Six FASS Researchers Awarded SSHRC Insight Development Grants
Congratulations to the following FASS researchers who were awarded Insight Development Grants by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in the February 2025 competition!
Norhan Elsaadawy (Psychology) will examine the fundamental question of why people care about the impressions they make on others. Despite the abundant self-help advice to not care what others think, the human need to belong and maintain social bonds means that caring is likely the norm and that in day-to-day life, the average person is motivated to consider what others think of them. Little, however, is known about the underlying function of these meta-perceptual functions and when they come online. Elsaadawy will test a novel framework of the reasons people consider the impressions they make, proposing three functions: to navigate interpersonal relationships, monitor their social status and navigate social hierarchies, and resolve underlying issues about their own identity.
Lori Jones (History) will use the predominant plague tract in premodern Europe – written by John of Burgundy c. 1365) – to test a research methodology that blends medical book history, manuscript studies, historical linguistics, and digital humanities. By identifying the textual and social relationships between extant copies of the tract and trace it’s geographic and “epistemic itinerary” between the 14th and 17th centuries, Jones will explore the factors that shaped where medical knowledge travelled and how it was altered as it moved. The project will not only contribute new knowledge about the text, but also about medicine, book trading routes, and knowledge exchange networks across premodern Europe.
Laura Madokoro (History) will make innovative contributions to pressing discussions about the relationship between empire, displacement, and settler colonialism. When and how do people who have been displaced, as citizens or forced migrants, make claims to settler belonging? Using autoethnography, oral history, and multi-sited archival research, Madokoro will interrogate the processes that led to the internment of Japanese Canadians and German Jews in Canada during the Second World War, placing family histories alongside larger histories of empire, displacement and settlement. In doing so, the project will articulate how negotiating histories of internment and displacement simultaneously reinforce and complicate the ways in which people have laid claim to place and belonging.
Fady Shanouda (Feminist Institute of Social Transformation) will lead an innovative research creation project to challenge exclusionary design paradigms and transform access to public life for fat individuals. Chairs are among the most common objects in public spaces, yet their design often excludes fat individuals. Societal narratives often blame individuals for their inability to conform to exclusionary modernist design limitations, perpetuating fatphobic ideologies instead of addressing systemic failures in design. This project investigates how “thickened design” can foster system change and transform access to public life for fat individuals by ultimately creating a community designed toolkit grounded in participant insights and apply it in the design build of a thickened chair.
Nassim Tabri (Psychology) will explore the construct of collective anti-mattering – the perception that one’s group is insignificant or undervalued by other groups or society. Individual anti-mattering (the perception of individual insignificance) has been shown to harm well-being, but it’s group-level counterpart remains unexplored. With a focus on Black Americans and 2SLGBTQI+ communities, Tabri will investigate how collective anti-mattering shapes intergroup relations, individual well-being, and collective action. By introducing and validating a new construct and developing tools to measure collective anti-mattering, the findings will provide actionable insights for promoting inclusivity, representation, and equity.
Michael Wohl (Psychology) will investigate how perceptions of defensiveness influence interpersonal interactions. Focusing on how attributions of defensiveness are formed, what factors influence them, and how they affect judgments and behaviours, this project will not only expand existing theories on perception and communication, but could have a wide variety of practical applications, including leadership training, counseling or mediation, and educators, healthcare providers and other organizational leaders seeking to foster clearer communication and stronger relationships.
The SSHRC Insight Development Grant supports research in its initial stages. It enables the development of new research questions, as well as experimentation with new methods, theoretical approaches and/or ideas.