Thank you all for the subtle, calm conversation at a moment of open recommendations, at a moment when the existential question is scary to many in the CO's.

I wanted to go on the record to say that I agree wholeheartedly with Domenico in the goal: a federation with equal representation that unites for the sake of an annual conference, and perhaps, only perhaps, a shared publication. I wouldn't limit the constituents to the nation-state per se, but close enough. In America, for example, we could go on organizing an annual conference that our students can afford, and more focused on our 'flavors' of DH with the combined forces of RedHD, CSDH and ACH. This regional agreement would be independent of our individual relationship to a federation.

That said, I think Domenico and I have found our most productive differences trying to work out the details of how to get to the global federation. I have been the most conservative of the two, everyone knows, arguing that we can transform ADHO from within, patiently and strategically, rather than building the alternative from our existing networks. At many times I have felt that perhaps my work would be best spent building our own, as Domenico suggests, even if it would take us years to achieve the prominence of ADHO (which benefits many outside the regions covered by the pretensions of the CO's).

At this particular juncture, though, I would not be a party to starting anything that threatens the conference in Mexico in 2018. Thankfully, that gives us time to think through the details of plan B, and I do hope that GO::DH continues to be the place where we can freely talk about the existential question.

Hope that helps,
a.



On Sun, Nov 29, 2015 at 2:51 PM, Domenico Fiormonte <domenico.fiormonte@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Øyvind and everyone,

my observations referred initially to the quality and nature of the decision-making process that will lead ADHO to accept or not our suggestions. Then I extended my observations, in my usual polemic style, to ADHO political and institutional settings as a whole. I'm delighted to answer your question, but I would like to know if you think that spending hours on these proposals knowing that ADHO has no obligation to accept any of them is a part of a democratic exercise. Of course I believe it is better than nothing. But even octroyées constitutions were better than absolutism.

What I would prefer for our community is not a mystery and you can find it in dozens of articles, blog posts, emails, etc. I made public in the last fifteen years. What I think we need is a federation of national associations.
Isn't that simple? Not perfect, of course, but a step forward.

I know that an elective political system is just one of the several features that defines and constitutes a democratic system. But what you call indirect democracy derives from the intrinsic limits of the ADHO initial project, i.e. to create an umbrella organization for what was already there -- at least in the visible horizon of a prevalently Anglophone community. I don't think that in those times it was a bad idea or that ADHO has done nothing so far to be more inclusive. However, that original bias remained. The structure was created to include existent associations (although recently the new Australasian  association joined ADHO reaffirming the Anglophone majority). Other national European associations, like the Italian AIUCD and the German DDH, joined ADHO through the EADH. The result is that both the presence and the influence of Italian and German communities are in principle diluted comparing to other national communities.
And how about the French and Spanish associations? Do we think these two communities will accept, like the German and the Italian associations, to be represented in ADHO by the EADH? (Incidentally, the process that led at least one of these two associations to join EADH was far from transparent, as members were not publicly  consulted.)

I'm aware of present ADHO's efforts to reflect in its committees a power balance not just  based on numbers, but that doesn't change the essence of the problem: inequality of representation. This inequality, unfortunately, it's a default condition of the present governance structure.

As I said and wrote many times, it is not acceptable that if I represent a national group in Europe I could join ADHO only through  EADH, but if I am Mexican or Canadian I can join directly. It is like saying that if Turkey wants to join the EU has to join before Romania or Hungary. I'm aware that absurdities like these have historical reasons. But we are here to change and make our history, not to be subjects of it. So I'm really sorry for those friends and colleagues who spent a considerable amount of time, and in same cases most of their lifes, building and strengthening organizations like EADH, but in fact the same existence of such 'constituent organizations' makes today not possible to speak about a  democratically representative DH international organization. What seems more serious is that the current governance structure prevents other regional and national groups to join ADHO freely and on equal basis preconditions.

I think it is just a matter of time: things soon or later will change also in DH, and new realities will substitute old ones. You may not agree with what I wrote so far, but what is clear is that present structures cannot accommodate the global explosion of DH. The sooner we'll realize this, the better for everyone.

Sorry for this lengthy reply.

Saluti a tutti

Domenico

Il 29/Nov/2015 13:56, "Øyvind Eide" <lister@oeide.no> ha scritto:
Dear Domenico,

ADHO is an indirect democracy: there are six constituent organisations, with (I think all of them) elected boards. These boards select voting members to the ADHO Steering Committee.

Whether such an indirect structure can be called democratic is a question of how one defines democracy. But there are other organisations using a similar indirect structure that are claimed to be democratic.

Would you prefer to turn ADHO into an organisation with personal membership and a Steering Committee elected on a one person-one vote basis?

Regards,

Øyvind

On 29. nov. 2015, at 06:38, Domenico Fiormonte wrote:

> Hi Élika and everyone,
>
> I just realized that I've inserted in the intercultural etc. document some proposals and reflections that are quite general and concern also governance and other topics. Just feel free to move them around if you think they make any sense.
>
> Thanks for giving us the opportunity to discuss these issues in a collective way. But the fact that ADHO can either accept or reject these suggestions reminds me of a situation similar to XVII-XVIII century Europe where kings and rulers could or could not accept the proposals made by elected or partially elected assemblies. So once again I like to call a spade a spade: ADHO it is not a democratic organization. We can put as much effort as we wish in drafting our proposals and pushing our requests, but the reality is that our action can be considered, in the best case, what constitutional experts would call a form of 'moral persuasion'.
> So I'm afraid we are not still equal on this (digital humanities) world.
>
> Sorry for being out of line with this. But there is no other way to defend democracy in these days except to start applying it.
>
> Domenico
> Il 29/Nov/2015 06:46, "Élika Ortega" <elikaortega@gmail.com> ha scritto:
> Dear all,
>
> This is the link to part 1 of the document we're working on Governance and Mentorship that Alex Gil and I prepared.
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uM7ePK-SRCqvI8axCKZnykg4H3WBHDAIeUHWd3rLE-c/edit#
>
> Please, feel free to add and comment.
>
> All best,
> Élika
>
> On Thu, Nov 26, 2015 at 10:35 AM, Daniel O'Donnell <daniel.odonnell@uleth.ca> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Earlier this week, ADHO announced a change in leadership as John Nerbonne stepped down as ADHO chair and Karina van Dalen-Oskam was elected as interim chair (the announcement is here: http://adho.org/announcements/2015/adho-announces-new-steering-committee-chair). As part of the announcement, Karina called for a discussion on inter-cultural communication:
>
> "The first thing I have asked the Steering Committee to do, is to establish a protocol or a set of rules/guidelines for dealing with these fundamental cultural issues. We will not be the only organization that runs into this kind of problems. I have asked all members of the Steering Committee to do some research, and I would welcome input from others as well. Can you find guidelines that we could adopt/adapt for ADHO? Do colleagues from other international organizations have suggestions based on their own experience? Are there policy makers who can help? "
>
> This is something GO::DH can contribute to: it is closely related to our core interest AND we have actually discussed parts of this in our early days (see for example, the discussion involving some of these emails: http://listserv.uleth.ca/pipermail/globaloutlookdh-l/2013-April/000319.html http://listserv.uleth.ca/pipermail/globaloutlookdh-l/2013-January/000163.html  http://listserv.uleth.ca/pipermail/globaloutlookdh-l/2013-January/000188.html
>
> At our meeting today, the executive decided to lead development of a GO::DH response to Karina's call. Because of the time limitations, we will not be able to have a full membership development and approval process (it is due Nov. 30th), though we may want to develop the interim statement further using that process after it is submitted to ADHO. For this reason it will be submitted formally as a document of the executive (and any additional authors) and as specifically reflecting their views rather than those of the SIG as a whole.
>
> But we would very much to develop this as openly and as broadly as possible within those constraints.
>
> To do this, we will be developing and writing the document openly in Google Docs between now and Sunday. We have divided our response into three sections:
>       • Recognising and Accommodating Barriers to Participation (Lead editor: Gimena del Rio)
>       • Best practice in governance and mentorship (Lead editors: Alex Gil and Élika Ortega
>       • Best practice in inter-cultural language use and communication (Lead editors: Daniel O'Donnell and Øyvind Eide).
> Each of the editors will be sharing a link to a Google doc specifically for their section with the list in the next couple of hours. In the document, they will collect notes and points and examples (and ask you to help with your ideas). On Sunday morning, we will then lock the documents down and edit them into a narrative (it is because of time pressure that we will institute this lock down; this lock-down and the lack of time for followup consultation is also why, in the end, it will be submitted as a document of the executive rather than the SIG as a whole).
>
> In keeping with the GO::DH ethos, we encourage people to contribute in whatever language you feel most comfortable in and let the editors figure out how to combine the bits and pieces. Our final document will be submitted in three forms: an original language narrative written in the languages the editors feel most comfortable in (probably English and Spanish for the most part), an English-language, lingua franca translation for wide dissemination, and, as Karina has indicated that her first choice would be for Dutch, a Dutch-language submission copy.
>
> Let me emphasis the extent to which we welcome your ideas on these topics and invite you to contribute to the formulation of our response. It may also make sense to use the list as a way of conversationally developing ideas under these topics as well, so please feel free to contribute ideas that way, as well, again in whatever language you feel most appropriate.
>
> -dan
>
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