MacEwan Undergraduate Researchers explore the June 2020 virtual public hearings about systemic racism & policing policies in Edmonton

MacEwan University's Ethnographic Research Methods course partnered with the City of Edmonton's Recover Initiative to create accessible materials for the Community Safety & Well-being Task Force. The data for these materials came from the Edmonton Police Commission's Public Hearings that were set up in response to YEG's BLM Protests in May 2020 (pictured right)

Brief Overview of Project

Who? Recover Initiative Representatives, MacEwan's Dr. Jennifer Long, and the students from Ethnographic Research Methods in the Department of Anthropology, Economics & Political Science.

What? 142 individuals participated in the Edmonton Police Commission's Public Hearings (held in June 2020) following Edmonton's Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests (link) in May 2020.

Representatives from the Recover Initiative wanted to provide the Community Safety & Well-being Task Force with accessible materials to help them "initiate an inclusive relationship-based process to create actionable recommendations for Council regarding the future of community safety and well-being in the city that are anti-racist" (City of Edmonton, 2020, link).

Through MacEwan's Careers & Experience Office and the Social Innovation Institute, Dr. Long's ANTH 394 class was partnered with members from the City of Edmonton's Recover Initiative. Students from the Ethnographic Research Methods course developed a number of outputs throughout the course. This website plays host to some of these outputs.

Goals of the course:

The ultimate goal of this course was to give students the opportunity to practice research and data analysis techniques on behalf of a community partner, and to participate in a meaningful, local project.

Students produced two kinds of outputs:

1. Outputs associated with the process of data analysis

   1. Transcript

   2. Quantitative Overview of Speakers' Perspectives

2. Outputs associated with final data analysis and knowledge dissemination

   1. Inference reports

   2. Artefact

If you have questions, please email Dr. Jennifer Long at longj34@macewan.ca