I'm trying to think through your example in terms of Jay's scales and I'm
wondering if we're looking at something like the ontogenesis of a career
(scientist, social scientist, carpenter, doctor, medtech, teacher,
whatever), then are we talking about variation in temporal-spatial-social
textures of an N-level phenomenon?
What I see in your examples is that different communities of practice have
trajectories of participation with lines (back to your train analogy) of
different length, different schedules, different numbers of usual stops,
and different speeds. So in a society it may be that the science/math
train starts early, goes fast, and has few stations, while perhaps entrance
into teaching English at community colleges starts later, goes slower, and
has many many stations. Or in sports, competitive gymnastics would be
organized with even earlier, faster, fewer stations (though the lines would
be shorter, with the career not much longer than the trajectory of
development), while competitive volleyball would be later, slower, more
stations.
So, now as a question, are these differences differences of timescale in
Jay's terms (N vs. N +1) or intra-scale differences (all variations of an
N-level phenomenon)?
In any case, at first I was tempted to say that the social organization of
these lines might just reflect prestige (privileged communities of practice
regulating entry points and insisting on the difficulty of their
practice--with early entry being one way of representing the difficulty),
but it may also be that certain practices are better afforded with certain
kinds of trajectories (e.g., native control of the phonology of a language
would be an example where early development is tremendously advantageous).
>I have been following the discussion of Jay's paper with great interest.
>In fact, I had the interesting experience of *dreaming* the paper last
>night, and woke up with a strange visual experience of seeing things
>moving at different rates -- exhilirating and a little scary.
>
>One piece I'd like to pull at a bit: if you conceptualize the trajectory
>of a timescale itself as an object, it has many qualities in addition to
>speed/rate (Jay talks about some, including scope and scale). One set of
>these is something like the qualitative nature of the information
>exchanges across levels (the semiotics, as the paper indicates). These
>themselves can be sparse or dense, big or small, simple or complex. Let me
>try to ground this in an example. Growing up as a working class girl, the
>math/science train at the school level seemed to go very fast, with few
>portals of entry. Once I managed to get "on," it, it wasn't hard, but if
>(it seemed to me at the time, and still does) I missed one opportunity,
>the next would be a long time coming, if at all. I was able to stay on
>the train during high school, but at the college level, I didn't know the
>code for the entrances. So I moved to another train, the social science
>one, that had many more kinds of doors, closer together, and moved at a
>pace I could articulate with my life (needing to work odd jobs, do
>community organizing, grow up). Occasionally I'd glance up and note that
>the science/math train had rumbled by again. By the end of college, it
>appeared to be entirely without entrances, as I was moving orthagonally to
>it, not just at a different rate, but sideways.
>
>So a question here is: what can we say about the properties of the
>timescale as mediating object to explain this sort of thing? Clearly
>people can use the representation of a time scale as an object for power
>over others, or as empowering. Anatomy is slow physiology. A scalpel may
>illuminate or obscure this. A CD Rom with speeded up anatomical slices
>may illuminate or obscure this. Whether illuminating or obscuring depends
>on the ...power of those yielding these tools? ....or...?
>
>By the way a historical footnote on boundary objects: the original work
>on boundary objects that I did in the mid-80s grew directly out of
>observing how two groups (clinicians and basic researchers in brain
>research) with different time lines combined data. Clinicians canonically
>need answers quickly and instantially; basic researchers work on a longer
>time scale with more formal data points.
>
>Thanks for a great paper, Jay, and a great discussion, all.
>
>L*
>_______________________________________________
>
>Department of Communication
>University of California, San Diego
>9500 Gilman Drive
>La Jolla, CA 92093-0503
>phone 858/534-6327
>fax 858/534-7315 email: lstar who-is-at ucsd.edu
>http://weber.ucsd.edu/~lstar/