Positions
Education
Teaching Areas
Undergraduate Programs
- Psychology
- Sociology
Graduate Studies
- Sociology, MA
Graduate Supervision
Accepting Students for Supervision
Supervised Theses / Projects
- Exploring Sociometry and Social Comparison Theory from an Interactionist Social Psychological Perspective.
- The Role of Social Media During the Arab Spring.
- The Dehumanization of Romeo Dallaire: A New Institutional Approach to Understanding Recoupling Processes Within the United Nations.
- Childrearing, Inequality, and ADHD: Towards a Microsociological Theory of Concerted Cultivation.
- Strategic Losing as Impression Management in Professional Sport.
- Gender Dynamics within Running Fitness Subcultures.
- Protecting Narrative and Controlling Chance in Serious Leisure Subcultures.
- Misinformation as Deviance Management During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
- Policing and Mental Health Training: Therapy vs Security.
Research
Research Interests
Benjamin Kelly is an associate professor of Sociology and Psychology at Nipissing University. His research interests include social theory and social psychological inquiry into; 1)how people experience, define, and adapt to status fluctuation and constraint within groups, subcultures, occupations, organizations, and everyday life; 2) the social interaction, interpretation, and claims-making activity associated with the legitimization of expert knowledge, risk, deviance and social problems; 3) how individuals and groups adjust to the various social, political, and economic consequences embedded within legitimation processes.
Current Research Projects / Labs
Benjamin sits on the editorial board of the Canadian Review of Sociology and has published in Personality and Individual Differences, Archives of Sexual Behaviour, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, The Sociological Quarterly, Symbolic Interaction, The American Sociologist, Qualitative Sociology Review, Frontiers in Sociology, Anthropologica and Studies in Symbolic Interaction. He is currently researching psychosis, neurosis and identity formation within the context of parasocial relationships with Artificial Intelligence.
Grants & Funding
- 2015-2016
- Co-Investigator, “Contested Waters: Exploring the Lived Experience of Water Quality Risks in an Anishinaabe Community in Northern Ontario“ SSHRC Insight Development
- Highlighted as “game-changing” research with Research Matters Ontario.
- http://yourontarioresearch.ca/game-changer/understanding-water-risks/
- 2015-2016
- Co-Investigator, “Creating Opportunities for Knowledge Mobilization and Coherence Among Indigenous Communities and Researchers.” “NSERC: Canadian Water Network
- 2013-2015
- Co-Investigator, “Sustainable water and wastewater treatment systems through a bottom-up participatory technology development process - A case study in three Indigenous communities in Canada.“ NSERC: Canadian Water Network
- 2012 Co-Investigator, “Sustainable wastewater treatment systems through a bottom-up
- participatory technology development process - A case study in northern First Nations communities in Ontario.”,NSERC: Canadian Water Network
- 2012 Co-Principle Investigator, “Leveraging of Public Investments in HERD: A Synthesis of the Triple Helix Literature”, SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant
Open to Media Inquiries
Publications
Dokis, C., Restoule, R., & Kelly, B. (2025) ‘Contested waters: Political ontologies of water and the production of risk in First Nations water systems.’ Anthropologica Smith, T., & Kelly, B. (2024) ‘Public discourse and wilful incommensurability: A case for attentive free speech.’ Frontiers in Sociological Theory Desrochers, J., Mackinnon, M., Kelly,B., Masse, B., & Arnocky, S. (2021) ‘Sex differences in response to deception about attractiveness, job status, and altruism in online dating.’ Archives of Sexual Behavior Desrochers, J., Albert, G., Milfont, T., Kelly, B., & Arnocky, S. (2019) ‘Does personality mediate the relationship between sex and environmentalism?’ Personality and Individual Differences Kelly,B. & Archibald, P. (2019) ‘Erving Goffman and the evolutionary-ecological missing link.’ Studies in Symbolic Interaction Adorjan, M., Christensen, A., Kelly, B., Pawluch D. (2012) ‘Stockholm Syndrome as vernacular resource.” The Sociological Quarterly
Kelly, B. & Puddephatt, A. (2023) ‘Social construction of scientific knowledge.’ In Mattingly (ed.), SAGE Encyclopedia of Theory in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Sage Publications Pauls, M., Kelly, B. & Adorjan, M. (2022) ‘Researching online activism using a mixed-methods approach. SAGE Research Methods Cases Adorjan, M. & Kelly, B. (2017) ‘Interpretive sociology.’ In G. Ritzer (ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell