Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Commodities
Donald J Nicolson
Academic
Conferences
as Neoliberal
Commodities
Donald J Nicolson
Freelance writer
Dundee, Scotland
Rather than using traditional headings, the book adopts the names of
events at conferences for each section. The Welcome does two things.
Firstly, it is analogous to a preface and represents a personal outline of how
I developed an interest in academic conferences. Secondly, it provides a
historical impression of academic conferences, and an overview of the
concept of conference. For the person who wants to suggest a quick
introduction to the world of the academic conference, this can be a one-
stop shop. The Opening Keynote introduces the conceptual framework,
which drives the work in the book, sets out its aims and explains the
methods used in the research reported.
The two parallel sessions report the empirical examples in this book.
Room numbers are used to subdivide these sessions, which represents how
conference presentations take place across different rooms in hotels or
universities. The rst plenary reports ve conference case studies, while the
second covers the different themes explored across the interviews.
The idea of non-sequentially numbering I take from David Winners
(2000) Brilliant Orange, which was inspired by the Dutch 1974 World
Cup squad numbering.
The Closing Keynote discusses the key ndings and limitations of the
research reported in this book, with a concluding note. The Conference
Abstract Book presents the abstracts for each section of this book.
Alas, this book has no conference freebies, be it a bag, pen or notepad
from the sponsor. (Disclaimer: this book had no sponsor, and ergo
I consider no conicts of interest). Nor is there a conference feedback
form to complete at the end of this book. But that is not to say that I am
vii
viii CONFERENCE REGISTRATION
not interested in your experience from reading this. I hope that some of
you will think afresh about academic conferences, and/or neoliberalism in
the academy. With a bit of luck some of the experiences that are reported
in these pages will chime with you. Maybe like me you feel there is a need
for better understanding of academic conferences. If so, I would love to
hear from you. I can be contacted on Twitter @the_mopster.
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Welcome 1
Opening Keynote 11
Travel and Conferences 12
The Delegate at the Conference 12
Neoliberalism and the Academy 14
ix
x CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Closing Keynote 59
Conference Travel 59
The Delegate at the Conference 61
Conference as a Neoliberal Commodity 62
Reections 65
Conclusion 66
References 71
Index 77
Welcome
The English comedian Alexi Sayle once said: Anyone who talks about a
workshop and isnt a mechanic is a total ******. I remember a Professor
displaying this on a slide at the rst academic conference I attended in
London in January 2002, which was incidentally labelled a Workshop.
I thought Sayles point was valid then, and I still do now.
The academic conference in London was a workshop run by NICE,
then the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, a UK-based orga-
nisation that produces evidence-based guidance for clinical and health-
care professionals. At this point, I was barely 2 months into my rst
research post. I worked at the time as a research assistant for a research
unit that was developing clinical guidelines on medical conditions, for
NICE; as well as providing advice on methodological issues, and
training and education support re the development of national clinical
guidelines. It was in this capacity that I went to London, as our unit
************
WELCOME 3
************
************
generous travel budgets, and a mobility that, unlike that of the refugee, is
chosen and socially valued. I was lucky to be such an academic traveller;
attending and presenting at more than 20 conferences. This included six
international conferences, although two of them were on UK home soil,
and so because they did not require overseas travel for me, I did not
consider them international.
Parker and Weik (2014) proposed different reasons for why academics
go to conferences, from having a secret affair,1 to seeking feedback on
their presentation, hearing about a new research nding which stimulates
thought and inspired new ideas, networking and making connections with
others working in similar areas, or adding to their CVs. Like many others
have done; I took every opportunity I could to legitimately mix business
with pleasure; taking annual leave before or after the conference. I did so
on occasions, to travel and see places that might otherwise have remained
unvisited by me. I have since returned to some of these places in my own
time. Because the return airfare was legitimately paid to take me to and
from the conference that I was working at, I only had to nd my own
accommodation outwith the conference. My work enabled me to literally
circumnavigate the earth and present on three continents. To quote Cole
Porter, nice work if you can get it . . .
The initial driver for my examination of conferences was my reecting
on the general usefulness of conferences. My reasoning was that I had
probably viewed over 200 presentations that gathered varying audiences
and often generated indifferent replies (if any at all) including my own.
This made me speculate that conferences merely generate noise, and if
they do, I wondered what the purpose and value of attending a conference
might be for academics.
This study is an exploratory examination of academic conferences
based around the social sciences. (It should be noted that the term
academic conference is considered interchangeable with research con-
ference.) The investigation is framed around the conference and neoli-
beralism, conference travel and the delegate at the conference. The
reason for this is explained in the following Opening Keynote, where
I present a formal background to the concepts on which the study rests.
These concepts have been derived from an engagement with previous
work on conferences, which enabled the development of the theoretical
framework on which to hang the ndings in this book. Lastly, it explains
the methods that were used in conducting the research underpinning
this book.
WELCOME 9
NOTE
1. Conferences are social events, where academics interact with one another not
only when presenting, but also before, during and after the conference. The
conference hook-up is the politest way I have found to refer to sex at an
academic conference. It was not an agenda item in any of my interviews,
although I was prepared to run with it if anyone raised it. No one did. That
may reect the sample of interviewees, or my not chasing a story on the subject.
Opening Keynote
This managed to not only dissuade researchers from mixing methods, but
kept the two camps opposed for decades, a period referred to as The
Paradigm War, where each considered itself the true way of doing social
science research.
Gross and Fleming (2011) suggested a key function of academic con-
ferences was to legitimate new paradigms; for example, reinforcing new
ideas and directions in research. Consequently, a conference can be a place
that has an impact on what research is and what it is not, and how it is
carried out. Conferences then become useful when they help to drive a
discipline in a particular direction.
In conclusion, it is worthwhile to indicate to the reader my interpreta-
tion of the neoliberal agenda in academia and in relation to conferences,
because this is the lens through which this book views conferences. I am
not optimistic about the neoliberal academy. While some may see the
opportunity for academia to open up and be more like a business (if it
isnt already), and welcome this change; I see the dangers of academics
being exploited as commodities and academia shifting from its intellectual
traditions.
************
over one another; suggesting that debates are more useful when they
occur in print rather than face-to-face. The short documentary showed
nothing to dispel this prediction.
The programme portrayed the conference as an attempt at enabling
two different disciplines to have an intellectual debate, during a highly
charged period in UK politics when the Thatcher Government was in
power; yet this was something that was not touched on at the conference,
in a large part because speakers from the left by-and-large did not attend.
(This was a point picked up on the TV programme.) The lack of balance of
people from different politico-theoretical persuasions thus diminished the
chance for debate.
The upshot of this conference was that by being recorded it became the
subject of its own analysis through the TV programme. The documentary
featured clips interspersed with talking heads; that is, stakeholders and
others passing comment on the conference, although several of them had
not attended the conference at the time. In the closing segments, there
were some interesting nal comments: One commentator explained how
she felt that people get fed up at conferences with the ritualistic way in
which they are structured, meaning that people speak and others ask them
questions. Another commentator made a more general point that confer-
ences involve people talking fast and not listening to the other or to
themselves.
There was a great deal of criticism from the audience as to how the
conference was run, and the dislike of the presence of the television
cameras. One of the criticisms made, by a student at the time, was that
the conference was Eurocentric, and so had not made any advance since
conferences of the 1950s.
During the closing keynote by a Professor of English, there was a note
passed from the audience requesting the continuation of a previous dis-
cussion. In the later televised programme, it was suggested that this
confrontation highlighted how the issues that had been discussed in an
abstract way at the conference had become very real in that moment. For
example, a Professor of the Humanities had presented a proposal for
substituting the concepts of openness, exibility, indeterminacy, gen-
erosity of mind, and the acknowledgement of difference, with the
notion of persuasion, that is, a desire for mastery and closure. He felt
that this could not be escaped in real life. The presenter of the programme
suggested that the Professor of Humanities was implying how rhetoric
does not compromise reality but constitutes it. The conference had, as
PARALLEL SESSION ONE: CASE STUDIES 23
It was set up to make a transformation to the eld; but did not. It was
thought that the interdisciplinary nature of this conference might have made
it useful, but it wasnt.
The conference enabled the hosts to talk about a literary course they ran,
highlighting an important function of conferences before the advent of the
Internet: to disseminate important material to a large audience in an
efcient manner.
In the television programme, a then PhD student (mentioning Freuds
patient the Wolf Man which was a reference to a talk a Professor of the
Humanities gave at the conference where he cited this) said about the
conference:
The papers were commodities and if the hall itself was commodious, then
we felt rather like . . . we were playing a commode to the speakers on the
platform. I think thats something that we objected to. I think we like the
Wolf Man we felt that we were being shat on from a great height. (Quote
verbatim from recording available at http://keywords.pitt.edu/videos/
video_6.html, accessed January 2016.)
Korn (2000) was proposing that researchers cannot be entirely free from
bias when doing research. A similar point was made by a Professor of
PARALLEL SESSION ONE: CASE STUDIES 29
By contrast when I spoke with another Associate Professor, she felt the
relevance of the paradigm wars in 2015 was less important now:
Its becoming less so with more focus on how to do methods. But some
people are still caught up with paradigm issues, and it is still in the
literature.
What was more important for her was the adoption of sound research
methods, specically the particular research methodology. These points
are stated here to highlight how the organisation and the conference
provided a space where academics were able to discuss on a more ideolo-
gical level, which might be seen as reecting the aforementioned luxury
in neoliberal times.
In 2011, I attended an international conference on methodology in
England. The conference was comprised of sequential plenary presenta-
tions and a choice of concurrent workshops, with the usual keynotes. At
one of these, a Professor of Sociology made a very important observation
about how the conference missed an opportunity to hold an important
debate with another academic group:
Its a short distance from venue one to venue two . . . and in these two cities
in the months of June and July; two international conferences are going on.
The International conference, with a focus on methodology here in venue
one this week . . . and just down the road the international conference, with a
focus on a type of research is going on at venue two. The venue two group is
privileging theory over a type of research . . . The venue one group is privile-
ging methods over theory. Theres a space in-between for a particular type
of inquiry here . . . But the conversations are going on in different places at
PARALLEL SESSION ONE: CASE STUDIES 33
political. Thats what they said and thats what the group decided that
afternoon . . . It was a momentous decision. Its never been debated
since . . . They sealed the identity at that meeting . . . Thats what this research
conference did . . . Is that an identity that you want for yourselves, or is there
an alternative to that identity?. (Transcript available at https://lutube.
leeds.ac.uk/stumro, accessed January 2016)
The point that I made in the three-way discussion might be seen to reect
neoliberal ideology, demanding a utility from the conference and a distinct
corporate identity on which it could promote itself as a product. The
Professors reply that the previous organisation wanted a politicised orga-
nisation was itself telling because it might be seen to have drawn a
scholarly conclusion that was ideological but had no marketable value.
When I spoke with an Associate Professor in 2015, we talked about the
issue of the identity of a particular research methodology. The problem for
her was that:
I dont think that even people who promote the research methodology have
a clear handle on what it is. Its a buzz word like triangulation was. People
think X and Y equals the research methodology. Theres no clarity. She
likened this to the use of the term Focus Group to reect an interview with
two or more people concurrently. People whack a label on (their methods),
but dont use it correctly . . . labels dont mean a lot.
Abstract This session explains how the impact that a conference makes can
be at a paradigm or personal level. A conference might have a better chance of
having a real-world impact when it has political support. Beyond this, con-
ferences have a marketplace function, which can reect the neoliberal agenda.
This session reports an analysis of a set of interviews with people who have
attended academic conferences. The participants spoke about a range of
conferences, including those examined in Session One. The interviews
were driven by questions that reected the theoretical framework outlined
in the Opening Keynote. This session therefore goes beyond an analysis of
conferences in relation to neoliberalism and seeks to understand other
issues pertinent to those attending conferences. This session has not
anonymised the conferences discussed or the interviewees to give the
reader a context for what was said.
ROOM 7: TRAVEL
Travel as a Barrier
Several respondents spoke about the challenges of travelling to confer-
ences, and the barriers that this would present attending. Some were
A similar point was made by Willy Maley who felt that universities were
well suited for hosting conferences with an international audience,
because:
A lot of Universities are like the TARDIS: they land in a particular land but
do not assimilate to its culture.
Some conferences make the effort to relate to the culture of the venue.
This is most easily achieved when conferences last 2 or more days, and
have one or more social events organised. For example, at the rst inter-
national conference I attended in Spain, there was a reception for dele-
gates, an Olympic Tournament sports event (reecting the 1992
Olympics being held in Spain) and a farewell party. A staple event of
many conferences is the conference dinner, which presents a convivial
opportunity for delegates to make new acquaintances, or catch-up with
colleagues over food and drink.
International conferences have often sought to promote the host city
and an aspect of the local culture, because delegates are from far aeld. An
example of a conference I attended that promoted the cultural history of
the venue was held in Switzerland. The theme of the conference dinner
was to create an atmosphere through listening to music, which, it was said,
was what love is all about. The organisers daughter sang a selection of
operatic works at the dinner, including Wie viele Zeit verlor ich, Dich zu
lieben (How much time I lost in loving you), which brought forth a wave
of emotions to many attendees. To round things off there was a display of
precision drumming from a member of the Basel Top Secret Drum Corps.
Wolf Langewitz, a Professor of Psychosomatic Medicine, who orga-
nised the event, explained his reasoning:
42 ACADEMIC CONFERENCES AS NEOLIBERAL COMMODITIES
I aimed to give people a sense of what makes Basel good: the Basler Fasnacht
celebrations which start on the Monday directly after Ash Wednesday which
are an integral part of Basel culture and society.
He feels that music touches the heart and soul, therefore the idea behind
the songs that were performed by his daughter was to convey the
problem of using a reductionist approach to communication, because
of their potency. For him the aim of the dinner was to Show that an
atmosphere was created through communication (the singing and music)
that could not be categorised by any theory of communication. He per-
ceived this conference dinner was a challenge to delegates composure,
and he noted how some people said that they were moved to tears by the
event.
Universities do not always do as good a job of promoting local
culture. I spoke with Willy Maley who attended the conference in
Case Study One as a student. He told me how the conference provided
delegates (who could afford it) the opportunity to enjoy a pre-
Conference retreat at a scenic resort. He however felt the conference
ignored the local cultural geography and history of the host city, in
particular its socio-economic history. The commodication of the
venue as a cultural attraction is something that needs to be carefully
considered. An attractive venue may be an added incentive for attend-
ing a conference, although it is expected that the primary reason would
remain the academic value. What this indicates is the importance of the
purpose of a conference.
ROOM 9: COMMUNICATION
Gross and Fleming (2011) proposed that a purpose of the conference was
to enable intellectual communication between people, through presenting
and discussing ndings from research. As an academic applying to my
university to attend a conference, my primary justication was to present
work. If I were not doing this, I normally would not get to attend the
conference. Therefore, the conference presentation as a means for provid-
ing intellectual communication can then be considered a crucial aspect of
being an academic at a conference. There are two components of com-
municating: the presentation style and the intellectual content, which
participants spoke about.
PARALLEL SESSION TWO: INTERVIEWS 43
PRESENTATION STYLE
Communicating at a conference takes several forms, from a workshop (which
is usually an interactive session with delegates), to discussing a poster, or
providing an oral presentation. The bottom line is that presenting information
is crucial for sharing knowledge. However, the importance of presenting style
cannot be overstated, as was noted by Lester Firkins that in general:
Conferences are limited because they rely on the style of the presenter more
than the content. A presentation could be strong in content, but this is not
noticed by the audience because of the poor presentation style.
Put simple thoughts out there; where the key purpose of a presentation
would be to change hearts and minds. What I want is for people at a
conference to say that you made me stop and think.
Set piece presentations by leading gures in the area, did not give the
opportunity for discussion or debate. Over the last few years these have
become Hollywood like events with an unwelcome and unnecessary razz-
matazz I nd small workshops much more useful they allow for better
discussion and interaction.
surface lies snarkiness; that is, the person presenting might be short-
tempered or irritable. This can sometimes become evident during the
Q&A (question and answer) session. Another phenomenon during the
Q&A is the (perceived) ofcious person who uses a question to make a
point for the purpose of self-aggrandisement. This aspect has, I consider,
been captured perfectly by a cartoon of a conference Q&A where the chair
tells members of the audience that there is only time for one more tedious
in length, self-aggrandising question.
I asked Stanley Fish for his views on Q&A. He said that he felt ofcious
people tended to emerge in Q&A when the speaker had lost command of
the stage. Other people then sought the limelight from the speaker. He
recounted how the philosopher Professor John Searle warned him about
such people, telling him to watch out for the head-hunters at confer-
ences. By this he meant people who will seek the scalp of a big name
academic in an argument.
Lindley (2009) spoke of how she became conditioned not to actively
confront high-prole invited guests at conferences, or to query a promi-
nent corporate sponsor being present at the conference. Her point was
that academics are able to debate serious issues amongst themselves, but
not with the invited guests at a conference because civility is the keystone
of academic discourse. Reecting on my own experience as an academic,
I was never shy to make observations or ask difcult questions at a con-
ference; either to invited speakers or other attendees. I might on some
occasions have fared better to have played the game (and kept quiet), but
my ethos was to remain true to my values. Being an academic can be a
precarious balancing act at times.
COMMUNICATION CONTENT
The previous section has already indicated the importance of the content
of what is spoken. What is being communicated remains for most atten-
dees the most important aspect of a conference; the fabled knowledge
dissemination. A common feature is academics explaining and promoting
work from a current research study. For example, Edwin van Teijlingen
said:
To the conferences that I go to, there seems to have been a reduction in new
research presentations and an increase in plenary reviews. Many of the
scientic presentations seem to be less well attended or presented in ever
increasing numbers of posters. People usually have to submit abstracts up to
one year in advance to present at a conference; therefore, they submit work
that is already complete and therefore not novel.
latter stages of the work. Vanessa H, who works in the humanities, was
critical of conference presentations as a medium for sharing ideas, noting
that it is not possible to conduct an adequate discussion of a cutting-edge
theory in the humanities in 20 min.
The importance of the content goes beyond the presentations them-
selves and is also crucial for academics to discuss matters with one another.
Reecting on my own experience again, I recognise how at a particular
conference I struggled to articulate adequately my concerns and criticisms
I had surrounding medical records access and reuse. It was not until years
later when I heard people talk about the concept of the Neoliberal
agenda in research that I had the language to be able to express my
concern. Conferences might be a more favourable venue for those who
nd it easy to articulate points in the moment of debate.
Conferences do not always guarantee different groups will discuss and
debate. Nigel Fabb, a Professor of Literary Linguistics, spoke about a
conference, which included academics from different backgrounds. He
highlighted how different elds of social science have different academic
languages, and noted that:
The conference had different groups of academics, people from the elds of
literary studies and linguistics. People were polite to each other; rather than
ghting for their corners. The reason for this was that there was a lack of
argument due to a lack of understanding between the different groups, arising
from their very different ways of working, and underlying philosophies.
Meetings attract those who already believe in the subject. I sometimes think
it would be fun if the Royal College of Physicians muddled the tickets and
we all attended meetings outside our comfort zones . . . Communication and
48 ACADEMIC CONFERENCES AS NEOLIBERAL COMMODITIES
SOCIAL MEDIA
It has been hoped that social media might overcome the problems of
travelling to a conference. It was thought that this would be benecial,
not just because it would enable people to attend a conference from
remote parts of the world, but that it would stop people from having to
endure the long journey.
An Adjunct Professor of Family Medicine proposed that because con-
ferences are becoming expensive, that online conferencing might become
more important. In addition, it was noted by Julian Crane that webinars
can work well, especially for people in New Zealand, as they are so far away
from the Northern Hemisphere.
Social media is becoming more and more an important communication
tool at a conference, for attendees to share information with others at the
conference, and to disseminate presentation ndings to people outside the
conference. The most convenient and most commonly used means for
doing so is probably Twitter (https://twitter.com/login/), an online
social network which allows people to share messages (Tweets) of
140 characters or less in length.
I spoke with Anne-Marie Cunningham, who has shared information
from and about conferences on Twitter. She told me how she started
#Meded to alert other like-minded medics to useful information. She
explained how she used Twitter to share conference slide pictures and to
make bullet points of key points said in a presentation. She would also
share details about any papers that were mentioned and provide a link to
them.
Cunningham is not entirely in favour of using Twitter as a dissemina-
tion tool at conferences and thinks that some things are very bad, for
example, displaying the Tweets in real time on screen, which can be
distracting. An issue for her was whether it is wise to share things that
PARALLEL SESSION TWO: INTERVIEWS 49
This highlights less the failure of social media than the opportunity that
conferences afford delegates to meet on an informal basis. It emphasises
how conferences provide an environment where academics can network
and socialise with like-minded people.
sharing information because the person does not usually have to stand
next to the poster to convey its content. As a stand-alone device, the
poster should be able to do that by itself. However, to develop a good
poster can be a much more time-consuming task than developing a
spoken presentation. The effort to develop a poster might not be
reciprocated by interest or comment when displayed. Conferences
might then want to consider replacing the format with something
that has more appeal than a poster.
The poster presentation can epitomise a tension between style and
content. Conferences are often an overload of information on the sense:
the array of talks, and the aisles of posters. The latter can sometimes feel
like a wall of noise, with what seems like countless identical posters. But
occasionally an engaging poster will break through the noise and engage
the audience. This is often a novel designed poster, which will set it apart
from the waves of posters in the hotel lobby, before its content has even
been read. My own experience of conferences was that a couple of posters
stood out for me as being novel and engaging at the time, and remaining
memorable when I was writing up this book.
The rst poster by Muller, Siegfried, Volmink et al., was entitled Its all
About Quality: Quality Assessment of Observational Studies in the Cochrane
Review Male Circumcision for Prevention of Heterosexual Acquisition of
HIV in Men. At the conference, I had made a circle around it in the
abstract book, because my Masters thesis had examined HIV transmis-
sion, and so I was drawn to the subject. In 2016, I did not remember the
title or the content. It was the design of the poster that I recalled, which
featured a picture of a young South African man who was to undergo
traditional initiation rites including circumcision. In my minds eye,
I could see the cloaked gure with his face smeared by white body paint.
There is the old adage that a picture speaks a thousand words. It was
memorable at the time and engaged me; leading me to then search out the
subsequent publications in The Lancet and Cochrane Library. In an envir-
onment where the visibility of ones research is more important than ever,
a conference poster is a means for not only publicising ones research in
the moment; but for leaving a lasting impression that can draw people
back to that work a decade later.
The second poster was by Roter, Larson and Cooper; entitled The
impact of turn taking on ratings of physician behaviour and demeanour:
A simulation. This was designed to resemble a comic strip in the style of a
Roy Lichtenstein painting. Reading its description in the abstract book,
PARALLEL SESSION TWO: INTERVIEWS 51
I was not initially inclined to view it. It wasnt my area of research, and so
on paper I dismissed viewing it. That however changed when I saw the
design of the poster, which grabbed my attention. It featured comic-strip
images from the website Truer than True Romance, in the style of a
1950s comic strip, which allowed the authors to add their own dialogue in
the speech bubbles to provide the message of the poster.
As the Distinguished Service Professor who designed it, Debra Roter
explained to me when talking about it: She said:
In class we often discussed how quite complex and abstract information can
be effectively conveyed through story telling approaches and how much our
audiences, regardless of literacy skill, nd these materials engaging, interest-
ing and fun to read . . . I wondered if study results could be effectively
conveyed through a graphic narrative lens and if researchers who expect
presentation formality would like it . . . although it took a lot to explain why I
used the approach that I did and that I was a serious researcher conveying
signicant ndings!
She makes an important point here that she had to explain to conferees
that while the poster was not of a design normally accustomed to an
academic audience, that the message was reliable.1
from other universities who have similar problems. Ergo, they can provide
support.
Conferences as places to socialise present the opportunity to meet
colleagues and make new colleagues. For example, a Professor in
Professional Studies told me that he found conferences to be a good
place to meet editors, publishers, and colleagues who he wants to work
with. He gave me the example of attending a conference dinner when he
sat next to the owner of a qualitative data analysis software company.
He had never met this person before the dinner but was now a good
friend. Having been introduced by chance at the conference, the professor
had found his product had helped his research.
Karsten Jrgensen similarly felt that conferences were valuable because
the presentations can make journal editors aware of what people are
currently researching. This suggests that conferences provide an opportu-
nity for academics to not just meet editors, but to suggest to them new
insights and areas of knowledge, through possible publications.
Arthur Schafer suggested that:
While there are often benets from presenting at conferences, for example
getting critique of ones work from peers, and sharing ones ideas with
them, another potentially more important reason many people go to con-
ferences is to meet colleagues in ones eld and thereby to establish the
possibility of networks or other forms of collaboration.
Conferences are not necessarily helpful as stages for socialising for all
attendees. Specically, it might be that early stage academics are not always
in a suitable situation to proactively seek means to be socialised.
Some respondents recited the adage that the real work at a confer-
ence is done at the bar, that is, people get more benet from talking with
colleagues (over a drink) than they do watching a presentation or taking
part in a workshop. The point here is not strictly about enjoying an
alcoholic beverage, but rather the importance of face-to-face contact.
For example, David Healy (a Professor of Psychiatry) said that he felt
that one of the most useful things about a conference is the opportunity
to meet and discuss research issues with someone, face to face, while
Julian Crane found talking with people informally in a relaxed setting
can facilitate efforts to make collaborations. What is important it seems
is not so much that people are speaking in the bar of a hotel lobby
where the conference is held, but rather that they are speaking in person
in a relaxed environment, presumably away from the stresses of the
university ofce.
54 ACADEMIC CONFERENCES AS NEOLIBERAL COMMODITIES
Abby told me how she felt before attending and then once she was at the
conference:
voice. There was open dialogue, even over the coffee break between the
different delegates. The Kaiser CEO even engaged with different delegates.
Over the years Ive realised you need politicians on board. Research dis-
seminates the ndings which can then be acted upon by politicians. You
therefore need conferences to make a big political change. You also need
conferences that enable the researcher to see a different side to research; for
example, by learning a new innovative method of analysis.
NOTE
1. I can recognise where she is coming from here when I think about this book.
I have wondered if the novel chapter headings, and perhaps at times the
subjective examples are too left-eld for academic conventions
Closing Keynote
Abstract This session explains how the neoliberal agenda has relevance to
conferences, affecting their accessibility, what might be permitted for
debate to maintain corporate identity, and there being a competitive
rather than co-operative edge. My work comes with a health warning
and suggests three reasons why academic conferences might be considered
a (neoliberal) commodity.
CONFERENCE TRAVEL
The neoliberal market is built on the free movement of labour (Egan
2003), whereby for workers who are able to, they can repatriate to
work. It is not unusual for academics to work across several universities
on short-term contracts before settling in one university for a period of
time. Academics therefore lead an unsettled, if not nomadic, life until they
often than not will be to generate revenue. Slaughter and Leslie (1997), in
speaking about academic capitalism as an institution or market that seeks
to generate income, have echoed Chalmers argument that a conference is
a marketplace, and conrmed that conferences have a neoliberal function
through money making.
Income generation through grant funding is as much of an expectation
in the modern academy as journal article production. In this light, the
second case study is interesting because it documented how a conference
rejected industry funding, which had potential nancial implications. In
addition, because this conference had a focus on the specic conicts of
interest debate, it can be seen to have had a specic purpose and impact,
therefore going beyond mere noise generation.
The notion of luxury scholarly production might be seen to contradict
academic work, which aims to generate income. The conference in the rst
case study did not appear to produce a commodity, other than perhaps the
television programme. There are different reasons why this might have
been: the conference was held in a different era the mid-1980s, when
neoliberalism had not yet taken a hold of academia; or that it was based on
a discipline and tradition that did not naturally seek to address and resolve
real-life problems.
The series of conferences I attended in Case Study Four disconrm any
idea that a conference can either be of practical value or have theoretical
interest alone. These conferences could be seen to be promoting a com-
modity the expertise of a particular research method, therefore these
conferences had utility for the wider research environment, as well as the
attendees who could enrol in workshops to learn new ways of conducting
research. But they also had a strong theoretical interest, which was
reected in presentations and discussions around paradigms and paradigm
disputes.
Neoliberalism has as a tenet the notion of competition. The observation
by the Professor speaking at a keynote in the fourth case study about the
separate conferences highlighted not only a missed opportunity for colla-
boration, but also how competition between different conferences is not
necessarily helpful.
If too many like-minded people attend the same conference, differences
cannot be discussed and so there is no opportunity for change. A respon-
dent suggested, this might change if people attend conferences outwith
their own discipline. The conference in Case Study One sought to bring
together academics from different disciplines, but it was not as productive
64 ACADEMIC CONFERENCES AS NEOLIBERAL COMMODITIES
REFLECTIONS
A limitation with the research reported in this book is that I did not examine
a representative sample of conferences or interviewees. This was inevitable
when trying to write about conferences in the social sciences, which as
I explained is a very wide discipline. The conferences that I have focused
on as case studies were bar one, events that I attended a decade or more ago;
and which cover a range from Health Services Research, to methods. That
said, I acknowledge that health research conferences are different from
humanities, social sciences or other discipline conferences. The case studies
only represent a sample of the variety available across the social sciences and
do not intend to stand for the whole.
Another limitation related to the above is that I hoped that the problem
of the lack of representativeness of the conferences would be less of an
issue by anonymising the conferences. It was hoped that this would give
them less of a parochial feel for the wide range of readers, many of whom
will have no connect to the discipline in which I worked. Instead, it may be
considered that by anonymising both the conferences and the respondents
that this made them too abstract.
I had permission to name most of the people who took part in the
interviews that fed into Plenary Session One, and so I could have named
them, but did not for the aforementioned reason. However, to avoid this
potential disconnect between anonymised conferences and named inter-
viewees, I could have sought permission from the conferences themselves
to name them in the session. This was not considered practical for a
number of reasons, for example, it was unclear if I made such a request,
would it have to go to one representative of the conference, or a panel, or
everyone who attended it.
The wider context in which we do research is something other authors
of Palgrave Pivot books have acknowledged. I can relate to Cristina
Archetti (2014) who likened her work to Guerrilla Research by gather-
ing ndings in under-researched areas using self-contained, no-cost
research. By following my own research agenda, I appreciate where Dave
Beer (2014) was coming from when he proposed the idea of the Punk
Sociologist. I would say that what I have produced could be seen as an
Indie EP: self-funded and produced in my garage (in point of fact bed-
room and then spare room). It was not impossible for me to conduct this
research as an Independent without an academic institution or funding;
but nor was it always straightforward.
66 ACADEMIC CONFERENCES AS NEOLIBERAL COMMODITIES
CONCLUSION
Based on the work of this book, I propose the argument that academic
conferences are a (neoliberal) commodity; that is, they are something of
use/value, being bought and sold. There are three examples from this
book, which demonstrate this. Firstly, conferences are a commodity by
being a marketplace promoting an ideology/research tool/novel method,
which has an impact on the direction of research. Secondly, conferences
are commodities by being in competition with other conferences. And
thirdly, conferences are a commodity by reinforcing, explicitly or other-
wise, the tenet of the neoliberal academy.
Conferences in the social sciences are by-and-large a part of the meta-
story of their eld. They account for a particular way of doing research and
talking about knowledge, and therefore can be subject to empirical
research.
This book represents a beginning of a conversation; that is, a possible
new focus for research. This exploratory work has hinted at a range of
possible questions that could be examined. For anyone who is interested
in examining academic conferences, there is much to do. The evidence-
based community might want to examine questions relating to conference
utility and/or impact, which will be important for those tasked with
improving how conferences are organised.
There will be a need for a clear theoretical underpinning for such work.
I have set out one possibility, taking a neoliberal framework, but others
might be more appropriate, especially if it covers issues around the
delegate at the conference.
The academic conference as a subject of research might have a place in
the evolving research discipline of meta-research, which aims to evaluate
and improve research practices (Ioannidis et al. 2015). Such an introspec-
tive turn, it might be hoped, could be for the benet of the Academy.
Conference Abstract Book
WELCOME
I have for long had a fascination with academic conferences, having fondly
documented each one that I attended. This session explains my passion for
conferences, and my particular method for documenting them. It situates
academic conferences within a historical context, and provides an overview
of academic conferences. It then examines the concept of the conference,
including variants.
OPENING KEYNOTE
This session constructs a framework for exploring academic conferences in
the Social Sciences in relation to travel, the delegate at the conference
(including aspects of communication and socialisation), and neoliberalism.
It then goes on to explain the aim and objectives of this book, the
methodology and methods.
CLOSING KEYNOTE
This session explains how the neoliberal agenda has relevance to confer-
ences, impacting on their accessibility, what might be permitted for debate
to maintain corporate identity, and their being a competitive rather than
co-operative edge. My work comes with a health warning, and suggests
three reasons why academic conferences might be considered a (neolib-
eral) commodity.
It is customary for conferences to end with thanks to the admin staff who
brought it all together and made things run smoothly. The handing out of
owers is de rigueur. So these paragraphs should be considered oral
platitudes to the many people who have helped make this book possible
and bring this together.
Big thanks goes to Andrew James (formerly of Palgrave), who ran with
my proposal and commissioned it. Many thanks to Laura Aldridge for help
with het laatste loodjes, and my immense gratitude to Eleanor Christie
for being so patient with me, helpful and an excellent point of contact.
I am indebted to the anonymous reviewers for their comments and
advice that have signicantly improved on what I thought would be a
travelogue book.
This would have been a very much different and poorer book if I was
unable to interview people, and/or received information from them. I am
eternally grateful for giving me your valuable time so that I could talk with
you about conferences (which in many cases occurred a decade or more
ago), and/or requested information from you. You are: Abby Norman,
Anne-Marie Cunningham, Arthur Schafer, Aubrey Blumsohn, Burke
Johnson, David Healy, Debra Roter, Denis Walsh, Edwin van
Teijlingen, Frank Wells, Iain Chalmers, John Creswell, John Ioannidis,
Jon Deeks, Judith Mair, Julian Crane, Karsten Jrgensen, Lester Firkins,
Liz Wager, Margaret McCartney, Mark Hickson III, Meritxell Giros
Boixados, Nandi Siegfried, Nicholas Rowe, Nigel Fabb, Pam Kato, Pat
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A E
Academic freedom, 62 Efciency, 49
Academic identity, 58
F
B
Funding, 12, 19, 25, 2627, 28, 29,
Barrier, 12, 14, 3739, 58, 60
63, 65
Blog, 70
Border Control, 40, 60
H
Health, 7, 28, 29, 31
C
Health Services, 7, 46, 54, 65
Commodication, 31, 42
Hemisphere, 7, 3839, 48
Commodity, 16, 29, 31, 55, 60,
Historical overview, 30
6264
Communication, 56, 12, 23, 42,
4548, 54, 61, 64
Conference(s), 1214, 4042, 5458, I
5964 Ideology, 15, 33, 34, 62, 66
Conicts of Interests, 24, 25, 26, 27, Impact, 5, 17, 38, 46, 49, 54, 55, 56,
28, 29 57, 58, 60, 61, 63, 64
Corporate identity, 34, 35, 62 Industry, 25, 26, 27, 28, 62
Culture, 4042, 52, 60
K
D Keynote, 8, 1120, 30, 32, 39, 43, 57,
Dasein, 54 5966
Delegate, 6, 8, 1214, 17, 18, 26, 38, Knowledge, 6, 13, 31, 35, 43, 46, 49,
41, 42, 5455, 61 52, 57, 60, 61, 62
M R
Marketplace, 16, 30, 31, 49, 53, 55, Research, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 1516, 17,
62, 63 18, 19, 2426, 2829, 30, 3132,
Method, 8, 18, 29, 30, 31, 62, 65 3435, 42, 45, 47, 50, 53, 5556,
Methodology, 1, 19, 31, 32, 34, 49 61, 62, 63, 64, 65
N
S
Neoliberal commodity, 6264, 66
Social media, 35, 4849, 62, 66
Neoliberalism, 8, 1418, 24, 29, 31,
Social science, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 16, 17,
37, 55, 63
18, 19, 21, 29, 32, 33, 64, 65, 66
Network, 48, 49, 51, 53, 56
Noise, 12, 29, 44, 50, 57, 61, 63
T
O Theoretical, 8, 11, 27, 29, 49, 63, 66
Online, 4, 5, 18, 48, 51 Theory, 3, 16, 43, 61
Travel, 2, 6, 8, 12, 14, 18, 3738,
3941, 55, 58, 5960
Twitter, 4849
P
Paradigm, 17, 47, 61, 62, 63
Paradigm Wars, 32
Parallel session, 6, 2135, 3758 U
Personal level, 56, 61 Utility, 17, 24, 31, 34, 49, 55, 63,
Political, 5, 14, 35, 57, 62 64, 66
Politics, 4, 14, 22
Poster, 6, 26, 43, 4951, 64
Presentation, 6, 8, 1213, 19, 26, W
30, 34, 4344, 47, 48, 52, 53, 57, Workshop, 1, 2, 6, 7, 24, 25, 28, 32,
62, 63 43, 47, 53, 60, 63