Specialties:

health and society; health lifestyles; sociology of the body; social determinants of health; critical public health; complementary / alternative / integrative medicine; medical pluralism; multiculturalism; medical consumerism; medical error; mixed methods research; reflexive sociology

Degrees / Certificates:

Ph.D., University of Calgary, Sociology of Health, Medicine, and the Body, April, 2006.
University Teaching Certificate, University of Calgary, April, 2003.
Graduate Citation in University Teaching, University of Regina, December, 2001.
M.A., Sociology, University of Guelph, 1998.
University Teaching: Theory and Practice Certificate, University of Guelph, April, 1997.
B.A. (High Honours), Sociology and Psychology, University of Regina, 1996.

Teaching Areas:

Undergraduate:

At the undergraduate level, I regularly teach “Introduction to Sociology” (SOC 1200), “The Sociology of Health and Illness” (SOC 2490), "The Sociology of the Body" (SOC 2450) and “The Sociology of Health Care Systems” (SOC 3540).  

Graduate:

At the graduate level, I teach a seminar in “Issues in Health Care” (SOC 7370).  I am interested in supervising graduate students with interests in health sociology, broadly defined, and in serving on graduate student committees.  I have worked with the following honours and graduate students:

2012. Rachell Dolynchuk (Sociology). Member, Masters Thesis Committee. "Canada's Aging Population: Does Immigrant Status Matter?".

2011-2012 . Uliana Nevzorova (Psychology). Member, Masters Thesis Committee. "Self-Care Narratives by People with a Traumatic Brain Injury".

2011. Jill Bcklaschuk (Sociology). Member, Methods Ph.D. Comprehensive Exam Committee.

2009. Dan Wiebe (Sociology). "The Marijuana Menace: Changing Concepts of Risk in Public Health Discource".

2007. Sylvia Park (Sociology). "Many or One? Self-representation and Identity in L'Arche and DASCH Care Homes".

2007. Nadine Nowatzki (Sociology). Member, Health Sociology Ph.D. Comprehensive Exam Committee.

If you are interested in my teaching and courses, please click on the following link to read a Statement of Philosophy Informing my Teaching Practices (PDF) or feel free to contact me for copies of course syllabi. 

Research Interests:

In one of my favourite works of sociology, Invitation To Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective, Peter L. Berger describes the manner in which our identities are socially bestowed, socially maintained, and socially transformed by our lives in society (1963: 98-100). The cultural features of our locations in society affect our understandings of our self and our experiences. What I am interested in sociologically is how people’s location and experiences in the social world influence aspects of our beliefs and social behaviour, such as which healing practices we believe count as “health care”. How do the varying locations and identities of people influence health beliefs and health behaviours? Such issues involve issues of identity, power, and politics. These are topics that interest me from a sociological perspective and this is why I study health lifestyles and medical pluralism.

My research suggests that cultural pluralism and medical pluralism constitute two great pluralisms of our time. Their nexus forces us to consider an unthinkable question of our time: Amid a transnational context in which diversity, difference, and pluralism have become socially normative, what are the limits of pluralism? In explicating the connections of social location, the pursuit of health, and the negotiation of healing, my research seeks to provide a vista on this, an unthinkable question of our time.

The central pursuit of my research interests within the discipline has been to undertake research, which in the spirit of C. Wright Mill’s invocation in The Sociological Imagination (1959), seeks to elucidate the intersections between history and biography. In this effort, I employ both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and frequently make use of mixed methods research designs. I adopt a pluralistic approach to theory, having made extensive use of Bourdieu, Foucault, and Postcolonial theory in my published research.

The manner in which the issues of health, illness, and the body compel health sociologists to explore difficult questions (such as the relationship between bodies, behaviour, society, and health) means that health sociology lays at the heart of the sociological imagination. The understandings health sociologists generate about the nature of the relationship between the individual and society are central not just to the social study of health, but rather speak to all theoretical issues entailed in applying the sociological imagination to the study of society and culture. Simply stated, this means that a way to better understand society and culture is to better understand health, illness, and the human body. This is the task and the promise of the sociological imagination when applied to understanding the pursuit of health and wellness.

Recent Publications:

Books:

1. Christopher J. Fries and Alexander Segall, Healing Health Care Systems: A Complexity Approach, (under contract with University of Toronto Press).

2. Alexander Segall and Christopher J. Fries,  Pursuing Health and Wellness: Healthy Societies, Healthy People, (Oxford University Press, 2011, 408p.).

Refereed Journal Articles:

1. Christopher J. Fries (In press). "Self-care and Complementary and Alternative Medicine as Care for the Self: An Embodied Basis for Distinction". Health Sociology Review.

2. Christopher J. Fries and Paul Gingrich, (2011). “A ‘Great’ Large Family: Understandings of Multiculturalism among Newcomers to Canada”, Refuge: Canada’s Periodical on Refugees. 27(1):36-49

3. Christopher J. Fries, (2009). "Bourdieu's Reflexive Sociology as a Theoretical Basis for Mixed Methods Research: An Application to Complementary and Alternative Medicine", Journal of Mixed Methods Research. 3(4), pp. 326-348.

4. Christopher J. Fries, (2008). "Governing the Health of the Hybrid Self: Integrative Medicine, Neoliberalism, and the Shifting Biopolitics of Subjectivity", Health Sociology Review.  17(4), pp. 353-367. 

5. Christopher J. Fries, (2008). "A Family Physician Based Classification of Complementary and Alternative Medical Practices", Canadian Family Physician.  54(11), p. 1570-1578e.

6. Christopher J. Fries, (2005). "Ethnocultural Space and the Symbolic Negotiation of Alternative as ‘Cure’", Canadian Ethnic Studies.  37(1), pp. 87-100.

7. Christopher J. Fries, and James McNinch, (2003). "Signed Versus Unsigned Student Evaluations of Teaching: A Comparison", Teaching Sociology. 31(3), pp. 333-344.

8. Christopher J. Fries and Ken Menzies, (2000). "Gullible Fools or Desperate Pragmatists? A Profile of People Who Use Rejected Alternative Health Care Providers", Canadian Journal of Public Health.  91(3), pp. 217-219.

Book Chapters:

1. Christopher J. Fries (2012) "Ethnicity and the Use of "Accepted" and "Rejected" Complementary / Alternative Medical Therapies in Canada: Evidence from the Canadian Community Heath Survey", In J.J. Kronenfeld (ed.). Research in the Sociology of Health Care. (30): 113-1312. Emerald.

2. Brenda L. Lovell, Jamileh Daneshnia, and Christopher J. Fries, (2012). “Alternative and Complementary Medicine”, In S. Loue and M. Sajatovic (eds.). Encyclopedia of Immigrant Health. 31-47. Springer.

Public Sociology:

1. "Brian Sinclair Was 'Ignored to Death'", Opinion Editorial, The Huffington Post, September 23, 2011

2. "Name, Blame and Shame: 'Systems Thinking' a Threat to Patient Safety",  Opinion Editorial, Winnipeg Free Press, July 17, 2010 H11.

3. "Health Care? Sickness Care is More Like It: Here's Why More Spending Doesn't Equate with Longer Life", Opinion Editorial, Winnipeg Free Press, June 19, 2010 H12.

4. "Sinclair Victim of 'Medicalization'", Opinion Editorial, Winnipeg Free Press, May 22, 2010 A19. 

Grants and Awards:

2012 Faculty Access Award. Student Affairs, University of Manitoba.