[csaa-forum] ERA Listings and journal survival

[Warwick Mules]

I didn't say that it wouldn't impact upon labour conditions; I said that
individual academics might 'take this opportunity,' that is, decide to do
otherwise, and hence affect a resistive power to support independent
research.


Chs

Warwick


> From: Ned Rossiter <ned at nedrossiter.org>
> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:02:42 +0800
> To: CSAA discussion list <csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] ERA Listings and journal survival
> 
> Sorry to be the spoiler here, but this all sounds very quaint.  Are
> CS academics really so naive with regard to their working conditions?
> While I share the motivations and desires around so-called
> independent journals, both past and present, it is pretty crucial to
> make the connection between the desire for independence and
> infrastructural conditions - minimal as they may be - that university
> employment provides.
> 
> Like the 'free labour' of much of the open source software movement,
> the independence of the more peripheral, experimental journals is as
> strong as the 'free time' academics and researchers have to devote to
> the administration and production of such journals.  If that time is
> subtracted by increased administrative / teaching duties that arise
> from the division between research 'active' and 'teaching' staff - a
> division built into the regime of rankings, then it doesn't matter
> how much 'good will'  and 'powerful ideas of critique' there is out
> there.  Simply put, the ERA will impact upon labour conditions, and
> to think otherwise is really pretty freaky.
> 
> Ned
> 
> 
> On 16 Jul 2008, at 14:10, Warwick Mules wrote:
> 
>> Three cheers for Adrian Martin¹s post. I have been following the
>> discussion on the ERA list with much alarm as almost everyone seems
>> to think that the ERA listing will spell the end of smaller
>> humanities and cultural studies journals, including the one I edit,
>> Transformations. It was against such attempts to include,
>> exclude,   measure and corporatise the Œcontent¹ of intellectual
>> activity that I initially started Transformations as an
>> independently minded e-journal in 2000. We operate without funding
>> and with a small team of core workers, backed by a helpful group on
>> the editorial board and an army of referees. We are constantly
>> heartened by the amount of good will from academics and others in
>> the humanities towards ensuring  the articles submitted are of the
>> highest standard possible. I cannot see that the possession or not
>> of a high ERA ranking will change this. Indeed, it is my hope that
>> authors will take this opportunity to resist the corporatisation of
>> intellectual output in line with the powerful ideas of critique
>> that we follow and espouse, and continue to support and sustain
>> independent journal publication in Australia by continuing to
>> submit material and offer to referee submissions and the other
>> things that make for a rich, critically minded intellectual culture
>> offering opportunities for all (a fair go) that one assumes the
>> CSAA supports wholeheartedly.
>> 
>> Regards
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Warwick
>> 
>> 
>> Dr. Warwick Mules
>> General Editor  Transformations             http://
>> www.transformationsjournal.org/
>> 
>> 
>> English, Media Studies and Art History
>> University of Queensland
>> Brisbane Qld
>> mobile: 0412292541
>> 
>> 
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