Fall Retreat 2020:
Saturday, October 3, 2020
9AM to 6PM MST
"Working from Home; Dreaming of Homecoming"
Virtual Videoconference
!!! CONFERENCE PROGRAM AVAILABLE !!!
Historically, our fall retreat— affectionately called Ghost Ranch in honor of the area outside of Abiquiu, New Mexico, where the event has found a home— has become marked indelibly as a locus of communal nostalgia; it has become part of a ritual of distant homecoming. As the first yellow begins painting the tree tops, and a restless wind rustles field notes and unfinished manuscripts, the members of the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology begin to drift into a prospective reminiscence which irrepressibly builds until October when they set out accompanied incredulously by any kin and colleagues who are willing to attend an indescribable conference surrounded by an indescribably beautiful landscape to “present a paper”.
This year the fall retreat has been superseded by the necessity to hold-the-line. Anthropologists, Sociologists, Educators, and Activist Academics have a heartfelt responsibility to apply their craft and critique during periods of social struggle, cultural upheaval, and of course to the support and care of our families, communities and ideals. Needless to say, we will not be meeting in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, but we will be meeting. To find a type of solace in our community of practice we will assemble virtually as the times demand it, and we will highlight what our members have been doing to endure, engage, and help to elucidate these complex and historic times.
The fall virtual retreat is a time to bring what you have, what you have been working on, and to share. Within the epochal shifts which our world and local communities have been wracked with, we are all seeing things with new perspectives, priorities and passions. For this reason, we are calling for papers addressing the question “What have you been doing or thinking about?”. We hope to check in at the most basic human level, but also in the academic sense. We also invite you to share about the things that have been helping you to get through uncertain times— whether that is art, work, reading, writing, a hobby or interest, new ways of connecting with other people, etc. Additionally, we invite reflections on the times themselves.
Zoom and Youtube links will be sent via email upon Registration.
Community Donation of Registration Fees
Finally, in the interests of community solidarity, we will be donating 50% of the proceeds from the Fall Retreat to organizations in northern New Mexico, to reflect our appreciation for all that the Abiquiu area has meant to us as a society over the years. This donation will be split evenly between Ghost Ranch Retreat Center and The Food Depot (Northern New Mexico’s Food Bank).
Thank you,
High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology Planning Committee
Josef Garrett, MVA
President HPSfAA
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Metropolitan State University of Denver
garret@msudenver.edu
