I love this year’s “communities” theme, but I wonder if the call text could be adjusted to be more inclusive? In particular, there’s a general assumption that the reader is employed by a University.
“How can we work more closely with musicians, artists and designers outside the academic realm, and what can we learn from rich traditions of design and experimentation outside academia?”
Who is the ‘we’ here? I think NIME includes contributions from non-academics, for example I haven’t worked for or been affiliated with a University for around a decade, but have presented at NIME during that time, am a full-time research fellow funded by UKRI, and collaborate with a wide range of practitioners and researchers who mostly don’t have University affiliations but would be happy to collaborate on a NIME submission.
“We also encourage submissions which feature the active participation of individuals or communities outside of academic research.”
I understand the intent, but again this seems to work against its aims. It reads as dividing people into academics and non-academics, and I find the choice of phrase ‘active participation’ off-putting, or are non-academics not allowed to be lead- or single-author on NIME submissions?
I thought about writing about this in a paper submission but thought it would be more efficient to write a forum post 