[Reader-list] [Announcements] Internet and The Culture of Openness

[The Sarai Programme]

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     CACIM and Sarai/CSDS invites you to a discussion
                            on
*            "Internet and The Culture of Openness" *


      Date : March 2, 2006, Thursday
      Time : 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm
      Venue: Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, New Delhi 110054
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In recent years, the idea and practices of openness seem to have
become very popular, especially on the Internet.  That this is not
restricted to the electronic realm is evident from one of the popular
concepts of the World Social Forum (WSF) -- while the WSF means many
things to many people, one of the more prominent conceptions of the
WSF is as an 'open space' where individuals, organizations, and
movements come together, share, exchange, build bridges,
relationships, strategize, etc.

Today, various trends and practices of "openness" are prevalent on the
Internet -- the free/open-source movement has in turn spurred various
other endeavours from open access journals, open maps, open knowledge,
open content, open design, open publishing, open encyclopedias
(wikipedia), open politics, open democracy, and so on.

Clearly, most of these endeavours in "openness" appear rooted in the
potential and promise of the Internet -- as an interactive
communication medium where everyone can potentially reach out to
anyone in the wide open world.  Yet, in the course of the last year or
so, there have been developments that raise several questions about
how true this really is, and how long will it reamin to be true.
There was the struggle over control of Internet's root servers, then
the case of Yahoo! enabling the Chinese Government to convict a
journalist, and recently, Google's capitulation to Chinese demands for
content censorship.  The question here is more about the robustness of
openness of the Internet rather than about Yahoo or Google.

With this extremely brief background and context, we invite you to a
discussion to take a critical look on the theme "Internet and the
culture of openness", the promise, potential, and practicality of it.

Theme: Internet and the culture of openness
Date : March 2, 2006, Thursday
Time : 2:00 pm
Venue: Sarai, CSDS, 29, Rajpur Road, New Delhi 110 054

We encourage submissions from you before the meeting (at least an idea
or a question that you would like to bring up during the meeting) so
that it can help us facilitate a logical flow during the
discussion. Even if you are not from Delhi, and/or cannot be part of
the discussion, we encourage you to write in -- your contribution will
be shared with the group. We also hope to put up some of this material
on a website (open to, participation of course!).

Here are some questions to consider:
- Is the underlying idea of openness particularly new to the Internet
era?  Or, what is the history of this value of openness? What can we
say of its appeal in the future?
- Are we now entering a world losing control over our commons in the
real world and getting enraptured by the commons of the electronic
world?
- How much of this practice of "openness", so prevalent in the domain
of the Internet, carries over to the domain of interactions in the
world of flesh-and-blood?  Seen another way, if found desirable, how
does one translate the practice and culture of openness from the
electronic world to the "real" world?
- How stable and robust are these practices of openness in the
electronic world, dependent as strongly as they are on technological
enablers that, atleast on the surface, seem easily subverted?  Seen
another way, what are the weaknesses of the Internet-driven cultures
of openness?

Write to Subbu (sastry at cs.wisc.edu), Seby (sebydesiolim at cacim.net),
Madhuresh (cacim at cacim.net), Shuddhabrata (shuddha at sarai.net), or
Gora (gora_mohanty at rediffmail.com).

Note on CACIM
-------------
*CACIM*, the India Institute for Critical Action : Centre in Movement,
aims to create spaces for cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural
reflection and action in relation to movement in its broader sense, of
motion, _expression, and change as a fundamental fact of life and
society. Our goal is to support and encourage all those involved in
different ways with 'movement' - activists, researchers,
professionals, artistes, and thinkers, both the more mature and young,
and both from 'civil' and 'incivil' worlds - in our respective work as
individuals and organisations and also in networks. Our present focus
is on cultures of politics in movement, the exploration of open space
as a political-cultural concept, and exploring through actions,
cyberspace as open space. CACIM sees itself not as an independent
organisation but interlinked and interdependent, plugged into and
learning from the world around us. With this vision, we presently
conceive CACIM as evolving into a hub within networks among
individuals and organisations located in different parts of India and
the world.  info at cacim.net




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