I agree with you. But I am also aware of the tendency (in myself) to use my
little tool kit of knowledge (historical) to both interpret and constrain
the present. This is also born out in various power issues related to role,
influence, and structures. What I like about activity theory in general and
Vygotsky's attention to context/situations in particular is that is gives me
a way to intellectually engage the present without (necessarily) repeating
the mistakes and injustices of history. So I interpret being a
'contextualist' in political/moral terms I guess.
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Smagorinsky [mailto:smago@peachnet.campuscwix.net]
Sent: Friday, March 19, 1999 10:47 AM
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: contextualist(s)
I'm not sure I'd frame the issue in terms of forced choices--that is, I
don't think that attention to the history of a setting disables one from
attending to its present condition. To me, it helps understand how the
setting has come into being. And so I wouldn't use a phrase such as
preoccupation with history to describe attention to history, which seems to
imply that it blinds one to other points of interest. My point was not to
say we should look either here or there, or that looking in one detracts
from attention to the other, but rather that in order to understanding how
things work in the present, it's useful to know how they've gotten to be
that way. That's what I understand Vygotsky to have believed, and it's a
view I share.
At 08:23 AM 3/19/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Peter,
>
>I agree completely with the cultural/historical roots of any here and now
>situation but I don't see how recognizing the history in any here and now
>situation (context) detracts from the necessity to first (and last) locate
>yourself in this local space. Doesn't a preoccupation with history become
>historicism? And feed the tendency to explain the now as a consequence of
>history as opposed to a backdrop for the creative transformation of history
>(making history in the here and now)? I realize I am now
>connecting/conflating situation to context. But I think I will stand by
>that.
>
>Chris
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Peter Smagorinsky [mailto:smago@peachnet.campuscwix.net]
>Sent: Friday, March 19, 1999 3:50 AM
>To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
>Subject: RE: contextualist(s)
>
>
>My understanding of Vygotsky would suggest a more cultural/historical
>notion of context, rather than here-and-now. That is, a context is a
>consequence of, to borrow some of Bakhtin's phrases, "the great historical
>destinies of genres" (1981, p. 259) and the "primordial dialogism of
>discourse" (p. 275).
>
>Peter
>
>At 04:53 PM 3/18/99 -0700, you wrote:
>>Eva,
>>
>>Not to put words into anyone's mouth but it seems to me that a
>contextualist
>>is one that holds context (the here and now/the local) as the primary
>>beginning and ending point of all analysis and speculation on phenomena.
>>
>>Chris
>>
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Eva Ekeblad [mailto:eva.ekeblad@ped.gu.se]
>>Sent: Thursday, March 18, 1999 2:00 PM
>>To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
>>Subject: Re: what silence?
>>
>>
>>At 11.49 -0800 99-03-18, Mike Cole wrote:
>>>Why is it that in a variety of textbooks, Vygotsky is referred to as a
>>>contextualist?
>>
>>Mike, I know what context is
>>but what is a contextualIST?
>>
>>Eva
>>
>>
>