Re: AERA papers for web site?

Naoki Ueno (nueno who-is-at nier.go.jp)
Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:45:57 +0900

At 11:41 AM 4/23/98 -0400, Martin Packer wrote:
> I went on to make the
>suggestion that sociocultural researchers should consider more thoroughly
>the relation between communities of practice and the larger economic and
>political structures of society.

Dear Packer,

I have been in Nepal for fieldwork for two months and I was not
in AERA. So, I do not know your presentation in detail.
I have some qestions concerning the summary of your presentation
at AERA.

The questions are the same as my last year questions to Mike and Jay.

My questions to Mike were:
1. Micro-meso-macro trichotomy is really produtive?
2. Are "meso" and "macro" given?

Here,"meso" is "community of practice" and "macro" is "the larger
economic and political structures of society".

In the same line of discussion, I do not agree on the dichotomy of
"arena" and "setting" of Jean in cognition in practice although it
is an old book and I beleive that she has changed.

I think we cannot observe "community of practice" and
"the larger economic and political structures of society" directly
and objectively.

Regarding "community of practice", it is not given from the beginning.
Rahter, in the practice, we have to organize and make visible of
community and the boundary of communities by talking about communities,
by using various artifacts.
In other words, "community of practice" cannot be defined
by the researchers who "objectively" observe "community of practice".
"Community of practice" are marked, defined and made observable by
practioners themselves.
Researchers can observe how people organize and make visible of
communitie of practice with people.
If researchers push their arbitarary (objective?) definition of
"community of practice", it merely produces the confusion.

Second, a community is not independently shaped. Rather, it is
shaped with shaping another community. In other words,
some "communities of practice" are mutually constituted.
This kind of analysis is conducted by Wenger under the influence of
Chicago school ethnography and if one reads only
"Situated Learning" of Lave and Wenger, one cannot grasp the meaning
of "communities of practice" well.

Why don't you read recent Lave' s papers and and Wenger's doctorial
dissertation? Why you are only discussing with Jean Lave who is in
10 years before?

Anyway, "community" is not like a container. Shaping and making visible
of community itself is practice and embedded in practice.

Regarding "the larger economic structures of society", I can do the same
line of discussion as the case of "community of practice".
I think we cannot treat "the larger structures of society" as
the given objective entity.
Instead, we can ask, for example, who observe "the larger structures of
society", by what and how they describe it.

Let me show one example.
This example is related to the case of supermarket of Jean and
I have previously posted to xlchc.

That is the case of the "revolution of Seven Eleven Japan".
They opened the first shop 1974 in Tokyo and has introduced
very systematic network for distribution and exchange and its
information.
That system is called as Point of Sale(POS) system.

In POS system, when a customer buys goods, many data such as
varieties of goods, time of sale, generation, sex etc are inputted
into a computer. The data are regularly sent to the data analysis
center and analysed soon. The result of analysis is soon realized
as the change of varietie of goods sent to each shop and the change
of layout of goods in the shop.

For example, in the case of lunch boxes, rice balls for lunch,
even whcih kinds of luch boxes or rice balls customers often buy,
what time they buy can be analysed. So, if a tuna lunch box is
not good seller in each shop, it is exhanged soon.
After Seven Eleven, many others chain shops have imitated and
followed the POS system in Japan.

The case of Seven Eleven Japan shows that how people
in practice make visible of "macro" social structure.

Here, "macro" is, for example, customers as mass all over
the Japan and their behaviors.

This "macro" is not given to people of Seven Eleven.
Rather, they organize the information gathering system with
various artifacts and, by conducting data analysis, they are
constantly grasping "macro". Further, the information gathering
system with various artifacts can be regarded as part of "macro"
they are trying to organize and to make visible.

The data analysis center of Seven Eleven Japan can be regarded
as very modern "centre of calculation", if borrowing Latour's
teminology.
There are many kinds of computer documents and they can be
rgearded as very modern "cascade of inscriptions".

In this way, visibility, or observablility of "macro" is not
given. As shown in the above, through the data gathering, data
analysis of customers, and arranging the layout of goods
in a shop, "the macro" or "the arena" becomes observable,
accountable and reportable.
It is possible to say that their formulation or description of
"macro" and their practice are mutually constituted.

I introduced the above example in order to criticize
the dichotomy of "arena" (as macro context) and "setting"
(as micro context).
If you focussing on practice of people in "data analysis centre",
you will see their situated practice of "locally organized globalizing ".
If so, what is "macro"?

I do not criticize (10 years before' s) Jean due to her "not enough"
clarifying the dymamic relation between "arena" and "setting".
The problem is before that, this dichotomy itself.

I support Jean' s discussion, theorizing and descriptions in
many points. Especially, I appreciate her recent papers about
contexts. However, I strongly oppose the description of context
as arena and setting in Cognition in Practice.

Before too easily going to the discussion about the relation
between "meso" and "macro, I think one should focuss on
"Globarizing in Practice" or "locally organized globalizing practice"
done by somebody or by yourself.

Naoki Ueno
NIER, Tokyo