Hi, Welcome to WHEREISFORTMCMURRAY.COM

Now that you are here you probably want to know what this is all about?

Simply put, this website is a dedicated space for disseminating images, writings and discussions about a University of Alberta led collaborative research project.

Over the course of my own dissertation work in the Dept. of Sociology Where is Fort McMurray emerged as the central research question.

From a co-authored paper about to be submitted for review,

“To get at the questions of community, we pursued a course of research that focused on youth. High school aged youth evolved through a trajectory that saw their role as; subjects, participants, collaborators, researchers, and advocates. Multi-level collaboration, meant that we could ebb and flow with one another and the various connected individuals and groups to help illustrate a rich and broad temporary representation of social flows.  Along with community we settled on the  just-abstract-enough question of “Where is Fort McMurray?” taken colloquially, the question asks with a deceptively broad yet deep stroke, taken literally, the questions seems to ask at geography, and taken metaphorically – we found that responses developed as deeply introspective reflections on what it means to be, in relation to a place, in this case, Fort McMurray. Depending on respondents’ age, maturity, and cultural background, “Where is Fort McMurray?” offered us a starting point to any conversation, as well ensuring that we would not be getting a singular response.” – (Dorow, S., Shields, R., Lozowy, A. 2012)

As the research arm of this multi-year project evolves into writing and dissemination we will be sharing the work internationally as a way to enter into discussions around energy, oil, flows, cameras, pictures, images, youth, multi-level collaborative research, affect, and topologies.

Rob Shields is already off to the printers with this article (linked temporarily to SCRIBD) on Youth, Oil, and Cultural Topologies. (Forthcoming International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2012)

Where is Fort McMurray was born out of both SSHRC and Killam grants awarded to Sara Dorow. Her larger project goes by the working title: Social Landscapes of Neoliberal Growth: the case of Fort McMurray, Alberta. Sara Dorow along with Sarah O’Shaughnessy are guest editors on the upcoming special issue titled – Community Between State and Market: thinking Through Fort McMurray, slated for August 2012 through CJS.