Changing stinking thinking: a comparative case study of the enactment, embodiment, and emplacement of social citizenship in the Pacific Northwest

Abstract

Throughout history the agency of social citizenship has resulted in actions that both include and exclude certain individuals and groups through political, economic, and civic interaction. This creates abject spaces of limited rights, inclusion and belonging. Divergent and nested lived experiences of how processes and practices of social citizenship are enacted, embodied, and emplaced necessitate a re-problematizing of the context from the hegemonic view of Canada as a pluralistic liberal multicultural state to one where multiple divergent epistemologies collide in a state of continued settler colonialism. This comparative case study in the Pacific Northwest of what is now called Canada explores how two civil society organizations (CSOs) facilitate or hinder Settler and Indigenous individuals’, groups’, and communities’ agency through social action. CSOs are sites of social action that have the power to create spaces where all citizens have a voice in their own social well-being through participation, partnership, and power sharing. The re-problematizing allows for the exploration of how the reframing of political and civil space impacts interactions and relationships to investigate what these sites tell us about participants’ perceptions and lived experiences of interlocking oppressions, power, and agency in the lived experience of processes and practices of social citizenship.