Philippe Aigrain: Cause commune: l’information entre bien commun et propriété (2005) [French]

19 July 2011, dusan

L’information et ses technologies refaçonnent notre univers technique, social et éthique, mais ces bouleversements se font dans deux directions opposées selon que l’on choisit d’en encourager l’appropriation privée ou d’en faire des biens communs.

D’un côté, l’extension des domaines couverts par les brevets (molécules pharmaceutiques, variétés végétales, séquences génétiques, logiciels) restreint, pour le profit de quelques multinationales, l’accès à des ressources essentielles telles que les médicaments, les semences et l’information. La concentration des médias – notamment audiovisuels – menace la démocratie là où elle existe.

De l’autre côté, la production et le partage de l’information et des créations sont plus libres qu’avant, et la multiplication des échanges esquisse une société mondiale, diverse et solidaire. Les médias coopératifs, les logiciels libres, les publications scientifiques ouvertes et les autres biens communs réinventent la démocratie.

Comment les acteurs de ces nouveaux domaines peuvent-ils faire cause commune par-delà ce qui sépare les logiciels des ressources biologiques, ou l’art des sciences ?

Comment l’information peut-elle servir les biens publicssociaux de la santé, de l’éducation ou de la solidarité au lieu de contribuer à les détruire ?

Quelles alliances peut-on envisager entre les sociétés et les États, gardiens irremplaçables des biens communs épuisables que sont l’eau ou l’air ?

Dans cet ouvrage, Philippe Aigrain analyse les causes et les origines d’une situation paradoxale et les tensions qu’elle suscite. Il propose une politique qui remette les êtres humains aux commandes de ces transformations.

Publisher Fayard, 2005
Collection Transversales series
ISBN 2213623058, 9782213623054
283 pages
La version électronique du livre est mise à disposition sous un contrat Creative Commons BY-NC-ND.

author
publisher
series
google books

PDF

Journal of Community Informatics (2004–)

13 July 2011, dusan

“Community Informatics (CI) is the study and the practice of enabling communities with Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs). CI seeks to work with communities towards the effective use of ICTs to improve their processes, achieve their objectives, overcome the “digital divides” that exist both within and between communities, and empower communities and citizens in the range of areas of ICT application including for health, cultural production, civic management, e-governance among others. CI is concerned with how ICT can be useful to the range of traditionally excluded populations and communities, and how it can support local economic development, social justice and political empowerment using the Internet. CI is a point of convergence concerning the use of ICTs for diverse stakeholders, including community activists, nonprofit groups, policymakers, users/citizens, and the range of academics working across (and integrating) disciplines as diverse as Information Studies, Management, Computer Science, Social Work, Planning and Development Studies. Emerging issues within the CI field include: community access to the internet, community information, online civic participation and community service delivery, community and local economic development, training networks, telework, social cohesion, learning, e-health and e-governance. The Journal of Community Informatics aims to bring together a global range of academics, CI practitioners and national and multi-lateral policy makers policy makers. Each issue of the Journal of Community Informatics contains a number of double blind peer-reviewed research articles as well as commentaries by leading CI practitioners and policy makers providing feedback on how the significance and application of research for practice and policy development.”

Editor in Chief: Michael Gurstein
Associate editors: Shaun Pather, Alvin Wee Yeo
Open access
ISSN 1712-4441

HTML/PDFs

Nigel Thrift: Knowing Capitalism (2005)

25 October 2010, dusan

Capitalism is well known for producing a form of existence where `everything solid melts into air’. But what happens when capitalism develops theories about itself? Are we moving into a condition in which capitalism can be said to possess a brain?

These questions are pursued in this sparkling and thought-provoking book. Thrift looks at what he calls “the cultural circuit of capitalism,” the mechanism for generating new theories of capitalism. The book traces the rise of this circuit back to the 1960s when a series of institutions locked together to interrogate capitalism, to the present day, when these institutions are moving out to the Pacific basin and beyond. What have these theories produced? How have they been implicated in the speculative bubbles that characterized the late twentieth century? What part have they played in developing our understanding of human relations?

Building on an inter-disciplinary approach which embraces the core social sciences, Thrift outlines an exciting new theory for understanding capitalism. His book is of interest to readers in Geography, Social Theory, Antrhopology and Cultural Economics.

Publisher SAGE Publications, 2005
Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society
Theory, culture & society
ISBN 141290059X, 9781412900591
Length 256 pages

publisher
google books

PDF