Thanks for the Engestrom quotes, Nate. A couple points of clarification.
I don't think of society as 'just a collection of individuals' -- I have tried
to say that individuals mediate the multivoicedness of a community by
ventriloquating
those voices in their interactions with others in purposeful activities. I
assume that
virtually every xmca message is multi-voiced; invoking Roz Ivanic, who
invokes Goffman
in her discussion of academic writing, I would say that we align ourselves
with different
discourses & subject positions when we use language in whatever ways we do.
the second question I posed:
>
>"or is it a complex heterogeneous non-unity in which diverse participants
>bring a broad range of topics to bear on the CHAT tradition and vice
>versa -- e.g., IS, feminism, etc. framed by and framing CHAT --"
followed by the injunction to continually negotiate what counts as polite
was _intended_ to suggest a non-anarchic multivoiced space. But I can see
how you might read the injunction to suggest that we have no recourse but
to our own individual ever-so-reason-based judgements. That was not what i
meant to convey. I mean something like:
We DO have recourse within the participation structure of an activity
to ourselves as performers of this conflictual but still patterned
wider system of power & knowledge that is us-in-history.
I entirely agree with you that we need to ask questions based on
>>....the contradiction of individual/collective goals
>>of voicedness - power, audience, etc - and the object of the multivoicedness
>>ideal.
I don't think we can do that if we ellide questions of identity. I should
have said in my previous note individual identities (pl) -- ourselves as
performers of particular trajectories, complexly woven with multiple threads...
Finally, I hope that you and others understood that when I wrote:
>I think we all play a role in making
>this a place that is comfortable not only for ourselves but also for others,
>even those others who do not participate in styles we like or orient to.
>It's a tricky business, but it is the business of both collective and
>individual development, isn't it?
I meant to inter-relate the particular (multi-voiced) trajectories we
respectively represent
and the (multi-voiced) trajectory of xmca -- individual performances &
collective 'community'
co-constitutive.
Judy
Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183
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