Program report

Financial report

Membership report

233 current members
103 lapsed members
9 new members
updated April 7, 2009

Panel discussion: "Standing our Queer Ground"

Mara Sapon-Shevin introduced the panel and prompted them to respond briefly to a few key questions, then opened it up to a larger discussion. The questions centered around the Manchester Hyatt boycott and the efforts of social justice organizers and members of the Queer SIG to get AERA to pull out of the Hyatt and take a stronger stance on issues regarding social justice & discrimination against glbtq people. She asked the panelists to consider: whose issue is this? And can we, as researchers, or research in general, be apolitical? This is in response to AERA’s claim to not take political stances on issues since we are a research organization. Mara also asked that we focus on action steps before the conclusion of the meeting.

Kevin Kumashiro – role of a professional association; we should take positions that push the “majority” and resist the tendency to assimilate differences under the banner of being “scientific”

Christine Sleeter – AERA and $$ - where is it going? How do our conference dollars impact a community and how can we find more socially just ways to spend our $$ and have AERA allocate $$? Great topic for a study – what are the economic impacts of AERA on a community and how can we work to ensure our $$ supports groups, organizations, and companies that support AERA’s stated mission and value for social justice?

Erica Meiners – we need to push the association: what does social justice MEAN to AERA? They need to put up or shut up. Attending SJAC meeting and getting “stonewalled”

Therese Quinn – Accountabililty – who are we accountable to? Where does AERA choose to hold conferences (re: Sandy Grande and comment about not going South of the Border); work more and sooner to build alliances with local groups such as teachers’ unions and local activist associations

Bill Ayers – there is a privilege in choosing to be apolitical that goes unexamined. There is a difference between being “interested in” a research question and “engaged with” a real-life problem.

Discussion addressed issues such as:
• LGBT Presidential session and the problem of more research that “measures” without presenting solutions or partnerships with folks doing the work.
• Why should we care what AERA does? This is just one week out of the year, and AERA doesn’t actually mean that much to me.
• AERA has a history of issuing policy statements based on the research – why the silence now?
• We’ve been told that there are “multiple access points” to express our concerns and try to make change – does anyone know what they are? How to get a response?
• Tensions of navigating the Manchester Hyatt dilemma – when session is there: by boycotting session (when you are the discussant) you leave grad students you have made a commitment to hanging – which allegiances are more important? How do you choose?
• Recalling the insider/outsider issue and the work to get qualitative research recognized and valued at AERA in the 70’s. (work of Yvonna Lincoln, for example)
• The bureaucracy of the organization can outlast you – we need a long term strategy
• Policies and Procedures has open meetings – this is one place to access the power structure and demand change

Action steps:

1) We formed a delegation to attend the open business meeting Friday at 8:15am to voice our concerns over AERA’s response to queer issues. Members of the Queer Studies SIG at this meeting included: Judy Alston, Bill Ayers, Therese Quinn, Erica Meiners, Jake ?, Janna Jackson, Liz Meyer. The delegation identified key “asks” and learned a few things:
a. Requested more transparency in the actions/decisions of AERA leadership - specifically re: creating an LGBT research working group
b. Concerns re: representation and process of this working group – the name indicates a disconnect from the work of the Queer Studies SIG. We wanted to know who was invited, who chose these people, and what is the goal? There is anxiety and concern amongst our membership about how the final report will be worded/presented and what actions will follow. (They responded that they are open to suggestions of scholars to invite; their hope is that this report will act like a similar report from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research council of the early 90’s that made more funds available for research on GLBT issues. They responded that the report – like all publications – will be sent out for peer review to scholars in the field before being finalized and published). – Liz Meyer is going to send out request to listserv and compile responses to send in 2 weeks. - send suggestions to Liz by April 30
c. Concerns about scheduling of Queer SIG sessions – only 10- slots and several of them competed directly against each other, including the presidential session. (They apologized for this and said they tried to be conscious of this when making the schedule and will work harder on this in the future.)
d. Request to get a standing committee for Queer Issues – we were told to work with SAGE or SJAC, that at this point there is no plan to consider creating such a standing committee.
e. We were informed that SAGE (Scholars and Advocates for Gender Equity) is revising their mission to include queer issues (we made initial contact with their committee to start a dialogue and for them to send us a draft so members of the Queer Studies SIG can review the language.) – Liz Meyer is going to follow up
f. We were advised to work with the SJAC (Social Justice Action Committee) – which we learned is “above” SAGE, the Affirmative Action Committee and the Committee for Scholars of Color and acts to synthesize and unify responses around related Social Justice Issues. Since members of these committees are Presidential appointees, we must work to get Queer Studies SIG representation (official or unofficial) at these levels of AERA. (We went and spoke to outgoing SJAC chair, Kris Gutierrez to get her insight and suggestions of how to get our voices heard and get more consistent representation at these levels of the organization. She listened to us and told us to work with SAGE and the incoming chair of SJAC to continue advocating for our position.) – Erica Meiners is going to follow up
2) Three members of this delegation then went to personally voice our concerns and intended future actions to the Management of the Manchester Hyatt. We spoke directly to a manager who wanted to set up a meeting for us with a communications person (the labor organizers had already told us about this staff member and the pat responses that he would likely provide us), but none of us were available to stay for a meeting. We simply wanted them to hear our position in person and we promised to send them a copy of a letter that we will send to AERA expressing our position and how AERA should respond and plan accordingly in the future. – Erica Meiners is going to follow up

Anyone who is interested in actively contributing to these projects, should get in touch with Liz (elizabeth.meyer@mail.mcgill.ca) or Erica – we will post updates to the Queer SIG wiki and listserv so the membership can weigh in. If you have strong feelings, however, the best way to ensure your perspectives are included is to commit some time and energy to this work. Let us know how you can help!!