In response to the COVID-19’s impact on DePOT’s activities, in the fall of 2020 the project’s Coordinating Committee redirected funds to a series of student-directed initiatives. Students could apply for up to $1,500 CAD in funding (or $3,000 for a group) each funding round. Members of DePOT’s Training and Mentorship Committee adjudicated applications. Funding was given to the following students for their projects:

Fall 2022

Èlia Casals-Alsina and Juliette Passilly, towards the development of their project “In giro: industrial heritage in dialog with the arts,” which will examine the use of industrial heritage site within the world of art in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain – $985  

Lauren Laframboise, to conduct oral history interviews with former organizers at the Immigrant Workers Centre and produce a public radio program on the closure of Montreal-based garment manufacturer Lamour (2007) in partnership with IWC community board member Stefan Christoff. – $985

Liam Devitt, for travel funding to conduct oral history interviews related to their MA research on queer experiences and reactions to deindustrialization in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. – $1,500 

Maria Beatriz Andreotti, Indranil Chakraborty, and Eliot Perrin, for travel funding to Batatuba (Brazil), Batanagar (India), and Ontario to conduct oral history interviews and archival research on the closure of three Bata Shoe Company company towns. – $3,000

Tim Liebregt, for travel funding to conduct archival research at the University of Windsor and Windsor Public Library about the United Auto Worker plants in the region, towards his MA thesis on the internal dynamics of Canadian unions in the 1980s. – $985 

Fall 2020

Edda Nicholson and Paul Barnsley, travel funding for a co-authored conference paper titled “Fighting with Feeling in the British Steel Industry 1977 – 1992.” The project will examine the extent to which British trade unions in the steel industry used ‘emotion’ in their response to the wave of closures and job losses across their industry. – $2,000

Constanze von Wrangel, transcription of oral history interviews for her PhD project, “Identity building by means of regional cultural policy? Cultural policy initiatives in the Ruhr Area and their resonance in the population since 2000.” – $1,500