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Must we decolonise #Open_Access? Perspectives from Francophone Africa

A long read featuring the recent work of Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou and Florence Piron, on how a truly open and inclusive ‘Open Access’ movement must include those at the periphery

I recently watched the recording of the fantastic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion session at OpenCon, and I was struck by the general theme of how ‘openness’ isn’t necessarily the force for equality that we perhaps think it is, and how issues of power, exploitation, and hierarchy means that it should be understood differently according to the context in which it is applied. In the session, Denisse Albornoz used the expression of ‘situated openness’ to describe how our Northern conception of openness should not be forced on anyone or any group – it needs to be understood first in individual contexts of historical injustices and post-colonial power structures.

What stood out for me most in this session, however, (because it related most to my work) was Cameroonian Thomas Mboa’s presentation, which talked about the ‘neo-colonial face of open access’. The presentation employed some very striking critical terms such as ‘cognitive injustice’ and ‘epistemic alienation’ to Open Access.

I’ve always known that the Open Access movement was far from perfect, but at least it’s moving global science publishing in the right direction, right? Can working towards free access and sharing of research really be ‘neo-colonial’ and lead to ‘alienation’ for users of research in the Global South? And if this really is the case, how can we ‘decolonise’ open access?

Thomas didn’t get much time to expand on some of the themes he presented, so I got in contact to see if he had covered these ideas elsewhere, and fortunately he has, through his participation in ‘Projet SOHA’ . This is a research-action project that’s been working on open science, empowerment and cognitive justice in French-speaking Africa and Haiti from 2015-17. He provided me with links to four publications written in French by himself and his colleagues from the project – Florence Piron (Université Laval, Quebec, Canada), Antonin Benoît Diouf (Senegal), and Marie Sophie Dibounje Madiba (Cameroon), and many others.

These articles are a goldmine of provocative ideas and perspectives on Open Access from the Global South, which should challenge all of us in the English-speaking academic publishing community. Therefore, I decided to share some excerpts and extended quotes from these articles below, in amongst some general comments from my (admittedly limited) experience of working with researchers in the Global South.

The quotes are taken from the following book and articles, which I recommend reading in full (these are easily translatable using the free tool Google Translate Web, which correctly translated around 95% of the text).

Chapter 2 – ‘Les injustices cognitives en Afrique subsaharienne : réflexions sur les causes et les moyens de lutte’ – Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou (2016), in Piron, Dibounje Madiba et Regulus 2016 (below)
Justice cognitive, libre accès et savoirs locaux – Collective book edited by Florence Piron, Marie Sophie Dibounje Madiba and Samuel Regulus (2016) (CC-BY) ▻https://scienceetbiencommun.pressbooks.pub/justicecognitive1
Qui sait ? Le libre accès en Afrique et en Haïti – Florence Piron (2017) (CC-BY) (Soon to be published in English in Forthcoming Open Divide. Critical Studies of Open Access (Herb & Schöpfel ed), Litwinbooks
Le libre accès vu d’Afrique francophone subsaharienne – Florence Piron, Antonin Benoît Diouf, Marie Sophie Dibounje Madiba, Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou, Zoé Aubierge Ouangré, Djossè Roméo Tessy, Hamissou Rhissa Achaffert, Anderson Pierre and Zakari Lire (2017) (CC-BY-NC-SA)
Une autre science est possible. Récit d’une utopie concrète dans la Francophonie (le projet SOHA) – Revue Possibles, 2016 (CC-BY)

Piron et al’s (2017) article starts with a stinging critique of those of us in our Northern scholarly publishing community cliques, and our never-ending open access debates over technicalities:

“… there are many debates in this community, including on the place of open licenses in open access (is an article really in open access if it is not freely reusable in addition to being freely accessible?), on the legitimacy of the fees charged to authors by certain journals choosing open access, on the quality and evaluation of open access journals, on the very format of the journal as the main vehicle for the dissemination of scientific articles or on the type of documents to be included in institutional or thematic open archives (only peer-reviewed articles or any document related to scientific work?).

Viewed from Sub-Saharan Francophone Africa, these debates may seem very strange, if not incomprehensible. Above all, they appear very localized: they are debates of rich countries, of countries of the North, where basic questions such as the regular payment of a reasonable salary to academics, the existence of public funding for research, access to the web, electricity, well-stocked libraries and comfortable and safe workplaces have long been settled.” Piron et al. (2017)

… and their critique gets more and more scathing from here for the Open Access movement. OA advocates – tighten your seatbelts – you are not going to find this a comfortable ride.

“… a conception of open access that is limited to the legal and technical questions of the accessibility of science without thinking about the relationship between center and periphery can become a source of epistemic alienation and neocolonialism in the South”. Piron et al. (2017)

“Is open access the solution to the documented shortcomings of these African universities and, in doing so, a crucial means of getting scientific research off the ground? I would like to show that this is not the case, and to suggest that open access can instead become a neo-colonial tool by reinforcing the cognitive injustices that prevent African researchers from fully deploying their research capacities in the service of the community and sustainable local development of their country.” Piron (2017)

Ouch. To understand these concepts of ‘cognitive injustice’ and ‘epistemic alienation’, it helps to understand this ‘world system’ and the power relationship between the centre and the periphery. This is based on Wallerstein’s (1996) model, which Thomas featured in his OpenCon slides:

http://journalologik.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/thomas-768x432.png

“… a world-system whose market unit is the scientific publication circulating between many instances of high economic value, including universities, research centers, science policies, journals and an oligopoly of for-profit scientific publishers (Larivière, Haustein, and Mongeon, 2015).” Piron et al. (2017)

“… we believe that science, far from being universal, has been historically globalized. Inspiring us, like Keim (2010) and a few others (Polanco, 1990), from Wallerstein’s (1996) theory, we consider that it constitutes a world-system whose market unit is the scientific publication. Produced mainly in the North, this merchandise obeys standards and practices that are defined by the ‘center’ of the system, namely the main commercial scientific publishers (Larivière, Haustein, & Mongeon, 2015), and their university partners are the US and British universities dominating the so-called world rankings. The semi-periphery is constituted by all the other countries of the North or emerging from the South which revolve around this center, adopting the English language in science and conforming to the model LMD (license, master, doctorate) imposed since the Bologna process to all the universities of the world with the aim of “normalizing” and standardizing the functioning of this world-system. The periphery then refers to all the countries that are excluded from this system, which produce no or very few scientific publications or whose research work is invisible, but to whom the LMD model has also been imposed (Charlier, Croché, & Ndoye 2009, Hountondji 2001)”. Piron et al. (2017)

So, the continuing bias and global focus towards the powerful ‘center’ of the world-system leads to the epistemic alienation of those on the periphery, manifesting in a ‘spiritual colonisation’:

“… this attitude that drives us to want to think about local problems with Western perspective is a colonial legacy to which many African citizens hang like a ball.” Mboa (2016).

So where does Open Access fit in with this world-system?

“… if open access is to facilitate and accelerate the access of scientists from the South to Northern science without looking into the visibility of knowledge of the South, it helps to redouble their alienation epistemic without contributing to their emancipation. Indeed, by making the work of the center of the world-system of science even more accessible, open access maximizes their impact on the periphery and reinforces their use as a theoretical reference or as a normative model, to the detriment of local epistemologies.” Piron et al. (2017)

Rethinking Northern perspectives

This should be an eye-opening analysis for those of us who assumed that access to research knowledge in the North could only be a good thing for the South. Perhaps we need to examine the arrogance behind our narrow worldview, and consider more deeply the power at the heart of such a one-way knowledge exchange. Many of us might find this difficult, as:

“The idea that open access may have the effects of neocolonialism is incomprehensible to people blind to epistemological diversity, who reduce the proclaimed universalism of Western science to the impoverished model of the standards imposed by the Web of Science model. For these people, the invisibility of a publication in their numerical reference space (located in the center of the world-system) is equivalent to its non-existence. The idea that valid and relevant knowledge can exist in another form and independently of the world-system that fascinates them is unthinkable.” Piron et al. (2017)

Having spent a little time at scholarly publishing events in the Global North, I can attest that the mindset described above is common. There are kind thoughts (and a few breadcrumbs thrown in the form of grants and fellowships) towards those on the periphery, but it is very much in the mindset of helping those from the Global South ‘catch up’. Our mindset is very much as Piron describes here:

“If one sticks to the positivist view that “science” is universal – even if its “essence” is symbolized by the American magazine Science – then indeed African science, that is to say in Africa, is late, and we need to help it develop so that it looks more and more like the North”. Piron (2017)

And whilst in the North we may have a lot of respect for different cultural perspectives, genuine reciprocal exchanges of research knowledge are rare. We are supremely confident that our highly-developed scientific publishing model deserves to be at the centre of our system. This can lead to selective blindness about the rigorousness of our science and our indexed journals, in spite of the steady drip drip drip of reports of biased peer review, data fraud and other ethical violations in ‘high-impact’ Northern journals, exposed in places like retraction watch.

North/South research collaborations are rarely equitable – southern partners often complain of being used as data-gatherers rather than intellectual equals and partners in research projects, even when the research is being carried out in their own country.

“These [Northern] partners inevitably guide the problems and the methodological and epistemological choices of African researchers towards the only model they know and value, the one born at the center of the world-system of science – without questioning whether this model is relevant to Africa and its challenges”. Piron et al (2017).

These issues of inequity in collaborative relationships and publication practices seem inextricably linked, which is not surprising when the ultimate end goal of research is publishing papers in Northern journals, rather than actually solving Southern development challenges.

“In this context, open access may appear as a neocolonial tool, as it facilitates access by Southern researchers to Northern science without ensuring reciprocity. In doing so, it redoubles the epistemic alienation of these researchers instead of contributing to the emancipation of the knowledge created in the universities of the South by releasing them from their extraversion. Indeed, by making the work produced in the center of the world-system even more accessible, free access maximizes their impact on the periphery and reinforces their use as a theoretical reference or as a normative model, to the detriment of local epistemologies, which generates situations absurd as, for example, the use of a theoretical framework related to wage labor in the Paris region to analyze the work of women in northern Mali” Piron (2017)

“The resulting consequences are, in particular, the teachers of the Southern countries who quote and read only writers from the North and impose them on their students and the libraries of our universities who do everything to subscribe to Western scholarly journals while they do not deal with our problems. (Mboa Nkoudou, 2016 )”

This is also a striking example:

“It is very sad to note that geographers in Ouagadougou are more familiar with European work on the Sahel than those at the Higher Institute of Sahel in Maroua, Cameroon.” Piron (2017)

The lack of equity in research knowledge exchange and collaboration is also caused by another one-way North to South flow: funding. Research in the South is often dependent on foreign funding. Big Northern donors and funders therefore set the standards and agendas in research, and in how the entire research funding system works. Southern partners rarely get to set the agenda, and researchers rarely get to develop the research questions that guide the research. They have to learn to jump through administrative hoops to become credible in the eyes of the Northern donor (for more information see ‘Who drives research in developing countries?‘).

Southern institutions are also compelled, via league tables such as the World Unviersity Rankings, to play the same game as institutions in the North. Institutions are ranked against each other according to criteria set in the North, one of which is citations (of course, only citations between journals in the Web of Science or Scopus, which is overwhelmingly Northern). And so to stay ‘competitive’, Southern institutions need their researchers to publish in Northern journals with Northern language and agendas.
Northern agendas and local innovation

Whilst it is tempting to think that the issues and criticism described above is mostly a problem for the social sciences and humanities, there are also real issues in the ‘hard’ sciences – perhaps not so much in their epistemological foundations – but in very practical issues of Northern research agendas. For example, Northern research, being based in Europe and the US, is overwhelmingly biased towards white people, in diversity of leadership, diversity of researchers, and most importantly in the whiteness of clinical trial subjects. This is problematic because different ethnic populations have different genetic makeups and differences due to geography, that mean they respond differently to treatments (see here, here and here). Are African and Asian researchers informed of this when they read research from so-called ‘international’ journals?

Furthermore, these Northern agendas can also mean that research focuses on drugs, equipment and treatments that are simply not suitable for developing country contexts. I was reminded of a discussion comment recently made by a Pakistani surgeon on the Northern bias of systematic reviews:

“There is a definite bias in this approach as almost all of the guidelines and systematic reviews are based on the research carried out in high income countries and the findings and the recommendations have little relevance to the patients, health care system and many a time serve no purpose to the millions of patients based in low resourced countries. e.g. I routinely used Phenol blocks for spasticity management for my patients which were abandoned two decades ago in the West. Results are great, and the patients can afford this Rs 200 phenol instead of Rs 15,000 Botox vial. But, unfortunately, I am unable to locate a single systematic review on the efficacy of phenol as all published research in the last decade was only on the use of Botox in the management of spasticity.” Farooq Rathore (HIFA mailing list, 2016).

Similarly, I’ve read research papers from the South that report on innovative approaches to medical treatments and other problems that utilise lower-cost equipment and methodologies (in fact, as is argued here, research in low-resource environments can often be more efficient and innovative, containing many lessons we, in the North, could learn from). This point is also made by Piron et al:

“… the production of technical and social innovations is rich in Sub-Saharan French-speaking Africa, as evidenced by the high number of articles on this subject in the Sci-Dev magazine, specializing in science for development, or in the ecofin site, an economic information agency turned towards Africa. But these are mostly local innovations that mobilize local resources and often recycled materials to, for example, introduce electricity into a village, better irrigate fields or offer lighting after sunset. The aim of these innovations is to contribute to local development and not to the development of international markets, unlike innovations designed in the North which, while targeting the countries of the South, remain highly marketable – just think of milk powder or GMO seeds. The issue of open access to scientific publications is a very secondary issue for local innovators in such a context”. (Piron et al. 2016)

These examples of innovation aside, there are many cases where the ‘epistemic alienation’ described above leads to ‘the exclusion or contempt of local knowledge’ (Mboa, 2016), even amongst researchers in the global South.

“In fact, Western culture abundantly relayed in the media and textbooks is shown to be superior to other cultures. This situation is pushing Africans to multiply their efforts to reach the ideal of life of the “white”. This situation seems to block their ability to think locally, or even to be reactive. Thus, faced with a given situation specific to the African context, many are those who first draw on the resources of Western thinking to propose elements of answers.” Mboa (2016)

Free and open access as ‘showcasing products’

The Research4Life (R4L) programme also comes in for criticism from Piron et al. which will come as a shock to Northern publishing people who often use the ‘… but they’ve got Research4Life’ line when faced with evidence of global research inequalities.

“… while pretending to charitably provide university libraries in the Global South with free access to pre-defined packages of paid journals from the North, this program, set up by for-profit scientific publishers, maintains the dependence of these libraries, limits their understanding of the true network of open access publications and, above all, improves the market for the products sold by these publishers.” Piron et al (2017)

“… this program encourages the continued reliance of these libraries on an external program, designed in the North and showcasing Northern products, while it may disappear as soon as this philanthropic desire is exhausted or as soon as trading partners will not find any more benefits.”

Whilst I still think R4L is a great initiative (I know many researchers in the Global South who are very appreciative of the programme), it’s difficult to disagree with the conclusion that:

‘… this program mainly improves the opportunities of Northern publishers without contributing to the sustainable empowerment of university libraries in the South … this charity seems very hypocritical, let alone arbitrary, since it can stop at any time.” Piron (2017)

Of course, the same could be said of Article Processing Charge (APC) waivers for developing country authors. Waivers are currently offered by the majority of journals from the big publishers (provided according to the same HINARI list of countries provided by Research4Life), although sometimes you have to dig deep into the terms and conditions pages to find them. Waivers are good for publishers to showcase their corporate social responsibility and provide diversity of authorship. However, they are unsustainable – this charity is unlikely to last forever, especially as they rely on the pool of Southern authors being relatively limited. It should also be noted that developing countries with the most active, growing researcher communities such as Nigeria, South Africa and India do not qualify for either R4L access or APC waivers.

Speaking of APCs, something I observe regularly amongst Southern researchers is a confusion over the ‘Gold’ OA author-pays model, and this too is noted:

“In northern countries, many researchers, especially in STEM (Björk and Solomon, 2012) [ 7 ], believe (wrongly) that open access now means “publication fees charged to authors” … this commercial innovation appears to be paying off, as these costs appear to be natural to researchers.” Piron (2017)

This also appears to be paying off in the Global South – authors seem resigned to pay some kind of charge to publish, and it is common to have to point out to authors that over two-thirds of OA journals and 99% of subscription journals do not charge to publish (although, the rise of ‘predatory’ journals may have magnified this misunderstanding that pay-to-publish is the norm).

It may be tempting to think of these inequalities as an unfortunate historical accident, and that our attempts to help the Global South ‘catch up’ are just a little clumsy and patronising. However, Piron argues that this is no mere accident, but the result of colonial exploitation that still resonates in existing power structures today:

“Open access is then easily seen as a means of catching up, at least filling gaps in libraries and often outdated teaching […] Africa is considered as lagging behind the modern world, which would explain its underdevelopment, to summarize this sadly hegemonic conception of north-south relations. By charity, Northern countries then feel obliged to help, which feeds the entire industry surrounding development aid [….] this model of delay, violently imposed by the West on the rest of the world through colonization, has been used to justify the economic and cognitive exploitation (Connell, 2014) of colonized continents without which modernity could not have prospered.” Piron (2017)

To build the path or take the path?

Of course, the authors do admit that access to Northern research has a role to play in the Global South, provided the access is situated in local contexts:

“… African science should be an African knowledge, rooted in African contexts, that uses African epistemologies to answer African questions, while also using other knowledge from all over the world, including Western ones, if they are relevant locally.” Piron (2017)

However, the practical reality of Open Access for Southern researchers is often overstated. There is a crucial distinction between making content ‘open’ and providing the means to access that content. As Piron et al. 2017 say:

“To put a publication in open access: is it, to build the path (technical or legal) that leads to it, or is it to make it possible for people to take this path? This distinction is crucial to understand the difference in meaning of open access between the center and the periphery of the world-system of science, although only an awareness of the conditions of scientific research in the Southern countries makes it possible to visualize it, to perceive it.”

This crucial difference between availability and accessibility has also been explained by Anne Powell on Scholarly Kitchen. There are many complex barriers to ‘free’ and ‘open’ content actually being accessed and used. The most obvious of these barriers is internet connectivity, but librarian training, language and digital literacy also feature significantly:

“Finding relevant open access articles on the web requires digital skills that, as we have seen, are rare among Haitian and African students for whom the web sometimes comes via Facebook … Remember that it is almost always when they arrive at university that these students first touch a computer. The catching up is fast, but many reflexes acquired since the primary school in the countries of the North must be developed before even being able to imagine that there are open access scientific texts on the web to make up for the lack of documents in the libraries. In the words of the Haitian student Anderson Pierre, “a large part of the students do not know the existence of these resources or do not have the digital skills to access and exploit them in order to advance their research project”. Piron (2017)

Barriers to local knowledge exchange

Unfortunately, this is made even more difficult by resistance and misunderstanding of the internet and digital tools from senior leadership in Africa:

“Social representations of the web, science and copyright also come into play, especially among older academics, a phenomenon that undermines the appropriation of digital technologies at the basis of open access in universities.” Piron et al. (2017)

“To this idea that knowledge resides only in printed books is added a representation of the web which also has an impact on the local resistance to open access: our fieldwork has allowed us to understand that, for many African senior academics, the web is incompatible with science because it contains only documents or sites that are of low quality, frivolous or entertaining. These people infer that science in open access on the web is of lower quality than printed science and are very surprised when they learn that most of the journals of the world-system of science exist only in dematerialized format. … Unfortunately, these resistances slow down the digitization and the web dissemination of African scientific works, perpetuating these absurd situations where the researchers of the same field in neighboring universities do not know what each other is doing”. Piron et al. (2017)

This complaint about in-country communication from researchers in the South can be common, but there are signs that open access can make a difference – as an example, in Sri Lanka, I’ve spoken to researchers who say that communicating research findings within the country has always been a problem, but the online portal Sri Lanka Journals Online (currently 77 open access Sri Lankan journals) has started to improve this situation. This project was many years in the making, and has involved training journal editors and librarians in loading online content and improving editorial practices for open access. The same, of course, could be said for African Journals Online, which has potential to facilitate sharing on a larger scale.

Arguably, some forms of institutional resistance to openness in the Global South have a neocolonial influence – universities have largely borrowed and even intensified the Northern ‘publish or perish’ mantra which focuses the academic rewards system almost entirely on journal publications, often in northern-indexed journals, rather than on impact on real world development.

“The system of higher education and research in force in many African countries remains a remnant of colonization, perpetuated by the reproduction, year after year, of the same ideals and principles. This reproduction is assured not by the old colonizers but by our own political leaders who are perpetuating a system structured according to a classical partitioning that slows down any possible communication between researchers within the country or with the outside world, even worse between the university and the immediate environment. For the ruling class, the changes taking place in the world and the society’s needs seem to have no direct link to the university.” Mboa (2016)

Mboa calls this partitioning between researchers and outsiders as “a tight border between society and science”:

“African researchers are so attached to the ideal of neutrality of science and concern of its ‘purity’ that they consider contacts with ordinary citizens as ‘risks’ or threats and that they prefer to evolve in their ‘ivory tower’. On the other hand, ordinary citizens feel so diminished compared to researchers that to talk to them about their eventual involvement in research is a taboo subject …” Mboa (2016)

Uncolonising openness

So what is the answer to all these problems? Is it in building the skills of researchers and institutions or a complete change of philosophy?

“The colonial origin of African science (Mvé-Ondo, 2005) is certainly no stranger to this present subjugation of African science to northern research projects, nor to its tendency to imitate Western science without effort. Contextualization, particularly in the quasi-colonial structuring of sub-Saharan African universities (Fredua-Kwarteng, 2015) and in maintaining the use of a colonial language in university education. Considering this institutionalized epistemic alienation as yet another cognitive injustice, Mvé-Ondo wonders “how to move from a westernization of science to a truly shared science” (p.49) and calls for “epistemological mutation”, “rebirth”, modernizing “African science at the crossroads of local knowledge and northern science – perhaps echoing the call of Fanon (1962/2002) for a “new thinking” in the Third World countries, detached from European model, decolonized.” Piron et al. (2017)

For this to happen, open access must be about more than just access – but something much more holistic and equitable:

“Can decentralized, decolonised open access then contribute to creating more cognitive justice in global scientific production? Our answer is clear: yes, provided that it is not limited to the question of access for scientific and non-scientific readers to scientific publications. It must include the concern for origin, creation, local publishing and the desire to ensure equity between the accessibility of the publications of the center of the world system and that of knowledge from the periphery. It thus proposes to replace the normative universalism of globalized science with an inclusive universalism, open to the ecology of knowledges and capable of building an authentic knowledge commons (Gruson-Daniel, 2015; Le Crosnier, 2015), hospitable for the knowledge of the North and the South”. Piron et al. (2017)

Mboa sees the solution to this multifaceted problem in ‘open science’:

“[Cognitive injustice comes via] … endogenous causes (citizens and African leaders) and by exogenous causes (capitalism, colonization, the West). The knowledge of these causes allowed me to propose ways to prevent our downfall. Among these means, I convened open science as a tool available to our leaders and citizens for advancing cognitive justice. For although the causes are endogenous and exogenous, I believe that a wound heals from the inside outwards.” Mboa (2016).

Mboa explains how open science approaches can overcome some of these problems in this book chapter, but here he provides a short summary of the advantages of open science for African research:

“It’s a science that rejects the ivory tower and the separation between scientists and the rest of the population of the country. In short, it’s a science released from control by a universal capitalist standard, by hierarchical authority and by pre-established scientific classes. From this perspective, open science offers the following advantages:

it brings science closer to society;
it promotes fair and sustainable development;
it allows the expression of minority and / or marginalized groups, as well as their knowledge;
it promotes original, local and useful research in the country;
it facilitates access to a variety of scientific and technical information;
it is abundant, recent and up to date;
it develops digital skills;
it facilitates collaborative work;
it gives a better visibility to research work.

By aiming to benefit from these advantages, researchers and African students fight cognitive injustice. For this, open access science relies on open access, free licenses, free computing, and citizen science.” Mboa (2016).

But in order for open science to succeed, digital literacy must be rapidly improved to empower students and researchers in the South:

“Promoting inclusive access therefore requires engaging at the same time in a decolonial critique of the relationship between the center and the periphery and urging universities in the South to develop the digital literacy of their student or teacher members.” Piron et al. (2017)

It also requires improving production of scientific works (‘grey’ literature, as well as peer-reviewed papers) in the South for a two-way North/South conversation:

“Then, we propose to rethink the usual definition of open access to add the mandate to enhance the visibility of scientific work produced in universities in the South and thus contribute to greater cognitive justice in global scientific production.” Piron (2017)

And providing open access needs to be understood in context:

“… if we integrate the concern for the enhancement of the knowledge produced in the periphery and the awareness of all that hinders the creation of this knowledge, then open access can become a tool of cognitive justice at the service of the construction of an inclusive universalism peculiar to a just open science.” Piron, Diouf, Madiba (2017)

In summary then, we need to rethink the way that the global North seeks to support the South – a realignment of this relationship from mere access to empowerment through sustainable capacity building:

“Africa’s scientific development aid, if it is needed, should therefore be oriented much less towards immediate access to Northern publications and more to local development of tools and the strengthening of the digital skills of academics and librarians. These tools and skills would enable them not only to take advantage of open access databases, but also to digitize and put open access local scientific works in open archives, journals or research centers.” Piron (2017)

So what next?

Even if you disagree with many the above ideas, I hope that this has provided many of you with some food for thought. Open Access must surely be about more than just knowledge flow from North to South (or, for that matter the academy to the public, or well-funded researchers to poorly funded researchers). Those on the periphery must also be given a significant voice and a place at the table. For this to happen, many researchers (and their equivalents outside academia) need training and support in digital skills; some institutional barriers also need to be removed or overcome; and of course a few cherished, long-held ideas must be seriously challenged.

“These injustices denote anything that diminishes the capacity of academics in these countries to deploy the full potential of their intellectual talents, their knowledge and their capacity for scientific research to serve their country’s sustainable local development”. Piron et al., (2016).

What do you think…?

▻http://journalologik.uk/?p=149
#édition_scientifique #OA #open_access #Afrique #Afrique_francophone #décolonisation #post-colonialisme

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Réservation et informations : justice.speculative@gmail.com

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Dans les Cévennes, où il fait froid en ce début de mai, il n’empêche on déguste les pleurotes élevées en cave par une chouette voisine, sont-ce les champignons mais cela donne de nouvelles idées de reconstruction pour Notre Dame (pour le concours d’architecture du Terrier), je continue de travailler sur Le Rapport sexuel existe en ayant quelques idées pour la couverture du livre, Valérie peint le portrait de Zoé, un soir je regarde Film de Buster Keaton et Samuel Beckett, dans une pièce isolée de la maison je tombe sur une ancienne photographie de Berlin, pensée pour @peweck, et au retour de nos Cévennes glacées, on traverse la Margeride et Haute-Loire enneigées, concert du Surnat’ (Tallman, la version concert) à l’Echangeur avec en première partie deux formations issues du Collectif 2035, Where is Mr R.? Et Morgane Carnet, le lendemain Emile et moi tombons sur un vieux cadre de piano, je ne verrai donc pas Simone Barbès ou la vertu de Marie-Claude Treilhou, Au Tracé provisoire, concerts de Burkhard Stangle en duo avec dieb13, puis eRikm et Anthony Pateras, le 22 à Asnières c’est pas forcément ma tasse d’oolong, je revois avec plaisir Inherent Vice de Paul Thomas Anderson, sortie du numéro 9 de La Moitié du fourbi intitulé Vite, Bruno Angelini, Michele Rabbia et Tore Brunborg accueillent les images vidéos d’Al’l (je n’en pense pas forcément grand chose, je parle des images), je maintiens une certaine idolâtrie pour Jim Jarmusch dont je vois chaque film à sa sortie depuis Stranger Than Paradise, j’ai remis la main sur le numéro de Palettes qu’Alain Jaubert a consacré à la Grande Jatte de Pierre Georges Seurat (et auquel j’avais contribué au millénaire dernier), Monrovia, Indiana de Frédéric Wiseman nous montre la première puissance mondiale en son centre et son coeur (par ailleurs cardiaque le coeur), je pars à la recherche du troisième point de fuite avec Marilou et cela devient toute une aventure en html, je remets la main sur des archives personnelles pas toutes avouables, comme ma contribution à Bonne idée de Jean-Jacques Goldman, c’est l’anniversaire de Julia, je suis époustouflé par Passion de Ryusuke Hamaguchi, je revois Carnaval de Thomas Vincent, Printemps de Sylvaine Hélary à l_Echangeur_ est une joie sans mélange, Elena, Christian Wallumrod et Kim Myhr nous laissent un peu sur notre faim et Chris Corsano est un batteur extraordinaire, tout ce au travers de quoi je passe d’archives personnelles à la recherche du troisième point de fuite, très belles toiles de Bernard Frize à Beaubourg, quelques oeuvres du musée découvertes par Zoé, un peu scotchée dit-elle par Giuseppe Penone, Louis Sclavis invite trois violoncellistes, quel dommage que cela ne se passe pas dans une bonne salle de concert !

▻http://www.desordre.net/photographie/numerique/divers/201905.htm

Quel joli mois de mai !

Harcèlement, le prix des mots
▻https://soundcloud.com/programme-b/harcelement-le-prix-des-mots

Elles s’appellent Léa Seydoux, Nadia Daam, Nikita Belluci ou encore Marie Laguerre... Et elles ont fait le choix de témoigner publiquement au sujet d’hommes qui les ont harcelées ou agressées, libérant ainsi la parole d’autres femmes ayant subi des violences physiques et/ou psychologiques. Quels sont les chemins parcourus par ces femmes qui sortent parfois de plusieurs années de silence ? Comment Twitter est-il devenu un nouveau territoire d’expression pour témoigner ? Quelles sont les failles du système judiciaire français ? Harcèlement, le prix des mots, c’est un reportage de Noémie Gmur, réalisé par Vincent Hiver. Source : Programme (...)

#Fraude aux #prestations_sociales : un rapport du Sénat tord le cou aux #idées_reçues | Public Senat
▻https://www.publicsenat.fr/article/parlementaire/fraude-aux-prestations-sociales-un-rapport-du-senat-tord-le-cou-aux-idee

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La fraude documentaire aux prestations sociales entraînerait chaque année pour l’État un préjudice de 200 à 300 millions d’euros. C’est ce qui ressort d’un rapport du Sénat remis ce mercredi. L’année dernière, un magistrat spécialisé, l’évaluait pourtant à 14 milliards par an. « Une extrapolation un peu abusive » selon le sénateur MoDem, Jean-Marie Vanlerenberghe.

#sécurité_sociale #immatriculation #étrangers

#Justice_fiscale pour le Sud
▻https://www.cetri.be/Justice-fiscale-pour-le-Sud

Il était question de justice fiscale, en particulier pour les pays du Sud, dans l’émission « Au bout du jour » sur La Première, RTBF. Antonio Gambini du CNCD et Marie Antonelle Joubert, de la Global Alliance for Tax Justice y sont interviewés à propos de la dernière publication du CETRI à laquelle ils ont contribué : « Quelle justice fiscale pour le Sud ? » coordonnée par Cédric Leterme.

#Le_regard_du_CETRI

/ Justice fiscale, #Le_regard_du_CETRI, #Le_Sud_en_mouvement

As Thousands of Taxi Drivers Were Trapped in Loans, Top Officials Counted the Money - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/taxi-medallions.html

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[Read Part 1 of The Times’s investigation: How Reckless Loans Devastated a Generation of Taxi Drivers]

At a cramped desk on the 22nd floor of a downtown Manhattan office building, Gary Roth spotted a looming disaster.

An urban planner with two master’s degrees, Mr. Roth had a new job in 2010 analyzing taxi policy for the New York City government. But almost immediately, he noticed something disturbing: The price of a taxi medallion — the permit that lets a driver own a cab — had soared to nearly $700,000 from $200,000. In order to buy medallions, drivers were taking out loans they could not afford.

Mr. Roth compiled his concerns in a report, and he and several colleagues warned that if the city did not take action, the loans would become unsustainable and the market could collapse.

They were not the only ones worried about taxi medallions. In Albany, state inspectors gave a presentation to top officials showing that medallion owners were not making enough money to support their loans. And in Washington, D.C., federal examiners repeatedly noted that banks were increasing profits by steering cabbies into risky loans.

They were all ignored.

Medallion prices rose above $1 million before crashing in late 2014, wiping out the futures of thousands of immigrant drivers and creating a crisis that has continued to ravage the industry today. Despite years of warning signs, at least seven government agencies did little to stop the collapse, The New York Times found.

Instead, eager to profit off medallions or blinded by the taxi industry’s political connections, the agencies that were supposed to police the industry helped a small group of bankers and brokers to reshape it into their own moneymaking machine, according to internal records and interviews with more than 50 former government employees.

For more than a decade, the agencies reduced oversight of the taxi trade, exempted it from regulations, subsidized its operations and promoted its practices, records and interviews showed.

Their actions turned one of the best-known symbols of New York — its signature yellow cabs — into a financial trap for thousands of immigrant drivers. More than 950 have filed for bankruptcy, according to a Times analysis of court records, and many more struggle to stay afloat.

Remember the ‘10,000 Hours’ Rule for Success? Forget About It
“Nobody wanted to upset the industry,” said David Klahr, who from 2007 to 2016 held several management posts at the Taxi and Limousine Commission, the city agency that oversees cabs. “Nobody wanted to kill the golden goose.”

New York City in particular failed the taxi industry, The Times found. Two former mayors, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Michael R. Bloomberg, placed political allies inside the Taxi and Limousine Commission and directed it to sell medallions to help them balance budgets and fund priorities. Mayor Bill de Blasio continued the policies.

Under Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. de Blasio, the city made more than $855 million by selling taxi medallions and collecting taxes on private sales, according to the city.

But during that period, much like in the mortgage lending crisis, a group of industry leaders enriched themselves by artificially inflating medallion prices. They encouraged medallion buyers to borrow as much as possible and ensnared them in interest-only loans and other one-sided deals that often required them to pay hefty fees, forfeit their legal rights and give up most of their monthly incomes.

When the medallion market collapsed, the government largely abandoned the drivers who bore the brunt of the crisis. Officials did not bail out borrowers or persuade banks to soften loan terms.

“They sell us medallions, and they knew it wasn’t worth price. They knew,” said Wael Ghobrayal, 42, an Egyptian immigrant who bought a medallion at a city auction for $890,000 and now cannot make his loan payments and support his three children.

“They lost nothing. I lost everything,” he said.

The Times conducted hundreds of interviews, reviewed thousands of records and built several databases to unravel the story of the downfall of the taxi industry in New York and across the United States. The investigation unearthed a collapse that was years in the making, aided almost as much by regulators as by taxi tycoons.

Publicly, government officials have blamed the crisis on competition from ride-hailing firms such as Uber and Lyft.

In interviews with The Times, they blamed each other.

The officials who ran the city Taxi and Limousine Commission in the run-up to the crash said it was the job of bank examiners, not the commission, to control lending practices.

The New York Department of Financial Services said that while it supervised some of the banks involved in the taxi industry, it deferred to federal inspectors in many cases.

The federal agency that oversaw many of the largest lenders in the industry, the National Credit Union Administration, said those lenders were meeting the needs of borrowers.

The N.C.U.A. released a March 2019 internal audit that scolded its regulators for not aggressively enforcing rules in medallion lending. But even that audit partially absolved the government. The lenders, it said, all had boards of directors that were supposed to prevent reckless practices.

And several officials criticized Congress, which two decades ago excepted credit unions in the taxi industry from some rules that applied to other credit unions. After that, the officials said, government agencies had to treat those lenders differently.

Ultimately, former employees said, the regulatory system was set up to ensure that lenders were financially stable, and medallions were sold. But almost nothing protected the drivers.

Matthew W. Daus, far right, at a hearing of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission in 2004. CreditMarilynn K. Yee/The New York Times
Matthew W. Daus was an unconventional choice to regulate New York’s taxi industry. He was a lawyer from Brooklyn and a leader of a political club that backed Mr. Giuliani for mayor.

The Giuliani administration hired him as a lawyer for the Taxi and Limousine Commission before appointing him chairman in 2001, a leadership post he kept after Mr. Bloomberg became mayor in 2002.

The commission oversaw the drivers and fleets that owned the medallions for the city’s 12,000 cabs. It licensed all participants and decided what cabs could charge, where they could go and which type of vehicle they could use.

And under Mr. Bloomberg, it also began selling 1,000 new medallions.

At the time, the mayor said the growing city needed more yellow cabs. But he also was eager for revenue. He had a $3.8 billion hole in his budget.

The sales put the taxi commission in an unusual position.

It had a long history of being entangled with the industry. Its first chairman, appointed in 1971, was convicted of a bribery scheme involving an industry lobbyist. Four other leaders since then had worked in the business.

It often sent staffers to conferences where companies involved in the taxi business paid for liquor, meals and tickets to shows, and at least one past member of its board had run for office in a campaign financed by the industry.

Still, the agency had never been asked to generate so much money from the business it was supposed to be regulating.

Former staffers said officials chose to sell medallions with the method they thought would bring in the most revenue: a series of limited auctions that required participants to submit sealed bids above ever-increasing minimums.

Ahead of the sales, the city placed ads on television and radio, and in newspapers and newsletters, and held seminars promoting the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“Medallions have a long history as a solid investment with steady growth,” Mr. Daus wrote in one newsletter. In addition to guaranteed employment, he wrote, “a medallion is collateral that can assist in home financing, college tuition or even ‘worry-free’ retirement.”

At the first auctions under Mr. Bloomberg in 2004, bids topped $300,000, surprising experts.

Some former staffers said in interviews they believed the ad campaign inappropriately inflated prices by implying medallions would make buyers rich, no matter the cost. Seven said they complained.

The city eventually added a disclaimer to ads, saying past performance did not guarantee future results. But it kept advertising.

During the same period, the city also posted information on its website that said that medallion prices were, on average, 13 percent higher than they really were, according to a Times data analysis.

In several interviews, Mr. Daus defended the ad campaigns, saying they reached people who had been unable to break into the tight market. The ads were true at the time, he said. He added he had never heard internal complaints about the ads.

In all, the city held 16 auctions between 2004 and 2014.

“People don’t realize how organized it is,” Andrew Murstein, president of Medallion Financial, a lender to medallion buyers, said in a 2011 interview with Tearsheet Podcast. “The City of New York, more or less, is our partner because they want to see prices go as high as possible.”

Help from a federal agency

New York City made more than $855 million from taxi medallion sales under Mayor Bill de Blasio and his predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg.

For decades, a niche banking system had grown up around the taxi industry, and at its center were about half a dozen nonprofit credit unions that specialized in medallion loans. But as the auctions continued, the families that ran the credit unions began to grow frustrated.

Around them, they saw other lenders making money by issuing loans that they could not because of the rules governing credit unions. They recognized a business opportunity, and they wanted in.

They found a receptive audience at the National Credit Union Administration.

The N.C.U.A. was the small federal agency that regulated the nation’s credit unions. It set the rules, examined their books and insured their accounts.

Like the city taxi commission, the N.C.U.A. had long had ties to the industry that it regulated. One judge had called it a “rogue federal agency” focused on promoting the industry.

In 2004, its chairman was Dennis Dollar, a former Mississippi state representative who had previously worked as the chief executive of a credit union. He had just been inducted into the Mississippi Credit Union Hall of Fame, and he had said one of his top priorities was streamlining regulation.

Dennis Dollar, the former chairman of the National Credit Union Administration, is now a consultant in the industry. 

Under Mr. Dollar and others, the N.C.U.A. issued waivers that exempted medallion loans from longstanding rules, including a regulation requiring each loan to have a down payment of at least 20 percent. The waivers allowed the lenders to keep up with competitors and to write more profitable loans.

Mr. Dollar, who left government to become a consultant for credit unions, said the agency was following the lead of Congress, which passed a law in 1998 exempting credit unions specializing in medallion loans from some regulations. The law signaled that those lenders needed leeway, such as the waivers, he said.

“If we did not do so, the average cabdriver couldn’t get a medallion loan,” Mr. Dollar said.

The federal law and the N.C.U.A. waivers were not the only benefits the industry received. The federal government also provided many medallion lenders with financial assistance and guaranteed a portion of their taxi loans, assuring that if those loans failed, they would still be partially paid, according to records and interviews.

As lenders wrote increasingly risky loans, medallion prices neared $500,000 in 2006.

‘Snoozing and napping’

Under Mr. Bloomberg, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission began selling 1,000 new medallions.

Another agency was also supposed to be keeping an eye on lending practices. New York State banking regulators are required to inspect all financial institutions chartered in the state. But after 2008, they were forced to focus their attention on the banks most affected by the global economic meltdown, according to former employees.

As a result, some industry veterans said, the state stopped examining medallion loans closely.

“The state banking department would come in, and they’d be doing the exam in one room, and the N.C.U.A. would be in another room,” said Larry Fisher, who was then the medallion lending supervisor at Melrose Credit Union, one of the biggest lenders. “And you could catch the state banking department snoozing and napping and going on the internet and not doing much at all.”

The state banking department, which is now called the New York Department of Financial Services, disputed that characterization and said it had acted consistently and appropriately.

Former federal regulators described a similar trend at their agencies after the recession.

Some former employees of the N.C.U.A., the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said that as medallion prices climbed, they tried to raise issues with loans and were told not to worry. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve Board also oversaw some lenders and did not intervene.

A spokesman for the Federal Reserve said the agency was not a primary regulator of the taxi lending industry. The rest of the agencies declined to comment.

“It was obvious that the loans were unusual and risky,” said Patrick Collins, a former N.C.U.A. examiner. But, he said, there was a belief inside his agency that the loans would be fine because the industry had been stable for decades.

Meanwhile, in New York City, the taxi commission reduced oversight.

For years, it had made medallion purchasers file forms describing how they came up with the money, including details on all loans. It also had required industry participants to submit annual disclosures on their finances, loans and conflicts of interest.

But officials never analyzed the forms filed by buyers, and in the 2000s, they stopped requiring the annual disclosures altogether.

“Reviewing these disclosures was an onerous lift for us,” the commission’s communications office said in a recent email.

By 2008, the price of a medallion rose to $600,000.

At around the same time, the commission began focusing on new priorities. It started developing the “Taxi of Tomorrow,” a model for future cabs.

The agency’s main enforcement activities targeted drivers who cheated passengers or discriminated against people of color. “Nobody really scrutinized medallion transfers,” said Charles Tortorici, a former commission lawyer.

A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement that during the mayor’s tenure, the city improved the industry by installing credit card machines and GPS devices, making fleets more environmentally efficient and creating green taxis for boroughs outside Manhattan.

“The industry was always its own worst enemy, fighting every reform tooth and nail,” said the spokesman, Marc La Vorgna. “We put our energy and political capital into the reforms that most directly and immediately impacted the riding public.”

Records show that since 2008, the taxi commission has not taken a single enforcement action against brokers, the powerful players who arrange medallion sales and loans.

Alex Korenkov, a broker, suggested in an interview that he and other brokers took notice of the city’s hands-off approach.

“Let’s put it this way,” he said. “If governing body does not care, then free-for-all.”

By the time that Mr. Roth wrote his report at the Taxi and Limousine Commission in 2010, it was clear that something strange was happening in the medallion market.

Mr. Daus gave a speech that year that mentioned the unusual lending practices. During the speech, he said banks were letting medallion buyers obtain loans without any down payment. Experts have since said that should have raised red flags. But at the time, Mr. Daus seemed pleased.

“Some of these folks were offering zero percent down,” he said. “You tell me what bank walks around asking for zero percent down on a loan? It’s just really amazing.”

In interviews, Mr. Daus acknowledged that the practice was unusual but said the taxi commission had no authority over lending.

Inside the commission, at least four employees raised concerns about the medallion prices and lending practices, according to the employees, who described their own unease as well as Mr. Roth’s report.

David S. Yassky, a former city councilman who succeeded Mr. Daus as commission chairman in 2010, said in an interview that he never saw Mr. Roth’s report.

Mr. Yassky said the medallion prices puzzled him, but he could not determine if they were inflated, in part because people were still eager to buy. Medallions may have been undervalued for decades, and the price spike could have been the market recognizing the true value, he suggested.

Meera Joshi, who became chairwoman in 2014, said in an interview that she was worried about medallion costs and lending practices but was pushed to prioritize other responsibilities. Dominic Williams, Mr. de Blasio’s chief policy adviser, said the city focused on initiatives such as improving accessibility because no one was complaining about loans.

Worries about the taxi industry also emerged at the National Credit Union Administration. In late 2011, as the price of some medallions reached $800,000, a group of agency examiners wrote a paper on the risks in the industry, according to a recent report by the agency’s inspector general.

In 2012, 2013 and 2014, inspectors routinely documented instances of credit unions violating lending rules, the inspector general’s report said.

David S. Yassky, the former chairman of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission.

The N.C.U.A. chose not to penalize medallion lenders or impose extra oversight. It did not take any wide industry action until April 2014, when it sent a letter reminding the credit unions in the taxi market to act responsibly.

Former staffers said the agency was still focused on the fallout from the recession.

A spokesman for the N.C.U.A. disputed that characterization and said the agency conducted appropriate enforcement.

He added the agency took actions to ensure the credit unions remained solvent, which was its mission. He said Congress allowed the lenders to concentrate heavily on medallion loans, which left them vulnerable when Uber and Lyft arrived.

At the New York Department of Financial Services, bank examiners noticed risky practices and interest-only loans and repeatedly wrote warnings starting in 2010, according to the state. At least one report expressed concern of a potential market bubble, the state said.

Eventually, examiners became so concerned that they made a PowerPoint presentation and called a meeting in 2014 to show it to a dozen top officials.

“Since 2001, individual medallion has risen 455%,” the presentation warned, according to a copy obtained by The Times. The presentation suggested state action, such as sending a letter to the industry or revoking charters from some lenders.

The state did neither. The department had recently merged with the insurance department, and former employees said it was finding its footing.

The department superintendent at the time, Benjamin M. Lawsky, a former aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, said he did not, as a rule, discuss his tenure at the department.

In an emailed statement, the department denied it struggled after the merger and said it took action to stop the collapse of the medallion market. A department spokesman provided a long list of warnings, suggestions and guidelines that it said examiners had issued to lenders. He said that starting in 2012, the department downgraded some of its own internal ratings of the lenders.

The list did not include any instances of the department formally penalizing a medallion lender, or making any public statement about the industry before it collapsed.

Between 2010 and 2014, as officials at every level of government failed to rein in the risky lending practices, records show that roughly 1,500 people bought taxi medallions. Over all, including refinancings of old loans and extensions required by banks, medallion owners signed at least 10,000 loans in that time.

Several regulators who tried to raise alarms said they believed the government stood aside because of the industry’s connections.

Many pointed to one company — Medallion Financial, run by the Murstein family. Former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, the current governor’s father, was a paid member of its board from 1996 until he died in 2015.

Others noted that Mr. de Blasio has long been close to the industry. When he ran for mayor in 2013, an industry lobbyist, Michael Woloz, was a top fund-raiser, records show. And Evgeny Freidman, a major fleet owner who has admitted to artificially inflating medallion prices, has said he is close to the mayor.

Some people, including Mr. Dollar, the former N.C.U.A. chairman, said Congress excepted the taxi trade from rules because the industry was supported by former United States Senator Alfonse D’Amato of New York, who was then the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

“The taxi industry is one of the most politically connected industries in the city,” said Fidel Del Valle, who was the chairman of the taxi commission from 1991 to 1994. He later worked as a lawyer for drivers and a consultant to an owner association run by Mr. Freidman. “It’s been that way for decades, and they’ve used that influence to push back on regulation, with a lot of success.”

A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo said Medallion Financial was not regulated by the state, so the elder Mr. Cuomo’s position on the board was irrelevant. A spokeswoman for Mr. de Blasio said the industry’s connections did not influence the city.

Mr. Murstein, Mr. Woloz, Mr. Freidman and Mr. D’Amato all declined to comment.

The aftermath
“I think city will help me,” Mohammad Hossain, who is in deep debt from a taxi medallion loan, said at his family’s home in the Bronx.

New York held its final independent medallion auction in February 2014. By then, concerns about medallion prices were common in the news media and government offices, and Uber had established itself. Still, the city sold medallions to more than 150 bidders. (“It’s better than the stock market,” one ad said.)

Forty percent of the people who bought medallions at that auction have filed for bankruptcy, according to a Times analysis of court records.

Mohammad Hossain, 47, from Bangladesh, who purchased a medallion for $853,000 at the auction, said he could barely make his monthly payments and was getting squeezed by his lender. “I bought medallion from the city,” he said through tears. “I think city will help me, you know. I assume that.”

The de Blasio administration’s only major response to the crisis has been to push for a cap on ride-hail cars. The City Council at first rejected a cap in 2015 before approving it last year.

Taxi industry veterans said the cap did not address the cause of the crisis: the lending practices.

Richard Weinberg, a taxi commission hearing officer from 1988 to 2002 and a lawyer for drivers since then, said that when the medallion bubble began to burst, the city should have frozen prices, adjusted fares and fees and convinced banks to be flexible with drivers. That could have allowed prices to fall slowly. “That could’ve saved a lot of people,” he said.

In an interview, Dean Fuleihan, the first deputy mayor, said the city did help taxi owners, including by reducing some fees, taxes and inspection mandates, and by talking to banks about loans. He said that if the City Council had passed the cap in 2015, it would have helped.

“We do care about those drivers, we care about those families. We attempted throughout this period to take actions,” he said.

Federal regulators also have not significantly helped medallion owners.

In 2017 and 2018, the N.C.U.A. closed or merged several credit unions for “unsafe business practices” in medallion lending. It took over many of the loans, but did not soften terms, according to borrowers. Instead, it tried to get money out as quickly as possible.

The failure of the credit unions has cost the national credit union insurance fund more than $750 million, which will hurt all credit union members.

In August 2018, the N.C.U.A. closed Melrose in what it said was the biggest credit union liquidation in United States history. The agency barred Melrose’s general counsel from working for credit unions and brought civil charges against its former C.E.O., Alan Kaufman, saying he used company funds to help industry partners in exchange for gifts.

The general counsel, Mitchell Reiver, declined to answer questions but said he did nothing wrong. Mr. Kaufman said in an interview that the N.C.U.A. made up the charges to distract from its role in the crisis.

“I’m definitely a scapegoat,” Mr. Kaufman said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

Glamour, then poverty
After he struggled to repay his taxi medallion loan, Abel Vela left his family in New York and moved back to Peru, where living costs were cheaper. 

During the medallion bubble, the city produced a television commercial to promote the permits. In the ad, which aired in 2004, four cabbies stood around a taxi discussing the perks of the job. One said buying a medallion was the best decision he had ever made. They all smiled. Then Mr. Daus appeared on screen to announce an auction.

Fifteen years later, the cabbies remember the ad with scorn. Three of the four were eventually enticed to refinance their original loans under far riskier terms that left them in heavy debt.

One of the cabbies, Abel Vela, had to leave his wife and children and return to his home country, Peru, because living costs were lower there. He is now 74 and still working to survive.

The city aired a commercial in 2004 to promote an upcoming auction of taxi medallions. The ad featured real cab drivers, but three of them eventually took on risky loans and suffered financial blows.
The only woman in the ad, Marie Applyrs, a Haitian immigrant, fell behind on her loan payments and filed for bankruptcy in November 2017. She lost her cab, and her home. She now lives with her children, switching from home to home every few months.

“When the ad happened, the taxi was in vogue. I think I still have the tape somewhere. It was glamorous,” she said. “Now, I’m in the poorhouse.”

Today, the only person from the television commercial still active in the industry is Mr. Daus. He works as a lawyer for lenders.

[Read Part 1 of The Times’s investigation: How Reckless Loans Devastated a Generation of Taxi Drivers]

Madeline Rosenberg contributed reporting. Doris Burke contributed research. Produced by Jeffrey Furticella and Meghan Louttit.

#USA #New_York #Taxi #Betrug #Ausbeutung

On dirait la soude. Plages et ville d’un industriel de la chimie
▻https://radiocanut.org/la-radio/news-de-la-radio/article/on-dirait-la-soude

Sur la côte toscane, d’étonnantes plages aux allures de Caraïbes attirent chaque année des centaines d’estivants. Elles n’ont rien de naturel et sont le résultat des rejets de l’usine Solvay toute proche. Comment un chimiste belge a-t-il pu en un siècle créer une ville et transformer son littoral ? Habitants, militants et scientifiques racontent l’histoire d’une cité industrielle construite autour d’une soudière, entre luttes sociales, mobilisations des riverains et compromis pour maintenir une activité industrielle et touristique. Source : Radio Canut

▻http://sons-audioblogs.arte.tv/audioblogs/v2/sons/126331/136770/podcast_136770_9Or95.mp3

L’initiatrice de #Balancetonporc jugée pour diffamation
▻https://www.liberation.fr/france/2019/05/28/l-initiatrice-de-balancetonporc-jugee-pour-diffamation_1730223

C’était le 13 octobre 2017. Une semaine après l’explosif hashtag #MyHarveyWeinstein, deux jours avant la déferlante #MeToo. Ce jour-là, Sandra Muller, journaliste française installée à New York, lâche sur son compte Twitter : « #Balancetonporc ! Toi aussi raconte en donnant le nom et les détails d’un harcèlement sexuel que tu as connu dans ton boulot. Je vous attends. » Puis, quelques heures plus tard : « Tu as des gros seins. Tu es mon type de femme. Je vais te faire jouir toute la nuit. Eric Brion, ex-patron de Equidia. #Balancetonporc. » Son second message est rediffusé plus de 2 500 fois. Sandra Muller ne le sait pas encore, mais elle vient de créer ce qui deviendra l’emblème de la libération de la parole des femmes victimes de violences sexistes et sexuelles.

Un an et demi plus tard, la voilà poursuivie pour diffamation par l’homme qu’elle avait accusé. Eric Brion l’attaque pour s’offrir « l’occasion de se défendre devant un vrai tribunal » comme l’explique à Libération son avocate Marie Burguburu. Ce mercredi, la créatrice de #Balancetonporc sera jugée devant la 17e chambre civile du tribunal de grande instance de Paris.

A l’époque de la tornade médiatique, l’homme mis en cause par Sandra Muller avait préféré garder le silence, avant de faire le choix de s’exprimer, deux mois plus tard, dans une tribune publiée par le journal le Monde pour réclamer « le droit à la vérité et à la nuance » et présenter ses excuses. « J’ai effectivement tenu des propos déplacés envers Sandra Muller, lors d’un cocktail arrosé très tard dans une soirée, mais à une seule reprise. Elle me plaisait. Je le lui ai dit, lourdement. Et une seule fois, je tiens à le préciser. Je ne veux certainement pas me disculper de ma goujaterie d’alors. Je lui réitère ici mes excuses. » Aujourd’hui, le plaignant réclame 50 000 euros de dommages et intérêts et la suppression du tweet dans lequel son nom apparaît. « #Balancetonporc est un appel à la délation et c’est une délation mensongère », insiste maître Burguburu.

« Quelle mouche a piqué M. Brion pour qu’il change à ce point de stratégie ? » s’offusque de son côté Francis Szpiner, l’un des avocats de Sandra Muller, contacté par Libération. « M. Brion a reconnu avoir eu un comportement grossier et blâmable envers ma cliente. Au lieu de se faire discret, il l’attaque en justice. Ce procès est une "baupinade" ! » « Baupinade » en référence à Denis Baupin, l’ancien député écologiste qui avait décidé d’attaquer en diffamation six femmes l’accusant de harcèlement et d’agressions sexuelles. Et qui avait perdu en avril.

+----+----------------------------------------------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
| | « Liste » | Nombre de voix | % des exprimés | % des inscrits |
+----+----------------------------------------------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
| 1 | Abstentions | 23613483 | — | 49,88 % |
| 2 | PRENEZ LE POUVOIR - M. BARDELLA Jordan | 5281576 | 23,31 % | 11,16 % |
| 3 | RENAISSANCE - Mme LOISEAU Nathalie | 5076363 | 22,41 % | 10,72 % |
| 4 | EUROPE ECOLOGIE - M. JADOT Yannick | 3052406 | 13,47 % | 6,45 % |
| 5 | UNION DROITE-CENTRE - M. BELLAMY François-Xavier | 1920530 | 8,48 % | 4,06 % |
| 6 | LA FRANCE INSOUMISE - Mme AUBRY Manon | 1428386 | 6,31 % | 3,02 % |
| 7 | ENVIE D’EUROPE - M. GLUCKSMANN Raphaël | 1401978 | 6,19 % | 2,96 % |
| 8 | DEBOUT LA FRANCE - M. DUPONT-AIGNAN Nicolas | 794953 | 3,51 % | 1,68 % |
| 9 | LISTE CITOYENNE - M. HAMON Benoît | 741212 | 3,27 % | 1,57 % |
| 10 | LES EUROPEENS - M. LAGARDE Jean-Christophe | 566746 | 2,50 % | 1,20 % |
| 11 | POUR L’EUROPE DES GENS - M. BROSSAT Ian | 564717 | 2,49 % | 1,19 % |
| 12 | Blancs | 551235 | — | 1,16 % |
| 13 | Nuls | 525793 | — | 1,11 % |
| 14 | PARTI ANIMALISTE - Mme THOUY Hélène | 490570 | 2,17 % | 1,04 % |
| 15 | URGENCE ECOLOGIE - M. BOURG Dominique | 411793 | 1,82 % | 0,87 % |
| 16 | ENSEMBLE POUR LE FREXIT - M. ASSELINEAU François | 265957 | 1,17 % | 0,56 % |
| 17 | LUTTE OUVRIERE - Mme ARTHAUD Nathalie | 176434 | 0,78 % | 0,37 % |
| 18 | ENSEMBLE PATRIOTES - M. PHILIPPOT Florian | 147044 | 0,65 % | 0,31 % |
| 19 | ALLIANCE JAUNE - M. LALANNE Francis | 122573 | 0,54 % | 0,26 % |
| 20 | LES OUBLIES DE L’EUROPE - M. BIDOU Olivier | 51404 | 0,23 % | 0,11 % |
| 21 | PARTI PIRATE - Mme MARIE Florie | 31684 | 0,14 % | 0,07 % |
| 22 | EUROPE AU SERVICE DES PEUPLES - M. AZERGUI Nagib | 28447 | 0,13 % | 0,06 % |
| 23 | ESPERANTO - M. DIEUMEGARD Pierre | 18567 | 0,08 % | 0,04 % |
| 24 | PARTI FED. EUROPEEN - M. GERNIGON Yves | 12581 | 0,06 % | 0,03 % |
| 25 | A VOIX EGALES - Mme TOMASINI Nathalie | 11604 | 0,05 % | 0,02 % |
| 26 | DECROISSANCE 2019 - Mme DELFEL Thérèse | 10479 | 0,05 % | 0,02 % |
| 27 | ALLONS ENFANTS - Mme CAILLAUD Sophie | 8203 | 0,04 % | 0,02 % |
| 28 | PACE - M. ALEXANDRE Audric | 6875 | 0,03 % | 0,01 % |
| 29 | INITIATIVE CITOYENNE - M. HELGEN Gilles | 6267 | 0,03 % | 0,01 % |
| 30 | UDLEF - M. PERSON Christian Luc | 5016 | 0,02 % | 0,01 % |
| 31 | LISTE DE LA RECONQUÊTE - M. VAUCLIN Vincent | 4835 | 0,02 % | 0,01 % |
| 32 | DÉMOCRATIE REPRESENTATIVE - M. TRAORÉ Hamada | 3462 | 0,02 % | 0,01 % |
| 33 | UNE FRANCE ROYALE - M. DE PREVOISIN Robert | 3393 | 0,01 % | 0,01 % |
| 34 | NEUTRE ET ACTIF - Mme CORBET Cathy Denise Ginette | 2694 | 0,01 % | 0,01 % |
| 35 | EVOLUTION CITOYENNE - M. CHALENÇON Christophe | 2120 | 0,01 % | 0,00 % |
| 36 | LA LIGNE CLAIRE - M. CAMUS Renaud | 1897 | 0,01 % | 0,00 % |
| 37 | REVOLUTIONNAIRE - M. SANCHEZ Antonio | 1458 | 0,01 % | 0,00 % |
+----+----------------------------------------------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+

Motion de soutien à notre consœur Anna Salabi | Ordre des avocats de Paris
▻http://www.avocatparis.org/mon-metier-davocat/publications-du-conseil/soutien-anna-salabi

Le Conseil de l’Ordre condamne l’agression d’une avocate au sein du Tribunal de Paris. Ça suffit !

L’expulsion par la force d’un avocat en cours d’audience est intolérable.

Le 16 mai 2019, au Tribunal d’instance de Paris, une avocate, Madame Anna Salabi, a été évacuée de force de l’audience par six policiers, à la demande du magistrat, alors qu’elle était en ligne avec les membres du Conseil de l’Ordre de permanence, pour les saisir d’un incident qu’elle rencontrait.

Le Conseil de l’Ordre des avocats de Paris, révolté, condamne cette agression. L’usage de la force contre un avocat est inacceptable. Il rappelle que l’article 434-8 du Code pénal réprime tout acte d’intimidation commis envers un avocat dans l’exercice de ses fonctions.

Le Conseil de l’Ordre assure notre consœur de son entier soutien, et s’associera à toute procédure engagée devant le Conseil supérieur de la Magistrature, comme devant les juridictions répressives.

Il rappelle que tout différend entre un avocat et un magistrat doit être réglé en présence du Bâtonnier, dans la dignité et l’esprit de dialogue qui caractérisent leurs actions quotidiennes.

____
Avocate expulsée par des policiers en pleine audience : que s’est-il passé ?
▻https://www.lci.fr/justice/a-la-loupe-avocate-expulsee-par-des-policiers-en-pleine-audience-que-s-est-il-pa

____
►https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/240519/avocats-et-magistrats-enterrent-provisoirement-la-hache-de-guerre

Deux heures de discussions franches et directes ont été nécessaires, jeudi 23 mai, pour arriver à un compromis et rédiger un communiqué commun. Les représentants des 29 000 avocats parisiens, d’un côté, le président du tribunal de grande instance de la capitale et son staff, de l’autre. Après un rassemblement silencieux d’une centaine de robes noires dans l’atrium du nouveau tribunal des Batignolles, à 13 heures, la bâtonnière Marie-Aimée Peyron, le vice-bâtonnier Basile Ader et celle qui lui succédera l’an prochain, Nathalie Roret, ont été reçus (le rendez-vous était déjà fixé) et ont exposé leurs griefs au président, Jean-Michel Hayat, et à la première vice-présidente chargée du tribunal d’instance, Sophie Degouys.

Premier sujet de fâcherie : l’expulsion manu militari d’une avocate en robe, Anna Salabi, lors d’une audience du tribunal d’instance, le 16 mai – une affaire sans précédent, révélée le lendemain par Mediapart. Choquée, l’avocate avait reçu deux jours d’ITT. Une forte mobilisation s’est rapidement déclenchée chez les avocats, à Paris et au-delà, contre ce qui est vécu comme une voie de fait, une agression et un abus de pouvoir inadmissibles.

Me Salabi et ses confrères, le 23 mai au tribunal de Paris. © M.D. Me Salabi et ses confrères, le 23 mai au tribunal de Paris. © M.D.

Jeudi matin, la présidence du tribunal affichait encore son soutien à la magistrate ayant pris la décision de faire appel à la police pour faire sortir l’avocate, qui se serait montrée « véhémente », aurait tenu des propos « dénués de toute mesure et de respect dû à la fonction », et aurait empêché physiquement l’audience de se poursuivre, après que son dossier eut été renvoyé.

Me Salabi et ses défenseurs assurent, au contraire, que la magistrate se serait montrée « partiale », ne l’aurait pas laissée s’exprimer, décidant soudainement de renvoyer l’affaire, avant de faire appel à la force publique pour l’expulser de la salle d’audience, l’avocate étant traînée au sol alors qu’elle cherchait à joindre un représentant de son ordre pour le faire venir comme médiateur.

Le communiqué commun du président Hayat et de la bâtonnière Peyron, diffusé jeudi en fin d’après-midi (on peut le lire sous l’onglet Prolonger), ne fait pas état des circonstances de l’incident, mais indique clairement qu’il y a eu une faute de la magistrate. « Le président entend rappeler à chacun que tout incident d’audience doit conduire à saisir sur-le-champ le délégué du bâtonnier à la permanence de l’ordre, en suspendant, si nécessaire, le cours de l’audience. En aucun cas, il ne peut être recouru au concours des forces de l’ordre, à l’égard d’un avocat, dans l’exercice de sa mission », lit-on.

Le rassemblement des avocats, jeudi 23 mai dans l’atrium du tribunal. © M.D. Le rassemblement des avocats, jeudi 23 mai dans l’atrium du tribunal. © M.D.

Pour calmer le jeu, des « assises consacrées à la relation avocats, magistrats et personnels de justice » seront en outre organisées prochainement, ajoute le communiqué. C’est que les sujets de dispute se sont accumulés, ces derniers temps. Une perquisition de juges d’instruction financiers parisiens, à 6 heures du matin au domicile d’une jeune collaboratrice, tremblante de peur, d’un cabinets d’avocats, a ainsi provoqué récemment un incident très vif avec le représentant du bâtonnier, qui a trouvé la scène inutilement humiliante.

Les perquisitions dans les cabinets d’avocats ne sont pas le seul sujet de friction. Le déménagement au nouveau tribunal des Batignolles, voici un an, a cristallisé de nombreuses tensions avec les magistrats, parfois inhérentes à leurs missions respectives. Les avocats se plaignent, entre autres choses, de ne pas pouvoir circuler partout à cause des sas et des badges magnétiques, de rester souvent bloqués entre deux portes, de ne plus pouvoir accéder aussi facilement qu’avant aux cabinets des juges d’instruction, et d’être en fait relégués au rang d’acteurs subalternes dans un lieu de justice conçu avant tout pour les magistrats. Plusieurs avocats le confient, l’affaire Salabi est venue à point nommé pour crever l’abcès.

Si le calme est revenu, l’affaire ne restera pas sans suite. Anna Salabi et son avocat, Vincent Ollivier, ont saisi le Défenseur des droits mercredi 22 mai d’une demande d’enquête, pour des faits qu’ils qualifient d’« abus de pouvoir » de la part de la magistrate et des policiers qui sont intervenus le 16 mai. Ils devraient également saisir le Conseil supérieur de la magistrature (CSM), en charge des questions touchant à l’éthique et la déontologie des magistrats. Une plainte pénale pour « violences volontaires » est également envisagée. Christiane Féral-Schuhl, la présidente du Conseil national des barreaux (CNB), a pour sa part annoncé le 18 mai qu’elle saisissait la ministre de la justice de cette affaire.

La justice enterre le volet ministériel de l’affaire du bombardement de Bouaké
▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/240519/la-justice-enterre-le-volet-ministeriel-de-l-affaire-du-bombardement-de-bo

Les anciens ministres Dominique de Villepin, Michèle Alliot-Marie et Michel Barnier ne seront pas jugés par la Cour de justice de la République pour leurs éventuelles responsabilités dans la fuite des auteurs du bombardement de Bouaké, en 2004 (10 morts). Cette décision, en contradiction manifeste avec la saisine de la juge d’instruction, marque la fin de quinze ans d’une enquête entravée par la raison d’État.

#France #Alliot-Marie,_opération_Licorne,_Chirac,_mercenaires,_Gbagbo,_procès,_raison_d’Etat,_Villepin,_Côte_d’Ivoire,_Bombardement_de_Bouaké,_Barnier

https://static.mediapart.fr/etmagine/default/files/2016/02/22/manchette-bouake.jpg

Alors que je cherche une illustration pour mettre à jour le guide du rédacteur Passerelle Eco ►http://passerelleco.info/guide, je tombe sur des photos de la journaliste de guerre Marie Colvin, morte en Syrie sous les bombes, et le film « A Private War » de Kenneth Branagh à son sujet ▻https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/02/the-film-makes-you-ashamed-to-call-yourself-a-journalist-a-private-war-

C’est tellement plus éclairant et jubilatoire d’écouter une Pinçon-Charlot plutôt qu’une Loiseau... sauf si tu es #ultrariche (et encore...)

Dans cet épisode de Vieille Branche, Marie Misset a rencontré Monique Pinçon-Charlot. La sociologue de la #bourgeoisie l’a accueillie dans sa maison, au coeur d’un quartier paisible des Hauts-de-Seine. Ensemble, elles ont discuté de la bourgeoisie, passée et actuelle, du couple qu’elle forme avec Michel Pinçon, et avec qui elle a effectué la majorité de ses recherches et travaux.

▻https://art19.com/shows/vieille-branche/episodes/98b68d3d-c485-431d-aad3-b1f76f23e9bb #radio #podcast #sociologie & #politique

Qu’est-ce qu’un animal ? / Gilles Boeuf -
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahM7UTLd6YA

#nos_ennemis_les_bêtes

Radio Moskou S03E07
▻http://www.radiopanik.org/emissions/radio-moskou/radio-moskou-s03e07

Radio Moskou, une radio participative en plein air & en public Radio Moskou, een publieke & participatieve radio-uitzending Radio Moskou, a public & participative Radioshow

LINE-UP ? COME & LISTEN !

Whatever language tu parles, toma el mic & doe je ding.

ON AIR ? : Radio Panik 105.4 FM : Jeudi/Donderdag/Thursday - 16:00 → 17:00 Radio Alma 101.9FM : Vendredi/Vrijdag/Friday - 14:00 → 16:00

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

NL onderaan / EN below -

//FRANÇAIS//

Chaque mardi soir, l’équipe de Radio Moskou vous attend sur le ’Carré de Moscou’, sur la place Marie Janson, à deux pas du parvis pour une émission radio en plein air et en public.

Le micro est ouvert, c’est VOUS qui faites la programmation ! Viens chanter, raconter une histoire, une blague, nous parlons d’un (...)

▻http://www.radiopanik.org/media/sounds/radio-moskou/radio-moskou-s03e07_06730__1.mp3

Ugo Palheta : « Le durcissement autoritaire auquel on assiste favorise l’extrême-droite »
▻https://larotative.info/ugo-palheta-le-durcissement-3284.html

Comment l’apparition d’une crise de la domination politique a ouvert une brèche à une extrême-droite dont le discours s’est banalisé. Retour sur la conférence d’Ugo (...) Source : La Rotative

L’échec et/ou la réussite en question
▻http://www.radiopanik.org/emissions/emissions-speciales/lechec-et-ou-la-reussite-en-question

http://www.radiopanik.org/media/cache/49/ec/49ec2bebd2bcdaa080d0a21fe3df1afb.jpg

Emission thématique proposé par le Théâtre Varia en lien avec le spectacle « Rater Mieux Rater Encore » mise en scène par Hervé Piron.

Invités Igor Tserstevens professeur à l’EFP ; Thierry Dessily, Routinologue ; Loic Smars, rédacteur en chef du Suricate Magazine ; Daniel Vander Gucht, sociologue et professeur à l’ULB , Luc Malghem et Marie Henry du LIBREX, Grégoire Ronsmans étudiant en art dramatique à Mons² ainsi qu’un membre de l’équipe pédagogique de Point Culture, de Young Thinkers et du CGé.

Animation Fredo Lubansu & Aurélia Noca accompagnés de. Delphine Délia, Laura Sterckx

(visuel (c) Erik Kessels)

▻http://www.radiopanik.org/media/sounds/emissions-speciales/lechec-et-ou-la-reussite-en-question_06718__1.mp3

Suisse : Bernard-Henri Lévy - Mer. 15.05.19 Annulé - Salle Métropole -

▻http://www.sallemetropole.ch/salle-metropole/bernard-henri-levy

BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY « LOOKING FOR EUROPE », PRÉVUS LE 7 MAI AU THÉÂTRE DU LÉMAN ET LE 15 MAI À LA SALLE MÉTROPOLE DE LAUSANNE SONT ANNULÉS.
LES BILLETS SONT REMBOURSABLES DANS LES POINTS DE VENTE OÙ ILS ONT ÉTÉ ACHETÉS DURANT UN MOIS, RESPECTIVEMENT JUSQU’AU 7 JUIN POUR GENÈVE ET JUSQU’AU 15 JUIN 2019 POUR LAUSANNE.

http://www.sallemetropole.ch/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/bhl_image-une-aff_365x476_date_report.jpg

Un hymne à l’Europe interprété dans une quinzaine de villes.
Une tournée comme un appel. Un voyage comme une invitation au sursaut.
La contribution d’un écrivain à la nouvelle résistance européenne qui doit s’organiser sans tarder.
Organisateur : Live Music Production
*********************************************************************************************
Bernard-Henri Lévy – VIP
Le package VIP comprend :
Une place Carré Or

Placement par nos hôtesses

Conférence
Coupe de Champagne en présence de Bernard-Henri Lévy
A l’issue de la représentation, 1 coupe de Champagne dans un endroit réservé, en présence de Bernard-Henri Lévy

Durée : environ 1 heure
Ouverture des portes : 19h00

Du Contrat de Lecture au Contrat de Conversation | Cairn.info
▻https://www.cairn.info/revue-communication-et-langages1-2011-3-page-51.htm#

Le concept de Contrat de Lecture est apparu en 1985 pour faire face à une problématique précise du marketing de la presse. Il s’agissait à l’époque, dans un contexte concurrentiel renforcé, de mieux distinguer, au sein d’un type de presse donné, celui des magazines féminins, des positionnements et des identités spécifiques, au-delà d’une grande similarité de contenus thématiques – la catégorie de presse « magazines féminins » étant constituée comme un genre spécifique. Ce concept était développé par Eliseo Veron [1]
[1]
Veron Eliseo, « L’analyse du contrat de lecture », Les médias :… dans le cadre à la fois de la linguistique de l’énonciation, marquée par Jakobson et Benveniste, et de la sémiotique de Peirce, avec la mise en regard d’un monde construit comme objet, d’un discours comme signe et d’une instance de production ou de réception comme interprétant. Il trouvait des échos dans des réflexions connexes venues des études littéraires et génériques [2]
[2]
Lejeune Philippe, Le Pacte autobiographique, Seuil, coll.…, dans une importance nouvelle donnée à la notion de relation face à celle de contenu avec l’école de Palo-Alto, dans la montée en puissance d’un modèle communicationnel [3]
[3]
Charaudeau Patrick, Langage et discours. Éléments de… qui posait le cadre des conditions a priori de l’interlocution, ou encorerr dans l’esthétique de la réception de l’école de Constance [4]
[4]
Hans Robert Jauss, Pour une esthétique de la réception,… et dans les approches pragmatiques issues du monde anglo-saxon. Au déclin des logiques purement structurales, un nouveau modèle faisait son apparition ; il mettait en scène les tenants et les aboutissants de la communication médiatique et les intégrait à l’espace sémiotique du discours en les dévoilant à travers des marques spécifiques, verbales ou visuelles. Ce modèle allait faire florès au sein des spécialistes du marketing éditorial, car à travers la mise en scène d’un destinataire (« je suis une femme Elle », « je suis une femme Marie-Claire »), il permettait de faire le lien avec les attentes du lecteur, des lecteurs et donc de l’audience. Pour abstraite qu’elle fût, la figure du « destinataire construit » permettait de dépasser les analyses de contenus et rejoignait la problématique opérationnelle de tout média : créer un lien fort et continu avec un public et monnayer ce lien auprès des publicitaires et des marques.

2Ce modèle du Contrat de Lecture faisait l’hypothèse puissante de la mise en scène, dans l’espace sémiotique constitué par un titre de presse, d’une figure de l’émetteur (versus les producteurs effectifs de ces contenus : journalistes, rédactions, éditeurs mais aussi publicitaires et marques), d’une figure du destinataire construit (versus le lectorat effectif), d’une relation spécifique entre eux et d’un monde construit déterminé (l’univers de la mode, l’univers féminin par exemple), un univers de référence co-interprété en production et en réception

Les études qui en découlent s’inscrivent à la fois dans des approches « en émission », sous forme d’analyses sémiotiques d’un Contrat de Lecture spécifique dans son champ de concurrence (les titres du même segment de presse), et en « réception », sous forme d’analyses qualitatives du discours rationnel, mais aussi imaginaire, « projectif » des lecteurs engagés dans ce type de contrat. La plupart des dispositifs d’étude mis en œuvre dans ce domaine articulent ces deux dimensions, vérifiant, dans des démarches qualitatives auprès des lecteurs interrogés en groupe ou individuellement, des hypothèses sémiotiques posées en chambre à travers l’analyse souvent comparative de corpus et portant sur l’ensemble des dimensions du magazine : textes, images, mise en page, couverture, etc. Ces approches ont vocation à contribuer au pilotage d’un titre dans le temps et à son optimisation, justement quand l’éditeur pressent que le contrat est en train de se dénouer ; mais elles sont aussi utilisées pour accompagner des lancements de titres nouveaux, l’analyse des réactions des lecteurs et du champ de concurrence permettant d’hypostasier une identité et un positionnement encore virtuels. Cette méthodologie est aussi utilisée de manière un peu différente pour bâtir des argumentaires visant à convaincre les annonceurs de la pertinence des supports qu’ils peuvent choisir pour communiquer, puisque le « Contrat de Lecture » permet de dessiner la figure idéalisée du récepteur. Si le concept s’est vulgarisé, si ses fondements théoriques sont moins lisibles aux acteurs eux-mêmes, il est devenu, en tout cas dans le champ de la réflexion française sur les médias, un repère fort et une méthode effectivement mise en œuvre.

Le succès du modèle, on l’a dit, est lié à la possibilité qu’il donne de véritablement penser le destinataire du média et de lui donner une présence palpable parce qu’objectivée dans les signes et les discours. De fait, pour la presse, mais encore davantage pour la radio ou pour la télévision, la distance inhérente à toute médiation, la dimension ontologiquement in abstentia du lecteur, de l’auditeur ou du téléspectateur, a constitué un obstacle, un manque, quelque chose contre quoi le monde médiatique a lutté par tous les moyens. Que l’on pense par exemple à la valorisation du direct pour les médias de flux. Le Contrat de Lecture, comme grille d’interprétation, permettait sur un autre plan, plus conceptuel, de se rapprocher du public en invitant chaque média à dessiner la figure de celui à qui il s’adresse comme individu impliqué dans une sémiosis donnant sens à un univers construit en commun, selon le dispositif que l’outil défini par Eliseo Veron s’est attaché à expliciter

Il faudrait donc au final distinguer plusieurs types de conception du public dans l’espace médiatique : le destinataire construit, c’est-à-dire l’espace sémiotique de la réception que dessine le média, l’être de signes qui compose la figure de celui à qui le média s’adresse et que révèle le Contrat de Lecture ; le destinataire représenté comme public (vs être du monde), c’est-à-dire le public iconiquement mis en scène dans le média en tant que tel ; le destinataire interactif, inscrit dans des dispositifs d’échange effectifs, ces deux derniers niveaux étant des formes manifestes du premier

Les médias interactifs créent des territoires de conversation qui permettent d’échanger, de débattre, de discuter, à propos d’une information communiquée par eux. L’intérêt ne se concentre plus seulement sur l’information, mais se déplace sur le pouvoir de converser, d’interagir, de s’inscrire dans une communauté éphémère dont l’enjeu ou le prétexte est initialement proposé par le média, mais réapproprié à chaque instant par le public par le biais de reprises (ce qui fait du lecteur un média lui-même), de commentaires, de votes et de réactions.

On l’a vu, le lecteur (comme l’auditeur ou le téléspectateur) n’est plus seulement représenté dans l’espace sémiotique du titre (cf. la notion de destinataire construit), il est aussi potentiellement présent dans cet espace avec son propre discours, produisant éventuellement lui-même des contenus, interagissant avec d’autres au sein de réseaux sociaux sous l’égide du média, dialoguant avec le média lui-même. Il faudrait alors non plus parler d’un Contrat de Lecture, mais d’un Contrat de Conversation dans lequel chacun est susceptible de prendre la parole, sous les yeux de tous, et dans lequel le modèle de la lecture, où on m’assigne une place, à laquelle je me conforme ou non, est supplanté par celui de l’échange, porteur en lui-même de réciprocité.

#Contrat_lecture

Sites classés : le gouvernement veut ouvrir la voie au béton
11 mai 2019 / Marie Astier (Reporterre)
►https://reporterre.net/Sites-classes-le-gouvernement-veut-ouvrir-la-voie-au-beton

https://reporterre.net/IMG/arton17568.jpg

(...) Actuellement, tous les travaux conséquents sur ces sites — un agrandissement notable d’un bâtiment, une construction, un belvédère ou une passerelle, un défrichage — doivent recevoir une autorisation ministérielle. Mais, un décret en préparation, que Reporterre a pu consulter, prévoit que l’ensemble des autorisations de travaux concernant les sites classés seront désormais délivrées à un niveau bien plus local, par les préfets de département.

Un arbitrage de Matignon

« On ne s’y attendait pas du tout », relate David Couzin, président de l’Association des inspecteurs des sites. Alors que les services du ministère travaillaient en interne depuis de longs mois à un projet de décret ne déléguant que les travaux les moins « impactants » aux préfets, Matignon est arrivé en décembre en imposant sa version lors d’une réunion interministérielle.

« Il n’y a jamais eu d’attaque aussi importante du dispositif, les inspecteurs à la retraite qui m’appellent me disent que c’est la fin des sites classés », alerte David Couzin. Cette mesure « risque de vider de sa substance une politique importante de protection du patrimoine naturel et culturel », soutient le Syndicat national de l’environnement-FSU, dans une lettre au ministre de la Transition écologique. (...)

Y a d’la consigne dans l’air - Le site du journal L’age de faire
▻https://www.lagedefaire-lejournal.fr/y-a-dla-consigne-dans-lair

C’est l’histoire d’un hold-up. Il y a une quarantaine d’années, la plupart des liquides étaient vendus dans des bouteilles en verre que les consommateurs rapportaient après usage, en échange d’une petite pièce. Les camions qui livraient le magasin récupéraient le verre vide, qui était lavé et réutilisé. Un système économiquement viable, générant peu de déchets, entièrement pris en charge par les producteurs de boissons et de denrées qui l’avaient intégré à leur fonctionnement.
Jusqu’à l’arrivée des emballages jetables : canettes, briques, bouteilles en verre à usage unique, et surtout plastique. Grâce à eux, les industriels pouvaient expédier leurs marchandises plus loin, centraliser leur production, se passer des unités de lavage et de conditionnement. C’est de bonne guerre pour des entreprises capitalistes, mais pourquoi parler de hold-up ?

#déchets #recyclage #hold_up

Nous, artistes français, dénonçons l’Eurovision 2019 en Israël
▻https://www.bdsfrance.org/nous-artistes-francais-denoncons-leurovision-2019-en-israel

Chaque expulsion est violente ; à quand un retournement de cette violence contre l’État ?

16 avril, à l’aube, les flics débarquent dans un appartement de Leysin pour emmener de force une famille toute entière, grands-parent.es, parent.es, et enfant.es. Une expulsion forcée vers la géorgie, après des années de vie dans ce village.

Des médecins avaient averti : « Nous relevons une importante anxiété et des angoisses massives en lien avec sa situation administrative, à tel point que Monsieur D. n’envisage pas d’autres solutions que de se tuer s’il devait être renvoyé de Suisse… Nous ne pouvons exclure un passage à l’acte suicidaire en cas de renvoi ». Ce qu’il fait, en pleine arrestation, en s’entaillant profondément les avant-bras à quatre reprises. Les flics lui scotchent des bandages sur les blessures, avant de l’embarquer de force et de l’attacher dans une ambulance. Il est transporté comme ça jusqu’à l’aéroport de Genève, où une personne qu’il ne pense pas être du corps médical lui recoud les plaies, si mal qu’à Tbilissi, un médecin constate qu’un bras est déjà infecté.

La mère est ligotée aux jambes et aux poignets, un masque sur la tête, jusqu’à l’aéroport où elle est attachée sur une chaise roulante. Dans l’avion, une autre famille de 4 personnes, le reste est rempli de flics. Les enfant.es, tous les trois né.es ici, sont aujourd’hui traumatisé.e.s, iels ne dorment et ne mangent plus.

Les parent.e.s et grand-parent.e.s, yézidis, étaient arrivé.e.s en suisse en 2011. Le couple avait été tabassé en géorgie jusqu’à ce que la femme perde le bébé qu’elle portait dans son ventre.

Les soi-disant « suicides » dans les camps (« centre pour requérant.es d’asile ») ou n’importe ou ailleurs, c’est des meurtres commis par l’état. La lente dégradation de la santé mentale des personnes racisées, causée par leurs conditions de vie et le racisme quotidien, c’est une manière de les tuer à petit feu, de s’en débarrasser, quand iels ne sont pas enfermé.es ou expulsé.es.

Les soi-disant « retours volontaires », c’est littéralement avec ces flingues sur la tempe qu’ils sont obtenus, ceux qui servent aux expulsions de force. Quelles autres violences faut-il encore laisser faire pour que chacun.e.x s’empare réellement des « armes de l’état » et rétorque ? Pas celles qu’il prétend magnanimement concéder à travers ses pantin.es politicien.nes, mais celles qu’il utilise concrètement contre les gens…

La violence coloniale et post-coloniale n’a pas de frontières.

Il en faut au moins autant pour détruire les frontières que les états construisent à travers leurs systèmes de fichage, leur idéologie raciste, leurs barbelés, leurs camps, leurs flics, leurs entreprises dévouées, leurs fonctionnaires bien appliqué.es.
Témoignage d’un voisin ami de la famille

Le 16 avril vers 6 heures du matin, nous entendons des cris provenants de la maison. Je monte voir et rencontre un grand nombre de policiers à l’entrée et dans l’appartement de la famille D. Ils me disent de redescendre dans mon appartement. Je leur demande s’ils ont un mandat de perquisition. Un des policiers qui à l’air d’être en charge, sort trois feuilles où, après avoir demandé mon nom, l’écrit sur une d’elles et signe lui-même, sans que j’aie pu lire quoi que ce soit. Est-ce que ce papier aurait dû être donné aux Davrishyan le 5 avril pour qu’ils aient ces 10 jours mentionnés pour faire recours ? Si c’est le cas, aucun d’eux n’a rien reçu. Toujours est-il qu’il est mentionné que le soussigné, (moi-même), certifie avoir notifié la présente ordonnance à E. alors que je n’ai ni pu lire ce papier et qu’il a été signé par ce policier et que je n’ai pu ni voir ni parler à Erik. Lorsque je demande justement à voir E., on me l’interdit.

J’entend ensuite les cris de M. qui appelle mon nom avec dans sa voix une telle détresse qui me pousse à aller voir ce qui se passe. La police me prend avec force. Un ordre est donné à deux policiers de me ramener dans mon appartement. Lorsque je demande au moins de pouvoir leur dire au revoir après 6 années d’amitié entre nous, ils me l’interdisent à nouveau. J’entrevois passer E., tout ensanglanté et groggy, puis M. et sa belle-mère, en pyjama, criant à la mort. Ligotée aux jambes et aux poignets, un masque sur la tête, M. restera ainsi jusqu’à Genève où elle sera attachée sur une chaise roulante. Les 3 enfants, dont l’un d’eux atteint d’autisme, sont témoins de cette scène de violence digne de l’arrestation des plus grands meurtriers de la planète, envers leur parents dont le plus grand crime est celui d’éviter qu’un autre crime soit commis contre eux, comme ils en ont déjà été victimes et qui hantent leurs cauchemars au point de préférer ôter leur vie plutôt que de retourner dans l’enfer qu’ils ont connu et qui les attend là-bas.

Les D. sont d’une extrême gentillesse, ils sont toujours prêts à rendre service. Nos 3 enfants mutuels ont grandi ensemble, les 2 plus grands étant dans la même classe d’école. Ils sont Yézidis, minorité religieuse persécutée. Ils ont un système de castes et n’ont pas le droit de se marier hors caste. Ce qui a été le cas d’E. qui se marie par amour et s’enfuient pour ne pas avoir de problèmes. Sa femme est tellement mise sous pression par sa propre famille qu’elle rentre à la maison. Divorce. Lui se fait tabasser et fait de la prison. Lorsqu’il rentre en relation avec M., son épouse actuelle, elle se fait elle même tabasser par les membres de la famille de l’ex-femme, elle perd l’enfant qu’elle avait en elle et ils lui disent qu’elle n’aura jamais de descendance. C’est pour ça qu’elle a vécu un tel stress depuis, avec cette peur constante d’être renvoyée a l’horreur, et cette angoisse que ses enfants subissent le même sort que son premier. Lorsqu’elle reçoit récemment l’information à nouveau qu’ils vont être renvoyés, elle passe 2 semaines à Nant, en hôpital psychiatrique. Les médecins de famille sont consultés au niveau de leur santé et les 2 préconisent de ne pas les renvoyer au vu de leur santé. Ils suspectent que le cas d’autisme d’un de leur enfants se soit aggravé lors du renvoi de la grand maman, et que le renvoi de la famille lui fait risquer une décompensation. Les rapports médicaux de médecin de l’institut psychiatrique de « Nant » stipulent qu’E. suite à ses problèmes d’anxiétés dû à ce qu’il a vécu en Géorgie et à la peur de devoir y retourner, risque de passer à l’acte suicidaire s’il devait être déporté. Ils n’ont ni famille ni maison en Géorgie. Trois enfants en bas âge qui ont vécu uniquement en Suisse depuis 8 ans. Leur seule famille et à Leysin, le frère d’E. et sa famille qui sont en situation légale, réfugiés pour les mêmes raisons, mais ayant pu avoir le statut avant le durcissement des lois. E. a été rembarqué, les bras lacérés, et c’est seulement à Genève qu’ils lui ont recousu sommairement les bras. Ils sont arrivé en Géorgie et un médecin lui demande qui lui avait fait un aussi mauvais travail et que la plaie était déjà infectée…

Un avion spécial attendait leur famille et une autre de 4 personnes à destination de la Géorgie "Tout le reste du Boeing était rempli par des policiers..."

▻https://renverse.co/CHAQUE-EXPULSION-EST-VIOLENTE-A-QUAND-UN-RETOURNEMENT-DE-CETTE-VIOLENCE-CON
#renvois #expulsions #asile #réfugiés #Leysin #Géorgie #Suisse #Vaud

https://www.lamoitiedufourbi.org/images/numeros/numero_9.png

Au sommaire du N°9 de la Moitié du fourbi : N°9 : Vite

Tristan Tzara (texte), Thaddée (collage) / Un passant Paul Fournel / L’œil de l’Oulipo : La littérature a-t-elle horreur du vite ? Lucie Taïeb / Comète Hugues Robert / Esthétique politique du défouraillement Philippe De Jonckheere / La cordelette (un épisode cévenol) Guillaume Duprat (dessins & texte) / Inflation éternelle Anthony Poiraudeau / Courses et poursuites dans Los Angeles Zoé Balthus / Sumô, l’art du temps métaphysique Frédéric Fiolof / Raccourcis Marjorie Ricord / À l’immédiat, la déraison Marc-Antoine Mathieu (dessins), Antoine Gautier (présentation) / Trois secondes (extraits) La m/f / 7,7 millions de millisecondes, conversation avec Alexandre Laumonier Valérie Cibot / Yoga du temps Véronique Bergen / Martha Argerich. L’Art des passages Matthieu Raffard & Mathilde Roussel (photographies et texte) / Accélération Marie Willaime / Baies rouges — Breuverie Hugues Leroy / Trottoir Hélène Gaudy / En cours Antoine Mouton / À très vite

▻https://www.lamoitiedufourbi.org/numeros.html