[Xmca-l] Re: Unit of Analysis

[Andy Blunden]

Yes, but I think, Martin, that the unit of analysis we need 
to aspire to is *visceral* and sensuous. There are 
"everyday" concepts which are utterly abstract and saturated 
with ideology and received knowledge. For example, Marx's 
concept of capital is buying-in-order-to-sell, which is not 
the "everyday" concept of capital at all, of course.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
https://andyblunden.academia.edu/research
On 7/09/2017 8:48 AM, Martin John Packer wrote:
> Isn’t a unit of analysis (a germ cell) a preliminary concept, one might say an everyday concept, that permits one to grasp the phenomenon that is to be studied in such a way that it can be elaborated, in the course of investigation, into an articulated and explicit scientific concept?
>
> just wondering
>
> Martin
>
>
>> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:15 PM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Not sure if others might feel this is an oversimplification of unit of
>> analysis, but I just came across this in Wortham and Kim's Introduction to
>> the volume Discourse and Education and found it useful. The short of it is
>> that the unit of analysis is the unit that "preserves the
>> essential features of the whole".
>>
>> Here is their longer explanation:
>>
>> "Marx (1867/1986) and Vygotsky (1934/1987) apply the concept "unit of
>> analysis" to social scientific problems. In their account, an adequate
>> approach to any phenomenon must find the right unit of analysis - one that
>> preserves the essential features of the whole. In order to study water, a
>> scientist must not break the substance down below the level of an
>> individual H20 molecule. Water is made up of nothing but hydrogen and
>> oxygen, but studying hydrogen and oxygen separately will not illuminate the
>> essential properties of water. Similarly, meaningful language use requires
>> a unit of analysis that includes aspects beyond phonology,
>> grammar, semantics, and mental representations. All of these linguistic and
>> psychological factors play a role in linguistic communication, but natural
>> language use also involves social action in a context that includes other
>> actors and socially significant regularities."
>>
>> (entire chapter can be found on Research Gate at:
>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319322253_Introduction_to_Discourse_and_Education
>> )
>>
>> ​I thought that the water/H20 metaphor was a useful one for thinking about
>> unit of analysis.​
>>
>> ​-greg​
>>
>> -- 
>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>> Assistant Professor
>> Department of Anthropology
>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>> Brigham Young University
>> Provo, UT 84602
>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>
>