It's July 7th, 2021, and I have finally gained an insight I had obscured for years.

I TRAVELLED TOO MUCH THROUGHOUT MY EARLIER CAREER.

Yes, obviously, I'm a senior professor now and I can get away with saying "thanks for the invitation but no thanks".

I didn't feel that way.
I felt that, in the absence of many publications, I HAD to travel the globe, attend conferences, network and showcase my research. I wasn't publishing enough, and even more so, I wasn't publishing A LOT in English, which is the lingua franca of academia whether we like it or not.
I've also the "Publish A Metric Tonne" strategy for Fear of Being Missed Out (FOBMO) raulpacheco.org/2019/12/on-imp…

At the time, my decisions made sense, even if I knew that travelling that much had many downsides (particularly for my health) raulpacheco.org/2013/11/the-do…
(typo in earlier tweet- I've also implemented the ...)

Anyhow, 17 months after being basically grounded, I am delighted to say that I don't plan to do the academic conference circuit the way I did (AAG, APSA, ASPA, ISA, MPSA, PMRC, IASC, ICPP).

I'm going to be SUPER SELECTIVE.
Can a junior scholar, graduate student, contingent faculty member, scholar from the Global South afford NOT to do the academic conference circuit (the way I'm doing now, because I have the privilege of a permanent job and seniority?).

Not really, and that's SUPER fucked up.
We need to increase accessibility to contingent faculty members, junior scholars, graduate students, scholars from the Global North.

And yes, associations, that means: don't fucking establish membership fees of 500 euros, conference registration fees upward of 200 USD, etc.
I would say that in addition to travel and lodging costs, registration fees and membership fees are the two top financial barriers that inhibit access to scholars at the margins.

Want to make academia LESS elitist? Lower conference registration and membership fees.
Also, increase hybrid/online participation.

PATNET, CPSA, IASC (the only three conferences I did this year), all did very low registration fees, and very low membership fees too.

It can be done. Yes, I'm probably going to get backlash for this.

But I'm a senior prof so...
(the privilege of being a well-connected, senior professor with a large Twitter audience is that I can advocate for contingent faculty, students and early career scholars without fearing much backlash - I am well aware of my privilege and I wield it for good).
Having said all of the above, if i get an invitation to Paris or Madrid, it’s going to be really hard to say “no” :)

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More from @raulpacheco

9 Jul
THREAD. A live quick AIC content extraction of an article (tracking the time I have spent on it).

Every single person who reads my blog, every single one of my students, every attendee who participates in my workshops, all ask me "how long does it take you to read an article?"
I just downloaded and printed this article on qualitative social network analysis. It’s going to be useful to my FLACSO students. Reading and highlighting the abstract took me 1 minute and 15 seconds.

I have NOT scribbled anything nor have I created a CSED row entry (yet) Image
Because I like being systematic with my files and my reading process, I need to file this PDF within the right folder ("Social Network Analysis") and then upload it on to Mendeley and file it within the correct folder too ("SNA"). This should takes me a minute or two. Image
Read 8 tweets
9 Jul
A few weeks ago, Dr. @sule_tomkinson kindly offered to review CVs and cover letters of 10 job market candidates. This was an incredibly generous offer. She only asked for those who received her feedback to share it on Twitter. I will follow her lead.

My review would be particularly suited for the academic job markets in political science, public policy, public administration, and human geography. Happy to review for other markets/disciplines, but I don't know that I can make extremely useful suggestions for STEM, for example.
On my website I have a special sub-page for Resources for Job-Market Seekers raulpacheco.org/resources/surv…

I would recommend reading this post BEFORE sending me materials so as to rework them to prevent these common mistakes.
raulpacheco.org/2017/07/common…
Read 10 tweets
8 Jul
Something that has completely revolutionized how I do online meetings is Zoom integration with Google Calendar.

I create the Zoom link, email my colleagues through the email function of Google Calendar, and that way, they can add it to their own (Outlook, GC, iCal, etc.)
There are two ways of doing this (on screenshot, notice the red arrows. You can create a new calendar event and click on the button "Make It A Zoom Meeting") OR you can click on the Zoom integration Chrome extension. On screen right now is what the "New GCal event" generates. Image
If you use the Zoom integration Chrome extension, you'll need to link both your Google Calendar and your Zoom account. Once you do that, clicking on the blue button shown on your extensions in Chrome will tell you if you want to create a new meeting or start one. Click "Schedule" Image
Read 6 tweets
5 Jul
I left my partner of 8 years back in my hometown of Vancouver, packed my bags and moved to Aguascalientes, Mexico, to be able to drive 2 hours to see both my parents, and spend time with them.

100/100 would recommend.

Like Jess, I treasure the time I spend with my parents.
Do I miss my ex-boyfriend? Of course I do. So I'm going to share something VERY personal.

Around late 2011, a bunch of my parents' friends and a bunch of parents of MY friends passed away. I had lived away from my parents for many, many years. I didn't want this to happen to me
I didn't want to regret being in Canada as my parents aged and then, one day get a phone call saying "Mom/Dad is gone". I wanted to spend time with both my parents as an adult while they're still healthy and able to do things with me (travel, eat out, go to concerts, etc.)
Read 6 tweets
4 Jul
It's Sunday morning, I slept well and I am just having my first cup of coffee after sleeping in until about 8am, so I am going to share with you a few insights I learned from designing (from scratch) a qualitative methods course.

Buckle up.
Disclosure: I was the Editor for the Americas of the International Journal of Qualitative Methods (@IJQMonline). I apply qualitative methods in my research. I teach qualitative methods. I write and publish methods pieces.

I'm not a newbie to the field/to the methods.
In order for me to properly design a "Qualitative Data Analysis and Interpretation" Masters/PhD level course, I:
- went and read (and in some cases, re-read) 31 books.
- emailed two professor friends who shared their syllabi with me.
- downloaded and read 15 different syllabi.
Read 12 tweets
2 Jul
Mi charla sobre principios básicos de etnografía y observación participante. Gracias @flaviafrei y @KarolinaGilas por invitarme al Taller de Análisis de Datos del Observatorio de Reformas Políticas en América Latina.

El año pasado, me invitó @medinagual a la Ibero Santa Fé a hablar sobre "Retos de la investigación social en contextos pandémicos". Aquí está el video de mi charla.

facebook.com/watch/live/?v=…
Y si se encuentran en situación de tesis (como mis estudiantes de la @FlacsoMx y mis propios tesistas), ésta charla que me invitó a dar @guadarramacc sobre "cómo pasar del tema de investigación a la pregunta de investigación?" les será de utilidad.

Read 4 tweets

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