Comments on: AAA Open Access: Good, but Not “Historic,” Not “Unique,” Not “Among the First” http://zeroanthropology.net/2008/10/06/aaa-open-access-good-but-not-historic-not-unique-not-among-the-first/ Turning and turning in the widening gyre | The falcon cannot hear the falconer | Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold | Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world | The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere | The ceremony of innocence is drowned | The best lack all conviction, while the worst | Are full of passionate intensity. -- W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming Sat, 03 Sep 2011 17:31:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Maximilian Forte http://zeroanthropology.net/2008/10/06/aaa-open-access-good-but-not-historic-not-unique-not-among-the-first/#comment-2258 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:05:19 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=2411#comment-2258 What’s good about it? I don’t know, I was trying to be forgiving for a change :) I suppose it’s good for allowing that tiny fraction of openness — tiny because it is only one journal and a newsletter (who the heck locks down a newsletter to begin with), and only rather old material.

What’s the purpose of the AAA? That is also a good question, and this time I don’t mean “good” as we just discussed above. It’s a good question at least in part because it forces us to reexamine why it emerged, how it has been maintained and developed, whose interests it serves, and how it has (not) renewed itself. Professional associations seem to do very little for us in everyday terms, they tend to serve more as symbolic banners facing the outside world, while providing a minimum of services to its members.

I very much liked your second point above about the limits of self-criticism.

]]> By: enkerli http://zeroanthropology.net/2008/10/06/aaa-open-access-good-but-not-historic-not-unique-not-among-the-first/#comment-2251 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:35:47 +0000 http://openanthropology.wordpress.com/?p=2411#comment-2251 In terms of access, what’s so “good” about the AAA’s scheme?
Seems to me, it’s a step in a direction opposite that of true Open Access.

As for the established limits of self-criticism, much of it has to do with the navel-gazing period which began in the mid-1980s and which still has some effects on those people who use “anthropology” as an exclusionary label.

Simply put: what’s the purpose of the AAA, at this point?

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