Network Meeting 2015, Budapest

While the NW meeting considered the general state of the NW it was mainly given over to special business. It did, though, note the general level of participation in the network (slightly down on 2014) and the number of symposia (again down on the previus year) but felt strongly that the NW continued to meet a unique need in a field - ethnogrpahy and education - which continues to be seen as important. It also considered the publications initiative that had originated at the NW Convenor's meeting in Berlin in April and decided that an application should be consifdered. The main business of the meeting however concerned the Lead Convenor situation and the response to the Refugee situation that had been initiated at the NW Convenor's meeting. The withdrawing Lead Convenor, Geoff Bright, gave the reasons for his withdrawal and drew attention to the situation of increasing precarity of contracts for researchers in the British Higher Education sector. The meeting accepted this account and went on to unanimously elect (by show of hands of those present) Dr Sofia Marques da Silva as Network Convenor. With reference to the refugee response, a set of 'key words' were generated from among those present as a way of shaping discussion at the plenary discussion taking place later in the week.