xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>Like Diane I was struck by the negation of a traumatic history of
>childhood
>institutionalization, produced through the scientific zest of analyzing
>the
>autobiographial narrative to display the not-just-representational-
>but-also-interactional character of its construction.
and like diane and Eva - i was stuck my the opaque affect of the
researcher as well as Wortham's own recounting - which seemed so
contradictory to the Wortham i know on xmca - only veritable, true.
i was reminded of Itard when working with l'enfant sauvage of Auvingnon,
when he unjustly locked the boy up in a closet to see if he would protest
- thereby demonstrating a moral constitution.
the text describes Margaret as having 'broken down' - and the narrator
waits for Margaret to 'collect herself' -
yet, i wondered if this affective distancing is scientifically necessary
- why are emotions seen as problematic?
at one point there is even the suggestion that should get on with it -
"If Margaret develooped an active, competent self at age thirteen, why
does she still enact the vulnerable self in the storytelling event at age
forty-eight?"
what about - in answer to the question - that in the emotionally distance
activity of the interview - in which the interviewer is interested only
in validating her own teleonomy (getting a interview completed that fits a
chaptered genre) - why isn't this seen as part of the construction of
how margaret's narrative progresses - i'm reminded of Michael's work
with a special ed. student, wherein everyone around him co-constructs him
as a special ed student - or Mehan's the appropriation of a child by a
learning disability.
i like a great deal the entire exploration of narrative autobiographical
genre as a way of self-construction - yet, from an activity theory
position, we seem to not be looking at the entire activity - instead,
just Margaret as if she were untouched by any of the immediate context and
that ways of her words came only from her own essential constructed self.
phillip
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