[P2P-F] an evaluation of the flok as colonialist

[Andreas Wittel]

Dear Michel,

pls find my responses in between your reply.


On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 9:49 PM, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
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
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