AAG session call for papers! “Research Show & Tell: What Gets You Out of Bed in the Morning?” Rachel Franklin and I are organizing what we think will be a fun session, which asks: why did you do this particular research project, and what did you personally get out of it?

Rachel and I were chatting, and we agreed that conference talks usually leave out the most interesting parts of the story. Like, what really attracted you to this topic in the first place? Why did you decide to spend months or years pursuing it? Was it even fun? Did you expect it to be? Did you want to solve a puzzle, or create something cool, or make a real-world difference, or advance your career with a high-visibility topic, or just figure out the answer to something that was bugging you?

Researchers could spend their precious time and energy on lots of other activities. Where do you find the joy, passion, satisfaction, or meaning that gets you out of bed in the morning?

We seek “show and tell” talks grounded in a real research project at any stage: published, ongoing, exploratory, unsuccessful, or abandoned. Show us your research, and then tell us its otherwise invisible personal story. Purely virtuous accounts are not required: intrinsic curiosity and passion can coexist with pragmatic motivations such as workplace expectations, incentives, metrics, and recognition. Abstracts should aim for a 50/50 split: half describing the research and half telling the story of why you chose it. Your AAG presentation should do the same. Questions you might consider:

  • Why this project? Why did you decide it was worth your finite time and energy? (Was it an active decision?)
  • What part of the work was fun, interesting, satisfying, or meaningful to you? (Do you care about “fun” as a research metric?)
  • Was there a puzzle you desperately wanted to solve or something you wanted to understand, make, or change?
  • What role did career incentives, publication metrics, employer expectations, money, recognition, or personal validation play?
  • Did you start the project for one reason but discover a different one along the way?
  • What does this project reveal about what motivates you as a researcher?

This session is not about why you became a geographer, complaints about academic life, or an invitation to tack a personal anecdote onto a conventional research talk. We want to celebrate the joy of research by sharing a different side of our usual research stories and learning about the many ways our colleagues find meaning in their work.

How to submit: submit your abstract to AAG by its 15 October deadline. Then email your abstract and AAG PIN to both Rachel (rachel_franklin at cga dot harvard dot edu) and Geoff (boeing at usc dot edu) by 20 October. Session participants will be notified by 5 November. The AAG conference will be in New York, 8-12 February 2027.