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AWGSA biennial conference 2024:
"Not Just Another (Feminist) Conference": Gathering To Explore Courageous Feminisms
Dates: 13 - 15 November 2024
Abstract submissions are now closed for the Australian Women & Gender Studies Association (AWGSA) Biannual Conference. This year our conference is themed “Not Just Another (Feminist) Conference: Gathering To Explore Courageous Feminisms.
Please read more about our conference themes AWGSA biennial conference 2024.
About the conference
This is not your typical conference. We are doing things, sharing knowledge, and gathering differently and intentionally. In the midst of the current global chaos, violence, war, genocide, femicides, and climate dystopias, more is being demanded of us - and, rightfully so. We want to explore how we engage in feminist work courageously within and outside the academy while also sustaining ourselves and others.
The conference is a space for rigorous intellectual conversation, exchange and critique; however, we do not subscribe to the traditional adversarial model of conference criticism as we do not believe it fosters collegiality. Instead, we prefer to emphasise the principle of intellectual generosity.
We are intentional and deliberate in engaging in language and actions that dignify our peers and colleagues at the conference. As you consider putting in an abstract, you are encouraged to commit to co-creating an environment where dignified interactions become intrinsic to everyone's collective experience. This will ensure that the conference serves as a platform for meaningful dialogue, and the advancement of feminist principles of care, respect and equity.
To be inclusive of how different ideas can be shared, we invite traditional papers in the format of a paper presentation, as well as creative and innovative formats and approaches to knowledge circulation. Poetry? Spoken word? Songs? Skits? Art? Dance or movement practice? A yoga class and reflection? Meditation?
Please note: This is also an unapologetic feminist space, and exclusionary behaviour in the form of racism, transphobia, queerphobia, sexism, Islamophobia, antisemitism and ableism will not be accepted. Please read our AWGSA biennial conference 2024 code of conduct and review Southern Cross University's purpose and values here.
The AWGSA conference is proudly hosted at the Southern Cross University, Gold Coast Campus.
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Conference themes
- Decoloniality & Anti-Coloniality
- Breath
- Climate change and sustainability
- Technology and AI
- Love and relationships
- Global violence
- Gender-based violence
- Healing and resting
- Community and solidarity
- Creativity and joy
Types of presentations
- Oral academic presentations: traditional oral academic presentations are welcome. Please include a 250 word abstract with your submission. (20 mins)
- Panels: you are welcome to submit a pre-organised panel with your colleagues around a topic of interest aligning to this year’s themes. Please include an overall abstract 250 words plus bios of 50 words per person. (30 mins)
- Reflections: we are happy to accept reflections – spoken word, poetry, etc – alongside traditional academic papers. Please submit an outline, and format details along with biographical note. (10 mins)
- Workshops: you are welcome to submit a pre-organised workshop with your colleagues around a topic of interest aligning to this year’s themes. Please include an overall abstract 250 words plus bios of 50 words per person.
- Creative pieces (art, theatre, music, dance, writing): we welcome creative responses to feminist issues, including art, music, dance, movement, creative stories, and more. Submit a description of your work (10 mins).
- Movement sessions: if you are an emerging or experienced practitioner or simply like to help support people to move more and would like to share this with others in the community, please submit an expression of interest. This may be yoga, breathwork, walking, or other movement practices. Submit an expression of interest with your biographical note and any other details.
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Key Dates
- Abstracts are due by: 30 May, 2024
- Conference: 13 - 15 November 2024
- Register to attend
Submissions
All submissions need to include the following information:
- Name(s) of presenters/performers/facilitators
- Any institutional details
- Title of session/paper
- Description/abstract: please include as much detail as possible including which theme you and what type of submission you are making (see Types of presentations)
- Biographical note: up to 100 words
Register to attend
Registrations are now open
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Keynote Speakers
Dr Mehreen Faruqi
Dr Mehreen Faruqi is Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and Senator for NSW. She is a civil and environmental engineer and a life-long activist for social, environmental and racial justice.
Mehreen holds the Education, Anti-Racism, Animal Welfare, the Republic, and International Aid and Global Justice portfolios for the Greens.
Before entering parliament, she had a 25-year career as a professional engineer and academic, working in local government, consulting firms and as a lecturer in environmental sustainability in Australia and internationally. She also formerly directed the Institute of Environmental Studies at UNSW and was Associate Professor at the Australian Graduate School of Management.
Mehreen became the first Muslim woman to sit in any Australian parliament when she joined the NSW Parliament in 2013. In 2018, she took her proudly feminist and anti-racist approach to Canberra when she joined the federal Senate.
Mehreen has been involved in feminist and anti-racist activism throughout her life. She introduced the first ever bill to decriminalise abortion in New South Wales and won the closure of pregnancy discrimination loopholes. Mehreen’s work for reproductive rights was recognised with the feminist Edna Ryan Grand Stirrer award in 2017 “for inciting others to challenge the status quo”.
In her time in Parliament Mehreen has been an unflinching voice on social, environmental and racial justice, pushing to dismantle the systems of power, privilege and patriarchy. Mehreen unapologetically campaigns for free Uni and TAFE, wiping student debt, and ensuring the diversity of our streets and suburbs is represented in parliaments, the media and decision making.
Most recently she has been the strongest voice for Palestine in the Australian Parliament and has continually called for an end to the occupation and apartheid.
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Professor Simone Fullagar
Simone is an interdisciplinary sociologist who has published widely on gender equity in sport, mental health, active communities and social well-being. With an interest in social and organisational change her work contributes to thinking differently about inequalities.
Simone also has a professional background in community service management for diverse populations. In 2014 she moved from Australia to the University of Bath, UK, to lead the Physical Culture, Sport & Health research group.
In July 2019 she returned to Griffith University as Professor of Sport Management to lead the strategic focus on gender equity in sport
She is Chair of the Sport and Gender Equity research hub https://www.griffith.edu.au/griffith-business-school/departments/tourism-sport-hotel-management/sage-at-griffith. Twitter @GriffithUniSAGE. She is also an active member and mentor in the Griffith University Gender Equality Network (GERN) and Centre for Social and Cultural Research.
Simone has received funding from the Australian Research Council and other programs to conduct qualitative research into leisure, sport and health related areas. For example, women’s recovery from depression, the socio-cultural context of youth suicide in rural and urban communities and equine programs for at risk youth. She has also undertaken research on the challenges to active family lifestyles, critical obesity and the emergence of the slow travel movement. With colleagues she has published on the rise of new women's sports such as roller derby, the importance of gender inclusion in cycling tour events and the inclusive potential of parkrun.
Her latest book (with O'Brien & Pavlidis) was published by Palgrave in 2019 - Feminism and a Vital Politics of Depression and Recovery. Simone is a past President of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Leisure Studies. In 2015, she was the first Australian to receive the Shaw-Mannell International Leisure Research Award for her contribution to feminist scholarship in leisure, sport and health from the University of Waterloo, CA. In 2019, Simone was appointed as a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK.
Women’s Leadership Panel Keynotes
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Professor Bindi Bennett
Professor Bindi Bennett (she/her) is a K/Gamilaroi woman, mother, and social worker and is a Professorial Research Fellow at Federation University living, playing and working on Jinibara lands. She is a social justice scholar, a compassionate radical and activist requesting transformational change who is committed to improving and growing cultural responsiveness; re-Indigenising Western spaces; understanding and exploring Indigenous Knowledge Systems in research.
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Professor Alison Pullen
Professor Alison Pullen was born in Wales and lives in Sydney, Australia. Alison’s research has been concerned with analysing and intervening in the politics of work as it concerns gender discrimination, identity and embodiment, and organisational injustice. Alison was joint Editor-in-Chief of the journal Gender, Work and Organisation. She is Professor of Gender, Work and Organization at Macquarie University and holds Visiting Professorships at Bath University and the Open University in the UK.
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Dr Meredith Nash
Dr Meredith Nash is Director - Sexual Harassment & Gendered Violence and KPMG Australia's national lead for Respect@Work. With 20 years of multi-sector experience, Meredith is an internationally recognised gender equity thought leader and expert in building inclusion in complex workforces. She led the 2022 Nash Review of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity in the Australian Antarctic Program, which instigated a national enquiry into sexual harassment in Antarctica.
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Professor Liz Mackinlay
Liz is a Professor at Southern Cross University (SCU) and serves as the Director of Higher Degree by Research in the Faculty of Education. She also chairs the IDEAS (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access and Sovereignty) Committees. Liz has two PhDs, one in Ethnomusicology from the University of Adelaide and another in Education from The University of Queensland. Her research focuses on gender, decoloniality, and education, specifically feminism in higher education and consent education.
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Professor Mary Spongberg
Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)
Professor Mary Spongberg is currently the Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at Southern Cross University. Mary began her career as an NHMRC (CARG) postdoctoral research fellow in Gender Studies at the University of Sydney. She spent almost twenty years at Macquarie University where she worked at the National Centre for HIV Social Research and the department of Modern History.
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Associate Professor Kathomi Gatwiri
Panel moderator
Associate Professor Kathomi Gatwiri is an ARC DECRA Fellow at the Centre for Children & Young People at Southern Cross University. She is the president of the peak body Australian Women & Gender Studies Association (AWGSA) and a practising psychotherapist. Kathomi is one of Australia’s leading Afro-diasporic scholars, and her award-winning research focuses on blackness, whiteness, migranthood and experiences of racially and culturally minoritised people across Australia.
Emerging Scholars Panel
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Dr Georgia Munro-Cook
Dr Georgia Munro-Cook is a Paralympian, who captained the Australian Gliders wheelchair basketball team at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. Additionally, she is a Research Fellow at Griffith University. She is part of the Inclusive Futures Beacon, researching disability sport and specialising in the intersection of disability with gender. After completing her PhD in gender studies and history, she has written frequently about the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).
Dr Diti Bhattacharya
Dr Diti Bhattacharya is an emerging leader within human geography with a focus on the study of leisure studies, migration, and sporting cultures. Diti is a Research Fellow in an ARC Discovery Project with the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University. Her research interests include fitness cultures, sporting geographies, migration, heritage and mobilities. She is currently investigating the ways in which sporting practices and fitness cultures
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Samara James
I'm an academic researcher, writer, artist and community organiser. I write about race, whiteness and coloniality, with a particular focus on transracial-transnational adoption - a personal and political topic. I have a Masters in International Development. My most recent research includes: ‘Reversing the gaze: An autoethnographic critique of benevolent saviorism in transracial-transnational adoption in Australia’.
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Dr Amanda Fiedler
Panel Moderator
Dr Amanda Fiedler is a sessional academic and research assistant in the School of Business and Creative Industries and the School of Law and Society at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Her research explores the sociohistorical intersections of fact and fiction in screen media ecologies, focusing on gender, genre and creative activism. Amanda is also the Treasurer of The Australian Women's & Gender Studies Association (AWGSA), the peak body representing researchers, academics and students.
Registration Fees
The AWGSA committee has worked hard to ensure the cost of conference attendance is fair and equitable. We are all volunteers and some of us are on precarious contracts, while others are on continuing appointments. We understand that with cost of living pressures, and University budget cuts, many of you will have to self-fund.
You will see options below that hopefully suit everyone.
Our normal practice is to include 2-YEARS AWGSA membership with the conference fee. Our membership is very cheap compared to many other professional organisations, again with our commitment to feminist principles of access and inclusion. Please do take the opportunity to become a 2-year member when you register.
| Full Conference Rate (Levels D, E and above) | Price |
|---|---|
| (Lvl D+) Fee includes AWGSA 2-year membership AND conference party on 14 November | $690.00 |
| (Lvl D+) Fee includes AWGSA 2-year membership but NO conference party | $620.00 |
| (Lvl D+) With pre-purchased existing membership INCLUDING conference party 14 November | $590.00 |
| (Lvl D+) With pre-purchased existing membership EXCLUDING conference party | $520.00 |
| Day Rate (Levels D, E and above) | Price |
|---|---|
| (Lvl D+) Fee EXCLUDES AWGSA membership | $330.00 |
| (Lvl D+) Fee with pre-purchased existing membership | $300.00 |
| (Lvl D+) Fee INCLUDES 2-year AWGSA membership | $400.00 |
| Add conference party on 14 November to any Level D, E or above day pass | $70.00 |
| Full Conference Rate (Levels A, B and C or full-time employed outside of academy + Unwaged/Student/Low Income) | Price |
|---|---|
| Waged – fee includes AWGSA 2-year membership AND conference party on 14 November | $500.00 |
| Waged – fee includes AWGSA 2-year membership but NO conference party | $430.00 |
| Waged (with pre-purchased existing membership) INCLUDING conference party 14 November | $400.00 |
| Waged (with pre-purchased existing membership) EXCLUDING conference party | $330.00 |
| Unwaged/Student/Low Income (membership and conference party NOT included in fee) | $220.00 |
| Unwaged/Student/Low Income (fee INCLUDES AWGSA membership and conference party) | $330.00 |
| Day Rate (Levels A, B and C or full-time employed outside of academy + Unwaged/Student/Low Income) | Price |
|---|---|
| Waged (membership NOT included in fee) | $220.00 |
| Waged (fee will INCLUDES AWGSA membership) | $285.00 |
| Waged (for those with pre-purchased existing membership) | $210.00 |
| Unwaged/Student/Low Income (membership NOT included in fee) | $110.00 |
| Unwaged/Student/Low Income (fee will INCLUDES AWGSA membership) | $160.00 |
| Unwaged/Student/Low Income (for those with pre-purchased existing membership) | $90.00 |
| Add conference party on 14 November to any of the above – waged $70.00; unwaged/$60.00 | $70/60 |
Get in touch
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Resources and Partners
Downloads for more information about the AWGSA biennial conference 2024.
AWGSA Biennial Conference 2024 AWGSA Biennial Conference 2024 code of conduct AWGSA website AWGSA Distinguished Paper Prize Award 2024Conference venue
Southern Cross University's Gold Coast campus is located at Coolangatta, just 400 metres from North Kirra Beach and adjacent to the Gold Coast Airport. Views of the Pacific Ocean and Gold Coast Hinterland can be enjoyed from many vantage points in the campus buildings.