(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 Développement

Organizer: Gary Barron, Lethbridge College; Chair: Susan Cake, Athabasca University; Discussants: Michael Granzow, Lethbridge College, 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. While this has been exacerbated by Russia’s war with Ukraine and the growing political polarization between liberal and conservative Russian citizens and intelligentsia, it belongs to a larger history of musical and social suppression dating back to the Soviet Union. This relationship between cultural producers and the Russian state informs us of how authoritarian governments function and utilize non-state actors to extend their reach, indicating their control outside of direct state-citizen interactions. Utilizing Johannes Gerschewski 2013 framework explored in “the three pillars of stability: legitimation, repression, and co-optation in autocratic regimes” – I will be analyzing how contemporary musicians navigate the political landscape, how they position themselves in relation to the state and what factors posit either their positive or negative relationship with the regime. While Gerschewski argues that legitimation, repression, and co-option are pivotal to the stability of autocratic regimes and touches briefly upon how these factors interact - this research is interested in expanding this analysis by asking what cultural actors (specifically musicians) are subjected to higher rates of repression and co-option. This paper is interested in how politics, race, and sexuality interplay to create different levels of privilege amongst musicians in Russia. This is done through a critical analysis of Russian media depictions, their public facing legal archives and their state sanctioned list of ‘extremism materials’ as publicly posted on the Russian ministry of justice’s website. This paper argues that in the contemporary Russian landscape, political affiliation is the largest determinant of a musicians interaction with the state. The musicians perceived political identity dictates their relationship with state actors such as the police and legal system, the music industry at large, and the media. I argue that in order to avoid persecution as a Russian musician living in Russia, one must explicitly and concretely align themselves with the orientations of the regime. Those who claim apoliticism or align themselves with left-leaning political views have been increasing targets of cultural and moral policing. The center of this analysis however, relies upon an intersectional approach of those disproportionately subjected to state violence. Queer musicians and musicians of color are held to an increasingly higher standard than that of their straight, white counterparts. Especially in a context where Russia has strengthened their policy and continued to detail the intricacies of their anti-LGBTQ+ laws - queer musicians are faced with an increasingly volatile regime. This paper finds that despite pre-existing laws which seek to punish and remove queer people from Russian popular media and the prevailing racism which can be witnessed across institutions in Russia - political affiliation has become one of the most - if not the defining identifying factor which determines a musicians interaction with punitive state actors. This research has found that queer musicians and musicians of color who comply with the state are given a type of ‘temporary aleve’ from morality based legal persecution. In contrast, queer musicians and musicians of color who are publicly apolitical or left-leaning face harsher repression and oftentimes exile from the country itself. This extends itself to musicians who fit the hegemonic ideal - as can be seen with the most recent ‘nearly naked’ party which saw several of the most prolific musicians in Russia (who haven’t directly aligned with the state) face moral legal persecution. This is by no means to suggest political affiliation is the great equalizer - queer musicians and musicians of color still face more challenges with the greater public in relation to doxxing and hate crimes. Rather, i am arguing that Russia is prioritizing intra-elite cohesion in political affiliation before beginning to repress other identities.

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

Framing of Vegetarianism in Chinese 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 dimensions that shape the framing of vegetarianism and anti-vegetarianism in Chinese social media, as well as how the framing of the identity is associated with attitudes toward different types of vegetarianism. 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 meat eaters to occasional vegetarians to vegans, which implies that people can understand the identity differently. The existing studies have found multiple dimensions or reasons to adopt the identity. The major dimensions 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 reasons. To understand if those dimensions frame vegetarianism in China and the politics around them, the social movement literature on framing is useful. Frames are used to convey meaning to audiences in order to make sense of the phenomenon. 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, I examined discussions on a Quora-like social media platform in China, Zhihu. The paper scrapes all popular posts listed under the topic vegetarianism, which is mostly ordered by the number of “agreed.” Then, 139 answers that were last created or edited in 2023 were selected out of the 817 popular posts. The answers came from 22 vegetarianism-relevant questions. Mixed methods content analysis examines the dimensions associated with vegetarianism-related frames and the attitudes expressed toward the common understandings for adopting and countering occasional vegetarianism, vegetarianism, and veganism. The preliminary results have suggested the dominance of negative views toward vegetarianism and vegetarians. Negative attitudes are often associated with the moral dimension of vegetarianism, specifically from “superstitious” Buddhist and animal rights protectors, and the other types of negative attitudes come from the disbelief that vegetarianism can be healthy. Neutral or unclear attitudes are associated with conversion narratives and offer exceptions for vegetarians who cannot eat meat for personal health reasons. The rare pro-vegetarianism posts mainly portray the image of nice and healthy individual vegetarians. The portrayal is aligned with the image of acceptable vegetarians. Generally, the posts analyzed do not view vegetarianism more positively than veganism. The explanation can be the prevalence of Buddhist and moral vegetarians mentioned by the anti-vegetarian answers, as well as the general usage of the term vegetarian rather than veganism. Results show that several key anti-vegetarian frames based on morality have become dominant in the platform. They frame vegetarianism as immoral through memes originally made in English and extreme Western examples. To conclude, the prevalence of anti-vegetarian framing is key to socializing Chinese social media users and makes it difficult for vegetarians to interact with other groups and maintain their identity. The results imply that social media platforms have become key channels for non-vegetarians to express their anger and dissatisfaction toward inconsiderate and radical vegetarians they met offline, which can create a generalized negative view toward vegetarianism and vegetarians. Vegetarians in China may pay attention to the posts in Zhihu and reconsider the framing of vegetarianism in order to have more voices in social media, engage in more effective dialogue with non-vegetarians, and potentially achieve their social goals.