[URBANTH-L]Fwd: AAA 2004 Annual Meeting to be in Atlanta, December 15-19

[Allen Feldman]

The self serving arrogance in the paragraph below where the AAA suddenly transforms itself into an expert on strike strategy would be mind boggling if it wasn't so consistent with everything else that has been done in this situation:
AAA President Brumfield writes:
"Finally, I acknowledge that UNITE/HERE preferred us to move to San Jose.  But I do not believe that the marginal benefit to the union of this move would have outweighed the potentially higher cost to the AAA of the San Jose option.  We have already had an important impact on the labor climate in San Francisco.  Mayor Newsom did, in fact, join the picket lines Tuesday night.  He did, in fact, publicly assert that the interests of the City of San Francisco are diametrically opposed to the hotel consortium that is locking union workers out of fourteen hotels.  In my opinion, it would have been unwise for the AAA to throw itself entirely into this particular union action.  We must husband (domestic partner?) our resources to further anthropological scholarship and association-wide initiatives in anticipation of future strategic interventions. "

What might these interventions be, what have they been in the recent past:
their promotion of "Public Anthropology;" the  disciplinary brown-nosing of Washington  policy and decision making elites to emplace the AAA on someone's decision-making tree?

What is the evidence of the AAA's, progressive impact on the  San Francisco labor "climate", is this inflated rhetoric or not? If true, I would like to hear more description of this chain of events and how this climactic influence  will now be affected by the AAA providing substantial income to another part of the Hilton chain as our conference goes South to a more pacific and amenable labor climate? Is reinforcing  flexible capital accumulation one of the flaws being referred to below?

And then can we be given a more profound example of the Weberian iron-cage than the following:
"The very difficult days that we have had over the past week have exposed procedural weaknesses in the way that the Executive Board makes decisions and communicates with the membership.  This experience may also have revealed some structural flaws in need of reform."

procedural weaknesses and structural flaws, not political and ethical  flaws and structural contradictions between declarations for human rights equity, and AAA defacto labor policies.

Allen Feldman
Dept. of Culture and Communication
New York University




----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Rotenberg <rrotenbe at depaul.edu>
Date: Thursday, October 28, 2004 5:39 pm
Subject: [URBANTH-L]Fwd: AAA 2004 Annual Meeting to be in Atlanta, December	15-19

> I am forwarding this message from Liz Brumfiel to the aaa 
> membership, in
> case you did not receive it through aaanet. It explains the current
> situation and the AAA executive board's reasoning in staying with the
> Atlanta site over a meeting in San Jose. 
> 
> 
> *********************************************
> Robert Rotenberg
> Chair, Department of Anthropology
> DePaul University
> 990 W, Fullerton Ave, Suite 2300
> Chicago, IL 60614
> email: rrotenbe at depaul.edu
> voice: (773) 325-7460
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