Calls for Submissions and Participation

Deadline: November 2008
Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW) is seeking nominations for its board of directors for the fall 2008. The CRIAW Board is looking for five new board members for the term starting November 2008 to October 2011, preferably with skills in fundraising, research and/or strategic planning and with connections to diverse communities and networks. Download the application.

Deadline : August 1, 2008
The National Network on Environments and Women's Health (NNEWH) is one of four Centres of Excellence for Women's Health, funded by the Bureau of Women's Health and Gender Analysis, Health Canada and is part of the York Institute for Health Research located at York University. NNEWH's mandate is to produce knowledge on the relationship between environments and women's health in order to improve understandings and ultimately improve health status.

NNEWH will commission 6 papers exploring the relationship between exposures to chemicals and women's health. We are interested in both the processes that 'produce' chemicals (and chemical pollution) and the paths of exposure to chemicals through everyday 'consumption' of goods, for example.

We are open to receiving proposals from a wide range of disciplines and theoretical approaches, but we are particularly interested in proposals that adopt a social determinants of health model, which allows for analysis of the complex ways in which environments produce and reproduce the conditions that create disparities in health. Proposals should also be geared towards successful knowledge mobilization: we are interested in critical, engaged theoretical work that is relevant to public policy and contributes to social transformation.

The proposals will be reviewed and the successful proposals will be chosen by a committee of the Advisory Board. The successful authors will present their papers in a pair of public lectures, to be hosted by York University, specifically including students from the Faculties of Environmental Studies, Health, Women's Studies and the Law school. At each lecture, three presenters will be joined on a panel by a commentator drawn from our Advisory Board.

Deadline: August 24, 2008

Rethink Breast Cancer is organizing this multi-platform festival will showcase films that cover the emotional spectrum of the disease, using the expressive and creative powers of film to engage and educate audiences in a new and significant way.

Breast Fest Film Festival is seeking entries for a short film competition. Both filmmakers and those touched by breast cancer, directly or indirectly, are invited to produce a short video, film, animation, or PSA that sheds light on the issues surrounding breast cancer and breast health.  We are looking for all kinds of entries, especially those that share a personal story. They don’t have to be professional, and could be made with a camcorder or even a cell phone!

All submissions to the short film competition will be reviewed by the 2008 Breast Fest Selection Committee, which includes industry experts from the Toronto International Film Festival and Hot Docs Festival. Selected shorts will be posted on the festival website in October, 2008, and the public will be asked to vote on their favourite. The finalists will be screened during the Breast Fest Film Festival, and the creator of the winning film will be flown to Toronto for the festival to share his or her thoughts with the audience.

Deadline : October 1, 2008

This volume, to be published October 2009, will explore how sexuality is learned, and how practices of sexuality configure themselves in different social and cultural environments. Most contemporary studies of sexuality are semiotic approaches -- that is, they discuss sexuality in relation to discourses. This volume intends to look at the pragmatics of sex, i.e. taking sexuality as a form of action inscribed within specific systems of interactions and interlocutions and mediated through objects.

Propositions of articles either in English or French (title + 250 words abstract) should be sent to both to the editorial board of the journal, Joël Noret and to the guest editors of the journal issue, David Berliner and Cathy Herbrand.

Information for authors available on Civilisations site.

Breast reconstruction is being recognized increasingly as an important part of complete breast cancer care. A research group in the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Dalhousie University is looking into ways of optimizing reconstructive surgery for breast cancer survivors.

Researchers have developed an online survey designed to determine preferences about breast reconstruction for women who have undergone a mastectomy and reconstruction and next face a mastectomy on the other breast. The survey takes less than two minutes and is preceded by an explanatory video by principal investigator Dr. Leif Sigurdson.

The Department of Health is now accepting applications for membership on the "The Midwifery Regulatory Council," which will regulate the practice of midwifery in Nova Scotia, to serve and protect the public. The Atlantic Centre for Excellence in Women's Health is encouraging women from equity-seeking communities and organizations to apply and is offering assistance with filing application forms.

The Midwifery Regulatory Council is a Non-Adjudicative Agency, Board or Commission (ABC). 

For more information contact Karen Robb or visit Executive Council Office website.

The McGuinty Government is expected to make an announcement shortly regarding the homecare system in Ontario.

The moratorium on the privatization practice known as "competitive bidding" may be lifted, opening the door to further erosion of service. Or the provincial government may entrench long term for-profit privatization in homecare.

Competitive bidding and privatization have been deeply damaging already, and if reintroduced in homecare will likely spread to more social services and other areas of health care.

Our action now can make a difference to reform homecare and keep it public.

More information on this urgent call to action from the Ontario Health Coalition can be found on their website or by contacting them by e-mail.

If you are expecting your first baby, we request your participation by completing this survey.

You are invited to participate in this National Maternity Care Attitudes and Beliefs study, funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research and supported by professional associations representing Obstetricians, Family Doctors, Midwives, Nurses, and Doulas.  Through this research project we seek to gain a better understanding of the attitudes and beliefs of women who are expecting their first baby as well as the views of maternity care-givers.  We are interested in learning more about how women and care-providers think about key issues and challenges concerning maternity care in Canada.

This on-line questionnaire will take approximately 10 minutes to complete.  To request a paper questionnaire, please call us at: 1-866-523-3360 or send an email.  info@maternitycare.ca

Please sign an open statement opposing Bill C-484, the "Unborn Victims of Crime Act".

To Organizations: To sign, please send an email with your organization's name in both French and English to joyce@arcc-cdac.ca More information is available on-line.

Note: Individuals should sign the online petition.

Deadline: October 1, 2008

 In many nations the economic and political changes associated with increasing economic globalization have been seen as heightening social inequalities with potential negative effects on health outcomes.  This has led to a flurry of research and policy activity concerned with reducing these social and health inequalities.

Such activity has taken two separate but related forms.  The first is an increased interest in what is termed the social determinants of health.  These factors are identified as the economic and social factors that shape health. Much of this work has been concerned with specifying the parameters by which these social determinants of health come to shape health.  It has been less concerned with identifying the political, economic, and social forces that shape the quality of these social determinants of health.

The second form of work specifies the political, economic, and social forces that shape these social determinants of health and how these forces represent systematic inequalities in power and influence within a society. This work is explicitly concerned with the political economy of health and devotes attention to issues of public policy and its development, the sources of public policy development, and the means by which these forces can be influenced in the service of health.

Papers are invited that will draw upon these two areas of research activity and should focus on various aspects of how social inequalities come about and how they are linked to health outcomes.

Manuscripts should not exceed 30 double-spaced pages of text plus notes and should follow the American Sociological Association guidelines.   Papers should be submitted via email to Dennis Raphael.