EVENTS
The Building Inclusive Cities Symposium was held from October 13 – October 27, 2022 and consisted of five knowledge exchange events. We hosted four arts-based workshops with cross-sectoral groups of planning, heritage and museum professionals. Each workshop began with a facilitated experience of the Block by Block: Stories of Migration, Life, and Change in Four Toronto Neighbourhoods exhibition in the Toronto Reference Library’s TD Gallery, followed by activities and dialogue focused on a discrete theme. The symposium culminated in a panel discussion, titled “How Oral Histories Inform Equity-based Community Planning and Heritage Policies and Practices” at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information.
WORKSHOPS
Engaging Migrant Communities as Makers of Cultural Heritage
This workshop engaged practitioners, policy makers, and community leaders in an exploration to expand approaches to cultural heritage. Participants were encouraged to move towards a shared understanding of heritage as dynamic and ongoing, and rooted in relationships and lived experience. Discussions focused on how to encourage meaningful inclusion of marginalized perspectives and voices in heritage planning, including those of migrants.
Participants exchanged knowledge and shared experiences of both challenges and successes in integrating the intangible cultural heritages that are prioritized by communities into policy and planning practice. Shared challenges included access to adequate funding, insufficient capacity and training, requirements imposed by external deadlines, lack of time for respectful relationship building, and lack of cultural knowledge to understand diverse community experiences across the city. All participants recognized the value of oral histories in particular, but practitioners expressed that they faced barriers in how to meaningfully integrate this work into their organizations.
Establishing and Maintaining Non-Extractive Co-Creative Practices
This workshop focused on identifying barriers and opportunities for using non-extractive, co-creative practices in a range of professional settings across the heritage, planning, and museum sectors. Central to this work was acknowledging the role of institutional histories and, in some cases, their ongoing complicity in maintaining unequal and extractive relationships. Participants in this workshop recognized the immense value and ethical imperative of centering community knowledges, but also articulated a number of limitations to fully embracing non-extractive practices.
Practitioners noted the challenge of reallocating resources within institutions, and recognized that despite good intentions, most approaches to consultation remained tokenistic. They discussed the significance of embedding stories in community, while simultaneously emphasizing how stories resonated across neighbourhoods, and thus the value of putting those stories and experiences in conversation. Participants in this workshop focused on how to build trust as a necessary foundation for developing non-extractive relationships, emphasizing an ethics of care, reciprocity, respect, and accountability.
Researching Lived Experiences with Mutual Care, Respect and Understanding
This workshop delved further into the value of centering lived experience by exploring how researching with care and careful research practices might be integrated in the heritage, planning, and museum sectors. Using the exhibition, methodologies, and practices of the Block by Block program as an explicit basis for reflection and discussion, this workshop focused on de-centering the traditional locus of authority, away from experts with more distant knowledge, to community members and the expertise of grounded, lived experience.
Discussions centered on the nuances of conducting research that truly embodies the values of ‘mutual care, respect, and understanding’ and the complex ethical responsibilities that accompany caring for the stories of others. In particular, they discussed how to maintain community access and respect the principle of shared authority. Participants shared concerns about barriers, and brainstormed strategies for communicating the value of these approaches within their institutions and developing continuity in institutional practice.
Channeling Community-Centred Research into Effective Change
This workshop brought together participants from various professional sectors to explore effective ways to inform policy and societal changes, highlighting community-based practices employed in the Block by Block program, such as oral history methodology and hiring researchers from within the community to represent authentic experiences. Participants emphasized the importance of community narratives and community-centred research, noting how these elements provided valuable insights into different neighbourhood contexts.
The multi-sensory features of the exhibit and different modes of knowledge sharing prompted participants to reflect on their own lived experiences and professional practice. Discussions also centered on how professionals can incorporate these community stories into their work to foster a more equitable city. Concerns were raised about the absence of sustainable processes to ensure the access of community members to their shared oral histories.
PANEL
“How Oral Histories Inform Equity-based Community Planning and Heritage Policies and Practices” was held at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information on October 27, 2022
Using the Toronto Ward Museum’s Block by Block exhibition as a springboard, this public panel attempted to better understand how community-based oral history methodologies can inform and advance more equitable planning and heritage policies and practices, as well as explore their limitations and challenges.
The panel addressed issues surrounding authority over stories and the documentation of history, which shape the future of Toronto’s immigrant communities, as well as the consequences of using oral histories as a form of knowledge sharing for professional practice and policy-making. Five Toronto-based leaders in planning, heritage, migration, and settlement joined us in discussing community-engaged oral history research and future city-building.
Audience members listen to the conversation between panelists during the final event of the BIC Symposium, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto.
PANELIST BIOS
Tamara Anson-Cartwright
Program Manager, Policy and research, Heritage Planning, Toronto City Planning Division
Tamara Anson Cartwright is a Program Manager, Policy and Research, in Heritage Planning in the Urban Design section of Toronto’s City Planning Division. Tamara and her team advise Toronto Council on numerous heritage policies and legislative amendments, such as the identification and evaluation of heritage properties for inclusion on the City’s Heritage Register and Heritage Conservation District studies. Prior to joining City Planning in 2015, Tamara was a Conservation Advisor in the Ontario Public Service for over 25 years.
Shiralee Hudson Hill
Museum Administrator, City of Toronto
Shiralee Hudson Hill is an award-winning museum planner known for creating engaging and inclusive experiences. She is currently a Museum Administrator with the City of Toronto, leading operations at Fort York National Historic Site. Before this, she spent over a decade advancing interpretive planning at the Art Gallery of Ontario, advised on cultural projects worldwide as a consultant with Lord Cultural Resources, and managed community arts initiatives with Arts Etobicoke.
Angela Koh/XuYingsi
Co-Chair, West End Coalition for Housing Justice
Angela Koh/XuYingsi has worked with various community groups, grassroots organizers, and non-profits overseas and in Canada. She is currently part of the Community Response & Advocacy Unit at West Neighbourhood House, and is engaging in city-wide coalition building around Inclusive Development as the Co-Chair of the West End Coalition for Housing Justice.
Bryan Peart
Golden Mile Coordinator, Working Women Community Centre
Bryan Peart is the Golden Mile Coordinator for Working Women Community Centre operating the Victoria Village Hub. He has been living and working in the Golden Mile for 17 years and is currently in his 4th year of the Creative Industry at the Toronto Metropolitan University. He is the founder of many grassroots groups and initiatives that have led him to achieve the Ontario Medal of Honor for volunteering. As an entrepreneur, Bryan is currently facilitating food handling certification to residents all over Ontario.
Dr. Thy Phu
MCIP, RPP, Associate Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University
Dr. Thy Phu is a Distinguished Professor of Race, Diaspora and Visual Justice at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. From 2016-2019, she was Director of the Family Camera project, which engaged local communities in the archiving of photographs and their stories. She is currently a Co-Director of Refugee States, a community-led partnership project, funded by the SSHRC Race, Gender, and Diversity Initiative, which is creating a counter-archive of narratives of forced migration.
Dr. Zhixi Zhuang
MCIP, RPP, Associate Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University
Dr. Zhixi Zhuang is an Associate Professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University. Founder of the DiverCityLab (www.divercitylab.com), her research explores the growing urban diversity and how city-builders can incorporate equity and inclusion into their practices. Her work focuses on the lived experiences of immigrant and racialized communities, emphasizing their agency for cultural recognition, as well as social, economic, political, and spatial inclusion. Thus, in turn, sheds light on municipal policies and governance.
Brannavy Jeyasundaram
Former Co-Executive Director, Toronto Ward Museum
Brannavy Jeyasundaram is a writer and museum professional living in Toronto. She is an interpretive planner at Royal Ontario Museum and the former co-executive director of the Toronto Ward Museum. Previously, she was the managing editor of the literary journal, Adi Magazine. In 2023, she published “We Will Remember This” an anthology of dance writing in collaboration with Nova Dance and Dance Collection Danse. Much of her work is motivated by an effort to understand diasporic will and memory.