Supported by an LSE Anthropology Department’s Research Infrastructure and Investment Fund.

On 9 September, a group of academics, librarians, and practitioners of Open Access (OA) met at the LSE to discuss alternatives to the current corporate forms of scholarly communication. Conversations about OA have been concerned to a large extent with the STEM experience, and have been shifting to focus on the development of new and better publishing and dissemination infrastructure. There has been less discussion of the political implications of OA advocacy, including the role that related initiatives could have in the defence of what we perceive as the increasingly imperilled principles of academic freedom and integrity.

This workshop brought together representatives from high-quality, non-profit, open access outlets publishing across the European social sciences to discuss and articulate a set of values that extend beyond corporate open access and sustain the conditions of possibility for small, scholar-led publishing projects that are not driven by the pursuit of impact factors and that are often run on a minimal budget as a ‘labour of love’.

Is it possible for projects like these to share certain kinds of social and technical infrastructure, while retaining their autonomy and the experimental edge that makes them so vital?

Speakers:

Alex Loftus, Journal of Political Ecology
Frances Cleaver, Water Alternatives
Andrea Pia, Made in China Journal
Gerda Wielander, British Journal of Chinese Studies
Miia Halme-Tuomisaari and Jon Schubert, Allegra Lab
Sevasti-Melissa Nolas and Christos Varvantakis, Entanglements
Filippo Zerilli, ANUAC
Stephanie Kitchen, IAI
Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi, Roadsides
Lara Speicher, UCL Press
Jemima Warren, LSE Press
Marcel LaFlamme, Libraria
Max Mosterd, Knowledge Unlatched
Nancy Graham and Helen Porter, LSE Library