[WSIS CS-Plenary] RE: On research 'representativeness' Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] LAUNCH of INTERNET

[Milton Mueller]

>>> mgurst at vcn.bc.ca 07/22/04 08:22AM >>>

>My point was simply to suggest that "research" like all "knowledge" 
>and knowledge oriented activity derives much of its meaning and 
>significance from its context and the more politically charged the 
>subject matter("global Internet policy/governance" for example), 
>the more significant this relationship to the context becomes...

Yes, of course. We agree on this. But as you note, if there are flaws 
in the research that can be attributed to such context, one must
evaluate the research a) after it is done, and b) on the basis
of the content, not the region, skin color gender etc of the 
producers. Meryem (as usual) made this point much more eloquently
and a lot less sarcastically than me. 

Let me try to get this back on a more productive tack. As noted before,
we are searching more a model for *meaningful* networking
and collaboration among geographically distributed IG groups
that would increase diversity of overall efforts, even if it makes 
nost sense for me and my immediate colleagues . We invite people to 
send us papers on current IGP topics, which we can link to or post. 

--MM


-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org] On
Behalf Of Milton Mueller
Sent: July 22, 2004 1:58 AM
To: mgurst at vcn.bc.ca; plenary at wsis-cs.org 
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] RE: On research 'representativeness' Re:
[WSIS CS-Plenary] LAUNCH of INTERNET GOVERNANCE PROJECT


Hmmm, at first your argument seemed reasonable but 
then I realized that it was advanced by a white male from
the North - and only one of them, to boot. (Much less representative
than us - at least we have different age groups and European
ethnicities!) Clearly, your contribution to this discussion ignores the
broader social political and 
cultural context of research and researchers, so I must 
reject it....

I would suggest that if you wish to evaluate research,
you really had better get into the "ins and outs of the particular
research" and not reduce people or their writing to preconceived
categories. This kind of posturing is useless.

--MM

>>> mgurst at vcn.bc.ca 07/21/04 08:51PM >>>
Without getting into the ins and outs of this particular research
project it certainly goes in opposition to most of the recent
discussion/analysis in the philosophy/sociology of science to ignore the
broader (social, political, cultural) context of "research" and of the
"researchers" and including their nationality, gender, intellectual
history (what 'school' they belong to for example) and the
representativeness of the perspectives that are "suggested" by these
circumstances.  

It should be surprising to no one that the more political/policy
sensitive the subject matter the more these contextual circumstances are
broadly (and politically) seen as being of relevance with respect to the
research, its conduct, its outcome and its likely significance.

So let's not be too outraged at having folks somewhat less than
uniformly sympathetic (ie. somewhat suspicious) of a research project
which appears to the outsider to be uniformly northern, Eurocentric, and
male.

MG



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