Submissions for the next e-list need to be submitted to awgsa.submissions@gmail.com by: 20 March 2019
PUBLICATIONS
Journal Articles Susan Webb & Reshmi Lahiri-Roy (2019) Skilled Migrants and Negotiations: New Identities, Belonging, Home and Settlement, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 40:2,190-205,
DOI: 1.1080/07256868.2019.1577225
Roberts, Steven, Ralph, Brittany, Elliott, Karla, Robards, Brady, Savic, Michael, Lindasy, Jo, O’Brien, Kerry & Lubman, Dan I. (2019) Exploring men’s risky drinking cultures (for VicHealth). Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, Melbourne, Australia.
Amy Thomas, Hannah McCann, Geraldine Fela, (2019) ‘In this house we believe in fairness and kindness’: Post-liberation politics in Australia's same-sex marriage postal survey’, Sexualities (online first), https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460719830347
Geographies of Violence Against Women, Journal of Gender Based Violence Special Issue 2020. Closing 30 April.
This Special Issue, co-edited by Dr Hannah Bows (Durham University) and Dr Bianca Fileborn (University of Melbourne), aims to provide a multi-disciplinary examination the current state of research, policy and practice in relation to geographies, space and gender-based violence and to consider the implications and potential further developments in relation to these areas. Abstract proposals not exceeding 500 words in length should be sent to Dr Hannah Bows, hannah.bows@durham.ac.uk
Social Sciences Week 9-15 September. The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) has invited AWGSA to partner in Social Sciences Week. Social Sciences Week aims to:
Encourage, support and create the opportunity for social science researchers (from early career to senior scholars) to engage with non-academic audiences.
Show-case the diversity and relevance of social science research.
Further the reach of cutting-edge social science research.
Promote and increase awareness of social sciences research and the contribution they make to the wellbeing, cohesion and success of society.
Any event held during Social Sciences Week that fits broadly with the above aims can be part of the program as long as the activity is primarily public facing. By scheduling them during Social Sciences week and co-badging them in this way, it will be possible to reach a wider audience and highlight the value of the social sciences to a greater extent than can occur with stand-alone events. If you are planning to apply for AWGSA funding to run an event, please consider Social Sciences Week as a possible time to do so.
CALL FOR RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS Gender-based violence in inpatient mental health units, Social Global Studies Centre, RMIT University. Women aged 18 and over who have experienced gender-based violence while staying in a mental health inpatient unit in Victoria in the past five years are being sought for interviews.
What are you working on at the moment?
Within the academy, my primary focus at present is completing a monograph, Putting feminism to work, Theorising sexual violence, trauma and subjectivity, which brings together my doctoral and postdoctoral research.I am also employed on a research project headed up by Dr Cathie Burgess at the University of Sydney called Learning from Country in the city, which I am very much enjoying. Outside the academy, I work as a researcher for a feminist NGO focusing on academic sexual misconduct, which really is the elephant in the room when it comes to Australian universities responses to sexual violence on campus.
What do you think is an important feminist issue locally and/or internationally at the moment?
Hmm! How to choose just one? I guess think that until Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ are given proper recognition, rights and reparations we will not really be able to make much progress in this country on any other issue feminist or otherwise…
One issue that I have been puzzling over for some time now and which I do think could do with having a research spot light shone on it is the uses and misuses of power within feminism. Judith Ions raised this quite a long time ago in relation to her work on the history of the rape crisis movement in Australia, Maria do Mar Pereira more recently in relation to academic feminism but I have not seen anything more sustained than brief commentary here and there. I have pretty much always worked in feminist and/or female only or female majority workplaces, both inside and outside the academy, so I’ve never under any illusions – well at least not for a long time - that we ‘do power’ any better than anyone else. In fact some of the worst behaviours I’ve been exposed to have been by women who strenuously identity as feminist. Recently I’ve come across some research about the psychological and emotional changes that take place in us when we are in positions of power, which I think might be useful in making sense of this puzzle – well it’s a step up at least from cognitive dissonance which had been the concept Id been stuck on before this.
I also think it would be good if class was talked about – it seems almost completely absent in the current academic landscape – well except perhaps if you count the quite patronising and woefully inadequate concept of ‘first in family’!
Why are you a member of AWGSA?
I initially joined AWGSA to try to overcome some of the isolation I experienced during my doctoral studies. Like me many feminist, women and gender studies scholars are not located in designated gender studies centres or departments. I think it is incredibly important that we have a peak body that brings us all together, functions as a sort of informal repository of the feminist research being conducted in Australia and gives us a mechanism to speak out about social, political and scholarly issues.
Who are your academic/feminist heroes?
Nicola Gavey, Maria do mar Pereira and Sara Ahmed. All for similar reasons. They write beautifully, think deeply and critically but with a nuanced sense of uncertainty that they convey with grace, humility and balance. It is relatively ‘easy’ to write with certainty, conviction and from the high moral ground (says they who has been struggling to write at all in recent times!) but to be able to say ‘I don’t know’, ‘I’m not sure’ and to say that from a position of eloquence and strength is something I aspire to.
And my nan. Widowed before she was 50 and - with no paid work history to speak of - she found work in a factory, paid off her home, went on much anticipated holidays with ‘the girls’ from work while also somehow finding time to make most of our clothes. She also had the patience to teach me to use a sewing machine long before my foot could reach the pedal!
Where would you like to live?
Berlin – except for the winters when I would holiday in Australia or maybe India.
Favourite book/s: A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, The God of Small Things by Arundati Roy, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. What do you appreciate most about your friends?
Old friends – people I have known since childhood- I value for all the explaining you don’t have to do when you come from a similar place. With newer friends – people I met during my doctoral studies for example- I enjoy the way a conversation can begin with a chance comment about some small everyday event or task (my lack of prowess with a power drill for example - see below) and before you know it the full force of a whole range of deliciously interesting social theories have been brought to bear on the topic at hand!
A goal
I have recently acquired a power drill and while I am not doing too badly drilling into wood my next goal is to move onto drilling into masonry walls. I would for example, like to be able to attach shelves in my flat myself rather than having to rely on someone else – even if the someone else is from the Lady Tradies!
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