Linda Christiansen-Ruffman is Professor Emerita of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Saint Mary’s University where she began in 1970 during her sociology PhD (1976) from Columbia University’s all-male department. Her early research on newcomers, women in Halifax and Labrador Straits, and community-based research gradually led to participatory&action methodologies and feminist grounded theorizing. She challenged concepts (leadership, politics and wealth) in “women’s community work.” Locally to internationally, she led women’s caucuses, organizations, conferences, and chaired the Social Science Federation of Canada’s Taskforce on the Elimination of Sexist Bias in Research (1986). She was selected by peers to head a feminist evaluation for Canada’s major academic funder (1991-3). Linda chaired the International Sociology Association’s Research Committee32 (Women in Society, 1991-1995). She served on the ISA executive (1994-2002) while also representing ISA at the UN and co-founding both Atlantic and Nova Scotia Women’s FishNet. She led and received prizes from the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW/ ICREF) and the Canadian Sociological and Anthropological Association, now CSA. When CSA established research clusters, she co-initiated the Feminist Sociology one (2013-present). She became part of a world-historical international research project that began without women, and she researched macro gendered relations and EuroPatriarchy’s development over the last millennium (see Wallerstein, 2015).
Reference note: Immanuel Wallerstein, Coordinator, The World is Out of Joint: World-Historical Interpretations of Continuing Polarizations, Boulder CO, Paradigm Publishers, 2015