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CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES CONSTITUTION OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR CULTURAL STUDIES In the context of planning and organising the 3rd International "Crossroads in Cultural Studies" Conference, held in Birmingham in June 2000, the project was put forward, and later discussed in a general meeting at the Conference itself, of launching an international association for cultural studies. The Crossroads project, which had mobilised the participation of many hundreds of cultural studies scholars and workers from all over the world at the Tampere Conferences in 1996 and 1998 and saw that mobilisation emphatically confirmed in Birmingham, made evident that the number and conditions of work of cultural studies practitioners pointed to the setting up of an organisation that might represent them, bring them together and promote their research and work. As a follow-up to the general meeting which took place in Birmingham, a group of sixteen scholars from different cultural studies locations, practices and traditions received the mandate to write the constitution of the Association. Now, in the context of planning and organising the 4th Crossroads Conference, to be held in Tampere in 2002, the proposed constitution of the Association for Cultural Studies is made known to the worldwide community of cultural studies practitioners, who are hereby invited to apply for membership. The adoption of this constitution, the official foundation of the Association for Cultural Studies and the election of its first Board will take place in a general assembly to be held in Tampere, on the occasion of the 4th International "Crossroads in Cultural Studies" Conference (June 29 – July 2, 2002). 1. THE ASSOCIATION AND ITS OFFICIAL CONFERENCE 1.1. Cultural studies is now a presence in the intellectual world scene. By the term cultural studies we refer to the inter- and trans-disciplinary study of and intervention into the relations between cultural practices and the social relations and organisation of power. Cultural studies researches and theorises cultural practices and forms, and their effects, by placing them into the contexts of relations in which they emerge, through which they circulate and into which they are appropriated. Cultural studies focuses on the production and reproduction of such relations and on the agencies which enable or resist them. 1.2. Because of its inter- and trans-disciplinarity, its wide geographical dispersion, and its commitment to contextual specificity, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people working in cultural studies to build the strong connections necessary to meet the challenges facing cultural studies, in the questions it asks, the institutional demands it faces, and the growing number of attacks on its project. Therefore, a worldwide Association of people working in cultural studies is needed. The name chosen for this Association is Association for Cultural Studies. 1.3. The Association aims at being able to include the diversity of work by committed scholars and workers in cultural studies around the world and to become a meaningful meeting place to them. The Association recognises that some of those scholars and workers do not call their work cultural studies, and that cultural studies is not the universal designation for its intellectual and political practices. The Association is envisioned less as a fixed and finished "scholarly congress" and more as an ongoing project that would contribute to forming and promoting an effective worldwide community of cultural studies. 1.4. The official Conference of the Association for Cultural Studies is the biannual International "Crossroads in Cultural Studies" Conference, and the Association for Cultural Studies is the sole owner of the right to organise it. The governing body of the Association will examine the proposals presented by institutions interested in organising that Conference and decide which institution will organise it. A sum of money to be agreed on by the Association and the institution organising its official Conference is due to the Association for Cultural Studies. 1.5. The Association aims at making its official Conference accessible and productive to all its members, no matter where they live or what languages they speak. 2. GOVERNANCE OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR CULTURAL STUDIES 2.1. The Association for Cultural Studies is constituted by its membership. Membership of the Association entails registration and the payment of a biannual fee. That fee is fully deductible from the official Conference registration fee. 2.1.1. Registration as founding members of the Association for Cultural Studies, as well as the voluntary payment of the founding fee of €50, will be made possible for participants in the Tampere 2002 Conference. 2.1.2. The founding members of the Association, present at the Tampere 2002 Conference, will constitute the general assembly which will adopt the present constitution and elect the first Board. 2.2. The Association for Cultural Studies will be steered by a governing Board formed by 15 members representing cultural studies scholars and workers all over the world. The Board will ensure effective and balanced representation of all world regions, as well as gender and other issues that may be deemed or prove necessary for the work of the Association. 2.3. The Board will be composed by regional representatives of cultural studies constituencies, according to the following distribution: Africa – 2 representatives (one of them from Southern Africa); Asia – 3 representatives (one from Northeast Asia, one from Southeast Asia, and one from South Asia); Australia and New Zealand – 1 representative; Europe – 3 representatives (one from Northern Europe, one from Central and Eastern Europe, and one from Western and Southern Europe); Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean – 3 representatives; North America and the English- and French-speaking Caribbean – 3 representatives. 2.4. The Board is the governing body of the Association. It will work both in plenary decision making and through the Executive, which will implement its decisions. It will be formed by members elected as representatives of cultural studies regions by the members of the Association located in those regions. 2.4.1. The Board will set up procedures for membership and decide on the amount of the Association membership fee. The Board has the responsibility and power to make decisions pertinent to carrying out the work of the Association as defined in this constitution. 2.5. The Executive will be formed by the Chair, the Vice-Chair, the Treasurer, and two Secretaries, one administrative and the other organisational. 2.6. The Chair and the Vice-Chair are the only members of the Board to be be elected directly by the worldwide membership of the Association. The Chair will represent the Association and the worldwide community of cultural studies and will be the face and voice of the Association. If and when the Chair is unable to carry out this work, the Vice-Chair will act as Chair. 2.7. The other members of the Executive – the Treasurer and both Secretaries – will be elected by the Board from among its regionally elected members. 2.8. The Board and the Executive will be elected for a term in office of three years. 2.9. Elections will be carried out by e-mail voting, and complementarily by air-mail voting for those who do not have e-mail access. 2.9.1. For the purpose of officially launching the Association for Cultural Studies, the first Board of the Association for Cultural Studies will be elected directly by its founding members in the general assembly to be held in Tampere. 2.9.2. The composition of the first Board of the Association for Cultural Studies will observe the principle of balanced representation set out in 2.2 and 2.3 of this constitution. 2.10. The Board will consider applications for affiliation to the Association by existing or to be constituted associations and networks of cultural studies scholars and workers. Affiliation, once accepted, will entail the payment of a fee to be agreed on between the Board and the affiliated organisation. The benefits and responsibilities of such affiliation will be agreed upon by the Board and the affiliated organisation. 2.11. The Board will consider amendments to be made to the present rules of the Association and submit them to the whole membership. Amendments can only be adopted with the votes of a qualified majority of two thirds of the voters. 3. OBJECTIVES 3.1. The Association will promote and represent cultural studies – by whatever name its intellectual practice may be called and known in different regions of the world – as a legitimate scholarly, academic and cultural pursuit aimed at a practical transformation of existing social and political relations. By providing a broad structure for a plurality of approaches constitutive of cultural studies, the Association will promote public understanding of its goals, agendas and traditions, and speak in defence of cultural studies, or of particular programmes and scholars, if they come under attack. 3.2. The Association will help establish knowledge of and links among the diverse groups of cultural studies scholars and workers around the world. The Association will help establish, strengthen and maintain contacts between cultural studies scholars and workers across different disciplines and in the different countries and regions of the world. It will in this way seek to enable people to find out about work being done on particular topics around the world, and to take advantage of and develop the possibilities of collaborative work. The Association will encourage collective and collaborative projects among cultural studies communities. The Association will encourage and facilitate, in whatever ways possible, the creation of local, national and regional cultural studies groups, and provide an opportunity for them to be linked in ways that enable their cooperation. 3.3. The Association will work towards providing the following information: 3.3.1. Institutional sites offering opportunities for education (degrees) in cultural studies; 3.3.2. A directory of people and their research interests (by field, discipline, geography, etc.); 3.3.3. A calendar of cultural studies events; 3.3.4. A directory of cultural studies journals and websites with searchable archives of their tables of contents and current subscription information. 3.4. The Association will work to find ways 3.4.1. to inform people both inside and outside of cultural studies of the various traditions and models of cultural studies being practiced in different disciplinary and geographical locations around the globe; 3.4.2. to put together an archive of historical resources and a directory of current research; 3.4.3. to provide information and resources regarding educational issues around cultural studies (pedagogy, syllabuses, curricular issues), not only for colleges and universities, but for all educational levels; 3.4.4. to promote cultural studies conferences all over the world. 3.5. The Association, through its governing Board, sets itself the following priorities: 3.5.1. The regular publication of an e-newsletter including, among its contents, the announcement and call for papers of cultural studies conferences, current tables of contents of journals, reports of research, grant opportunities, etc.; 3.5.2. Negotiations with publishers in order to gain Association members significant discounts to the full range of cultural studies journals and other cultural studies publications. ________________ This Constitution is the collective work of the group of scholars who in the 2000 Birmingham Crossroads Conference received the mandate to write it. In alphabetical order, they are: Pertti ALASUUTARI, Kuan-Hsing CHEN, Kirsten DROTNER, Ann GRAY, Lawrence GROSSBERG, Joke HERMES, Baris KILICBAY, Daniel MATO, Alan McKEE, Alvaro PINA (coordinator), M. Michael SCHIFF, Keyan TOMASELLI and Handel K. WRIGHT December 17, 2001 |