[Xmca-l] Re: Sociocritical Literacies and more context

[mike cole]

Miguel-

My eye was caught by this phrase in your note:
Even the testimonio requires witness for it to live on.

Put me right in mind of LSV quoting Mandelshtam-- I forgot the word I
wanted to say, and thought, unembodied, returned to the hall of shadows.

Michael-- I think this is part of the answer to your question about
research, but it would be best to refer to fuller treatments of the
methodology of the
program. The testimonio, as I understand it, was a part of a larger,
interconnected set of practices that create a collective zoped. Perhaps
Miguel or another participant can expand on this issue.

Also, I am a big advocate of thinking of research as re-searching....
searching for an answer to a question you have searched for repeatedly
without success. For example, a re-search question might be --- how canyou
organized a relatively short term intervention in the lives of marginalized
migrant youth that will lead to a qualitative change in their academic
engagement (which requires lots of coordinated changes in many life domains
almost for sure..... such as sense of self and agency.
Mike


On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 9:03 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
wrote:

> Are either research techniques at all in the traditional sense?  And do we
> kind of confuse things by using the traditional phrase to describe it.
> Research in traditional academics is done to know and change might some day
> come from knowledge.  Are approaches like "testimonios" and "narratives of
> life experience" done more to change, and change will lead to a new type of
> knowing.  Is it better to think of it as re-search in a more literal sense,
> to go through the process of finding again.
>
> Michael
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13=osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> [xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13=osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] on behalf of Luisa
> Aires [laires11@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 11:30 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Sociocritical Literacies and more context
>
> Hi Manuel
>
> Thank for your enlightening post.
> Is it correct to state that "testimonios" and "narratives of life
> experience" are synonymous research techniques?
>
> Best,
> Luísa A.
>
> 2014-12-30 0:53 GMT+00:00 Espinoza, Manuel <Manuel.Espinoza@ucdenver.edu>:
>
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > Hope this note finds you all well.  Just adding to the conversation on
> > literacies, social dreaming, the Migrant Program at UCLA (I was one of
> many
> > that served the students during the early 2000s) and testimonio.
> >
> > The idea of testimonio as an aspect of the "concrete" is cool.  To my
> > mind, within that realm of really rich Soviet/Russian thinking,
> testimonio
> > can be thought of as one way that human beings  remake social life guided
> > by intellect and heart.  (Think of what testimonio accomplished in the
> > context of 1980s Central America or mid-1990s South Africa.)  But the
> idea
> > of testimonio as an aspect of the "abstract" seems right on as well.
> > Testimonio is also meaningful and comprehensive thought that explains
> > reality better than what we had before.  Testimonio in the Migrant
> Program
> > seemed to be both.  Thus, as the beloved Rusos teach us, you can ascend
> to
> > both abstract and concrete.
> >
> > I think about the time and effort that went into creating the
> > autobiographies (a form of testimonio) that Profe Gutiérrez references.
> > They were a culmination for us as a scholarly community.  And they left
> > people altered.  (Another cool insight inspired by Hegel and Marx - when
> > humans learn, they become altered matter.  Living, breathing matter,
> > capable of experiencing.  And in the words of Piaget, I believe,
> > experiencing our experiences.)  The versatility, the many facets of
> > testimonio are beautiful to ruminate on.  Given my life experience, I
> > rejoice in thinking about the ways that testimonio - bearing witness to
> > life via narrative - can give historical depth to a person's actions, to
> a
> > community's actions.
> > To illustrate, I remember putting together the reader for the program.
> We
> > would stay all night in Moore Hall with making copies and feeling
> energized
> > in thinking about migrant families sending their high school-aged
> children
> > to reside and study with us for a month.  The way I pictured those
> families
> > - and this is key for people like Marx Wartofsky who cared deeply about
> the
> > actual look of our imaginations - was through a long corridor of
> > experience.  It was just me at 2am extending the look down the hallway,
> but
> > instead of a wall at the far end, I pictured families I knew, and
> imagined
> > the ones I didn't know.  I could see them and they could see me.  Our
> work
> > was similar in that instant: preparing the way for the youth.  At times,
> it
> > was incredibly vivid, but that grew over time and through the many
> > testimonios we fostered and experienced.  Even the testimonio requires
> > witness for it to live on.  (See: Carolyn Forché  and her "poetry of
> > witness.")  And that, too, had to be learned to an extent.  Who showed
> me?
> > Hector Álvarez, Carlos Tejeda, Profe Gutiérrez, Miguel Zavala, Shirin
> > Vossoughi, the migrant parents, and others.  Now, that was a scholarly
> > community.
> >
> > Forgive the somewhat long message.  I been looking to post for years, but
> > in the words of the Ents from Middle Earth, I wanted to say something
> that
> > took time to say.  See you again in 2018 :)
> >
> > Respetuosamente,
> >
> > Manuel Luis Espinoza
> >
> >
> > Manuel
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Department of Education and Distance Learning, Universidade Aberta
> Centre of Studies on Migrations and Intercultural Relations (CEMRI)
> R. Amial, nº 752, 4200-055 Porto, Portugal
> laires@uab.pt
> www.uab.pt
>
>


-- 
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science as an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch.