Toronto Press Research Articles

Book Review - Housing, Homelessness, and Social Policy in the Urban North by Julia Christensen, Sally Carraher, Travis Hedwig and Steven Arnfjord (Eds.), 2024

Christensen et al.’s edited volume, Housing, Homelessness, and Social Policy in the Urban North (University of Toronto Press, 2024), critically examines homelessness, challenging traditional approaches and advocating for context-specific solutions. Through case studies from the Canadian North, Alaska, and Greenland, the book explores how historical and structural factors perpetuate homelessness in the face of urbanization and social policy. Organized into three regional sections, it critiques interventions that focus mainly on larger urban centers, neglecting rural communities impacted by colonial policies. The authors argue against one-size-fits-all solutions, promoting culturally sensitive approaches tailored to specific contexts. Key themes include the regional geography of homelessness, definitional challenges of home, rural-urban mobility, welfare colonialism, and the adaptation of Housing First initiatives. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of community-based support structures, often overshadowed by external solutions. This volume is essential for understanding homelessness through a nuanced lens that incorporates cultural and contextual factors.

Restoring the question of culture: identity, essence and the unknowability of difference

Throughout the 20th century the question of culture was a central pillar of social scientific thought. From Durkheim to Levi-Strauss, from Stuart Hall to Dennis Cosgrove, the question of culture and cultural difference was a touchstone for understanding the structures, norms and expectations that organised society. Yet, today the concept has disappeared from the academic landscape, including geography, where it is absorbed into other debates and terms, or discarded as an antiquated essentialist construct. Despite pressing political debates about culture wars, identity politics, cultural appropriation and nativism, there seems to be little interest in discussing, debating, much less theorising, the concept of culture as a credible explanatory tool. The aim of this lecture is two-fold: first it explores what has been lost by forsaking the question of culture (in geography and elsewhere); and second, it endeavours to reframe the question of culture in terms that emancipate it from the problem of difference. Indeed, at its heart, I argue that while geographers commonly study difference as an obvious empirical fact of life, emerging and receding at various scales, the nature of difference itself is unknowable. Yet rather than seeing this as an obstacle to theorising culture, the lecture uses it as an invitation to think culture differently: culture not as an explanation for difference but as an elucidation of the phenomenon of claiming difference. The lecture will focus on explaining this distinction and how it fundamentally changes the question of culture. The plenary lecture explores and develops arguments examined in my forthcoming monograph, Dreams of Presence: a Geographic Theory of Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2024).

Forecasts: A story of weather and finance at the edge of disaster By Caroline E.Schuster, illustrated by EnriqueBernardou, DavidBueno (Eds.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2023. pp. xvii + 212, CAN$28.95 (Pb.), CAN$70 (Hc.). ISBN: 9871487542238

Forecasts: A story of weather and finance at the edge of disaster By Caroline E.Schuster, illustrated by EnriqueBernardou, DavidBueno (Eds.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2023. pp. xvii + 212, CAN$28.95 (Pb.), CAN$70 (Hc.). ISBN: 9871487542238

Social palliation: Canadian Muslims’ storied lives on living and dying By ParinDossa, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2021. 216 pp.

Social palliation: Canadian Muslims’ storied lives on living and dying By ParinDossa, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2021. 216 pp.

Global Taiwanese: Asian skilled labour migrants in a changing world By FionaMoore. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. 184 pp.

Global Taiwanese: Asian skilled labour migrants in a changing world By FionaMoore. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. 184 pp.

Luke Taylor, Constructing the Family: Marriage and Work in Nineteenth-Century English Law (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022)

Luke Taylor, Constructing the Family: Marriage and Work in Nineteenth-Century English Law (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022)

Transverse Disciplines: Queer‐Feminist, Anti‐racist, and Decolonial Approaches to the University By SimonePfleger and CarrieSmith (Eds.), University of Toronto Press. 2022. pp. 379. $80.00 (hardcover), $80.00 (ebook)

Transverse Disciplines: Queer‐Feminist, Anti‐racist, and Decolonial Approaches to the University By SimonePfleger and CarrieSmith (Eds.), University of Toronto Press. 2022. pp. 379. $80.00 (hardcover), $80.00 (ebook)

Female Suicide Bombings: A Critical Gender Approach. By Tanya Narozhna and W. Andy Knight (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016, 280 pp. £32.99 pbk)

Female Suicide Bombings: A Critical Gender Approach. By Tanya Narozhna and W. Andy Knight (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016, 280 pp. £32.99 pbk)

From Politics to Transformative Politics of Nature in Canada (book excerpt)

An excerpt from the opening chapter Transformative Politics of Nature: Overcoming Barriers to Conservation in Canada, edited by Andrea Olive, Chance Finegan, and Karen F. Beazley (University of Toronto Press, 2023).

Transforming Canadian Criminal Justice: A Review of Indictment: The Criminal Justice System on Trial, Benjamin Perrin (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023)

Transforming Canadian Criminal Justice: A Review of Indictment: The Criminal Justice System on Trial, Benjamin Perrin (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023)

A Stage for Debate: The Political Significance of Vienna's Burgtheater, 1814–1867 By MartinWagner, University of Toronto Press. 2023. pp. 215. $70 (hardcover and ebook)

A Stage for Debate: The Political Significance of Vienna's Burgtheater, 1814–1867 By MartinWagner, University of Toronto Press. 2023. pp. 215. $70 (hardcover and ebook)

AbdiAidid and BenjaminAlarie, The Legal Singularity: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Law Radically Better, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2023, 218 pp, hb £31.00

AbdiAidid and BenjaminAlarie, The Legal Singularity: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Law Radically Better, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2023, 218 pp, hb £31.00

Hwee‐Hwa Chan, Felicity. 2022. Tensions in diversity: Spaces for collective life in Los Angeles. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 264

Hwee‐Hwa Chan, Felicity. 2022. Tensions in diversity: Spaces for collective life in Los Angeles. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 264

Searching for Trust in the Global Economy by Jeanne M.Brett and Tyree D.Mitchell. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. 2022. 192 pages, $32.95 hardback

Searching for Trust in the Global Economy by Jeanne M.Brett and Tyree D.Mitchell. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. 2022. 192 pages, $32.95 hardback

Colonial Geography: Race and Space in German East Africa, 1884–1905.By Matthew Unangst. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. 360 pages + 7 b/w images + 6 b/w maps. $85.00 hardcover or eBook; After the Imperialist Imagination: Two Decades of Research on Global Germany and Its Legacies.Edited by Sara Pugach, David Pizzo, and Adam Blackler. Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Brussels, New York,

Colonial Geography: Race and Space in German East Africa, 1884–1905.<i>By Matthew Unangst. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. 360 pages + 7 b/w images + 6 b/w maps. $85.00 hardcover or eBook</i>; After the Imperialist Imagination: Two Decades of Research on Global Germany and Its Legacies.<i>Edited by Sara Pugach, David Pizzo, and Adam Blackler. Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Brussels, New York,

Deborah R. Forteza. The English Reformation in the Spanish Imagination: Rewriting Nero, Jezebel, and the Dragon. Toronto Iberic 69. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. Pp. 248. $65.00 (cloth).

Deborah R. Forteza. The English Reformation in the Spanish Imagination: Rewriting Nero, Jezebel, and the Dragon. Toronto Iberic 69. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. Pp. 248. $65.00 (cloth).

Jurists and Jurisprudence in Medieval Italy: Texts and Contexts. Julius Kirshner and Osvaldo Cavallar. Toronto Studies in Medieval Law 4. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020. xxvi + 866 pp. $131.

Jurists and Jurisprudence in Medieval Italy: Texts and Contexts. Julius Kirshner and Osvaldo Cavallar. Toronto Studies in Medieval Law 4. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020. xxvi + 866 pp. $131.

Anna Aydinyan. Formalists against Imperialism: The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar and Russian Orientalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. xii, 224 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $60.00, hard bound.

Anna Aydinyan. Formalists against Imperialism: The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar and Russian Orientalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. xii, 224 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $60.00, hard bound.

Samuel Clowes Huneke. States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. xviii, 357 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. Figures. Tables. Maps. $38.95, paper.

Samuel Clowes Huneke. States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022. xviii, 357 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. Figures. Tables. Maps. $38.95, paper.

&lt;i&gt;What Has No Place, Remains: The Challenges for Indigenous Religious Freedom in Canada Today&lt;/i&gt;. By Nicholas Shrubsole

What Has No Place, Remains: The Challenges for Indigenous Religious Freedom in Canada Today. By Nicholas Shrubsole. 2019. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 280pp. $35.95 (paperback and e-book).