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MSVU e-Commons

The MSVU e-Commons is the institutional repository for Mount Saint Vincent University. It allows MSVU faculty, students, and staff to store their scholarly output, including theses and dissertations. Works in the e-Commons have permanent URLs and trustworthy identifiers, and are discoverable via Google Scholar, giving your work a potential local and global audience.


In addition to free storage, the e-Commons provides Mount scholars with an open access platform for disseminating their research. Depositing your work in the e-Commons complies with the requirements for open access publication of work supported by Tri-Agency funding (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC).


If you would like to deposit your work in the e-Commons, or you have any questions about institutional repositories, copyright, or open scholarship, please contact the MSVU Library & Archives.

 

Recent Submissions

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Cortés Monroy, María José A.
(Mount Saint Vincent University, 2026-06) A Situated Critique of Anglo-North American Femist Discourses on Motherhood
Anglo-North American Motherhood Studies and matricentric feminism have been central to legitimizing motherhood as a site of feminist inquiry. Yet their theoretical frameworks remain shaped by specific historical, geopolitical, linguistic, and epistemic conditions that privilege Anglophone, Global North maternal experiences. This study advances a feminist decolonial critique of these frameworks by foregrounding coloniality as constitutive of feminist knowledge production on motherhood. Drawing on decolonial feminist thought from Abya Yala, it examines how universalizing claims obscure the racialized, colonial, and migratory conditions that shape maternal lives across the Global South. Through critical textual and discursive analysis, it demonstrates that the marginalization of Latin American and Caribbean feminist genealogies is not incidental but structural. The study calls for a hemispheric, plurilingual reorientation of the field that challenges epistemic authority and repositions Abya Yala feminist thought as central to the theorization of motherhood.
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Patient Satisfaction and Knowledge Following Gestational Diabetes Online Education in Atlantic Canada
(Mount Saint Vincent University, 2026-06) LeBlanc, Julianne
The rising Gestational Diabetes (GD) prevalence has strained the capacity of Atlantic Canada’s largest Diabetes in Pregnancy clinic. Preliminary semi-formal interviews with clinic dietitians revealed perceptions that glycemic index (GI) education was not integrated fully in GD standard care in alignment with Diabetes Canada Clinical Practice Guidelines recommendations (2018). Despite this potential gap, their transition to ‘home-based’ online follow-ups had reduced workload compared to in-person visits. However, the unanticipated full shift to online education amid the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 raised concerns about the quality and effectiveness of care in the absence of in-person interactions.
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Transnational Motherhood and the Challenges of Grandparenting
(Mount Saint Vincent University, 2026-05) Emaikwu, Ene
This thesis examines the lived experiences of Nigerian transnational mothers living in Canada whose children remain in Nigeria under the primary care of grandmothers. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with five Nigerian mothers who had at least one child residing with a grandmother in Nigeria. Guided by transnationalism and attachment theories, the study explores how these mothers understand and enact motherhood across borders, maintain emotional bonds with children, and interpret grandmothers’ caregiving roles within broader migration projects. Analysis generated three overarching themes: experiencing and making sense of motherhood across distance; emotional bonds, guilt, and cultural expectations; and caregiving arrangements, relationships, and safety. The findings show that motherhood is not suspended by migration but reorganized into a transnational, technologically mediated practice, as mothers structure daily life in Canada around children’s routines in Nigeria and use phones, messaging apps, and, in some cases, surveillance technologies to sustain connection and oversight. Mothers navigate significant emotional labour and moral scrutiny, drawing on faith, future-oriented narratives, and selective engagement with Nigerian and Canadian parenting norms to “give themselves grace” in the face of ambiguous loss and shifting attachment relationships. The study also foregrounds grandmothers as everyday mothers in a risky context, highlighting their extensive caregiving work, health strains, and central role in sustaining family life amid concerns about children’s safety and Nigeria’s social conditions. By centring Nigerian mothers’ perspectives in a Nigeria–Canada context, this thesis extends scholarship on transnational motherhood, attachment, ambiguous loss, and intergenerational care. It underscores the need for policies and supports that recognize the emotional, temporal, and intergenerational work involved when mothers care “in two places at once,” including services that attend to the wellbeing of both migrant mothers and the older women who raise their children.