The Kensington Market Research Project (KMRP) aims to produce an unprecedented body of rich and detailed knowledge about Toronto’s most celebrated multicultural heritage district. Bordered by China Town and adjacent to the University of Toronto’s downtown campus, Kensington Market boasts the city’s best known enclave of social diversity and counter-culture nestled in a backdrop of Victorian-era row-houses converted to street-level shops. Designated as a National Historic Site of Canada in 2006 for its colourful history of transformation from a 19th century immigrant refuge, to a Jewish market neighbourhood, to its current vibrant tapestry of independently owned shops and residences, Kensington Market is strongly valued both locally and nationally.
This project, the first of its kind, uses ethnography to study in-depth the market in an age of large-scale urban transformation. As downtown Toronto faces the encroachment of big corporate retailers, the impending conversion of public housing into private condominiums, and the expansion of Toronto Western Hospital, the Kensington Market Research Project strives to document the inevitable changes to the market.
Over the course of years to come, the project will provide a publicly accessible archive of rich and detailed data to be used in evidence-based policy decision making, and to make visible the social complexity of this unique Toronto site.
You can read more about our vision here: http://spacing.ca/toronto/2016/11/17/behind-kensington-market-research-project/
As part of a larger ongoing research project about Toronto’s Kensington Market, a group of students and film-makers are working together to produce an ethnographic film about this dynamic neighbourhood. Bronwyn Frey, a Master’s student at the University of Toronto, has chosen to share her video updates about the process of creating this film. Following … Continue reading
Transforming Students into Researchers: Anthropology Wins the 2016 Northrop Frye Award The Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto is the proud 2016 recipient of the Northrop Frye Award! By integrating original fieldwork into undergraduate courses, the department has been recognized for introducing students to research and rousing their enthusiasm. Both are key criteria … Continue reading
Imaging Kensington is a series of informal meet-ups of members of the Ethnography Lab who explore Kensington Market in more depth through personal photography and focused discussions on multidisciplinary themes. This past month we have been using the concepts of palimpsest, facade and bricolage to seek new insights into ways that the past plays out in the present in the social, cultural and spatial … Continue reading
Students from the University of Toronto’s Munk One program have recently completed a partnership with the Ethnography Lab to conduct mini ethnography projects. Each of the 29 students spent time in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighbourhood making observations, conducting informal interviews and writing ethnographic fieldnotes addressing an individual research theme. Each thematic project was also clustered … Continue reading
University of Toronto Anthropology undergraduate students Dan Gelinas, Katherine Achacoso, and Stephanie Wighton, who have been conducting ethnographic research in Toronto’s famed Kensington Market as part of a methods course, produced a brief video documenting some of the insights they gathered about their various research sites, including Ronnie’s Local 069 Bar, Graffiti’s Bar & Grill, … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
In tandem with the Ethnography Lab’s Scan-a-thon event, we invite you to come and take a look at what the students have been up to since they started their research in Kensington Market in January 2015. Open to the public. Continue reading
