Mark Shakespear is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of British Columbia. He completed his MA in Sociology at the University of Victoria, and BA in Sociology at the University of Guelph.

Grounded in environmental, cultural, and political sociology, Mark’s research has three primary foci: 1) Environmental sustainability and inequality: How efforts to address environmental issues can combine with efforts to address social inequality, and how unequal social relations influence the distribution of positive and negative environmental outcomes. 2) Social construction of the environment: How meanings and frames concerning the environment, environmental issues such as climate change, and responses to those issues, vary across and influence social contexts and relations. 3) Polarization: How to address unhealthy polarization/conflict, foster relationships and solidarity across political divides, and advance solutions to politically-charged issues like climate change.

His independent research has examined how various actors in Canada frame their use of renewable energy to foster differing energy transition strategies and political economic and society-nature relations, and how the costs and benefits from mineral extraction and consumption of renewable energy are unequally distributed across the world-system. His dissertation research explores how coalitions of participants at UNFCCC COP meetings frame climate-related issues, make identity claims about themselves and other actors, and how these frames and discourse coalitions have changed across COP meetings.

Mark’s collaborative research has been published in the Canadian Journal of Sociology; Canadian Review of Sociology; Children, Youth, and Environments; and Critical Sociology.

Mark’s Google Scholar Profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=kIt9xKMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Tindall, David, Mark Shakespear, and Bob Edwards. (forthcoming). “Social Capital and Social Movements: Creating and Accessing Resources Through Social Structures.” In The Handbook on Inequality and Social Capital. Steve McDonald et al. (Eds.).

Chen, David, Jason A. Miller, and Mark Shakespear. 2023. “Critical Han studies through the lens of internal colonialism: China, Guangdong, and Hong Kong.” Critical Sociology.

Carroll, William K., Nicolas Graham, and Mark Shakespear. 2021. “Mapping the environmental field: Networks of foundations, ENGOs and think tanks.” Canadian Review of Sociology, 58(3): 284-305.

Carroll, William K., Nicolas Graham, and Mark Shakespear. 2020. “Foundations, ENGOs, clean growth networks and the integral state.” The Canadian Journal of Sociology, 45(2): 109-142.

Shakespear, Mark, Jeji Varghese, and Rosanne Morris. 2020. “‘We are nature’: Exploring nature conceptualizations and connections through children’s photography.” Children, Youth and Environments 30(2): 1-29.

2024-2025. Graduate Student Fellowship – Centre for Computational Social Science, University of British Columbia (UBC).

2023-2025. Doctoral Fellowship – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

2022. Canadian Review of Sociology Journal Best Article Award – Canadian Sociological Association.

2022-2024. Killam Doctoral Scholarship – Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Fund for Advanced Studies.

2022-2025. Four Year Doctoral Fellowship – School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, UBC.

2019-2020. Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, Master’s – SSHRC.