CICAS positions itself as a strategic hub for interdisciplinary, collaborative research and innovation in the Northern Ontario region.
The centre draws on Nipissing’s strategic location as a connecting point between both metropolitan and rural areas of Southern and Northern Ontario. In addition to its historical and geographic resonance, Nipissing also takes pride in its digital infrastructure supported by Contact North.
With the increasing impact of digital media on research and education, digital humanities are becoming not only an essential lynchpin in the process of revitalizing the arts and sciences in the twenty-first century, but also a strategic player in levelling power asymmetries and literacy deficits that continue to trouble disadvantaged communities in the North.
In light of this shift and its impact on the future of research and education, the centre’s primary research initiatives connect the increasing emphasis on the digital economy with relevant critical and technical literacies that address the digital divide through sustained scholarship and research collaboration. In addition to the focus on digital literacies and culture, the centre also encourages interdisciplinary and collaborative research in social and historical studies, environmental health, and applied studies.
The centre’s main research areas include the following clusters and sub-clusters:
- Digital Culture and Community
- Cyborg identities, contemporary society, and literature
- Ethnologies, history, memory, and digital culture
- Digital media and state violence
- Digital media and human rights violations
- Power, violence, and the Internet
- Space, community, and digital humanities
- The future of humanities education in the digital age
- Education and technology
- Social and Historical Studies
- Culture and/of the North
- Creativity and the culture of the North
- History, nursing, and gender
- Gender, poverty, and history
- Environmental Health
- Environment and the North
- Water governance and First Nations water rights
- Leadership in health care
- Family health in the North
- Applications of information technologies to e-health