what if conference, but too much?
There is a truly bewildering array of sessions at the Royal Geographic Society's Annual International Conference this week. 695 sessions over 3 central days. Across 50 different rooms in 7 buildings. A 178 page PDF(!!!) summary of session titles, paper titles for contributions within the sessions, and contributor names.
How do you begin to navigate this?! I'm really interested to hear your approach (for RGS or in general).
I don't have time to read about all the sessions, and I'm a PhD student! Not e.g. a senior academic spinning even more plates across multiple research projects, teaching, supervising, administration... (and not even including family responsibilities and other work)
I've done key word searching around core interests (food system, conflict, governance, emotions, feeling, values, knowing, care, collaborat.., participat.., ontol.., epistem...). I've earmarked sessions recommended to me, primarily via the Food Geographies research group listserv, or that friends and colleagues are involved in. I've looked up the names of people I want to learn from and meet.
I imagine others manage by essentially staying in their lanes: following their research group, their colleagues. Strengthening existing relationships. And I know some people are so busy, they just drop in for the two-hour session they're involved in, and if they stick around, mostly perch wherever they can to take calls and respond to emails.
So then... what are our hopes for boundary crossing, cross-pollination, translation, breaking down siloes, and inter-sub-disciplinarity? For spaciousness, grounded presence and serendipty?
What experiences and outcomes is a conference like this designing for? Optimising for relationship building within existing communities of researchers?
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PS: This post's title is - admittedly rather obscurely for most readers - an homage to the classic Facebook group what if phones, but too much