Reed Elsevier is also one of the most important 'data-mining' companies
in the world, involved in developing all kinds of computer systems for
finding out as much as they can about as many people as possible and
then selling the information to private companies and state
organisations...
David.
Dr David Murakami Wood
Managing Editor
Surveillance & Society
http://www.surveillance-and-society.org
mailto:[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dave Featherstone
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 10:02 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Elsevier and the Arms Trade
Dear all,
Elsevier, one of the key publishers in geography, which publishes key
journals such as:
Geoforum
Geographical Abstracts: Human Geography
Geographical Abstracts: Physical Geography
Political Geography
Applied Geography
and major forthcoming projects such as The International Encyclopedia of
Human Geography
(as well as many other journals and books)
has major involvement in the arms trade.
It is a little known fact that the giant information company Reed
Elsevier - famous for its work in education, science and health
publications, as well as massive web-based services such as the
LexisNexis Total Research System used by academics and legal
professionals - also plays a significant role in the arms trade.
Through its subsidiary companies, Reed Exhibitions and Spearhead
Exhibitions, Reed Elsevier is responsible for organising arms fairs in
several countries across the world, as well as here in the UK. These
include DSEi in London and Latin America Aero and Defence. Dsei will be
happening again in London in 2007.
For many customers and shareholders of Reed Elsevier, convinced of the
company's good reputation and ethical stance, this has come as a rather
unpalatable surprise. In September 2005 The Lancet, arguably the world's
most prestigious medical journal and owned by Reed Elsevier, published a
letter signed by public healthcare professionals from five continents.
The letter highlighted the surprising involvement of The Lancet's
publisher in the global arms trade, and prompted The Lancet's editorial
board itself to issue a scathing condemnation of Reed Elsevier in the
same issue, calling upon the company 'to divest itself of all business
interests that threaten human, and especially civilian, health and
well-being'. There are links below which detail Elsevier's links with
the arm trade in more depth.
As Elsevier is the publisher of journals that are so central to the
discipline it seems appropriate that those working in geography should
follow the lead of the Lancet and to condemn the involvement of Elsevier
in the arms trade.
There is plenty of scope for individual action... But it might be worth
trying to put together some broader response- eg from editorial boards
of Elsevier journals, or for other forms of collective response - such
as refusing to publish/ referee for Elsevier until they distance
themselves from the arms trade...
best,
Dave Featherstone and Paul Chatterton
http://www.caat.org.uk/armsfairs/reed.php
(info and campaign website)
http://www.sgr.org.uk/ArmsControl/letter_lancet_10sep05.htm
(an article published in the Lancet - owned by Elsevier)
http://www.caat.org.uk/caatnews/2005_12/reed-campaign.php
(campaign website)
http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=2008
(report on elsevier)[log in to unmask]
|