I encourage everyone to find out more about this closure at www.yorku.ca/arm and to try to stop the closure. Research on mothering is certainly devalued, just as mothering work is devalued in our culture. While it is not "just" that this happens, it will continue to happen, unless more research and more advocacy is taken that takes a stand in proving the importance of mothers, mothering, and motherhood. (And at the same time, realizing that cultural pressures to become/be 'mothers' are not 'just' either.) In any case, here is my letter:
To those of who have the financial and political ability to stop the closure of the Association for Research on Mothering,
It was with incredible shock and disappointment that I read the news of the pending closure of ARM, earlier this week. I am a PhD student who writes to you today not only because I have been published in JARM twice, have a chapter to be published in a Demeter book currently at the printers, and am a co-editor of a book Demeter is to publish in 2012, but because the loss of the ONLY journal and publishing company to concentrate on research on mothering and motherhood shows disrespect for mothers throughout the world.
As a mother and as a researcher of diverse families, the pending closure of ARM is both a professional and a personal kick in the teeth, so to speak.
While mothers are continually a group of people whose work (as mothers) is culturally devalued, the shutting of ARM, in some ways, does not come as a surprise. The fact, however, that ARM has been organized and run at York University, an institution that is usually seen as more progressive than most, especially with regard to the research and treatment of typically marginalized populations, makes it all the more devastating to find out the administrators at York do not have enough backbone to financially and politically support such an internationally recognized, and ultimately unique and important association, such as ARM.
This lack of support for ARM is abhorrent, and is sure to reflect more largely upon the whole university.
That said, I urge you to reconsider the funding of ARM, and to re-establish the reputation of York University as a politically progressive institution that ultimately does stand-up for, and support not only research on mothering, but many other people and work focusing on marginalized populations.
Thank you.
-Me
PhD student at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus
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