Opportunities and Challenges to Address Poverty in Rural Regions: A Case Study from Northern BC

Abstract

Despite neo-liberal policies that have been restructuring and regionalizing supports over the past 30 years, most research on rural poverty has been focused at the community level. Exploring regional approaches to address rural poverty is becoming increasingly important as rural organizations have a limited capacity to respond to this complex issue. New regionalism has been one outcome of neo-liberal policies as regions experiment with different institutional structures and relationships to compensate for the government withdrawal of programs. Despite the state's diminished role, however, new regionalism literature has been quite silent about the implications that such shifts have for civil society groups as they work to address rural poverty to allow broader innovations and economic development initiatives to have the greatest impact. Based on a descriptive case study of the Robson Valley in British Columbia, Canada, 22 key informant stakeholder interviews were conducted to explore the implications of new regionalism on regional voluntary sector responses to address rural poverty. Findings suggest that more attention must be paid to strengthen vertical relationships and regional policy imperatives by finding ways to positively construct and maintain regional structures and mechanisms in order to connect stakeholders with a broader range of information, expertise, and resources to address rural poverty.

Fibres and Beyond: The Pedagogic Affects of a Women’s Art Collective / Vlakna i više: pedagoški afekti ženskoga umjetničkog kolektiva

“…This women's textile collective is based in Sooke, a small town on the far west coast of Canada, with some members residing in neighbouring communities -all part of a region known for artists and creative expression. The collective formed at a time when the town was still in the echo of dramatic social and cultural transformation, when many small towns in British Columbia shifted from a long history as resource-based communities (for Sooke, primarily logging) to rural towns in economically precarious situations seeking new innovations and diversification as a way forward (Ryser & Halseth, 2017;Creative City Network of Canada, 2009). More recently, Sooke and neighbouring areas have evolved as bedroom communities for the provincial capital as the regions expand, blurring the urban-rural divide that defined the boundaries in the past.…”