[iDC] "recursive publics"
Gabriella Coleman
biella at nyu.edu
Fri Jul 10 11:15:37 UTC 2009
Interesting discussion about publics and geeks so I thought I would jump
in with a few thoughts and questions that I have been meaning to ask Chris.
I agree with Chris that the geek public is a critical one: it is not
hinged to questions of Justice, but does concern itself with issues
related to what is right for technology, which as been at the basis for
a series of important transformations within the field of IP law and a
few other tech fields. Individually geeks come in pretty much every
political stripe, from anarchist to conservative though it seems that a
core in North American and Northern Europe, England are more liberal (in
the Mill, Dewey sense not the classic liberal or neoliberal variety
thought you can find them too) and collectively or as a cultural
practice, I tend to see this field as a liberal critique within
liberalism, in particular neoliberalism. Certainly may not be enough of
a politics but there is some interesting political work being done.
What I find interesting about the recursive public is how it brings into
stark relief an insight about publics posed by Michael Warner, in
particular, the tension between universality and particularity, which
makes publics struggle with their own conditions of existence. A public
as defined by Warner is an anonymously relational, imaginary space for
the circulation of discourse. While a public clearly enunciates a
formal script of universal accessibility, it also beholds an implicit
subtext that functions to elaborate as he says, “a particular culture,
its embodied way of life”. And while the tentacles of its discursive
address are oriented toward any stranger, these modes of address are
nonetheless textured by group-specific cultural, literary, ethical, and
political conventions, and thus in practice only consistently reach a
limited number of people. It is for this reason Slashdot is
understandable to a literate, educated public. Anyone can read, comment,
listen, and care but in the end of the day only a fraction of people
will really care, again due to the fact that the liberal subject does
not really exist. That is what I find, at times, so ironic about geeks:
they bring into cultural being certain variants of liberalism (here i am
thinking of Stuart Hall's excellent essay on the topic) and yet also
point to how we are molded, intensely, by our everyday work and labor,
thus pointing to the fallacy of the liberal subject as most traditional
liberal theory formulates it.
Recursive publics, like all publics are bound and limited by what/who
they will appeal to, which is certainly true for the geeks Chris writes
about. But in the last five years, this public has been able to garner
the attention of many more. It has exceeded the geek subject, catching
in its net folks that don't directly tinker with technology but have
come to care for the same issues geeks have (Free Culture is a good
example of this). There many reasons for this, but one is that I think
sometimes for folks, they were attracted to participating in a realm of
politics that seemed to make an impact, however narrow.
During fieldwork, one anarchist geek, working to throw a monkey wrench
in the cogs of capital, once phrased his enjoyment of working with Free
Software as "It is nice to be on the winning side somtimes" which he
elaborated in terms of fulfillment: that working on stuff that lots of
people use, that is having an impact, and that is well known helps keep
his political motor running. Still super committed to his anarchist and
lefty ways, he still found a magnetism--a strong one--working within
this recurive public, for the reasons Chris has elaborated on.
Another point is that while knowing about tech is necessary, tweaking
with tech is not requisite for participation in this public, at least as
I ethnographically understand it. My question for Chris, and this came
out in both my undergrad and grad class when we taught your book: is
what is the status of those who don't tinker? Is this a distinction that
we should bother to make?
I also wondered why, given you drew on Warner's work, why you did not
frame this recursive public as a counterpublic as counterpublics as
defined by Warner exist in ethical or political tension with dominant
values. Maybe it is just implicit, but thought I would throw this out there.
Biella
****************************************************
Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor
Department of Media, Culture, & Communication
New York University
239 Greene St, 7th floor
NY NY 10003
212-992-7696
http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman
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