Dear ~~first_name~~,
We begin this newsletter with very sad news about one of our long-term members, Raelene West, who passed away last Thursday. We share below two tributes in recognition of her significant contributions, including one by fellow member Ricki Spencer.
We now turn to upcoming Association activities and key dates. A final, friendly reminder that abstract submissions for TASA 2026 close tomorrow 24 April. Our next TASA Thursdays event takes place today, featuring renowned sociologist, and long term TASA member Raewyn Connell, talking about her new book Trans Lives. We hope you can join us. The registration details are further down this newsletter. If you have any issues access the event link, please email Penny (events@tasa.org.au).
In addition, this issue includes new publications from members, upcoming events, and other news from across the discipline.
Warm regards,
TASA Team
| In loving memory of Dr. Ralene West, a true pioneer in disability advocacy and research. Her groundbreaking work has profoundly influenced the field of sociology, offering invaluable insights and elevating the voices of those often marginalized.
Dr. West dedicated her life to advancing our understanding of disability, advocating for change, and fostering a more inclusive society. Her passion for research and unwavering commitment to advocacy have left an indelible mark on both academia and the community at large.
As co-convenors of the Critical Disability Studies group within the Austrian Sociological Association, we want to express our heartfelt gratitude for Dr. West's incredible contributions. Her legacy will continue to inspire future generations of scholars and advocates.
Thank you, Dr. West, for your relentless pursuit of equality and for your remarkable impact on the field. You will be deeply missed, but your work will undoubtedly continue to resonate in our efforts for a more equitable world.
Ricki Spencer
| We extend a warm welcome to new members Sharon Koshy, Andoni Laguna Alberdi, Anetta Nevin and Daile Rung. We hope you're enjoying your first issue of TASA's E-Newsletter today.
And thank you to our renewing members, it's so good to have you with us for another year. If you have a question about TASAweb, our programs and services, please do email Ali at membership@tasa.org.au -- we are always happy to hear from our members.
| | TASA THURSDAYS -TRANS LIVES | 23rd APRIL | 12:30PM AEST
Join us TODAY for a TASA Thursdays session with renowned sociologist, and fellow member, Raewyn Connell, discussing her new book Trans Lives. This timely talk explores the social, political, and global contexts shaping trans experiences today. Drawing on international case studies, Raewyn examines gender, transition, and the structures that shape trans lives, while addressing the rise of anti-trans movements and the importance of solidarity and social justice.
| | | | TASA THURSDAYS POSTGRAD - TASA's Postgraduate Impact and Engagement Award| 30th APRIL | 12:30PM AEST
Join us next week for a TASA Thursdays webinar exploring the Postgraduate Impact and Engagement Award. Hosted by Brooklyn Donnelly, TASA's Postgraduate Portfolio Leader, this session will unpack the award’s purpose, criteria, and assessment process. Hear from 2025 winner Natalie Merryman as she shares insights, experiences, and practical tips for applicants. Discover how sociological research can drive meaningful impact and strengthen your application.
| | | | TASA THURSDAYS -The Sociology of Emotions and Wellbeing in Music Worlds: Orchestras, Hip-Hop and Feminist Punk Rock | 14th May | 12:00PM AEST
Join us for a TASA Thursdays webinar on 14 May exploring the intersections of music, wellbeing, and emotional life. Featuring speakers from the Sociology of Music and Sociology of Emotions and Affect thematic groups, this session examines how music shapes identity, mental health, and collective expression across diverse contexts. From orchestral performance to Hip-Hop listening and feminist punk, the talks highlight music’s complex role in navigating pressure, wellbeing, and affect in contemporary social life.
| | | | POSTGRADUATE MASTERCLASS | 28 APRIL | 10:30AM | ONLINE
Join us for an interactive online masterclass as part of our TASA Postgraduates 2026 Sociology of What? series. Led by fellow members Lucy Nicholas and Rosie Clare Shorter, this session explores the sociology of gender and sexualities through collaborative, hands-on learning.
Work in small groups to apply theory to your own research and build confidence in using sociological concepts.
Places are limited - apply with a short research outline to participate by Clicking Here. | | | SOCIAL THEORY WEBINAR SERIES | 4TH JUNE | 12:30PM AEST | ONLINE
Join us on Thursday 4 June for the next Social Theory Thematic Group webinar with Paul Joosse (University of Hong Kong). This compelling session explores the “Trump phenomenon” through the lens of charisma, introducing the concept of the “incredulous onlooker” and its unexpected role in amplifying charismatic power. This is a timely and thought-provoking discussion for anyone interested in political sociology, social theory, and contemporary global dynamics.
| | | Raewyn Connell Prize
If relevant, we encourage you to consider nominating an eligible first book and to reach out to colleagues or others in your networks who may have published their first book in 2024 or 2025. In case you're not aware, publishers usually cover the cost of books for prize entries. If your publisher wants to charge you for the books, please get in touch with Sally in TASA Admin.
|  | | This annual award recognises the impact and engagement of a Postgraduate TASA member’s scholarship that is of high social value to Australian society and/or sociology. We invite TASA Postgraduate members to submit an application (or nominate others) for outstanding impact or engagement with sociological scholarship. Nominations are also welcome from supervisors or peers.
This award is not limited to publications, but also outstanding contributions in teaching, community work and non-traditional academic outputs.
The award seeks to value and encourage an understanding of scholarship and impact that extends beyond publication and citation metrics. This award draws on the Boyer model of scholarship recognising the value of Discovery, Integration, Application and Teaching.
|  | TASA's Prize for the most distinguished peer-reviewed article published by an Early Career Researcher is an annual process that uses academic peer review to select a paper of outstanding quality published (online or in print) in any journal during the previous three calendar years (ie the 2026 Award will assess papers that were published from 2023 – 2025). The Prize was established in 2016 to provide more opportunities for early career sociologists to gain recognition for the quality of their scholarship and enhance their reputations, especially within interdisciplinary teams.
An 'Early Career' definition can be found on the prize page.
| | |
| TASA's Career Development Grant seeks to support the career development activities of TASA members where these activities are not covered by other funding.
TASA's Career Development Grant is targeted at TASA members who are PhD students, early career (5 years post-PhD) or mid-career members (10 years post-PhD) with career interruptions, considered. The grants are intended for members who have limited or no access to funding for career development activities.
A total of AU$4,500 is available, with a maximum of AU$1,500 available per applicant.
Applications close on 12 May.
| | | | TASA's Gary Bouma Memorial Workshop Funding, for 2027 events, is open for applications. Successful workshops will advance research within sociology and showcase TASA as the face of sociological/interdisciplinary research in the region; engaging with issues of national concern; advancement of knowledge; support innovative ideas, and, the potential of feeding into policy and practice development.
Funding of AU$5,000 (per workshop) available for workshops to be held in Australia.
Applications close on 17 July, 2026.
| | | Journals
Tarpey-Brown, G., Bergman, S., Vaughan, C., Barreto Soares, L., & Block, K. (2026). Women’s experiences of gendered harm and im/mobility associated with temporary labour migration in the Asia Pacific. Mobilities, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2026.2656262 (open access).
Freestone, J., Siefried, KJ., Drysdale, K., Murray, J., Ward, J., Ezard, N., Clifford, B., and Bourne, A. (2026). “Sex, methamphetamine, and a surge in heterosexual syphilis: A call to diversify perspectives, research, and services addressing sexualised drug use”, Contemporary Drug Problems. Online 29 March 2026. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00914509261433267 (open access).
Drysdale K, Gendera S, Londos C, White G & Fisher KR (2026). “Radical accessibility: codesigning for intersectionality in a peer-led LGBTIQA+ disability digital storytelling project”, Disability and Rehabilitation. 1–16. Online 13 March 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2026.2643547 (open access).
Lupton D, and Drysdale, K (2026). “Health Biographies: Narrative Case Studies of Health, Sexualities and Inclusion in the Pandemic Age", Culture, Health and Sexuality, 1–12. Online 27 February 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2026.2636217 (open access).
Drysdale, K., Karasu, Y., & Watson, L. (2026). “’Because I felt so alone’: Trans and Gender Diverse People’s Needs and Preferences for Menopausal Information and Resources”. International Journal of Transgender Health. Online 26 January 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2026.2618635 (open access).
Op-ed / Commentary
Jack Hynes, (2026) 'Race You', Arena Quarterly (issue 25), April.
| The Environment & Society Thematic Group is pleased to share an update to its convening team. Matshepo Molala will continue in a second term as convener, providing valuable continuity and leadership.
We are also delighted to welcome two new co-conveners: Keith Noble and Anjali Yadav. Their willingness to step into these roles reflects the strength and engagement of the group, and we look forward to the perspectives and energy they will bring.
Together, the team is well positioned to support the ongoing development of the thematic group and its activities over the coming period.
| | Matshepo Molala, a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University, is at the forefront of research exploring faith's role in climate resilience among marginalised communities. With a Master of Research and a background in Environmental Science, she co-authored a report for the UN on racial justice, leveraging her experience in public and private sectors to deliver sustainable solutions. At WSU, she mentors students, promoting academic equity and inclusion. Passionate about social justice and environmental sustainability, Matshepo also volunteers in local sports, enriching her community engagement. She is multilingual, with aspirations to expand her linguistic repertoire to include Dharug. She's a board member for the African Australian Advocacy Centre.
| | |  | | Keith Noble is committed to the appropriate development of Northern Australia as defined by the people who live there now, those yet to come, and sympathetic to and informed by those who were here before us. He is a Rural Planner who, with his architect partner, run Insideout Architects in Townsville, North Queensland - a practice experienced in remote project delivery. Tania considers the built environment while Keith considers the environment in which it is built, both social and natural.
With a degree in Agricultural Science and Masters in Tropical Environmental Management Keith has lived and worked throughout regional Australia, farmed tropical fruit for 23-years in the Wet Tropics, wrote the management plan for Australia’s largest terrestrial protected area (the 97,000 km2 Ngaanyatjarra Indigenous Protected Area in Western Australia), and chaired Terrain NRM for 8-yrs (the regional Natural Resource Management organisation for the Queensland Wet Tropics). Read on... |  | Anjali Yadav is a joint PhD candidate at La Trobe University and the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, researching participatory water governance and common pool resources with a focus on the Ganga River basin in India. Her doctoral dissertation examines how community knowledge and institutional design can address water pollution governance challenges in complex river systems, with primary fieldwork spanning riverine communities across Kanpur Nagar and Varanasi districts in Uttar Pradesh. Drawing on survey methods, semi-structured interviews, and systematic document analysis, her research documents how communities perceive water pollution, engage with regulatory institutions, and organise collective action in contexts where governance architectures are characterised by institutional fragmentation and accountability gaps. Read on...
| | |
Journal of Sociology, 62 (1)
| We are pleased to announce the publication of Health Sociology Review, Volume 35, Number 1 (March 2026).
This special issue, ‘Healthy’ Food Practices: Moving Beyond Healthy Choices and Food Systems, is guest edited by Natalie Jovanovski and Bhavna Middha.
All articles in this special issue are available here.
The issue brings together a rich collection of articles that examine food practices through diverse sociological and interdisciplinary lenses, moving beyond individualised notions of “healthy choices” to explore broader social, cultural, and structural dimensions of food.
Contents include:
Editorial
‘Healthy’ food practices: moving beyond healthy choices and food systems
Natalie Jovanovski and Bhavna Middha
Articles
Healthy eating in the platform age: online food delivery and middle-class modernity in Surabaya
Nadia Egalita and Tania Lewis
Understanding and disrupting nutrition-related (mis)information on social media using Bourdieu’s theory of practice
Natalie Jovanovski, Lauren Saling and Sharayah Carter
The paradox of knowledge and food practices: navigating the tension between healthy eating, nutrition knowledge, and everyday life routines among middle-class consumers in Kunming (China)
Coral Yu Han
The dispersed practice of trial and error: understanding adaptation, improvisation and change across food practices
Sarah Polkinghorne
Normal food practices: negotiating the interaction among norms, practices, and food environments
Christopher Mayes, Jane Williams and Angie Sassano
Sugar consumption in Aboriginal children explored from a social practice perspective
Amy Budrikis, Angela Durey, Dan McAullay, Paul Ward, Hanny Calache, Thierry Ng,
Roma Winmar and Linda Slack-Smith
Where the wild things are: examining the reflexive affectivity of wilderness on product marketing within industrialised systems
Caitlan McLean and Kristen Foley
| DEADLINE EXTENDED: Indigenous queer health and wellbeing: Anticolonial meanings and praxis
Health Sociology Review 2027 Special Issue
This special issue will take an anti-colonial approach to the fields of Indigenous Sociology, Queer Theory, Sociology, Health and/or Wellbeing. However, the special issue will not be limited papers to Sociology alone, aiming for a multidisciplinary approach and a critical engagement with the special issue’s overarching theme in different settler colonial contexts, nationally, regionally and internationally.
Abstract submission deadline: 30 April. Read on...
| Applications are invited for the editorship of Health Sociology Review (HSR) for the three-year term 2027 - 2029.
Transition arrangements will begin later in 2026, although the content for the first issue of 2027, and possibly the second, will be finalised by the out-going editorial team.
The application deadline is Monday 22nd June, 2026.
The full details of the call are available on TASAweb here.
| Scholarship Opportunities
| Creating Safer Sport Communities from Rural to Urban Australia
This is part of an ARC Discovery project Creating Safer Sport Communities from Rural to Urban Australia
The PhD will be housed within Griffith University’s Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Arts, Education and Law group and the Department of Tourism and Marketing, Griffith Business School.
| Lecturer in Geography, Sociology and Political Science
Hong Kong Baptist University
The role includes teaching courses in human geography, physical geography, public administration, general sociology, statistics, research methods, and advanced topics in quantitative analysis across these disciplines.
| Other Events, News & Opportunities
| The Paul Bourke Awards for Early Career Research
Academy of Social Sciences Australia
The Paul Bourke Awards for Early Career Research honour Australians in the early part of their career who have achieved excellence in scholarship in one or more fields of the social sciences.
| Seminars
ANU School of Sociology Seminar Series
The program for the ANU School of Sociology Seminar Series is now online. All seminars are hybrid, with options to join via Zoom. Please visit the School’s Humanitix page, here, to view and register for upcoming seminars.
Newcastle Youth Studies Centre (NYSC) 2026 Online Seminar Series
The full 2026 program for the Newcastle Youth Studies Centre’s online seminar series is now out (see below), you can check out each seminar, and register for them, at the NYSC Eventbrite page here.
Note, you can watch the full 2025 recordings at the NYSC's YouTube playlist here.
| Conferences
10th Biennial Social Science Methodology Conference
November 24-26, University of Sydney
Sport, Politics, and Society
The Tunisian-Mediterranean Association for Historical, Social and Economic Studies (TMA for HSES) and the Tunisian World Center for Studies, Research, and Development (TWC for SRD)
December 1, 2, 3 / 2026 (Beja - Tunisia).
| | Internationalising Vegan Sociology
International Association of Vegan Sociologists (IAVS)
Online, October 3 & 4, 2026
The 2026 IAVS annual meeting will showcase research related to veganism, animal rights, and sociological theories of international relevance. They welcome submissions for individual presentations (15 minutes and an additional 5 for questions) or panels (45 minutes with 15 for questions) to be delivered in an online format.
| | | Call for Submissions
Social Conditions, Clinical Logics: Rethinking Young People’s Engagement with Drug Treatment
International Journal of Drug Policy
This special issue invites submissions that explore or examine how the social conditions of young people’s substance use shape their engagement in drug treatment. Editors are looking for papers that critically explore, among other things, biomedical and psychologised approaches to AOD care, how contexts of crisis and social inequity shape treatment experience, and how treatment might be experienced differently by First Nations, LGBTQ+, refugee, migrant and racialized youth.
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
The guest editors of this journal are seeking submissions for the forthcoming edition ‘Reframing artificial intelligence: Critical perspectives from AI social science’
In an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI), public and academic discourse is often dominated by polarised narratives—either heralding AI as a solution to complex problems or warning of its dangers … this Collection invites social science perspectives to advance the study of AI’s sociotechnical, cultural and political dimensions.
Submission deadline: 30 April. Read on...
| For membership information, processes, and frequently used resources, visit the Members' Navigator. To contact a member of the team directly, see our TASA Staff page.
| Admin (Sally): admin@tasa.org.au
Events (Penny): events@tasa.org.au
Membership (Ali): membership@tasa.org.au
Indigenous (Yasmin): indigenoussociology@tasa.org.au
Digital Publications Editor (Roger): digitalpe@tasa.org.au
Thematic Groups (Molly): thematicgroups@tasa.org.au
Postgraduates (Brooklyn): postgraduates@tasa.org.au | |