Costelloe-KuehnMemo32

chapter summaries

=preface:=


 * 1) i really like the way advocacy after bhopal can be read in multiple ways: the reader can focus on a question and explore it across different enunciatory communities, or if read cover-to-cover, the reader is taken over each question 7 or 8 times, gaining new insights recursively. this is somewhat similar to a thousand plateaus, in which each chapter (each "plateau") can be read individually, but also links up in a larger assemblage ("rhizome").
 * 2) but i'm not sure that using "enunciatory communities" as foci for chapters will work for my book.... i am interested in what the experimental environmental media produced by different groups can tell us about how they make sense of the world around them and the discursive fields they operate in, but i don't think i will have the broad range of enunciatory communities that populate advocacy after bhopal. i am interested in interviewing "unexpected" collaborators, but i am fairly focused on "experimental environmental media" producers: individuals, collectivities. of course this category could be sliced and diced....
 * 3) Another way to organize the book would be to focus on the three main areas of my research:
 * // How // and //why// do EMOs use new media to develop capacity? More specifically, how do these organizations:
 * Produce and circulate knowledge and expertise.
 * Enable intra- and inter-group communication and collaboration, often with individuals and groups not immediately recognized as “activist."
 * Develop and deploy innovative protest [strategies and] tactics

4. I would also consider including a CD (or DVD or companion website) with excerpts from the media that I analyze in the book. These excerpts could perform a role similar to the ways images are traditionally used in books, or the reader could watch a segment before reading a chapter and i could gradually address layers of meaning......
 * If i do end up writing papers for journals and presentations that are also sliced and diced in this way (see memo on abstracts from last week), then i could revise these journal articles and have a large chunk of the book complete.

5. I like the way Tomie Hahn's book pauses periodically to ask the reader reflexive questions in a conversational tone. An implicit goal of my book will be to help my audience think about how they engage with media and ICTs and I think making this goal more explicit and direct from time to time might be helpful.

6. While I want to draw on some "high theory" in the text, I think I will mostly put it (along with much of my lit. review) in the footnotes. This may make the text more accessible to a wider audience, but also just help it flow better.

=Introduction:=

Aims of the text:
 * I plan to present readers with an exploration of what i term "experimental environmental media." i hope that reading this book will inform the readers' thinking by unsettlling preconceived notions of, inter alia, these three words: experimental, environmental, media. i also hope to contribute to our understanding of "science vs. art," in part, by applying concepts associated with STS to techno-artistic media production (i.e. collective experimental media production analyzed with rheinberger's experimental system vs. testing device).
 * the empirical contribution of the text:
 * Focusing on experimental environmental media production in the United States and India, my text will contribute to the empirical record of ways (alternative, independent, community, tactical) media are produced and circulated collectively and individually.
 * the expertise required and developed
 * how orientations to discursive space are generated and changed
 * the "constrablements" of collectivity around experimental environmental media production, in and across specific cases
 * social movements knowledge production and flows
 * big goal is to open up the category of "social movements" by illuminating distributed, non-hegemonic collectivities formed around shared constrablements, stratgegies, tactics, use of tech., etc. Distributed groups (with somewhat shared ideologies, identities) are networked and draw off each other (SM's "spillover," but in much faster timeframe). Evidence: conferences on "tactical" media have participants with countless, diverse goals and social spaces.
 * how the empirical material will be used to make a conceptual argument:
 * I have chosen the sites for gathering empirical material because I suspect that they will provide rich examples of effective, collective political action. I think that in the process of creating the "knowledge objects" of experimental environmental media, my interlocutors will also produce, innovate and reconfigure: new subjectivities, new forms of collectivity, new technologies and new uses of old tech., social relations, expertise, knowledge, etc. Many of these new "things" will be developed in opposition to dominant social forms, knowledges, etc.
 * This study will advance conceptualization of power/resistance
 * what is the relationship between new formations and technologies of power (neoliberal projects, "societies of control," other articulations?) and resistance (the "newest social movements," global justice movement, etc.)?
 * beyond the "hegemony of hegemony": what non-hegemonic (anarchistic?) forms of collectivity and practice are emerging in response to new formations of power?
 * what double binds call these new enunciatory communities into being, to speak?
 * what forms of non-hegemonic sociality are possible, or even desirable, beyond the "local" level?
 * The study will draw on and contribute ot scholarly literatures that examine the concept of "community." "Community" will be interrogated along with poststructuralist and postanarchistic insights. how are communication and community articulated?
 * the method used to carry out the research: primarily ethnography, in a post-Writing Culture tradition, and multi-sited (both in terms of multiple physical sites (U.S. & India) and in the way local situations and practices will be analyzed to generate insights about the "world system").
 * participant-observation: my own artistic practice/media production will be part of the story, but generally kept on the back burner? I plan on including large chunks of raw-ish interview transcripts in order to highlight the collective efforts that went into the production of "my" text and displace, or at least put into question, my own "ethnographic authority."
 * The assumptions I had to make in order to do the research?
 * How particular theoretical constructs shaped both my data collection and analysis?
 * Basic background on the primary topics
 * conceptual phenomena studied: non-hegemonic social change, anarchistic trends in environmental/media social movements, possibilities/constraints for "new" media in diverse contexts, power, resistance, collaborative knowledge production, etc.
 * empirical phenomena studied: media producers, artist/scientist collaborations, middle-class activists and relationships with "subalterns" (conceptual too?),
 * place in which I am situating the empirical phenomena? what is meant by "place" here?
 * Relevance of the study
 * in the current historical moment, unprecedented critical and complex environmental issues require information flows that "work" and grassroots involvement in developing capacity for addressing environmental problems is essential. new media technologies present new challenges and new opportunities that are being experimented with in interesting ways.
 * issues people are or should be discussing (either in academia or outside)?
 * "collapse" of "old" "mainstream" media (i.e. newspapers) and simultaneous consolidation of ownership (but with "new" media also a proliferation and fragmentation of "the media").
 * global warming, peak oil, environmental justice, environmental health, etc. <-- place to narrow a bit?
 * durable contribution to a particular academic literature
 * 3 literatures: media studies, STS, anthropology.
 * Overview of the manuscript
 * description of chapters
 * succinct statement of what empirical material is in the chapter
 * how this material is used to make a conceptual argument.

=middle/"substantive"-chapters:=


 * answer primary research questions – resulting in an incrementally greater understanding of your “core concept” or argument. Somewhere in these middle chapters you need to do the following:
 * Describe the materiality, function, structure, etc of the technoscientific artifacts, infrastructures and practices that the text focuses on. Don’t forget to describe the “technology itself,” so to speak.
 * Describe the culture and social structure of different “groups” of informants – though being careful not to assume that group coherence is natural or obvious. At some point, you need to explain why you are regarding a certain group as a group, and what this conception glosses over. Be careful not to essentialize. Censure all articulations organized as “Engineers/Scientists/Bureaucrats think/do/say X.” Instead, plan to describe which engineers say what, in what contexts – and how these contexts inscribe what they say or do. Particular contexts (like a public meeting run by a government agency) may produce predictable actions or words; the challenge is to draw out how the reproductive process works. Think here of Foucault: what produces the speaking subject? How can what the speaking subject says be understood in terms of contextual forces that distribute status, techniques, and material resources? How does a particular statement “work” – what conditions it, what rules govern it, what is the field in which it operates? How is it that a statement “is used, disappears, allows or prevents the realization of a desire, serves or resists various interests, participates in challenge and struggle, and becomes a theme of appropriation or rivalry”? (The Archeology of Knowledge, 87ish)
 * Provide space for the articulations and perspectives of your informants.
 * Address contextual forces/structural conditions.


 * **Chapter 1 Summary.** "production/circulation of knowledge/expertise"
 * New information and communication technologies (ICTs) are transforming the ways environmentalist organizations produce and circulate knowledge and expertise. The Catapult Arts Caravan fosters articulation of and deliberation over local knowledge relevant to critical environmental issues by using old and new media technologies. A wide range of expertise is developed and mobilized, from agricultural information specific to the locality to the skills needed for shooting, editing, and distributing video on online satellite maps. Community capacity is also developed by intervening in power hierarchies, drawing together street vendors, politicians, farmers and others into a single video - the "democracy of the moving image." Drawing on ethnigraphic interviews and participant observation, this paper documents and anlyzes some of the most promising experiments in new relays of environmental information afforded by (new) media technologies, but also examines specific "blockages" that may limit imaginations and practices. The paper concludes by offering strategies for circumventing these blockages and offers preliminary insights into the benefits of pushing further the democratization of information in environmental struggles.
 * **Chapter 2 Summary.** communication/collaboration
 * Intra- and inter-group communication and collaboration are key aspects of any social movement. For struggles over environmental justice, which are often highly complex and contested, developing innovative ways to circulate rhetorically persuasive knowledge and expertise is especially important. While environmentalists often have ambivalent views of and relationships with science, strategic collaboration with scientists can contribute to the development of powerful new relays. Following a brief analysis on the intersection of the literatures on community informatics, social networking and alternative media, this paper drawing on ethnographic interviews and participant observation to document and anlyze how emergent information and communication technologies (ICTs) are changing environmentalist practice and enabling new forms of collaboration, sometimes with individuals and groups not immediately recognized as "activist." The paper concludes with a discussion of the roles of "community" and "diversity" in building capacity to deal with critical environmental justice issues.
 * **Chapter 3 on "innovative protest strategies and tactics"**
 * **Chapter 4 Summary**, on "collectivity"
 * the below paragraph is mostly just a placeholder... i may just end up weaving "collectivity" into all the chapters, or make it a focus of the conclusion, or something else...
 * tentatively titled: "mediating participation: articulating diversity and community at the Sarai Media Center,"
 * ****Experimental environmental media**** "centers" are perhaps better conceived as nodes in a rhizome of alternative media practices with diverse applications, participants and goals. The Sarai Programme at CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies) is particularly noted for its network structure. Co-founded by the Raqs Media Collective and CSDS in 2001, Sarai is a "research center, publishing house, cafe, conference center, cinema, software laboratory and studio for digital art and design... Through its institutional partnerships, the research fellowships it provides each year, its residencies for visiting artists, researchers and programmers, multiple email lists, and many informal collaborations, Sarai has developed a large network that allows it to accumulate a vast range of knowledge and opinion from across the world and to make it available in many forms, places and languages. "Cybermohalla", the network of media laboratories established by Sarai in slum areas of Delhi, has led to a particularly impressive collaboration between members of Sarai and groups of young writers, artists and thinkers from these areas; while collaborations with programmers have led to "OPUS", an online experiment in artistic production inspired by the working practices of the free software movement" (wikipedia... [will be rephrased and shortened... I don't want this to look like a report on Sarai, I want to highlight and forefront my contribution and analysis).] Yet there are also blockages in Sarai's network that may limit imaginations and prevent collaborations, corroding its ability to utilize difference and provide social benefits to those it wishes to serve [such as _____]. Plugging ethnographic data from participant observation and interviews at Sarai into Deleuze & Guattari's insights on mapping lines of flight and their blockages, this paper sketches possibilities for developing more "absolute" deterritorializations in collaborative projects that draw together elite and subaltern actors. i definitely don't "need" this jargon... i only partially understand it myself, and a year ago i would not have understood it at all... i could say the same (?) thing in plain language... not sure what i think about this.]

=epilogues/postscripts/conclusions:=


 * Your conclusion should “fall out” of the main text.
 * Think about the kinds of material you need in order to make the kinds of argument you want to make:
 * for conceptual change?
 * "experimental" not just applied to science, "environmental" (something about relationship to the "outside" of "individuals..."), "media" (generalize the word, include forms not immediately recognizable as media).
 * regarding the need to pay attention to phenomena or issues that are not usually on the radar screen?
 * for social change?
 * Note that not every project needs to argue for social or practical change in order to be “engaged.” Pulling a reader into a different way of thinking is itself an accomplishment, with political implications. The challenge is to make a strong case that is not obvious – i.e. your research had to be done in order for this argument to be made.