Instructor
254 Wallace Building
474-8452
Email
Academic Background
2010 Doctor of Philosophy in Geography, York University, Toronto. Spaces of Nature, Places for Children: The Playground Movement at the Turn of the Twentieth Century in Toronto, Canada (313pp)
2005 Master in Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto. Ravine, Road, Rails and River: Using feminist urban political ecology to explore accessibility to natural resources in the Lower Don Valley, Toronto, Canada (135pp)
2003 Bachelor of Science (Honours), Queen’s University, Kingston. Environmental Science (Geography specialization)
Memberships and Affiliations
Canadian Association of Geographers
Association of American Geographers
Communications Coordinator, Canadian Women and Geography Study Group
Board of Representatives Member, University of Manitoba Faculty Association
Organizing Committee Members, Annual Meeting, Prairie Division, Canadian Association of Geographers
Grants and Awards
NiCHE Project Funding (Network in Canadian History and Environment), Community-based project for reclaiming Aboriginal knowledge and remembering colonial histories through ethnographic film, co-grantee with Tyler McCreary. 2010-2011
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Doctoral Award. 2007-2009
Sexuality and Space Specialty Group Graduate Student Paper Award, Association of American Geographers for Of purity, pathology and promise: Making space for childhood and children in queer theory. 2008
Canadian Association of Geographers – Ontario Division: Doctoral Research Paper Award for Considering the contradictions: How the city and the country constructed the Bloor Viaduct, Toronto, Canada, 1897-1919. 2006
Glenda Laws Student Paper Award, PhD Level. Geographical Perspectives on Women Specialty Group, Association of American Geographers for: Representing nature in Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe’s Diary: An examination of Toronto’s colonial past (Canada). 2006
Teaching Schedule the 2012/2013 Term
Fall 2012
Introduction to Human Geography
GEOG 1280 11:30-12:20 MTF
Social Geography of the Environment
GEOG 3640 1:00-2:15 TR
Urban Geography
GEOG 3460 2:30-5:25pm R
Winter 2013
Introduction to Human Geography
GEOG 1280 1:00-2:15 TR
Urban Geography
GEOG 3460 2:30-5:25pm R
Children’s Geographies and the Geographies of Young People
GEOG 4670 / GEOG 7010 2:30-5:25pm T
Teaching Philosophy
My teaching philosophy is based on three core ideas: the importance of critical thinking, the pedagogical value of teaching through research, and the significance of fostering creativity in a scholarly community. Critical thinking is one of the most important goals of higher education in our time as it is a key aspect of an engaged, empowered citizen. In my courses I show how ideas are always embedded in social and political systems and should be interrogated as produced knowledge. I teach through research by using methodological approaches to organize ideas and values. I want to encourage enthusiasm and creativity in the classroom, where students are treated as colleagues whose fresh thinking and viewpoints strengthen our collective learning.
Research interests
I have a bifurcated research program involving historical, archival research on children and nature, and policy oriented research examining the experiences of immigrants. My dissertation research examined the Playground Movement in Toronto at the turn of the twentieth century as a project of both urban environmental reform and (national, gendered, and racialized) identity construction. I created an experimental methodology, termed a playful methodology, inspired by research in Children’s Geographies and theories of play, to deal with the difficulties of exploring (agentic) nature and children in the archives. This manuscript is in preparation to become a book. My current projects include a community-based project of aboriginal knowledge reclamation in Northern British Columbia (with Tyler McCreary), research on children’s public space in India, New York, and Toronto (with Ranu Basu), and continued thinking about the symbolic and material importance of parks and nature in North American cities (with Laura Shillington).
Recent Publications
Murnaghan, Ann Marie. 2011. Book Review: Mieke Lauwaert. The Place of Play: Toys and Digital Cultures. The Canadian Geographer 55(4): 520-521.
Kobayashi, Audrey, Valerie Preston and Ann Marie Murnaghan. 2011. Place, Affect, and Transnationalism: Through the Voices of Hong Kong Immigrants to Canada. Social and Cultural Geography 12(8): 871-888.
Preston, Valerie, Robert Murdie, Silvia D’Addario, Prince Sibanda, Ann Marie Murnaghan with Jennifer Logan and Mi Hae Ahn. 2011. Precarious Housing and Hidden Homelessness Among Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Immigrants in the Toronto Metropolitan Area. CERIS Working Paper #87. http://www.ceris.metropolis.net/wp-content/uploads/pdf/research_publication/working_papers/wp87.pdf
Tufts, Steven, Ann Marie Murnaghan, Philip Kelly, Maryse Lemoine. 2011. How do average earnings and full/part time employment status vary across occupations in Toronto? TIEDI Analytical Report #20. http://www.yorku.ca/tiedi/doc/AnalyticalReport20.pdf
Shields, John, Philip Kelly, Ann Marie Murnaghan, Stella Park, Maryse Lemoine. 2011. What kind of tests are required for immigrants to get hired? TIEDI Analytical Report #19. http://www.yorku.ca/tiedi/doc/AnalyticalReport19.pdf
Shields, John, Ann Marie Murnaghan, Maryse Lemoine, Philip Kelly, Stella Park. 2011. How do immigrants find jobs? TIEDI Analytical Report #17. http://www.yorku.ca/tiedi/doc/AnalyticalReport17.pdf
Preston, Valerie, Ann Marie Murnaghan, Robert Murdie, Jennifer Logan, Jane Wedlock, Uzo Anucha, Sandeep Agrawal, Silvia D’Addario and Min Jung Kwak. 2010. Seeking Affordable Homeownership in the suburbs: A Case study of immigrants in York Region. Canadian Issues (Fall): 40-43.
Shields, John, Ann Marie Murnaghan, Philip Kelly, Maryse Lemoine. 2010. How satisfied are immigrants with their current jobs and the benefits of these jobs? TIEDI Analytical Report #12. http://www.yorku.ca/tiedi/doc/AnalyticalReport12.pdf
Preston, Valerie, Robert Murdie, Jane Wedlock, Min Jung Kwak, Silvia D’Addario, Jennifer Logan, Ann Marie Murnaghan, Sandeep Agrawal, and Uzo Anucha. 2009. At Risk in Canada’s Outer Suburbs: A Pilot Study of Immigrants and Homelessness in York Region. In Finding Home: Policy Options for Addressing Homelessness in Canada. Toronto: Cities Centre Press, University of Toronto, e-book: www.homelesshub.ca/ ResourceFiles/Documents/FindingHome_Full.pdf
Preston, Valerie, Robert Murdie, Jane Wedlock, Sandeep Agrawal, Uzo Anucha, Silvia D'Addario, Min J. Kwak, Jennifer Logan, and Ann Marie Murnaghan. 2009. Immigrants and Homelessness - at Risk in Canada's Outer Suburbs. The Canadian Geographer 53(3): 288-304.
Preston, Valerie, Robert Murdie, and Ann Marie Murnaghan. 2007. The Housing Situation and Needs of Recent Immigrants in the Toronto CMA. Report filed with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, September; CERIS Working Paper #56. http://www.ceris.metropolis.net/wp-content/uploads/pdf/research_publication/working_papers/wp56.pdf
Hiebert, Daniel, Annick Germain, Robert Murdie, Valerie Preston, Jean Renaud, Damaris Rose, Elvin Wyly, Virginie Ferreira, Pablo Mendez, and Ann Marie Murnaghan. 2006. The Housing Situation and Needs of Recent Immigrants in the Montréal, Toronto, and Vancouver CMAs: An Overview. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Preston, Valerie and Ann Marie Murnaghan. 2005. Immigrants and Racialization in Canada: Geographies of Exclusion? Canadian Issues Spring: 67-71.
Recent Presentations
2012 Remembering Colonial Histories through Ethnographic Film, and What To Do Next (with Tyler McCreary). Presented at the Prairie Division, Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Winkler, Manitoba
2012 Reclaiming Aboriginal Knowledge and Remembering Colonial Histories through Reinterpreting Ethnographic Film (with Tyler McCreary). Presented at the Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Waterloo
2012 Spaces of nature, places for children: The Playground Movement at the turn of the twentieth century in Toronto, Canada. Presented at the Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Waterloo
2012 Reflexively Researching with a Playful Methodology. Presented at Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, New York
2011 Playful Methodologies: Reflexively researching the world, mixing methods, and playing with data. Presented at the Prairie Division, Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Devil’s Lake
2010 Dual Projections: Children's Museum Education in the Nation’s Capital and Harlan Smith's Cinematic Colonialism in British Columbia, Canada, with Tyler McCreary. Presented at Critical Geographies Mini-conference. Milwaukee
2010 “Happy faces and grassy places”: Children, Nature, Planning, and Playgrounds in Toronto, Canada at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Poster presented at Children’s Health and the Environment: International Workshop on Research, Policy and Practice, London, Ontario
2010 Natural States: Happy Children and Green Playgrounds in Toronto, Canada, 1888-1918. Presented at Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Washington
2009 "We must provide some other place than the streets": A genealogy of playgrounds in Toronto, Canada, 1897-1917. Presented at Second International Conference on Children’s Geographies, Barcelona, Spain
2009 "We must provide some other place than the streets": A genealogy of playgrounds in Toronto, Canada, 1897-1917. Presented at Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Ottawa
2009 Growing and Changing Vulnerability in York Region (with Lucia Lo, Silvia D’Addario, Paul Anisef, and Shuguang Wang). Presented at National Metropolis Conference, Calgary
2008 Spaces of nature and places for children? Mapping playgrounds and children's services in Toronto, Canada, 1895-1925. Poster presented at Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Québec
2008 Spaces of Nature, Places for Children? Archival Traces of the Parks and Playgrounds Movement in Canada, 1890-1920. Presented at Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston
2008 Transnational Migration and Housing: Lessons from a Case Study (with Valerie Preston and Audrey Kobayashi). Presented at the National Metropolis Conference, Halifax
2007 Immigrants in the Suburbs: The Impacts of Transnational Social Fields (with Valerie Preston and Audrey Kobayashi). Presented at Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, San Francisco
2007 Doing feminist urban political ecology: Bringing gender in with methodology. Presented at Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, San Francisco
2007 Representing Nature in Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe’s Diary: Examining a Piece of Toronto’s Colonial Past (Canada). Presented at Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Saskatoon
2006 The place of nature in progress and Empire: The politics of the planning and construction of the Bloor Viaduct, Toronto, Canada, 1897-1919. Presented at CAGONT Annual Meeting, Hamilton
2006 Toward a feminist urban political ecology? Some methodological considerations. Presented at Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Chicago
2006 Housing and Immigration in the Toronto CMA (with Valerie Preston, Robert Murdie, Magali Chevalier, and Sutama Ghosh). Presented at the National Metropolis Meeting, Vancouver
2006 Considering the Contradictions: How the city and the country constructed the Bloor Viaduct, Toronto, Canada, 1897-1919. Presented at Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association/Canadian Historical Association, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Toronto
2005 Bathing Boys: Examining morality and gender with critical children's geographies at the Don Free Bathing Station, Toronto, Canada, 1897-1928. Presented at CAGONT Annual Meeting, Ottawa
Recent Contributions to the Discipline
2012 Chair, Space and Theory, Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Waterloo
2012 Panellist, Affective Attachments and Environmentalism, Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, New York
2010 Organizer and chair, Urban Children | Urban Nature. Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Washington
2008 Organizer and chair of two sessions with Paul S.B. Jackson, The urban political ecology of documents. Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston
2007 Panellist, Historical Geography and Graduate Education. Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Saskatoon
2007 Organizer of session with Alec Brownlow: Gender and the Urban Environment. Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, San Francisco