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

[Nils Zurawski]

dear all... and recent discussants...

believing that most of our research has a 
connection to politics or indeed is driven by 
politics and also should make or comment on 
politics - the topic at hand seems to be  one we 
should discuss... and then again, maybe not. if 
the list could find an agreement that this rather 
stupid/absurd call by the AUT to boycott touches 
on central matters of aoir and we do want to 
object.. well fine, lets do it.. I believe we as 
a list and organisation will not exclude any 
members from these universities from our list or 
indeed aoir! Nor do we encourage anybody doing so.

AS stupid as this boycott may be - and it is a 
good issue for a debate - I can not see how it 
touches us as an organisation, other than that we 
are indirectly also asked to cancel our 
collaboration with any individual coming from 
these universitites. I we want to do one thing, 
we could state that we do not, ie. if there is a 
concensus on this...  a connection and interest 
of aoir has to be made clear in order to react - 
Are there some members of aoir at these 
universities??
Everything else would be simple activism, just 
because... this does not keep us as individuals 
from opposing against such measures.

I do not think Internet Research is a-political, 
or driven by poltical impetus, differing with 
every individual - but it certainly is not 
politics as such...

And: Do these kind of boycotts actually help and 
do any good, especially in this case....

jsut some thoughts
best
nilz

-- 
Dr. Nils Zurawski
Universität Hamburg
Inst. für kriminologische Sozialforschung
Allendeplatz 1
20146 Hamburg
Germany
tel. +49 (0) 40 42838 6185
fax. +49 (0) 40 42838 2328

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