[csaa-forum] Cultural Studies in the UK - a few thoughts on 'disciplines' re Cultural studies

[Ian Goodwin]

Hello all,

I'm a long time lurker/first time poster - prompted to do so by the
very interesting series of discussions on the list recently about the
nature of Cultural Studies as a 'Discipline'. I recently returned to
New Zealand with a PhD in Cultural Studies from the Cultural Studies
Dept of the University of Birmingham - the place where (arguably) the
'discipline' of cultural studies first emerged.

I write this not to try and attach some sort of spurious legitimacy
to my contribution, but as an important introduction to my (and I'll
try and make it brief) tale of how the management of the University of
Birmingham successfully shut our department (discipline??) down -
despite the fact that it had an international reputation, produced
some great research, had a great post-grad culture and ran some great
undergraduate degrees.

The primary rationale given for doing so was that our dept had only
gained a '3' in the Research Assessment Exercise (an ill-thought
through method of measuring and assessing the research output of the
staff, and utilising this as a basis for funding). This was a poor
showing compared to the rest of the University. Yet a very big part of
the problem here was that Cultural Studies - as many of the
contributions here have pointed out - is resolutely
trans-disciplinary, even where it is institutionalised in its 'own'
dept. In fact, Cultural Studies in the UK always actively resisted
'disciplinarity' by definition (but this is another long story). Thus,
choosing a 'panel' to have for the dept to submit to for the RAE was
difficult - it didn't really 'fit in' (there was no category called
'Cultural Studies' in the government's eyes). Arguably, this made it
far more difficult for the staff to have their research assessed
fairly or valued properly. Moreover, getting CS research done in the
first place was always more difficult. For example, getting research
funding for Cultural Studies work was always more difficult as no
funding body had the category of 'Cultural Studies' either (for
example, I had to apply to the ESRC under 'sociology' for PhD
funding). 

To cut to the point - the management of Uni of Brum, who had a long
history of trying to get rid of the dept anyway, took the chance of
the low RAE score to get rid of the dept. The upshot - all the staff
were got rid of, a new lot were hired, and a new sociology dept formed
(which aimed to 'no longer privilege the cultural turn in analysis of
society'). The moral of this story (if there is one), is that it IS
harder to 'do' cultural studies (whatever one deems it to be) in
todays academic environment - in Australia or elsewhere. We are
increasingly categorised, monitored, measured, and - thereby -
manipulated to a greater degree than was the case  in the past. In
such an environment, the CS approach to 'disciplinarity' is
problematic. To name something a discipline, or to establish a
discipline, is not just semantics, it is an exercise in power - it
legitimates. Its precisely the sort of exercise in power, which tends
to close avenues of debate and research down as much as it opens them
up, which CS in the UK actively set out to resist. It did so in Brum
with success for some time. Unfortunately, in the environment of
tertiary education today it also made CS an easy target for the
auditors.

Ian Goodwin

Lecturer
MA Communication Studies
School of Communication Studies
Faculty of Arts
Auckland University of Technology
Private Bag 92006
Auckland 1020
Aotearoa/ New Zealand

Telephone 64-9-917 9999 x 7734
Email ian.goodwin at aut.ac.nz