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

[Larry Purss]

Aria,
I want to repeat and amplify your suggestion :

It is important to clarify what is meant by "third space" and its analogous
concepts in various schools of thought
(e.g., liminality, double consciousness, third place, etc.). The
post-colonial uptake of third space (e.g., Said, Bhaba, Spivak) within the
sociocultural theory is a very specific stance and this might be the moment
for that conversation as well.

To focus on the *third space* as a VERY SPECIFIC stance.
I would like to become clear on the centrality of *witnessing* as central
or the re-search fades away.
Also terms such as *mutuality* contrasted with *reciprocity* or
*transactions*.

Testimonios as neither subjective [alone] or objective [alone] but a hybrid
MODE that is a form of witnessing.
I would also suggest the theme of *gift* as more than transaction or
echange [in continental philosophy traditions] is relevant.

There is a *spirit* and a moral virtue within this form of witnessing as
*third space* that plays around with notions of *trans* as moving across
forms [horizons] as trans-versals [or trans-verse-als] .
I have an intuition that this type of witnessing is radical, going to the
roots of our being human together.

Aria, I look forward to further re-search
Larry

On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Aria Razfar <arazfar@uic.edu> wrote:

> For those of us working with Kris' sociocritical perspective, third space
> has been a valuable construct for thinking about collective learning zopeds
> and consciousness for that matter. It is important to clarify what is meant
> by "third space" and its analogous concepts in various schools of thought
> (e.g., liminality, double consciousness, third place, etc.). The
> post-colonial uptake of third space (e.g., Said, Bhaba, Spivak) within the
> sociocultural theory is a very specific stance and this might be the moment
> for that conversation as well.
>
> Aria
>
> Aria Razfar, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture
> Director of Graduate Studies, Curriculum and Instruction
> University of Illinois at Chicago
> 1040 W. Harrison St. M/C 147
> Chicago, IL, 60607
>
> Director of English Learning through Mathematics, Science and Action
> Research (ELMSA)
> www.elmsa.org
>
> Webpage: http://education.uic.edu/personnel/faculty/aria-razfar-phd
> Tel: 312-413-8373
> Fax: 312-996-8134
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Kris Gutierrez
> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 2:56 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Sociocritical Literacies and more context
>
> Annalisa, Manuel initiated the last uptake. (I think others have clarified
> that now :)
>
> Mike C., Miguel Zavala, Larry Purss and I posted some thoughts before the
> holidays.  For me it is useful to connect Manuel’s recent post to those
> earlier thoughts/conversations.
>
> Some very quick very unedited thoughts following up on Manuel’s post:
>
> Michael G., Mike C. correctly points out that the
> testimonios/autobiographies were not research techniques but generative
> tools that were indeed a part of the interconnected set of practices that
> created a collective zoped—a third space if you will.  I try to elaborate
> this idea in the Scribner Lecture piece (sociocritical literacies).  My own
> work on Third Space, the collective work of the instructional team of MSI,
> ongoing conversations with Mike C. and Yrjo over the years at the lab, and
> their work certainly informed this idea of a collective zoped, collective
> third space  (See Engeström, 1987, 1994 in particular; Nicolopoulou & Cole,
> 1993; Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003; Tuomi- Gröhn, Engeström, & Young,
> 2003;
> Chaiklin, 2003, Moll, 1990; Moll & Greenberg, 1990 as key examples that
> certainly inform this work as well. And LSV and Bakhtin are ever present).
> These, I think, are useful references, all cited in the article. Shirin
> Vossoughi’s recent MCA piece also is very relevant to this discussion.
>
> Some relevant excerpts from the sociocritical article,
>
> "To illustrate these points and their relation to a collective Third Space,
> let us examine the MSLI more closely.
> The activity system, the MSLI, has a specific internal logic organized
> around expanding the students’ sociohistorical and educational ecology
> through the collective imagining of a new educational and sociopolitical
> future.
> To avoid the “interactional reductionism implicit in much
> Vygotskian-inspired research” (Nicolopoulou & Cole, 1993, p. 284), the
> specific interactions and practices of the MSLI are understood as what
> Nicolopoulou and Cole call a “genuinely collective reality” (p. 284).
>
> Here we see the [Migrant] institute as an example of the Third Space, a
> collective zo-ped, at the larger level of activity the object of which is
> the sociohistorical reconstruction of what it means to be a migrant
> student.
> This movement involves a process of becoming conscious “historical actors”
> (Espinoza, 2003) who invoke the past in order to re-mediate it so that it
> becomes a resource for current and future action (p. 154)."
>
> Testimonios and their embodiment in Teatro del Oprimido (Boal’s Theatre of
> the Oppressed that Manuel introduced to us and the program and that he and
> Vossoughi elaborated) were key means of developing/inciting a new social
> and
> pedagogical imagination and for imagining new futures with/for the migrant
> students, their communities, and indeed for all of us, as Manuel so
> thoughtfully writes. Teatro served as a collective problem-solving space—a
> space where the playful imagination helped to make inequities and the roots
> of social problems visible, while providing an opportunity to re-frame
> events, re-mediate and enact an imagined future collectively (such as
> flying
> collectively/social dreaming).  I hope Manuel and Shirin jump in and
> elaborate these thoughts.
>
> Re: Research design:  For me, Migrant was in Yrjo and Mike's approach, a
> formative experiment; what I term social design experiments—a designed
> based
> research approach that foregrounds equity, diversity, historicity, and
> re-mediation, for example. As Susan Jurow and I wrote and presented at the
> ICLS conference this summer (a piece that we expect will be part of a
> larger
> set of papers with Mike C., Yrjo and Annalisa, and Bill Penuel), social
> design experiments: aim to make possible a sustainable and dignified life
> for all humans; address the challenges of leveraging cultural diversity and
> reducing social inequality; and call for the co-design of new tools and
> futures with members of non-dominant communities, as but a few key design
> principles.
>
>      Absolutely, research as re-searching—searching for the answer to a
> question you have searched for repeatedly without success! Well said,
> Miguel
> Cole! Thanks, for your thoughts, Michael Glassman!
>
>      more on sociocritical literacies, later.   kris
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Kris Gutierrez
> gutierkd@gmail.com
>
> Kris D. Gutiérrez
> Professor
> Graduate School of Education
> 5629 Tolman Hall #1670
> University of California, Berkeley
> Berkeley CA 94720-1670
>
> Distinguished Professor
> Learning Sciences and Literacy
> School of Education
> University of Colorado, Boulder
>
>
> > On Dec 30, 2014, at 9:50 AM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Hello!
> >
> > Sorry for being silly here, but I couldn't help but see that so far on
> this thread, there have been appearances by:
> >
> > mike, Annalisa, Michael, Luisa, and Miguel!
> >
> >
>
>
>
>