Place Matters: A History of ASAO Meeting Sites

Abstract

Having attended the meetings of the Association for Social Anthropology (ASAO) off and on since 1969, and having served as the "Site Coordinator" for seven years, in this paper I take the long view of meeting site selection. The explicit and implicit criteria for a good meeting site, the politics of site selection, and even the locus of decision making have all changed over the years, and rightly so as, on the one hand, ASAO membership has grown to include scholars from the Pacific and Europe, and, on the other, the hotel and catering business has changed. Chances were taken; some turned out well, others did not. Lessons were learned so that, as the work to discover potential sites moved from being a responsibility of the whole membership to that of a committee and eventually of an individual, the process became more complex and demanding. Still, a good site sets the stage for the real work of ASAO: to provide a venue where Pacific Islanders, students, teachers, and researchers (not all mutually exclusive categories) can exchange information and perspectives in order to further Pacific Islands studies.