This is a book about power in small places, its perceptions and realities; where these conflict and where they come together. Based on research conducted on Canada's Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the chapters analyze the interaction of people and environment in coastal settings, the way power operates now, and how it has operated in the past. The book covers a wide range of natural resource issues and people's responses to change. It insists on a holistic perspective that recognizes the vital importance of social and ecological interconnectedness. This work breaks old disciplinary constraints and mirrors the ways in which people, the places in which they live, and the culture that sustains them are a seamless whole.

This book is part of "Coasts Under Stress," a research project concerned with the impact of social and environmental restructuring on environmental and human health. The project is an initiative between Memorial University of Newfoundland and the University of Victoria, funded by SSHRC and NSERC.

Peter R. Sinclair is a Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He contributed in the Tri-Council ecosystem project on "Sustainability in a Changing Cold-Ocean Coastal Environment" and the project "Just Fish: Ethics in Canadian Marine Fisheries." He has published widely on social power, environmental issues, and resource-dependent regions.

Peter R. Sinclair's profile page

Rosemary Ommer has been Professor of History at Memorial University of Newfoundland and is the former Research Director of Memorial's Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER). She was the Principal Investigator of the Tricounsil-funded Ecoresearch Project, "Sustainability in a Cold-Ocean Coastal Environment," investigating the sustainability of communities of fish and fishers in Newfoundland in the wake of the collapse of the groundfish stocks off Canada's east coast. She is the Director of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, University of Calgary. She is also co-editor (with Dianne Newell) of Fishing Places, Fishing People: Issues in Canadian Small-Scale Fisheries (1999) and project director of "Coasts Under Stress."

Rosemary E. Ommer's profile page

"Peter Sinclair and Rosemary Ommer's edited volume makes an important contribution to our understanding of the causes and consequences of change in rural and resource regions."

Nathan Young, BC Studies

"A collection of diverse and often historically detailed case studies, Power and Restructuring offers a unique picture of the challenges facing communities located in Canada’s furthest Western and Eastern coasts."

Donna Curtis, Newfoundland and Labrador Studies

"[a] very interesting book on life on Canada’s east and west coasts states."

Raymond Rogers, Canadian Historical Review