On conferences and dharnas

Happy new year everyone! There have been many firsts in 2015 – the first time I traveled the most; to amazing new places in Dubai, Thailand, Denmark, Germany and Netherlands – the first time I got a visa three hours before the flight – the first time I went to an academic conference – and a few others not agreeable with the topic of this post. I hope 2016 will bring many more exciting firsts  to all of us. Needless to say my life has moved forward at a pace so breathtaking that I often struggle to hold on to all those intricate details and make sense of them. But as with all issues in life its useful to break them down to manageable parts.

This post will be on my journey to Denmark particularly attending the Communication & Democracy section 2015 at the European Communication Research and Education (ECREA) conference.

A bit on the journey itself first. I have been working on a paper that aims to explore the role of Dharnas (‘curated sit-ins’ as I like to call them) in citizen mobilisations in Pakistan. So I was very excited when it got accepted at ECREA.  Coincidentally, the visa process to visit Copenhagen Business School, where the conference was to be held, clashed with myriad other administrative and academic duties. As a result I cut the deadlines to travel rather close. In fact, I wasn’t sure if I’d even go until five hours before the flight! Thankfully, the 14 hour flight was just enough to prepare a presentation, shave and look presentable. Although I wouldn’t recommend working under dim lights of the economy class for writing anything important.

Any way, I landed in Copenhagen at first light and went straight to the conference with my luggage where I presented with a 10% battery left on the Mac. I did ok for a first, received some comments but the real reward however was showing this to a very ‘non-Pakistani’ audience:

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The format for this intimate conference over the next two days was typical. Plenary sessions, usually taken over by superstar scholars in the field followed by refreshments before the 200-300 modest gathering breaks down in to a number of themes. These themes formed the meat of the proceedings. The subject matters varied widely – some of the papers I will mention shortly – although conforming to the general theme and loosely bound to European events. For me a fascinating aspect was the program, based on which one could switch between halls to listen to any topic or presenter they fancied. So there was a constant shuffling of people taking notes between presentations. But the two topics I enjoyed listening the most were:

Activism: an ambiguous word for an ambivalent age 

A keynote speech by Prof. Goubin Yang based on his upcoming book. He talked about how the definition of the word activism has increasingly shed its more revolutionary color and how that corresponds to activism increasingly being practiced as passive resistance in contemporary times. Which also means that activism has become rather institutionalised where, no one is ever pro-government or pro-corporation any more.

Commercial Nationalism, Advertising and the Crisis: Political Agency and Resistance 

A paper by Dr. Eleftheria Lekakis on how advertising attempts to mobilise political agency through the platform of a brand and the reception, in terms of acceptance or resistance, that this holds. She took the case study of Johnnie Walker Whiskey’s global campaign to demonstrate how commercial enterprises frame national identity.

My interest in them stemmed from the wave of activism and vigour leading up to May 2013 and the opposition marches later on. And of course the brand Pakistan in local advertising has been ‘done to death’ but never seems to die.

There were also ample opportunities to network in between presentations, refreshment and lunch breaks, a cocktail reception for participants and also one could simply go out for dinner later. On one such moments I chanced upon a Professor from CityU, someone who I have been meaning to speak to. He had done a Twitter Analysis of May 2013 General Elections with findings I was keen to debate. (If you guys can’t access it let me know).

In all it was a refreshing affair. To present your ideas, meet scholars with similar interests, get a feel for the latest trends and explore a new city. Coming from Hong Kong, Copenhagen seemed to me rather quite. You could be walking around the city centre and run in to the parliament building without realising. Very peaceful and scenic. Nightlife is great in that it made me wonder whether the wild drunk hoards I usually encountered in England are an English phenomenon. Europe is certainly different as my time in Berlin and an evening in Amsterdam showed. But lets save that for another time.

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