[Air-l] AoIR in Latin-America

[Alex Kuskis]

In my recollection the inclusion of French presenters in 
Toronto worked reasonably well, given the association's 
executive attempts to subvert the bilingual French and English 
presentations they had initially agreed to. As a member of the 
Toronto organizing committee, I recall that we felt it important 
for AIR to grow internationally by recognizing the bilingual 
nature of their Canadian conference host country. With the help 
of people like David Mitchell, former editor of the Canadian 
Journal of Communication, we secured Canadian government 
funding for translation services and the call for papers was duly 
issued in French and English. There were a sufficent number of
French-speaking scholars to assess French-language proposals.
Cyber-philosopher Pierre Levy was secured to present one of 
the keynotes and all seemed well with the world.

Then, a few months before the conference, the Toronto 
organizers were instructed by the AIR executive to cancel the 
French sessions and return the government funding offered for 
translation purposes. The Toronto conference chair refused 
and was deposed by the executive group, who installed a
number of recently-involved locals more amenable to their
wishes. Needless to say, those of us who had worked
on the conference for 2 years were devastated, but managed 
to get the French sessions held anyway by arranging for
set-up and support. The Francophone scholars who were
aware of what had happened were upset, but thanked
the deposed organizers. This heavy-handedness caused 
considerable bad feeling and set back AIR in this part of 
Canada, where several people have expressed a disinclination
to be members until AIR becomes more than tokenly
international. 

I air this dirty laundry now (pun intended) because of
our Vancouver colleagues expressed desire to hold the 
conference, the discussions about AIR in Latin America, 
and language on the Internet. Now, I would never expect
my native language of Latvian to be accommodated by
AIR (nor the Croatian that someone mentioned), but when
the conference is held in countries where major world
languages such as Spanish or French are spoken, and when
local organizers are willing to go the extra distance to 
secure funding, translation and organization, leaving it to 
the executive to just show up, why would the association
continue to insist on its anglo-centrism? The executive who
decided that English was to be the association's working
language in all matters was almost all-American, and all
English-speaking, except for one token member. Is that
reflective of an association that purports to be international?
......................Alex Kuskis
***********************
e-Scholars.ca
Online Adjunct Professor, 
Communication Studies,
Gonzaga U, Royal Roads U
alex.kuskis at netscape.ca
alex.kuskis at utoronto.ca
 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeremy Hunsinger" <jhuns at vt.edu>
To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 8:14 AM
Subject: Re: [Air-l] AoIR in Latin-America


> Just two points here.   I think you'll recall that we did attempt  
> multi-linguality in Toronto, but in the end it did not work well.    
> there are systemic barriers to multi-lingualism in the organizational  
> context currently that are immense, the cost of translation for  
> instance, live translation in toronto was as i recall priced at  
> around $25k.   it is priced that high because the groups that are  
> required by law to afford it can afford that kind of money.   I think  
> we had looked at it in Maastricht too, also very highly priced.    
> When the conference costs $70k, and people already complain about  
> costs and prices, adding another $25k is not really an option.   That  
> is just a practical concern.    After Toronto, the Association  
> decided that the operating languages of the association is english.    
> of course, any executive committee in the future could change that,  
> but it really was just a pragmatic decision.   my argument has been,  
> and will tend to be that AoIR has to serve the majority of its  
> population, when that switches from an English commonality to a  
> different commonality, then I think we should change our language.
> 
> The other thing to remember is that while in the world, those who  
> write in english are a minority, in academia, in most disciplines in  
> the world, the majority of publishing is in english (though this is  
> changing pretty quickly and the major publishing houses want more of  
> the Asian market).
> 
> so who is spinning off who, and what is derivative of what is a great  
> question for the internet's and aoir's future, because while the  
> hegemonic discourses are being transformed, academic cultures tend to  
> move a bit slower...
> 
> 
> On Mar 20, 2006, at 4:49 AM, geert lovink wrote:
> 
>> No worries! People who speak in English are a minority in this world.
>> The content in English on the Net is shrinking (relatively speaking)
>> and so are the users for whom English is their first language. I guess
>> it is time for Internet researchers to wake up to this new reality.
>> Please read the basic statistics. We're spinning off those who speak
>> English. It's not the other way round... Those who write in English  
>> are
>> in the minority, big way. Let's not portray it otherwise.
>>
>> Geert