I just got back from 4S, which happens to be one of my favorite of the “large” professional association conferences. Ok, 15 minutes to deliver talk is the equivalent of being treated as canned sardines, and thus totally unpleasant, but I feel like I can go to most any talk and find it relevant or interesting to my own work. I t is certainly more manageable too in terms of size than something like the AAAs which also gives you a paltry 15 minutes to present and worse, the association has been treading in some ethically problematic territory lately, so much so, I would rather throw my money to the other
While in Vancover, my Internet access was near to nothing (I was staying with a friend who I have not seen since the summer of 2002, but alas, thanks to chatting we have been in pretty consistent contact). When I came back I came across some discouraging but not so surprising new news on the AAA and their cowardly decision to fight the FRPAA that would mandate open access for articles derived from federally funded research… The cherry on top of the cake was they dissolved the AnthrSource Steering Committee formed precisely to figure out how to open up access, no less!
Alex Golub, a Savage Minds blogger, and a now ex-member of AnthroSource committee has written an excellent roundup of the story (link above) and Peter Suber, also has two very nice summaries, including links to the appropriate documentation.
This year since I am curtailing my time on the conference circuit, I decided not to go to the AAA conference because frankly I am totally annoyed with the professional organization. I am usually quite proud to be or at least amused after I tell folks that I am am anthropologists (most react as if I had decided to embark on some real courageous path) but I am quite embarrassed about the association that is supposed to represent my interests and the profession at large.
The links on SM point to and flesh out the problems with AAA’s refusal to jump on an exciting opportunity to free up some knowledge but I want to just emphasize three of the most problematic parts of their decision:
1.The most offensive part is that in reality the proposed bill is quite conservative in so far as it only asks for what should already be (a) given. That is, if the government is using tax dollars to fund research, it has every right to demand the fruits of such scholarship is made available to tax payers. Right? Given the neoliberal moment we are in, in which the government is retrehcnhing on all sorts of supports, this bill is admirable and I am afraid that if it does not pass it can be easily used by conservatives to justify future cuts of such funds. And given the very uncontroversial nature of the bill, it is not surprising that so many of the social science and humanities associations did not protest the bill… Anthropology sticks out as a sore sore thumb in fact.
2. The AAAs deployed FUD tactics to justify their position saying that open access would jeopardize peer review… Sigh. That is just so off the mark and the AnthroSource steering committee letter addressed this point well.
3. Many anthropologist know first-hand how appalling access outside of Europe, US, Australia, Japan etc, can be, even for academics and thus, AAA’s lack of support for this is also implicitly sanctions the “North” “South” Division that have plagued the field and all of academia so long. And for a field that has often been very thoughtful about these power/knowledge dynamics, it is doubly even more stinging… Is there really such a strong disconnect between the association and discplinary ethical currents?