Antiuniversity/Antiuniversity Now/Decolonising
Decolonising the Antiuniversity Now
editIntroduction
editThis course is based around a "real life" interaction on Facebook regarding the organisation of the Antiuniversity Now.
We will examine a series of interactions between organisers and co-organisers and look at how interventions could be made.
The workers/ actors involved in this study are:
- AU - The Antiuniversity core organisers (4 in all)
- SS - one of the core organisers
- NM - Nicholas Mertzoeff - a co-organiser
- GJ - Graham Jones - a co-organisr
- TA - Tae Ateh - a co-organiser
Our intention is to examine the interactions as well as the arguments.
Where could the workers have acted differently in order to get a better response? On what do you base your assertions?
You may make comments on each interaction. In the summary section at the end please write in your summary recomendations and sign your comment.
The Antiuniversity Now operates as a gift economy. One of the questions we will ask is whether formal or informal hierarchies are operating. Is there a dominant group? How is cultural capital being created and controlled?
Interaction 1
editTA and NM
Interaction 2
editTA and GJ
Interaction 3
editFacebook direct messaging between TA and AU
From AU to TA:
Hiya hope all is well. I noticed you have now posted your comments on Graham's course (and his reply) on the Antiuni page. Seeing that we had the exact same conversation earlier this year (around Nick Mirzoeff's event) and that you have since become a supporter - and organiser! - of the Antiuni, I wonder if you'd be ok if I hide it on the project page? Basically we'd like as many ppl to join our movement, not be deterred by taking part and these comments could put people off from taking part in what could, essentially, be an interesting course (even if it's facilitated by a white man). I left it on my page even though I'd rather not having ppl attacking each other (and I think Graham responded quite politely) on my wall but don't want to personally get between you. I must say that all four Antiuni organisers found it upsetting but we decided not to respond. I'm gonna guess you will consider this silencing you but want you to consider that your remarks might be assumed as silencing others. The Antiuni, as our only policy, don't silence anyone but instead invite as many voices into the discourse. As discussed before, the Antiuni acknowledge the imbalance in representation and opportunities and we make an effort to speak about and support decolonisation initiatives and thoughts. You know it's true because you presented an Antiuni event and we supported you In doing so. I suppose what I'm asking is that as a supporter of the Antiuni please continue supporting it (we appreciate it hugely) and accept our view that attacking us, or fellow organisers, publicly is not constructive or helpful. You are, of course and again, most invited to run an event that reflects on or responds to these issues and we will again be happy to support you. Cheers,
9/15, 5:09pm Tae Ateh Can I speak to you tomorrow or later tonight? If not I will try and formulate a written reply to your message
9/15, 6:02pm
Hiya & thanks. Best if you send a message so I can share it with the others as my message was from all of us at the Antiuni.
9/15, 6:25pm Tae Ateh Ok cool will do, I'll try and get something to you by tomorrow By the end of tomorrow that is x
9/15, 6:52pm
No problem & no pressure. Just wanted to share our thoughts. Reading your comments again all I can say is what we said before - why not do an event about it? You make a lot of good points and introduce interesting references, share them with others in an inviting, constructive way. We'll support you!
9/15, 9:45pm Tae Ateh I may wrote further but I am at a loss at where to begin. You claim the following: ANTIUNIVERSITY NOW CHALLENGES ACADEMIC AND CLASS HIERARCHY THROUGH AN OPEN INVITATION TO TEACH AND LEARN ANY SUBJECT, IN ANY FORM, ANYWHERE. And yet you want to shore up a neat hierarchy of lecturers and students of organisers and organised. You say anyone anywhere and yet you do not accept that the classroom or seminar room can be here on Facebook. You say you understand that there is a white male privelige in education yet you don't want to do anything eh about it - you tell me to organise something myself. You say that I have raised the exact same issue before - this is wrong but it shows you are aware of the problem but that you cannot or will not address it in your own organisational and hierarchical praxis. You won't even discuss it My problem with Morzoeff was that he initially talked about the Atlantic and BLM but only about UK USA but not Africa. When I reminded him of the largest university strike going on at the moment in Cape Town and of Rhodes Must Fall also happening in Oxford he said e would contact them and get them involved. He failed to do so. I then noted that his lecture was all white people and asked whether he had addressed this - he said he didn't feel the need to. This is coming from a lecturer in Visual Culture. So he saw no need to address the racial make up of his own situation when talking about an anti racist movement and also excluding the RMF movement . No idea that the situation for white allies requires thinking about especially in the context of decolonosing knowledge and universities. Have any of you Ever heard of "why is my curriculum white?"? I commented on This new course you are running because you invited the comment saying its a new style of course and you wanted feedback. Yes it was sarcastic since I got so little discussion from you the last time besides "do it yourself. We can't change what we do." The reply from graham was not polite it was offensive. The same : why don't you do it? I answered with suggestions and critiques on the content. No reply from him or you. I'm disgusted. I do not think you should remove the ent. I think you should answer it. To sum up: you are reproducing the white supremacist patriarchal hierarchical and anti working class psychic and physical structures of the europeanised university. I think you need criticising in public if you refuse to discuss this - because people need to understand that you are currently a reactionary organisation and not a radical or revolutionary one. I invite your response and welcome discussion Please do not take this personally. It's a problem of political organising and structure. The structure and way of organising can change. But only through rigorous critique and dialogue. Yours for an antiuniversity The Un-versity of Cambridge
9/15, 11:05pm Tae Ateh Specifically on Graham's course: The course curriculum and content should not be dictated by the teacher. Students and prospective students should be empowered to comment and have a dialogue on it. That's democratic. This can happen on email in person or using Internet technology eg Google docs or wikis - and given that Google is a corporation wedded to the U.S. Military, wiki is more open and suitable Secondly if you are launching a new course then that should not be a European managwnt science run by a European male. Given that the university is dominated by the output of Europeanen from 4 or 5 countries this is a disaster. The idea that anyone can set up a course anywhere is just rhetoric. Resources eg time and access to computers is not equally distributed around the world. By promoting some people and not others you reproduce power inequality. You need to be aware of your own situation within this power matrix and actively seek to go beyond it and challenge it. That means going beyond your networks to encourage and promote not Western European and non male forms of agency pedagogy and epistemology.
9/15, 11:29pm Tae Ateh And if you think this course is really essential then find others to balance it out - on decolonisation or intersectional feminism or workers organising - and social movements - and if you have no one to deliver or plan them then find them! Empower radicals so they can devise deliver these courses , even just by offering typing, space, computers etc - all these things you have access to. You also seem to have moved away from the principle of free education by charging for this course? I haven't mentioned this before because even the original antiuniversity has a subscription fee but you have talked about free education and I do believe you claim to offer free education.. So what happened there? Have you dropped this now? Tuesday
9/20, 10:45pm
Hi Asim The Antiuni is not programming events in the way other organisations do. We do big call-outs (like the one you took part in) where anyone is invited to share knowledge or propose an activity about any subject. In between festivals we respond to suggestions and requests from people who want to run events - we do not invite or initiate but we are always happy to support interesting and relevant work. If you have a burning issue and want to do a public event about it - as we said lots of times before - we will support you. We agreed from the start to work in this way and decided not to curate the festivals. This is how we believe we should work and, in practical terms, the only way we can - we all have jobs and families and we can only do the mountains of Antiuni admin in between. That's why we always appreciate practical support but less able to respond at length to such endless and relentless criticism. As we said in so many ways before, while we acknowledge the systematic inequality, racism and sexism that is inherent to the cultural and education sectors, and while supporting and encouraging as much as we can work that addresses, opposes and resists these structural inequalities, we are in no position (definitely not materially) to commission work. Instead, we try to sustain a community that can collectively respond to these issues in a critical and constructive way. We don't always agree with everyone and that's also fine and we are taking some of your criticism on board. The idea is to support self-organisation in the hope that it will lead to further collaborative work and collective knowledge creation, whatever the subject. We feel that you telling us what we should or shouldn't do is out of place and not called for. We are doing our best to be inclusive and democratic and hope that others share our vision and join us along the way. No one is forced to follow our principles, take part in our activities or agree with us. We don't feel that silencing others is the way to address these issues. Graham has offered to contribute and we want to make sure he can and feels welcome at the Antiuni, like everyone else who wants to get involved. In the same way we made sure you (and lots of other non-white and non-male organisers) were welcome to be part of the Antiuni. The event he developed is well thought through (in fact, it includes lots of the references you mentioned), is inclusive and open and is aimed to generate a discussion about many of the issues that you care about. You are, of course, welcome to take part and it will be recorded and freely available for people who can't be there in person. We feel that you continuously publicly attacking us is not constructive and unhelpful. It simply feels - to us and others who read your comments - like an attempt to silence contributors and comrades while not offering an alternative within the context of where the work is presented i.e. the Antiuni, which is equally open to you. We agreed that the only way to take part in the Antiuni is to contribute, not silence others and ask you to please stop. We had long conversations about how to respond to this (and considering the fact that we are all doing this voluntarily, this is taking a lot of our time) and agreed that we would like to ask you to stop attacking us. We find it personally upsetting and damaging to the Antiuniversity, a project which we work really hard to sustain and that you otherwise seemed to support. We consider your posting on our wall rather aggressive and ask that you stop. I personally ask that you stop messaging me as i start to find it very intrusive. This is my personal request and I expect you to respect it. We hope you understand and leave it at that. Best, Shiri, Emma, Alex and Kerri Wednesday
9/21, 3:48am Tae Ateh "We agreed that the only way to take part in the Antiuni is to contribute, not silence others and ask you to please stop." I find your characterisation of my comments as aggressive - when all I have done is make suggestions and ask questions - as racist and based in racial prejudice. After all of my work in offering a critique and suggestions for improvement for you to label me as attacking you is very disappointing. I have not tried to silence anyone. It is you who are doing that. I have conversely only tried to open up a new dialogue with people - dialogue that is perhaps uncomfortable but I believe is vital. I want to make it clear that I mean no personal insult or attack but I will not be silenced in voicing what I feel is a criticism of institutional racism on your part. anyone is welcome to unfriend me if they find this hard to deal with. I would like to make an event as suggested by you on the institutional racism of the antiuniversity now project. It will take place here in Cambridge - I will send you further details shortly.
9/21, 4:23am Tae Ateh http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/11939196 That is exactly what is happening here
9/21, 5:54am Tae Ateh I won't message you again and apologies for these messages - I will now address the antiuniversity now directly through their page