Proposals for revisions of the ACS bylaws

As part of the ACS Special General Assembly 2021, all members are invited to vote on the proposed changes to the ACS bylaws. The voting is carried out online prior to the Assembly. You can vote on the changes without participating in the Assembly. The poll will be open until November 14th. 

The results will be announced at the Assembly, which will be held by email from 15th to 29th of November.

The proposals, drafted by a Board sub-committee in response to the comments from the external auditor in 2020, suggest changes that would bring the ACS bylaws in line with the current national legislation and guidelines in Finland (where the Association is based).
The text of the current bylaws is available at: https://www.cultstud.org/wordpress/about/rules/

The proposed revised version is below.

Article 1: The Name and Domicile

1.1. The name of this association is Association for Cultural Studies.

1.2. The domicile of the Association is in Tampere, Finland.

Article 2: The Objectives and Forms of Activity

2.1. The Association aims at forming and promoting an effective worldwide community of cultural studies.

2.1.1. By the term cultural studies we refer to the inter- and trans-disciplinary study of and intervention into the relations between cultural practices and the social relations and organization of power. Cultural studies researches and theorizes cultural practices and forms, and their effects, by placing them into the contexts of relations in which they emerge, through which they circulate and into which they are appropriated.

Cultural studies focuses on the production and reproduction of such relations and on the agencies which enable or resist them.

2.1.2. Because of its inter- and trans-disciplinarity, its wide geographical dispersion, and its commitment to contextual specificity, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people working in cultural studies to build the strong connections necessary to meet the challenges facing cultural studies, in the questions it asks, the institutional demands it faces, and the growing number of attacks on its project. Therefore, a worldwide Association of people working in cultural studies is needed.

2.1.3. The Association aims at being able to include the diversity of work by committed scholars and workers in cultural studies around the world and to become a meaningful meeting place to them. The Association recognizes that some of those scholars and workers do not call their work cultural studies, and that cultural studies is not the universal designation for its intellectual and political practices.

The Association is envisioned less as a fixed and finished “scholarly congress” and more as an ongoing project that would contribute to forming and promoting an effective worldwide community of cultural studies.

2.1.4. The Association will help establish knowledge of and links among the diverse groups of cultural studies scholars and workers around the world. The Association will help establish, strengthen and maintain contacts between cultural studies scholars and workers across different disciplines and in the different countries and regions of the world. It will in this way seek to enable people to find out about work being done on particular topics around the world, and to take advantage of and develop the possibilities of collaborative work.

The Association will encourage collective and collaborative projects among cultural studies communities. The Association will encourage and facilitate, in whatever ways possible, the creation of local, national and regional cultural studies groups, and provide an opportunity for them to be linked in ways that enable their cooperation.

2.1.5. Association will promote and represent cultural studies – by whatever name its intellectual practice may be called and known in different regions of the world – as a legitimate scholarly, academic and cultural pursuit aimed at a practical transformation of existing social and political relations. By providing a broad structure for a plurality of approaches constitutive of cultural studies, the Association will promote public understanding of its goals, agendas and traditions.

2.2. To achieve its objectives, the Association – organizes international conferences, especially the Crossroads in Cultural Studies conference, which is the official conference of the association; – aims to provide information about cultural studies scholars and scholarship around the world – speaks in defense of cultural studies, its programs or cultural studies scholars by taking initiatives, giving statements and using other corresponding means.

2.2.1. The official Conference of the Association for Cultural Studies is the biennial international “Crossroads in Cultural Studies” Conference, and the Association for Cultural Studies is the sole owner of the right to organize it. The governing body of the Association will examine the proposals presented by institutions interested in organizing that Conference and decide which institution will organize it. A sum of money to be agreed on by the Association and the institution organizing its official Conference is due to the Association for Cultural Studies.

2.2.2 The Association aims at making its official Conference accessible and productive to all its members, no matter where they live or what languages they speak.

2.3. To support its activity the Association may receive donations and inheritances, own real and movable property required for its activity and, after been granted the proper permits, organize lotteries and fund-raising campaigns. The Association may also practice such business or trade that is directly related to the aims of the Association or that can be deemed as economically insignificant.

Article 4: Governing Bodies

4.1. The Association for Cultural Studies is steered by the Board composed of the Chair and Vice-Chair and of at least 3 and at most 25 other members elected in the General Election Assembly.

4.1.1. The Board has the responsibility and power to make decisions pertinent to carrying out the work of the Association as defined in this constitution.

4.1.2. Apart from the Chair and Vice-Chair, the Board is composed by regional representatives of cultural studies constituencies, according to the following distribution:

Africa – 3 representatives (one of them from Southern Africa); Asia – 4 representatives (one of them from Northeast Asia, one of them from Southeast Asia and one of them from South Asia); Australia and New Zealand – 2 representatives; Europe – 4 representatives (one of them from Northern Europe, one of them from Central and Eastern Europe, and one of them from Western and Southern Europe); Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean – 4 representatives; North America and the English- and French-speaking Caribbean – 4 representatives.

4.1.3. The regions that the Chair and the Vice-Chair represent will both lose one seat from the quotas defined above. If they both represent a region that has only one seat in the Board, the number of people elected to the Board will be raised by one.

4.1.4. To register for voting according to the quotas defined above, members have to select the region to which they want to belong in the vote for regular Board members. The nominees from a region also have to have selected that region when registering as members of the Association.

4.1.5. One reserve member for each region will automatically be co-opted as a full member if any of the first elected members in that region retire or can no longer serve on the board. This reserve member will be the candidate with the next highest number of votes in his/her region after all elected members, and will assume full voting rights if co-opted.

4.1.6. The Board has the right to invite the immediate past Chair, Vice Chair and/or one other past Board member to be co-opted to the Board, in order to strengthen continuity. These co-opted members have no voting rights but full right to participate and speak at Board meetings.

4.1.7. In the event that the Chair is unable or unwilling to complete his/her term of office, the Vice Chair shall automatically become Chair and the Organizational Secretary shall automatically become Vice Chair. In the event that the Vice Chair is unable or unwilling to complete his/her term of office, the Organizational Secretary shall automatically become Vice Chair. In the event of multiple simultaneous vacancies on the Executive, the Board shall be empowered to fill those vacancies as it sees fit.

4.2. The Board will be elected for a term in office of four years.

4.2.1. The terms of service for Board members shall be staggered across two election cycles, so that each of the global regions described in 4.1.2 except for Africa will choose half of its representatives every two years. Africa will choose 2 representatives in one election cycle and 1 representative in the other. The elections for Chair and Vice Chair shall be held during the same election cycle.

4.3. The Board selects from within or outside itself the Treasurer and two secretaries, one administrative and the other organizational.

4.4. The Chair, the Vice-Chair, the Treasurer, and two Secretaries form the Executive, which can implement the Board’s decisions.

4.5. The Board holds a meeting from the invitation of the Chair, or when the Chair is excused, the Vice-Chair, when they regard it needed, or when at least half of the Board members demand it.

4.6. The Board has a quorum when at least half of its members, including the Chair or Vice-Chair, are present. Votes are decided by majority rule. If the votes are divided evenly, the vote of the Chair is decisive. However, elections shall be decided by lot.

4.6.1. The Board meetings are as a rule held virtually as email discussions. In this instance being present in a meeting means that a member is not for instance due to a trip disconnected from their email when a topic is being discussed and decided.

4.7. The Board may appoint non-standing Committees and ad hoc groups operating under its supervision.