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!