Congratulations to Natasha D'Souza for successfully defending her Rural Studies PhD dissertation titled “Space, Place and Power: Case Study of Highly Skilled Talent and Governance Dynamics in The Bruce County Energy Sector".
Stay tuned for electronic access to Natasha's PhD dissertation.
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The Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation recently hosted a webinar as part of the New Researcher Forum series titled "Mobilizing Knowledge for Stronger Rural Futures". Prof. Ryan Gibson explored what he called the “knowledge paradox" - while more research exists than ever before, it often fails to reach the people who can use it most. Too often valuable rural research is locked behind technical language, paywalls, limited internet access, or simply doe
Congratulations to Louis Helps for successfully defending his Rural Studies PhD dissertation titled "Migrant Stories, Industry Narratives: A Critical Discourse Analysis on Migrant Labour in Canadian Agriculture". Stay tuned for electronic access to Lou's PhD dissertation.
Formal agricultural research is often conducted by professional researchers, however, recently there has been in an increase in farmer-led initiatives such as the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario’s (EFAO) Farmer-Led Research Program (FLRP). The Connecting the Dots initiative is excited to share a research summary about the impacts of the FLRP – Farmer Knowledge as Formal Knowledge: A Case Study of Farmer-Led Research in Ontario, Canada. The summar
A new research publication by Margarita Fontecha, Silvia Sarapura‑Escobar, and Ryan Gibson published in the Journal of Rural Studies invites us to rethink what “rural life” really means in parts of Colombia where licit and illicit economies coexist. Using participatory methods grounded in theories of agency and intersectionality, the authors center the experiences and aspirations of rural youth from the community of La India. Rather than treating them as p
The December 2025 newsletter contains updates to graduate students working with Prof. Gibson and recent alumni. This newsletter shares information about academic programs updates, celebrates receive achievements, profiles an RPD alumni, and share insights on upcoming events. If you have information to share in the monthly update do not hesitate to let Ryan know via email.
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A newly published chapter in Critical Futures: Community-Engaged Research in a Time of Social Transformation (University of Toronto Press) invites readers to rethink what it means to live, work, and thrive in rural places today. Written by Sean Markey, Ashleigh Weeden, Ryan Gibson, Greg Halseth, and Laura Ryser, “Community-Engaged Research and the ‘Right to Be Rural’” challenges long-held assumptions that cast rural communities as outdated, declining, or s
Prof. Ryan Gibson offered a timely look at how communities can navigate an increasingly unpredictable world as part of an event recently hosted by the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia. The presentation painted a picture of the complex pressures facing local regions today—from economic instability and government cutbacks to climate change and shifting societal values. These overlapping challenges, he explained, have created a new landscape where traditio
On November 4, 2025, Dr. Ryan Gibson delivered a presentation titled “Local Governance in Canada” at the Department of International and Regional Studies, Hokkaido University of Education in Hakodate, Japan. The session brought together students, faculty, and community partners to explore how Canadian approaches to local governance and rural revitalization could inform Japan’s regional development strategies.
During his talk, Dr. Gibson compared the geogra
20-26 October 2025 is International Open Access Week – a global event dedicated to openness in scholarship and research. This year’s theme, “Who Owns Our Knowledge?”, invites all of us to reflect on who controls the production and sharing of knowledge—and how we might open it up for the wider public good.
The School of Environmental Design and Rural Development is excited to host three open access journals: Canadian Agri-food & ...
