Katie Mazer is a PhD Candidate in Geography at the University of Toronto. Her doctoral research focuses on labour mobility in Canada’s extractive industries. Through a historical and ethnographic examination of labour migration between Canada’s east coast and extractive resource industries in western Canada, Katie’s work analyses the confluence of regional decline, state regulation of (un)employment and the unemployed, and the political economy of resource extraction. By investigating the relationships between Maritime sending communities, extractive industry in Alberta, and state regulation in Ottawa and provincial capitals, Katie’s dissertation critically analyses the “national imperative” to extract and export oil in relation to historical dynamics of uneven development, economic restructuring, and workforce planning. In undertaking this research, Katie is interested in challenging normative understandings of productivity and the ideological dominance of oil and gas as the solution to poverty and unemployment in rural Canada.

Contact:

Email: k.mazer@utoronto.ca