Virginia Matheson Hooker AM is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political & Social Change, College of Asia and the Pacific, at the Australian National University. In this post, she reflects on what the ASAA has given her over the years. Read the other posts in this series celebrating women’s contributions to the ASAA here.
It was May 1978, Sydney, and the first time that I had left my very young daughter and son in Canberra to attend a national conference and present a paper. I felt guilty about leaving my children to spend time on my own work. Although I had an ANU Hons degree in Indonesian (1968) and a Monash PhD (1973) when I became a full-time mum, my only formal link with the academic world was casual part-time tutoring, mostly at night, at the ANU (1973-78). I faced my first ASAA conference feeling lonely, out of place, and wondering why I had come.
That conference, the second national conference of the ASAA, was attended by a range of ‘luminaries’. Some, like Professor John Legge and Professor Jamie Mackie, I knew from my PhD days (1968-1971) at Monash’s Centre for Southeast Asian Studies. Professor Wang Gungwu and Dr Stephen Fitzgerald, both with ANU links, were friendly faces. When I gave my 10-minute presentation on the first afternoon, Gungwu (as I later knew him) was a warm and encouraging chair. Gungwu himself asked some questions about my presentation and suggested possible places of publication. My fellow panel members were also supportive and I finished the first day with more confidence.
By the end of the conference I knew why I had plucked up my courage to attend. I had renewed my links with academics whom I had known from my ANU undergraduate days and with Monash colleagues, including Betty Feith and Ailsa (Tommy) Thompson, Margaret Kartomi and Susan Blackburn (Abeyasekere). Each of these women made lasting contributions to the ASAA, through conferences and the ASAA Review. I felt supported in continuing to work at home on my research despite not having an academic position.
I also met other women who were dedicated to learning more about ‘Asia’, some of whom also did not have permanent academic positions. They became friends as well as colleagues. Not all the women I met at that conference were academics. The ASAA also welcomed teachers, librarians, translators and interpreters, the majority of whom were women. The Association recognised that these individuals were essential links in the chain of transmission of knowledge about Asia.
When ASAA President, Professor Melissa Crouch, recently invited me look back at my links with the ASAA in its early days, with women’s roles as a focus, I realised that the Association’s beginnings during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, are now decades ago. The context in which we worked, academically, politically, technologically, and sociologically, was very different from that of today. In what follows I focus particularly on my experiences during those decades and my memories of the contributions women were making during that period. Inevitably there will be names and contributions not recorded here, particularly the many women whose academic areas were beyond Southeast Asia. I hope others will fill those gaps.
The first step to my post-PhD entry into formal academic life was Professor Jamie Mackie’s offer to work as his part-time research assistant in the newly established ANU Department of Political and Social Change in 1978-1980. In this position, part-time and temporary as it was, I was in contact with a wide-range of ‘Asianists’, many of whom were members of the ASAA. Because Mackie was one of the most active proponents of ‘Asia in Australia’ and because there were others in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies also dedicated to improving knowledge about Asia, my network grew. At seminars and in the tea room I met and was inspired by scholars like Barbara Watson Andaya, Jennifer Cushman, Christine Dobbin, and Ann Kumar.
The research assistant position was the stepping stone to a permanent lectureship in Indonesian in my old Faculty of Asian Studies at the ANU (1983) which was my home until my retirement in 2007 as Emeritus Professor. My academic life gave me a profile in teaching and research and the privilege of meeting many of the great scholars of the time. My membership of the ASAA supported and added depth and breadth to this academic profile, through the biennial conferences, the ASAA Review, and the Malaysia Society. The latter was a strong and active group affiliated with the ASAA and nurtured early career researchers by encouraging them to present their research for feedback from their seniors and their peers in a relaxed and warm atmosphere. Through the Malaysia Society I met and maintained contact with women juggling complex lives of teaching, research and outreach like Christine Inglis (who also served as Secretary of the ASAA), Lenore Manderson, and others. This was the pre-Facebook era when personal contacts were established at seminars and conferences and through publications like the ASAA Review,with its reports and articles about all areas of ‘Asia’.
Until the late 1980s, perhaps even the early 1990s, there was no internet. Telex machines, the telephone, and faxes were our only means of communication that were faster than mail. We hand-wrote hundreds of letters that were typed (later word-processed) by professionally trained secretaries and we sent our manuscripts for publication (also often typed by secretaries) by post or courier. Behind the academic enterprise were secretaries, typing pools, and research assistants (RAs) whose expertise and dedication underpinned the presentation and communication of our research. They also bore the brunt of organising seminars and conferences. Almost always it was women who filled these vital roles and all too often their work was not publicly acknowledged.
The ANU had produced the ASAA’s Newsletter, edited by Robin Jeffrey, which communicated ASAA news to members through its six editions between 1975-6. The Newsletter was succeeded by the more substantial ASAA Review which was also edited and published at the ANU from its first volume in July 1977 until the end of 1989. In the first volume of the Review Elaine McKay is the only woman whose name appears as an office-bearer – an ASAA Councillor. The members of the first Editorial Committee of the Review were men and allwere all in Canberra. Behind the scenes, typing, checking, and preparing articles for publication were women.
During its time at the ANU there were changes to the office bearers of the ASAA and the team responsible for the Review. By 1982 Jamie Mackie was Editor, Aurelia George had joined the editorial committee and Jennifer Cushman was Advertising Manager. Of the five Area Book Review Editors three were women – Aurelia George, Merrilyn Wasson, and Beverley Male. And, at last, the contribution of women to the production of the Review was recognised when Mackie thanked ‘typists’ Jean Considine, Claire Smith and Hilary Bek for their work. Mackie also acknowledged the contribution of his RA, Anna Weidemann, and announced that Elizabeth Kingdon had been appointed as the first Editorial Assistant to the Review, to be followed by Patsy Hardy in the same position.
In that year, 1982, four of the 12 ASAA Councillors were women. Joining Elaine McKay as General Councillors were Christine Inglis and Elizabeth Drysdale. Elaine, of course became first woman president of the ASAA and Christine went on to serve as the first female Secretary. Elizabeth Drysdale had been lead researcher in the first significant assessment of the study of Asia in Australia’s education system, initiated and conducted by the ASAA.
In 1979, the ASAA Council had formed a ‘Committee on Asian Studies’ to determine if the study of Asia in Australia was in decline and, if so, how it might be redressed. The Council planned to use the Committee’s findings as the basis for debate among ASAA members and develop a strategy for future action. The Committee was led by Dr Stephen FitzGerald with members Professor Joyce Ackroyd, Elaine McKay, Jamie Mackie and Dr Jim Masselos. Elizabeth Drysdale was appointed Research Assistant. During 1979-1980 Elizabeth collected and compiled data for the Committee and worked with it to write the final document. The two- volume report was published by the ASAA in 1980 as Asia in Australian Education and remains a benchmark study of the ‘condition’ of education about Asia at tertiary and secondary levels, among teachers, and in schools as well as education through the arts, libraries and other information services as they were in 1979-80.
I had been slightly involved with that review but my experience of ‘reviewing’ remained very limited. I was therefore surprised when I was invited in early 1988 to work as Senior Researcher for the Asian Studies Council’s eight-month enquiry into determining: ‘the current situation of Asian studies and defin[ing] what changes are necessary to meet Australia’s requirement for Asian studies into the next century.’ The inquiry had the support of the federal Minister for Employment, Education and Training. Professor John Ingleson, then Treasurer of the ASAA, was Research Director and a member of the Steering Committee which had only one woman member, Nancy Viviani, Professor of Politics at the ANU.
After considerable thought, especially because I was now a single mother and the work required me to travel interstate, I accepted the offer and was seconded from the ANU to work with John for eight months of intensive consultations, public meetings, analysis, and writing. The report, later published as Asia in Australian Higher Education, was both practical (recommendations were fully costed) and aspirational in its aims for business industry, vocational training, and the teaching and study of Asia and its languages.
It is very appropriate in the context of this blog to acknowledge the personal, very practical support Professor Nancy Viviani gave me. She moved into my house for a week to look after my children while I travelled out of Canberra to collect data for the inquiry. My kids later told me she had explained to them that their mother ‘is doing very important work’ and needs your support. Thank-you Nancy!
I owe much to the opportunity I had to participate in that review. As I travelled round Australia I interviewed teachers and teacher educators, and listened to their views about the teaching of Asian languages and studies and their visions for the future. I met deputy heads of Universities and Colleges of Advanced Education, heads of departments at tertiary institutions, as well as business leaders. I listened to their views about a better nexus between ‘knowledge of Asia’ and their very focussed needs. I interviewed members of the defence forces as well as professional interpreters and translators and learned how backward Australia was in its appreciation of the vital roles the latter play in national and international life. I also interviewed librarians and realised how hard they fought for funding to acquire Asian materials for our libraries, and worked to make materials in non-English scripts accessible for users. I return to the teachers and librarians below.
The Ingleson report, as it became known, was released at the end of Australia’s Bicentenary year of 1988. Its opening sentence reads: ‘Proficiency in Asian languages and knowledge of the history, political and social cultures, economic systems and business practices of Asian countries is no longer a luxury for the few.’ Twelve months later, Elaine McKay, then President of the ASAA, reported to the Association that ‘in what must be regarded as record time … we have the Minister of Employment, Education and Training’s commitment on November 1 [1989] to fund almost all the recommendations of the Report.’ She noted that, among other commitments, this meant by the end of 1995, 4,800 additional places in Asia-related courses ‘will have been created at a cost of around $39m p.a.’ (p 59). This is a commitment from a federal government that has probably never been repeated.
At almost the same time, the more extensive and ambitious Garnaut Report, ‘Australia and the Northeast Asian Ascendancy’ was published and the Council and members of the ASAA debated findings from both enquiries drawing on them to make representations to government, industry and philanthropists for action on Asia. In 1990 Asialink supported by the Myer Foundation was established appointing Jenny McGregor AM, as its CEO. In 1992, the Asia Education Foundation within Asialink became the powerhouse for teaching and learning about Asia at the primary and secondary levels with a highly motivated staff almost all of whom are women.
After meeting so many teachers and teacher educators during my work for the Ingleson inquiry, when I returned to my lectureship at the ANU in 1989 I wanted to work more closely with them. Teachers in the ACT were forming their own support groups and it was relatively easy to keep in touch and discuss teaching materials, course development and more official links with the ANU through upgrading courses. Teachers also organised their own ‘Indonesian Studies Newsletter’ as an affiliate of the ASAA. When I was editor of that Newsletter in 1997-8 I was again impressed by the dedication and resourcefulness of primary and secondary school teachers of Indonesian.
After 1993, the Asia Education Foundation (AEF), funded by the federal Department of Education, transformed support for teachers of all Asian languages through in-country training programs, development of teaching materials, and face-to-face contact with native speakers. The work of the AEF continues to be inspirational and in the context of my account here, I note that the majority of its staff are women.
The period I spent as part of the team that published the ASAA Review brought me into direct contact with a wide range of individual members of the ASAA. Between 1979-80, I was editor of the Southeast Asia book review section, Associate Editor of the Review between 1985-89, and Acting Editor in 1989. The final issue of the Review produced at ANU was volume 13(2), November 1989 after which it moved to Griffith University and blossomed under the leadership of Bob (R.E.) Elson, John Butcher (Editor and Associate Editor) and Editorial Assistant Leanne Wood. An extended team went on to deliver wonderful editions of the Review. And the three women who word processed the editions are each acknowledged.
I conclude with tribute to the professional librarians, almost all of whom were women, who built up the Asian collections in university libraries and the National Library of Australia. They prepared regular reports for the ASAA Review with information about their collections and new acquisitions. Their specialist bibliographies were invaluable to locating research materials in the days when inter-library loans were essential to academic work. It is hard to imagine now how books were written without Google searches, Wikipedia, and digital publishing.
I am deeply aware that by listing names I will inevitably miss librarians whose role should have been acknowledged – my apologies and regret for errors and omissions in the following list which is limited to those I met personally. To acknowledge firstly Helen Jarvis, who was for many years the director of BISA (Bibliographic Information on Southeast Asia) a pioneering enterprise which she led at the University of Sydney. And secondly, acknowledgment of the years of work building the Asian collections at the National Library of Australia (NLA) and the ANU by Andrew Gosling and George Miller respectively. The names that follow are those of women who were members of the ASAA, and contributed to its aims in its early aims and to the Review. Among these pioneering librarians are: Ilse Soegito, Pauline Crawcour (later Haldane), and Marie Sexton (NLA); Enid Bishop (ANU Menzies Library); Patricia Woodcroft-Lee (Faculty of Asian Studies, ANU not a librarian but she compiled a bibliography of materials on Islam in Australia); Paulette Muskens and Helen Soemardjo (Monash); and Carolyn van Langenberg (University of Sydney). I hope others might write about the pioneering librarians whose names are not given here
All this might seem a very serious account of the earlier decades of the ASAA but I wish you could see me smiling as I remember the fun and fellowship we enjoyed, even when it seemed Asian Studies was ‘on the decline’. Membership of the ASAA initially brought me into contact with academics, women and men, who were impressive scholars of Asia and at the same time were activists dedicated to awakening Australians to the necessity for ‘engaging with Asia’ and the rewards that flowed when we do engage.
It also offered opportunities to participate in the outreach and engagement aspects of the ASAA such as the Review and two of its inquiries into Asian Studies in Australia. Those opportunities brought me into contact with a wide range of women and men and from them I learned organisational skills, the rewards that flow from listening and observing, and the necessity for consultation with ‘stakeholders.’ Participating in (often chairing) public forums prepared me for later administrative roles in many areas of academic life.
I believe that membership of the ASAA now, in 2024, offers even more than it did in its foundation decades. Through the new networks and groups that have been developed and the instant communication that technology especially Zoom enables, peer support can be almost instantaneous. And active membership of the ASAA is so fulfilling and rewarding. When opportunities arise, step up and have a go. Your resume will be strengthened, your experience enriched, and you will form life-long friendships.
Image: Supplied.
