If you place the individual in society, not in a static context, but one
which is dynamic, and which seeks to account for onto-, micro-, meso-, and
phylo-genetic development, 'instance' may become problematic in that it
does not carry the sense of changing identity over interaction across these
various timescales. Who is Jay Lemke? He is not the same man he was 10
years ago. His participation in xmca, in NARST, in many other systems of
activity, have shaped his development, as is true of any of us. If Jay is
an instance, he is one that/who is constantly growing and changing. In
Latourian terms, Jay's definition, through his network of relations, as he
moves in and out of social networks, must be continuously changing.
Similarly, one can think of 'individual' as at the intersection of systems
of activity, with the intersections changing as the individual joins and
leaves those systems.
Atoms, as people, can be treated as if they exist alone, yet the only way
we sense their existence is by interacting with them, by joining them in
some system. We define them in this way, and better define them, and
ourselves, as we interact with them across other systems. Schroedinger's
cat is not dead until we look in the box, or ask a trusted collegue what
they saw in the box.
Ontogentically, we can say a person becomes better defined over time, with
the least amount of social definition at birth, (perhaps at conception)
although anyone's mother would disagree with me about corporeal definition
9 months prior to and at that moment! The person's subsequent
participation, in Latourian terms, in and across networks, describes who
(s)he is in an ever changing sense. Their objective reality, their
existence, is what we share -- an intersubjective reality. That the *who*
who is doing the sharing differs across systems means that the objective
reality of the person may be quite different from one system to the next.
Atoms have similar identity problems, and that is why we tend to repeat or
extend other's experiments that define them, in addition to sharing
theoretically what we think they are.
What networks leave out, I think, that systems include are the anactant,
what might be the ANT equivalent of the ecological abiotic influences. (I
write this with trepidation, not knowing well ANT and whether it does
include abiotic-like influences) For example, it may be a cold windy day
with rain and Jay puts on his overcoat, arrives late because the subway is
delayed because of flooding, missing an appointment with a student, who
does not recognize him as they pass in the hall. Subsequently the student
does not benefit from Jay's counciling and makes different decisions than
if they had met. Jay then has the time to read his email and post a
response, which in turn influences many others. If actor networks allow
for weather (or physical experiments) then I'll accord them the same
epistemological status as activity systems.
Either way, here is what bothers me about 'unit of analysis'. It seems ill
fitting in an dynamic ecosocial description of human interaction across
many scales of influence and time. One can carve out, or isolate a portion
of the system, to enable analysis, fully knowing that to do so forms
artificial boundaries. The carving out, if not arbitrary, is according to
the goals of the investigation, with great fluidity within one
investigation and across to the next, extending past a static notion of
unit. It seems important to capture in this meta-theoretical and dynamic
way how we know what it is we are talking about.
Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Technology in Education
Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]