Networks and Links

Much like Chloe, I've been thinking about how networks and links continue to pop up in our readings. I'm not quite sure where I'll get with this line of thought either.

Dingo seems to pitch networks as a method for getting at neocolonialism. The "transnational networks symbolize the concentration of economic and political power of some countries and limitations on others. Some portions of these networks may be dense and clustered, others more dispersed. Communicative networks, as Grewal points out move logics from one node of power to another" (493). I guess this explanation makes me wonder what is dense or dispersed. What exactly are the "linkages among nations?" If we are talking about capital flows, communications systems (a la Outfoxxxed: The Rupert Murdoch Story), international policy apparatuses (i.e. GATT, WTO, the G8 [or now G20], IMF, World Bank, etc.), military presence, etc., fine. And I think this is what she means (though perhaps not military) because of her later reference to "policy networks" (494) and her focus on Bretton Woods. But... how exactly do these linkages "revise the familiar hierarchical top-down model of economic development wherin one nation controls, has power over, and directly influences another" (493). I mean, it removes the military might of traditional colonialism (kindof) because that is found mostly through privatized militaries and international peace-making forces, but aside from the direct threat of death via bullets, it's the same isn't it? The Washington Consensus is still top-down economic development where one nation (the US) controls, has power over, and directly influences another. And while microloans might have been invented in the global south, they have become a part of the Washington Consensus. As dingo notes, they are deployed to construct markets, but at the same time ensure that the markets (and those within it) are structurally marginal - what Ananya Roy has called "poverty capital" and the creation of the bottom billion market.

I guess I don't see what the revision is in Dingo. She seems to have just shifted the scale a bit. The hierarchy is still there in exactly the same formation as before. An elite group controling and influencing another. The same structure appears when networks are mentioned in Royster, and she argues that acts of civic engagement must recognize and utilize these networks: “Uses of public literacy are likewise compelled to recognize these interconnections. As Paula Mathieu and Diana George warn, “successful circulation of public writing is not achieved by going it alone, but through networks of relationships, in alliances between those in power and those without, through moments of serendipity” (144)"  (Royster 141). Reading Royster, it seems that she takes the approach that it is a "necessary evil" to work within the interconnections already there. We have to take advantage of the resources as they are already being used and hopefully can manipulate them in a way that is culturally sensitive and effective. There is a pyramid in which all of the material, economic, social, and whatever else power is controled by elites and passed down through these interconnections. Since all the power and resources emerge from the top, one must use the linkages they are using. Having read the Mathieu and George piece, I'm not sure that this is exactly what they are going for. But it's been too long since I read that to talk about it here.

I wonder if there is a way to imagine networks that doesn't recreate the hierarchies that we are picturing. Gallagher had an aricle in CCCs this spring that talked about how the rhetoric of the Spellings Commission undermined teacher expertise and decision-making power when it came to assessment (forgive me if I butcher this). The legislators and policy makers were the top of the pyramid and the students and teachers were the bottom. As a way of combating this power relation, he argued we could think about a school through the logic of the network. Rather than thinking of verticle hierarchies, we could think of horizontal structures. Rather than thinking of individualized positions, we could think about teamwork and collaboration. The danger of the network is that flexibility is useful to companies because it allows them to shift to wherever labor and work is of the least cost to them without regard to the workers. But the network isn't necessarily good or bad. It's just there. Teachers can use the same logic of the network to gain agency in debates about education policy, arguing that because they have the most linkages to different groups affected, their location and relations put them as the true experts. This should give them more clout in discussions about education policy than less.

If I remember right, the work Gallagher does with networks is radically different from the way networks are employed in Royster and in Dingo. For these authors, networks are already established material connections - through ownership of communication companies, martialling of money, or international policy. With this perspective, one cannot help but resign oneself to working within the system as is; a dutiful but subversive cog in the machine. But Gallagher sets up an alternate paradigm of values through network logic, one which clashes with neoliberal network logic, by starting with what the issue is (assessment of student writing) and looking at who has the most connections to people with stakes in the issue. Royster and Dingo's usage seems to be a bit fatalist to me (and I realize it's odd to group them together). I viscerally associate it with the logic of the trickster in discourse, another figure I'm skeptical of. But... I think I'm running out of steam... I guess this might just be an angsty post about why we start using new terms, like network instead of hierarchy, if we aren't doing something new with them. Maybe there's something else in here, too. I don't know.