I was thrilled to find out that my 2010 intervention paper in Antipode on US hegemony and the Obama administration (Volume 42, No. 2 pp. 242-247) has been included in the US National Association for Urban Debate Leagues argument and research kits, under the 2010-11 resolution: “The United States federal government should substantially reduce its military and/or police presence in one or more of the following: South Korea, Japan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey”. The particular kit in which it features on ‘primacy disadvantage’ can be downloaded here. Given the current debates on academic impact and the REF in the UK academy, it is good to know that my work is out there being read and debated, and is challenging the next generation of critical scholars. However, unfortunately I doubt that the REF will have any place for this valuable form of ‘impact’.
