Why Gender and Cultural Studies shouldn’t be merged

Emily Graetz and Misbah Ansari report.

Gender and Cultural Studies (GCS) students are currently fighting back against a potential restructuring of their department. Having been proposed under Future FASS, the changes would see GCS moved from its current School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry into the School of Social and Political Sciences (SSPS) and downgraded from a Department to a discipline.

The changes would threaten the autonomy of GCS to have control over their unique learning culture, academic orientation, teaching and curriculum. The downgrading to a discipline would potentially threaten the independence of GCS and see an increase in managerial involvement in decision making. It could, for example, see GCS subjects merged with thematically similar SSPS subjects. Whilst it may be true that subjects within Sociology, for example, grapple with ideas around gender, a merge could lead to the erasure of a uniquely open philosophical framework followed by GCS and eliminate the possibility for more diverse and creative research. At stake then, is the unique culture of GCS: the way that the Department creates space for the idea that the “personal is political” and celebrates more interdisciplinary, diverse and artistic research subjects.

Talking on the strikingly radical nature of the GCS Department, PhD student and GCS Postgrad Representative, Jia Guo, says that the autonomy and independence of Gender and Cultural Studies is vital to her ongoing work. Researching about young Chinese womens' aesthetic labour on social media, she notes that her more free-flowing research would not be possible under a more fixed approach followed by disciplines within the School of Social and Political Sciences. 

It’s GCS’s unique approach to collaborative learning that Jia believes makes the Department special, where they “are supportive for all marginalized communities” and offer an “empathetic structure” for learning. For example, their forums, like their fortnightly Research Work In Progress meetings where PhD candidates meet to showcase their work in a casual and welcoming environment, create space for safe conversations and demonstrate the extraordinary nature of the Department. 

“I believe that Cultural Studies has a vast history arising out of feminist, working class, and anti-racist agendas. It keeps flourishing despite being called anti-disciplinary by mainstream academia”, Jia says, rejecting any suggestion that GCS could simply be slotted into a different School. 

The GCS Undergraduate Representative, Nicole Yeung, also emphasises the diversity and inclusivity of GCS, particularly for International students. 

“I think the core sentiment from lots of International students is that keeping GCS’s diversity is important to many individuals doing the units. Its diversity is what attracts us into the department from the very first day. The merge will no doubt also impact students' further studies, which is already very narrow for international students."

Ella Haber, GCS student and organiser of the Hands off GCS Campaign, is fighting for the “infectious warmth that permeates through the Gender & Cultural Studies classrooms”. 

“The GCS teachers are exceptionally skilled, fiercely passionate and wholeheartedly committed to facilitating spaces in which we can learn and grow and critically engage with the world around us.”  

Like Jia, Nicole and countless other students, Ella is concerned that the uniqueness of GCS will be lost in a cut-and-paste restructure but she notes that under Future FASS, GCS is not the only Department at risk of being changed, merged or cut altogether. Honi Soit have reported that up to 250 undergraduate Arts subjects are on the list of units from which cuts will be made. Postgraduate and Honours subjects are also on the chopping board. 

According to the Draft Change Proposal tabled in September, the rationale of Future FASS is to increase disciplinary “synergies” and economic “sustainability” through “curricular reform”, “school restructure” and “disciplinary amalgamation”. Under the changes, it’s likely that class sizes will increase and diversity of choice will be scrapped. That the 2021 FASS surplus is projected to be $135 million makes such changes even more puzzling. 

The proposal, written by Deputy Vice-Chancellor and former Arts Dean, Professor Annamarie Jagose, promises that job losses will be minimised. But given the extent of these restructures and the uncertainty of the future for hundreds of courses, one wouldn’t be blamed for having doubts over such promises, particularly when it comes to casual workers. Either way, it remains clear that the integrity and autonomy of a whole range of departments, including Gender and Cultural Studies, is at risk.

Yet, in the spirit of their radical history, GCS students are fighting back against the proposed restructure. A group of both undergrad and postgrad students have mobilised against the changes. On Wednesday the 13th of September, GCS students will be striking from class and joining in a Covid Safe speak-out on campus and online. The Education Action Group is also hosting a Student General Meeting on Wednesday 27th October to stop the cuts against FASS more broadly.

For Ella, there's no doubt that GCS in its current form is worth fighting for and that any threat to its autonomy and curriculum only serves to benefit senior management and executives, not Arts students, not casual workers and certainly not GCS scholars.

"Now more than ever, we need opportunities for our education to flourish, but instead it is being strangled again and again. So with the choice you [Jagose and management] have made to oversee the implementation of cost-saving measures at the expense of our future, you should expect to see that we, as the students of Gender & Cultural Studies - alongside students from across FASS, staff, graduates and alumni - are prepared to escalate our fight until these pointless cuts to FASS are completely scrapped and we have won the guarantee that our department, and all other Undergraduate units of study, will be protected and available to all students for generations to come."

Thumbnail image by Savannah Stimson.