It would be an interesting xmca group exercise to apply an activity system (AS) analysis of the lads study. I understand an AS to be well established relatively-stable unit, and can be applied to a business or a school. Daniels seems to agree: “Activity systems evolve over lengthy periods of socio-historical time, often taking the form of institutions and organizations” (Daniels, 2001, p. 86). So while the lads are definitely about something different than, lets say, school staff, it's not clear that they themselves constitute a wholly separate system -- there's also some shared rules and artifacts, and a partial participation in the division of labor that argue toward their inclusion in the school AS, but not with out problems. As you point out, the lads involve a different conciousness. They "see through" schooling, they see the contradictions in their participation. There's a finer substance and dynamic here that seems to be falling through the triangular seive o!
f an ac
tivity system. In their "insider" perspective, they're out. In my "outsider" perspective, they seem to be half in.
bb
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Worthen, Helena" <hworthen@uic.edu>
> Hello --
>
> We could refer to purpose or consciousness here to distinguish between
> who's in and who's out. If they're actively conspiring against school
> culture they're still a part of it, shape it, participate in it -- but to
> the extent that they are participating in it with a different purpose and
> different consciousness, they are a separate activity system -- for the
> purposes of a study of boundaries, that would consistute a boundary --
> right?
>
> Helena WOrthen
>
>
> On Mon, April 17, 2006 9:00 am, bb wrote:
> > All this begs the question of what it means to be inside and outside the
> > community, and conversely, what/where/when are the boundaries of the
> > community. Who says who's in and who's out?
> >
> > Are the lads in Willis' study in or out of the school community? They
> > might
> > say "out", but in actively conspiring against school culture, do they not
> > participate in it, shape it, and therefore constitute part of it?
> >
> > Not intending to make trouble, it just comes naturally when I'm puzzled.
> >
> > bb
> >
> > On Monday 17 April 2006 9:32 am, Andrew Jocuns wrote:
> >> I think Paul Rabinow in his ethnography, Reflections
> >> on Fieldwork in Morocco, mentions that the first
> >> person to greet an anthropologist is often an outsider
> >> in the community. I am not sure if was him or someone
> >> else who wrote that anthropologists should stay away
> >> from said person.
> >>
> >> andy
> >>
> >> --- Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > I am looking for a reference to the problem of
> >> > anthropological fieldwork
> >> > that arises because people who are likely to
> >> > interact with an outsider to the community are
> >> > themselves likely to be
> >> > marginal within their own communities. The phrase
> >> > that comes to mind is "lames."
> >> >
> >> > Can anyone help?
> >> > mike
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