In 2024 we are celebrating the 35th birthday of Raffia magazine! With the launch of the first in-print edition of Raffia Magazine in years and collaborating with LOVER-magazine, this anniversary can already be described as a true milestone in Raffia’s history. Where the magazine started as a newspaper for the Centre for Women’s Studies at the Radboud University, it has now become an independent magazine filled with much more than just university-related articles. For Raffia’s anniversary, we took a deep dive into Raffia’s archive (which can be found in the archive of the Centre for Women’s Studies in the university archive) and stumbled upon some very interesting moments in Raffia’s history. Through this timeline we want to shed light on the wonderful history of Raffia in these past 35 years, to celebrate the present and work towards an even more insightful, educational and activist future for Raffia Magazine!
1989: The first Raffia
In 1989, the first edition of Raffia magazine was published. Before the founding of Raffia, another magazine was published in 1986, being a prelude to Raffia. Sophia & Co was a magazine focused on giving students a place to write and publish their works. Raffia was a publication of the Centre of Women’s Studies, focused on being informative on developments in women’s studies and emancipation. Raffia had an independent editorial policy and included news articles, academic articles, theses, and more. This edition focused on ‘women’s culture’, with, among others, an article about women in management positions, a review of a book on Brabant women in the 19th and 20th centuries, and other news in women’s studies. In the 20th anniversary edition of Raffia, Claudia Krops reviews the first Raffia: ‘The first volume of Raffia looks like an informal newsletter, but contains articles that proved to be of a high standard.’ Additionally, she illustrates how the bulletin fulfils the need for a connecting element between the activities of The Centre for Women’s Studies and the women studying at Radboud University.
1991: Congress ‘Who’s afraid of femininity?’
On 1 and 2 February 1991, the Centre for Women’s Studies held an important congress called ‘Who’s Afraid of Femininity? Questions on identity’, where 250 visitors were present. The congress was announced in Raffia magazine and celebrated the development from the old way of research to a new one. The theme of the congress was explored in two big interdisciplinary lectures, observing the interdisciplinary nature of the Centre for Women’s Studies. Besides these lectures, six more disciplinary lectures examined the theme through the lens of theology/philosophy, pedagogy, the arts, psychology, history, and anthropology/sociology. ‘Who’s Afraid of Femininity’ was a congress that included both national and international speakers, and was the first congress held by the Centre for Women’s Studies that had an international character. Though the presence of so many different disciplines caused some confusion, visitors were impressed with the scientific quality and merit of the congress. The international focus of the Centre for Women’s Studies has remained a priority throughout the years and continues to be an important element at Radboud Gender and Diversity Studies and Raffia magazine as well.
1992: Appointment of Willy Jansen as Professor of Women’s Studies
After 7 years of working as an assistant professor for Women’s Studies, Willy Jansen followed Christien Brinkgreve as the director of the Centre for Women’s Studies in 1992, a title she would hold until her retirement in 2015. This was a precarious and difficult position to have, especially in those days. Every year Willy and her colleagues had to work hard to justify the existence of the Centre of Women’s Studies and to fight for any funding they could get. Raffia was then not just a way to inform people of what was going on in the world of women’s studies, but also an important tool to show to the university that this research is important and worth doing. After 30 years of working for the Centre and later the Institute of Gender Studies it was time for her to retire, at which point the university also decided to formally dissolve the Institute in favour of a new Gender & Diversities department. While Willy Jansen rarely had the time to get involved with Raffia, she understood the importance of the magazine and made sure to contribute an article from time to time.
1993: The first English article in Raffia
Originally, Raffia was published in Dutch. In the second edition of Raffia in 1993, the first English article was published. This article was written by Debbi Long, who previously had written in a column in Raffia titled ‘Dear Raffia’. Debbi Long was an Australian international student studying biological anthropology. Her column consisted of a mix of English and Dutch and centred around her experiences as an international student living in the Netherlands and learning Dutch. In her first column, she talks about how she struggled to follow her classes, as they were all in Dutch. She sometimes confused words and meanings because they looked similar to her. This led her to end the column with ‘best vegetables!’ (referring to the similarity of the Dutch words ‘groeten’ – meaning greetings – and ‘groenten’- meaning vegetables). In the second Raffia of 1993, the time was finally there for her first full article in the Raffia – in English! The article is an interview with Dr. Tatjana van Strien and guest speaker Janet Sayers about the postgraduate course ‘Gender and Body: Between Biology and Construction.’ They met over breakfast to do the interview, because of their schedules being too tight to plan it any other time. After this initial article, Debby wrote a few more articles for Raffia. After she left the editorial board at the end of 1994, Raffia was completely published in Dutch again.
1995: Congress ‘Women on the road, on mobility and the environment’
In 1995, the International Women’s Day celebration was themed ‘Women on the road, on mobility and the environment.’ In honour of this, Heleen van Doremalen and Claudia Krops did an interview for Raffia with the politician Ina Brouwer (The Dutch Communist Party, GroenLinks), who would be speaking at the celebration. Brouwer acknowledged the increase in mobility for women as a result of emancipation, as women were doing more paid labour outside of the household, for which they needed to travel more. Though typically the increased mobility for women would be seen as progress, Brouwer was more critical. She did not regard the increase in mobility for women as a bad thing or a good thing. She regarded increased mobility for men and women as an impracticality. She mentioned: ‘If you want to combine paid labour and childcare, you have to make an effort to minimise the time spent travelling to and from work.’ Additionally, she saw a lot of travelling as a decrease in quality of life for both men and women, as they were losing valuable time, as well as it being bad for the environment. She believed that there needed to be a decrease in mobility in the Netherlands, both to reduce its environmental impact and to increase the quality of life of working men and women.
1997: Changing of the guards at Raffia
In 1998, José van Alst was succeeded by Claudia Krops as the new official secretary and coordinator of the Centre for Women’s Studies and therefore the new editorial chair of Raffia. To mark this occasion, a double interview was published in the fifth Raffia of 1997, written by Maria Hurkens. Claudia Krops had been part of the editorial board before, but upon her return she mentioned that all the editorial board members were new to her. She liked the fixed sections and fixed columns that were added during her leave and thought a greater degree of interdisciplinarity was important and strongly encouraged it. This was mainly because Raffia, according to her, was first and foremost a university magazine, so it should reflect as many of the disciplines as possible. Furthermore, the Raffia was supposed to be a forum for all women at the Radboud University and a way to connect with other feminist groups. José van Alst was leaving after seven years of working at the Centre for Women’s Studies and Raffia, but would continue working nearby at the University. The thing she appreciated most about her time at Raffia was working on a tangible product with enthusiastic editorial board members and writers. In her opinion, you couldn’t find that ethos anywhere else. It was important to her that Raffia described what was happening at the university in terms of women’s studies and emancipation policy, and that Raffia keeps its own profile; its women’s studies ethos.
2005: Extra thick Raffia and 20 years Institute for Gender Studies
In 2005 Raffia released an extra thick anniversary edition of their magazine in honour of the 20th anniversary of the Institute for Gender Studies. The central theme of this particular Raffia was the same as the theme of the celebration: ‘Fact and Fiction: Gender in the interplay of Art and Science.’ This was the third issue released that year. The issue contained various articles that were all related to the overarching theme of fact and fiction in their own way. Examples of subjects of these articles were aliens and cyborgs, or gendering the posthuman. Additionally, the issue contained an interview with a comedian who would perform during one of the activities that would take place during the anniversary. This Raffia promoted the activities that would happen during the anniversary of the Institute for Gender Studies. Even though the Raffia Magazine and the Institute for Gender Studies were very intertwined, the articles and subjects in this Raffia still added different angles to the overall theme as a separate product. The next Raffia that was released that year contained two pages of pictures of this anniversary celebration. In one of the photos you can also see Dutch comedian Soundos El Ahmadi, who did a comedy show with two other comedians about gender issues on October 12th.
2009: 20th anniversary Raffia and the ‘Soup Book’
To celebrate the twentieth year of Raffia publications, Raffia published a soup book to be delivered along with the magazine. This book included recipes that were sent in by members of the editorial board. It included the recipes with the list of ingredients and included a playful photo of a member of the board preparing the dish. However, it seemed like not all Raffia subscribers were happy with the gifted ‘Soup Book’. In a column in a 2009 volume of Raffia, a reader voiced her disappointment with the choice of ‘something so gender role-affirming as a celebration of the anniversary.’ After being a Raffia reader for a year, the reader has come to expect articles on emancipation, gender roles, and gender. She even expects news and announcements. Either way, the Raffia standard was to give a critical view of society at the time. Thus, she was surprised by the Soup Book that came with her Raffia. She found it unfortunate that to celebrate 20 years of articles on feminism, gender roles, and emancipation, the board decided to publish such a gender role-affirming book. The Soup Book was made by an entirely female board for a female reader base. This ‘hiccup’ in Raffia history illustrates the passion of the Raffia readers, entirely dedicated to academic engagement with feminism and emancipation.
2015: Feminist Walking App through Nijmegen
The year of 2015 marks the 30th birthday of the Institute for Gender Studies. For this celebration, the ‘Walking Book’ that the institute published for its 20th birthday was turned into a ‘Walking App’ that was promoted in the Raffia. Users of the app could enjoy a walking route through the historic city centre of Nijmegen where ‘the spirit of Mariken van Nieumeghen’ showed the hidden women of the city’s history (for example Stijn Buys, Kitty de Wijze and the ‘Loden Lady’. The route was created by history student Hanna-Ruth Brouwer in 2005, based on an earlier published book on feminist walking trails in the Netherlands by Ingrid van Hoorn. In 2015, the walking trail got an even bigger audience through the digitalisation of the route through the app. Raffia-readers got a little card with details on it, so they could download the app where they got a digital route with bits of information while going on the walk. Sadly, the app isn’t in use anymore due to a lack of funding, but the book can still be found in the archive of the Institute for Gender Studies.
2017: Relaunch of Raffia as an online magazine
With the Institute for Gender Studies disbanding, taking on a new shape as Radboud Gender & Diversity Studies, Raffia underwent big changes too. No longer having the financial support of the Institute for Gender Studies and no longer having some of the Institute’s staff as customary members of the editorial board, a group of students who were actively engaged with the magazine decided to take matters into their own hands. Practically, this meant that the print magazines disappeared and made space for a new, online magazine completely arranged by students. After about a year of reorganising, the website launched and the first online articles were published. Raffia still kept up close relationships with Gender & Diversity Studies, for example by taking on an active role at the International Women’s Day events organised by Gender & Diversity Studies. In addition, these years marked another, more gradual change for Raffia as well. With more and more international students joining the team, the magazine increasingly took on a bilingual form – making Raffia accessible to a broader readership.
2024: A new print magazine and the future of Raffia
In March of 2024, a brand new physical Raffia was published after eight years of the magazine operating solely online. The fresh print magazine was presented at Radboud Gender and Diversity Studies’ International Women’s Day Symposium and functions both as a celebration of Raffia’s 35th birthday and as a recap of some of the outstanding articles published on its website. The physical glossy will not be the only thing commemorating three and a half years of Raffia – a symposium focusing on disability studies called ‘The Embodiment of Feminism’ is in the works and set to take place in October of 2024. Raffia’s editor-in-chief Nanette Ashby, reflecting on this return to classic Raffia staples like paper magazines and symposia, explains that she is ‘very aware of the fact that we have 35 years of history worked on by hundreds of people, and I am very passionate about keeping that going.’ Raffia seems as lively as ever, establishing connections with other organisations within and outside of Nijmegen and organising events like poetry nights or recruiting new writers every year.
Raffia 