This work owes its existence entirely to the generosity, expertise, and care of the people named here. I am deeply grateful.
Supervisory Committee
Dr. Robin Westland, Co-Supervisor
Dr. Westland taught me to connect to the land and to place, and that connection became one of the quiet foundations of this entire inquiry. Her love of the land shaped how I listened, how I looked, and how I understood what I was doing beside the Sea of Cortez. I am profoundly grateful for her guidance, her attentiveness, and for the way she brought the earth itself into the work.
Dr. Mark Wallin, Co-Supervisor
Dr. Wallin consistently acknowledged my work and my practice, and that recognition mattered more than I can easily say. Throughout this process, he saw what I was doing and named it worthy. His affirmation arrived at the moments I needed it most, and his commitment to this project gave me the confidence to keep going. I am deeply grateful for his generosity, his insight, and his belief in the value of what I was making.
Committee Members
Dr. Jenna Woodrow, Committee Member
Dr. Woodrow gave me the space to be creative and to express myself in my own authentic way. Her presence on this committee meant that I never had to choose between rigour and voice, between the scholarly and the personal. She held room for both, and in doing so, she made this work more fully mine. I am grateful for her openness, her encouragement, and her generous reading of everything I brought to the page.
Dr. Monica Sanchez, Committee Member
Dr. Sanchez brought to this work a lived and scholarly understanding of what it means to navigate life as a contract employee, and her expertise in culture, diversity, equity, and inclusion deepened every layer of the inquiry. Her perspective reminded me that the structural conditions this creative expression project names are lived realities that people carry in their bodies and their daily lives. I am grateful for her knowledge, her care, and her willingness to bring her whole self to this work.
With Gratitude
To Dr. Lisa Cooke, thank you for sharing so much of yourself and for bringing the work of vulnerability and courage into the room. You created a space that felt safe enough to share my own story, and that gift is woven through everything here. (You, Dr. Westland, and Dr. Woodrow are the true inspiration behind this project.)
To Dr. Robert Hanlon, thank you for always encouraging me to develop confidence in my critical thinking and writing skills. Your belief in my voice made me a stronger thinker and a braver writer.
And finally, to Angela – thank you for always being a guiding light in this program, and for your unwavering support every step of the way.
This creative expression project was completed on the traditional and unceded territory of the Secwépemc peoples in Kamloops, British Columbia, and was shaped by thirty days spent on the ancestral and contemporary lands of the Cochimí peoples of Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico. I am grateful to both places and both people for the ground they offered, the horizon they held, and the quiet they made possible.
To the colleagues, students, and fellow travellers in precarious labour who recognized themselves in this story before I had finished writing it, this work belongs as much to you as it does to me. You are the reason it needed to be said.
To Thompson Rivers University, and to the Master of Arts in Human Rights and Social Justice program, for creating the conditions in which a project like this could be named as a scholarship.
