Ian
Pamela Moss and Karen Falconer Al-Hindi (2008) have recently produced an "anti-anthology" of feminist geographies, titled "Feminisms in Geography: rethinking space, place and knowledges", Plymouth, Rowman & Littlefield.
They brought together articles for the anti-anthology via an electronic discussion list over a four month period (not called a blog as such but in essence the same) where writers were asked to submit pieces, list articles they would like to be included or suggest how the anti-anthology should be organised. It was done like this to extend beyond and make apparent/critique Anglo-American knowledge production at the moment of its production.
Angela Abbott
PhD student, Geography
School of Geography, Politics & Sociology
University of Newcastle
4th Floor, Daysh Building
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
Tel: 0191 222-8522
"Things are more like they are now than they have ever been"
- Gerald Ford
________________________________
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers on behalf of Ian Cook
Sent: Fri 6/13/2008 12:52
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Enthusiasm Blog
Has anyone had any experience - or know of any examples - of academic
papers that have been put together from contributions to a blog?
Thanks
Ian
On 12 Jun 2008, at 17:27, Kristopher Olds wrote:
> Hi there.
>
> This is an issue worth debating about, whether or not one assumes
> blogs are naive and fashionable (blogging fashionable? maybe for
> geeks!) or an open access and relatively more inclusive (and perhaps
> effective) vehicle to reach broader audiences.
>
> On 12 October 2007 I sent the note pasted in at the bottom of this
> message to two Econ Geog lists and barely received a reply. In
> contrast to hopping on the bandwagon, it is my biased view that
> capital G Geographers are remarkably slow (relative to other
> disciplines) to contribute to debates via blogs. Cartography/GIS
> people seem the most active.
>
> I have a couple of new comments to add on the basis of an additional
> eight months of developing GlobalHigherEd
> http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/, a research-based blog that is
> associated with a group of contributors, some regular, and some unique
> (ie guest contributors).
>
> (1) Blog is a misnomer in some ways as many so-called "blogs" are not
> opinion/rant sites - we use our blog, for example, as a vehicle to
> develop 650-2000 word entries that act as archives for relevant (for
> us) debates, links, summaries of arguments, profiles of developments,
> interesting graphics, and stage 1 of an eventual article.
>
> (2) The open access dimension means, if a blog gets on a roll, that
> you can reach a relatively large audience. Draft conference papers
> can be read by hundreds to thousands of people, many of whom would not
> even know what the RGS-IBG or AAG acronyms stand for, let alone that
> they sponsor conferences. Our blog (on a specific topic) now gets
> about 10,000 visits per month (obviously some are repeat visits over
> the month) after being established in September 2007. In some
> disciplines academic blogs can generate tens to hundreds of thousands
> of visits per month. Of course the nature of the audience matters more
> than the total number of visits, but....and recall that the average
> journal article gets cited by 1-2 people in its lifetime.
> (3) Blogs have the potential to generate all sorts of connections to
> future collaborators, sources of data (i.e. people and institutions
> often reach out and make contact versus the opposite), attention to
> the output of research projects, debates going on in other disciplines
> (e.g., it is easier to reach across disciplines with open access
> outlets versus via disciplinary-specific journals), and so on. This
> form of engagement is not captured in the "comments" section but it is
> much more important from a researcher's perspective.
>
> (4) Depending on the topic of interest, the platform (which includes
> hyperlinks and the ability to include images) can help convey a sense
> of the process, or the connections, or the politics, that traditional
> articles and chapters on paper cannot. On-screen summaries of the
> relationship between, for example, a firm, an institution, a
> governmental unit, key individuals, and key documents can all be woven
> together via texts, images, downloadable PDFs, and hyperlinks. This
> is impossible to achieve in most publishing outlets (there are
> exceptions, including ACME http://www.acme-journal.org/ and Geography
> Compass http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/geography/).
>
> (5) Blogs need a lot of care and attention, and most die due to lack
> of attention. Material needs to be loaded up at a realistic (for the
> key contributors) and relatively steady rate. If readers cannot detect
> a pattern the blog will not generate an audience (assuming you want
> one).
>
> (6) It is worth seriously deliberating about audience, format, and
> volume of output. In my personal view they are best framed as open
> access outlets for (a) updates on research projects, writings and
> specific topics like the one Hilary Geoghegan seems to have started
> (also see Greg Downey's blog (Uncovering Information Labor
> http://uncoveringinformationlabor.blogspot.com/) , (b) collective
> initiatives on sub-disciplinary or research topics such as Savage
> Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology http://savageminds.org/,
> SSRC's Knowledge Rules http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/knowledgerules/, or
> GlobalHigherEd , or (c) course-specific material so that your students
> can dig into topics, access complementary information and analyses,
> and so on.
>
> Apologies for going on for this long...I've been grappling with the
> pros and cons of blog some of my sabbatical year so best to share a
> few thoughts and reflections. And thanks to Hilary for getting the
> discussion going!
>
> Best,
>
> Kris
>
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> 12 October 2007
> Kristopher Olds wrote:
>> Greetings economic geographers,
>>
>> If any of you have been experimenting with blogs in economic
>> geography, for research or teaching purposes, please contact me.
>> I've been working with some academics (in geog, sociology,
>> education), and several administrative and policy world colleagues,
>> in an effort to use the platform of a blog to shed light on various
>> dimensions of the rapid construction of a new "global industry"; one
>> that you are all familiar with no doubt. The blog can be located
>> here:
>>
>> http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/
>>
>> It was established on 1 September so these are early days. Critical
>> feedback welcome as we're still working out a lot of bugs in the
>> system, trying to get the tone right, figuring out far to go with
>> hyperlinks (which help identify some aspects of the networks that
>> matter), and how to best reach our target audiences (which have
>> tended to communicate via site visits and plenty of private emails,
>> so far, versus going "on-the-record").
>> Thanks...
>>
>> Kris Olds
>>
>> PS: Is it a good or bad sign that economic geographers seem to be
>> developing so few blogs? Or am I wrong in stating this? Faculty in
>> business and economics are very active in the development of blogs
>> (see http://www.gongol.com/lists/bizeconsites/ or
>> http://www.currencytrading.net/2007/the-top-100-economics-blogs/), as
>> are law professors (http://www.lawprofessorblogs.com/). Everyone
>> knows that blogging is *not* a replacement for articles, chapters and
>> books, but I do wonder about the implications of economic geographers
>> making limited contributions, on-line, to the freely accessible
>> "carnival of ideas" http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i07/07b01401.htm,
>> where complementary conversations happen, and we reach new (and
>> sometimes unexpected) audiences.
>> *
>> *
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> Kris Olds
> Professor
> Department of Geography
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
> 550 N. Park Street, Science Hall
> Madison, WI 53706
> USA
> Web: http://www.geography.wisc.edu/faculty/olds/index.htm
> GlobalHigherEd blog: http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/
> EG Co-editor, Geography Compass:
> http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/geography/
> Managing Editor, New Perspectives in SE Asian Studies:
> http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/cseas.htm
>
> Address until July 2008:
> Visiting Professor
> Centre des Amériques de Sciences Po
> 13 rue de l'Université
> 75007 PARIS France
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Skype: oldskris
> Mobile tel (in France): 06.14.57.18.57
> Mobile tel (from other countries): 33.6.14.57.18.57
>
-----------------------------------------
Ian Cook
Associate Professor of Human Geography
Department of Geography
University of Exeter
Amory Building
Rennes Drive
Exeter EX4 4RJ
Cultural Geography Editor, Geography Compass
|
