[P2P-F] prince of networks and grid group theory

Wed Mar 16 22:45:08 CET 2011

Hi all - sent below email yesterday but it bounced because of the pdf
attachments. if anyone wants copies of the books i mention i can email
directly.

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 10:08 AM, nathaniel tkacz
<nathanieltkacz at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Michel, Jussi, P2P list,
>
> My PhD thesis is somewhat of an ANT-informed analysis of political
> openness, read through the case study of Wikipedia. I wish it were done, so
> I could give you a sense of what an ANT account of P2P might look - although
> I'm by no means a faithful disciple! I see ANT more as a method-ontology: it
> is a set of claims about reality that in turn proposes a particular type of
> analysis. There is most definitely a politics to it, but it's not really
> activist. Indeed, I would suggest that for Latour, much like Foucault but
> for different reasons, massive change of the type envisioned by p2p is not
> possible.
>
> Anyway, I won't get into it unless there is a desire to have a conversation
> about it. I've attached Prince of Networks, Reassembling the Social and also
> John Law's After Method.
>
> A few quick pointers:
>
> ANT has nothing to do, like Jussi wrote, with the Internet. Actor-Network
> is a statement about reality.
>
> Harman's book is an exposition of the philosophy that underpins Latour's
> work. It's definitely helpful, but it's a very particular take.
>
> If I was to read an explication of ANT I would start with John Law's After
> Method. I think it's better than Reassembling the Social.
>
> Finally, although it's not an explication of ANT and P2P, I recently had a
> well-intentioned but heated debate with Johan Soderberg and Mathieu O'Neil
> over at the CSPP Journal about ANT and activism. You can find it here:
>
> http://cspp.oekonux.org/debate/ant-power
>
> It seems that in Europe ANT has quite a bad wrap and is seen as an apology
> for capitalism or anything else conservative or boring. Here in the land of
> Oz, the cultures seem more fresh and lively and more philosophical. Latour
> is read in the tradition of Deleuze, Serres, Foucault (for me anyway) and
> other process-based thinkers.
>
> Let me know if you want anything more, I have quite the catalogue!
>
> Best
>
>
>
> Nate Tkacz
>
> School of Culture and Communication
> University of Melbourne
>
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/__nate__
>
> Research Page: http://nathanieltkacz.net
>
> Current project: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/about-2/
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 7:31 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> thanks Jussi!
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Parikka, Jussi <
>> Jussi.Parikka at anglia.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Dear Michel
>>>
>>> well, I am biased, as I have always liked Latour's work - even if its not
>>> without its problems. I have been glancing at Prince of Networks, but would
>>> also recommend Reassemblign the Social by Latour himself; in terms of P2P,
>>> there interesting texts include that is called something like "On the
>>> difficulty of ANT", which is written as if an interview, and makes the point
>>> that actor-network-theory is not necessarily about "networks" in the
>>> concrete sense we often think they are...
>>>
>>>
>>> http://books.google.de/books?id=DlgNiBaYo-YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=reassembling+the+social&hl=de&ei=uWWATc-2MIrMswb7qcXlBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
>>>
>>> So definitely no direct translation to P2P perhaps, but that might make
>>> the task to think P2P through only more interesting... to use Latour to
>>> think of the various levels, scales, actants of which P2P is constituted:
>>> from human actions to legal frameworks, physical infrastructures to social
>>> desires, all meshed and mixed...
>>>
>>> best
>>> J
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________________
>>> Dr Jussi Parikka
>>> Director of CoDE: The Cultures of the Digital Economy-institute
>>> Reader in Media Theory & History
>>> Co-Director of Anglia Research Centre in Digital Culture (ArcDigital)
>>> Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge (UK)
>>>
>>> T: 0845 196 2851 (direct in UK)
>>> F: <%2B44%20%280%291223%20417707>+44 (0)1223 417707
>>>
>>> http://jussiparikka.net
>>> http://www.anglia.ac.uk/code
>>> http://www.anglia.ac.uk/arcdigital
>>>
>>> *Book news*: Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology is
>>> published by University of Minnesota Press:
>>> http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/P/parikka_insect.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Michel Bauwens [mailto:michelsub2004 at gmail.com<michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>>> ]
>>> Sent: Wed 16/03/2011 6:10
>>> To: p2p-foundation
>>> Cc: Andy Robinson; phoebe moore; Samuel Rose; Paul B. Hartzog; Parikka,
>>> Jussi
>>> Subject: prince of networks and grid group theory
>>>
>>> Dear friends,
>>>
>>> I have a question: should I read Prince of Networks, a biography of Bruno
>>> Latour, as perhaps constitutive of p2p-oriented theorizing? So the
>>> question
>>> really is: should I know more about Latour?
>>>
>>> I have only found a version which seems not copy-able or even printable,
>>> see
>>>
>>> http://www.re-press.org/book-files/OA_Version_780980544060_Prince_of_Networks.pdf
>>> , can this be hacked or has anyone access to another version?
>>>
>>> My second question is for Paul: could you have a look at the theory and
>>> book
>>> mentioned below? Comments would be very welcome,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> via
>>>
>>> http://charlesvanderhaegen.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/einstein-capitalism-socialism-machiavelli-and-vested-interests-preventing-clumsy-solutions-for-betterment-of-our-world/
>>>
>>> This brings me to the subject of a theory - it sails mainly under the
>>> name
>>> Cultural Theory but also Theory of Plural Rationality, Grid-Group Theory,
>>> Theory of Socio-Cultural Viability and even Neo-Durkheimian Institutional
>>> Theory -  of which the foundations were lead by Mary Douglas, and
>>> courageously further developed by her followers, the leading researcher
>>> of
>>> which is Michael Thompson.
>>>
>>> I strongly recommend the book he edited with Marco Verweij: "Clumsy
>>> Solutions for a Complex World:  Governance, Politics and Plural
>>> Perceptions"
>>> published by Palgrave.
>>>
>>> It is a powerful and original statement on why well-intended attempts to
>>> alleviate pressing social ills so often derail, and how effective,
>>> efficient
>>> and broadly accepted solutions to social problems can be found.
>>>
>>> It takes its cue from the idea that our endlessly changing and complex
>>> social worlds consist of ceaseless interactions between four organising,
>>> justifying and perceiving social relations. Each time one of these
>>> perspectives is excluded from collective decision-making, governance
>>> failure
>>> inevitably result. Successful solutions are therefore creative
>>> combinations
>>> of four opposing ways of organising and thinking. The book shows the
>>> force
>>> of these theoretically sophisticated, yet simple and practical ideas for
>>> a
>>> number of pressing issues from around the World.
>>>
>>> To introduce you to the matter, you might follow the link hereafter. It
>>> will
>>> lead you to what is substantially the first chapter of the book:
>>> https://mercury.smu.edu.sg/rsrchpubupload/3224/SMUPreprint.pdf
>>>
>>>
>>> --
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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