Dr. Heather McLean
Assistant Professor Environmental Studies and Human Geography
Contact information
E-mail: hmclean@athabascau.ca
Current courses
Dr. Heather McLean
Dr. Heather McLean
Assistant Professor Environmental Studies and Human Geography
Contact information
Email: hmclean@athabascau.ca
Phone:
(she/her) I was born and raised in Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc, a city colonially named Kamloops, British Columbia. My research focuses on culture-led regeneration, precarity, arts interventions, and everyday geographies of agency, resistance, and mutual aid. Working from feminist, queer, decolonial, and participatory paradigms, I engage in research that de-centres dominant discourses and involves participants in co-creating knowledge. As an Economic and Social Research Council Future Researcher at the University of Glasgow (2017 – 2019), my research investigated how feminist arts collectives and artist-run centers supported marginalized communities across the UK.
My current research investigates the role of the arts in envisioning and enacting mutual aid in rural British Columbia and Alberta. My drag king character Toby Sharp: The Tool for Urban Change is based on my ongoing research on gender, art, and urban politics and my past life as an urban planner in Tkaronto (AKA Toronto). As Toby, I have engaged in co-research with Dirty Plotz, a queer/feminist cabaret collective. I have also co-created drag king walking tours with the Workers’ Theatre, the People’s Bank of Govanhill arts collective, and the Glasgow School of Art in Glasgow, Scotland, the Edinburgh College of Art, and the Western Canada Theater Company. I am also an active member of the Community Economies Research Network, a global network of artists, scholars and practitioners fostering thought and practice to help communities survive well together.
Research interests
- Urban arts interventions
- Mutual aid
- Community economies
- Arts-based research
- Feminist research
- Queer geographies
- Urban politics
- Urban planning
Educational credentials
- BA, Human Geography, University of British Columbia
- MsPL, Social policy and planning, University of Toronto
- PhD, Environmental Studies, York University
- Post-Doctoral Fellowship, University of Glasgow
Professional affiliations
- Community Economies Research Network
- Community Economies Institute
- Association of American Geographers