A Genealogy of Refusal : Walking away from crisis and scarcity narrativesMain MenuCrisis narratives frame our responseBartleby at the WallHow can fiction and popular culture inform the way we promulgate or refuse crisis & scarcity narratives in librarianship?Proud Descendants who "Prefer not to"Some recent gems from Bartleby's lineageA Kinship Diagram of Workplace RefusalSatire is richComedic instances of workplace refusal are especially powerfulDark side of parodyMore SatireWhen Expectations Cross the lineWhy don't librarians "Just say No"?Do we prefer to suffer in silence because its a vocation and not "just a job"Feminized LabourSaying Yes all the TimeSuperhero LibrariansIt’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a librarian!I am not your heroMurderbot: the alternate patron saint for librariansThe invocation of crisis narratives is relentlessNo individual solution to our problemsDebunking myths that hold us back to enable collective ways of moving forwardWhat refusal can we take up?A Cosmic GiftManifest NOBecoming fluent in hearing and saying NoAsset FramingBibliographyWorks cited, featured, mentioned and consulted for Genealogy of Refusal projectGlossary of Key ConceptsMultiple PathsA compendium of paths through the Genealogy of Refusal content: a choose-your-own-adventure approach to this companion piece.Genealogy of Refusal TimelineWe welcome contributionsLearn how to contribute to this projectAbout the AuthorsNatalie K Meyers4b3948ab8901940da5f2eb884c2cc86b3dc6ac22Anna Michelle Martinez-Montavon1459b2fc55591cd9b08a290af468d31b5dfe46a3Mikala Narlockdb843c923469f0dadab98d57ee053b00c88a64b1Kim Stathersb8f352d1ce6eb714d5242702eaa05362c8eae357Multimedia project for the The Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship Special Issue on Refusing Crisis Narratives
Welcome to the Cyberpunk Dystopia
12021-03-31T12:45:56-07:00Natalie K Meyers4b3948ab8901940da5f2eb884c2cc86b3dc6ac22339483When COVID-19 began, many of us looked to science fiction and found that pandemic stories didn’t fit the reality that emerged – we were looking in the wrong place! High-tech, low-life, and an uncertain future places us in a cyberpunk dystopia; COVID-19 is all about order and control, and this has implications for what and how we design in the present and for the future. This presentation will demonstrate why we’re in a cyberpunk dystopia and how we can design our way out of it. Objective Understand the value of dystopias and how they can be applied in human-centred design initiatives. Five Things Audience Members Will Learn What is a dystopia The role of dystopias in society Why we’re living in a cyberpunk dystopia The design implications of a cyberpunk dystopia How to use dystopias strategicallyplain2021-04-08T13:27:48-07:003/11/21Zaidi, Leah. 2021. “Welcome to the Cyberpunk Dystopia.” Presented at the FITC Sessions, March 11. http://fitc.ca/event/cyberpunk/.presentationZaidi, LeahNatalie K Meyers4b3948ab8901940da5f2eb884c2cc86b3dc6ac22When COVID-19 began, many of us looked to science fiction and found that pandemic stories didn’t fit the reality that emerged – we were looking in the wrong place! High-tech, low-life, and an uncertain future places us in a cyberpunk dystopia; COVID-19 is all about order and control, and this has implications for what and how we design in the present and for the future. This presentation will demonstrate why we’re in a cyberpunk dystopia and how we can design our way out of it. Objective Understand the value of dystopias and how they can be applied in human-centred design initiatives. Five Things Audience Members Will Learn What is a dystopia The role of dystopias in society Why we’re living in a cyberpunk dystopia The design implications of a cyberpunk dystopia How to use dystopias strategically
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1media/CDdisasterwithbackground.jpg2020-12-15T13:30:58-08:00Crisis narratives frame our response31image_header2021-04-08T13:28:43-07:00As explored by Drabinksi (2016) and in our companion short piece, crises, both real and constructed, are used to create a narrative. These narratives, in turn, frame our individual and collective responses to disaster, scarcity, and refusal. This genealogy of refusal explores such crises and the ways in which we respond to them. Our aim is to re-frame crisis narratives in librarianship so librarians and others so often called upon by role to compensate for scarcity have other ways of contending with need.
Half the seats on many of the Titanic’s lifeboats were empty. The tragedy of the Titanic is an event retold over and over not only because the unsinkable ship shocked the world, but also because "it didn't have to be that way." It didn't have to end with turning individuals aways from half empty lifeboats, but the constructed scarcity crisis was deployed. Since then, it's become a cautionary tale about hubris, human nature, and constructed scarcity.
"This is the thought experiment of a thousand sci-fi stories: When the chips are down, will your neighbors be your enemies or your saviors? When the ship sinks, should you take the lifeboat and row and row and row, because if you stop to fill the empty seats, someone’s gonna put a gun to your head, throw you in the sea, and give your seat to their pals?" -Cory Doctorow, “The Dangers of Cynical Sci-Fi Disaster Stories.” Slate Magazine. October 13, 2020.
Zaidi, Leah. 2021. “Welcome to the Cyberpunk Dystopia.” Presented at the FITC Sessions, March 11. http://fitc.ca/event/cyberpunk/.
Yet, "Stories of futures in which disaster strikes and we rise to the occasion are a vaccine against the virus of mistrust. Our disaster recovery is always fastest and smoothest when we work together, when every seat on every lifeboat is taken. " (Doctorow, C. “Disasters Don’t Have to End in Dystopias.” Wired, April 5, 2017. https://www.wired.com/2017/04/cory-doctorow-walkaway/.)
In this genealogy, we will examine the role of crises, especially constructed crises, and the power of "no."
As articulated by Bert Spector in Constructing Crises: Leaders, Crises, and Claims of Urgency (2019), crises are a powerful tool for leaders. These crises can be both real and constructed. Real crises look like natural disasters or a global pandemic, while constructed crises are often utilized to claim (or hold onto) power and resources, especially in an urgent or 'exceptional now' manner. Constructed crises tend to fall into different smaller narratives (such as "A once glorious kingdom under threat"), but can be utilized in conjunction with real crises to form a larger narrative. These can be used for a wide-variety of reasons, but are typically manifestations of urgency, and always stem from the desire for power.
Crises, especially those which are constructed to tell a narrative, are “intended to attract attention and assert urgency” (Spector, 22). While Spector articulates a number of different types of crises narratives, their unifying characteristic is:
the exercise of power built into the process of constructing a claim and embedding it in a narrative. That act of construction is intended to de-contest the meaning of a crisis by fixing the understanding of the narrative. When a particular narrative becomes nonnegotiable, it intends to assert itself as the controlling frame for any and all subsequent discussions and responses. (Spector, 161).
In other words, in constructing crises and weaving a narrative, leaders leverage their power to control future conversations within the specific framework of the crises. (add a thought here)
Of particular relevance to library literature is the crisis type Spector refers to as the “Once-glorious-kingdom-under-threat” narrative. As the name suggests, this narrative is used to suggest that the current state of things is (or recently was) illustrious and beneficial, yet is besieged by external forces. In addition to this premise is the implicit assumption that “the leader is the protagonist who will confront that threat and return the kingdom to its glory” (Spector, 151). In academic libraries, this narrative likely feels familiar: in addition to claims that libraries were once noble, grandiose entities serving a higher purpose, are the calls for innovation at the hands of a protagonist, charged with changing things for the better. Most critically, though, Spector notes that leaders can use multiple crises to construct larger narratives: for example, instead of leveraging only the “Once-glorious-kingdom-under-threat” narrative, effective leaders could compound with others, such as “forces beyond our control” narrative, to reinforce both urgency and claims for power.
In librarianship, these crises have leveraged by administrators, politicians, and others to argue that "There just aren't the resources", or "there just isn't the time to wait!" This mentality is one that libraries have used as a rallying cry, attempting to do more with less, and repeating calls for resilience in the face of adversity. And while these may indeed be noble goals, they stem from the myth that resources are scarce, that the matter at hand is urgent.
As you, dear reader, explore this project, we invite you to consider: Is there actually a crises? Are resources in fact scarce? Should we do more with less? Is it ok to simply exist? Instead of thriving, can we focus on surviving? And, in the words of Leah Zaidi, can we design our way out of a cyberpunk dystopia?