[Air-L] "Pathways to Meaning" with Kendall and Markham

[Sanaz Raji]

Hi Charles:

Thank you for your thoughts on the comments that both I and Carolina have
made. I am heartened when you write that colleagues of yours at AU have put
up an "good fight" concerning the Cheminova issue. Regarding my comment, by
no means am I suggesting that AoIR members boycott AU and not attend
Annette's course. My comments are general reflections on the matter of
critically engaging with the institutions we work/research in.

At the University of Leeds, I have been apart of and witnessed research
postgraduate students collectively organize to oppose further job/pay
reductions for teaching assistants (TAs). For two years, a group of former
and current TAs organize to encourage the university to give full
employment status, adequate payment, and hours for TAs. It was upsetting,
though not shocking to learn that a good many departments, TAs made less
than minimum wage. Confronted with this information, I rarely if ever saw
support from senior lecturers or professors, except for a few in the
Geography department who were very sympathetic from the onset.

In 2010 when academic staff jobs at the University of Leeds where on the
line, many lecturers asked students for their solidarity and support when
they took part in strikes, which of course many students gave and were
instrumental in taking part in those strikes. Yet, when postgraduate
research students organized and asked their mentors and supervisors for the
same kind of solidarity and support, they were instead met with silence,
and a few were actively harassed by superiors they thought they could
trust.  PhD poverty is a real issue that many of my close friends grapple
with day in day out. Senior lecturers and professors have the the *privilege
*to change existing inequalities within academia in order to make higher
education fair and accessible.  Unfortunately, their inaction speaks louder
than their words against austerity or neoliberalism in higher education.
This example is just one of many of the complicity that we need to actively
fight within academia.

Best wishes:
Sanaz





On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Charles Ess <charles.ess at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> While the reminders offered by Sanaz and MC of the importance of remaining
> critical of our own institutions are useful and in place -
> first of all, it would be a mistake to think that there are no internal
> critics at AU: on the contrary, I know from first-hand experience that
> innumerable colleagues have put up the good fight at AU over these issues,
> and continue to do so.  Those colleagues need our collective encouragement
> -
> not the implication that because they work at AU, they are somehow
> morally compromised.
>
> These reminders also raise a larger question - namely, of how far each of
> us
> must compromise with institutions, from universities to global capitalism,
> that we know are less than morally pure (to say the least).  As a simple
> example: everyone on the Air list owns and depends upon technologies that
> in
> some degree or another depend in turn upon child labor, if not slave labor.
>
> The point of this observation is _not_ something along the lines of the
> common logical fallacies of "two wrongs make a right" or "common practice"
> (if everyone else is doing it, it must be o.k.).
>
> It is rather to invoke Gandhi's critique of the institutions we all live
> in:
> "...to be non-violent, we must not wish for anything on this earth which
> the
> meanest and lowest of human beings cannot have."
> Somewhat less radically, but in the same direction, Kant also noted that
> "nothing straight was ever made from the crooked timber of humanity."
>
> Given that very few  of us could (or would) lead a perfectly
> self-sufficient
> life in some isolated island somewhere - our moral challenge is then to
> figure out how to live by our best ethical lights with institutions (and
> people) who are less than morally perfect.
> Stated differently: given that none of us is a Gandhi - i.e., willing or
> able to live in such a supremely moral way - we are then left with making
> judgments as to, in effect, how much evil we will compromise with.
>
> As I have come to wrestle with these questions, I find that part of the
> judgment must be made in light of the question: is goodness in the world
> (and myself) better served by my boycotting whatever is morally impure -
> and/or by participating in institutions in which such participation may
> lead
> to their correction and improvement?
> Manifestly, if the good stay away from all corrupt institutions - they will
> find themselves in very limited places and space of power and influence
> indeed; and whatever capacity they may have for correcting and improving
> corruption will be lost as well.  In my view, such a strategy seems likely
> to only make everything - and most everyone - worse, not better.
>
> Let me close, then, with deep gratitude and ongoing encouragement to my
> many
> good colleagues at AU who have kept up the good fight of internal criticism
> while they also continue with invaluable research and inspiring teaching.
> If anything, we can learn from and be inspired from their example, if we
> are
> fortunate enough to get to know it more closely, as the rest of us must
> also
> be active critics at points in our own institutions, as well as citizens of
> larger societies.
>
> Best,
> - charles ess
> --
> Professor in Media Studies
> Department of Media and Communication
>
> Director, Centre for Research on Media Innovations
> <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/center/media-innovations/>
>
> University of Oslo
> P.O. Box 1093 Blindern
> NO-0317
> Oslo Norway
> email: charles.ess at media.uio.no
>
>
>
>


-- 
Sanaz Raji
+44 (0) 780 7873 550
Web: http://leeds.academia.edu/SanazRaji