Pam (and others) -- thanks for the input offered so far on Vancouver (an
event I was unable to attend as it fell in the middle of our term time). I
have a few comments on the next location if an event is going to be
sponsored.
Yes we could try to hold the conference in a more affordable location in a
less affluent location (like Bangkok) but I would guess that the number of
people attending would be very small, and it would hardly be worth the
effort. I think this is because the networks linking people in the crit
geog area are heavily oriented around Western (and esp English speaking
Western) countries and universities. I doubt most people in the network
would be able to/want to access enough funds to afford a trip to India or
Thailand (for example). And even if this was the case is the interest high
enough in places like India or Thailand (or Singapore) to have a large
enough core group of people (like the overworked UBC/SFU people) willing
and eager to organise the event? I doubt it but would love to be proved
wrong. Some "less affluent" regions also work to a different time scale
than the majority of Crit Geogers and have term on during the summer (up
North). Finally, do we really want groups of people taking tours through
slums in places like Bangkok? If anything helps (a little) it is long term
projects, collaborative research, and context aware action on the ground -
not short term events like this one.
If another event is to be held why not accept the dominant (though not
exclusive) Western flavour of Crit Geog, choose a central location which is
cheap to get to for the majority, enable overseas attendees to incorporate
summer holidays around it (after all why would so many non-Canadian people
want to go to Vancouver and BC in August?!), and learn from the lessons of
Vancouver so the quality of the event is improved next time. A concern
with furthering "internationalism" is more than worthy but I doubt that a
conference or workshop is the most effective vehicle to further the cause.
Best wishes,
Kris Olds
Department of Geography
National University of Singapore
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>Like Steve, I enjoyed the conference, its open and enabling
>atmosphere, its a general lack of point-scoring and reference trumping
>in the sessions I attended. The downside was that it was sometimes a
>bit "liberal" (and that the word "activist" seems to being stretched
>rather often to give a heroic slant to some pretty routine
>activities). Like Steve, I'm becoming increasingly worried about
>some of the outcomes of the "Cultural Turn".
>
>It seems very important to me that if we are genuine about our
>internationalism, the next such conference should take account of the
>problems of academics from less affluent countries attending. The cost of
>the fare alone was six months' salary for an Indian lecturer, meaning that
>only people who could get government backing could afford to attend
>(meaning that young researchers hadn't a hope). Holding a conference in,
>say, an Indian university would bring down residential costs and obviously
>travel for local people, but do nothing for others. It might be another
>idea to
>keep the conference where travel costs are low for the relatively wealthy,
>but
>to institute a fare pool and subsidise accommodation. Personally I'd
>like to see it outside the affluent world but with travel subsidies
>too, but I suspect that that would make it impossibly expensive
>unless we were able to find (carefully approved) sponsorship.
>
>Pam Shurmer-Smith
>Dept of Geography
>University of Portsmouth
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