A rather overdue post but I wanted to jot down some reflections on the AAG meeting that happened at last month in Washington DC. This was quite a special AAG for me given the location. The last time when AAG was held in DC, I was not able to attend because I would have been very close to my due date during that period. And as luck would have it, I actually gave birth to my son during what would have been the first of AAG 2010! So it was good to be finally attending the AAG meeting in DC, almost to make up for what I missed back then.
I stayed at the the Omni Shoreham Hotel, which was definitely a much better choice than the Marriot. Much more character in terms of building and interiors, and more peaceful compared to the manic buzz of the Marriot lobby. The hotel’s front entrance and back garden were gorgeous with cherry blossoms and tulips and lovely landscaping. Wish I had more time to just sit in the back garden with a book and simply enjoy the fine weather and gorgeous flowers.
I really enjoyed just about all the sessions that I attended this year. The financial geography ones were generally very well attended, especially the ‘Future of Financial Geography’ series (for forthcoming Routledge Handbook; I presented my paper/book chapter in one of those sessions), with people sitting all over the floor and spilling out the doors for one session!
In terms of panels and lectures, the highlights for me were the Dialogues in Human Geography lecture by Natalie Oswin (with very moving and inspiring contributions from panellists), and the ‘Fieldwork in China’ panel session organised by 2 PhD students (Wenjing Jiang and Yifan Cai). Very touched by the panellists, by their candid, incisive and passionate comments. Tears, emotions and personal histories are not ‘inappropriate’ or ‘weak’, they can, and should be, powerful. The DHG panel highlighted the refusal of other epistemologies and bodies as not just being sloppy scholarship but actually doing real harm. The ‘others’ should be theoretical interlocutors rather than just case materials, and we need to continue questioning existing structures of knowledge production and legitimisation. The ‘Fieldwork’ panel had very stimulating & insightful discussion from panellists on conducting fieldwork in China, across different positionalities, career stages, and identifying scope for resisting rather than being complicit.
Another memorable panel was organised by Adam Dixon, which invited non-academic speakers from KPMG, Centre for Global Development, Heinrich Böll Foundation, and the World Bank. Very candid, insightful and respectful discussion on ‘Finance & Development’ from quite different perspectives.
The panel that I was on happened during the first day, as an Authors-Meet-Interlocutors session on the new book titled ‘Financialising City Statecraft and Infrastructure’ by Andy Pike, Peter O’Brien, Tom Strickland, Graham Thrower and John Tomaney. I must say I was initially concerned that there were too many of us on the panel (6 panellists plus two of the book authors) but everyone kept to time really well, with very interesting and stimulating discussion coming from different angles.
I squeezed in a few meetings with collaborators/co-authors, but didn’t have as many socials this AAG compared to previous years. Maybe a sign of getting old. There were no GPN or FinGeo dinners this year, but good to catch up with people over lunch/coffee/drinks or corridor conversations, especially some former colleagues and old friends whom I had not seen in years.
Another highlight of this year’s AAG has got to be the cherry blossoms. It seems all of DC was in bloom during AAG week. The organisers really picked the perfect time, with peak bloom of cherry blossoms during the exact week that we were there. Having had a taster with some early blooming sakura in Tokyo 2 weeks prior to the AAG, it was wonderful to get the full bloom experience at last. Being under an entire canopy of cherry blossoms was thoroughly magical. They looked so beautiful and ethereal from every angle. I loved seeing the different varieties and colours as well, although most of them were the white or very light blush varieties, with some pink ones, and the very deep pink/fuchsia blooms that were just budding that week so I did not actually see them in bloom. It was amazing how many cherry trees there were all over the city, and not just the big patches and boulevards in parks. It made me miss seasonal weather very much.
Karen P.Y. Lai 