CHAT as collaborative enterprise

From: Stetsenko, Anna (AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu)
Date: Mon Nov 13 2000 - 12:52:24 PST


Dear all, just in case you also feel some of the themes need to be
continued... and coming back to the historical context. I do not have a
smoking gun that would put things upside down. However, I do believe that
some misperceptions of Vygotsky and Leont'ev and others from this school of
thought have to be addressed. The reasons for these misperceptions, in my
view, cannot be attributed to anybody's deliberate attempts at distorting
things. Rather, they are largely caused by objective difficulties of
reconstructing the extremely complex dynamics of how this school emerged and
developed in the extremely complex socio-cultural-political context that
involved at least three revolutions, two world wars and one cold war (and
several completely different epoques). Most importantly, this very context
is still now in the midst of a profound transformation for which no history
has yet been written - as reflected, among other things, in difficulties of
even naming things that occurred in the last 10-15 years in the 'former
Soviet Union' (to use one of the many bad expressions... because there
cannot be a 'former' SU). The transformations that are occurring in Russia
(and the whole world) right now are certainly not neutral to how we are able
to reconstruct the context of Vygotsky's school, because they change the
very standpoint from which we attempt to evaluate the events of the past and
to infer their meanings for the future. Oddly enough, the current confusion
with elections in this country also plays into the same context...

Some of these misperceptions have been already addressed in the course of
the present discussion in a wonderful collective effort that gave rise to
many exciting new points of view which, ultimately, I believe, will help
achieve a much more contextualized and deeper understanding of not only
Leont'ev but the whole CHAT perspective. This is a task of enormous
difficulty and I can only hope of adding a small modest piece to the whole
puzzle.

Because I cannot and do not want to be too detailed, I 'll just try to
formulate what appears to me to be the major issue here. Vygotsky's theory,
for the most part, has been taken in isolation from the development and
dynamics of the whole CHAT perspective (great credit has to be given to
whoever was the first to come up with this extremely pointed abbreviation,
was it you, Mike?). This is an unfortunate perspective, because V's work
and research have been right from the start very much a COLLECTIVE,
COLLABORATIVE ENTERPRISE that included efforts by a whole group of people
(Luria, Leont'ev, Morozova, Elkonin, Zaporozhets, Galperin, Slavina,
Bozhovich, Zinchenko, Levina). This group of people (all of whom assigned
the leading role of a Teacher to Vygotsky) constituted a unique example (to
my knowledge) of what indeed can be called a 'school of thought' that shared
common goals, assumptions and commitments and, generally, pursued an
outstanding common agenda - that of developing foundations for a new
psychology as an objective science.

In this sense, the works of Vygotsky and his followers embody the very
spirit of their approach that puts such a great emphasis on exactly the
collective and collaborative nature of any activity.

The collaborative spirit of V-L-L school is evident from many different
features of how it started and evolved. Many initial ideas were developed in
collective discussions between the members of the group and research was
carried out to substantiate these collective claims, as in Leont'ev's
research on memory, Luria's expedition to Central Asia and so forth. More
importantly, Vygotsky's insights have been developed after his death by
members of his collective to produce more elaborated accounts of many
psychological issues (e.g., the relationship between lower and higher
psychological processes, the role of activity in the development of mind
etc.). It has been a gross distortion in the literature to ignore the
development of cultural-historical ideas after V's death by his followers
not only because they elaborated these ideas but also because they helped -
in various forms - to propagate these ideas and, specifically the V's
contribution, to several generations of psychologists in Russia and,
ultimately, across the world. I don't think V's works would have ever made
it to the fore of Western psychology if not Mike's and others' efforts in
the US that were, in their turn, mediated by Luria's and others' efforts in
Russia to reinstate their significance.

This collaborative nature of CHAT sheds light, I believe, on several
peculiarities of this school that are otherwise difficult to grasp and
explain. For example, it explains why so few works have been written in the
Soviet Union on Vygotsky's TEXTS per se after his death by his followers:
precisely because they did not take these texts as remnants of the past that
needed to be interpreted, but rather as the working tools for developing the
same research agenda further. Hence, often so little care has been taken of
making 'proper' (proper only from a perspective of a different, more
historical, genre) references to Vygotsky, and so much confusion has arisen
even in terms of authorship of some texts (e.g., was it V and Luria who
wrote the "Tool and Sign"? or just V?). The letters that the members of this
group wrote to each other is a great testament to the unique atmosphere in
which they worked and lived and to the fact that they were clearly aware of
the collaborative nature of their efforts. Just one illustration: Luria's
daughter quotes from V's letter to Luria, on the occasion of Luria's
reporting on his expedition to Fergana, in Asia (my sloppy translation): "
Dear A.R., I am writing literally in such an excitement that is rare to be
experienced in one's life. I cannot remember of a day with more joy and
light. This is literally a key to so many problems in psychology... That
this study is of primary significance is out of any doubt, and OUR NEW PATH
IS NOW ASSERTED (BY YOU) not merely theoretically, but also practically and
experimentally" (dated July 11, 1931; see E. Luria, My father A. R. Luria,
1994, Moscow: Gnosis, p. 65; emphasis added by AS).

In addition, what united V-L-L and the others from the same school, I
believe, was the common horizon that they all had (and Paul H. Dillon stated
this in a very concise and adequate form). We cannot read their minds but we
can read their memoirs and autobiographies, memoirs of their children and
colleagues as well as archival materials, correspondence etc. (more and more
of this is being published as we speak, in Russia, thanks to efforts of
several YOUNG psychologists - Sokolova, Umrikhin, D. Leontjev and others who
do not seem to think, by the way, that the CHAT representatives somehow had
discredited themselves).

From all we know, I do not think that anyone of the V-L-L immediate school
could be described as a dissident... They were obviously quite engaged in
political life, and held positions of high societal responsibility and
esteem, both L's were members of the CP (I believe). It is clear that they
- as almost the majority of intelligencia of that times - were opposed to
Stalin's repressions. But do not forget that these purges and repressions
were condemned in a very clear way by Khrushev in early 1960ies, that Gulag
was abolished, that millions of prisoners were set free or rehabilitated
posthumously at exactly the same time. When I wrote that they perceived the
society they lived in as classless etc., I referred to 1960 and 1980-ies,
not to the times when V lived. I would not be surprised at all that V, L and
L had many critical views about the Soviet regime on the whole too, but this
would not change the argument that they did have a certain very specific
horizon that guided a lot of their research...To judge their position of not
being directly in opposition to the Soviet regime - this is exactly a kind
of question that depends on where one stands in the here-and-now context. I
can only say for myself that my own standpoint has undergone such rapid
changes in the last 10 years (and continues to do so) that I would hesitate
to make judgments at this point in time.

I believe that the collaborative nature of V-L-L school of thought defies
many traditional ways of how to look at and how to reconstruct their
'texts'; a different, new methodology should be applied in this case.

Anna Stetsenko
PS. Carl, does this answer any of your comments at all?

-----Original Message-----
From: Nate Schmolze [mailto:schmolze1@home.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 7:41 PM
To: Xmca
Subject: XCMA: Call for Papers

Hi all,

I have two (I think) potential papers from members offered for discussion,
so thought it would be a good time for a general call.

Like what we did last year this would be papers from XCMA members which
relate to the themes of mind, culture, and activity.

Depending how it all goes I imagine we could possibly begin a collective
reading in December. This should give enough time to finish up Leont'ev.

Nate

who-is-at @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Nate Schmolze
http://members.home.net/schmolze1/
schmolze1@home.com

who-is-at @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@



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