Thanks Gordon, for your exposition.
A quick thought: It seems to me that whether we look at language and genre
as artefacts or as social practices is a three-sided affair that
illuminates different aspects of what is happening at any given time.
Without descending to a narrow economism, can we say the difference is that
when we look at these processes as artefacts, we are looking at *what* is
produced within a given field; that when we look through the lens of social
practice, we are looking at the *processes* of production, at *how* these
are produced; and when we look at the forms in which the genre becomes
manifest, we are looking at the processes of _re_production, the
structuring structures of production and reproduction, which includes the
"rules" of exchange (which are usually nothing other than tradition and
reactions thereto)? So, as you say, to me we are merely looking at the same
phenomena from different perspectives, as product, as process, as form, and
as means of (re)production.
So, artefacts are the products of interaction within a particular field,
which in turn has its historically established "rules" (including what is
spoken about; turn-taking, etc -- what we call "genre", which is *also*
product, process, form; artefact and social practice, only viewed
specifically as form!); and artefacts and genres are the product of social
production processes - social practices - that redound with genre and
language to produce and reproduce artefacts and so on (?).
I think it was Elisa who said something about a social reproduction
perspective not allowing for agency or resistance (I'm sorry, I'm very busy
and have not been reading as closely as I should, so apologies if I have
misread this). I do not believe that this is necessarily the case (although
carried ad absurdum it could be). Reproduction cannot happen without
agency. That is a truism. Also, reproduction cannot happen without
resistance. That is important to remember. In other words, reproduction can
only be defined as reproduction of *something*, as opposed to something
other than the something which is reproduced. Hence resistance to the point
of antithesis (complete non-reproduction, or the production of something
entirely Otherwise) must be assumed as a possibility (or even a likelihood)
for reproduction to mean anything whatsoever. Similarly, social practice,
genre, and perhaps language all round end up as meaningless if we don't
assume reproduction (which may merely be "reconfiguration") of meanings and
social forms, new and/or old. No static view, whether it includes or
precludes reproduction, can be fruitful for social studies. No meaning can
be made without reference to something that has gone before, hence the
"new" always contains some residue from the "old". Hence reproduction.
Clearly, social forms, meanings included, are reproduced *and* changed over
time - but within limits, or so it seems. This seems to me to be a
fundamental challenge: to identify what changes and what stays the same,
how this happens, and within what limits. So much of what we think is "new"
is merely rebadged or technologically pureed "olds". Hence Leonardo di
Capriatti (?) plays Hamlet with a magnum, not a sword. The thematic content
remains, at root, unchanged.
Regards,
Phil
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Phil Graham
Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law
University of Queensland
phil.graham@mailbox.uq.edu.au
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