As to owen’s provocations, I can’t find too much to disagree with except: 1) variation is the exception that proves the rule in terms of what acacemics expect from their work and whether they make it public… I refuse to generalize and 2) thanks for the feedback on the twobits site… spam (yes always an annoying problem that I cannot keep up with) and encouraging conversation… I promise to try harder and I felt like I was already promoting it too much, so I’m glad to hear from at least one person that it isn’t the case

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I am very thankful that we were not significantly hindered by AAA or anyone else in this effort. I cannot describe them yet in public, but the article has had some rather dramatic and positive effects in some (non-AAA) corners of the scholarly communications landscape in which I work. Not all communal impacts of a piece like this show up in clear, recognizable formats. Thanks then to everyone who has been reading and thinking about the piece, even if they are not commenting on or remixing it in public places. I am presently very excited by some of the more private effects that it is having.

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Consider this post an act of sophistry. I don’t necessarily agree with myself, but the discussion triggered a few ideas. React away, but please do it playfully.

[controversy]

Come on you guys make this sound like such a complicated issue. The reason academics avoid collaborative settings is they have no faith in their work, since they are stuck writing about traditional topics (fields of care?) that are of no interest to a larger community.

The fact is anthropology bores anthropologists and the public alike. It is written to prove that one works hard, and that one is disciplined. More simply, it is written to get jobs, and to keep jobs.

We tactically pick up language that we understand will empower us within the anthropological community, and through that language specialization we separate ourselves from possible collaborators.

The internet has revolutionized our ability to communicate and collaborate at a distance. It is simply much easier now to work within a larger group of people. I believe it is revolutionizing the topics anthropologists deal with, and making obsolete traditional “fields of care”. [this is in part due to increased collaboration with those outside the field, who bring different interests.]

That so many academics refrain from publicizing their work, or even allowing it to be promoted publicly is revealing of that feeling anthropologists have deep down, that they do what they do as part of a job and less as a service to others.

Who is worrying that digital archives are not as robust as paper? From discussions I’ve had with librarians, digital is the way to go. They take online subscriptions over print subscriptions whenever possible (maybe this is just cost related? interesting angle to investigate…)

Scientists actually have more to gain from hiding their work. Most scientists work for private institutions that do not allow early publishing of results (or publishing results at all). It’s misleading to say that hard sciences are more willing to publish early.

“but that would have been too much of a free for all, and relates to my point that the tools don’t necessarily support the kinds of collaborations we know well and care about.”

- Too much of a free for all, and yet free for all discussions are possibly more valuable than the discussion you finally published. I think that’s the root of the issue. Journal publications in anthropology serve no purpose aside getting jobs and promotions. They do not help society, they do not help communities, they help anthropologists! This demands a complete reworking of anthropological fields of care, and I say increased collaboration among academics and others is doing this. [big question: how does publishing in a closed journal help anyone other than the anthropologist?] I’m not asking anthro’s to save the world, (that would be nice though), but I’ve found arguments for making research relevant to involved communities to be very convincing.

And for students who aren’t publishing yet, these tools are extremely liberating, since it gives us a place in the overall discussion. Aka, we become team members and not grunts.

Kelty, I think your Two Bits site could be very effective if you give it time and continue to work on it. Last I checked it needed a spam filter really badly. The fact it had hundreds of spam posts as comments stopped me from contributing my pesky commentary!. I was impressed with the work that went into setting up a means to publish comments on your work, and I hope you keep pushing it (since you didn’t push it much here on Savage Minds.)

What would really work is getting a class to read it and contribute ideas online. Let them do it anonymously for those who are nervous about making fools of themselves in public (some of us enjoy it more than others! :) ) And yes, academics credit is definitely part of the game. The attempt to be promoted, marked, and eventually paid certainly does influence where I think.

[/controversy]

One love,
Owen.

p.s.
boo to Anthrosource for failing to make your OA publication OA.

I’m sitting here pondering the submit button. I’m playing with a position, but I’m not locked down even if it sounds like I am!

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Perhaps a central challenge will be to rethink the way that such credit is given and administered. Already now, smaller contributions like reviews and comments are typically acknowledged for such contributions at the beginning of a book or in a footnote in a paper. Perhaps such work could result in more formal credit?

I suspect that the writerly and artistic sensibility typical within cultural anthropology, which Rex hints at, is part of the problem, since anthropologists become so attached to their work (as part of their work of personal transformation?) that they’re unwilling to let be commented and developed in a more collaborative setting.

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2. There are also ‘fast’ ‘scholarly’ projects — to wit, ‘science’. I’ve often been struck by the way that cultural anthropology types don’t want people to read their work until it is completely and totally polished (and sometimes not even then!). The Archaeology and Physical Anthro folks that I know tend to have publication sensibilities that are more similar to what I’ve seen working in the physical sciences — publish early, often, get the data (and that fact that they are _your_ data) out there as soon as possible, preferably before the journal article is actually published.

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In turn, this is also related to the issue of power. The seven of us get special credit for what we’ve done, and the commentators would get less, far less maybe. I tried to convince about 12 people to become “special commentators” on the piece, to open up new questions, respond critically or what not… but no one wanted to, probably because the action in creating the piece was over in an academic sense… such commentators don’t get to put it on their cv–but we do. And that simple issue, what we can put on a cv, is a huge determinant of what we can and will do in terms of our contribution to the millions of good projects there are in the world.

Add to that issue of power, the one that prompted the piece in the first place… the editors of CA wanted me, in particular, and Michael Fischer, who is an established and respected scholar, to lend legitimacy to the issue of Open Access through my expertise, and my new book, and through Dr. Fischer’s status. We are all fed up with the AAA treating OA as if it is a minor issue of accounting and publishing strategies, rather than a core part of our professional mission, and wanted to drawn on what little power and authority we have to do that in this case.

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One dimension I would add to your account is power – the old Manchester School of anthropology focus on conflict within and across political fields (broadly defined). Far from being an aberration to be averted at all costs, conflict is part and parcel of any “field of care”. Fields of care are also battlefields, to use Bourdieu’s idiom.

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I read the article, and enjoyed it thoroughly. It raises questions regarding authorship and scholarly authority, which are very worthwhile. Considering those in turn:

Authorship. I find myself returning to what David Weinberger et al wrote in the Cluetrain Manifesto about the importance of speaking with a human voice online. All of our identity and presence is oftentimes reduced to our textual voice, and finding our own personal, and openly human voices is so important. That was the best part of the article: The fact that I could tell that it was an earnest discussion between seven people, each offering their own perspectives – and obviously not agreeing on all of the issues.

Scholarly authority. Journals and Publishers lend their authority and brand to every article and they publish. Changing that would mean moving the trust from institutions to people, to faces who publicly review and comment upon articles as work-in-progress. I like the notion of the blogosphere as a world of first drafts, where articles can be in public beta, slowly maturing as people read and comment on it. Adding their voices to the mix. Latour talks about the scientific article as a black box of all the work it took to get that far – perhaps we should upon it up a little and show all the blind ends and mistakes it takes to make it that far?

I think perhaps the core issue at stake here is not the means of distribution or access, but rather the end-product. Why aren’t people modulating the article or Two Bits? Because they are obviously finished, peer-reviewed and packaged to impress. There is no obvious room for improvement, only review and follow-up discussion like this.

But if either had a big BETA sign on them, had a TODO file listing needed improvements, or came with a note asking for specific comments. People – like me – would read them differently. I would read not only to learn and reflect, but also to suggest improvements in the text as I went along. It would enter my field of care in a much easier way, as I would feel that I was part of a grander (new, exciting) process – not some academic afterthought.

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Chris’ comments are very interesting and fruitful as always. I hope to come back to them as soon as I can. In the meantime, I wanted to share this link for the benefit of Zora, Henry and others who might be seeking the paper.

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