March 21, 2014

The CSRC Takes a Break... For Now...


In the fall of 2013 the CSRC decided to take a break - at least for the academic year - to re-energize and seek new resources. The following article about the temporary disbanding of the CSRC was published in The Leveller

THE CSRC IS DEAD! The Leveller Says Fare Thee Well
by Ajay Parasram (November 2013)

Friends, Ravens, activists! Lend me your eyes. I come to praise the Critical Social Research Collaborative, not to bury it!
It is with a heavy heart that I must report that as of fall 2013, the infamous Critical Social Research Collaborative (CSRC) has formally disbanded. It was not too long ago, between the harvests of 2008 and 2009, that this ambitious group took shape under the spectre of a Marxist reading group. The founding vanguard included Gulden Ozcan, Aaron Henry, Ryan Katz-Rosene, Priscillia Lefebvre, and Carlo Fanelli. The group was largely affiliated with Carleton’s Institute of Political Economy, which thirstily attracts the intellectual left of this campus like the gravitational pull of a black hole sucking the very photons from its celestial sister.
Built on the conviction that critical social research ought to bring together activists, scholars, and students to be meaningful in the hostile political economic environment of contemporary Ottawa, the CSRC organized the first of five annual conferences in critical social research in 2009. As a pilot project aimed at testing the waters amongst the left-leaning Ottawa audiences, the first conference, entitled “Dialectics in Question: Revisiting ‘Capital’ &/in Crises,” was held at Carleton University. The gathering brought together activists, students, and professors across Carleton, as well as from the headquarters of Marxist academic research, York University.
But nay!
It was not enough to satiate the appetites of the hungry Ottawa masses, starved and deprived as they were, supping upon a cruel diet of Harper-esque platitudes! The people demanded more, and the CSRC grew. What was once a reading group hath now become a veritable organization, hosting seminars and workshops and assisting with critical film festivals across the polis!
Like the magicians of old, the CSRC resurrected the defunct journal, Alternate Routes, adding the subheading “a journal of critical social research.” As a founding CSRC member, Fanelli was made editor of the journal and published the first revived edition in 2011.
The CSRC’s mandate was a simple one: to be a graduate student-led research collective bringing together faculty, trade unionists, and community activists to promote, support, and create a platform for the sharing of critical perspectives and research conducted on the defining social issues of our time.
And oh, how they did!
Hosting seminars on feminist methodology, launching books such as The Ugly Canadian by Yves Engler and The AKP Years in Turkey by Simten Coşar, and allying themselves with the Ontario Public Research Interest Group (OPIRG), the CSRC had become a hub and sanctuary for those swimming against the currents of austerity, colonialism, and intellectual boredom. Scholars and students looked forward to the group’s annual conference, coming from Central and Western Canada, the northeast of the United States, the Middle East, and South Asia. To the delight of the masses, the CSRC’s fourth annual conference was held in 2012, entitled “Fault Lines of Revolution!”
With a membership continually growing, representing an increasing number of undergraduate students, the venerable CSRC became a Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) club at least until the beginning of the end in 2012. Plagued by technocratic thugs who had commandeered the normally progressive undergraduate union, the CSRC was forced to spend a ridiculous amount of time haggling, fighting, and hoop-jumping to satisfy the ideologically driven new CUSA executive, arguing that, yes, even left-wing student groups deserve the same treatment as the gun club and the anti-abortionists they preferred to support. The CSRC joined with other working groups of OPIRG to defend the organization against the callous attack and attempted defunding of the PIRG, celebrating with the progressive left when undergraduate students voted to continue supporting OPIRG, with over 70 per cent in favour of keeping the progressive hub on campus. That year, the CSRC hosted its fifth and final annual conference, entitled “Eulogies for the Public: Capitalism, Warfare, and the Conservative Turn.”
While many new members have been attracted to the CSRC’s executive board over the years, and some old stalwarts remained active unto the end, its members are plagued by the torrential downpour of doctoral dissertation demands. It is perhaps fitting, then, that as they rounded out half a decade with a “Eulogy for the Public,” we offer this public eulogy in the left-wing space of thy sacred Leveller parchment! As this generation of the CSRC departs and the project lays dormant, cast thee no tear! For the foundations lie waiting for the next generation of graduate students to take up the torch and burn a fire bright enough to be worthy of remembrance!