Dear all,

I want to share a few additional thoughts on the question of academic boycott in the context of debates about the AAG. These thoughts are my own and not necessarily shared by the dozens who wrote the collective statement I refer to (or the hundreds who have already signed!).

I have been in a lot of conversation this week with folks locally in Toronto and across the US about the question of how to proceed. I have made a particular point of talking to people working on migrant rights, Indigenous sovereignty, and Black lives, and scholars from some of the most impacted communities. I respect that there are very different relationships to these questions and very different kinds of entanglements and impacts from recent government directives.

I (obviously) do not support any kind of business-as-usual approach. I support a boycott and encourage folks outside the US to do the same. I also respect that some scholars within the US want to use the meeting space to organize and debate relevant issues and actions. Yet, I additionally acknowledge that these are colonial borders that cut across indigenous territory, and so there many complex issues at play here already. Regardless of where you stand on the boycott, I hope those who might have attended the AAG will read and sign this letter, which insists that the AAG has a serious responsibility in this moment to make change given the climate of extreme racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, attacks on the sovereignty of indigenous people, and on the rights of women and LGBTQ people, among others.  We try to address these intersecting issues in the statement - for instance, with a call for the AAG to divest from financial institutions which are supporting the DAPL in solidarity with active campaigns from indigenous people.

I agree that a boycott will likely not hurt Trump or his administration in any direct way. I also recognize Boston is doing important sanctuary work. However, a boycott should impact the organization hosting the targeted event - the AAG- and push them to lobby much harder than they currently are doing against these directives. Importantly, boycott is a means to also push the AAG to make change to its own practice in exactly the ways we try to highlight in our statement.

Some are concerned that a boycott will isolate our colleagues in the US and that critical debate would suffer. I am totally NOT convinced by this argument. Physical meetings are not essential to intellectual life these days -- even as they may still be valuable. I absolutely support creative thinking and actions in this moment, but perhaps the most basic is to use this moment to mobilize collectively in order to make change possible.

Thanks! 

               
Deborah Cowen

Department of Geography & Planning 

University of Toronto

2016 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellow 

Groundswell Community Justice Trust Fund 

Statement to the Executive Committee of the American Association of Geographers

February 3, 2017

We, the undersigned, are outraged at President Trump’s January 27, 2017, Executive Order banning citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the United States. This Executive Order is accompanied by other directives that are an affront to human dignity and constitute acts of blatant discrimination. These come at a time of pervasive Islamophobia, anti-Blackness, racism, xenophobia, gendered and sexual violence, and attacks on Indigenous sovereignty. We make this statement recognizing the long-standing work of so many who are furthering struggles for justice.

The AAG Annual Meeting is the largest gathering of geographers and draws scholars from around the world. Attending this year’s meeting in Boston would require many of us to cross the US border. Under the new restrictions, some of us cannot cross by law; some of us cannot cross safely; and some of us refuse to cross in the climate of fear, uncertainty, and racism that has stolen our colleagues’ freedom of movement. The Executive Order undermines our constitution as a community of scholars, inhibits the sharing of ideas, and marginalizes particular members of our community on the basis of religion, race, and geography.

In some ways, this is not new: international borders and uneven mobility exclude members of our community from participating in the Annual Meeting every year, and we should work much harder than we do to change this. As well, the AAG and its Annual Meeting have long been entangled with the US military and security state, some of the very institutions tasked with implementing the policies we oppose. But the particularly draconian, unconstitutional, and explicitly Islamophobic nature of the current restrictions warrants decisive and immediate action.

We cannot simply go on, business as usual, in the face of this discrimination. Without strong action from AAG leadership, many of the undersigned intend to stand in support of our banned friends and colleagues and withdraw our participation from this year’s conference. The AAG has an international mandate and membership, whom it has an obligation to serve.

We call on the AAG to:

1. Explicitly condemn the Executive Order on Immigration and demand its immediate repeal. We further call on the AAG to be vigilant against government actions that undermine human dignity, perpetuate violence and discrimination, and interfere with scholarly inquiry.

2. Work to redress the negative impacts of the immigration ban, and immigration restrictions more broadly, by creating a fund to support geographic research by scholars most impacted, starting with scholars from the seven targeted countries.

3. Reimburse conference registration fees not only to those who are unable but also to those who are unwilling to enter the United States under present conditions, and provide legal support to impacted members and conference attendees.

4. Support robust scholarly exchange among members who are unable or unwilling to travel to the conference by providing resources for virtual connection or alternative meetings held outside the United States.

5. Work with organizations inside and outside the United States to provide sanctuary and asylum for scholars with precarious status, to take a vocal stand against immigration restrictions, and to dedicate resources to these initiatives.

6. Publicly affirm a commitment to racial justice and Indigenous sovereignty as a basis for any meaningful geographic inquiry. We further call on the Association to commit resources and work more actively to promote these values in policy and practice, with a process led by scholars from the most impacted communities.

7. Make its 2016 commitments to ethical investment meaningful by using its investment capacity to support Indigenous sovereignty and social, racial, and environmental justice. As a first step, we call on the AAG to divest from and end relationships with financial institutions invested in the Dakota Access Pipeline, in solidarity with widespread calls from Indigenous water protectors.

In calling on the AAG leadership to fulfill these demands, we also commit to undertake similar work in our own institutions and communities.