Re Alexis Kusis' comments about AoIR in Toronto. a) There were more than one American on the Executive Committee. b) The change in conference organizer had very little to do with the question of language. It had a lot to do with leadership. c) Other facts are not as I, or people working with me, remember them. I don't think it is appropriate to say more about an unhappy past experience. 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 _____________________________________________________________________
Dear Barry, You got 2 things wrong: 1. My name, which you've condescendingly mangled, despite the fact that we've met several times and even had lunch together (I recollect that I paid!), and 2. The fact that I wrote, "The executive who decided that English was to be the association's working language in all matters was almost all-American". I know exactly who was on the executive at that time. Be that as it may, my goal is not to malign AIR, which I hope to re-join one day, but to put the record straight from the perspective of those who worked hard on the Toronto conference but weren't thanked. Some were even told not to attend the banquet! It was Mr. Hunsinger who brought the matter up and I had to respond to it. I hope that AIR will reconsider its monolingual English language policy, which is increasingly out of synch with a multilingual world and Internet. Pax!............Alex Kuskis ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barry Wellman" <wellman@chass.utoronto.ca> To: "aoir list" <air-l@aoir.org> Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 1:52 PM Subject: [Air-l] AOIR in Toronto
Re Alexis Kusis' comments about AoIR in Toronto.
a) There were more than one American on the Executive Committee. b) The change in conference organizer had very little to do with the question of language. It had a lot to do with leadership. c) Other facts are not as I, or people working with me, remember them.
I don't think it is appropriate to say more about an unhappy past experience.
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 _____________________________________________________________________
Mr. Hunsinger who brought the matter up and I had to respond to it.
I brought the matter up, but I gave my understanding of the situation was was based on fiscal concerns with translation and organizational problems. The actual composition of the exec at the time 2002 was 3 Europeans, Ulla, Charlie, and Lisbeth, 2 Canadians Leslie and Barry, then the rest of us, everyone in exec in varying capacities likely reads or speaks at least one other language to some degree of competency. The 2003 exec was likewise diverse, but had more Asian representation and even less North American participation. The past exec listing is at http://www.aoir.org/?q=node/591 . The lingua franca is English because that is what AoIR has for the majority has held in common. Remember first and foremost the conferences have been AoIR conferences, and not 'locality' conferences, that is a confusion that often causes misunderstandings. As we attempt to further our internationalization, we will bring more people into AoIR and we'll expand as appropriate, but in my minds the pragmatics of the organization such as not going bankrupt come first Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.aoir.org The Association of Internet Researchers http://www.stswiki.org/ stswiki http://cfp.learning-inquiry.info/ LI-the journal
participants (3)
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Alex Kuskis -
Barry Wellman -
Jeremy Hunsinger