Université de Montréal

Faculty Member, Sociology

Associate Professor

About

I am a tenured Associate Professor of Sociology at Université de Montréal and was the director-founder of the Intersectionality Research Unit at Centre for Ethnic Studies of Montreal Universities (CEETUM) between 2005-2010. Besides teaching graduate/undergraduate courses on gender and sexualities, ethnic relations, and postcolonial theory, I supervise currently ten graduate students. My Ph.D. thesis, Post-migratory Ethnic Communalisations: The Case of 'Turks' in Montreal, published in French (2004), won the inaugural Best Doctoral Thesis Award in Canadian Studies, given by the International Council for Canadian Studies. 
My current work engages with the intertwined politics of gender, sexuality and race within the context of nationalism, what I tentatively call: the new politics of racialized sexualities and sexual(ized) nationalisms. I have co-organized a regular session and a panel at the XVIIth ISA World Congress of Sociology (Gothenburg, July 2010) on the theme: Confronting the Politics of Racialized Sexualities: (1) On Regulating Minority Gender Relations and Sexualities ; (2) From Hetero- to Homonationalism.
My research projects deal with the intersections of social formations of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class, and examine precisely how notions of national/ethnic sameness and otherness articulate themselves through gender and sexual regulation. The empirical field of this inquiry has been carried out through my funded projects dealing with conjugal aspirations and matrimonial practices among Montreal youth of migrant background. I have recently obtained a new federal funding for a research project entitled "Migrant Masculinities and Western Imaginaries: An Intersectional Study of a Contemporary Representational Regime". My recent works on feminist theorizations of intersectionality; judicial treatment of the violence against racialized women; the conceptualization of minority women’s agency; the analysis of Canadian jurisprudence on intersectional discrimination; and the racialisation of minority gender and sexualities in the context of Quebec are published in various scientific journals. I have also co-edited (with Ann Denis) a thematic issue for the Journal of Intercultural Studies (February 2010) on "Women, Intersectionality and Diasporas", and (with Barbara Thériault) a special issue for Sociologie et Sociétés, on “Border-crossers”. I am a member of and contribute regularly to two Research Committees within ISA (International Sociological Association): RC32 (Women in Society) and RC05 (Racism, Nationalism and Ethnic Relations), by organizing joint workshops and presenting my research results. I have recently become an elected member of the Executive Committee of RC05, and an elected member, the regional representative for Canada, of RC32.
SEE my webpage: http://sirmabilge.blogspot.com/ for further details on my research, publications and teaching activities.
A shorter presentation is also available at my Web page at the Sociology Department of Université de Montréal: http://www.socio.umontreal.ca/departement/personnel/BilgeSirma.html

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