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.<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 10:08 AM, nathaniel tkacz <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nathanieltkacz@gmail.com">nathanieltkacz@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Hi Michel, Jussi, P2P list,<div><br></div><div>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.�</div>
<div><br></div><div>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.�</div><div>
<br></div><div>A few quick pointers:</div><div><br></div><div>ANT has nothing to do, like Jussi wrote, with the Internet. Actor-Network is a statement about reality.</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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:</div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="http://cspp.oekonux.org/debate/ant-power" target="_blank">http://cspp.oekonux.org/debate/ant-power</a></div><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Let me know if you want anything more, I have quite the catalogue!</div><div><br></div><div>Best</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br clear="all">Nate Tkacz <br><br>School of Culture and Communication<br>
University of Melbourne<br><br>Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/__nate__" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/__nate__</a><br><br>Research Page: <a href="http://nathanieltkacz.net" target="_blank">http://nathanieltkacz.net</a><br>
<br>Current project: <a href="http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/about-2/" target="_blank">http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/about-2/</a><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div></div><div class="h5">On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 7:31 AM, Michel Bauwens <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com" target="_blank">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div></div><div class="h5">
thanks Jussi!<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Parikka, Jussi <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Jussi.Parikka@anglia.ac.uk" target="_blank">Jussi.Parikka@anglia.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<br>
<p><font size="2">Dear Michel<br>
<br>
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...<br>
<br>
<a href="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" target="_blank">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</a><br>
<br>
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...<br>
<br>
best<br>
J<br>
<br>
______________________________________________________<br>
Dr Jussi Parikka<br>
Director of CoDE: The Cultures of the Digital Economy-institute<br>
Reader in Media Theory & History<br>
Co-Director of Anglia Research Centre in Digital Culture (ArcDigital)<br>
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge (UK)<br>
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<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Michel Bauwens [<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com" target="_blank">mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>]<br>
Sent: Wed 16/03/2011 6:10<br>
To: p2p-foundation<br>
Cc: Andy Robinson; phoebe moore; Samuel Rose; Paul B. Hartzog; Parikka, Jussi<br>
Subject: prince of networks and grid group theory<br>
<br>
Dear friends,<br>
<br>
I have a question: should I read Prince of Networks, a biography of Bruno<br>
Latour, as perhaps constitutive of p2p-oriented theorizing? So the question<br>
really is: should I know more about Latour?<br>
<br>
I have only found a version which seems not copy-able or even printable, see<br>
<a href="http://www.re-press.org/book-files/OA_Version_780980544060_Prince_of_Networks.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.re-press.org/book-files/OA_Version_780980544060_Prince_of_Networks.pdf</a><br>
, can this be hacked or has anyone access to another version?<br>
<br>
My second question is for Paul: could you have a look at the theory and book<br>
mentioned below? Comments would be very welcome,<br>
<br>
Michel<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
via<br>
<a href="http://charlesvanderhaegen.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/einstein-capitalism-socialism-machiavelli-and-vested-interests-preventing-clumsy-solutions-for-betterment-of-our-world/" target="_blank">http://charlesvanderhaegen.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/einstein-capitalism-socialism-machiavelli-and-vested-interests-preventing-clumsy-solutions-for-betterment-of-our-world/</a><br>
<br>
This brings me to the subject of a theory - it sails mainly under the name<br>
Cultural Theory but also Theory of Plural Rationality, Grid-Group Theory,<br>
Theory of Socio-Cultural Viability and even Neo-Durkheimian Institutional<br>
Theory -� of which the foundations were lead by Mary Douglas, and<br>
courageously further developed by her followers, the leading researcher of<br>
which is Michael Thompson.<br>
<br>
I strongly recommend the book he edited with Marco Verweij: "Clumsy<br>
Solutions for a Complex World:� Governance, Politics and Plural Perceptions"<br>
published by Palgrave.<br>
<br>
It is a powerful and original statement on why well-intended attempts to<br>
alleviate pressing social ills so often derail, and how effective, efficient<br>
and broadly accepted solutions to social problems can be found.<br>
<br>
It takes its cue from the idea that our endlessly changing and complex<br>
social worlds consist of ceaseless interactions between four organising,<br>
justifying and perceiving social relations. Each time one of these<br>
perspectives is excluded from collective decision-making, governance failure<br>
inevitably result. Successful solutions are therefore creative combinations<br>
of four opposing ways of organising and thinking. The book shows the force<br>
of these theoretically sophisticated, yet simple and practical ideas for a<br>
number of pressing issues from around the World.<br>
<br>
To introduce you to the matter, you might follow the link hereafter. It will<br>
lead you to what is substantially the first chapter of the book:<br>
<a href="https://mercury.smu.edu.sg/rsrchpubupload/3224/SMUPreprint.pdf" target="_blank">https://mercury.smu.edu.sg/rsrchpubupload/3224/SMUPreprint.pdf</a><br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
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