Speakers
Description
Objectives
In 2016, our multi-year ethnography began in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The impetus for the study was the opening of Rogers Place, a publicly-funded, $613.7 million CAD ice hockey arena and entertainment complex. The arena was the foundation for a wider civic-corporate gentrification project in Edmonton’s urban core that was rebranded ‘Ice District’ by the Katz Group, owner of the National Hockey League (NHL) Edmonton Oilers franchise, and numerous properties surrounding Rogers Place.
The study’s overarching goal was to amplify the lives and experiences of city-centre residents—people sleeping rough, precariously housed, or houseless—against a backdrop of gentrification and urban displacement. At the beginning of the 2016-2017 NHL season, city-centre residents reported mistreatment, displacement, and violence during Rogers Place events.
Methods
Thereafter, our research team started conducting ‘arena walks’ around Rogers Place during Oilers home games to observe dynamics and interactions between city-centre residents, fans, security, and police.
Findings
At the beginning of our arena walks—due to the disruptions caused by gentrification and exacerbated by Oilers games on an already stigmatized community—we determined that we could not simply be witnesses to the traumas of dispossession and displacement. Instead, we needed to engage in the provision of care.
Discussion
This paper discusses research conducted through preventative and reactive forms of care, including 1) connection, 2) support, 3) emergency aid, and 4) crisis intervention.
Conclusion
It concludes by offering a template of guidelines for future ethnographies of care.
