Yeah, I'm with you on the learning part, and don't get me wrong there are some things that can be learned from this book. On a personal level not so much because I have spent many years in that scene and reflected a lot on how it works and what everyone's contribution meant. Like I said in my first comment, nothing in this book will be an eye-opener for people who have been involved in this and are capable of self-reflection and analysis.
Still, there are people who can potentially benefit from reading this. On the other hand, I reject the whole "woman of colour" angle. She may be female and non-white, but she is also US American and a Yale graduate. She never really dealt with the gender or race/culture issue. There are characters in her book who have dealt with it, and in her laziness she completely misses that. She could have gained some great insights if she had ever talked at length with "Lianne" and "Karima". I know who both of those people are and I see from her characterisation that she didn't get what they were actually facing and had dealt with in their past. I could write another 20 relevant pages for that book just based on the personal conversations I had with those women, and then I didn't even have the intention to do some serious research about their role in the squatter scene.
It's a mediocre effort, but I guess it's sufficient to get a doctoral title on a U.S. university. Here in the Netherlands, you actually have to present and defend your doctoral thesis before your academic peers for it to be accepted. I have had an exchange with the author where I proposed to her that she would not have succeeded if she would have had to do that. Her reaction was basically that she dismissed that as a ridiculous tradition.
Indeed
Yeah, I'm with you on the learning part, and don't get me wrong there are some things that can be learned from this book. On a personal level not so much because I have spent many years in that scene and reflected a lot on how it works and what everyone's contribution meant. Like I said in my first comment, nothing in this book will be an eye-opener for people who have been involved in this and are capable of self-reflection and analysis.
Still, there are people who can potentially benefit from reading this. On the other hand, I reject the whole "woman of colour" angle. She may be female and non-white, but she is also US American and a Yale graduate. She never really dealt with the gender or race/culture issue. There are characters in her book who have dealt with it, and in her laziness she completely misses that. She could have gained some great insights if she had ever talked at length with "Lianne" and "Karima". I know who both of those people are and I see from her characterisation that she didn't get what they were actually facing and had dealt with in their past. I could write another 20 relevant pages for that book just based on the personal conversations I had with those women, and then I didn't even have the intention to do some serious research about their role in the squatter scene.
It's a mediocre effort, but I guess it's sufficient to get a doctoral title on a U.S. university. Here in the Netherlands, you actually have to present and defend your doctoral thesis before your academic peers for it to be accepted. I have had an exchange with the author where I proposed to her that she would not have succeeded if she would have had to do that. Her reaction was basically that she dismissed that as a ridiculous tradition.