Again, I agree. What I like about the open ended and provocative nature of
Mike Cole's original post is the opportunity to take the standard notion of
"the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs (the
standard definition)" and think about it in terms of human agency and human
consciousness (me... here/now...thinking). To morph it into an "ism" if only
for a day or two. I have the greatest respect for activity theorists in
general and members of this community in particular (whom I know only by
reputation/publications or reading their thinking on this list). But, again,
and more generally, I am also aware of how the "context" grabs us and shapes
us and makes us say and do things that are not necessarily in the best
interests of those few cosmic contextualists (i.e., here/now dharma
beings/saints) among us (globally speaking).
I am also grateful for the references (fingers pointing to the past!) and
snippets that have been offered.
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Smagorinsky [mailto:smago@peachnet.campuscwix.net]
Sent: Friday, March 19, 1999 2:39 PM
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: contextualist(s)
Chris, here, I think we're getting to a distinction that we need to make so
that we're discussing this on the same terms. Cultural theories are
criticized for being deterministic (which I think gets at your concern for
repeating history's mistakes). As I understand it, though, viewing the
present in terms of the past doesn't inevitably point it toward some fate.
I think that the work of many people on this network has shown the ways in
which people consciously reconfigure their environments in order to change
the motive and practices and thus action that occur within them. They also
practice within multiple historical streams which makes the inevitability
or determinism of any one unlikely.
Peter
At 12:37 PM 3/19/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Peter,
>
>I agree with you. But I am also aware of the tendency (in myself) to use my
>little tool kit of knowledge (historical) to both interpret and constrain
>the present. This is also born out in various power issues related to role,
>influence, and structures. What I like about activity theory in general and
>Vygotsky's attention to context/situations in particular is that is gives
me
>a way to intellectually engage the present without (necessarily) repeating
>the mistakes and injustices of history. So I interpret being a
>'contextualist' in political/moral terms I guess.
>
>Chris
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Peter Smagorinsky [mailto:smago@peachnet.campuscwix.net]
>Sent: Friday, March 19, 1999 10:47 AM
>To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
>Subject: RE: contextualist(s)
>
>
>I'm not sure I'd frame the issue in terms of forced choices--that is, I
>don't think that attention to the history of a setting disables one from
>attending to its present condition. To me, it helps understand how the
>setting has come into being. And so I wouldn't use a phrase such as
>preoccupation with history to describe attention to history, which seems to
>imply that it blinds one to other points of interest. My point was not to
>say we should look either here or there, or that looking in one detracts
>from attention to the other, but rather that in order to understanding how
>things work in the present, it's useful to know how they've gotten to be
>that way. That's what I understand Vygotsky to have believed, and it's a
>view I share.
>
>At 08:23 AM 3/19/99 -0700, you wrote:
>>Peter,
>>
>>I agree completely with the cultural/historical roots of any here and now
>>situation but I don't see how recognizing the history in any here and now
>>situation (context) detracts from the necessity to first (and last) locate
>>yourself in this local space. Doesn't a preoccupation with history become
>>historicism? And feed the tendency to explain the now as a consequence of
>>history as opposed to a backdrop for the creative transformation of
history
>>(making history in the here and now)? I realize I am now
>>connecting/conflating situation to context. But I think I will stand by
>>that.
>>
>>Chris
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Peter Smagorinsky [mailto:smago@peachnet.campuscwix.net]
>>Sent: Friday, March 19, 1999 3:50 AM
>>To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
>>Subject: RE: contextualist(s)
>>
>>
>>My understanding of Vygotsky would suggest a more cultural/historical
>>notion of context, rather than here-and-now. That is, a context is a
>>consequence of, to borrow some of Bakhtin's phrases, "the great historical
>>destinies of genres" (1981, p. 259) and the "primordial dialogism of
>>discourse" (p. 275).
>>
>>Peter
>>
>>At 04:53 PM 3/18/99 -0700, you wrote:
>>>Eva,
>>>
>>>Not to put words into anyone's mouth but it seems to me that a
>>contextualist
>>>is one that holds context (the here and now/the local) as the primary
>>>beginning and ending point of all analysis and speculation on phenomena.
>>>
>>>Chris
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Eva Ekeblad [mailto:eva.ekeblad@ped.gu.se]
>>>Sent: Thursday, March 18, 1999 2:00 PM
>>>To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
>>>Subject: Re: what silence?
>>>
>>>
>>>At 11.49 -0800 99-03-18, Mike Cole wrote:
>>>>Why is it that in a variety of textbooks, Vygotsky is referred to as a
>>>>contextualist?
>>>
>>>Mike, I know what context is
>>>but what is a contextualIST?
>>>
>>>Eva
>>>
>>>
>>
>