APSA 2009, Day Two
The morning session on the politics of the Middle East was excellent. Two of UWA's contingent, Kate Riddell and Samina Yasmeen, started off the session by looking at 'Letters to the Editor as a site of Muslim exclusion'. I found the argument about letters to the editor as a genuine and unsolicited public narrative very interesting. I'd love to see more research on selection criteria for and public evaluations of letters to the editor. Lars Berger's presentation on Egyptian public opinions of US foreign policy included some fascinating details too, including research showing that in Egypt primary identification as Muslim was inversely correlated with support for political violence.
The second session kicked off with Michelle Hackett's talk on 'Social Enterprise in a Global Financial Crisis', which looked at some of the problems with applying Western models of social entrepreneurship to groups in the Global South.
There were a few talks that I would have loved to make it to on the Tuesday, including Maddison's presentation on Indigenous parliamentarians in Australia, Shaw's on 'Australian feminism online', and Fenton's on 'Chandra Talpade Mohanty's theory of resistance'.