Le congrès annuel des géographes américains est payant (400 dollars) depuis l’année dernière, ce qui suscite des réactions étonnées voire indignées des géographes critiques, comme ce coup de gueule qui nous vient de Jordi Nofre de l’université de Lisbonne et qui ne manque pas d’intérêt :
“...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.
1. 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.
2. 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 boycot 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...”