Are Gjertin Urkegjerde Halland — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:14 GMT

Just a quick note about “disneyfication” of taxonomies: I believe the reference was made to how Disney usually lifts a local fairy tale (like the hunchback or pochahontas) and cleans away all the “dangerous” cultural connotations to fit it to a global market without offending anyone. A similar case can be made against a taxonomy crafted to fit in to any cultural context; we might loose something vital on the way there. But the main point I was trying to make was not necessarily about american cultural “propaganda”, but one about what we might loose on the way from a locally rooted taxonomy (or fairy tale) to a global one-size-fits-all taxonomy (or the Disney-version of that fairy tale).

Comments on Crossing Boundaries: 2005 IA Summit Wrapup: Overview and Pre-Sessions