I was too captivated by the vividness and precision with which David
describes these
events to keep track of the concept/project part of the discussion.
The image of your mother in law in such straits, of the city itself in
such straits, of the "solution" coming as the inversion that it does.
I still do not have project and concept straightened out. But I take
it that that the relationship is, so to speak, bi-lateral. Symmetrical
or not I leave to you. This way of posting the issue seems to speak to
the idea of tool and symbol.
Thanks
mike
On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 6:19 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
Ha, ha! Very good David, and you are absolutely right (with or
without word play) that concepts can launch projects. My father
taught me that if you write a Letter to the Editor, you always
sign it as "Secretary of the Brunwick Residents Association" or
some such thing. But in general, you have to have a kind of
preconcept in order to launch a movement. But the word (symbol or
representation, ...) takes on meaning only in and through its
realisation. ... We have yet to see how this project will work
out. :) Alternatively a potential concept can become a true
concept by means of a project, as when an astute social oberver
notices some new social practice and writes a book about it.
Andy
David Kellogg wrote:
I have an example of the opposite: that is, the turning of
something that is quite literally a project into a concept,
and a concept that is directly linked to the social creation
of inequality and only notionally linked to an actual project.
I am visiting my mother-in-law, a retired textile worker in a
large state run factory town, now bankrupt, in the east
suburbs of Xi'an. She is now paralyzed and cannot move around
at all but for most of her retirement this was an area run by
criminal gangs (the children of people who used to be employed
in the textile factory) and populated by drug runners and the
very poor (their customers).
Now the textile plant, once a proud project of the "People's
Commune" movement, is being shut down for good, and the rump
production that was going on is being moved to a village many
kilometers away. But the area itself is being...gentrified.
When I first saw it, I could hardly believe my eyes, and I
still can't explain it to my mother-in-law, or even to my
brother-in-law, who is one of the major investors in the
project. Along the banks of the Ba River, the government has
established a huge ecological wetlands park, with paths and
exercise machines, little explanations of the flora and fauna,
small boats to row in, and nowhere to live except the nearby
slum where my mother-in-law lies dying of a stroke.
My brother-in-law (who having once sold breakfast in a stall
and run a pool hall has now become a multi-zillionaire real
estate speculator himself) explains it this way. "We used to
build the houses first, and then try to fix up the
neighborhood. But now the government will fix up the
neighborhood for us, and then we build houses. It's a lot
better that way."
Next year, my brother-in-law will actually begin the project
of building housing. But already there is a billboard where
one of the skyscrapers will someday stand (the houses
themselves, although still only notional, have already been
sold off to speculators). The billboard reads: "Wetlands area:
turning nature into private property".
David Kellogg
--- On *Fri, 7/29/11, Andy Blunden /<ablunden@mira.net
<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>/* wrote:
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>
Subject: Re: [xmca] RE: The Social Creation of Inequality
To: "Larry Purss" <lpscholar2@gmail.com
<mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>>
Cc: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
<mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
Date: Friday, July 29, 2011, 6:39 PM
Mmmm, I have not settled on whether "dead" is the right word.
"Objectivication" means that the project becomes an
integral part
of a way of life, reflected in a word in the language and other
artefacts which are taken-for-granted as tied up with the
concept
which was once a project. In a sense it is very much alive,
because it is enacted by living people and is part of the
life of
the community. But it no longer has a life of its own, so
to speak.
But projects also die in the sense that they are no longer
enacted
and are just a memory, like "old technology" or the soap box
(trying to think of examples, I noticed that such projects
often
move over into metaphors).
Andy
Larry Purss wrote:
> Andy
> Thanks for the clarification. Institutions have a life
cycle.
While still "living" it is more accurate to refer to these
conventionalized practices as "projects" that are continuing to
develop. Whe the cycle ends they become dead
ojectivications. Is
this accrate?
> Larry
>
> On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 6:54 AM, Andy Blunden
<ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ablunden@mira.net>
<mailto:ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
<http://us.mc1103.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ablunden@mira.net>>>
wrote:
>
> Projects have a life cycle. The end of a life cycle
(apart form
> disappearing into nothingness) is objectification.
This means
> fixed material representations, including words as
signs for a
> concept, and social practices which constitute the
concepts in
> practice. But injects" omy view, concepts and
institutions all
> pass through a phase of being projects. But I think
that even
> though calling an institution a project is a bit
> counter-intuitive, it gives you a good handle on the
dynamics, the
> history and the potential for change.
>
> Andy
>
>
> White, Phillip wrote:
>
> Andy, you wrote:
>
> "I stick to my position, that "institutions"
should be
regarded as
> projects, not tools or material artefacts of any kind
(though
> artefacts
> are needed in the realisation of an institution,
such as
signage,
> legislation, all kinds of documents, buildings,
uniforms,
> etc., etc)."
>
> Projects...... an intriguing, to me, idea -
institutions as
> projects - particularly considering the root of
the word
- and
> its cousins, like "projectile", etc.
>
> many thanks for this thought.
>
> p
>
>
> Phillip White, PhD
> University of Colorado Denver
> School of Education
> phillip.white@ucdenver.edu
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>
> >
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