Rob O'Brien -- nothing like having a fast blog trigger finger (yes, AAAUnite is a blog devoted to the whole mess) -- has been working mightily to organize AAA members, including the possibility of a counter-conference. Check out his letter to the AAA President, which just about perfectly encapsulates what I hope are many of the association members' sentiments.
The AAA Executive Board's decision to move the conference to Atlanta just plain stinks (and yes, before anyone writes in, I have no idea what it takes or costs to run a big non-profit organization). For logistical reasons alone, the decision is incredibly impractical; at least San Jose was in the same time zone as San Francisco. (The date is also when universities start going on winter break, or plunge students into finals week.) A good number of academics (and certainly graduate students) cannot easily afford to change plans so drastically.
Most important, as I've already written, the decision is terrible in principle; it results in hardly any benefit to the union. The only real winner here is the Hilton group, and AAA's rank capitulation to them makes me ashamed -- a nice gob of spit in the face of the 4,000 locked-out employees.
I've just sent a letter to my department chair at SF State, hoping that there might be a chance -- though it might be a logistical impossibility -- that a counter-conference could be hastily arranged here. We're close enough to downtown, after all -- closer than San Jose or Atlanta -- and I'm betting that there would be a good amount of angry anthropologists with non-refundable tickets who would want to participate. I can't think of a better opportunity to discuss -- and demonstrate -- the relationship between the academy and local communities, or the anthropologist's ethical responsibilities.
Posted by the wily filipino at October 23, 2004 12:52 AM