Voices from the early days: Recovering histories of feminist academics as critical actors, weaving a collective biography of gender and sexuality studies at a Scottish University

This article engages with the voices of six pioneering women academics who were instrumental in introducing ‘gender and sexuality studies’ at a Scottish research-intensive higher education institution. The article’s aim is to weave a collective biography of both the origin and development of gender and sexuality studies at the institution and also the emergence of feminists as change agents or ‘critical actors’ on the inside. It begins by exploring these academics’ early life, university education and engagement in different forms of activism to understand their pathways into feminism and the academy. The article then excavates their accounts for the origin stories of the first women’s and gender studies courses at the institution. It delves into their memories of the ‘with gender’ degree programmes and their core course. The article engages with the academics’ reflections on questions of legitimacy and ‘mainstreaming’ of gender and sexuality studies, and feminist pedagogical approaches within the curriculum and across conventional disciplines. It examines their insights on the changes and continuities regarding how women academics, gender and sexuality studies as a field, and feminist pedagogical practices and research have been treated in the institution, and in the academy, as such. Methodologically, the article is based on six oral history interviews conducted in 2017–2018, which were subsequently supplemented by some archival research. By analysing the voices from the ‘early days’, the article argues for the importance of feminist oral history in reshaping institutional memory. With many in the generation of pioneers now retiring, no longer active or deceased, the article underscores the urgency of capturing their experiences and contributions in their own voices before they are lost to future generations. The article offers broader insights into how gender and sexuality studies has been sustained over the long haul, and how feminist futures in the academy could be (re)imagined and secured globally.