As you all know, I don't care one way or the other as long as Canadians run things ;-)
Seriously though. I think things like GO::DH and CenterNet are partially a way around this, because they break things up. GO::DH is not a voting CO of ADHO, but it is also not "under" a CO either and it has had an outsized effect on the field, I think it is fair to say... or at least ADHO. This is not by chance: there was a very serious proposal a few years ago, soon after GO::DH established the SIG model at ADHO, to place SIGs organisationally under COs: i.e. they would have to register via a CO. That was something I and some others argued successfully against.
GO::DH began with representation on the SC at ADHO, though we lost that once it became clear that there potentially would be many SIGs, for the do-ocractic reason that the committee would become very unwieldy. Something I don't consider too unreasonable.
I'm on Alex's side of things on this, I think, though I also think the EADH situation is a very tough one to fix. On the whole, I think the route to change within ADHO (and I'll say I think one of its most interesting characteristics) is its willingness to consider alternate, non-national models for COs: so CenterNet, the ACH (in its own view of itself). I'd say encouraging the movement of the TEI into ADHO as a CO would be a great step (one I wanted when I was chair, but never managed to do); it would be interesting is something like the Portuguese DH group were to enter as a linguistic one (is there not something like that afoot with the fraoncophonie?).
So I think there actually is space. To the extent I understand it, the real trouble along the lines you are reporting may be *at* the CO level rather than the ADHO level. I.e. it might be a trouble of definition within Europe. But I don't know enough to say.
Something I do think that ADHO did wrong was get rid of the option to become a voting member of all COs. I thought that was a brilliant system and I was sad to see it go. I never exercised my vote outside of the CSDH, but I liked being, in principle, a member of all COs.
On Sun, 29 Nov 2015 at 13:28 Øyvind Eide lister@oeide.no wrote:
Dear Domenico,
Thank you for a clear and thorough reply. We may not agree on all aspects of history, nor on the details of the best (least bad) future organisation (should the power of Iceland be the same as the power of China? Maybe that is the least bad we can do), but I think we agree that ADHO must change into something easier to manage and more representative and inclusive. My take on this is to see what comes out of the current process for simplifying the structure of ADHO. If that indeed makes it better it gives us a starting point for further development and changes.
ADHO is a tool which is only meaningful as long as it makes sense to us, it should never become a goal in itself. For those working within the system that is always important to remember, it is so easy to make our tools our goals. For me ADHO still makes sense. We do good things with it and it is a place to meet.
I also believe that the free software concept of “gjørokrati” (do-ocracy in English?) is one aspect -- those who are willing to do work gets more influence. It has to be checked and limited by other bases for power, though.
Ha en fin kveld,
Øyvind
On 29. nov. 2015, at 20:51, Domenico Fiormonte 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-SRCqvI8axCKZnykg4H3WBHDAIeUHWd3rL...
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-cha...). 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.htm...
http://listserv.uleth.ca/pipermail/globaloutlookdh-l/2013-January/000188.htm...
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 (Leadeditor: Gimena del Rio)
• Best practice in governance and mentorship (Lead editors: AlexGil 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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