advisory council

[Jeff Deby]

Hello all,

The advisory council.  I like the idea of 1/3 each
open/political/professional appealed to me, though I do take Anna
Livia's comments as food for thought:


> It is hard for me to see how a council with one third open seats, one third
> political and one third professional seats would function in practice. How
> big is it likely to be? How easy is it to define the difference between
> professional and political? How willing will people be to make this
> distinction?
>

I think these are real issues, but not irresolvable.  Size we can
decide.  Willingness to make the distinction is what we are discussing
now, I think.  The difference between professional and political might
be just as hard to define as the differences between the
research-area-based issues.  For example, the difference between
"Scholars outside the US" and "Scholars studying minority/threatened
languages" (I forget the wording of those but I think they're clear
enough for the purpose of this e-m).

Unless we want an entire council to be at-large, potential councillors
are going to have to make choices, I think.  I also don't think this is
so bad.  It doesn't mean (at least, I would like it not to mean) that
the councillor cannot have any input on other topics.  It's just that
they are focussing on one area for the purpose of the IGALA council; if
they choose to get involved in the larger discussions, so much the
better.

The tripartite council, as proposed, also has the advantage of less
identity-categorizing, which is something not a few people have objected
to.  The categorization seems to be more functionally based.  Having a
tripartite council with political/professional/open would work best, I
think, if political and professional are clearly defined.  Though
perhaps other people have better 3-way (or n-way) suggestions.  Though
we might consider "academic" instead of "professional"; I think that
would be a useful distinction.  Maybe "political" could cover
professional and other applied, action-based foci.  Academics generally
refining the world of theory, and political generally refining the world
of action. (Though of course political theory exists, I would suggest
that it is academia unless it is applied.)  Again, there will be
overlaps here and again, unless we want an entirely no-portfolio council
(which I think would be taxing for councillors and would bog down the
council's processes), councillors will need to make choices.

In any case, I think what we want is a structure which will allow
everyone to be heard, and feel they are being heard.  I think either the
3-way council or "at-large plus reserved specific research areas"
council could work this way, if we are committed to that goal.  (Though
of course I'm not implying that these are the only two we have to choose
from, I'm only working with the ones that have been proposed.)

If we choose the "reserved specific research areas" type of council, I
agree that feminist and men's studies issues are not likely to be
unheard in the final procedure, but I do not feel that that is a good
reason to leave them out of the "reserved-councillor" group.  For one,
it assumes feminism and men's studies as givens, with the other research
specializations as marginalized, which in my opinion reproduces their
marginalization.

Sorry such a long monotribe.  I hope it's followable.

Jeff
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeff Deby, Georgetown University
• E-mail: Jeff_Deby at bc.sympatico.ca
• Web: http://www.georgetown.edu/users/debyj/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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