Mobilising Hospitality Workshop Report

9 November 2005

Dear CeMoRe Board Members,

Sarah Gibson and I would like to thank CeMoRe for its very generous support of the Mobilising Hospitality workshop that took place the 26th and 27th of September 2005. CeMoRe's donations enabled us to invite Elly Clarke, a London-based artist, to debut her original video installation 'Golden Parrot Guest House, Badambang, Cambodia' during the workshop. Elly's installation was a stimulating talking point during the lunch and coffee breaks and provided an interesting audiovisual dimension to the theoretical conversations of the workshop. CeMoRe funds were also used to sponsor our guest presenters at the workshop dinner on Monday night at the Sun Cafe and contributed to the travel costs for one of our presenters, Dr. Soile Veijola, to join us from Finland. In addition, many, many thanks are due to Pennie Drinkall for helping with the website, registrations, budgets and catering. Not to mention the delicious scones she baked for the tea on the first day! We owe much of the successful 'hospitality' of the event to Pennie and to CeMoRe's generosity.

Overall, the workshop was a great success. Our aim was to create a space for a multidisciplinary conversation around the intersection between mobility and hospitality. This inter/multi-disciplinarity was reflected not only in the backgrounds of our invited speakers, but also in the disciplinary diversity of the delegates who attended the workshop from other departments at Lancaster and from universities around the UK and abroad.

We were very fortunate to be able to invite Dr. Ghassan Hage (University of Sydney) to deliver the keynote address. His talk was empirically grounded, theoretically provocative, and intellectually challenging -- just what you look for in a keynote! Other guest presenters included: Dr. Phil Crang (Royal Holloway), Dr. Tim Cresswell (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), Dr. Karima Laachir (University of Birmingham), Dr. Tom O?Dell (Lund University, Sweden), Dr. Judith Still (University of Nottingham), and Dr. Soile Veijola (University of Lapland). From Lancaster, we had Viv Cuthill (Sociology), Adi Kuntsman (Sociology), and Jennie Germann Molz (CeMoRe). Sarah Gibson, a previous CeMoRe postdoc fellow returned from her new position at the University of Surrey to present and help run the event. We were of course very disappointed that John Urry was unable to join us and deliver the summary talk. Robert Crawshaw (DELC) graciously agreed to step in and facilitate a round-table discussion at the end of the workshop. This discussion, which included all of the delegates, was thoughtful and animated, bringing out both predictable and unexpected themes that ran across the papers.

Dr. Hage stayed with us for a few days following the workshop. He participated in a staff and postgrad seminar day with 11 Lancaster staff and students from various departments (including ICR, Linguistics, Politics and IR, Women's Studies, and Sociology). This day gave people from other departments an opportunity to present work in progress, to meet Dr. Hage, and to benefit from his insights and from discussion with other participants.

Sarah and I are currently writing a book proposal for an edited collection of essays based on the workshop presentations.

Again, please accept our sincere thanks for CeMoRe's support of the workshop -- and thanks to those of you who attended!

Best wishes,

Jennie Germann Molz
ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Centre for Mobilities Research
Lancaster University

Sarah Gibson
Lecturer in Cultural Studies
School of Arts
University of Surrey