(AIS1c) Critical Muslim Studies and Anti-Islamophobia III: Unfixed - Cultural Production, Pedagogy, and the Politics of Possibilities
Hegemonic discourses do more than represent; they construct, discipline, and delimit who can be seen, heard, or imagined. Yet fissures emerge—moments of negotiation, refusal, and reinvention that open new subject positions and conditions of possibility. This panel assembles scholars and practitioners whose work inhabits and expands these spaces, intervening in dominant narratives to forge alternative ways of knowing, being, and belonging. The presentations unpack how art-based interventions counter Islamophobia in public and digital arenas; interrogate the politics of “safe space” pedagogies in discussions of Palestine; examine nuanced forms of “artful obedience” among Muslim South Asian women navigating cultural conflicts in Canada; and complicate entrenched stereotypes of SWANA subjects that persist in Hollywood casting practices and media representations, offering an active reform agenda. Collectively, these inquiries move beyond analyzing anti-hegemonic cultural praxis to charting the openings they create, tracing emergent subjectivities that unsettle normative scripts, disrupt existing taxonomies, and expand the terrains of possibility. Session Organizers: Nadiya Ali, Trent University Ayesha Mian Akram, University of Calgary Lucy El-Sherif, McMaster University Leila Benhadjouja, University of Ottawa Muna Saleh, Concordia University Session Chair: Lucy El-Sherif, McMaster University
(ANS5a) Critical Inquiries into Animal Suffering and Death I
This session features presentations that critically examine the structures of power, violence, and representation that shape the suffering and death of nonhuman animals. Certain species are positioned as threats, nuisances, or commodities within human-centered economies and governance. Historical and contemporary forms of state and nonstate power dictate which animals are subjected to spectacular, excessive, or normalised forms of violence. Media, photography, and visual culture play a central role in shaping public perception of animal suffering, reinforcing dominant ideologies while also offering potential sites of resistance. Presenters will explore how cultural narratives, economic imperatives, and political ideologies—including colonialism, neoliberalism, and masculinity—structure the conditions under which nonhuman animals live and die. This session examines the affective and political functions of surplus violence in animal extermination programs, particularly in the historical and contemporary persecution of wolves. It considers the ethics and impact of visualising animal suffering in sites like roadside zoos, where photography operates as a tool for empathy. Additionally, it addresses the commodification of nonhuman animal killing under neoliberal regimes of wildlife management and adventure tourism, where culls are framed as environmental stewardship. Session Organizer and Chair: Stephen Muzzatti, Toronto Metropolitan University
(APS5) Technology in Community Empowerment: Challenges, Opportunities, and Reflections on Engagement
This invited session examines technology’s evolving role in community-based initiatives for social justice and equity. While technology can foster inclusion, it may also reinforce inequities, particularly for racialized and marginalized communities. Panelists will explore two key themes: (1) how digital tools—mobile devices, social media, and online platforms—empower excluded communities, and (2) how community engagement addresses technology-related inequities like algorithmic bias, the digital divide, and online hate. The session will also consider how current technologies shape social inequalities and how marginalized voices can drive systemic change. Invited presenters from interdisciplinary backgrounds will share their diverse experiences in connecting technology with community-engaged research and intervention projects. Session Organizers and Chairs: Rui Hou, Toronto Metropolitan University Josephine Wong, Toronto Metropolitan University
(CRM1b) Canadian Contributions to Criminology II
Criminology is a multi-faceted field that uses 'crime' as its subject matter but has no single methodological commitment or paradigmatic theoretical framework. Many areas and conversations in criminology, however, are often dominated by work from the US, Britain, and the Scandinavian countries that differ from the Canadian context in significant socio-political, cultural, and economic respects. The main objective of this session is to connect researchers and discuss work that advances our understanding of crime and the criminal justice system in Canada as well as criminological knowledge more broadly. Session Organizers and Chairs: Timothy Kang, University of Saskatchewan Daniel Kudla, Memorial University
Critical Sociology of Families, Work and Care Research Cluster
(CSF2) Family Inequity in Public Policy
A central challenge for family policy supporting care for young children while parents work is inequity between families. This arises for several reasons and may be increasing as families diversify. This session, hosted by the Reimagining Care/Work Policies project, invites theoretical, applied, policy and/or activism research papers on any axes of inequity (for example but not limited to class, race, family structure, work/employment, citizenship, gender, Indigeneity, ability, or SOGI). Policy areas, in any jurisdiction, may include childcare, parental leave, and employment policies, with similar topics welcome. Papers that address the social impact of research and/or academic-public partnerships will be prioritized. Session Organizer and Chair: Lindsey McKay, Thompson Rivers University
(DIS9) Sociology of Disability: Disability and Research
This session addresses the questions: What research methods are conducive to disabled expression and empowerment? How might research methods communicate disabled agency and organization? Session Organizers: Chris Churchill, University of Lethbridge Athena Elafros, University of Lethbridge Session Chair: Michelle Owen, University of Winnipeg
Environmental Sociology Research Cluster
Internet, Technology, and Digital Sociology Research Cluster
(ENV4) Science, Technology, and the Environment
How communities, scientists, and extractive industries protect and use the environment is shaped by how they understand it. This session investigates the socio-political dimensions of environmental governance, focusing on how scientific knowledge renders the natural world legible to states, organizations, and local communities. The papers in this session investigate the quantification of ecological phenomena, the role of scientific expertise in shaping environmental policy, and advance theorizing of alternative, non-Western approaches for socio-environmental research. By integrating perspectives from environmental sociology and science and technology studies, this session aims to foster a dialogue on the politics of ‘knowing’ nature through enduring and emergent technoscientific arrangements. Session Organizers: Kailey Walker, Queen's University Tyler Bateman, University of New Mexico Session Chair: Kailey Walker, Queen's University
(FTS4) Fattening Methods
In the commitment to sociological questions surrounding oppression, social worlds and the body, there has been a shift towards reframing methods as a way to bring forward a sense of ‘togetherness.’ The question of knowledge-creators, that being the knowers and object of study, marginalized communities and their self-knowledge have remained at the margins of sociology. In contemporary sociology, feminist sociology of knowledge speaks to this bifurcation of knowledge-practice and the dominant-subordinate power relations that come to exist in the field and outside of it. In particular, feminist standpoint theory emerged as a centering of one's lived experience within the two-worlds of gender (Harding 1987; Smith 1990; Braidotti 2022). Much of the theorizing has advanced the construction of social knowledge around the themes of the body, subjectivity, power relations and complex structures across space and time. This project of revisioning the social world at both the micro and macro level is continued in the field of critical fat studies. Critical fat studies advances a fat standpoint theory as a way to not only continue the project of feminist sociologists, but to also bridge the activist and academic communities through various methodological approaches. With its roots in fat liberation, creating a ‘fat community archive’, and a desire for a collective pedagogical practice the aim is to map fatness and its everyday life-worlds (Pausé, 2014; Pratt, 2018). One way to do that is through methodological questions, such as: how can sociological methods be deployed to advance studies on sizeism and bodies?; what methodological approaches enable fat knowledge-practices, methods and stories to emerge?; How do we build a collective-centered fat praxis and methods? How do we grapple with ‘traditional’ ways of ‘doing research’ (ie., ethnography, participant observation) and move towards methods that merge the communities, such as research-creation practices (SSHRC, 2021)? Session Organizers: Kelsey Ioannoni, Wilfrid Laurier University Ramanpreet A. Bahra, Wilfrid Laurier University Session Chair: Kelsey Ioannoni, Wilfrid Laurier University
(IND4b) Indigenous-Settler Relations and Decolonization II
This session features insightful and important scholarly works, projects and reflections on Indigenous-Settler Relations and Decolonization so that we can centre these important issues for learning and discussion. Session Organizer and Chair: Kerry Bailey, McMaster University
Sociology of Culture Research Cluster
Urban Sociology Research Cluster
(SCL1) Sociology of Space, Place, and Time
This session features research that contributes to the sociology of space, place, and time. Social processes occur in space and over time. They are intertwined with spatiality and temporality. Everything we study is emplaced, and place plays an agentic role in social processes. In this session, we consider research on the sociology of home, immigration and belonging, cinema and place, music and place, collective memory, sociology of space, sociology of time, temporal resistance, spatial and temporal inequality, space and social movements, etc., from theoretical as well as empirical perspectives. Session Organizers and Chairs: Pouya Morshedi, Memorial University Foroogh Mohammadi, Acadia University
(SPE2) Housing, Homelessness, and Urban Social Policies
Urban social policies gain some of their academic and practical importance from the sheer size of concentrated populations that they affect, as well as from the complexity and seriousness of social problems they attempt to address address. Whether we consider diverse forms of inequality, marginalisation, and their consequences as caused by specificities of urban life or as merely concentrated in cities more than in rural areas, urban social policies must address them, modifying or controlling them with different degrees of success. These forms of inequality include poverty, social exclusion, economy and labour market changes, housing, gentrification and socio-spatial segregation, immigration and settlement. Increasing proportion of urban dwellers experience difficulties in accessing and remaining in appropriate housing. For a significant and growing number of urbanites, this means homelessness - no access to housing at all. Devastating consequences of homelessness are well known, yet the extent of this problem has increased since Canadian government declared housing (in the 2017 National Housing Strategy Act - NHSA) to be a legislated right. Canadian cities, whose ability to address this problem depends crucially on federal and provincial funding, have formed policies to address various aspect of both the homelessness and a broader housing inequality. Deepening housing inequality is liked, on one side, to dominance of market and financialization in housing in general, and, on the other, to limitations on public policy brought by long-entrenched neo-liberal influences in politics and policy formation. The session will present both empirical and policy-oriented research. Session Organizer and Chair: Ivanka Knezevic, University of Toronto
(TEA1a) Teaching as Innovation and Praxis I: Applied and Creative Pedagogy
Teaching sociology is both a critical practice (praxis) and an innovative process that engages students with the world and adapts to social and technological shifts. This session highlights how the classroom may foster critical thinking, address real-world issues, and inspire meaningful social change. Session Organizers and Chairs: Darryn DiFrancesco, University of Northern British Columbia Jiyoung Lee-An, Thompson Rivers University