Dear colleagues
Perhaps it would be useful to provide some context about ADHO, from my perspective of course(!). For anyone who doesn't already know this, I've been very directly involved with ADHO from its beginning, and served as secretary and chair of the
Steering Committee before being asked to chair the Admissions Committee, which has supported the development of DH associations in several different parts of the world, and the admission as Constituent Organisations of the Canadian, Japanese, Australasian,
Taiwanese and Southern African associations, and also CenterNet, as Dan mentioned. (Since I grew up in Southern Africa, it was a particular personal pleasure to participate even in a small way in the development of a DH association in that region.) I was
also very involved with EADH over many years, serving as Treasurer and then Chair - just so you know where I'm coming from!
The primary purpose of ADHO from the outset was to provide an international framework for collaboration, and I and many others continue to see that as its primary purpose. The initial objects of collaboration were a strategic approach to publications,
specifically the creation and continuing support of a free peer-reviewed online journal - Digital Humanities Quarterly, the international conference, and support for young scholars in the form of bursaries, plus the Busa Prize - to which the Zampolli and Fortier
Prizes have subsequently been added. But the goal of supporting the development of DH globally was also an important goal from the beginning.
As Dan has indicated, the governance model has had to evolve to meet changing circumstances - including the three specific examples he gave: the admission as COs of first the Canadian organisation, and then CenterNet, and then Humanistica - all
of which challenged the initial assumptions about what COs might be.
The strength of ADHO has always been its member organisations, and the understanding that we can achieve more by collaborating than by each association acting only on its own - of course each CO in the ADHO family has its own governance structure
and pursues its own priorities. For good democratic reasons, the committees established by ADHO to ensure that work was actually carried out were fully representative. This worked fine when there were only 2 or 3 or even 4 COs, but started to become unwieldy
thereafter. And many of us were concerned that ADHO was appearing to become top-heavy and over-insitutionalised. As a result a strategic review was initiated resulting in far-reaching proposals for change in governance and finances. These proposals were
adopted in principle in the Kraków Steering Committee meetings last year (2016), and the meetings this year in Montreal formally established an Implementation Committee, with a view to the changes starting to take effect as of the Mexico City meetings. (Of
necessity, it will not be feasible for all the changes to take place overnight.)
From my perspective as chair of ADHO's Admissions Committee, the main reason it has not been feasible to get into concrete discussions about what GO::DH might look like as a CO is that until we have a clear sense of the new arrangements for governance
and finances, it is difficult if not impossible to scope the implications either for GO::DH or for ADHO and its current member associations. What I said to Dan and Roopika in Kraków and in email to them prior to the Montreal conference was that even the possibility
of an organisation such as GO::DH expressing interest in becoming a CO I see as important input into the Implementation Committee's deliberations. Among other things, CenterNet challenged us by being an association with no individual members; among other
things, Humanistica challenged us by being a language-oriented association; similarly GO::DH presents a number of challenges, including its commitment to remain an association that will always offer free membership. But these are all good challenges!
Because the rather radical changes in ADHO's governance and finance are in process of being finalised, it also meant that the two COs admitted in Montreal - the Taiwanese and Southern African associations - were admitted with Observer status to
begin with. In both cases they decided they would like to proceed with their applications nevertheless. Normally the Admissions Committee and a potential CO are able to work together on the details of what CO membership will look like in terms of both responsibilities
and benefits, but this can be done properly only when the implementation of ADHO's new arrangements becomes more concrete.
Dan has previously mentioned that GO::DH was the first Special Interest Group, and indeed was a major part of the prompt for ADHO deciding to initiate SIGs, and GO::DH was welcomed so warmly precisely because of its commitment to DH globally.
And as Dan and others have also said, during the relatively brief period of its existence it has already had a significant effect on ADHO and its associations. For this reason alone, I would be sorry if GO::DH decides to cut its links to ADHO.
Just to recap, as far as its relationship to ADHO is concerned, GO::DH has a number of options.
One is to remain as a SIG. This involves no specific responsibilities, but brings various benefits: free access to ADHO infrastructure; privileged access to organising workshops at the international DH conference; and one matter under discussion
with ADHO's Conference Coordinating Committee is to offer SIGs the opportunity to organise conference threads. SIGs are also entitled to request funding support for specific projects.
Another is to apply for admission as a Constituent Organisation. This would involve some responsibility for participating in the governance arrangements - in particular providing members to serve on a small number of ADHO committees. The benefits
include having a voice and a vote in the (new) policy making council that will be established at the end of the current strategic review/implementation process. As indicated above, a particular challenge presented by GO::DH is its commitment to free membership,
and this is something the Admissions Committee would explore with the GO::DH executive and the ADHO governance body.
A third option would be to ask to be an Affiliate Organisation. This is a loose arrangement governed by a Memorandum of Agreement. It is designed for associations that share common goals and wish to have a formal link, but do not wish to participate
in governance or financial arrangements.
And obviously one option is to cut ties to ADHO completely.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been an enthusiastice member/support of GO::DH from the outset, and not surprisingly, my own view is in support of those voiced by Tunde, Elika, Dan, Barbara, Vika and others. I believe GO::DH and ADHO
have a great deal to gain from continued engagement, whether as a SIG or a CO (or even an Affiliate).
Apologies for the length of this email, but I hope it provides some useful context.
Best wishes
Harold
Apologies for the delay in responding to the request for a short summary. Things have been very hectic the last week.
The shortest way of saying it is that
- We agree with Risam and Gil that
we should look at the executive structure to ensure better global representation, and
- We partially agree that steps could be taken to invigorate or encourage participation in GO::DH activities
(though we also believe that the fall in activity they point to is also simply part of the natural evolution of all Communities of Practice rather
than something to be particularly concerned about).
- We disagree with their proposal to "separate." In our view, this
does nothing to address their first two concerns and in fact probably works against them by reducing GO::DH's prominence, ability to play a leading role at ADHO (and other events) and by making the network disparity between Northerners and others that they
point to as the cause of (1) worse, not better.
We have several reasons for disagreeing with the proposal to separate:
- "Separating" will not lead per se to a restructuring of the GO::DH executive or make it any easier. Risam and Gil argue that the current predominance of Northerners in the GO::DH executive is the result of a network advantage--i.e. Northerners
have easier access to the organisations and events that make you well-known in DH and this shows up in more votes at election time. "Separating" from ADHO makes this Northern advantage greater, not less: the Northerners will still have access to these opportunities
through their Northern COs; separating GO::DH from ADHO simply removes a channel by which those not in those circles have risen to international prominence--it makes the playing field more uneven,
in other words.
- "Separation" also does nothing to support reinvigoration. The early "active" days on GO::DH happened when GO::DH was
becoming an ADHO SIG--i.e. associated with ADHO. This suggests that ADHO is not the cause of the decline in activity--and, in fact, all communities of practice experience it: they are active in the beginning because they are attracting the greatest percentage
of new members, many of whom already have active projects; after that burst, new projects need to be developed rather than imported, and that is a slower process.
But while all Communities of Practice experience a reduction in activity after their earliest days, there is no reason to believe that abandoning our relationship with the conferences and journals that promote DH research internationally will lead to more activity.
Currently GO::DHers have extremely prominent roles in the organisation of the premiere conference in DH--i.e. DH Mexico. This association makes it easier rather than more difficult to find new project, provoke new discussions, and discover new people and ideas.
Finally we disagree with Risam and Gil in that we think that it is worth investigating Constituent Organisation
(CO) status for GO::DH. Since we haven't investigated it, we don't know what's involved--except that we know that the COs staff the committees and journal editorial boards, meaning that, if nothing else, it might be a huge advantage in overcoming the network
disparity Gil and Risam mention.
But we also accept that it may turn out that CO status is not for us. We are a flexible, grass roots organisation with a low bureaucracy. Becoming a CO will almost certainly require greater structure in
some way. But we don't see the advantage is saying we're not interested without knowing first what would be involved. It is clear that ADHO itself has a great interest in us as an organisation and is very willing to be flexible. There's no harm in asking what
would be involved. But we also firmly believe that we should not be uncritical or reflective in evaluating what is involved.
In sum, our main objection is to the "separation" idea. We fail to see how it helps address either of the other issues Gil and Risam raise, and we can see how it makes the kind of invigoration and broadening
of participation more difficult rather than easier. We think they otherwise raise important points and propose good solutions. "Separation" just seems to work against this by being at the very best a distraction.
Anything others who have discussed this side want to add?
-dan
<Outlook-U of Lethb.jpg>
Daniel Paul O'Donnell
Professor of English and Associate Member of the University Library Academic Staff
Department of English and University Library
University of Lethbridge
4401 University Drive West
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Canada
Tel. +1 (403) 329-2377
@danielPaulOD
Dear Ernesto, and all,
I'd be happy to oblige on our end:
# Independence Model
CONS:
- Less incentives for our colleagues seeking to drive institutional change within ADHO and benefit from those positions.
- A possible exodus of members who were here because of ADHO status
- Lose chances of windfall from possible ADHO CO status: which could mean fellowships, essay prizes, travel bursaries, etc. for some of our most talented young scholars in the global south.
- We have to redo much of the infrastructure
- We might fail
PROS:
- Chance of working on projects that help us connect to new projects and people around the world
- Chance of establishing a model of governance that is representative by region on a planetary scale (unique in professional organizations in the humanities)
- Chance to discuss global production of knowledge outside the provincial concerns of ADHO
- Chance to inspire again
- Bury GO::DH with dignity if we fail
Dr. Risam, let me know if I left a bullet point out, or you would like to add anything.
Hope that helps!
a.
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