User:Eleanorg/thesisOutline

Summary

My topic of thesistic exploration will be the tricky border where 'consent' meets 'consensus'. ('consent' = agreement of an individual; 'consensus' = agreement of the group.) The aim is to critique the way that consent is encoded in:

1. Dominant consensus practices, and thus
2. Collaboration systems encoding these practices (Eg wikipedia).

The critique will be made using feminist theories of consent. I will argue that:

1. The rhetoric/ideal of consensus often masks the ambivalence and compromise experienced by the individuals 'giving' consent.
2. Accepting this ambivalence/not-consensus is ok and beautiful and a powerful ethical position.

Notes & Questions

• I am concerned that studies of Consent and Consensus are two separate areas. And that if I want to attempt a synthesis, (eg - 'How consensual is consensus?') these two topics alone are enough. Introducing a discussion of collaborative software systems is maybe adding too many ingredients and will make it confused and/or vague.

• Read Next - Texts to help me clarify consensus vs consent:

1. Wikiepdia Consensus policy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus
2. Study of Wikipedia conflicts - http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0038869
3. The 'why women don't edit wikipedia' debate http://suegardner.org/2011/02/19/nine-reasons-why-women-dont-edit-wikipedia-in-their-own-words/
4. Consensus is Not Unanimity, Starhawk
5. David Graber on 21c Anarchism

Outline

With research objects in << >> brackets:

• Introduction
  • Demise of hierarchical editorial power online raises question of how to edit collaboratively. <<Ludovico on 'atomization of content'; London IMC)
  • 'Consensus' is a popular model used by projects like Wikipedia et al, encoding the popular activist approach to organizing.
  • Question: how consensual are these consensus systems? What is lost in the quest for consensus and who loses out?
  • Argument: interrogating consent at a low level gives tools for evaluating how consensual 'consensus' process are. Feminists give us these tools.

• Summary of the concepts of 'consent' as opposed to 'consensus'.
  • Trace the the source of 'consensus' process in Western leftwing projects
    • Q: What common sources do consensus evangelists (Wikipedia, Seeds for Change, Movement of Movements etc) draw from? << Historic texts/groups; Seeds for Change interview >>
    • Q: What assumptions does this concept of consensus make about individual consent?
  • Summarize feminist campaigns on consent << Reclaim The Night; Rape Crisis policy >>
    • Argument: interrogating consent at a low level gives tools for evaluating how consensual 'consensus' process are. Feminists give us these tools.
    • Summarize origin & dominance of the 'yes means yes/no means no' slogan. << Historic texts/ campaigns; RTN interview >>
    • Outline correlation of this slogan with the legal definition of consent. << 'The Nature of Consent'; 'Consent to Sexual Relations' >>
    • Introduce contemporary debates questioning this slogan. << 'Yes Means Yes'; Hugo S. >>

• Consensus in online publishing
  • Introduce the issue of how to curate crowd-sourced content. (DANGER of diversion into filter bubble debate)
    • Hierarchical editorial control being replaced by user curation / collaborative curation.
  • How consensus is encoded in collaborative editing << CHOOSE RL EXAMPLE/s. Possibilities: post-Indymedia projects; Wikipedia >>
    • Describe an example or two of how consensus is used in collaborative editing. (DANGER of becoming a Wikipedia/WikiMedia thesis)
    • Use feminist theories of consent to evaluate how consensual this process is.

• Proposals for consensual approach to consensus
  • Ambivalence is good
    • Back up with feminist/ direct democracy theory (Q: how/where to include theory on consensus democracy?)

Bibliography

Publishing

• Ludovico, Alessandro (2012) Post Digital Print: The Mutation of Publishing since 1894 (Eindhoven: Onopatopee).
• Garsiel, Tali (2011) How Browsers Work: Behind the Scenes of Modern Web Browsers [online]. Accessed 19 October 2012 at http://taligarsiel.com/Projects/howbrowserswork1.htm.
• IMC London (2012) Time to move on: IMC London signing off [online]. Accessed 13 October 2012 at http://london.indymedia.org/articles/13128
• Pariser, E. (2011) The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think (London: Penguin).
• Upworthy (2012) Could This Be The Most Upworthy Site In The History Of The Internet? [online]. Available at: http://www.upworthy.com/could-this-be-the-most-upworthy-site-in-the-history-of-the-internet (Accessed 1 December 2012).

Consent

• Butler, J. (2004) 'Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy' in Undoing Gender (London: Routledge).
• Easton, D. & Liszt, C. A. (1997) The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities (Oregon: Greenery Press).
• Home Office (2006) If You Don't Get a 'Yes' Before Sex, Who'll Be Your Next Sleeping Partner? [campaign] PDF available at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/consent-campaign/Prison.pdf?view=... (Accessed 1 December 2012).
• Johnston, J. (2010) 'A History of Consent in Western Thought', in: Miller, G. & Wertheimer, A. (eds.)(2010) The Ethics of Consent: Theory and Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
• Kleinig, J. (2010) 'The Nature of Consent', in: Miller, G. & Wertheimer, A. (eds.)(2010) The Ethics of Consent: Theory and Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
• Kramer Bussel, R. (2008) 'Beyond Yes or No: Consent as Sexual Process', in Freidman, J. & Valenti, J. (eds) Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (California: Seal Press).
• Miller, G. & Wertheimer, A. (eds.)(2010) The Ethics of Consent: Theory and Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
• Millar, Thomas M. (2008) 'Towards a Performance Model of Sex', in Freidman, J. & Valenti, J. (eds) Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (California: Seal Press).
• Rape Crisis Scotland (2008) This Is Not an Invitiation to Rape Me [campaign]. Available at: www.thisisnotaninvitationtorapeme.co.uk (Accessed 1 December 2012).

(2010) Not Ever [campaign]. Available at: http://www.notever.co.uk (Accessed 1 December 2012).

(2011) Pie Chart Postcard [campaign]. Available at: www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/workspace/uploads/files/chart.pdf (Accessed 1 December 2012).

• Reclaim The Night Oxford (2011) Reclaim The Night [online]. Available at: http://oxfordfeminist.ox4.org/rtn (Accessed 1 December 2012).
• Schwyzer, H. (2008) The Opposite of Rape is Not Consent; the Opposite of Rape is Enthusiasm [online]. Available at: http://www.hugoschwyzer.net/2008/06/15/the-opposite-of-rape-is-not-consent-the-opposite-of-rape-is-enthusiasm-a-revised-and-expanded-post/ (Accessed 1 December 2012).
• Sokolov, D & Jools (2010) 'Two Sex Radicals Consider Kink' in Play!Fight!: Thoughts, Fantasies and Stories on Kinky Sex and Politics (Oxford: Radical X).
• Wertheimer, Alan (2003) Consent to Sexual Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Consensus

• Epstein, M. (1996) 'Bare Attention', in: Thoughts Without A Thinker (New York: Basic Books).
• Hardt, M. & Negri, A. (2004) Multitude: war and democracy in the Age of Empire (New York: Penguin).
• Seeds for Change (2012a) Consensus Decision Making [online]. Available at: http://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/consensus (Accessed 1 December 2012).

(2012b) Facilitating Meetings: A Short Guide [online]. Available at: http://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/free/shortfacilitation#skills (Accessed 1 December 2012).