to ask the IGU to change the venue of the next Regional Meeting

Please help us to collect as many signatures as possible through sending this link to Geography colleagues all over the world.

This site does not represent a suitable venue to develop the discussions. A lot of Chilean and foreign people will feel unconfortable in this place.

The IGU does seem to be pushing out the boat to offend all sensibilities; fist the conference in Israel, now this. Perhaps future venues could include, say, the Evin prison in Iran, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and perhaps Baghram Airfield in Afghanistan? That way we could firmly re-establish geography as a servant of imperialism and thumb our noses at the Human Rights crowd at the same time...

uzg

Perhaps if the issues being raised about the past role of the venue are confronted there - it could make a progressive difference?

After all, other former imperial and military-connected sites (such as the RGS in London) have become lively arenas for critical discussions.

But an explicit acknowledgment and commitment to discuss such issues at the venue/conference must surely be a prerequisite.

Until and unless there is such acknowledgment/commitment: I join those who would not feel comfortable attending the IGU conference in this site and call for an alternative venue.

The American Sociological Association recently changed venues for this year's annual conference because of a labor dispute at the original conference venue. If the ASA can change venues, so can the IGU.

There is no an explicit acknowledgment and commitment to discuss critical issues at the the venue/conference. Most of violations of Human Rights in Chile are still a an issue to resolve.

I agree very much with Jon Cloke and James Sidaway.

I agree very much with Jon Cloke and James Sidaway.

Even if there is critical discussion of the associations of this venue, it seem an extremely inappropriate choice. I join with those who urge relocating the conference.

#1: Irene Molina - important for geographers all over the world 

 

Chile has taken a long time to begin to address the issues of post-dictatorship responsibility. In this context, the choice of venue for the IGU appears to be inappropriate, and could risk be coopted by a particular group of geographers. I follow the above signatories in urging a relocation of the conference.

I also join with those who urge relocating the conference

change the chilean constitution!! lazys politics!!

I join local Chilean geographers (who know their history better than I) to urge the IGU to chose a more appropriate conference venue

#13: Sarah A Radcliffe - Question re site of IGU conference 

 Thanks a lot Sarah!  The scenario that you are frightening is already here. Two universities have already withdrawal their participation because of the venue, which is a pity because they belong to the more critical geographical spaces; there you find for instance gender and sexuality studies (which of course military cartographers in charge of the organisation can’t even spell), a lot of women, young people, in sum the most interesting expressions of the ‘new’ Chilean Geography. What could have been a fantastic opportunity for Chilean geographers to meet colleagues from all over the world is turning into a slap in the face for many Chilean colleagues. It is shameful! Many, many thanks for your support everybody!

#1: Irene Molina - important for geographers all over the world 

 

#2: Francisco Castaneda - Change the Venue 

 

#3: Dr Jon Cloke - Inappropriate conference venues 

 

The invitation to hold an IGU Regional Conference in Santiago, Chile was extended by the Chilean Institute of Military Geography, the Chilean IGU member organization. The IGU Executive Committee accepted the invitation in May 2008 and announced the location of that meeting following the Tunis IGU General Assembly in August 2008. The IGU and the Conference Local Organizing Committee have widely publicized the plans to hold the meeting in Santiago at the Army Military School since the IGU accepted Chile’s invitation.

The current and past IGU Executive Committees have long been concerned about the limited participation in IGU affairs and meetings by geographers from South America. Since the first Geographical Congress in 1871, only one Congress (Rio de Janeiro in 1956) has been held in the region and only three Regional Conferences (Havana in 1995, Mexico City in 1966, and Sao Paulo in 1982). A small conference with limited participation was held under IGU auspices in Havana in 2005. In addition to the few IGU meetings that have been hosted in Latin America, comparatively few Latin American geographers attend IGU meetings elsewhere or are members of IGU Commissions. Accordingly, the IGU Executive Committee was extremely pleased to receive the invitation to meet in Santiago.

It is important to understand that although the IGU’s Conferences and Congresses are called IGU meetings, the IGU itself has only the most tenuous ownership of each of its Conferences and Congresses. The IGU is not in a position to provide financial support for these meetings; all funds needed to put on each meeting are raised by Local Organizing Committees. For that reason primarily, as well as the impracticality of selecting a specific meeting facility in cities they do not know well or at all, members of the IGU Executive Committee rely largely on the judgment of each Local Organizing Committee for meeting site selection. When there have been differences of opinion between the IGU and a Local Organizing Committee regarding the facility to be used for an IGU meeting, the Local Organizing Committee has prevailed because that body pays the bills and bears the risk of a financial loss should meeting participation not meet expectations. IGU Congresses and Regional Conferences are heavily subsidized by the countries and committees that host them, which places the IGU very much in the position of a guest whose visits costs its hosts a great deal of money and hard work.

The IGU Executive Committee respects the reasons some individuals may object to meetings held in some countries or in specific facilities, but the IGU is not—as a guest organization—in a position to revise arrangements that were made two or more years ago and that have proved workable in the past: the International Cartographic Association held its Congress in Santiago in 2009 at the Army Military School where the IGU will meet this coming November. I attended that conference and found the meeting well organized, productive, scientifically sound, and convivial. I am certain that the same conditions will prevail for the IGU meeting.

The questions that have been raised over the last several weeks about holding the IGU Conference under military auspices and about the Institute of Military Geography’s role as Chile’s IGU member lie outside the IGU’s purview. The IGU is constrained by its own governance documents from interfering in the internal affairs of the geographical communities of its member countries. Any change in the existing arrangements regarding Chile’s membership in the IGU must originate in Chile rather than with the IGU.

The members of the IGU Executive Committee ask that you bear in mind the factors described above in your further consideration of the questions you and other colleagues have raised regarding the location, venue, and sponsorship of the 2011 IGU Regional Conference. In particular, we ask that you visit the Conference web site (http://www.ugi2011.cl/) and note the composition of the various Conference committees and the reports of meetings held with Chilean and other Latin American geographers. Members of the Chilean military will certainly be present in November, but they will in no way dominate or influence the composition of the meeting’s scientific program.

As the IGU respects your opinions and choices, we hope that you will understand the constraints under which the IGU operates in scheduling its conferences and congresses, and that you will evaluate the promise of the 2011 Conference on its intrinsic scientific merits. We hope to see you in Santiago, but if you choose not to come, please consider joining us in Köln in 2012.

Ron Abler

Doesn't this seem like a pattern with IGU? Wasn't it held in some equally problematic location last year?

#1: Irene Molina - important for geographers all over the world 

 

With all due respect to the above note by Dr. Abler, the IGU is showing a consistent refusal to acknowledge the political and social consequences of its choices of venue. The fact is that although the IGU may not want to be seen as meddling in the local affairs of the hosting organizations, the IGU should take responsibility for the actions of its member groups, and as pointed out above, the continued placement of IGU meetings in politically questionable sites cannot help but reflect badly on the organization as a whole. In 2008, in Ben Ali's Tunisia. In 2010, in apartheid Israel, where many Palestinian geographers could not even attend. In 2011, in the military school, made famous for torture and disappearances under the Pinochet dictatorship and beyond. What message is the IGU trying to send? If you shoulder the burdens of hosting the conference, then the IGU has no standards whatsoever for its hosting organizations? I think there's a very strong message here, and one that is extremely distasteful for those of us engaged in political geography. I urge the IGU to change the venue, and to begin a serious process of soul searching, lest it be known as forever on the wrong side of history, and of geography.

The apologism put forth by Ron Abler rings loudly in concert with the refusal of the AAG to consider the issue of holding conferences in venues that respect the rights of labour in the years that he was Executive Director. The failure of the IGU to consider the political implications of decisions it sanctions will only lead to undermining the legitimacy of the organization, unless - as others have pointed out - an explicit aim of the meeting is to interrogate the role of the site and its associated institutions and actors in exercising repression. And to draw a parallel between a meeting of the International Cartographic Association with a meeting of the IGU suggests an astonishing political naivete. To plead bureaucratic expediency in the face of a significant moral lapse like this is egregious. What's to follow? The next meeting at the Pentagon?