Episode Notes

Research Interests

Selected Publications

Learn about Else’s influences

• Angela Davis
• Senator Kim Pate

Learn about Else’s interests

• Life for Women in the Middle Ages
• Ryan Gosling
• Introduction to Architecture
• Canadian Food Studies
• Classes & Workshops – Kawartha Potters’ Guild

Transcript

Beth: Welcome to the Social Profs Podcast with your hosts Beth Torrens and Kristy Buccieri. This is the podcast where we attempt to turn teaching inside out by engaging in conversations outside the classroom with faculty, community members, and Trent student alumni. Our goals with these conversations are to learn more about the benefits of a criminology or sociology degree and to talk about the ways that students can get more involved at Trent and in the community. We will also do a deep dive with some Trent professors to learn more about their approaches to teaching, what drives their research, and a few fun facts you can only learn when you turn teaching inside out.

Kristy: On October 25th 2024 the Citizen Advisory Committee in Peterborough is hosting a full day symposium on the stigmas and success stories of people re-entering the community following federal incarceration. Today we talk with keynote speaker, and Trent Assistant Professor of Social Work, Else Marie Knudsen. In this episode, we learn about her approach to researching and teaching difficult topics, why she resists sensationalizing them, and her idea for a new hit show, the Real Housewives of Medieval Times. Thank you so much for joining us today, Else. We’re very excited to have you on the podcast. Thanks so much for having me. What a pleasure. We’re wondering if you could tell us, what is the one burning question that drives your research and what got you interested in trying to answer it?

Else: I love the idea that there’s like one burning question because so much academic work tends to, you know, describe our work in these very kind of modest ways and not very exciting and sexy ways. And this seems to be a question that’s asked me to do that. So I love it. So I studied the criminal justice policy system in Canada. Like, I sometimes call myself a criminologist, but I’m not really focused on, you know, why do people commit crimes or what types of people commit crime and et cetera, but rather what does our society do about the things we call crime? I think that’s really, really interesting. And so I would say my burning kind of question is, what is the criminal justice policy system actually doing? and I frame it that way because I don’t think it’s doing what most people think it’s doing. I don’t think it’s doing what even lots of people who work inside the system think it’s doing and I think that exploring what it’s actually doing and the disconnect between what it’s actually doing, what we think it’s doing can really give us some really interesting insights about our societies, our political systems, the way that we sort of think about and relate to and value each other. And then I think, I mean, it’s gonna sound like a really biased question here, but why do we do criminal justice policy in such a poor way? And I mean, I wouldn’t frame it that way enough funding proposal, but as someone who was a social worker in my past with really vulnerable folks and then worked in the criminal justice system as doing policy work, I think I was just so shocked by how poorly it seemed to meet what were the ostensible goals of the system. And failed to meet its goals I think we’d all be in uproar but criminal justice systems like prisons are part of our society too even if most of us will never go to one and they’re expensive and they impact people deeply and they impact communities deeply and so I think we should be asking questions just like we do of our healthcare system to say like is it effective and if not why is so poor. And then from that I ask questions about families of prisoners. I think it gives some, I think it’s a nice little window into answering some of these questions. I think the way that police and prisons and the criminal justice system at large kind of uh, treats, families of prisoners and families of those, um, who are charged and convicted of crimes. I think it gives us really, really interesting insights into those big questions like, what the heck are we doing and, and, and why?

Beth: Well, I would certainly after that answer say that it definitely fits within the scope of criminology, particularly criminological perspective, which is what we adopt in our criminology program. And certainly, like your comparison with the healthcare system, I think part of that comes with the stigmatization, along with crime, but also again, recognizing that it has impacts on families, and it’s such a broader impact than what we might initially think about. And I think that leads to a lot of difficult topics or maybe sensitive issues that are important to discuss, but are difficult. So how do you handle teaching or sharing some of those research findings about those difficult topics?

Else: It’s a great question. I mean, difficult topics are kind of my entire jam. I, you know, I’m teaching social work, which, you know, although lots of social work is not controversial or difficult, in the sense of difficult to talk about involves, you know, people doing supportive work, there’s also a massive part of the profession that involves social control and working with people who don’t want you to work with them. I was a child welfare worker for years in doing intake investigations, working closely with police and hospitals and stuff. Excuse me, and so, you know, that’s sort of a definition of a difficult topic. So are prisons, so are the reasons people go to prisons and the impacts of prisons and the stories of prisons. And I wouldn’t dream of shying away from that. I think that’s the, you know, the burning question of what are we actually doing and why do we do such a poor job? I think a big answer that I’ve come to is that, you know, both in my academic work and in my professional work before that, that most of our Canadian society thinks not at all about our criminal justice system. Not only is there a lack of understanding what’s actually happening, but such a deep ignorance about what’s happening there and people will be horrified if they knew some of the things that we know and have seen some of the things that we’ve seen. But it’s not that it’s sort of intentionally hidden, although I think there are elements of like opacity in the, in, in criminal justice systems and prisons in particular but I do also think that there’s a tendency to just, you know, put it away. And because it’s ugly, and it raises lots of dilemmas and ethical moral questions, and it lays bare a lot of the sort of unspoken hierarchies and normative sort of systems that we have in our society that we don’t, you know, people don’t like to talk about too much. It conflicts with how we see ourselves maybe as Canadians and as good people, et cetera. So I feel like all of my teaching is difficult topic teaching. And the way that I approach that, number one is to not shy away from it because I think that’s part of my goal as an instructor and as a technologist, et cetera. I’m not a huge fan of using trigger warnings is not because I think there’s anything wrong with them. I think it’s a great practice to attend to the sort of trauma responses and sensitivities of our students. However, when we’re talking about an applied professional department like social work, where people should have an expectation of working with and around some of these difficult conversations, then trigger warnings can be a bit false because you don’t actually get to in a social work classroom or if you come into a criminology classroom, get to avoid talking about things that are scary and in some cases triggering for some. So what I often do is say to folks that I can give you a heads up if we’re going to be talking about certain topics. And of course, if there’s something specific, and you want to step outside for that, be my guest. However, kind of writ large, we’re going to be talking about some, some stuff that’s ugly and scary. And the second way I deal with that, and this is part of my promise to students is that I never try my very best, at least, to never sort of, glorify or exoticize when I bring case studies and experiential stuff into the classroom. I have a lot of experience. I mean, I’ve been to most prisons in Ontario. I work child welfare investigation. So I’ve seen the things that, you know, a lot of bananas things. And while I do like to bring that into the classroom and tell stories, I think this is a great way for folks to connect and also empathize with, you know, the real life human beings that these stories are about. I, for various reasons, don’t think it’s ethical at all to sort of glamorize or exoticize or even make jokes about these horrific stories. That’s obviously because I want to respect the people who some of these stories are about, right? Like these are, even if I’m not sharing names, I might be sharing information that’s really personal to some folks and or speaks to the personal experience of people in my classrooms. I would hate to invalidate or put fun at something that is so incredibly emotionally difficult for folks. I also really deeply reject that the sort of implicit glamorization of prison sort of life or criminal justice systems, I think our media and this, you know, wave of true crime attention has a real tendency to sensationalize. I mean, I guess we’ve always sensationalized these kinds of stories. And I find that that doesn’t help our case whatsoever, if what we’re trying to do is humanize, you know, take a sober and pathetic, clear and, you know, critical view on these topics. Then to tell stories about, you know, this one time this guy with a shake and he said this, and I saw that. I think I then have prioritized something other than what I hope my goals actually are. And I also think it helps to dehumanize and vilify people involved in the criminal justice system to kind of frame folks as like the worst guy ever. So I never, you know, talk about how I’ve been to, you know, that wing when he was still at KP where, you know, famous you know, one of the most famous convicted folks in Canada, I used to live and I’ve seen them. I never tell that story in class because I don’t think it would serve any other purpose than to try to sort of sensationalize, but also give me a certain kind of credibility that I don’t want. And I think it’s a really shallow and immature move. So I worked in criminal justice policy and found there were folks who sort of did tend to do that at times in order to sort of evoke some like expertise, like I’ve seen things you haven’t. And I hope I’m never willing to trade off on getting credibility and then trade off on respecting the people in those systems. I really believe deeply in the idea that every human has a right to things like dignity and respect, regardless of any choice they’ve made in their life. Yeah, and even that worst guy. And I think if I turn anyone into a sensational story, then I’m betraying that. So with those difficult topics, I’m really serious about them in a way, like I’ll poke fun at myself, or I’ll talk about my own vulnerability. That’s another way I can kind of broach difficult topics. I do think that being trauma informed is a lot more than just avoiding topics. It is also about the way that we present them, the way that we prepare students for how they may feel and react to, hearing about things that are scary or things that can trigger, you know, emotions and thoughts about terrible things that have happened to them. And that’s, but this is also part of what we’re doing. We’re doing critical thinking and critical thinking is uncomfortable. And so I guess my job is to do it with a lot of care, but to do it anyway.

Beth: It sounds like you’ve struck a really good balance in your teaching. I’m trying. Another follow up to that. What is your favorite lecture or topic to cover in one of your classes? And what do you think a favorite topic for students is?

Else: I like talking about disability justice. It’s not a, you know, it’s not an area of particular, you know, expertise for me at all is not part of my research or professional experience very much, only sort of incidentally, but it’s a topic that I’m really interested in. It’s also a neglected topic. So in social work, we talk a lot about different types of oppression and disability one is one that just sort of it doesn’t get as much attention. So I really like expanding, you know, bringing that into the classroom. I think it’s one of the best topics through which to introduce critical theoretical concepts. So ideas of social construction are so beautifully raised through the experience and societal framing of disability. And so I love teaching that because I find that in and trying to, you know, raise some of these really, really abstract concepts. And, you know, we’re gonna look at this and completely blow up how you’ve thought about, you know, what’s good, what’s bad, and how do we talk about this and how do we not talk about this? We’re gonna blow that up and try to try something new and try something new and different, which is just so difficult and particularly difficult for first-year students, given their, you know, their age, their inexperience with, or most of their young age and most of their inexperience with sort of like abstract concepts and critical concepts. And then I think with disability, sometimes I’m able to just get some of those examples and where you could almost like see the light bulbs go on and it’s the most exciting thing to watch and be part of students. Really in some ways doing deep critical thinking for the first time to say, Oh, I never thought about it like that. Oh, my gosh. That’s a whole, you know, whoo, my whole world goes upside down. When I think about, for example, the idea that the thing that disabled people are primarily harmed and affected by is the infrastructure and other ways we design the world to exclude them physically and in other ways. And that just, so I love teaching that topic. And for students, there’s something that I raise that I’m writing about at the moment. And it was something, an issue that came up in my own research, which I, I’m a newer academic. So I finished my PhD in 2017. And there’s something that came up in my research that I didn’t intend to study at all. I had no questions about to any of the people that I talked to, just kept coming up over and over again. And it’s the experience of food and the extent to which people told me about food and prisons was just absolutely bananas. I think almost every single interview when I asked children and young people about their experiences of this space, let’s say visiting or other elements of the criminal justice system, they would talk about the food. I’ve since started to write about it because it turns out there’s an entire field of study called food studies. And also it’s just like, once again, a fascinating window into people’s experiences. It’s so sensorial and as some telling, and it’s so human, right? And so I find whenever I talk about food, which I would normally do just incidentally, but now start to do it with more intention, I find students just absolutely love that. they love hearing about that topic and so I’m really excited to be writing about it and thinking about it more.

Kristy: That’s amazing and it ties in so nicely to the symposium that we’re hosting because we have a speaker who is, her name is Emily O’Brien and she was a former prisoner who speaks a lot about the food situation. She has since started a popcorn company.

Else: Oh she’s great, I’ve met her before at a conference down, at a conference.

Kristy: Oh, she’s amazing. Wonderful. So you’ll both be co-presenting. So that will be a wonderful combination. And it also leads us nicely to our next question, which is that social workers, of course, deal with a lot of difficult topics that you sometimes get to have fun. And sometimes that involves some food. so you’re throwing a dinner party and you can invite anyone you want, dead or alive, who do you invite and why?

Else: Isn’t this also one of those things that’s gonna be so telling? I guess I should be thinking celebrities here because people I don’t normally get to meet. I think I’d be inviting people that I wouldn’t normally get to meet, so I love having dinner with my kid. I think that’s not who I’m going to invite to my dinner party because I get to have dinner with her all the time. I think we’re talking academia, and so one of the academics that I’d love to have dinner with is Angela Davis from UCLA and you know the the great abolitionist feminist social theorist and philosopher Angela Davis who is by all accounts because I know somebody who knows her personally a really lovely pleasant person and yeah so that sounds really fun and then to hear the stories of the Black Power Movement in, you know, which is a long time ago now, but she had such a played such a pivotal role in. So that would be awesome. And and to hear about what does it mean to be an activist scholar? What does it mean to be especially when she does such like, what do you call it, you know, big brain idea stuff, she’s a philosopher, but then also makes it about everyday experiences, about real life incarceration and abolition and activism. I feel like I should have a, I mean, I put a celebrity in there because listen, that’s, I think we’ll just have to put Ryan Gosling in there because he’s like delightful to look at and seems so funny and charming. And I just saw maybe called the fall guy and it was super funny. And I love a little pop culture, so yeah, and maybe, you know, Angela Davis would think that he was funny and charming too, so there you go. I was thinking about something the other day, so this was the last person I invited to my dinner party, is I was thinking about something the other day, which was how much I love, And if I’m having a, you know, I need to like waste some time on the internet, I do a super nerdy thing, which is to find out about the everyday lives of the far past. Like what did medieval people eat for dinner? And what did it smell like? And not like what did all the kings do in the battles and stuff, but like, where did they keep their clothes and how did they wash their clothes? like just the everyday life stuff. And it’s not something I know academically anything about it all. But I just like, I absolutely love it. So I would invite a like person from one of these periods that I have like Wikipedia and spent two hours with keep being you know, like an everyday person from, you know, 2000 BC, if one of them from every continent and say like, what is your life? What, you know, what do you eat? And how do you wash your clothes? Or how do you do your hair? And what and how do you parent your kids? And what does everyday life look like? That’s what I would want to do. And maybe Angela Davidson, Ryan Gosling could be interested in that too.

Kristy: Fascinating. Also, and I think you’re right. This is one of those questions that we have really learned a lot about people and these podcasts. Nobody else is going to have medieval housewives at their dinner to ask them how they do their hair. That would make a great TV show. And it also leads to our next question, kind of a surprise question, but fits in so nicely. What would you serve at your dinner party?

Else: Oh my gosh, I really love to cook. So I think I would probably impress the medieval or like the olden times, not even in the ancient peoples, I would probably impress them with anything that had been like refrigerated and, you know, kind of put together, the abundance would track them, the abundance we have. I would probably serve, gosh, my favorite kinds of food are Italian or Ethiopian. So I I would probably like do like fresh pasta from Italy and like, you know, tomatoes that were picked off somebody’s backyard in the last day and so they’re like beautiful. Or Ethiopian maybe I can’t make that but that’s my other favorite kind of food. Yeah, really good Italian because who doesn’t like really good Italian. Yeah, I can’t imagine there’s anyone.

Beth: That sounds like a fantastic dinner party and fantastic food. Our next series of questions are some rapid-fire questions. It’s a bit of a put you on the spot pop quiz. You can answer in you know a couple words and choose not to expand on your answers. If you did want to add something you are more than welcome to do that. They can be serious, they can be funny, it’s whatever you want. Are you ready for our rapid fire? All right. First question. What is your favorite memory from when you were a student?

Else: Oh, gosh. I’m being in a second year statistics class and hating it. And then one day it was like a light bulb went on and it went clicking and then suddenly the whole world made sense.

Beth: Nice. What is your favorite thing to do on the weekend?

Else: I like to hang out with my kid. I like to do DIY and I like to cook.

Beth: As an academic, what is something that you can’t live without?

Else: A sense of humor.

Beth: Nice answer. I know it doesn’t exist yet. There’s no Real Housewives of medieval times. But do you have otherwise a favorite TV show, movie, or podcast?

Else: It’s super filthy, so I’m not going to recommend it broadly, but a British show called Fleabag, which is just especially the second series. Just the best thing that’s ever been put to film.

Beth: What advice would you give your past student self?

Else: Oh, to focus on the learning, to enjoy the learning and let all the other details just fall where they may.

Kristy: If you could instantly have any skill, party trick, or talent, what would it be?

Else: Can I fly? Is it a real talent? Yeah, I want to fly.

Kristy: What course or subject did you not take as a student that you wish you could learn more about now?

Else: Oh, gosh, there’s so many of them. Oh, my goodness. I would love to go back to undergrad. what a freakin treat that would be and just take all kinds of things. Architecture.

Kristy: Who do you admire?

Else: I admire lots of folks. I admire, I admire an acquaintance, I’m proud to say is an acquaintance, Senator Kim Pate, whose career is marked by unbelievable principle and ethical care.

Kristy: This is a bit of a different one. Cat, dog, fish, bird, or lizard.

Else: I think you can tell by the cat that’s been meowing nonstop through this entire recording that I am, yeah, I’m deeply a cat person. We can’t hear the cat, but glad to know you were deeply a cat person. Maybe we should add in some sound effects.

Kristy: And finally, if you weren’t working as an academic, what would you be doing?

Else: I mean, I would probably still be in child welfare and sitting in an office and supervising doing clinical supervision maybe, but if I could pick something tomorrow I’d be a potter. Maybe that’s a retirement gig for me.

Beth: Something to look forward to. That ends our rapid fire. So thank you very much Else for joining us and for sharing your experiences.

Else: Oh, it’s such a pleasure. And it’s a pleasure to get to talk with you both. What a great idea this podcast is. I can’t wait to hear episodes for the first season.