Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco, PhD, MA
Faculty Advisor, BA in Individualized Studies Program
Residency Cycle 2
On Leave Spring 2010
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. My identity is pierced by three vectors: queerness, migration, and illness. 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 crosses disciplines and communities thus making me at times an AIDS activist and at others a buttoned up public health scientist in conference rooms. This life chock-full of opposing forces has influenced my outlook on learning, research and creativity.
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 is embodied, shared, hierarchical, confrontational, seductive and compassionate. In learning, I favor innovation and imagination (not fantasy) within traditions and eras. My intellectual work flails between Michel Foucault’s dominatrix school of thought and Paulo Freire’s compassionate, learner- centered praxis.
In community-based research I work in large-scale health related social science research as well as in short-term projects in gritty 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 bleed ink into each other. And I write about moments of decision. Find my profile in www.suspectthoughts.com and my 2008 monthly column at Xtra West (search archives at http://www.xtra.ca). I am presently working with digital storytelling and performance.
Educational Background: PhD in Curriculum Design & Implementation, Simon Fraser University; MA in Education, Simon Fraser University; BA in Communications, Simon Fraser University.
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