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| A Multicultural Global Village? | by Mark J. Jones |
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One of the more common points to come up at this year's International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA), held this past September in Chicago, was the increasing frustration of people of visible minorities with ISEA's continued lack of representation of their work and unique issues. In Chicago, the topic was left to one panel discussion, and if it appeared in other talks, it mainly came from individual speakers bringing up the issue, rolling it into the themes of their papers. |
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During the one multicultural panel, it was clear that people are getting pissed off. Several delegates noted the broken promises of committees to respond to the need of this part of the membership, others noted that Chicago made no attempt at presenting anything in any other language than English, and so on. Sitting in the audience at that panel were the hosts of next year's conference to be held in Liverpool and Manchester. They stated that they had already established a multicultural committee and will develop content and programs that respond to their recommendations. Their announcement was left in an air of skeptical optimism, while the Chicago organizers were left with a dribble of egg on their face.
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 | Since ISEA is a membership-driven organization, their credibility is compromised when they so consistently do not respond to the requests of their members. At the same time, however, ISEA's situation is just another case in point for what is a much larger issue: Is there room in the so-called Global Village for ethnic diversity? |
