(UNG1) The Undergraduate Voice

This roundtable session is organized in the spirit of professional development, mentorship, and sharing. We invite undergraduate social scientists to submit papers to this session with the purpose of providing an opportunity to present work at an academic conference, network with colleagues and receive constructive feedback about their work. All papers are welcome from undergraduates, including papers completed as a part of required course work, honours theses, and other original research. Tags: Professional Development

Organizer: Gary Barron, Lethbridge College; Chair: Susan Cake, Athabasca University; Discussants: Justin Tetrault, University of Alberta, Susan Cake, Athabasca University

Presentations

Tomiris Frants, University of Toronto

The Russian War on Music: Intra-Elite Cohesion and State Violence

Russia’s relationship with music has had a long and contentious history, continuously ebbing through periods of intense patriotism and high cultural surveillance. In the last decade alone, Russian authorities have intensely policed creative production and curtailed ideologies that differed from national narratives. This has directly implicated high profile, public facing, cultural actors - which I’ve titled as cultural luminaries, in their increased surveillance in regime-supporting media outlets. This paper analyses a blacklist of musicians that was released by the Russian state in 2022, tracking their discursive presence in the media to understand the types of threats cultural luminaries pose to an autocratic state. Cultural luminaries generally and these musicians specifically are frequently tied to moral regulation, Western influence, and the Ukraine-Russian conflict in their media presence. This research is pivotal to understanding how non-state actors are targeted by autocratic regimes and how dissent is managed through formal and informal means.

MacGregor Goodman, University of Manitoba

Involuntary Care

In long-term residential care (LTRC), sometimes staff provide involuntary care—care that residents refuse or resist—which can cause harm to both staff and residents. Research has shown a clear correlation between involuntary care and resident aggression, but the rationale behind choosing whether or not to proceed with involuntary care has not yet been explored to a great extent. In this analysis, we explored how and when staff provide involuntary care, when they accept or see this practice as necessary and when they reject this practice. Data included interviews with staff working in LTRC in two Canadian provinces. The acceptability of involuntary care was influenced by the potential of harm toward staff rather than the potential for harm to residents. This is apparent through the rationale given for what kind of force is acceptable in care, and what kind of force is not. The potential for staff injury and risk of being reprimanded by management are frequently factors in whether or not to proceed in providing care that the resident has not consented to. This reflects a workforce that is undervalued and underpaid, thus, restricted in their ability to provide relationally focused care that respects the autonomy and dignity of the individuals they care for.

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Non-presenting authors: Rachel Herron, Brandon University; Laura Funk, University of Manitoba

Anna Mason, University of British Columbia, Okanagan

"Female servers…feed off the attention and harassment": The Role of Gender in the Service Industry

To investigate how structurally embedded gender ideologies shape experiences for servers in restaurants and bars, this paper discusses an analysis of the interactions between women and men who work in the service industry and their customers, managers, staff, and fellow servers. Originating in curiosities about Goffmanian identity management, we—myself and two other researchers—performed open-ended, semi-structured interviews using prepared questions and interview guides. Through our discussions with our participants, we were able to identify many intersecting topics within the realm of gender and service work. Within their various roles, each participant had common themes throughout their answers that we as researchers were able to analyze against our research. The two major themes were, 1) reproduction of gender ideologies; and 2) impression management. Sub-themes we identified included (but were not limited to): dress codes, managerial control of wages and gender expression, harassment and flirting, and policy requirements. This research was completed as a final assignment for a qualitative methods course provided through the university of British Columbia, Okanagan campus. We began by compiling an analysis of the existing literature regarding gendered expectations and interactions in the workplace. Judith butler’s writings on gender influenced much of our research and provided a strong definitional baseline of gender as a social construction and gender norms as being perpetuated through institutions and the interactions between individuals. Both of these proved to be extremely relevant in our research, and our participants expressed at length how their gender was decided for them and the ways they performed within those expectations. In our preliminary literature review, we came across substantial theory to support the start of our research, but there was much lacking in terms of recent findings on how gender expectations influence behaviour in the restaurant industry. The next stage involved recruiting individuals we personally knew who worked in the restaurant industry and implemented the ‘snowball’ sampling method thereafter to find the rest of our participants, totaling six individuals. Three women and three men were selected for this project to provide the research with a well-rounded scope. The participants ranged between the ages of 19-22 years old and most were university students. Our interview guides were structured to ensure our participants felt comfortable with having an active role in the interviewing process and leading the discussion in directions we as researchers may not have previously considered relevant. Each interviewer led two meetings with participants they had never met in order to reduce bias and allow for more in-depth questions to be asked. Lead interviewers were able to guide the conversation and ask prepared questions while creating connections and rapport with participants to make the interviews more comfortable. The assistant researcher was responsible for noting participant behaviour and body language while occasionally asking clarifying questions. This role was assigned to the secondary interviewer to allow us as researchers to understand the participant’s feelings on the topic to a greater extent and aid in our findings. The lack of recent data on this topic left us searching for the answers to the gaps in literature. We feel as though our research can bring new light to the current age of impression management for young adults working in this business. In our initial research, we also saw a distinct absence of open-ended interviews on this subject. Most of the literature reflects on theory and applies it to the world in hypothetical ways. We felt that we had the opportunity to fill this gap in research because of our access to individuals who were willing and able to share their stories of identity management. Additionally, while the scope of our research was unable to address this, we desire to draw attention to the unwavering presence of the gender binary in conceptions of gender expectations and performance in the service industry, and to the lack of research for all other gender identities.

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Non-presenting authors: Peyton Twardochleb, University of British Columbia; Ciara Goddard, University of British Columbia

Hongshu Wang, Western University

Vegetarianism and anti-Vegetarianism Frames in Chinese-Language Social Media

Although there is a growing acceptance of vegetarians in the West (Wrenn, 2019), anti-vegetarianism is still prevalent in the media (Aguilera-Carnerero and Carretero-González, 2021). Most research on these dynamics focuses on vegetarianism in North America or Western countries. For these reasons, it is important to consider non-Western countries. In this regard, China is an important case because of its large population, its increasing development, and its wider adoption of food trends from around the world. This paper examines the associations between the spectrum of, motivations for adopting, and attitudes toward vegetarianism, in order to understand the impacts of the three variables on framing vegetarianism in Chinese social media. The existing literature on vegetarianism views it as a continuum based on the strictness of not consuming animal products (Beardworth and Keil, 1992). The spectrum tends to range from non-vegetarians to occasional vegetarians to vegans, which implies that people can understand the identity differently. The existing studies have found multiple motivations to adopt the identity. The major motivations are animal rights (Cao, 2018; Gheihman, 2021; Greenebaum, 2012; Micheletti and Stole, 2010), environment (Cao, 2018; Gheihman, 2021; Ruby, 2012), personal health (Micheletti and Stole, 2010), religious (Cao, 2018; Johnston et al., 2021), economic (Ruby, 2012; Zhang et al., 2021), and often the combination of them. I used the framing perspective to understand the impacts of motivations on understanding vegetarianism in China. Frames convey meaning to audiences and enable them to make sense of phenomena. Framing helps explain how the social construction of understanding occurs and how the public views social issues. To explore the framing of vegetarianism in China, specifically the kinds of frames used, I examined discussions on a Quora-like social media platform in China, Zhihu. I scraped all popular posts listed under the topic vegetarianism, which was mostly ordered by the number of “agreed.” Then, 139 answers last created or edited in 2023 were selected out of the 817 popular posts. The answers came from 22 vegetarianism-relevant questions. The content analysis results have suggested the dominance of negative views toward vegetarianism regardless of the spectrum or motivations. Occasional vegetarians are rarely mentioned. Veganism in China is less directly mentioned but is often discussed using vegetarianism as an umbrella term. No explicit attention is paid to considering vegetarianism as a continuum. Moral, religious, and animal rights motivations are mentioned more frequently than economic and environmental reasons for adopting vegetarianism, while most motivations are interconnected. Anti-vegetarianism frames challenge the idea of vegetarianism as a healthier and more moral practice. They frame vegetarians as unhealthy, inconsiderate, radical, and fake. Anti-vegetarian posts related to the economic perspective consider vegetarians promoting the practice to earn money or harm China through the influences of Western liberal ideas. The frames used by non- or anti-vegetarians for mobilizing collective actions are related to the idea of personal freedom. Non-vegetarians claim that they respect vegetarians who do not force them to adopt the dietary practice. The personal freedom frame is so popular that posts with neutral or positive views toward vegetarians often acknowledge the frame to receive non-vegetarians’ acceptance. Negative posts are different from neutral posts by portraying negative interactions with vegetarians who try to promote the practice. In contrast, neutral posts mention the existence of good vegetarians who do not force others but separate acceptable individuals from unacceptable vegetarians using the popular personal freedom frame. Consequently, the prevalence of anti-vegetarian frames can socialize Chinese media users and make it difficult for vegetarians to interact with other groups and maintain their identity in Chinese social media. Overall, the results imply broader public opinions and frames in Chinese social media regarding respecting personal freedom, as well as the importance of anti-vegetarian frames in shaping the related collective actions online.