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Just thought I'd comment on this "debate"... the first thing is that I am troubled by the valuation of "the streets" as the authentic site of protest by "the people"... of course, "the people" who throw stones aren't always "goodies"... and politics clearly happen "off street". And there were clearly "academics" (and probably a lot of students) at the 'Carnival', so I really don't agree with the artificial separation between "the streets" (where politics are) and "the ivory tower" (where they aren't). Noel Castree's article in Area (31/1) demonstrates forcefully that there are politics within the academy. Finally, if there were 3,000 people there, then they were probably there for about 3,000 different reasons -- so this would, I think, give us a little pause for thought before declaring "the revolution" alive and well and living in London. And you don't need to throw stones or samba to be political. Steve PS I don't suppose that Debord mentioned whether 'ideology' or 'theory' was the good Guy? > ---------- > From: Sarah Batterbury > Reply To: Sarah Batterbury > Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 1999 3:06 pm > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: academics and politics > > Dear Rhys (and others), > > Thank you for this interesting overview of this book which I will now > read. As I was a student of Garton Ash (momentarily) some time ago I > will make a special point of it. > > I think that engaging with politics is something most of us actually do > in social science especially those of us on the more applied side of > things. This is most overtly recognised in action research where there > is an explicit recognition of research inspired change. In my own field > (regional development and evaluation research), we have to recognise > that evaluation is always political. There is a very interesting book > out on the subject edited by Palumbo called The politics of evaluation,. > Although we should of course distinguish between political > repercusssions and actual politics I think the whole area is a bit of a > minefield. > > I don't think on the basis of what you have written that I would agree > with Garton Ash. However, there is also a ethical need to guard against > overly rigid politicised research which closes the researcher's mind to > alternative views. That is what triangulation is partly about of course. > I guess, however that we are all some what entrenched in our work with > some areas where we would not easily see a different point of view (all > forms of post material politics are good for this eg environmentalism, > feminism etc) > > I don't think I'm any clearer about this now, what do others think? > > Sarah %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%