12th South Australian Women's and Gender Studies Annual Public Lecture

12^th South Australian Women’s and Gender Studies Annual Public Lecture – Working in Challenging Environments: What is the Work?

Professor Donna Baines (University of British Colombia), in conversation with Professor Sharyn Roach Anleu, Professor Sarah Wendt and Dr Kate Seymour (Flinders University).

Join us in person or online on to discuss how we define work, the narratives that workers use to manage challenging work environments and how organisations support or diminish workers ability to manage these environments.

This public event is presented by

• Social Work Innovation Research Living Space (SWIRLS), Flinders University
• Women’s & Gender Studies and the Inequality Research Theme in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University
• Sociology, Criminology & Gender Studies and Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender at the University of Adelaide
• Research Network for Studies in Gender, Sexualities and Equity at UniSA.

This public event will be an ‘in conversation with’ style event with Professor Donna Baines and other leading experts discussing the ways in which people navigate work environments where risk is seemingly inherent in the role.

Specifically, we explore what it means to work in a role where managing verbal violence and intimidation, witnessing violence and/or its victims is considered simply a part of the job.  By focusing on workplaces where workers are required to manage their own and other people’s safety - both physically and psychologically - the panel will explore how we define work, the narratives that workers use to manage challenging work environments and how organisations support or diminish workers ability to manage these environments.

About the Speakers

PANELISTS

Professor Donna Baines, School of Social Work, University of British Colombia, Canada

Donna Baines is a Professor and the previous Director of the University of British Colombia’s School of Social Work. Donna came to UBC in 2009 from the University of Sydney, where she served as the Chair of the School of Social Work and Social Policy. Previously, she held professorial appointments at Dalhousie University and McMaster University. Donna’s research focuses on paid and unpaid work, anti-oppressive/critical social work theory and practice, and social policy and austerity. She has collaborated extensively with research projects in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Scotland and is currently involved in a number of research collaborations, including as a co-applicant on a SSHRC Partnership Grant and as a co-investigator on another. She founded and co-edits the online journal, Social Work & Policy Studies: Social Justice, Practice and Theory.

Professor Sarah Wendt, Matthew Flinders Fellow, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, and Director of the Social Work Innovation Research Living Space (SWIRLS), Flinders University, South Australia

Sarah Wendt made the switch to academia to find innovative solutions to widespread societal challenges that impact communities around the world. As a social worker, working in the field of domestic violence, she was inspired to move into a academia so as to research and advocate for social, cultural, and political change. Sarah has a PhD from the University of South Australia and has published extensively on violence against women and social work practice. Her current research projects explore the impact of domestic violence on women's citizenship, service provision for Aboriginal communities experiencing family violence, and engaging men to address domestic violence. In particular, Sarah has been researching rural women's experiences of domestic violence for over a decade in Australia and more recently how domestic violence work shapes practitioners living and working in rural communities

Professor Sharyn Roach Anleu, Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Flinders University, South Australia

Dr Sharyn Roach Anleu is Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Sociology in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University, Adelaide, and Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences.  She is a past president of The Australian Sociological Association and the author of Law and Social Change and four editions of Deviance, Conformity and Control.   She is currently co-Chair of the Law and Society Association’s Collective Research Network:  Law and Emotion.  With Emerita Professor Kathy Mack she leads the Judicial Research Project at Flinders University which undertakes socio-legal research into the Australian judiciary and its courts. Their latest book is Judging and Emotion:  A Socio-Legal Analysis (Routledge 2021) and in 2018 Sharyn and Jessica Milner Davis co-edited Judges, Judging and Humour (Palgrave). Just last week Sharyn was awarded The Australian Sociological Association’s Award for Distinguished Service to Australian Sociology.

Dr Kate Seymour, Senior Lecturer, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, and member of the Social Work Innovation Research Living Space (SWIRLS), Flinders University, South Australia 

Kate Seymour is currently a Senior Lecturer in Social Work. Prior joining Flinders University in 2014, Dr Seymour worked as a Lecturer in Criminology at Charles Sturt University in NSW. Her research interest - in gender, masculinities and violence – emerged from her social work practice with adult offenders, including those convicted of child sex and other violent offences, and spans the disciplinary fields of social work and criminology. Kate is especially interested in the framing of violence in the policy, prevention, and practice realms, and the ways in which this reflects and reinforces structural inequalities. Kate is also a member of the Centre for Research on Men and Masculinities (CROMM) based at University of Wollongong, NSW.

HOST AND FACILITATORS

Associate Professor Barbara Baird, Women’s and Gender Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Flinders University, South Australia

Since 2010 Barbara Baird has collaborated with fellow feminist academics from Flinders University, UniSA and the University of Adelaide to co-convene the SA Women's & Gender Studies Annual Public Lecture. Barbara works in the discipline of Women and Gender Studies at Flinders University and has contributed to research in the cultural politics and histories of sexuality and reproduction in Australia and their interrelation with discourses of race and nation; feminism in Australia; representations of children and 'the child'; and memory and representations of the past. Her current research concerns changing notions of gendered and sexual citizenship since 1970 and the politics and provision of abortion. Her monograph Neoliberal Abortion is forthcoming. Barbara co-leads the Inequality Research Theme in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and is also the Co-Convenor of the South Australian Abortion Action Coalition.

Associate Professor Kris Natalier, Dean of Education, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and member of the Social Work Innovation Research Living Space (SWIRLS), Flinders University, South Australia

Kris Natalier’s work centres on the gendered nature of familial and intimate relationships as lived experiences and as sites of policy intervention. Her research agenda addresses: a) the expressive dimensions and gendered power dynamics of child support as a financial transfer and policy regime; b) children's understandings of ‘home' in the context of their parents' separation/ divorce and c) the housing and support needs and experiences of young women who have survived domestic and family violence or sexual assault. Kris is currently leading a linkage project with the Department for Child Protection, Anglicare SA and Life Without Barriers to explore how to create home for children and young people in care. Kris is co-convener of The Australian Sociological Association Families and Relationships Thematic Group.