In this episode, Laura Hazlett, PhD student at UCLA discusses her paper “Exploring neural mechanisms of the health benefits of gratitude in women: A randomized controlled trial” published in the journal Brain, Behaviour, and Immunity in 2021.

Laura and her team found that the gratitude intervention didn’t have any direct impact on inflammatory markers. However, people in this study had an increase in giving behaviours, and concluded that “gratitude may benefit health (reducing inflammatory responses) through the … effects of support-giving.”

 

Gratitude 

Temitope Onifade, PhD student at UBC, discusses his paper “Climate Justice Under the Paris Agreement: Framework and Substance” published in the journal Carbon and Climate Law Review, 2021. 

Temitope speaks about living and working in the Niger Delta and how it prompted his interest in environmental sustainability. He explains that it was his work representing start-up clients dealing in renewable energy in South-West Nigeria that eventually made him decide to specialize in how energy law could address climate justice issues.

Climate Justice 

Dr. Ayse Yemiscigil discusses her first author paper “The Effects of Retirement on Sense of Purpose in Life: Crisis or Opportunity?” published in Psychological Science in 2021.

Dr. Ayse Yemiscigil is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and at Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership.

Retirement 

Between 2017 and May 2020, with funding from Women and Gender Equality Canada, Rise Women's Legal Centre studied how the family law system responds to family violence in BC. This episode discusses some of the key findings of the 2021 report from Rise Women's Legal Centre, authored by Haley Hrymak & Kim Hawkins: Why Can’t Everyone Just Get Along-Rise Women’s Legal-January2021. 

 

Family Violence  

David Ng is a queer, feminist, media artist, and co-Artistic Director of Love Intersections - an arts collective made up of queer people of colour. This episode discusses David and Jen Sungshine's paper on the key themes and methodologies from Love Intersections. The paper also explores the approaches to ethical storytelling through a decolonial lens.

David Ng is a co-founding member of the Vancouver Artist Labour Union Co-Operative (VALU CO-OP), as well as a founding charter member of the Artist and Cultural Workers Union (IATSE B-778). He is currently a PhD candidate at the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia.

Artists Responsibility 

The legal system is often used by abusers to exercise coercive control over a former intimate partner. In this episode, Dr. Heather Douglas describes her research findings from interviews with 65 women in Australia, and her recommendations for change as outlined in her paper "Legal Systems Abuse and Coercive Control" published in Criminology & Criminal Justice in 2018.

Dr. Douglas is a law professor at the Melbourne Law School and an internationally recognized expert on legal responses to domestic and family violence. In 2021, Dr. Douglas was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia.

Legal Systems Abuse 

Ellie Gutowski, PhD is an Assistant Professor at University of Toronto in the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development. Ellie discusses two of her first author papers: “Like I’m Invisible: IPV Survivor-Mothers’ Perceptions of Seeking Child Custody through the Family Court System” and “Coercive Control in the Courtroom: the Legal Abuse Scale” both published within the Journal of Family Violence.

The Legal Abuse Scale is a tool that is intended to help assess legal abuse in family court. This tool will hopefully support further development of policy and practice that recognizes and responds to coercive control in the courtroom. 

Legal Abuse Scale