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

[Andy Blunden]

In  my view, Rob, ...

Paradigmatically, the "critical episode" is a moment, but
the important point is not the duration but the *unity* of
the episode. For example, as a result of the Vietnam War,
etc., I left my home in 1966 and returned to Australia only
after 20 years, mostly spent in England. This was "an
experience," an episode, a single whole which has shaped my
personality.

But even in relation to the "paradigmatic" case, the change
in personality is not a momentary process, but occurs over a
more or less protracted period of time (catharsis) with
greater or lesser participation by other people around you.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 26/06/2018 10:16 PM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk wrote:
> Hi all
>
> In the triad critical episode, reflection, catharsis, what
> do we mean by "critical"? It sounds as if it is something
> extraordinary, a life defining moment. I note the use of
> the word “traumatic”. But two things occur to me that
> challenge this. The first is that, in my experience,
> changes often occur through a drip by drip process. There
> is not any one episode that causes a change in
> perspective, but a steady gentle turning away from one
> view and towards another. A change  will result from a
> whole series of episodes and experiences. So that is a
> kind of uncountable perezhivanie, rather than a few
> countable perezhivanies. The image in my mind is of my
> perezhivanie as a stream with a series of overlays, some
> of which, perhaps in hindsight, can be seen as coherent
> paths towards a perceived change of identity. This is
> partly reflected in the quote from Gonzales Rey: “The
> human subjective processes are never moved by one final
> cause and do not represent stable contents; they flow in
> time, integrate, and unfold into different forms during
> the same experience.”
>
> The second challege is that, in my own life, I have
> sometimes noticed afterwards that moments have become
> significant which did not seem so at the time. So, at what
> point does something become “critical”, and does it matter?
>
> A final observation: this kind of reflection resembles
> Schon’s reflection-on-action. There must be work that
> compares the two, but I am not aware of any.
>
> Rob
>
> On 20/06/2018 23:25, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:
>>
>> ​Thanks for the discussion so far, Moises and Adam. And
>> while Moises (or anyone else) perhaps comes back with a
>> more a more comprehensive reaction, I was just wondering
>> about Moisés question 2 and what the relation between the
>> categories "identity" and "personality" are, if they can
>> be related at all. In Vygotsky, perezhivanie is
>> explicitly linked to personality. As far as I can recall
>> and without having gone to the texts and check, Vygotsky
>> does not use the term "identity" in the sense it is used
>> in current literature. This also leads me to wonder on
>> the distinction between *learning* (which according to
>> Moises is part what the Funds of Knowledge/Identity were
>> designed to address) and *development*. Is analytical
>> categories, is perezhivanie more about development and
>> funds of identity more about learning? Or we have to
>> differentiate them on other grounds?
>>
>> Alfredo
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Adam Poole
>> (16517826) <Adam.Poole@nottingham.edu.cn>
>> *Sent:* 19 June 2018 04:14
>> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re-situating funds of identity within
>> contemporary interpretations of perezhivanie
>>  
>>
>>
>> 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 indifferent 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 leadme 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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