Important Announcement from the SEWSA Executive Board
Dear SEWSA Community,
The SEWSA Executive Board and Community has engaged in multiple discussions about the future of SEWSA over the past two years. Following a community wide survey of SEWSA members and discussions with scholar-activists and community organizers from across the region, the Executive Board is proposing a change to SEWSA’s organizational name in order to address two significant community concerns.
First, the term “women” included in SEWSA’s name is contested by its members, many of whom have led and continue to lead campaigns to change the names of their institutional programs and organizations to replace or supplement the term “women” with more inclusive and appropriate terminology like gender, sexuality, queer, and feminist and to further qualify the intersections of these terms with race, class, nation, and ability.
Second, SEWSA is the most long-standing and active regional organization in the country, and over the past several years our community has grown beyond the geographical borders of our original constitution. Originally founded in 1976, SEWSA was one of the original regional organizations that came together in 1977 to found the NWSA and served as a regional delegate until the NWSA changed their governance structure a few years ago. Since then, several states outside of our original constitution have asked to be included as a part of SEWSA (e.g., Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas). Further, SEWSA has long acknowledged that trajectories of “the South” can be traced throughout the U.S., the Americas, and the world. For SEWSA, the South is contested territory, and SEWSA has long served “Southerners” beyond the U.S.-Southeastern regional border — from the West Coast to South Asia — with a space to think critically about and reimagine a just South.
In solidarity with SEWSA’s founding vision of a feminist organization rooted in and committed to social justice in the South, the SEWSA Executive Board proposes a change of the organization’s name from The Southeastern Women’s Studies Association to The Association for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the South, or WGS South.
ARTICLE 1: Name The name of this organization shall be WGS South – The Association for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the South. Membership is drawn from, but not confined to, individuals and organizations interested in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and its purposes who reside in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. We understand the “South” as inclusive of, but not limited to, the southeastern United States, and we understand those territories complexly, shaped historically and currently by transnational circuits of settler colonialism, chattel slavery, and white supremacy, as well as multiple and intricate diasporic communal formations. WGS South, prior to a 2022 renaming, was the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association, which was founded in Atlanta, GA in 1976. The Association’s office will be at the institution or office of the Association’s current treasurer.
The link to the bylaws and a summary of revisions follows. All current members will receive an electronic ballot before the annual meeting, the results of which will be announced at our Awards Ceremony and Business Meeting on Friday, March 25, 2022.
The Executive Board would like to thank everyone who contributed to strengthening our community through these conversations over the past two years. We look forward to the next exciting and impactful chapter of SEWSA’s legacy.
In solidarity,
The SEWSA Executive Board
Stacy Keltner, President (2020-2022)
Phyllis Thompson, Past President (2020-2022)
Hil Malatino, President-Elect (2020-2022)
Katelyn M. Campbell, Interim Secretary (2021 - 2022)
Kelly Finley, Treasurer (2016-2022)
Jill Fredenburg, Director of Communication and Marketing (2021-2023)
Frances Henderson, BIPOC Caucus Chair (2019-2023)
David A. Rubin, LGBTQ Caucus Chair (2019-2023)
Bylaws:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/148bdZR7RIudUxm3oC7lrfViQTqtCYGRzIT_-75JdhbI/edit?usp=sharing
Significant Revisions:
We have changed the name of the association from the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association to WGS South – The Association for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the South, and modified Article 1 to include a line about the history of the association.
We have also modified Article 1 by adding three states - Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas - and language about the “South” as being inclusive of, but not limited to, the southeastern United States.
We have removed information about the association having delegate members to the National Women’s Studies Association, as the NWSA no longer has regional delegates.
We have made the Director of Communications and Marketing an officer position.
We have transferred responsibility for filing each year’s conference materials with the Association’s archives at Duke University from the conference organizers to the secretary.
Clarified language about the Association’s yearly internal financial audit and the composition of the Finance and Budget committee, which needs to include the President, Treasurer, and one other member of the executive board.
