Feb 15: Networking Arguments
Dear All Good People,
In advance of our discussion of Rebecca Dingo's "Networking Arguments" and Jim Porter's "Recovering Delivery," I include some potential discussion points here:
Heads Up: I'm making Farrell and McDermott's "Claiming Afghan Women" optional for next Tuesday (Feb. 20). It is an excellent case study, and some of you have already found your way to it, but given that Rebecca Dingo will be Skyping into our class on Tuesday, I want to ensure we have time to discuss her work with global girls' development. If you decide to read F&D on your own, consider what narratives are being explicitly (or implicitly) told, and then what narratives are emerging as hegemonic.
See you on Thursday,
In advance of our discussion of Rebecca Dingo's "Networking Arguments" and Jim Porter's "Recovering Delivery," I include some potential discussion points here:
- It will be interesting to consider whether/which aspects of Porter's "digital delivery" paradigm are more or less illuminated by Dingo's "network" paradigm. In other words, in tracing or constructing our "networks" based on policies, summits, or events, how much does access matter. And in what ways should we be thinking about access?
- We may also consider why Dingo chooses to "network" the outcomes of the 1995 Beijing Conference (a.k.a., the Fourth World Conference on Women) rather than to "map" it.
- Is Dingo's approach comparative (a la Mao)? Transnational? Something utterly different?
- As you navigate Dingo's chapter, take note of some of the "interactions and negotiations between localities and larger global processes" (Dingo 11). Take note of anything Dingo describes that sounds like a "contact zone."
- We are observing how megarhetorics become disseminated (or transformed) through networks; how "universal" concepts like empowerment, activism, corporate humanitarianism, development, democracy, and sustainability have to be circulated and embraced in order to have authority and meaning. These concepts become authoritative and meaningful as a result of people's actions and reactions to them. What occurs when such networks become promoted to the level of "discourse"? What role do we play in the delivery and reception of those discourses (whether or not we think they are our responsibility)?
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| Map view of reported SARS cases, c. 2003 (2003, Nature.com) |
See you on Thursday,
-Dr. Graban