Re: Text and authority in 18th-century China

Luiz Ernesto Merkle (merkle who-is-at csd.uwo.ca)
Tue, 12 May 1998 13:44:11 -0400 (EDT)

Molly, Eva, Kathie, Eugene, and Mike,

Thank you very much for the comments and for the references.

A few weeks ago, Prof. Vitali Makhlin, from Moscow, has indicated me
Bakhtin's "Speech Genres" book as related to what I was doing.

Mike, suggested me Holquist's article "The politics of representation".

When I was reading the latter several thoughts came to my mind, and I
would like to share some with you.

Holquist has structured his article through a framework that "personal",
"collective", and "dialogical" perspectives (The terminology is mine). He
analyses how "dialogical" perpectives go beyond the dualisms the separate
the individual from the social of the two former ones. In the sequence
the writes about Bakhtin.

In a recent collection of articles edit by Batya Friedman ("Human Values
and the Design of Computer Technology", Cambridge, 1997) there are two
articles, one from Lucy Suchman ("Do categories have politics? The
language/action perspective reconsidered;" ) and a reply from Terry
Winograd ("Categories, disciplines, and social coordination; Commentary on
Suchman article and Winograd response;" ). Both Suchman and Winograd's
works have storng connection with the field of Computer Supported
Cooperative Work.

The main point Suchman intends to make is that technologies such as "the
Coordinator", which embodied a "language-action" philosophy, are used to
control and maintain power hierarchies
Although Suchman mention Haraways's work and Winograd agree with some of
her points, it seems to me, without generalising, that both are in a
struggle the reminds me of the "personal" and "collective" perspectives
Holquist mention in his article. Not to mention that he also mention that
"linguistic" approaches are the main stream in Language Studies. Well, in
HCI and CSCW, although Situated Cogniton and Language/Action approaches
cannot be considered main stream at all.

Of course CHAT, in generally only referred as "Theory of Activity", is
being explored in HCI and CSCW, by people like Engestrom, Kuutti, Bodker,
Nardi, Bannon, Kaptelinin and others (Bonnie Nardi, 1996, "Context and
Consciouness", MIT Press).

I'm sure I'm not see the whole picture yet but for me, the discussions
made by Holquist in his article, can be used by technologists to foresee
and to understand what is happening in the area.
In a article by Deborah Hicks (Learning as a prosaic act, "Mind, Culture,
and Activity, 3(2), 1996, pp102-118), l she says Vygotsky and Bakhtin have
more to offer than what is currently being used.

I would say that in technology development and study, the situation is
even worst. I say that because the mediational and dialogical view of
technology are not always easy to grasp, people see technology other as a
thing or instrument, or as only a means to carry signals. The fact is that
technology is itself part of out culture, and as well as our language, it
is co-constructed with people. (Edwin Hutchins "Cognition in the wild" and
Bruno Latour "We have never been modern", they also have article in MCA.).

I have some questions of methodology in studying this subject, and I would
like suggestions, but I'm asking them in the following message.

I did not have a chance to look at Bateson's work yet, but thanks for the
references.

Thanks again,
Luiz

_____________________________________________________________

Luiz Ernesto Merkle merkle who-is-at csd.uwo.ca
University of Western Ontario voice: +1 519 858 3375 (home)
Department of Computer Science fax: +1 519 661 3515 (work)
N6A 5B7 London Ontario Canada www.csd.uwo.ca/~merkle