Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Tester, Frank
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
[20--]
History
Frank Tester was a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia. His research and practice focus on community development to address what are often taken to be personal and mental health problems. He is interested in the structural origins of social issues and the policies and practices that address them. His work focuses on collaborative, and community development approaches to problems like young Inuit suicide, housing and living conditions, food security and the impacts “social, cultural and environmental “of resource development projects. The themes of social organizing and resistance through participatory action research and popular education inform his work, as do critical theories dealing with economic, social and cultural issues. While much of his research and community work currently focuses on Inuit settlements in the Canadian Eastern Arctic, he has also worked in Tanzania, Mozambique, Vanuatu in the South Pacific and Nicaragua. He also has an ongoing interest in First Nations and environmental issues.
Tester is a documentary filmmaker and recipient of two international awards: the Gustavus Myers Award for his contribution to human rights in North America, and the Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize from the American Society for Ethnohistory, Cornell University, for Tammarniit (Mistakes); Inuit relocation in the eastern Arctic, 1938-1962 (Vancouver, UBC Press, 1994), co-authored with Peter Kulchyski. In addition, he collected publications, records, and other materials documenting First Nations environmental and political concerns, First Nations child and family welfare issues, and media coverage of these and other issues in his career.