carnival on the net...

Mark Warschauer (markw who-is-at hawaii.edu)
Tue, 26 Dec 1995 21:18:55 -1000

I'm fascinated by both the carnival and the IRE discussions. As to
heteroglossia and carnival, Foucault (1986) has a somewhat related notion
of "heterotopias," which have "the curious property of being in relation
with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or
invert the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror or
reflect." Among these he includes psychiatric wards, boarding schools,
cemeteries, and yes, the good old carnival. Post-modern geographers
(Relph, 1991; Soja, 1990) have applied the concept of heterotopia to the
typical post-modern city (for example, Los Angeles)--pluralistic, chaotic,
lacking universal foundations or principles, continually changing, linked
by centerless flows of information. (As the old question goes, if you
wanted to start a revolution in L.A., what part of town would you seize??)

Anyway, the point of all this is that yes, this concept does seem to be
highly applicable to Internet sites as well, even in situations where
people's names are known, but other factors (distance, lack of social
status cues, etc.) provide a sense of anonymity. While xmca is a
relatively stable discussion list, many other e-mail discussion lists
certainly have a heterotopic feel to them. (And seizing control of an
Internet discussion can be about as difficult as seizing control of Los
Angeles).

How this relates back to carnival-like behavior in the classroom using
other methods of communication, I'm not sure. It does seem to represent a
polar opposite to IRE though.
Mark

Foucault, M. (1986). Of other spaces. Diacritics, 16(1), 22-27.

Relph, E. (1991). Post-modern geography. The Canadian Geographer, 35(1), 98-105.

Soja, E. W. (1990). Heterotopologies: A remembrance of other spaces in the
citadel-LA. Stragies(3), 6-39.

Warschauer, M. (in press). Heterotopias, panopticons, and Internet
discourse. UH Working Papers in ESL. Honolulu, Hawai'i: University of
Hawai'i Department of English as a Second Language.

Mark Warschauer, University of Hawai'i, markw who-is-at hawaii.edu
http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/markw