Nancy Taber
Biographic Data
| ID | 377478 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nancy Taber |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nancy |
| FAMILY NAME | Taber |
| SIGNATURE | TABER N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Brock University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2911-1295 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 64 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Working in a space of contradictions: Military culture change work in Canada
Critiquing unearned military privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Duffle Bag
Lt. Col Smith with unknown Bomb Girl’: Problematizing narratives of male battlefield heroism in Canadian military museums
In this article, I analyse 15 Canadian military museums that tend towards a patriotic antagonistic approach to war that favours a narrative of masculine heroism on the battlefield. I argue that, instead, war and military museums (not just in Canada, but in other national contexts) should acknowledge complexity and controversy through the use of agonistic memory. They should take a multivocal multiperspective approach by telling the stories of tho…
Leveraging, militarising, and stereotyping civilians for the war effort: Pedagogies of gender in war museums in Canada, England, and Europe
This article details our exploration of the ways in which gender, militarism, and learning intersect in war museums in Canada, England, and Europe. We outline our theoretical framework of feminist antimilitarism, grounded in adult education; discuss research about museums in general and war museums in particular; and, explain our methodology of feminist discourse analysis and visual analysis. We focus on an element that is typically not a central…
The Canadian Armed Forces: Battling between Operation Honour and Operation Hop on Her
In the last few years, much attention has been focused on women in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). In 2014, a Maclean's magazine report on sexual misconduct was published; in 2015, former Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps conducted an External Review Authority (ERA) investigation that detailed sexual misconduct and sexual harassment in the CAF; and in 2016, Statistics Canada published a report on sexual harassment and sexual assault in the C…
Performing gender in a Barbie Expo: White passivity, exotic otherness, and tradition in a fashionista bow
On a recent research-related visit to Montreal to explore issues of gender in museums and art galleries, we took the opportunity to also visit the Barbie Expo, on permanent display at Les Cours Mon
Learning about military women from war memoirs: The “Ideological I”
In countries with all-volunteer force (AVF) militaries, most citizens do not learn about the military through first-hand experience. For instance, 90,000 people serve in the Canadian Armed Forces (
Le cochon , a washed up mermaid, and soldier’s bread: Three generations of Acadian women at the intersection of museums and fiction
In this autoethnographic narrative article, I apply a feminist antimilitarist lens to discuss how the critical learning that museums can facilitate can provide a powerful pedagogic lens into the past and present, particularly when connected to self. These sites can illuminate the strength of women as they encounter/ed individual and societal challenges. I explore how the genre of fiction, as an arts-based practice of knowledge creation, can be co…
Tangles, tears and messy conversations: Using a Media Discussion Group to Explore Notions of Strong Women
In this article, we discuss the experiences of six female secondary-school students participating in a media group that encouraged critical discussion and analysis of gender, particularly with respect to notions of strong women in popular media texts. Throughout the study, the participants viewed various forms of media and critically discussed gender representations. We describe the ways that we encouraged critical discussion that prompted the pa…
He’s obviously important”: Student perceptions of a military general as a university namesake
If you were to visit Brock University, a mid-size comprehensive postsecondary institution in the small suburban town of St. Catharines, you might notice the beauty of the UNESCO biosphere in which
Popular Culture as Pedagogy: Research in the Field of Adult Education
"Grounded in the field of adult education, this international compilation offers a range of critical perspectives on popular culture as a form of pedagogy. Its fundamental premise is that adults learn in multiple ways, including through their consumption of fiction. As scholars have asserted for decades, people are not passive consumers of media; rather, we (re)make our own meanings as we accept, resist, and challenge cultural representations. At…
Intersecting discourses of militarism: Military and academic gendered organizations
This article explores the ways in which military constructions of gender intersect with academic ones. Its focus is to connect military discourses of duty, honour and service before self with academic ones of commitment and productivity. As such, it engages in an institutional analysis of the gendered organizations of the military and academia and the associated implications for lifelong learning and education. First, I discuss how, despite resis…
Pedagogical discourses of gender, peace, and equality: Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards
This article discusses a feminist critical discourse analysis research project of award-winning books of the Jane Addams Peace Association. Children’s books carry societal messages that are gendered, raced, and classed, with award-winning books carrying an additional message of exceptionality as they are viewed as deserving of attention. Thus, the discourses they circulate are important points of analysis. This research, using data from the Jane …
She's more like a guy’ and ‘he's more like a teddy bear’: Girls' perception of violence and gender in The Hunger Games
In this research study, we document the experiences of four girls with reading difficulties who participated in a book club designed to promote critical discussion of sociocultural gender issues. Throughout the reading of The Hunger Games, we were especially interested in how the girls might view characters and plotlines that presented and challenged various forms of masculinity and femininity with respect to their own positioning as girls who we…
A composite life history of a mother in the military: Storying gendered experiences
Issues of exceptionality, gender, and power: Exploring Canadian children’s award-winning literature
This article explores the gendered ways in which issues of ability and exceptionality are presented in Governor-General award-winning Canadian children's literature. In much of contemporary feminist thought, there is a strong focus on intersecting oppressions with gender as a central analytic lens. However, ability is still largely absent. Our aim is to bring ability to the forefront in an analysis of gendered representations in children's litera…
You better not get pregnant while you’re here’: Tensions between masculinities and femininities in military communities of practice
Using a life history approach, this article explores the ways in which women in the military who are also mothers learn to embody various masculinities and femininities as they negotiate workplace gender processes. Complex intersections of gendered communities of practice result in the participants' learning to variously understand, accept, shape and/or resist interlinked personal, professional and organizational gendered discourses. First, I dis…
Institutional ethnography, autoethnography, and narrative: An Argument for Incorporating Multiple Methodologies
In this article, I discuss the methodological issues arising from both my research aims and my research context of a western national defence force. First, I discuss the uniqueness of my research context and the issues that arise when organizational access is required from a hierarchical government institution. Second, I discuss the main tenets of institutional ethnography (IE) as developed by Dorothy Smith, exploring how it was ideal for my rese…
Institutional ethnography, autoethnography, and narrative: An Argument for Incorporating Multiple Methodologies
In this article, I discuss the methodological issues arising from both my research aims and my research context of a western national defence force. First, I discuss the uniqueness of my research context and the issues that arise when organizational access is required from a hierarchical government institution. Second, I discuss the main tenets of institutional ethnography (IE) as developed by Dorothy Smith, exploring how it was ideal for my rese…
The Canadian Armed Forces: Battling between Operation Honour and Operation Hop on Her
In the last few years, much attention has been focused on women in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). In 2014, a Maclean's magazine report on sexual misconduct was published; in 2015, former Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps conducted an External Review Authority (ERA) investigation that detailed sexual misconduct and sexual harassment in the CAF; and in 2016, Statistics Canada published a report on sexual harassment and sexual assault in the C…
Lt. Col Smith with unknown Bomb Girl’: Problematizing narratives of male battlefield heroism in Canadian military museums
In this article, I analyse 15 Canadian military museums that tend towards a patriotic antagonistic approach to war that favours a narrative of masculine heroism on the battlefield. I argue that, instead, war and military museums (not just in Canada, but in other national contexts) should acknowledge complexity and controversy through the use of agonistic memory. They should take a multivocal multiperspective approach by telling the stories of tho…
A composite life history of a mother in the military: Storying gendered experiences
Issues of exceptionality, gender, and power: Exploring Canadian children’s award-winning literature
This article explores the gendered ways in which issues of ability and exceptionality are presented in Governor-General award-winning Canadian children's literature. In much of contemporary feminist thought, there is a strong focus on intersecting oppressions with gender as a central analytic lens. However, ability is still largely absent. Our aim is to bring ability to the forefront in an analysis of gendered representations in children's litera…
Leveraging, militarising, and stereotyping civilians for the war effort: Pedagogies of gender in war museums in Canada, England, and Europe
This article details our exploration of the ways in which gender, militarism, and learning intersect in war museums in Canada, England, and Europe. We outline our theoretical framework of feminist antimilitarism, grounded in adult education; discuss research about museums in general and war museums in particular; and, explain our methodology of feminist discourse analysis and visual analysis. We focus on an element that is typically not a central…
You better not get pregnant while you’re here’: Tensions between masculinities and femininities in military communities of practice
Using a life history approach, this article explores the ways in which women in the military who are also mothers learn to embody various masculinities and femininities as they negotiate workplace gender processes. Complex intersections of gendered communities of practice result in the participants' learning to variously understand, accept, shape and/or resist interlinked personal, professional and organizational gendered discourses. First, I dis…
Performing gender in a Barbie Expo: White passivity, exotic otherness, and tradition in a fashionista bow
On a recent research-related visit to Montreal to explore issues of gender in museums and art galleries, we took the opportunity to also visit the Barbie Expo, on permanent display at Les Cours Mon
Intersecting discourses of militarism: Military and academic gendered organizations
This article explores the ways in which military constructions of gender intersect with academic ones. Its focus is to connect military discourses of duty, honour and service before self with academic ones of commitment and productivity. As such, it engages in an institutional analysis of the gendered organizations of the military and academia and the associated implications for lifelong learning and education. First, I discuss how, despite resis…
She's more like a guy’ and ‘he's more like a teddy bear’: Girls' perception of violence and gender in The Hunger Games
In this research study, we document the experiences of four girls with reading difficulties who participated in a book club designed to promote critical discussion of sociocultural gender issues. Throughout the reading of The Hunger Games, we were especially interested in how the girls might view characters and plotlines that presented and challenged various forms of masculinity and femininity with respect to their own positioning as girls who we…
Institutional ethnography, autoethnography, and narrative: An Argument for Incorporating Multiple Methodologies
In this article, I discuss the methodological issues arising from both my research aims and my research context of a western national defence force. First, I discuss the uniqueness of my research context and the issues that arise when organizational access is required from a hierarchical government institution. Second, I discuss the main tenets of institutional ethnography (IE) as developed by Dorothy Smith, exploring how it was ideal for my rese…
Issues of exceptionality, gender, and power: Exploring Canadian children’s award-winning literature
This article explores the gendered ways in which issues of ability and exceptionality are presented in Governor-General award-winning Canadian children's literature. In much of contemporary feminist thought, there is a strong focus on intersecting oppressions with gender as a central analytic lens. However, ability is still largely absent. Our aim is to bring ability to the forefront in an analysis of gendered representations in children's litera…
You better not get pregnant while you’re here’: Tensions between masculinities and femininities in military communities of practice
Using a life history approach, this article explores the ways in which women in the military who are also mothers learn to embody various masculinities and femininities as they negotiate workplace gender processes. Complex intersections of gendered communities of practice result in the participants' learning to variously understand, accept, shape and/or resist interlinked personal, professional and organizational gendered discourses. First, I dis…
She's more like a guy’ and ‘he's more like a teddy bear’: Girls' perception of violence and gender in The Hunger Games
In this research study, we document the experiences of four girls with reading difficulties who participated in a book club designed to promote critical discussion of sociocultural gender issues. Throughout the reading of The Hunger Games, we were especially interested in how the girls might view characters and plotlines that presented and challenged various forms of masculinity and femininity with respect to their own positioning as girls who we…
A composite life history of a mother in the military: Storying gendered experiences
Pedagogical discourses of gender, peace, and equality: Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards
This article discusses a feminist critical discourse analysis research project of award-winning books of the Jane Addams Peace Association. Children’s books carry societal messages that are gendered, raced, and classed, with award-winning books carrying an additional message of exceptionality as they are viewed as deserving of attention. Thus, the discourses they circulate are important points of analysis. This research, using data from the Jane …
Popular Culture as Pedagogy: Research in the Field of Adult Education
"Grounded in the field of adult education, this international compilation offers a range of critical perspectives on popular culture as a form of pedagogy. Its fundamental premise is that adults learn in multiple ways, including through their consumption of fiction. As scholars have asserted for decades, people are not passive consumers of media; rather, we (re)make our own meanings as we accept, resist, and challenge cultural representations. At…
Intersecting discourses of militarism: Military and academic gendered organizations
This article explores the ways in which military constructions of gender intersect with academic ones. Its focus is to connect military discourses of duty, honour and service before self with academic ones of commitment and productivity. As such, it engages in an institutional analysis of the gendered organizations of the military and academia and the associated implications for lifelong learning and education. First, I discuss how, despite resis…
He’s obviously important”: Student perceptions of a military general as a university namesake
If you were to visit Brock University, a mid-size comprehensive postsecondary institution in the small suburban town of St. Catharines, you might notice the beauty of the UNESCO biosphere in which
Learning about military women from war memoirs: The “Ideological I”
In countries with all-volunteer force (AVF) militaries, most citizens do not learn about the military through first-hand experience. For instance, 90,000 people serve in the Canadian Armed Forces (
Le cochon , a washed up mermaid, and soldier’s bread: Three generations of Acadian women at the intersection of museums and fiction
In this autoethnographic narrative article, I apply a feminist antimilitarist lens to discuss how the critical learning that museums can facilitate can provide a powerful pedagogic lens into the past and present, particularly when connected to self. These sites can illuminate the strength of women as they encounter/ed individual and societal challenges. I explore how the genre of fiction, as an arts-based practice of knowledge creation, can be co…
Tangles, tears and messy conversations: Using a Media Discussion Group to Explore Notions of Strong Women
In this article, we discuss the experiences of six female secondary-school students participating in a media group that encouraged critical discussion and analysis of gender, particularly with respect to notions of strong women in popular media texts. Throughout the study, the participants viewed various forms of media and critically discussed gender representations. We describe the ways that we encouraged critical discussion that prompted the pa…
Performing gender in a Barbie Expo: White passivity, exotic otherness, and tradition in a fashionista bow
On a recent research-related visit to Montreal to explore issues of gender in museums and art galleries, we took the opportunity to also visit the Barbie Expo, on permanent display at Les Cours Mon
The Canadian Armed Forces: Battling between Operation Honour and Operation Hop on Her
In the last few years, much attention has been focused on women in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). In 2014, a Maclean's magazine report on sexual misconduct was published; in 2015, former Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps conducted an External Review Authority (ERA) investigation that detailed sexual misconduct and sexual harassment in the CAF; and in 2016, Statistics Canada published a report on sexual harassment and sexual assault in the C…
Leveraging, militarising, and stereotyping civilians for the war effort: Pedagogies of gender in war museums in Canada, England, and Europe
This article details our exploration of the ways in which gender, militarism, and learning intersect in war museums in Canada, England, and Europe. We outline our theoretical framework of feminist antimilitarism, grounded in adult education; discuss research about museums in general and war museums in particular; and, explain our methodology of feminist discourse analysis and visual analysis. We focus on an element that is typically not a central…
Lt. Col Smith with unknown Bomb Girl’: Problematizing narratives of male battlefield heroism in Canadian military museums
In this article, I analyse 15 Canadian military museums that tend towards a patriotic antagonistic approach to war that favours a narrative of masculine heroism on the battlefield. I argue that, instead, war and military museums (not just in Canada, but in other national contexts) should acknowledge complexity and controversy through the use of agonistic memory. They should take a multivocal multiperspective approach by telling the stories of tho…
Working in a space of contradictions: Military culture change work in Canada
Critiquing unearned military privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Duffle Bag
Sociology (15 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Gender, Security, and Conflict (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (5 works) · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies (5 works) · Law (5 works)