Ohhhh. Today was not a good one in PhD land.
Up until now, PhD land has been full of smiles and positive feedback from my profs. They say things like “that makes sense” or “that’s innovative!” or “what a good idea” or “Rather than say that structural adjustment programs forced countries to privatize the electricity sector, I *would* say that they were required to charge the full marginal cost price of electricity.” To which I would reply “okayyyy, but just to clarify, and I’m not sure about Europe, but could you also say that most jurisdictions in the Global North did not charge full marginal cost price, but countries in the Global South were generally required to do this?” to which he would reply “Well….yes.” And then I would say “And, I’m not completely sure of this, but doesn’t the Global Environment Facility, which has leveraged billions of dollars into renewable energy for countries in the Global South and effectively require them to adopt more renewable energy before they (the GN) do, even though it’s not necessarily clear that (energy-wise) an economy has developed this way before?”* to which he would say “I hadn’t thought about it that way before” to which I would reply “well…I mean, I only know the African context…” And then he would say “Thanks for a good discussion” to which I would reply “are you sure I wasn’t badgering you” and he would say “no”. And outside of school I have my nice Chrysalids ecosystem of well-being activities to fuel my studies.
But today, for my professional-development/so-you’re-gonna-be-a-geographer? course, I was required to attend a conference. I need to point out that this conference was billed as designed for students, a good place for networking and professional development, and to work on presentation skills. So, I paid my 70 bucks. And hauled myself out of bed at 530 AM (I was up even before the 4 year olds downstairs, which is a scary thought), on a *Saturday*, and rode my bike in the dark and the cold to campus.
The bus ride was fun–half the people on the bus were asleep, and the rest of us, tired and giddy, helped me brainstorm my presentation for my students on Ishmael. We decided that the do-gooder is a cross between Lisa Simpson and the Big Lebowski (I consider living in a housecoat to be disillusioned). But then had to decide whether my 18 year old students would know who the Big Lebowski is, or whether I had to pick someone else who was generally disillusioned, and more famous. We came to the conclusion that famous people are not openly disillusioned, so the Big Lebowski was chosen. And then Ms. RedChuckTaylors and I had a debate over which Marley brother is the hottest (Damian Jr. Gong Marley is, hands down). Again, happy, fun PhD land discussion with my funny cohort.
When we arrived a the conference, I should have known there was a problem when they thought I had canceled (and yet, still cashed the cheque I mailed) and didn’t have a package ready for me. And there was NO COFFEE. Blasphemous when you are expecting people who have been up since 530 AM.
Recalling that the conference was billed for students, and most graduate geography students are actually poached from other disciplines (i.e. are new to geography), you would think that we would have had a nice, fuzzy and warm, happy welcome plenary session. No such luck.
Neoliberalism
The first speaker, speaking for a collective, explained to us that the publications that we are required to publish in if we want to pursue tenure track positions are all owned by large corporations, which automatically own our intellectual property, so we would even have to pay copyright fees to access our own work. Regardless of the fact that the institutions funding our research are generally public, the publications end up owning the IP, and then the institutions pay the journals to access the research they’ve funded. Apparently only the Americans have figured out this might not work for public access to information and has legislation against the IP ownership.
We are all exploited. Coffee definitely would have made that go down better.
Hierarchy
On top of that, the discipline is dominated by British and Anglo journals (I already knew this), and their journals have the highest impact factors (i.e. how often the journal and the article are cited). It’s hard to get ahead with English as your second language.
The collective is challenging this through peer-reviewed, online, open-access journals in five languages. But they have to be accepted by the dominant culture, as they probably can’t compete for impact factors.
Inequity embedded
The next speaker, also from the collective, told us that amongst many social science disciplines, geography is fairly insular and hierarchical, and this is embedded in hiring practices. A growing trend, I gathered also imported all the way from the Brits, is that impact factors of publications are taken into account above all other factors by hiring committees. As well, the Brits have got geography covered, and cite themselves and each other often, thereby increasing their impact factors significantly.
On top of that, there is empirical evidence that women, people of colour, and especially women of colour, are not getting hired as much, and are definitely not moving up the ranks due to the hiring practices. On top of that, pay raises are not predominantly based on merit, more so on retention. Anecdotally, they are more worried about losing the older, white, male scholars. In fact, the speaker himself saw his salary go up by 50% over the past three years (he’s a white, older male). He reported feeling guilt as there were other people slogging away who didn’t get the same kind of raise. He went on to say that he wouldn’t turn it down. He will continue to publish his research on inequities in hiring practices for the dual purpose of changing the system and getting credit through impact factors.
I have a feminine-Canadian handicap.
Culture shock
Environmental Studies as a “discipline” does not value one form of knowledge over another, and strives to not value one destination from another in terms of where knowledge originates from, or where it is disseminated to. I suppose for all of my crankiness over my degree in that area, I was always grateful that I had the freedom to address an issue from any perspective I wanted, and personal experience was valued just as much as a literature review. I think the culture shock is that geographers openly acknowledge all of the inequities in the system, and also openly acknowledge that they probably won’t turn down the privilege attributed to them for reasons pointed out in this post, or challenge the necessary loss of IP rights to earn a living, and simply live within the system.
I’m used to feisty environmentalists who bite the hand that feeds them. And I’m also used to them painting a dire picture of the end of the world, but then ending with some vision of hope, like changing a light bulb, or putting in a low flush toilet. My point being, if this conference is indicative of the Big Geography Picture, I think geographers need to find their low flush toilet of hope to offer to students in the plenary session, rather than a picture of our careers being over (going down the toilet? could not help that one) before they’ve started. And (seriously, though) geography conferences should never underestimate the importance of coffee first thing in the morning.
I sometimes find conferences overwhelming since there are many ideas floating around to contemplate, and sometimes too much nervous energy. I found a garden to sit in and just wrote in my journal for a few hours before returning to see the presentations of my friends. And then upon return to campus, to complete my stellar day, I rode home in the cold and dark.
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*the issue underlying RE in the GS is that the GEF finances these projects, but people have to payback for the capital equipment cost, it’s found that too much of their income is being diverted towards this, and they are locked in and unable to afford diverse fuel sources, such as kerosene. In some cases, this could lead to further scavenging for wood for fuel, leading to more environmental impacts etc. etc.
