[Xmca-l] how to broaden/enliven the xmca discussion

[Andy Blunden]

I don't know, but it's hardly surprising if things were a little slow 
this last week as a lot of xmca-ers are also iscar-ers and we were all 
chatting like crazy in Sydney at the ISCAR Congress. Everyone (and I 
mean everyone, including every passenger on a Sydney suburban train as 
well) has their iPhones and tablets etc., so they could read/write on 
xmca, but I guess they were oversupplied with correspondents and 
protagonists.

My impressions of CHAT research:
On the positive side: very diverse, and at its best, sharp and critical 
in relation to the dominant political forces, and still way out in front 
in understanding the several developmental processes which all 
contribute to our actions (phylogenesis, historical genesis, 
mesogenesis, ontogenesis, microgenesis), and not focussing on just one. 
And I have to say it is a great community of research, relatively 
lacking in the competitiveness and jealousy which infects most research 
communities.

On the negative side:

    * Most CHAT people still have a concept of "society" as some
      homogeneous, abstract entity which introduces problems into the
      social situation on which they try to focus, i.e., people lack a
      viable social theory or the ability to use theory they have to
      analyse the wider social situation in a differentiated way.
    * The idea of "unit of analysis" is almost lost to us. Only a small
      minority know what it means and use the idea in their research.
    * The concept of "object" is at the centre of a lot of confusion;
      few researchers using the concept are clear on what the concept
      is. This is related to an unwillingness to confront and attempt to
      resolve the methodological differences (I refer to systematic
      difference, rather than accidental misunderstandings) within the
      CHAT community; perhaps it's fear of losing the relatively civil
      relations between researchers - people prefer to let differences
      just fester without openly discussing them. The old Soviet
      approach is gone, but perhaps we have gone too far the other way. :)

Andy


------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/


mike cole wrote:
> Hi-- I assume you grabbed it from my erroneous response to someone who
> wrote backto xmca instead of me.
>
> Had dinner with tim ingold yesterday evening. Such an interesting and
> unassuming guy.
>
> Any ideas about how to broaden/enliven the xmca discussion??
>
> mike
>
>   
>