Re: [Air-l] british boycott over/no politics?
Barry (et als), I took Jeremy's note to mean that it is not the role of the association to take political stands. And while I find such blanket policies (along with assumptions about what constitutes the "political) troublesome, you've now seemingly extended this logic to the AOiR listserv. What's more since you don't seem to want to take your own advice why should the rest of us avoid 'politics' on the list serv? I for one would like to see a broad discussion about the social implications of new media, the Internet, scholarship, and the acadmemy (which as some of you know can get messy and political). If you're not interested in posts about political issues that impact upon academic life and society in general then I'd encourage you to actively 'delete'. Greg Elmer
Although there are counter-arguments to the anti-Israeli posting yesterday, I agree with Jeremy Hunsinger that they are out of place on this list.
But since the issue has been brought up, my position is that professionalsocieties should be extraordinarily cautious about encouraging boycotts of universities. I don't believe in collective punishment, even if there was a crime -- and there are different sets of "facts" floating around on this matter. Hence, I have worked a bit to encourage the ending of the boycott. And am glad that it happened.
For reasons of the first para, I won't respond to any postings about the boycott -- or Israel -- on this list and urge us all to refocus on AOIRstuff.
Barry _____________________________________________________________________
Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network
Greg Elmer, PhD Bell Globemedia Research Chair Rogers Communications Centre/School of Radio-TV Arts Ryerson University 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario Canada M5B 2K3 416-979-5282 _______________________________________________ Co-Editor, Space and Culture: An International Journal of Social Spaces http://www.carleton.ca/space/
I find discussion fine, especially if it relates to the internet, internet research and related topics in some manner. My position was only that, to the best of my understanding, as an association, we do not do make statements that may have political import beyond those that are implied by our mission. To me political discussion, etc. is fine. However, do not get this confused with complete freedom of speech, because this list does not have that, it is topical and targetted toward the mission of AoIR, and the executive committee can and has moderated individuals and groups that proved to be problematic. I think Barry's call is to stay topical to internet research, which is what the list tends to do, though we do diverge sometimes for brief moments. On May 26, 2005, at 1:00 PM, Greg Elmer wrote:
Barry (et als),
I took Jeremy's note to mean that it is not the role of the association to take political stands. And while I find such blanket policies (along with assumptions about what constitutes the "political) troublesome, you've now seemingly extended this logic to the AOiR listserv. What's more since you don't seem to want to take your own advice why should the rest of us avoid 'politics' on the list serv?
I for one would like to see a broad discussion about the social implications of new media, the Internet, scholarship, and the acadmemy (which as some of you know can get messy and political). If you're not interested in posts about political issues that impact upon academic life and society in general then I'd encourage you to actively 'delete'.
Greg Elmer
Although there are counter-arguments to the anti-Israeli posting yesterday, I agree with Jeremy Hunsinger that they are out of place on this list.
But since the issue has been brought up, my position is that professionalsocieties should be extraordinarily cautious about encouraging boycotts of universities. I don't believe in collective punishment, even if there was a crime -- and there are different sets of "facts" floating around on this matter. Hence, I have worked a bit to encourage the ending of the boycott. And am glad that it happened.
For reasons of the first para, I won't respond to any postings about the boycott -- or Israel -- on this list and urge us all to refocus on AOIRstuff.
Barry _____________________________________________________________________
Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network
Greg Elmer, PhD Bell Globemedia Research Chair Rogers Communications Centre/School of Radio-TV Arts Ryerson University 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario Canada M5B 2K3
416-979-5282 _______________________________________________ Co-Editor, Space and Culture: An International Journal of Social Spaces http://www.carleton.ca/space/ _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@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
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments
Thanks Greg Elmer for your cogent response to this issue. The last I looked the people who regularly get silenced when a "no politics" discussion rule is floated are those with little power in the first place. All of AoIR activities are political. Sarah Stein
Barry (et als),
I took Jeremy's note to mean that it is not the role of the association to take political stands. And while I find such blanket policies (along with assumptions about what constitutes the "political) troublesome, you've now seemingly extended this logic to the AOiR listserv. What's more since you don't seem to want to take your own advice why should the rest of us avoid 'politics' on the list serv?
I for one would like to see a broad discussion about the social implications of new media, the Internet, scholarship, and the acadmemy (which as some of you know can get messy and political). If you're not interested in posts about political issues that impact upon academic life and society in general then I'd encourage you to actively 'delete'.
Greg Elmer
Although there are counter-arguments to the anti-Israeli posting yesterday, I agree with Jeremy Hunsinger that they are out of place on this list.
But since the issue has been brought up, my position is that professionalsocieties should be extraordinarily cautious about encouraging boycotts of universities. I don't believe in collective punishment, even if there was a crime -- and there are different sets of "facts" floating around on this matter. Hence, I have worked a bit to encourage the ending of the boycott. And am glad that it happened.
For reasons of the first para, I won't respond to any postings about the boycott -- or Israel -- on this list and urge us all to refocus on AOIRstuff.
Barry _____________________________________________________________________
Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network
Greg Elmer, PhD Bell Globemedia Research Chair Rogers Communications Centre/School of Radio-TV Arts Ryerson University 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario Canada M5B 2K3
416-979-5282 _______________________________________________ Co-Editor, Space and Culture: An International Journal of Social Spaces http://www.carleton.ca/space/ _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@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
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Sarah Stein, Ph.D. Associate Professor & Asst Head of IT, Dept of Communication Chair, Teaching, Learning & Technology Roundtable (TLTR) Box 8104, N.C. State University Raleigh, NC 27695-8104 Ph: 919-515-9740; Fax 919-515-9456
There is no space outside of politics. Ann De Vaney Visiting Professor Department of Education 2001 Berkeley Place University of California,Irvine Irvine, CA 92697 Phone (949) 824-6097 Fax (949) 824-2965 adevaney@uci.edu On 5/26/05 2:22 PM, "Sarah Stein" <sstein@unity.ncsu.edu> wrote:
Thanks Greg Elmer for your cogent response to this issue. The last I looked the people who regularly get silenced when a "no politics" discussion rule is floated are those with little power in the first place. All of AoIR activities are political. Sarah Stein
Barry (et als),
I took Jeremy's note to mean that it is not the role of the association to take political stands. And while I find such blanket policies (along with assumptions about what constitutes the "political) troublesome, you've now seemingly extended this logic to the AOiR listserv. What's more since you don't seem to want to take your own advice why should the rest of us avoid 'politics' on the list serv?
I for one would like to see a broad discussion about the social implications of new media, the Internet, scholarship, and the acadmemy (which as some of you know can get messy and political). If you're not interested in posts about political issues that impact upon academic life and society in general then I'd encourage you to actively 'delete'.
Greg Elmer
Although there are counter-arguments to the anti-Israeli posting yesterday, I agree with Jeremy Hunsinger that they are out of place on this list.
But since the issue has been brought up, my position is that professionalsocieties should be extraordinarily cautious about encouraging boycotts of universities. I don't believe in collective punishment, even if there was a crime -- and there are different sets of "facts" floating around on this matter. Hence, I have worked a bit to encourage the ending of the boycott. And am glad that it happened.
For reasons of the first para, I won't respond to any postings about the boycott -- or Israel -- on this list and urge us all to refocus on AOIRstuff.
Barry _____________________________________________________________________
Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network
Greg Elmer, PhD Bell Globemedia Research Chair Rogers Communications Centre/School of Radio-TV Arts Ryerson University 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario Canada M5B 2K3
416-979-5282 _______________________________________________ Co-Editor, Space and Culture: An International Journal of Social Spaces http://www.carleton.ca/space/ _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@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
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
are you sure about that? it would seem to me that to even possess a powerful conceptualization of 'politics' that it would require a conceptual space that is a-political or without politics. without that, all we have is a totallizing category, which probably could not do any analytical or critical work as a concept.... yet, we do use a broad spectrum of meanings from apolitical to political to demonstrate and discuss certain facts about our states of affairs each day. the concept of politics seems to me to do significant work in these demonstrations and discussions. thus to me, there has to be a space outside of politics in order to even have a politics. something has to be a-political for anything to be political. aristotle recognizes several forms of a-politicality, though most of those are disputed today, such as nature, and reason.... nonetheless, we can conceive of these politicized territories as apolitical also, thus allowing us to develop meaningful analysis based upon the differences between their political and a-political understandings. On May 26, 2005, at 7:42 PM, Ann De Vaney wrote:
There is no space outside of politics.
Ann De Vaney Visiting Professor Department of Education 2001 Berkeley Place University of California,Irvine Irvine, CA 92697 Phone (949) 824-6097 Fax (949) 824-2965 adevaney@uci.edu
Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments
Look at it this way -- whilst frogspawn may have no interest in politics, human discourse of frogspawn very probably will! Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
are you sure about that? it would seem to me that to even possess a powerful conceptualization of 'politics' that it would require a conceptual space that is a-political or without politics. without that, all we have is a totallizing category, which probably could not do any analytical or critical work as a concept.... yet, we do use a broad spectrum of meanings from apolitical to political to demonstrate and discuss certain facts about our states of affairs each day. the concept of politics seems to me to do significant work in these demonstrations and discussions. thus to me, there has to be a space outside of politics in order to even have a politics. something has to be a-political for anything to be political. aristotle recognizes several forms of a-politicality, though most of those are disputed today, such as nature, and reason.... nonetheless, we can conceive of these politicized territories as apolitical also, thus allowing us to develop meaningful analysis based upon the differences between their political and a-political understandings.
On May 26, 2005, at 7:42 PM, Ann De Vaney wrote:
There is no space outside of politics.
Ann De Vaney Visiting Professor Department of Education 2001 Berkeley Place University of California,Irvine Irvine, CA 92697 Phone (949) 824-6097 Fax (949) 824-2965 adevaney@uci.edu
Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments
_______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@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
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Or create a subsidiary list for this purpose? Greg Elmer wrote:
Barry (et als),
I took Jeremy's note to mean that it is not the role of the association to take political stands. And while I find such blanket policies (along with assumptions about what constitutes the "political) troublesome, you've now seemingly extended this logic to the AOiR listserv. What's more since you don't seem to want to take your own advice why should the rest of us avoid 'politics' on the list serv?
I for one would like to see a broad discussion about the social implications of new media, the Internet, scholarship, and the acadmemy (which as some of you know can get messy and political). If you're not interested in posts about political issues that impact upon academic life and society in general then I'd encourage you to actively 'delete'.
Greg Elmer
Although there are counter-arguments to the anti-Israeli posting yesterday, I agree with Jeremy Hunsinger that they are out of place on this list.
But since the issue has been brought up, my position is that professionalsocieties should be extraordinarily cautious about encouraging boycotts of universities. I don't believe in collective punishment, even if there was a crime -- and there are different sets of "facts" floating around on this matter. Hence, I have worked a bit to encourage the ending of the boycott. And am glad that it happened.
For reasons of the first para, I won't respond to any postings about the boycott -- or Israel -- on this list and urge us all to refocus on AOIRstuff.
Barry _____________________________________________________________________
Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network
Greg Elmer, PhD Bell Globemedia Research Chair Rogers Communications Centre/School of Radio-TV Arts Ryerson University 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario Canada M5B 2K3
416-979-5282 _______________________________________________ Co-Editor, Space and Culture: An International Journal of Social Spaces http://www.carleton.ca/space/ _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org@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
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
dear all... and recent discussants... believing that most of our research has a connection to politics or indeed is driven by politics and also should make or comment on politics - the topic at hand seems to be one we should discuss... and then again, maybe not. if the list could find an agreement that this rather stupid/absurd call by the AUT to boycott touches on central matters of aoir and we do want to object.. well fine, lets do it.. I believe we as a list and organisation will not exclude any members from these universities from our list or indeed aoir! Nor do we encourage anybody doing so. AS stupid as this boycott may be - and it is a good issue for a debate - I can not see how it touches us as an organisation, other than that we are indirectly also asked to cancel our collaboration with any individual coming from these universitites. I we want to do one thing, we could state that we do not, ie. if there is a concensus on this... a connection and interest of aoir has to be made clear in order to react - Are there some members of aoir at these universities?? Everything else would be simple activism, just because... this does not keep us as individuals from opposing against such measures. I do not think Internet Research is a-political, or driven by poltical impetus, differing with every individual - but it certainly is not politics as such... And: Do these kind of boycotts actually help and do any good, especially in this case.... jsut some thoughts best nilz -- Dr. Nils Zurawski Universität Hamburg Inst. für kriminologische Sozialforschung Allendeplatz 1 20146 Hamburg Germany tel. +49 (0) 40 42838 6185 fax. +49 (0) 40 42838 2328 Projekt zu Videoüberwachung: http://www.surveillance-studies.org
participants (6)
-
Ann De Vaney -
Greg Elmer -
Jeremy Hunsinger -
Nils Zurawski -
Paula -
Sarah Stein