[Air-L] anti-harassment and safe spaces

[David Banks]

Hi,

I'm one of the TtW organizing committee members that worked on the
anti-harassment statement. Would be happy to offer suggestions to whatever
body ends up taking this on.

Thanks for pointing to it Sky!

-db

On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Anna Lauren Hoffmann <
annalauren at berkeley.edu> wrote:

> Thanks so much for bringing this up! I agree that this is an important move
> to consider - and it aligns with a number of issues that were raised by
> members during the last Association General Meeting in Daegu. And double
> thanks for pointing to the excellent TtW model.
>
> Part of the value of our new inclusivity statement (prior to last year,
> AoIR only had a non-discrimination statement) is its establishment and
> codification of a sort-of mandate for considering these sorts of issues. I
> think one could argue (or, at any rate, I would argue) that our inclusivity
> statement makes it imperative that we consider adopting conference-specific
> inclusivity and anti-harassment statements.
>
> Part of the challenge here - not an insurmountable one, of course - is
> identifying the most appropriate group of folks to put something like this
> together. While the Exec is responsible for developing and approving
> certain dimensions of the conference, much of the work of planning and
> execution falls to local committees and volunteers (which may or may not be
> members the Exec). In addition, we've got an awesome group of members to
> help develop something like this (similarly, it was a small group of
> energetic grad student members that helped us develop our inclusivity
> statement). I think, given these factors and the fact that the location for
> the conference changes each year, that we have an opportunity to produce
> not only a blanket statement, but statements that might also be informed by
> both local and membership-specific context and considerations. I'll be
> happy to raise this issue with the Exec to see how we might best proceed on
> this front.
>
> In addition, I hope you'll bring this issue to the current elections
> discussion. At least one person running has mentioned this issue explicitly
> in their candidate statement and I think we'd all benefit from further
> consideration not only this issue, but issues of diversity and inclusivity
> broadly - especially from those folks currently running and eager to serve
> on the next iteration of the Executive Committee. (Election discussion
> forums are available at the AoIR member site: http://members.aoir.org.)
>
> -Anna
>
> -----
> Anna Lauren Hoffmann
> Postdoctoral Researchers and Instructor
> School of Information
> University of California, Berkeley
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 8:46 AM, sky c <skyc at riseup.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > >
> > > First, I’d like the AoIR executive committee to create and open for
> > > member review a specific anti-harassment statement for its conferences
> > > and other activities. I know we have a diversity and inclusivity
> > > statement, but I’d like us to have a more formal policy regarding how
> > > harassment will be handled if it happens either at the conference
> > > proper, on the mailing list, and/or on Twitter, etc. (something,
> > > perhaps like Theorizing the Web’s statement:
> > >
> >
> http://theorizingtheweb.tumblr.com/post/79357700249/anti-harassment-statement
> > <
> >
> http://theorizingtheweb.tumblr.com/post/79357700249/anti-harassment-statement
> >).
> > This seems critical if we are going to make AoIR a safe space for
> everyone.
> > >
> >
> > I recently attended the TtW conference, and while I think the
> > anti-harassment statement makes a great start, I think there are other
> > important steps that can be taken for thinking about conferences as safe
> > spaces. I've written more about this here:
> >
> >
> http://skycroeser.net/2015/04/20/theorizing-the-web-and-conferences-as-technology/
> > _______________________________________________
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-- 
-db