I was interested in the debate about virtual and embodied conferences but I
think one of the key problems for CGF is that, because of language, it is
largely limited to people in the English speaking world. It has struck me since
working in Japan and travelling around the region that there are thousands of
academic and radical geographers in Japan, China, Korea and South East Asia who
would appreciate contact with us. What is the answer?
Do we claim that English is the language of the Internet and that Asians should
learn it in order to communicate with us? This may be a new form of colonialism
but I doubt it; what is more likely to happen is that parallel worlds will
develop with little meaningful contact other than that between multi-national
executives and governments. (They can afford 'embodied' meetings with
interpreters, but academics can't. Recently some people here tried to organise a
Japan/UK Geography conference, but nobody from the UK wanted to come.)
I think CGF has made a good start, but is it possible for us to be
international given the barriers of language and money?
Martin Brennan,
Oita University,
Japan.
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