[Xmca-l] Re: Nissen on working with youth

[Larry Purss]

Thanks Mike for this lead. I will google her work.

I also have downloaded the other Morten Nissen article written for the
Journal of Dialogic Pedagogy. That paper referenced a work by Fernanda
Coelho Liberali [Creative Chain in the Process of Becoming a Totality]
In the article is an extended discussion of "meaning" and "sense" comparing
and contrasting Vygotsky's and Bahktin's approaches to these ideas.
It is interesting that Vygotsky references "smysl" as "sense" while Bahktin
references "smysl" as "themes".

I will offer a glimpse into the way Liberali is approaching "meaning" .

He points out that within a Bahktinian perspective znachenie [meaning] is
the *arena* for the evolution of the opposition between the I/you.

A. A. Leontiev [2002a] affirms that mastery of meaning is the most
important way in which individual behaviour can be mediated through social
experience ... realized through various significations ....
Therefore znachenie introduces an idea of the power of existence *yet to
come. The power of becoming *or "zone" of potential development. In *this
sense *[of meaning] the "zone" leads to the possibility of creativity...
Fundamentally, it indicates meaning *as the potential for human beings
within the "zone"*.  The "place" where human beings get together to create
new meanings through the sense they share together in the chain of
activities they take part in throughout their lives.

I once again return to Zinchenko's "hypothesis" that it is in the act of
imagining "inner form" that inner form comes into being. It is for this
"reason" that I use this "method" of presenting versions of znachenie and
smysl and in this process of presenting versions am participating in a zone
of shared creation through imagining inner form [and outer form].
As Zinchenko mentioned he is haunted by the image of  oscillating sense and
meaning.

If others would like a copy of Liberali's article I could send.  It is only
one version of one perspective of meaning and sense but is engaging with
the power of becoming within zones.

On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 4:26 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:

> Larry.
>
> Locally we have been attracted by the idea of "figured worlds" which we
> learned from the work of Dotti Holland. A local colleague, Chandra Mukerji,
> has written persuasively about, for example, the construction of the
> gardens at Versaille and is many practices as creating the space to imagine
> Paris as the new (imagined!) Rome.  This idea seems to capture of a lot
> what you are gesturing toward in your invocations of space, field,
> ,,,,,,,,,etc. and that activities that constituted it as a space.
>
> mike
>
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 10:44 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Greg,
> > I would answer "yes" that everywhere peoples "care" about "forming
> > persons".
> >
> > So from this recognition of multiple centers of "care" [and also multiple
> > standards] how do we embrace "bildung" but avoid ideological
> imperialism??
> >
> > I would suggest the notion of "places" as "spaces of formation" that are
> > exploring "situated care" and "situated agency".  This involves ethical
> > questions of "care"  to be explored and developed within novel formations
> > [places].  I would point out that many of these places are using notions
> > such as "hybrid" places that are not merely subjective and not merely
> > objective but "third spaces" of transformation. I would also suggest they
> > are imagining certain "kinds" of persons with certain "dispositions" that
> > abide within these formative "places" [or spaces]
> >
> > Places where we can [with care] bring our notions of "bildung" and ask
> > questions of who decides, about what, in which situations.
> >
> > The Places [zones, clearings, fields, circles, etc] from which we form
> > hybrid cultural forms.
> > Places not as "literal" but "imaginal" could be ... places, possible
> > places, which in creating/discovering THIS "scene" [as an instantiation
> of
> > the possible]  is realizing and articulating "our culture".  [and making
> > "real"]
> >
> > Does this forming places always have to be a dialectical struggle?? Is my
> > question a pastoral utopian type question which will not be able to
> breath
> > and come "to life"??
> >
> > Interpretive community is another way to picture or figure this "place".
> >
> > How powerful are "models" for showing or indicating the possibility of
> > bringing to form an ethical kind of "approach"??  Not standards but a
> > different notion of "facets" [as faces of the possible] Always situated,
> > never re-producible but using "models" to show the possibility.
> >
> > Always in full recognition that one person's utopia may be another's
> > ideological imperialism.
> > Never going beyond the ethical [as the piety of questions].
> De-constructing
> > the Eurocentric notion of "bidung" and opening a place for hybrid forms
> > neither purely subjective nor purely objective.  Third spaces.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 9:50 AM, Greg Thompson <
> greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > And note that this piece articulates very nicely with the issues on
> that
> > > other thread about the transferrability of pedagogy across
> socio-cultural
> > > contexts, or as Nissen says:
> > >
> > > " the question whether and how standards of educational practice can be
> > > transferred across great spatio-temporal and socio-cultural distances
> is
> > > far from straightforward
> > > ​ ​
> > > and simple: addressing a Brazilian audience with Danish experience, I
> was
> > > impelled to reconsider it."
> > >
> > > I would add that this piece also articulates with Martin Packer's
> issues
> > of
> > > "constitution" in that Nissen suggests that pedagogy is the "forming of
> > > persons".
> > >
> > > That also takes us back to bildung - is this ideological imperialism?
> > >
> > > I would argue, with Nissen (I think), that it is not, but rather
> > approaches
> > > a cultural universal. The particular forms vary dramatically from one
> > > cultural context to the next but it seems to me that peoples everywhere
> > > care very much about "forming persons".
> > >
> > > No?
> > >
> > > -greg
> > >
> > > On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 9:17 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Morten's article from J. Dialogical Pedagogy, "Meeting youth in
> > movement
> > > > and on neutral ground" attached. I thought this had been posted
> before
> > as
> > > > part of the discussion. Apologies.
> > > > mike
> > > > PS-- Check out the journal. Open access, interesting, or so I think.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> > > object
> > > > that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > > Assistant Professor
> > > Department of Anthropology
> > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > > Brigham Young University
> > > Provo, UT 84602
> > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> > >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
> that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>