It was a bit manic this week with the FinGeo Forum sessions as well as helping out with Durham Geography’s virtual open day events, but very happy to see how things all came together for FinGeo’s first virtual event, and brilliant co-organising it with Dariusz Wójcik. It was great to see many new and familiar faces, and reconnecting with other colleagues from so many different parts of the world even as we miss the conference/networking events in person. I found it especially encouraging that we had so many early career scholars who joined us and from many different countries. One of the benefits of these online events is that they lower the barriers significantly for those who can’t usually travel to large conferences due to cost/visa/logistics and other issues.
We decided to organise two sessions to cover different time zones, so that we could cater to more people. There was around 110 participants in total, which exceeded our expectations. Our regional ambassadors (Fabio Contel, Michael Ewers, Zoltan Gál, Janelle Knox-Hayes, Stefan Ouma, Fenghua Pan and Thomas Sigler) did a fantastic job in kick-starting the discussion.
The general open-ended question for the forum was:
- What are the actual and potential impacts of COVID-19 on financial geography research, and how can financial geographers navigate the associated challenges?
Related questions that we discussed include:
- How has COVID-19 influenced our research, in terms of what we do research on and how we do it?
- How has the pandemic influenced access to resources relevant to financial geography research in our respective countries (funding, research networks, data, etc.)?
- What are the challenges facing financial geography research due to COVID-19?
- Are there any opportunities for financial geography and geographers created by changes related to COVID-19 (e.g. new topics, online seminars, policy-related initiatives)?
- Any tips on doing financial geography research, including fieldwork, remotely (as influenced by lockdown rules and restrictions on travel)?
- Any tips for financial geographers, particularly those at an early stage of their career, who are thinking about how to adjust their research plans in relation to COVID-19?
There were plenty of insights and sharing of experiences from Brazil, Middle East, China, Eastern Europe, Africa, Australia and elsewhere. I think this very rich international dimension has made this event very distinctive. The discussion and comments provided plenty of food for thought as we navigate the shifting research landscape (for financial geography but also for academia as a whole), including geopolitics, Fintech, climate change, urban infrastructures, what is the ‘next asset class’, opportunities/challenges of virtual fieldwork, recalibrating teaching-research roles, policy relevance and so on.
The Regional Studies Association have been very supportive in hosting this forum. There will be more virtual events in the following months, I’m sure. The FinGeo Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held online for the first time, with a tentative date in September 2020. More details to come as plans are confirmed.
Karen P.Y. Lai 