OUT NOW: TOD#40 Covid-19 From The Margins

Theory on Demand #40
COVID-19 from the Margins.
Pandemic Invisibilities, Policies and Resistance in the Datafied Society
Edited by Stefania Milan, Emiliano Treré and Silvia Masiero

 

COVID-19 from the Margins: Pandemic Invisibilities, Policies and Resistance in the Datafied Society stems from the blog ‘COVID-19 from the Margins’, launched in May 2020 to amplify the multilingual voices of social groups and individuals silenced in the overly-quantified narrative of the pandemic. Featuring contributions in five idioms, the anthology explores five core themes of the first pandemic of the datafied society seen from the perspective of the disempowered: human invisibilities and the politics of counting; perpetuated vulnerabilities and inequalities; datafied social policies; technological reconfigurations in the datafied pandemic; and pandemic solidarities and resistance from below. The five themes offer a snapshot of the social costs of the pandemic in countries as diverse as South Africa, China, Peru, Iran, Spain, New Zealand, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia—and counting. It gives voice to the untold stories of communities struggling to survive in the crisis, such as gig workers, indigenous groups, domestic violence survivors, impoverished families and vulnerable people, racialized individuals, migrants, rural dwellers, and the LGBTQ+ community.

COVID-19 from the Margins caringly and thoughtfully demonstrates why the multiplicity we call “the poor” is more than ever at the receiving end of the worst effects of globalized, patriarchal/colonial racist capitalism. But they are not passive victims, for their everyday forms of activism and re-existence, including their daily tweaking of the digital for purposes of community, care, and survival, has incredible insights about design and digital justice that this book takes to heart as we strive to undo the lethal effects of “the first pandemic of the datafied society”,’ wrote anthropologist Arturo Escobar (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill & Universidad de Caldas, Manizales) commenting on the book.

The book is a multilingual conversation that celebrates linguistic and cultural diversity but also de-centers dominant ways of being and knowing while contributing a decolonial approach to the narration of the COVID-19 crisis. Moreover, it brings researchers, activists, practitioners, and communities on the ground into dialogue to offer timely, critical reflections in near-real time and in an accessible language. The result is a heterogeneous, polycentric and pluriversal narration, which invites the reader to enact and experience the “Big data from the South(s)” approach as an interpretive lens to read the pandemic.

Order and download to the book HERE

Preservation of Digital Blog-Posts

A Literature Review, January 2021

The goal of this literature review was to gain an understanding of the current status of research on the topic of digital blog preservation. After conducting a series of searching within the database LISTA (Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts), one can determine that there are little to no recent developments in technology or research specifically for the access/preservation of digital blog posts.

Unsurprisingly, much of the scholarly conversation about blog/microblog preservation took place between 2002 and 2010. 

Thoughts on Blog Preservation

Despite the varying opinions that blogs are either easier or more difficult to preserve than other digital communications, scholars agree that blogs and microblogs have unique qualities that deserve scholarly discussion.  

According to Patsy Baudoin, many blogging websites utilize software that automatically preserves the sequencing of posts (2008). This innate quality of the software supports the archiving principles of “original order” and “provenance”. However intelligent the blogging software appears to be, blogs and other user-generated content are especially vulnerable to link rot (Banks, 2010).

Blogs can become complex to preserve because they may contain various file formats, media, or have several owners (Baudoin, 2008). To add to this sentiment, Grimard (2005) states that the variety of formats adds to the “opaqueness” of digital records (opaqueness referring to the unnatural structure of electronic information that is only computer-readable).

To maintain the integrity of the blog during the preservation process, the digital archivist would have to consider preserving the additional external links within the original blog post. Furthermore, copyright can be an issue in certain blog preservation circumstances, as there have been several cases brought to the US Supreme Court (Chen, 2005).

Preservation Technology

Open-source technologic advancements in blog preservation have been disappointing at best. According to Caroline Young, there have been several programs for blog preservation that have essentially failed soon after conception (2013).

Some examples are PANDORA by the National Library of Australia, and ArchivePress by the University of London’s Computer Centre and British Library Digital Preservation department. Young mentions a developing blog preservation software called BlogForever, which was still in development in 2013. Now, it seems to be available for use and claims to be a new system to harvest, preserve, manage and reuse blog content.

Young (2013), Banks (2010), Rosenthal (2016), and Chen (2010) all highlight the impact made by the introduction of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine has simproved the landscape of digital preservation of grey literature like bog posts; however, it is not without its challenges. Much like other archiving software, it has difficulty with images and audio files. 

Solutions to the Preservation Problem

Though an older article, Grimard (2005) offers some solutions to digital preservation that are still relevant. One important recommendation is to standardize the format of the information. The recommendation is echoed by Young (2013). Both authors emphasize the importance of converting files to the most usable format. Since file formats are simply a set of conventions that software developers can change and alter, they may become obsolete. Young describes the universal XML format as being hierarchical and organized logically. 

LOCKSS is a blog preservation software mentioned in both Leroy (2018) and Rosenthal (2016). It is an open-source software designed with libraries in mind. It also claims to preserve animations, data sets, images, audio, and text content.

Conclusion

The scholarly conversation on the preservation and conservation of blog content has slowed in the past decade. This could be because the options currently available are adequate for the need of blog preservation.

Blogs and microblogs are comprised of various formats that can contribute to the challenges in digital preservation. According to research in the early 2010s, images, animations, and audio files, which blogs usually contain, are difficult to preserve with the Wayback Machine. This may have improved in the more recent years.

There are also preservation software options like the LOCKSS and BlogForever that seems to be more targeted toward archiving blog content than the Wayback Machine is.

Reference List

Chen, X. (2010). Blog Archiving Issues: A Look at Blogs on Major Events and Popular Blogs. Internet Reference Services Quarterly15(1), 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/10875300903529571

Baudoin, P. (2008). On Preserving Blogs for Future Generations. The Serials Librarian53(4), 59–61. https://doi.org/10.1300/J123v53n04_04

Farace, D., & Schöpfel, J. (Eds.). (2010). Chapter 14. Blog Posts and Tweets: The Next Frontier for Grey Literature. In Grey Literature in Library and Information Studies (pp. 217–226). K. G. Saur. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783598441493.2.217

Grimard, J. (2005). Managing the Long-term Preservation of Electronic Archives or Preserving the Medium and the Message. Archivaria, 153–167.

Leroy, A. (2018). LOCKSS Distributed Digital Preservation Networks. Université libre de Bruxelles. Belgium. ISSN, 9. https://nusl.techlib.cz/en/conference/conference-proceedings

Rosenthal, D. S. H. (2017). The medium-term prospects for long-term storage systems. Library Hi Tech35(1), 11–31. http://dx.doi.org.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/10.1108/LHT-11-2016-0128

Young, C. (2013). Oh My Blawg! Who Will Save the Legal Blogs? Law Library Journal105(4), 493–503.

Cottagecore as a budding anti-capitalist movement

Among many online subcultures and communities, there is an online space which rejects Internet-era aesthetics in exchange for the soft glow and calm reminiscent of romantic paintings. Rustic picnics, flowing garments, embroidery tutorials and tours of cosy homes await on the cottagecore tag on TikTok, the uber-popular social media app that lets users edit, share, watch, and interact with short videos.

While it seems nothing more than a meeting place for users with common interests in baking, nature and vintage fashion, a closer look at this aesthetic movement reveals many surprising facets. The potentially transformative effects it may have on young people’s pace of life, their perception of labour, success, and the relationship with the natural world are just a few of the most promising ones.

Popularisation

main page of cottagecore tag on TikTok showing six videos

Even though the cottagecore aesthetic seems to have originated on Tumblr around 2017, it noticeably gained popularity on TikTok in early 2020, attracting over 5 billion views under its hashtag. It comes as no surprise that in 2020, COVID-19-induced lockdowns made cottagecore very appealing, allowing users to experience the great outdoors from the comfort of their own homes, and learn how to do a variety of indoor-friendly activities. It may not be a coincidence that the early-2020 craze of sourdough baking happened just as cottagecore rose up the ranks of popular Internet gen-z aesthetics. However, cottagecore is not just another distraction from real-life struggles, nor a fleeting hobby for young people to perform. Somewhere amongst the well-timed crochet transitions, uplifting classical music scores and tonnes of vintage lace sits a revolutionary idea; one of domestic labour that exists outside of the oppressive forces of both the patriarchy and late capitalism.

In cottagecore imaginaries, men rarely make an appearance. Most social media users appearing in cottagecore corners of the Internet are young women – especially non-heteronormative ones – and non-binary people, both as content creators and those who interact with the content. This link cannot be incidental and has been noted already, framing cottagecore as an aesthetic that offers an escape from patriarchal hierarchies, facilitating a dream of a wholesome life with a loved one away from homophobia and misogyny. The term ‘cottagecore lesbian’ is coined, and it is as charming as indicatory of unfavourable conditions so many queer women endure, either in total invisibility or as subjects of rampant sexualisation. In cottagecore imaginaries, queer couples are free to be together in private and public spaces. There is no shame or scapegoating, just a comfortable, happy life.

TikTok screenshot of a field of white flowers and an outstretched hand cottagecore post on TikTok

However, the reality of being queer outside of the city is much less accommodating. Perhaps the line between daydreaming and escapism is rather thin, and the movement did gain some criticism for its escapist and romanticising tendencies. VOX writer Rebecca Jennings points out the cottagecore paradox of longing for a modest life in the countryside: “Indeed, cottagecore ignores the fact that rural areas have always been unattainable for some and inescapable for others.” Still, participating in the cottagecore community, not unlike other aesthetic online movements, rarely leads to drastic changes IRL. Their appeal lies in the ease with which one can participate and quit; all it takes is to swipe into another TikTok community, or close the app. On top of that, it would be counter-productive to discard a community for offering temporary online refuge from real-life oppression. As long as it does not lead to propagating other types of (less conscious, perhaps) oppression, cottagecore has the capabilities to allow for a re-imagination of community bonds and ways of life in a more collective and less exploitative future. At its best, community-building is one of the Internet’s few assets, but it is a two-sided coin, and some users do utilise it for malicious causes.

Darker side

It may be surprising that a queer-friendly and anti-patriarchy online movement/aesthetic crosses paths with something much more sinister; namely, the TradWife community (which stands for Traditional Wife). On her blog, writer Shannon McNamara notes that the two may enjoy some similar imagery, but present wildly different sets of values. TradWife online communities propagate the blood-and-soil narrative of white supremacy, imagining a return to the days of female servitude and unpaid, oppressive domestic labour performed under the guise of fulfilling the ‘natural order’ of gender roles. Images of plaid-haired blonde women in flowy dresses tending to domestic activities indoors and cultivating the land align perfectly with fascist and white supremacist fantasies of male domination and a return to a pre-modern and pre-industrial way of life; of course, at the high cost of personal liberty and freedom of marginalised groups.

Set against this oppressive dystopian landscape of servitude and exploitation, cottagecore emerges as a much brighter image of diverse and progressive countryside life where individuals need not serve an individual or profit-making structures that exhibit discriminatory viewpoints and promote different types of violence. Here, activities which are considered traditionally feminine matter because they can bring enjoyment, not because they are useful to, or expected from, a patriarchal figure. The misogynistic connotations connected to activities like cooking, crocheting or sewing are actively rejected. Here, there is the freedom to enjoy these tasks and not be mocked for them or associated with a certain type of femininity. Cottagecore imagines a space where women and gender-nonconforming people can experiment with signifiers of traditional femininity with no strings attached and no consequences. This approach stands in stark contrast to the controlling TradWife narrative that fulfils a white supremacist fantasy. In order to not be complicit in this small yet problematic overlap of aesthetics, cottagecore enthusiasts must remain vigilant not to promote or share content originating from TradWife social media accounts, and speak out against the continuing shadow-banning people of colour – especially black people – experience on TikTok. At its best, cottagecore can be a pro-LGBTQ+ and anti-racist community. Further education on anti-racism and anti-colonialism can help to achieve this goal; this, too, can be found on the app, and users often recommend further offline reading, encouraging individuals to continue learning.

Reframing labour

The concept of exploitative labour seems to be non-existent from cottagecore fantasies. In these images and video clips, all labour is domestic and/or creative, and it is performed based on the needs of the individual(s) appearing in the content. There is no excess production exploitation of the natural environment, or aspiration to make financial gains. Cottagecore is anti-capitalist at its core, exchanging constant productivity, hustle culture and accumulation of private wealth for slow living, environmentally conscious practices and seeking value in actions and habits that do not generate an income. While the popularity of cottagecore aesthetics coincides with a combination of recent events like COVID-19 lockdowns, a boom in Victorian-stylised TV shows and Taylor Swift’s hit album evermore, it is also undoubtedly a reaction to an overstimulated and oversaturated life many young people are living. We resent some of our modern technologies but rely on them, nevertheless. We want to plan our futures but are facing an ecological disaster. The attention economy drains our vitality. Even though the irony of accessing cottagecore through the very same social media apps we critique is not lost on me, I do believe this aesthetic and its community can teach valuable lessons about slow living, the importance of offline hobbies, and the possibility to be fulfilled by things other than financial gain and material wealth. Cottagecore offers a glimpse into a future in which individuals are less concerned with their status, and more in tune with the intrinsic value of everyday tasks. Activities that may seem as mundane and even ‘unproductive’ in late capitalist modes of thinking become restorative and calming, serving as reminders that there is so much to appreciate in our ability to create, feed ourselves, and construct our living spaces.

a picnic spread of food and drinkOn the other hand, we must be aware of the accidental consumer-oriented tone some cottagecore videos do fall into. Lavish tours of twee yet expertly renovated nineteenth-century homes, clothing hauls of sustainable/vintage collections and recipes shown in meticulously decorated rustic kitchens can all add up to make cottagecore a high-cost lifestyle. However, rather than focusing on the material aspects of some of the content, many cottagecore fans praise the movement for embracing low-waste and DIY practices. They insist that people should not feel pressured to purchase products to feel part of the community. Baking bread, embroidering a jumper, going for a nature walk or reading second-hand books are just a few examples of activities that fit into this aesthetic. Cottagecore content creator and baker, NY-based Noemie Serieux explains that cottagecore helps people find pockets of joy and peace, even in an otherwise fast-paced big city lifestyle. Serieux also compares cottagecore to her Caribbean upbringing, pointing out that both involve simple, sustainable living and DIY. Indeed, as long as individuals are aware of the consumerist potential of cottagecore, they will be able to participate in a way that matches their circumstances and monetary situation. In the end, breaking the bank ‘for the aesthetic’ would go against cottagecore’s homespun and upcycled essence.

It becomes clear that young people facing a kaleidoscope of uncertainties and worries find refuge in the romanticised microcosm of cottagecore, and can emerge from it more critical of systems that make this peaceful lifestyle so unattainable in the first place. Continuing the conversation about these aspects of cottagecore will make the community even more self-aware of this budding potential.

Framing the Third Reich: A new approach to National Socialist photography

Framing the Third Reich: A new approach to National Socialist photography

by Yinuo Meng

Can scholars take the Third Reich’s artistic legacy as a serious object of investigation, without losing sight of its sensitive and problematic origin?

For a long time, the answer seemed to be no. Tainted by their celebration of National Socialism’s racist ideology, Third Reich arts have been either glossed over or discussed solely pejoratively by art historians. However, 75 years after the collapse of Nazi Germany, OBP’s new Open Access essay collection seeks to offer a different answer. Photography in the Third Reich: Art, Physiognomy and Propaganda invites us to revisit this question by zooming in on Third Reich photography with an inter-disciplinary approach.

This book takes a deep dive into the works of prominent photographers who embraced National Socialism during the Third Reich, such as Erna Lendvai-Dircksen and Erich Retzlaff. The contributors treat their photographs not only as historical documents, but also as artworks with styles and self-expressions that deserve formalist and aesthetic readings. Instead of shying away from photographs that celebrate National Socialism, they actively engage with them through a critical gaze.

Andrés Mario Zervigón’s discussion of Lendvai-Dircksen’s peasant portraits epitomises this methodology. Lendvai-Dircksen was a German photographer whose career flourished during the Third Reich. She was also a staunch believer in physiognomy, a pseudoscience preaching that ‘the face and body could be read like a book to reveal nature and character.’ It is easy to see why physiognomy was well-suited for the racial purity eugenics of National Socialism. Indeed, Lendvai-Dircksen’s portraits of German peasants symbolised this dangerous partnership. Zervigón brilliantly demonstrates how Lendvai-Dircksen exploited various modern photographic techniques to present peasants as the physiognomic embodiment of a pure ‘Germanic’ race. She removed her subjects from their everyday settings and placed them in front of professional photographic backgrounds to emphasise their timeless ‘Germanic’ qualities. She also believed that ‘...like an old tree that shows the peculiarity of its nature most precisely, so too the old human, who becomes the most pronounced type, who becomes the life history of his line.’ To this end, she highlighted her elderly subjects’ weathered features by combining an uncomfortably close lens with a sharp film stock and high print values. By scrutinising Lendvai-Dircksen’s formalist sophistication in detail, this chapter provides valuable insights into how she conveyed her racial and nationalistic messages.

A formalist reading of the works of German photographer Erich Retzlaff reveals similar proximity between National Socialism and physiognomy. Christopher Webster van Tonder examines Retzlaff’s application of physiognomy to portraits of German elites, most notably in his 1944 publication Das Gesicht des Geistes (The Face of the Spirit). Retzlaff’s use of colour accentuated his subjects’ ‘Aryan’ eye colours, hair colours and skin tones, thus their supposed racial purity. Due to the images’ ‘almost uncomfortable cinematic proximity’ and larger-than-life size, they are assertive and relentless in projecting the apparent superiority of the German leadership. Together, these chapters prove a powerful point that lies at the very centre of this book: reading Third Reich photographs as art reveals, rather obscures, their social and ideological functions in history.

On top of breaking new academic ground, Photography in the Third Reich urges readers from all backgrounds to question popular historical myths. In particular, the essays challenge a common misconception that Nazi Germany represented a sharp break with everything that came before and after. For instance, in chapter 1, Rolf Sachsse vividly illustrates the Weimar photography trends that continued to play a crucial role in National Socialist propaganda. One of the trends was the picture series, a format that became popular after the introduction of 35mm roll film to Germany around 1925. Far from sidelining the picture series, the National Socialist state enthusiastically employed it to make propaganda that personalised political content.

Neither did the photographs of the Third Reich vanish overnight in May 1945. In fact, many surviving images adapted surprisingly well to the postwar climate. The once ideologically charged photos of the ‘Germanic’ people were recontextualized for the tourist market. They now showcase the ‘a gemütlich(cosy) and nostalgic image of German life’ for visitors. This is the case for Hans Retzlaff’s photograph of a peasant woman in traditional German costume, which was reprinted after the war for a tourism publication Niedersachsen (1961). As the conclusion eloquently states, Third Reich photography ‘remainsa continuing manifestation of a political, ideological, esoteric, and Romantic mélange unique to its time.’

The significance of Photography in the Third Reich lies in both what it has achieved and what is yet to be achieved. Undoubtedly, it has the potential to inspire the next generation of researchers to study Third Reich photography seriously. Its pioneering approach is not only of interest to historians, but to anyone who seeks new reflections on the well-studied period of the Third Reich. Hopefully, this essay collection will mark the start of a burgeoning field.

Photography in the Third Reich: Art, Physiognomy and Propaganda by Christopher Webster (ed.) is an Open Access title available to read and download for free as well as to purchase in paperback, hardback and in various e-Book editions at doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0202

Professor Lionel Gossman: In Memoriam

Professor Lionel Gossman: In Memoriam

By Dr Alessandra Tosi, Managing Director and co-Founder of OBP

I never met Lionel in person, but I considered him a friend from the very start. We began corresponding over ten years ago when I, an academic in the throes of establishing an independent Open Access publishing initiative with no funding and from a borrowed desk, contacted Lionel to ask whether we could republish one of his well-known books on eighteenth-century French culture. At the time I was trying to kick-start our press by convincing a number of well-known scholars to allow us to reissue their work in free-to-read digital format, thus shattering the usual price and geographical barriers to knowledge. Lionel, with his trademark generosity and intellectual courage, offered this unknown academic, representing a press which hadn’t yet produced a single book, not one but two of his brand-new scholarly works. The first, Brownshirt Princess: A Study of the 'Nazi Conscience' was published in April 2009 as our first original monograph, followed closely by The Red Countess: Select Autobiographical and Fictional Writing of Hermynia Zur Mühlen (1883-1951), to which Lionel added new material for a revised edition in 2018.

It soon came out that Lionel was himself an early supporter of Open Access, having perceived how the digital age could finally free knowledge for all and bring academia down from its ivory tower. It emerged in our first email exchange that Lionel himself had seriously considered setting up a publishing venue for Open Access academic works when OA was still a ‘fringe’ concept, especially in the humanities.

2009 thus marked the beginning of a long-term collaboration, with two more books by Lionel coming out in 2013 – The Passion of Max von Oppenheim: Archaeology and Intrigue in the Middle East from Wilhelm II to Hitler, and On History, a collaborative translation of Jules Michelet – and, in 2015, Thomas Annan of Glasgow: Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph. Together with the earlier two books, they have been accessed over 110,000 times worldwide.

More than anything, however, that first exchange sparked a warm friendship. Lionel’s kind-hearted messages, full of wit, modesty and, above all, an intellectual enthusiasm and a truly unique openness of mind, represented a steady source of encouragement and a much-needed injection of optimism over the years. I’ll miss him more than I can say.

Professor Lionel Gossman, M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures (Emeritus) at Princeton University, died 11 January 2021. A memorial page for Professor Gossman, set up by Princeton University, is available to view here.

Africa’s Image in Ghana’s Press: The influences of global news organisations

Africa’s Image in Ghana’s Press: The influences of global news organisations

by Michael Serwornoo

I have done very little in my entire life except to follow, practice and teach journalism. From my early days in the practice of journalism until today, many things remain clear and incontestable to me and yet these same things are the subject of massive global debates. I will give you one example. Our news (ATL FM news) on the hour captures but a figment of the struggles and triumphs of the people of Cape Coast, the first capital city of Ghana. It is clear to me that we could not and we will never individually or together with all media houses capture the true image of the people of Cape Coast in our broadcast or printed pages or social media posts. Several reasons account for this.

First, journalists are guided fundamentally by mechanistic rules that knowingly or unknowingly evade what we call objective selection of the top events of the day which we will either write about or speak about.  Second, beyond these mechanistic rules of journalism, other very important criteria relating to ownership, society and cultural milieu in which we operate significantly influence further selection. It is just impossible to see the news of the day as an objective assessment of the day’s events. Journalists and media practitioners who make such objective claims are just idealistically untrue to themselves. Write it down!

As journalists, we are involved in a very special translation of events into stories. We attempt to render events visibly to our audiences to the best of our knowledge. This translation hardly accommodates the pre-event circumstances which significantly determine why the events are occurring and with which severity. Our translations, with their weaknesses, are received by the audiences from a different lens. The reception process is something we cannot control but we can also not refute to have influenced it with our choice of words and images. In the nutshell, we are involved in a complicate practice that is far from been described as our objective assessment of the day.

But when it comes to Africa and her predominantly negative reportage around the world, a debate ensues which makes useless my previous understanding of the journalism practice. How could it be that the global journalists’ reliance on objective reportage of cultural milieus exonerates them from such complex journalistic translations I have explained? In any case, their form of translation is even more complex because they are highly incapable of understanding what they see because of the newness to the new culture. Why have we found pleasure in casting doubts about previous and continuous empirical evidence that continues to be adduced against the leading global press and their visible negative agenda? Could it be that representation in itself remains flawed as a concept and more so evident when one culture takes the centre stage in describing other cultures? Erik Bleich and his colleagues, earlier this year, have published research that has answered the empiricist calls. In fact, I was not surprised because I found several calls for empirical evidence far-fetched and I evaluated such calls as a form of rationalisation that promotes the establishment of a world order. A world order that keeps Africa under-reported and even the few reported stories must continue to be negative.

The Africa rising discourse leads a new wave of optimism about the continent’s image in the Northern press.  A few books dealing with this topic over the years remain insightful, to a certain extent, but they equally created a gap by concentrating their empirical research largely on Western media.

In this book, I answer the question of how Africa’s so-called improved image has been mirrored around the world, particularly in one important country on the continent itself. First, a theoretical synergy that accounts for all the elements that make up the foreign news selection process. Second, analysing the African press to demonstrate the gravity of the rippling effects of centuries of Afro-pessimistic international communication order and ambivalences it has created when it comes to the continent’s reportage. I used Ghana as a case for the exploration of these topics. Third, accounting for details through a methodological fluidity with applications of Spradley’s ethnographic interview and David Altheide’s ethnographic content analysis (ECA) have cleared my doubts that empirical flaws have an account for previous research that concluded that Africa was negatively reported.

I have demonstrated in this book that Africa’s media image in Ghana is dominated by themes of war, crime, killings, crises, and terrorism. The African story is narrated with a negative tone and with significant reliance on global news organisations from the Northern hemisphere as sources. For the Ghanaian journalists and editors, harsh economic conditions and their cost-cutting rationale in the media business, plus proximity in journalistic ideology and the uneven power encounter in the colonial experience have aggravated the kind of coverage Africa gets even from her own continent.

You can find out more about the book here.

Photo by Bank Phrom on Unsplash

The Great Parler Hack

In the aftermath of the chaotic coup-that-wasn’t incited by a Brady bunch of QAnon conspiracists, Proud Boys, and everyday American Trumpists on January 6, it appears that their newfound home, alternative (read: white supremacist-friendly) social platform Parler is in trouble. Amazon has dropped the controversial platform from its hosting service starting Sunday night. Apple and Google have also removed Parler from the App Store and the Play Store respectively, and a host of others have terminated their business with Parler. While Parler’s CEO and founder, John Matze, is currently crying censorship and eschewing responsibility for the Capitol riot, it’s worth revisiting what he told CNBC when inquired about the presence of bad actors on the platform, stating that they represent “a minute percentage” of the app’s user base and that they won’t be a “long-term problem.”

Yikes.

In the wake of these events, an Austrian hacker and researcher, who goes by @donk_enby on Twitter, has managed to scrape over 80TB of unprocessed data from Parler’s servers, including 1,098,552 video URLs. “These are the original, unprocessed, raw files as uploaded to Parler with all associated metadata,” she tweeted on Sunday, including the GPS coordinates of users at the time of filming these videos. She describes the event as “a bunch of people running into a burning building trying to grab as many things as we can”, which at the moment feels very apt, adding that “[t]hings will be available in a more accessible form later.”

Parler, with its user base of Trumpists, extremists, and QAnon truthers and pro-Trump financiers (like Republican donor Rebekah Mercer), is said to be among the platforms in the “alternative” digital ecosystem favored by the far-right mob that stormed Capitol Hill, in a farcical effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which led to five reported deaths. Through an exploit of Parler’s API, @donk_enby began archiving all posts from the day of the riot.

@donk_enby’s effort ultimately led to the capture of almost the entirety of the platform’s content from “Wednesday, most of Thursday and all of 3 days prior by the end of it”, successfully aggravating digital defenders of “free speech”, whose definition of the term I suppose doesn’t include archiving for posterity. Such a leak would have interesting implications for several online subcultures prone to doxxing and harassing their political opponents, but, given the incriminating posts on the platform, this is hardly an attack on free speech. 

For context, the only way one could previously verify their account on Parler was to give their social security number to the platform. Parler had apparently been using a free trial of identity and access management company Okta’s software, until the latter was publicly informed of this and promptly terminated Parler’s access, thus disabling the email and phone verification needed to create an account and allowing anyone to directly create multiple accounts. It seems that Parler, rather than protecting their users’ expression, screwed them over quite spectacularly.

Parler tracker dashboard: https://tracker.archiveteam.org/parler.

Image

A sample of the Parler posts scraped by @donk_enby.

This isn’t the first time a hacktivist has dug into Parler. In November, Kirtner, credited with founding Anonymous, claimed he acquired over six gigabytes of Parler user data from an unsecured AWS server. The following month, Kirtner was suspended from Twitter for posting, “I’m killing Parler and its fucking glorious”; his account remains suspended. Trump’s deplatforming caused much hoopla regarding platforms and censorship, with critics questioning the sinister implications of platforms intervening in such a way. Similarly, Parler, which created a reputation for itself as a sort of free speech utopia, but its ecosystem is hardly organic; its business model, per Matze, is premised on influencers attracting ad revenue. 

Anyone with experience scraping online data is no stranger to its precarity and contingency; @donk_enby’s work is invaluable for researchers working on mis- and disinformation. Her important efforts are documented here.

Taali fulɓe gaawooɓe, durooɓe egga hoɗaaɓe gorgal Niijer – Contes des Peuls Gaawooɓe, pasteurs nomades de l’ouest du Niger

Autrice : Zeïnabou Assoumi Sow

Traducteurs : Maru et Hamma Bukari

Livre bilingue publié avec le soutien financier de l’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie

Pour accéder au livre en version html, cliquez ici
Pour télécharger le PDF, cliquez ici (à venir).
Pour commander la version imprimée au prix de 29 $ CAD ou de 29 euros (pour l’Europe), écrire à info@editionscienceetbiencommun.org

Acheter un livre, c’est nous soutenir et permettre à ceux et celles qui ne peuvent l’acheter de le lire en libre accès.

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Comment, au nom de la justice cognitive, préserver et valoriser les savoirs patrimoniaux et les langues des peuples autochtones du monde entier, souvent méconnus et ignorés ? La proposition de la chercheuse nigérienne Zeïnabou Assoumi Sow est de mettre en lumière un genre très populaire de la littérature orale peule : le conte. Ce livre est ainsi composé de 18 contes, présentés en langue peule et en français, recueillis auprès des Peuls Gaawooɓe, derniers pasteurs nomades de l’ouest du Niger. Ces contes sont accompagnés d’un guide de lecture puisant dans l’univers culturel de ce peuple sahélien, en particulier dans les représentations et la symbolique du bovidé et d’autres animaux.

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Noy, dow innde kiite potinol hakkeeji nder tewto anndal, reenirta, darjina ɗee annde tawaangaaje e ɗemle wurooje ɗe duuniyaaru fuu, ɓuri hewde ɗe anndaaka, ɗe caanaaka? Jiiɗe lugginɗinoowo annde mo Niijer Zeynabu Aasumi Soo ngoni watta nder yaynaare iri oo anndaaɗo sanne mo filla annde pillaaka mo fulɓe : taalol. Dewtere ndee ndelle no kawri taali 18, kokkaaɗi he fulfulde e he faransiire, keɓaaɗi to fulɓe Gaawooɓe, keddiiɓe nder egga hoɗaaɓe gorgal Niijer. Taali ɗin ɗowtiraama tinndinirde jannde ƴoogunde nder weeyo finaa-tawaa mo ngool lenyol ngol saahel, ɓurde fuu no nagge e kulle ɗeya nji’iretee e ko ɗe coomi.

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ISBN version imprimée : 978-2-924661-99-4
ISBN PDF : 978-2-924661-97-0
ISBN ePub : 978-2-925128-03-8

DOI : à venir
250 pages
Couverture réalisée par Kate McDonnell, photographie de Patrick Delmas à Diffa
Date de publication : Janvier 2021

Décoloniser les sciences sociales. Descolonizar las ciencias sociales. Une anthologie bilingue de textes d’Orlando Fals Borda (1925-2008)

Décoloniser les sciences sociales. Descolonizar las ciencias sociales.

Six textes d’Orlando Fals Borda, choisis et traduits sous la direction de Liliana Diaz (Université Laval) et Baptiste Godrie (CREMIS et Université de Montréal)

Pour accéder au livre en version html, cliquez ici
Pour télécharger le PDF, cliquez ici (à venir).
Pour commander la version imprimée au prix de 29 $ CAD ou de 29 euros (pour l’Europe), écrire à info@editionscienceetbiencommun.org

Acheter un livre, c’est nous soutenir et permettre à ceux et celles qui ne peuvent l’acheter de le lire en libre accès.

***

Seis textos de Orlando Fals Borda, seleccionados y traducidos bajo la dirección de Liliana Diaz y Baptiste Godrie

Para acceder al libro en versión html, haga clic aquí.
Para descargar el PDF, haga clic aquí (próximamente).
Para pedir la versión impresa, escriba a info@editionscienceetbiencommun.org

Comprar un libro significa apoyarnos y permitir que aquellos que no pueden comprarlo lo lean en acceso libre.

***

Avec Paulo Freire, Orlando Fals Borda (1925-2008), est l’un des pères fondateurs des approches décoloniales latino-américaines en sciences sociales. Pourtant, alors que le premier est une figure familière du paysage des sciences sociales francophones, le second est quasiment inconnu. Cette anthologie francophone, la première à ce jour, propose cinq textes, publiés entre 1968 et 2003, en plus d’une conférence inédite prononcée en 1966. Elle vise à présenter la proposition épistémologique de Fals Borda d’une science latino-américaine émancipée des cadres théoriques européens et nord-américains, et orientée vers la production partagée des connaissances entre universitaires et mouvements sociaux pour favoriser la transformation de la société vers une plus grande justice sociale. Chaque texte est présenté dans sa version espagnole originale et dans sa traduction française, avec une brève mise en contexte permettant de situer celui-ci dans l’œuvre de l’auteur. Une introduction présente la thématique de l’anthologie et la trajectoire intellectuelle de Fals Borda.

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Junto con Paulo Freire, Orlando Fals Borda (1925-2008) fue uno de los padresfundadores de los enfoques descoloniales latinoamericanos en las ciencias sociales. Sinembargo, mientras que el primero es una figura familiar en el panorama francés de lasciencias sociales, el segundo es casi desconocido. Esta antología francófona, la primera hasta la fecha, ofrece cinco textos publicados entre 1968 y 2003, además de una conferencia inédita realizada en 1966. Su objetivo es presentar la propuesta epistemológica de Fals Borda de una ciencia latinoamericana emancipada de los marcos teóricos europeo y norteamericano, y orientada a la producción de conocimientos compartida entre los académicos y los movimientossociales para promover la transformación de la sociedad hacia una mayor justicia social. Cada texto se presenta en su versión original en español y en su traducción al francés, conuna breve contextualización que permite ubicarlo en el trabajo del autor. Una introducción presenta el tema de la antología y la trayectoria intelectual de Fals Borda.

ISBN version imprimée / edición impresa : 978-2-924661-99-4
ISBN PDF : 978-2-924661-97-0
ISBN ePub : 978-2-925128-03-8

DOI : à venir
238 pages
Couverture réalisée par Kate McDonnell, photographie tirée de ce documentaire sur Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfaZNTrfSNQ
Date de publication : septembre 2020

DOI : pronto
230 páginas
Portada dirigida por Kate McDonnell, fotografía de este documental en Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfaZNTrfSNQ
Fecha de publicación: septiembre de 2020

Table des matières / Índice