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    Canadian Political Science Association
    2020 Annual Conference Programme

    Confronting Political Divides
    Hosted at Western University
    Tuesday, June 2 to Thursday, June 4, 2020
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    Presidential Address:
    Barbara Arneil, CPSA President

    Origins:
    Colonies and Statistics

    Location:
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 05:00pm to 06:00pm
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    KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
    Ayelet Shachar
    The Shifting Border:
    Legal Cartographies of Migration
    and Mobility

    Location:
    June 04, 2020 | 01:30 to 03:00 pm
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    Keynote Speaker: Marc Hetherington
    Why Modern Elections
    Feel Like a Matter of
    Life and Death

    Location:
    Wednesday, June 3, 2020 | 03:45pm to 05:15pm
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    Plenary Panel
    Indigenous Politics and
    the Problem of Canadian
    Political Science

    Location: Arts & Humanities Building - AHB 1R40
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 10:30am to 12:00pm

Teaching and Professional Practice



M10 - Encounters with the 'Real World'

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Andrew Owen (University of British Columbia)

Improving Political Science Coverage on Wikipedia: Samuel Baltz (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
Abstract: I document the takeaways from a series of events in the University of Michigan Political Science Department designed to improve the quality of political science coverage on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Wikipedia might be the most important source for communicating about political science with the public. Just the small set of political science-related articles that Wikipedia editors have classified as being "Vitally" important (such fundamental pages as “Politics”, “Political science”, “Election”, “Imperialism”, “Sovereignty”, and “Public Policy”) receive well over 20 million views every year. However, in Wikipedia's internal rating system, political science articles are among the very lowest-quality articles. Their rankings reflect a lack of expert attention, and limited temporal and regional coverage. That such high-importance pages have such limited and slanted coverage represents a problem for both communication and equity. So, the University of Michigan Graduate Association of Political Scientists held events where PhD students were taught how to improve Wikipedia articles related to their subfield expertise. I use editing history from the events to report on three outcomes: (1) How many changes are made to political science-related articles during the events, (2) How long those changes persist on Wikipedia without major revisions, and (3) Whether any participants continue to edit after participating who were not regular editors beforehand. I report several findings on how to effectively organize a Wikipedia editing event in the context of a political science department, with the goal of helping other departments hold similar events.


Let’s be Honest About Impact: Being a Reflexive Researcher: Telisa Courtney (University of Alberta), John Battye (University of Alberta)
Abstract: This paper will interrogate the role of reflexivity in community-based research. We aim to expose ways in which identity not only impacts upon research, but research impacts upon identity, in a mutually constitutive manner. Current literature advocates reflexivity and positionality but only insofar as it impacts interpretation and access to research data; little, if any, attention is paid to the ways in which research impacts the mental, emotional, and physical health of the researcher, and how this in turn impacts the research itself. These impacts are heightened for those who belong to one or more oppressed groups, including women/femme, BIPOC, disabled, and LGBTQ* researchers. There is a divide within the social sciences with regards to the extent to which researchers should be distant from their research. We take the position that no researcher can truly divorce themselves from the research context, particularly in community-based research. Drawing on experiences of our 2018 field research in a war-effected community in Northern Uganda, we will focus on forms of violence we experienced as members of intersectionally oppressed groups, the difficulties of allyship, and the strains placed on professional and personal relationships. These things compounded to impact heavily upon our research and outcomes. It is our position that this impact is not unique to this circumstance, and that the field would be better served with more open, honest conversations about it.




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