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Topic

Here’s Hoping: Rebuilding Future Capacities Through Community Action in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia

Department of Anthropology

Date & location

• Monday, August 24, 2026
• 9:30 A.M.
• Virtual Defence

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier, Department of Anthropology, ������Ƶ (Supervisor)
• Dr. Brian Thom, Department of Anthropology, ������Ƶ (Member)
• Dr. Lachlan Mackinnon, Department of History, Cape Breton University (Outside Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Fiona McDonald, Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies, University of British Columbia - Okanagan 

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. John Lutz, Department of History, ������Ƶ

Abstract

Glace Bay, former coal town on Cape Breton Island, has been navigating decades of precarity in the wake of deindustrialization. While feelings of being left behind have shaped many aspects of life in Glace Bay, recent years have seen the emergence of several community-led revitalization efforts aimed at fostering positive change in the present while building foundations for the future. This ethnographic research examines these futural practices, focusing on how they cultivate hope and support the development of aspirational capacities within some of Glace Bay’s most marginalized communities. Through engagements with reflexivity, historical perspectives, practices surrounding garbage and lotteries, and the reconfiguring public and private spaces, this work advances an anthropology of futures grounded in practices of possibility through which Glace Bay residents take up to generate hope and reorient their communities toward liveable futures.