Celebrating ISER
April 28th. Celebrating ISER: 65th Anniversary Symposium
Location: Junior Common Room. R. Gushue Hall. St. John’s Campus, Memorial University
Free parking in lot 19, with overflow parking in lot 15.
Schedule
8:30 am – 9:00 am
Coffee, tea
Display of Memorial University Press books
9:00 am – 9:15 am
Opening of the Symposium
Dr. Sharon Roseman, Director, Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
Territory Acknowledgements and Words of Welcome
Dr. Meghan Burchell, Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Memorial University
Words of Welcome
Dr. Tana Allen, Interim Vice-President (Research), Memorial University
9:15 am – 9:45 am
Opening Remarks: “The Institute: Where It’s Been and Where It Could Go”
Dr. Sharon Roseman
Bio: Sharon Roseman (she/her) is a sociocultural anthropologist and Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Memorial University as well as Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research and the J.R. Smallwood Foundation for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies. She received her PhD from McMaster University in 1993. Her past roles include those of Academic Editor of ISER Books and Associate Dean (Research) in Memorial’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Founding and General Editor of the book series “European Anthropology in Translation” with Berghahn Books. Professor Roseman has been a visiting professor at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela in Spain and the Universidade Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro in Portugal. She does ethnographic and historical research in Galicia (northwestern Spain) and in Newfoundland and Labrador. Her foci include the impacts of long-distance and complex commuting on rural communities, mobility justice, labour, gender and age relations, language and cultural revitalization, and the politics of memory and heritage. She has authored or edited (or co-edited) 12 books, special journal issues, and conference proceedings and published numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters. She has also directed (or co-directed) four ethnographic films. In recent years, she and former graduate student Diane Royal did research about Bell Island ferry commuting as part of the SSHRC-funded multi-disciplinary On the Move Partnership led by sociologist Barbara Neis.
9:45 am – 10:45 am
“ISER: A Mid-Century Perspective”
Dr. Dona Lee Davis
Lecture followed by Q&A and Comments
Bio: Dona Lee Davis (she/her) is sociocultural anthropologist and Professor Emerita at the University of South Dakota. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980. Early in her career she published two books with Memorial University’s Institute of Social and Economic Research: Blood and Nerves: An Ethnographic Focus on Menopause (1983) and, in 1988, To Work and to Weep: Women in Fishing Economies (co-edited with Jane Nadel-Klein). In addition to working 35 years for the University of South Dakota, Davis has been a Visiting Senior Research Scientist at the University of North Dakota Medical School and a Research Associate at Memorial’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. She had the honour of being a visiting Professor of Social Anthropology (officially termed, Professor II) at the University of Tromsø (now Arctic University of Norway) for ten years, where she introduced medical and psychological anthropology to the graduate curriculum. Other awards and honors include a Burlington Northern Foundation Award for significant achievement in professional scholarship, a University of South Dakota Board of Regents award for excellence in teaching and USD Harrington Lecture. She also served on the Advisory Board for the Journal of Canadian Studies. Davis served as a cultural sensitivity consultant for the American Psychiatric Association in their preparation of DSM-3R. She followed up to serve in a similar vein with the World Psychiatry Association. She has (as author, editor and/or co-editor) overseen 9 books and special journal editions through the publication process. She has published over 60 peer reviewed articles or book chapters. Areas of interest, research and publication include Medical Anthropology, Cultural Psychology, Feminist Anthropology, Human Sexuality, Biosocial Anthropology, Auto-ethnology, Narrative Anthropology and qualitative research methods as well as Newfoundland and Labrador Studies and Maritime Anthropology. Her more recent endeavours include the book, Twins Talk: What Twins Tell Us about Person, Self and Society in the United States (University of Ohio Press, 2014). Twins Talk was nominated for the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing. As her career was coming to an end, she became active in the emerging Animals and Society arena of scholarship and co-edited (with Anita Maurstad) The Meaning of Horses: A Biosocial Perspective (Routledge, 2016).
10:45 – 11:00 am
Refreshment Break
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
“ISER & Archaeology: Celebrating Decades of Discovery in Newfoundland & Labrador”
Dr. Jamie Brake
Lecture followed by Q&A and Comments
Bio: Dr. Jamie Brake is the Provincial Archaeologist for the Government of Newfoundland & Labrador. He completed his Ph.D. studies at Memorial University in 2023 which were focused on the development of heritage policy and legislation. He has been with the provincial government since 2019 and before this he served Labrador Inuit as the Nunatsiavut Government Archaeologist from 2008-2019. He has served as co-chair of the Canadian National Data Managers Committee and is a former president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society. He is currently responsible for the management of archaeological and palaeontological resources in Newfoundland and Labrador, and for the regulation of archaeological and palaeontological activities in the province. In addition to historic resource management, his current research interests include Newfoundland and Labrador archaeology and history, the history of archaeological thinking and practice, and landscape archaeology.
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
“Breaking New Ground”
Dr. Barbara Neis
Lecture followed by Q&A and Comments
Bio: Barbara Neis (Ph.D., F.R.S.C., C.M.) (she/her) is Professor Emerita and John Lewis Paton Distinguished University Professor in Memorial University’s Department of Sociology. A member of the Order of Canada, she holds two honorary doctorates (University of Tromsø and York University) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada where she is past President of the Academy of Social Sciences. Professor Neis received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toronto in 1988. Her research focuses on interactions between work, environment, health and communities in marine and coastal contexts. Since the 1980s, she has carried out and led collaborative research initiatives on the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries including in the areas of fishermen’s knowledge, science and management; maritime occupational health and safety; rebuilding collapsed fisheries; and gender and fisheries. Professor Neis co-founded and co-directed Memorial’s SafetyNet Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Research. She directed the SSHRC-funded On the Move Partnership, www.onthemovepartnership.ca, a pan-Canadian, multidisciplinary research program exploring the dynamics of extended/complex geographical mobility for work in the Canadian context. Among her various ISER publications are the Memorial University Press book Families, Mobility, and Work (2022, co-edited with Nora Spinks and Christina Murray) and the book Finding Our Sea Legs: Linking Fishery People and Their Knowledge with Science and Management (2000, co-edited with Lawrence Felt).