Has Nigel responded yet?
best
D
>>> Rob Kitchin <[log in to unmask]> 04/11/07 9:38 AM >>>
To respond to some of the emails to my posting to this list. First,
this
email represents my views only and not necessarily all the
editors. Second, thanks to those that have responded. Third, I've no
problem with people protesting and boycotting as they see fit. However,
the selective nature of the protest troubles me a lot (both the singling
out a lone publisher, and boycotting the encyclopedia and not the
journals).
My *own* view is I feel no less compromised working with a supplier
company
(not directly the military) than I do working for a university with
defense
contracts (as most of us do), with a pension invested in defense
companies
(again like most of us do), flying on Boeings to conferences (given 2nd
biggest defence contractor), taking grants from state agencies such as
ESRC
(given it is the state that commissions, buys and uses arms), having
Irish
Army personnel in my classes, or belonging to the RGS or AAG given their
links to the military. I either protest against and boycott them all,
or
none of them, or I'm a hypocrite.
Boycotting Elsevier is very easy to do if you have no vested interest,
but
it isolates one company in a nice and easy way and misses the complexity
of
the relationship between academia and the military. And boycotting one
particular publication seems a very selective set of ethics (that I'm
cynical enough to say is not RAE-able), especially when the IEHG is
doing a
lot of progressive things re. being a truly international project
reaching
out to and gives voice to non-Anglo-American scholars and is underlaid
by
critical approaches. I do not think an "all or nothing" approach to
protest is necessarily the most productive, but rather favour promoting
progressive activities which seek to counter-balance the regressive
ones,
and which recognises that Elsevier Reed is a large heterogenous
organisation that does things that are progressive (such as publishing a
lot of critical literature), as well as things people might have
problems
with (much like any organisation including universities). I would
prefer
to see a wider debate on this whole issue (that includes universities,
pensions, grant agencies, other publishers, etc), rather than a bit of
selective protesting against things that do not really hurt the
protestors
in any way. The irony of having an anti-Elsevier session at the RGS
(given
the campaign against them in recent years) has not been lost on me. The
whole thing is very unfortunate and I'll be interested to see how long
it
is before most of the protestors move quietly back to submitting
articles
to Elsevier journals and other publications.
It is an interesting experience when your colleagues put you on the spot
to
justify your ethics and the projects you are involved in, especially
when
you have obligations to hundreds of contributors who have already
submitted, you started the project long before any of the issues arose,
and
they are being highly selective in their own ethics and actions,
best wishes,
Rob
Prof. Rob Kitchin
Director, National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA)
and Department of Geography
John Hume Building, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
County Kildare, Ireland http://www.nuim.ie/nirsa/
Tel: +353 1 708 3372 E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Fax: +353 1 708 6456 http://www.nuim.ie/staff/rkitchin/
Managing Editor: Social and Cultural Geography
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14649365.asp
Co-Editor in Chief: International Encyclopedia of Human Geography
http://www1.elsevier.com/homepage/about/mrwd/hugy/
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