From Feminist Studies to Gender Studies: Challenges to Gender Studies at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Abstract

The Department of Gender Studies began at the University of Canterbury as a program in feminist studies in 1987, grew to attain the status of Department of Feminist Studies, and this year has changed its name to “Gender Studies.” It currently has an academic staff establishment of four continuing positions. This paper outlines the challenges faced during the department’s growth and consolidation as well as its current actions to retain a viable student and research base. I will consider a number of issues in the context of a turbulent national policy framework. The discussion will include the question of relationships with feminist scholarship based in other disciplines and interdisciplinary programs on the campus, the implications of the rise of interdisciplinarity in social sciences and humanities, the politics of knowledge and academic “territory,” the issues of autonomy and size, the relationship with the broader university, the issues facing research, the impact and opportunities of the incarnation of student as consumer and of tertiary education as a vocational track, the perceptions of feminist scholarship, and the relationships between academic feminist scholarship and the wider community of women’s and feminist’s interests.