Thanks so much for bringing this up! I agree that this is an important move to consider - and it aligns with a number of issues that were raised by members during the last Association General Meeting in Daegu. And double thanks for pointing to the excellent TtW model. Part of the value of our new inclusivity statement (prior to last year, AoIR only had a non-discrimination statement) is its establishment and codification of a sort-of mandate for considering these sorts of issues. I think one could argue (or, at any rate, I would argue) that our inclusivity statement makes it imperative that we consider adopting conference-specific inclusivity and anti-harassment statements. Part of the challenge here - not an insurmountable one, of course - is identifying the most appropriate group of folks to put something like this together. While the Exec is responsible for developing and approving certain dimensions of the conference, much of the work of planning and execution falls to local committees and volunteers (which may or may not be members the Exec). In addition, we've got an awesome group of members to help develop something like this (similarly, it was a small group of energetic grad student members that helped us develop our inclusivity statement). I think, given these factors and the fact that the location for the conference changes each year, that we have an opportunity to produce not only a blanket statement, but statements that might also be informed by both local and membership-specific context and considerations. I'll be happy to raise this issue with the Exec to see how we might best proceed on this front. In addition, I hope you'll bring this issue to the current elections discussion. At least one person running has mentioned this issue explicitly in their candidate statement and I think we'd all benefit from further consideration not only this issue, but issues of diversity and inclusivity broadly - especially from those folks currently running and eager to serve on the next iteration of the Executive Committee. (Election discussion forums are available at the AoIR member site: http://members.aoir.org.) -Anna ----- Anna Lauren Hoffmann Postdoctoral Researchers and Instructor School of Information University of California, Berkeley On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 8:46 AM, sky c <skyc@riseup.net> wrote:
First, I’d like the AoIR executive committee to create and open for member review a specific anti-harassment statement for its conferences and other activities. I know we have a diversity and inclusivity statement, but I’d like us to have a more formal policy regarding how harassment will be handled if it happens either at the conference proper, on the mailing list, and/or on Twitter, etc. (something, perhaps like Theorizing the Web’s statement:
http://theorizingtheweb.tumblr.com/post/79357700249/anti-harassment-statemen... < http://theorizingtheweb.tumblr.com/post/79357700249/anti-harassment-statement>). This seems critical if we are going to make AoIR a safe space for everyone.
I recently attended the TtW conference, and while I think the anti-harassment statement makes a great start, I think there are other important steps that can be taken for thinking about conferences as safe spaces. I've written more about this here:
http://skycroeser.net/2015/04/20/theorizing-the-web-and-conferences-as-techn... _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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