Robert MacArthur Shields is a Canadian sociologist and cultural theorist. He is Professor and Henry Marshall Tory Endowed Research Chair at University of Alberta. Shields directs the City Region Studies Centre in the Faculty of Extension. From 1991 to 2004 he rose to Professor of Sociology and Directed the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa Canada, with an interlude in 1995-97 as a lecturer in Culture and Communications at Lancaster University, Lancaster UK.
