Chasing Dragons

The Price of Peer Review

There is a lot that can be said about universities in the digital age. There is also a lot that can be said about current models for scholarly publishing and the ridiculousness of holding on to analogue products trapped behind barriers in a digital age as the output of choice.

But, if one needed any more evidence of the pathologies of contemporary academic publishing, one need go no further than the quick analysis undertaken by Prof. Martin Weller of the Open University at The Ed Techie blog (thanks to Cory Doctrow at boingboing.net for the link).

His estimate of the total labour cost of peer-reviewing in any given year is £209,976,000. This is quite a conservative estimate with other calculations placing the global total at £1.9 billion!

And it's not just that these labour costs go uncompensated by the private publishers who rely on peer-review to ensure that their journals are publishing academically 'rigorous' research. Rather, they then turnaround and sell access to these journals for a tidy sum to the very institutions whose employees have been a source of unpaid labour. And in most cases, these are public institutions whose primary source of funding is from the government. 

At a time of fiscal retrenchment, the continuation of this massive subsidy seems imprudent. Moreover, if there weren't already enough reasons, the barricading of most academic journals behind pay-walls can now add economic double-dealing into its calculus of moral dubiousness.

Given that keeping publicly funded knowledge behind barriers is socially irresponsible and that  higher education budgets are going to be slashed in the UK, our disciplinary associations ought to be leading the charge for open access to all publicly subsidized academic outputs. Unfortunately, based on previous experiences, I'm not going to hold my breath....

Photo credit: cinocino

Is the US Military Addicted to Drones?

As mentioned on GamePolitics.com, earlier this week, the UK's Channel 4 put together an interesting report on the use of Predator drones by the US Army. Many of the key issues are identified and discussed:

• the legality of drone strikes
• the appropriateness of the recourse to technological solutions for political problems
• how (military) technologies become gendered and tied to conceptions of honor
• the problem of proliferation (if you think this is far fetched, check out the DIY Drone community who build kit for recreational/non-military purposes)

But what is perhaps most fascinating is the claim that drones are changing military culture and tactical doctrine to the point where they are now referred to as 'Army crack'.

Given that drones are a dual-use technology that also allow for the overt and covert use of force,  what might it mean for understandings of modern warfare--or the popular identification of war itself--if the US military is indeed 'addicted' to the use of drones? Moreover, what happens to our spatial understanding of war-fighting when combat can be initiated and completed by individuals situated thousands of miles away from the theater of operation? Will actions traditionally considered to be acts of war become recoded as something else? What will be the political consequences of such a recoding?

These are but some of the questions that continue to motivate my project on assassination and targeted killing...

Many thanks to my colleague Martin Coward for alerting me to this story.

Call for Papers: 'Security Studies as Critique', June 24-25, 2010

At the danger of committing a shameless act of self-promotion, I thought that the following conference would be of interest to the chasingdragons readership. I'm very humbled to have been asked to give a presentation by the conference organizers. More importantly, I'm looking forward to meeting other early career scholars who are working at the intersections of critical social theory and the politics of security.

Call for Papers

'Security Studies as Critique': The Third Annual Graduate Conference in Security Studies

Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick

Keynote Speakers: Dr. Kyle Grayson (Newcastle University) and Columba Peoples (University of Bristol)

June 24-25, 2010

Over the past two decades the field of security studies has become ever more concerned with critique.  For those sympathetic towards critical approaches to security this is a development to be applauded, with critical security studies being built upon a prevailing dissatisfaction with ‘traditional approaches’.  Critique has been a vital part of the broadening and deepening of the field: opening up new possibilities for thinking and practising security; showing the promise of opportunities for transformation; helping scholars understand the numerous flaws of previous approaches.  Critique has helped to enliven the field, and maybe even to humanise it.  Yet perhaps we should now turn to the matter of critique itself and ask to what extent it has come to define the field of security studies.  It may well be the case that critical security studies has become too absorbed in critique, too focused on trying to devalue neorealism, so much so that by continually comparing itself to ‘traditional approaches’ it only serves to tighten the neorealist grip on international political thought.  Moreover, it is possible that the intellectual integrity of critical security studies is compromised when understandings of both ‘security’ and ‘critical’ are so hotly contested.  Whereas some authors would happily embrace an ethos of critique, others argue this is an unsatisfactory and intellectually self-indulgent way to engage with the profound matter of security and suggest a need for reconstruction.  After all these years of questions, what is now the role of ‘critique’ in security studies?  

We invite you to join us for a friendly and collegial graduate conference. Bursaries for travel and accommodation will be available.  We encourage papers from research students addressing, but not limited by, any of the following questions:

• How useful and relevant is the traditional/critical distinction in security studies?

•  To what extent should security studies be normatively driven - whether under the leitmotif of emancipation, resistance or liberation?  What is ‘critical’ about critical approaches to security?  What is ‘traditional’ about traditional approaches? 

• To what extent have critical approaches to security posed a challenge to contemporary power relations?  How much should be expected?  Are critical security studies, more provocatively, merely enmeshed in what Foucault termed the ‘great warm and tender Freemasonry of useless erudition’? What is the relationship between theory and practice in traditional/critical approaches?  

• How successful have critical approaches been at traversing the analytic spectrum from meta-theory to ‘real world’ empirical analyses?  Are traditional approaches more successful in this endeavour and if so why?

• What is the relationship between the different critical approaches to security? Are they incompatible? Are they synergistic? Are certain approaches more conducive to the ‘critical’ project’, however that is defined?

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to pgsecurityconf@warwick.ac.uk by 30th April, 2010.

Click here for more details.

Photo credit: kk+

Chasing Dragons Reviewed in Canadian Journal of Sociology

My book, Chasing Dragons: Security, Identity, and Illicit Drugs in Canada (University of Toronto Press 2008) has just been reviewed in the Canadian Journal of Sociology. More important, I'm pleased to report that the review is supportive. Anyhow, you can read it  here.

Canadian Corporate Misconduct and Human Insecurity

Five years ago I spent nine months as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow of the Canadian Consortium on Human Security, an academic research initiative that was funded by the Human Security Program in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I was primarily interested in analyzing instances in which the overseas operations of Canadian corporations contributed to dynamics of human insecurity.

My research at the time entailed both an overview of what was going (e.g., which operations and practices were allegedly harming local populations) as well as an analysis of how private sector activities that contribute human insecurity could be stopped and/or prevented.

What I discovered was that several Canadian corporations--primarily in resource extraction industries like mining, oil, and logging--had been identified by the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, the US government, and local communities as being implicated in a host of practices--from the destruction of heritage sites to the commissioning of violence against local populations--that generated abject levels of human insecurity.

While the discovery of the extent of Canadian corporate misconduct abroad was anticipated, what was shocking was the role that the Canadian government was playing in allowing these practices to happen. It wasn't just that the Canadian government retained a faith in the power of markets to force good corporate conduct through the threat of brand damage.

Rather the Canadian government was actually enabling corporate operations that might be creating human insecurity abroad by offering subsidies and funding through Export Development Canada (EDC), a crown corporation with a mandate that includes helping Canadian firms conduct overseas operations. In some instances, the EDC would even offer insurance support for Canadian companies looking to conduct business in conflict regions and other hot spots that regular insurers would only underwrite at elevated costs because of the risks.

Knowing my audience, my recommendations in the policy brief I was required to produce were not exactly radical. I did my best to demonstrate the inadequacies of typical neoliberal corporate regulatory frameworks (i.e., voluntary corporate social responsibility schemes with no independent enforcement mechanisms are absolutely worthless) while offering imminently doable policies within the constraints of existing structures (primarily changes to EDC funding processes so that a human security assessment and its approval by an independent panel would be required in order to be eligible for funding). Similar proposals had been suggested by human rights groups like MiningWatch and the Halifax Initiative for some time.

I also refuted all of the standard arguments against forms of corporate regulation abroad that involve penalties for non-compliance (e.g., domestic law cannot be applied in other jurisdictions, no regulation is needed because there are very few bad operators, it's better that Canadian corporations are involved in these regions as operations run by Chinese or American firms would be even worse, or that local governance structures are to blame). I diligently submitted the brief and it vanished without a trace. In the meantime, I published some of the findings elsewhere and moved on.

While the issue has finally gained some public attention in Canada with the launching of a private members bill (C-300) by John McKay. According to the Toronto Star:

• the bill would give Ottawa the power to investigate complaints that Canadian mining operations were not in compliance with international human rights and environmental standards. A company found not to be living up to those standards would be denied support from federal agencies funded by Canadian taxpayers.

And unsurprisingly, both the Conservative government and the private sector are opposing these very light-touch measures by trotting out the same old lame arguments. The Minister for International Trade, Stockwell Day, thinks that Canadian corporations do not need to be regulated. From his perspective, their operations are beyond reproach. Moreover, he has raised the legal principle of state sovereignty as prohibiting the drafting of legislation in one country that would apply in another country. Yet, as I have argued elsewhere:

• Canada’s criminal code already contains provisions for extraterritorial prosecution. For example, Canadians can be arrested and prosecuted in Canada for the sexual exploitation of children in foreign countries (bill C-27). As such, having measures in place to make Canadian corporations accountable for their actions abroad is neither a radical reconfiguration of legal standards nor more adventurous than other existing aspects of Canadian law.

Meanwhile, Gordon Peeling, CEO of the Mining Association of Canada, the central lobbying organization of the Canadian mining industry has rolled out a two pronged strategy: frame all claims of abuse as false accusations launched by malcontents and blame governing structures in developing countries. He has been quoted as saying:

• If (countries) had the capacity to protect civil rights and live up (to) their international obligations with appropriate justice systems, etc. we wouldn't have much to talk about.

I guess he's right in that if there were improved governance structures, particularly in Canada, someone in some jurisdiction with legal authority would finally investigate these allegations of abuse to determine whether a case can be pursued criminally and/or civilly.

Unfortunately, despite the media attention and the advancement of C-300 through the preliminary rounds of scrutiny on Parliament Hill, as a private members initiative launched by a member of the opposition, there is very little probability that it will pass into law. And that is the frustrating thing here.

That even a light-touch regulatory framework is missing is not a matter of costs, practicality, or the absence of need. It derives from a lack of political will amongst key Canadian policy-makers and officials to make it happen. And this lack of political will is made possible by an ideological position that retains a fundamentalist faith in the capacity and capability of corporations to effectively regulate themselves despite the mounting evidence to the contrary.

The Future of Academic Journals in a Digital Age

Over the past few months I have been part of an ad hoc working group with colleagues from Newcastle and Durham Universities that has been exploring the future of academic publishing. Two problematics framed our analysis: how are changes initiated by the digital economy affecting academic journals and how might the editorial team of a top flight journal in the social sciences respond to these challenges? As previously posted--here and here--our initial conclusions have been that current models of academic journal publishing that rely on limiting access to research through pay-walls are no longer sustainable.

Academic journals, sustainability, and change

Academic journal sustainability is not just an economic issue. While the detrimental impacts of high subscription fees, low subscription bases, and the very clear signals sent by market forces that people are unwilling to pay for access to information in a digital age are important, there are other sustainability issues that need to be factored in. Primarily, transformations in the structures of the academy itself are posing challenges to the viability of traditional models of publishing. These include:

• the inability of university resources to keep pace with increases in journal subscription fees;
• a rapid increase in the number of academic journals available, in part a product of the fragmentation of academic disciplines into increasingly specialized sub-fields as well as the push for individual academics and departments to provide evidence of research excellence by establishing/editing journals in their recognized research strengths;
• in the social sciences and humanities, low citation rates and impact factors--even for leading journals--that in part reflect the inability to capture a broad audience within an academic discipline, let alone establish a readership with practitioners and/or the general public;
• the correspondingly small volume of articles that actually get cited, let alone cited extensively, from any journal outlet;
• the renewed emphasis on public engagement, that is the directive that research must be transmitted to broader constituencies;
• formal directives from government and funding agencies for academics to make their research available through open access platforms.

Thus, academic journals--and their publishers--find themselves in a situation where they are:

• slowly pricing themselves out of their traditional market (i.e., academics and university libraries) (Abelson 2008);
• increasing the supply of narrowly defined journal outlets;
• increasing the competition for the pursuit of high quality research amongst these outlets with only journal reputation--as garnered through citation statistics--as an incentive to potential contributors;
• diluting the overall volume of quality that can be claimed by any single journal;
• failing to think about what other forms of value-added they might be able to provide for both contributors and their readership in order to promote specific scholarship, a specific research area, or a specific discipline (Pochoda 2008);
• not establishing new audiences in the world of practitioners or amongst the general public.

Stay the course or change direction?

Many journals--for the moment-- are currently good earners for both their publishers and/or the disciplinary association to which they are affiliated. Disciplinary association journals in particular have the advantage of having susbscription revenue subsidized by membership fees. Add in the income generated through university libraries and other research centers and revenues look solid. However, the audiences or potential subscription base for these journals remain tied up in the university system, a system that will be facing--at least in the UK--considerable budgetary pressures in the coming years. With published material in these journals being kept behind a pay-wall and the associated websites--for the journal and/or disciplinary association--typically lacking a dynamic interface, the probability of gaining new readers--let alone subscribers--from the general public or practitioners is remote. Yet, the default position being expressed by many editorial teams, disciplinary associations, and publishers is that apart from some tinkering around the edges, there is a strong case for staying the course (Bjork and Hedlund 2009).

Although staying the course might be a low risk strategy in the short-term, our research findings on the broader trends in media publishing in general, and scholarly publishing in particular, demonstrate that there are problems emerging over the horizon (Corbyn 2009). Add in the profound effects that new social media technologies are having on publishing and communication, and we argue that staying the course--in terms of content, public interface, and revenue models-- will lead to negative outcomes within a decade's time.

Primarily, pay-walls, an insufficient web presence, and a reluctance to embrace new social media technologies--whether out of a fear of the time commitment involved or a belief that these developments are a passing fad--combined with a reticence to adopt open access publishing and adapt revenue generating models will lead to significant negative impacts with respect to citation levels, overall readership, and the continuing ability to attract the very best scholarship.

Academic journals in a digital age: the way forward

So given this assessment of the situation, what might be the way forward for academic journals? Our initial position is that open access publishing models are the way forward if a journal wishes to maintain both readership and relevance in the medium to long term. Furthermore, if open access publishing is to be a success, it needs to creatively take advantage of relevant developments in new social media technologies. We believe that a publicly accessible academic journal that maintains strong commitments to original research, considered argument, and peer review can be complementary to the speed with which new media work to frame debates and identify authorities. 

The Benefits of Open Access Publishing

Discerning the positive impacts for academic journals by embracing open access publish is not rocket science. Nor need its justification rest solely on a moral case that publicly funded research ought to be available to the public--though this is certainly a case that should be made. Improved access to a journal makes peer reviewed research available to a more extensive audience. Research in the area of open access publishing has demonstrated that above anything else, open access articles on average get read more often than articles that are only available behind a pay-wall .

And the more extensive your audience, the greater the likelihood that your articles get cited. Research that has the analyzed the effects of accessibility in other disciplines--like physics-- has shown that opening up access significantly raises the impact of articles, in some cases by as much as 300% (Brody et al 2004; Henneken et al 2006).

In the case of most journals in the social sciences, the difference between a mid-ranked journal's current position on the Thomson Reuters-ISI index and a dramatic improvement in its standing is approximately one additional citation per every two articles published. Thus, very marginal changes produce significant impacts to quantitative measures of reputation in academic publishing. Reputation is a currency that can be used to solicit innovative research papers. Similarly, reputation helps to build an audience of readers who are attracted by the level of scholarship and novel research findings.

Harnessing new social media technologies

The way information is produced, authorized, distributed and shared has transformed. As the pursuit of information becomes both increasingly spontaneous and focused, opening up access allows for any interested party--whatever the reason for interest--to view and share material with others, creating a wider audience base through the best kind of promotion: word of mouth.

Furthermore, ready and extensive communication between producers and consumers--categories themselves blurred by new social media--are becoming the norm. By offering new forms of information distribution, social media technologies help to facilitate engagement across various global publics. Harnessing new forms of distribution and promoting interactive engagement are going to be central to the continuing economic and reputational vitality of academic journals.

What kind of new social media technologies can help academic journals? Well, one can divide these into three categories: those that allow for the presentation of content in non-traditional ways (e.g., videos and podcasts), those that allow content to be distributed across social networks (e.g., Twitter, Facebook), and those that allow for  additional forms of dynamic engagement between researchers and audiences (e.g., blogs, comment functions, message boards).

Our research has identified some best practices that should be considered by journals if they want to build a strong foundation to be taken forward:

• implementing a dynamic journal website--like Foreign Policy -- where content is regularly updated and conduits are provided to facilitate interaction with the audience;
• audio and video recordings of keynote speeches, lectures, interviews, or discussions that are available via podcasts, Youtube, Vimeo, or other media players. For example, see the interviews conducted by Contemporary Political Theory--if you can get behind the pay-wall that is...
• on-line book reviews like those conducted by H-Net or Global Discourse. These allow an outlet to highlight particular forms of research (e.g., world-leading and/or early career and/or controversial and/or innovative), foster dialog, and invite contributions from the wider readership;
• blogs run by the editorial team and/or other members at large to showcase the importance of the subject area to a wider audience. Contexts is leading the way here with a fantastic set of blogs that demonstrate the value of sociology as applied to tangible contemporary issues;
• alerting potential users of content updates through social networking tools like email, Twitter, Facebook, and RSS feeds (e.g., Surveillance & Society).

What are the costs?

There are costs associated with transforming academic journals. Open access obviously implies that revenue models that rely on subscriptions will need to switch to other forms of revenue generation.  Potential revenue sources could include subscription for hard copies only, website advertising, or other forms of product tie ins (e.g., book clubs). Although it is unclear whether these revenue streams can fully replace current income generation levels, it bears noting that existing research has shown significant cost savings--especially for disciplinary associations--when journal delivery is switched to on-line only formats (Willinsky 2005). Thus, if costs are greatly reduced, income levels need not reach previous levels in order to generate the same level of net profit.

The other cost is time. Similar to the traditional tasks that define journal editorship, developing and running a dynamic website, generating content, and building up a social network for a journal will take a lot of effort. Two things should be kept in mind though. First, just as a strong editorial vision, good peer review procedures, exact copy-editing, and ability to source the very best research are essential  tasks for journal editorship at the moment, so to will be the ability to harness new social media. Second, those journals who position themselves ahead of the curve will be able to establish themeselves as first ports of call for user generated content--like conference keynote addresses, seminar presentations, round-tables-- because of their recognition as websites with high audience numbers. Building a reputation and attracting the best user generated content will therefore make the production of high quality content less onerous for editorial teams.

Objections

There are of course going to be strong objections to what we are forecasting and proposing.  Publishing houses are obviously going to reject our characterization that current publishing models for academic journals are not sustainable. In part, this is because revenues have not yet started to precipitously drop. In part, publishers are also going to reject open access as a viable  publishing strategy  from first principles because it cuts them away from their primary form of income generation for academic journals. They may also reject the turn to new social media for fear of the additional costs that would be incurred.

Academics themselves may also express objections. For some, the issue is the maintenance of standards, a concern that many publishers themselves have been only too happy to promote. The argument is that open access will mean that poor quality papers based on weak scholarship will get published on a regular basis. This objection though fundamentally misunderstands that open access publishing does not necessarily imply the end of peer review. For a peer-reviewed journal, the 'open' of 'open access' refers to the ability for research to be accessed by readers and to be circulated, not an openness to publish anything that is submitted (Willinsky 2003). The opportunity to be published would still rely on the peer review process in order to maintain standards of scholarship.

The second objection is that the use of new social media to promote research is either gauche self-promotion--that is good research should find its own audience on its own merits-- and/or faddish razzle-dazzle that has very little value added for researchers themselves. The first part of the objection seems to be a nostalgic yearning for a past that never was; good research has never solely spoken for itself. The best research, leading disciplines, and the most renowned academics have always been masters of harnessing whatever networking outlets were available at the time (e.g., conferences, media appearances, popular writing) to disseminate research and build reputations. Good research alone will only get you so far.

Similarly, while it is often very hard to get one's head around new social media technologies and the ways that they can be used, they have an immense potential in terms of gathering an audience. A growing number of newspapers like the Guardian have discovered that new forms of revenue can be generated and a new readership can be cultivated by providing free content to an on-line audience. Bloggers, artists, musicians, writers, politicians, and celebrities have already caught on to the power of social networking as a way of gaining a following both on and off line. Academics need to shed some our conservatism and begin the think more strategically about how we can engage with each other and the general public while recognizing the utility of emerging tactics provided by social networking technologies.

Conclusions

Our research indicates that journals in the social sciences could enjoy an improvement in citation rates and associated impact factors by adopting an open access publishing model and taking advantage of new social media technologies. The direct positive effects of open access on readership and citation levels have already been proved by studies undertaken in the natural sciences and engineering.

Open access and social networking are essential to the promotion of a higher quality and quantity of academic engagement with the general public. They generate new measures of impact with respect to knowledge transfer and public engagement by tracking – in aggregate – site traffic, media inquiries, and other contacts provided through an open access website.

Indirectly, they can help to cement the reputation of leading academics through ongoing exposure while having the capacity to promote early career scholars as the next generation of public intellectuals. All of these practices bring scholarship to the attention of broader publics. Open access publishing and the harnessing of new social media can position journals as leading and exemplary public outlets in their respective disciplines.

The only question that remains is whether disciplinary associations and journal editors will be willing to pro-actively adopt these measures--in full or in part--from a position of strength to garner their full benefits? Or will the inclination be to wait until it becomes absolutely necessary as a means of staving off collapse? Time will only tell...

Photo credit: mykl roventine

Politics at Newcastle Ranked in Excellence Group of European Universities

The German newspaper Die Zeit has recently published an evaluative listing of the best European departments for political science. Data and ranking calculations were collected and compiled by the Center for Higher Education Development (CHE). Several measures were analyzed including publications, citation rates, mobility, and integration into European level research programs.

And on the basis of the number crunching undertaken by the CHE, Politics at Newcastle University was included in the 'Excellence Group' with particular kudos awarded for the volume of publications and the rate at which these are cited by others in the field.

While these academic ranking tables are often a better of reflection of the team doing the measurement than the relative qualities of the departments being measured, it is still nice to have the efforts of one's colleagues publicly recognized as excellent by an independent evaluator.

Photo credit: rselph

The World Politics and Popular Culture Conference Roundup

On 19-20 November, 2009, Politics at Newcastle University hosted the second annual World Politics and Popular Culture conference. The event was an overwhelming success by all accounts. There were more than 14 panels, 60 delegates, 40 paper presenters, and two keynote addresses. Participants came from far and wide: North America and the Middle East as well as from across the UK and continental Europe. More importantly, it was great to see people from other disciplines within Newcastle University (e.g., English, Media Studies, Sociology, and Geography) lending their support and participating.

Given the diversity on hand, there was a remarkable intellectual energy throughout the event. There was a great mix of world-leading and emerging experts whose research combined theoretical sophistication, methodological innovation, and empirical novelty. Therefore, the quality of the papers presented and the levels of audience engagement--in the form of fair but challenging questions--was tremendous.

Highlights of the two days for me included:

• chairing a session called 'Bodies at Rest and at Play' which examined cultures of rest and relaxation. Outstanding papers wre delivered by Debbie Lisle (on the biopolitics of leisure), Elisa Wynne-Hughes (travel guide discourses and the construction of danger), and Zuzana Kepplova (the politics of the clubbing body).

• the keynote address by Prof. Michael J. Shapiro entitled 'Geophilosophy, Aesthetics and the City'. I'm not going to do his intricate argument justice here but his paper--soon to be a published as a part of a larger book project--demonstrated how artifacts of popular culture such as Charles Dickens' novels or films like 'Devil in a Blue Dress' are better able to reveal the power dynamics underpinning the political life of urban centres than much of the social science literature that has been written on the subject. Listening to such a tightly constructed argument which cogently drew upon a remarkable breadth of contemporary social and literary theory--man there is so much that I need to read!--was both an intellectually inspiring and professionally humbling experience. 

• attending a panel as an audience member with two of the leading scholars in the area of politics and popular music--Marianne Franklin and John Street. Any panel that is able to bring together discussions of John Cage, Chuck D, Rock Against Racism, and the cultural economy of sampling, is an intellectually vibrant time as far as I am concerned!

• hearing Beth Davies-Stofka challenging but clinical dismantling of the argument that today's comic heroes like Superman, Batman, or Spider are our mythological gods--similar to say the role that Zeus, Athena, or Hercules played for the Greeks. What was most interesting about the paper--and what makes me believe that it ought to be required reading for anyone who fancies themselves a political theorist of any type--was the message that we can still find meaning and engage in ethical praxis despite the void created by the collective deaths of various logos--god, science, human reason--within modernity.

• chairing a final session on political cartooning where David Mutimer, Chris Aguis, and Ofer Berestein--from a range of perspectives--offered innovative and interesting analyses of the role played by cartooning in contemporary political life. At the same time, they also offering insights into how cartooning may, in part, constitute a form of political theory that contributes to the construction of common sense. As the chair, I was also really impressed with the vitality that the audience brought to the discussion session after a long two days. This says volumes about the quality of the papers.

So, I left after the last session on Friday afternoon both re-energised and re-committed to pursuing research in the area of world politics and popular culture. Therefore, it would be totally remiss if I did not offer my heartfelt thanks to two of my colleagues--Simon Philpott and Matt Davies--who were the driving forces in getting this event organized. Having put far smaller scale events together myself, I know just how much work is involved in organizing a conference, let alone an event as complex and well structured as this one. So I just want to say to Matt and Simon both thanks and congratulations for an event well done!

P.S. David Mutimer has offered to host next year's conference at York University in Toronto, Canada. Check out these pages for more details as they become available...

Image credit: david spigolon

Copyright and Higher Education

Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford University, recently gave a presentation at the EDUCAUSE conference called ' It is About Time: Getting Our Values Around Copyright.' The presentation explores how copyright has transformed from a relatively obscure legal right into a constant nagging presence in our everyday lives.

More importantly, he demonstrates with tangible examples the detrimental impact that contemporary copyright law--and the way it is used by certain rights holders--is having on fields of endeavor like science and education where collaboration and sharing are central to the progression and transfer of knowledge.

In light of all the recent developments around copyright and the changing demands placed on university researchers--from Rupert Murdoch's 'King Canute Strategy' with regards to online content and google to the UK government's desire that research have social impact--Prof. Lessig's presentation provides us with a lot to think about.

RIP Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009)

It is often remarked that academia has been designed to produce generations of savants, scholars who know a great deal about very little. The consequences of savantism have extended beyond the tendency for various disciplines or fields of knowledge to isolate themselves from one another. Even within fields--like political science--composite sub-fields are often at pains to demonstrate a common relevance and/or to seriously engage in intellectual exchange with one another. Thus, it is very rare to find a scholar whose work not only speaks beyond their disciplinary home but also has a significant impact across the academy more generally.

Claude Lévi-Strauss was such a scholar. While he could be remembered as arguably one of the greatest mythographers and cultural anthropologists of the twentieth century, this would still be insufficient. A rarity, the implications of his work and the conceptual frameworks that he used reverberated through the social sciences and humanities. 

Considered to be the founder of 'structural anthropology', he refused to adhere to ethnocentric perspectives that position tribal cultures as primitive. Rather, he was interested in discovering how our own everyday practices resemble the practices of these cultures--as well as how tribal societies resemble modern forms with which we are more familiar. Ultimately, he was concerned with determining how the meanings that orient societies are commonly established across cultures through these practices. And he argued that the common elements could be linked to the structures of the human mind.

His ideas were certainly controversial and did not escape vociferous critique from the generations of scholars who followed. However, they were recognized as important and worthy of consideration by other leading thinkers such as Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, even as they eschewed much of structuralism itself. There was an intellectual weight to the questions to which he was searching for answers that had--and will continue to have--a wide resonance.

Thus, the work of Lévi-Strauss will remain important for anyone interested in who we think we are, why we act the way that we do, the role of culture and cultural production, the power of ideas, the socio-political significance of myth, and ultimately, what it might mean to be human?

If you are interested in finding out more about Lévi-Strauss, there is a very thoughtful obituary by Maurice Bloch over at the  Guardian.