Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Neoliberal Patterns’ Category

Sep 5

9 Comments

How Enclosed by Large For-Profit Publishers is the Anthropology Journal Literature?

It is early fall and that means that it is the season for anthropologists to think out loud about the publishing ecology characterizing their field. As American anthropologists await final confirmation that their national association has renewed its publishing agreement with Wiley-Blackwell, the annual conversation has been renewed at Savage Minds [here] and [here] and elsewhere. Anthropologists have been reading and circulating George Monblot’s essay in The Guardian “Academic Publishers Make Murdock Look Like a Socialist” and the essay has, it seems, awoken some new interest in the anthropology publishing debates that have have been ongoing for many years now. Read more

Aug 31

Back to School with the Porsche Cayenne

Field observation.  I began teaching my courses yesterday. My office is on the margins of our campus but yesterday my teaching brought me to the center of the action. During my before-and-after class moments, I observed three different undergraduates driving new Porsche Cayennes (temporary tags still showing). I similarly saw two students driving new Audi Q7. With prices ranging from $50,000 to over $100,000, these get-around-campus cars cost more than many fine full professors earn in salary for a year. The asking price could also feed all of the struggling graduate students I work with for a year. Just saying.

Aug 31

On “Academic Publishers Make Murdoch Look like a Socialist”

A single article explaining much of what motivates me to work on reform in scholarly communications and academic publishing, including why I resist the corporate enclosure of society publishing programs in my fields, can be found in this very lively and accessible article in The Guardian by George Monbiot.

Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist: Academic publishers charge vast fees to access research paid for by us. Down with the knowledge monopoly racketeers

Aug 7

More on the Protests in Israel, Ethnographically

White City Streets continues to report from the field in Tel Aviv where the multifaceted protests continue to unfold. Anthropologi.info offers a rich post remixing these reports with news accounts and additional reflections.

 

Aug 3

An Ethnographer Among the Protesters (in Tel Aviv)

A wonderful, talented doctoral researcher in my circle has been in Tel Aviv over the past year pursuing dissertation research and also blogging beautifully about life in her chosen corner of the city at White City Streets. It has been an eventful year for the city, for Israel, and for the region. Her most recent posts focus on the large-scale protests in Israel, developments that have been getting no attention in the U.S. as we have been held captive–distracted and immobilized–by the House of (not) Representatives. If you would like an ethnographic glimpse of what is happening on the streets and in the parks there now, check out the recent narratives, photos, and video posted by “folklorist” on White City Streets.

Jan 18

The View from Commerical Scholarly Publishing

Barbara Fister is a consistently wonderful voice on scholarly communications and libraries issues. I strongly recommend her discussion of the recently published interview with Derek Haank, former chairman of Elsevier Science and current head of Springer.  I read the interview via Richard Poynder’s blog Open and Shut (the full interview is linked to from that site) and learned of it from someone’s recent tweet. Without getting frustrated and spending a lot of extra words on it, I will just say that I think that the disbelief among librarians is justified and that this articulate voice from commercial scholarly publishing makes clear why I oppose commercial scholarly publishing as we have known it and we now still experience it.

Jan 17

Hinari in an Open Access World

Hinari and other schemes to provide free or reduced cost access to scholarly journals in resource poor and developing countries are a key means by which the publishers of toll access journals: (1) achieve an important good for humanity and/or (2) whitewash their business practices in the face of charges of exploitative conduct and in the context of ethics-based calls for open access. The withdrawal of a number of journals from the Hinari scheme has prompted a great deal of frustrated commentary from those who watch the scholarly publishing scene. Find an account of the controversy and a reflection on the future status of such endevors here: http://blogs.plos.org/speakingofmedicine/2011/01/14/what-next-for-hinari-in-an-open-access-world/.

For AAA participation in such initiatives, see: http://www.aaanet.org/issues/AAA-Gives-Back.cfm .

UPDATE: Springer explains that the program at issue in the recent debate is INASP program rather than HINARI. See: http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/pressreleases?SGWID=0-11002-6-1067521-0.

Sep 14

The Pioneer Age of Internet Video (2005-2009)

The transformation described by Adam Fish in this Savage Minds post can almost certainly be generalized even further to other mediated realms of communication. The Pioneer Age of Internet Video (2005-2009)

Sep 7

Library Babel Fish on Scholarly Society Pubishing

Today’s Library Babel Fish column returns to the topic of the month: scholarly society publishing in general, with special attention to the discussion in anthropology that has been prompted by Bill Davis’ recent commentary on behalf of the American Anthropological Association. She makes a nice parallel to another area where the common good is endangered by legacy policy–hunger–and even mentions anthropologist Paul Farmer along the way. Check it out in connection with discussions at Savage Minds and John Hawks Weblog. Thanks Library Babel Fish.

Aug 28

Noyes on the Oversimplications of Cultural Property and Heritage Policy

An important working paper by my friend Dorry Noyes presenting alternatives to the conceptual oversimplifications common in cultural property and cultural heritage policy has just been circulated by the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Cultural Property at the University of Göttingen. Help make the argument even stronger with your comments and feedback here: http://www.cultural-property.org/2010/cp-101-how-traditional-culture-works

Lots to think with and work on.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »