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[Xmca-l] CHAT and Community Psychology



Thanks for sharing that very interesting paper, Mike. From what I see, there is little justification for the dislocation between these two research communities - CHAT and Community Psychology. Their aims, sources and methods seem so similar and compatible.

I would just like to ask the authors a couple of questions.

* Do you take "activity setting" to be the optimal conception of "context"?

* What exactly do they understand by "activity setting"? You cite Vygotsky in a book edited by Wertsch, but I do not have that book. I associate "activity setting" with the current of CHAT around Mariane Hedegaard. It seems to me to be similar in meaning to "institution". Thus I quetion the efficacy of this concept for grasping social change, as opposed to just child development.

* Is "mutual understanding" is what you mean by "intersubjectivity"?

* I agree that participation in shared activities is the necessary condition for peope to achieve mutual understanding. But this is not necessarily the outcome, is it? It depends on the type of collaboration within the activity. EG White slaveowners and black slaves collaborated in the production of cotton in the Confederate States of America for many years, but this did not result in mutual understanding. So it seems that the notion of "shared actvities" needs further specification. Yes?

thanks
Andy

mike cole wrote:
Dear Colleagues. Attached is an article by Cliff O'Donnell Roland Tharp
that I thought of potential interest to XMCA members. It is being
distributed to all after Cliff checked out that it would be ok with the
publishers.

The topic is community psychology and chat. The article is open for
discussion.

Some of you will remember that we had a special issue of MCA devoted to the
work of
Seymour Sarason, an important figure in community psychology. There were
some replies
of interest as well (1997, Vol 4, no. 3).

When I came across Cliff's article, I thought that perhaps it would be a
way to continue
that conversation. It is written for community psychologists and perhaps a
similar article
for MCA-o-philes could be produced if of sufficient interest.

Here is how Cliff introduces the piece:"The article for discussion is the
final version that was submitted to the American Journal of Community
Psychology and subsequently published in March 2012. The link to the
publisher's version is
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10464-011-9434-1. The original
publication is available at www.springerlink.com. The article advocates a
greater integration of the concepts of culture and community by means of
adopting key concepts from CHAT. The authors, O'Donnell and Tharp, welcome
your reactions and comments.

I am ccing some additional folks who do not read xmca so far as I know, but
might like
to join the conversation -- as well as the authors of course.
mike


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden