What a day! The second conference day started with a beautiful
Pacific welcome. The Reverend referred to social problems in his sermon and related
them to the topic of the conference. The Papatoetoe choir was just amazing
- the hymns and the traditional dances were powerful and yet gracious. The drink
ceremony was new to me: every male representative was offered a drink of water
and they greeted the person who gave it in a ceremonial way. Imagine if there were
no traditions, no collective memories, where would we be?
Yesterday I wrote about cultural perspectives, but today I will blog about cultural
altercations. I could have done this two years ago when I attended the ICG 2014,
but I decided not to mention it. But I cannot stand bullying and latent intellectual
racism. New Zealand is a multicultural society with many ethnicities, cultures,
languages and ways of life. Every International Gambling Conference has a Maori
welcome, a Pacific welcome and an Asian welcome. During the past days I have seen
so many students of so many origins in the AUT campus area. So how it is possible
that some persons who represent education and research do not understand what the
respect of others mean.
While I was gathering my thoughts on this particular day, I remembered a
song from Kelis. An academic version of the chorus would be
something like this: "My research is better than yours, d...n right it is better
than yours. I can teach you, but I have to charge." I don't mind constructive criticism,
but I do mind researchers who depreciate their colleagues' work publicly and think
they are really clever. Laughing quite overtly at a fellow researcher who has a
heavy foreign accent is immature. But shouting is simply bullying: one speaker
was not fluent in English and he didn't understand the question
that someone asked him. Instead of repeating the question with easier
words, the person shouted his question in a very rude way like the speaker was
def and idiot. Europe is full of languages and dialects: when you know it, you
don't mind it.
Are altercations really necessary in conferences? Why stay in a session, if the
presentations are not interesting enough? Why treat a fellow researcher
with rudeness, when academic interaction should be about respect?
Instead of seeing bad research everywhere, why don't we engage in a debate
and decide after it who will teach the others?
Pacific welcome. The Reverend referred to social problems in his sermon and related
them to the topic of the conference. The Papatoetoe choir was just amazing
- the hymns and the traditional dances were powerful and yet gracious. The drink
ceremony was new to me: every male representative was offered a drink of water
and they greeted the person who gave it in a ceremonial way. Imagine if there were
no traditions, no collective memories, where would we be?
Yesterday I wrote about cultural perspectives, but today I will blog about cultural
altercations. I could have done this two years ago when I attended the ICG 2014,
but I decided not to mention it. But I cannot stand bullying and latent intellectual
racism. New Zealand is a multicultural society with many ethnicities, cultures,
languages and ways of life. Every International Gambling Conference has a Maori
welcome, a Pacific welcome and an Asian welcome. During the past days I have seen
so many students of so many origins in the AUT campus area. So how it is possible
that some persons who represent education and research do not understand what the
respect of others mean.
While I was gathering my thoughts on this particular day, I remembered a
song from Kelis. An academic version of the chorus would be
something like this: "My research is better than yours, d...n right it is better
than yours. I can teach you, but I have to charge." I don't mind constructive criticism,
but I do mind researchers who depreciate their colleagues' work publicly and think
they are really clever. Laughing quite overtly at a fellow researcher who has a
heavy foreign accent is immature. But shouting is simply bullying: one speaker
was not fluent in English and he didn't understand the question
that someone asked him. Instead of repeating the question with easier
words, the person shouted his question in a very rude way like the speaker was
def and idiot. Europe is full of languages and dialects: when you know it, you
don't mind it.
Are altercations really necessary in conferences? Why stay in a session, if the
presentations are not interesting enough? Why treat a fellow researcher
with rudeness, when academic interaction should be about respect?
Instead of seeing bad research everywhere, why don't we engage in a debate
and decide after it who will teach the others?
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