RC46 gave its first awards on August 3 at the 2012 ISA Forum in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Three awards were presented – the Lifetime Achievement Award, Outstanding Early Career Award and Distinguished Book Award.
Lifetime Achievement Award in Clinical Sociology
This Lifetime Achievement Award honors a colleague whose research and/or practice has significantly contributed to advances within clinical sociology. The award recognizes exceptional merit.
The first RC46 Distinguished Career Award was given to Robert Sévigny (Canada), professor emeritus at the University of Montreal and first president of our organization, for his exceptional contributions to the field of clinical sociology. Letters of nomination noted that Sévigny is one of the pioneers in formally establishing clinical sociology within the ISA and in Quebec, Canada where he was the main organizer of two international clinical sociology conferences in 1990 and 1991. Sévigny also played “a decisive role” in collaborating with those who developed clinical sociology in France and other countries. Sévigny “accomplished numerous groundbreaking achievements, assuming with integrity and dedication… various roles and responsibilities.” He is described as a “pioneer and visionary” in co-founding a multi-disciplinary research and training center within a front-line health and social services organization in the early 1990s in Montreal. The center has grown to more than 50 university researchers and, each year, they carry out about 80 research projects, give approximately 60 training seminars for practitioners and produce numerous publications and conferences. Sévigny, the center’s first scientific director, developed an organization “steeped in the clinical sociology tradition (that is) a living legacy and testimony to (his) work, knowledge and wisdom.” Robert Sévigny is considered “a major leader in the field of sociology, gaining respect from many sides, from (those) quite far from a clinical approach (as well as from those who) are close partners.”
Outstanding Early Career Award in Clinical Sociology
The award for an Outstanding Early Career in Clinical Sociology honors junior scholars who have shown outstanding commitment to clinical sociology and whose research has contributed in important ways to the advancement of the discipline.
The 2012 award was given to Olga Guzhva, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology of Management and Social Work at the V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukraine). Those nominating Olga noted her “energy and initiative.” She is the editor of Studies of Changing Societies, an international, multi-disciplinary on-line journal. She also is the deputy editor of SOCIOIIPOCTIP, an on-line research journal connected to sociology and social work. Olga has many publications. One colleague noted Olga’s “linguistic, analytical and methodological prowess” and described her work in the area of security as “innovative.” Another colleague said Olga provides “deep theoretical insight, methodological precision and excellent analysis…” in her studies of political leadership, social security and corruption. One of her colleagues noted that Olga “is truly on the path to becoming a young global leader.”
Distinguished Scholarly Book Award in Clinical Sociology
The Distinguished Scholarly Book Award honors a recent book in the field of clinical sociology.
The 2012 award was given to International Clinical Sociology. The book provides essential information (conceptual and theoretical approaches, research methods, history of the field in different regions) as well as introduces many areas of application. The volume, published by Springer, contains the work of 22 authors and co-authors from 9 countries. The book was edited by Jan Marie Fritz, a professor at the University of Cincinnati in the United States, and includes chapters by a number of RC46 members including Jacques Rhéaume (Canada), Vincent de Gaulejac (France), Yuji Noguchi (Japan), Anastasia-Valentine Rigas (Greece), Andriani Papadaki (Greece), Robert Sévigny (Canada), A. Halim Wan (Malaysia), and Walda Katz Fishman (US). Those nominating the book noted that the editor had “assembled a first class group of authors” and that the volume “expresses, with completeness, the achieved maturity of the specialization” and “represents a significant contribution in the development of sociology.”
clinical-sociology.org 