Participants

Project Team
The Society of Friends of the Ukrainian Folklore Centre has assembled the various resources for the project "Local Culture and Diversity on the Prairies," receives and manages the funds for the research; President Theresa Warenycia. Dr. Andriy Nahachewsky, Director of the Kule Folklore Centre, is the principle investigator. Radomir Bilash serves as Project coordinator. Fieldworkers focusing on interviewees of Ukrainian heritage are Anna Kuranicheva, Nadya Foty, Andriy Chernevych, Janet MacLeod, Pauline Atwood, Serhiy Kozakov, and Mariya Lesiv.

Dr. Pauline Greenhill of the University of Winnipeg supervises the partner group studying people of English heritage: Fieldworkers include Jennifer Haddad, Meredith Pilling, Mike Mikulak.

Dr. Frank McMahon, Dr. Phyllis Dalley, Dr. Michelle Daveluy, each of the University of Alberta, co-supervise the partner group studying people of French heritage. Fieldworkers in this group are Doris LaChance, Michel Fournier.

Dr. Alexander Freund, Chair of German-Canadian Studies at the University of Winnipeg, supervises the partner group studying people of German heritage. Fieldwork staff are Leslie Hall and Matt Scalena.

Dr. Madeline Kalbach (University of Calgary) contributes methodological, demographic and cartographic information.

Sponsors
Major funding for this project was granted by the Department of Canadian Heritage, Multiculturalism Program (see the official News Release in English or French). Funding for Albertan elements of this project was also provided by the Community Initiatives Program of the Alberta Provincial Government. Seed funding for the Local Culture and Diversity Project was generously provided by the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko. Additional funding for research on Ukrainians in Alberta is being provided by the Ukrainian Pioneers' Association of Alberta. This project is possible only with the extensive contributions in kind, in time, in infrastructure and equipment from the Institut pour le patrimoine de la francophonie de l'Ouest, the Faculté Saint-Jean at the University of Alberta, Fédération des Ainé(e)s Francophones de l'Alberta, Department of Women's Studies at the University of Winnipeg, Chair of German-Canadian Studies at the University of Winnipeg, the Ukrainian Folklore Centre at the University of Alberta, TAPoR Project at the University of Alberta.

Archives and Support for Analysis
The project plan allows each researcher and his/her institution to enrich and network their own archival collections, while maintaining intra-project consistency and accessibility to each. The central repository for all material collected for this project is the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives. Materials collected by each partner may also be housed in their specific local repositories. TAPoR Project provides the server space as well as significant software and technical consultation for this project.

Interviewees
Perhaps the most important set of partners in this research project are several thousand senior Canadians who will agree to participate as interviewees. Their participation is motivated by feelings of nostalgia, pleasure in reminiscing, hospitality, generosity, personal pride, interest in heritage, patriotism, community status and/or curiosity. Projects that involve memory of everyday life have been found to be particularly positive experiences for elderly women, whose life experiences otherwise tend to be marginalized and invalidated in contemporary culture. Experience with similar projects suggests that researchers will often be asked to make copies of the interview recordings for the interviewee or their family: these are typically requested by children of elderly parents who express regret that they have not recorded enough of their family's heritage themselves. Projects based on ethnographic methods are significant because they allow the voices of the interview partners to be heard and preserved most directly.