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Allegra editor Ian M. Cook writes about... Boaventura Streisand
What have you all been reading this week? I found myself accidentally reading the chapter ‘The walls spoke when no one else would: Autoethnographic notes on sexual-power gatekeeping within avant-garde academia’ by Lieselotte Viaene, Catarina Laranjeiro and Miye Nadya Tom. I read the chapter because Boaventura de Sousa Santos let the whole world know that he believed that he was the subject of the chapter, even though he was not mentioned by name.
BDSS' move is a beautiful example of the Streisand effect, where the effort to hide or censor information backfires by increasing awareness of that very information. He did this by having lawyers send cease and desist letters to Routledge, publishers of the edited volume Sexual Misconduct in Academia where the chapter appeared. Professor Streisand Santos denies criminal conduct.
In BDSS’ case, it is interesting/depressing/predictable to see how a star academic man is once again able to use his power and influence to silence less powerful academic women. Not only through the law, but also with the now obligatory open letter of support overflowing with scholarly prestige. If you would like to learn more about how power and prestige can enforce silence, then, incidentally, I just read a chapter on the topic. It's called, 'The walls spoke when no one else would...' and has just been unpublished by Routledge. |
