Blog – SOPR Stories

A collage of colourful artwork created by SOPR students using mixed media.

Introducing Saba Safdar, New SOPR Program Director

Saba Safdar is an Iranian-born scholar whose formative years in Tehran were shaped by the turbulence of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, before she and her family made Canada home. Having lived most of her life in the Great White North, she embraces her Canadian identity, though she’ll admit her winter wardrobe is always a little too optimistic for the climate. Still, she secretly marvels at the breathtaking beauty of a Canadian winter.

Decolonizing the place narrative of Guelph: A PhD student’s experience

In my city of Guelph, Indigenous histories and presence have long been erased from public landmarks and heritage markers. The story of Guelph’s founding is that upon a ceremonial felling of a maple tree on April 23rd, 1827, John Galt, the first superintendent of the Canada Company established Guelph as a city. While he did not spend much time in Guelph, John Galt’s name is prominent in city spaces. Often untold are the histories of the Neutral, who were the first known Indigenous people to live in what is now Guelph, and the Mississaugas, who stewarded the land after the Neutrals dispersed due to wars. The Haudenosaunee also shared this land prior to Guelph’s founding. In learning and sharing about these histories of my city, I seek to recognize Indigenous presence in the current day.

Hello and welcome! A message from the 2024-2025 SOPR Community of Practice Facilitators

The days are getting shorter, the air at night is fresh, and there’s a sense of anticipation in the air. We find ourselves in the threshold between the glorious days of summer and the crisp cool of fall. That can only mean one thing. It must be back-to-school season!

Creating space for transformation in higher education

The SOPR program has created space for us in higher education. SOPR is made up of students with lived experience and identities, often undervalued or made invisible in academia. We are queer, non-binary, women, racialized, Indigenous, newcomers, international students, neurodivergent, disabled, parents, activists, artists, change makers, and students at the intersection of many identities. During our time in SOPR we draw from our experiences, our individual and collective praxis, and different ways of knowing to create new, practice-based knowledge and to reimagine academia, together.

Welcome to the SOPR Stories Blog!

Hello and welcome to SOPR Stories, the student-led blog for the Social Practice and Transformational Change doctoral program at the University of Guelph.

Looking back at my time in SOPR with Gratitude

Hello, everyone, my name is Hannah Fowlie, and I just defended my thesis project, Grief Refracted: Digital Storytelling as Liberatory Praxis. In this project, I explored disenfranchised grief (Doka, 1989) with eight other storytellers, and made a story as well. Rather than a book-length dissertation, the stories were woven together in a film that incorporating interviews and poetic, visual, and sonic explorations of grief and loss, accompanied by a written reflection. I was interested in how the arts and social sciences can support each other with a “synchronicity [that can move] in both directions (Gallagher, 2008, p. 78). In the Social Practice and Transformational Change (SOPR) program, I found a home for my work. Coming to the end of my journey, it makes good sense to look back and reflect on my experience in the program. I am feeling a sense of loss that I will no longer be formally part of the SOPR community however, I will look for ways to stay involved and connected.