[Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools

Tue Apr 17 06:51:09 PDT 2018

What then is the relationship between the objects of
*successive *protests, Monica?

One of the reasons that the gun control protests by
schoolkids in the US is so welcome, is that we suspect that
further activism by the same social groups who were
mobilised by the NRA/Congress refusal to respond to the
school shooting, around other issues in the years ahead.
Certainly, in the way the kids acted, it was clear that they
were picking up all the intersectionality of recent
movements, as well as demonstrating consciousness of the
Civil Rights movement.

Unlike a good lawyer, I'm asking you a question, Monica,
that I don't have the answer for. But I still think that
naively taking it that the self-reported object of an
activity to be the motive for all the actions composing it
is false insofar as it is meaningful and empty insofar as it
is true. Also, the concept people have as they construct an
object undergoes continual change in the course of the
activity and its interaction with everything else going on.
Our conception of the project (what you call "system of
activity") has to be sensitive to this shifting of objects.
Social transformations never happen because everyone had a
blue print at the start, and yet they do happen. Paracelsus
and Marx were exaggerating the difference between bees and
humans, I think.

What do you think?
Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 17/04/2018 11:06 PM, Monica Lemos wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Thank you all for the comments concerning our paper. I know the
> article *Facebook
> in Brazilian schools- Mobilizing to fight back* is not a hot topic anymore,
> but let's get back to business and I will do my best to contemplate all the
> co
> mments.
>
> As I opened my talk at ISCAR-Quebec, I used to jump outside school walls,
> either because there was no teachers or because I didn't like some classes
> and there was something more interesting to do outside. Differently from
> those students in the 4M, who jumped inside the school walls saying "school
> is ours" and getting organized despite various limitations to improve
> school, from cleaning to trying different ways of organizing classes.
> Is it a change in the wind? A breeze maybe.
>
> It was also very interesting to follow the discussions on the walkout about
> schools and guns, together with the persnal histories that came out with
> it. It reminded me of some colleagues, teachers at public schools, who have
> to ask students for their "little toys" (read it as guns) that were going
> to be returned by the end of the class.
> Could you share the results of the anti-gun students' movements?
>
> Concerning the readings on Focault, we  didn't have legs to bring him to
> the article. We are aware, though, of how important it would be not only to
> enrich the discussion on social movements, but also to improve the notion
> of collaborative agency.
>
> Indeed, FB worked as a method of organizing students' own activties and
> also as a way to call people's attention on what they were doing or when
> they needed help. During the occupations they used to have two assemblies,
> in each school, in the beginning and in th eend of the day, so they would
> decide who was going to do what, and what would be the next steps
> concernig  the object of the movement. These were posted on the FB pages as
> form of reporting decisions and activties. In such assemblies, students
> would decide who was going to be in charge of cleaning, cooking or being
> Public Relation (PR). This PR would be the adimin of the FB pages who was
> going to decide what would be on the pages. Those functions could change if
> they decided so during the meetings.
> They also made lives of manifestations on the streets, when students from
> different schools met, or called from help, for example in one event when
> the police blocked two sides of a street making it impossible for students
> to move. So, somehow it became a form of meaning making and as form of
> tool-and-result with all the weight words and other multimodal resoures can
> have, maybe generating rhe contradiction between agitation, propaganda and
> desire to change. Ephemeral however, because,as I mentioned before, they
> migrated to WhatsApp, and because the movements themselves faded way. For
> this reason Fernando and I discussed the notion of social movements as a
> form of wildfire activties, based on Engeström (2009), see the link below
> http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo?journalid=208&doi=10.11648/j.hss.20170506.15
> .
>
> Andy, I have to say I trembled in your comments about the relation between
> needs and object of the activties, but thank you David for solving the
> puzzle.
>
> The notion of collaborative agency is still in progress, Fernando has
> worked with it during his PhD and I have been working with it in other
> works. I drafted an in depth discussion on the topic so we can move on with
> the discussion.
>
> As one of the principles of CHAT, historicity plays a central role in
> understanding problems and potentials in activities (Engeström, 1987;
> 2001). By remembering what can be forgotten, appropriating from one’s own
> memory means to understand why history is constituted in one way and not in
> another, and why we become who we are, in which way it affects our
> cultural, historical and social life in the present and in the future
> (Souza, 2009:31).
>
> In historicity, traces of voices and lived experiences from the past
> constitute how subjects act in the present for projecting and
> transformation of activities in the future. Bearing historicity in mind,
> Bakhtin/Voloshinov (1986), states that every word expresses the one in
> relation to the other and that the utterances we produce, including our
> creative work, carries other’s words with different levels of otherness and
> different levels of ourselves. *The words of others manifest their own
> expression and evaluation, which we assimilate, rework, and re-accentuate*
> (Bakhtin/Voloshinov, 1986 p.89).
>
> When different people get together, the traces of historicity and otherness
> support encounters that can be creative and promote collaborative agency.
> Merçon (2009), based on the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, defines encounters
> as a form of affect, the author asserts that in encounters we can affect
> and be affected, increase or hinder our power of acting, which also
> increases or hinders our power of thinking.
>
> When different parts come together in encounters, they their different
> historical background and different kinds of expertise can clash and melt
> together, which provides different kinds of meanings and contributions to
> an activity.
>
> According to Miettinen (2010; 2013) the reasons for encounters in
> activities mostly relate to the need to expand an expertise by finding a
> new product, raw material, or market, or solving a specific problem,
> therefore such encounters demand creativity so people’s power of acting and
> thinking increase. Miettinen (2014) states that creative encounters can be
> an attempt to transcend the limits of individualism, in addition, the
> promotion of creative encounters plays a central role in enabling
> collaborative agency, where participants engage toward a joint object of
> activity.
>
> In the same line, Lemos (2015; 2017) understood collaborative agency as a
> process through which participants become subjects of an activity by
> collaboratively constructing and envisioning new possibilities for their
> futures, consequently, transforming their own lives.
>
> Considering the movement school-community, Yamazumi (2009) poses that by
> creating hybrid and symbiotic activities in which various involved partners
> inside and outside the school collaborate and reciprocate with one another
> enables overcoming crisis. *The distinguishing feature of activity theory
> is a developmental theory concerned with qualitative transformations over
> time in human practice. Its central tenet is how human beings can become
> agents who can change themselves as they change their own institutions and
> practices in a way that mobilizes their collaborative agency (intellects
> and energies to act). Making changes in our own real life-worlds is at the
> heart of activity theory *(Yamazumi, 2009:36).
>
> The transformative stance of agency is only possible when individuals or
> group of individuals work in togetherness and not as conglomerate of people
> together (van Oers & Hänikainen, 2010) as in the traffic jam or as in the
> elevator. Collaborative agency generates transformative agency due to
> its possibility
> to break away from a given frame of action and to take the initiative to
> transform it which is enhanced by otherness constituted in historicity.
> Thus new tools, concepts and practices produced in creative encounters
> carry future-oriented visions loaded with initiative and commitment by
> partcipants (Virkkunen, 2006;  Sannino, Engeström & Lemos, 2016). Yet, from
> a transformative perspective, agency is related to the collective activity
> of a group of individuals for the development of new possibilities and
> transformations, which is only possible in collaboration (Haapasaari,
> Engeström, Kerosuo, 2014; Engeström, Sannino, Virkkunen, 2014).
>
> Therefore, creative encounters in collaborative agency empower participants
> to consider ways to transform oppressive situations rather than seeing them
> as inexorable. By experiencing, creating, re-creating, and integrating
> themselves into their contexts, rather than accepting imposed measures,
> subjects transform their cultural and historical experiences (Freire,
> 1967).  Collaborative agency implies different participants’ histories,
> voices, actions, and reflections in and over activities to master and
> transform their realities.
>
>
> With best regards,
>
> Monica and Fernando
>
>
> 2018-03-23 14:40 GMT-03:00 Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>:
>
>> Thanks so much Monica and Fernando for being so generous to address
>> everyone's questions, including this one about Figure 3.
>>
>> In that regard, I wonder about your reading of that "network structure" as
>> relevant in re-organizing the students' agency. In your article, you write
>> about the Rio de Janeiro group,
>>
>> "However, they changed the network structure to ensure more comprehensive
>> communication among the groups"
>>
>> There is in this way of formulating an apparent assumption that there was
>> an initial intention in organising the structure, having learned from the
>> other previous movements/groups. You may (or may not) have empirical
>> evidence that this organization was indeed an intentional one in terms of
>> having considered prior experiences and having come to a decision about
>> what may work best. I would be interested in knowing about that evidence,
>> for I guess there is an interesting topic there concerning a tension
>> between the inherently emergent character and impossible to predict
>> implications of starting up online networks, on the one hand, and the use
>> of those networks for some purposes and intentions on the other. What are
>> your views on this tensions? And how would you say these existed in your
>> project? Has anyone (apart from the authors) thought about these?
>> Alfredo Jornet
>> ________________________________
>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and
>> intransitive dimensions"
>> Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> on behalf of Monica Lemos <monica.lemos@gmail.com>
>> Sent: 20 March 2018 14:04
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> About Figure 3, our first challenge was on how to express the movements in
>> activity systems, and soon we realized that it wouldn't be possible by
>> using previous representations of an activity system, due to the expansion
>> of the movements.
>> So, we decided to place the object of the movement (big sphere in the
>> center), and connect the participants (Facebook pages - small circles) to
>> it. Since the first movement was in the State of São Paulo, and the second
>> only in the city of São Paulo, there were some pages that were not used for
>> it. Consequently, the number of pages that were used in the second movement
>> is smaller than in the first. In addition, the organization (in relation to
>> centralization of the movements) started changing in the second movement.
>> That is, there were more pages connected to the main page on Facebook
>> (triangles). The third movement was again related to a scandal in the State
>> of São Paulo, and again, the number of pages on Facebook increased.
>> Since the fourth movement (from Rio de Janeiro) started after the movements
>> from São Paulo, they already started from a central page (instead of
>> fragmented pages from different schools in the first movement), that served
>> as a catalyst of information, and shared the activities with the pages of
>> each school.
>>
>> We will be back to discuss Collaborative agency and reply Andy's questions.
>>
>> Warm regards,
>> Fernando and Monica
>>
>> 2018-03-16 16:36 GMT-03:00 Peg Griffin <Peg.Griffin@att.net>:
>>
>>> I think Serena (whose graphic it is) now goes to a Society of Friends
>> high
>>> school.  She has access to an enormously useful past for an activist to
>>> grow in!
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
>>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
>>> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2018 2:36 PM
>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
>> schools
>>> Whoa, that is a great graphic, Peg!
>>> (like)!!  :-)
>>> mike
>>>
>>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 10:48 AM, Peg Griffin <Peg.Griffin@att.net>
>> wrote:
>>>> Here's a relevant link: http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/
>>>> The Badass Teachers Association has existed for a few years now.  This
>>>> is a blog with several posts by teachers who experienced the March 14
>>>> Walkouts in the US.
>>>> The blog entries reflect a few different situations and institutions
>>>> that the Badass Teachers and their students experience (note that the
>>>> last blog entry extends from the Walkouts to Teacher Strikes and more).
>>>>
>>>> While I learned a lot from the account of the four movements in Brazil
>>>> and plan to learn more, here's a bit of a wondering that I have:
>>>> When I work with/for our young activists in the US, as time goes by, I
>>>> almost always find there's something said about the young activists
>>> pasts.
>>>> They have participated in movements where peers further along in some
>>>> ways, and sometimes adults further along in some ways, collaborated.
>>>> The young activists did what they could when they could and took in a
>>>> "whole" event which in many ways they merely understood but marching
>>>> and chanting and drawing were really effective so they were engaged!
>>>> These young activists then externalized what they had taken in in all
>>>> the ways they are doing now ...  And the teachers and the rest of us
>> got
>>> further along, too!
>>>> The day before yesterday I was witnessing a Senate hearing.  When the
>>>> hearing lies and evasions got terribly redundant, one of the Moms
>>>> Demand Action members seated next to me looked down to a live stream
>>>> on her phone of her daughter and classmates rallying outside the White
>>>> House.  Other members remember the daughter tagging along to lobbying
>>>> and hearings and rallies and marches for years and the live stream and
>>>> hugs went around a couple of rows of us.  Eventually those White House
>>>> protesting students marched from the White House to Capitol Hill and
>>>> the mom soon left to meet her daughter's group outside.  Inside, we
>>>> were astonished at how much we were getting away with without the
>>>> powers that be warning we would be tossed out.  Maybe it's the times
>>>> that are a changing or maybe it was just that our slogan t-shirts,
>>>> finger snaps, humphs and yesses were mild in contrast to the Code Pink
>>>> folks a few rows away -- great costumes and liberty crowns and great
>>>> signs.  All sorts of forbidden expressive delights in a hearing run by
>>>> Grassley.
>>>>
>>>> By the way, Randi Weingarten who is president of the AFT (one of the
>>>> two prominent and somewhat staid teachers unions in the US) shocked
>>>> many in a recent e-mail when she easily referred to the Badass
>>>> Teachers Association as one of her co-leaders in the coalition of
>>>> forty organizations working on the April 20 National Actions in the
>>>> continuing move against gun violence.
>>>> (Adults are organizing the expansion of this anniversary of the
>>>> Columbine
>>>> Massacre,)
>>>>
>>>> Badass, hardcore, throwing shade -- those are some of my newly nuanced
>>>> vocabulary items that young activists have led me to learn in the past
>>>> year and a half.
>>>>
>>>> And I'm attaching an amazing piece of art work -- the artist is also
>>>> quite the author of the written word.
>>>>
>>>> Peg
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>
>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet
>>>> Gil
>>>> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 7:35 PM
>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
>>>> schools
>>>>
>>>> Just as a note to Harshad's and Michael's comments, and with the hope
>>>> to, although through a little detour, somehow re-connect with the
>>>> article (at least with the topic of social media, youth, and social
>>> mobilisation):
>>>> Today, in Reykjavik, we were in a meeting discussing opportunities and
>>>> challenges that emerge when educators try to implement makerspaces
>>>> activities with young children (5-6 years old), now that those have
>>>> become fashionable and educators are trying to see what's good in
>>>> there. In the meeting, there were experienced kindergarten teachers,
>>>> science center organisers, artist researchers, "just plain postdocs"
>>>> and the likes, all of whom have experience and passion about children
>>>> and learning. We all agreed that most of the problems in attempting to
>>>> implement makerspaces-like activities with younger children had to do
>>>> with the failure of the adults to appreciate and let the children own
>>>> and make the space theirs, which we find is the whole point of a maker
>>>> space. We pointed out our failure to see and listen how the kids see
>>>> and listen, so as to help them make. While many of us, adults, in
>>>> those situations tend to attend to the verb "to make" in the
>>>> transitive, as in "she makes some*thing*", thereby focusing on some
>>>> end in mind that provides with a model against which to exert
>>>> correction, we forget that, in most cases, the kids are in fact
>>>> *making* (in the intransitive, without object), and that it is in the
>>>> making that the possibility of the end object emerges. Instead of
>>>> supporting them, appreciating the heart of what making means—in
>>>> praxis—we tend to suffocate them, narrowing the space so that it no
>>>> longer is a makerspace, or at least not one even close to their
>>>> regular kindergarten spaces.
>>>>
>>>> Similarly, I am reluctant here to follow the lead that "mass youth is
>>>> mislead," at least not before I try to carefully and respectfully
>>>> attend to where they are at, what *their* world and space is, and what
>>>> they say. For yes, the words "safety" or "Girls clothing in school is
>>>> more regulated than GUNS in America" may not sound as erudite and
>>>> profound as more complex statements about the relations between
>>>> Philosophy, Science, Ethics, and Economy (all with capital letter).
>>>> But the fact is that the magic, the future, humanity in fact, is in
>>>> their saying. So I would listen, but not with the narrow backward view
>>>> of us adults who already know, but from the prospective forward view
>>>> of those who grow. And this is not to say that they are right or that
>>>> they are wrong; that would be, I think, missing the point.
>>>> Even though, I must say, the messages too, like "your prayers do
>>> nothing,"
>>>> are quite convincing to me.
>>>>
>>>> Alfredo Jornet
>>>> ________________________________
>>>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and
>>>> intransitive dimensions"
>>>> Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Glassman, Michael
>>>> <glassman.13@osu.edu>
>>>> Sent: 15 March 2018 15:36
>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
>>>> schools
>>>>
>>>> Hi Harshad,
>>>>
>>>> Sometimes it is the obvious not the obscure.  If you want a hungry
>>>> person to not be hungry anymore you give them food.  A student of mind
>>>> did a great study on homelessness.  Basically the best thing you can
>>>> do to avoid homelessness is you give people homes.  And if you want
>>>> people to stop shooting each other with guns you take away their guns.
>>>>
>>>> Don't forget also that the nuclear family is something we pretty much
>>>> made up over the last few centuries.
>>>>
>>>> Michael
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Harshad Dave
>>>> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 8:54 AM
>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
>>>> schools
>>>>
>>>> 15 March 2018.
>>>>
>>>> Dear friends,
>>>>
>>>> I write here with reference to email message from Michael (Wed, Mar
>>>> 14,
>>>> 2018 at 9:25 PM). As far as protest for gun control and debate on it
>>>> is concerned, I put some views here.
>>>>
>>>> We all are aware that this is not the first event of open fire on
>>>> school students as well as mass killing with gun fire on public place
>>>> (recall Las Vegas shooting and other). Right from beginning, when
>>>> Columbus discovered the New World, the road of establishing civilized
>>>> society on continent America was not a comfortable one. The people
>>>> passed through challenges, hardship and peril in day to day life
>>>> during the travel on the road. This journey moulded a responsible and
>>>> wisdom full culture in the blood of people living there. They fought
>>>> for independence and emerged with a unity named USA, they sustained
>>>> with and sacrificed in civil war, they passed through the severe
>>>> recession of 1930 after World War I, and they fought thousands of
>>>> kilometres away from native place along with allied nations in World
>>>> War II.
>>>> These all are the untold, unwritten qualification of the people of the
>>>> time that decorated with a right of freedom to keep weapons with them.
>>>> We never heard of such insane events of mass killing in this society
>>>> in the history of this people though freedom to keep gun/weapon was and
>>> has been a right.
>>>> [NB: Please note, I am neither in favour nor in opposition to the
>>> protest.
>>>> I try to just bring one point of consideration to the reader.]
>>>>
>>>> After August 1945, USA emerged with some exceptional lead over other
>>>> nations of the world. If we consider a period of 25 years as
>>>> generation change, the third and fourth generation constitutes present
>>>> youth. Those who were born in and after August 1945 could study the
>>>> history of the above path that was traveled by their ancestors. There
>>>> is much difference between reading a history and making living in the
>>>> same history.
>>>>
>>>> Moreover, I recall the words of President Roosevelt, “*The only limit
>>>> to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.*” It
>>>> brought a new style and different culture with comfortable life and
>>>> inexperienced thinking and thoughts in new generations. The emerging
>>>> social constitution of society in USA and its systems as well as
>>>> institutions grew with a rapid progress and incessant changes.
>>>> Majority people believe that “*dollars”* is the ultimate key towards
>>>> happiness and peace. Institutions and system of society worked as if
>>>> “*science and technology”* has the entire competency to settle any
>>>> social problem.
>>>>
>>>> Wise people.... perhaps... failed to understand that our society is
>>>> stable and balance on four pillars.... they (pillars) are Philosophy,
>>>> Ethics and Religion, Science and Technology and Economics. Uneven
>>>> growth in one or more pillars will destabilize the society. Now a day,
>>>> we are searching all the answers of social issues from *science and
>>>> technology*. We try to sort out every problem through *dollars* only,
>>>> and we do not know if it is sorted out or postponed. Neither we
>>>> honestly give adequate stress on ethical value nor do we have uniform
>>>> philosophy on which our society might rest. Family system is all most
>>>> paralyzed. Youth are encouraged or instigated to be independent and
>>>> self sufficient as soon as they reach at a prescribed age. We treat
>>>> them as freedom to youth. Our youth mass is not aware of all this fact
>>>> and every street and corners are equipped with a net-work to
>>>> misleading the youth.
>>>>
>>>> Now, this mass of the youth protests with an esteemed trust that the
>>>> subject gun law will bring a safety. They never know, “*Safety never
>>>> come from the enacted laws, it does come from the healthy and balanced
>>>> social system.*”
>>>> Presently, it seems to me that protesters are with a trust to bring
>>>> safety by introducing the subject gun law, but the events of shootings
>>>> shout for the grass root changes in social system with balance uniform
>>>> growth in the above said four pillars. It demands for reintroducing an
>>>> affectionate family system again and fundamental education that
>>>> dollars cannot always bring happiness and peace but where the real
>>>> happiness and peace lie.
>>>>
>>>> Harshad Dave
>>>>
>>>> Email: hhdave15@gmail.com
>>>> On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Glassman, Michael
>>>> <glassman.13@osu.edu>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Fernando and Monica,
>>>>>
>>>>> This is what is happening is the United States today,
>>>>>
>>>>> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/students-
>>>>> from-thousands-of-schools-stage-a-walkout-to-protest-
>>>>> gun-violence-and-honor-parkland-victims.html
>>>>>
>>>>> It is nothing less than extraordinary. Many are trying to limit this
>>>>> to gun violence but I wonder, based on your article, if it will soon
>>>>> transform into another movement. But I think it goes to show how the
>>>>> work you have done, if only a beginning, is really important. I feel
>>>>> like we have missed this in U.S. academic circles.  There is what is
>>>>> basically an idiotic article on fake news in the most recent
>>>>> Science, supposed to be our flagship.
>>>>>
>>>>> I feel like we have to hit the re-set button on understanding what
>>>>> is going on and the role that what you call human-technology
>>>>> interaction is playing.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have a question for some activity theorists if they are interested
>>>>> in responding. In some ways what is going on does mirror an activity
>>>>> model, the multi-level reciprocal transformation (unless I am
>>>>> misunderstanding something). But as I said in an earlier message
>>>>> there is nobody coming in doing an intervention, the transformation
>>>>> itself is organic, more Dewey oriented I would say (I think maybe
>>>>> Friere also).  Is there room for this in activity theory?
>>>>>
>>>>> Michael
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
>>>>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Fernando Cunha
>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2018 3:03 PM
>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>; mike
>>>>> cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
>>>>> Cc: Lemos, Monica <monica.lemos@helsinki.fi>
>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
>>>>> schools
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>> I really appreciate the discussion so far, and I liked the way some
>>>>> of you used some metaphors. It was far from our intention to
>>>>> reinvent the wheel or to use flint stones to light fire. What I
>>>>> think it is important is that there is no "if" in human history, and
>>>>> we are where we are because we transform the places we live, as well
>>>>> as the tools we use. We can for sure ride horses in the cities, but
>>>>> the horses would sweat so much (considering the asphalt roads), that
>>>>> in a matter of
>>>> hours they would die.
>>>>> Since life is forward, we tried to show in our article a small part
>>>>> of what the movements organized by the students were.It is important
>>>>> to highlight, that despite people that were not in favor of protests
>>>>> (including some students!), it was the first time in Brazilian
>>>>> history that students (who were not supposed to interfere)
>>>>> interfered in a political decision. And they did so not only by
>>>>> using Facebook. As we mention in our paper, Facebook is one aspect
>>>>> of the protests, and we considered it as a mediational communicative
>>>>> tool. As I mentioned before in this answer, we as human beings use
>>>>> tools that are available, reshape them, and sometimes use them for a
>>>>> purpose that is
>>>> completely different from the original idea.
>>>>> I myself am a secondary education teacher, and I am also a
>>>>> researcher because I am a secondary education teacher. We may have
>>>>> different points of view when you research something as an outsider,
>>>>> and when you participate (not as an ethnographer), but as a subject
>>>>> of the group. In my humble opinion, we are still trying to
>>>>> conceptualize (and
>>>>> stabilize) things that move faster than we can handle as scientists,
>>>>> or to compare contexts that cannot be compared.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am looking forward to your reactions.
>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> __________________________Fernando R. Cunha Júnior, PhD.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://fernandorcjr.wordpress.com
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>     Em segunda-feira, 12 de março de 2018 21:05:34 BRT, mike cole <
>>>>> mcole@ucsd.edu> escreveu:
>>>>>
>>>>>  Alfredo et al
>>>>>
>>>>> I read this message before reading the prior one. You are making the
>>>>> point I was trying to make regarding discussion of the paper.
>>>>> In our everyday lives we are experiencing a change in the wind (to
>>>>> use a metaphor that Dylan made famous at another such time).
>>>>> HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE DISRUPTING THINGS AS USUAL for the first
>>>>> time in my life. Call it 65 years.
>>>>>
>>>>> And we are academics and some of us are are paid to theorize such
>>>> matters.
>>>>> To theorize the social organization of society was Hugh's
>>>>> description of the social sciences. In most American Universities,
>>>>> Psychology (cap
>>>>> P) is located in the social sciences.
>>>>> Do we approach the problem from "below" as psychologists? Do we
>>>>> approach it from "above" as sociologists and political scientists?
>>>>> Can you link the Leontiev who writes about the nature of human
>>>>> consciousness, psychologically speaking and conducts experiments in
>>>>> the laboratory that look for all the world like what goes on in my
>>>>> psychology department, AND as someone who can help understand the
>>>>> growth of social movements? This may also be a way to address and
>>>>> understanding of the overlap and variability in the ideas of
>>>>> Vygotsky and
>>>> Friere.
>>>>> Monica and Fernando must be reeling from all the complicated English
>>>>> we are spewing. I look forward to the discussion.
>>>>>
>>>>> Still worrying about Figure 3! I know I need to be able to interpret
>>>>> it but I am doing a lousy job.
>>>>>
>>>>> mike
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 5:34 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil
>>>>> <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for finding and sharing the link, Andy, and thanks Michael
>>>>>> and Mike for bringing the absolutely relevant connection to
>>> Parklands.
>>>>>> There was not so long ago a discussion here as well as in a couple
>>>>>> of articles in MCA about how crises leading to development most
>>>>>> often result from quantitative increments that lead to qualitative
>>>>>> leaps such that new forms of organization emerge from previous
>> ones.
>>>>>> So, David, I don't see why increments in the pace of circulation
>>>>>> (e.g., of
>>>>>> information) would not be expected to bring with them changes in
>>>>>> the organisation of the whole economy system. I would not say that
>>>>>> social media is just bringing a lot more of the same, just as I
>>>>>> would not a priori reject the possibility that bringing a lot more
>>>>>> of the same might not end up bringing new qualitative forms of
>>>>>> communicating. The observation that "like" is intransitive in
>>>>>> Facebook is interesting; but to me it needs to be put in its
>>>>>> larger context of use. And so, are we analysing Facebook as a
>>>>>> grammar closed up in itself, or as one more
>>>>> chain in a larger grammar of possible cooperation?
>>>>>> I am myself concerned that Social Media like Facebook may be
>>>>>> amplifying dichotomical thinking beyond the innocuous and often
>>>>>> way-to-verbose essays we academics enjoy entertaining with much
>>>>>> more complex verbal forms than Facebook's intransitive "likes",
>>>>>> only that the confrontations now seem to be moving to family's
>>>>>> dinner tables, quarrels among protesters in public squares, or
>>>>>> previously unheard of incarcerations for publishing tweets and rap
>>>>>> songs that critique the crown in a supposedly modern democracy like
>>> Spain (e.g.:
>>>>>> http://cadenaser.com/ser/2018/02/20/tribunales/1519135083_
>>>>>> 106543.html). But the article here discussed also shows that there
>>>>>> are forms of organization that these technologies are affording
>>>>>> that may bring more positive changes, like the case again in Spain
>>>>>> of March 8th women's strike, the extent of which no politician or
>>>>>> journalist had anticipated and which led the government to quickly
>>>>>> adopt a much more equity-friendly discourse than even the evening
>>>>>> before (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4_11iIELdfc). So, no,
>>>>>> probably that one strike, or that one social media that may have
>>>>>> made it possible, won't change the system. But they seem to
>>>>>> incrementally add to
>>>>> something, don't they?
>>>>>> Alfredo Jornet
>>>>>> ________________________________
>>>>>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and
>>>>>> intransitive dimensions"
>>>>>> Free print available:
>>>>>> https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ________________________________________
>>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>>>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden
>>>>>> <andyb@marxists.org>
>>>>>> Sent: 12 March 2018 06:39
>>>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in
>>>>>> Brazilian schools
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That headline does not exist, but is it this:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/parkland-students-social-med
>>>>>> ia
>>>>>> .h
>>>>>> tml
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andy
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>>>>> On 12/03/2018 4:02 PM, mike cole wrote:
>>>>>>> Michael - I have been trying to find a digital copy of a story
>>>>>>> in today's NY Times titled "the social media warriors of
>> parkland."
>>>>>>> For some reason
>>>>>> it
>>>>>>> is not visible on the digital version.... yet. Maybe someone out
>>>>>>> there in  xmca-land can find it for us? I will check again  in
>>>>>>> the morning to see if it appears.
>>>>>>>      It seems especially relevant to Monica and Fernando's
>>>>>>> article, and
>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> David's comment that "  it is very hard for me to pinpoint any
>>>>>>> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was
>>>>>>> made
>>>>>> possible by
>>>>>>> Facebook."  The voices and forms of speaking used by the
>>>>>>> students was
>>>>>> not,
>>>>>>> so far as I could tell, the source of data. There are no
>>>>>>> quotations of
>>>>>> any
>>>>>>> students speaking differently. I assumed that this article was
>>>>>>> about collective action.
>>>>>>> Monica and Fernando - I confess I had difficulty following parts
>>>>>>> of the article, perhaps because I am a very seldom user of
>>>>>>> Facebook. In particular, I had difficulty understanding Figure 3.
>>>>>>> Were the people who started M1 also those who started M2-M3? ( "
>>>>>>> Once students achieved the object of the activity—in the first
>>>>>>> case, to avoid the closure of the schools—they focused the
>>>>>>> protests on another
>>>>> object").
>>>>>>> Did the M4 people get the idea from M1 through a FB connection
>>>>>>> form
>>>> M1?
>>>>>> Did
>>>>>>> you get any sense of what distinguished pages that got a few
>>>>>>> hundred
>>>>>> versus
>>>>>>> 10,000 reactions?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Harshad - Did you think the article failed to consider social
>>> issues?
>>>>>> There
>>>>>>> is no information about you on the xmca membership page, so it
>>>>>>> is difficult to know from what part of the world you are writing.
>>>>>>> Unless I miss my guess, some people will wonder at your use of
>>>>>>> the word "man" where the local practice might put "humankind" or
>>>>>>> some other gender inclusive term.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> David - Daylight saving time tonight so I find myself "working
>>>>>>> late."  It got me to wondering how many people live in Seoul. A
>>>>>>> lot,
>>>>> it turns out.
>>>>>>> About 9-10 million. That got me to wondering about how much
>>>>>>> faster all those people would be getting around on horses with
>>>>>>> all the horse plops
>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> clamber over. And all that hay to haul into town for the morning
>>>>>>> rush hour.  :-)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> mike
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 8:25 PM, Glassman, Michael
>>>>>>> <glassman.13@osu.edu>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi David,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm sure those meddling kids won't come back on your lawn any
>>>>>>>> time
>>>>> soon.
>>>>>>>> But really, the article did not say Facebook is a new type of
>>>>>> technology.
>>>>>>>> I believe they said that it's a form of human-technology
>>>>>>>> interaction and suggested perhaps social media was a new type
>>>>>>>> of human-technology interaction.  I don't agree with this
>>> phrasing.
>>>>>>>> I tend to think of
>>>>>> Facebook
>>>>>>>> more as an application of Internet technology - but either way
>>>>>>>> Facebook
>>>>>> is
>>>>>>>> just a form or an application. Is the internetworking of
>>>>>>>> computer, radio and satellite communication an enormous step
>>>>>>>> forward in how humans communicate.  I think so - it's really
>>>>>>>> extraordinary on a number of
>>>>>> levels
>>>>>>>> but that's really not the conversation for this article.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I do think the authors have done an analysis that is
>>>>>>>> interesting and possibly important, especially when one
>>>>>>>> considers what is currently
>>>>>> going
>>>>>>>> on down in Parkland (some might be happy to know that, at least
>>>>>>>> from
>>>>>> what I
>>>>>>>> have read, Facebook isn't dominant or even that important for
>>>>>>>> these students. Adults have been using it more for larger
>>>>>>>> organizational
>>>>>> events
>>>>>>>> like the March 14 walkout and the March 24 march).  I have read
>>>>>>>> some articles on organizing on online forums (and actually
>>>>>>>> wrote a not very
>>>>>> good
>>>>>>>> one a few years back). Most of them are communications based an
>>>>>>>> don't
>>>>>> have
>>>>>>>> strong theoretical underpinning which is why I think this
>>>>>>>> article might
>>>>>> be
>>>>>>>> an important step forward.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I think the idea of using third generation activity theory
>>>>>>>> might be a
>>>>>> good
>>>>>>>> idea for this type of analysis. I myself have seen ties between
>>>>>>>> the trialogical approach being developed by Hakkareinan and
>>>>>>>> Paavola and
>>>>>> what is
>>>>>>>> going on down in Parkland. The students are creating their own
>>>>>>>> projects
>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>> then getting the larger community to buy in to and support what
>>>>>>>> they are doing which is in turn changing the quality of their
>>>>>>>> activities. I have
>>>>>> my
>>>>>>>> own ideas on why this is suddenly happening and direct
>>>>>>>> communication technologies like Twitter and texting (which seem
>>>>>>>> primary vehicles) are only part of it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Anyway, this particular article I think is really timely and
>>>>>>>> should give us a lot to think about.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Michael
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
>>>>>>>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
>>>>>>>> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2018 6:03 PM
>>>>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in
>>>>>>>> Brazilian
>>>>>> schools
>>>>>>>> So in the fifteenth century, Gutenberg exapted extant
>>>>>>>> technology already widely available in China and published a
>>>>>>>> single text using moveable
>>>>>> type
>>>>>>>> which started a profound intellectual, cultural, and social
>>>>>>>> revolution whose effects we still feel today: the rise of
>>>>>>>> Protestantism, the Counter-Reformation in, among other places,
>>>>>>>> Brazil, the Wars of
>>>>>> Religion in
>>>>>>>> France, the vicissitudes of a multii-confessional (political)
>>>>>>>> State and ultimately those of a multi-confessional
>>>>>>>> (psychological) state, In the twentieth century, Ford similarly
>>>>>>>> exapted extant technology, this time nearly two millenia later
>>>>>>>> than China, and mass-produced automobiles
>>>>>> using
>>>>>>>> Taylorism, forcing everybody to buy an identical product with
>>>>>>>> interchangeable parts made by factories with interchangeable
>>>> workers.
>>>>>>>> The automobile "revolution" did not even give us new roads, and
>>>>>>>> in Seoul today traffic moves notably slower than it would on
>>>>>>>> horseback. Clearly, there are some forms of technology that are
>>>>>>>> actually semiogenic--and
>>>>>> others
>>>>>>>> which merely circulate capital at a faster rate and actually
>>>>>>>> slow the movement of people and new ideas.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> So my question is very simple. How do we know that "Facebook"
>>>>>>>> (which as the name implies was originally designed to help
>>>>>>>> Harvard freshmen decide which classmates were sufficiently hot
>>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>>> "like") is really one of the former technologies?.There are
>>>>>>>> very clear signs , beyond the obvious
>>>>>> ones
>>>>>>>> surrounding the American origins, that it belongs to the latter
>>>>>> category,
>>>>>>>> and not a few of them appear in this very article. First of
>>>>>>>> all, the authors are honest enough to associate Facebook with
>>>>>>>> reactionary, xenophobic, populist movements like the clowns who
>>>>>>>> run
>>>>> the "Five Stars"
>>>>>>>> movement in Italy. Second, on the very first page, the authors
>>>>>>>> try but
>>>>>> do
>>>>>>>> not really seem to be able to distinguish between the "post
>>>>>>>> first and organize later" technologies of Occupy Wall Street
>>>>>>>> and the use of social media by the four movements in the
>>>>>>>> article (including one actually
>>>>>> called
>>>>>>>> "Occupy Everything"). And thirdly, it is very hard for me to
>>>>>>>> pinpoint
>>>>>> any
>>>>>>>> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was
>>>>>>>> made
>>>>>> possible
>>>>>>>> by Facebook. If anything, Facebook seems to narrow semiogenic
>>>>>>>> power to a single consumer/computer menu. Ford said, you can
>>>>>>>> get a Model A in any color you like so long as it's black.
>>>>>>>> Facebook tells us the same thing,
>>>>>> but
>>>>>>>> makes the verb "like" intransitive.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>>>>> Sangmyung University
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Recent Article in *Early Years*
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The question of questions: Hasan’s critiques, Vygotsky’s
>>>>>>>> crises, and the child’s first interrogatives
>>>>>>>> <https://www.tandfonline.com/
>>>>>>>> doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Free e-print available at:
>>>>>>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 7:30 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <
>>>>>> a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Dear xmca'ers,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> it is (bit over) due time for introducing the article for
>>>>>>>>> discussion from MCA's 2018 Issue 1, before Issue 2 comes upon
>>>>>>>>> us
>>>>> soon.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The selected article, by Monica Ferreira Lemos and Fernando
>>>>>>>>> Rezende da Cunha Júnior, is about two topics that were
>>>>>>>>> thematised in the last ISCAR congress and that ought to be of
>>>>>>>>> much relevance to current and future CHAT-related research:
>>>>>>>>> Social media and social movements. In particular, the article
>>>>>>>>> examines how students use social media for the organization
>>>>>>>>> and development of 4 social
>>>>> movements in Brazil.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The article is attached and is Free access during the
>>>>>>>>> discussion
>>>>>> period.
>>>>>>>>> It can be accessed free in the following link:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2017.137
>>>>>>>>> 98
>>>>>>>>> 23
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The authors have kindly agreed to participate in the
>>>>>>>>> discussion and they will be introducing themselves soon. I
>>>>>>>>> hope you  will find the article interesting and please don't
>>>>>>>>> be shy to share anything you might have learned reading it,
>>>>>>>>> anything you might wonder about it or that you would like see
>>>>>>>>> discussed. Having authors engage in dialogue is a great
>>>>>>>>> opportunity that this community offers and that makes sense
>>>>>>>>> the most when many of you
>>>>> participate. Good reading!
>>>>>>>>> ?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Alfredo Jornet
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagning Design: Transitive
>>>>>>>>> and intransitive dimensions"
>>>>>>>>> Free print available:
>>>>>>>>> https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Monica F. Lemos - PhD Student
>> Faculty of Educational Sciences
>> Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning
>> http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/doctoral_students_2012.htm
>> <http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/>
>> P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki- Finland
>> +55 11 98162-9482 (whatsapp)
>> Skype: monicaflemos
>>
>
>