A research and expository notebook by Orest Kinasevych
“It is my conviction that nothing short of a global reformation of major social forces and of the social contract can end this historical period of profound and violent transformations, and give a manner of security to the world and to its citizens. … The viability of technology, like democracy, depends in the end on the practice of justice and on the enforcement of limits to power.” (p 5)
“Yet far from furthering the assimilation or even securing the loyalty of borderland East Slavs, Poland’s inept nationalizing policies and practices in the interwar period had just the opposite effect, producing by the end of the period what had not existed at the beginning: a consolidated, strongly anti-Polish Belarusian and — to an even greater extent — Ukrainian national consciousness. This happened through heavy-handed efforts to nationalize the land, the schools, and the churches of the region, and through the harsh repression of Belarusian and Ukrainian nationalist and social-revolutionary movements.” (p 100)
“Therefore, anti-oppressive research is not a process to discover knowledge, but a political process to co-create and rediscover knowledge. Through anti-oppressive research, we construct emancipatory, liberatory knowledge that can be acted on, by, and in the interests of the marginalized and oppressed.” (p 261-262)
“One should be left with at least one question: why would this conference app need so many permissions?”
“And it was Facebook that made it possible. It was from Facebook that Cambridge Analytica obtained its vast dataset in the first place. Earlier, psychologists at Cambridge University harvested Facebook data (legally) for research purposes and published pioneering peer-reviewed work about determining personality traits, political partisanship, sexuality and much more from people’s Facebook ‘likes’.” (¶41)
“But is it fair to assume average Internet users are able to demystify complex business relationships and algorithms?”
“While it is important that we recognize the contributions of those like Delpit who alert us to school politics of culture and language, it is vital that we engage in analysis and action to address the structural relationships of power and domination in our society, including social, economic, _and_ cultural aspects, and how they impact educational systems.” (p 29)
“We see tech companies and conglomerates as increasingly resembling sovereign nations in the diplomacy extended to them by actual sovereign nations.” (¶5)
“… a space where students can figure out what is true, just, responsible, meaningful, and possible not only as a measure of individual success but also as part of the struggle to nurture a thriving democracy. … That is why intellectuals must take sides, speak out, and engage in the hard work of debunking corporate culture’s assault on teaching and learning.”
“… the university as a place to question and think …”