March Winner - Zoey Jones

Congratulations to Zoey Jones, one of our March researchers!

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Zoey Jones is a Masters candidate in the Department of Criminology at Laurier’s Brantford campus. Her qualitative thesis, “Purchasing Sex and Negotiating Morality: An exploratory study of sex industry clients and stigma”, focuses on the lived experiences of fourteen male clients of sex workers.

This study has yielded unexpected results reflecting on the qualitative interview process itself and the researcher’s role within it. Zoey will be presenting at the Qualitatives 2013 conference in Ottawa focusing on unpacking ethical challenges, the involvement of academic and personal identity, and the emotion work she has experienced and analyzed throughout this project.

Her research has also encountered a variety of themes including reflections of wider cultural commodification of women, definitions of sexual and non-sexual intimacy, and techniques utilized to combat broader social definitions of ‘deviant’ sexuality.

Zoey would like to thank her supervisor, Dr. Stacey Hannem, for her invaluable contribution and support.

March Winner - Yasaman S. Munro

Congratulations to Yasaman S. Munro, one of our March researchers!

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Yasaman S. Munro is currently a doctoral candidate in the Wilfrid Laurier University-University of Waterloo joint program in Religious Diversity in North America.

Her SSHRC-funded research focuses on Ayurveda and associated South Asian medical traditions among Hindu South Asians now living in the Waterloo Region of Canada, many of whom are involved with the two major Hindu temples in this area.

Recognizing the importance of relational networks and material culture, Yasaman asks interviewees to walk her through their everyday health practices and beliefs in domestic and religious spaces, and she traces and photographs the Ayurvedic materials people use for well-being. Her research has taken her to India where interviewees buy their Ayurvedic medicines and go for treatments at Ayurvedic hospitals and religious sites.

More broadly, Yasaman examines how religion and social identity are linked with the ways that people respond to sickness, aging and death.