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Re: [xmca] CHAT-AR: Seth's Table



No, no, Mike, of course you don't have to know anything about AT in order to engage in joint activity, etc.. I am saying that if want to solve the complex mix of problems around how to collaborate under the range of difficult imbalances of power etc., and other problems raised by interventions and participatory research, and so on, then, as theorists I think we nee to clarify what we mean by "an activity." Otherwise I think AT cannot help us in this situation. People outside of this reflective framework, when posed with or posing "participation" are going to ask questions like: "OK, what we are going to do then? What are you trying to achieve?" and so on.

Andy

mike cole wrote:
Mary/Andy--

Right, Mary. One has to include the question WHOSE moral imperative.

Do you think that the issue of who initiates interaction is relevant?

Andy-- Your comment about needing to know what an activity is in AT terms in order to engage in joint activity among groups of the sort contemplated here puzzles me. Why?

Mike

PS- Locally we have been using the term, ,"observant participation" to characterize involvement with the folks we work among and with.

 

On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 12:17 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
In my view Mary, this brings us to confront what "an activity" is.
Andy


Mary van der Riet wrote:
The ‘participation’ component of PAR (participatory ACTION RESEARCH) is
what intrigues me. Emphasis on participation  was a result of  criticism
of approaches in development and rural agricultural research by the
World Bank and IMF which was extractive and ultimately exploitative.
They used approaches such as Rapid Rural Appraisal, which also developed
into Participatory Rural Appraisal. Robert Chambers has a book called ‘Putting the last first’ and a chapter entitled ‘Whose knowledge?’.
Both of these highlight the moral imperative behind participatory
research approaches.
But for me what is lacking in these approaches is a theorization of what
‘participation’ does, how it is the cornerstone of change on individual
and social levels. I think that is what Vygotsky and CHAT approaches
(and DWR in particular) add to PAR etc., a way of understanding how it
is that participative processes are so significant in bringing about
social change. A moral imperative is not enough to ensure change.
Mary




Mary van der Riet; School of Psychology; University of KwaZulu-Natal
Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209

email: vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za
tel: 033 260 6163;  fax: 033 2605809

 
Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> 05/16/11 04:19 AM >>>
       
I think Vygotsky's absence of concern for ownership of a collaborative research project arose from what we would see today as a naive acceptance of the Soviet Union as the inheritor a popular revolution. I am sure he knew better, but it seems to have been a working assumption. It meant that he could see himself as a participant in that revolution, exercising popular agency. It doesn't look like that to us in historical

retrospect and few of us on this list see it that way here and now.

I have to say that we I first got interested in this stuff I saw it that

way (like LSV). My activism was as an elected trade union representative

and thinking about what I was doing was one of the responsibilities of that role. So also was maintaining a high level of participation in and commitment to the work. Things have changed, both in the world outside and my relation to it, and I now take these questions to be as relevant to me as they were to those academic researchers who would interview me as a subject years ago.

But apart from many experiences with change consultants brought in by successive managers, I really know nothing of Lewin and AR or Mondragon,

so I can't help with this issue any further, other than to affirm that I

now believe that the dynamics of collaboration are a central problem for

psychology, maybe even *the* central problem, and this question rightly deserves attention. It tends to be hidden until class divisions or neo-liberal atomisation of society, puts collaboration into relief

Andy

mike cole wrote:
 
I am still trying to figure out the issue of theory and methodology in
   
this
 
CHAT-AR discussion but in the meantime, I am would like to know
   
other's
 
views of Figure 3
in Seth's article.  Here is what I could capture from the pdf. (Hey!
   
It
 
worked!!).
"Proposition" refers to a set of analytic characteristics that Seth
   
uses to
 
compare Lewin and Vygotsky. I raise questions below.

Proposition

              Lewin
Vygotsky

1. Direct consideration of improvement of

societal practice
                           +     + ?

2. Necessary to intervene into societal practices
                                    +     +

3. Explicit attention to societal values used
 O    O

4. Part of being objective is to consider

societal values and interests
                                                                   O    
 O
 
5. Advocacy and objectivity
                                                                   O    
 O
 
6. Distinction between “basic” and

“applied” is meaningless
                                                                         
 +
 
+

*Note. *+ indicates concordance; ? indicates uncertainty; O indicates
absence.

I want to focus on propositions 3,4,5. I think that they might provide
   
a
 
rough pointer
towards some of the differences that appear to exist between different
   
forms
 
of research that claims some relation to some form off action
   
research.
 
3 and 4 are closely related in that both presuppose that there is more
   
than
 
one social value and interest to be considered. Neither LSV nor Lewin,
   
it
 
seems, attended to these issues explicitly. Then, of course, they
   
would not
 
pay explicit attention to advocacy.

I believe that in general people who participate in this discussion
   
assume
 
that there are in fact multiple societies in Society, we would point
   
to
 
socioeconomic class as fundamental, but however we do it, we would
   
argue
 
that those "for whom" the research is being done are not members of a
   
single
 
society with a single set of values and a single set of criteria of
   
virtue.
 
So we MUST raises these issues.

When we do, the issue of agency jumps in our face.  Whose interests
   
are
 
being served here, given that there are different social groupings
   
involved?
 
Who gets to decide what gets remembered out of these encounters and
   
who does
 
not?

When conducting joint research with Soviet colleagues in the 1980's I
learned that the question of who initiates a proposed collaborative
   
project
 
is a central concern in human interaction.  At the diplomatic level,
   
my
 
Soviet colleagues did all they could to be sure that it was the
   
Americans
 
who initiated any interaction. Why? Because they could go to their
   
bosses
 
and say, "We have been asked to engage in these activities, what
   
should we
 
do?" Once they were told to do what they wanted to do in the first
   
place,
 
the could perceive. They were absolved of the crime of exerting
   
agency.
 
When working with local communities, the balancing of responsibility
   
for the
 
joint activity is an ongoing and major concern. I take Yrjo's focus on
   
the
 
method of dual stimulation in the Change Lab as a way of providing the
"other" (postal workers, medical workers, etc.) with agency.... to
   
become
 
their instrument.

I like the phrase I learned from Olga Vasquez, "reciprocal relations
   
of
 
exchange." Sounds like the definition of non-profit capitalism, but
   
when one
 
achieves such reciprocity, good things happen.

What do others think about the absence of these concerns shared by
   
Vygotsky
 
and Lewin that we do not, I am surmising, share with them? (Judging
   
from
 
Seth's account.)

mike
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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
MIA: http://www.marxists.org

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