[Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: [New post] Why generations?: Discourse Analysis

[David H Kirshner]

Three or four years ago, we had a similar discussion about the openness and fairness of XMCA, and I made a suggestion that discourse analysis of the archive be undertaken to try to identify the mechanisms of exclusion. Unfortunately, I inserted my suggestion in an ongoing thread without checking sufficiently for fit with the ongoing conversation – Zaza’s first risk, below. I was called out for it, and apologized, but still received public castigation for my transgression.

Anyway, I hope this time my suggestion for disciplined inquiry into the discourse practices of XMCA might get a hearing. If XMCA is exclusionary, would that be empirically discernable? Alternatively, are the practices of exclusion so pervasive in our culture as to be invisible?

David
PS. I hope this time my suggestion does fit with the current thread, but in case not, I’ve added a subtopic to the subject line.


From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of Zaza Kabayadondo
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2020 2:52 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: [New post] Why generations?

I follow a lot of the discussions on xmca but rarely post. Despite many very warm invitations from Mike and others, I have only posted on this forum 3 times since joining in 2014. I read about 80% of the threads.

So to the question, "isn't any adult xmca member allowed to type..." here's are my thoughts:

I'm a millennial so I have been observing online discussion forum blowouts since I was about 16. People who look like me (black, female, immigrant) get trolled online all the time. I'm not saying xmca has trolls but I've become conditioned to worry about the risks of posting in any online forum. As a general rule it is safer not to get sucked in - to watch but not to get blood on my hands. I am only an active poster in groups where I trust the members and feel safe in, even when I don't know all the members. So what I asked myself what is it about xmca that makes me feel like I have to be super careful about what I post? What makes this group feel "unsafe" or "toxic". In other words, what makes it feel risky to post something on xmca? Below I've listed the 5 risks that I worry about. There are more, certainly, but I picked just the first few to start and paired them with some design questions I think we should be asking about how to design the community we want here.

1. "What is the context for this post? I think I get it but are we talking about the same thing?"
The design question we can ask ourselves: What can we do to provide better context, in a way that invites more members to add to an original post?

2. "I'm only marginally familiar with this topic, I'm curious but I won't ask questions but I don't have the energy to be "schooled" on this today." The design questions we can ask ourselves: How can we be argumentative, informative, without being toxic? What is the best way to engage novices and experts in this topic?

3. "Who else is out there, reading this? I don't know who I'm talking to except the 5 or so active members"
The design question we can ask ourselves: What can we do as a community to learn more about each other, our work, and our domains of focus or ways of applying CHAT.

4. "If I post this will it turn into a long and laborious (unpleasant) email exchange? Am I ready for a fight in this space?"
The design question we can ask ourselves: How do we bring critique without criticism? How do we sustain conversation without putting the burden on only the original poster?

5. "Dude, I don't read or speak Russian so I have nothing to say about the translation from the original."
The design question we can ask ourselves: How do we get around the challenges of casual and virtual engagement; and the challenge of not knowing who this community is or if what I (each of us) can contribute will be valuable to the community.

So this is why, for me, it's not so straightforward to say anyone can post. I'd love to see what other "risks" people have perceived. I'd also love to be part of doing something about addressing them, because I do think this forum has the potential to be an incredible community for more than just a handful of members.



On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 12:35 PM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com<mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com>> wrote:
Um, isn't any adult xmca member allowed to type what he or she wishes and then click the Send button?

This talk of stifling, excluding, suppressing, etc is confusing to me.

Maybe this is something only someone on the left can understand?

If people want to post a comment, question, remark, new topic, etc, they should just do it. Who cares if it's not automatically received with open arms or agreement?  Isn't that half the fun?

Is there really that much pressure and/or backstabbing in academia? Shouldn't the accomplishment of reaching that level come with the freedom to speak openly? As one on the outside, I guess I'm naive to these pressures. But nonetheless, they seem really counterproductive to me.

Naively (I suppose),

Anthony


On Friday, November 27, 2020, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu<mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>> wrote:
Great to see your voice, Phillip. Its been a while.
I, too, have been thinking about the long history of xmca's inability to create a level and welcoming playing field. I mourn
the days when Mary Bryson, Susanne Castell and Eva Ekblad would conduct pointed lessons for those participating in the discussion
for their utter blindness to issues of gender. And we have seen the correctness of Foucault's reminder of our inability to know
with any certainty the effects of our speech actions too often to enumerate. Being "put on the spot," as you say, is a clear example of a
discourse practice that discourages participation from those who are intimidated for fear of being seen as misguided or of offending some
senior person who will, one day, be writing a letter of recommendation for a scarce job.

So I, too, welcomed all of Arturo's notes and those over everyone else. The crack in American society opened up by the BLM, Metoo,
covid disruption, television of police murders, ...... has brought us the presence of young scholars sympathetic to, but critical of, Vygotsky and the
tradition we refer to as CHAT. They are also scholars who are adept in, and leaders in, the use of digital media for reorganizing educational
practices at both the colleague and elementary school levels in a manner that does not put learners on the spot but affords a variety of desired
pedagogical outcomes.

Inspired by the elderly voices who remember that this problem did not spring out of the ether, but is baked into the way that xmca and
before it xlchc, developed-- against the explicit wishes and designs of its creators.

At the following link in the lchcautobio you will find a report, written in 1992 by two former post-docs at lchc about the beginnings of xlchc, its
transformation into xmca as a way amplify the feedback that xmca authors received (this only worked well a couple of times, precisely because of
the issues being raised here for the past week).

http://lchc.ucsd.edu/XLCHC-PDFs/Finkelstein-Gack_Seeds-of-XLCHC.pdf<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http*3A*2F*2Flchc.ucsd.edu*2FXLCHC-PDFs*2FFinkelstein-Gack_Seeds-of-XLCHC.pdf&data=04*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C4eade32f073b4a67ed1608d89316d846*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C1*7C637421073613557729*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0*3D*7C1000&sdata=UkwWgLK0A42X1b3WwrdBd5r8zHODAe0FPXQ*2F0O1wbeY*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!Mih3wA!T0pLQQNn3ozrcaZLZySQW2HfI5szKb1psKLyPOPlTaDdsj6IIRoHeKVSIpAQ1HtbQDtkdA$ >

There you will see all of the problems that we encountered when LCHC tried to expand beyond the face to face practices in order to keep
former students, post-docs, and visitors in touch with each other on a working basis as a way to work around the discriminatory institutional
that restricted our ability to maintain an integrated collective. A lot of smart, experienced, people tried  (Yro, Jim Wertch, ...It failed, as we are witnessing.
Time for the next generation to join the discussion.

Like Phillip, I feel I have written enough, probably too much.

thanks for reading this far if you have!
stay safe. take care
mike  😷





I, personally, have been lectured regularly by colleagues who lament, xmca's failure to overcome its white male, gender-blind
bias



On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 9:40 AM White, Phillip <Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu<mailto:Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>> wrote:
dear Everyone:

thinking over all of the posts as an aggregate, rather that individually referencing them, regarding marginalization of xmca members, i'm reminded that this has been a topic over the last twenty-five years, that i've noticed.  only this time, the response is different in both quality and quantity, as well as introducing shared tools of analysis - which in my mind i believe is in part due to BLM activism, and certainly a newer and younger generation of colleagues here on xmca with a mindful use of our shared professional ethnographic tools. which i appreciate, greatly.

as any native english speaker knows, the term - to put someone on the spot - elicits the synonyms:
embarass - humiliate - shame - inhibit - tease - degrade - crush - wither - show up.

if the intention was to praise the student, why then weren't words of praise - for example: "Thank you for that question.  I myself have wondered about that evolution."

i'm reminded of Foucault: People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does."

in Brandon Taylor's novel Real Life, the narrator notes that in social gatherings when a white person makes a casually racist comment to a person of color, the whites remain silent, preferring not to move out of their own comfort level.  really, nothing was lost in translation.

from my perspective, there is too much protection here on xmca of both white fragilities, as well as white hetero-normative male fragility.  and one way to work around this is practice - i humbly suggest - is that those who self-identify as CIS white male could begin to point out points of view that support white hetero-normative supremacy.  the burden for this should not be placed on those already socially marginalized.

i'm reminded that in a class i taught for those working to get their master's degree in education, that when i would assign Bryant Keith Alexander's "(Re)Visioning the Ethnographic Site: Interpretive Ethnography as a Method of Pedagogical Reflexivity and Scholarly Production" - in which Alexander used the metaphor of pedagogy as drag - i would get blow-back from some students complaining that since they had no personal contacts with gay men, much-less gay men in drag, that they should not have to read the ethnography.  my response was that since they had no experience, this was a good way to start since they had no knowledge of who their students were, or their parents.  Yet within their classroom, or school community they worked in, there very well could be these life experiences.

i'm feeling that i've written enough - this is such a richly complex topic.

and so i'm grateful for Arturo's inadvertently public response - it was illuminating.

 phillip


--
I[Angelus Novus]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__http*3A*2F*2Fen.wikipedia.org*2Fwiki*2FAngelus_Novus__*3B!!Mih3wA!S7fCXtTCVQWkCXnNSwdyFfFitd3dB8EuTUKFK0sSSJdSy8_M6BJohNdCkFQYltd7V6VOEQ*24&data=04*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C4eade32f073b4a67ed1608d89316d846*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637421073613557729*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0*3D*7C1000&sdata=OAt*2Bk*2Fp0XvhGhDT*2Bu4*2BMp*2FyR9fOjUd01FWLYp*2B3GEg8*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!Mih3wA!T0pLQQNn3ozrcaZLZySQW2HfI5szKb1psKLyPOPlTaDdsj6IIRoHeKVSIpAQ1Hv60ylC9w$ >The Angel's View of History
The organism, by its life activities, creates what is outside.  So organisms create the conditions of their own future
which is different from their past" Richard Lewontin
Cultural Praxis Website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!T0pLQQNn3ozrcaZLZySQW2HfI5szKb1psKLyPOPlTaDdsj6IIRoHeKVSIpAQ1HsvhXj1rg$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__http*3A*2F*2Fculturalpraxis.net__*3B!!Mih3wA!S7fCXtTCVQWkCXnNSwdyFfFitd3dB8EuTUKFK0sSSJdSy8_M6BJohNdCkFQYltd1dis3rA*24&data=04*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C4eade32f073b4a67ed1608d89316d846*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637421073613567722*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0*3D*7C1000&sdata=AF62YfOXqho25*2FUo1uPgNn8Sk0EdBa2EVT567QyoA5c*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUl!!Mih3wA!T0pLQQNn3ozrcaZLZySQW2HfI5szKb1psKLyPOPlTaDdsj6IIRoHeKVSIpAQ1Ht4t_kE-Q$ >
Re-generating CHAT Website: re-generatingchat.com<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Furldefense.com*2Fv3*2F__http*3A*2F*2Fre-generatingchat.com__*3B!!Mih3wA!S7fCXtTCVQWkCXnNSwdyFfFitd3dB8EuTUKFK0sSSJdSy8_M6BJohNdCkFQYltesckucQg*24&data=04*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C4eade32f073b4a67ed1608d89316d846*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C0*7C637421073613567722*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0*3D*7C1000&sdata=9FZuoUKeVpIAekREb9tI74w1Fzip7t3NRQv8IQvC4PI*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!Mih3wA!T0pLQQNn3ozrcaZLZySQW2HfI5szKb1psKLyPOPlTaDdsj6IIRoHeKVSIpAQ1HuoQk7HPw$ >
Archival resources website: lchc.ucsd.edu<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http*3A*2F*2Flchc.ucsd.edu*2F&data=04*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C4eade32f073b4a67ed1608d89316d846*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C1*7C637421073613577719*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0*3D*7C1000&sdata=d45Nqt9fyF0WzBbU4mSHIlJMMs6ZgO9SrC7om3ZyoR4*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!Mih3wA!T0pLQQNn3ozrcaZLZySQW2HfI5szKb1psKLyPOPlTaDdsj6IIRoHeKVSIpAQ1Hs9WWNDAw$ >.
Narrative history of LCHC:  lchcautobio.ucsd.edu<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http*3A*2F*2Flchcautobio.ucsd.edu*2F&data=04*7C01*7Cdkirsh*40lsu.edu*7C4eade32f073b4a67ed1608d89316d846*7C2d4dad3f50ae47d983a09ae2b1f466f8*7C0*7C1*7C637421073613577719*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0*3D*7C1000&sdata=qZa*2FBu0f9usiFwxfKWHHeZTWEhTNcAjDg1bYNQtACPA*3D&reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUl!!Mih3wA!T0pLQQNn3ozrcaZLZySQW2HfI5szKb1psKLyPOPlTaDdsj6IIRoHeKVSIpAQ1HvXV1KHxg$ >.





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