Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Barbara K Seeber, Professor, English Language & Literature, Brock University

Season 2 of Netflix’s A Man on the Inside finds Charles Nieuwendyk, private investigator and retired engineering professor (played by Ted Danson), undercover at Wheeler College.

The mission: recover the college president’s laptop. This might not seem juicy, but said laptop contains sensitive information about a $400 million donation by a tech multibillionaire, Brad Vinick.

As someone who has lived and studied academic life, I find the series created by Michael Schur (also behind The Good Place starring Ted Danson, among other hit series) is both funny and uncomfortable because it hits close to home.

Budgets trimmed to the bone

The P.I. is thrilled by his university case, calling it something “I can really sink my teeth into.”

Wheeler College, founded in 1883, has seen better days. It is struggling financially and its leadership is unpopular. The board of trustees hired a president who trims department budgets to the bone, cuts student aid and embraces corporate sponsorship — as well as the bonus he receives with every major donation.

These measures are not enough. Enter Vinick.

Vinick’s secret plan — “Project Aurora” — is to fire half the professors, exclude faculty from decision-making and close what he considers “non-essential departments,” leaving “three tracks of study — biotechnology, economics and computer science to prepare young adults for life in the modern world.”

President Jack Beringer knows Vinick’s intentions but does not want anyone to know he knows. Faculty uprisings would not help his bid for a higher-paying university job in Dallas, where he ate the best steak ever.

Language of efficiency, innovation

Any campus stroll reveals that Wheeler’s “Pepsi T-Mobile Covered Garage brought to you by Sephora” (Episode 4) is only a slight exaggeration.

Vinick’s language of efficiency and innovation dominates in real life. Universities are run increasingly on a corporate model, as numerous studies have demonstrated, including my collaboration with Maggie Berg in our book The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy.

Budgets and programs are being slashed, and in the guise of economic necessity, principles of higher education are undermined.

Professors also satirized

While Beringer and Vinick are the villains of the piece, there are, of course, some digs at the professors. (I admit we are an easy target).

The musicologist, for example, will abandon any conversation mid-sentence when inspiration hits.

In Episode 4, we see the chair of the English department is a snob about books you can buy at airports.

However, the show resists indulging in nutty, overpaid professor stereotypes because it recognizes, in the words of Dr. Benjamin Cole, head of the English department, “these are not the best of times.” The show focuses on staff and faculty efforts in an era of budget cuts and attacks on what the billionaire investor calls “pointless subjects” like art history and philosophy.

Holly Bodgemark, the provost, is so overworked she swallows nicotine gum (“It works faster if it goes right to the stomach”) and mixes her own “Peptocoffee.”

The musicologist may be flaky, but she buys used instruments out of her own pocket for students who can’t afford them. Money is tight for students. Student Claire Chung works a dozen jobs to pay tuition and housing. “When do you sleep?” Nieuwendyk asks. “In class,” she replies.

Defending higher education

To defend higher education, the show calls in the big guns: Ozymandias, a sonnet by 19th- century Romantic writer Percy Bysshe Shelley. It’s mentioned in one of Cole’s lectures, where he recites some of its lines and comments on its continued relevance: “Money, fame, power do not last. But ideas … can endure.”

Published in 1818, Ozymandias speaks of a “traveller from an antique land.” The traveller comes across the remains of a sculpture with an inscription that reads:

“‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!’”

The rest of the sculpture is a “colossal Wreck,” and the king’s boast has dwindled into unintentional irony.

Given that the show is American, the literary allusion might be a veiled reference to the No Kings protests.

Making sense of the present

The series seems to side with philosophers like Martha Nussbaum, who argues that a liberal arts education can help us make sense of the present and read it critically.

Vinick is a modern Ozymandias. He wants to be immortal, literally (he undergoes longevity treatments) and figuratively (he commissions oil portraits of himself). As the professor of fine arts notes in the first episode of Season 2: “Newsflash: the billionaire is a narcissist.”

Not to give away the mystery, but a crisis is averted. Wheeler is safe … for now. It might go under, but, as the provost says, “better to end on our own terms.”

And those terms are: education is not a business; it cannot be reduced to the delivery of quantifiable outcomes. The book What Are Universities For?, by Stefan Collini, professor emeritus of intellectual history and English literature, makes this case in a particularly compelling (and at times laugh-out-loud) way.

Higher education is a public good because it teaches critical thinking and civil debate and prepares engaged citizens.

Community

Good satire like A Man on the Inside points out the problems as well as possible remedies. Vinick mocks the notion of community, but the show values it above all because, without it, resistance is impossible. Wheeler College’s faculty and staff celebrate each other and band together across disciplinary divides.

In the words of the provost in the last episode of the season, they are committed to protecting “community and knowledge for the sake of knowledge.”

Schur’s comedy offers a timely defence of higher education and is notable for bridging the gap between academics and the general public.

Barbara K Seeber received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Institutional Grant at Brock University.

– ref. A Man on the Inside: Netflix comedy offers a timely defence of higher education – https://theconversation.com/a-man-on-the-inside-netflix-comedy-offers-a-timely-defence-of-higher-education-270934

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Robert Chernomas, Professor Of Economics, University of Manitoba

United States President Donald Trump and his MAGA base are often portrayed as a break from past political norms. While that is certainly true, it overlooks the long and predictable path that led to his rise.

The slogan “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) became the movement’s rallying cry, tapping into a nostalgic vision of a past era of economic prosperity and social dominance and appealing to voters who feel left behind by demographic and economic change.

Trump is the predictable result of the deteriorating economic conditions in the U.S. since the 1980s and the political machinations that brought those economic conditions about. In our recent book Why America Didn’t Become Great Again, we explore how the U.S. has set itself on a path toward self-destruction.

The rise of corporate power

In the 1970s, higher taxes and regulation, a growing “rights-conscious revolution” around the environment, gender and race, demand for rising wages and increasing foreign competition threatened corporate power. In response, American business embarked on what billionaire Warren Buffett described as “class warfare.”

To transfer wealth and power from the many to the few, institutions had to be organized, government policies reoriented and economists, journalists and politicians recruited, funded and promoted.

Corporate lobbying skyrocketed. In 1971, only 175 firms had registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C.,; by 1982, 2,445 did. The number of corporate political action committees (PACs) rose from fewer than 300 in 1976 to more than 1,200 by the mid-1980s.

Business lobbying organizations advocated for policies like corporate tax cuts, deregulation, free trade, anti-worker legislation and more permissive rules on corporate political donations. Between 1998 and 2022, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent US$1.8 billion on lobbying activities, making it the single largest spender in the nation.

The role of wealthy individuals

Individual business owners also chipped in. Figures like Charles and David Koch funded organizations that aligned with their desire to create a U.S. free from government regulation, taxation, redistribution or public services. During the 2016 election cycle, Koch-backed PACs spent just under US$900 million.

Many of these organizations, like the Tea Party, also helped put into the mainstream an evangelical creationism that distrusted science and expert opinion, supported a patriarchal animosity to women’s rights, opposed policies to further racial equality and expressed xenophobic opinions.

The flood of corporate money shifted the political centre, making Democrats more conservative. No progressive economic policy has been passed in the United States since the 1970, with the tepid exception of the Affordable Care Act, which is friendly to the health insurance industry.

The strategy proved remarkably successful. According to political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, when wealthy Americans strongly support a policy, it’s about twice as likely to be adopted. But strong support from the middle class has “essentially no effect.”

How does this happen in a working democracy?

Business leaders cannot win elections on their own — they need allies. One particularly large group was easy to convince. Since the 1960s, no Democratic presidential candidate has won the majority of white voters.

Between the 1960-64 and 1968-72 election cycle, support for Democratic candidates among less-educated white voters fell from 55 to 35 per cent. With the exception of the 1992 and 1996 elections when their votes were more evenly split, this gap has held to the present day.

Although their share of the population is declining, less-educated white voters still made up just under 50 per cent of the electorate nationally in 2018. College-educated white voters have tended to split their votes more evenly or provide a small edge to Republicans.

If Democrats have branded themselves as the party of inclusion — of different races, genders, ethnicities and sexualities — the Republican Party has defended what they euphemistically term “traditional values.”

In a Faustian bargain to advance a pro-business agenda, the Republican Party successfully appealed to less-educated white voters, whose historical economic and social advantages have been diminishing. They earn less and die younger than they used to and their advantages over other groups in society are diminishing.

The Republican Party seized on this group’s discontent and actively channelled it against African Americans and immigrants. As early as the 1960s, the Republican’s Southern strategy promoted racism, successfully shifting white voters to their party and shifting the political spectrum to the right. That strategy continued through Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, the Tea Party and Trump.

Importantly, this shift in voting preferences occurred well before the advent of the so-called “Rust Belt.” According to Pew Research, manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979.

Faced with declining standards of living, less-educated white voters could have chosen solidarity with all other workers and forced concessions from the elite of the business community to make the lives of all working-class people better. Instead, they voted to maintain the relative advantage of being white.

Rising inequality

The redistribution of income and wealth was detrimental to most Americans. Between 1973 and 2000, the average income of the bottom 90 per cent of U.S. taxpayers fell by seven per cent. Incomes of the top one per cent rose by 148 per cent, the top 0.1 per cent by 343 per cent, and the top 0.01 per cent rose by 599 per cent.

If the income distribution had remained unchanged from the mid-1970s, by 2018, the median income would be 58 per cent higher ($21,000 more a year). The decline in profits was halted, but at the expense of working families. Stagnant wages, massive debt and ever longer working hours became their fate.

Income stagnation is not the only quality of life indicator that suffered. In 1980, life expectancy in the U.S. was about average for an affluent nation. By the 2020s, it dropped to the lowest among wealthy countries, even behind China or Chile, largely due to the stagnation of life expectancy for working-class people.

The paradox of “red state” support

Less-educated white voters have historically supported politicians (mainly Republicans) who support cutting taxes for the rich and cutting social programs that they significantly benefit from.

In 2023, the Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas vowed to get the “bureaucratic tyrants” of the federal government “out of your wallets.” Yet the numbers tell a different story.

In 2019, the federal government collected only half as much in taxes as it spent in the state, amounting to about US$5,500 per person in Arkansas. Similar patterns hold in many other regions.

Republican Kentucky is the largest destination of federal transfers, receiving US$14,000 per resident, approximately 30 per cent of its entire gross domestic product.

The electoral preferences of red states don’t result in good outcomes. States won by Trump in the 2016 presidential election had lower average scores (similar to Russia) on the American Human Development Index — which measures income, education and health — than states won by Democrats, which are similar to the Netherlands.

The modern Republican agenda

For decades, the alliance between less-educated white voters and business worked very well for business. Trump’s MAGA still delivers longstanding pro-business policies, from deregulation to antagonism to workers’ rights and massive tax cuts for the rich.

Today, however, the Republican Party now also promotes policies that business has long fostered, if not supported, including a distrust of facts and science, the ethnic cleansing of the labour force, racism, a vengeance for justice and a hodgepodge of crony, incompetent economic priorities and policies.

This combination has created a more unstable and unpredictable political, economic and social environment, leaving a significant majority of CEOs yearning for the stable Republican Party of a bygone era.

Robert Chernomas is a Professor of Economics at the University of Manitoba and a member of Elbows Up: A Practical Program for Canadian Sovereignty. I am not affiliated with a political party or industry association but I am politically active.

Ian Hudson receives funding from SSHRC.
Ian Hudson is a Research Associate for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

– ref. Why America hasn’t become great again – https://theconversation.com/why-america-hasnt-become-great-again-272778

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jennifer Saul, Chair in Social and Political Philosophy of Language, University of Waterloo

By now, many of us have probably seen the video of a Minneapolis woman whose last words were a calm “It’s fine, dude; I’m not mad at you,” before she was shot three times in the head as she turned her car to drive away from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that Renee Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense.”

Vice-President JD Vance declared “the reason this woman is dead is because she tried to ram somebody with her car… You have a woman who aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator. Nobody debates that.”

These statements, and others that doubled down on them, were made even as videos showing they were clearly false were in wide circulation.

It’s puzzling. Why lie in a situation like this? Who can you hope to deceive, when evidence falsifying your statements is freely available?

Seeing is not believing?

Our work on authoritarian public discourse stresses that there are multiple answers to this question, partly because there are many different audiences of mass communication. We need to come to grips with the multiple functions of obvious falsehoods like these to understand why they are made so often and so prominently, and how they serve authoritarian leaders.

First, something that seems obvious to you can be credible to others. How? Because in an era of algorithmic news feeds, we are not all getting the same news. Those with a newsfeed of nothing but MAGA influencers are in a different epistemic bubble from other people.

And they may well be in an echo chamber, in which opposing voices are so discredited that when an alternative narrative reaches them, it’s immediately dismissed.

Millions of people may not have seen the videos of the incident at all, or may have seen versions with instructions on how to interpret the visuals: she’s not turning around, she’s backing up in preparation to ram into the shooter; she’s not calmly indicating that she isn’t a threat, she’s refusing to comply with orders.

Videos of police using force often have this dual nature: they can document and prove wrongdoing; but they can also be used to train citizens to see threats where there are none.

Authoritarian tactics

Some people will find the lies too obvious to be plausible attempts at deception. Yet bald-faced lies are important in strongman politics.

Authoritarians can display their power by asserting obvious falsehoods, showing that they cannot be held to account. They also play to their base by showing contempt for a shared enemy, while demanding displays of loyalty and compliance from underlings.

Officials are forced to engage in the humiliating ritual of repeating what we call compliance lies. Think here of White House press secretary Sean Spicer at the start of Trump’s first term, forced to defend absurd lies about Trump’s and Obama’s inauguration crowds.

At the time, this may have seemed merely buffoonish. What’s happened since illustrates how dangerous this can be as the subject of the lies has changed to matters concerning life and death.

Other people may simply become confused by obvious lies. The competing interpretations of the Minneapolis video are diametrically opposed. Once news sites and social media feeds are sufficiently populated by these opposing views, it can feel like an overwhelming task to discern what’s really true.

And exposing a lie still doesn’t end its influence. It is easier to create an opinion with a lie than to undo that opinion when the lie is debunked, something known to psychologists as the continued influence effect.

Filling social media feeds with falsehoods to create confusion is a crucial part of the strategy that Steve Bannon, a Republican strategist and former Trump adviser, called “flooding the zone with shit.” This can leave people unsure of who to trust, what to believe, or even what the issue really is.

‘Both sides’ reporting

Relatively savvy and good-faith entities can be used as instruments of this strategy. In the name of neutrality and balance, centrist news media can fall back on a “both sides” model that frames stories mainly in terms of what each side is saying.

When one side commits to obvious lies, this approach obligingly repeats those lies while outsourcing the fact-checking to the opposing side, as if it were merely a partisan dispute.

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Read more:
Why Donald Trump is such a relentless bullshitter

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These duelling narratives can then become the story. The strategy to lie shifts focus away from the shooting itself, in this incident, and onto the alleged controversy.

In other words, obvious lies aren’t necessarily failed lies. They can confuse, distract, excite and intimidate a range of audiences. They can also be believed, no matter how obviously false they seem.

To treat them as mere indications of shamelessness or incompetence on the part of the liar is to overlook the serious harm they can do and the appeal they have in authoritarian politics.

Jennifer Saul is a member of Democrats Abroad.

Tim Kenyon has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Why Donald Trump is telling such obvious lies on the ICE Minneapolis killing – https://theconversation.com/why-donald-trump-is-telling-such-obvious-lies-on-the-ice-minneapolis-killing-273200

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ye Xue, Research Fellow, China Institute, University of Alberta

It has been more than three years since China’s Xi Jinping told Canada’s Justin Trudeau to “create the conditions first” before the two countries could work together constructively during their awkward private exchange at the 2022 G20 summit.

Despite occasional diplomatic engagement since then, the conditions for genuine co-operation between Canada and China failed to materialize, and the relationship remained overshadowed by the Meng Wanzhou affair, the ordeal of the “Two Michaels” and disputes over foreign interference.

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Read more:
Meng and the two Michaels: Why China’s hostage diplomacy failed

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Threats by United States President Donald Trump to make Canada a 51st state, combined with his disruptive trade policies, have forced Ottawa to re-examine the risks of excessive economic dependence on its closest ally and articulate an ambition to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports over the next decade.

As Prime Minister Mark Carney recently put it: “Never have all your eggs in one basket. We have too many eggs in the American basket.” At the same time, China has signalled a willingness to stabilize strained relations following Carney’s election win last year.

Canada-China tariffs

Foreign Minister Anita Anand’s visit to Beijing, together with Carney and Xi’s informal meeting on the margins of the APEC summit last October, suggests that the groundwork now exists for a serious stabilization of Canada–China relations.

Carney’s visit to China this week builds on this emerging momentum.

While the visit could be positive, Canadian expectations should be realistic, since the trip marks a stabilizing process rather than a symbol of stabilized relationship.

Trade will be at the top of Carney’s agenda, particularly the Canadian push for China to lift anti-dumping duties on Canadian canola oil. Yet few should expect an immediate breakthrough. Economic sanctions are rarely undone in a single high-level meeting; more often, such visits lay the groundwork for the harder, more technical negotiations that follow.

Australia’s experience offers a reality check. China did not lift restrictions on Australian coal and review anti-dumping duties on barley during high-level visits; those steps came months later, following sustained diplomatic engagement after Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s trip to Beijing in late 2022.

Nor did Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s state visit in November 2023 trigger the immediate removal of remaining tariffs on exports such as wine, red meat and live lobsters. Progress came gradually — through patience, process and persistent diplomacy.

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Read more:
Vital Signs: Australian barley growers are the victims of weaponised trade rules

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The canola dispute is different. China’s tariffs were a direct response to Ottawa’s duties on Chinese electric vehicles. In a relationship governed by reciprocity, China is unlikely to move first without a signal from Canada.

Rather than expecting immediate, tangible outcomes, this state visit is best understood as an ice-breaking moment to encourage governments at different levels and across sectors to resume or establish dialogue. Over time, such channels can normalize working relationships and foster bilateral co-operation.

More diplomacy, no security concessions

The high-profile shift in Ottawa’s China policy places the Carney government under closer domestic scrutiny. Canadians will want to know whether this approach can advance economic interests while safeguarding national security while remaining consistent with Canada’s identity as a liberal democracy.

China, for its part, will expect Ottawa to demonstrate a sustained commitment to stabilization. All of this will unfold under the continued pressure of the American China strategy, which will continue to shape the boundaries of Canada’s policy choices.

Maintaining a balance among competing national interests has become increasingly difficult for middle powers like Canada. Yet Australia’s China policy over the past three years, characterized by “pragmatic engagement without strategic concession,” suggests such a balance is possible.

But it will require Canada to invest more heavily in effective diplomacy, rather than relying on inflammatory or performative rhetoric for domestic political gain.

It means favouring neutral, precise language over emotive labelling when responding to Chinese actions. It also demands strong leadership from Carney: centralizing message discipline, enforcing cabinet coherence on China policy and reducing the risk that domestic political point-scoring spills into the diplomatic realm.

Ottawa should also use re-established communication channels as the primary venue for managing disagreements. These mechanisms can support incremental, negotiated solutions to specific disputes, rather than an over-reliance on public pressure and symbolic gestures.

‘Stabilization with continuity’

A shift in diplomatic approach does not imply a retreat from Canada’s core strategic commitments. The Carney government can and should reaffirm that stabilizing its relationship with China is compatible with maintaining robust national security and democratic values.

This requires embedding China policy within Canada’s broader Indo-Pacific strategy rather than treating it as a bilateral exception. It also involves deepening security co-operation with regional partners to help foster an environment where states are not forced to choose between either the United States or China.

At home, Canada should continue to strengthen institutional safeguards against foreign interference, pairing them with transparent public communication that demonstrates the government’s confidence in institutions and avoids doubling down on any public anxiety about China.

Ultimately, Canada’s China policy after Carney’s visit should be one of stabilization with continuity, making clear that engagement is being pursued from a position of institutional strength, not strategic accommodation.

Ye Xue does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What Mark Carney’s China trip could mean for the future of Canadian-Chinese relations – https://theconversation.com/what-mark-carneys-china-trip-could-mean-for-the-future-of-canadian-chinese-relations-273202

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Emmanuelle Khoury, Associate professor, School of Social Work, Université de Montréal

Many educators and students living through war and displacement carry difficult emotions into classrooms, but they can also transform them into acts of care and resistance. To understand this, we need to understand their emotional states at a granular level.

Since January 2024, we have been collaborating on a project with the dean and professors at the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Ibn Sina College in Nablus, Palestine, with support from Université de Montréal International.

Our aim is to learn how professors and students talk about their emotions in a region marked by occupation, violence, forced displacement and chronic uncertainty.

From January 2024 to September 2025, we met every two months with five professors and the dean of nursing and midwifery at Ibn Sina College.

Palestinian university professors told us they need to be present and emotionally available for their students while grappling with the impacts of Israel’s military occupation and what many experts have labelled a genocide in Gaza, and they’re looking for tools to help them do that.

Our exchange with Palestinian educators and students led to the development of an intervention tool, CARE (Connection, Action, Resistance, Empowerment), co-designed to address two central emotional states: resistance fatigue and qahr.

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Read more:
For Palestinian children living in Masafer Yatta, going to school is an act of resistance

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What is qahr?

Resistance fatigue speaks to a pervasive loss of control over our days, choices and even our inner world. This emotional exhaustion is not only personal, but it is also shaped by political structures of exclusion and dispossession, which includes forced displacement, navigating checkpoints and restricted movement.

However, we witnessed another emotion salient in Arabic-speaking countries that we believe underpins resistance fatigue: qahr.

Qahr is a concept that is necessary to grasp in order to truly understand what Palestinians and others living through colonial violence in southwest Asia and north Africa are feeling.

In Arabic, the word qahr evokes an emotion that blends powerlessness, grief and an acute sense of injustice and being overwhelmed by forces larger than ourselves. More than anger and deeper than grief, qahr speaks to the suffocating weight of injustice, the pain of being silenced, muzzled, diminished, trivialized and made invisible.

Qahr is a complex emotion that also holds the potential for transformation — for naming, sharing and reimagining how to live and care for each other. It is a specific emotion shaped by oppression, perpetuated violence and historical trauma that non-Arabic languages often fail to capture.

What we have learned is that qahr is more than a feeling. It is also an action born of the Palestinian determination not to disappear. It is carried through stories, graffiti, songs and through everyday acts of resistance that push against military occupation and attempts at erasure.

Qahr might feel like rage and grief mixed into one, but it often looks like actions that serve as counter-narratives. These actions are deep forms of care, for ourselves, our communities and one’s history and ancestry. They are also political tools that reclaim space, time and dignity.

Hope and care

Our previous work with teachers in Lebanon has shown that educators and students alike carry the emotional trauma into the classroom from collective crises such as economic collapse, war and displacement. The Lebanese teachers we spoke to discussed losses, suffering, injustice, death, violence, unstable living conditions, but also feelings of hope and resistance.

Likewise, during the early days of the genocide in Gaza, many teachers expressed their profound sense of oppression and how they managed to transform it into hope and even moments of joy.

Their commitment to developing educational initiatives for their students stands as powerful evidence of this resistance. As Asma, a teacher from Gaza, explained: “People in the Gaza Strip have become experts in creating alternative life plans.”

In this way, spaces of suffering also become sites of hope and care. Our research on exploring emotion work, on valuing the role of emotions and on dialogue allowed us to turn toward specific emotions experienced by many of our project partners.

The CARE intervention

Inspired by our research findings about fathering amid political violence in occupied Palestine, we were interested in analyzing our discussions with colleagues at Ibn Sina College in terms of emotions and resilience.

Through our understanding of qahr, we created CARE (Connection, Action, Resistance, Empowerment), a culturally adapted intervention, with professors and students at Ibn Sina College. During a series of online dialogues, we reflected on the lived experience of teaching under occupation, talking about loss, and staying committed to teaching and training.

CARE builds on this insight, offering an adaptation of acceptance and commitment therapy with situated and culturally grounded strategies for educators and students to collectively hold space for their emotions and their actions.

What began as a project to support the psychosocial needs of health-care professionals in crisis turned into the co-creation of a training module on trauma and mental health. Our discussions revealed a common thread in our Ibn Sina colleagues’ objectives: a desire to share their own complex emotions to better support others, in particular their students.

As our collaborations evolve, we continue to explore how emotional concepts can inform pedagogical, political and relational practices. Qahr offers a lens through which to understand not only suffering and hope, but also the actions of resistance and reparation under conditions of war and displacement.

This is how our colleagues in Palestine began to share their complex, often opposing, feelings that arise in these circumstances, including resistance fatigue and qahr.

Together we identified key goals for the meetings, with a focus on developing psychosocial and mental health interventions and training sessions that recognize and validate these emotions. CARE emphasizes practical strategies for educators and students to individually and collectively hold space for strong emotions.

CARE was integrated into a guidebook and was first delivered to a cohort of nursing instructors and academics, who tested it with students and in professional circles in the fall of 2025. This initiative underscores the transformative strength of collaboration, and the importance of diving deep into learning about context and culturally specific emotion concepts for responsive care.

Qahr is a legitimate feeling. CARE offers a stepping stone to accompany teachers and professors in this experience, helping them to channel it in their own way, according to their resources and context. In this process, it is essential to mention that we also have much to learn from those who feel qahr. Their experiences invite us to question our own understandings and reflections of loss, anger and injustice.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Lessons from Palestine: Understanding the resistance of educators and students in times of crisis – https://theconversation.com/lessons-from-palestine-understanding-the-resistance-of-educators-and-students-in-times-of-crisis-269578

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Lisa Hiwasaki, Assistant Professor, Management of International Cooperation and Humanitarian Action, Université Laval

Weeks after Cyclone Senyar made landfall in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, the province of Aceh continues to struggle. The cyclone passed through the Strait of Malacca in late November, bringing heavy rains and causing widespread flooding in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. More than 500 people were killed and 250,000 people displaced in Aceh alone.

The cyclone’s unusually high death toll and catastrophic impacts have been attributed to a range of factors, including warming ocean temperatures due to climate change, deforestation and other environmental changes, Aceh’s unique geographical and topographical setting and how rarely cyclones occur near the equator.

What’s missing from the discussion is the root cause of why Aceh was ill-prepared for the hazard. Like many other regions in the Global South, Aceh’s vulnerability can be traced back to colonialism, which created an inequitable distribution of power, wealth and resources. Post-colonial development continues to reinforce it.

The impact of Cyclone Senyar has drawn parallels to the 2004 Aceh tsunami that devastated the province and surrounding areas. Since then, disaster preparedness in Aceh has come a long way. Yet the aftermath of Senyar suggests that disaster preparedness efforts have not tackled Aceh’s underlying vulnerabilities.

Indonesia’s national meteorological agency gave multiple warnings of the hazard well in advance. But neither the national agency responsible for disaster management, the National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure, nor the Aceh Provincial Disaster Management Agency were able to translate warnings into effective action or effectively lead emergency response efforts. Such institutional failures are among the challenges that contribute to vulnerability in Aceh.

In our ongoing research among coastal communities in Aceh, we explore how their livelihoods have been impacted by external shocks, as well as the diverse ways they have adapted to navigate these stresses.

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Read more:
Death and devastation: why a rare equatorial cyclone and other storms have hit southern Asia so hard

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The colonial roots of Aceh’s vulnerability

Starting in the late 16th century, the Dutch colonial government established infrastructure and policies to facilitate resource extraction in Indonesia. The focus of European colonizers was on the eastern part of the archipelago to control the spice trade in the Maluku region. However, it was in Aceh that the Dutch spent the most resources to conquer.

The Dutch East India company opened the port of Kuala Langsa in 1907, in the same area where Cyclone Senyar made landfall. That was followed by large-scale investment in rubber and palm oil plantations. Colonialists supported top-down governance and implemented policies that gave lasting economic and political advantages to those who aligned themselves with the Dutch.

An example is the Ethische politiek (Ethical Policy); among other things, it provided educational opportunities to local elites with the aim of helping the Dutch lead the colony. Local elites were also given land that had previously been communal, to expand agriculture and exploit natural resources, creating divisions within the Acehnese.

Colonial rule also had a lasting impact on the natural environment: highly biodiverse forests were converted to monocrop plantations, ports were expanded to accommodate larger ships and both land and seas were exploited for resources.

Post-independence pressures

Post-independence governments have maintained the top-down institutions put in place by the Dutch. They have also emphasized a continued economic focus on extractive industries, such as pepper, copra and petroleum to fuel Indonesia’s rapid economic growth. These coupled together continue to have devastating impacts on the environment and on the livelihoods of the communities.

In the 1970s, communities in Kuala Langsa, a village in the city of Langsa along Aceh’s east coast, shifted their livelihoods to intensive tiger prawn aquaculture as part of the push to develop marine fisheries under then-president Suharto’s “New Order” political economy regime.

However, a viral disease outbreak led to the collapse of the tiger prawn industry in the early 1990s. Intensive prawn aquaculture significantly degraded the coastal mangrove forests and reduced water quality. That, in turn, undermined the viability of small-scale fisheries that local communities had traditionally relied on.

The conflict between the government and separatists in Aceh from 1976 to 2005 led to an influx of migrants to Kuala Langsa from other parts of the province, putting additional pressures on the environment.

The 2004 tsunami destroyed many mangrove forests along Langsa’s coastline, further negatively affecting the livelihoods of communities that depended on shrimp, crab and fish living in the mangroves.

Policy decisions increase vulnerability

The hazard that struck Langsa and other parts of Aceh did not turn into such a devastating disaster due to climatic and geophysical factors alone. Hazards turn into disasters due to decisions made by those in power that make people vulnerable.

Between 1990 and 2024, almost 160,000 hectares of land was deforested to make way for palm oil monoculture plantations under permits issued by the Ministry of Forestry. Land converted into monoculture plantations loses its capacity to absorb rainwater, turning torrential rain into runoff that can create landslides. The forest on which communities depended for fruits such as durian, mangoes, rambutan and medicinal plants were impacted, affecting local incomes and sources of food, as well as their local knowledge associated with them.

Aceh’s vulnerability stems from environmental degradation from rampant resource extraction, instability and displacement due to armed conflict, top-down, centralized decision-making by the government and weak institutions stemming from poor governance and corruption.

Measures to strengthen disaster preparedness in Aceh have not tackled the region’s underlying vulnerabilities. Oftentimes, projects meant to promote resilience and development do not address the factors and processes that decrease the vulnerability of the most marginalized.

Disaster contingency plans continue to focus on geological hazards instead of taking a multi-hazard approach. These plans have not been successful in strengthening preparedness of institutions responsible for reducing disaster risk.

As the fourth-most flood-prone region in Indonesia, local and provincial authorities in Aceh need to prepare for extreme weather events so future events like Cyclone Senyar do not wreak such havoc.

As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of storms, it is imperative that disaster risk reduction efforts centre on reducing vulnerability and social justice. Equitable distribution of wealth, power and resources can only be realized when local and Indigenous knowledge is acknowledged to help build sustainable communities.

Lisa Hiwasaki has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Haekal A. Haridhi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Cyclone Senyar: Why hazards continue to turn into disasters in Indonesia – https://theconversation.com/cyclone-senyar-why-hazards-continue-to-turn-into-disasters-in-indonesia-272242

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Oral Robinson, Lecturer & Chair, Honours Program, Department of Sociology, University of British Columbia

College students in the humanities and social sciences are constantly learning about the world’s biggest problems — from inequality, wars, forced displacement, hunger and famine, discrimination and climate change to unjust policies and laws.

While this knowledge helps them see the world in new ways, it can also be overwhelming.

Many students end up feeling discouraged, emotionally burdened or even silenced by the weight of these issues. Educators working in transformative learning — teaching that trains learners to take action — note that students want to help, but they often feel powerless, stuck and unsure of what to do next.

So how can teachers show students how to use what they learn to create real change? How can we turn students into change-makers without making them feel defeated?

When learning feels social and personal, students stop feeling overwhelmed and start believing they can truly make a difference. This finding emerged from a study I conducted with Rohil Sharma, an undergraduate researcher and co-ordinator of the Student as Partners Program at the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of British Columbia.

Effective teaching practices

To practise effective teaching practices for transformative learning, I implemented 14 instructional strategies in a second-year university sociology course.

The course analyzes contemporary family issues like gender inequality, globalization, cultural shifts, legal changes and colonialism. Students reflected on how these forces shape their personal lives and explored actionable ways to improve their circumstances.

We surveyed students to find out which teaching methods made them feel confident enough to address these issues and why.

When we asked students about effective teaching practices, the results were enlightening. Students did not want to simply sit and listen. They felt most empowered by four strategies: interactive lectures, small-group conversations, whole-class discussions and personal reflections.

Interactive lectures

Students cited interactive lectures, which invited students to question instructors, respond to prompts and participate in activities, as among the most effective strategies for building confidence to address social problems. Lectures that included reflective questions, short writing exercises and real-world scenarios encouraged deeper and more creative thinking.

Likewise, when role-playing and case studies were built into lectures, our students reported that they were better able to see how decisions and policies affect different people in different ways. These activities made it clear that social systems are shaped by human choices, and that choices can be questioned and changed. One student reflected:

“When the professor shares experiences and lets us reflect and respond, the issues stop being scary textbook facts and start feeling like problems I actually have the power to help fix.”

Rather than asking students to sit back and listen, we encourage educators to actively invite student participation.

Small conversations

Students also favoured small-group discussions because they created space for students to speak honestly without the pressure of addressing the entire class or being closely monitored by the instructor.

In these settings, students were more comfortable expressing confusion, asking questions and listening to one another. Our findings suggest that these conversations helped students connect social issues to real life.

Students also realized that their classmates were grappling with similar questions, which helped turn uncertainty into connection and shared purpose. As one student explained:

“Sharing our connections to the course content allowed me to see how our experiences and feelings were similar … we could then have shared solutions, which was empowering.”

Whole-class discussions

Whole-class discussions added another important layer to students’ understanding of how they can challenge social problems. Hearing a wide range of perspectives helped students understand that social issues are complex and connected to power and privilege.

With guidance, students learn to practise listening respectfully, disagreeing thoughtfully and explaining their ideas clearly. These discussions helped students link personal experiences to larger social patterns, showing that individual stories are part of broader social patterns.

For many students, this realization sparked a desire to act rather than remain passive. As one participant noted:

“Discussions in class are the best way to get a general view of social problems … hearing diverse experiences … provides a realistic context and solution.”

Personal reflection

Connecting all the favoured strategies is personal reflection. When students had time to consider how social issues affected their own lives or communities, learning was reported to feel more meaningful.

Reflection helped students process emotions, clarify what they care about and recognize inequality around them. It also showed them that change does not have to begin with something dramatic.

One student shared:

“By pinpointing how issues had permeated my own life, I was able to recognize how much control I actually had over the situation and felt like I could spearhead change in my life and the lives of those around me.”

This confirmed our observation that even small changes in the classroom can help students see themselves as people who can make a difference.

Everyday activities can be life-changing

Overall, our research adds to the body of work on transformative learning, showing that students crave more than passive listening and are eager to translate knowledge into actionable solutions.

Furthermore, we find that empowering students to address social issues does not require a complete classroom overhaul. Simple, everyday activities can be life-changing when integrated into traditional teaching.

The key is shifting from one-way lectures toward open dialogue, peer collaboration and personal reflection. These changes foster the trust and inspiration students need to ask better questions, listen deeply and see themselves as capable of creating real-world change.

This story was co-authored by Rohil Sharma, co-ordinator of the Student as Partners Program at the Centre for Teaching and Learning at UBC.

Oral Robinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 4 ways to empower students to spark social change – https://theconversation.com/4-ways-to-empower-students-to-spark-social-change-272013

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Lisa Hiwasaki, Assistant Professor, Management of International Cooperation and Humanitarian Action, Université Laval

Weeks after Cyclone Senyar made landfall in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, the province of Aceh continues to struggle. The cyclone passed through the Strait of Malacca in late November, bringing heavy rains and causing widespread flooding in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. More than 500 people were killed and 250,000 people displaced in Aceh alone.

The cyclone’s unusually high death toll and catastrophic impacts have been attributed to a range of factors, including warming ocean temperatures due to climate change, deforestation and other environmental changes, Aceh’s unique geographical and topographical setting and how rarely cyclones occur near the equator.

What’s missing from the discussion is the root cause of why Aceh was ill-prepared for the hazard. Like many other regions in the Global South, Aceh’s vulnerability can be traced back to colonialism, which created an inequitable distribution of power, wealth and resources. Post-colonial development continues to reinforce it.

The impact of Cyclone Senyar has drawn parallels to the 2004 Aceh tsunami that devastated the province and surrounding areas. Since then, disaster preparedness in Aceh has come a long way. Yet the aftermath of Senyar suggests that disaster preparedness efforts have not tackled Aceh’s underlying vulnerabilities.

Indonesia’s national meteorological agency gave multiple warnings of the hazard well in advance. But neither the national agency responsible for disaster management, the National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure, nor the Aceh Provincial Disaster Management Agency were able to translate warnings into effective action or effectively lead emergency response efforts. Such institutional failures are among the challenges that contribute to vulnerability in Aceh.

In our ongoing research among coastal communities in Aceh, we explore how their livelihoods have been impacted by external shocks, as well as the diverse ways they have adapted to navigate these stresses.

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Read more:
Death and devastation: why a rare equatorial cyclone and other storms have hit southern Asia so hard

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The colonial roots of Aceh’s vulnerability

Starting in the late 16th century, the Dutch colonial government established infrastructure and policies to facilitate resource extraction in Indonesia. The focus of European colonizers was on the eastern part of the archipelago to control the spice trade in the Maluku region. However, it was in Aceh that the Dutch spent the most resources to conquer.

The Dutch East India company opened the port of Kuala Langsa in 1907, in the same area where Cyclone Senyar made landfall. That was followed by large-scale investment in rubber and palm oil plantations. Colonialists supported top-down governance and implemented policies that gave lasting economic and political advantages to those who aligned themselves with the Dutch.

An example is the Ethische politiek (Ethical Policy); among other things, it provided educational opportunities to local elites with the aim of helping the Dutch lead the colony. Local elites were also given land that had previously been communal, to expand agriculture and exploit natural resources, creating divisions within the Acehnese.

Colonial rule also had a lasting impact on the natural environment: highly biodiverse forests were converted to monocrop plantations, ports were expanded to accommodate larger ships and both land and seas were exploited for resources.

Post-independence pressures

Post-independence governments have maintained the top-down institutions put in place by the Dutch. They have also emphasized a continued economic focus on extractive industries, such as pepper, copra and petroleum to fuel Indonesia’s rapid economic growth. These coupled together continue to have devastating impacts on the environment and on the livelihoods of the communities.

In the 1970s, communities in Kuala Langsa, a village in the city of Langsa along Aceh’s east coast, shifted their livelihoods to intensive tiger prawn aquaculture as part of the push to develop marine fisheries under then-president Suharto’s “New Order” political economy regime.

However, a viral disease outbreak led to the collapse of the tiger prawn industry in the early 1990s. Intensive prawn aquaculture significantly degraded the coastal mangrove forests and reduced water quality. That, in turn, undermined the viability of small-scale fisheries that local communities had traditionally relied on.

The conflict between the government and separatists in Aceh from 1976 to 2005 led to an influx of migrants to Kuala Langsa from other parts of the province, putting additional pressures on the environment.

The 2004 tsunami destroyed many mangrove forests along Langsa’s coastline, further negatively affecting the livelihoods of communities that depended on shrimp, crab and fish living in the mangroves.

Policy decisions increase vulnerability

The hazard that struck Langsa and other parts of Aceh did not turn into such a devastating disaster due to climatic and geophysical factors alone. Hazards turn into disasters due to decisions made by those in power that make people vulnerable.

Between 1990 and 2024, almost 160,000 hectares of land was deforested to make way for palm oil monoculture plantations under permits issued by the Ministry of Forestry. Land converted into monoculture plantations loses its capacity to absorb rainwater, turning torrential rain into runoff that can create landslides. The forest on which communities depended for fruits such as durian, mangoes, rambutan and medicinal plants were impacted, affecting local incomes and sources of food, as well as their local knowledge associated with them.

Aceh’s vulnerability stems from environmental degradation from rampant resource extraction, instability and displacement due to armed conflict, top-down, centralized decision-making by the government and weak institutions stemming from poor governance and corruption.

Measures to strengthen disaster preparedness in Aceh have not tackled the region’s underlying vulnerabilities. Oftentimes, projects meant to promote resilience and development do not address the factors and processes that decrease the vulnerability of the most marginalized.

Disaster contingency plans continue to focus on geological hazards instead of taking a multi-hazard approach. These plans have not been successful in strengthening preparedness of institutions responsible for reducing disaster risk.

As the fourth-most flood-prone region in Indonesia, local and provincial authorities in Aceh need to prepare for extreme weather events so future events like Cyclone Senyar do not wreak such havoc.

As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of storms, it is imperative that disaster risk reduction efforts centre on reducing vulnerability and social justice. Equitable distribution of wealth, power and resources can only be realized when local and Indigenous knowledge is acknowledged to help build sustainable communities.

Lisa Hiwasaki has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Haekal A. Haridhi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Cyclone Senyar: Why hazards continue to turn into disasters in Aceh – https://theconversation.com/cyclone-senyar-why-hazards-continue-to-turn-into-disasters-in-aceh-272242

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By JJ Wright, Assistant Professor, Sociology and Gender Studies, MacEwan University

The reason people are so captivated by Heated Rivalry, the new Crave romance adapted from Rachel Reid’s popular novel, isn’t just because the storyline is unprecedented, but because the two main characters find queer joy in impossible circumstances. In doing so, the series creates new possibilities for imagining relationships, masculinity and society.

The show centres on a romance between two professional hockey players, Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), who are rivals in a fictitious professional hockey league.

Queer joy in Heated Rivalry unsettles hockey’s hypermasculine order and makes new ways of relating seem possible. As my research on queer joy articulates, this form of joy holds transformative, collective power for reimagining the world beyond oppressive norms.

It’s no wonder that far from being limited to the show’s large queer fan base, straight women are also hooked. Men who are emotionally attuned, show vulnerability and express care are rare in a world increasingly dominated by the manosphere and its violent misogyny.

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No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

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• Five tips for becoming a cinephile in the age of streaming algorithms

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Hockey culture and masculinity

In the fantasy world of Heated Rivalry, Ilya and Shane are constantly confronted with the harsh realities of hockey culture and its expectations for men. Those expectations are not exaggerated, and closely mirror real-life professional hockey.

As veteran player Scott Hunter (François Arnaud) says to the media after publicly coming out as gay: “I didn’t want to be that thing that hockey players throw around as an insult.” His statement captures how masculinity in hockey is built around proving that you’re not weak, not soft, not gay.

Within this culture, emotional stoicism, physical dominance and the routine objectification and dehumanization of women function as ways of asserting power over others.

This context helps explain why there’s currently no out gay player in the entire National Hockey League (NHL).

Emotional repression

Anger is the only emotion that is permissible for men to express in hockey. Rage-fuelled fights and punishing physical play are rewarded with cheers and highlight reels. That emotional narrowing produces consequences beyond the rink.

It helps normalize a culture where misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism are routinely dismissed as “locker-room talk.”

A 2022 report by Hockey Canada found that of the 512 penalties called for on-ice harassment, 61 per cent involved sexual orientation or gender identity, followed by race (18 per cent) and disability (11 per cent).

This isn’t an environment where gay players, especially racialized or disabled ones, can feel safe, let alone joyful, in their queerness.

Yet Heated Rivalry insists on joy, and that is precisely what makes the series electric. It’s exhilarating to watch Ilya and Shane find deep, passionate connection in a sport designed to keep men emotionally severed. Queer joy emerges despite hockey culture’s cruelty, forging itself inside conditions that were never meant to hold it.

Visibility and resistance

Heated Rivalry has sparked an “online frenzy,” leading to public watch parties, group chats and conversations online about what kinds of men — and sex — we’re allowed to imagine. This shared excitement is a reflection of the pleasure of watching something long considered forbidden become visible and celebrated.

Much queer representation remains dominated by pain and suffering, but Heated Rivalry refuses a tragic queer script and centres joy, unsettling the social order that has historically sought to deny queer people access to pleasure and fulfillment.

That disruption is especially powerful when set against the realities of contemporary hockey. In 2024, the NHL briefly banned Pride Tape, seemingly confirming that hockey is not “for everyone.”

Around the same time, some players refused to wear Pride jerseys during themed games, largely citing Christian Biblical commitments or anti-gay Kremlin laws, and the NHL responded by banning these jerseys altogether.

The Pride Tape ban was reversed after public outcry, yet the ban on specialty jerseys remains. These realities help explain why gay players continue to hide, and why the storyline of a Russian player forced into secrecy resonates so deeply. So, too, does the casting of Hudson Williams, who is half-Korean, as Shane Hollander in a sport still dominated by whiteness.

Consent and intimacy

Hockey’s hypermasculinity has real consequences. In 2022, it came to light that Hockey Canada had paid $8.9 million since 1989 in sexual abuse settlements, exposing a culture of entitlement, silence and impunity.

Queer joy in Heated Rivalry is transformative because of its ethical eroticism. In my research, I’ve argued that queer sexual joy has the capacity to shift sexual cultures away from rape culture, opening space for reciprocity, greater authenticity and embodied pleasure.

That’s why moments where Ilya pauses to ask for consent while having sex with Shane are so important. They dismantle the idea that men are entitled to other people’s bodies and that consent processes ruin the moment.

What makes Heated Rivalry’s sex scenes feel different is that they don’t rely on the familiar trope of gay men roughhousing during sex as they work through internalized homophobia. What we see instead is tenderness, erotic curiosity and emotional commitment.

Even popular “hockey bros” podcasts Empty Netters and What Chaos have discussed the show seriously, commenting openly on both its emotional impact and eroticism. Such conversations begin to loosen rigid norms around masculinity, desire and permissible pleasure.

Once queer joy is made visible, it becomes harder to accept a sporting culture — and a society — that insists it remain impossible.

JJ Wright receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada and Public Safety Canada.

– ref. ‘Heated Rivalry’ shows how queer joy can disrupt hockey’s culture of masculinity – https://theconversation.com/heated-rivalry-shows-how-queer-joy-can-disrupt-hockeys-culture-of-masculinity-272790

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Eric Andrew Collins, Assistant Professor in the School of Health Studies, Western University

Many Canadians start the new year with attempts to abstain from alcohol and cannabis for the month of January. However, this all-or-nothing approach to a healthier lifestyle may be unsustainable for many due to complex biological and psychosocial drivers that trigger substance use in the first place. Fear not, abstinence isn’t the only option.

Moderation-management techniques such as alternating alcoholic drinks with mocktails and harm-reduction strategies, such as opting for light beers, light seltzers and cannabis strains with a higher CBD-to-THC ratio, are evidence-based options.

Please note, this article is intended for individuals who use substances regularly or heavily on special occasions and not for individuals who meet the criteria for a substance use disorder.

As a health and rehabilitation scientist and assistant professor, I have spent 15 years researching the complexities of substance use and recovery. But my insights aren’t just academic. I have lived this reality for over two decades.

My career and auto-ethnographic research, including Cocaine Confessions, have taught me that transforming one’s relationship with substances is not a matter of character, morality or willpower. It requires a precise, deep understanding of the biological, psychosocial and environmental factors that influence this behaviour.

Chronic substance use and the brain

According to a recent report, more than half of Canadians exceed Canada’s Low-Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines of no more than two standard drinks per week. Another government report revealed that six per cent of Canadians exceed Canada’s Lower-Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines, which recommend occasional use of no more than one to two puffs of 10 per cent THC or lower.

For many Canadians who exceed low-risk use guidelines, New Year’s Day marks an opportunity for self-improvement through initiatives like “Dry January” or embarking on a cannabis tolerance break or “T-break.” Though well-intentioned, abstinence-based resolutions often lead to higher rates of relapse because these approaches reduce complex human behaviour to an on-off switch that can presumably be controlled with the power of choice, discipline or selecting a safe environment.

Heavy or chronic substance use disrupts the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain responsible for exercising willpower and impulse control. Think of this part of the brain as the brakes of a car; if someone consumes substances in a way that exceeds Canada’s guidelines, these brakes begin to wear out. At the same time, this type of use hyperactivates the brain’s reward system, which is like keeping the gas pedal pressed to the floor.

As a result, attempting abstinence is essentially asking the driver to stop their speeding car with worn-out brakes. In other words, quitting substances “cold turkey,” even for a month, requires a compromised brain to work perfectly, which is an enormous task.

Transforming the relationship with alcohol or cannabis

The sociocultural environment is responsible for shaping social norms and individual behaviour. It affects behaviour change by strongly influencing an individual’s values, beliefs, attitudes and access to resources. While Dry January and T-breaks normalize abstinence, they create a pass-fail binary for those struggling to quit “cold turkey.”

Alcohol and cannabis are deeply woven into the fabric of Canadian culture, frequently appearing at social gatherings such as first dates, sporting events, concerts and birthdays. The presence and consumption of these substances in these settings can create social pressure and triggers for those attempting to abstain. Abstinence-based initiatives can inadvertently stigmatize individuals who “relapse” or “slip up,” fostering feelings of shame and failure for these people.

Consequently, these individuals may resort to social isolation, a response that often unintentionally reinforces the desire to consume substances. While abstinence is a worthy long-term goal for many, starting with evidence-based moderation-management techniques and harm-reduction strategies offers practical and sustainable approaches for individuals to begin transforming their relationship with alcohol or cannabis.

Effective behaviour change

Effective and sustainable behaviour change strategies are backed by rigorous scientific research, which means they have a proven track record of producing lasting, positive results in real-world settings. Moderation-management techniques focus on when you use and how much you use. For both alcohol and cannabis, some of these strategies include limiting frequency of use to occasional consumption (for example, weekends only) and logging the time, place and amount of substance consumed.

Harm-reduction strategies focus on how you use to minimize damage. For both alcohol and cannabis, some of these strategies include avoiding mixing substances and consuming smaller quantities of lower potency products (for example, beer and lemonade cocktail, and cannabis strains with a CBD:THC ratio of 20:1, 10:1 or 5:1).

Initiatives like Dry January and T-breaks have good intentions, but these all-or-nothing approaches are oversimplified and can inadvertently result in overconsuming at the end of the month or triggering a cycle of shame if someone “relapses” or “slips up.” Instead, making incremental changes and practical shifts in when and how you consume alcohol or cannabis offers a sustainable alternative and can help you create a healthier relationship with these substances.

Eric Andrew Collins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Dry January, T-breaks and the myth of willpower: An alternative reset in the New Year – https://theconversation.com/dry-january-t-breaks-and-the-myth-of-willpower-an-alternative-reset-in-the-new-year-272612