Around a year and a half ago, I got very upset with the British Sociological Association when I couldn’t afford to attend a conference for which I’d given a great deal of free labour. I was a month away from handing in my then still very much unfinished PhD thesis, I’d started two new jobs (one of which I wasn’t being paid for, due to bureaucratic problems) and the stress was getting to me. I quickly regretted the tone of the letter, though I still stand by the contents. Part of me soon wanted to remove it from the internet, because it felt like a very public meltdown, but I didn’t want to quietly delete something so contentious.
I just discovered that the letter comes third in google, seemingly for a diverse range of people, when searching for “British Sociological Association”. This seems so needlessly rude to me that I’ve decided to delete the letter – is algorithmic rudeness a thing? This post is a note which anyone searching for the BSA (or equivalent) on my blog will hopefully be able to find, explaining where the letter has gone and why. I also wanted to be clear that my views on (certain) professional associations have not changed, if anything they’ve hardened, though any feelings of animus have pretty much dissipated. As I said at the time, I wanted to find other ways to contribute to my discipline outside the BSA. I’m doing that, I’m very happy about it and I can’t see the situation changing.
Mark Carrigan 