PhD-net News

NOT A DEAD FISH
No, there was no PAPPERSBRUKET MANIFESTO at the end of the day, but even so, the intense two and a half day long research course in “Participatory governance, civil inclusion and community empowerment: the role of mediated communication initiatives” (and yes that is an impossibly long title!) did prove one important point: Communication for Social Change is not a dead fish. Even if we cannot even agree on what to call the field. But maybe that’s the whole point – that we find it so extremely interesting and critical to debate these issues and thus contribute to a field that never sleeps.

We were seven privileged PhD students on the course, who had unrestricted access to each other, beautiful surroundings, superb cooking (local produce mostly) and five devoted lecturers. The course was organized within the Ørecomm framework, and I think that the course in itself illustrates the very raison d’être of Ørecomm – the importance to create spaces to meet, debate and where we can exchange and promote knowledge, experiences, idea etc. As a coordinator for the emerging PhD-network it was a true bliss to – for the first time outside an Ørecomm business meeting – get together in flesh and blood with six other PhD candidates who are actually in this field of research. The valuable and critical input I got for my own work in progress was great, and so it was to learn about research projects from Nepal (Jacob), Cameroon (Teke), Kenya (Jessica) and China (Liu). I particularly enjoyed the way the individual projects and approaches fed into larger theoretical discussions on issues of citizenship, power, society, technology, etc, and the call for a more critical and political economy perspective on media and participation.

Another thing about the course was – and I don’t mean this in a scary or excluding way – the comforting feeling of being with peers. Just that at more than one occasion, participants witnessed of a feeling of not being fully understood at their respective department amongst collegues who are either ignorant, uninterested or thinks CFSC is a dead fish. The field is per definition multidisciplinary and diverse, so to talk about a common identity doesn’t seem fruitful. But the commonalities are there and this course was an occasion to point at them in a constructive way and say that yes we need this space and this network (and this is not a call for comdev scholars anonymous!). Important and vital research will come out of it, and one should not underestimate the social factor in these processes, there was not a silent moment druing these days and I dare say we had great fun. It was nice to take a walk in the sun together, show Liu, who’d came to Copenhagen just a few weeks earlier his first kantarell, listen to Marie Louise’s first PhD outline, see Shereen appear for breakfast with facepaint and amaze at the fact that Karin, Norbert and Thomas ran 6,3 km every morning! And this is where I feel that technology (in this particular case a gps-watch) has a profound impact on human behaviour .

In two and a half days quite a lot can happen. I think that most of us in one way or another experienced some kind of ‘overload’ or intellectual-conceptual fatigue, although a very stimulating one. On the one hand the course added to my general confusion – right now I am in that stage in my development when all that is solid just dissolves, and there is not a single concept which I can lean against with enough confidence. Is social change at all useful notion, how can we understand and operationalize participation, what do we mean by governance anyway? A million dollar question also seems to be what’s the political potential of Facebook?! That is if we now manage to say something coherent about the political. On the other it resolved some critical questions

In the discussions leading up to the PAPPERSBRUKET MANIFESTO that never was, there was a general understanding that communication for social change (or development) should be for and about social justice, a discursive space for critical voices. This connects to what Shereen and others said in the course’s closing panel, where we Therfore I conclude that the PAPPERSBRUKET MANIFESTO still matters, as a symbol of the discursive and critical space it represents. The question now is: where do we go next?

The PhD course took place at Pappersbruket, an former paper mill turned into a conference centre near Osby in the south of Sweden. Participants: Jessica Gustafsson, Teke Ngomba, Jacob Thorsen, Liu Jun, Johanna Stenersen, Florencia Enghel, Marie Loise Sjølie, Linje Manyozom, Thomas Tufte, Shereen Usdin, Karin Wilkins and Norbert Wildermuth.

Interested in democracy media and community empowerment? Then this PhD-course Participatory Governance: Civic Inclusion and Community Empowerment. The Role of Mediated Communication Initiatives might be something for you. It takes place at Pappersbruket (conference center in Sweden) between September 8-10th.
Go to http://fmkj.ruc.dk/ for more information.