The 2022 Sociology Annual Lecture will take place on Thursday, March 3 at 4 p.m. with Professor Emerita Pat Armstrong to discuss “Feminist Political Economy: A Promising Approach to Public Sociology.” The lecture will explore the meaning of a feminist political economy and how it can contribute to the struggle for social justice in present day.
While at York University, Armstrong served as Chair of the Department of Sociology. She also helped found the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health, where she served as as acting director, before being titled Chair of Women and Health Care Reform. She also worked as a Chair for the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation/Canadian Institutes of Health Research in Health Services and Nursing Research and as a research associate for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). In 2010, Armstrong was named a York University Distinguished Research Professor and in 2011 was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2017, Armstrong was awarded York University’s Faculty of Graduate Studies Postdoctoral Supervisor of the Year Award. As a Distinguished Research Professor at the University, Armstrong helped begin a project called “Re-imagining Long-Term Residential Care: An International Study of Promising Practices” which searched for solutions to problems residents and care providers faced in long-term care.
Armstrong served as a principal investigator of this 10-year study funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). In 2018, she was named a recipient of the YWCA Toronto Women of Distinction in the category of Health & Education. Most recently, Armstrong co-authored a report for the CPPA: “Re-imagining Long-term Residential Care in the COVID-19 Crisis.”
Focusing on the fields of social policy, women, work and the health and social services, she is an author, co-author and editor of more than 25 books and dozens of book chapters and journal articles. Some of her published works include The Privatization of Care: The Case of Nursing Homes (Routledge, 2020); Wash, Wear and Care: Clothing and Laundry in Long-Term Residential Care (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017); Troubling Care: Critical Perspectives on Research and Practices (Canadian Scholars, 2013); Critical to Care: The Invisible Women in Health (University of Toronto Press, 2008) and more. Much of Armstrong’s work makes the relationship between women’s paid and unpaid work central to the analysis and is carried out in partnership with unions and community organizations.
The event will take place online and is open to all York community members. Following the presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To participate in the upcoming lecture, click here.