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Date: 1/6/2021
Subject: TASA Members' Newsletter January 7
From: TASA



Dear ~~first_name~~, 
 
Welcome to our first newsletter for 2021. This week, TASA's Office officially moved from Swinburne University of Technology, who have kindly hosted us for the past 12 years, to the University of Melbourne. Our email address hasn't changed though (admin@tasa.org.au), and it remains the best way to contact TASA Admin. If you would like to reach out to one of our Executive members directly, a list of the portfolio holders, and their contact information, are on TASAweb here.
 
Like previous years, we look forward to including details of your latest news and publications in 2021. No announcement or publication is too big or too small. Any mention of sociology is of value to our association, and to the discipline, so please share with us. To assist us with correctly listing your works, we ask that you email your latest publications fully referenced and with a link, where possible. The newsletter will continue to be disseminated every Thursday morning, this year, and anything submitted by 6am on a Thursday will likely be included that day.
 
We also enjoy promoting your work via our Twitter channel, which currently has 4,873 followers and growing. If you are on Twitter, please include your Twitter handle, as well as any other handles you would like added in the tweet, each time you email your publications to TASA Admin. 
 
 
2021 TASA Awards

Jean Martin Award

TASA's Jean Martin Award recognises excellence in scholarship in the field of Sociology and aims to assist with establishing the career of a recent PhD graduate. It is a biennial award that is open this year for theses for which a PhD has been formally awarded between the period March 1st 2017 to 28 February 2019. 
 
Supervisors and Heads of Sociology departments/schools and interdisciplinary Social science departments and other departments with a major commitment to Sociological analysis within Australian tertiary institutions are invited to submit candidates for the Award. Self nominations are also accepted. 
 
Nominations close: March 1. Click here to nominate
 

Other 2021 TASA Awards

Other TASA Awards open for nominations this year include:
  • Distinguished Service to Australian Sociology Award
  • Outstanding Service to TASA Award
  • Teaching Sociology Award
  • Sociology in Action Award
  • Early Career Researcher - Best Paper Prize
  • Postgraduate Impact & Engagement Award
This year, judging panels will also be assessing for the:
  • Best Paper in Health Sociology Review; and the
  • Best Paper in the Journal of Sociology.
You can access details about each award, including deadlines and the nomination process, via TASAweb's Awards page
 
Members' Publications
 
To help raise the profile of sociology further, we'd like to see more sociological articles in The Conversation (TC) this year. Earlier this week, we disseminated an email to members, who have published in that platform, asking for their tips on how to go about getting published in TC so that we can share them with you. The tips we have received so far are:
 
  1. Read the TC's Pitch guidelines;
  2. Go through the pitch to the editor process before writing the piece to get feedback and make sure it is of interest to them – be really clear what the story is about;
  3. Be a bit 'flexible' about what section you pitch to. One member had a pitch rejected in one section (Politics & Society) but accepted in another (Education);
  4. Look for the newsworthy angle of your pitch, as TC is very interested in 'click-bait'. If you can comment on a breaking news item, drawing on your expertise, and do so quickly, this will be valued by TC. Altenatively, if you have just unearthed some interesting findings from a new research project, this could be a good chance to tell the world about them. TC prefers that there's at least a preprint available that you can link to in your TC piece so people can follow up (which means it's best if you have first prepared a journal article for submission and have made it OA on an OA repository before pitching). For example, one member who has had articles published around the broad purpose of education (that outside of economic return) - related this to student protests which were newsworthy at the time. They also had an article published about middle class parents engagement with schooling (their area of research) but built it around a scandal that was occurring in the US at the time about celebrities buying their way into college;
  5. Think and write like a journalist not like an academic when structuring the piece;
  6. Most TC articles are limited to 800 words, so make your points pithy. TC wants a fair amount of referencing (by hyperlink only), so be ready to embed relevant hyperlinks in support of your argument. This is a good chance to link to your own (relevant) work (preprint or published), but also that of others. Try to make sure most of the hyperlinks are to open access publications, however, as the vast proportion of your readership won't have access to journals or books;
  7. Be prepared for the editor you work with to heavily edit your article. They will usually choose the headline and images (unless you have some good ones you can supply);
  8. Be prepared to write in an accessible way. TC platform has an accessibility check embedded, which is helpful. TC want the language to be appropriate for non-university-educated people;
  9. Be prepared to write to a short deadline. If your piece is about a breaking story, they may want it within 24 hours. You usually get a few days for a piece about non-breaking news;
  10. The Conversation is looking for interesting (even a bit controversial) topics that appeal to the broader Australian public not just the academic community. Your pitch should be timely – new research, public interest story. Keep it mostly jargon free and make it an easy read for people who may not be in your area of expertise;
  11. Don’t be precious about things like headlines or structure of the piece as their editors make a lot of changes – it is not a journal article;
  12. Don’t just add lots of stats – link to other articles that have the information you want to include or to make the point. If you can, co-author with a PhD student to give them/their work some exposure also;
  13. Co-author with someone who has already published in TC or ask them for feedback about your pitch/article; 
  14. Don't be disheartened if your initial pitch is rejected, sometimes you can find a new outlet. Get advice from your university's media office if you have one, or another fellow member who has published in other non-academic platforms (see the Informed News & Analysis section of our weekly newsletter). 
Thank you to those members who have submitted their tips. If you any have any tips that are not listed above, please email them to admin@tasa.org.au and we will include them in subsequent newsletters. 
 

Book Chapters

Riaz Hassan. “Islamophobia and secularism in liberal democracies”, in Bryan Turner and Damien Freeman, eds. 2020. Faith's Place: Democracy in a Religious World. The Kapunda Press 2020.
 

Journal Articles

 
 
Kristine Aquino, Amanda Wise, Selvaraj Velayutham, Keith D. Parry & Sarah Neal (2020) The right to the city: outdoor informal sport and urban belonging in multicultural spaces, Annals of Leisure Research, DOI: 10.1080/11745398.2020.1859391
 
van Krieken R. Covid-19 and the civilizing process. Journal of Sociology. 2020;56(4):714-725. doi:10.1177/1440783320980854 [open access]
 
Young, C. (2020). Interlocking systems of oppression and privilege impact African Australian health and well‐being in greater Melbourne: A qualitative intersectional analysis. Journal of Social Issues, 76(4), 880-898. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12407
 
Byron, P., McKee, A., Watson, A. et al. Reading for Realness: Porn Literacies, Digital Media, and Young People. Sexuality & Culture (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-020-09794-6
 


Informed News & Analysis

John Hawkins, Ben Freyens & Michael Walsh (2021) Stream weavers: the musicians’ dilemma in Spotify’s pay-to-play planThe Conversation, January 5. 
 
Anna Halafoff (2021) From abundance to enough: What we have learned from the pandemic. ABC Religion and Ethics, January 4.
 
 
Riaz Hassan (2020) How religion, geography and demography shape Pakistan’s state, society and politics. Melbourne Asia Review. December 10. 
 
 

Blog Posts

Deborah Lupton (2020) Living with COVID-19 in Australia: the first year in photos. This Sociological Life, December 31. 
 
TASA Publications

Journal of Sociology

Note: Volume 56 Issue 4, December 2020 is available with all articles currently available in full.  
 
 

Health Sociology Review

The latest special issue of Health Sociology Review is now out, guest edited by TASA members Jennifer Power and Andrea Waling: Tech, Sex and Health: The Place of New Technologies in Sex, Sexual Health, and Human Intimacy.

This special issue also includes contributions from TASA members, Jennifer Power, Andrea Waling, (guest editors), Jacinthe Flore, Kiran Pienaar and Gary Dowsett.
 
Employment

Jobs Board

The Jobs Board enables you to view current employment opportunities. As a member, you can post opportunities to the Jobs Board directly from within your membership profile screen.
Current Employment Opportunities
PhD Scholarships

Scholarships Board

The Scholarships Board enables you to view available scholarships that our members have posted. Like the Jobs Board, as a member, you can post scholarship opportunities directly from within your membership profile screen.
Current Scholarship Opportunities
Other Events, News & Opportunities

Online Research Workshop - call for abstracts

Leaving the city for the beach and bush: Counter-urban trends to regional Australia
A research workshop online
19th of February 2021
Chairs: Caitlin Buckle (University of Sydney) and Nick Osbaldiston (James Cook University)
Abstract submission deadline: January 20. Read on...
 

Call for Papers

Comparative Studies in Modern Society; Balkans in European and Global Context
At site or Online
University of Prizren Ukshin Hoti, KOSOVO
19-20 march 2021
Deadline for abstract submission: 19 January. 
Read on...
 

Call for Papers

Special Issue New Media and Social Technology to Support Healthy Ageing and Aged Care in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (Open Access Journal). 
Guest editors: Loretta Baldassar (Loretta.baldassar@uwa.edu.au), Lukasz Krzyzowski (lukasz.krzyzowski@uwa.edu.au) & Catriona Stevens (catriona.stevens@uwa.edu.au)
Submission deadline: 31 August.  Read on...
 
International Journal on Homelessness (IJOH)
This is a new journal and you are invited to contribute to the first edition
Submission Deadline: January 31. Read on...
 

TASA Documents and Policies
You can access details of TASA's current Executive Committee 2021 - 2022, and their respective portfoliosas well as documents and policies, including the Constitution, Code of Conduct, Grievance Procedures & TASA History
 
Accessing Online Materials & Resources
Menu navigation for online content

TASA members have access to over 90 peer-reviewed  Sage Sociology full-text collection online journals encompassing over 63,000 articles. The image on the left shows you where to access those journals, as well as the Sage Research Methods Collection & the Taylor and Francis Full Text Collection, when logged in to TASAweb. 

Gift Memberships

Gift memberships are available with TASA.  If you would like to purchase a gift membership, please email the following details through to the TASA Office:

 
1. Name of gift recipient;
2. email address of gift recipient;
3. the membership category you are gifting (see the available Membership Categories & Fees); and
4. who the Tax Invoice should be made out to.
 

Upon receiving the above details, TASA will email the recipient with full details on how they can take up the gift membership. You will receive the Tax Invoice, via email, after the recipient completes the online membership form.

Contact TASA Admin: admin@tasa.org.au
Full list of TASA Twitter handles
ISA 2022