Associate Professor Barbara Baird

Associate Professor

College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

+61 8 82017673

barbara.baird@flinders.edu.au

Social Science South (319)

GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, South Australia

After completing my PhD about South Australian women's experiences of illegal abortion (before 1970), and almost a decade working and teaching at Flinders and Adelaide University, in 1999 I went to the University of Tasmania in Hobart where I coordinated the Gender Studies program for seven years. I have been in the discipline of Women's & Gender Studies at Flinders University since 2006.

Qualifications

BA (Flinders, 1979)

Grad Dip (Women's Studies) (SACAE, 1988)

PhD (Flinders, 1999)

Honours, awards and grants

ARC Discovery Project DP170100502 2017-2019: Gender and Sexual Politics: Changing citizenship in Australia since 1969 (with Prof Robert Reynolds, Assoc Prof Michelle Arrow & Dr Leigh Boucher, Dept of Modern History, Poltiics and International Relations, Macquarie University)

ARC Discovery Project 2005-2007: Reconfiguring inimate life: Gender and sexuality as site of national redefinition in Australia since 1996

2019 Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching

2019 South Australian Women's Honour Roll

2010 & 2012: Flinders University Nominee for the UniJobs Lecturer of the Year
2003: Dorothy Award for Creativity at the Gala Awards Night for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community in Tasmania
1993: Co-recipient of SA Equal Opportunity Award on behalf of Lesbian and Gay Community Action (LGCA)

Key responsibilities

I am co-convenor of the Inequalities Research Theme and a member of the Flinders University Senate.

I am a member of the Editorial Boards of Outskirts and the Journal of Australian Studies.

Teaching interests

My teaching interests include introductory and upper level women's and gender studies, with special interests in sexualities, masculinities, gender and sexuality in Australian history, the gendered and raced dimensions of public and private memory and commemmoration, media and cultural identities, feminism and feminist theory and in the voices and perspectives of Indigenous women.

Topic coordinator

WMST3009 Sexualities: Perspectives, Pleasures, Poltiics

HIST2022 Memory and the Poltiics of Difference: Sex, Race and belonging

WMST1002 Gender, Power and Change

WMST2016 Listening Up: Colonalism, Race and Gender

Supervisory interests

Abortion and maternity

Australian Indigenous studies

Critical race and whiteness studies in Australian contexts

Feminist and queer approaches to Australian history

History and cultural politics of sexuality and reproduction

Higher degree by research supervision

Current

Principal supervisor: The Voice in the Stitch: Writing a History of Australian Feminist Craft, 1975 to the Present (joint with History) (1), Cultures of gender and sexuality in relation to to HIV/AIDS in Papua (jointly with Population Studies) (1)

Associate supervisor: Feminism, Archives and History (joint with History) (1)

Completion

Principal supervisor: The experience of 'floating sex workers' in Bangladesh (1), The Gendered Newsroom: Embodied Subjectivity in the Changing World of the Media (1), Wired and Dangerous: Maternal Bodies in Cyber(cultural)space (1), A Place in the Empire: Negotiating the Life of Gertrude Kenny (1), Uses of performance to prevent rape and sexual assault (joint with Drama) (1), Women filmmakers in post New Order Indonesia (jointly with Flinders Asia Centre) (1)

Associate supervisor: Representations of maids in Argentinian literature (joint with History) — Associate (1), Spousal violence in Bangladesh: ‘problem wives’ and shelter homes (jointly with Social Work) (1)

Higher degree by research student achievements

Anitra Goriss-Hunter

Australian Women's & Gender Studies Association biennial prize for Best PhD thesis - NOV 2012

Professional engagement

I am currently the Co-Convenor of the South Australian Abortion Action Coalition (saaac, see https://saabortionactioncoalition.com/). saaac's goal is to improve SA women's access to abortion services and to normalise abortion as health care. We are pursuing the decriminalisation of abortion in SA. The Statutes Amendment (Abortion Law Reform) Bill 2018 which was introduced into the SA upper house in December 2018 by Tammy Franks (Greens) follows saaac's recommendation for decriminalisation and the regulation of abortion as health care.

I have been a regular contributor to the forum program in FEAST, Adelaide's LGBT cutural festival, since its inception in 1997. More recently I have also participated in queer (and abortion-focused) activities sponsored by the Migration Museum and Centre for Democracy.

In 2015, with Dr Ros Prosser (University of Adelaide), under the umbrella of FEAST, I co-convened the Remembering Dunstan project to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexualtiy in South Australia and to remember the inspiring political leadership of former Premier Don Dunstan. The project had two activities during FEAST in 2015 - a public lecture by law professor Nan Seuffert about 'queer' people seeking asylum in Australia and a troupe of 125 'Marching Dunstans' in the Pride March.

In October 2012 I was appointed to the South Australian Department for Communities and Social Inclusion's Rainbow Council. The council existed for an eighteen month period (2013-2014) and supported the department in the devising of an LGBTTIQ inclusion strategy for the state government which was launched in early 2014.

I have twice, in 2007 and 2012, with Dr Damien Riggs, co-convened the annual conference of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association.

Since 2010 I have, with fellow feminist academics from UniSA and the University of Adelaide, co-convened the SWomen's & Gender Studies Annual Public Lecture

Expert for media contact

Abortion

Feminism

Gender studies

Lesbians

Available for contact via

+61 8 82017673

barbara.baird@flinders.edu.au

Or contact the media team

newsdesk@flinders.edu.au

+61 8 82012092

0427 398 713