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We connect researchers through ever-evolving professional networks.

Please review our guidelines for CASCA networks.

Women's Network

The CASCA Women’s Network serves to bring together women in Canadian anthropology, conducting research on the status of women in anthropology and in academia more broadly, and reporting to the general assembly on our work.

The Women’s Network fosters mentorship, recognition and support through a lifetime achievement award and best graduate student paper award, which includes a cash prize and publication in Anthropologica.

The co-coordinators of the CASCA Women’s Network are Dr. Heather Howard and Dr. Pauline Mckenzie Aucoin. Please contact CASCA for further information.

Awards

CASCA Women’s Network’s Lifetime Achievement

The CASCA Women’s Network invites nominations for the CASCA Women’s Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Feminist Anthropology in…

CASCA Women’s Network’s Lifetime Achievement

The CASCA Women’s Network invites nominations for the CASCA Women’s Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Feminist Anthropology in Canada.

Award Information

This achievement award was established as part of the 25th Anniversary Celebrations of the Canadian Anthropology Society’s Women’s Network. Its goal is to recognize and pay tribute to feminist scholars who, through their work in the field of Social/Cultural Anthropology in Canada, have made a significant contribution to the field of feminist anthropology as scholars, mentors and activists. Recognition through nomination is made every 2-3 years.

The first CASCA Women’s Network Lifetime Achievement Award for Feminist Anthropology in Canada was awarded in 2011 to Dr. Elvi Whittaker. Dr. Whittaker is Professor Emerita in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. She was recognized as one of the founders and first coordinators of the CASCA Women’s Network, as well as a past-president of CASCA, and past-president of the Canadian Social Science Federation.

Nominations

Please watch for our annual Call for Nominations (in French or English) which will ask for your nomination in the form of a letter detailing a candidate’s academic, mentoring and activist contributions to feminist anthropology in Canada, and will specify the deadline and submission process.

Deadline

The deadline for nominations for consideration is September 1.

CASCA Women’s Network Award for Student Paper in Feminist Anthropology

Award Information This award was set up in 2009 as part of the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the…

CASCA Women’s Network Award for Student Paper in Feminist Anthropology

Award Information

This award was set up in 2009 as part of the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the CASCA Women’s Network. Its goal is to encourage research into gender and gender issues from a feminist perspective by emerging scholars in social/cultural anthropology in Canada.

Value

The award is $250

Eligibility

Are you a graduate student in Canada whose work takes a feminist perspective and engages with gender issues? Then please consider submitting your CASCA paper to be considered for the Women’s Network Graduate Student Prize for this year’s conference.

  • Candidates must be registered full-time in a graduate program in Anthropology at a Canadian university, or have graduated from such a program less than one year ago.
  • Candidates must be presenting at CASCA (papers stemming from a presented poster can also be submitted)

Criteria

The adjudicating committee look for papers that:

  • Explicitly engage with gender, and clearly demonstrate that engagement in their treatment of the topic
  • Take a feminist perspective, with reference to relevant feminist literature
  • Are not merely descriptive and show evidence of original critical analysis

Submission

  • Please watch for the Call for Submissions which will outline the current submission process and deadline for receipt of your paper. For consideration, your paper:
  • Must be received by the deadline
  • Must not exceed 10 pages in length
  • Can be submitted in either English or French
  • Must include an abstract
  • Must indicate the university at which the candidate is registered and their current year in the program

The deadline for submissions is March 23.

The prize-winning paper will be published (following peer review) in the Canadian anthropology journal, Anthropologica.

LingAnthLing

LingAnthLing represents anthropologists working broadly within the fields of linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, semiotics and the ethnography of communication. The group facilitates networking and mentorship opportunities for members and organizes panels and workshops of interest to linguistic anthropologists at the annual conference.

Coordinators

EnvAnth Network

The Environmental Anthropology Network provides a forum for the exchange of knowledge, news, and resources related to environmental anthropology and advocacy. We accept posts on conferences, literature, opportunities, scholarships and other resources.

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PAN

The Practicing and Applied Anthorpologists Network connects Canadian practicing anthropologists and like-minded community-based social scientists working (largely) beyond the university.

Our goal is to support the development of Canadian anthropology by the increasing number of anthropologists working outside of traditional tenure-track academic careers.

This includes recognizing professional challenges, standards and responsibilities, and supporting dialogue and community for CASCA members working as social science professionals for communities, governments, NGOs and companies. Existing PAN members work in applied areas including indigenous rights, medical anthropology, science and technology, media, public policy and elsewhere.

If you are interested in joining this listserv, please contact Craig Candler.

MedAnth Network

The CASCA Medical Anthropology Network is made up of a broad range of anthropologists working in the areas of science, technology and medicine who study, interpret, challenge, disrupt and contribute to evidence and best practices across diverse landscapes of health, illness, sickness, infection, abilities and disease in Canada and around the world.

Individuals, institutions and organizations wishing to join and/or submit items may subscribe below.

Network for Precarious Anthropologists

The Network for Precarious Anthropologies was founded in recognition that there are a growing number of Canadian anthropologists who find themselves in precarious circumstances with limited or no employment security.

This network facilitates solidarity and communication, and opportunities to work through, together, the common (and uncommon) issues that we face.

A Facebook group Network for Precarious Anthropologists is has been created in order to aid in linking us together, and sharing ideas about the nature, purpose and future of this network. If you are not in precarious circumstances, we hope that you will let people you may know who are in precarious circumstances know that this network is in the works.

Contact David Thorsen-Cavers or Lori Barkley to join.

Critical Pedagogy in Canadian Anthropology

The Critical Pedagogy in Canadian Anthropology Network is interested in the intersections between anthropology, ethnography, and critical pedagogy, with a particular focus on the unique pedagogical challenges and possibilities faced by those of who work in Canadian anthropology (whether by virtue of research interests, institutional affiliation, or both).

The Network sponsored its first panel (Critical Pedagogy and Changing Climates in Canadian Anthropology) at the annual meeting in Vancouver in November 2019, and maintains a list serve where members share calls for papers, relevant news items, and teaching resources.

In light of the COVID-19 crisis and in the spirit of keeping in touch, maintaining a sense of community, the Network for Critical Pedagogy in Canadian Anthropology has started a new online community of anthropology teachers on Facebook.

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The CASCA Labour Committee

The Labour Committee advocates for precariously employed anthropologists and explores solutions to the current labour environment.

David Thorsen-Cavers

Deidre Rose

Eric Henry

Precarity survey preliminary report

Cultural Expertise Network

Cultural Expertise Network

Cultural expertise is an emergent concept in the social sciences to indicate the special knowledge deployed by experts of laws and cultures for assisting decision-making authorities, in the assessment of evidence for conflict resolution and the ascertainment of rights. Cultural expertise’ theoretical framework also includes the definition of Indigenous expertise as special knowledge and first-hand experience of Indigenous Peoples which locates and describes relevant facts considering Indigenous history, background, and context, and facilitates the explanation of Indigenous concepts to a non-Indigenous audience. Both concepts of cultural expertise and Indigenous expertise revolve around the central role of the voice of the beneficiaries of cultural expertise, with Indigenous expertise prioritizing Indigenous voices. 

CASCA’s Cultural Expertise Network seeks to accomplish a series of interrelated goals:

  1. Contribute to the further development and refinement of cultural expertise as a service and career pathway in Canada.
    2. Facilitate the professionalization of, and support provided to, graduate and early-career CASCA member-anthropologists entering the field, such as through CASCA-sponsored training, workshops, and events.
    3. Help ensure anthropologists’ practice of cultural expertise is legally principled and sound, culturally competent, and ethical at disciplinary, deontological, and legal scales.
    4. Link Canadian anthropologists to scholarly, service, and employment opportunities, such as they relate to work in the areas of – for instance – asylum and refugee claims, criminal and family law, and treaty negotiations and claims. The network could also serve as a vital dissemination platform, capable of promoting the efforts and outputs of CASCA members active in this field, and a forum for discussions related to the sometimes-challenging realities of anthropologists’ service to Canadian courts and out-of-court adjudication processes.
    5. Foster the exchange of experiences and scholarship between CASCA member-anthropologists and CULTEXP interdisciplinary network on cultural expertise, explore opportunities for joint research projects, visiting programmes, and the further development of platforms that facilitate and support the role of anthropologists in the ethical contribution to social problems.
    6. Consolidate the role of anthropologists acting as experts in court for voicing and making room to the voices of the beneficiaries of cultural expertise.

Network Membership 

The CASCA Network embraces an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to cultural expertise, integrating diverse fields, jurisdictions, and Indigenous knowledge. We challenge the limited view of cultural expertise as solely an anthropological domain and promote instead a broader inclusion of various disciplinary backgrounds and firsthand experience that are essential to all fields requiring cultural expertise and Indigenous expertise. Thus, the CASCA Cultural Expertise Network welcomes individuals with advanced degrees and/or relevant firsthand experience, contingent on a justified need for cultural expertise. In this way, the network aims to foster the development of interdisciplinary professionals who are methodologically, ethically, and professionally prepared to address matters of key concern and urgency within legal and other adjudicative systems.

CASCA members interested in learning more about and/or joining the Cultural Expertise Network are warmly invited to contact its Co-Chair Dr. Emma Varley care of:
varleye@brandonu.ca 

About the Network’s Co-Chairs

Prof. Livia Holden has developed the new socio-legal concept of cultural expertise, which has been extensively researched thanks to several projects funded by European Research Council (ERC), the Global Challenges Research Funds, and the Independent Social Research Foundation.

The outputs of the above funded project include : 1) maps cultural expertise in court and out-of-court, 2) the design of K-EXP a toolkit capable of measuring the prospective impact of cultural expertise; 3) the development of CULTEXP an Open Access searchable platform for the consultation of cases and expert reports including cultural expertise; 4) the development of a teaching and learning module and training components; and 5) the formulation of policy-making guidelines including a roadmap for the adoption of cultural expertise.

Dr. Emma Varley is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Brandon University. Her ethnographic research in South Asia highlights the forces associated with poor maternal and neonatal health indicators, reveals the complexity of the social determinants of health during conflict and in zones of unstable governance, and engages in-depth with the cultural, ethical, and experiential textures of medicine. She has participated to various crucial activities of the ERC funded projects on cultural expertise and served since 2014 as cultural expert appointed in legal proceedings in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada, predominantly on asylum and refugee claims. 

Prof. Holden and Dr Varley are currently collaborating in the K-Peritia project funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) for a Cultural Expertise Digital Network, Accreditation System for Cultural Expertise, Training and Capacity Building, Publication on Conflict Resolution, and Policy-Making Guidelines.

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