Fernwood Publishing in collaboration with Novel Idea, The Department of Sociology Queen’s University, and the Surveillance Studies Centre presents the launch of Ineligible: Single Mothers Under Welfare Surveillance. This event will feature a discussion with anti-poverty activists Aimee VanVlack and Carrie Lynn Poole-Cotnam and author Krys Maki. The speakers will draw on their own lived experiences of poverty, activism, and frontline casework and reflect on the impacts of welfare surveillance on the lives of low income mothers and their everyday and collective acts of resistance.
Watch the launch here at 6:30pm EST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIgCdZ_iWzs
About the speakers
Aimee Van Vlack is an activist whose focus has been primarily on anti-poverty, violence against women and children, anti-racism, and safe consumption. Her work was accomplished by organizing civil disobedience events and working to directly change harmful policies with policymakers. Aimee served on the Board of Directors for Kingston Interval House, was the Chair for the Kingston Coalition Against Poverty, was the President for the Kingston and the Islands NDP riding association, and is a recipient of the Daniel Benedict Award from the Ontario Health Coalition.
Carrie Lynn Poole-Cotnam is the Chair of the CUPE Ontario Social Services Sector representing 35,000 social service workers in the province. For 13 years CarriecLynn worked as a frontline case worker with those in receipt of social assistance in the South end of Ottawa. She has been a passionate voice for women’s economic justice by representing CUPE Ontario on the Ontario Equal Pay Coalition , serves as the Treasurer of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, and has been involved in anti-poverty work for the last 10 years.
About the author
Krys Maki is an activist scholar specializing in mixed-methods community-based research in the areas of gender based violence, poverty, and surveillance. For their research on welfare surveillance, Krys received the Canadian Sociological Association’s Outstanding PhD Graduating Student Recognition Award and the SSHRC Vanier Canadian Graduate Scholarship. They currently work as the research and policy manager at Women’s Shelters Canada, a national network of violence against women shelters based in Ottawa.
Co-Sponsored by: Novel Idea The Department of Sociology, Queens University The Surveillance Studies Centre, Queen’s University
