'Inside the tent pissing out or outside pissing in?: Reflections on academic activism around the G8 and anti-G8 protests'

Dr. John Barry, School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy &Cllr. John Barry, Green Party

Academic activism

Take 2……

Speaking truth to power?....

Development and Transparency: Problems, Prospects and Possibilities

Chair: Brendan O’Leary, University of Pennsylvania/Queen’s University Belfast

From Resource Curse to Resource Cure. Paul Collier, University of Oxford

The G8’s Record on Global Development.  Anthony Payne, University of Sheffield

Africa Rising.  Dr Stefan Andreasson, Queen’s University, Belfas

Oil and Sustainable Development. Dr John Barry, Queen’s University, Belfast

Two presences – same views

“Belfast, for example, may not be hosting the summit, but it will be host to thousands of protesters and dozens of alternative events that will contribute to a global conversation about the world's priorities.

As a civic university, Queen's has a duty to participate, facilitate and catalyze this process. Universities such as Queen's have an important civic function to play, not just in serving their community, but in enriching the civic culture and deepening the quality of democracy.

Universities can best do this by encouraging and enhancing informed debate; by presenting the knowledge and insights of its experts to the wider community, to provoke and stimulate thought, reflection and discussion”.

Dr. Andrew Baker, ‘Why Queens University is hosting the pre-G8 summit summit’, Belfast Telegraph, June 14th 2013

“G8 Experts”

Academic activismPrivileged position as an academic being invited to QUB Pre-G8 summit conference

Privilege and responsibility

Same views/position but expressed very differently – professional academic setting, high expectations, high security,

Speaking truth to power? Or token heterodoxy?

Should academics be activists? – competing tensions, expectations and pressures…often with little or no support

Reflections Queens should have hosted an parallel conference/workshop on the G8 and anti-G8 protests and issues with civic society voices and academic input?

Or at least greater participation in the anti-G8 festival of ideas in Belfast

Participatory action research potential

Did the pre-G8 summit fulfill Andrew’s statement above?

Constraining context of standard academic workshop – academic “expert”, elite and insider (current and past G8 state officials, ‘Sherpa's’ etc.) discussion and voices and especially of audience participation.

Insider and outsider status – inside listening to the protesters; responsibility to represent dissenting view/s; myself as a ‘Trojan horse’?

Heightened self-consciousness – am I alone at this event?

Disconnect between academic research and on the ground political protest

Devaluing and active discouraging of academic activism – career progression, one’s ‘expert’ (neutral, objective) standing and reputation

Fair comment? :

Many academics are happy to build their careers on the backs of researching the oppressed

“but, paradoxically, they rarely join with them in their ‘struggle’” (Kitchin and Hubbard, 1999, p.196).

Kitchen, R. and Hubbard, P. (1999), ‘Research, action and “critical” geographies’. Area, 31:4, pp.195-198

Concluding questionsWho or what does our knowledge serve?

Should academic knowledge serve social movements?

How and in what ways?

What are the implications of academics being paid from public funds? Our responsibility to wider society etc.?

The university itself as a site of political struggle – a site of neoliberal corporate and state power, reproducing not challenging inequality, injustice, unsustainability ?

Need for more academic-activist strategic and collective thinking around a research agenda – collectively co-deciding research projects with activists/movements as against/balanced with individual academic interests ?

Against vampire/extractive/parasitic academic research on the one hand, and abstract theorising on the other?

Who or what does our knowledge serve?