SSSP 2026 Annual Meeting
Date: Saturday, August 8
Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM
Budget, Finance, and Audit Committee, 2026-27
Room: Booth Boardroom
Date: Saturday, August 8
Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM
Institutional Ethnography
Room: Majestic Ballroom
Date: Saturday, August 8
Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM
THEMATIC
Session 048: Law in/as Crisis: Legal Consciousness and Rights Mobilization
Room: Broadway I
Sponsor: Law and Society
Organizers: Michael Branch, Hawaiʻi Community College
Sino V. Esthappan, Northwestern University
Presider: Michael Branch, Hawaiʻi Community College
Description: This session examines how legal consciousness shapes the mobilization, interpretation, and limits of rights claims across varied contexts. Moving between post-conflict justice, workplace equity, legal pluralism, and everyday dispossession, the papers analyze how people understand, invoke, and contest law in moments of uncertainty and structural inequality.
Papers:
“Law and Its (Dis)Contents: Legal Pluralism, Rule of Law, and Crisis in Post-Conflict Justice,” Miguel de Lemos, NOVA School of Law, Lisbon
“Mapping ‘The Overlay for the Underplay’: Abstract Law and Concrete Dispossession,” Nicole Trujillo-Pagan, Wayne State University
“Legal Pluralism, Legal Consciousness, and Mobilization: A Theoretical Examination of Women’s Rights,” Gift Onwuadiamu, University of Delaware
“Rewriting the Eligible Tenant: Modernizing Data Protection in a Data Driven Rental Housing Market,” Monti Glenia Taylor, Virgina Commonwealth University
“Emotion-First Theory and Practice: Emotional Intelligence as Foundational Infrastructure for Equity Practice,” Cherise Fanno Burdeen and Alison Bloomquist, EIDEIA Institute
“Perceptions of the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act among UCCS Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty,” Edwardo L. Portillos, Esther Lamidi, Lei Zhang and Haruki Eda, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Date: Saturday, August 8
Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM
SPECIAL
Session 049: Author Meets Critics: Anti-Racism as Communism by Paul Gomberg, Bloomsbury, 2024
Room: Broadway II
Sponsor: Program Committee
Organizer &
Presider: Alan J. Spector, Purdue University Northwest
Description: The author’s thesis is that capitalist society has processes and structures that create and perpetuate modern racism and as long as inequality exists, it will be impossible to eliminate racist practices and ideas. His use of the word “communism” is meant to express Marx’ definition of “From each according to ability, to each according to need.” The core of the book expresses optimism. The book gives example after example of black/white unity especially in the South, in workplaces and communities in the pre-WWII era. The second part of the book is more analytical as he develops his anti-capitalist, anti-classist argument. The optimism is an antidote to the psychological reductionism of some antiracists but Gomberg critiques narrow class reductionism as well.
Author:
Paul Gomberg, University of California, Davis
Critics:
David G. Embrick, University of Connecticut
Laura López-Sanders, Brown University
Johnny Eric Williams, Trinity College
Date: Saturday, August 8
Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM
Session 050: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Teaching Social Problems through Experiential Learning
Room: Broadway III
Sponsors: Conflict, Social Action, and Change
Teaching Social Problems
Organizer &
Presider/Discussant: Jessica S. Pearce, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Description: Addressing social problems and advocating for social justice requires research, collaboration, and innovation. This session focuses on the power and utility of experiential learning to teach about social problems in our classrooms and communities.
Papers:
“Advocacy and Change through Teaching,” Helen Rosenberg, University of Wisconsin-Parkside and Anne A. Statham, University of Southern Indiana
“Learning ‘Rurality’: Student Perceptions on Health, Family, and Institutional Power in North Louisiana,” Carlos N. Chapman II and Junior R. Hopwood, Grambling State University
“Letter Writing as a Feminist Pedagogical Practice,” Julia Gutierrez, Agnes Scott College
“Making Sociology Real for Online Students,” Jessica S. Pearce, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
“Practicing Power: Social Work Students and Advocacy Modalities,” Sara Terrana and Shahira Amin, Adelphi University
“Teaching at the Mexico-U.S. Border: Experiential Learning Through an Alternative Spring Break,” Patricia Sanchez-Connally, Framingham State University
“The Contention between Abolition as a Political Project and Abolition as Pedagogy,” Kayla M. Martensen, University of New Mexico and Libby Vigil, The University of New Mexico
“Time Banking in Class: Engaging Students in Mutual Aid and Community Creation,” Jacqueline Daugherty, Miami University
Date: Saturday, August 8
Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM
Session 051: Medicalization as a Social Problem: A Tool of Oppression and Resistance
Room: Manhattan
Sponsors: Disability, Mental Wellness, and Social Justice
Social Problems Theory
Organizers: Melinda Leigh Maconi, Moffitt Cancer Center
Lily Ivanova, University of British Columbia
Presider: Lily Ivanova, University of British Columbia
Description: Medicalization offers a diagnosis, an explanation, and, in some cases, even an identity to people with disabilities and mental illness. However, these same diagnoses can function as tools of oppression, used to control and disenfranchise bodies and minds deemed too different or inconvenient by those in power. This session explores how medicalization is socially constructed both as a mechanism of colonization and as a site of resistance, and considers the ways in which medicalization itself can be understood as a social problem.
Papers:
“‘I Could Take My Social Work Hat Off… but, within the Context of Capitalism, That Does Not Feel Like an Option’: Transgender Social Workers’ Experiences of Identity Management,” A.P. Spoth, Evergreen State College
“How Markets Make and Tame Emotions: The Struggle of Evaluating Diffuse Psychedelic Experiences,” Isak Ladegaard, University of Hong Kong
“Receiving a Psychiatric Diagnosis in Adolescence: Appropriation, Negotiation, and Identity Recomposition in Relation to Biomedical Discourse,” Marie-Laurence Bordeleau-Payer and Benazir Rachida Khalimat, University of Quebec
“Seeking Solidarity: An Examination of Villains and the Role a Diagnosis Plays in Posts by People with Chronic Illnesses in Online Spaces,” Melinda Leigh Maconi, Moffitt Cancer Center
“The Medicalization of Pregnancy on Social Media: Authority, Risk, and Lived Experience in Instagram Representations of Prenatal Genetic Testing,” Sara Tehrani, Sofia Lahsaini, Crystal Chanthasone, Donia Fouissi and Shannon K. Carter, University of Central Florida
“The Rhetoric and Ideology of Medical Mistrust: A Content Analysis of the Natural Childbirth Movement,” Jayla Gray-Thomas and Stella Petkova, Rutgers University
Date: Saturday, August 8
Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM
THEMATIC
Session 052: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Intersecting Margins: Comparative Health of African Diasporas and Racial Minorities in the Americas
Room: Melville
Sponsor: Health, Health Policy, and Health Services
Organizer &
Presider/Discussant: Raja Staggers-Hakim, University of Connecticut
Description: This session explores the comparative health outcomes of African diasporic and other racialized minority populations across the United States, Canada, and South America. Grounded in medical sociology and public health, and drawing on a comparative framework, presenters will analyze how intersections of race, region, and citizenship status shape health disparities between marginalized groups—including African diasporic, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian communities—and dominant populations. Case studies will include comparisons of African Americans and recent African immigrants in the U.S., as well as parallels in health challenges faced by Black Brazilians and Black Canadians, highlighting the structural, social, and transnational forces driving health inequities across the Americas.
Papers:
“Applying Racism Trauma Health Theory to Explore the Impact of Racism on Insulin Resistance and Mediating Correlates in Black Populations of the CARDIA Study,” Pu Zhao, Raja Staggers-Hakim and Ryan Talbert, University of Connecticut
“Colourism-Related Experiences, Skin Tone Preferences, and Skin-Lightening Behaviors in Young Adults,” Atinuke Arinola Ajani and Macellina Yinyinade Ijadunola, Obafemi Awolowo University
“Health Outcomes among Descendants of Enslaved Africans in the Americas and the Caribbean: The Importance of Slavery and the Persistence of Racism,” Raja Staggers-Hakim, University of Connecticut
“Reimagining Care and Wellness Support for Black Women: Addressing Collective Racial Trauma, Misogyny, and Violence in the Context of Post-COVID U.S. Society,” Shani K. Saxon, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Marya R. Sosulski, Michigan State University School of Social Work
Date: Saturday, August 8
Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM
Session 053: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Labor and Class I
Room: Palace
Sponsors: Labor Studies
Poverty, Class, and Inequality
Organizers: Leticia Morales, University of Southern California
Sara Maani, University of Bologna
Presider/Discussant: Leticia Morales, University of Southern California
Description: This session examines how labor and class intersect to shape lived experiences, social structures, and professional opportunities. Presenters highlight the dynamics of working-class life, the impact of precarity and contingent labor, and the ways class stratification intersects with race, gender, and migration. The papers foreground how class is reproduced, contested, and transformed within institutions and everyday life. Session I explores stratification, mobility, and social reproduction across education, care, migration, health, and policy regimes, showing how class positions are allocated, institutionalized, and reproduced over time. Session II focuses on labor processes, workplace organization, precarity, and lived experience. Papers analyze how work is structured, intensified, and governed across sectors, and how insecurity, health risks, and vulnerability emerge within specific settings.
Papers:
“‘Brain Drain’ vs. ‘Brain Circulation’: Skilled Migration and Capitalist Inequality in Bangladesh,” Arifa Akter, The University of Texas at El Paso
“Beyond the Class Ceiling: The ‘Institutional Floor’ and Elite Convergence in South Korea, 1960s–1980s,” HongJin Jo, The University of Chicago
“Beyond the Office: Exploring the Role of Job Satisfaction and Health Disparities in Teleworking,” Taylor D. Sumpter, University of Miami
“Examining the Role of Parental and Personal Education in Earnings Disparities for American Indians and Alaska Natives,” Kimberly R. Huyser, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Sofia Locklear, University of Toronto Mississauga, Madi Lou Abel, Gabriella M. Mota and Dara Shifrer, Portland State University, Ned Tilbrook, University of Arizona, Allison Laing and Mary G. Jessome, University of British Columbia
“Pricing Care Labor: A Computational Systematic Review of How Care Work Is Economically and Socially Devalued,” Waris Ahmad Faizi, Virginia Tech
“The ‘Woman Penalty’: Gender Inequality, Mental Health, and Work–Family Conflict in the United States,” Katherine Maich, Paula Cornejo-Abarca, Zoraya Berlanga Aguilar and Rafia Akter, Texas A&M University
Date: Saturday, August 8
Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM
Session 054: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Where We Belong: Community Responses to Exclusion and Harm in 2026
Room: Pearl
Sponsor: Community, Research, and Practice
Organizer &
Presider/Discussant: Sarah E. Stanlick, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Description: Many communities are facing divisions over what or who “belongs” and where; what and whose history should be memorialized and how; and what and whose futures are invested in and why. Questions of belonging have been further complicated in the current political moment. This session centers on contested places shaped by legacies of exclusion, violence, and threats to well-being that result from the devaluation of certain people and communities and, concurrently, the places they inhabit. The papers in this session explore how communities are responding to place-based harms, including activist and grassroots efforts, NGO initiatives, and state-sponsored policies.
Papers:
“A Place to Belong: Homelessness and the Counter Third Space,” Sara Brallier and Stephanie Southworth, Coastal Carolina University
“Conflicting Ethnographies of Unhoused Communities on Manhattan’s West Side: A Spectrum Theory of Cooperation and Competition,” Minseung Kim, Independent Scholar
“From the Ground Up: A Relational Account of Migration Governance in Chicago, 2022–2025,” Sophia Costa, The University of Chicago
“Hanging Out or Staying In: Belonging and Exclusion in the Social Life of Students on a Small Rural Campus,” Michael O. Johnston, William Penn University
“Legal Inclusion, Spatial Exclusion: Housing Vouchers and Source-of-Income Laws,” Zehra Sahin Ilkorkor, Virginia Commonwealth University
“Segregated Pasts, Fragmented Presents: Historical Spatial Exclusion and Its Impact on the Contemporary Relationship between Racial Diversity and Social Capital,” Victor Tan Chen, Virginia Commonwealth University, Giemyung Lee and Myeong Lee, George Mason University, Alex Mikulas, University of Colorado Boulder and Sara A. Peters, University of Wisconsin–Madison
“Solidarity in the Streets: Community, Support, and Tensions among Street Vendors in Shared and Contested Spaces,” Arianna Quetzal Vargas, Santa Clara University
“Symbolic Violence and Trans* Kids in Rural Texas,” Nicole Kraus and Shanna Peeples, West Texas A&M University
Date: Saturday, August 8
Time: 12:30 PM - 2:10 PM
Session 055: State of Policing I
Room: Plymouth
Sponsor: Crime and Justice
Organizers &
Presiders: Jennifer M. Carpenter, Georgia State University
Kelly M. Tabbutt, Alfred University
Description: This session welcomes work across the spectrum of perspectives on policing. This includes challenges to effective crime control as well as concerns arising from policing practices themselves. Contributions may range from analyses of police abolition and disparate police involvement (overpolicing) to examinations of insufficient police responsiveness (underpolicing) to victimization within marginalized communities. Topics may address effective policing and questions about the necessity and value of policing, particularly in relation to misuse of force, bias in surveillance, interactions and interrogation practices, and carceral system capture (e.g., arrest). Discussions of the criminalization of immigration and the expanded enforcement powers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement are also welcome.
Papers:
“‘Chinatown Will Not Be Easy Pickings’: Private Investments in Policing in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, 1972–2000,” Victoria Tran, University of California, Los Angeles
“Benign Neglect and the Differential Policing of Racially Motivated Hate Crime in America,” Jack Mitchel Mills, Brendan Lantz, Maeve E. Donnelly and Marin Ruth Wenger, Florida State University
“From Enemy Criminal Law to Necropolitics: Legal Mechanisms of Social Death in Brazil,” Nina P. Lins, University of Fortaleza
“Rotted Roots or Bad Apples?: The Value of Institutional Theory for Understanding ICE Operations under the Trump Administration,” Janelle M. Pham, Oglethorpe University
“The Fire This Time: How Policing Holds Together Race, Space, and Time,” Korey Tillman, Northeastern University
“Use of Social Media in Police Operations and Practices in Nigeria,” Muhammed Faisol Olaitan, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology
