Dr Charity Marsh
Ongoing Research Projects
Dr Marsh’s current research projects focus on: the impacts of trauma-informed community arts-based initiatives on expanding possibilities for women, girls, and non-binary people; the ethics and responsibilities for listening to children; a project exploring the impact of the improvisatory practices, creative innovation, and interdisciplinary engagement that is necessary for the success of musicians living in Saskatchewan; completing a short documentary on the band Sister Stranger; and a co-edited volume on DJ Cultures in Canada.
Research Projects
Feminist Activism, Community Building, and Social Justice: Considering the Interventions and Impacts of Girls Rock Camps in Canada
The aim of this project is to conduct a comprehensive, national study of all 19 Girls Rock organizations that are active in Canada (refer to chart below). The three primary objectives are to: (1.) compare the organizational structure, which often relies on non-profit, feminist, community-engaged, and social justice models, mission, values and goals; (2.) analyze the diverse range of programming that each organization offers (i.e. summer camps for children and youth, weekend-intensive camps for adults, facilitation of workshops, after school programs, and other educational initiatives); and (3) determine what impacts, if any, these organizations are having on local music scenes, cultures, and industries in Canada. Overall the goal of the study is to analyze how Girls Rock organizations are challenging, resisting, and reconfiguring systemic sexist, racist, ageist, cis-sexist, and ableist norms that are deeply embedded within the Canadian music industry, as well as in local community music scenes and cultures.
Take Up Space! You Matter.
Fostering (Re)Connection Through Trauma-Informed Community Arts Programming
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Take Up Space, You Matter: Fostering (Re)Connection During the Pandemic Through Trauma-Informed Community Arts Programming,” is collaborative research initiative between Dr Charity Marsh (Humanities Research Institute, UofR), Dr. Nathalie Reid (Child Trauma Research Center, UofR), community partners GRR (formerly Girls Rock Regina), Vibes YQR, and Femmes Across the Board, and the graduate student researchers, Amanda Scandrett and Jaecy Bells. Funded by the Mental Health Research Canada and Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation, the primary research question guiding the project was: How can trauma-informed community arts-based engagements support improved youth mental health and wellbeing in Saskatchewan in the midst of Covid-19?
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In consultation with the community partner organizations, the research team (which included a member from each organization) developed a trauma informed framework for training facilitators and leading three workshop series on songwriting and guitar performance (GRR), street dance (Vibes YQR), and skateboarding (Femmes Across the Board). Created specifically for youth (participants ranged in ages 8 to 17 years old), the three distinct workshops took place 8 times on a weekly basis over the months of May and June in 2022.Along with the conventional scholarly outcomes of publications, from this project we have created multiple resources including a facilitator training manual on trauma-informed approaches, along with a framework and detailed model for creating programming through a trauma-informed lens in multiple settings.
We're different, different, different, but the same!: Learning to Listen to and With Pheonix 5ive!
I have collaborated with children/youth through a range of community arts programming, including rock camps for girls, non-binary, and gender expansive youth; hip hop projects in urban schools and in remote communities; and producing community radio with my two young kiddos. A consistent argument across this research is that children/youth have much to contribute when it comes to the articulation of their lives and experiences of being in the world. And yet, so often their stories are read through an ageist lens, ignored, not taken seriously, and relegated to the margins. In her 2020 article, “Coronavirus isn’t the end of ‘childhood innocence,’ but an opportunity to rethink children’s rights,” Julie Garlen asks, “How might our understanding of childhood change if we took seriously what children are saying about their lives in this time of significant challenge and change?” For me Garlen’s question resonates with the need to seriously consider listening—who we listen to; why we listen; how we listen; and when and how we learn to listen in different settings, especially when it comes to children/youth.
As a way to (re)consider how we listen to and with children, I turn to the experiences of Phoenix 5ive, the youngest children’s band from the 2022 GRR! summer camp as a case study. My aims are: to reflect on listening as a shared and social practice with Phoenix 5ive; to further ideas on how rock camps, like GRR’s, often create environments where children/youth campers feel heard and listened to differently than in their everyday worlds; and to ask: What might shift if adults actively listen to Phoenix 5ive as they share experiences of being at camp and in their first rock band? What new possibilities come into play, that not only challenge, but overtly resist, hegemonic gendered norms still prevalent in popular music cultures?
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It's More Than A Name Change!: Re-Thinking the Culture and Priorities of Girls Rock Regina
The overall goal of this partnership engagement grant is to support GRR! as they participate in an integrated research and community consultative process of re-thinking the culture and priorities of the organization in order to become more in line with anti-racist, anti-colonial, trans, feminist, queer, and crip values. The questions guiding the research are: What would it look like for GRR! to develop its culture and priorities in order to conduct meaningful and ethical practices that are more in line with anti-racist, anti-colonial, trans, feminist, queer, and crip values? How might an intersectional approach that explicitly de-centers cis white feminism support the growth of GRR! as a social justice organization? How can a trauma-informed research process that centres community, and acknowledges the need to listen to the voices of those who are not yet part of the GRR! community, assist with the development of a more comprehensive consultative process and help to achieve meaningful change for GRR!?
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Current Scholarly Book Projects
I am in the process of writing two manuscripts: one is exploring the impact of the improvisatory practices, creative innovation, and interdisciplinary engagement that is necessary for musicians living in Saskatchewan, including the artists Natural Sympathies, Eekwol and T-Rhyme, HomoMonstrous, Forced Femme, Megan Nash, Belle Plaine, and GRR adult bands, Team Player and Sunset Embassy; and the second is a co-edited collection on DJ Culture in Canada titled, We Can Dance If We Want To: Canadian DJ Culture Turns Up! (WLU Press, 2025).
Sister Stranger
Sister Stranger is a short (14 mins) documentary on the band Sister Stranger who formed at the GRRown Ups Camp in March 2020 just days before going into lockdown. (in collaboration with Evie Ruddy).
Sister Stranger