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CASCA - we represent Canadian anthropologists.

Mission

CASCA connects anthropologists so they can exchange ideas, share research and find opportunities.

Vision

A worldwide network of anthropologists who support, challenge, and advance the discipline.

Background

CASCA was founded in 1974 to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas among anthropologists.

In February 1974 at a meeting at Laval University, a group of 120 anthropologists launched the CESCE, the Canadian Ethnology Society/société canadienne d’ethnologie. Its founders included individuals such as Sally Weaver, Marc Adélard Tremblay, Michael Asch, Harvey Feit, Joan Ryan, Richard Preston and Adrian Tanner. They and their colleagues felt there was room for an association of anthropologists separate from the Sociology and Anthropology Association (CSAA), then the dominant professional organization to which many Canadian anthropologists belonged, a group largely dominated by sociologists.

The original constitution defined the organization’s mandate to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas among ethnologists. Its aims were to encourage formal and informal dissemination of knowledge through an annual conference and publications; promote relations with other academic and professional associations, aboriginal groups, and governments; and publicize ethnological research and activities to further understanding of ethnological practices.

Key founding members included individuals committed to fostering a tradition of socially and politically relevant anthropological work in Canada. They supported the idea that their professional association must be willing to take a position on issues of political and social importance, particularly those that directly affected the people with whom many of these researchers worked, Canadian Indigenous people. Additionally, they never assumed a complete separation of the anthropological domains of the museum and the academy, even though few of them had any direct connection to the world of museum anthropological research.

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The proceedings of the society’s first conference were published by the National Museum of Man in its Mercury Series of publications, and the society established a bilingual newsletter “Le Bricoleur”, which changed name in 1976 to the “Bulletin”. The society also founded a scholarly journal titled “Culture” whose first volume appeared in 1981. During the early years, the society often held joint meetings with the Society of Applied Anthropology in Canada. The society changed its name in 1988 to the Canadian Anthropology Society to clarify its identity and emphasize its role as an anthropology association.

In 1997 the society negotiated the merger of its journal “Culture” with the independent journal “Anthropologica”. The new “Anthropologica” became its official journal in 1998. CASCA continues to hold annual meetings, with its first international meeting being held in 2005 in Merida, Yucatan in conjunction with the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan. In 2007, CASCA reclaimed “Culture” as the name of its new bulletin series. Culture is now online since the Spring issue of 2016.

CASCA Today

CASCA has more than 500 members from across the country and the world.

We are proud of the past successes of CASCA. CASCA priorities are:

  • To lobby funding agencies as necessary to ensure continuing financial support for anthropological research;
  • To commit to excellence in Canadian anthropology graduate programs and in the teaching of undergraduate anthropology; and
  • To provide a platform to anthropologists practicing the discipline outside of academia.

One of the priorities that CASCA has identified is to engage more fully with SSHRC and CIHR in the unique positioning of anthropology in their bodies and to ensure anthropological study, methods and analysis are sufficiently represented in peer-review across the committees. As the association representing Canadian anthropologists, CASCA communicates the necessity of basic research in anthropology and the social sciences to the federal and provincial governments, as well as to funding agencies. We must strive to ensure that anthropology is not marginalized when funding is allocated, and to do this we must explain clearly the contribution that anthropology makes to Canadian society.

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Given the worldwide financial crisis and the looming government deficits, university funding is at risk and students will be asking themselves the age old question: “What job can I get as an anthropologist?” More than ever, CASCA must play a positive role in understanding where our graduates do end up working and how their anthropological training helps them in their careers. CASCA must represent the broad base of Canadian anthropologists across academies and practices, and the CASCA Executive is committed to working with all anthropologists to ensure that our association meets the needs of the broadest spectrum of anthropologists working in Canada.

To do this, CASCA is working on developing new communication and networking tools to bring together anthropologists and to facilitate sharing of knowledge and communication. We will strive to ensure that our collective voice is heard. To do this, CASCA will continue to work closely with organizations such as the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the World Council of Anthropological Associations.

CASCA is and remains your association. We encourage you to become active in CASCA and to work with fellow members in promoting our discipline across the country and the world.

Leadership

Executive Committee

Andrew Walsh
Communications Officer
Andrew Walsh

Andrew Walsh is Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Western Ontario. Over the past thirty years, Andrew’s research has been based mostly in northern Madagascar, focusing on topics including identity politics, conservation, ecotourism, artisanal mining, and small-scale humanitarian, conservation and development NGOs.

cascacomms(a)gmail.com

Eve Haque
Anglophone Member at Large
Eve Haque

Eve Haque is the York Research Chair in Linguistic Diversity and Community Vitality at York University (Canada). She is also co-editor for the TOPIA: A Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. Her research and teaching interests include multiculturalism, white settler colonialism and language policy, with a focus on the regulation and representation of racialized im/migrants in white settler societies. She has published widely on these topics in journals such as Social Identities, Journal of Historical Sociology, Globalizations, Societies and Education, and Pedagogy, Culture and Society among others. She is also the author of Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework: Language, Race and Belonging in Canada published with University of Toronto Press.

cascaenmemberatlarge(a)gmail.com

Liesl Gambold
President-Elect
Liesl Gambold

Liesl Gambold is an Associate Professor at Dalhousie University in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, the Coordinator of the Gender & Women’s Studies Program, and an Associate at the Jean Monnet European Union Centre of excellence. Liesl’s doctoral and post-doctoral research was on a former collective farm in Russia where she examined the economic and social effects of post-Soviet agricultural privatization. While she maintains an interest in economic anthropology, she has turned her research to studies of aging, international retirement migration, and the housing decisions older adults make. With research in Mexico, France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, and Finland, she continues to explore the changing landscapes of aging and wellbeing. She has a deep interest in qualitative research methods and has contributed her expertise on several interdisciplinary projects.

cascapreselectelu(a)gmail.com

Bernard Perley
President
Bernard Perley

Kwey psiw te wen.  Liwiso Bernard Perley, Wolastokwi Nekwutkuk nik.  Hello everyone.  My name is Bernard Perley, I am from Tobique First Nation, New Brunswick.  I serve as the Director of the Institute for Critical Indigenous studies at the University of British Columbia.  I teach courses on Indigenous representations and cultural politics as well as Indigenous language revitalization and social justice.  I am completing my term as President of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology and look forward to working with the CASCA leadership in coming years.  My ongoing research explores the role humour and narrative play in mitigating and healing traumatic experiences.  My research draws from linguistic and cognitive sciences to embodiments of emergent social worlds.

cascapres(a)gmail.com

Daniel Salas
Secretary
Daniel Salas

Daniel Salas is currently a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at Dalhousie University. His research interests lie at the intersection of the anthropology of money and value, rural studies, imaginaries of solidarity, and the phenomenology of the state in Latin America. His current research explores the relationship between the monetary regime and everyday politics of value in rural Cuba. He has published advances of his dissertation in Dialectical Anthropology. Daniel holds a BA in journalism (University of Havana) and a MA in cultural studies (University of the Arts, Havana). He worked and taught in communication before relocating to Canada to pursue a career in anthropology.

seccascasec(a)gmail.com

Emmanuelle Bouchard-Bastien
Francophone Member at Large
Emmanuelle Bouchard-Bastien

Emmanuelle Bouchard-Bastien is an environmental anthropologist. She holds a master’s degree in environment (Sherbrooke University, 2011) and a PhD in anthropology (Laval University, 2023). She works in environmental health in Québec. His main files focus on the social dimensions of environmental change, social representations of nature and toxicological risks, conflicts and social acceptability. His research interests fall into two main areas, namely development projects (extraction of natural resources, industrial complexes) and disasters (technological and “natural”).

cascamembreactiffr(a)gmail.com

Monica Heller
President-Elect
Monica Heller

Monica Heller is professor emerita at the University of Toronto. Her area of specialization is linguistic anthropology, with a focus on the role of language in the construction of social difference and social inequality, especially as tied to ideologies of the nation-state, and specifically to linguistic minority movements, principally in francophone Canada, but also in Europe. Her last two books are Language, Capitalism, Colonialism : Toward a Critical History (with Bonnie McElhinny; 2017, University of Toronto Press) and Critical Sociolinguistic Methods : How to Study Language Issues that Matter (with Sari Pietikäinen and Joan Pujolar; 2017, Routledge). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and chaired its Committee on Public Engagement from 2018-2021. She served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sociolingiistics 2017-2021. She was President-Elect of the American Anthropological Association 2011-2013 and President 2013-2015. She has been awarded two honorary doctorates, from Universität Bern (2017) and from l’Université de la Bretagne Orientale (2020).

cascapres(a)gmail.com

Jason Ellsworth
Incoming-Treasurer
Jason Ellsworth

Jason Ellsworth is a doctoral candidate in social anthropology at Dalhousie University where he recently worked as a Research Fellow on a project examining the local food movement and foreign temporary workers within Nova Scotia. His doctoral research examines global Buddhism and the concept of value at play in the social enterprises of a transnational Buddhist community in PEI, Canada. His broader research interests include the Anthropology & Sociology of Religion, Buddhism in North America, Food & Food Movements, Theories of Value, Political Economy, and Globalization. (Start: November 2023)

Standing Committees

  • Past President (Chair)
  • Secretary 
  • Member at Large (Francophone or Anglophone)
  • Previous Prize Recipient (Chair)
  • President
  • Member at Large (Francophone or Anglophone)
  • Secretary
  • The CATE Committee will be constituted by the President-Elect, President, the last recipient of the CATE (course instructor), the last recipient of the CATE (permanent faculty), and one CASCA member (preferably a member of the Critical Pedagogy Network) appointed by the CASCA Executive.
  • Bruce Miller
  • Brian Noble
  • Heather Howard
  • Pauline McKenzie Aucoin
  • Heather Howard
  • Ian Puppe

Documents

CASCA is officially a bilingual association and our documents are available in both English and French.

Principles of Communication and Information Sharing
Download PDF

Sexual Harassment Policy
Download PDF

Guidelines for Networks
Download PDF

Labour Committee Best Practices
Download PDF

Recent Reports & Documents

2023

Online AGM / Assemblée générale en ligne

AGM Agenda / Ordre du jour de l’assemblée générale annuelle

President’s Report (en anglais seulement)

Anthropologica Report/Rapport d’Anthropologica 2022-2023 (en anglais seulement)

Treasurer’s Report/Rapport du trésorier pour l’année 2022

Contact

Membership

Our members are first to receive information about jobs, awards and conferences.

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