[Xmca-l] Re-situating funds of identity within contemporary interpretations of perezhivanie

[Adam Poole (16517826)]

Thanks to Moises for posting some questions about the article that I would like to respond to.


I will first include his summary and interpretation of the paper and then respond to his questions.



Interpretation of paper


The Poole’s paper invited me to enrich the notion of funds of identity.
Grounded in the funds of knowledge approach, the funds of identity concept
try to intentionally reinforce the positive backgrounds and experiences of
learners to overcome the deficit thinking in education (to sum up: by
reducing marginalized school population to a sum of cultural, social,
linguistic deficits).  However, our experience is not only light. And in
the dark funds of knowledge suggested by Zipin, existential funds of
identity invite us to capture a more holistic view on people’s experience.
In my opinion, deep learning (meaningful, significant learning) is based
on the recognition and transformation of learners’ identities. This
assertion, that would be one of my working hypothesis, assumes three
theoretical principles: (1) that human identities are culturally-situated
and distributed (geographical funds of identity, cultural funds of
identity, institutional funds of identity and so on); (2) that there is a
constitutive link between learning and identity (as so many scholars
suggested and developed) and (3) that meaning (significant experience)
plays an important role as a learning generator. Here in mind, I would
like to share three questions or topics that can help us to understand the
Adam Poole’s paper, in particular, and further advance our
conceptualization on contemporary topics as perezhivanie, in general.


Questions

1)        Do you think that existential funds of identity should be
considered as a type of funds of identity? In other words, should be incorporated into the prior classification into geographical, practical, institutional, cultural and social funds of identity? Or may be should be considered as a “re-theorization” of funds of identity?


This is a question that I have been struggling with for some time. When I initially uncovered existential funds of identity I considered to be more than a type of funds of identity. I couldn't see how it related to the five categories that you proposed, as to me the type of identity being described was more internal or meditative. However, the more I researched into the funds of identity concept and its theoretical underpinnings, the more I came to question this conclusion. Firstly, funds of identity, as I understand it, is predicated upon a synthesis of macro and micro-level approaches to culture - that is, identity is embedded in artefacts and social practices and therefore is distributed in nature. However, to bring in the concept of perezhivanie, individuals construct new identities from the social identities that surround them. In contrast, I initially understood existential funds of identity as largely phenomenological in nature. However, on reflection, I realised that issues to do with identity confusion, relationship problems, etc, are social in nature.


So, existential funds of identity should be seen as a complement to funds of identity, rather than a re-theorisation of it. Most significantly, it can be used to show how negative experiences can be drawn on in order to bring about positive pedagogical outcomes.


However, I would be interested to know if anyone else thinks that existential funds of identity complements or contradicts the concept developed by Moises.


2)        How we could link the concepts of identity and perezhivanie?


Good question! For me. identity is an open-ended process that is both personal and social in nature. For this reason, perezhivanie is a really useful concept to bring this relationship into focus. Firstly, it shows how development is the result of the dialectical relationship between the mind and the environment. This relates to identity in a big way, as it suggests that identity is quite fluid: we are different people in different times and across different contexts. Perezhivanie is relevant here as it helps to explain the way individuals relate differentially to their environments. In relation to my teaching, I have found that students do not embody fixed identities that they take with them from class to class, but construct new identities in response to their classes - the teacher, the students, the subject. To draw upon, and extend Thompson and Hall's (2008) metaphor of 'virtual school bags of knowledge' - students do not only bring one school bag with them, but have many different bags from which they draw in the construction, and performance, of their classroom identities.


This realisation lead me to question the role of labelling that you often find in staff rooms - this is the 'difficult' student, this is the 'gifted' student, etc. By observing students' behaviour in other classes, I realised that there was something going on between the students and their environments - hence the link between identity and perezhivanie. Rather than engaging with the imposed label (that really says more about our deficit thinking than the students themselves) we should engage with the students' lived experiences of their social world - both positive and negative.

3)        One of the aims of funds of identity is to develop an approach
to the construct “identity” that had educational implications. What are the
educational/pedagogical implications of the existential funds of identity?


This is a bit more of a complicated one! I do agree with your assertion that drawing upon minoritised students' negative or problematic experiences could lead to the reproduction of deficit thinking. However, I do think that if handled ethically, teachers can draw upon both light and dark funds of identity in order to valorise the whole child and their social worlds. So pedagogically, existential funds of identity can help to develop 'thick' stranded relationships between teachers and students. Moreover, it can also bridge the gap between the classroom and home by acknowledging that life and individual experiencing is complex and multi-layered, often involving critical moments that are ambivalent in nature. I have to say that this approach may not be appropriate for younger learners. I had in mind adolescent learners when I developed the idea of existential funds of identity.



Cheers,


Adam





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