[Xmca-l] Re: General check-in?

[mike cole]

Hi Rein --  Its great to hear from Estonia.  The Tulvistas used to be
contributors to this conversation, back in the day.  Your
cultural-historical
tradition, entwined with your semiotics, educate us all.

How are you and your social circle thinkig about the current historical
crisis/crises in terms of the future of democracy and debates about what
follows in terms of possible forms of political economy.? I am "seeing" a
very strong movement on the part of my government to fulfill our founding
fathers's single worst nightmare:  That a president would become king, and
the states his vassals.  This imagining is reinforced almost daily as I scan
the horizon.  A new form of nationalist authoritarianism. I might even live
long enough to experience it.

As critical, committed, cultural-historical, social scientists, who teach
in universities tasked with creating and "transmitting" our knowledge to
next generations,
what special skills do we bring to our social roles and its obligations?
Beth has described going through a qualitative transformation in her social
role that is tightly
bound to her obligations to her students and their students. David points
to a future in which classroom spaces will not be used for their designed
purposes for
at least 2-3 years, assuming a globally distributed vaccine, or else it
will be entirely a form of distance education that the world has never
before experienced.
Either way, inequalities will be exacerbated. etc. You all of this.

So what can WE do (whoever we is?).
Here is what I imagine from the perspective of a vulnerable 82 year old and
almost four decades of xlchc-->xmca:
 Many people associated with XMCA, and many more who are associated with a
variety of allied enterprises, have for decades become
"experts" in the design of new forms of educational activity  (or medical
activity, or milk delivery men's mathematical practices, or tailors eeking out
a
living in an impoverished country)

If I were a youngster and into branding, I might say that CHAT is expert in
creating hybrid,multimedia, systems of activity, ones that afford the
design of
the kind of "heterogeneous attunement." -- the kind of attunement that
promotes learning and development  in zones of proxmal development.
However, I am not a youngster and my plate was pretty full before this
second shock wave,

I am thinking about this as an "act locally but think globally" way to deal
with a world where people must band together but can only survive by their
networked ties to other.

XMCA may not be the best place to discuss such matters. Your note with its
"two kinds of social distancing" set me off.
Here the medium seems to promote forms of chaining that leave only buried
traces of the by-passed links. Then they silence
those who feel disempowered by the male-domination. whiteness and status
that have been apparently unstoppable although
it is not the wish of any of those who participate. This happens not just
on xmca, but in other fora where everyone does not want it to happen.

My hope is that *Cultural Praxis, *which the MCA editors are re-vivifying,
will provide more tools to ensure that we retain the diversity essential to
any sort of cultural-historical theorizing or practicing.

My whole ruble
mike
PS-   How do we hybridize your two kinds of social distancing to create
effect environments for education?






On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 1:30 AM Rein Raud <rein.raud@tlu.ee> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> Sorry for not having been very active lately, as I’ve been submerged in
> lots of reading and writing, and the situation with the crisis has created
> an even more conducive atmosphere for that. In Estonia, the situation is
> more or less under control, and social distancing has been in our second
> nature for ages, although now that it is encouraged, it is suddenly no
> longer so natural.
>
> Stay safe and keep up the good work!
>
> With best wishes,
>
> Rein
>
>
> **********************************************
> Rein Raud
> Professor of Asian and Cultural Studies, Tallinn University
> Uus-Sadama 5, Tallinn 10120 Estonia
> www.reinraud.com
>
>
> “Meaning in Action: Outline of an Integral Theory of Culture”(Polity 2016)
> <http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509511242>
> “Practices of Selfhood” (with Zygmunt Bauman, Polity 2015)
> <http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9780745690162>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Being a social scientist is like being a geologist who studies rocks in a
landslide. Roy D'Andrade
---------------------------------------------------
For archival resources relevant to the research of myself and other members
of LCHC, visit
lchc.ucsd.edu.  For archival materials and a narrative history of the
research of LCHC, visit lchcautobio.ucsd.edu.
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