Greg Downey
Candidate Statement
In running for a seat on the H-Net Council I hope to bring my personal experience as the "web editor" for H-Sci-Med-Tech (since my dissertation days in 1999) together with my professional role as one who researches and teaches on the subject of information/ communication technology and labor in historical and geographical context. As a hybrid historian/geographer employed in both a School of Journalism & Mass Communication and a School of Library & Information Studies, I occupy an interdisciplinary slot between two interdisciplinary fields. To me, one of the greatest benefits of H- Net is that even though it is assembled out of a set of extremely specialized groups of educators, researchers, and practitioners, the whole ends up being more than the sum of the parts, with conversations, book reviews, conference announcements, and even job listings spilling over from network to network. Interdisciplinary research is only possible to the degree that structural and social mechanisms for learning about and engaging with different disciplines are developed and maintained, and I think H-Net is one of the best such mechanisms around. Whatever so-called "Web 2.0" technologies H- Net experiments with next -- from XML to Wikispace -- I would draw on my training in history of technology and human geography to argue that any technological environment we build for H-Net be seen first as a human (and humane) environment. Folks wanting to know more about me can visit my web site (http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/ ~gdowney/index.php) and the H-Sci-Med-Tech web site which I designed and maintain (http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~smt/).
