[Air-l] Learning from Lachlan
radhika gajjala
radhika at cyberdiva.org
Thu Mar 21 05:59:22 PST 2002
Having been on and off and on Joan's list (great control, btw:)) and done my
own listing - where "trolls" often come from a strange mixed subjectivity of
privilege (implicitly assuming that "the Internet" is a "free" and
"democratic" space...haha - and buying into certain culturally - situated in
hierarchies of race, gender, geography, class, langauge...you name it)
specific notions of no-censureship - in a sense, pretty naive, I would say,
about the possibility for a lack of power wielding and hierarchy in
internetworked spaces... i could go on in loops of hyphens, semicolons and
paranthesis... but...)
and a lack of privilege in the specific context - if "privilege" can be
taken to mean a lack of nettiquette and knowledge, cultural capital within
the specific context (whether of internet research as a body of knowledge or
women's studies or postcolonial theory as defined within certain
epistemologies or engaging specific contexts inaccessible to varieties of
Other people - or creative writing by so-called and percieved-as "Others" -
here i refer to my own various interestingly failed attempts in listing and
ethnographing - etc).
In my managing of various lists (a couple of which got parallyzed into
silence because of the dilemma regarding who speaks and who doesnt), I've
done my own share of gatekeeping so I am not criticizing anyone else's - but
I'm always fascinated at the issues and discussions that emerge.
r
>
>For what it's worth, I might note that in the eleven years I've been
>responsible for WMST-L (a large academic list for discussion of
>women's studies teaching, research, and program administration), I've
>seen a number of trolls follow a pattern similar to the one Michael
>Gurstein describes. At first, they tend to seem interested, engaged,
>sincere. Soon, though, their postings become increasingly off the
>wall and disruptive. Eventually, it becomes clear that they're
>interested primarily in creating chaos and being the center of
>attention.
>
>I for one am very pleased that Lachlan has been removed from AIR-L.
>
> Joan
>
> Joan Korenman, Director
> Center for Women & Information Technology
> University of Maryland, Baltimore County
> Baltimore, MD 21250 USA
> korenman at umbc.edu
> http://www.umbc.edu/cwit/
>
>
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