Daniela’s Comments (group member since Nov 22, 2018)

Daniela’s comments from the Open as in book group.

Thanks, Anna, for organizing. I just ordered a used copy from Amazon for less then $7. The library did not have any copies available.

Looking forward to our discussion!

Happy reading,

Daniela

Thank you, Anna!

I took a look at the bookshelf and two books that caught my attention (they are all amazing) are:
- As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
- Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement Building Strategy by Chris Crass

If we want a novel, I really enjoyed and would re-read "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures" by Anne Fadiman.

Looking forward to it. :)

Thank you all for joining the discussion of this beautiful book. I am sorry for those who could not make it, but don't worry, Jessica (thank you!) has done a great job at capturing our chat.

Here are the notes: https://tinyurl.com/y4ruzavd

Looking forward to our next book discussion! :)

I used Naomi's awesome template from our previous call to begin drafting our notes/agenda/discussion points. I'm adding a lot of my own thoughts, but I'll be simplifying in the next few days. Please feel free to add yours in preparation to our discussion.

Google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17...

As I re-read this book I re-discover how much I appreciate adrienne's words and deepen (hopefully) my understanding of her lessons.

I'm reflecting a lot around collaborative efforts, how hard they are to coordinate, but how rewarding they are when they work. One of my favorite quotes is:

“We need to move from competitive ideation, trying to push our individual ideas, to collective ideation, collaborative ideation. It isn’t about having the number one best idea, but having ideas that come from, and work for, more people.”

How is it going for you? Anything you wish to share here before ouor call? :)

Thank you, Naomi! I look forward to this discussion. In the next week I'll be adding discussion points to our note documents and post them here as well.

I hope you all are enjoying this amazing book!

Best,

Daniela

Thanks everyone for filling out the poll. The winner is

October 11 at 9am PT / 12pm ET / 4pm UTC.

Please add this to your calendars, and let's start reading (if you haven't already)!

Open discussion in this thread. :)

Hi All,
Thank you for those of you who have filled the poll already. It looks like the leading dates are:

- October 11 9am PT
- October 31 8am PT
- October 31 10am PT

If you haven't filled it out already, please do. I'll close the poll on Wednesday September 11 and pick the time and date in which most of us can make it.

Thanks!

Dear All,

It looks like we got almost a unanimous vote for Emergent Strategy as our next book to discuss.

To choose a date for our discussion, I made a Doodle poll. Please let me know if none of these dates work. October is a bit crazy for me as I'll be traveling quite a bit (as I imagine many of you will too).

Here is the poll: https://doodle.com/poll/23f3snztxs97g233

Please fill it out asap so we can get a date on the calendar.

Thank you all! :)

Great discussion today! Vinodh, sorry you missed it!

Naomi, thanks for chairing. Jessica, thanks for taking notes. Everyone, thanks for the awesome discussion.

As I said during the call, I'm happy to chair the next call. Please add your suggestions on page 8 of the call's notes and I'll make a poll once we have at least 3 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t...#).

Thank you so much, Naomi. Just participated to the poll.

P.S. I continue to not get the notifications in my email even though I think I have that checked in my settings. Any tips to get that set up to work?

I love this idea too and I can help with the proposal submission. Thanks for starting this, Naomi.
<3

That book is waiting for me on my desk!

Here's the link to the Twitter thread with some suggestions, including books, podcasts, and zines: https://twitter.com/Neurosarda/status...

This was a book that was recommended, "Building Access
Universal Design and the Politics of Disability" by Aimi Hamraie https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-divis.... I think this book is primarily focused on disabilities, which is something I too often fail to consider appropriately. I added the book to our group bookshelf. I hope that's helpful.

Thank you Kirstie for bringing this up.

I agree with Naomi. I'd be happy to change book. I don't have a good recommendation on what to read instead, but I am interested in the topic. I just tweeted #openasinbook asking for recommendation on this topic. I'll post here any good reply.

If we want to keep the momentum going for this round, we can always read another in the list. I vote for the origin of capitalism.

Thanks Ashley for organizing.

Daniela

Thank you, Ashley. For some strange reason I don't get email notifications of activity in this platform even though I set it to do it (or at least I think I did). That's how I missed the last discussion. But I voted and I look forward to the next one. :)

Thanks for organizing! I volunteer to coordinate the next one if no one else has already.

Thank you so much for this thoughtful comment, Lauren.

The most thought provoking part for me is where it says how “when you have a vision of tomorrow, you can’t pick the big cataclysmic fight as your first confrontation” and the need to “make the fight relevant to everyone” (page 32). I personally struggle with this for several reasons. Here are two.

First, I have a hard time compromising, particularly for causes that trigger emotional feelings (which in my case are way too many). For example, when it comes to the use of specific language to talk about issues of discrimination – that being racial, sexual, or any other kind of oppression exercised, either voluntarily or involuntary, by the majority in power. I admit that I'm new to these conversations and I'm very much still learning (mostly unlearning), so thanks for your patience. But as of today, I personally have no problem admitting that I belong to that majority and it is my responsibility to learn and use my privilege responsibly. That includes using words that describe the reality of the society I live in, like the fact that it is dominated by white supremacy. I take "white supremacy" as an example, because a) it is part of a conversation I'm having with a group of people involved in an open science project, and b) I hope it very well illustrates the point I want to make about compromise.

It is my interpretation, that if I were to follow the advice in the book, I would not include these words in a project's value statement to describe the status quo of scholarship, for example, as I'm very much aware of the fact that these exact words are often called out as being "politically incorrect" and, because of the political discourse in north America right now, they might trigger polarized and politicized reactions. So, if I wanted to speak to the majority, if I wanted to be smart and use of words that would instead maximize readership or engagement with my project, if I wanted to "win the battle", I would probably choose to use "softer" words so that I can "pull people toward [our] movement and recognize that [we] can't win without them" (p.48). After all, Harvey Milk won the votes of white, cisgender, heterosexual people cleaning up dog poops, not winning their hearts by appealing to human rights.

However, my gut reaction to this is, if a reader is not willing to admit that these are the words that actually describe the situation, that these are the words that are going to include people that are generally excluded from the conversation, well then I might not want that reader on my side of the "line of division" (p. 52).

On one hand, I recognize this reaction can be unproductive. But on the other hand, I think I need to stick with my guts and push hard to not give in to the usual, soft, and politically correct approach which will once more lead to the predictable ending of excluding the usual portion of the pie. Disclaimer: This example is part of a conversation that involves other people and these ideas are not only mine. I'm just reflecting on this in my own words and within the context of a reflection I made reading this book.

Second, I think of this in relationship to the work I am doing with others at PREreview – and more in general the work that many of us are doing to change the status quo within the framework of the "open movement". There is so much we want to change, so many battles that are worth fighting, but, again according to the book and the examples that are brought up, we need to pick simple battles, with simple messages, so that we can win. Then we can bring in the hardest battles. I agree with this, but it's hard.

For example, at PREreview we often say we want to change the who and the how of scientific evaluation. But is that a concrete enough mission? Is that even a battle we are equipped to win? That is more like the pie in the sky vision. Many smart people in this community have advised us to reduce the scope. Make sure we start with smaller, more tangible goals, such as engage researchers in discussing preprints at journal clubs. Change attitudes one small group at the time. This is good advice (thanks Joe!). But I still struggle with this because I want more. :P

Anyways, I realize I wrote way too much. Apologies for the long rumble. :) Not a lot of time to edit my thoughts these days! Back to my thesis now. Thanks for reading and looking forward to the discussion in January.

Naomi wrote: "Please add here your thoughts and notes about the book being read during December 2018 and beyond. Sign up for January 2's group call to discuss this live and in-person.

BOOK TO BE DECIDED BY THIS..."

It sounds good to me if someone volunteers to manage it. :)

Naomi wrote: "Nick suggests: "Open as in book""

Love this on!

Oh, of course. I'm new to this and thought that only the group "creators" could add to the bookshelf. Thanks, Naomi!

Thanks for putting this together, Naomi.

Here are some recommendations in addition to some I already see listed in the group goodreads:

- Redefining Realness - by Janet Mock (read)
- Freedom is a constant struggle - by Angela Davis (read)
- Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy - by Cathy O'Neil (read)
- The spirit catches you and you fall down - by Anne Fadiman (read)
- Becoming Michelle Obama - by Michelle Obama (to read)