A Graduate Student’s Guide to the Annual Meeting of the AAG

The guide below is based on an informal post-AAG roundtable held on 26 April 2013 that featured the input of Dr. Eric Sheppard and Dr. John Agnew and several grad students who attended. During that meeting we shared our own experiences of the conference and had a chance to ask each other questions. Prior to meeting, some of us read blog entries on the subject of ‘conferencing’ by Karen L. Kelsky and Claire B. Potter (see External References below). Our discussion ranged beyond those entries in content to deal with practical questions about formal participation in the conference. Some participants agreed with parts of what those blog entries advocated and some differed. The article below weaves together insights shared by our participants and those blogs. (The AAG's own guide to the meeting can be accessed here: AAG Newcomers' Guide to the Annual Meeting.)

Conference objectives
Thousand of geographers and others gather every for the Annual Meeting of the AAG to share their research, learn about what others are doing, socialize, and network. Some greet it with fear and trepidation, some with uncontainable excitement, and some with jaded irritation. For many grad students trying to formulate a concrete plan, our overarching goals are to both improve the quality of our own research and to improve our prospects of getting a job. There are three main ways the conference can help us do this: 1) its an opportunity to network with other geographers, 2) a chance to increase our visibility within the discipline, and 3) a chance to broaden and deepen our knowledge of the field by a) getting a preview of unpublished work and b) seeing what other geographers (who we might have ideas of wanting to work with) are like as people. Below we’ll discuss the concrete steps you take to fulfill these objectives.

Who should attend the AAG and what are the various ways of participating? Karen L. Kelsky recommends that graduate students at any stage of their education should attend the national meeting of their discipline. There are many ways of formally participating in the AAG that are appropriate for each stage of your education: from just attending sessions, to presenting a poster, participating in a 5 minute paper session, to presenting a full paper, to sitting on a panel, to organizing paper sessions or panels. Very new graduate students should attend but not present, Masters students might present a poster, more advanced Masters and PhD students should present papers, and only PhD students who are ABD should organize paper or panel sessions. In addition to all this formal participation, there is the informal participation in the conference-all the socializing and networking that happens between and after sessions. We will discuss both below.

Formal Conference Activities
1. Attending sessions For very early career grad students just beginning their studies simply attending might make the most sense. It will give you a chance to see what paper presentations look like and to get a sense of the social dynamics at working during all the intersession hobknobbing—without all the pressure of presenting yourself. You’ll have a chance to network (be prepared with business cards and a pithy summary of your interests. As a newer grad student, you may even have an opportunity to make an impression and increase our visibility by asking a thoughtful and helpful question during the question and answer period. Prepare ahead of time if there is someone specific you would like to impress.

Choosing a session The first step is to go through the program in advance. It is usually available online several weeks before the conference. There is also a new online app that not only allows you search the listings but to drop sessions into a schedule. Its incredibly useful![insert footnote on if have feedback on app send to: xx] If you prefer to search through the paper copy of the schedule, you won’t be able to get a copy until you show up to register at the conference site. It can be tempting to crowd in as many sessions as you can, running to and fro. While this certainly helps with the objective of learning about what others are doing, it comes at the expense of networking. Pick a reasonable number of sessions to attend, say three, to leave space to network afterward. Also, you may not have a chance to talk to someone before or after a given session. Pick a related series of sessions and stick with them. You’re more likely to be recognized by the people who matter to your research and it will improve your odds of getting a chance to talk to them.

2. Presenting a poster: [has anyone who has presented a poster have advice on what stage appropriate etc?]

3. Participating in a five minute paper session: [would Ashley or anyone else who has done this like to give their perspective?]

4. Presenting a paper during a full paper session: How far along in your research do you have to be to present a paper? If you have empirical results or a worked theoretical argument to present, great. If you want to present a research plan in order to solicit feedback before embarking on the research itself, that’s fine too. You can even present ideas your working through at the very earliest stages of formulating your research in order to solicit feedback. However, whatever you do, it is important to be well-prepared, grounded in the literature, and clear about what your argument and questions are.

Getting into the right session: An excellent way to get into an appropriate session is to organize it yourself. See the section below on how do to this. If you don’t want to or are not in a position to take that on there are a number of ways to get your paper into the right session. One, is selecting the right keywords when you submit your abstract. When in doubt go for more rather than less, but choose wisely. Two, a more proactive step that is absolutely essential is to be in touch with the relevant AAG Specialty Group(s). Good Specialty Groups take it upon themselves to make sure the papers of their members don’t end up in random, unorganized sessions. Three, feel free to sound out any contacts you have about appropriate sessions they might be organizing. According to Dr. Sheppard, the worst thing you can do is to submit your abstract into the general pool and hope for the best. Be proactive.

5. Organizing paper sessions and panels: ''[what is the difference between a paper session and panel? Reason for doing one or the other? Flesh out panel matters and separate out as own section]''

Who should organize a paper session? Karen L. Kelsky recommends that only PhD students who are ABD organize a panel or paper session. This makes sense. The longer you’ve been around the more familiar you’ll be with your topic, the current debates surrounding it, and who is doing what. And at prior meetings, you will have had the opportunity to do the networking that will establish the basis for organizing your own panel or session.

Why should you organize a paper session? One reason is to make sure you don’t end up in a random session at a bad time. But there are other ways of achieving that short of organizing a session that we’ve talked about above. Organizing a session will allow you to further the objectives increasing your visibility and name recognition, to network with other participants and attendees, and to improve the depth and quality of your knowledge and research through the conversations that happen between the presenters both during and after the session.

Who should you approach to participate in the paper session and how and when should you do it? An excellent way to approach your paper session is to have a topic or theme that addresses some current debate within the discipline. Ideally one should try to get participants who take differing positions in relation that debate. Not only will this help attract people to the session, it can also spark a lively exchange between participants. Also, if you can get a more established and well known academic to participate as a presenter or discussant this will encourage people to attend. While much of the important groundwork for organizing a session is often done through previous networking, it is okay to approach those you have not yet met to solicit their participation. It is better to do this earlier rather than later. (A potential drawback is that people often only think seriously about what it is that their going to present until after have written abstract so they may change their mind.) Even if you haven’t laid the groundwork for a panel such as the one described above—most likely because you are a newer graduate student or are branching out into a new area—you can still organize a paper session. The AAG has established a rule whereby session organizers can ‘force’ as yet unassigned papers into their session. The advantage of this, provided you don’t engender hostility among the people involved, is that you can foster interactions among emerging scholars whose work wasn’t on your radar prior to issuing the call.

Issuing the call for papers It is very easy to create a session at the AAG. Your idea will not be rejected, but the onus will be on you to come up with an idea, create a session through the AAG website, advertise the session, solicit presenters, etc.

First step: have an idea for a session. You should be organizing a session because you have identified a lack in the literature or a lack in past AAG sessions and you feel that there should be a meeting on so-and-so a topic. As a side note, you can also offer your ideas at the business meetings of a specialty group. Your idea should have focus, but not be too focused as to narrow the conversation too much. In other words, a session on Foucauldian micro-governmentalities in neo-liberal Rio de Janiero might result in repetition (of exegesis and of contexualization), and be stifling (and boring). You want to allow for a broader idea base; why not micro-spaces of governance in South American metropolises? Now your pool of potential papers is wider, more audiences could be interested, and we don't have to hear all of you trying to out-Foucault one another.

Second step: technics and advertising. On the AAG registration panel choose the "organize a session" option. You will have to enter a title and abstract for the session. You should have already put much thought into this (remember the first step). Once you have the session, you will have a link to it. Hopefully you have done this far before the deadline. Over the course of the preceding summer, people are exploring sessions. If you have it up this early, you should be able to draw a better group of panelists. Email the heads of specialty groups and ask them to distribute the call for papers and to sponsor the session. They will agree, because the more sessions they sponsor, the more they can puff up their own statistical relevance. If the session is on Asian Mega-cities and the Environment, you could advertise through the China, Urban, Economic, etc. specialty groups. Not only will you draw panelists with all of this advertisement, you are also self-promoting (oh yeah!) because people with no intention of attending the session will see you as a pro-active academic. Furthermore, you can advertise through your contacts in other departments, your own department, etc. Also consider asking a professor to be a discussant, sometimes their presence draws a crowd as well.

Third step: selecting papers/panelists. Some of the submissions you receive will likely seem great fits, while others will be wide of the mark. You have do decide how willing you are to let your session topic drift. It will drift some, which is probably good, but don't let your session end up like the machine assembled loose abstract sessions. Also, it is OK to have people from your own department, but if you have five geographers from UCLA, you will probably only snare your friends as an audience. Furthermore, the resulting conversation will not be as rich as it would be if you were drawing on outside ideas. Remember that this is an opportunity for real dialog - take advantage of it.

Two stories about organizing sessions I've organized two sessions while at UCLA -- the first in Washington DC (2010?) and the second in LA (2013). Of the two, I think the LA was the more successful of the two. A few things I've learned: (1) While it's super fun to be with a bunch of people from your university (thanks Alice, Andrew, and Tuyen!), it's not always the most effective way to solicit a range of opinions; (2) finding discussants is something I would **strongly** recommend -- audience questions are always going to be hit-and-miss, but a good discussant will make a world of a difference in the feedback you get on your paper; (3) when sending out the CfP, make sure to have some sense of where the literature in your particular subfield is -- I think it helps to be able to tie your panel into current discussions; (4) don't be afraid to send the session description to professors or other grad students who you think may be interested in the session. Be formal and generous, of course, but also be specific in pointing out the ways that the panel (or your particular paper) is trying to engage with their work; (5) don't take it personally if the world seems unchanged by your TOTALLY AWESOME PANEL. It's hard enough to deliver a paper and feel like it passes without a trace; it's even more difficult when you put the time and effort into organizing a panel and it seemingly passes without content; and (6) don't be afraid to work with other people -- write to other grad students/faculty whose work you're interested and see if they're interested in organizing some kind of panel session -- if writing a conference paper can be a very individual project, I think panels are better for being collaborative ones. Of course, usual rules like starting ahead of time (i.e. *not* two days before abstracts are due) and being organized help -- but at the same time, try to enjoy the experience!

[needs content – Andrew, Rick, Timur, anyone else?]

Should you organize a series of sessions? Whether you can or not depends in part on how well-networked you or any of your co-organizers are. But sometimes it can happen of its own accord, if you receive so many responses to your original call for papers you may have, even without intending it, enough for multiple sessions. Organizing a series of sessions can multiply opportunities for networking, increasing visibility, and meaningful interactions that can improve your own research.

Organizing a Panel Session The AAG system is relatively straightforward (although it is a pain that they require you to pay registration for the meeting before being able to submit an abstract]. It's strongly recommended that you try to start planning these sessions well in advance.

''-difference between panel and paper session

-why organize a panel''

4. Attending the business meetings of Specialty Groups Showing up at the business meetings of specialty groups is a great way to network and increase your visibility. You can volunteer to fulfill a position within the specialty group and your service will likely be remembered. The small size of Specialty Groups meetings can be a boon for the shy among us hoping to network.

5. Volunteering at the conference [needs content – anyone with experience with this?]

Informal conference participation: more with the networking
We’ve touched on the matter of networking above in our section on formal participation in the conference. However, in the spaces between sessions—temporal and spatial—there are still abundant opportunities to advance this critical objective. The blog posts that form part of the basis for this guide discuss opportunities, approaches, and pitfalls to avoid in networking at the conference-read through them and decide what you think about their advice. A great space to both get a sense of current research in the field, and to run into people you want to meet is the booksellers exhibition space. The numerous receptions within the conference space that happen for example after major addresses offer another opportunity. Of course, the larger and more crowded these are, the more difficult to navigate and socially fragmented they tend to be. Smaller receptions like those that follow talks associated with journals are especially good opportunities. The spaces are smaller and you’re more likely to run into someone whose research is important for your own.

Other Conference Activities
Professional development seminars [needs content]

Job interviews during the conference [needs content]

The conference as an opportunity for research [needs content]

''-Interviews during Conference

-Fieldwork during conference''

Other conferences to think about going to:
Very large conferences: Physical geographers will likely already be very aware of the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). [Link to separate geowiki article on this conference?] But should human geographers think about attending the very large conferences that are the equivalent of the AAG for other social science disciplines? This is generally not recommended—unless your theory and methodology are very closely aligned with the prevailing norms in those fields. If not, you may encounter a very unproductive defensiveness from other attendees. However, the interdisciplinary nature of the annual meeting of the ISA (International Studies Association) has meant that many geographers who have attended it have found that quite useful and in fact strongly recommend it.

Smaller conferences: Smaller conferences offer opportunities for more sustained and meaningful interactions with other attendees in settings that are often less pressured or intimidating. They can also serve as ‘practice runs’ to try out both your paper/poster presentation and networking skills. For both human and physical geographers there are smaller regional geography conferences, of the APCG (Association of Pacific Coast Geographers) and the CGS (California Geographic Society). Locally, the Los Angeles Geographical Society hosts frequent lectures and the occasional mini-conference. For geographers whose work takes a critical approach, there are the Annual Mini-Conferences on Critical Geography. You should also seek out smaller thematic conferences related to your research topic. Quite a number of these in fact happen here, on campus at UCLA, throughout the year, [include link to separate wiki page with info on how to effectively stay abreast of these]. Finally, just before the AAG a number of Specialty Groups, such as Political Geography, have preconferences. You can present your AAG paper to a room that will likely contain more major figures in the discipline than will attend your full conference presentation. There is often a dinner afterward whose small size offers a great opportunity for networking.

-Allied Social Sciences Conference [Luis do you want to flesh this out?] [Would anyone who has attended any of these smaller conferences like to set up separate pages for them?