Thanks a lot Nate for the elaboration -- very interesting! Nate, can you
provide reference for Rose (1999) and Popkewitz please.
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nate [mailto:schmolze@students.wisc.edu]
> Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2000 6:40 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: what is community?
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Cole [mailto:mcole@weber.ucsd.edu]
> Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2000 12:26 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: what is community?
>
> "While I don't doubt that one can use the term community in
> a faux, controlling fashion, what makes that normative and why
> go along with it?"
>
> The argument has been made in Rose (1999) and Popkewitz's article on
> Vygotsky and Dewey that community is about "control",
> "governing". Both come
> from a Foucaultian perspective in which community is seen formost as
> answering the liberal problematic of how to govern.
>
> I think the normalization comes in when its a specific object if it be
> called community, identity, participation etc. I would say we go
> along with
> it because it offers us certain benefits. If we take the guilt
> trip of the
> census commercials, they are very much about invoking community to govern.
> If we fail to fill out the form our community will get nothing. If we want
> money for daycares, schools or whatever we better make sure the form is
> filled out. The Dean just sent me a message so the University can
> make sure
> it gets its piece of the pie.
>
> I welcome Diane's statements because its time the object of
> community became
> unromantisized a bit. We often talk of community as if it is essentially
> good, I think Bronfenbrenner's classic *Two Worlds of Childhood*
> gives us a
> more explicit look at community as a way of governing. Community
> Centers in
> every neighborhood to reinforce the values of school/state. The
> U.S. case is
> a little different with community being seen oppossitional to
> school or the
> state yet in many ways that is what makes it so efficient.
>
> Rose (1999) sees "community" as a way of governing in an affective rather
> than geographical space. For me, this would imply a problematic in that we
> start talking/thinking about community as this natural state
> where one moves
> through a ZPD, identity formation, participation etc. These
> processes, like
> internalization, always occur to some extent, but what changes is they
> become an explicit object. This is not all bad in my view, but when
> community, identity, participation become a good in themselves
> that becomes
> very problematic.
>
> If community is this natural or authentic space and one does not adjust to
> this natural state then certain normalizations occur. For example, one
> school in our district is a "Community of Learners School" that
> has received
> various awards for nation excellence. It of course had this problem where
> certain children - African American and children of poverty - did not fit
> this community ideal. With much lobbying and motivation to stop LIBERAL
> flight a plan was designed to change bussing so it could be representative
> of the community of the ideal. Ken's recent forward demonstrates
> the natural
> (NOT) aspect of community so beutifully, yet so sickingly.
>
> "Beecher is Flint's dump. It is where you go when you have nothing left to
> your name. 60 percent black, 40 percent white. No municipality in Genesee
> County wants to govern Beecher, so it exists as a No Man's Land on the
> northern city limits of Flint. It covers a small portion of two different
> townships (one of which is where my wife Kathleen is from). But
> folks, when
> you hear the word "township" used in the case of Beecher, those of us from
> Flint mean it in the way the word was used in South Africa."
>
> All for an ideal.
>
> And Diane's message comes in with a reference to the majority
> looking after
> the minority with a HA HA HA. Diane, but they do. Madison,
> Hamilton and the
> other goons were very explicit about who this minority was - capitalists.
> The evil fractions (the majority) were the populas, working class and the
> like. The task of creating a Republic was to devise a system where the
> minority - capitalists could be protected. At least that part has
> tended to
> work efficiently.
>
> Nate
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