Registration for the Martial Arts Studies Association is now open
Martial Arts Studies Association memberships are now available!
A huge thanks to all members of our community for your patience with us over the past few months. We have teased this for a long time now, but finally, hot on the heels of the 2026 conference submission deadline, we’re really pleased to announce that MASA memberships are available to purchase!
How to join
We are managing memberships through the online platform Membermojo. To access our sign-up page, please visit https://membermojo.co.uk/masa/. Payment is currently taken via PayPal and you should be able to pay with most credit or debit cards.
Our prices are modelled on a multi-category structure, differentiating by professional role as well as members’ country of residence (not nationality!). If you would like to purchase a membership, please check this list out first: https://www.isa-sociology.org/en/membership/table-of-economies-by-category
Please make sure you pay the correct fee for your status and country and note that memberships will last for the calendar year – that is, until next January. Memberships must be paid for the whole year and cannot be purchased pro-rata, nor are they normally refundable.
Perks of membership
By joining MASA, you will be directly contributing to the international community of martial arts scholarship. Your membership dues will help to fund our current and future activities, give greater financial stability to our conference series, and otherwise enable us to support research and knowledge exchange in tangible ways.
In return for your support, MASA members will enjoy the following perks (explained below):
- Discount on conference fees (10% off – fees for 2026 will be announced very soon)
- Free participation in webinars and other online events
- Ability to submit newsletter content items
- Eligibility to appear on the MASA Academic Experts Register
- Eligibility to have projects spotlighted on the MASA Featured Projects webpage
- Eligibility to take part in MASA projects such as leading/authoring position statements
- Eligibility to host MASA events, and/or request MASA endorse planned events or other activity
- In future, eligibility to vote in MASA elections and stand for board positions (from Summer 2027)
We are currently planning the first MASA webinar for 4th February 2026 which will be free for everyone. In the future, these will remain free for all members but incur a small cost for non-members, while only MASA members will be eligible to organise, present or lead these online events.
The MASA Academic Experts Register will be created in early 2026 and hosted on the MASA website where it will publicly display eligible members’ contact details and expertise, as a public endorsement from the association. You will notice additional questions on the membership sign up form relating to the register; this is not compulsory for all members. Please note that membership of MASA does not automatically ensure you will be able to appear on the register; MASA must be able to verify your academic expertise first.
The MASA Featured Projects webpage can be found via the website where it currently displays one project (Project Sifu). The page will feature a maximum of four eligible projects at one time, which we plan to rotate every six months, to publicly showcase, promote, and celebrate the most exciting research our community is engaging in. We will prioritise those projects which demonstrate methodological innovation, impactful outcomes, knowledge exchange, policy influence, or some other notable characteristic. More projects will be added here shortly, and we will invite open applications for projects to be featured in the next round later in 2026.
MASA position statements, and several other projects, including a book prize, research mentoring scheme, and others, are currently in the pipeline. The MASA board is working on them behind the scenes, and they will be announced properly at the 2026 conference.
Hosting MASA events will mean either being actively involved in organising an event on behalf of the association, such as our annual conference, or involving MASA in another event to the extent that we will share, promote, and celebrate the activity across our channels, helping connect your work with the wider martial arts studies community.
Elections for board positions are planned to begin next year, at our 2027 conference. Only current members with a minimum of one year’s prior membership will be eligible to run for positions; this means that if you want to take a leadership role in the community, you will need to be a member both this year and next. We will release further details about this later in the year.
For further details or enquiries, please contact either MASA Memberships Secretary Lauren Miller (using masa.membersecretary@gmail.com) or MASA Chair Alex Channon (using agc.phd@gmail.com).
Thanks all once again for being part of our community; we hope to see many of you at either the webinar on 4th Feb, or in person at the conference on 22nd-24th July!
