[Commons-Law] notes, in the city...of representation, and innovation..

[solomon benjamin]

Hi
This is support both Jeebesh's and Bhagwati's emails.
Also the Kanta lagga CD -- which has really inspired
me to think about how one needs to present an analysis
of an economy, that reflects the way it transfroms in
creative way. The specific point here is that much of
our conventional ways of analysis and presentation a
paper with footnotes, implictly stress 'authorship'
when the move in to the realm of publication by
elsiver controlled journals. Can one then
conceptualize alternative forms of transmission that
allow transformation of the description of a changing
economic organization. Transformation is then both in
what is described, and what is represented. 

The second more general point, is to support the "new
ground" what Jeebesh and Bhagwati have listed as
charecteristics of  the "pirate". Its a bit like what
the ILO used the terms "Informal economy " or then
"Marginalized" of particular types of economic
organization that they saw threatening to a modenist
and Nation state agenda. What I am most amused and
facinating are the strong parallels between how the
"Informal Sector" (how this concepts came up, the way
it developed a particular type of academic
constituency with its own particular political economy
of academic) and now, on how Piracy is viewed. 

Back to Jeebesh's very useful and clarifing email:
- A copy culture builds infrastructures and networks

SB: Here, my work in East Delhi on cables and
conductors, and also later on the textile industry of
Kancheepuram and Ramanagaram showed how the material
basis of increasing customization appropriated in
creative ways existing ways of producing from what was
seen to be 'waste'.  Here one guy recersed engineered
cotton machines from Coimbatore to re-work these to
process silk waste for fabric fro high end fashion
markets in NYC, Paris, Tel Avic, and Milan. These
mvoed inot these locations via "suitcase
entrepreneures" not only large exporters. Similarly,
we saw in Kancheepuram, looms being re-done to use
varied types of yarns to produce a low cost
Kancheepuram saree at Rs. 3500 vs the normal 18K to 25
K range. Although it lasts only 5 years, it allows the
wearer to enjoy "class" since you cant make it out
from the earlier version. 


- These networks are dispersed, agile and dense.....  

SB: In both cases, there are new networks, like the
suitcase entrprenure taking the Ramanagaram yarn and
fabric via economy class to Milan, you have
Kancheepuram an equally large trading market and
complex circuits. In both cases, as I saw in East
Delhi, lables such as traders, workers, entrrepreisne,
innovators and financiers are all inter-changable.. I
think Rachiere work The Poor and Philosopher is
wonderfully applicable. I suspect when much of our
economy is driven by seasonal production, we would
find  much 'switching' of identities. 

- Researching the proliferation of the `remix`
culture, 
....On how these networks have developed internal
`productive capacities` to intervene, produce and
circulate new cultural forms. 

SB: The parallels here the new designs in the
Kancheepuram are wonderful. You have a scanned image
via the internet moving into a cyber cafe and on to
the local designers who rework these and then back and
forth as the product moves out marketed in Singapore
and East Africa.. and back again new ideas.. 

...move into otherwise `technologically marooned
spaces` (this concept is being developed by Ravikant
at Sarai) and create a lower threshold level that
allows for the entry of thousands of people...

SB: I think this is really important in that moving
into 'technologically marooned spaces' also underpins
and shapes a particular politics usually centered
around how one can maintain a 'transformative'
landscape. Can one have mixed land usedespite the
Master Planners, or sub-dicide and valorize over time
to fund production to avoid the VC mode of financing
and with it, stronger IPR!. Here, I think, Rachiers
book (mentioned earlier,) and LInebaughs' Many headed
Hydra is really important to re-conceptulize politics
that moves away from the Trotsky mode. 

well, more later
Solly

 --- Jeebesh Bagchi <jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote: 
> Thanks Bhagwati.
> 
> Those of you who have been following Bhagwati's
> postings will notice a 
> shift in his arguments. Given a complete inability
> to understand 
> `piracy`, at one end by `free culture/ free code`
> advocates and at the 
> other end by the `maximalist` protection` brigade,
> his research is 
> opening some fresh ground for us.
> 
> The dominant arguments go something like this:
> - Asian `pirate` networks are parasitic networks and
> are just 
> transmitters of illegal copies (Lessig)
> - It is inimical to any formation of community (RMS)
> - It is a drain on `national wealth` (cultural
> industries and their 
> legal warriors).
> - There is no sign of any transformative creative
> practice, thus very 
> difficult to defend intellectually (many otherwise
> sympathetic scholars).
> 
> What Bhagwati's research shows:
> 
> - A copy culture builds infrastructures and networks
> (the infrastructure 
> argument can be seen in Brain Larkin's work in
> Nigeria around video 
> cultures).
> - These networks are dispersed, agile and dense.
> They move into 
> otherwise `technologically marooned spaces` (this
> concept is being 
> developed by Ravikant at Sarai) and create a lower
> threshold level that 
> allows for the entry of thousands of people.
> 
> - Researching the proliferation of the `remix`
> culture, he shows how these networks have developed
internal `productive capacities` to intervene, produce
and circulate new cultural forms.
> His collection of 
> `Kaante Laga Ke` versions clearly gestured towards
> an increasingly 
> complicated matrix.
> 
> - Now with this new phase, he is opening up a new
> realm (the realm that 
> was opened up in Peter Manuel's Cassette Culture).
> This is a world of  
> so called `regional music`. Here, singers,
> musicians, sound engineers, 
> small time dealers, locality studios combine to
> produce an extremely 
> vibrant music culture for the `mobile-migrant` world
> of labour and the 
> mohalla (dense habitations outside of the planned
> grids). You can listen 
> to these songs on a public scale in Delhi during
> holi, Chatt festival, etc.
> 
> We need to understand that this culture of music was
> able to emerge and 
> grow within the infrastructure and networks that
> were built over a 
> period of time around the `illegitimate` culture of
> the copy.
> 
> Peter Jaszi, argued in his recent `Contested
> Commons` lecture, that we 
> have a very inadequate understanding of the realm of
> the `user` or 
> `consumer`, and thus are conceptually impoverished.
> This impoverishment 
> adversely diminishes our account of cultures, we
> confine our logic to 
> the analysis of just copying/imitation mechanisms.
> This is the lacuna 
> that allows the enforcers to easily bring up the
> discourse of 
> criminalisation.  (This is applicable to both the
> high bandwidth 
> peer-to-peer networks and also to other
> commerce-tainted copy cultures).
> 
> Thanks again, Bhagwati, for opening up this terrain.
> Such research 
> deepens our understanding of lives, as well as of
> songs. 
> 
> Best,
> Jeebesh
> 
> Bhagwati wrote:
> 
> >
> > A man, with his notes, in the city...
> >
> >
> >
> 
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>  

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