[Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?

Thu May 21 17:15:53 PDT 2020

Immediate and mediated everything:  Friend’s daughter teaching here hit the local news

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wjla.com/news/local/kevin-guinea-pig-online-learning-dc-kindergarten-school__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwFIOpRdjw$  

Are teachers being called on to rise to the concrete of both immediate and mediated?

It also got picked up by a  “classy” print outlet, seems to be shouting out “re-mediated” to me:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/05/20/kevin-the-classroom-guinea-pig-is-staying-in-touch-with-kindergartners-via-zoom/__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwH9s2Qf-g$ 

Peg

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2020 7:20 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?

This is a point I have struggled to make for many years, Andy. I didn't know I was quoting Hegel:

Hegel: 

'Everything is both immediate and mediated."  

The challenge is to rise to the concrete with this abstraction or its just la la la.  

mike

On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 6:42 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org> > wrote:

Of course, Annalisa, I agree that Science is a moral practice, but that is not what is at issue here.

Two issues concern me with what you have said: (1) the question of "who decides?" and (2) the quantification of development as in "more evolved" bringing with it the implication of moral value attached to development.

(1) The discovery of the "social construction of reality" was an achievement of the Left, the progressives, with people like the Critical Psychologists, the theorists of postmodernism and post-structural feminists in the 1970s an 80s, who exposed how taken-for-granted facts along with the truths of Science were on closer inspection ideological products of dominant social groups. Of course, how reality is seen is an inseparable part of how reality is. This insight led to a range of powerful theoretical and practical critiques of all aspects of society. Feminists offered an alternative way of interpreting reality as a powerful lever for changing that reality by undermining patriarchal structures and certainties. So far so good. But today, in 2020, it is not progressives who are asking "who decides?" and calling into question the very idea of truth and fact: it is Donald Trump and Rudi Giuliani. Quite honestly, this outcome was always implicit in the postmodern and poststructuralist critique. Or, could I say: "Donald Trump is a more evolved form of Judith Butler" if I thought in those terms, which I don't.

Hegel takes up this problem with the maxim: "Everything is both immediate and mediated." Yes, social interests dominant in a certain social domain by definition determine what is true in that domain (though remember, every social domain is finite and has its boundaries). But that is not just by saying something about an independently existing reality which can be subject to any number of alternative representations (as Kant would have it), but rather the dominant social interests determine that reality itself. They do that both immediately and through the ideal representation of that reality which is part of that reality. You can't "decide" by a purely discursive moves - you have to change that reality. You do that with the weapons of both theoretical and practical critique.

What this means is that you can study the documents (assuming you weren't personally present) of some past dispute and see with your own eyes how and why some people formulated new word meanings, and began to use these new word meaning(s) in their own communication, and thereby facilitated others from using this word meaning, and the relevant concepts, in their work, and so on. 

(2) As perhaps I have illustrated in my example above that there is no implication of "higher" in development. In my own education, it was Sylvia Scribner's "Uses of History" (1985) which explained this to me. "Higher" implies comparison and comparison in turn implies interchangeability. For example, if I was considering whether to emigrate to the US or France, I might consider public safety as a metric and decide that France was superior to the US and make my decision accordingly. Or, I might consider job availability for an English-speaking monoglot like me as the metric, and decide that the US was superior to France. But to decide that the US is superior to France or vice versa without the choice and the relevant metric is the moral judgment which neither you nor I find acceptable. They're just different.

Understanding word meanings and concepts entails an analysis of both how the word is used in the field in question, and the history as to how it came to be so. Using the concept of "germ cell," I can work my way back and forth through an etymological field, forensically, like a detective, until I can connect the particular use of the word which emerged as a germ cell at some earlier time, in some situation where the implication of choosing that word meaning was abundantly clear to all, which allows me to see why someone felt the need (now forgotten) to introduce the word meaning and what it's absence would mean here and now, where it is already taken for granted.

My apologies for the unacceptably long message, which is much against my own mores, but I don't know how to clarify these issues more succinctly.

Andy

  _____  

Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!TLrWUBWNIMJR-d4Rr1HJ5aNy8a9feC14rEE8Y9KK_yg-3NYAubzMD2iHXcVRpSlw_w_wdw$> 
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On 20/05/2020 3:51 am, Annalisa Aguilar wrote:

Hi Andy, 

I suppose the issue about being on a branch of evolution has more to do with who decides what the branch is. Is it time? or is it topical? or is it based upon the interlocutors?

If we say one word usage is more "evolved" than another, I suppose I am just pushing back on that because who decides what is more evolved?

Forgive me, but can we ever say that if something is more "evolved" it is actually better? What do we actually mean when we say something is evolved?

What if one term lasts over a longer arc of time than another usage? It seems if we use the evolution rubric, it would be considered more "fit" than the one that is changing over the same period of time.

I do find it helpful that you to bring up the germ cell and how that concept pertains to analysis. That makes a lot of sense to me. I'm glad to know that to assign the parentheses does entail an ideological move, and that that can't be escaped. As long as we know what the ideology is, there is transparency in our analysis. 

I do think moral evaluations are worth including on all discussions, not necessarily to forbid discussions or scientific pursuits, but to use as landmarks to keep our bearings. Scientific concepts have a way of not being inclusive of contexts (i.e., lived experiences) or being grounded, right? 

Perhaps this is what made Vygotsky such a humane and compassionate scientific thinker is that he could understand how scientific concepts can be abusive tools for oppression. Anchoring them in lived experience shows their validity. Would this be a fair statement to you, Andy?

Kind regards,

Annalisa

  _____  

From:  <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu  <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden  <mailto:andyb@marxists.org> <andyb@marxists.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2020 7:23 PM
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Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ? 

  [EXTERNAL]

Annalisa, "where does history start"? Effectively there is no starting point, and the choosing of a starting point is always an ideological move. Foucault does this to great effect. Ilyenkov deals with this in his book "The Abstract and Concrete in Marx's Capital" and explains the need for what he calls the "logical-historical method." To short circuit the complexities of reading Ilyenkov, in CHAT we rely on the identification of the unit of analysis or "germ cell" to anchor our historical investigation.

"Sociogenesis" is just Latin for "social development," the word I used. But if you are going to ascribe a moral value to "evolution" and then reject the concept on that basis, you'd better also reject "development" and all the "geneses" and evolution of species by natural selection and all modern biology while you are at it. Alternatively, you could choose not to ascribe moral values to scientific concepts, then the whole of science is open to you.

Andy

  _____  

Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!VTGuGy4gvXj-8N5E9YCj2IevXlVoBhK7UBQ37lx10IRWhO4lMbcXmdD-gzoCEFYW2qyYWA$> 
Home Page <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!VTGuGy4gvXj-8N5E9YCj2IevXlVoBhK7UBQ37lx10IRWhO4lMbcXmdD-gzoCEFZ5oaoZdg$>  

On 18/05/2020 3:25 am, Annalisa Aguilar wrote:

Hi Andy (& VO's),

I think that that was my point, that we cannot capture everything in the word to describe the theory. And that is because of the limit of our language. 

Even where genesis actually is, where something starts can be difficult to pinpoint. I mean where does History actually start?

These words that you mention phylogenesis, ethnogenesis, ontogenesis, are words that are like brackets of a pair of parentheses. Who decides where to put them? (And why not sociogenesis?)

I'm not sure it's correct to say the choice of a word locates the user on a branch of a cultural evolutionary tree, because then that starts to mean that one speaker is more evolved than another based on the use of a word. 

It might be better to say that the choice of a word locates the user to a particular context. I could live with that. 

Kind regards,

Annalisa

  _____  

From:  <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu  <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden  <mailto:andyb@marxists.org> <andyb@marxists.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020 9:27 PM
To:  <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu  <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ? 

  [EXTERNAL]

You're never going to succeed in formally capturing the full scope of the theory in a word, Annalisa. "socioculturahistoricalinguapparatical activity theory" still leave out biology and Darwin, which is a part of our theory, too. 

It is sometimes said that human development is the coincidence of four processes: phylogenesis (i.e., evolution of the species), cultural development (ethnogenesis, the development of technology and language), social development (one and the same culture has different classes and political groups side by side) and ontogenesis (even twins can grow up very differently according to the experiences (perezhivaniya) they go through). I tried to describe this in: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/works/ontogenesis.htm__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwGn7OUyyA$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/works/ontogenesis.htm__;!!Mih3wA!Vn9T05o4yQ8JmcN8k0Rcq65ZDZvXCxCkPwjrS8BQz_aRy-V218xJbfgO-7EiQaXB3YgOwg$> 

But if you look into the history of a word what you will inevitably find is that at some point (in time and social space) there was some dispute, and this dispute was either (1) resolved by both parties agreeing and marking this agreement by the coining of a new word meaning or the dropping of a word meaning altogether, or (2) there is a split and one or both sides of the split adopt a word meaning which distinguishes them from the other side (structuralism's favourite trope) or variations on the above scenarios.

So the choice of a word tends to locate the user on a branch in the cultural evolutionary tree.

Andy

  _____  

Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!Vn9T05o4yQ8JmcN8k0Rcq65ZDZvXCxCkPwjrS8BQz_aRy-V218xJbfgO-7EiQaXzee78rQ$> 
Home Page <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!Vn9T05o4yQ8JmcN8k0Rcq65ZDZvXCxCkPwjrS8BQz_aRy-V218xJbfgO-7EiQaXY03UVbw$>  

On 17/05/2020 11:56 am, Annalisa Aguilar wrote:

David K & VO's

What pray-tell is an anthropologue?

I am divided (pun intended) about saying that sociocultural = social + culture, when they are intertwined holistically. To me, sociocultural points to a space in between, or perhaps better said to a context of interactions between individuals (who form a society) that are easily accepted among them and practiced over time.

We can conceptually parse out the social and the cultural, but don't we do that because of the words and not because of the ostensible reality going on interactionally? Can we always understand something by dissecting it into parts?

Again, this seems to be the limit of language, not of the conceptual context or content. 

In a sense to use the term "sociocultural" is to grab the tail of the tiger. The tail of the tiger is still the tiger, but perhaps a more manageable one than to grab its head. 

Perhaps this is why Vygotskians just call themselves Vygotskians to align themselves with the source of the first theories rather than to later conceptions and other developments (i.e. Leontiev, etc). Just thinking out loud.

Another argument is that if we want to be all inclusive, then we have to include tool-use, as it's not the social, the culture, and the history, but also the language and tools used. I realize some practitioners would say that language is no different than a tool, but I feel language is different, even though it may have a similar cognitive response in the mind as would using a tool.

Activity suggests tool use, though not always. Consider dance, or storytelling, or going for a walk. 

How about: socioculturahistoricalinguapparatical activity theory???

Yes! I am writing this a little tongue in cheek. I hope you do not mind. 

Kind regards,

Annalsia

  _____  

From:  <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu  <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of David Kellogg  <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com> <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020 6:14 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity  <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ? 

  [EXTERNAL]

It's a very domain-specific umbrella, like those cane-brollies that go with a bowler. "Sociocultural" is strongly preferred used in second language acquisition, thanks to the influence of Merrill Swain, Jim Lantolf and Matthew Poehner; I have never seen "cultural historical" used in this literature. But "cultural-historical" is similarly preferred in psychology and anthropology, thanks to the influence of J.V. Wertsch, Mike Cole, Martin Packer and Andy Blunden; that's really why we are having this discussion on what "socio-cultural" might mean on a list largely populated by roving psychologists and nomadic anthropologues. 

Interestingly, the Francophones prefer "historico-cultural", using the argument that you can understand the process without the product but not the product without the process. I stopped using "sociocultural" because I thought it was redundant, but now I am really not sure of this: it seems to me that the relationship is a similar one--you can study society as process without studying its cultural product (e.g. as demographics, economics, statistics) but you can't really study culture without some understanding of the process of its formation. 

There was a similar disagreement in systemic functional linguistics between Halliday and Jim Martin over the term "socio-semiotic". Martin said that it was redundant, because there couldn't be any semiotic without society. Halliday rather flippantly replied that ants had a society without a semiotics, and at the time it seemed to me that this was a non sequitur, first of all because ants don't really have a society in our sense (precisely because there is no such thing as an ant history separate from phylogenesis on the one hand and ontogenesis on the other) and secondly because ants most definitely do have a semiotics, albeit one based on chemistry and not perception as ours is. 

It seems to me, in retrospect, that the relationship between the semiotic and the social is much more like the relationship between the social and the biological, or even the biological and the chemical. The semiotic is a certain level of organization that the social has, but there are other levels, just as biology is a certain kind of chemical organization which does not exclude other, nonbiological ways organizing chemicals, and chemistry is a kind of physical organization which doesn't exclude sub-chemical organizations. 

Perhaps we can think of the relationship between culture and society in the same way? 

David Kellogg

Sangmyung University

New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.

Outlines, Spring 2020  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!QwnjuGWv1M4ZX6kMNV7A1nO46fLjKXBSeMFcdiKYZQb3gv2FV78Tq_DhJK9vM5IH1niRwQ$> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwEsaBTCxA$ 

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"

  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!QwnjuGWv1M4ZX6kMNV7A1nO46fLjKXBSeMFcdiKYZQb3gv2FV78Tq_DhJK9vM5JySLOtJA$> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwEnTRkAeQ$ 

On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 8:28 AM David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu <mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu> > wrote:

4. As an umbrella term for any sociogenetic approach.

Isn’t that its current usage?

David

From:  <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu < <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of Annalisa Aguilar
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020 3:31 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity < <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ?

Hi Andy, and VO's,

What fascinates me is that the word "sociocultural" has a lot of different facets in terms of how the word was used in different contexts. It seems there are three I've been able to pick out. 

1.	as a derisive term in early Soviet history.
2.	as an empowering term from Latin American voices.
3.	as a relaxed term of the Marxist "brand" at the height of the Cold War in the US.

I'm not sure if I've done justice in the manner that I've represented that, but it is a well-intended attempt. Are there others?

What I don't understand fully is whether there must be ONE explanation how the term came to be, or ONE definition of what it actually means. Can't it be polysemantic?  polycontextual? 

If that is what's happening, then it makes sense that there would be an ongoing controversy about which one is the right definition or reason for not using it, depending on the interlocutor. 

If we are to talk about who used the term first, and that's where the value/authority holds, then all that tells us is that for those who value who used the term first. that's where the authority is. 

If we talk about the emotional attachment of the word as it is used in context and that's where the value/authority holds, then that tells us for those who value the most personal attachment to the word, that's where the authority is. 

If we talk about how the word was used functionally, where the value/authority holds in its efficacy, then all that tells is that for those who value whether the word works or not, that's where the authority is. 

I'm not sure one can put any of one these over the other two (or if there are more than that, if there are more). All we can say I suppose is whether in a particular context is the word "sociocultural" appropriate or not?

I do find that this debate has begun to have its own life, this debate over the use of a word. I've begun doubt it will ever cease. 

One day the discussion will be how one used to debate about the term, first everyone was this way about the word, than they were that way about the word, and many large camps were formed in XXXX year to say why the word should not be used, but then X years later other large camps formed to say it is fine to use the word. I suppose it will only be when the debate ceases will it come to pass that the debate will be forgotten. But will that cessation solidify the use or non-use of the word? 

I understand the reasons for saying "cultural psychology." But for those swimming in a culture where behaviorism is considered the soul of psychology, adding "cultural" becomes a sad necessity.  Even then, that necessity only depends upon how one sees culture, as either as an additive, an integral ingredient of psychology, or its basis. I believe I've read on the list that one should be able to say "psychology" and just *know* that it includes culture. I don't think we are there yet. 

Then that would be my argument to use "sociocultural" to understand it includes history. CHAT is sort of a defensive term (well, it is an acronym). But then... it leaves out "social" and is that OK? We certainly should not say sociocultural historical activity theory because that acronym is very unfulfilling. What is nice about CHAT though is that to chat is an activity of speech, and there is a implied meaning that also pertains to Vygotskian theories, and therefore meaningful.

In a sense, it's not the meaning that we are arguing over, but how the limitations of our particular language fails to convey a meaning with such precision that it thereby to parses away any other inappropriate meaning. I'm just not sure that the project is one that can be achieved successfully, even if it succeeds for an interim. 

At the same time I can see why story of the elephant and the blind men also have a part to play in our understandings and assumptions. 

Kind regards,

Annalisa

  _____  

From:  <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu < <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden < <mailto:andyb@marxists.org> andyb@marxists.org>
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2020 7:49 PM
To:  <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu < <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ? 

  [EXTERNAL]

Annalisa, I have only been talking and writing about Vygotsky and co. since about 2000 and have been openly Marxist since the 1960s (indeed, Vygotsky is core to how I understand Marx) and never had any reason not to be. But it is true that when Mike first went to Moscow, it was at the height of the Cold War, and when he and others first brought Vygotsky's ideas to the USA, there was a lot of resistance to their Marxist content. I think the naming issue only arose as Vygotsky and the others began to build a real following. The issues with the choice of name change over the years, as you say. I prefer" CHAT," but sometimes I use "Cultural Psychology" and sometimes I use "Activity Theory" depending on the context.

Andy

  _____  

Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements
Home Page 

On 16/05/2020 4:18 am, Annalisa Aguilar wrote:

Andy, et al,

I sort of came to this a little late in the thread, but I can offer that Vera John-Steiner didn't mind "sociocultural" to describe Vygotskian theory, but as I learn more about the word (thank you Mike), I can see how once a word is utilized with intent of derision, it's hard for the association to be broken. 

I think it's that way with words all the time coming and going out of favor, or meanings shifting, like the game of telephone, but across generations and cultures. 

Might I contribute to the discussion by asking whether the use of "sociocultural" was also a means of making the theories more available in the West (at least in the US). It seems there was redscare (you are welcome read the double entendre: "red scare" or "reds care", as you like) prevalent, and wouldn't it be useful to remove the Marxist "brand" to access the actual theories on child development? In other words, to depoliticize the science? 

I had been a proponent of the use of the word, but as time passes, I can see its problems. 

For me, I had preferred the word because historical was always a given for me. In concern of the here and now, the real difficulty I had thought was understanding the social- how interactions between the child and the caretaker/teacher/knowledgeable peer and the -cultural, how the culture impacts thought, those things are more of the micro level, but also sociocultural, how the two also can interact and influence one another and that combined bears its own signature on the mind and its development.  As far as History (capital H) that is sort of difficult to measure when we are talking about child development as there is very little history that a child has, unless we are talking about genetics, I suppose. 

Now? I'm fairly agnostic about the term. I respect and am enriched by the discourse in which we now we find ourselves immersed about it so thanks to all for this. 

Kind regards,

Annalisa

  _____  

From:  <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu  <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden  <mailto:andyb@marxists.org> <andyb@marxists.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2020 7:24 PM
To:  <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu  <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "sociocultural psychology" ? 

  [EXTERNAL]

In response to requests, I will elaborate. Apologies to Mike if I have garbled the long and complex story he told. I have done my best.

Jim Wertsch said: 

Various people undoubtedly have various accounts of this, but I consciously started to use this in order to bring in cultural anthropology and also to avoid the unexamined social evolutionism in some approaches that I was building from.  I believe I started highlighting it in my 1985 book on Vygotsky, and by 1991 it was part of the subtitle of my book Voices of the Mind.  It is not a term used by Soviet scholars when talking about the Vygotsky tradition.  Instead, the terms there were “socio-historical” or “cultural-historical.”

Mike Cole told me:

In addition to what has been said on line ... initially, the term "sociocultural" was used as a term of abuse by the opponents of Vygotsky's ideas in the Soviet bureaucracy, so it was not a term which his Russian followers ever embraced. The Soviet hostility to Vygotsky came to a head, apparently, in 1986 when ISCRAT had a conference in Berlin and the Soviets prevented Russian delegates form attending. Jim Wertsch, who had been on a sabbatical year, and had been in the Soviet Union, and was angry about what he saw, was at the congress too and went from there to a conference in Spain where a group of Spanish Vygotskyists were arguing that Vygotskyists had ignored the needs, etc., of the "global South" and they used the term "sociocultural" for their approach, meaning something like Vygotsky+postcolonialism. Wertsch embraced this idea and henceforth adopted to term, meaning to distinguish himself from the Soviet-influence. CHAT emerged as a term a little later in an effort to unite the followers of the various brands of "Activity Theory" with those who did not embrace the Activity Theory of Vygotsky's Russian followers and stuck with Vygotsky. CHAT includes the H for History, because in all the various terms being used at that time, there was no attention to the important place of History in theory, and it was Mike who insisted on its inclusion.

Andy

  _____  

Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements
Home Page 

On 14/05/2020 11:55 am, Andy Blunden wrote:

I should have reported progress with my question.

Jim Wertsch responded to me on email and Mike Cole Skyped me and between these two I have a very rich history of the usage of this term and the various nuances it acquired and shed, and Mike has put the article Martin referred to on his academia.edu <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/academia.edu__;!!Mih3wA!QwnjuGWv1M4ZX6kMNV7A1nO46fLjKXBSeMFcdiKYZQb3gv2FV78Tq_DhJK9vM5JRfqixgg$>  page for us all to read.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.academia.edu/43037735/Sociocul_tural_studies_of_rnind_Edited_by__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwHVbRnLMQ$ 

As ever, XMCA has proved to be a bottomless mine of wisdom. Thank you.

Andy

  _____  

Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements
Home Page 

On 14/05/2020 1:38 am, Charles Bazerman wrote:

Thank you Anthony for the interesting question and link. The way I see this issue is that Vygotskian work attempts to understand human activity multi-dimensionally (or even better holistically, trying to reunite what the emergence of various parochial disciplines have pulled apart for analysis of the separate dimensions).  The different terms that Veresov points out as contending are simply foregrounding those sets of components that are most salient to the particular analyst at that moment.  To those we might add other elements that Vygotsky was interested in such as consciousness and language and experience and mediation (and even economics and human knowledge and education lurk in the background, as well as human neurodiversity as well as materialities of the experienced world).  That is the wonder of Vygotsky, even though he may have developed some of the components more than others and he was acting nominally as a psychologist--yet his approach allows the integration of all these components.   

I therefore use different conjunctions of terms depending on what I am talking about, and I see activity as the overarching term--though this does not necessarily mean triangles all the time.  Rather activity is humans in motion, mobilizing multiple internal and external resources in situations.

While I would like some stability in terms, right now our different concerns and issues leave salience mutable. And I am not yet comfortable in being terminally enlisted into another scholar's transient saliencies.

BTW, I see another related, parallel attempt at reintegrating the social sciences in the pragmatist project which has at times been in communication with the activity theory project (see my paper "Practically Human").  This project also never settled on a coherent set of terms and stable concepts.

Chuck

----

די פאַרייניקטע שטאַטן איז אַ פאָלק פון ימאַגראַנץ

الولايات المتحدة هي أمة من المهاجرين

Los Estados Unidos es una nación de inmigrantes.

The U.S. is a nation of immigrants.

History will judge.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://bazerman.education.ucsb.edu/__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwEdakm-Mw$ 

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Charles_Bazerman__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwFq10edrQ$ 

https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.isawr.org__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwEAbIM6kg$ 

On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 8:08 AM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com <mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com> > wrote:

Interesting question (and follow-ups) here.  Thanks, Andy. 

While not 100% related, I wonder if this brief, 2-minute excerpt adds any value: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT4uktowa-M__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwFcCnOODg$  "Pros and Cons of (terminological) Diversity"

As a non-expert, I can empathize with Nikolai's main point, but I'm not so sure the cons outweigh the pros here.

But what WOULD happen if a terminological consensus was formed -- could Vygotsky's theory (and methodology), in fact, be definitively defined?  If so, would the benefits of doing so outweigh the constraints?

I'm guessing this is an old conversation, and maybe even stale, but I'm more outsider than insider and don't really know.

Thank you for any insight.

Anthony

On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 10:19 AM Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net <mailto:mpacker@cantab.net> > wrote:

I had assumed you were looking for uses earlier than Jim Wertsch’s, Andy. 

Jim used the term in titles in 1989 too. And in the introduction to this book he, along with Pablo del Rio and Amelia Alvarez, explain why in their view it’s the best term:

Wertsch, J. V., del Río, P., & Alvarez, A. (Eds.). (1995). Sociocultural studies of mind. Cambridge University Press. 

Martin

On May 12, 2020, at 11:13 PM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org> > wrote:

Thanks to everyone for their help. It all went into the mix. Indeed, the term seems to have migrated from Spanish to English and the word "sociocultural" became popular in 1990, and it seems that Jim Wertsch is the fellow who triggered the explosion in "sociocultural psychology" with "Voices of the mind : a sociocultural approach to mediated action" published by Harvard University Press in 1991.

Although "sociocultural" seems to be most widely associated with "context dependence," Wertsch's reference to "mediated action" in the title of this book makes it clear that for him "context" referred to the signs and artefacts mediating action.

Thanks again to all

Andy

  _____  

Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements
Home Page 

On 13/05/2020 12:26 pm, David Kellogg wrote:

Andy--

Go to to the Google N-gram site itself.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://books.google.com/ngrams__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwEJUmFsqg$ 

Then do your own n-gram for "sociocultural psychology". If you set the years you'll get better granularity in the document search.

On the bottom of the n-gram, there are some dates in blue--when you click on them, you should get a list of all the books used in the search.

dk

David Kellogg

Sangmyung University

New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.

Outlines, Spring 2020 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwEsaBTCxA$ 

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"

 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwEnTRkAeQ$ 

On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 11:17 AM Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net <mailto:mpacker@cantab.net> > wrote:

The earliest use of the term ‘sociocultural’ I’ve been able to find in English is this: 

A sociocultural psychology, by Rogelio Diaz-Guerrero

In "Chicano psychology", 1977 - Academic Press

Diaz-Guerrero was Mexican psychologists whose publications in Spanish use the term ‘sociocultural’ frequently.

The 2nd edition of Chicano Psychology is available in Google books, and Diaz-Guerrero has a chapter in it, but titled The psychological study of the Mexican.

Martin

On May 12, 2020, at 8:47 PM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org> > wrote:

That graph from Google shows that usage of the term took off in 1988. How do we find out who wrote what in 1988?

And Google also tell us that "Sociocultural theory grew from the work of seminal psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who believed that parents, caregivers, peers, and the culture at large were responsible for developing higher-order functions. According to Vygotsky, learning has its basis in interacting with other people," together with a reference. So that is nice.

Andy

  _____  

Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements
Home Page 

On 13/05/2020 11:30 am, David Kellogg wrote:

Andy:

I did a Google N-gram on it. You probably thought of doing this too, but here's what I got.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://books.google.com/ngrams/interactive_chart?content=sociocultural*psychology&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1*3B*2Csociocultural*20psychology*3B*2Cc0__;KyUlJSUl!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwEpschxTg$ " width=900 height=500 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 hspace=0 vspace=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=no

So it all starts around 1960. At first I thought this probably referred to the Hanfmann and Vakar "Thought and Language", but when I looked the only books that used the term were sports psychology books. The big uptick after 1992 is Vygotsky though.

Of course, this is all English only. I am sure you will find very different results in German, where "cultural historical psychology" is the trend identified with Dilthey, Spranger, and neo-Kantianism generally.

David Kellogg

Sangmyung University

New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.

Outlines, Spring 2020 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwEsaBTCxA$ 

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"

 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwEnTRkAeQ$ 

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 10:43 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org> > wrote:

Can anyone tell me when and with whom the term "sociocultural psychology" originated?

Andy

-- 

  _____  

Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements
Home Page 

-- 

"How does newness come into the world?  How is it born?  Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made?" Salman Rushdie

---------------------------------------------------

Cultural Praxis Website:  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!VBS_lEU3jjnZi3bagRnyPTcZs1YQLthrCBBPDaVbKpdMIroKZPLQ6tc9myDelb-AlbOMDw$> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!S_59Klwj00-OAj9LAxFG8SW13MzHyUXbVceSneJi8HAxcIflKKd5nNKnJX_dcwGRhrkUdA$ 

Re-generating CHAT Website:  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/re-generatingchat.com__;!!Mih3wA!VBS_lEU3jjnZi3bagRnyPTcZs1YQLthrCBBPDaVbKpdMIroKZPLQ6tc9myDelb-CkOz2yw$> re-generatingchat.com

Archival resources website:  <http://lchc.ucsd.edu> lchc.ucsd.edu.

Narrative history of LCHC:   <http://lchcautobio.ucsd.edu> lchcautobio.ucsd.edu. 

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