I am still struck, though, by Jay's remark that "n floats." Yum. I love
those gummy relational between-y concepts.
L*
>Leigh,
>
>I'm trying to think through your example in terms of Jay's scales and I'm
>wondering if we're looking at something like the ontogenesis of a career
>(scientist, social scientist, carpenter, doctor, medtech, teacher,
>whatever), then are we talking about variation in temporal-spatial-social
>textures of an N-level phenomenon?
>
>What I see in your examples is that different communities of practice have
>trajectories of participation with lines (back to your train analogy) of
>different length, different schedules, different numbers of usual stops,
>and different speeds. So in a society it may be that the science/math
>train starts early, goes fast, and has few stations, while perhaps entrance
>into teaching English at community colleges starts later, goes slower, and
>has many many stations. Or in sports, competitive gymnastics would be
>organized with even earlier, faster, fewer stations (though the lines would
>be shorter, with the career not much longer than the trajectory of
>development), while competitive volleyball would be later, slower, more
>stations.
>
>So, now as a question, are these differences differences of timescale in
>Jay's terms (N vs. N +1) or intra-scale differences (all variations of an
>N-level phenomenon)?
>
>In any case, at first I was tempted to say that the social organization of
>these lines might just reflect prestige (privileged communities of practice
>regulating entry points and insisting on the difficulty of their
>practice--with early entry being one way of representing the difficulty),
>but it may also be that certain practices are better afforded with certain
>kinds of trajectories (e.g., native control of the phonology of a language
>would be an example where early development is tremendously advantageous).
>
> >I have been following the discussion of Jay's paper with great interest.
> >In fact, I had the interesting experience of *dreaming* the paper last
> >night, and woke up with a strange visual experience of seeing things
> >moving at different rates -- exhilirating and a little scary.
> >
> >One piece I'd like to pull at a bit: if you conceptualize the trajectory
> >of a timescale itself as an object, it has many qualities in addition to
> >speed/rate (Jay talks about some, including scope and scale). One set of
> >these is something like the qualitative nature of the information
> >exchanges across levels (the semiotics, as the paper indicates). These
> >themselves can be sparse or dense, big or small, simple or complex. Let me
> >try to ground this in an example. Growing up as a working class girl, the
> >math/science train at the school level seemed to go very fast, with few
> >portals of entry. Once I managed to get "on," it, it wasn't hard, but if
> >(it seemed to me at the time, and still does) I missed one opportunity,
> >the next would be a long time coming, if at all. I was able to stay on
> >the train during high school, but at the college level, I didn't know the
> >code for the entrances. So I moved to another train, the social science
> >one, that had many more kinds of doors, closer together, and moved at a
> >pace I could articulate with my life (needing to work odd jobs, do
> >community organizing, grow up). Occasionally I'd glance up and note that
> >the science/math train had rumbled by again. By the end of college, it
> >appeared to be entirely without entrances, as I was moving orthagonally to
> >it, not just at a different rate, but sideways.
> >
> >So a question here is: what can we say about the properties of the
> >timescale as mediating object to explain this sort of thing? Clearly
> >people can use the representation of a time scale as an object for power
> >over others, or as empowering. Anatomy is slow physiology. A scalpel may
> >illuminate or obscure this. A CD Rom with speeded up anatomical slices
> >may illuminate or obscure this. Whether illuminating or obscuring depends
> >on the ...power of those yielding these tools? ....or...?
> >
> >By the way a historical footnote on boundary objects: the original work
> >on boundary objects that I did in the mid-80s grew directly out of
> >observing how two groups (clinicians and basic researchers in brain
> >research) with different time lines combined data. Clinicians canonically
> >need answers quickly and instantially; basic researchers work on a longer
> >time scale with more formal data points.
> >
> >Thanks for a great paper, Jay, and a great discussion, all.
> >
> >L*
> >_______________________________________________
> >
> >Department of Communication
> >University of California, San Diego
> >9500 Gilman Drive
> >La Jolla, CA 92093-0503
> >phone 858/534-6327
> >fax 858/534-7315 email: lstar who-is-at ucsd.edu
> >http://weber.ucsd.edu/~lstar/