Hello all
is not living with contradictions a rather elegant way, especially when `adopted`, a crude means of getting what is on offer,m sans ethical responsibility?!
[I am less trying to assert any moral superiority than working my own way thru all this]
best
D
>>> Lawrence Berg <[log in to unmask]> 04/11/07 5:10 PM >>>
Rob,
Thanks for this posting and for the earlier comments and outline of the
discussions that IEHG editors have undertaken with respect to Elsevier's
role in Arms fairs. I have a great deal of respect for the editors and for
the no doubt difficult decisions that you have all made in this matter.
As a colleague that has decided to not participate in the IEHG, I feel that
there is still room for further discussion on the matter.
I'm pretty sure it was Roland Barthes who said: "I live my contradictions to
the fullest". As one of the continental thinkers credited with many of the
ideas that lead us to poststructuralism, Barthes was interested in the
nature of contradictions, especially as they helped to constitute human
subjectivity. Ultimately (although I would hate to say 'in the last
instance'), one key thing that poststructuralism and psychoanalytic thinking
has shown us is the necessarily contradictory character of human
subjectivity.
Thus, I find it far more informative to think through the issues at hand in
terms of the productive nature of paradox and contradiction (as 'both-and'),
rather than the somewhat unproductive nature of singularity and unity (as
'either-or'). With that in mind, I just don't see how effective it would be
if we all adopted the kind of stance that is implicit in the logics of your
argument below, namely, that we must either boycott all 'bad' things in our
lives or not boycott anything at all. This seems politically limiting. It
also seems to miss the multitude of ways that critical geographers are
responding to the many injustices that we are party to as lecturers and
professors working in universities with ties to the
military-industrial-academic complex, as people who travel on airlines that
use aircraft supplied by Œdefense¹ contractors (not to mention the
horrendous levels of CO2 they produce), as pension investors with
investments in the arms industry, as users of computers with components
constructed in factories with appalling labour conditions, as wearers of
clothing produced by slave labour, etc., etc. ...
Julie Graham and Kathie Gibson (The end of capitalism, as we knew it, JK
Gibson-Graham) had a wonderful discussion of some of the implications of
both-and versus either-or thinking in their essay: ³Waiting for the
revolution... Or, how to smash capitalism while working at home in your
spare time.² In it, they discuss how the either-or thinking of hegemonic
Western Marxism has created an object ‹ capitalism ‹ that is monolithic,
unified, and thus so power-full it is almost impossible to contest.
Ironically, within this discourse of Western Marxism, then, capitalism could
be transformed only through revolution ‹ a revolution that was unlikely to
arrive. Julie and Kathie argued that if we re-thought capitalism in terms
of contradictions and paradoxes (i.e., in both-and terms), then we might be
able to envision different futures and different forms of transformation.
It seems that their work has some pretty powerful implications for thinking
about the issues surrounding the IEHG, Elsevier¹s participation in arms
fairs, and the Œappropriate¹ responses that critical academics might have to
these issues.
So, with the above in mind, it is important to recognise that those critical
geographers who contribute to IEHG AND those who refuse to do so might BOTH
be engaged in resisting the arms industries, but doing so in different ways.
Certainly, I found the arguments that you presented in your earlier e-mail
to be quite compelling. For me, however, it is not so much a matter that
your arguments are not good enough to convince me to stay in the project,
but rather that I am beinat is preventing me from contributing. Is my approach ethically superior
to yours? I highly doubt it. Is it the approach I MUST take? For some
reason, it seems to be so for me. Are there alternative responses that
might be more appropriate? Probably.
This might all seem to be collapsing into some epistemologically suspect
volunteerism. That is clearly not what I am arguing for here. The world
is, in recent theorisations, a bit flatter both ontologically and
epistemologically than in past thinking. At the same time, surely it should
be clear that I respect the decisions of the editors of the IEHG because you
have considered ethical issues carefully and made informed choices in
responding to those issues. So, I very much respect the care that you have
put into thinking through these issues, and it is that ethics of
responsibility that we should all aspire to. I believe that those who are
choosing to boycott the IEHG are also engaged in the same ethics of
responsibility. We know that we have inconvenienced our colleagues ‹
colleagues whom we respect. We know that our boycott may have little impact
on Elsevier (but we cannot be sure of it; we live in hope). Clearly, we
have thought through the implications of our actions for ourselves, our
colleagues, and Œthe discipline¹. Isn¹t that one of the best things that
we can hope for in our relations with colleagues and the wider world? In
the end, isn¹t that kind of thinking that underpins utopian ideals. And
whilst utopian ideals might never be attainable, surely ‹ as David Harvey
reminds us ‹ no atlas of the world is worth having without Utopia somewhere
on its pages...
Thanks, by the way, to all who have written about this on the CGF. I have
learned much from each new posting. I look forward to more comments on this
and similar matters.
Best wishes,
Lawrence
--
Lawrence D. Berg, D.Phil.
Canada Research Chair in Human Rights, Diversity and Identity
Community, Culture and Global Studies Unit
and The Allied Social Research Centres
Irving K. Barber School of Arts & Sciences
University of British Columbia
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On 4/11/07 1:38 AM, "Rob Kitchin" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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 toa 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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