Recreation and Leisure Studies

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This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Exploring student discourses: Would intergenerational cohousing be possible?
(University of Waterloo, 2021-08-27) Smith, Benjamin; Dupuis, Sherry
Intergenerational cohousing programs are arrangements which promote contact between younger and older adults through living together, including within retirement and long-term care homes (LTCHs). These cohousing opportunities have several important benefits for younger and older people, yet the stigma associated with LTCHs, exacerbated by the pandemic, is threatening these cohousing possibilities in the future. This narrative research explored three related puzzles: (1) How do students story the experience of life and leisure in LTCHs; (2) What dominant discourses pervade their stories; and (3) What does this suggest about future participation in intergenerational cohousing programs and how does it expand the intergenerational contact model? Narrative interviews were conducted with undergraduate students at the University of Waterloo. Participants included students with experience working and volunteering in LTCHs, as well as students who have only visited to see family members. Three discourses were interpreted from the data: the discourse on The Transition(ed), the discourse on (Mis)Management, and the discourse on (Re)Valuing. These discourses, along with an exercise in narrative futuring, were used to construct and explore four vignettes of a narrative future in which intergenerational cohousing within LTCHs is an established practice. This study suggests that intergenerational cohousing in a LTCH may be possible in the future, however significant changes must be made in order to realize that future; changes that are likely to improve the quality of life for all residents, young and old. This study also suggests that discourse is an important social condition that must be considered as part of the intergenerational contact model when developing intergenerational experiences, especially cohousing.
“I could never live without a dog”: Re-storied narratives of persons living with dementia and their companion animals
(University of Waterloo, 2020-01-16) Serota, Alexine; Dupuis, Sherry
More than half of Canadians choose to share their homes with companion animals, and for some people an animal may be one of the most important companions in their life. Most research on human-animal companionship highly regards the utility and influence of animals on the health and wellbeing of humans, and countless studies explore the impact of animal-assisted therapies and interventions among marginalized populations, including persons with dementia. However, these approaches fail to conceptualize the interactions and relationships people have with animals as reciprocal, personal, and dynamic. Guided by relational theory and a social citizenship framework, this project aimed to explore how persons with dementia story their relational experiences with companion animals, and sought to understand how companion animals contribute to life and leisure experiences. The methodological approach was structured by narrative inquiry, wherein relational narratives were co-constructed. Photovoice was employed with seven persons living with dementia in the community who share their homes with cats and dogs. Participants were asked to take photos that illustrated their relationships with companion animals, which were used during one-on-one interviews to guide conversations. Data was analyzed using McCormack’s (2004) storying stories approach and represented as a re-storied narrative collection (including short stories, poetry, a monologue, photo storybook, and comic-inspired photo essay). I chose to represent my re-storied narratives in different formats based on variations in storytelling. These narratives illustrate the significance and complexities involved in the relationships between persons living with dementia and their companion animals. These stories connect to a number of concepts from Bartlett and O’Connor’s (2010) social citizenship conceptual framework and illustrate how persons living with dementia practice citizenship in their daily lives. Caring for animals involves important roles and responsibilities, further, there is a sense of purpose that comes with fulfilling these responsibilities. Continuing to care for animals emphasises persons with dementia as developing and retaining skills and abilities, making intentional contributions to the lives of themselves and others. These relationships are characterized by togetherness and reciprocity, where persons with dementia and their animals share experiences and companionship. By sharing the stories of persons living with dementia from a social citizenship perspective, alternate narratives of dementia are introduced that challenge the dominant biomedical and tragedy discourses of dementia, and provide new perspectives that include persons with dementia within public and private spheres of life as active, contributing citizens.
Reconceptualising relationships in the dementia context: Imagining the caring process as fertile ground for friendship between persons living with dementia and paid care partners
(University of Waterloo, 2020-07-02) Engell, Katia; Dupuis, Sherry
Increasing concerns about the task-oriented, disease focused, and impersonal culture of Long Term Care (LTC) have led to calls for the adoption of relational caring, advocating for relationships to be at the centre of all caring. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent outbreaks in LTC homes have emphasized the downfalls of the current culture of care, highlighting the need for a reimagining of the LTC system. Relational caring has the potential to rehumanize, destigmatize, and value and honour both residents with dementia and Personal Support Workers (PSWs) working in LTC homes. While existing literature on relational caring emphasizes the importance of building authentic relationships with one another, friendship remains an under-explored concept in caring contexts, especially between residents and paid care partners. Further, experiences of friendship between persons with dementia and PSWs continue to be limited by professional boundaries, misconceptions about dementia, as well as rigid, traditional notions of what friendship is. Guided by relational cultural theory and an arts-based methodology, I collaborated with residents with dementia and PSWs living and working in an LTC home to interrogate and challenge how friendship was conceptualized in the LTC setting, prior to COVID-19. Using collaborative arts, we collectively explored understandings of and barriers to friendship in caring relationships. Through Voice-Centered Relational analysis, which captures the complexity of participants’ relational stories, several patterns emerged in this data that provide a deeper understanding of how friendship is experienced in the home, and what matters most to participants in these friendships. Participants in this study identified nuanced ways in which friendship is impeded in the home and insight into how friendship might be better supported. On the other hand, participants shared several stories of friendship and spoke of three good feelings that emerged in these relationships: feeling like more than just a task, feeling remembered, and feeling loved. This research further informs calls for relational caring and how this culture change may be facilitated in the LTC context, as well as informing new understandings of friendship between residents and paid care partners. This study also supports the use of arts-based research methodologies to conduct critical, social-justice oriented research in accessible, nuanced, and enjoyable ways. Finally, this research can contribute to a re-imagining of LTC settings as we reshape our systems after COVID-19, a future of LTC where relationships and friendship are prioritized for all persons living and working in LTC homes.
Understanding Young Carers and their Leisure (UYCL): A Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) Initiative
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-30) Norman, Rebekah; Dupuis, Sherry
As of 2012, Statistics Canada estimated there were a minimum 1.2 million young Canadians supporting a family member or friend with a long-term health condition, disability, or as an older adult (Statistics Canada, 2012). Young carers voices and perspectives are predominantly missing from representations of their lived experiences in research, social policy, and support services. Leisure may have important implications for supporting young carers in their care roles; however, little attention has been brought to understanding young carers’ meanings and experiences of leisure. This critical participatory action research (CPAR) project partnered with young carers and staff supporting them to expand our understandings of young carers' experiences of care and how those care experiences shape leisure. Our team, made up of staff from two young carer organizations in Ontario and four, bright young carers, collaboratively and critically explored dominant conceptualizations of young carers and their leisure to better understand how to support young carers in their care roles. Drawing on critical youth studies and an authentic partnership approach, our CPAR process brings attention to the possibilities of involving young carers in actions and decision-making throughout all phases of the research. Our CPAR project brought attention to four key themes: There is Nothing Unnatural About Being a Young Carer: It’s About Just Being Human; Tensions in Understandings and Experiences of Young Carers; Leisure as Relational Moments of Rejuvenation in Everyday Life, and; Being Acknowledged as Relational Beings. Through privileging the perspectives of young carers, our findings contribute an alternative conceptualization of young carers and their leisure, filling gaps in research, policy, and practice.
“We are doing it all wrong”: A Narrative Inquiry Journey Co-Directed by Persons Living with Young Onset Dementia to Illuminate Inequities and Advocate for Change
(University of Waterloo, 2022-01-27) Main, Sarah; Dupuis, Sherry
In recent years more attention and concerns are being drawn to the noticeable increase in diagnoses of young onset dementia (YOD), that is individuals who are diagnosed with dementia and are under the age of 65 years. This increase is partially attributed to the high density of the Canadian population that are between the ages of 25 and 64. Despite the growing numbers, there remains a lack of awareness about, and support services for younger persons with dementia and their families, potentially contributing to early institutionalization. A time of crisis, such as with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, is particularly harmful for persons with YOD and their families, as not only are there not enough support services available, but persons who are admitted to long-term care (LTC) facilities are at a higher risk of experiencing inhumane treatment or exposure to the illness. This research aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the experiences of persons living with YOD, with hope that the impactful stories shared will create awareness around what it is like to live with young onset, and the steps that need to be taken to better support individuals and their families. As there is little research to-date that privileges the voices of younger persons with dementia, bringing their stories to the forefront of this research was of the utmost importance. This critical narrative inquiry (CNI) project, informed by Critical Gerontology (CG), Critical Disability Studies (CDS), and other critical theoretical frameworks, had three main purposes, which were to: illuminate how younger persons with dementia story their experiences of YOD and with the LTC system; 2) open spaces for persons living with YOD to collectively reflect on their experiences and engage in dialogic processes; and 3) develop a collaborative and synergistic narrative representation that illuminates experiences and paths for positive change in dementia care. To achieve these aims, this project had two guiding questions, which included: 1) What stories do persons with YOD share about their experiences of YOD and with the LTC system? and 2) What do persons with YOD need to live well that needs to be considered in a re-imagination of caring for persons with YOD? Using participatory methods and a series of storytelling workshops with six individuals living with YOD, four overarching narratives were created and comprised a total of 11 embedded narrative dialogues that reflect the experiences and viewpoints of the co-researchers. These narratives were presented in the form of podcast scripts, which will be integrated into an interactive multimodal e-flipbook that is continuing to take shape beyond this dissertation. Overarching narratives included: Shifting to New Realities, Recognizing and Resisting Ostracism, Learning from Past and Present, and Looking to the Future. The 11 embedded storylines included: Podcast 1A: “You better hope it’s not dementia” - Diverse Journeys to Diagnosis, Podcast 1B: “You can’t drive anymore” - Experiences of Losing a Driver’s License, Podcast 1C: “They weren’t downsizing, I just got the boot” - Forced Transitions Out of Employment, Podcast 1D: “How you have to give up things is ridiculously hard” - Navigating Financial Challenges, Podcast 2A: “Stigma follows us wherever we go” - Stories of Stigma and Challenging Stigma, Podcast 2B: “They don’t want to be part of your life” - The Impact of Stigma on Relationships, Podcast 3A: “Oh no sorry, it’s only for people 65 and older” - Current Realities of Community-Based Supports, Podcast 3B: “You hear the lock behind us” - Perceptions of Long-Term Care, Podcast 3C: “It’s a complicated topic” – Palliative and End of Life Care Options and Considerations, Podcast 4A: “Dementia’s given me something to get excited about” – Hopes and Aspirations for Living Well with Young Onset Now and in the Future, and Podcast 4B: “It’s like the hamster on the wheel” - Hopes and Aspirations Related to Care and Support. From the perspectives of persons with YOD, findings inform the steps that need to be taken to better support persons with young onset in living well with dementia. The stories and dialogues shared send powerful messages about the inequities experienced by persons with young onset, how individuals resist and challenge stigmatization and discriminatory practices, and the changes that need to be made to protect human rights and to make our society and the healthcare system more inclusive.
"We are not a machine": Personal support workers' (ante)narratives of labour, leisure, and hope amidst politics of genderacialised care in long-term care homes
(University of Waterloo, 2018-01-12) Lopez, Kimberly; Dupuis, Sherry; Arai, Susan
Systemic processes rooted in and reinforcing neoliberalism and capitalist production work to racialise, gender, and class bodies engaged in caring. Engaging in caring through labouring bodies, racialised women working in long-term care (LTC) homes as personal support workers (PSWs) are over represented in labours of care when compared to other sectors of the workforce. In this critical narrative inquiry, individuals through their labouring bodies tell corporeal stories of invisibility and marginalisation, as a result of intricate, complex, intersectional oppressions of racialising, gendering, and classing in settings of care. To best learn through stories told by women’s bodies engaged in caring, intersecting lenses of critical race and feminist inquiry frame how we might hear and see marginalising processes and oppressive practices that shape caring. Unpacking the caring literature revealed several politics occurring in Canada, which reinforce socio-political and economic structures that work to structure who is engaged and how caring happens. I identify eight processes related to caring work that shape the politics of genderacialised care. New language of genderacialisation was needed to inform understandings of the intricate systemic processes that weave together gendering, classing, and racialising in narratives about caring work. Genderacialisation in a care context manifests as systematic deficiencies and points of tension negotiated by individuals who work in stratified care environments. Genderacialisation also acknowledges processes working to render individuals powerless through the imposition of singular categories of race, gender, and class. How genderacialisation is embodied describes, then, experiences of genderace - the various ways gender, race, and class are attributed to, lived, and storied by individuals. The purpose of this study was to reveal genderacialisation and to: (1) understand how it works to structure narratives of PSW care in Canada and (2) create hopeful change-spaces with PSWs. More specifically this activist, critical narrative research has objectives to: (1) deepen knowings of genderacialisation and story how genderacialisation occurs for PSWs working in LTC homes (to inform impacts of racialising, gendering, and classing in care work); (2) story genderace as it is navigated by PSWs in settings of caring (to inform manifestations of genderacialisation); (3) map racialised women’s stories of current practices in care, leisure, and labours of care as PSWs working in a LTC home (to inform how care work is structured); (4) reveal how ideals of self-care, leisure, and care work are storied by PSWs working in LTC homes (to inform alternative realities of care labour inclusive of what the labouring body seeks); and (5) discuss implications of stories with PSWs and act to change structuring of care work (to inform sustainable labours of PSW care in LTC homes, self-care, and leisure). This critical narrative inquiry takes a closer look at antenarrative (cf. Boje, 2007, 2011), grand narratives, and counter narratives appearing in women’s stories about the labours of caring. To see possibilities beyond systemic politics and depart from oppressive structures, women looked to the body. First, body mapping was used as a method to hear stories of five PSWs who self-identified as racialised women. In response to guiding questions we mapped stories onto two paper “shadows” of the body. The first body maps told stories of current practices of the labouring body while caring and the second body map told stories of how one cares for the labouring body followed by reflective discussion of each map and then, the juxtaposition of both body maps. In a second meeting, women created storyboards for the creation of a digital story by selecting segments from their transcribed texts and photos of their body maps. Five digital stories were then created, one by each woman, from the storyboards women assembled. In the third and final workshop, women who participated in the study viewed the digital stories and engaged in reflective discussion. In the final step, I illuminated an antenarrative of caring by hearing into how women of colour were (un)able to wield agency in caring roles within larger socio-economic and political structures. Specifically, by pulling together the politics of genderacialised care, body maps by racialised women engaged in labours of PSW care, and reflective discussions that followed re-listening to stories of care, I saw how the narrative of labour gave way to an antenarrative (a pre-emergent body story) of worth. Worth was revealed as the antenarrative of the labouring body seeking worth: worth within the system, reclaiming self-worth, and self-worth as interdependent and unamenable. Snapshots of hope (for change in caring practices) were also held in the labouring body. Hope facilitated the antenarrative of worth within caring systems (and society more broadly) to come through women’s body maps of labour. Findings from this inquiry propagate a need for further research in the areas of the labouring body, caring, and worth and hope. Of particular interest to leisure scholars is the positioning of leisure within this conversation. Theoretically, this research contributes understandings of genderacialisation and genderace in different areas of caring labour with possibilities of application to other sectors where marginalisation creates disparities in access to care for self, worth, and hope. Methodologically, pairing narrative inquiry with the method of body mapping and a focus on antenarrative presents a new and exciting way of knowing individuals’ stories through their bodies and the potential for hope. Specifically, findings of this work with the politics of genderacialised care are important for further supporting PSWs in their ongoing negotiations for fairness in pay, time for reprieve and reflection, and access to resources (like leisure) to care for their labouring bodies. I plan for future work to include: the creation of resources to assist individuals in understanding and supporting PSW roles in caring; making available online the digital stories that women in this study agreed to share broadly for community engagement and labour practice change, integrating being with through caring into care policy towards sustainable, rejuvenating, and relational care practice; and deepening understandings of worth and hope as antecedents to meaningful labour and socially justice in caring, leisure, and labour practices.
Weaving connections: A case study examining the experiences of a community-initiated social leisure program for individuals with dementia and their care partners
(University of Waterloo, 2020-03-27) Thompson, Karen; Dupuis, Sherry
There are currently 564,000 Canadians living with dementia, and this number is anticipated to rise significantly (Alzheimer Society of Canada, 2016). Persons with dementia are amongst the most stigmatized groups in society. Because of this, they are often excluded from social opportunities within their communities, impacting their health, well-being, and quality of life (Dupuis, Wiersma, & Loiselle, 2012c; Greenwood, 2015). Further, few programs exist that include individuals with dementia in decision-making (Dupuis, Gillies, Carson, Whyte, Genoe, Loiselle, & Sadler, 2012a). One exception is the Memory Boosters, a peer-led, community-initiated social leisure opportunity, which is designed by and for care partners and individuals living with dementia. However, very little research has explored peer-led, community leisure programs in the context of dementia. The purpose of this case study is to fill this gap by gaining a comprehensive understanding of a peer-led social leisure program for people with dementia and their family members. Using the Memory Boosters as a unique case, focus groups and active interviews were used to understand the relational aspects of the group, how it differs from other opportunities in the community, and the relational processes in place to sustain the program. Three major themes emerged from this research, including (1) having a place of worth; 2) supporting continued engagement and making meaningful choices; and 3) nurturing interdependent relationships. These foundational themes supported members in creating meaningful experiences and weaving connections. The Memory Boosters can be used as an exemplar to influence social leisure programs for individuals with dementia and their care partners within other communities.

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