I'd just like to say that I entirely agree with Nick that this conference does
not stop other things happening. And I'd like to add my thanks to Nick, Gerry
and Neil for their enthusiasm for putting their time and energy into organising
something (anything!)...
despite Andy Pratt's eloquent appeal to this cyber-critical-geographical
community not to have face-to-face contact, it still seems to me that there is
still (not for long?) room in this world for bodies...
in fact, I'd go further... we need to acknowledge that this forum is itself
exclusive... not everyone feels safe or easy communicating in this
environment... indeed, I think that this forum's complete and abject failure to
generate any meaningful discussion on what exactly is critical about critical
geography is symptomatic of this... at least as worrying is the demonstrable
fact that the bulk of email in this forum is written by men... it cannot be
presumed that this forum is acountable or democratic simply because we can read
the emails selectively posted to the forum... so these embodied meetings (in
Nottingham, in Exeter, in Vancouver) are a good idea because they offer us other
ways of relating to each other (and just because this is the way we have always
done things does not make face-to-face meetings a bad idea -- indeed, history
has generally made a mockery of the claims made on behalf of technology, whether
for or against)... and maybe when we have met each other face-to-face we'll be
able to chat more easily in this cyber-space.
Lest we forget, not everyone has an email address (we are not, as Andy presumes,
a fully wired community)... I agree that we should be constantly vigilant of the
exclusions of the activities we generate, but we should not presume so quickly
that one set of activities is more open and democratic than any other...
The Vancouver conference is a good idea and it certainly does not stop other
meetings nor other forms of discussion... my fear is that if the Vancouver
meeting does not take place then other spin-off activities will not take
place... maybe more creative thought should be put into attending the meeting
rather than complaining about it?
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