[Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc

Sun Sep 3 08:37:34 PDT 2017

Hi, 

Thanks Alfredo and Dana for your reflections on this years ISCAR conference. I also attended the full conference and took also part in the pre-conference workshops on Monday. All in all I enjoyed the conference immensely for the intellectual stimulation of not just during the keynotes, symposiums and presentations, but also for the discussion I had the good fortune to be part of during refreshment breaks, lunch and just serendipitously in the hall way. The conference was well organised and well managed, of which big thanks to any organiser who might be on the list here. 

Then as for one particular highlight, I really enjoyed Alex Levant’s, Bonnie Nardi’s and Anna Stetsenko’s symposium regarding Activity Theory and the Anthropocene. While the arguments around Activity Theory were familiar to me, I really appreciated their effort both to dialogue with existing theories, such as agential realism and post-humanism, in a way which pointed out similarities and important differences. What was especially striking was the parts of Nardi’s where she pointed out how the academics who have the politicians ear, often espouse highly reductionist and even naive ideas about how human act. At the end of the symposium Alex mentioned that they were in the process of aligning up a special issue on the topic.

The reason why this symposium was one of the highlight of the conference for me was the way in which it directly engaged in dialogue with more recent theories and trends in academic field, something I have not seen that much of late. I feel engaging in these discussion is highly important for raising awareness of CHAT outside our circles and to also develop CHAT in the age of the anthropocene.

And finally, yes the next conference will be held in Brazil, in Natale if I’m not mistaken! Many thanks already in advance for our brazilian colleagues for this!

Jake :)

***************
Jaakko Hilppö
jaakko.hilppo@northwestern.edu <mailto:jaakko.hilppo@northwestern.edu>
Post-doctoral Fellow

FUSE
https://www.fusestudio.net <https://www.fusestudio.net/>

LIME Research Lab  
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> Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> kirjoitti 3.9.2017 kello 8.32:
> 
> Thanks for sharing this Larry, and particularly for bringing in quotations that save us the time to go and read the whole before the post becomes meaningful. I am looking forward to more turns of the helix thread as more ISCAR participants bring in their voice.
> Alfredo
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> Sent: 03 September 2017 11:52
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc
> 
> Alfredo, thanks for posting this [thread: RE ISCAR experences, reflections, etc.....]
> I am imagining this word as having a *shape* refered to as a *single helix turning like the movement of a corkscrew that circles and turns in a thread direction.
> 
> I am now turning in this helix turning  direction that Andy is participating when he personally *contributed* a *profound* article written by *Malcolm Reed* who is the President of the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity of Research [ISCAR}
> 
> Alfredo, I personally belief Reed’s *resonant voice* should be heard and  felt as now being addressed to *us* at this moment when people are *gathering* by walking to Quebec to share ISCAR embodiment.
> 
> Therefore  I am now adding Malcome Reed’s  *helix shaped threading * linking Reed’s article to hopefully  read today  while ISCAR’s embodied gathering is now becoming *embodied* today.
> Here is the opening introduction on page 5 to introduce Reed’s significant *calling* I hear by listening to Reed’s *tone of voice*:
> 
> 
> This paper is the consequence of a kind invitation by Professor Vitaly Rubtsov to make an address at the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education to an International Symposium celebrating the 120th anniversary of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky on behalf of the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity Research (ISCAR). The matter of the address was given to me—for which I am grateful, since a point of focus often enables a better sense of clarity—and I have developed the ideas in the paper from those in the address. I have added the verbal image of ‘gathering stones’, since this phrase had an important function in Vygotsky’s argument, as Zinchenko has remarked [44, p. 27; 47, p. 41] in what I read for our time as advice regarding how we might reflect on the purpose and maintain the process of collective inquiry.
> 
> Now as this image of the thread movement of the corkscrew turning *turns* within *this thread*.
> Therefore I am going to add [contribute]  another paragraph from Malcome Reed’s same article on  page 7 -  threading Malcome’s [walk] to reflect on the history of ISCAR as his intent.  Voice tone:
> 
> “When, in 1981, we were asked to read Vygotsky’s Thought and Language for discussion one Friday in our English PGCE group, I fell in love with an idea. Vygotsky (1962) quotes the poet Osip Mandelstam: ‘I have forgotten the word I intended to say, and my thought, unembodied, returns to the realm of shadows’ (p. 119). I thought then, and know now, that there must be reasons beyond forgetting for thoughts to return to that realm, that people may assist thinking and learning, but may also distract and silence that process. Vygotsky writes a little later in the chapter: ‘Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into speech. It does not merely find expression in speech; it finds its reality and form’ (p. 126). I want to understand more of these mundane migrations and metamorphoses of meaning and feeling. At the heart of socio-cultural inquiry lies this metaphor of spaces to be crossed, whether in the mind or between minds. Call it the zone; call it mediation; call it enculturati!
> on; call it what you will, but mind that gap and help others to build bridges from both sides [17, pp. 206—207]. There are some problems of accuracy that occur to me now that I have had access to better editions of Vygotsky’s writings, but I am happy with the gist of this portrayal of how the tradition I belong to motivates me to work. I think it gives a good enough image and feeling. The ISCAR tradition covers and links a number of disciplines – education, linguistics, and anthropology would probably feature prominently on *most* people’s lists, although there are clearly *more* .”  [Malcolm Reed]
> 
> I will also mention a key word that Reed is illuminating: the word *wasting* as central to what Reed refers to *as* our [problematization of *wasting*.
> Also Reed is profoundly moved by the contrast between what Reed refers to *as* [living activity] as *texts* only *come alive* through their *helix threading* or *transmission* of the voice of the circle’s voice that is *alive*.
> 
> THOSE ideas will *only* live on *as and when* they are valued and *needed* as constitutive AND explanatory *of* [living activity].
> Reed emphasizes [and models and exemplifies] that “Transmission is *not* merely a *mechanical act*.
> 
> NOTICE the helix thread turning between [living activity] in contrast to [mechanical deadening acts].
> 
> I have said enough to hopefully I am *rising up* and continue Malcome Reed’s threading helix movement.
> Time will tell if others find this article meaning and addressing our Bahkin dialogical walking towards *embodying* notions.
> 
> Pause here [mind the *gap]   so as this gap does *open* our  *living conversation through dialogue.
> 
> Alfredo, thank you for keeping this thread *alive*
> 
> Larry
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
> 
> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil
> Sent: September 3, 2017 1:54 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc
> 
> Yes, Dana, I also heard about possible plans for next ISCAR in Brazil; surely others know more. I wished I had been able to join Kris' keynote; I also think her work is one of the most inspiring ones going on these days in CHAT research.
> Alfredo
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Walker, Dana <Dana.Walker@unco.edu>
> Sent: 03 September 2017 03:12
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: ISCAR experiences, reflections, etc
> 
> Alfredo,
> 
> I too enjoyed seeing/hearing Mike on the big screen, and was inspired by Kris Gutierrez’s keynote address, her stories about people, their histories and transformational agency; and how we should think about equity as the ‘miner’s canary,’ that “tells us about unjust practices, the wealth, well-being of an activity system.” It was a treat to talk with other authors whom I know only through their books, such as Olga Vásquez and Anna Stetsenko. I was impressed by the large presence of Brazilians and by the intense commitment (‘engagement’) and theoretical force of the work of scholars such as Fernanda Liberali and Maria Cecilia Magalhães.  Perhaps the next ISCAR conference will be held in Brasil?
> 
> Dana
> 
> 
> 
> On 9/3/17, 1:36 AM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil" <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> wrote:
> 
>    Dear all,
> 
> 
>    I am still at Tampere, where the EARLI conference finished today, just one day after ISCAR ended. Unfortunately, I committed to attending both conferences and could only be the first days in Quebec. Still, I was fortunate enough to catch up with many colleagues, to share some of my work, and get to hear about that of many others that are doing great things around the globe.
> 
> 
>    One (not so) surprising discovery I made was the huge amount of people that actually lurks into this list, but who nonetheless very seldom if ever write (whether for lack of time to delve into the sometimes quite long posts/themes, or simply because they prefer to read than write). We all knew and had talked about this, but it was quite remarkable the amount of people I met (not only in ISCAR, but also here in Europe (EARLI).
> 
> 
>    So, now that I have met some of you, and that you have got to see and hear more of ISCAR than those of us who had to leave earlier or could not join at all. What was your highlight of the congress and why? It would be lovely if some of you would take a step forward and tell us a bit of what you found most interesting, what you found was missing, what you found should have not been.
> 
> 
>    In can be the first: One of my favourite moments was listening to Fernando G. Rey present without slides or any other device, passionately talking about child development and claiming, "... for the first need of the child is that of contact with other people"... I also very much enjoyed seeing Mike in a several meters wide screen commenting on Engeström's Keynote, rising the longest ovation I got to hear during my brief three days in Quebec.
> 
> 
>    These are just anecdotes, but I would love if you could tell us more on how it went for you, what you found there, for us who could not be there. I think it would be very much appreciated by many, while we get the time to have a look at the issue on unit analysis, and prepare the discussion on the article from the last (third) MCA issue.
> 
> 
>    Alfredo
>    **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials when prompted by external links.**
> 
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> 