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2021
- Partnering with neighbourhood houses to recognize inequities in South Vancouver neighbourhoods
- Finding hope and healing through CER
- Tammara Soma on Reimagining Food Systems in Communities for Below the Radar
- Namiko Kunimoto on Exploring Japanese Culture and History Through Visual Art for Below the Radar
- Joseph Mwesigwa Ssendikaddiwa on the experience of being a CERi graduate fellow
- Recap: Cultural Sensitivity and Community-Engaged Research
- Understanding the sexual and reproductive health access of young im/migrant women: A community engagement project
- Gardening Initiative Helps to Address Food Insecurity
- Innovative Research That's Advancing Equity
- Symposium Panel Spotlight on Research as Advocacy: Collaborative Inquiry Meets Material Practice
- Symposium Panel Spotlight on Art-ful Engagement in Small Cities: Beyond the Project
- Symposium Panel Spotlight on Land as Life: Ongoing Institutional Resistance and Survivance in Pandemic Times
- Heather De Forest on the Collective Power of Academic Libraries for Below the Radar
- Recap: Approaching Community-Engaged Research Through a Trauma Informed Lens
- Empowering youth in Surrey through leadership
- Introducing Namiko Kunimoto, CERi Researcher-in-Residence
- LGBTQ2 Communities and SFU Students Come Together to Improve Access to Mental Health Services
- Introducing Tammara Soma, CERi Researcher-in-Residence
- Angela Kaida on Engaging Community in HIV Research for Below the Radar
- Introducing Justine Chambers, CERi Artist-in-Residence
- Jessie Williams joins CERi Advisory Board
- 2020
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Introducing Tammara Soma, CERi Researcher-in-Residence
We’re pleased to announce that Dr. Tammara Soma is joining CERi as Researcher-in-Residence from January to August 2021.
Soma is a food systems planner and a food waste expert with a heart for equity and justice. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University where she conducts community-based research on food system planning, waste management and the circular economy.
Community-engaged research is integral to the work Soma does. She views community-engaged research as having 3 pillars:
- Being driven by community needs;
- Developing meaningful relationships with community partners; and
- Ensuring community members are treated equitably and respectfully in the process.
“I feel like my role at CERi as a community-engaged research scholar is a way to build partnerships and relationships that will lead to a more just world,” says Soma. She feels energized to join CERi as a Researcher-in-Residence because she sees it as an institution that puts community at the forefront.
Soma is also the Co-Founder of Food Systems Lab, the first social innovation lab in Canada tackling food systems and food waste issues. She launched the lab with her colleague, Belinda Li, to combat the band-aid solutions to food waste issues that she often witnessed. Soma describes how “food waste solutions promoted in the policy and academic world are not very concerned with equity and justice,” and she co-founded the Food Systems Lab to meaningfully centre justice in this work.
For Soma, food justice means “ending a tiered and hierarchical system whereby members of our population can have access to the best products while others have to deal with the remnants of corporate food waste.” For her, it is crucial that collectively, we don’t view food, water, land and people as siloed commodities, but rather as entities having interconnected relationships.
Wherever there are earthlings that would like to create a better planet together, I feel like I could be part of that community.
Community has a planetary dimension for Soma. “Wherever there are earthlings that would like to create a better planet together, I feel like I could be part of that community,” she says. Her conception of community is grounded in finding the connections between people, communities and the collective work toward justice.
In addition to her current residency at CERi, Soma was also a participant in CERi’s Community-Engaged Research Funding Program where she partnerd with the National Zero Waste Council to examine how businesses that are focused on sustainable practices adapted during COVID-19.
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