11th Annual GSCS Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference, April 26 2018

Join us again at the Liu Institute on April 26th, 2018 for our 11th Annual interdisciplinary graduate student conference! The conference will be held on April 26th, 2018 and the deadline for submission is March 31, 2018. 

This year’s theme: Borders, Boundaries, and Space Between.

Inquiry in the social sciences is focused on borders and boundaries. Inequality – the social issue at the heart of social science – is premised on the inclusion of some and the exclusion of others. Studying inequality also requires operationalizing and categorizing all manner of phenomena into mutual exclusivity. This extends not only to the subject matter we analyze, but to our epistemologies as well. For example, sociologists categorize some sociology as ‘public’, some as ‘professional’; we tend to be sympathetic to particular theoretical traditions/ideologies over others; we tend to prefer either quantitative or qualitative analyses, and so on. Nevertheless, we imbricate across these categorizations, and there exists considerable space between them characterized by liminality, resilience, resistance, or resurgence. Because the notion of borders and boundaries in social science is broad and dynamic, we seek proposals that reflect, critique, expand on, and/or otherwise analyze an array of boundaries/borders or their interstices. Some areas of interest include: geography/national borders, migration, refugees, and climate change; socio-economic inequality and its attendant intersectionalities; identity/racial politics and social activism/advocacy; theoretical or conceptual analyses related to symbolic/performative boundaries; politics, civil society, and private life; social activism/protest. We welcome abstract submissions from all disciplines.

Keynote: 

This year’s keynote speaker is Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc. Dr. Saewyc is an internationally recognized leader in research about vulnerable and marginalized adolescents. Over the past 20 years, she has conducted mix-methods research with many different groups of vulnerable youth, including runaway and street-involved youth; sexually abused and sexually exploited teens; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Two Spirit, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) adolescents; youth in custody; immigrants, home-stay students and refugees; and Indigenous youth. Her research emphasizes how stigma, violence, and trauma affect adolescent health and risk behaviours, as well as the protective factors that foster resilience among these vulnerable populations of youth.

Information:

• Abstracts should be no more than 500 words
• Please include your full name, discipline, affiliated university, and contact information
• Please submit your abstract by March 31st, 2018 to ubc.gscs@gmail.com
• Abstracts should be single-spaced in .doc or .pdf format
• Send abstracts electronically to ubc.gscs@gmail.com with the subject heading “GSCS 2018 Conference Abstract”
• Like & follow our Facebook event page for submission details