affectively to distance the family farm from industrial pork production. Building upon geographical literatu…
Youth, Dirt, and the Spatialization of Subjectivity
Canada's rural idyll is embedded within the colonial legacy of a white settler society; however, little research has examined how class and gender uphold this articulation of rurality and whiteness. This article draws on ethnographic research with white, working-class rural youth to develop an intersectional analysis of rural imaginaries. The analysis shows how youth construct their own rural identities through racialized representations of urban…
Youth, Temporality, and Territorial Stigma
The concept of “territorial stigmatisation” identifies the role of symbolic denigration in the production of marginalised places. In this paper, I draw on ethnographic research with a food justice organisation in Camden, New Jersey, to examine youth's responses to territorial stigma. The analysis demonstrates how Black and Latinx youth rewrite the story of Camden in a way that locates the “good” within it, using narratives of the city's prosperou…
Social reproduction theory revisited
Social reproduction theory names at least two distinct traditions, one of which has a long history in educational research. Social reproduction theory in education emerged out of a concern with education’s relationship to capitalist inequalities. By contrast, social reproduction feminism developed out of feminist interventions regarding the role of women’s unpaid care-work in the reproduction of capitalism. In this paper, we suggest that the rene…
Feeling environmental justice
This paper contributes to scholarship exploring the affective politics of environmental education. Building on Nixon’s (2011 Nixon, R. (2011). Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Harvard University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) conception of slow violence, I argue that the slow violence of ecological destruction presents not only a representational challenge but also a pedagogical one: how to confront violent systems that d…
The subject of neoliberal affects
This article contributes to debates about subjectivity formation in neoliberal times by analyzing the emotional geographies of students’ imagined futures. Drawing upon ethnographic research in a white, working‐class rural Ontario school, I examine students’ participation in The Real Game, a career education program that attempts to prepare grade 7/8 students for their adult futures. A curricular tool that espouses neoliberal tenets of flexibility…
Both here and elsewhere
Girls' studies have made an important contribution to the literature on subjectivity and schooling in neoliberal times; however, girlhood studies within Western contexts remain predominantly urban in focus. This article brings an analysis of place to debates about gendered subjectivity formation by exploring gendered patterns within rural students' imagined futures. Drawing upon ethnographic research with grade 7/8 students in rural Ontario (Cana…
Ethnographic locations
The feminist post-structuralist emphasis on social location has yielded crucial insights within debates about power and reflexivity in educational research; however, spatial location is also at play in the formation of educational ethnographies. Reflecting upon various aspects of a research project with rural students in Ontario, Canada, this paper explores three key elements of what I call the geography of ethnography. These include: (1) the spa…
Attachment, Trauma and Resilience
Connecting to food
School gardens are widely celebrated as spaces to promote health and sustainability by connecting children with their food. While scholars have assessed the effects of gardening in practice, media discourses play a key role in constituting this site. This paper examines how the school garden is discursively constituted within American and Canadian newspaper coverage. The analysis reveals specific forms of connection that are said to flourish in t…
The Mall” and “the Plant”
This article explores how conceptions of choice and visions of the future are constructed within the context of specialized arts programs in two Canadian public high schools. The authors consider how discourses of the arts are implicated in the way that possible futures are envisioned differently, delimiting the range of choices available to students. Their analysis shows how choices are unequally distributed and possible futures unequally constr…
Caring about water in Camden, New Jersey
This paper examines the heightened demands of social reproduction amidst the slow violence of environmental harm. In doing so, it contributes to feminist scholarship bridging environmental and reproductive justice. Through a case study of water provisioning in Camden, New Jersey, the analysis reveals the added burden of gendered care-work under racialized conditions of environmental insecurity, where many suspect threats to community health but a…
Making Sense
In this article, based on themes from her recent book, Attachment, Trauma and Resilience (BAAF, 2002), Kate Cairns proposes that foster carers and adopters need theories and models drawn from or supported by research in order to make sense of their life with children who have experienced early adversity. A range of ‘great ideas’ are briefly presented and placed in the context of child development. Concepts drawn from attachment theory and affect …
Fast-Food Kids
A future to voice? Continuing debates in feminist research with youth
This paper explores the concept of voice in relation to a research project, now in its developing stages, in which I examine how rural youth imagine their futures in the context of a career‐based learning programme called The Real Game. The paper enters into conversation with feminist post‐structural scholars of education in order to situate the problematic of voice within broader epistemological and ethical questions regarding representation and…
Reclaiming Community
Children, reproductive labor, and intergenerational solidarity
Delivering Effective Substitute Care
Kate Cairns, an experienced foster carer, discusses the fundamental questions about the success and limitations of substitute parenting raised in the preceding three articles (Bullock et al, 2006; Hare and Bullock, 2006; Maluccio and Ainsworth, 2006). She describes how she and her husband tried to address them when caring for separated children. It is argued that while parenting foster children is different in some ways from parenting birth child…
Making Sense
In this article, based on themes from her recent book, Attachment, Trauma and Resilience (BAAF, 2002), Kate Cairns proposes that foster carers and adopters need theories and models drawn from or supported by research in order to make sense of their life with children who have experienced early adversity. A range of ‘great ideas’ are briefly presented and placed in the context of child development. Concepts drawn from attachment theory and affect …
Attachment, Trauma and Resilience
Delivering Effective Substitute Care
Kate Cairns, an experienced foster carer, discusses the fundamental questions about the success and limitations of substitute parenting raised in the preceding three articles (Bullock et al, 2006; Hare and Bullock, 2006; Maluccio and Ainsworth, 2006). She describes how she and her husband tried to address them when caring for separated children. It is argued that while parenting foster children is different in some ways from parenting birth child…
Being, inventing and understanding gendered subjects
This article was downloaded by: [University of Toronto]On: 26 October 2008Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 789689948]Publisher RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
A future to voice? Continuing debates in feminist research with youth
This paper explores the concept of voice in relation to a research project, now in its developing stages, in which I examine how rural youth imagine their futures in the context of a career‐based learning programme called The Real Game. The paper enters into conversation with feminist post‐structural scholars of education in order to situate the problematic of voice within broader epistemological and ethical questions regarding representation and…
The methodological dilemma
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, CanadaOnline publication date: 05 October 2010To cite this Article Cairns, Kate(2010) 'The methodological dilemma: creative, critical and collaborative approaches toqualitative research', International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23: 6, 755 — 758To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2010.508475URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2010.508475
Caring About Food
This article draws on interviews with 'foodies'-people with a passion for eating and learning about food-to explore questions of gender and foodie culture. The analysis suggests that while this culture is by no means gender-neutral, foodies are enacting gender in ways that warrant closer inspection. This article puts forward new empirical findings about gender and food and employs the concept of 'doing gender' to explore how masculinities and fem…
The Sense of Entitlement
The Sense of Entitlement
The first time Cameron visited the Toronto Creative and Performing Arts School (CAPA), he fell in love. It was the song ‘Jellicle Cats’ from his favourite musical that enamoured him to the idea of attending a specialised arts high school. Star-struck with the students’ performance, he began to see himself as one of them. ‘They were so amazing! I was in awe’. He thought, ‘to be in that group one day would be incredible’. At that moment, Cameron fe…
Ethnographic locations
The feminist post-structuralist emphasis on social location has yielded crucial insights within debates about power and reflexivity in educational research; however, spatial location is also at play in the formation of educational ethnographies. Reflecting upon various aspects of a research project with rural students in Ontario, Canada, this paper explores three key elements of what I call the geography of ethnography. These include: (1) the spa…
Feeding the ‘organic child’
In this article, we examine the gendering of ethical food discourse by focusing on the ideal of the ‘organic child’. Drawing from qualitative focus groups and interviews with Canadian mothers of various class backgrounds, we find that the organic child reflects the intersecting ideals of motherhood and ethical food discourse, whereby ‘good’ mothers are those who preserve their children’s purity and protect the environment through conscientious fo…
The subject of neoliberal affects
This article contributes to debates about subjectivity formation in neoliberal times by analyzing the emotional geographies of students’ imagined futures. Drawing upon ethnographic research in a white, working‐class rural Ontario school, I examine students’ participation in The Real Game, a career education program that attempts to prepare grade 7/8 students for their adult futures. A curricular tool that espouses neoliberal tenets of flexibility…
Youth, Dirt, and the Spatialization of Subjectivity
Canada's rural idyll is embedded within the colonial legacy of a white settler society; however, little research has examined how class and gender uphold this articulation of rurality and whiteness. This article draws on ethnographic research with white, working-class rural youth to develop an intersectional analysis of rural imaginaries. The analysis shows how youth construct their own rural identities through racialized representations of urban…
Both here and elsewhere
Girls' studies have made an important contribution to the literature on subjectivity and schooling in neoliberal times; however, girlhood studies within Western contexts remain predominantly urban in focus. This article brings an analysis of place to debates about gendered subjectivity formation by exploring gendered patterns within rural students' imagined futures. Drawing upon ethnographic research with grade 7/8 students in rural Ontario (Cana…
Empathic Care for Children with Disorganized Attachments
The Mall” and “the Plant”
This article explores how conceptions of choice and visions of the future are constructed within the context of specialized arts programs in two Canadian public high schools. The authors consider how discourses of the arts are implicated in the way that possible futures are envisioned differently, delimiting the range of choices available to students. Their analysis shows how choices are unequally distributed and possible futures unequally constr…
Food and Femininity
Over the space of a few generations, women’s relationship with food has changed dramatically. Yet – despite significant advances in gender equality – food and femininity remain closely connected in the public imagination as well as the emotional lives of women. While women encounter food-related pressures and pleasures as individuals, the social challenge to perform food femininities remains: as the nurturing mother, the talented home cook, the c…
The Moral Geographies of Children, Young People and Food
Jamie Oliver is a polarizing figure. To some, the food-celebrity-turned-school-food-campaigner is a relatable home cook who should be commended for his efforts to get healthy food into schools. To
The Family Behind the Farm
As increasing toxicity of Manitoba lakes garners public concern, the environmental impacts of pork producers have come under scrutiny. In this context, the Manitoba Pork Council launched The Family Behind the Farm, a series of advertisements and testimonials featuring pork producers and their families. We examine how this campaign operates affectively to distance the family farm from industrial pork production. Building upon geographical literatu…
Choosing health
Connecting to food
School gardens are widely celebrated as spaces to promote health and sustainability by connecting children with their food. While scholars have assessed the effects of gardening in practice, media discourses play a key role in constituting this site. This paper examines how the school garden is discursively constituted within American and Canadian newspaper coverage. The analysis reveals specific forms of connection that are said to flourish in t…
Food, media and space
Relational Foodwork
This paper explores the interdependency of food relations through young people's accounts of food insecurity. Drawing on ethnographic research with a youth urban agriculture program in Camden, New Jersey ( USA ), I show how young people articulate experiences of food insecurity through the lens of maternal foodwork, describing efforts to support mothers who are struggling to provide in the context of poverty. As these teens articulate efforts to …
Youth, Temporality, and Territorial Stigma
The concept of “territorial stigmatisation” identifies the role of symbolic denigration in the production of marginalised places. In this paper, I draw on ethnographic research with a food justice organisation in Camden, New Jersey, to examine youth's responses to territorial stigma. The analysis demonstrates how Black and Latinx youth rewrite the story of Camden in a way that locates the “good” within it, using narratives of the city's prosperou…
On (not) knowing where your food comes from
Sociology (27 works) · Political science (20 works) · Gender Studies (16 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Social science (10 works) · Culinary Culture and Tourism (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Social Psychology (8 works)