Message from the President
Dr. Mark C.J. Stoddart University
Canadian Sociological Association President 2025-2026
Message History:
Greetings everyone,
As the days grow shorter and the weather turns wintry, I hope this message finds you well — enjoying the final stretch of the Fall semester and looking forward to a well-earned winter break.
It’s hard to believe we’re already deep into planning for our next annual CSA conference, which will take place at Dalhousie University and online this coming June. I’ve had the pleasure of working with an outstanding Local Organizing Committee and Program Committee, and together we’re shaping an exciting program that’s both nationally relevant and deeply connected to Dalhousie and Atlantic Canada.
We received a record number of session proposals this year — a sign of the enthusiasm across our membership for returning to Atlantic Canada for the first time since 2011, and to Dalhousie for the first time since 2003. Many proposals engage directly with our conference theme: Harbours of Hope: Sociology in a Divided World. I’m especially looking forward to hosting a thematic panel that will showcase sociological scholarship from both senior and emerging scholars across the region.
We’re also honoured to feature Dr. Amal Madibbo’s plenary talk, celebrating her Outstanding Contribution to Sociology Award — an event not to be missed.
Through both our in-person and virtual formats, I’m excited for the rich, collegial, and constructive dialogue that awaits us. This year’s conference invites us to reflect on how sociological research can be solutions-focused and contribute meaningfully to social-ecological wellbeing — broadly defined — while remaining grounded in critical analysis.
The call for paper proposals opens shortly, and I warmly encourage you to submit your work. Let’s build a vibrant and diverse program together. I look forward to engaging with many of you in Halifax and online.
Finally, if you haven’t seen it yet, I’d like to highlight a recent ASA Contexts special section: Canada and the United States: A Friendship Strained. It features guest essays by CSA Past-President Liam Swiss (Acadia University), Pallavi Banerjee (University of Calgary), and David Tindall (UBC) on the changing nature of the Canada-U.S. relationship since the re-election of President Trump.
Greetings everyone, bonjour à toutes et à tous,
First, I want to open by acknowledging that we continue to live through times of heightened anxiety where it seems like new conflicts and crises are continuously emerging. I know that many of our membership are experiencing anxieties for themselves, as well as for family, friends, relatives, and other loved ones around the world. My thoughts are with you during this time.
Second, I’ve recently had the privilege of attending the International Sociological Association World Forum in Rabat Morocco – the first time a major ISA conference took place in the MENA region, and only the second time in Africa.
City of Rabat, Morocco
Site of the 2025 ISA World Forum.
A good portion of the conference saw critical interventions into the discourse of the Anthropocene – the notion that we inhabit a new era defined by human intervention in ecological systems. There was a great deal of discussion of how sociologists can critically contribute to the Anthropocene discourse with its origins in earth sciences. We can help centre issues of power and inequality and amplify the voices of marginalized communities whose experiences are not reflected in the abstracted, depersonalized figure of the Anthropos – “humanity” writ large as an agent of social-ecological change. We also heard repeated challenges to the mainstream of sociology to listen and learn more from colleagues and communities in the global south.
It was great to see high levels of participation and engagement of CSA members from universities right across the country. I’m glad I had a chance to run into several members on-site. I appreciate the commitment shown by CSA members to the sometimes challenging — but invaluable — task of building international sociological dialogues and epistemic communities. Engaging in such global dialogues with a spirit of openness and humility is increasingly important in our current period where political, public — and even academic — discourse too easily slips into polarization and othering those we disagree with. I hope we will continue to see similar levels of engagement in the next ISA World Congress, scheduled for July 2027 in Gwangju, Korea.
Third, I want to thank our vibrant membership for the excellent recent conference at George Brown College in Toronto. As the first CSA meetings held in a college setting, the conference theme “Committing Sociology for Social Impact” was highly relevant and timely. In the end, we held 292 in-person sessions and events as part of Congress, plus an additional 53 sessions in our virtual conference. This included 680 in-person and 132 virtual paper presentations. As we look towards piloting “life outside Congress” for our next annual conference, I look forward to co-creating a high-quality and inclusive program for next year.
Fourth, let’s congratulate our well-deserving 2025 Award Recipients, including awards for publications, early career scholars and students, applied sociology, and outstanding service. I particularly look forward to hearing Dr. Amal Madibbo’s Outstanding Contribution to Sociology Award plenary talk at next year’s conference. I hope CSA members will continue to forward excellent nominations for our suite of awards.
Fifth, I want to thank our outgoing Executive Committee and Subcommittee members, as well as our newly elected 2025 Executive Committee, Subcommittee, and Caucus members. At a time when so many of us feel the strain between competing research, teaching, and service commitments, I deeply appreciate that you’ve dedicated your valuable service time and energy to the CSA.
Lastly, let me close by calling back to Prof. Howard Ramos’ recent Outstanding Contribution to Sociology Award talk at George Brown College. One of his reading recommendations was Vine Deloria Jr.’s The World We Used to Live In. Taking this up, I came across the following passage that provides a compass for a Sociological practice that is open, curious and in awe of the worlds we research and are embedded within:
"The substance of the universe is relationships, the symmetries and their structure ...” (Deloria Jr., 2006, p. 201).
With thanks, avec gratitude,
Mark.
Meet the Full Executive Committee