Filed under: A Changing Anthropology, What is anthropology?, online collaboration, research blogging | Tags: anthropology, four stone hearth, What is anthropology? blog carnival
Looking purely at this blog would be a terrible way to understand the question “what is anthropology?”. I will shed light on the question, usually by making it extremely complicated. A better way to learn about anthropology would be to read the “Four Stone Hearth” posts that circulate along blogs. It is a collaboration between anthropology bloggers of all kinds – scientists, activists, archaeologists, linguists, etc. If you want to see what interdisciplinary can do for you, this is a great way to learn.
Check out the 58th edition of Four Stone Hearth at Moneduloides.
It’s very cool to see what the biology side of anthropology is up to, and Modeduloides’ about page hooks cultural anthropologists brilliantly:
“Corvus moneduloides, or the New Caledonian Crow, is endemic to New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands of Melanesia. This particular species of Corvid is the only non-primate organism believed to pass on the knowledge of tool manufacture and manipulation from one generation to the next. It is argued that this could be considered “culture,” but this crow knows better than to argue culture with anthropologists.”
Not only that, but the author is a poet, (and on open access, i love it!)
Filed under: Engaging anthropology, New audiences, new participants, new ways of speaking, online collaboration | Tags: activism, marketing research, popularizing scholarship, pure research, selling out to academia, selling out to popularity
Academia is often referred to as an ‘ivory tower’, where walls seperate wizards from commoners. Wizards you see, like to speak to other wizards. Of course this is a huge generalization and many academics… sorry wizards… have broken out from the walls to find recognition outside. But should they have to? As my research has progressed I have had a number of discussions with academics who do not see any benefit to pushing ones work out from the university. Is it a concern if a researchers work is uninteresting? What criteria can we put on ‘good’ research? Who should benefit?
the positions
There is an idea that all scientific knowledge is important, and that we can never really know what will be important down the road. Just because it’s popular now doesn’t mean its ‘better’. As opposed to pushing for more popular research projects, most teachers I’ve encountered have recommended I find and stick to something I find stimulating. What’s popular today probably won’t be tomorrow.
Many cultural anthropologists, and probably sociologists, have been pushing for more collaborative research practices (what other disciplines push for this?). All academics are involved in collaboration, ie: they read and comment on each others work, prop each other up, etc… But in the context of cultural anthropology it’s about collaborating with communities and people involved in the research project. The idea is that social science can work to benefit the communities involved just as much as the academy. In order to do this a research project must remain flexible to other interests. Ie: your idea was to study kinship in a small remote community, but when you get there you learn the community is being pushed off their land for a huge hydro project. What do you do? Stick to your guns and study their kinship patterns, or talk with the community and do a project that helps to inform and raise awareness of their land claim issue?
Whoa, isn’t that activism? Yup. So am I lost as a social scientist? Perhaps. But such is the way of academia – researchers follow trends, and jump on bandwagons [like interdisciplinary studies of the internet for example]. The fight between ‘pure’ research (popularity? who cares.) and activism (popularity helps) has been a long one – as Tsing describes:
“In the late 1990s, scholarly trends were moving away from an endorsement of activist projects and experiments. Practitioners and scholars often gravitated to different styles for discussing programs. Where practitioners focussed on the strengths and weaknesses of particular projects, scholars tended to place these projects in longer histories and wider geographies of knowledge and power.” (Tsing 2004:264)
And the fight continues among students and teachers today. The program I am in is setup to give students a taste of each ’side’. For us students it’s like a game of chess, where we are pawns. Who’s perspective will win? Probably neither, or at least no one has yet. The battle itself seems to be whats important. Tsing describes how such a tug of war worked out in the end:
“In the process of the discussion, I found myself provoked to think differently. On the one hand, scholarly colleagues challenged me to consider the real dangers of too easy a generosity toward programs for “community” empowerment. On the other hand, community advocates made me consider whether scholarship had stopped working well as a public interlocutor.” (p.264)
So these opposing perspectives can come together quite nicely in particular contexts. The ongoing war in the academy has a transforming effect on the way researchers see things. I can never quite find my bearings, and I find it reassuring to know the constant back and forth and the dramatic oppositions are part of the game. Further, they aren’t really in conflict. They often go hand in hand (ala, research online communities and publishing, and advocate OA.).
—
Now where was I going again? Ah yes. The audience. As Tsing comments, scholarship has trouble generating public interest which makes it questionably useful as a tool for activism. But this isn’t always the case, and when academics do get popular they are sure to draw fire. For one, academics have little experience marketing themselves. Because of this, they have very little control over what topics become popular. Popularity in turn has a powerful influence in funding circles. So getting an audience can also be away of fighting for money, and this is one thing most academics agree is a bad thing (along with selling yourself out to the military).
Over at Teaching Anthropology, Pamthropologist discusses the effect of public opinion on research, looking at what kinds of research become popular and how. Specifically they talk about how public interest can skew and guide research (just as much as a hundred million dollar Minerva program, a pentagon/military program funding academic research). She quotes the original listserv post by Bob Muckle, who wrote:
Not unexpectedly, as almost all lists of top discoveries in archaeology are apt to do, they describe stories that tend to appeal to the public’s imagination of the things archaeologists do, with a clear bias towards pyramids, well-known civilizations, historical figures, and human biological remains.
…
I think that as the media itself is increasingly driving archaeological research, especially that which focuses on things that make good television, archaeologists are going be faced with increasing challenges connvicning people of the value of lithic waste flakes, potsherds, and rusty bits of metal.
So here the need to appeal to public opinion is a concern for researchers, just as the lack of relevance to the public in scholarship is a concern for advocates. Audience here is one of the big differences, where we can find a kind of “friction” discussed by Tsing.
So back to the blogsphere and the internet – how will appealing to ones collaborators change research? Are there pitfalls to encounter? This ties into my previous post on reader interaction where I discussed the role reader comments can have in skewing the image readers have of a blog. More importantly however, I think blogging ones research is a way to take back some of the foreign media’s control over what research becomes popular. If academics got more excited about their work in public, I’m sure that passion would transfer to others. Blogging research can help correct the bias emerging out of popular science publications like National Geographic. But that is also asking academics to market themselves, and who wants academia to be a popularity contest?
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2004. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton University Press.
random notes from reading:
[Universal of the day: Montreal is cold.
Particular detail of the day: Montreal is cold.]
Universal + Particular = Montreal is cold.
See how well they work together?
Filed under: online collaboration, research blogging | Tags: anthropology, blogging research, blogging to help write research papers, cyberethnography, digital ethnography, engaging online communities, student to student communication
Max has posted his new Cyberethnography (v2.0) class website, blog, and syllabus. And i’ve been given word I’m going to have the opportunity to TA for it! And this time, students will be blogging publicly as a way of developing their research papers. As Max writes, all the projects from last years class were interesting, and I’m looking forward to seeing how things turn out.
A few thoughts -
- Time. – Will the blogs have enough time to develop links/readers/reactions online? It took me about six months before major comments appeared [with a few exceptions, based on previous relationships]. By the time students are done the class the feedback could start piling in. If the class keeps going year after year, it would help to focus the topics so each class can build on the work and comments of the others. [This would involve sacrificing topic flexibility...] [and even with no reader interactions the blog still works to focus research materials]
- competition. – I hate academic competition, and if I wrote my first blog post, and it got the fewest hits, or fewest comments in the class, I’d be !@#!. Anonymous or not. Then again, it’s no big deal either. Writing collaborative posts with a group might get around this, at least at the start to get things warmed up.
- Could other cyberethnography classes get involved? Teachers can make an assignment out of reading and commenting on another classes blog. This would encourage that student-student communication I get so psyched about… If you have a cyberethnography class, or anything like it, let me know if this sounds interesting!
[and yes, comments will be moderated lol... I can just imagine the kind of comments people doing homework anonymously could lead to].
Oh yeah, happy new year everyone!
Filed under: online collaboration
Having worked as a web developer for a number of years I have a little experience setting up and securing networks and web applications. Concordia university has recently banned facebook access from wired terminals (but the wireless network remains unblocked). Here is Concordia’s reasoning:
“Starting September 1, 2008, Facebook can no longer be accessed from desktop computers with a wired connection to the Concordia University network.
Facebook is still accessible at Concordia if you connect using a wireless network connection. It is also accessible in all residences.
The university has decided to implement these restrictions because of concerns that the continuing reliability of the Concordia network could be compromised because of spam, viruses and leaks of confidential information related to Facebook use. Although accessing Facebook using a wireless connection may present some security risks, the potential danger to the main Concordia network is greatly reduced.”
(http://news.concordia.ca/notices/013252.shtml)
Now I would love to hear how Facebook compromises security anymore than hotmail access. I can guarantee that it does not, and I believe this shows how social networking applications are misunderstood. Looking back to Enkerli’s presentation on enthusiasm and technology adoption, it really shows how it takes more than just a teacher to experiment and use new communication technologies. A lazy IT department can opt for the “quick fix” (just block it) which in turn makes it extremely difficult for teachers to make use of it.
In fact, I doubt this has anything to do with IT security, and I would bet “higher ups” outside the IT department played a large role in making this decision. Any Concordia staff care to comment or let us know how this decision was made? I’ll start digging into this today, and see what more I can uncover.
—
(field notes from my conversations with students at Concordia about the facebook ban)
Interestingly students are already working around the ban by using various proxy servers.
accesstofacebook.com (this lets you login, but using such proxy’s is probably an even greater security threat depending on who runs the proxy service). Some features also do not work when logged in through the proxy server [think of a proxy as a server in between Facebook and you, which accesses Facebook on your behalf and gets around the access ban. The proxy can feed you whatever it wants, so it could be recording passwords etc].
See also Dimitri’s discussion about how the facebook ban affects student run organizations at the university.
[note, article in paper i read discusses how social viruses can be transmitted through facebook... so yes, if someone is in a group, and gets a message to check out a website, and then downloads a virus, there can be security threats.]
Filed under: "Writes of Passage", Making research accessible, New audiences, new participants, new ways of speaking, online collaboration
As part of my research into publishing and anthropology, I’m looking for stories about getting published.
I’d love to hear about your first publishing experience (especially if you are an anthropologist, but I welcome stories from all academics). What inspired you to try and publish an article? At what point in your academic career did you start on it? What obstacles did you run into? How did the article change during the review process?
I’d also love to hear about responses to the publication. How was the response? Who did you write the article for, and where did you chose to publish it? Did you decide on place to publish, or a topic, first?
Who do you write for, and who do you want a response from?
Do you ever want to edit those publications? Update/fix/correct them?
If this stirs some memories, please share them here!
Filed under: A Changing Anthropology, Engaging anthropology, online collaboration
Alexandre Enkerli recently posted a presentation dealing with enthusiasm, teaching, and active learning. The post builds on his earlier writing, “Technology Adoption and Active Reading”. The discussion between Pamthropologist and Michael Wesch also dealt with motivating learning, and I think the idea of “enthusiasm” is pretty important.
Using new technologies can be a way to bring out enthusiasm in the class, which in turn motivates interest and hence learning. Enkerli’s WiZiQ presentation discusses the need to get teachers, students and administrators motivated to use these new technologies. He writes,
“To a large extent, universities and colleges have been slow to adopt the online tools and approaches which are taking educational technology by storm. Apart from technical hurdles, there are diverse obstacles to the adoption of “neat new toys” in the context of higher education. By discussing these obstacles, we may be able to overcome them. Simply put, how can we get college and university people excited about the possibilities afforded new online technologies? This WiZiQ session will be a workshop on some ways to generate enthusiasm for educational technology in higher education. A short presentation about online advocacy will be followed by an open discussion about people’s experiences in motivating learners, administrators, and colleagues into trying out new tools and approaches.”
I highly recommend listening and watching, as I’ve been laughing all morning after listening to first part of the discussion where they test the technology to make sure everything is working correctly. I’ll also be looking out for more future presentations using the WiZiQ platform as it seems to work really well.
[My notes from the presentation and discussion]
I really like the idea of “playfulness” Enkerli advocates. I think its true that the university promotes a kind of seriousness that is related to being “professional”, which I find is unnecessary to learning.
He discusses the possibilities of bridging life and learning.
- Building context for learning.
- Informal learning.
- holistic exploration of technology as opposed to causal/deterministic
- “tools meant to be used” -> “does it do what you want” = not technology fetish, but rather about possibilities to use it. [options are good]
- rehearsal vs performance -> use rehearsing strategies with technology integration. [best use not always immediately apparent]
- “Who do we want to enthuse?” – learners (primary audience), colleagues (tech staff, teachers, administration) [cannot act alone]
- Diverse group of learners – different backgrounds, learning styles, “ways of knowing” model. Different ways of teaching too. [need options, best not to impose]
- Types of motivation – can be very motivated in the wrong directions. Need to channel/direct motivation rather than develop it.
- Different levels of comfort with technology. Many students uncomfortable with new tools. “It’s not necessarily the students who want us to use the tools.”
- Need to develop enthusiasm among teachers. “The more teachers that use the tool, the more useful it becomes” -> “network effect”.
- Some teachers very much against new technologies -> and some department chairs/heads -> “decision makers”
- Need to collaborate with technical staff to find right solutions. [hard to do it all yourself. Value of community support]
- Enthusiasm spreads – powerful effect getting more people involved – snowball effect. “The entourage matters”.
- Resist tools based on social identity – “don’t want to be a geek”. “negative reactions to technology”.
- Adopting technology through consensus in community.
- Don’t impose tech or ideas, just “plant the seed” -> “planting land mines”. [who knows when it will be useful]
- Need to get some momentum and at some point “things just start to happen”. [ie, students use of a forum]
- “Unintended uses” -> adoption. Example he gives of how a class adopts a chatroom – first used to discuss pizza, but developed comfort and soon started using it for the math class as well. “assess the comfort level”.
- Not forcing students to use tools, just make them available. Allow people to adopt at their own speed. “Here’s whats possible” + adapt to different groups.
- Encourage getting students to speak to one another -> forums, etc.
- Let students manage their own privacy – give them more credit. “I think they are aware of the issues”. [discussing the use of facebook]
- Other techs discussed -> refworks, diggo, wordpress, blogger, twitter, identica, slideshare, Wikipedia
One participant in the discussion mentions that Facebook has been banned at her university. [not sure which University]
A middle-school teacher is having trouble with the schools banning technology/website. Ie: Voice thread. Enkerli points out that those technology decider’s are one of the primary group that needs to be encouraged to use the tools [not just teachers and students, but administrative staff too!].
- “Using technology as a backup to things going on the class” – Participant – Ron.
- “Need the tech staff to be our friends”.
- but technology staff also overworked, often only focusing on tech problems like viruses, and keeping machines working. They aren’t focused on using technology for learning. Need to develop enthusiasm among tech staff too.
- WiZiQ -> good sound quality, but still issues with people not muting the mic (“push to talk” would be nice).
- “Very visual – almost like a private lesson.”
- Lots of speaking over each other.
The WiZiQ platform is a great virtual classroom. The participants “played” around with the whiteboard features, listened to the presentation, and then discussed it online. There were issues getting mic levels setup properly, and there was also some talking over each other/leaving mic on (feedback) issues, but overall it was a very succesful presentation – Next time I’ll be sure to show up on time so I can participate. [but it sure is nice to be able to review the whole thing as if it were live!].
Filed under: Making research accessible, Why do we need open access?, online collaboration, research ethics
[aka the good, the bad and the ugly]
Within discussions of making information freely available online there are numerous terms floating around. The open access movement is working to open up (make accessible) traditionally published material (ie, all those scholarly articles hiding behind expensive logins, or within expensive books). So most discussions assume that the material published remains the same, its just easier to access and share.
But scholars engaging in self publishing, blogging, and other forms of online distribution are beginning to share new kinds of information. Material that was previously considered unfit to publish (for reasons of print space, cost, quality, authority, etc…).
Is it okay to publish field notes? Does it work against confidentiality? Who can it harm? Max Forte’s recent comments point out that there is indeed a powerful intelligence gathering community that obtains most of its information from “open source” sources. For the U.S. military, open source information is all information that is not classified. They have teams of researchers compiling information from academic databases (which they pay to access), blogs, websites, etc. So the military is quite media literate, and benefiting from increased access to information. Anthropologists often deal with people struggling against such military powers – so what kinds of information should be published?
On the other end, are teachers in well off countries teaching at “lesser” academic institutions with no budget to access material. There are also hundreds of NGO’s, and schools around the world who would benefit from access to such material, but cannot afford it. Pamthropologist discusses the lack of material her students have access to. She writes,
“Every year we get lists of journals with a request as to what we can cut, not add. Our institution pays NO money to subscribe to any journal listing service. No JStor and very few books, most dating to the 1960’s. I loan students my own books, sometimes never to get them back. Honest.
To suggest that my students can “find articles” to post to a common wiki, ain’t going to happen. I hope that they can discuss an issue on a specified set of readings that I provide. And I still maintain there is precious little on the internet that is useful for students of cultural anthropology (the archaeologists do much better, IMHO).”
So there is clearly a need to make more information available, and at the same time there is a real possibility that such information could be used to harm and control. The Open Access movement is mostly concerned with pushing scholarly journals to make their material more accessible. So it hasn’t dealt so much with issues related to publishing new kinds of information.
As anthropologists begin to share more and more ethnographic information online the ethical issues relating to confidentiality and “doing no harm” magnify. I had doubts as to how much ethnographic information intelligence communities would care to read, but Max pointed out a few interesting links which show just how active the intelligence community is. According to the OSIS website,
“About 85% of requirements in the intelligence business can be met with open source, unclassified sources, and can be exploited by qualified military reservists working by telecommuting.”
So there are all sorts of people out there digesting accessible content online. I’m not sure what kinds of information they gather, but it does reinforce the need to be careful with what one posts about particular people and communities. Is it worth exposing a communities practices just to earn a degree? How will the information be used in the future? Of course, these issues are not new, just made more important with increased accessibility online.
See also:
Max Forte’s comments on Open Access and Anthropology.
Pamthropologist wonders if she should publish old interviews online.
Kimberly Christen’s upcoming presentation.
Filed under: A Changing Anthropology, Engaging anthropology, New audiences, new participants, new ways of speaking, online collaboration | Tags: anthropology, authority, new communication technologies, teaching style
[pardon my slow return from the woods, I returned home to find my motherboard had fried - I'll have limited connectivity for a week or two]
It’s easy to get excited about incorporating new communication technologies in the classroom, but it’s not always so easy and the benefits are not always clear. Pamthropologist discusses her resistance to teaching strategies advocated by Michael Wesch, arguing that theres a line between motivating, and pampering – and that her initial reaction has been to retreat to tradition:
“So, as I review the great move toward technological innovation in the classroom. I find, myself recoiling in horror. I just don’t get it. Michael Wesch’s youtube of his oh so forlorn students who don’t read and can only become excited when engaging with their own methods of discourse drove me crazy.”
In her discussion she brings up the difference between “deep reading” and “power browsing”, and the idea that online communication technologies are a students “own method of discourse”. I have trouble with this idea that deep reading being associated with a particular medium or style – reading with Google offers the opportunity to quickly access related information. Googling, and wikipedia are helping people read deeper by helping them get to more relevant material.
Many disagree however, as shown in the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” which Pamthropologist references:
“As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”
I think theres something to be said for how one participates online. Yes, many people skip along the surface, but I believe the community nature of the blogsphere, with its direct and personal interactions between authors, is allowing for a much deeper kind of communication. There are numerous ways to use the internet and Google is only one part of it. The above quote misses the depth of learning that occurs through online engagement [their study is blinded by the position that reading online leads to "disengagement"... see below]
The article cites a few studies that show how online researchers would jump from site to site, rarely taking the whole thing in. One study concluded “It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.” According to another researcher, Maryanne Wolf:
“When we read online, she says, we tend to become “mere decoders of information.” Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.”
I’m not sure how these studies were done or with what kind of researchers, but I have an alternate take. Academic essays in anthropology almost always include numerous jumps to other related essays – making it impossible to decode any single anthropological essay without conferring with numerous others. Let’s not get into the fact that much of the very same material is available offline and online, and that the researchers are actively choosing to filter through the material to get at better sources of information which would not have been available otherwise. But what do I know, I am struggling with Bourdieu 
[Also see Enkerli's discussion of online literacy in his response to a previous post.]
Michael Wesch responds to Pamthropologist, arguing that his strategies work to build personal connections to the material. He argues that the bottom up design empowers students to “… make real contributions to the class.” Of course, this isn’t just new communication technologies being discussed, but rather new teaching methods that happen to benefit from them.
It’s a fascinating and passionate discussion which really brings up interesting angles and perspectives relating to teaching strategies and to some extent new communication technologies. I tend to side with Wesch since I’m a huge fan of his anti-teaching essay, but Pamthropologist makes some good arguments supporting a more traditional style. It’s interesting to look at this discussion in terms of the social reproduction and education (I have been reading Bourdieu afterall).
Discussing the way authority manifested itself in academia, Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) chose the term “symbolic violence” to describe how particular styles of speech, writing, discussion and behaving worked to legitimate ideas and meanings that were then passed down or internalized by successive generations. [ala social reproduction]
Here is Bourdieu and Passeron’s description of a traditional lecture -
“The lecturer finds in the particularities of the space which the traditional institution arranges for him (the platform, the professorial chair at the focal point on which all gazes converge) material and symbolic conditions which enable him to keep the students at a respectful distance and would oblige him to do so even if he did not wish to. Elevated and enclosed in the space which crowns him orator, seperated from his audience, if numbers permit, by a few empty rows which materially mark the distance the laity fearfully keep before the mana of the Word and which at all events are only ever occupied by the most seasoned zealots, pious ministers of the material utterance, the professor, remote and intangible, shrouded in vague and terrifying rumour, is condemned to theatrical monologue and virtuoso exhibition by a necessity of position far more coercive than the most imperious regulations.” (Bourdieu and Passeron. 1977)
Interestingly the above passage comes from a prestigious academic publication but it still carries all the bias and attitude of a great blog post.
Pamthropologist, with her open and honest discussion shows another side to the traditional lecture hall – and maybe its not that bad afterall. She writes
“Anyway my bias is: I love lecture. I loved it throughout undergraduate and graduate school. I was interested and involved because of lecture. I read because of lecture. I think it works well is small classes. I think it can work in large classes.”
So we have resistance Wesch’s anti-teaching strategies and so maybe its fair to call it a revolutionary approach. At the same time, its easy to jump on the revolutionary bandwagon, and thinking about how Bourdieu and Passeron discuss the reproduction of society and culture in education perhaps it helps to avoid such simple categorizations.
Is it really revolutionary? Wesch describes himself as a manager within the classroom, so there are still traditional forms of authority being imposed and “inculcated” [ie. professional distance between teacher and student]. I’ll be thinking much more about this, and thanks to Pamthropologist and Michael Wesch for a fascinating discussion!
[some random notes:
Inspiring learning seems to be a common theme, with disagreement as to how best motivate it. Relationships with broader community vs teacher -> student.
There are different kinds of authority - "teacher/student" is too simple. Authority to select readings, choose problems.
Studies of online research techniques have ignored broader online participation, focusing too much on "reading" instead of "communicating".
In what ways is it revolutionary? Teacher/student roles maintained -> authority of teacher, authority of sources, ways to filter information. Project management skills, working in a team,
Being engaged with material vs. engaged with a question -> source of inspiration, higher motivation, -> deeper reading. [Wesch arguing for bottom up approach to motivate engagement, Pamthropologist arguing that traditional lectures can also inspire (Wesch agreeing). Different styles.
And lets not get carried away with oppositions - new communication styles/strategies/technologies can also promote long ass lectures ala davidharvey.com. or see Academhack's recent post on video lectures.
]
Filed under: Doing ethnography online, Engaging anthropology, New audiences, new participants, new ways of speaking, online collaboration
I was extremely dissapointed to learn that academic journals will publish articles under pseudonyms. The article in question: “Bloggers Need Not Apply” (2005) by “Ivan Tribble” (a fake name). I find it irritating when people hide behind fake names, or organization titles, instead of speaking as human beings – but Tribble reveals some interesting realities surrounding academic identity – for one, academics are often terrified of being exposed:
“Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum.”
and many academics have no interest in getting to know each other beyond the limited scope of their professional roles -
“Our blogger applicants came off reasonably well at the initial interview, but once we hung up the phone and called up their blogs, we got to know “the real them” — better than we wanted, enough to conclude we didn’t want to know more.”
I think this points to the limited perspective fostered in many academic departments, that imposes a professional identity which conflicts with “the real them”.
Also the author really does not understand blogging:
“You may think your blog is a harmless outlet. You may use the faulty logic of the blogger, “Oh, no one will see it anyway.”"
I’m blogging because I want my writing to be interactive, part of a broader discussion. Otherwise I would take regular old field notes in a scrap book, live in an isolated tower, and call myself a wizard or perhaps a tribble.
But what about the positive aspects of blogging, of which Tribble ignores completely. He argues that bloggers tend to write rants that damage their own reputation. But what about the benefits of learning from this? A child learning to ride a bike will certainly fall and hurt themselves but in the end the benefit of learning how to ride a bike is worth the growing pains. I think it is important to learn to write for broader audiences, to learn how to moderate and construct a public identity. Academics need to start speaking beyond their own classrooms – and this is something that takes practice. Yes there is a risk of humiliating oneself, and cutting oneself off from future employment, but in the end the benefits of a more open discussion and public participation demand such risks be taken.
I have found the blogsphere to be very forgiving of such lapses in judgment. Sure, there are Tribbles out there itching to judge and condemn, but I find most bloggers want to engage discussion just as much as rant. Why so much ranting? Because we have been silent and repressed for most of our lives, never speaking or engaging ourselves politically or publicly. It’s no surprise to me that so many bloggers are emotional and intense, it takes that kind of energy to get beyond the institutional barriers that have made people private and withdrawn citizens.
Some great responses to Tribble’s article have been accumulating in the blogsphere – In front of me is a perfect example of symbolic violence imposed by the PA [pedagogic authority]. Traditional journal publishing, the peer review process, and academic hiring practices create a culture of privacy and control. Tribble’s journal published rant reveals how some people feel speaking freely is a threat and a problem. The result is that students and professors are scared to speak their minds in public – with many choosing to write anonymously.
See Bitch Ph.d’s post, arguing why she chose to write her blog anonymously (fear of being caught by a nasty Tribble).
Daniel Drezner responds to Tribble: “The default assumption you should make is that the academy has a lot of people who share the Tribble worldview of the blogosphere. I seriously doubt that any amount of reasoned discourse will alter this worldview. So think very, very, very carefully about the costs and benefits of blogging under one’s own name.”
Robert Farley rips into Tribble: “This is just infuriating. First, a reasonable academic can, and does, understand that different media and different fora call for different kinds of message. Plenty of social scientists publish work in mainstream academic journals AND in policy or professional venues. Publication in the latter neither undermines nor detracts from the former. Sensible academics understand that blog posts, New York Times Op-Eds, and Foreign Affairs articles can and should be interpreted differently than vetted, reviewed work. What they don’t do is rage at a medium that allows unmediated access to the public.”
Scott Hagaman writes “I suppose the moral is that the silence of the academic is golden. “
Easily Distracted (couldn’t find authors name) comments “Tribble’s reasoning isn’t entirely about blogging: it reveals a larger and more typical kind of academic parochialism. Yes, there’s certainly a whiff of pure distaste for blogs. But it’s also not blogs as such, but the decomposition of guild controls over what is verified as legitimate scholarship that they potentially represent. It’s the same attitude that lets other scholars justify opposing electronic publication of journals: all in the name of defending the high standards of peer reviewed publication.”
Stephen Downes writes:
“It’s ironic to see this author warning about your blog making you look like an idiot without any warning about doing the same in a column for the Chronicle. That is probably why the article is published under a pseudonym.”
“So anyway, Ivan the Tribble has taken the trouble to disabuse the millions of us who blog of the notion that applying for a job is about standing out, presenting one’s self as a human being, or representing one’s self outside of the highly conventionalized genres of the application dossier”
So is it meaningful to discuss this disciplinary control as a kind of symbolic violence?
Will the internet and new communication technologies “revolutionize” a somewhat stale academia? Or will our public voices be burried in tribbles?
Am I destroying my future job options? I don’t think so. I believe that where I stray, people will let me know, and I’ll be better off for it.
Tribble follows up on the discussion, and the outrage I’ve touched on in the quotes above, in his article “They Shoot Messengers Don’t They?”. “As my original column made clear (and many amid the outcry reiterated) when it comes to blogging, I just don’t “get it.” That’s right, I don’t. Many in the tenured generation don’t, and they’ll be sitting on hiring committees for years to come.”
So my advice to him is to do what anthropologists do, compliment your understanding with the experience of participation. Try it out first Mr Tribble!
Except this time it was a real letter! Yes, a paper letter. No not a bill. A letter.
And I found the experience rather odd. Somewhat old fashioned even. But for most people, letter writing is probably still normal – at least it shouldn’t feel strange communicating through Canada Post. Should it? This is something I can easily lose sight of when I look at online publishing – I need to be careful not to generalize my experience with others – I’ve spent way more time online than the average person.
Having sent out my mini ethnography to just about everyone I could, to rip up and critique, I received in this stamped letter, a five page hand written response. The friend who responded felt more comfortable writing privately. The response is an essay in itself, and it really shows how we can achieve similar goals through very different kinds of networks. It also shows how personal preference is involved – not everyone wants to be known publicly, or share their response. I’ll try and get permission to discuss the comments on here, because they are really very insightful and certainly interesting to other anthropology students.
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And today, I bumped into a friend on the street. She said “oh sorry I haven’t been in touch. I don’t have facebook”. I replied “no problem catch me on gmail”. [smooth...] But what she meant to say was she had no internet, as she had just moved.
She then pulled out her cell phone and said “hey give me your cell number… ” to which I replied “oh I don’t carry one. ” I developed a bad cellphone allergy working tech support at 3am … She looked at me wondering what bizarre world I lived in, where I could live without such a device.
A matter of preference and expectation.
I like communication where you can pick a time to sit down and answer. Twitter is pretty cool, messenger can be annoying. But letter writing? I forgot all about it, and certainly did not expect it. And people expect me to have a cell phone – it’s almost like not having an address – snail or e-mail. It’s interesting to think about how we choose these technologies – and how quickly they become seemingly essential means of communication.
Now to hand write a response! off to the cafe. [the office]
