You are now in the main content area

Our Questions

We specialize in transformative social research. Social justice is at the core of our research questions. Check out our faculty profiles to learn more about what we do.

a mountain landscape

How are Indigenous communities mobilizing for self-determination?

Damien Lee is investigating the resurgence of Indigenous political and legal orders

Eva Jewell is exploring support for the resurgence of customary governance practices in Indigenous communities

Hayden King is studying the practical strategies First Nation communities deploy to reclaim land and resources

a black and white arial view of a city

How can we create more livable cities?

Cheryl Teelucksingh is working to advance environmental justice in urban spaces

Heather Rollwagen investigates housing, perceptions of crime, and neighbourhood livability in urban areas

Sarah Elton studies the intersection of health, ecosystems and the food system in the city 

Sociology Faculty receiving an award for the 'Inhabiting Critical Spaces' project

How can we make education more equitable?

Nicole Neverson, Camille Hernández-Ramdwar, Doreen Fumia, Amina Jamal and Mélanie Knight describe  (PDF file) how to make post-secondary teaching and learning more inclusive.

Jean Golden has spent 35+ years working on equity policies and curricular innovation for university and community groups

a side view of a globe

How does transnational movement shape identities?

Amina Jamal highlights the new types of citizen-subjects that are emerging in our changing global economic, political and cultural relations

Conely de Leon is studying transnational circulations of care and emotional labour among Filipino/a/x migrant workers

Camille Hernández-Ramdwar studies Caribbean cultures and identities, including diasporic and second generation identities

Anna Triandafyllidou is considering migration and migrant integration in relation to the wider socio-economic and geopolitical transformations that characterise the 21st century

An ariel view of people kneeling with their fists raised in protest

How is anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism embedded in our society?

Mélanie Knight’s research focuses on Black activism/organizing, Black collective economic initiatives, Black women business owners and anti-Black racism.

Rai Reece examines how carceral processes reflect practices of colonial violence specific to anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism

Megan Scribe studies how legal and literary narratives influence the lives of Indigenous girls living under Canadian colonial occupation

A student protest, with front banner reading 'Student Stand Up to Racism'

Where do social movements come from?

Chris Powell theorizes about radical projects of social transformation, such as distributed-network models of social movement organizing

Jacqui Gingras
investigates how citizens and health care professionals engage in social health movements

Alan Sears studies the various ways that activists engage in movements for social justice

an abstract swirl of rainbow colours

How do media and culture shape our understanding of each other?

Paul Moore studies how the emergence of a ‘movie-going’ public helped to provide spaces, rhetorics, and logics for collective gathering

Nicole Neverson
's work is grounded in the areas of critical mass media analysis and interrogates the mediated representation of marginalized groups

Stephen Muzzatti examines the mediated realities of crime and consumerism, and considers how they foster inequality and exclusion

the tower of the Canadian parliament building, with a flag flying on top

How do government policies and practices affect people’s everyday lives?

Pamela Sugiman investigates how racist Canadian state policies have multi-generational effects in the lives of Japanese Canadians

Patrizia Albanese studies how state policies affect children, youth and families

Mustafa Koç studies how government policies in Canada and in Turkey have shaped people’s access to food

Andie Noack considers how state agencies' practices of survey design constrain who is knowable to policy makers