By Sabrina Doyon, Université Laval

Esteemed members of CASCA, I am delighted to welcome you all—old and new members alike! Our association is hard at work promoting anthropology, and this fall is proving to be very exciting in this respect. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to work with such a wonderful team to address the various matters that lie before us. I would like to warmly thank our President Elect Mary-Lee Mulholland (Mount Royal University) and Past President Pamela Downe (University of Saskatchewan), our Treasurer Udo Krautwurst (University of Prince Edward Island), our Secretary Millie Creighton (University of British Columbia), our Francophone Member at Large Marie Michèle Grenon (Université Laval) and Anglophone Member at Large Marieka Sax (University of Northern British Columbia), as well as our Webmaster Éric Gagnon-Poulin (Université Laval). I would also like to acknowledge the contributions and work of the outgoing members of our Executive Committee, Martha Radice (Outgoing President, Dalhousie University), and Charles Menzies (Secretary, University of British Columbia), Van Troi Tran (Francophone Member at Large, Université Laval). Of course, CASCA’s continued efforts and smooth operation during this changing of the guard would be impossible without the tremendous work and dedication of Karli Whitmore. I give her my sincerest thanks.

This year marks a special moment for CASCA. Our annual gathering, which is usually held in May, has been moved to November this year so that, for the first time in the history of our association, we will be able to hold our yearly conference jointly with that of the American Anthropology Association (AAA). The conference theme—Changing Climates: Struggle, Collaboration, and Justice—could not be more topical today, and promises to nurture lively discussion that is more important than ever. This unprecedented joint conference has required many new procedures and given rise to new collaborative efforts. I salute the gargantuan work put in by Martha Radice and Pamela Downe, our conference co-chairs, to make this event possible. They have all my gratitude. Together with their AAA counterpart, Nicole Peterson (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), they have worked with the conference Executive Committee, Virginia Caputo (Carleton University), Natacha Gagné (Université Laval), Charles Menzies (University of British Columbia), Elizabeth Marino (OSU-Cascades), Linda Whiteford (University of South Florida), Julie Maldonado (University of California, Santa Barbara), Aisha Beliso-de Jesus (Harvard University), Su’ad Khabeer (University of Michigan), and Karli Whitmore, whose extensive experience has once more been invaluable. I am pleased to announce that according to Karli, we have reached a record number of members in our association! I would also be remiss not to highlight the important work of the British Columbia Organizing Committee (Pamela Stern [Simon Fraser University], Jaime Yard [Douglas College], Julia Murphy [Kwantlen Polytechnic University], Nicola Mooney [Fraser Valley University], Susan Rowley [UBC, Museum of Anthropology and Department of Anthropology] and David Geary [UBC Okanagan]).  

The 2020 conference will follow the usual schedule of our annual conference. From May 30th to June 2nd, 2020, the Western University Department of Anthropology invites us to explore the engaging theme of “Doing/Undoing.”  This event will be held in conjunction with the 2020 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, themed on “Building Bridges,” and offer a very productive forum for interdisciplinary dialogue. The Organizing Committee, composed of Greg Beckett, Lindsay Bell, Pam Block, Kim Clark and Andrew Walsh, is working diligently to finalize the details and I thank them for their dedication. Stay tuned; they will be providing further details in our upcoming communications. Be sure to save the dates!

The year 2019 has also been noteworthy for CASCA in that we innovated by holding our general meeting online this past May. In the course of the meeting, we presented you with our financial report and summaries of the president’s report and the one on our journal, Anthropologica. The quorum was reached, the agenda was adopted and the financial report was approved. We will be holding a general meeting in November in Vancouver that will provide an opportunity to present and discuss the full reports of our Executive Committee. You are all cordially invited.

I would like to add that we were all deeply saddened by the passing of one of our colleagues, Prof. Sonja Luehrmann (Simon Fraser University). She was Editor-in-Chief and Editor of English Manuscripts for our journal, Anthropologica. Her work was deeply appreciated at the journal and her departure is a great loss for us all. Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier (University of Victoria), the journal’s Editor of French Manuscripts, has assumed the position of Interim Editor, building on her past collaboration with the journal. A selection committee was formed to fill this position, which is an important one not only for our journal but for Canadian anthropology at large. The incoming editor will be able to join the discussions underway between the journal, the CASCA Executive Committee and the Open Access Working Group, led by Thomas (Tad) McIlwraith and Caura Wood, on the issues facing bilingual scholarly publishing in the social sciences in Canada—one of our organization’s flagship mandates. 

CASCA continues to uphold its commitment to other issues that are impacting the discipline and anthropologists. For example, the association recently took a stand to denounce the policies of Brazilian President Bolsonaro against the social sciences and humanities in Brazil. We are furthermore continuing our reflections surrounding the fight against sexual harassment. To this end, CASCA is conducting a survey to find out if some of its members have experienced situations of sexual harassment at work, and if there are gaps in prevention, response and support that the association could help address. We thank you for your participation and will of course keep you informed of the results.

CASCA is also involved in an array of other projects. The association was represented this fall at the Hub Anthropen conference, which CASCA helped to support, under the leadership of our colleague Francine Saillant (Université Laval). The Hub is dedicated to the collaborative development of the Anthropen web platform, an online anthropology and cultural sciences dictionary open to the modern world. The Hub conference, featuring a round table, four workshops and an interactive laboratory of experts, professors and students, explored issues of French-language online publishing, the lexical choices of an online Francophone dictionary, multilingual publishing in a French and multilingual world, and open access in the world of scholarly publication. This vibrant event, attracting renowned speakers, was held at Université Laval in collaboration with its Department of Anthropology. On a related note, this department will be celebrating its 50-yearanniversary this year!

CASCA’s projects also include the creation of a new critical pedagogy network in Canadian anthropology. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn all about it at the November 2019 conference! Also under the heading of education, the association will be granting a new award for excellence in teaching. I am furthermore pleased to announce that the first Labrecque-Lee Book Prize will be awarded this year. We encourage authors to submit their French and English manuscripts for this prestigious award, named after two great Canadian anthropologists, Marie France Labrecque (Université Laval) and Richard Lee (University of Toronto).

In closing, my thanks go to Marie Michèle Grenon and Marieka Sax for their role in producing this new issue of Culture. I very much look forward to seeing you again soon in Vancouver. Until then, happy reading!