Welcome to another rocky year! Sorry for the delay - between new wave of Covid and the floods, have been a bit slow on the uptake. Hope you guys are ok. Seems like every time I write to you there is something else out there doing its best to test our resilience!
Welcome Catherine!
As you might recall, Dr Catherine Hastings join me for co-convening the TG this year :) Catherine is currently (enviably) on holidays, hopefully having a great and restful time.
TASA conference 2022
Amongst the crazy there was a call for abstracts and Catherine and I submitted a Panel entitled that would be both interesting and generic enough to include much of our members work, as well as run on the discussions we left off end of last year:
Sociology for real-life institutional change: Challenges and transformation
"We would like to challenge researchers to take up the proposition of using applied sociology for positive social change to tackle persistent institutional barriers and wicked problems. Institutionalised processes can overtly and covertly systematically disadvantage different groups. They can appear hard to change because of ingrained ways of working, persistent power imbalances or feelings of hopelessness. Yet – collectively - institutions can be changed for the better. In our everyday work, applied sociologists use different methods, across different contexts, to address different challenges; resulting different outcomes and benefits. Join us to explore some alternate methodological approaches to getting at how systemic issues are reproduced and how might we provide new knowledge on how they can be altered for positive social change."
Instructions to submit an abstract: TASA informs us "The abstract submission portal for TASA 2022 is scheduled to open on 28 March 2022. In the abstract submission portal, your panel members will be able to select “Sociology for real-life institutional change: Challenges and transformation” from the options. Please make your panellists aware of this process, and make note to remind them once the abstract submission portal opens. Note: all panellists will need to pay their own registration fees."
We have also heard from Nick J Fox from the Applied Sociology group of the British Sociological Association who intends to attend! We thought we'd run a networking event to co-incide with the conference. Check out their cool resources here:
Other interesting things
What's on 2022?
Applied Sociology seminar series
We are looking for members to present about their work in May, Jul and Sep. Please let let us know if you would like to present! Can be as formal or informal as you like - perhaps you have a new project you'd like to share or coming up with some interesting findings or have an applied problem you are wrestling with that you want some extra ears for.
Informal online chat-ups
We plan to host informal Zoom catch ups in April, Jun, Aug (dates TBC) and then conference planning Oct, with November culminating in our conference event (including maybe face-to-face!!!?????????)
TASA conference
"Social Challenges, Social Changes" In-person conference at the University of Melbourne, 28 November to 2 December 2022.
Feel free to get in touch :)
Cheers
Drs Sophie Hickey & Catherine Hastings
TASA Applied Sociology Convenors
sophie.hickey@cdu.edu.au
https://researchers.cdu.edu.au/en/persons/sophie-hickey
https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/catherine-hastings
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