1965 – 2019

Carolyn Mary Bassett was born on January 7, 1965, at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, to Norma Mary Bassett (nee Logan) and David George Bassett.

Surrounded by immediate family and having had many visits from dear friends, she died on April 2, 2019, at Hospice House Fredericton, New Brunswick, only eight days after moving to the facility. She had bravely waged a three-year battle with cancer. She leaves her mother, Norma, and her husband, Andrew Goodman. A great many dear friends and colleagues around the world have been saddened by the news.

Childhood

Carolyn’s childhood was a happy one. Whether with “six girls in a cranberry tree” in the backyard of the home on Sedgebrook Cres., or stays at the summer lodge on Lake Kashawigamog, Carolyn smuggled untold depth beneath a mane of blonde hair, big, blinking blue eyes, and a 1,000-watt smile.

Like many of us, Carolyn grew up in the ‘burbs, sprawling on the fringes of the city, in geometric order, an insulated border, in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown. She longed to spread her wings after high school, and spread them she did.

Undergraduate and Master’s Degrees

Carolyn was the quintessential Trent University alumna. Not a “Type A” overachiever when she arrived at the small, beautiful liberal arts university in Peterborough, Ontario – “Oxford on the Otonabee.” She found a level of focus in a balanced, lower-pressure environment, as have many later-blooming Trent graduates. That place has class.

Carolyn chose Carleton for her Master’s degree. She worked under the inspiring mentorship of Linda Freeman, with whom she maintained lifelong ties. The research focused on the use of Canadian aid to support structural adjustment in Africa.

Early work and advocacy

In between degrees, Carolyn was already finding interesting work in areas like environmental policy and women’s rights.

In Toronto, she would become deeply involved with several advocacy groups. Examples included Latin America Working Group (and a publication called Americas Update – she served as Editor for a time) and Toronto Environmental Alliance. While finishing her doctorate, she took a full-time role as Executive Director of the Canadian Peace Alliance, an umbrella group of peace organizations. Mundane back-office tasks combined with tricky coalition-building and media work. Peace groups took heat in some circles (and mainstream media) for their opposition to the Gulf War. The criticism later died down, but the debate raged throughout the 1990’s. Finally in 1999 a consensus emerged that Iraq possessed no meaningful mass destruction capability.

Ph.D.

Carolyn’s focus in Ph.D. studies at York University, Toronto, was international political economy, international development studies, and comparative politics. York University is rich in scholars with international specializations. Carolyn chose to pursue research on fiscal policy priorities in post-apartheid South Africa. Her doctoral supervisor was John S. Saul, a celebrated scholar focusing on African post-colonial independence struggles.

Carolyn’s dissertation work and work related to it shone new light – specific to South Africa – on a theme that unites political economists and progressive policy scientists: namely, the question of how much wiggle room do political parties have to make sweeping, progressive changes in the name of equality, improved living conditions, and social justice? To what extent are national governments sovereign, especially in situations where they must encourage foreign investment and answer to global bodies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund? Can governments truly consult the stakeholders that brought them into office? Do emerging demands for more democratic policy consultations or “national bargaining approaches” inevitably spawn sham processes, in light of the turn towards executive power that has been observed when countries must answer to global bond raters and mainstream economic templates in order to avoid (eg.) a debt crisis?

Such questions begged for answers in the South African case, especially when viewed through the eyes of the ANC government under Nelson Mandela as it swept to power in 1994 following the end of apartheid. Those who studied this case closely – and many South Africans – will know the players and the acronyms better than you or I: NEDLAC, NEF, COSATU; union leaders, government ministers, etc. The ANC committed to provide COSATU (the national labour union) with an official voice in policy consultations in the early days of government priority-setting. Considerable investment and innovation would need to be directed towards housing, developing labor markets, health care, and education. So much to do, all at once. Which forces would prevail in priority-setting?

NEDLAC is the National Economic Development and Labour Council. Its website states that the “roots of South Africa’s commitment to social dialogue lie in the struggle against apartheid, unilateral government decision-making and in the calls for decisions to be taken in a more open and transparent manner.”

“Dialogue” is such a fundamental concept in democracy and modernity, and yet time and again, policy processes do not seem to truly allow for or account for it. Since 1970, progressive approaches to public policy and public administration (see Albo, Panitch, and Langille (eds.), A Different Kind of State? – “not more state or less state, but a different kind of state) have examined countless schemes to balance regimes of expertise and governance with citizen input. Depressingly, no clear pattern of improvement has emerged. One of two camps in the broader debate has always suspected that this is because the power of economic forces makes this uphill climb impossibly steep.

Broadly stated, one camp – the Nordlinger camp – believes that “state-centered preferences” have considerable autonomy to chart one course or another. Neo-Marxists have always believed that structural economic forces and culture so strongly constrain the policy options to decision-makers – even those steeped in and pursuing human rights – that the wiggle room is much smaller. That is to say, there are only different flavours of capitalist societies under capitalism. There is no such thing as building a different kind of society in isolation from this global system – there is no practical means to achieve such isolation. “Socialism,” lower-case-r republicanism of small producer and small business nirvana, localized attempts at protectionism, etc., are but localized and temporary anomalies, under this view. Bassett’s case study would aim to provide texture and evidence upon which a future analyst of the South Africa case could decide for themselves how doomed progressive politics there were then, or may be in future.

Husband Andrew, at the time also pursuing a Ph.D. at York, undertook a dissertation case study on a seemingly unrelated subject related to Canadian tax policy consultations, tethered to a detailed theoretical review of twentieth century democratic theory. In the sense that these works both attempted to address the emerging claims for citizen dialogue in public policy consultations – and discovered many pitfalls in practice – they were similar. These long journeys through similar themes in entirely different contexts cemented a lifetime intellectual bond between Andrew and Carolyn, although they rarely spoke of it.

The debates about “policy wiggle room” and the extent of state autonomy have played themselves out over decades, and continue to progress. Today, these debates play themselves out in paroxysms of protest against – or simply attempts to manage or even embrace the positive effects of – globalization.

Professional career

Carolyn’s first full-time teaching post was in the form of numerous recurring appointments (non-tenure-track) at York University, as a Lecturer and Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science. The intellectual community and student body at York are also varied and stimulating, and as a bonus, teaching at York offers one of the few opportunities for an academic to live and work in Canada’s largest city.

For this period she was appointed to Atkinson College, the school of part-time studies. Most of the students were employed full time and had life experience. Carolyn relished this role and enjoyed working with these students – their initiative to better themselves and not to squander their time enrolled in university were as inspiring to her as her lectures and perspectives were to them.

Tenure-track academic positions are hard to come by; especially hard in the humanities and social sciences when one is perceived to have a narrow specialty. Carolyn interviewed for a position in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick in 2008, and was successful. In 2013 she was granted tenure.

She became fast friends with a broader community of marooned “come-from-aways” seeking to navigate sometimes confusing Maritime driving habits, sayings, and unspoken intergenerational assumptions. But early on, and increasingly so over eleven years, she became more attuned to the pace and attitude of life in “Freddie Beach,” the nooks and crannies of the region, and the enjoyment of highway infrastructure suitable for ten million people, all at the disposal of a handful of New Brunswickers.

Carolyn taught courses in international relations and international development, and also showed great creativity in mapping out new course offerings in areas of emerging interest. She taught undergraduate students about the challenges of globalization and the shifting workings of global supply chains. She helped them consider the steadily changing world of work in that context. A now-legendary “beverages course” (with weeks about rum, orange juice, bottled water, wine, coffee, tea, and more) provided an accessible approach to how production and consumption worked historically and what has been different about them in contemporary times. “Nothing added, nothing taken away?” as they say in that orange juice commercial? Don’t be so sure.

Carolyn also served as the Director of an interdisciplinary program in International Development Studies.

Carolyn worked steadily on a wide array of interesting research projects, course developments and lectures, conference presentations, and publications. She has two projects – along with others she had in the queue, including a textbook – which are forthcoming publications. One of these publications is a chapter in a collective book honouring Linda Freeman’s academic career following her recent retirement from lecturing. Carolyn’s chapter undertook a comparative analysis of hegemonic theory, full with a discourse analysis to critically assess the ANC’s hegemonic presence in the South African political landscape in the post-apartheid era under Mandela, Mbeki, Zuma, and Ramaphosa.

The second forthcoming publication is a co-written book chapter in a collective entitled Mobilizing Canadian Knowledge on Natural Resource-Based Development in Africa. The chapter is rooted in political economy and undertakes an analysis of domestic capital formation within the Zambian copper extraction and supply chain sector compared to other industry in Zambia which have deeper local supply chain linkages to critically assess the impact of current economic policies (both national and international) regarding mineral extraction. These projects are examples of longtime collaboration with other scholars, many of whom were cherished friends.

Exercise

Carolyn was outdoorsy for a city girl. An excellent swimmer, she would lose track of time in the ocean on any Caribbean vacation. Her preferred time chasing fish around while snorkeling: twice as long as anyone else on the tour.

Her secret double life as a hip-hop dancer was honed slowly but steadily through hip-hop dance classes at GoodLife Fitness, reaching a high level of step complexity. This explained her uncanny references to contemporary music, and her mysterious practice of leaving the satellite car radio dialed into “SXM Fly.”

Another favorite class was fitness boxing. Demonstrating impeccable form for anyone who would watch it, she would fill the air with “Jab! Jab! Uppercut!” Instead of the air, Andrew’s shoulder might sometimes absorb these blows. To deflect attention from his wounded shoulder, Andrew declared the skinny arms “punching sticks” – before nursing the bruises for the better part of a week.

Carolyn was most at home when hiking, especially on beautiful trails in their adopted home of Atlantic Canada: Fundy Trail, Fundy National Park, Mount Carleton, and Cape Breton Highlands, to name a few. After a good recovery from her initial cancer diagnosis, Andrew and Carolyn enjoyed epic hikes near the Amalfi Coast, Italy, to say nothing of a side trip to Capri complete with an extended dive into the warm waters of a “grotto” – swimming again!

Travel

Carolyn’s life was rich with experiences. Some travel was on her own or with friends when she was younger (Europe, especially struck by the Nordic countries; Mexico); some was for research; and much of it was on holiday adventures with Andrew (most often to the Caribbean, but also to Italy twice, etc.).

The most eye-opening days of her life were undoubtedly on research trips to Johannesburg, South Africa. She also traveled to other parts of South Africa and other African countries.

Carolyn must have liked Andrew, and didn’t get the memo about playing hard to get being the cleverest way to navigate a relationship, because after a short stint of dating (following a longer period of friendship), she abruptly asked Andrew to go to Greece with her. This would surely make or break the relationship. Penniless, Andrew began to think hard about his credit card limit. These worries melted away when the intrinsic benefits of being in Greece together became obvious. Like many young people, they traveled on the cheap. On a ferry from the port of Piraeus in Athens, they somehow found a class of ticket that was below third class. Probably correctly, they assumed they had to just sleep out on the deck. The waters were significantly colder than expected and hypothermia was looming. They found some utility towels in a bin to use as blankets. Shivering, they arrived in the early morning at port in Herakleon, Crete, to sweltering temperatures in the high 20’s. They wandered towards the bus station. The mercury quickly climbed to 35. They longed for, and soon found, a happy medium. They, and the relationship, survived and thrived.

Nature

Carolyn loved both dogs and cats. In 2000, she managed to convince Andrew that his allergies were a thing of the past, and they adopted young Walter, a tuxedo shorthair. A constant fixture in their lives, Walter lived at four addresses and visited several cottages. In recent years, Carolyn enjoyed stints of summer work with her laptop in the backyard lawn. Loyal Walter would camp out at her feet. In 2018, bereft of dear departed Walter, Andrew and Carolyn adopted Marty and Maya, two CARMA rescue cats, aged five months. Given Carolyn’s susceptibility to the Facebook pictures of local cats for adoption, it was just a matter of time. Marty and Maya’s persuasive powers at their foster home at Global Pet Foods sealed the deal.

Carolyn showered Andrew with symbols of his purported love of crows, a love which developed after consuming a Nature of Things documentary on the uncanny intelligence of the ubiquitous corvids. A collection of art and books about crows began to build up. Carolyn also noticed that Andrew would say “hey buddy” as he passed crows foraging along the side of the highway. Carolyn’s voice impression of Andrew’s attempt at “crow language” would evoke a belly laugh from anyone who would listen.

In 2017, Andrew and Carolyn acquired a piece of waterfront land on the Bay of Fundy at Bocabec, NB (near Saint Andrews), after a fruitless search for just the right cottage property. The day of their very first visit prior to the purchase, a bald eagle soared above them. A loon floated past towards the mouth of the Bocabec river, and called. Sometimes the animals speak to us.

They later learned that the largely rocky terrain hosts chanterelle mushrooms and, of course, blueberries.

Handy

As an only child, Carolyn was the beneficiary of regular gifts of tools from her father George; she herself took a keen interest in high-quality tools. This toolkit, and Carolyn’s improvisation, could seemingly handle any home repair task. Andrew, deficient in home repair ability, was relied on only for brute force. He was called in to drill holes for their new mailbox on the side of the Toronto townhouse, the one with the ugly but all-too-real stone exterior. The drill bit was rated for balsa wood. Two hours later, the mailbox was in place.

Carolyn also summoned her own brute force skills when Andrew was away on business. Wielding a sledgehammer (or heavy mallet, at least), she convincingly demolished the improvised curved drywall entertainment unit she’d been hating. It was six months, though, before step 2 in the plan became clear. The rubble pile served as notice to all concerned: this woman means business.

Later, home renovations were undertaken with the help of architects, leading to a quantum leap in planning. Carolyn’s passion for architecture and design – especially midcentury modern – had grown by this time.

For Phase 2 of their home renovation in Fredericton, Andrew and Carolyn hired modern architects ACRE (Monica Adair and Stephen Kopp) of Saint John. Some of the ideas had been inspired by a visit to Miller House in Columbus, Indiana, an unlikely mecca of modern architecture a half an hour outside of Indianapolis. The “conversation pit” (sunken sofa area by the fireplace with a view of outdoors) competed with her spacious home office for “favourite place at home.”

Mom

Carolyn’s bond with Norma was constant and life-affirming for both. Norma knitted meticulous custom blankets and sweaters, created needlepoint wall art, and provided a steady supply of family treasures as well as newer kitchen items. A contractor recently remarked, about the tool collection in the home, that “it’s a pretty good hardware store you have in the basement.” Similarly, Andrew recently told anyone who would listen, including Carolyn, that no matter what recipe he’d try to make over the years, even the most obscure kitchen tool, and even hard-to-find spices, were never absent from the abundant “kitchen supply store.” Being surrounded by family artifacts and wooly things was a constant source of affirmation for Carolyn.

Recently, even in declining health, Carolyn used home decor and room layout software (a passion of hers) to help her mother plan the layout of her new apartment, to which she was moving as part of downsizing. The plan worked like a charm! Carolyn would have done just about anything for Norma, and vice-versa.

Cindy Lou Who

Throughout her life, despite not being a naïve person, Carolyn maintained an innocence and freshness about her. She refused to be jaded. When others’ moods turned dark or cynical, Carolyn would maintain her own outlook, refusing to be infected.

Those big, blinking blue eyes looked to be the picture of childlike innocence, but in fact – even as a young child – they were always dispassionately observant, taking everything in rather than being taken in. Her father came to know those eyes when they sat one foot from his tools when working on household repairs.

One day in Toronto, a new neighbour “level-jumped” while making small talk on a simple trip together to a furniture store. A conventional-seeming chap, he started regaling his new neighbours with a tale of some unseemly goings-on that he and his wife had recently enjoyed on a trip to Amsterdam. “Oh!,” she blinked. “I went to the Van Gogh Museum!”

Carolyn’s life serves as a challenge to us all to pursue understanding, which in her case was pursued via a lifetime of research, advocacy, and dialogue. Caring and charity – while surely good things – are insufficient and frequently merely symbolic.

In lieu of flowers, readers are welcome to make a donation to Hospice House Fredericton, or the hospice of one’s choice.

A celebration of Carolyn’s life will be held in the Victoria Room at the Delta Fredericton Hotel on Saturday, May 25, 2019.

Guestbook