American Anthropological Association (AAA) Meeting, Montreal, November 16-20, 2011.
Legacies and Landmarks in the Culture of Energy (ed., Strauss, Rupp & Love).
Several years ago, I can no longer remember, I presented a paper on a panel with Tom Love, who was running an energy panel at the AAA. Some years later, he contacted me suggesting he was putting together an edited volume on energy with Stephanie Rupp and Sarah Strauss. In 2010, we all were on a panel they organized, and then again, in 2011. My paper was titled Cartel Consciousness and Horizontal Integration in Energy Industry.
In Montreal, I had met up with Joseph Campbell (U. Arizona) at a supper club. We went through our respective projects on natural gas.
There was, in Montreal, a retirement party of Nelson Graburn (UC Berkeley) in an art gallery. The place was packed to the gills with many of Nelson’s former students, including myself.
James Igoe (Dartmouth) organized a small get together with folks involved in energy and the environment, including Rick Wilk (Indiana U). I had a chance to meet later with Jim. He has written one of the best anthropology books I have ever read, and I teach it my course on environmental modernity.
After our own panel, and the Igoe panel, as well as the Graburn party, which seemed to all take place on the same day, the editors of the book invited several of us to dinner at a traditional french restaurant in Montreal. There, Stephanie told me some of the most hilarious stories I had ever heard about her life, including delivering her second baby in a New York taxi cab on the way to the hospital, and having to remind the emergency medical staff who came out to take the baby, that she was still attached by the umbilical cord.
The hotel was not far from the conference. Another swank location that I appreciated. Folks met at the bar most nights, and gossiped about the latest news in the anthropological world.
10/23: James Igoe, Dartmouth U. anthropologist contacted us about meeting up with a group of like-minded folks. Well, that sounds good. The workshop is taking place Friday and will serve as an opportunity to exchange ideas, “valuable and gratifying in and of itself as much as for what it may produce”. There is a retirement party for Nelson Graburn in an art gallery.
Paparazzi Ethnography 