Here are some details on our workshop/brainstorming session, listed in the program as “The Elastic Test Project” on Sunday, Probe 11, 12:10pm – 1:30pm, session moderated by Rozalinda Borcila (http://www.elastictest.com) and Sarah Augusta Lewison (http://visarts.ucsd.edu/~slewison) 1.  Elastic Test (Rozalinda) the "Elastic Test Project" is a series of collaborative, location-specific performances seeking to disrupt normative definitions of citizen and foreigner. we (that is, the main attendants of the project, Rozalinda Borcila and Robert Lawrence) develop "tests" that re-interpret key aspects of immigration law in different locations, based on collaborative workshops with groups considered either citizens or immigrants. Previous installments of this on-going project were in Houston, Johannesburg and Calgary, documentation can be found at http://www.elastictest.com . we are currently looking for collaborators. We will present a workshop briefly outlining the process of test development as a critical collaborative strategy, particularly useful to us in social performances that do no "play nice". We will also re-enact one stage of this process and invite participants to develop their own roles through improvisation and play. The intention of this session is not simply to discuss the project so far and share what we have learned. In the brainstorming session we will look for your ideas and experiences, new approaches or models we can use, and try to initiate new interventions. Sarah Lewison will present other possible models, particularly distributed research (see, below). We hope you will be hands-on, helping disrupt and reposition the project. We welcome participants (new collaborators ?) interested in examining the normalizing impulse articulated in contemporary culture within the conceptual formation of the national: national identification and nationalism, the performance of naturalization, displacement, migration, xenophobia, state violence, immigration law, national security etc. Some possible questions for the brainstorming session: 1. Given that our interventions require location-specific collaborations, how can the role of trans-local media, networks or distribution channels be re-imagined? 2. How can the project become less centralized? What are some models of de-centered cooperation we can try to implement – what is the advantage of a distributed network of creators in this case? (again, see below for some suggestions or observations Sarah will be offering) 3. How might considerations of distribution and re-usability expand the current scope of the work? 4. One of the important aspects of the work is initiating and facilitating new relationships between local communities and structures – is this sustainable? Project background
A Nationality Act is an essential site for defining citizenship as a category, as well as regulating the process of naturalization. The provisions of this normalizing measure, once enacted, resist revision or modification for extended periods of time. However, another set of documents, typically called “Interpretations” is under constant re-vision and re-inscription. These documents clarify/qualify the provisions of the Nationality Act as interpreted by the courts. Every foreigner petitioning for naturalization risks re-inscribing this performance, is both a participant and a disruption in the performance of nationhood. For instance, the US Nationality Act offers “good moral character” as one of the three major criteria for naturalization. The Interpretations outline the ways in which this is made objective, and establish how the applicant is to be measured against “local standards”. The mechanism of the test is explicitly formulated to apply to the applicant. However the provision itself, its definition and limits, is also being continuously tested through changing petitions and case precedents. Interpretations de-naturalize “good moral character”, revealing its instability and dependence on other normalizing notions: sexuality (provisions considering the morality of homosexual applicants), family values (“fornication without cohabitation”, and “children out of wedlock”), politics (political asylum, membership in a communist party), legality (“legal” vs “illegal” refugee status and country of origin – see Haiti vs Cuba, for instance) social respectability (criminal record, credit history), mental health (provisions for psychological exams), culture (language and US history test), security etc. The production of nationhood around “good moral character” is available for interruption. Our project began by re-considering the critical possibilities of a (re-directed) testing mechanism. We invent “naturalization tests” in different countries and locations, typically in collaboration with non-citizens. We use valuation practices in effect in Immigration Laws and the specific location. In order to establish a local standard, we then subject local citizens to our evaluation, testing against normative definitions of “local” and “citizen”. (more on how, where and the specifics of our collaborative method in the session): http://www.elastictest.com-- images and information on some of the installments so far. 2 Some notes on distributed knowledge (Sarah) Immigration tests, consisting of an averaging of local standards, are produced through procedure similar to that in the sciences. They seek to establish a hard theory as to what constitutes suitability for citizenship. The Elastic Test as I understand it allows for a fuller amplification of context and subjectivity in these procedures, and is a platform for feedback from larger numbers of people, as average citizens and from within the field. The problems of inflexibility and the burial of specificity in the 'report,' in this case the immigration test itself, are similar to the problems studied by sociologists of science. The critical interventions of these sociologists, combined with advances in computing technologies, and qualitatively changing demands for data have contributed to the re-orientation of scientists attitudes toward data. This has led increasingly to the archiving and preservation of data in a form that facilitates its flexibility, reusability and exchange. I'm grouping distributed science, distributed laboratories and distributed research under the more general thematic of distributed knowledge (dk). I will briefly present the strands in this area of research, which are lodged initially in the development of the sociology of science, and briefly speculate on their potential meaning to the Elastic Test Project. Thomas Kuhn's research into the social dynamics that compromise science's objectivity underlies all subsequent movement of research out of the sanctified space of the laboratory. Bruno Latour's books Laboratory Life and Science in Action were further studies of this reality. Latour and other sociologists of science continue the work of revealing the complexity and hybridity of the disciplines: I'm drawing from Geoffrey and Leigh Star Bowker's research in particular. Bowker argues for "the need to historicize our data and its organization in order to create flexible databases that are as rich ontologically as the social and natural worlds they map" (Geoffrey Bowker The Distributed Collective Activity of Biodiversity Research ) One issue of interest to the Elastic Test relating to these projects is the stretching of the kinds of data are collected, such as the respective value of different labor on the project. One of the goals of the large dk projects afoot such as biodiversity, are to foster international cooperation between researchers that pertains to global policy. Practitioners are analyzing how software can be used to collect and organize data from remote researchers in a way is responsive to and reflective of local practices. One issue that particularly coincides with the Elastic Test is how these approaches are intended to work internationally while preserving the indices of their origins. These working models of distributive knowledge suggest avenues for the movement of the project. Kuhn also influenced Rupert Sheldrake who as a biologist researching in India, asked farmers to actively participate in data collection for experiments in legume productivity. Sheldrake's work in India also led to his speculations about anomalous phenomenon and his theories about morphic resonance, which are now promoted as popular science research. (also see "Really Popular Science” Researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have built architecture which is available for diverse communities to build distributed knowledge databases. See: Distributed Knowledge Research Collaborative COMMUNITY INQUIRY LAB BUILDER
More in the session…