Re: Space and time in chat

From: Steve Gabosch (bebop101@comcast.net)
Date: Fri Jul 18 2003 - 13:16:49 PDT


I installed Adobe Reader 5, a major improvement over an earlier version I
was using, and put Kevin's paper on Polycontextual Construction Zones on
Word. It was a bit tedious, but alternating between Word processor and
Excel spreadsheet magic I was able to create a table with each individual
sentence in its own cell. I then separated out sentences that used terms
based on polycontext and monocontext to take a look at how this paper uses
this language to describe activity.

Part of my motivation for this kind of analysis is that Kevin is writing a
leading paper experimenting with some relatively new terminology and
thinking tools for CHAT analysis. Mike and Jay especially have been very
helpful asking questions and providing insights into these terms and
concepts. I like the uses of the terminology and elements of space and
time - paths, scales, manipulables, and to borrow from recent post from
Mike, "space, border objects, third spaces, boundary crossing,
trajectories, etc." Jay mentioned a term he is exploring, traversals.
These terms appear to be a fruitful way to describe and analyze the complex
dynamic contexts that interpenetrate one another and the activities that
take place within and around them, and which, indeed, construct them, just
as these contexts co-construct activities. I see these space-time elements
as tools that can add to our understanding of human activity. I look
forward to learning more.

However - (this is the motivation for this kind of analysis) - I am puzzled
over the polycontext/monocontext distinction Kevin experiments with. My
problem is that I am having trouble seeing any activity as monocontextual.
If something indeed consists of only a single context, I am inclined to see
it, not as an activity, but as what Leont'ev would call an operation, a
specific, situated act that takes place within a goal-oriented task, or an
action. Perhaps an operation by nature is monocontextual. But, since
actions connect operations to a larger context and goal, could even actions
be considered monocontextual? Following this line of reasoning, it becomes
especially difficult for me to conceive of an activity - a system of people
connecting a series of operations and tasks around a overall motive - as
"monocontextual." It seems to me that human activity is by nature
"polycontextual", or, to speak a little more plainly, as taking place in
multiple contexts.

Kevin uses the term multiple contexts a few times. Here are two examples.

**********************************
EXAMPLES OF THE TERM "MULTIPLE CONTEXTS"

page 211
In this article, I extend my work on social space to address relations
among multiple contexts of activity.

page 234
Further analysis could extend our current understandings of multiple
contexts by better articulating the temporal and spatial dynamics of
multiple activity systems in contact, analyzing, for instance, the
historical and geographical productions of collective and individual
development, the semiotic relations of material objects as temporally and
spatially constituted, and the ways in which time and space are traded on
within polycontextual activity.
***********************************

SG:
As far as I can tell, "polycontexts" means the same as "multiple contexts."

***********************************
EXAMPLES OF THE TERM "POLYCONTEXTS"

page 225
Jimmy's Funds of Knowledge and Repositioning Across Polycontexts

page 226
Across the polycontexts of the project, Jimmy's home-based knowledge funds
as well as his (uncertified) woodshop expertise become meaningful and
valuable.

page 233
The constructs of social space as thirdspace, and of spatial scale and
path, are not intended as a complete "toolkit" of spatial analysis, but
rather to suggest the fecund possibilities for a further analysis of
spatial production across polycontexts.

********************************************

SG:
The distinction between "monocontextual" activity and "polycontextual"
activity is made dozens of times in Kevin's article, but in my mind, if all
activity is polycontextual, the distinction that Kevin wants to make
between traditional schooling ("modal schooling activity") and the
alternative approach to learning represented by the Walden Project is not
successfully captured with these terms. Looking over the many examples of
how Kevin uses "polycontextual," I get the strong impression that Kevin is
talking about a certain type of activity. But I don't understand how to
define the properties of this specific type of activity if I rule out that
activities can be "monocontextual." According to my reasoning, saying an
activity is "polycontextual" adds no information that distinguishes that
activity if all activities are polycontextual. I could use some help with
sorting this out!

***********************************************
EXAMPLES OF THE TERM "MONOCONTEXTUAL"

page 212
The following analysis is based on this "construction zone" approach to the
Zoped, but shifts from a monocontextual to a polycontextual perspective,
and considers how activity develops through polycontextual conflict.

page 217
3The present analysis holds polycontextual relations as a norm, and not an
exception. At the same time, for the purpose of analysis, it casts modal
schooling activity as relatively monocontextual and stable as compared to
destabilized situations in which modal schooling comes into sustained
contact with extraschooling, as in the cabin-building project.
page 228
One way of interpreting this brief exchange is that it indexes the
limitations of the project through the closure of institutional
regulations, how monocontextual schooling closes down possibilities of
expansion.

EXAMPLES OF THE TERM "POLYCONTEXTUAL"

page 219
The exceptional meaning of the polycontextual activity for individuals was
highly evident in interviewing students about the project, where they often
related how they would "look back" on the project in the future:

page 220
(subtitle) TRACING THE EXPANSION OF IDENTITY IN POLYCONTEXTUAL OR
"POLYSPATIAL" ACTIVITY

page 222
The saw indexes how the group's (polycontextual) activity is possible, but
not ready-to-hand, and therefore must be negotiated and developed.

page 224
Issues of risk are significant within the interaction as a means of
destabilizing teacher-student identity; assumptions about teacher
protection, borrowed from the classroom space, are disrupted in this
polycontextual zone of schooling/beam sawing.

Constructions of fear and risk within the discourse are significant, as the
affective and goal-directed dimensions of the activity are tightly
interwoven in the production of polycontextual learning spaces.

page 228
Trisha's articulation of ability, in relation to an institutional authority
(Cindy), is suggestive of how she is developing an alternate positioning in
relation to schooling/ extraschooling, beginning to identify herself more
completely with the polycontextual boundary-work of the project.

The brief exchange suggests not only Trisha's ability to build on an
identity affirmed through past (polycontextual) experience, but also her
developing ability to negotiate identity and activity as multiple contexts
are reconfigured.

The frame is made primarily of heavy timbers (6 × 6 in.), which is itself a
polycontextual production in design, discussed earlier.

The manner in which this particular polycontextual activity may be
understood as relating to the articulation of social spaces is made evident
by analyzing how the object of the activity is developed as a response to
contrasting and even competing social spaces, and, further, how new spatial
paths for the girt are developed as a response.

page 229
Continual movements between spaces, movements that represent the project's
struggle to become stabilized either within or beyond the school,
characterize the polycontextual construction of the cabin.8

Moreover, stories of struggles and successes with past collective activity
contribute to the scaled-up possibilities of ongoing activity in the
polycontextual construction zone.

page 233
The polycontextual path of the project may be interpreted as somewhat
distant from schooling, yet bidirectionally back toward it for those
historically located on school's periphery.

Reciprocally, Tyrone's engagement and identity changes the composition and
identity of the group in its polycontextual activity.

page 234
Although the present project is strategically shaped around the analysis of
social space, it only begins to consider the complex relations of time and
space in conceiving of polycontextual activity.9

The value of polycontextual development among any social systems ought in
part be measured by the yardstick of sustainability.

However, the production of polycontextual activity also suggests a more
modest goal than sustainable change among activity systems or within
institutions.
The polycontextual construction zones makes evident how the permanent,
durable shift in practices and power relations understood as sustainable
activity system or institutional change are a sufficient but not necessary
requirement for highly engaged learning.

page 235
Moreover, the data suggest that polycontextual relations provide openings
for those successful within schooling (e.g., Trisha and Sid) to continually
renegotiate and expand their identities and practices across heterogeneous
and multiple terrains.
**********************************************

SG:
Kevin's term "polycontextuality" obviously refers to situations with
multiple contexts. But again, I have the problem of believing activities
by nature have multiple contexts. Below are sentences Kevin uses with this
term in it.

*********************************************
EXAMPLES OF THE TERM "POLYCONTEXTUALITY"

page 212
My first purpose in this article is to articulate the discussion of
polycontextuality with an analysis of social space.

page 213
What hints does this polycontextuality provide for further mediation?

page 215
(subtitle) TOWARD A SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF POLYCONTEXTUALITY

More modestly, my goal is to bring a discussion of social space to the
analysis of polycontextuality, to suggest how this discussion might
proceed, and to illustrate how this theoretical rapprochement may be
productive for the interpretation of individual and systemic expansion.

page 232
The foregoing discussion of social space is intended to add texture and
breadth to discussions of polycontextuality.

page 235
A materialist account of polycontextuality involves grounding activity
system constructs such as persons, tools, and community in the spatial
textures and dynamics of their lived experiences, emphasizing a notion of
material contextual production over context as "surround."

page 237
Polycontexuality provides entrée through not only by the mediation of one
context into another, but through the creation of new spatialities formed
by the lamination of activity systems.

Moreover, the data suggest that polycontextual relations provide openings
for those successful within schooling (e.g., Trisha and Sid) to continually
renegotiate and expand their identities and practices across heterogeneous
and multiple terrains.
**********************************

SG:
I've really enjoyed exploring these issues through Kevin's paper. The
Walden Project was indeed a worthy activity for a CHAT analysis. The
dialogue and analysis was informative and fun. Kevin opened my eyes - and
obviously those of many others - to the value of using space and time
elements to better understand the contexts that activity is made of, and
understand how activities construct contexts.

And now I am looking forward to tackling Yrjo-et al.'s paper!

- Steve



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