BFA in Creative Writing Program
Born from an illiterate house maid and single mother in Chile, I grew up going to Catholic school in the 1970s military dictatorship. I became a high school teacher. Oddly, these facts made me queer. I have lived in Vancouver, British Columbia since 1985 where I write, advise and learn, and conduct social science research. My professional experience and expertise bordercross disciplines and communities making me at times an AIDS activist and at others a buttoned up scientist in national conference rooms. This life chock-full of opposing forces has influenced my outlook on learning, research and creativity.
In learning, I favour innovation and imagination (not fantasy). I don’t discount traditions and eras. Learning happens in classrooms, inner city non-profit training rooms, rural town halls, in bodies aching in the anteroom of hospitals, in the knowing glances of those committing illicit acts, and in the hands of a lover. Learning can be shared, hierarchical, confrontational, seductive and compassionate.
In community-based research I work in large-scale health related social science research as well as in short-term projects in gritty and modest sociocultural settings. Since 2003, I work as the British Columbia HIV/AIDS Community Based Research Facilitator for AIDS service organizations through a Canadian Institutes in Health Research grant housed at BC Persons With AIDS Society. I endeavor to engage with respect with students, health authorities, frontline workers, volunteers, sex trade workers, First Nations, injection drug users, homeless kids, queer women and men, physicians, nurses and politicians. I believe that vigorous, critical, and respectful engagement with everyone and everything in our world is one crucial trait in an “educated” person.
I write theory, fiction, and creative non-fiction with equal zeal and often those lines bleeding ink into each other. And I write about moments of decision. To name drop as few, my intellectual work flails between Michel Foucault’s dominatrix school of thought and Paulo Freire’s compassionate, learner- centered, and praxis. Find my profile in www.suspectthoughts.com and my monthly column at Xtra West (search archives at http://www.xtra.ca).
Educational Background: Ph.D. Curriculum Design & Implementation, Simon Fraser University (SFU, British Columbia), M.A. Education, SFU (B.C.), B.A. Communications, SFU (B.C.), B.A.
|
Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco, MA, Ph.D