[Air-L] Let's talk about AoIR.

[Terri Senft]

Hi Pals,

With the encouragement of Andrew and Alex, I wanted to approach the list
regarding some questions I have about culture of the Association of
Internet Researchers today.

 I'm asking because after this round of conference proposal reviews, I feel
personally and professionally a bit disconnected from this group these
days. This freaks me out a bit, because I've always thought of AoIR as my
intellectual home. I am wondering if this is just me (which would be
fine!), or if others are in struggle as well.

Some Big Questions I Have:

1. Who are we, personally and professionally? What makes us the same as
organizations like ICA or ACM? What makes us different from these
organizations?

2. How do we perform our identity at our annual conference? How is it
reflected in the way we phrase our calls for submissions? How is it
reflected in submission procedures?

3. How do we want to define "rigorous scholarship" in our organization? How
do we want to deal with scholarship that strikes us as urgent, necessary or
fresh, but not sufficiently rigorous?

4. Is there even an "us" anymore? Can positivists, activists, and artists
really sit in the same room and discuss 'internet studies'? My answer used
to be affirmative, but that was before internet studies was as ubiquitous
as literature studies.

5. Should the desire for a conference that showcases professionalization
trump a desire for a conference that encourages its youngest scholars and
its most senior ones to take risks, make mistakes and push the boundaries
of the field?

Okay, that's plenty to start. As they say in AA, take what you want and
leave the rest.


Fondly,
T

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Dr. Theresa M. Senft
Global Liberal Studies Program
School of Arts & Sciences
New York University
726 Broadway  NY NY 10003

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