Inspiring people @WUR: Chizu Sato

What struck you during your first days at Wageningen University?

‘When I came to Wageningen in 2011, the gender studies programme was under pressure. Suffering from financial constraints, all but one scholar had left. The gender minor secured that year was a last resort: Gender aspects of sustainable food systems. I applied for the open position and I got accepted. Looking back, it was quite a struggle. Gender expertise was not integrated or secured, at that time as well as now. I got my PhD in the United States, in international development as well as in feminist studies. Coming here from that vibrant feminist community, I was a bit shocked. Although Wageningen had been one of the first to implement gender studies in 1979, students were no longer exposed to gender and diversity perspectives. Even now, students are not necessarily familiar with these concepts. Ineeded to start from scratch.’

‘The first minor was funded for five years. Then we got no more funding. We were told that the enrolment of students was low - the Board of Education only looked at the students who had completed the minor even though the courses were well attended. Students didn't necessarily complete a minor as many made their own minor, for instance, took one or two gender courses and combined them with some courses outside the minor. So, the first gender minor got discontinued.’

‘It was a struggle to keep those courses in other study programs. I kept teaching and doing guest lectures, because my assignment was doing gender and diversity education. With the concerted efforts of concerned members at Wageningen University, the existing minor proposal, Gender and diversity for sustainable worlds, got accepted. I also took the lead to create a PhD-level course on intersectional feminist approaches. I continuously work to secure that these courses are offered.’

Is it still a struggle?

‘In this institution, if the money doesn't exist, the topic is, and in the case of gender it has been, quickly cut. Philosophy of science and ethics are long-lasting and being taught in all study programmes, but not gender. It was never structurally implemented after years of experimentation.’

‘Now after 13 years, I have colleagues and friends who are supportive. Students continuously take the courses and ask me to do workshops outside of the classroom. I have a Chair who is quite supportive. That kind of support helps me.’

According to your research profile, your interest lies in transnational feminism, international development, political economy, ecology. Quite a lot of huge concepts. What's the common denominator?

‘Before I joined the master international development in the US, I was a year and a half in Nepal, working for JICA, Japan's international development agency. I saw the dirty side of international experts, enjoying a good life, a house and a maid and so on, which they don't have in their home country. I saw the backstage of this international development business, because it is a business.’

‘I learned critical postcolonial, Marxist and feminist perspectives in my graduate work. Development projects often take place in former colonized countries. Experts are coming from Europe, Japan or the US, the high-income, post-industrialized, former colonisers states. I became critical about how development is organised as a business, but also about everyday consumption practices. People are not critical about how their consumption practices are related to distant others, to livelihood and environmental degradation in former colonised countries. Our lives in northern consumer cultures are connected to sustainable livelihoods in the majority worlds. Therefore: transnational feminism, and not only political economy but political ecology.’

What motivates you fundamentally?

‘My upbringing, I guess, drew me to be a feminist. I grew up in a household where my mother kept asking me to do household work and letting my younger brothers go elsewhere. I hated it, I couldn't articulate it as a child. Why can I not go outside and play? Why do I need to help when my brother is not helping? Whatever global gender index you take, the northern European countries are way up, and Japan is at the bottom of the post-industrialised countries.’

‘What motivates me fundamentally, however, is a sense of shared responsibility to transform unsustainable worlds for the better, together with diverse communities. Over the past few decades, I encountered diverse people, initiatives and communities. Even though our immediate objectives might be context specific and thus different, I have developed a sense of belonging to these communities of change.’

And now you're here, teaching on gender.

‘I felt liberated when I encountered feminist theories in the United States. I radicalized my feminist thinking in the States when I was doing my graduate work. I said: I'm not going back to Japan, I want to teach.It's important to work with students in international development studies. They want to help others, but they should do it without bringing this saviourist attitude. Try to be self-critical and self-reflexive on how our states, our companies and our people are participating in the production of transnational inequalities.’

‘When I was studying at the university in Tokyo, I developed this somewhat imperialist attitude ‘to save brown women’. That was the kind of training: Japan as leader of Asia, we need to save those other Asian brown women. That was the message I was getting. But that's imperialist. And here, even in Wageningen, we do that too: the saviourist approach.’

Even until today?

‘We tend not to teach a kind of decolonial thinking. It’s a kind of ‘I save you’, without thinking about what people want. We create the idea of what people need and impose our understanding of what they need onto them. In this way we are not transforming the century-old power dynamics developed since the beginning of colonialism. I am part of a community developing decolonial approaches to bring about change.’

You've been teaching this subject for a lot of years. Do you see some improvement? Are you optimistic or pessimistic?

‘I see hope. Students are the next generation. We need to reflect on what we are doing and what we are teaching. Are we imposing what we think students need to know? Students also have ideas about what they want to learn. Last year, two of the courses I coordinated were nominated for the education prize. So students liked the courses.’

‘In the gender and diversity courses I teach, students are coming from all over the campus, from diverse backgrounds and disciplines. Intersectional gender iscross-cutting. Students make changes by interacting with their study, with their thesis advisors or the people they interact with in a research context. I organise small group discussions and encourage students to incorporate what they learned into their own study. I'm not going to turn students in my classroom to be feminists, but I would like them to consider themselves as change agents. It’s small steps, but it's small steps in different locations. We can do better, but definitely we are doing something.’

In December the WUR Gender⁺ Equality plan (2024-2028) was launched to strengthen the gender⁺ integration in research and teaching. What’s your opinion on that?

‘Thesis supervisors and study advisors influence the decision-making process of students, what they can do and cannot do, which conceptual framework they can develop and apply. I like staff members and thesis supervisors to be allies, to encourage students to look at social side of sustainability. This social sustainability issue is quite not well looked after, particularly gender.’

‘We have heard lots of lip service, but we need to have actual resources to do the work. Many of us are working voluntarily. For example, I'm co-developing the Freedom Walk Wageningen, using a gender and sexuality lens. The D&I office is supporting: there’s one internship student and they booked 10 free tours to offer to the university community. That's good. But everybody's doing this on a voluntary basis, and this is just one initiative. We need more structural support. This Gender+ Equality Plan, the budget they have is so limited. They say they support gender and diversity education, but we still need to tap the generally available resources. We prefer to have more earmarked money with the words.’

It's the official vision of Wageningen University that it doesn't matter at all who you love, what language you speak, where you were born or what you believe.

‘That's not true, right? Just like ‘Dutch tolerance’. This Dutch tolerance discourse is so strong. It disguises a kind of core racist or heterosexist attitude. You hear how transgender students are discriminated against and how in a group setting, some Dutch students tend to group themselves and marginalise students who don't speak English that well. All students need to develop responsibility skills. One of them is dealing with diversity and inclusion. But most courses don’t pay much attention to that.’

Do you have any suggestions on how to improve the situation? What should Wageningen do to be more inclusive, more sensitive to these issues?

‘I think many things. Not only students need to be trained. Wageningen offers a diversity training to professors when funding is available. But professors are not required to take it. Only those who are already inclined do this training, which are a quite limited number.’

‘I think part of the solution is to strengthen what we are already doing: creating communities, working together with concerned staff members and students. Not only teachers, but also corporate management like the D&I office, creating stronger communities by working side by side and continuously having hope. Many of my colleagues stopped because they became cynical if they didn’t see hope or change. I see that change is always happening, every day. Some positive and some negative. If I see change at the micro level, that helps me. And I don't forget about eating ice cream under the sun on a nice day. Not only feeling oppressed by thinking about climate change, people in Palestine, and environmental pollution. I can think of many oppressive things, but we need to look after ourselves, through self-care and collective care, together with others. Those are the remedies. Keep creating communities and make our efforts visible.’