Comments on: The expensiveness of conferences https://decasia.org/academic_culture/2010/05/07/the-expensiveness-of-conferences/ critical anthropology of academic culture Fri, 07 May 2010 21:52:17 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.1 By: eli https://decasia.org/academic_culture/2010/05/07/the-expensiveness-of-conferences/#comment-1246 Fri, 07 May 2010 21:52:17 +0000 http://decasia.org/academic_culture/?p=1395#comment-1246 Yeah, I have no doubt that this one is relatively reasonably priced compared to other conferences out there. I mean, most small conferences (that I know of) are free and usually locally funded by departments, so it’s not like one can’t avoid the expensive conferences to a significant degree and still remain part of disciplinary discourse. On the other hand, to get an anthropology job it basically requires going to the professional association meetings (both to present papers and to have interviews); the pricey megaconferences do seem to acquire an odious normative quality.

Danah’s comments seem right on to me; the only thing I’d add is that I find this kind of practice problematic not only (as she suggests) because it biases knowledge production, but also because it just seems unjust to filter people out based on their financial means.

]]> By: nick https://decasia.org/academic_culture/2010/05/07/the-expensiveness-of-conferences/#comment-1245 Fri, 07 May 2010 16:24:19 +0000 http://decasia.org/academic_culture/?p=1395#comment-1245 Try some conferences in information science. CHI, the main conference on human-computer interaction, has registration fees upwards of $400 _for students_. Other major social science conferences such as 4S (the society for social studies of science) have lower registration fees (say $150 or so) but take place at major hotels, like Hilton’s and Hyatt’s, with room charge rates of $150/night or more. It definitely limits who can come, and it’s one reason I don’t participate in the CHI community anymore. See danah boyd’s commentary on the matter: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2006/02/27/no_chi_for_me.html

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