Since we’re talking about this: I really valued the access afforded by online events/conferences this year and will be very sorry to see it go away. I’ve had better experiences at online conferences than at most in-person ones—which I often find excruciating on several levels.
Here’s the levels (for me): travel is hard & getting groped by the TSA every few times I fly is awful. Going a 2-week stretch w/no days off because it’s a working weekend is hard, esp when you go to multiple conferences, & when you feel obligated to make the most out of the trip
On top of the difficulty, there’s the expense. Most of us don’t have huge conference budgets and even those who do end up going out of pocket and carrying debt while waiting for reimbursement that sometimes never comes or ends up being only partial
The atmosphere at many conferences is toxic & harrassment is rampant. Many academics look the other way or pretend it’s not happening. There are whisper networks to help you learn who to avoid but they aren’t perfect; it also means you spend the conference running from “problems”
The way that people talk to each other in person can be very warm & kind but it can also be disrespectful and full of opportunities to peer pressure people into drinking/going to bars etc. On top of that the physical landscape one needs to maneuver is often difficult/inaccessible
Despite all this, I usually think that going to conferences is worth it, but it would be so great to be able to remove more of these obstacles and focus on the scholarship. Online formats have really helped do that this past year.
I think we also have to admit that in-person academic conferences are a relic of a very different time in US academia. They arose out of the specific needs of a certain time period when annual meetings were arguably the best way to share works in progress & get lots of feedback
And they arose in a context where the professoriate had not been adjunctified and the labor market for PhDs was not so poor. The relative costs for attending were lower in that employment landscape.
I should have said "job market" not "labor market" in the above tweet (but I imagine you understood what I meant from the context!)
Thanks so much for the responses, everyone! I’m muting the thread now but please follow disability scholars & activists who’ve been talking about accessibility issues for years, like @BeingCharisBlog @Imani_Barbarin @Tinu @SFdirewolf @jaivirdi @besswww @AimiHamraie @trilliz &more
You can follow @histoftech.
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