Dear ~~first_name~~,
Today at 12:30pm AEST, we’re holding our online New Members Onboarding session. While it’s designed with new members in mind, you certainly don’t need to be new to TASA to join us. The session is a great opportunity for anyone who would like to learn more about TASA, connect with staff and meet fellow members.
In this newsletter, you’ll also find new publications from TASA members, including a newsletter article that includes a mention of The Australian Sociological Association, something we’re happy to see! The latest issue of the Journal of Sociology is now available, and there are plenty of opportunities to connect through our Thematic Groups, with six events taking place in October and another in November.
We’ve also included a new insert highlighting ECR scholarship opportunities in Canada.
We hope you enjoy today's newsletter!
| We are pleased to share that fellow TASA member Habib Moghimi, from Sydney University, has accepted an Executive invitation to step into the role of Interim TASA Groups Portfolio Leader while Molly Saunders takes maternity leave.
Habib will take on the role from 19 September 2026 until 12 April 2027, supporting and working with TASA Groups throughout this period.
We thank Habib for taking on this important role and look forward to working with him over the coming months. We also wish Molly all the very best as she begins her maternity leave and this exciting new chapter.
| TASA Key Dates at a glance
|
- TODAY 17 September - New Members OnBoarding Session
- 28 September - Sociology of Youth 'Catch up and Write' session
- 28 September - Remote, Regional & Rural Sociology Thematic Group Symposium
- 12 October - Sociology of Youth 'Engaging with Young People' symposium
- 15 October - Sociology of Sports & Leisure TASA Thursdays
- 16 October - Housing & Urban Sociology symposium 'Ready or Not?: Improving adoptability of regional, rural & remote preparedness research'
- 20 October - A Sociology of Emotions & Affect Symposium
- 22 October - Families & Relationships 'Transition to Parenthood' event
- 23 October - Sociology of Religion symposium 'Leaving Religion and the Politics of Nonreligion'
- 26 October - Sociology of Youth 'Catch up and Write' session
- 23 November - Migration, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism symposium 'Theorising migration, settlement and diversity in unsettled times'
- 23 -27 November - TASA 2026
|
Join us for a special TASA Thursdays: New Members’ Onboarding Session at 12.30pm on TODAY Thursday 17 September. This event is designed to welcome and connect new members to The Australian Sociological Association.
Hosted by the Student Career Stage Group Convenors and TASA staff, this session will introduce members to TASA, reflect on sociology in Australia today, and highlight the events, networks, thematic groups, career stage communities, journal access, newsletter, and professional development opportunities available. Attendees will be guided through TASAweb and shown how to get involved, access key resources, and make the most of their membership. Questions are warmly encouraged. All are welcome.
With Joelle Moore, Brooklyn Donnelly, Gene Khyle Francis Galvez, Sally Daly, Penny Toth and Ali Smith.
| This below section provides a snapshot of recent publications shared with us by TASA members. We know our members are producing an enormous range of valuable sociological research, books, articles and other publications, and we’d love to help showcase more of this work.
If you have a recent publication you’d like us to share with TASA's community, and beyond, please send us the details. We’d love to hear about your work and include it in a future newsletter. | |
Journals
Op-ed / Commentary
Simone Marino (15 September, 2026) La Seconda Gioventù [ABC Radio Perth Breakfast interview] ABC Radio Perth (2:33:47–2:40:14).
| TASA member Alexa Ridgway is helping bring an unusual social sciences event to Wangaratta this Sunday, with a creative writing workshop taking place at the Wangaratta Aquatic Centre as part of Social Sciences Week 2026.
The event, Water & Words, is a combined swimming and writing workshop exploring the love of water and how it shapes our lives. The workshop has attracted local media attention, with the Wangaratta Chronicle featuring the event in its 11 September article, “Unique writing workshop coming to a pool in Wangaratta”. The article, shown on the left, highlights the involvement of The Australian Sociological Association and Social Sciences Week. You can access the article here. | | | Journal of Sociology, 62 (3)
Issue 62:3 includes a Special Issue on 'Towards a pedagogy of care in higher-ed institutions', guest edited by Siddhi Bhandari and Riddhi Bhandari. A sociologist and anthropologist respectively, the Bhandari sisters have brought together scholars from India and beyond to shape a new concept, 'pedagogy of care', which offers a critical lens on how higher education institutions instrumentalise the work of care. It is a concept that resonates all too easily across the globe where academic staff's genuine care for students becomes an uncounted, yet ballooning part of daily workloads. Teachers are expected to offer extra-curricula enrichment, pastoral care, and endless availability out of class hours, all to boost lucrative 'student experience' metrics. The burden of this work often falls unevenly across staff and often exacerbates existing inequalities. As the guest editors add, it often precludes any care for staff other than as care-givers.
As such, this Special Issue tackles a crucial issue that sits at the heart of our work as sociologists. It opens a rich and critical conversation about how a 'pedagogy of care' operates, how it spirals into our labours, and how we might wrest back genuine notions of care in what we do and what we need as educators, scholars, and colleagues. The insights of the papers are sobering but also incisive and galvanising, so we do hope you can carve some precious time out from your own 'pedagogy of care' work to read it.
As a separate offering, this issue also launches the new Teaching Notes section. This new format for JoS invites shorter research and reflective articles on what it means to teach sociology and to teach sociologically. Teaching Notes is edited by Garrity Hill and Nick Pendergrast. You can learn more about this new format by reading their first editorial as well as two Teaching Notes in this issue. One Teaching Note explores student mobility programs, while the other focuses on resistance through crip embodiment.
We hope you enjoy the issue!
Signe Ravn and Ashley Barnwell
Editors-in-Chief
All articles are available here.
| | TASA Thursdays 15 October, 12:30pm
How does research move beyond publication to create meaningful change? Join Ramón Spaaij, Mary Woessner, Ruth Jeanes and Simone Fullagar for this complimentary online seminar exploring the realities of research impact. Through practical examples from sport, gender equity, violence prevention and policy, the session will examine knowledge translation, stakeholder engagement and pathways to influence. Gain practical strategies for planning, demonstrating and sustaining research impact across grants, promotion, policy, practice, community engagement and opportunities.
REGISTER HERE
| | | 2026 Monthly ‘Catch Up & Write’ Sessions
Hosted by the Sociology of Youth Thematic Group
The Sociology of Youth thematic group are excited to continue hosting virtual ‘Catch Up & Write’ sessions on the last Monday of every month from 1:00pm to 3:30pm to ensure you all have a dedicated space to write and connect.
If you are interested in joining them, please refer to the below 2026 schedule to register for the sessions you would like to attend. While the writing group is hosted by the Sociology of Youth thematic group, they welcome other TASA members whose research engages with youth in interesting ways. The more the merrier!
2026 SCHEDULE: ‘CATCH UP & WRITE’ SESSIONS
Register to receive Zoom links + save the dates in your calendar!
ONLINE 1:00PM TO 3:30PM AEST
MONDAY 28 SEPTEMBER | REGISTER HERE*
MONDAY 26 OCTOBER | REGISTER HERE*
* Please note each month’s ‘Catch Up and Write’ session requires a separate registration as each session has a different Zoom link *
The Sociology of Youth team look forward to seeing you at an upcoming session!
If possible, please give the new TASA Sociology of Youth LinkedIn page a follow and share amongst your networks.
| How is climate change reshaping health and wellbeing in rural, regional and remote Australia? Join the Remote, Regional & Rural Sociology Thematic Group for Climate Change, Systems Disruptions, and Human Health in Rural Communities Symposium at La Trobe University’s Albury/Wodonga Campus on Friday 16 October 2026.
Researchers are invited to submit an abstract by 28 September, to s.clune@latrobe.edu.au
Registrations are now open for this free event. Share your research, hear new perspectives and connect with others working across climate, health and rural communities.
REGISTER HERE
| | | Care and Hope in the Time of Permacrisis: A Sociology of Emotions & Affect Symposium will be held on Tuesday 20 October 2026, 1.00–5.30 pm at RMIT City Campus.
The symposium will explore care, hope, grief, anxiety, precarity and the emotional practices that sustain social life in difficult times.
Abstract submissions close 2 October. Scholars, practitioners, HDR candidates and ECRs are warmly invited to submit an abstract or register to attend.
Click here to register
Submit an Abstract
| | | | Transitions to Parenthood
Monash University and online
Friday, 23 October, 9:30 am – 5:30 pm
| | | | Engaging with Young People: Constructing, Conducting, and Translating Meaningful Research
Monday, 12 October 2026 from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM (AEDT)
University of Sydney + Online
Free event (limited tickets available)
Some travel bursaries available
This workshop, co-hosted by the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies and TASA's Sociology of Youth Thematic Group, will be a semi-structured space for researchers (HDR, early career, and established), industry practitioners, and young people to engage in critical conversations about the promise and complexities of youth-focused research. The workshop will also examine how youth research can be practiced in ethical and considered ways, and explore how to navigate its emotive and caring dimensions.
| | | Ready or Not?: Improving adoptability of regional, rural & remote preparedness research | 16 October 2026 | 9:30am - 1:30pm
Join the Remote, Regional & Rural Sociology thematic group, along with academics, professionals, students and community members for Ready or Not?: Improving adoptability of regional, rural & remote preparedness research, a half-day hybrid event exploring how research can better support regional, rural and remote Australia through challenging and disruptive futures. Hear from leading voices, take part in thoughtful discussions and build valuable connections across sectors. Attend online for free or In person
REGISTER HERE
| | | Leaving Religion and the Politics of Nonreligion
This symposium, hosted by the Sociology of Religion thematic group & held alongside the 50th anniversary of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney, invites researchers to explore nonreligion as a subject in its own right. Papers are invited on themes including deconversion, religious trauma and recovery, ex-member communities, post-religious life, the politics of nonreligion, the “Mark No Religion” campaign, and the complexities of measuring nonreligion.
University of Sydney, Friday 23 October, hybrid.
| | | | Theorising migration, settlement and diversity in unsettled times
Symposium Keynote: fellow member Amanda Wise
TASA’s Migration, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism and Social Theory Thematic Groups invite submissions for a half-day symposium exploring the theoretical foundations, current developments and future directions of migration, ethnicity and multiculturalism research.
23 November, University of the Sunshine Coast.
| | | Health Sociology Review, Volume 35, Number 2 (July, 2026).
All articles in the latest issue are available here.
| Lecturer
Level B sociologist, 3-year fixed-term basis
Australian National University (ANU)
ANU seek applicants with a demonstrated capacity to contribute to one or more of the following areas: global sociology; postcolonial studies and/or sociology of ethnicity; sociology of inequalities, economy and/or development; public sociology; social research methods.
| Early Career Scholarship Opportunities
| New: 2027-2029 Global Scholars Program
Early Career Researchers (1st 5 years)
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
The three opportunities related to sociology are:
There are no citizenship or geographic restrictions on who may apply. For full eligibility details read on...
| PhD Scholarship Opportunities
| Understanding the Role of Sport in Reducing Loneliness and Fostering Social Connection in Contemporary Australia
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tasmania
This PhD project will examine the changing relationship between sport, social connection, and loneliness in contemporary Australia. Against the background of declining participation in competitive club sport and the rise of informal sports, this project investigates the role sport may play in reducing loneliness for at-risk groups such as young people, midlife men, people from marginalised backgrounds, those living in regional and rural areas, or people living with disability.
Working with fellow member Nicholas Hookway.
Legal needs, access to justice and intersecting inequalities
Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University with Law and Justice Foundation of NSW
This PhD project aims to contribute theoretical and applied knowledge to better understand inequalities in people’s experiences of legal problems and the opportunities for meaningful reforms that address intersectional disadvantages. There is flexibility as to the precise focus of the PhD thesis. The proposed project should align with the aims of the two partners, but can focus on a particular affected population, type of legal issue, experience of legal need, specific context, aspect of the legal assistance sector’s work or other relevant topic of interest. Tax-free stipend of $45,188 per year.
Working with fellow member Catherine Hastings (incoming TASA Secretary) and Dr Kate Davies (L&J Foundation)
Application deadline: 31 October. Read on...
Border Security: Managing a Shared Responsibility Approach to Biosecurity at the Frontline
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tasmania
This PhD project will investigate how those working in border biosecurity – at ports and airports – interpret their roles, responsibilities, and everyday practices. This includes investigating how border biosecurity personnel understand their role as part of a shared responsibility approach, the ways in which they work with and collaborate with others, the forms of expertise, skill, and judgement used in making decisions, the challenges they face as part of their role, and how they navigate, work with or work around these to reach outcomes that are judged to be legitimate and credible.
Working with fellow member Vaughan Higgins.
ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY PhD OPPORTUNITIES
Note: Applications for all Adelaide University scholarships are to be made via this form.
Beliefs of culturally and linguistically diverse groups regarding service in the ADF (SRTSR0455)
Adelaide University
This project examines the willingness of citizens to engage in defence force efforts during a crisis. Our current understanding is largely based on surveys. However, the hypothetical nature of this data is problematic in predicting actual crisis behaviour. In contrast, this study will use interview and other qualitative methods to examine the ways in which ordinary citizens understand and relate to military and national service. The research will specifically engage Culturally and Linguistically Diverse groups given the potentiality of their views to reflect as well as shape international relations and attachments.
Expressions of interest deadline: 30 September. Additional information available on the Adelaide University research degree website via the code SRTSR0455 or email fellow member Brad West (brad.west@adelaide.edu.au).
Citizenship Requirement: This project is open to applications from Australian Citizens only
Social and commercial determinants of reducing alcohol consumption in social worlds: what role do Zero Alcohol Products play? (SRTSR0090)
Adelaide University
Scholarship and fee waiver
Alcohol consumption is a major public health problem, contributing to a myriad of preventable health conditions. In Australia, consuming alcohol is socially acceptable. This PhD will investigate and critique the potential of Zero Alcohol Products (ZAPs) toward increasing the social acceptability of non-drinking and reducing alcohol consumption in different demographic, social and cultural groups. The PhD will be a mixed-methods study including Citizen Science methods, digital ethnography and an in-depth observational study of alcohol-free bars and events, paying attention to the experiential, spatial, affective, gendered and embodied dimensions of alcohol-free spaces. Theoretically, the PhD will use social practice theory to understand the meanings, materials and competencies around ZAP consumption and other social practices that shape (non)alcohol consumption. The PhD will be embedded and supported within two large, ongoing studies on the social nature of alcohol consumption.
Expression of interest deadline: 30 September. (also available via a URL address via the ID code SRTSR0090).
Mapping the Pipeline from Manosphere to the Far-right (SRTSR0537)
Adelaide University
Young people’s online radicalisation is a growing and significant concern for Five Eyes countries (Five Eyes Insights, 2024). Findings from members of the supervisory team (Adams, Manning, Legrand and Dowling 2026) indicate the emergence of social media influencers who ‘cross over’ and blend established ‘manosphere’ content (e.g. men’s fitness, self-improvement) with far-right ideas and tropes (white male superiority). This represents a new phenomenon and approach in recruitment of young men to the far-right. This PhD project will build on these novel findings to identify other examples of such cross over influencers in the Anglophone manosphere and their techniques of engagement and co-optation. The project will map links from mainstream platforms (e.g. TikTok/YouTube) to alt-tech spaces favoured by the far-right (e.g. Gab/Telegram) and characterise followers to identify patterns and pathways from the manosphere to far-right communities.
Expressions of interest deadline: 30 September. Additional information available on the Adelaide University research degree website via the code SRTSR0455 or email fellow member Nathan Manning (nathan.manning@adelaide.edu.au). Citizenship Requirement: This project is open to applications from Australian Citizens only.
Placemaking through events: How Gather Round transforms urban and regional places (SRTSR0421)
Adelaide University
This PhD project will explore how the AFL’s Gather Round, a Festival of Footy, is shaping urban and regional South Australia. Moving beyond sport, Gather Round brings together communities, cultures and places across metropolitan, suburban and regional locations, creating opportunities for social, cultural and place-based value. The project will investigate how these impacts are created and experienced.
Expressions of interest deadline: 30 September. Read on... (also available via a URL address via the code SRTSR0421).
| Other Events, News & Opportunities
| Project invitation - Wellbeing of Baby boomer women living with disability in retirement/ semi-retirement
Were you born between 1946 to 1964, live in Tasmania or Victoria, and identify as a woman living with disability, chronic pain, or a mental health condition acquired before retirement? If so, we would like to hear your experiences in a confidential interview. To find out more and get involved, contact Peta.Cook@utas.edu.au for an information package. This study has been approved by the University of Tasmania Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) Number H40747.
| | | Call for Fellowship Nominations
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
The Academy Fellowship currently comprises around 750 Fellows, of whom 38% are women, and 15 identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
Fellows of the Academy include Australia’s leading researchers and practitioners across the breadth of social science disciplines, as well as a number of honorary Fellows (those who have made significant contributions to the social sciences beyond research), and overseas Fellows working outside of Australia.
To become a Fellow of the Academy individuals must be nominated by three existing Fellows (a proposer and two seconders), and have demonstrated an outstanding contribution to one or more fields of social science research or practice in Australia. Nominations are considered by the Academy’s disciplinary Panels, by independent assessors, then by the Membership Committee before being put to a vote of Academy Fellows in a general ballot.
| People Places Prize
Future Leaders
Prize $10,000
The People Places Prize 2026 is about creative and innovative ideas for living places. The Prize is open to Australian citizens and residents aged 18 and over. The winner will receive $10,000 and their ideas featured on www.peopleplaces.org.au.
Creative and innovative ideas for the Prize can be in any (or combination) of four areas.
– The Arts
– Green spaces
– Building design
– Disability access
Entry deadline: 1 November. Read on...
|  | Award for Excellence in Research
The ISA Award for Excellence in Research and Practice is granted by the International Sociological Association to a sociologist whose outstanding contributions advance and promote sociological knowledge and practice, while strengthening the discipline, the profession, and the ISA.
New: Worldwide Competition for Junior Sociologists
The Competition is open to eligible junior sociologists who obtained their first Master’s degree (or an equivalent graduate diploma) in sociology or in a closely related discipline less than 10 years prior to 30 October 2026. In cases of joint or multiple authorship, this rule applies to all authors of the submitted paper.
| Kohli Fellowship 2027
Berlin Social Science Center
The Kohli Fellowship is awarded to a promising early-stage researcher in sociology. The fellowship is awarded for 24 months. The current monthly stipend is € 2,700, subject to revision.
Application deadline: 20 September. Read on...
| Summits
Australian Social Cohesion
5-6 November, Melbourne
The summit will explore the forces shaping Australia’s social fabric through the theme: Understanding Australia’s Social Fabric: Diversity, Connections, and the Future of Social Cohesion.
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
Global Sociology in Turbulent Times
International Sociological Association
XXI ISA World Congress of Sociology
4 to 10 July 2027, Gwangju, Korea
Abstract submission deadline: 14 October. Read on...
The deadline for Integrative Sessions is 28 September. Integrative Sessions are semi-plenaries that engage a debate on the Congress theme. Read on...
The Modern Dream of Control: Uncertainty, Risk, and the Incalculable in Contemporary Society
WG04 Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty
Santiago, Chile / 20–22 January 2027 / UC-Chile, Lo Contador Campus
Holding this conference in Chile is an invitation to think about risk and uncertainty from a Global South perspective long accustomed to precarity, and to ask whether the paradigm of control that shaped modernity can, or should, be rethought altogether.
Abstract submission deadline: 20 September. Read on...
Towards a post-sustainability society? New challenges, agendas, and roles in socio-ecological transformation and its research
16-18 March 2027, TU Dortmund University, Germany
Abstract submission deadline: 15 November. Read on....
Schooling and Sexualities 4: 30 Years On
Australian Association for Research in Education
It will be primarily an in-person conference with some options for online attendance.
This event is being organised by fellow member Barrie Shannon.
30 Sep - 1 Oct
Adelaide University
| Call for Submissions - Special Issues
Epistemic Emotions in and around the law
Frontiers in Sociology of Law
Editors: Renata Grossi, Eve Hanan, Alessandra Minissale, Cecilia Nordquist, Kate Rossmanith.
Law and Emotion scholars have consistently challenged the reason versus emotion divide in our understandings of law and legal processes, scholars have established that emotion in law is methodologically sound, and epistemically significant. More recently an additional tool has emerged to further such investigations: epistemic emotions.
Abstract submission deadline: 5 November. Read on....
Rethinking Gender Pressures, Education and Wellbeing in Schools
Guest Editors: Associate Professor Garth Stahl (The University of Queensland), Dr. Sarah McDonald (Adelaide University), Dr. Rohann Irving (Flinders University), Professor Murray Drummond (Flinders University)
Gender is a fundamental dimension of child and adolescent development, and growing research highlights the influence of gender norms, expectations, and stereotypes on student wellbeing. Across school, family, peer, and digital contexts, young people encounter gendered pressures that shape their bculine and feminine ideals, gender based harassment, and internalised gender role stress are associated with elevated rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, and suicidal ideation.
Manuscript submission deadline: 31 January, 2027. Read on...
Health security and health and care workforce resilience conflicts, crises and capacities
Health Policy, Elsevier, published in collaboration with the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
Guest editors: Ellen Kuhlmann, Katarzyna Dubas-Jakóbczyk, Michelle Falkenbach, Gabriela Lotta
Health security depends on a resilient health and care workforce. Yet climate change, pandemics, hybrid and armed conflicts, migration and rapidly evolving digital technologies are converging with a severe health and care workforce crisis, exposing major gaps in current health security policies. This special issue explores how health and care workforce resilience can become a cornerstone of health security through stronger governance, leadership, implementation and transsectoral policies. We welcome contributions covering all areas of the health and care workforce addressing health security challenges in single or multiple countries, primarily high-income countries in line with the journal’s scope.
Submission deadline: 31 January 2027 (acceptance to online publication: two days). 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 (Morgan): 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 | |