When I said de-biologize I was referring to development not culture (: I
don't see biology outside culture so I'm not sure how I feel about hybridity
here. In activity theory/ post modernism I have usually seen it used as
sort of a third space.
For me, biology needs to be put in a context - it does not exist "in
itself". I know there are red flags going up, but I think Foucault really
has something when he talks about the body, bodily experiences as a sign -
they have no meaning in themselves. I don't like the idea of culture
becoming that nurture thing with biology being the nature thing.
It seems we engage in activities where biology becomes signified in certain
ways that may be similar or different to other types of activities. It seems
as families, communities, cultures we organize activities with a certain
logic in which certain outcomes occur. It seems as part of this process
biology is signified in differing ways to give this logic legitimacy.
I think development needs to be culturalized - understood historically with
the role it has played in 20th century psychology and educational practice.
I would even go so far as to say it was a form of class warfare, or at least
that is how I am approaching it. I think we can maybe look at development as
a hybridity, boundary object where a certain political struggle (struggle
for the soul) occurs, but it seems wrong in my view to gloss over that
struggle by assuming "development" has a natural essence.
In general, my main beef it that when talking about young children - early
childhood - development has such a dominating framework. Middle childhood
is different in some regards (not others). So, its not so much saying get
rid of the developmentalists, but asking where are the ethnographers,
sociologists, feminist, marxist, queer, critical theorists etc? I would
suspect it says something about where we see those little creatures in early
childhood fitting into the scheme of things. Only natural and animal science
can tell their story not the social and human sciences.
Nate
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cole [mailto:mcole@weber.ucsd.edu]
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 2:33 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: don't debiologize it
Nate: I agree with you, that we do not want to de-biologize culture, we
must learn to understand it in new profusions of hybridity.
mike
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