Sunday 29 March 2009

Ruth Rikowski's 12th News Update


Twelfth News Update

RUTH RIKOWSKI
News Update No.12




This News Update consists of a number of news and information items and a focus on Philip Booth.


1. ‘TONN BENN: LINKS TO LIBRARIES’ FUTURE’, Managing Information, May 2007, Vol 14, No. 4, pp. 24-26

In the May issue of Managing Information, there is an article by me about Tony Benn’s speech at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) Members’ Day last October.

I record the main parts of his speech and then link it to libraries’ future. The focus of Tony Benn’s talk was on Tony as an archivist and he spoke about why he has always kept a diary, ever since he was a child. He then broadened it out to the topic of freedom of information.

A longer version of this article is also available on our website – see
http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Tony%20and%20Caroline%20Benn

In this longer version, I also speak about the work of Caroline Benn and the influence that she had on Glenn Rikowski, particularly in regard to the writing of his book The Battle in Seattle (Tufnell Press: London, 2001), which considered the implications of the World Trade Organisation for education (and indeed, was one of the first books out on this subject). Leading on from this, I then wrote my own globalisation book. In this article, I highlight two recent developments in libraries - Painswick library and the British Library, and emphasise that we need to be “…continually vigilant if we want to retain a decent state-funded library service.” (p. 25)







2. FOCUS ON PHILIP BOOTH
The reference to Painswick Library leads me on very nicely to the next item, which is a focus on Philip Booth (written by Philip Booth). I found out about the threat posed to Painswick Library from Philip Booth’s web-log, where he linked threats such as this to my work on the GATS and libraries, and in particular, to my globalisation book.

Philip Booth is Coordinator of the 5-strong Green party group of District councillors in Stroud, Gloucestershire where he also works as a researcher and community activist.Philip completed a BSc (Jt Hons) Psychology and Sociology degree in 1984 before doing a postgraduate Social Work course and then worked in Australia and SE Asia for an aid and development agency. This included initiating Sydneys' largest foreign film festival and an alternative tourism project in India. In 1988 Philip worked as a Social Worker in London before moving to manage innovative local authority day services for adults with learning difficulties in North Somerset.Philip then moved to the Stroud area and worked as a freelance Trainer and Consultant in work with adults with learning difficulties. A chronic illness meant he was himself disabled for a number of very difficult years. His health has now improved significantly and he has returned to work in a huge range of community projects and campaigns.


Politics has always played a key role in Philip’s life from activism during the 1984/5 miners strike, numerous marches and protests, thousands of meetings and letters and more. Philip tries to live the "Act Local, Think Global" with work and local campaigns to save Post Offices, support the Village Shop, improve the local book, stop airport expansions, challenge the local nuclear industry, save a local library from closure and more.Green support in the District runs at about 20% and they are the third largest group on the Council with 10% of the seats although on the Town Council Greens hold 11 of the 18 seats making it the first majority Green Town Council in the UK. Green votes and Green District councillors have meant that the ruling Conservative group has been unable to ignore issues like climate change, Philip says. Furthermore, he emphasises that they have now produced an excellent first step strategy that is based considerably on Green recommendations. Greens plan to see it delivered and improved.The Green group have also led to the Council being among only a handful to reject the draft South West Regional Spatial Strategy; the most important regional planning documents for the next 20 years, Philip says.

All this fits with Stroud's reputation for being radical and green, Philip says: the unique anti-slavery arch of 1834, the 1898 Whiteway colony set up by Tolstoyan anarchists, the Arts and Crafts movement flourishing, the best Farmers Market in the South West, the new Transition Stroud project, Ecotricity (the world's first green energy company), amongst the first Fairtrade towns in the country, innovative Community Agriculture, affordable homes and Co-housing projects, Non-Violent direct action at Fairford USAF and more and electing the first Green councillor in the country.Philip's blog has been listed amongst the top Green blogs and linked to sites like the New Statesman: http://ruscombegreen.blogspot.com/

Philip’s other activities include:- promoting a new safer 'greener' approach to traffic engineering:http://www.resurgence.org/selection/booth0306.htm
- helping establish the Transition Stroud project - the communities response to climate change and peak oil:http://transitiontownstroud.blogspot.com/
- setting up the Ruscombe Brook Action Group who are seeking to establish sustainable solutions to managing sewage in the valley:http://www.rbag.org.uk/
- setting up the Safe Water Campaign for Gloucestershire to oppose water fluoridation: http://safewatercampaign.blogspot.com/
- helping establish the successful monthly Coffee House Discussion group - political discussion meetings in Stroud which attract between 25 and 60 people each month: http://www.glosgreenparty.org.uk/
- Green Left - an anti-capitalist current in the Green party: http://www.greenleft.org.uk/


Philip Booth comments:”Capitalism can only survive with continued economic growth. From peak oil, to global warming, to the extinction of species, capitalism is clearly unsustainable. As well as the ecological insanity, capitalism leads to a pervasive sense of 'alienation', the macdonaldisation of society and making us pay for what we had for free. Capitalism is innately unjust. Economics needs to be a tool for us: the system of grow or die has to be replaced with a one that meets, in Gandhi's words, everyone's need not everyone's greed.”





3. BOOK REVIEW BY RUTH RIKOWSKI:
‘BUILDING KNOWLEDGE CULTURES: EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENTS IN THE AGE OF KNOWLEDGE CAPITALISM’ BY PROFESSOR MICHAEL PETERS AND A.C. (TINA) BESLEY,

Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, USA, 2006.
ISBN 10 0 7425 1790 X; 10 0 7425 1791 8, 225pp.
in Managing Information, May 2007, Vol. 14, No. 4, p. 32

There is a full-page spread given to my review of Peters and Besley’s book, in this months Managing Information.

This is a very important book, outlining some of the main trends that are taking place on the global stage today, in regard to knowledge, education and information. There will also be a longer review of this book by me in the ‘Digital Libraries’ issue for Policy Futures in Education http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/ that I am editing with Isaac Hunter Dunlap (Spring 2008).




4. VIRGINIA TECH LAUNCHES APRIL 16th ARCHIVE (PRESS RELEASE)
This press release was kindly sent to me by Jeremy Hunsinger, Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

It is interesting and enlightening to witness how the process of digitisation and preservation is assisting with the healing process, following on from this tragedy.”BLACKSBURG, Va., April 30, 2007 - Virginia Tech's Center for Digital Discourse and Culture (CDDC) is pleased to announce the launch of the April 16 Archive (http://www.april16archive.org/). This new online archive assists artists, humanists, social scientists, and all other scholars who seek, today and in the future, to develop a better understanding of the violent events of April 16, 2007 at Virginia Tech, when a gunman shot and killed 33 students and professors, and injured many more.

It is also available to the general public of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the United States of America, and the world at large as we come to terms with a local, national, and global event that will have ramifications for years to come. This archive works actively to deploy electronic media for the collection, interpretation, preservation, and display of stories and digital objects related to the tragedy of April 16, 2007 and its many effects as text, image, and sound. Developed in cooperation with George Mason University's Center for History and New Media (CHNM), this project is receiving technical, curatorial and administrative support from Virginia Tech students, faculty, and staff.


The archive will preserve a diverse record of the events surrounding April 16, 2007 by collecting first-hand observations, photographic images, soundrecordings, media reports, personal writings, official statements, individual blog postings, and any other documents that can be stored as digital files. In addition to local reactions, the archive welcomes responses from across the globe in any language. Through this archive, we aim to leave a positive legacy for the larger community and contribute to a collective process of healing, especially as those affected by this tragedy tell their stories in their own words. The larger trend exemplified by this project is the "digital memory bank." Memory banks are being used to preserve the richness of the present as it transitions to the past, thereby ensuring that the collected records can be both readily accessible and carefully preserved for future access.


The April 16 Archive welcomes contributions from the Virginia Tech community, as well as from anyone around the world who wants to share words of support or reflection following the events of April 16, 2007. The attacks happened in Blacksburg, Virginia, but they were experienced around the world through mass media and community ties. The accounts of that day from any site across the globe are, therefore, very important to the April 16 Archive as it documents the full impact of this tragic event. For more information, visit http://www.april16archive.org/ or contact admin@april16archive.org.

For media enquiries, contact Brent Jesiek, Manager of the CDDC, at (540) 231-7614 or cddc@vt.edu.

This story is also posted on the April 16 Archive website:http://www.april16archive.org/news/”The Virginia Tech Center for Digital Discourse and Culture (formed in 1998) is one of the world's first university based digital points-of-publication for new forms of scholarly communication, academic research, and cultural analysis. The Center for Digital Discourse and Culture is also working with Virginia Tech's newly established Institute for Society, Culture, and the Environment (ISCE) to develop new scholarly initiatives, such as the April 16 Archive.See also:
Center for Information Policy Research: http://www.cipr.uwm.edu/








5. TRANSDISCIPLINARY STUDIES: BOOK SERIES EDITED BY JEREMY HUNSINGER AND JASON NOLAN, SENSE PUBLISHERS

http://transdisciplinarystudies.tmttlt.com/

Jeremy Hunsinger used to be one of my book reviewers for Managing Information. He has also reviewed books for Information for Social Change. He told me some while ago, that he now had his own book series, with Jason Nolan, which is entitled: ‘Transdisciplinary Studies’. Further information about the series (taken from the website) is outlined below.


“Transdisciplinary Studies is an internationally oriented book series created to generate new theories and practices to extricate transdisciplinary research from the confining discourses of traditional disciplinarities. Within transdisciplinary domains, this series will publish empirically grounded, theoretically sound work seeking to identify and solve global problems that conventional disciplinary perspectives cannot capture. Transdisciplinary Studies seeks to accentuate those aspects of scholarly research which cut across todays learned disciplines in an effort to define new axiologies and forms of praxis. This series intends to promote a new appreciation for transdisciplinary research to audiences that are seeking ways of understanding complex, global problems that many now realize disciplinary perspectives cannot fully address. Scholars, policy makers, educators and researchers working to address issues in technology studies, public finance, discourse studies, professional ethics, political analysis, learning, ecological systems, modern medicine, and other fields clearly are ready to begin investing in transdisciplinary models of research. It is for those many different audiences in these diverse fields that we hope to reach, not merely with topical research, but also through considering new epistemic and ontological foundations for of transdisciplinary research.”

The first Books in the Series is:
Towards Humane Technologies: Biotechnology, new media, and ethics (Forthcoming) - Edited by: Naomi Sunderland, Peter Isaacs, Phil Graham, and Bernard McKenna
Editorial Board: Professor Megan Boler, Professor Geoffrey C. Bowker, Dianne McKenna Professor for the Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University, Professor Timothy W. Luke, Professor Wendy Martin, Professor Dr. Helga Nowotny and Professor Joel Weiss

There is also an email discussion and announcement list in conjunction with the Series.
See also Jeremy Hunsinger’s blog: http://www.tmttlt.com/



6. INTERACTIONS: UCLA (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOST ANGELESE, USA) JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AND INFORMATION STUDIES
ISSN 1548 3320
http://repositories.cdlib.org/gseis/interactions/

This is a peer-reviewed ejournal, bringing both education and information together, from a critical perspective. It is edited by students in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and it “…brings together senior and emerging scholars, activists, and professionals whose work covers a broad range of theory and practice.”

InterActions is published twice yearly with funding provided by the UCLA Graduate Students Association and the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.

InterActions provides: “…critical commentary on current issues and [promotes] perspectives in educational and information systems that can service the cause of social justice.”
Submissions can be from traditional areas of inquiry in the field of education and information studies, or from newer interdisciplinary perspectives – e.g. women’s studies, ethnic and cultural studies, film studies, postcolonial theory, critical pedagogy and poststructuralism.
The UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies includes 2 departments – Department of Education and Department of Information Studies. The 2 departments are committed to: “…understand and improve educational practice, information policy, and information systems in a diverse society.” This includes research and professional training.


7. PETER MCLAREN
Professor Peter McLaren is based at UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Peter is also someone that contacted Glenn Rikowski, having read and been inspired by his 2 articles in the British Journal of Sociology of Education (1996 and 1997), which Helen Raduntz referred to in my News Update No. 11 (item 5). Leading on from Peter reading these articles and making contact with Glenn, Glenn then helped to bring Peter back to Marxism (and away from Post-Modernism). Peter and Glenn have maintained an email correspondence ever since then, and they have also written a lot together. In particular, they edited 3 books (also with Professors Dave Hill and Mike Cole):



i) Marxism against postmodernism and educational theory, Lexington Books: USA, 2002,
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marxism-Against-Postmodernism-Educational-Theory/dp/0739103466/ref=sr_1_2/203-1231501-9876729?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179317175&sr=1-2

ii) Postmodernism in educational theory: education and the politics of human resistance, Tufnell Press: London, 1999
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Postmodernism-Educational-Theory-Education-Resistance/dp/1872767818/ref=sr_1_5/203-1231501-9876729?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179317175&sr=1-5

iii) Red Chalk: on schooling, capitalism and politics, The Institute for Education Policy Studies, Brighton, 2001
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Chalk-Schooling-Capitalism-Politics/dp/0952204215/ref=sr_1_6/203-1231501-9876729?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179317175&sr=1-6


Glenn also interviewed Peter for the summer 2006 issue of Information for Social Change. This was entitled: Critical Pedagogy reloaded: an e-interview with Peter McLaren, No 23: http://libr.org/isc/issues/ISC23/C3%20Peter%20McLaren%20and%20Glenn%20Rikowski.pdf




8. LATEST ISSUE OF POLICY FUTURES IN EDUCATION IS NOW OUT
The latest issue of Policy Futures in Education is now out (Vol 5 No. 2) http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/content/pdfs/5/issue5_2.asp.
PFIE is now subscription-based. For subscription details, see:
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/subscriptions/subscriptions.asp


PFIE Spring 2007, Vol. 5, No. 2
Neoliberalism and EducationGuest Editor: DAVID HURSH

Contents:
David Hursh. Introduction

David Gabbard. Militarizing Class Warfare: the historical foundations of the neoliberal/neoconservative nexus

João M. Paraskeva. Kidnapping Public Schooling: perversion and normalization of the discursive bases within the epicenter of New Right educational policies

Pauline Lipman & David Hursh. Renaissance 2010: the reassertion of ruling-class power through neoliberal policies in Chicago

Luis Armando Gandin. The Construction of the Citizen School Project as an Alternative to Neoliberal Educational Policies

Sandra Leaton Gray. Teacher as Technician: semi-professionalism after the 1988 Education Reform Act and its effect on conceptions of pupil identity

Dave Hill. Critical Teacher Education, New Labour, and the Global Project of Neoliberal Capital

Penny Griffin. Neoliberalism and the World Bank: economic discourse and the(re)production of gendered identity(ies)

John Clarke. Citizen-Consumers and Public Service Reform: at the limits of neoliberalism?

REVIEW SYMPOSIUMA Brief History of Neoliberalism (David Harvey), reviewed by Kenneth Saltman and Victoria Perselli

GENERAL ARTICLE: Keith Hammond - Palestinian Universities and the Israeli Occupation

REVIEW ESSAY: Michael A. Peters - Identity, Reason and Violence
Chief Editor of PFIE: Professor Michael Peters


Many thanks to Philip Booth and Jeremy Hunsinger for providing information for items 2, 4 and 5 respectively.


Note: This newsletter does not support any one particular political party. The views expressed by Philip Booth in regard to the Green Party, are Philip’s own personal views.

My personal position is that we find ourselves having to live, work and survive in global capitalism, with all the injustices and suffering that it entails, whether we like it or not! The process of doing this means that we are forced to make some sort of sense of it – also whether we like it or not. In my endeavour to do this, I find that for me, Marxism provides a better analysis, explanation and understanding of capitalism than any other theory or explanation does. Furthermore, that with such an analysis we can then move forward.





Best wishes,

Ruth





19th May 2007

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