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

Thu Mar 17 09:54:03 CET 2011

thanks Nat!

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 3:35 PM, nathaniel tkacz
<nathanieltkacz at gmail.com>wrote:

> hi michel - responses throughout
>
>>
>>
>> Thank you very much for your comments and attachments, I look forward to
>> news of your completed phd research, for mentioning on the p2p blog,
>>
>> just for info, p2p in the sense we are using at the p2p foundation is not
>> per se linked to the internet, it's essentially a relational dynamic, one of
>> the four mentioned by Alan Page Fiske and which he calls communal
>> shareholding, the only thing we are saying is that this particular dynamic,
>> is expanding as the time/space limitations change through new technological
>> affordances
>>
>
> yes, i am quite familiar with your vision. my reference to the net was
> directed to ANT. people often think it's somehow about the internet because
> it has network in the name.
>
>>
>> as for foucault and Latour, is your summary is true, one would have to
>> dismiss the big phase transitions that have already occured in the past,
>> such as the massive changes involved in the shift from feudalism to
>> capitalism ... I can hardly believe they would deny such overwhelming
>> historical realities ?? or has anything changed in human nature and social
>> structures to make what was once a regular occurence, into an impossibility?
>>
>
> i'm no historian, so i am reluctant to comment here, but foucault was
> always a thinker of continuity and discontinuity. he was critical of the
> idea of revolution as it overlooked the continuities between seemingly
> different governmental forms. the classic example, and one also taken up by
> the frankfurt school, debord and others as well, is sovietism and its
> centralised, totalitarian style. on the other hand, practices and discourses
> that appear continuous (capitalism, liberalism etc) change constantly. this
> is all pretty straightforward i think.
>
> i haven't read latour on the question of large scale change - i don't think
> he has written on it but i could be wrong. i'd guess he wouldn't say it
> isn't possible, just very difficult. he's written a great book about a
> failed attempt to introduce a new form of public transport in paris, titled
> Aramis, where he details the difficulty of implementing a great idea that
> everyone seemingly agrees upon.
>
>>
>> in my almost non-existent knowledge of latour, one thing that struck me as
>> p2p was the relationship with objects,
>>
>
> yes, his work is thoroughly posthuman, but that's another story.
>
> best
>
> nate
>
>>
>> Michel
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 5:08 PM, 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
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
>>>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>

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