Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Academic Conferences: The big and small wahala

Sabella, the Victorious, Olusegun in Yoruba:

 

You have raised an important issue. I am heading out to Nigeria tomorrow, and it has to be so short a letter, to parody So long a Letter by our lovely Mariama Ba.

I started to manage associations from 1981 until my recent disengagement, which has nothing to do with your concerns but what I want to do with the last decade of my long career.

There are two models:

1. run an association on passion and reduce the cost
2. Professionalize an association and increase the cost. I cannot tell you the salaries we pay, like that of the executive boss, which is more than that of a professor.

 

Both carry serious risks. Option (a) takes you to patrimonialism and authoritarianism, like an African state. If not well-managed, one person is the voice, the President, the Secretary, the Treasurer, like Mugabe's Zimbabwe or Kenyatta's Kenya. The association begins to look like a dictatorship awaiting a coup. Collapse is imminent; only we don't know when. Presentations of that kind of association can be fake. Since no one sees the books, it may run on lies and exaggerations. In option (b), you move toward a democracy, which, if not put in check, can lead to fragmentation.

 

Your payment, in some instances, is an insurance protection. If you attend a conference in Nigeria and get kidnapped, the way it is resolved is tied to the option above. A professionalized association must do something. The African Studies Association can mobilize quickly to reach Kamara Harris, and the less professionalized cannot.

 

Each member defines needs and values. That need can be as small as getting out of the house to signal relevance to family members or simply to drink beer with colleagues.

 

However, as most people get older and become accomplished, professional networks begin to disintegrate, replaced by social and emotional networks. Let me close with a Yoruba proverb:

 

It is because of funeral rites and decent burials that we worship in churches and mosques.

 

Alas! the guys you meet at conferences will not attend your funeral; it is those you meet in places of worship and social circles who will turn out in large numbers. You wont die, just making things clearer.

TF

 

 

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Sabella <sabidde@gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, January 1, 2022 at 6:35 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Academic Conferences: The big and small wahala

I've just renewed my membership to three learned associations. Year after year, I wonder why the fees are so steep. In addition to the fees, you also pay the registration fee if you intend to attend the yearly conference (for a total of $400-500 per association for someone like me). I am not going to ask what they do with all that money.

Depending on the location of the conference, you must also pay for your plane ticket, ground transportation, hotel and dining, and the miscellaneous costs. If your institution is funding you or if you have funds from other sources, then, no wahala. Otherwise, you must be ready to cough out, say, $1500-2000 a year for a conference within the USA.  Going overseas? Well, that's baba nla wahala from Montgomery, Alabama.

These associations are very important, and so is attending/presenting at conferences. But what do you do if your institution does not have the funds, you are unable to secure external funding, or are not financially buoyant? Chai, that na mountainous wahala.

I was in Argentina in December 2019, and in North Georgia in February 2020. But because of the impersonal nature of online conferences, I have not attended or presented since. If the pandemic allows, I will be back on the road beginning summer 2022.

As an aside: Covid-19 will be with us for a very long time. Loss of human lives or not, human suffering or not, the reality is that some forty percent of the total global population will refuse to be vaccinated. But sha, wear your mask; wash your hands; and social distance. But above all else: get the third shot…get boosted. Happy New Year!

Sabella

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