Meet our research team
Mervyn Horgan
Mervyn Horgan is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, a core faculty member of the PhD Program in Social Practice and Transformational Change, Affiliated Faculty with the Graduate Programs in Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University Guelph, and Faculty Fellow of the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. He has published widely on public space, strangers, social interaction, cultural sociology, stigmatization and social theory. He is the Principal Investigator on the SSHRC-funded sociable cities project.
Saara Liinamaa
Saara Liinamaa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph. As a cultural and urban sociologist, her research and publications examine how individuals and organizations navigate conditions of uncertainty in contemporary urban life, with a stress on the contributions of urban art and cultural practices to the imagination and realization of social change. She is a co-investigator on the sociable cities project. See her full profile at: https://socioanthro.uoguelph.ca/people/saara-liinamaa
Thomas McIlwraith
Thomas McIlwraith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and affiliated with the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute, the PhD Program in Social Practice and Transformational Change, and the One Health Institute. McIlwraith is a cultural anthropologist and ethnographer working with Indigenous peoples in British Columbia, Canada, to document territoriality and places, food and resource harvesting practices, and to recognize the Indigenous rights to land. This often means using ethnographic methods to understand contemporary Indigenous land use in the context of mining and logging. McIlwraith is also interested in storytelling, oral traditions, and life history research. Related work includes research with the Canadian Camping Association to confront issues related to cultural appropriation at children’s summer camps.
Katie K. MacLeod
Katie K. MacLeod recently completed her PhD in Social Anthropology at Dalhousie University where her research explored how gender and community spaces contributed to the reproduction of ethnicity, language, and culture in a rural Acadian community in Nova Scotia. Her research and publications have explored the role of community, kitchen spaces and schools in sustaining Acadian identities, minority identities and histories in Atlantic Canada, and Indigenous community economic development. Her research interests include public spaces, ethnic identities, nationalism, gendered labour, and community. She is a Postdoctoral Fellow on the sociable cities project.
Meng Xu
Meng Xu is a Sociology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Guelph. He holds a BA and an MA in Sociology from Minzu University of China, and his areas of research interest include interactionism, public space, and consumption. Meng`s research will focus on the social and cultural implications of everyday interactions in commercialized public spaces in contemporary Chinese society. He is currently a Research Assistant on the sociable cities project.
Devan Hunter
Devan Hunter is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Guelph. Previously, she completed both her BA in Criminal Justice and Public Policy, as well as her MA in Sociology at the University of Guelph. Additionally, she holds a Certificate in Food Security from Ryerson University. Her MA work focused on values, meanings and lifestyle practices of vegans and how gender identity intersected with this. Currently, she is interested in intergenerationality, copresence in everyday life, embodiment, critical social theory and community-based arts organizations. She is a Research Assistant on the sociable cities project.
Edith Wilson
Edith Wilson is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Guelph. Her master’s research focused on “washrooms for customers only” rules in Toronto, and the implications of those rules for public services and spaces. Her other research interests include housing; harm reduction; stigmatization; solidarity; and the commons. She is a Research Assistant on the sociable cities project.
Past research team
Kaitlin Wynia Baluk
Kaitlin Wynia Baluk completed a postdoctoral fellow in McMaster’s Department of Health, Aging, and Society (2022). As a researcher-in-residence at Hamilton Public Library, she helped to facilitate research partnerships between McMaster faculty and the library. Her research interests include public library partnerships, public space, social infrastructure, and public art. As a Research Associate on the sociable cities project, she contributed to the development of our research on public libraries.
Sofia Meligrana
Sofia Meligrana completed her MA in Sociology at the University of Guelph (2022). She previously attended the University of Ottawa for joint honours in Communications and Sociology. Her MA thesis focused on ethnic minority responses to cultural (mis)appropriation in Canada. As a Research Assistant on the sociable cities project, she contribute to our research and publications on ice rinks and the impacts of the pandemic on public spaces.
Amanda Dakin
Amanda Dakin completed her MA in Sociology at the University of Guelph (2021). Her SSHRC-funded thesis, titled The Subtle Art of Exclusion: An Examination of Hostile Urban Design in Guelph, Ontario, examines how homeless persons are excluded from the public realm through the use of the outdoor built environment. As a Research Assistant on the sociable cities project, she contributed to our research and publications on ice rinks and the impacts of the pandemic on public space.
Harrison Jedan
Harrison Jedan is a Public Issues Anthropology MA student at the University of Guelph. He previously attended York University, receiving a BA Honours in Anthropology. His research interests include public space, social interaction, accessibility, and gender. Harrison’s MA project ethnographically explores skateparks to examine the intersection between design, community engagement, and accessibility of public spaces. As a Research Assistant on the sociable cities project, he contributed to our research on skateparks.
Aliesha Lewis
Aliesha Lewis is an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph. She is currently studying Sociology and Criminal Justice and Public Policy. Her research interests include the impact of public policy and governance on social spaces, representation amongst marginalized communities, as well as the different perceptions surrounding social awareness and change. As a Research Assistant on the sociable cities project, she contributed to our research on skateparks and public libraries.
The sociable cities research team acknowledges that we live and work on traditional, unceded, and/or treaty lands of First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples. We are hosted on the Dish with One Spoon territory, the treaty land and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, and Between the Lakes Purchase (Treaty 3). For thousands of years, this was the land of Attawandaron peoples, and eventually, the Anishnaabe, Haudenosaunee and Métis. Additionally, our team conducts research in the traditional territories of the Chippewa and Huron-Wendat, covered by Treaty 13 and the Williams Treaties. As we strive to strengthen our relationship with Indigenous peoples, we recognize that our work, which is centred on solidarity and place-based connection, has much to learn from Indigenous peoples of past, present and future. We express our deepest gratitude to the Indigenous peoples who share this land with us and from whom we continue to learn.
