I was asked to talk about our 'Afters' paper on a creative writing panel organised by Dydia DeLyser and Harriet Hawkins at the 2011 AAG conference in Seattle. They then invited me to write a 2,000 word reflective paper which, with others from this panel, will be published later this year in Cultural Geographies.
This post initially contained the first draft of this paper, but now contains the second draft (which was revised to add more of a sense of the work of co-ordination in collaborative writing like this).
Please feel free to add your comments, if you're a co-author, reader, or both... The paper invites them...
Thanks
Ian
22 June 2012
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‘Afters’: 26 authors, a blog, and a ‘workshop imagination geared to writing’.
Ian Cook et al,
Department of Geography, University of Exeter
Blog
There seems to be an agreement that I should orchestrate the writing of the paper, but in a way that’s relatively non-hierarchical, and includes different voices, fragments and the character of our discussions. If possible. ... When the dust settles, I’ll code, cut and paste, and top and tail a rough document for us to start with,
[my summary on the 'Afters' blog of a discussion about turning its conversations into a journal paper].1
There seems to be an agreement that I should orchestrate the writing of the paper, but in a way that’s relatively non-hierarchical, and includes different voices, fragments and the character of our discussions. If possible. ... When the dust settles, I’ll code, cut and paste, and top and tail a rough document for us to start with,
[my summary on the 'Afters' blog of a discussion about turning its conversations into a journal paper].1
Paper
I was invited to take part in the creative writing panel at AAG Seattle in 2011 to talk about collaborative authorship. ‘Afters’, the third and final paper in my ‘Geographies of food’ series, had just been published in Progress in human geography.ii It had 26 authors, whose names and affiliations filled up the entire first page. Overleaf, there was a conventional abstract and introduction. When that was over, it began to fracture, into sections of text, of various sizes and shapes, arranged on and over the pages. Each piece of text was an extract from the blog that had hosted our conversations, and included its named author(s) at its end. Each piece of text made sense in and of itself. Each had been carefully placed before, after, and beside others. But there was no obvious order in which to read them, down and/or across the page. The ‘gutters’ normally running down the centre of the journal’s pages were disrupted and rearranged. The inner margins of each piece of text were justified and neat, but were never in the same place and sometimes weren’t there at all. The outer margins were un-justified, fraying the text at its edges. This ‘juxtaposition and montage’ aesthetic invited - and required - ‘plurivectorial reading practices’.iii This paper is difficult to skim-read or to summarise. Its sum is an awful lot more than its parts.
Blog
The present paper is an experiment in representing and performing collaboration. There are elements of both co-learning and co-production in at least three ways: IC in conjunction with the rest of us, we as we participate differently in knowledge spaces because of the IC intervention and possibilities of new co-learning and co-production that might be mobilised by readers of the paper. In this respect the paper's relationality is unusual. The first read, the paper itself, provides a sense of disturbance, positioning and scoping through multiple voices and the tensions that come from the ordering and juxtaposition on particular pages. A second read, the fuller blog, contextualises and grounds voice. Voice is given new potentiality through the intervention. In journals like [Progress in Human Geography] the basic diet of papers is overview statements that are sweeping, summary and often stifling (as while they may strive to be inclusive they usually miss the mark). The present paper is more in-view like, offering explicit content on actual projects, from multiple intellectual and institutional trajectories. This is less representational and more performative, since the voice-bites are performing the person and their concerns / suggestions / insights rather than declaring new narratives. In another way the paper performs as a knowledge space. I found Mol's book exploration of parallel but interdependent text quite illuminating,iv as it was in the conceptual space between the different texts that quite new work was done, at least when I was reading it. It seemed a neat way of breaking some of the constraining qualities of single narratives. The current paper is also analogous to what is often done in workshops and meetings, when people sit in a circle and share 'disciplined' remarks on a topic. The basis of exploration is heightened by the buzz factor. The interactive potential, set up by the material organisation of the paper, is intriguing. What points of entry and departure will be performed as the paper is read? For me this is one of the paper's primary provocations
[author Richard Le Heron's description of the first draft of the 'Afters' paper].v
The present paper is an experiment in representing and performing collaboration. There are elements of both co-learning and co-production in at least three ways: IC in conjunction with the rest of us, we as we participate differently in knowledge spaces because of the IC intervention and possibilities of new co-learning and co-production that might be mobilised by readers of the paper. In this respect the paper's relationality is unusual. The first read, the paper itself, provides a sense of disturbance, positioning and scoping through multiple voices and the tensions that come from the ordering and juxtaposition on particular pages. A second read, the fuller blog, contextualises and grounds voice. Voice is given new potentiality through the intervention. In journals like [Progress in Human Geography] the basic diet of papers is overview statements that are sweeping, summary and often stifling (as while they may strive to be inclusive they usually miss the mark). The present paper is more in-view like, offering explicit content on actual projects, from multiple intellectual and institutional trajectories. This is less representational and more performative, since the voice-bites are performing the person and their concerns / suggestions / insights rather than declaring new narratives. In another way the paper performs as a knowledge space. I found Mol's book exploration of parallel but interdependent text quite illuminating,iv as it was in the conceptual space between the different texts that quite new work was done, at least when I was reading it. It seemed a neat way of breaking some of the constraining qualities of single narratives. The current paper is also analogous to what is often done in workshops and meetings, when people sit in a circle and share 'disciplined' remarks on a topic. The basis of exploration is heightened by the buzz factor. The interactive potential, set up by the material organisation of the paper, is intriguing. What points of entry and departure will be performed as the paper is read? For me this is one of the paper's primary provocations
[author Richard Le Heron's description of the first draft of the 'Afters' paper].v
Paper
This ‘Afters’ project began with email invitations to over 100 authors in July 2008. I asked if they would welcome the opportunity to respond to what I’d (not) written about their work, other people’s work, and work that might come next, in ‘Following’ and ‘Mixing’: my first and second ‘Geographies of food’ reviews?vi It then moved online, after I set up ‘the fuller blog’ - as Richard called it - as a space for conversation between the 26 authors who wanted to take part. We were at varying stages of our careers, from a variety of disciplines, living in different parts of the world, didn’t all know each other, and none of us had blogged before. 43,000 blog words of online conversation later, I was coding, drafting, circulating, revising and submitting our 7,000 word 'Afters' review to Progress. In an attempt at open collaboration, the process, content, form and - most recently - power relations in/of the paper were discussed on a public blog. This raw conversation could be read by all of us, and anyone else, including those who want to know more about, and/or contribute to, the conversation after reading the paper. It is still there - at http://food-afters.blogspot.co.uk - with almost 7,000 page views recorded so far.
Blog
Now it's time for me/us to turn the contents of this blog into a 7,000 word paper ... which will need to be submitted ... in the next 6-8 weeks. Can each of you do the following? 1) have a look at the post below called 'collaborative writing', 2) have a look below at the post called 'conclusions', 3) have a look at the discussion that started in the comments at the end of Allison and Jessica's 'collective writing'...' post, 4) add your comments anywhere (or send to me to post) .... I've set the clock again (2 weeks and counting), after those new discussions have taken place, I'll put together a draft paper in the way that we agree this should be done, circulate it via email for comments, redraft, circulate and ... submit. Hope this catches you at a good time. Again, please shoot from the hip, rattle things off, splurge, dump ... whatever helps to make this a quick and easy task
[my summary of the coordination, encouragement, editing and 'donkey work' that I contributed to the blog-to-paper process, in addition to writing as an author].vii
Now it's time for me/us to turn the contents of this blog into a 7,000 word paper ... which will need to be submitted ... in the next 6-8 weeks. Can each of you do the following? 1) have a look at the post below called 'collaborative writing', 2) have a look below at the post called 'conclusions', 3) have a look at the discussion that started in the comments at the end of Allison and Jessica's 'collective writing'...' post, 4) add your comments anywhere (or send to me to post) .... I've set the clock again (2 weeks and counting), after those new discussions have taken place, I'll put together a draft paper in the way that we agree this should be done, circulate it via email for comments, redraft, circulate and ... submit. Hope this catches you at a good time. Again, please shoot from the hip, rattle things off, splurge, dump ... whatever helps to make this a quick and easy task
[my summary of the coordination, encouragement, editing and 'donkey work' that I contributed to the blog-to-paper process, in addition to writing as an author].vii
Paper
I had talked about this ‘Afters’ project before, in 2009 at a Leeds University workshop on ‘Doing collaboration differently: challenging an unequal academy’. As a writing-up PhD student at the Birmingham University seven years earlier, its organiser Shona Hunter had helped me to run an ‘Advanced Qualitative research’ module for Social Science Masters students. I had designed this to help new PhD students appreciate how a relatively messy research process can produce relatively neat results, and to reflect on what that might mean for the research they were planning to do. There were introductions but no lectures. Most important were the small group conversations co-ordinated by Shona, two other writing-up students and me, and informed by our PhD proposals, field notes, interview transcripts, other raw materials and related academic readings. We wanted to encourage students to share and reflect upon diverse research expectations and experiences from across the social sciences. This meant that, while the module was carefully organised, we never knew exactly what would happen, who would bring what experiences, concerns and ideas to the classroom, and what would emerge through these conversations. As long as the students carefully read the work that we set, turned up to class, and took part in the conversations as best they could, we were happy. As long as conversations were lively and respectful and students were learning to ‘prepare to be flexible’ - whatever their discipline or research - we were happy.viii As long as complex, flexible, disorienting, determined, transformative, eureka, oh dear, can do, felt... dispositions to research emerged from these conversations, we were happy. In 2009, Shona remembered this as collaborative teaching and learning, with relatively flat hierarchical relations. That’s what I try to encourage, as much as possible, when I get the chance. I love working this way, what it feels like, what other people get out of it, and what it can do, however challenging it may be for all concerned.ix This is my ideal/normal.
Blog
I ... remember working with Ian on that MA module really fondly. ... I’m reminded about one of the things I really started to understand through that and the many other (formal and informal) collaborations I’ve been involved in since; the necessary relational character of academic life the importance of interdependence, care, responsibility and accountability in all collaborations. I think one of the things I really wanted to get to grips with in the [Leeds] session was how we can work with and through our relational autonomy and how we recognise the academy as a relational space where emotions and affect constitute the discursive, cultural/social nature of our working contexts, something still rarely acknowledged in academic institutional spaces. How do we work with this rather than always working against this grain, competitively rather than cooperatively? I think we started to get to thinking about this in the ... session, but it also reminded me about how difficult it is to think through power and inequality and speak about them without seeming trite, or without wondering what these sort of events do in terms of separating out (the inseparable?) speaking about and the doing? What does it mean to talk about doing collaboration and what is its relationship to the doing?
[Shona Hunter's comments on my 'conclusions' to the Leeds talk/blog].x
I ... remember working with Ian on that MA module really fondly. ... I’m reminded about one of the things I really started to understand through that and the many other (formal and informal) collaborations I’ve been involved in since; the necessary relational character of academic life the importance of interdependence, care, responsibility and accountability in all collaborations. I think one of the things I really wanted to get to grips with in the [Leeds] session was how we can work with and through our relational autonomy and how we recognise the academy as a relational space where emotions and affect constitute the discursive, cultural/social nature of our working contexts, something still rarely acknowledged in academic institutional spaces. How do we work with this rather than always working against this grain, competitively rather than cooperatively? I think we started to get to thinking about this in the ... session, but it also reminded me about how difficult it is to think through power and inequality and speak about them without seeming trite, or without wondering what these sort of events do in terms of separating out (the inseparable?) speaking about and the doing? What does it mean to talk about doing collaboration and what is its relationship to the doing?
[Shona Hunter's comments on my 'conclusions' to the Leeds talk/blog].x
Paper
You can read the whole ‘writing collaboration’ talk/blog I set up for that workshop. It’s still there - at http://writingcollaboration.wordpress.com - with almost 6,000 hits so far. It explains why I write ‘solo’ as ‘Ian Cook et al’, and what he/they can say that I can’t.xi It outlines my takes on seven types of collaborative writing I have initiated, coordinated, encouraged, contributed to and helped see through to publication. These often jar with text added by my co-authors and others in the comment boxes below. ‘Afters’ is the example used to illustrate a ‘blog paper’, although it also contains elements of the ‘right to reply’, ‘writing conversation’, and ‘social sculpture’ genres. What it’s not is a conventional paper that delivers its message didactically, like a lecture (although this is sometimes necessary and agreed upon in ‘mash-up’ collaborations). This doesn’t mean, however, that it’s difficult to explain what it’s like to collaborate in the writing and/or reading of the paper we're talking about here. This is not rocket science. Taking Richard’s lead it could, in principle, involve anyone who recognises the buzz of taking part in a stimulating workshop, reading group or discussion class where everyone has done the reading, brings this and their research expertise to the table, listens to and makes their own critical, thought-provoking points, is open to learning something new, feels able to say that they have learned something new, trusts and appreciates others in the room, understands their arguments even if they don’t agree with them, and can find the time to take fully part in this. I’m guessing here, but in the 'Afters' project we seem to have drawn upon and/or developed a ‘workshop imagination geared to writing’:xii in our contributions to the blog conversation, in the paper that tries to give a lively sense of taking part of those conversations, and back on the blog where the posting of this reflective paper has prompted further conversations. So... this final sentence is an invitation to you to join this conversation, shoot from the hip, rattle things off, splurge, dump ... whatever helps to make this a quick and easy task.
Blog
Although I'm not much of the blogging type ... , I was struck by the effect of it producing a ‘real time’ conversation with those with whom I do not always agree in our scholarly debates (although I agree with those who would rather have this conversation in the hotel bar). It produced an extra degree of civility, care, and engagement. ... Whereas I like to argue, quite strenuously it seems, about the limits of alternative food politics in terms of political economic transformation or even transformations of individual political subjectivity, when I read others’ interpretations of the similar phenomenon I often find myself in agreement with them, as well
[author Julie Guthman reflecting on the blogging process and final paper edit].xiii
Although I'm not much of the blogging type ... , I was struck by the effect of it producing a ‘real time’ conversation with those with whom I do not always agree in our scholarly debates (although I agree with those who would rather have this conversation in the hotel bar). It produced an extra degree of civility, care, and engagement. ... Whereas I like to argue, quite strenuously it seems, about the limits of alternative food politics in terms of political economic transformation or even transformations of individual political subjectivity, when I read others’ interpretations of the similar phenomenon I often find myself in agreement with them, as well
[author Julie Guthman reflecting on the blogging process and final paper edit].xiii
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Roger Lee, for inviting, encouraging and managing my/our ‘Geographies of food’ papers; to Anna Read for her truly wonderful copy editing, to Shona Hunter for asking me to talk about this process in Leeds and to Dydia DeLyser and Harriet Hawkins for asking me to talk and write about this here, and finally to my ‘Afters’ co-authors whom I cannot thank enough for saying yes and risking/sharing so much.
Endnotes
i I. Cook et al, ‘Writing’, food-afters.blogspot.co.uk (2009), (http://food-afters.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/writing.html last accessed 11 June 2012)
ii I. Cook, K. Hobson, L. Hallett IV, J. Guthman, A. Murphy, A. Hulme, M. Sheller, L. Crewe, D. Nally, E. Roe, C. Mather, P. Kingsbury, R. Slocum, S. Imai, J. Duruz, C. Philo, H. Buller, M. Goodman, A. Hayes-Conroy, J. Hayes-Conroy, L. Tucker, M. Blake, R. Le Heron, H. Putnam, D. Maye & H. Henderson, ‘Geographies of food: afters’, Progress in human geography, 35(1) (2011) pp.104-120
iii J. Dittmer, ‘Comic book visualities: a methodological manifesto on geography, montage and narration’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 35 (2010), pp.222-236. iv A. Mol, The body multiple (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2002)
v R. LeHeron, Feedback from Richard, food-afters.blogspot.com (2010), (http://food-afters.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/feedback-from-richard.html last accessed 11 June 2012)
vi I. Cook et al, ‘Geographies of food: following’, Progress in human geography, 30(5) (2006), pp.655-666; I. Cook et al, ‘Geographies of food: mixing’, Progress in human geography, 32(6) (2008), pp.821-833.
vii I. Cook et al, ‘Writing the paper: a collaboration? (archived)’, food-afters.blogspot.co.uk (2009), (http://food-afters.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/writing-paper-collaboration-archived.html last accessed 21 June 2012)
viii This approach to PhD preparation resulted from my own experiences as a PhD student: see M. Crang & I. Cook, Doing ethnographies (London, Sage, 2007).
ix See, for example: I. Cook, “Nothing can ever be a case of us and them again’: exploring the politics of difference through border pedagogy & student journal writing’, Journal of geography in higher education, 24(1) (2000), pp.13-27; I. Cook, T. Angus & J. Evans, ‘A manifesto for cyborg pedagogy’, International research in geographical & environmental education, 10(2) (2001), pp.195-201; I. Cook, J. Evans, H. Griffiths, R. Morris, S. Wrathmell et al., ‘‘It’s more than just what it is:’ defetishising commodities, expanding fields, mobilising change…’, Geoforum 38(6) (2007), pp.1113-1126; & J. Evans, I. Cook & H. Griffiths, ‘Creativity, group pedagogy & social action: a departure from Gough’, Educational philosophy and theory, 40(2) (2007), pp.330-345.
x S. Hunter, Comment on I. Cook et al., ‘4.Conclusions / top tips’, writingcollaboration.wordpress.com (2009) (http://writingcollaboration.wordpress.com/4-conclusions/ last accessed 21 June 2012)
xi This has also been discussed in I. Cook, ‘‘You want to be careful you don’t end up like Ian. He’s all over the place’: autobiography in/of an expanded field’, in P. Moss, ed, Placing autobiography in geography (Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Press, 2001) pp.99-120, and in I. Cook et al, ‘Positionality / situated knowledge’, in D. Atkinson, P. Jackson, D. Sibley & N. Washbourne, eds., Cultural geography: a critical dictionary of key ideas (London, IB Tauris, 2005) pp.16-26.
xii To paraphrase George Marcus’ ‘cinematic imagination geared to writing’, from p.45 of ‘The modernist sensibility in recent ethnographic writing & the cinematic metaphor of montage’, in L. Taylor, ed., Visualizing theory (New York, Routledge, 1994) pp.37-53.
xiii J. Guthman, ‘Finishing up (from Julie)', food-afters.blogspot.com (2010) (http://food-afters.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/re-finishing-up-from-julie.html last accessed 11 June 2012).
6 comments:
I find it interesting that both Richard and Julie mention the process of the blog, the conversations, difficulties and messiness of the collaborative process and very little about the vastly different directions each of us as bloggers are going towards. For me, what was most fascinating was the incredible diversity of interests of the authors. Each of them was doing things that I either wished I had thought of or wished I was doing. The tying together of these disparate themes that Ian was required to do as the facilitator seemed to be the most daunting of tasks. I wanted to keep going on and on; coming to the end point was not as satisfying as the topics. Julie's comment on civility rings true of course, as the page itself must be looked at, filtered through each of our own thought processes, and then committed to the community by hitting the send button. Conversations at the bar (my favorite as well) do not have that same lingering analysis - they are often blurted out rudely into another persons talking. Taken as a whole, it has been great to get results, sadly an important part of our jobs, but it is all of the great things each participant is doing that makes this so great for me. Lucius
Thanks Lucius,
That might be my editing of this paper more than what Richard and Julie said on the blog.
'Vastly different directions' + 'incredible diversity' ... 'the send button' = yes. Maybe they're underplayed in the piece. I can see that. What's also missing here are other familiar ways of talking about our work, like hitting the 'send' button on a post on the Critical Geography Forum.
As for results, I'd be interested to find out - maybe not openly on here - how this paper is counted as a publication in our different departmental, university and national contexts.
Is this a review paper? No.
Is it a research paper? No. Maybe.
Does it have 'academic depth and rigour'? No, but also yes.
Is it an attempt to shape and direct new research in the 'Geographies of food'? No and Yes,
...and 'Stop asking me that question. Ask me this one...'
which I haven't managed to put into words yet. maybe 'Does it spark debate...?'
It's carrying on!!
Ian
From Megan Blake via email today;
-----
Hi Ian
For some reason blogger won't let me post-- this may be because Sheffield has switched to google mail and it screwed up all existing accounts. So I hope it is ok if I (re) present what I originally tried to post on the blog site.
I found the experience to be really interesting and it has inspired a number of reflections about the process. Thanks for giving the opportunity to comment on the process. It feels a bit more like closure that wasn't really realised through the publication. For me, the publication is out there, while the blog (even though I am technically impaired) is in here and somehow more personal.
I have a number of further observations/thoughts that I would add in no particular order.
1. I wonder about participation. Why did some choose not to participate in the original blog. Is there anything systematic about that. Also, it was by invitation, which was addressed a bit in the paper, we're there people left out who might have usefully been included? What perspectives are missing?
2. Doing a paper in this sort of way takes coordination and the ability to persuade people it is worthy while. I think a good deal of its success was down to having someone with "status" doing the driving. The publication was only possible because Ian was asked to do the series and the editor was sympathetic to the request to do it differently. I wonder if we might reflect a bit more on the power in participation that is expressed through the production of afters, are there ways to be more inclusive? (I realise this can come across as a criticism of Ian which is not the intent, is meant as a call to reflection on the publication process even collaborative publication more generally).
3. The REF is a stinker with regard to these kind of papers. For many this won't count as a proper paper and impact is too hard to measure. I wonder in what ways it has helped the careers of those who were involved? For me it has meant a couple of things:
A. I teach differently now, incorporating web based collaborative efforts. I have found that my students don't enjoy or want to contribute and many resist, but they all generally find the product of their collaborations satisfying and useful. This takes creative marking and careful criterion referencing in order to reward participants and motivate the reluctant. They do do the work and benefit, but sometimes course evaluations suffer. It would be great to be able to do larger scale web based collaborations across universities as I think students would benefit from cross context discussions as well. (incidentally, my econ geog students completed an assessment inspired by the follow the things web site. Four stand out--one on hotel and Walmart art--made in Shenzhen in Darfun village, one on luggage and Chinese migrant labour, one on cigarettes and health risk to workers, and one on Fiji water and the water shortages experienced by local populations in the area where it is sourced. I'll send them along if you are interested).
B. I have met and become aware of a number of people's work whom I did not know as a result of the afters project. Since that time, the AAG has also gotten a specialty group with food in the title. This is great, and it is great to be part of a community.
C. I am more aware of the differences national context makes to the production of knowledge and the assumptions we make about food. The afters project was international though very anglophone, but it started for me a realisation that food offers a way to think in and take a more cosmopolitan or to use a Chinese word, tianxia (means all under heaven) way to thinking about food because it expresses values.
Just some thoughts, not meant as condemnations, but avenues for further action and potential maybe?
With best wishes (and please excuse typos, I'm writing this on an iPad!)
Megan
Hi Megan
Wow... yes.
There's something really interesting and important here about the relationships developed between the authors in writing the blog - 'in here' - and the relationships that the paper - which is perhaps more 'in here' for me than others because we agreed I should be its 'chef' - tries to develop with its readers.
For me, this is where the missing authors, perspectives and this blog post and its comments come in. I wonder whether reading it might have that workshop feel, and readers might use these comments boxes to add 'What I would add here' comments. It would be great if that could happen, to keep the discussion going and to open it out. The blog discussion produces the paper that encourages discussion back on the blog... Maybe.
I take your power and 'status' point. There were a few emails around the time that Michael Winter's last 'Geographies of food' review was published in which PiHG editor Roger Lee asked me to write the next series. I said that I would be happy to do so, but they might be a bit unconventional (including the rough idea of a collaborative 3rd paper, I think). His support and faith in me - and then us -
was essential. On a couple of occasions I have been invited to write something for a journal special issue or a book, and then had them rejected because they were too odd or terrible (depending on your perspective). I felt I needed to warn him and get permission first. I also tried to reassure co-authors by saying I'd done this kind of thing before, pointing to the http://writingcollaboration.wordpress.com blog - the 7 types of collaboration argument.
What's also been happening lately is a new phase of innovation and experimentation re. the form of academic journal articles, most notably the film and audio papers that have been published in, for example, ACME and Geography Compass. Maybe the publication of this kind of collaborative blog-paper will make it easier for others to try this kind of thing. There were some concerns in our blog discussion not only about the content, but also the arrangement of the text boxes, and whether this would be bounced back for us to change. I wondered about that. And I have had problems with the copy editing of other papers. Anna was great, though, and I don't remember a single problem with this one.
Finally what you say about the REF side of things is fascinating. The impacts that you describe made me just think wow. It's wonderful to read this... Indirect impacts that emerge via the process as much as, perhaps more than, they do via the result.
Thanks Megan.
'Publish your comment'? Uh.... here we go.
Ian
There are some fascinating elements and outcomes of this collaboration that could be brought to the fore. First is that the collaborators to the Progress piece were not part of an established network. We may have known some or even many the names, but for most it is more by reputation or ‘outputs’ than having shared a drink at a bar. Few of us have worked or published together previously. The AAG's new 'Geographies of Food and Agriculture' specialty group is one development in forging a community of interest – but not all of us are geographers, or interested in AAG specialty groups. I'd wager that Ian's persistence and sheer determination to bring us and our text pieces together in a blog and published article is a powerful demonstration of a community of practice – one that seems to have some life yet.
Second is that the blogging and writing process was awkward and frustrating for many. There were real threads of conversational exchange, but these were intermixed with other disjointed contributions simply because these were occurring among a writers living in different timezones and contributing around a multitude of distractions. Paul Kingsbury put it this way in one of his interventions: “I feel really hemmed in by the format of the Blog … to the extent that I’d much prefer to sit down and chat about these things with fellow Bloggers – maybe at a conference over some drinks and food! Even as I Blog about Blogging, I feel like “I’m Blogging, I’m Blogging…” … out of an awkward awareness of writing through and in the medium of the Blog. For me, the Blog mixes the media of writing (which for me is so often a refreshingly lonely act) and conversing (which I love, but would much prefer to engage via speaking and listening rather than typing).” (September 17, 2008 – one of the many exchanges that did not make it into the final paper.)
Third is that there are many scholars with genuine interest in alternative ways of representing and juxtaposing ideas. The AAG 2011 panel session Ian mentions was one of the best attended at the conference that I saw – so many people sitting on the floor, standing at the door, or hovering outside waiting for space to enter. The air conditioning simply couldn’t cope, and if it were not for the excellent panellists at hand, the vitality of the room would have been crushed. With his usual humble bonhomie, Ian managed to keep the masses enthralled – and gave a good plug for the paper and collaborators to boot. Even better, he managed to organise several of us present to meet at an appropriate Seattle bar afterwards for ‘real’ conversing.
Fourth is that exemplars such as the Progress paper are hard to find, let alone in A* journals. It demonstrates that in the right hands – great coordinator and lead author, sympathetic and supportive editor – such collaborations can bear fruit, and hopefully gather some good citations. Some senior people in my discipline (marketing) have looked admiringly at this piece as a workable articulation of polyvocality (yes, there are poststructuralist academic marketers!).
Fifth is that the process of fashioning a publishable piece for a journal is not at all easy. The original blog generated over 43,000 words of contributions through 2008, and more than 4000 words of references alone. Ian then coded, ordered and themed the contributions, reducing over 100 pages of text pieces to just under 50. The piece then became an active ‘Google docs’ document for editing, adding, updating and repositioning by as many collaborators as wished through 2009, all the while a continuing blog kept archiving contributors’ reactions to this process. Reducing this to an eventual 7904 words (plus 1607 words in the endnotes and references) while maintaining some respect to the intent of the original posts, was truly an exercise in ‘mixing’ which we contributors ‘followed’ with great admiration.
And for what? To enable other exchanges to germinate. So congratulations Ian for keeping the faith, and for keeping this particular conversation going.
Hi Ian, I've just read this and though the 'window' for comment has probably closed, here are a couple of my reflections:
1. On who is invited, who participates: I feel that time is of the essence. Like most listservs and blogs, some people make very regular and thoughtful contributions, others (like me) dip in and out. The important thing is that there is a space for thinking out loud and sufficient flexibility to do this. The quality of the debate certainly doesn't suffer from these differing approaches to contribution;
2. On walking co-laboratively: I feel a wave of nostalgia as I read this discussion. It takes me back to the fiery days of CCS at the University of Birmingham and the terrific publishing that resulted from these. Creative use of technology, however, recalls these moments. Despite being in very different institutional spaces and knowledge cultures, we can savour this sort of collective learning and production.
...
Cheers
Jean
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