You can find my introduction, the reviews and my response, here: http://global-discourse.com/contents/urbicide-by-martin-coward/

As with all research, the monograph represents a snapshot of thought about this variety of urban violence, rather than the last word on it. Reflecting on that snapshot, I think there is much I still agree with, but there are also things I would change. This has thus been a valuable opportunity to reflect on my argument about the widespread and deliberate destruction of urban fabric and to highlight what I think its key contributions are as well as to ponder some of its limitations.

My thanks to the reviewers for their thoughts as well as to the editors of Global Discourse for both the original invitation and their work compiling and publishing the review section.

Click on the book cover on the right to see contents and read an extract

Urbicide is the first book length discussion of the deliberate destruction of cities. I examine the ‘killing of cities’ in cases such as the 1992-95 Bosnian war, the Russian Chechen Campaigns, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. I outline a theoretical understanding of what is achieved in such destruction.

From the publisher’s description:

The term ‘urbicide’ became popular during the 1992-95 Bosnian war as a way of referring to widespread and deliberate destruction of the urban environment. Coined by writers on urban development in America, urbicide captures the sense that the widespread and deliberate destruction of buildings is a distinct form of violence.

Using Martin Heidegger’s notion of space and Jean-Luc Nancy’s idea of community, Martin Coward outlines a theoretical understanding of the urban condition at stake in such violence. He contends that buildings are targeted because they make possible a plural public space that is contrary to the political aims of ethnic-nationalist regimes. Illustrated with reference to several post-Cold War conflicts – including Bosnia, Chechnya and Israel/Palestine – this book is the first comprehensive analysis of organised violence against urban environments. It offers an original perspective to those seeking to better understand urbanity, political violence and the politics of exclusion.

In March, Cambridge Review of International Affairs published my review of Jon Calame and Esther Charlesworth’s book Divided Cities: Belfast, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar, and Nicosia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). I was busy teaching  this spring and so forgot to write about it at the time – but I have returned to thinking about some of these themes in the wake of recent riots in Belfast.

Calame and Charlesworth’s book is an interesting set of reflections based on rich fieldwork that offers scholars of urban violence much to think about. The central concern of the book is precisely the kind of divisions that are evident in the violence that erupted around the annual Orange Order parades in Northern Ireland last week. Indeed, Divided Cities is focused on the question of how urban environments become deeply divided and what might be done about this.

Calame and Charlesworth – as well as Lebeus Woods in the forward to the book – argue that divisions are likely to haunt the city in the present era as urbanisation leads to increased frictions between different communities and urban managers fail to provide the overarching security these groups need to allow them to live in proximity without fear. Overall they see divisions such as we see in Belfast or Nicosia as the formalisation of ad hoc arrangements to provide temporary security. Over time fences grow into walls and become indispensable to narratives of identity and safety.

What I find interesting is the notion of the city embedded into the book. Calame and Charlesworth take the walled city as their paradigm for understanding the contract that supposedly exists between city managers and citizens. This contract  is portrayed as one where citizens give up  some income or freedom in return for safety. Originally it is argued that this took the form of citizens in medieval walled cities being protected from those external to the city. But in the present era it is argued that citizens should be protected from forms of friction that might arise within the city. I find three consequences of this depiction of the supposed ‘urban contract’ of interest.

Firstly, it is – like most theories in International Relations – predicated on the idea that security is prophylactic action in which an individual or community is protected from an external threat by some form of gap or barrier. Conceptually this narrative is based on the idea that the walled city provided security by excluding dangerous others. But if this is the conceptual trope that underlies this narrative it is perhaps unsurprising to see urban managers moving the wall within the city to solve problems of urban friction. Moreover, if walls signify the exclusion of others, it is also natural for those who find their worlds cleft by walls to regard those on the other side of them as others. Basing the story on the walled city thus has the effect of normalising the relation of walls and security in a way that stores problems for the future.

Secondly, I find the idea of the managed city somewhat idealistic. The notion of a bargain of income/freedom for security resonates with the idea of a social contract. And yet we know that no actual social contract exists – it is a hypothetical device to try to envisage how a political settlement might have been reached. In reality the political bargian a contract is supposed to capture is only ever implicit. More often this bargin is imagined by observers looking back into the past and seeking to explain why a political order managed to be stable for a while. In practice the particular configuration of politics at any one time is a result of the sedimentation of a number of non-linear processes. Moreover, attempts generate a contract are invariably disrupted by the contingencies of real life. To argue for a contract between urban managers and citizens is thus to imagine a political rebirth that, in reality, can never happen (nor ever really did happen). Perhaps the greater question is how accommodations can be made between currently antagonistic parties so that walls are removed without a central authority.

Finally, there is an interesting question at the heart of Calame and Charlesworth’s work about the friction that is inherent to the city. Of course it is undesirable to have walls that encourage us to fear the others that lie beyond them. This can only promote cycles of violence. And yet, cities are marked by a plurality that will always entail a certain irresolvable provocation or friction. It is this irresolvable friction that Jean-Luc Nancy refers to when he notes that the city has been philosophy’s problem. Because rationality likes to have single answers it hates the ambivalence of irresolvable tension or friction. As such it tries to impose its will on the city to remove the ambivalence that rises from continual friction. Urban planning and urban militarism are good examples of this lack of tolerance for ambivalence and tension. The question that must be addressed is how to acknowledge tension and friction without letting it solidify into walls.

So, while I enjoyed reading Divided Cities, it left me with many questions. You can read a pre publication draft here.

Over the past few months I have been part of an ad hoc working group with colleagues from Newcastle and Durham Universities that has been exploring the future of academic publishing. Two problematics framed our analysis: how are changes initiated by the digital economy affecting academic journals and how might the editorial team of a top flight journal in the social sciences respond to these challenges? As previously posted–here and here–our initial conclusions have been that current models of academic journal publishing that rely on limiting access to research through pay-walls are no longer sustainable.

Academic journals, sustainability, and change

Academic journal sustainability is not just an economic issue. While the detrimental impacts of high subscription fees, low subscription bases, and the very clear signals sent by market forces that people are unwilling to pay for access to information in a digital age are important, there are other sustainability issues that need to be factored in. Primarily, transformations in the structures of the academy itself are posing challenges to the viability of traditional models of publishing. These include:

• the inability of university resources to keep pace with increases in journal subscription fees;
• a rapid increase in the number of academic journals available, in part a product of the fragmentation of academic disciplines into increasingly specialized sub-fields as well as the push for individual academics and departments to provide evidence of research excellence by establishing/editing journals in their recognized research strengths;
• in the social sciences and humanities, low citation rates and impact factors–even for leading journals–that in part reflect the inability to capture a broad audience within an academic discipline, let alone establish a readership with practitioners and/or the general public;
• the correspondingly small volume of articles that actually get cited, let alone cited extensively, from any journal outlet;
• the renewed emphasis on public engagement, that is the directive that research must be transmitted to broader constituencies;
• formal directives from government and funding agencies for academics to make their research available through open access platforms.

Thus, academic journals–and their publishers–find themselves in a situation where they are:

• slowly pricing themselves out of their traditional market (i.e., academics and university libraries) (Abelson 2008);
• increasing the supply of narrowly defined journal outlets;
• increasing the competition for the pursuit of high quality research amongst these outlets with only journal reputation–as garnered through citation statistics–as an incentive to potential contributors;
• diluting the overall volume of quality that can be claimed by any single journal;
• failing to think about what other forms of value-added they might be able to provide for both contributors and their readership in order to promote specific scholarship, a specific research area, or a specific discipline (Pochoda 2008);
• not establishing new audiences in the world of practitioners or amongst the general public.

Stay the course or change direction?

Many journals–for the moment– are currently good earners for both their publishers and/or the disciplinary association to which they are affiliated. Disciplinary association journals in particular have the advantage of having susbscription revenue subsidized by membership fees. Add in the income generated through university libraries and other research centers and revenues look solid. However, the audiences or potential subscription base for these journals remain tied up in the university system, a system that will be facing–at least in the UK–considerable budgetary pressures in the coming years. With published material in these journals being kept behind a pay-wall and the associated websites–for the journal and/or disciplinary association–typically lacking a dynamic interface, the probability of gaining new readers–let alone subscribers–from the general public or practitioners is remote. Yet, the default position being expressed by many editorial teams, disciplinary associations, and publishers is that apart from some tinkering around the edges, there is a strong case for staying the course (Bjork and Hedlund 2009).

Although staying the course might be a low risk strategy in the short-term, our research findings on the broader trends in media publishing in general, and scholarly publishing in particular, demonstrate that there are problems emerging over the horizon (Corbyn 2009). Add in the profound effects that new social media technologies are having on publishing and communication, and we argue that staying the course–in terms of content, public interface, and revenue models– will lead to negative outcomes within a decade’s time.

Primarily, pay-walls, an insufficient web presence, and a reluctance to embrace new social media technologies–whether out of a fear of the time commitment involved or a belief that these developments are a passing fad–combined with a reticence to adopt open access publishing and adapt revenue generating models will lead to significant negative impacts with respect to citation levels, overall readership, and the continuing ability to attract the very best scholarship.

Academic journals in a digital age: the way forward

So given this assessment of the situation, what might be the way forward for academic journals? Our initial position is that open access publishing models are the way forward if a journal wishes to maintain both readership and relevance in the medium to long term. Furthermore, if open access publishing is to be a success, it needs to creatively take advantage of relevant developments in new social media technologies. We believe that a publicly accessible academic journal that maintains strong commitments to original research, considered argument, and peer review can be complementary to the speed with which new media work to frame debates and identify authorities.

The Benefits of Open Access Publishing

Discerning the positive impacts for academic journals by embracing open access publish is not rocket science. Nor need its justification rest solely on a moral case that publicly funded research ought to be available to the public–though this is certainly a case that should be made. Improved access to a journal makes peer reviewed research available to a more extensive audience.

Research in the area of open access publishing has demonstrated that above anything else, open access articles on average get read more often than articles that are only available behind a pay-wall.

And the more extensive your audience, the greater the likelihood that your articles get cited. Research that has the analyzed the effects of accessibility in other disciplines–like physics– has shown that opening up access significantly raises the impact of articles, in some cases by as much as 300% (Brody et al 2004;Henneken et al 2006)

In the case of most journals in the social sciences, the difference between a mid-ranked journal’s current position on the Thomson Reuters-ISI index and a dramatic improvement in its standing is approximately one additional citation per every two articles published. Thus, very marginal changes produce significant impacts to quantitative measures of reputation in academic publishing. Reputation is a currency that can be used to solicit innovative research papers. Similarly, reputation helps to build an audience of readers who are attracted by the level of scholarship and novel research findings.

Harnessing new social media technologies

The way information is produced, authorized, distributed and shared has transformed. As the pursuit of information becomes both increasingly spontaneous and focused, opening up access allows for any interested party–whatever the reason for interest–to view and share material with others, creating a wider audience base through the best kind of promotion: word of mouth.

Furthermore, ready and extensive communication between producers and consumers–categories themselves blurred by new social media–are becoming the norm. By offering new forms of information distribution, social media technologies help to facilitate engagement across various global publics. Harnessing new forms of distribution and promoting interactive engagement are going to be central to the continuing economic and reputational vitality of academic journals.

What kind of new social media technologies can help academic journals? Well, one can divide these into three categories: those that allow for the presentation of content in non-traditional ways (e.g., videos and podcasts), those that allow content to be distributed across social networks (e.g., Twitter, Facebook), and those that allow for additional forms of dynamic engagement between researchers and audiences (e.g., blogs, comment functions, message boards).

Our research has identified some best practices that should be considered by journals if they want to build a strong foundation to be taken forward:

• implementing a dynamic journal website–like Foreign Policy–where content is regularly updated and conduits are provided to facilitate interaction with the audience;
• audio and video recordings of keynote speeches,lectures, interviews, or discussions that are available via podcasts, Youtube, Vimeo, or other media players. For example, see the interviews conducted by Contemporary Political Theory–if you can get behind the pay-wall that is…
• on-line book reviews like those conducted by <H-Net or Global Discourse. These allow an outlet to highlight particular forms of research (e.g., world-leading and/or early career and/or controversial and/or innovative), foster dialog, and invite contributions from the wider readership;
• blogs run by the editorial team and/or other members at large to showcase the importance of the subject area to a wider audience. Contextsis leading the way here with a fantastic set of blogs that demonstrate the value of sociology as applied to tangible contemporary issues;
• alerting potential users of content updates through social networking tools like email, Twitter, Facebook, and RSS feeds (e.g., Surveillance & Society).

What are the costs?

There are costs associated with transforming academic journals. Open access obviously implies that revenue models that rely on subscriptions will need to switch to other forms of revenue generation. Potential revenue sources could include subscription for hard copies only, website advertising, or other forms of product tie ins (e.g., book clubs). Although it is unclear whether these revenue streams can fully replace current income generation levels, it bears noting that existing research has shown significant cost savings–especially for disciplinary associations–when journal delivery is switched to on-line only formats (Willinsky 2005). Thus, if costs are greatly reduced, income levels need not reach previous levels in order to generate the same level of net profit.

The other cost is time. Similar to the traditional tasks that define journal editorship, developing and running a dynamic website, generating content, and building up a social network for a journal will take a lot of effort. Two things should be kept in mind though. First, just as a strong editorial vision, good peer review procedures, exact copy-editing, and ability to source the very best research are essential tasks for journal editorship at the moment, so to will be the ability to harness new social media. Second, those journals who position themselves ahead of the curve will be able to establish themselves as first ports of call for user generated content–like conference keynote addresses, seminar presentations, round-tables– because of their recognition as websites with high audience numbers. Building a reputation and attracting the best user generated content will therefore make the production of high quality content less onerous for editorial teams.

Objections

There are of course going to be strong objections to what we are forecasting and proposing. Publishing houses are likely to reject our characterization that current publishing models for academic journals are not sustainable. In part, this is because revenues have not yet started to precipitously drop. In part, it is also because publishers are going to reject open access as a viable publishing strategy from first principles because it cuts them away from their primary form of income generation for academic journals. They may also reject the turn to new social media for fear of the additional costs that would be incurred.

Academics themselves may also express objections. For some, the issue is the maintenance of standards, a concern that many publishers themselves have been only too happy to promote. The argument is that open access will mean that poor quality papers based on weak scholarship will get published on a regular basis. This objection though fundamentally misunderstands that open access publishing does not necessarily imply the end of peer review. For a peer-reviewed journal, the ‘open’ of ‘open access’ refers to the ability for research to be accessed by readers and to be circulated, not an openness to publish anything that is submitted(Willinsky 2003). The opportunity to be published would still rely on the peer review process in order to maintain standards of scholarship.

The second objection is that the use of new social media to promote research is either gauche self-promotion–that is good research should find its own audience on its own merits– and/or faddish razzle-dazzle that has very little value added for researchers themselves. The first part of the objection seems to be a nostalgic yearning for a past that never was; good research has never solely spoken for itself. The best research, leading disciplines, and the most renowned academics have always been masters of harnessing whatever networking outlets were available at the time (e.g., conferences, media appearances, popular writing) to disseminate research and build reputations. Good research alone will only get you so far.

Similarly, while it is often very hard to get one’s head around new social media technologies and the ways that they can be used, they have an immense potential in terms of gathering an audience. A growing number of newspapers like the Guardian have discovered that new forms of revenue can be generated and a new readership can be cultivated by providing free content to an on-line audience. Bloggers, artists, musicians, writers, politicians, and celebrities have already caught on to the power of social networking as a way of gaining a following both on and off line. Academics need to shed some our conservatism and begin the think more strategically about how we can engage with each other and the general public while recognizing the utility of emerging tactics provided by social networking technologies.

Conclusions

Our research indicates that journals in the social sciences could enjoy an improvement in citation rates and associated impact factors by adopting an open access publishing model and taking advantage of new social media technologies. The direct positive effects of open access on readership and citation levels have already been proved by studies undertaken in the natural sciences and engineering.

Open access and social networking are essential to the promotion of a higher quality and quantity of academic engagement with the general public.They generate new measures of impact with respect to knowledge transfer and public engagement by tracking – in aggregate – site traffic, media inquiries, and other contacts provided through an open access website.

Indirectly, they can help to cement the reputation of leading academics through ongoing exposure while having the capacity to promote early career scholars as the next generation of public intellectuals. All of these practices bring scholarship to the attention of broader publics. Open access publishing and the harnessing of new social media can position journals as leading and exemplary public outlets in their respective disciplines.

The only question that remains is whether disciplinary associations and journal editors will be willing to pro-actively adopt these measures–in full or in part–from a position of strength to garner their full benefits? Or will the inclination be to wait until it becomes absolutely necessary as a means of staving off collapse? Time will only tell…

Photo credit: mykl roventine

* This post was written by Kyle Grayson from materials prepared in and though discussions between by Simon Philpott, Matt Davies, Martin Coward, David Campbell and William Maloney. It was originally posted at Chasingdragons.org