So remember the best book award I was given that I discovered by accident?
I emailed several people in the leadership of the association, thanking them and gently wondering why I never heard from them about it. There’s got to be a certificate or a plaque. Or at least an email.
Everybody I wrote ignored me completely. It’s been a couple of weeks, so I’ve given up on hearing from them now.
In case this still sounds too strange, I have to clarify that this is a Canadian association. Canada is not a huge country. My field is so small and cozy that it’s become a mafia. Or actually, there are two mafias, the Argentinean and the Spanish, and they battle things out. Things are always weird.
Clarissa's Blog 
Sounds like a front, or a committee funded by government grants. Or both, since I’ve seen that too.
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Canada does award ginormous – and utterly unnecessary – grants in the Humanities. There’s literally nothing to spend a two-million grant given to research in contemporary Spanish literature.
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The same thing happens here. I have personally discovered things like the grants being used to set up committees that then give jobs to corrupt people, who then apply for more grants so that they can fundraise at community events. They then use monies raised to pay for junkets for yet more corrupt people, or pool monies with yet other organisations so as to give out contracts, jobs, or perks to still other corrupt people.
It’s more like money laundering and racketeering than anything else imo.
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My career in Canada ran into a wall because I couldn’t participate in this grift. Where I am now, there’s simply no money at all and no grift, so that’s better. At least, everything is transparent.
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I mean solely in my field, of course. There’s ton of grift in better funded fields.
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