Thanks, Mike, for launching the discussion and for your complex
questions. I hestitate to jump in at this point but decided to
address a couple of early questions. I'm pleased to see interest in
the paper and in discussing space-time in relation to activity and
culture.
Great idea to pass around a paper by Lefebvre, Mike (which one?) and
as others are interested we could also collectively put together a
reading list of work in geography/spatial theory.
Mike's note about the word "context" used upwards of 100 times in the
article made me chuckle and reflect on what my own purposes were (and
are at this point). A major theoretical interest for me here, as Mike
points out, is to articulate discussions in social/human/critical
geography with discussions in CHAT. I see my use of "context" as
indexing this desire to bridge. I'm buying some license from the
polysemous use of "context," as well as its common use in CHAT to
talk about space-time. Polycontextuality for me is a way of
considering poly-spatiality--the co-presence and relations among
different space-time configurations. (This is not to say that
studying and categorizing the uses of "context" in the paper wouldn't
be worthwhile project, or that I hope to fix its meaning here and
now!)
Mike also raised the question of whether or not polycontextuality
isn't associated with school spaces "all over" (e.g., the hallway,
the bathroom, back of the classroom) to which I would respond
absolutely yes. I think of the work of Penny Eckert and others who
have mapped the relative social/spatial boundaries within school
buildings and grounds. What we don't always see or follow, though, is
the hallway or bathroom or woodshop as it "comes into" the
classroom--the relations among disparate spatialities that can be
described through relations of lamination, flow, scale-shifting, etc.
best,
Kevin
>Jay et al--
>
>A member of my family has become an economic/historical geographer who
>is associated with ucla geog dep and copenhagen business school. So I am VERY
>sensitive to the complementarity of space/time foci. To Jay's list I would
>add piore, sable, maskil, and others.
>
>I have an article by Levebra in pdf file that would give xmca
>readers interested
>in this thread quick access to the geography side of things. I do not wnat to
>post it for fear of being unfair to Lefevre (better spelling than above, but
>what the heck, i am a left handed qwerty user!). If you are interested, ask
>me and I will send along. ,
>
>Mostly focused on distributed cognition and hutchins, but draws a lot
>of the connections together very intelligently.
>
>mike
-- Kevin Leander, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Teaching and Learning Vanderbilt University www.vanderbilt.edu/litspace
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