[Xmca-l] Re: Re-situating funds of identity within contemporary interpretations of perezhivanie

Tue Jun 26 06:59:58 PDT 2018

Thanks Andy, that makes a lot of sense.

In my case, I have spent some fifteen years changing from being an angry 
young man (aged fifty or so) to someone much more comfortable in my own 
skin. Perhaps the whole fifteen years could be viewed as a perezhivanie.

Rob

On 26/06/2018 13:33, Andy Blunden wrote:
>
> In  my view, Rob, ...
>
> Paradigmatically, the "critical episode" is a moment, but the 
> important point is not the duration but the *unity* of the episode. 
> For example, as a result of the Vietnam War, etc., I left my home in 
> 1966 and returned to Australia only after 20 years, mostly spent in 
> England. This was "an experience," an episode, a single whole which 
> has shaped my personality.
>
> But even in relation to the "paradigmatic" case, the change in 
> personality is not a momentary process, but occurs over a more or less 
> protracted period of time (catharsis) with greater or lesser 
> participation by other people around you.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 26/06/2018 10:16 PM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk wrote:
>> Hi all
>>
>> In the triad critical episode, reflection, catharsis, what do we mean 
>> by "critical"? It sounds as if it is something extraordinary, a life 
>> defining moment. I note the use of the word “traumatic”. But two 
>> things occur to me that challenge this. The first is that, in my 
>> experience, changes often occur through a drip by drip process. There 
>> is not any one episode that causes a change in perspective, but a 
>> steady gentle turning away from one view and towards another. A 
>> change  will result from a whole series of episodes and experiences. 
>> So that is a kind of uncountable perezhivanie, rather than a few 
>> countable perezhivanies. The image in my mind is of my perezhivanie 
>> as a stream with a series of overlays, some of which, perhaps in 
>> hindsight, can be seen as coherent paths towards a perceived change 
>> of identity. This is partly reflected in the quote from Gonzales Rey: 
>> “The human subjective processes are never moved by one final cause 
>> and do not represent stable contents; they flow in time, integrate, 
>> and unfold into different forms during the same experience.”
>>
>> The second challege is that, in my own life, I have sometimes noticed 
>> afterwards that moments have become significant which did not seem so 
>> at the time. So, at what point does something become “critical”, and 
>> does it matter?
>>
>> A final observation: this kind of reflection resembles Schon’s 
>> reflection-on-action. There must be work that compares the two, but I 
>> am not aware of any.
>>
>> Rob
>>
>> On 20/06/2018 23:25, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks for the discussion so far, Moises and Adam. And while Moises 
>>> (or anyone else) perhaps comes back with a more a more comprehensive 
>>> reaction, I was just wondering about Moisés question 2 and what the 
>>> relation between the categories "identity" and "personality" are, if 
>>> they can be related at all. In Vygotsky, perezhivanie is explicitly 
>>> linked to personality. As far as I can recall and without having 
>>> gone to the texts and check, Vygotsky does not use the term 
>>> "identity" in the sense it is used in current literature. This also 
>>> leads me to wonder on the distinction between *learning* (which 
>>> according to Moises is part what the Funds of Knowledge/Identity 
>>> were designed to address) and *development*. Is analytical 
>>> categories, is perezhivanie more about development and funds of 
>>> identity more about learning? Or we have to differentiate them on 
>>> other grounds?
>>>
>>> Alfredo
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
>>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Adam Poole (16517826) 
>>> <Adam.Poole@nottingham.edu.cn>
>>> *Sent:* 19 June 2018 04:14
>>> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re-situating funds of identity within 
>>> contemporary interpretations of perezhivanie
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks to Moises for posting some questions about the article that I 
>>> would like to respond to.
>>>
>>>
>>> I will first include his summary and interpretation of the paper and 
>>> then respond to his questions.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Interpretation of paper
>>>
>>> The Poole’s paper invited me to enrich the notion of funds of identity.
>>> Grounded in the funds of knowledge approach, the funds of identity 
>>> concept
>>> try to intentionally reinforce the positive backgrounds and 
>>> experiences of
>>> learners to overcome the deficit thinking in education (to sum up: by
>>> reducing marginalized school population to a sum of cultural, social,
>>> linguistic deficits).  However, our experience is not only light. And in
>>> the dark funds of knowledge suggested by Zipin, existential funds of
>>> identity invite us to capture a more holistic view on people’s 
>>> experience.
>>> In my opinion, deep learning (meaningful, significant learning) is based
>>> on the recognition and transformation of learners’ identities. This
>>> assertion, that would be one of my working hypothesis, assumes three
>>> theoretical principles: (1) that human identities are 
>>> culturally-situated
>>> and distributed (geographical funds of identity, cultural funds of
>>> identity, institutional funds of identity and so on); (2) that there 
>>> is a
>>> constitutive link between learning and identity (as so many scholars
>>> suggested and developed) and (3) that meaning (significant experience)
>>> plays an important role as a learning generator. Here in mind, I would
>>> like to share three questions or topics that can help us to 
>>> understand the
>>> Adam Poole’s paper, in particular, and further advance our
>>> conceptualization on contemporary topics as perezhivanie, in general.
>>>
>>>
>>> Questions
>>>
>>>
>>> 1)        Do you think that existential funds of identity should be
>>> considered as a type of funds of identity? In other words, should be 
>>> incorporated into the prior classification into geographical, 
>>> practical, institutional, cultural and social funds of identity? Or 
>>> may be should be considered as a “re-theorization” of funds of identity?
>>>
>>>
>>> This is a question that I have been struggling with for some time. 
>>> When I initially uncovered existential funds of identity I 
>>> considered to be more than a type of funds of identity. I couldn't 
>>> see how it related to the five categories that you proposed, as to 
>>> me the type of identity being described was more internal or 
>>> meditative. However, the more I researched into the funds of 
>>> identity concept and its theoretical underpinnings, the more I came 
>>> to question this conclusion. Firstly, funds of identity, as I 
>>> understand it, is predicated upon a synthesis of macro and 
>>> micro-level approaches to culture - that is, identity is embedded in 
>>> artefacts and social practices and therefore is distributed in 
>>> nature. However, to bring in the concept of perezhivanie, 
>>> individuals construct new identities from the social identities that 
>>> surround them. In contrast, I initially understood existential funds 
>>> of identity as largely phenomenological in nature. However, on 
>>> reflection, I realised that issues to do with identity confusion, 
>>> relationship problems, etc, are social in nature.
>>>
>>>
>>> So, existential funds of identity should be seen as a complement to 
>>> funds of identity, rather than a re-theorisation of it. Most 
>>> significantly, it can be used to show how negative experiences can 
>>> be drawn on in order to bring about positive pedagogical outcomes.
>>>
>>>
>>> However, I would be interested to know if anyone else thinks that 
>>> existential funds of identity complements or contradicts the concept 
>>> developed by Moises.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 2)        How we could link the concepts of identity and perezhivanie?
>>>
>>>
>>> Good question! For me. identity is an open-ended process that is 
>>> both personal and social in nature. For this reason, perezhivanie is 
>>> a really useful concept to bring this relationship into focus. 
>>> Firstly, it shows how development is the result of the dialectical 
>>> relationship between the mind and the environment. This relates to 
>>> identity in a big way, as it suggests that identity is quite fluid: 
>>> we are different people indifferent times and across different 
>>> contexts. Perezhivanie is relevant here as it helps to explain the 
>>> way individuals relate differentially to their environments. In 
>>> relation to my teaching, I have found that students do not embody 
>>> fixed identities that they take with them from class to class, but 
>>> construct new identities in response to their classes - the teacher, 
>>> the students, the subject. To draw upon, and extend Thompson and 
>>> Hall's (2008) metaphor of 'virtual school bags of knowledge' - 
>>> students do not only bring one school bag with them, but have many 
>>> different bags from which they draw in the construction, and 
>>> performance, of their classroom identities.
>>>
>>>
>>> This realisation leadme to question the role of labelling that you 
>>> often find in staff rooms - this is the 'difficult' student, this is 
>>> the 'gifted' student, etc. By observing students' behaviour in other 
>>> classes, I realised that there was something going on between the 
>>> students and their environments - hence the link between identity 
>>> and perezhivanie. Rather than engaging with the imposed label (that 
>>> really says more about our deficit thinking than the students 
>>> themselves) we should engage with the students' lived experiences of 
>>> their social world - both positive and negative.
>>>
>>>
>>> 3)        One of the aims of funds of identity is to develop an approach
>>> to the construct “identity” that had educational implications. What 
>>> are the
>>> educational/pedagogical implications of the existential funds of 
>>> identity?
>>>
>>>
>>> This is a bit more of a complicated one! I do agree with your 
>>> assertion that drawing upon minoritised students' negative or 
>>> problematic experiences could lead to the reproduction of deficit 
>>> thinking. However, I do think that if handled ethically, teachers 
>>> can draw upon both light and dark funds of identity in order to 
>>> valorise the whole child and their social worlds. So pedagogically, 
>>> existential funds of identity can help to develop 'thick' stranded 
>>> relationships between teachers and students. Moreover, it can also 
>>> bridge the gap between the classroom and home by acknowledging that 
>>> life and individual experiencing is complex and multi-layered, often 
>>> involving critical moments that are ambivalent in nature. I have to 
>>> say that this approach may not be appropriate for younger learners. 
>>> I had in mind adolescent learners when I developed the idea of 
>>> existential funds of identity.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>>
>>> Adam
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This message and any attachment are intended solely for the 
>>> addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have 
>>> received this message in error, please send it back to me, and 
>>> immediately delete it. Please do not use, copy or disclose the 
>>> information contained in this message or in any attachment. Any 
>>> views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not 
>>> necessarily reflect the views of The University of Nottingham Ningbo 
>>> China. This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of 
>>> an attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage 
>>> your computer system: you are advised to perform your own checks. 
>>> Email communications with The University of Nottingham Ningbo China 
>>> may be monitored as permitted by UK and Chinese legislation.
>>
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180626/a93ca84f/attachment.html 