A Critical Examination of the History of Communication in Kingston: Technology

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A Critical Examination of the History of
Communication in Kingston Technologys role in
Social Justice in the Kingston Community

• There is properly no history only
  biography-Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Nate Preston, Allan MacAulay, John El-Khazen
• OPIRG Peoples History Project

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OPIRG and the PHP

• Collaborating with
• -Ontario Public Interest Research Group Kingston
• -Peoples History Project
• Records local histories
• Archives are organized into a library of folders
  that
• focus on different local histories
• Focuses on histories or movements which are not
• typically covered in the dominant discourse

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History?

• What is history, given that there is continually
  being produced within it a separation of true and
  false?... what historical knowledge is possible
  of a history that itself produces the true/false
  distinction on which such knowledge depends?
• (Foucault, 2000, p.233)

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Dorris Lessing Prisons We Choose To Live Inside

• There is no epoch in history that seems to us as
  it must have to the people who lived through it.
  What we live through, in any age, is the effect
  on us of mass emotions and of social conditions
  from which it is almost impossible to detach
  ourselves,
• (Lessing, 1986, p.13)

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History

• If history is enmeshed with power structures,
  then our project hopes to decentralize this power
  and bring a voice to those who are not
  represented by the dominant groups charged with
  producing and transmitting these truths.

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Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs)
Montjuic Communications Tower Barcelona, Spain
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What are ICTs?

• -Telephones?
• -Email?
• -Hearing Aids?
• -Books?

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What are ICTs?

• Id like to focus for a moment on the human
  consequences which are particularly evident in
  what are called communications technologies, and
  which I would like to call non-communications
  technologies because very often that word,
  communication is a misnomer. Whenever human
  activities incorporate machines or rigidly
  prescribed procedures, the modes of human
  interaction change.
• (Franklin, 1999, p42)

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Methods

• Qualitative research in the form of interviews
• Promote a space where local ontologies and
  epistemologies can be heard
• Promote Social Justice through cogenerative
  learning
• (Greenwood and Levin, 2007, p.92)

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Methods

• Maintain horizontal group structures by meeting
  regularly and actively promoting communication
  between group members and the PHP
• Must be actively aware of the transformative
  nature of transcriptions
• (Kvale, 1996, p.163)

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Professor Robert Lovelace

• Adjunct Professor in Development Studies, and a
  member of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation
• Has been incarcerated for 6 months and fined
  25,000 for contempt of court (ie. "failing to
  acknowledge" that the Crown has the ability to
  supersede Algonquin law).
• Justice Douglas Cunninghams decision to give
  Professor Lovelace the maximum possible sentence
  has been widely accused of being vastly unfair,
  and Amnesty International has condemned the
  sentence.

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-Facebook group Free Bob Lovelace-Actively
rallying support from Queens, Kingston, and
other communities-5000 Members
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Percentage of Group Members Active on the Group
Wall
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Can this be explained?

• a consumer model of politics has overtaken the
  online world power domination schemes felt by
  citizens in the offline world have transferred to
  the online world.
• (Dahlberg, Lincoln, and Siapera, 2007)
• Can Facebook break from dominant discourse?

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What does the community think?

• Interviewed two leaders of Free Bob Lovelace
• Their views
• Allows instantaneous communication, over great
  distances
• Connects different communities working towards
  common goals
• -Interesting to note communities are
  assumed to be grounded in offline world

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What does the community think?

• Number of active members higher than my pie chart
  suggests
• Many come to events
• Spreading the word is important members may not
  all be active but they can inform themselves

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What does the community think?

• Complain of corporate influence on the internet
• Feel internet is a privilege, not everyone has
  access
• Less tact online, more confrontational
• What generational differences exist if any,
  regarding the use of the Internet as a tool for
  social justice?

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Facebook and Social Justice

• Facebook is seen as a service
• We cannot assume its role is inert
• Lack of reciprocity
• The ramifications of this ICT are a mixed blessing

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What are some definitions of Community?

• Paul Goodman Speaks of the need for direct
  connection to the land and the people, a close
  relation to personal and productive environments
  and, a deeper connection between means of
  livelihood and ways of life.
• Every Community Plan involves
• -Technology
• -Standards of Living
• -Political and Economic Decisions
• -Geography and History of a Place
• (Goodman, 1960, p.7)

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Community

• Biology
• -Any grouping of populations of different
  organisms that are found living together in a
  particular environment
• (Allaby, 1999, community A Dictionary of
  Zoology)

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Community

• Physics?

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(Oxford Reference Library, 2008, A Dictionary of
Physics)
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(Oxford Reference Library, 2008, A Dictionary of
Physics)
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Physics

• Could not find a definition for community!

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Engineers and Community

• Esteva and Prakash criticize think global, act
  local
• (Esteva and Prakash, 1998,
  p.162)
• Legitimizes global paradigm

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Fog Collection in El Tofo

• Fog collection works, but imports Western values
• Successful system abandoned for piped water
  system? associated with Western conception of
  success
• (Dale, 2003, IDRC Research Results)

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So

• How do engineers think local, and act local??!
  Can they?
• Do ICTs require a dramatic change in our
  understanding of what it means to be local?
• Does local refer to geographic proximity only?

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Bibliography
All photos, Flickr. Creative Commons
Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives
License, http//www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
"community"  A Dictionary of Zoology. Ed. Michael
Allaby. Oxford University Press, 1999. Oxford
Reference Online. Oxford University
Press.  Queen's University.  3 March
2008  http//www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.
html?subviewMa inentry t8.e2010 Dahlberg, L.,
Siapera, E. (2007). Radical democracy and the
internet Interrogating theory and practice.
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York
Palgrave Macmillan. Dale, S. (2003). Collecting
fog on el tofo (IDRC Reasearch Results. Ottawa,
Ontario IDRC. Emerson, R. W. (1983). Essays
and lectures. New York Literay Classics of the
United States distributed by The Viking
Press. Esteva, G.,  Prakash, M. S. (Sept-Oct
1994). From global to local thinking. The
Ecologist, 24, n5. p.162(2). Retrieved April 05,
2008, from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale http
//find.galegroup.com/itx/start.do?prodIdEAIM
Facebook. (2008). Press room About facebook.
Retrieved March 30, 2008, 2008, from
http//www.facebook.com.proxy.queensu.ca/press.php
Foucault, M., Faubion, J. D., Hurley, R.
(2000). Power Selections. . New York New
Press.
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Bibliography
Franklin, U. M. (1999). The real world of
technology (Rev. ed.). Toronto, Ont.
Anansi. Goodman, P., Goodman, P. (1960).
Communitas means of livelihood and ways of life
(2d , rev. ed.). New York Vintage Books.
Greenwood, D. J., Levin, M. (2007).
Introduction to action research Social
research for social change (2nd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA London Sage Publications. Kvale, S.
(1996). Interviews An introduction to
qualitative research interviewing. Thousand
Oaks, Calif. Sage Publications. Lessing, D. M.,
CBC Enterprises, Ideas. (1986). Prisons we
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