TASA Women’s Drinks: Mixed methods in a feminist context – celebrating the work of women on the Australian Longitudinal Survey of Women’s Health.

This year we will hear from women associated in various ways with the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health based at the Universities of Newcastle and Queensland. The study is in its 15th year of funding the three original cohorts and looking forward to recruiting another generation of young women for the fourth cohort in 2012. This is not a conventional academic panel but combines the intellectual with a more personal insight into this remarkable project in the traditions of the women’s health movement.

Conventional wisdom maintains that mainstream research has absorbed the issues which the feminist critique of ‘male methodology’ raised in the 1970s – and certainly the idea that only qualitative research can be feminist has been superseded. So is there any reason to have a ‘women’s event’ at TASA?

This informal panel has been invited as a testament to the power of the social model of health to inform influential mixed method research. Those who work on the ALSWH comment on the cohesive and supportive atmosphere created in this long-term research project. It is also noted for its remarkably high level of retention and involvement of its women participants. These characteristics, it can be argued, are derived from the women’s movement which makes this particularly appropriate for TASA’s women’s event.

In keeping with feminist ideals of egalitarianism we will hear from women at different stages of their careers speaking about their work, their contribution to the understanding of women’s health, their role as advisors to government and the extent to which their use of mixed methods and their research is informed by feminism.

Speakers:

Emeritus Professor Lois Bryson – In the 1990s was a Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University, and part of the team which framed the research and the management team at the critical early part of its history.

Dr Deborah Loxton – Deputy Director of the ALSWH and researcher into gender and violence.

Catherine Chojenta– PhD student and researcher into post-natal depression who has worked with ALSWH since she was an undergraduate student.

Dr Melanie Boursnell– Equity Research Fellow and researcher into women and ageing.

Cassie Curryer – BSocSci newly graduated research assistant.

The presentations will be brief to allow plenty of time for informal discussion and drinks.