Why SHARP’s officers will not sign petitions, statements and letters of protest on behalf of the organization.

SHARP is an international organization with members around the world. Our values as a scholarly association place our commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization at the centre of our activities. We are also committed to all forms of humanities and social sciences scholarship that constitute the field of book history. Occasionally the Executive Council receives requests from SHARP members or other scholarly associations asking us to sign letters, statements, or petitions on behalf of SHARP. These requests are usually about current political issues and events occurring within the borders of one nation-state and/or a specific educational system.  As an international organization, we have no practicable means of dealing with these requests without committing time and labour that we simply do not have as an organization that is run almost entirely by volunteers. Our practice, therefore, is not to sign on to these documents.

Rather than being a cosignatory to statements, SHARP’s Executive Council commits its time to organizing and supporting activities that enact SHARP’s values. These include offering research awards to scholars from the Global South; travel grants to the annual conference for early career researchers; lower membership fees for independent scholars, graduate scholars, and members from non-OECD countries; and striving to increase the representation of the wide range of book history work across SHARP’s three publications.  We are also committed to holding our annual conferences in spaces that will not put members or our values at risk. For both online and in-person events, we strive to adhere to best practices for accommodating disabilities.

As an organization with a global membership SHARP aspires to create an inclusive environment for all scholars, one that embraces our different backgrounds, by putting our values into action through the steps outlined above.