With the 2014 - 2015 academic year at an end, I now move into a very busy late spring / early summer. Having just returned from almost 4 weeks in east Asia, where I delivered workshops to the Vietnam Women's Union and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, on behalf of UN Women, in a few days I head to Uganda to do some work for the Ministry of Finance on engendering economic policy. In between, I delivered a seminar at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, which was very well received indeed, and there is a PhD defence at the University of Western Ontario. I will, as usual, be attending the annual meetings of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development and the Canadian Consortium of University Programs in International Development Studies.
In terms of research, I am trying to finish up a draft chapter for the second edition of the textbook Critical Food Studies, as well as a review article for the Journal of Agrarian Change on peasant resistance in Afghanistan over the last 40 years. Work as Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies will, of course, be ongoing.
While the spring and summer are quieter times for me in my role as Chair of the Department of International Development Studies, while I enter my last year as Chair there will be continuing responsibilities. Moreover, I will be preparing my fall term courses. This will be done with one eye on the mid-July Summer School of the University of Manitoba's Institute for Geopolitical Economy, where I will be teaching over 3 days.
I am, however, especially looking forward to Convocation on 3 June, when I will receive Trent University's Distinguished Research Award.
Other things will come up: they always do.
