The Politics of Division: Conflict, Community, Curriculum

The 2026 Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) Annual Conference

Ottawa, Canada

June 2-4, 2026

The 2026 Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) Annual Conference took place at the University of Ottawa, on the unceded territory of the Omamìwìnini Anishnàbeg (Algonquin) Nation. This year’s theme, “The Politics of Division: Conflict, Community, Curriculum,” invited scholars to examine how fractures (political, social, epistemic) are reshaping governance and public life in a global moment increasingly defined as a “hinge point”. With divisions intensifying across geopolitical landscapes, democratic institutions, and even university classrooms, CPSA 2026 asked political scientists to confront how these tensions shape both the world and the discipline.

Full Programme

This conference brought together hundreds of scholars across Canadian politics, comparative politics, international relations, and gender studies. With 289 panels and events, 34 roundtables, and keynote sessions ranging from Lisa Raitt’s breakfast talk on trade to Chief Sipi Flamand’s address on Atikamekw self‑determination, the conference offered a panoramic view of political science’s evolving concerns. Amid this rich intellectual landscape, my presentation, Negotiating Gender in a Divided Climate Regime, explored how gender is negotiated, symbolically and materially, within global climate governance.

At a conference where panels such as “The State and the Gendered Body” and “On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Relations and Resistances” foregrounded embodied politics and structural inequalities, the conversation around climate governance felt deeply connected. Climate change is not gender-neutral; as I emphasized in my talk, “impacts of climate change always disproportionately affect women and girls.” This framing shaped the analysis of COP30’s Gender Action Plan (GAP) and the broader Lima Work Programme on Gender (LWPG), both of which aim to integrate gender considerations into climate policy.

Drawing on symbolic interactionism, I examined how actors at COP construct meaning around gender—how negotiators, observers, and state representatives define what “gender” is in climate contexts, and how these definitions shape policy outcomes. The triad of actor, object, and reactor becomes a useful lens: gender is not a static category but an object continually interpreted and reinterpreted through interaction.

I reflected on COP30 as a performance: from the World Leaders Summit to accommodation pricing, letters from the Presidency, and the Brazilian Mutirão tradition of collective effort. These elements reveal how climate negotiations are not only technical but theatrical, staged events that communicate power, legitimacy, and global solidarity.

The CPSA conference underscored how gender, climate, and global governance intersect across disciplines. As climate impacts intensify, integrating gender meaningfully, not symbolically, into climate policy becomes not just a normative goal but a practical necessity. The challenge is ensuring that the Gender Action Plan moves beyond performance toward transformative action.