Mary Jean Hande, Assistant Professor
B.A. (University of Saskatchewan), M.A. (York University), Ph.D. (University of Toronto)
Otonabee College 230, mjhande@trentu.ca
Classes I teach at Trent:
- SOCI 2630H – Sociology of Health and Illness
- SOCI 3111H - Classical Sociological Theory
- SOCI 4420H – Aging and the Life Course
- SOCI 4430H – Key Concepts in Sociological Analysis
My research interests include:
- Care policy, work, and politics
- Aging, disability, and mad studies
- Im/migrant and precarious work
- Critical consciousness/social movement learning
- Community-engaged research and learning
- Critical theory and qualitative methods
My current or recent projects include:
Towards just care: Envisioning disability and migrant justice-informed home care in Ontario
I lead this SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant ($24, 686) partners with the Disability Justice Network of Ontario to support their Abolish Long-Term Care campaign, by de-institutionalizing care for people in Ontario. The project focuses on examining how disability and migrant justice frameworks can inform home care system reform in Ontario by mapping and analyzing existing home care services in Ontario through the lenses of migrant and disability justice. We are also building community-based alliances with organizations and people representing low-income home care users and migrant care workers to ensure that demands home care transformation are guided by coalitions of workers and users who need home care change the most.
Essential voices in long term care research: Critical reflections on meaningful engagement, voice, and representation
Based on my postdoctoral research with the Seniors Adding Life to Years (SALTY) project at the Nova Scotia Centre on Aging at Mount Saint Vincent University, I am leading a UBC Press book project with Janice Keefe that unpacks the value and potential of meaningfully engaging people with lived experience (essential voices) in long term care research processes. The manuscript is co-authored with members of SALTY’s Advisory Group, which included people representing long term care residents, direct care workers, long term care volunteers, family caregivers, and people with dementia. As co-authors, these essential voices reflect on themes of finding voice, challenging notions of expertise, and assessing impact in health research. Through their reflections, we identify the strengths and challenges of engaging essential voices in research and offer conceptual guidance and practical tips for prioritizing lived experience in health research.
Migrant care work and the geopolitics of “aging in place”
I am currently wrapping up a SSHRC Insight Development Grant ($64, 840), which studies the contradictions of “aging in place” initiatives and (im)migrant care policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. This project collaborates with Migrante Manitoba and aims to review policy and document the experiences and working conditions of im/migrant home care workers caring for older people during the pandemic to support efforts to improve formal care provision for older people and the working conditions of the im/migrant workers who care for them.
Five publications that exemplify my work:
Nicholson, L., Hande, M.J. & Migrante Manitoba. (2023). Justice for Im/Migrant Home Care Workers in Manitoba. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Manitoba. https://policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/justice-immigrant-home-care-workers-manitoba
Hande, M.J., Keefe, J. & Taylor, D. (2021). Long term residential care policy guidance for staff to support resident quality of life. The Gerontologist: Special Issue on Workforce Issues in Long Term Care, 61(4): 540-551. http://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnaa176
Hande, M.J., Jamal, A. & Kelly, C. (2020). Direct Funding and the depoliticization of home care systems: Popular rhetoric and policy directions in Ontario. Canadian Review of Social Policy, 80: 26-49. https://crsp.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/crsp/article/view/40353
Mirchandani, K. & Hande, M.J. (2020). The hidden work of challenging precarity. Canadian Journal of Sociology/ /Cahiers Canadiens de Sociologie, 45(3): 265-288. https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/cjs/index.php/CJS/article/view/29676
Hande, M.J. (2019). Disability consciousness on the frontlines of urban struggle. Antipode 51(2): 558-578. doi: 10.1111/anti.12499
Hande, M.J. & Kelly, C. (2015). Organizing survival and resistance in austere times: Shifting disability activism and care politics in Ontario, Canada. Disability & Society 30(7): 961-975. doi: 10.1080/09687599.2015.1069731
This op-ed on Winnepeg Free Press is about the report and the report is pressing in light of the upcoming provincial election in Manitoba - https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2023/07/31/immigrant-workers-and-home-care
What achievements and/or contributions in research are you most proud of?
My proudest academic accomplishment is the research I have conducted with Migrante Mantioba, as Principal Investigator of an Insight Development Grant. This participatory research on im/migrant home care workers’ experiences of working during the COVID-19 pandemic has had a tangible impact on supporting im/migrant home care workers in Manitoba during the pandemic and it addresses a dearth of literature on immigrant home care workers in Canada. Within this work and moving forward, I am proud to be mobilizing both disability and migrant justice frameworks in efforts to transform continuing care during the pandemic and I now have a network of community, national and international research partners who want to take this research to the next level in terms of applying intersectional, transformative approaches to demanding caregiving justice for older people and im/migrants in Canada.