Date of Award
10-5-2017
Publication Type
Master Thesis
Degree Name
LL.M.
Department
Faculty of Law
Keywords
community-led advocacy, feminist standpoint theories, knowledge/power nexus, progressive lawyering, systemic change, Windsor
Supervisor
Smyth, Gemma
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This thesis explores the roles lawyers might play to support community-led advocacy work towards systemic change from the standpoint of community advocates with lived experience of poverty. Using feminist standpoint theories and Foucault’s knowledge/power nexus to analyze findings from group meetings and in-depth interviews conducted with Voices Against Poverty, a grassroots advocacy group in Windsor, Ontario, this thesis looks at how we might reimagine how lawyers support their communities and mitigate the effects of their power by transforming their relationships. This thesis provides one example of how beginning from the standpoint of communities can help us to better understand the ways lawyers can engage with grassroots advocacy groups in a way that resists, rather than reinforces, power hierarchies.
Recommended Citation
De Costa, Britney, ""They Should Be Here With Us": Beginning with Communities to Reimagine the Role of Lawyers in Support of Systemic Change" (2017). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 7247.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/7247