I will hold off further comments on silence and participation for the
moment, and try to answer to a couple of clarification points found by
Genevieve in my second paper about "The emergence and decay of
multilogue..." -- we had a little backstage exchange over this, and decided
that I could forward her message, and respond to some of it in public. I
will take Genevieve's advice for making the second paper a bit more
independent from the first by including a version of my explanation of the
"abductive multilogue" that appears in the first paper.
The matter of self-organizing criticality I will save for later, but I
thought I would try to amend my under-explaining of the two words I have
appropriated from the vocabulary of Arne Raeithel: the counter-process and
the re-centering.
"Counter-process" is an innovation suggested by Raeithel (1992) in
expanding on Leont'ev's concept of object-oriented activity, when he
defines the general concept of 'operative means' as an operational,
functional, and developing system encompassing (drawing on Marx' "three
simple moments of labour") a subjective, an objective and a mediating
"moment". Counterprocess comes in as the name for the "moment of the
object":
"The objective moment, being the encountered material (physical or
semiotic) process that is transformed into a product but also has its
'Eigensinn' (its proper natural or social dynamics) that is never fully
known by the subject of work. Because of this dynamical autonomy from the
subject I propose to call it 'counterprocess'. Translating this to German
gives 'Gegenproze=DF', a new term that I have proposed as abbreviation of
'gegenst=E4ndlicher Proze=DF', and as replacing 'Gegenstand' (object), becau=
se
the latter term has too many connotations of static physical structures
like chairs and hammers. This replacement is especially helpful when
reproductive or communicative activities are to be analyzed" (Raeithel,
1992)
Ref: Raeithel, Arne. 1992. Semiotic self-regulation and work. An
activity-theoretical foundation for design. In C.Floyd, H. Z=FCllighoven, R.
Budde & R. Keil-Slawik (Eds.), Software development and reality
construction (pp 391-415). Berlin: Springer
So what is the counterprocess of multilogue? What is the obstinately
resistant Other of discussions of CHAT? In a very serious sense it must be
the very resistance of the phenomena and the stubborn entrenchments of the
discourses we're collectively struggling to transform -- that which stands
opposite to the discussants taken as a collective subject (and which the
internal diversity of the discussing collective keeps current in the
activity).
However, this is hardly what the link maps allow me to explore. The
counter-process I'm talking about in what Genevieve quotes below is rather
the obstinacy of the multilogical process itself: the way that the waves of
our little ocean consists of the surfers themselves (i.e. the postings we
produce)... getting into the metaphors I cannot resist associating us
readers and writers to Bateson's blind man with his stick:
"But what about 'me'? Suppose I am a blind man, and I use a stick. I go
tap, tap, tap. Where do *I* start?"
"Re-centering" is, I think, less under-explained in my paper, so I take it
that what Genevieve asks about is my specific application to mailinglist
activity. The triad of centered, de-centering and re-centering practice
plays an important part in Arne Raeithel's work. In his 1996 article he
explains them by means of the ethnographers' participant and observer
stances.
"It is important to note that the incompatibility of the views of actor and
observer is not overcome for good by recentring. This is no Hegelian
synthesis from which another step of development to ever higher planes of
the Spirit could start. On the contrary, the complementarity of centred and
decentred stances means that the gulf between them cannot ever be bridged
except for moments or phases. The discontinuous happening of new and
non-anticipated events is the rule, and not the exception (see Wehner
1992). Therefore, the third possible stance with regard to a socially
distributed action pattern emerges in opposition to both the centred and
the decentred one, and only for the phases and moments of true dialogue and
cooperation" (Raeithel, 1996)
Ref: Raeithel, Arne. 1996. On the ethnography of cooperative work. In: Y.
Engestr=F6m and D. Middleton (Eds.) Communication and Cognition at Work. New
York: Cambridge University Press
What would re-centering mean on a mailinglist? I think a discussion like
the current one on our own practices (and all the ones we've had before)
could be taken as an example: a moment in the life of the list when we
collectively spread out some of our options for continued activity,
producing renewed opportunities for choosing our directions.
Am I too optimistic?
Eva
**********************************************************************
>Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 20:54:59 -0700 (PDT)
>From: genevieve patthey-chavez <ggpcinla who-is-at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Hello Eva, some questions
>To: eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se
>
>Second, in classic Genevieve fashion, I managed to read the wrong paper
>first! I read "The emergence and decay..." and was getting ready to ask
>you some clarification questions, then talked to Paul and it became
>clear that we were not discussing the same object! So, perhaps you'll
>still indulge my questions about the wrong paper.
>
>You write: "The link maps ...[allow] exploration of the possible
>relations between object-oriented activity and its counterprocess."
>(p. 8/31, right above Three outstanding multilogues). What is "its
>counterprocess"?
>
>What is abductive multilogue?
>
>What is a self-organizing criticality?
>
>What is mailing list re-centering? Could you give me an example?
>
>I enjoyed reading the (wrong) paper. It brings into focus my deep
>ambivalence about a) my participation on xmca; b) my own applied work.
>I won't go into the first. The utopian sentiment always lurking behind
>the latter is becoming less and less compartmentalizable. Most of the
>time I just push it in some little corner of my conscience and decide
>I'm too busy to consider how much my own work plays right into the
>"more,better,faster" theme grinding education into the dust. But it's
>climbing right over the psychological barricades. More writing, better
>writing, faster writing for all my students, yes! More teaching,
>better teaching, faster teaching! More discussion, better discussion,
>faster discussion! What am I saying??? It's comforting to read "a
>self-organizing system is not really amenable to control or planned
>change -- but it is, nevertheless, possible ... to learn to recognize the
>moments when small interventions have a fair chance of triggering
>noticeable effects." Ahhh, someone else is walking in my shoes ...
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