[Xmca-l] Re: Play and performance Article for discussion

[Andy Blunden]

Is there any way Mike's Skype talk and the other
contributions can be shared by slackers like us didn't go to
Quebec?

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 18/09/2017 8:48 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
> In Mike's Skyped remarks in Quebec on Yrjö Engeström’s presentation on
> social movements, Mike made the important point that it is not simply
> progressive movements which require study. From education studies we know
> that studying a phenomenon isn't necessarily a good way to promote it; the
> two aims can be quite contradictory, in fact. So in many ways it's probably
> more urgent to study reactionary and dangerous social movements, and when
> we do this, we sometimes find that the process of analysis and study really
> does lead to a useful social movement (and that such social movements are
> more likely to be underpinned by the "breaking away" of Engeström's earlier
> work than the material "ratchet" of his Quebec presentation).
>
> I was thinking of this remark in the light of three social movements:
>
> a) The mass strike currently sweeping Korean textile companies operating in
> Vietnam.
> b) The demonstrations in Saint Louis against the police murder of Anthony
> Lamar Smith in 2011.
> c) Carrie Lobman's paper on taking the performance art of Newark kids to
> the boardrooms of New York bankers.
>
> I think a) and b) are indisputably instances of progressive social
> movements that have their immediate roots in fact-finding about reactionary
> and dangerous social movements (Korean investment in Vietnam, and the
> increasing militarization of the US police force). But I find myself a
> little perplexed by c).
>
> I think Carrie is too, actually: in the beginning part of the paper, she
> presents her protagonists as country bumpkins somewhat out of their depth
> in the boardrooms, while in the second part it transpires that it is the
> bankers that are there to learn from the social movement of young actors
> rather than vice versa.
>
> I can see treating bankers as a social movement--a reactionary and
> dangerous one which directly profits from the kinds of inequality that are
> the object of social movements a) and b). But if we are playing "Crazy
> Eights" with bankers, treating ourselves as human beings like themselves,
> wouldn't it be better to visit their homes rather than their boardrooms?
>
> (Note that some of the most effective demonstrations in Saint Lous--not
> necessarily the most violent, but certainly the most effective--have had to
> do with laying siege to the home of the mayor!)
>
> David Kellogg
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 16, 2017 at 5:53 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>>
>> Issue 3 of Mind, Culture and Activity has been out for a while now and it
>> is time to have one of the articles discussed here at xmca. We have
>> selected one that deals with a topic that interests me a lot and I am
>> confident will be interesting to many: the role of play and performance in
>> personal development and social change.
>>
>>
>> Carrie's paper starts with a beautiful vignette from a workshop bringing
>> youth from poor communities together with business people to jointly play
>> and perform. The next section ?abruptly brings us back to Vygotsky's
>> writings about play, ?and these then serve as the backdrop to a revisit to
>> the opening workshop. The analyses and the discussion invite us to
>> understand development "not as a set of stages that a people pass through
>> on their way to adulthood, but as the collective creation of stages
>> (environments) where people can perform who they are becoming."
>>
>>
>> Carrie has been kind enough to accept joining us in the discussion, and
>> she will introduce her article much better in a few days, while we all get
>> the time to read and bring up any questions or comments we might have. I am
>> sending this early, though, ?to give people a few days in advance to be
>> able to start looking at the article, which I hope will catch the interest
>> of many. Good read! And good weekend,
>>
>>
>> Alfredo
>>
>