Book Policy, Book Politics: Shared and Disputed Objects
Canada is a good place to observe the functioning of bibliodiversity (and the obstacles to its implementation) because of the multilingual nature of its publishing system, and its hybrid economic model, both subject to the laws of the market and strongly subsidized. Print culture is subject to a double politicization, and this is what the notion of bibliodiversity makes visible: on the one hand, because it is a media world which circulates ideas (some of which are considered radical); on the other hand, because the economic modes of which it is a part are themselves subject to political tensions. However, it can be dangerous to fetishize the book object and systematically to consider it as an object of emancipation. In this presentation I would like to draw attention to the places where books circulate, where they are simultaneously shared objects and disputed ones. By focusing my analysis on bookstores, public libraries, Amazon warehouses, or free little libraries, I will show how the book acts as a catalyst for broader political issues: visibility, equity, cultural identities, work, ecology. I will map the book and its roots in the community. The political discussions around books that take place in these places of mediation, and the changes in practices that result from them, have a real impact on the formation of the public space and the ideas that circulate there.