ASSOCIATION FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN OCEANIA
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Place Matters: A History of ASAO Meeting Sites - Mike Rynkiewich

12/31/2015

1 Comment

 
ABSTRACT

          The effect of place on community is an emerging historical interest, and we even have a volume in Pacific studies (Brij Lal, ed. Pacific Places, Pacific Histories) on the topic.  Having attended the meetings of the Association for Social Anthropology (ASAO) off and on since 1969, and having served as the "Site Coordinator" for seven years, I take the long view of site selection.  The explicit and implicit criteria for a good meeting site, the politics of site selection, and even the locus of decision-making have all changed over the years; and rightly so as, on the one hand, membership has grown to include scholars from the Pacific and Europe, and, on the other,the hotel and catering business has changed.  Chances were taken; some turned out well, others did not.  Lessons were learned so that, as the work to discover potential sites moved from the whole membership to a committee and then to an individual, the process became more complex and demanding.  Still, a good site sets the stage for the real work of ASAO: to provide a venue where Pacific Islanders, students, teachers, and researchers (not all mutually exclusive) can exchange information and perspectives in order to further Pacific Islands studies.  
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1 Comment
Mike Lieber
1/26/2016 09:30:23 am

This is a beautifully written paper--as usual. The things that I like most about it are (1) you show just how raggedy-ass the good old days actually were, and (2) you show a gradual evolution of institutional understanding of how site selection and negotiation with hosts work best. You are careful to point out that the relationship with the board and what came to be the Site Coordinator has been a learning curve for both. There are a couple of things I would like to see included in this superb account.

You are correct that Vern's tenure as Meeting Czar was drama laden. What you do not say, perhaps because you were not around all that much in the 70s, was that ANY discussion of meeting sites and times was drama-laden. Nothing could get ASAO people at one another's throats like a vote on where and when the next meeting would be. When that was the topic, gemutlichkeit was left at the door. Members were also not shy about voicing their dissatisfaction with a site or with the services offered or facilities in the area, etc.. I remember one ASAO member screaming at me when she did not get a single room, and the rant continued until I got her one. Whoever would have held that position would have been under pressure from the board and the membership to deliver. It should be pointed out that the ASAO membership has always had champaigne tastes and beer pocketbooks. All this was going on while Vern was learning what negotiating with hotels and resorts involved -- and I would like to see a list of points that have to be negotiated by any Site Coordinator with some indicator of which ones most often go wrong. One example was the first meeting at San Diego (simultaneous with that of the tall persons' convention), where we had a cash bar. The hotel people convinced Vern to use cocktail waitresses, which turned out to be very expensive. We couldn't drink enough to cover the costs, and Vern ended up paying the difference out of his pocket. The Friday night party at Molokai had hidden costs that Vern paid personally. There was no manual for how to do this. Vern learned the hard way. Whatever else was going on in his life, Site Coordinator is not for the faint of heart. Part of the calm tenure of Suzy had to do with the fact that neither she or the board had to start from scratch.

The other thing I miss is that while the board and Site Coordinators were evolving their understanding of site selection and booking, the hospitality industry has been going through its own evolution. What used to be independent hotels, resorts, conference centers, and other meeting venues have increasingly become parts of larger corporations, like Windham that owns hotels and motels (e.g., Motel 8), resorts, etc.. This corporatization process has been going on since at least the 1970s. For example, the hotel where we met in Stuart, FL, was just transitioning from independent ownership to being part of the Marriott chain in 1975. The staff at the hotel were leftovers from the old hotel, and they told me that they had no corporate policy instructions, one of the reasons that they gave us everything we asked for. I would be very curious to know iff and how this affects Site Coordinators' ability to negotiate in a milieu of corporate policy decisions.

I'm also curious about how board decisions about partnering with local organizations works out and doesn't work out. I have seen other organizations do this with mixed success (e.g., the SfAA). Is it possible to have a non-sanctimonious discussion of this issue?

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