15-20 Minute Paper
Eric Ritskes
OISE/University of Toronto
Biography
Eric Ritskes is the founder and managing editor of the interdisciplinary, Open Access, and peer reviewed journal Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society. He is currently a PhD student in Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, with research interests that include Indigenous knowledges, decolonization theory, Open Access digital publishing, antiracism education, and globalization.
Abstract
This presentation is both an examination of the historical roots of current practices in Open Access digital publishing, as well as imaginative look forward to examine what transformative possibilities are opened when we consider culture as informing practices in the digital realm.
Indigenous knowledges emphasize the local and specificity as resistance to the infinite substitutability of neoliberal imperialism. How does this translate – or can it – to the wide-‐open realm of digital publishing? This paper examines the problems and possibilities when Indigenous knowledges and research are transmitted and ‘adapt’ to the medium of online Open Access publishing.
In examining digital publishing for the ‘public good’, how can we account for cultural forms of knowing that are inherently connected to particular forms of transmission? How do cultural conceptions of knowledge transmission, which are often antithetical to global conceptions of ‘public good’ and the free-‐flow of knowledge, adapt to new forms of transmission? This type of examination demands a recognition of the cultural and historical rootedness of both technology and digital publishing, both which seek to engage in problematic discourses of neutrality, openness, and disembodiment. The digital realm encourages virtual and real distance and the breaking down of borders for the free flow of information in a global era. As Hardt and Negri (2000) demonstrate – the is the modus operandi of Empire, which has, at its base, oppressed and subjugated Indigenous peoples and cultures around the globe. How can these dissonances be negotiated to find ways, as Hardt and Negri argue, to use Empire ands networks against itself? Is this possible? Recognizing the restraints, how might we envision a radical way forward that accounts for cultural specificities in a global arena?