As part of the Bluestocking Institute's Community Scholars program, there
will be a dinner and discussion session on 'The Politics of Food' on
the 15th of October from 6:30 until 8pm, to be held at the Edmund Rice
Institute for Social Justice. The Edmund Rice Institute
is at 24 High St, which is just a few minutes walk from the Fremantle
train station. We will explore some of the ethical and political
questions surrounding what we eat, how we eat, and how we produce food.
These include:
* What is the role of food in bringing together communities, or holding them apart?
* How can we produce food ethically and sustainably?
* Can movements promoting 'slow food' and organic farming meet the needs of those on a low income?
* Can urban food production and community gardens help to feed the world?
Speakers include:
* Hon Lynn MacLaren, MLC, Member for South Metropolitan Region, Legislative Council, Parliament of Western Australia
* Louise Edmonds, Coconvenor, Fremantle Environmental Resource Network
If you don't have anything to say but would still like to listen in,
please feel free to come down. There'll be no pressure to talk.
Similarly, if you don't have the time to prepare anything to share,
you're still very welcome - there should be plenty to go around.
The morning session on the politics of the Middle East was excellent. Two of UWA's contingent, Kate Riddell and Samina Yasmeen, started off the session by looking at 'Letters to the Editor as a site of Muslim exclusion'. I found the argument about letters to the editor as a genuine and unsolicited public narrative very interesting. I'd love to see more research on selection criteria for and public evaluations of letters to the editor. Lars Berger's presentation on Egyptian public opinions of US foreign policy included some fascinating details too, including research showing that in Egypt primary identification as Muslim was inversely correlated with support for political violence.
The second session kicked off with Michelle Hackett's talk on 'Social Enterprise in a Global Financial Crisis', which looked at some of the problems with applying Western models of social entrepreneurship to groups in the Global South.
There were a few talks that I would have loved to make it to on the Tuesday, including Maddison's presentation on Indigenous parliamentarians in Australia, Shaw's on 'Australian feminism online', and Fenton's on 'Chandra Talpade Mohanty's theory of resistance'.
I've just got back from the Australian Political Studies Association Annual Conference, and want to put down a few notes about the presentations I attended and some of my favourite papers. It would have much more convenient to liveblog the conference, but for some unaccountable reason there was no wireless network available. Perhaps I'm being a bratty digital native here, but I do find it rather peculiar and inconvenient to be offline when I'm bursting with ideas I want to share and learn more about (danah boyd has a few thoughts along similar lines). Anyway, the frustrations of being offline aside, I had a great time and was very excited about some of the papers. I didn't get a chance to see every paper that I wanted to, so maybe later on I'll do a follow-up post about papers I wish I'd seen.
For now, a few of my favourites from Day One:
The opening panel on 'The Secret History of Democracy' was excellent, and I was pleased to find out that it's linked to book being put together by Benjamin Isakhan and Stephen Stockwell. I enjoyed the disruption of the standard history of democracy (which my grandfather always tells me sternly began with the Greeks). Stephen Stockwell talked about the history of democracy in Phoenecia and early Greek city states, Benjamin Isakhan presented on Iraqi attempts to establish democracy in the face of US resistance and occupation, and Halim Rane looked at the history of Islam's relationship with democracy. These are definitely papers I will be pointing people towards when I hear claims that Islam and democracy aren't compatible, or that Iraqis just don't want a democracy.
I also enjoyed Alana Mann's presentation on 'The politics of resistance', which looked at Via Campesina's relationship with the global justice movement and its use of human rights and global justice master frames. My notes for this are rather sketchy, but there were some interesting applications of frame theory that I'm looking forward to reading more on.
I'm glad I stuck around for the last panel, and Delphine Rabet's paper on 'Corporate power in global governance' was particularly interesting. In summary: corporate social responsibility is not as warm and fuzzy as you might, in a brief fit of optimism, be inclined to think.
To start off:
* They Might Be Giants are lovely,
* I am delighted that TMBG are putting out children's albums. I heartily encourage all bands to put out children's albums.
Okay. Got that out of the way. So, the latest TMBG kids album is called Here Comes Science, and it looks like a lot of fun. If I had littles, there's a pretty good chance that I would buy this album for them. I am particularly pleased by message that flows through 'Why does the sun shine?' followed by 'Why does the sun really shine?' ("Forget that song/They got it wrong/That thesis has been rendered invalid").
But of course, there's a fair bit of propaganda in there as well, as there often is with this kind of valorisation of science. It's a great idea to teach your children about science, but it might be useful to also have some discussions about the limits of the scientific method.
For example, while this is a lovely little clip about electric cars....well, honestly, if everyone swapped from regular cars to electric cars, we'd be just as screwed, environmentally. You can't solve climate change with science alone. You also need political and social change. Okay, enough stern words. Now you can go sing along.
Radio National's Philosopher's Zone has a programme on this week about Power, prejudice and the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Stephen Lawrence was a young black man murdered in a hate crime in the UK in 1993. Noone has been successfully prosecuted for his death, in large part because a friend who was present at the attack wasn't taken seriously as a victim or as a key witness, again because of his race. Miranda Fricker discusses this as an issue of 'testimonial justice': the way in which we construct some people as more valid 'knowers' than others, and the silencing that this entails.
This is interesting for my research because one of my main concerns is the way in which social movement participants try to construct themselves as valid knowers. This might be by trying to find points of leverage within existing power structures, so for example getting prominent researchers or politicians (those already accepted as valid knowers) to speak for their cause. More radically, some movement participants try to shift the terms of debate by making special claims for themselves as privileged knowers. For example, some participants in the Indian movement against genetically modified crops argue that farmers have a closer relationship with nature and a more holistic understanding of agrobiodiversity, and therefore are more valid producers of knowledge than foreign researchers (particularly those employed by agrochemical companies).
Claims such as the latter have broader effects: in highlighting the importance of local, embedded, and marginalised knowledge within one arena, they open up space for similar claims in other arenas. This can shift how different individuals and groups are constructed as knowers, and the value given to their analysis, ideas, and testimony.
As was shown by the botched investigation of Stephen Lawrence's murder, this can have very real and important effects.
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Photo from malik ml williams.
BarCamps are informal "unconferences" with an open format: rather than having a pre-arranged list of speakers and sessions, they're organised during the conference itself and are flexible enough to accomodate someone suddenly deciding to present (or not to). They've come out of geek communities, so they're often fairly technology-focused, but they don't have to be. It just depends on who turns up.
Perth BarCamp 3 was fairly tech-focused, and quite often I was completely mystified by what was going on*. Still, there were a couple of sessions that I could get something out of. One was Trent Lloyd's presentation on hardware hacking with Arduinos. I've been curious about Arduinos for a while now, especially the Lilypad, which is designed for use with 'wearables and textiles'. Lloyd's presentation was interesting, but pitched a bit above the 'how to use Arduino boards for absolute beginners' session that I need.
I also ran into David Cake of Electronic Frontiers Australia, which I'm very glad of. We were both thinking of doing a presentation on similar issues, so we ended up co-presenting a session on digital liberties activism. EFA has been active on the Internet filtering issue I've written a bit about, and is keeping its eyes on the proposed '3 strikes' legislation that has popped up as a possibility.
As with Bangalore Barcamp, this BarCamp set me off thinking about the links between more left-oriented activism and geek communities. I would love to start seeing more of a crossover between events like this and others happening around Perth, including Perth Praxis. There's a cultural gap that it might be a challenge to bridge, and I think some dialogue about what each community wanted out of the interaction might be useful...but despite (possible) difficulties I would be delighted to see it, and help make it happen. This kind of bridging is happening elsewere, and I'd love to see more of it in Perth.
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* I actually found this very soothing. After spending a lot of time grappling with new bodies of literature and trying to fit arguments together after the last few months, it was a restful experience to think, 'I have no idea what that means. And it's not at all necessary for me to know.'
Photo from Bekathwia.
My 15 year old cousin asked me on the weekend 'How come you knit and sew and cook and stuff even though you're a feminist?'
I would love to live in a world where that was a surprising and naive question. Instead, I've come across the same assumption over and over again: being a feminist means eschewing anything to do with traditional femininity. Someone told me recently: "I'm not a feminist because I enjoy being able to stay at home with my children". I wish I'd been shocked.
I came across a similar assumption today in a new and unexpected place: in Wired.com's critique of Ridiculous Life Lessons From New Girl Games. While I entirely agree with the author's complaints that most of these games teach girls to focus on fashion and adventures, it seems that games can only win approval for teaching girls to engage in "non-stereotypically female activities" or to have "masculine qualities".
For me, feminism is about valuing qualities and activities that have traditionally been associated with both masculinity and femininity. I love having a place in academia, being able to teach and present my research. A hundred years ago, that would have been hard for a woman. I also love being able to make and fix things with my hands, whether it's crocheting a scarf or adjusting my bicycle gears. I want a world in which men and women (and those who don't fit our gender binaries) can choose to engage in 'caring work', where people have the same opportunities in the workplace and in the rest of their lives, no matter what gender they are.
Women in the West have it relatively easy, compared to women (and men) in the rest of the world, but we're not there yet. Women get paid less than men, mothers are less likely to be hired and are paid less, and a myriad of subtle gender structures shape and limit the possibilities that both men and women have available. For me, feminism is about changing this while connecting with and supporting other struggles throughout the world, including those in the Global South.
What does feminism mean for you?
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Picture from Cross-stitch ninja.
Cross-posted from the Bluestocking Blog, since it's as close to a feminist manifesto as I'll get, not being much for manifestos.
There's a fascinating podcast over on Against the Grain about Darwin, Evolution, and Slavery. James Moore argues that Darwin's research into natural selection was motivated by his abhorrence of slavery. I won't blog about it at length as I'm grappling with chapter rewrites and a long to-do list, but it raised a few thoughts fI wanted to note:
- No research comes from a disinterested standpoint, and no research should. As Darwin said, "all observation must be for or against some view to be of any service."
- Darwin's ideas about slavery didn't come from nowhere - they were built on the work of other researchers, writers, thinkers. Political philosophers and others in the arts and humanities shape the direction of scientific research by framing and contributing to debates, which may be taken up in unexpected ways. Does reading 'the science' on a particular question give an adequate basis for deciding on the ethical and political implications of research in the area? (I suspect not.)
- Darwin was also inspired to act by political events, especially the Jamaican slave revolt of 1865. Social movements, uprisings, and other rebellions affect the path of scientific research (and often react to it).
The podcast is definitely worth a listen if you have any interest in the history of science, or in Darwin's work and life.
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Image from *clairity*. Phillis Wheatley was a slave, and America's first black poet.
I've finally got around to watching the Buffy vs Edward Remix that half the Internet seems to have linked to. I found the last few seconds the most interesting, because it states that "This is a transformative work and constitutes a fair-use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law." The combination of movie industry demands that such remixes be taken off YouTube and other sites, combined with increasing activism around copyright, seems to be having an effect.
Copyfight activists are making a valuable political contribution by arguing that the creations of amateurs are worth protecting. While much of the illegal copying going on around the place happens purely for viewing purposes, successfully cracking down on 'piracy' by introducing copy-protection technology would make it impossible to produce remixes like this one. Admittedly, the idea of copy-protection technology even being 100% effective is laughable...but why should only those with technical skills be able to produce remixes like this? The harder we make it, the fewer people can do it.
I love the thought of living in a world where my teenage cousins could produce remixes that take the pop culture that surrounds them and mash it up to reimagine and critique it. Sure, plenty of people have written blog posts and articles that critique Twilight's gender relations...but the impact and accessibility of a critique that repositions the material itself is something else. I want people to be able to be able to take images, news footage, movie clips, music, and remix them into anarcha-feminist critiques of the anarchist movement, critiques of the racism in 300 (warning: swears!) and Disney movies, even fan-edits.
There are also some remixes that look at copyright and fair use, including A Fair(y) Use Tale and Keir Smith's oh so criminal, meant to stimulate thought about Australia's copyright system. Australia currently has no fair use provision, although we do have something similar, "fair dealing" (more here). As far as I can tell, since 2006 it has been illegal for Australians to circumvent copy-protection technology, and it doesn't seem that there is a provision to waive this for fair dealing.
So if you break the copy-protection on your Buffy DVD to remix it, it's illegal. But please don't stop!
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Image courtesy of Tama Leaver.
I've just posted about the Iran elections over at the Bluestocking Blog. I also came across a few stories yesterday about new developments in Australia's crazy 'net censorship, including news that the blacklist now includes several sites from Wikileaks, and that ACMA will fine people who link to sites on its (secret) blacklist.
As I've said before, the whole Clean Feed is a terrible idea, and students, researchers, and academics should be particularly concerned about it. If you don't know about it already, there are plenty of ways to get informed and get active.
I've been using Zotero a lot over the last few months as I tidy up my chapters and start putting together a bibliography, so I'm pleased to see a couple of positive developments in the project. Firstly, the lawsuit brought against Zotero by Thomson Reuters has been dismissed. Secondly, Zotero 2.0 is now is beta stage, and I finally got the chance to install it and have a bit of a look around. I'm quite taken with the ability to automatically back up your library onto their server, and to synchronise your library across more than one computer. I also like the new networking functions, like the ability to join groups and make your library public.
As usual, I've leapt first and will gradually work out how to use all of these new tools. My zotero page is up, and I've made my library public to begin with. There's an option for making it private, but I can't think of any reason to. For a while now I've been daydreaming about bibliographic software that will tell you about overlaps with other people's libraries (like my librarything does). Doing research there's always that looming fear in the back of your mind that someone out there is doing the exact same work as you, so anything that helps me feel more connected and up-to-date with research in my field is very welcome.
For those of you out there still using Endnote, or trying to decide which bibliographic software to use - take a look at Zotero. It's shiny!
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Picture courtesy of karindalziel.
Like most academics and over-consumers of the written word, I have had difficulty loosening my attachment to the idea that words printed on paper are somehow more worthy than words that exist solely online. When it comes to journal articles, and even magazine and newspaper articles, I find it easier to trust online sources when I know that they are printed somewhere. Even if I'll never see the 'real', printed, crinkle-in-your-hands, copy, I find it reassuring to know that it exists and the copy I'm reading from my computer screen is linked to that copy.
Happily, I am slowly learning to give up the safety blanket of the printed word. In part, this is because I keep stumbling across articles that come from peer-reviewed journals that only exist online, and I've found many of them to be very useful. Here are three of my current favourites:
First Monday: started in 1996, this journal is devoted to the Internet. Recent issues have included articles on storytelling in new media, the relationship between use of facebook and academic performance, and navigating the blogosphere with genre-based typologies.
Surveillance & Society: I've just been editing my third chapter, which discusses attempts by elites to (re)gain control of information technologies and online spaces, and this journal has been a valuable source. The last issue was particularly useful, as it looked at 'Surveillance and Resistance'.
Interface: a journal for and about social movements.The first issue, out in January, was a promising start, with interesting articles from around the world. I like journals that bring together academics and practitioners (and so many of us from the fuzzy divide inbetween), and I'm looking forward to the next issue.
And, finally, on a barely-related note: I rather enjoyed Helen DeWitt's post on practical ethics and the triangulation of desire. It discusses, among other things, vegetarianism, and the vexing question of why people don't do what's right even in the face of convincing arguments.
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Photo courtesy of Okinawa Soba.
I've just finished the hopefully-close-to-final edits on my second chapter, which is a discussion of the Indian movement against genetically modified (GM) crops. Having just reread it more times than I feel is really healthy, I can tell you that it discusses an awful lot. It addresses the history of farmers' movement in India, the use of Gandhian frames in the movement, ecofeminism, the piracy of Bt cotton...
What I don't do at any point in the chapter is to actually take a stance on GM crops. In part, this is because it is not necessary. The chapter is meant to discuss the movement itself, how it works and how it contributes to global debates. It's not necessary to address the risks or benefits of GM crops in order to do so.
On the other hand, I'm arguing throughout the thesis that there is an urgent need for the movement(s) for globalisation-from-below. The importance of projects that aim to build a more sustainable, peaceful, and just form of globalisation has been highlighted by the recent global financial crisis and the ongoing threat of climate change. Given this, it seems like it would be useful to make some assessment of whether GM crops (and therefore movements against them) are likely to make the world better or worse.
So, after four (and a bit) years of grappling with the issue, after fieldwork and reading thick tomes and arguing with scientists in pubs, here's my evaluation:
a) I don't know, but
b) it seems like something of a waste of resources.
Why don't I know?
Firstly, this is because "GM crops" have few characteristics in common, apart from the process used to produce them. Even the evaluation of Bt cotton, which has been a flashpoint of debate in India, is complicated because the presence of the Bt toxin is only one characteristic. Bt cotton varieties have in common an additional resistance to bollworm, but they may need more or less water, may produce different boll sizes, may be more or less susceptible to heat, depending on the variety of cotton modified to contain the Bt gene. Trying to evaluate all GM crops ever, and all GM crops possible, seems... tough.
Secondly, many of the critiques of GM crops rest on the fact that the current wave of biotechnology research has been dominated by the private sector. This means that research has been skewed towards crops likely to be profitable, as in the case of Bt cotton. However, public sector research in biotechnology is starting to pick up, especially in China, which may mean a shift towards research focused on the needs of subsistence farmers. It may also mean a shift away from the commercialisation and patenting of biotechnology research.
Thirdly, the jury seems to be out on potential risks of GM crops. As noted in the first point, GM crops are varied. There doesn't seem to be any inherent reason why the process of genetic modification should lead to toxic or otherwise dangerous crops. On the other hand, there is research that seems to show harmful effects in some people from some crops. In other words, no-one really knows. The process of genetic modification may be perfectly safe, the outcomes may not be.
Why it may well be a waste of time
Firstly, the costs of research and development for GM crops are higher, at the moment, than costs for conventional plant breeding. Given the wide range of food crop varieties, it seems more sensible to invest in preserving and experimenting with existing agricultural biodiversity.
Secondly, and on a related note, it seems that much of what people are trying to achieve through genetic modified crops could be achieved just as well by using existing agricultural varieties or techniques. Rather than trying to produce 'nutritionally enhanced' crop varieties, for example, it might be possible to guarantee food security by providing support for mixed-crop agriculture.
Thirdly, gains from GM crops might end up being short-term and reproduce the problems they were meant to solve. For example, Bt cotton kills bollworm, but insects can develop resistance rapidly - as the most susceptible insects die, succeeding generations are those that are most resistant. One way to avoid this is through the use of 'insect refuges', areas of non-Bt cotton that preserve a population of non-resistant insects. However, for many small farmers, this is not an attractive or realistic option.
This is a very brief run-down of the issues and there are plenty of aspects of the debate that I've skimmed over or haven't included. However, I do think it's important to note that not everyone would agree that this kind of cost-benefit calculation of the benefits and risks is appropriate when it comes to genetic modification. For many people it doesn't matter what kind of outcome genetic modification might bring, it's simply wrong to meddle with the sanctity of life by changing DNA as if it was software. I'm not exactly sure where I stand on this argument, but it's worth considering it.
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Picture courtesy of nnic.
Sorry for the pun. It's hard to resist.
Anyway, I now have a twitter feed. Much like this blog, I expect it will take me a while to work out exactly what it's for. I'm thinking of trying to tie it into my research somehow, but I'm still not sure what form that will take.
I've recently finished the edits for my first chapter, which includes a reasonable large section on knowledge and power. I have also recently had a number of deeply frustrating debates about 'science' with friends and acquaintances. (I suspect that the two are not unconnected.) I'm writing this in part because I feel like I'm still working through some important questions, and as I write I find myself bracing against the comments.
I understand people's attachment to 'science', and to 'being scientific'. Claims based on faith, or on 'commonsense', or on rumour, are frequently harmful. The spread of 'intelligent design' in the US and the reemergence of polio in Nigeria are two examples of the very real damage that can be caused. On the other hand, there is significant evidence to show that the faith we place in a particular version of 'science' is often misplaced.
'Science', for most people, means quantitative studies and people (usually men) in white coats and articles in published journals that have tidy hypotheses and definitive data. I don't underrate the value of this version of science - comparing results against hypothesis and trying to attain more objective perspectives on important questions has often been useful and beneficial.
I do, however, have a problem with the assumption that this version of science gives us 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth'.
A few of my issues with this assumption:
1) It assumes that there is only one truth, and science brings us closer to it. I don't subscribe to the idea that everything is relative and all truths are constructed and subjective. On the other hand, I think that in many cases multiple answers can be provided for the same question, all of which correlate significantly with some kind of 'objective reality'.
2) Science carried out under this assumption is biased towards particular kinds of research, and particular questions. To take an example from a debate I've been having often: it's easier to produce tidy, quantitative studies that address mental illness at the level of the individual, rather than at the level of society. Investigating whether a particular regime of cognitive therapy produces benefits fits the 'scientific model' more neatly than does asking whether a massive political reorganisation of society would lead to improved mental health. On the whole, it seems that research that breaks issues up into their component parts rather than addressing complex, messy, systems is often perceived as more 'scientifically rigorous'.
3) Science is not apolitical. It reproduces other power structures within society, including the construction of gender and race. This happens at various levels: both the systematic (although decreasing) exclusion of certain classes, genders, and races from scientific fields as professions, and in the framing of hypotheses and research directions. For example, why do we give so much money for research into obesity and subatomic particles? At the extremes, these exclusions mean that certain questions may not just receive less attention - they may never be asked at all.
This means that 'being scientific', and even 'being critical', may not mean exactly what people think. It might not mean a rigorous evaluation of truth-claims, but instead a reliance on figures of authority and journal articles with tidy data.
The alternative (or at least one of the alternatives) is not necessarily to rely on faith, but to look more carefully at the context, politics, and framing of how 'science' and 'scientific studies' take place. As Sandra Harding argues, this can be seen as a more rigorously scientific approach.
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Image by Paul W Locke, of Suzanne Pittenger.