International Meeting on Law and Society, Mexico City – Day 2

Here I am at the end of Day 2. It’s only about 10pm and my eyes are stinging I’m so tired. But, if I don’t get some thoughts down on Day 2 it’ll all muddle and blur and I won’t have a clue what’s what! I woke up at 1.23am because I was far too hot. I decided to turn the aircon on and just cope with the noise. I slept til 4am and pinged wide awake. I flicked through the news channels and then got up to go to the gym. I did a bit better than yesterday – I have got used to the altitude a bit more I think and on the treadmill just slowed down even more than I do normally. Then I had breakfast and was joined by the wonderful Chris Ashford (see his blog here) – and if you read my post about getting here you’ll know that him joining me was a good thing – it meant nobody else could as I was on a table for two and he is the one person here who I genuinely am happy to see even pre-coffee.

I’d decided to keep the queer theme going and went to a panel on Comparing Legal Categories Through the Lens of Same Sex Relationships and Transgender Identities. There were 4 really interesting papers and a good discussion afterwards. I then went to a panel on Women/Gender in the Legal Profession which I also enjoyed although I was flagging towards the end. The highlight was probably hearing Deborah Rhode speak about women in law in the context of her book Women and Leadership. Her slides we’re awesome and I think we’d do well to remember that ‘well-behaved women seldom make history’ as one of her slides said. She also said that we need to be relentlessly pleasant. I’m still thinking about that. I think she may be right but I’m not sure. I may come back to it.

After that my brain was full. There was another session but that was just too much and then the afternoon was free to explore Mexico City. Some lucky people went to the Supreme Court for a tour – you had to pre-book tickets and by the time I booked the conference they were all gone. There was also a tour at the National Museum of the Revolution which I would liked to have done but again I missed it. So I explored Mexico City on my own – separate post on that I think.

I’m still doing fine (apart from being stupidly tired but then I have been awake since 4am and I have, according to my fitbit walked 20km today). I nearly went to the LGBTQ mixer at a hotel just a few minutes from here. I was going to, then not, then Chris and I were going to go together and then not – I am quite glad we ended on not given that somewhere between 9pm and now I went from a bit tired to stinging eyes and I don’t know if I can be bothered getting undressed kind of tired. So I will curl up and sleep shortly but I need to get some conference niggles/complaints, ok whinges, off my chest

1. Uncomfortable Chairs in rows – just no
2. Arriving late to sessions, leaving early, coming in and out at random… it’s just rude. I was sat next to a woman yesterday who nipped out mid paper to get herself a coffee. Mid paper. FFS
3. Running over time. Goodness you’d think figuring out time was the most complicated thing in the world. You have x number of minutes, prepare a paper that takes roughly x number of minutes not x plus 10. When the chair tells you you have 2 minutes left, wrap it up. When the chair tells you to stop, stop, don’t ramble on for another 5 minutes. When you are co-presenting you don’t have the time allocated for the paper each – you have to share it. Obviously. I don’t understand why this is sooooooo hard. (Watch me be way over tomorrow now – that would be embarrassing!)
4. Chairs – it’s ok to tell people to shut up, it really is. You might lose a fan but you’ll gain one in me.
5. Questions and Comments – they are just that. They are not ‘I will now ramble on about my work which is only vaguely related to yours for a few minutes’. There seem to be some academic traditions across the world where this hijacking of questions is commonplace and expected and maybe I’m just grumpy but it irritates the hell out of me. Ask a question (and no it doesn’t need a 5 minute introduction) or make a short observation or comment.
6. Discussants. I am yet to be convinced by this format. For it to work the discussant has to be brilliant and quite honestly most of the ones I’ve heard so far fall a long way short of brilliant in that role. Not that I could do a better job, it’s hard BUT it seems to me that a discussant should not speak for longer than each speaker did. It also seems to me that the discussant should briefly offer a comment on each paper but then focus on drawing out themes or questions and opening the discussion up to the audience and panel having set that scene. It also seems clear to me that they should not use the time as discussant to tell people about their own work in any great detail  – their work is only relevant in so far as it relates directly to the panel’s papers and comments on them (and presumably to the fact that they are chosen as the discussant in the first place).

Anyway, I have nearly fallen alseep with my laptop on my knee twice now so I think it’s time to hit publish and go to bed. Day 2 has been good. Mexico City if fascinating and I will try and find the time to write about that tomorrow. For now, sleep tight.