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Recent Submissions

A Trans Clinic: De-institutionalized Networks of Care
(University of Waterloo, 2026-09-09) Chapman, Lindsey
Access to gender-affirming medical care remains contested across the settler-colonial states of Canada and the United States. Carceral and medicalized institutions have regulated gender nonconformity through shifting categorizations of deviance: immorality, crime, disease, and disorder. These legacies shape the medicalization of transness in the contemporary system, through which medical practices often adhere to (cis)normative narratives. Alongside legislation restricting and prohibiting access to gender-affirming medical care, the mainstream healthcare system remains inadequate in addressing the medical needs for trans individuals seeking care. These practices are reflected and reproduced within the design of the conventional western medical institution. This thesis proposes design as a potential strategy for providing low-barrier access to gender-affirming care outside of the cisheteronormative gaze. This call contains three parts: it advocates for a network of gender-affirming healthcare spaces distinct from the institution; it requires the deconstruction of the spatial mechanisms which regulate gender nonconformity; and it supports a model of medical practice which centers gender self-determination. Through literature review and historical analysis, this research traces the shifting category of gender nonconformity in carceral and medicalized institutions as well as the contemporary medical, legislative, and spatial barriers faced by people accessing gender-affirming medical care. In contrast, it pieces together models for demedicalizing transness, strategies for collective and horizontal care practices, case studies of grassroots alternative networks of care, and theories of trans architecture. Using a design-as-research approach, I propose a network of gender-affirming care untethered from the institution and which centers access to resources, knowledge-sharing, horizontal care, and self-determination. Through approaching this research first as an examination of regulation in the institution and second as a proposal which unbuilds its spatial vestiges, this thesis offers a speculation on alternative spaces for gender-affirming care outside of the medical institution.
Typology as an Analytical Tool: Deriving Quality in Multi-Unit Residential Dwellings in Waterloo Region
(University of Waterloo, 2026-09-09) Oosthuizen, Omar
This thesis addresses Canada’s worsening housing crisis by addressing housing quality. This study of housing quality is timely, as the Government of Canada has proposed plans to deliver an unprecedented supply of new housing, endeavoring to build 3.5 million units to restore peak affordability by 2030. Undoubtedly, increasing the supply of housing improves housing affordability, but this strategy still lacks a critical consideration of the types and quality of housing units being constructed. Beyond affordability, both the UN and CMHC recognize housing as a human right and as more than just shelter; housing should be secure in tenure, serviced, habitable, accessible, well-located, and culturally adequate. This thesis is part of a larger SSHRC research site, The Long-Term Cost of the Rapid Construction of Multi-Unit Residential Buildings (MURBs) in Waterloo Region. Within this research site an understanding and analysis of architectural quality in multi-unit residential buildings is being pursued. This thesis focuses on dwellings within multi-unit residential buildings. In particular, the thesis asks how the diagramming of architectural drawings can be used to analyze architectural quality in multi-unit residential dwellings. From the collaboration between this thesis research and the research site, three forms of housing alienation have been identified: poor livability, disconnection from the outdoors and nature, and impractical dwellings. These forms of housing alienation are issues tied to resident experience and housing quality that have adverse effects on the mental and physical well-being of residents. These issues are hypothesized to arise from decisions embedded in the architectural and spatial systems in which residents dwell. By directing attention to these components, the analysis can more precisely trace how formal, spatial, and organizational choices shape the lived realities of past and contemporary MURBs.
Investigating the Experiences of Racialized Immigrant Women throughout the Continuum of Emergency Medical Care
(University of Waterloo, 2026-09-09) Jalili, Ailin
Background: Racialized immigrant women in Canada experience a unique set of barriers when navigating healthcare systems, yet little is known about how they experience emergency medical care. Medical emergencies can encompass interactions with informal peer networks, emergency medical services (EMS), and in-hospital staff. Across these encounters, access is shaped by perceptions of candidacy; the ongoing process through which individuals negotiate their eligibility for care. Research Questions: (1) How do racialized immigrant women recognize and define medical emergencies in relation to their social, cultural, and prior healthcare system contexts? (2) When reflecting on their emergency care experiences, how do racialized immigrant women perceive their health encounters across the continuum of emergency care? (3) How do racialized immigrant women negotiate candidacy for emergency medical care, and how do interactions with providers affect their perceptions of legitimacy, deservingness, and future help-seeking behaviours? Methods: An exploratory qualitative study design was employed. Purposive and snowball sampling methods were used to recruit 10 participants who were racialized immigrant women (n=10). Semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand participants’ emergency care experiences in the Kitchener-Waterloo (KW) region and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Interviews were interpreted using the candidacy framework. Data analysis was carried out using reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) to identify themes across the interviews. Findings: Participants experienced compounding barriers across the emergency care continuum, with perceptions of candidacy continuously contested. Findings identified emergency experiences marked with perceptions of gender bias, limited health system literacy, symptom dismissal, and long wait times. As a result, participants often self-managed acute distress, delayed care-seeking, and/or relied on informal support networks. Implications: These findings highlight several strategies to mitigate barriers in receiving high-quality emergency care, as highlighted by participants: (1) Implementation of education to support health system literacy for newcomers; (2) Gender-sensitive and culturally informed protocols across EMS and emergency hospital staff; and (3) Improved communication strategies. Conclusions: This exploratory study is one of the first in Canada to explore racialized immigrant women's experiences across the emergency care continuum. Candidacy for care was continuously contested, and participants often internalized negative encounters as personal failures rather than gaps in the system. This lead many to develop distrust towards providers and hesitancy around future help-seeking. These findings point to the need for gender-sensitive, culturally responsive, and communication-focused interventions to provide more equitable care for racialized immigrant women.
"Now I am here and growing wild." Nature as a Space of Female Subject Formation in Marlen Haushofer's Die Wand and Katharina Köller's Wild wuchern.
(University of Waterloo, 2026-09-08) Josupeit, Marieke
This thesis examines nature as a space of female subject formation in Marlen Haushofer’s Die Wand (1963) and Katharina Köller’s Wild wuchern (2025). Drawing on ecofeminist theory, particularly Val Plumwood’s critique of dualistic thinking and her concept of the relational self, as well as Donna Haraway’s relational understanding of subjectivity and Stacy Alaimo’s concept of trans-corporeality, the thesis develops a theoretical framework that connects the hierarchical oppositions of nature/culture, human/non-human, and man/woman. This framework is complemented by literary spatial theory and approaches to gendered embodiment in order to examine how experiences of natural space and the body contribute to processes of female subject formation. The analysis shows that in both novels, nature functions as an ambivalent space in which patriarchal and anthropocentric structures become visible and contestable. In Die Wand, the nameless protagonist’s isolation dissolves the autonomous, anthropocentric subject model in favor of a relational self grounded in interdependence with the natural world, while her body is reconceived from an aesthetic, inferior object into a functional tool of survival. In Wild wuchern, the protagonist’s confrontation with the wilderness and her cousin, who embodies a non-normative, nature-connected identity, enables her to challenge her internalized feminine ideal and patterns of patriarchal violence and control. The comparative reading demonstrates that both novels construct nature as a relational and embodied space that enables the protagonists to renegotiate gendered identities and established forms of human-nature relations, rather than returning to an essentialist female nature.
The Grail Papers
(University of Waterloo, 1994-03) Raymond, Darrell; Wood, Derick
Grail is a package for computing with finite-state machines and regular expressions, written in C++. Grail supports input and output of textual descriptions of automata and regular expressions, conversions between machines and regular expressions, and other operations. Grail can be used as a set of shell-callable processes, a library of functions, or as individual C++ classes. Version 2.0 of Grail supports parameterizable machines and expressions. This collection of papers includes a description of the history and design of Grail, a user's guide, a programmer's guide, and the main pages for each of Grail's filters.