Gordon David Laxer

  General Information:

THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION WAS COPIED DIRECTLY FROM THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE:

http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/sociology/laxer.cfm


Gordon Laxer is the Director of Parkland Institute, a progressive, non-corporate, Alberta research network that studies public policy alternatives. He has been a political economist in the Sociology Department at the University of Alberta since 1982. He is principal investigator for a five-year, $1.8 million research project on Neo-liberal Globalism and its Challengers: Reclaiming the Commons in the Semi-Periphery: Canada, Mexico, Australia and Norway, principally funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Laxer is the author of Open for Business: The Roots of Foreign Ownership in Canada, for which he received the 1992 John Porter Award for the best book written about Canada, from the Canadian Association of Sociology and Anthropology (CSAA). He edited Perspectives on Canadian Economic Development, co-edited The Trojan Horse: Alberta and the Future of Canada and has authored 15 academic articles and book chapters.

Laxer is a socially-engaged public intellectual who has been involved in issues of Canadian economic sovereignty, social and economic transformation, developing a better accommodation with Quebec, opposing the New Right and building bottom-up democracy. He was the first chairperson of the "Waffle" movement in Toronto in 1969, and in 1985, was the first head of the Council of Canadians in Edmonton.

Research Interests
Canadian political economy, globalism and development, comparative study of nationalisms, comparative and historical studies, public policy.

Selected Recent Publications
(R) indicates refereed publication

(R) "The Movement that Dare not Speak its Name: The Return of Left Nationalism/Internationalism." Alternatives Journal (2001): 1-32.

(R) "Surviving the Americanizing New Right", Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology. (February 2000): 55-73.

The Trojan Horse: Alberta and the Future of Canada (co-edited with Trevor Harrison) (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1995).

(R) Special issue editor of Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology on globalisation 32, no. 3 (August 1995).

Perspectives on Canadian Economic Development: Class, Staples, Gender and Elites (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991).

Open for Business: The Roots of Foreign Ownership in Canada. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989).

Selected Grants/Awards
2000-2005 Principal Investigator Globalism and its Challengers SSHRC major collaborative initiative (MCRI) $1,400,000 + $400,000 funding from the Universities of Alberta and British Columbia

2001 Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute lecture tour of India on political economy

1994-1995 McCalla Research Professorship, University of Alberta

1992 John Porter Award (distinguished contribution to sociological literature in Canada) Awarded for Open for Business. The Roots of Foreign Ownership in Canada Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association

Editorships

1995-1997 Editorial Board, University of Toronto Press series on Studies in Comparative Political Economy and Public Policy <http://www.utppublishing.com/>

1993-1996 Associate editor, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology

1991-1993 Associate editor, Canadian Journal of Sociology

Selected Other Professional Service

1997-2000 Co-organiser of six major conferences at Parkland Institute

1996- Director and founder of Parkland Institute, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta

1993- Research Associate, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Ottawa

1993- Organizer of "Canadian Identities in an Era of Globalization," University of Alberta

1993-1994 Associate Chair (Graduate), Sociology Department, University of Alberta

1992-1993 Acting Chair, Canadian Studies Program, University of Alberta

1986 Organiser of "A Debate on Canadian Independence: Perspectives from the 1980s," University of Alberta.

Gordon married Judith Victoria Beirs on 31 Mar 1973 in Toronto, Ontario. (Judith Victoria Beirs was born on 7 Nov 1942 in Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A..)