The Graveyard Slot is Political

ABSTRACT

The ‘graveyard slot’ at a conference is a session which, due to the timing of the session, has a high probability of low attendance. Being scheduled for the graveyard slot can be interpreted as a neutral programming decision, or we can point to the marginalisation of particular knowledge and/or knowledge producers which are arguably more likely to be scheduled for these slots. Unfortunately, the neutral-seeming nature of programming means that accusations of marginalisation are likely to be rejected as lacking proof. This think piece encourages further politicisation of discussions of conference programming; the piece is based on the authors’ experience of organising a session on sexuality at a teachers’ professional conference, which was scheduled in the graveyard slot and ultimately cancelled. This incident is situated in wider discussions of the politics of the graveyard slot, which are particularly salient for gender and sexuality researchers presenting at mainstream conferences.

KEYWORDS:

• Conferences
• graveyard slot
• marginalised knowledge
• sexuality
• education

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Emily F. Henderson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Studies, University of Warwick. She is author of Gender, Definitional Politics and ‘Live’ Knowledge Production: Contesting Concepts at Conferences (Routledge, 2020) and co-editor of the academic blog Conference Inference: Blogging the World of Conferences. Emily’s research lies in the areas of gender and higher education; the academic profession, academic mobility and conferences.

Holly Henderson is an Assistant Professor in Education at the University of Nottingham. She has previously worked at the University of Birmingham and began her career teaching in Further Education in London. Her research and teaching focus broadly on sociological issues of inequality in education. In particular, she is interested in access to and experiences of post-compulsory and higher education and has researched issues relating to teacher sexuality.

ORCID

Emily F. Henderson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5723-9560

Holly Henderson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8501-7631