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André de Avillez

The rise of morality politics in Africa: Talk is cheap and dangerous, but wins votes - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...p-and-dangerous-but-wins-votes

politics

shared by André de Avillez on 24 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Legislating morality, unlike improving social services like health and education, is nearly costless for politicians. It is also extremely popular
  • In addition to winning votes, however, laws such as the criminalization of homosexuality can also be used opportunistically against both the public and political opposition
  • The anti-homosexuality bill reflects popular sentiment in Uganda, where 90 percent of respondents said that homosexuality was “never justified,
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Recent “moral” legislation extends beyond homosexuality, however, and focusing on the salience of LGBT issues may obscure other arenas in which moral dictates are being employed for political purposes.
  • Legislating morality may seem odd in a country where more than three quarters of survey respondents believe “some of” or “most of” parliamentarians are corrupt, according to Afrobarometer data, but perhaps it is precisely because of their credibility deficit that politicians are employing moral dictates as a nearly costless alternative to delivering the goods and services that are so badly needed.
  • these laws can also be easily converted into tools for political witch hunts
  • In countries where mob justice is a common replacement for weak or non-existent law enforcement, these laws give way to everyday opportunism.
  • André de Avillez on 24 Feb 14
     
    Article on the current trend of legislating morality, and the side effects of such laws
  • André de Avillez on 25 Feb 14
     
    Might be a good one to amplify in relation to this article by Britt Holbrook and Adam Briggle: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23299460.2014.882554#.UwzwEXVdXC1
André de Avillez

The rise of Indigenous art speaks volumes about class in Australia - 0 views

theconversation.com/about-class-in-australia-23032

art politics education

shared by André de Avillez on 24 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The great story of recent Australian art has been the resurgence of Indigenous culture and its recognition as a major art form. But in a country increasingly divided by class and wealth, the rise of Indigenous art has had consequences undreamed of by those who first projected it onto the international exhibiting stage.
  • The continuing success of both traditional and western influenced art forms has led to one of the great paradoxes in Australian culture. At a time when art schools have subjugated themselves to the metrics-driven culture of the modern university system, when creative courses are more and more dominated by the children of privilege, some of the most interesting students and graduates are Indigenous.
  • Because Indigenous students were seen as a special case they managed to avoid the metrification of merit.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Not all Indigenous art students become artists. Some use the project-management skills inherent in making any creative endeavour to move onwards and upwards elsewhere
  • But because there are so many successful Indigenous artists, art remains both readily understood as a pathway out of poverty and a way to argue the cause
  • The poor see things differently
  • In the distant past, when tertiary study was less formalised, less measured than today, visually-talented working-class kids often gravitated to art schools.
  • n Australia the sense of freedom to choose a career seems to have been lost at about the same time as the introduction of HECS in 1989
  • There is a disconnect between the class of people who make and administer the rules and the lived experience of the many. Those who run the world see debt as a tool, a means to a well-considered end, a way to access working capital, a pathway to future wealth.
  • The children of the wealthy, who now dominate undergraduate arts education, know that mainstream culture belongs to them. There is no message of self-belief presented to those working-class students who may wish to take their art further because it was the one school subject that made sense to them.
  • my parents were not prepared to be guarantors for me to take a teaching scholarship
  • Accelerating divisions of class and wealth have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of bright, edgy students from the unfashionable suburbs studying the arts
  • André de Avillez on 24 Feb 14
     
    Article on the impact of a metrics-based university curriculum on arts programs in Australia, which is used to explain the disproportionate success of indigenous students, who are exempt from most metrics at the time of admission.
André de Avillez

The Work of Public Work | Jacobin - 2 views

www.jacobinmag.com/...the-work-of-public-work

DigitalScholarlyCommunication public PublicPhilosophy

shared by André de Avillez on 25 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • At the same time, I want to hold Robin accountable to his desire for a “materialist analysis of the relationship between politics, economics, and culture.”
  • I think he wrongly characterizes the conditions under which many of these young academics are writing
  • The risk of being a public intellectual, he posits, comes from the fact that these scholars are taking time away from their academic writing
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The workload of academics has increased exponentially in recent years, as has been well-documented
  • I have found that writing for popular audiences is not solely an internal passion, but has actually become an external demand of young scholars, another metric by which their job application or tenure-file is evaluated.
  • The problem is that Robin goes on to romanticize the lives of young scholar-writers, saying that their work arises from intrinsic desires, whose realization is made possible by new technology:
  • Young scholars are compelled to transform themselves into academic entrepreneurs, creating a brand that they promote through their blogs, tweets, and online profiles.
  • The swelling workloads of academics are indicative of the micropolitics of neoliberalism
  • The mantra of “publishing early and often” has intensified, especially in a tight job market. As tenured horizons grow grimmer, new scholars must do anything they can to stand out above a crowd of over-achievers. Publish early, publish often — and now, publish online.
  • Consider the website Academia.edu
  • But the site also exemplifies the quantification of the productive self, with each profile displaying the number of views, article downloads, and followers for each academic.
  • It’s no wonder that I’ve also seen a growing number of colleagues (myself included) add a “Public Scholarship” section to their CVs
  • The labor of public intellectualism is more than a political project, or even a charitable effort of self-expression — it’s another manifestation of exploitation
  • As a result, young academics trying to keep up with new media are writing, reading blogs and engaging in Twitter wars during lunch breaks, between teaching commitments, and well into the night.
  • To meet the demands of academic capitalism, there’s now even less of a chance of ever clocking out.
  • Yes, let us praise the young writers whose voices are being seen and heard across the blogosphere, and luxuriate in the possibilities of transcending the borders of the Ivory Tower. But let us not forget that writing, even on the Internet, and even for the “public good,” is still work. And whenever we’re encouraged to do more work, we should be a bit wary.
  • André de Avillez on 25 Feb 14
     
    A response to Corey Robin's response to Kristof's article, raising troubling concerns regarding the commodification of public scholarship.  Seems worth amplifying, in conjunction with the critiques of Kristof's piece or on its own.
André de Avillez

Toxicity: The True Story of Mainstream Feminism's Violent Gatekeepers | - 0 views

www.blackgirldangerous.org/...-feminisms-violent-gatekeepers

feminism race PublicPhilosophy

shared by André de Avillez on 25 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • André de Avillez on 25 Feb 14
     
    Article arguing that concepts like "toxicity" and "politics of reponsibility" reflect white priviledge amongst some feminists
Mark Fisher

"Democracy Online: Civility, Politeness, and the Democratic Potential of Online Politic... - 5 views

www.ict-21.ch/...DemocracyOnline.pdf

PSD Wed. 1_22

shared by Mark Fisher on 16 Oct 13 - No Cached
Mark Fisher liked it
  • Mark Fisher on 21 Jan 14
     
    Skim for Wed. 1/22
Kris Klotz

Comments Policy - New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science - 1 views

www.newappsblog.com/comments-policy.html

PSD policies

shared by Kris Klotz on 14 Jan 14 - No Cached
    • Kris Klotz
      Kris Klotz on 14 Jan 14
       
      New APPS's comments policy. As an example, may be useful for our discussion of deliberation practices.
  • André de Avillez on 17 Jan 14
     
    I generally like New APPS's policies, but we need to do better than them when it comes to respecting the anonymity of commentators. On one occasion, Catarina Novaes partially identified an anonymous commentator by tracing his/her IP address (it came from her office building). I can't find the link to that post at the moment, but it was very bad form on her part (and on the part of other NewAPPS authors, who defended her actions). If we allow users to post anonymously, we must not reveal their identities. If we think that they are hecklers, we can delete their comments and ban them, but not provide any identifying information.
André de Avillez

What is | @Partido_X - 0 views

partidox.org/what-is

public activism collaboration

shared by André de Avillez on 19 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • André de Avillez on 19 Feb 14
     
    A political project that aims to foster democracy by promoting participation and collaboration by citizens
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