[governance] individuals

[Danny Butt]

On 28/04/2006, at 5:54 AM, Jeanette Hofmann wrote:

> Hi Bret, aren't most participants contributing on this list in an
> individual capacity? Has anybody seriously suggested to restrict the
> caucus to organizational members? I guess I don't understand what all
> this debate on individuals is about. What did I miss?
> thx, jeanette

Thanks Jeanette!

Seeing as I've spent an hour trying to be constructive, please allow  
me a letting off steam email, with the qualification that I believe  
this discussion is actually very important for the future of the IGC,  
and some of the more controversial aspects of Internet Governance  
more generally.

Bret's email, and Vittorio's that I originally responded to, is a  
vivid example of why this group has not been a welcoming environment  
for new expertise during the time I've been on it. No one ever  
suggested not having individuals here. But the mere mention of the  
word "NGO" raises a kneejerk response, as if you stepped into the  
offices of Wired magazine and mentioned the word "government" in the  
90s. It's a particularly individualistic philosophy and culture, not  
everyone shares it, and this culture needs to become optional rather  
than mandatory for participation, because civil society is broader  
than that. Please leave the declarations of cyberspace independence  
at the door. The anti-immigration provisions haven't aged well.

The phrase "individual capacity" captures the problem of the  
discussion. The idea seems to be that if you aren't being paid for  
it, you're free from "interest" and some kind of anonymous  
individual. It's an economistic view of people, identifiably US- 
centric, and one that's not congruent with reality. The reality is  
that if I am a native english-speaking male working in media  
organisations in the West all day, my capacity to and reasons for  
contributing to this group are very different from most of the people  
who use the internet. If I work for Intel all day, that doesn't stop  
when I walk in the door and open my email on my home computer.  
Similarly if a person for whom English is a second or third lanugage  
works all day in ICT development projects in Jakarta, they don't  
become the same person as me when they sign up for this email list.  
People do not have the same cultural assumptions, so whoever assesses  
their "contributions" might not think they're that hot. And that's  
the political question - who does the assessment?

You can talk about the "legitimacy" of the individual versus the NGO  
- but I can list a number of occasions here where individuals were  
essentially made to feel illegitimate because they didn't share the  
dominant culture of this group. To me, this is a serious problem, and  
the hysterical defenses of indivdualism from those who do well in the  
current regime are a symptom.

Look - I don't participate in any NGOs in the technology field. If  
anyone suggested it's NGO-only, I couldn't be here either. I also  
have enough experience and know enough jokes about NGOs to have a  
good laugh with Meryem if we met. But NGOs are about scaling capacity  
to work on issues, and about collective action. We should be able to  
make use of their work instead of resisting it for ideological  
reasons. I'm not interested in policing legitimacy. But I also know  
that the "democratic gathering of disinterested individuals" rhetoric  
is just that. We're all interested. We all have different agendas and  
capacities. And we need to mediate the agendas and pool the  
capacities, wherever they come from.

Danny

--
http://www.dannybutt.net



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