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Dear Patricia,
since the AAG began to require the previous and mandatory payment (400$) before sending your abstract to participate in its Annual Meeting, I could understand that something allien to the fundational spirit of the Association is happening. One year ago I sent a formal letter to the AAG director wondering wether this payment requirement had any kind of 'legitimacy', as it was the first time it happened, and, on the other hand, it coud limit the participation of young researchers from those countries which are investing few funds in science despite their young researchers have a huge potential. His answer was like “bla bla bla bla”...
Two
phenomena features today's AAG. It seems that 'the right to
participate' is exclusive for participants with high purchase power
or well-funded. This means that AAG is really not interested in young
researchers, who often present communications and posters much more
attractive, interesting than the majority of Professors. On the other
hand, the current “pre-payment” policy of AGG is contributing to
elitize its Annual Meeting and, therefore, to 'residualize' Geography
in this global world. Maybe we, young researchers (PhD Students,
postdocs, young lecturers) should begin to do a boicot against this
elitization of social sciences by avoiding to participate in this
kind of “luxurious” events, and priorizing new forms of meeting
new colleagues (Linkedin, Academia.eu, Webminars, Workshops, Mini-conferences, etc).
They are hard times for Social Sciences, but I'm strongly convinced that we 'The Youngs' continue to have the power to revert this situation.
Best,
Dr. Jordi Nofre
Centro de Estudos Sociais-UNL (CesNova)
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Dear Colleagues,
I am writing to you with a request: Apparently the AAG leadership has not heard from its members about their concerns about recent cuts to social sciences research funding (the Coburn amendment which cut funding for political science research at the U.S. National Science Foundation. For those of you not in the U.S. or not familiar with these developments, please see here: http://prospect.org/article/take-political-science.)
When a colleague and I inquired as to whether the AAG was collaborating with other professional organizations in the social sciences to mount a public opinion campaign on the importance and contributions of social science research to society we were told that such efforts are currently not underway. The AAG has a representative/liaison with Congress, and we were told to contact our elected political representatives, but this is, as of now, the extent of any effort.
More importantly, the AAG, as of this morning, had only heard expressions of concern from 2 geographers (out of some 10,000 members.) This either means that geographers are not concerned about the threat to research funding, or are not expressing their concern. I ask that--if you are concerned and are so inclined--you please drop a short email to the AAG leadership (names and email addresses are below) to let them know that such cuts should be on top of the AAG's priority list, and that they ought to be discussed during the upcoming council meeting. Please feel free to make constructive suggestions as to what the AAG as our professional organization (and we as its members) could do, i.e., help with a public opinion campaign, etc. You can leave a comment on the AAG's facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/geographers?fref=ts) or via twitter (@theAAG) or email the following people:
AAG President Eric Sheppard ([log in to unmask])AAG Executive Director Doug Richardson ([log in to unmask])AAG Government Relations John Wertman ([log in to unmask])
Thanks,Patricia
Patricia Ehrkamp, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorDepartment of GeographyUniversity of Kentucky817 Patterson Office TowerLexington, KY 40506-0027