Category Archives: Capitalism & Class
The AMS needs to answer for its complicity in tuition increases
On October 14th, The Ubyssey broke the news that the university proposes to dramatically increase tuition for international students. The proposed hikes vary by program, with an average 49% increase over the current cost, and a maximum of 60.15% (for Sauder). The increases, if passed, would send a clear message: only the rich need apply […]
Angélica Choc at UBC: “We come carrying more than 500 years of resistance”
Angélica Choc is a Mayan Q’eqchi’ woman from the community of La Union, in the Guatemalan municipality of El Estor. Adolfo Ich Chamán, her husband and an outspoken critic of the Canadian-owned nickel mine operating in the area, was brutally murdered on the 27th of September, 2009. The security manager of the mine was arrested […]
Institutional Burden Politics: A look at UBC’s disability structures
How do UBC’s bureaucratic and institutional structures perpetuate ableist assumptions such as burden discourse? Burden discourse is when disabled bodies don’t feel entitled to ask for support. This can be due to language use, interpersonal interactions, and/or structures in the institution, which is what this article will focus on. It is critical to look closely […]
Frontlines Beat Pipelines 2: Supporting The Unist’ot’en Through Creative Resistance
The first week of school brings more than just the familiar and notorious whirlwind of welcome back events, parties, and Imagine Day-related hysteria. It also conjures up the long legacy of on-campus colonial violence and misogyny that sometimes rears its head in traditions like Frosh. The Sauder School’s “Pocahontas chants” of 2013 readily come to […]
Beginning to Win: Amsterdam, Red Squares and the Student Struggle
“Yeah, fuck the neoliberal narrative!” These are the words that introduced us to Dutch student activist Judith Baten, one of the main organizers of the student movement, the Nieuwe Universiteit, at the University of Amsterdam. Regardless of the fact that she had been averaging 2 hours of sleep for the last week, Baten was full […]
Remembering the Purple Thistle
I’m chatting with Aliza Bosa in the Purple Thistle Centre. The 2,500-square foot arts and activism space in East Vancouver feels remarkably spacious with only the two of us here, but signs of the centre’s visitors and their creative endeavors linger all around us—things like screen printing tools, paints, books, computers, a bike-repair station, and […]
Homelessness is Not a Choice
I am deeply indebted to the Coast Salish people, the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam nations on whose unceded lands I think, teach, learn, and write. With my heartfelt gratitude. It is springtime again and the Five Days for the Homeless Campaign has recently concluded at UBC. The campaign’s website states that student participants had to […]
10 Shitty Things about Vancouver Nightlife: A QWOC* Perspective
TW: this article contains mentions of rape, harassment and sexual assault. As a queer, black woman, moving through a straight, white world can be challenging. From everyday micro-aggressions to huge systemic structures of discrimination, our society privileges those who are very much not me. This is evident when I’m picked out in class to give […]
CUPE 2278 (TA Union): A Primer
How we began Imagine that you are a newly hired Teaching Assistant (TA) in the computer science department at UBC. You notice that your friends who are TAs in the sociology department are getting paid much less than you are. You are constantly working overtime, yet you are not getting paid for work done beyond […]
The Net: Digital Narcissi
I. “Listen: every morning I take a razor to the fabric of my life, I cut out a woman shape, I step into it, I go out. I perform, it works.” – Pat Lowther, “The Face” When I log onto Facebook, I type in my email address and my password. In essence, these markers are […]
