[Air-l] british boycott over/no politics?

[Greg Elmer]

Barry (et als),

I took Jeremy's note to mean that it is not the role of the association to take political stands. And while I find such blanket policies (along with assumptions about what constitutes the "political) troublesome, you've now seemingly extended this logic to the AOiR listserv. What's more since you don't seem to want to take your own advice why should the rest of us avoid 'politics' on the list serv? 

I for one would like to see a broad discussion about the social implications of new media, the Internet, scholarship, and the acadmemy (which as some of you know can get messy and political). If you're not interested in posts about political issues that impact upon academic life and society in general then I'd encourage you to actively 'delete'. 


Greg Elmer


> Although there are counter-arguments to the anti-Israeli posting
> yesterday, I agree with Jeremy Hunsinger that they are out of place on
> this list.
> 
> But since the issue has been brought up, my position is that 
> professionalsocieties should be extraordinarily cautious about 
> encouraging boycotts of
> universities. I don't believe in collective punishment, even if 
> there was
> a crime -- and there are different sets of "facts"  floating around on
> this matter. Hence, I have worked a bit to encourage the ending of the
> boycott. And am glad that it happened.
> 
> For reasons of the first para, I won't respond to any postings 
> about the
> boycott -- or Israel -- on this list and urge us all to refocus on 
> AOIRstuff.
> 
> Barry
> _____________________________________________________________________
> 
>  Barry Wellman         Professor of Sociology        NetLab Director
>  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
> 
>  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
>  455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
>             To network is to live; to live is to network
> 

Greg Elmer, PhD
Bell Globemedia Research Chair
Rogers Communications Centre/School of Radio-TV Arts 
Ryerson University
350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario
Canada      M5B 2K3

416-979-5282
_______________________________________________
Co-Editor, 
Space and Culture: An International Journal of Social Spaces
http://www.carleton.ca/space/