"Although I sometimes use this terminology too, I wonder if
appropriation, even transformative, doesn't play too closely upon underlying
models of an individual, external things, and ownership."
I suspect that in part this is true--appropriation does imply
individuals-acting-in-local context. But I would see this in Bakhtin's
terms, in that the "social" is no less problematic as a category than the
"individual," if one leaves out how these are implicated in concrete actions.
Bakhtin argues that "language" as system (abstracted from concrete uses)
ought not to be the focus of our analyses any more than treating each
utterance as a completely "unique" one, unconnected to previous ones.
At the same time, "ownership"--or at least the ways that particular
appropriations are imbued with tone, purpose, feeling, and the like, _are_
important resources of meaning-making, and bear directly on the ways that
appropriation can be transformative. Delivery of a particular utterance in
an _ironic_ tone can sometimes be a form of resistance and transformation.
The larger question, though, which I think is hinted in Paul's questioning,
is the relation of these micro- and meso-genetic actions to larger practices.
In this respect individuals' and groups' appropriations always are
transformative (a la de Certeau), but transformations can be characterized as
either fully drawn out strategies, operating on one's "own" territory, or as
tactics, played out on the territory of the Other.
I'm not sure of the relations between these local actions and larger
practices might be in transformation. Perhaps others have thoughts?
Bill Penuel
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PreventionInventions
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