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Community, Politics and Resistance in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside: Profiling the work of CMH Affiliate Maggie O’Neill

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By CentreForMedicalHumanities.org Research Team | Last verified: September 2026

Research Summary: Community, Politics and Resistance in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

Category: Participatory Social Research Project
Research Focus: Community spaces and places through the perspectives of Downtown Eastside residents via digital storytelling and participatory methods.
Principal Investigator: Maggie O'Neill, Professor of Criminology, Durham School of Applied Social Sciences.
Collaborating Organizations: Atira – Enterprising Women Making Art, PACE Society, Megaphone, United We Can, Community Arts Council of Vancouver, and AHA MEDIA.
Key Methodology: Participatory research employing digital stories and images created collaboratively with community participants.
Public Engagement: Community Arts Dialogue held in Vancouver on June 18, with documented insights and visual materials available through AHA Media.
Academic Affiliation: Centre for Medical Humanities and Centre for Social Justice and Community Action.

Maggie O’Neill is Professor of Criminology in the Durham School of Applied Social Sciences and member of the steering group for the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action. In a recent presentation to affiliates of the Centre for Medical Humanities, Maggie discussed her latest participatory research project: Community, Politics and Resistance in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

The project explores ways of seeing the spaces and places of community through the eyes of DTES residents, and is a social research collaboration between Atira – Enterprising Women Making Art, Providing Alternatives Counseling & Education (PACE) Society, Megaphone, and United We Can and supported by the Community Arts Council of Vancouver and AHA MEDIA.

AHA Media images from the Community Arts Dialogue held in Vancouver on June 18 are available here and here, and offer a fascinating insight into Maggie’s work and in to some of the digital stories and images created by participants in the research.

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