[Xmca-l] Re: identity expressed or formed by action?

[Andy Blunden]

Thank you for the reference, Michael, but can't you tell me 
in a sentence or two whether there is any such thing as a 
drive to express one's self-identity in activity which is 
prior to the activity in which identity is formed?

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making 

On 16/02/2017 1:46 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
> Andy,
> I have worked out some of the issues in an article available online
> Roth, W.-M. (2009). Identity and community: Differences at heart and
> futures-to-come. Éducation et Didactique, 3, 99-118. (
> http://educationdidactique.revues.org/582)
>
> where "I present a way to realize the Hegel–Marx–Vygotsky–Leont’ev program
> of understanding the subject of activity and, correlatively, of
> understanding the (the culture of the) community with which individuals
> stand in an irreducible, because mutually constitutive relationship"
>
> Michael
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
> Applied Cognitive Science
> MacLaurin Building A567
> University of Victoria
> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
>
> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
>
> On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 6:17 AM, <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Rob,
>> So, in the way ‘she becomes a pollutant as waste’ can a person become ‘an
>> expressive identity’ as a formation of a particular cultural imaginary?
>>
>> Not a ‘pollutant’ or ‘an expressive identity’ to start with, but becoming
>> a pollutant or an expressive identity.
>>
>> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>>
>> From: R.J.S.Parsons
>> Sent: February 15, 2017 3:26 AM
>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: identity expressed or formed by action?
>>
>> The idea of waste leads me to Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger. (One of
>> the books that made me grow up.) She discusses what dirt is - matter out
>> of place. Then she discusses all sorts of implications. She doesnt'
>> discuss the issue of expression vs formation as such, but much of what
>> she does discuss bears on it. Menstruation comes to mind. In some
>> societies, women having their periods are perceived as dirty, and they
>> are seen as untouchable by men. So the way a woman is treated forms in
>> her the idea that she is a pollutant, or a carrier. She was not one to
>> start with.
>>
>> Rob
>>
>> On 15/02/2017 10:21, Laure Kloetzer wrote:
>>> Dear Andy,
>>>
>>> Interestingly, I had a very similar discussion with some colleagues
>>> recently not on identity but on... waste. The perspective of one of our
>>> students was that investigating what waste is can be done via interviews,
>>> in order to understand how we decide what to through away. I was arguing
>>> that waste is not fully defined before action, but that waste is what we
>>> through away. The action of throwing away is formative of what count as
>>> "waste".
>>> I thought it might help to step back for one second from the tricky
>>> question of self-identity and considering more concrete, everyday
>>> activities before coming back to it...
>>> Best
>>> LK
>>>
>>>
>>> 2017-02-15 8:30 GMT+01:00 Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>:
>>>
>>>> I would be interested in any helpful comments (other than suggestions
>> for
>>>> more books to read) from my xmca psychologist friends on this problem.
>>>>
>>>> In discussion with a friend, who is very au fait with contemporary
>> social
>>>> philosophy, but knows nothing of CHAT, suggested to me a number of ideas
>>>> intended to be explanatory (rather than descriptive) of current social
>> and
>>>> political trends. He talks about the rise of "expressive authenticity"
>>>> since the 1970s and "collective action as a means to express selfhood."
>> In
>>>> response, I questioned whether there is any such thing as a drive to
>>>> *express* one's identity, and that rather, collective action (and there
>> is
>>>> fundamentally no other kind of action) in pursuit of needs of all kinds
>>>> (spiritual, social and material) is *formative* of identity.
>>>>
>>>> A classic case for analysis is the well-known observation that nowadays
>>>> people purchase (clothes, cars, food, ...) as a means of expressing
>> their
>>>> identity. I question this, because it presumes that there is the innate
>>>> drive to express one's identity, which I see no evidence for. I think
>>>> people adopt dress styles in much the same way that people carry flags
>> - to
>>>> promote a movement they think positive and to gain social acceptance in
>> it.
>>>> Identity-formation is a *result* not a cause of this.
>>>>
>>>> So, am I wrong? Is identity formation a result or a cause of activity?
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy
>>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>>>
>>
>>
>