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Don Lafreniere

Department Chair and Associate Professor of Geography and GIS
Michigan Technological University
Participates in 1 Session

Don Lafreniere is Associate Professor of Geography and GIS and Department Chair in the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology Program at Michigan Technological University, USA.  His research interests centre on creating public-participatory GIS methodologies for recreating historical industrial environments and spatializing populations.  He has published extensively on topics such as 19th century social mobility, segregation, industrial worker migration, industrial heritage, and daily lives in industrial cities.  His recent work includes creating historical spatial data infrastructures for industrial heritage preservation, interpretation, and education and using historical geospatial methods for uncovering the relationships between the built and social environments and life course health and wellbeing.

Our major project is the Keweenaw Time Traveler Project which is mapping all people and places in the former copper mining region of Upper Michigan from 1880-1950.  You can access the project at www.mapyourhistory.org

Sessions in which Don Lafreniere participates

Thursday 1 September, 2022

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | 1 hour 30 minutes

The use of industrial heritage is a profoundly important factor in the process of creating a sustainable economic, social, and political future for many communities occupying industrial heritage landscapes. More than ever we recognize the need for such communities to be capable of shaping and expressing their heritage in different forms in the context of current events and issues, and in doing so to inform both contemporary decision-making as well as the way their industrial heritage is re...

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Sessions in which Don Lafreniere attends

Wednesday 31 August, 2022

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
1:00 PM - 7:00 PM | 6 hours

The Soulanges Canal is an infrastructure, located on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, which was opened to maritime traffic in 1900, succeeding the "old canal" of Beauharnois (established since 1843 on the north shore of the St. Lawrence). The Soulanges Canal was abandoned in 1959, when the current St. Lawrence Seaway linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic opened.The Soulanges Canal was designed by the engineer Thomas Monro (1831-1903). Of Irish origin but trained in civil engin...

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Thursday 1 September, 2022

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM | 1 hour 30 minutes

This lecture will argue that the landscapes of industrial heritage that can be found in different parts of the world are directly related to the place-specific trajectories of deindustrialization. In other words: the different ways in which deindustrialization impacts on local communities has a direct bearing on the emergence of forms of industrial heritage. I will differentialte between deindustrialization paths and related industrial heritage regimes in a) Anglo-...