Women’s Forum
Women’s Forum
The Women’s Forum of the ASAA is open to any member interested in promoting scholarship on women and/or gender in Asia or supporting women working within Asian Studies. The Women’s Forum:
- convenes the Women in Asia Conference
- coordinates a moderated email discussion listserv
- holds a biennial meeting held during the ASAA Conference
- supports the Women in Asia book series
Women’s Forum History
The ASAA Women’s Caucus was established in 1978 and changed its name to the Women’s Forum at the 2006 ASAA Conference. The forum has played a significant role in raising the profile of women doing research on Asia in Australia, as well as promoting research about women in Asia.
Conference
The Women in Asia Forum is supported by the Asian Studies Association of Australia and hosts a biannual interdisciplinary conference.
The 2021 Women in Asia conference is titled Fashioning Gender in Asia, and builds on past Women in Asia conferences and the Women’s Forum of the Asian Studies Association of Australia to further research on gender in the Asian region. The conference explores how gender, sexuality and bodies; objects, culture and memory; citizenship, geography and economy, and technology, media and mobility intersect and entwine in the very fabric of gendered personhoods in/of Asia.
The conference will open with a Public Lecture on Tuesday 23 November, supported by La Trobe Asia, and conclude with a Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher workshop on writing for publication on Friday 26 November.
There are five subthemes to the conference
- Fashioning the Body – art, culture, embodiment
- Borders Frayed/Reinforced – nation, citizenship, mobility
- Stitched Together – law, human rights and social justice
- Digital Tapestries – technologies and relationships
- Materialities – economy, work, education, welfare
Previous conferences include:
- 2019 Women in Asia Conference was held at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney on 21-23 June 2019.
- 2017 Women in Asia Conference, Women in the Asian Century: Challenges and Possibilities, University of Western Australia, 26-28 September. Organisers, Laura Dales, Lyn Parker.
- 2010: 10th Women in Asia Conference, Crisis, Agency and Change, Australian National University, 29 September – 1 October. Organiser, Tamara Jacka.
- 2008: 9th International Women in Asia Conference, Women in Asia: Transition and Interchange, University of Queensland, 29 September-1 October. Organisers, Helen Creese, Tomoko Aoyama, Rosemary Roberts.
- 2005: 8th Women in Asia Conference, University of Technology Sydney, 26-28 September. Organisers, Barbara Leigh, Devleena Ghosh. Program and Abstracts
- 2001: 6th Women in Asia Conference, ANU, 23-26 September. Organiser, Kathryn Robinson
- 1997: 5th Women in Asia Conference, UNSW, 2-5 October. Organiser, Jan Elliot
- 1993: 4th Women in Asia Conference, University of Melbourne, 1-3 October
- 1985: 3rd Women in Asia Conference, ANU, 11-13 July
- 1983: 2nd Women in Asia Conference, Monash University, 22-24 July
- 1981: 1st Women in Asia Conference, UNSW, 13-15 June.
Newsletters
The Women’s Caucus produced a newsletter 2-3 times a year up to 1997 before being replaced by the Women’s Forum Listserv.
Past editors include:
- to 1994: Antonia Finnane
- 1994-1997: Louise Edwards and Anne Cullen
- 1997-1998: Andrea Whittaker
View scanned archived newsletters published between 1994 and 1997.
