Michel, although I´m not involved in this endeavor, I feel so much empathy towards your commitment and generosity that I feel the duty of saying some words for the sake of recognition and encouragement. I´ve been through analogous situations so many times in life when beautiful ideas coupled with generous hearts and minds stumbled on the logic of bureaucracies and paranoia on the part of people who see threats and conspiracies around every corner that I feel so much as mine your frustration and feeling of lack of gratitude. It happens all the time with people driven by care for the wellbeing of others. You are not the first nor the last one to experience it. So I hope you are comforted by the solidarity of all the people who´ve been following your courageous steps , and go ahead. Get as a gift this Brazilian song that says, in my poor translation of the lyrics "Stand up, shake away the the dust, and turn around..." - http://www.cifraclub.com.br/paulo-vanzolini/volta-por-cima/ Best regards Sergio Sérgio Storch 11-3666.9005 - 11-99753.9701 [email protected] Facebook Sergio Storch <https://www.facebook.com/sergio.storch> Blog: www.sergiostorch.com <http://www.contentdigital.com.br> 2014-07-07 17:49 GMT-03:00 Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>:

dear Andreas,

nobody has made that critique, on the contrary, about every postmodern scholar has made it ..

it is in my opinion a quite superficial critique ..

the flok was not about a bunch of foreign experts advising people what to do at all

it was a process that combined input from local civic groups (70 at least, 24 seminars ect ..) and global commoners

at the invitation of the local government, which sees itself as anti-colonialist

originally the project was meant to combine 7 foreigners and 7 local researchers ..

the foreigners in case were not experts dispatched by MNO's but activists

if calling a coworking between local and global commoners as 'colonialist' then the only other solution is pure localism

there was no research from outsiders of indigenous society ... the indigenous scholars wrote their own paper

that is not to say the flok can not be critiqued for colonialist or post-colonial elements, but this requires a bit more than just blanket condemnation because foreigners are involved,

it's a kind of atavistic reaction, not a critique I would say, based on a very superficial understanding of the project

Michel

<< Message: 1 Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2014 19:15:21 +0100 From: Andreas Wittel <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [P2P-F] an evaluation of the flok To: P2P Foundation mailing list <[email protected]> Message-ID: <CAOAyO5Trem8P7nVoXYQCCz= [email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I hesitate to comment on this project, as I have only followed this from a distance. However a good number of comments in this threat make me really nervous. I am reading that 'seeds have been planted', that the FLOK research papers can become part of the commons movement in Equador, that lessons have been learnt and that it is all about doing it better next time.

I'd rather see this as a one-off project and hope sincerely there is no next time where a bunch of experts are aiming to create profound changes in a society they are not really familiar with. This is a post-colonial approach and should be rejected. It is as easy as that.

Every undergraduate anthropology student knows that it is highly problematic to conduct western research in non-western spaces. This is about otherness and authority, about who speaks and who is being researched. All this is common knowledge since the 'writing culture' debate in the mid 1980s.

How much more dubious and arrogant is the FLOK approach, which was not just about researching another (indigenous) society, but about so called experts giving advice for a better living in a country they don't know well. This is so na?ve, it is actually embarrassing. It is us who should learn from them.

Sorry for these harsh words addressed to researchers that I respect a great deal. But nobody has made this critique so far. I cringe at the idea that lessons are being learnt so we can do it better next time. For me this project was politically and ethically wrong. Digital technologies don't make localities disappear. Let's please support p2p structures and the commons movements where we live and where we struggle.

All best,

andreas

-- *Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..*

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

<http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

_______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation

Dear Michel, pls find my responses in between your reply. On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 9:49 PM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:

dear Andreas,

nobody has made that critique, on the contrary, about every postmodern scholar has made it ..

When I said that this critique has not been made I was obviously referring to the thread of this list and not to post-modern literature. Of course this critique bas been made excessively by post-modern scholars. I am very far from post-modernist thinking, but I have never come across any literature that dismisses this argument as superficial, as you do here. Maybe you can elaborate?

it is in my opinion a quite superficial critique ..

the flok was not about a bunch of foreign experts advising people what to do at all

it was a process that combined input from local civic groups (70 at least, 24 seminars ect ..) and global commoners

hm, this is not how flok has been introduced originally on various platforms. All the hype was about the p2p foundation being asked by the Ecuadorian government to develop a plan for a transition of Ecuador's society and economy towards p2p structures. It is a bit pointless to change the story now. So my comments refer to the reading of these first announcements.

at the invitation of the local government, which sees itself as anti-colonialist

It doesn't matter much how the government sees itself, when it does not have the trust of the people. Isn't this an obvious point?

originally the project was meant to combine 7 foreigners and 7 local researchers ..

the foreigners in case were not experts dispatched by MNO's but activists

if calling a coworking between local and global commoners as 'colonialist' then the only other solution is pure localism

I have not used the term colonial but post-colonial. There is a huge difference between these two concepts. Again, what is now presented as co-working and dialogical has earlier been presented in much more ambitious terms as helping to create a better Ecuadorian society.

there was ndio research from outsiders of indigenous society ... the indigenous scholars wrote their own paper

I have not suggested that this was research on indigenous people. I have pointed out that it is naive and arrogant for researchers in the west to fly in a country they don't know very well with a very high percentage of indigenous people to advice them on buen conocer. Isn't it rather ironic that westerners advice a country with a strong indigenous population on how to do the sharing economy?

that is not to say the flok can not be critiqued for colonialist or post-colonial elements, but this requires a bit more than just blanket condemnation because foreigners are involved,

Again you are misreading what I said. I was not talking about foreigners, but about western research in and advice for non-western spaces.

it's a kind of atavistic reaction, not a critique I would say, based on a very superficial understanding of the project

You are right that I don't have a detailed understanding of the flok project. For this reason I hesitated to comment in the first place. I would have kept my mouth shut had I not been worried about the evaluation of flok on this thread. It is less the failed project itself that makes me nervous than a certain refusal to question its political and moral integrity. I detect lots of enthusiasm to try this again, but better. And lots of blaming individuals involved with bad intentions. However I don't see much humble reflexivity and self-critique. While I don't have any intimate knowledge of flok I do know a thing or two about ethnographic research, and I am convinced that these things can be applied to flok and its evaluation. The first thing I know is that it is important to think about research in relation to power. Usually it is a bad idea if the invite to do research or consultancy comes from those who are in power (e.g. the government). The second thing I know is that it is highly problematic to speak for others and to tell people in environments unfamiliar to the researcher how to improve things. Michel, I don't doubt your good intentions for a minute. But good intentions cannot replace the more fundamental questions I am raising. As I said I find it quite worrying that nobody else on this list has raised them. You don't do the p2p-foundation a favour if you dismiss them as an atavistic reaction. best, andreas