Mavis Reimer Receives ChLA Diversity Research Grant

Thu. Apr. 5, 2018

The Centre for Research in Young People’s Texts and Cultures is pleased to announce that Mavis Reimer has been awarded the 2018 Children’s Literature Association Diversity Research Grant for Six Seasons of the Asiniskow Ithiniwak App Research and Development.

The funding will be used to research the possibilities and challenges of auditory archaeology or archaeoacoustic soundscapes for inclusion in the production of a picture book app for the second text in the Six Seasons of the Asiniskow Ithiniwak series to be produced by the Six Seasons project. The scope of the planned work is to travel with the Six Seasons Archaeology Team, which includes community researchers, to Gauer River and Eagle Rapids to work with them in using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and Auditory Scene Analysis to explore and record the possible aural relationships between the Asiniskow Ithiniwak, their use of material culture, and this specific natural landscape. In documenting and reconstructing the soundscape, the Six Seasons Production Team will contribute to the assets for the app, which will enhance the use of the picture book in classrooms in both First Nations and public schools. In producing this app, the team aims to disrupt the colonial perspective on space and time by creating a digital text that emulates the alternative rhythms of Indigenous life and culture.

The Children’s Literature Association Diversity Research Grant is a grant to support research related to children’s and young adult cultural artifacts (including media, culture, and texts) about populations that have been traditionally underrepresented or marginalized culturally and/or historically.

For more information see the Six Seasons of the Asiniskow Ithiniwak Project page.