Kensington Market Research Project Scan-a-thon: A summary

On April 26th, 2015, the students of “ANTH447H1 Ethnographic Practicum: Metropolis” course directed by Dr. Joshua Barker, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto hosted their first Scan-a-thon event.

As part of a long-term research project on the cultures and people of Toronto’s Kensington Market, eleven undergraduate and 4 graduate students got together at Red Pepper at 160 Baldwin street to showcase the results of their semester-long ethnographic research projects.

Master’s student and Ethnography Lab archivist (left) Nursel Ozturk, and undergraduate students (second from left) Jennifer Su, Dan Gelinas, Stephanie Wighton, and Henry Lee Heinonen preparing for the Scan-a-thon.

They also invited residents of the market and research participants to come in and share old photographs and other memorabilia related to their lives in the market.

“Courage My Love” vintage shop owner, Stewart Scriver, and artist Andrew Owen AO1 shared their photos and memorabilia.

They scanned the documents and uploaded them to the Ethnography Lab’s online archive, hosted by the University of Toronto Library’s DataVerse system. At the same time, they interviewed the donors to get a sense of the history and context of the photographs and documents.

Master’s student Nursel Ozturk interviews Stewart Scriver about his photographs and memorabilia.

Over the course of years to come, these documents will enrich our understanding of what makes Kensington Market such a unique place in Toronto and Canada.

Stewart Scriver, owner of “Courage My Love” vintage shop, took us into his storage space to dig out the hundreds of photographs, newspaper clippings, and other memorabilia related to his shop, which he has accumulated over nearly 30 years.

Students of the metropolis course, Dan Gelinas, Katherine Achacoso, and Stephanie Wighton, produced a brief video documenting some of the insights they gathered about their various Kensington Market research sites, including Ronnie’s Local 069 Bar, Graffiti’s Bar & Grill, along with various residences and street locales.