On July 1st, the Faculty of Social Sciences welcomed Jami McFarland, who will join the Department of Health, Aging & Society as an assistant professor.
We caught up with McFarland to talk about her academic and professional journey, her main research interests, what excites her about this position and what she does outside of work.
Tell us about your academic and professional journey so far.
My path to critical health and aging studies was not straightforward. I grew up in northern and rural parts of Ontario and am the first person in my family to attend university. Wanting initially to be a high school teacher, I began my undergraduate degree at Nipissing University, where I studied fine art and English literature. My career trajectory changed after taking a women and cinema course, where I was introduced to feminist theory and began asking questions about how gender, sexuality, race, and power shape our lives and the stories we tell. Instead of attending teacher’s college, I decided to pursue a master’s degree in Women’s Studies and Feminist Research at the University of Ottawa. It was there that I became fascinated by aging, recognizing how often it is overlooked within gender and sexuality studies and in the lives of minoritized genders and sexualities. After spending a year living and travelling abroad in the United Kingdom, I returned to Canada to pursue a PhD in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Western University, where I focused on popular representations of the queer elder figure in film and television.
Throughout and beyond my doctoral work, I supported several participatory action research projects with older adults, including one with a local community arts organization interested in making the arts more accessible to diversely situated older adults. Today, my research explores the intersections of aging, gender, sexuality, disability, and health through arts-based and community-engaged methods with Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (2SLGBTQ+) older adults.
What excites you most about joining our department of Health, Aging and Society?
I am most looking forward to being among colleagues and students that take seriously the socio-political dimensions of aging as an important intersection of identity and experience. The Department of Health, Aging, and Society is uniquely positioned to ask critical questions about how people age differently dependent on particular power structures, environments, cultures, identities, and relationships, and that’s exactly the kind of interdisciplinary conversation that energizes me. I’m especially looking forward to teaching students who have chosen to study aging because they recognize its importance. Aging remains one of the most misunderstood stages of life, and I hope to help students think critically about aging while also appreciating the diversity and vitality that characterizes later life.
What are your main research interests?
My research sits at the intersections of aging, gender, sexuality, disability, and health, with a specific focus on the experiences of 2SLGBTQ+ older adults. I’m currently using arts-based methods with this diverse community to examine how social structures shape experiences of aging, health, belonging, and social inclusion. I prefer methods that position older adults as collaborators in the research process, and I am invested in producing research that directly contributes to more equitable policies and services for queer and trans populations. Most recently, I co-created a series of digital stories with 2SLGBTQ+ older adults, and we are currently exhibiting these across Ontario and beyond to bring visibility to queer and trans aging in Canada. The stories range in topics from queer widowhood to gender-affirming care in later life to the significance of family (chosen and otherwise) across the life course. This work reflects my broader commitment to community-engaged research that challenges stereotypes about aging and fosters necessary dialogue about the (in)visibility and well-being of 2SLGBTQ+ older adult Canadians.
Outside of academia, what do you like to do?
As a Millennial who was completely captivated by the film Free Willy, I spend a lot of my spare time travelling to see whales in their natural habitats. My partner jokingly calls me a “bully for orcas,” and I occasionally fantasize about moving to Vancouver Island to volunteer with organizations studying and working to protect the Northern Resident killer whale population.
So far, I’ve been fortunate to see sperm whales in New Zealand, Minke whales in Iceland, humpback and grey whales in Mexico, and orcas in the Galápagos Islands and along the west coast of Canada and the United States. Though sadly there are no whales here, in Hamilton, I am delighted to once again be living and working near water with my partner and two cats.
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