International Meeting on Law and Society, Mexico City – Day 4

I wrote this at the airport on Friday evening but didn’t have an internet connection to post – I’m finally getting round to it now!

Last Day! I have very mixed feelings about this. I am looking forward to being home (being, not getting!) but at the same time I feel like I’m not done with Mexico City yet. I feel like it has more to show me, more to tell me, more for me to learn. There’s also something about the conference vibe and structure that I sort of don’t want to end. I have learned so much over the last few days that I think my brain will be processing for a while and it probably needs a rest but there is something nice about getting up, going for breakfast that you don’t have to think about, going to a session and hearing about interesting stuff and then going for a walk in the sun and looking at interesting things and then coming back to more interesting stuff, having a little break and then having something planned in the evening. It’s been fun.

So this morning I went on the fun run. Yeah, the fun run! I’ll blog about it on my running blog so suffice it to say, I was, as expected, the slowest but I did eventually catch up with and meet a fellow West Yorkshire lass and we had a good chat as we ran/walked the rest of the course.

After a shower and breakfast I got packed and checked out and then went to the first panel of my day which was my random pot luck session where I randomly open the programme at a page relating to the time slot and then place my finger on the page  – I’ve gone to some utterly boring sessions as a result of this (I do this at most conferences I go to at least once) but this time I got lucky. I heard 5 good papers one of which I thought was excellent on Sanctuary Cities in Canada by Karl Gardner of York University, Toronto and another really interesting stats based analysis of the link between crime statistics and sanctuary policies (Spoiler: There ins’t one).

After the lunch break I was going to go to a panel on Law and Gender in an International Context but I got to the room and there was nobody there. I waited a bit but no speakers turned up so I went to the reception to check if it had been moved but they didn’t know and it wasn’t on the list of amendments to the programme so who knows what went on there!

After the cancelled session I had one more panel before I’d have to head to the airport. I had two panels marked in my programme. One on globalisation of legal education and one random one which looked like it included interesting papers about law/popular culture and masculinity, regulation of midwives, migration management systems and consideration of Trump as fascism lite. I opted for the random – partly to get another chance to hear Jeff Dudas speak. I like his ideas. They intuitively make sense to me although I know nothing about any of it. Anyway, it was a great panel and a great way to end the conference.

Then I got a taxi to the airport (where I am typing this although I won’t be able to post until I get home). The taxi driver was quite chatty and drive most of the way along back roads which was fascinating because I got to see more of Mexico City while the driver told me about how pleased he was that people were now coming to Mexico City and how there was so much to do and see in the city. He also told me about other places in Mexico – both to head for and to avoid (He’s clearly not a fan of Cancun – far too many tourists. As part of that conversation we started talking about safety and how the city has, like any other city, areas which are not so nice. He then informed me that Zona Rosa was not so nice because it’s full of lesbian bars (and presumably lesbians) and ‘those sorts of people’ and that was not so nice. Lovely, now that we have that out of the way, how do you say ‘you homophobic fuckwit’ in Spanish?

Anyway, I got to the airport, dropped my bag off, found a restaurant, had some food and settled down to do a bit of work. It’s been a great conference, a really good conference. I had my doubts before I set off. LSA is intense and it requires commitment and it requires networking and it can be overwhelming. I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready for that. But I did fine. I was perhaps a little less engaged than I have been at previous large conferences like this but not massively so. I also kept evening activities to a minimum to make sure I didn’t get too tired. I tried to look after myself and I accepted that sometimes my mind just wandered off and couldn’t stay focused on the session. I heard some fascinating work, I have a head full of ideas – most of them I’ll never follow up on but I don’t think that matters. It’s more about the inspiration and intellectual workout and stimulation that events like this provide. I’m exhausted and energised at the same time; tired and hyper at the same time, excited to be going home to process some of this and sad that it’s over at the same time.

I think this is me officially declaring my come-back!