"A scholarly poethics, conceptualized as such, would include forms of oppenness that do not either simply repeat established forms (such as the closed print-based book, single authorship, linear thought, copyright, exploitative publishing relationships) or succumb to the closures that its own implementation (e.g., through commerical adaptations) and institutionalization (e.g. as part of a top down policy mandates) of necessity also implies and brings with it" (Adema 2021, 44).
Adema compels the reader to radically reimagine the traditional relationship between the researcher and reader, as well as the ethics that accompany it. While previous works, through traditional book practice, have been exploitative on a number of levels, radical open access (as Adema calls it) seeks to dismantle systems of exploitation bound up in the publishing process. This can bolster the practice of archive ethnography by opening up a pool of who reads and contributes to knowledge production. Radically reimagining access to knowledge production allows us to critically ask questions about whose type of knowledge is legitimated, why, and for what purpose?
