Hi Philip, Bruce and everybody--
I found Philip's original message that Bruce referred!
Bruce wrote,
> I find it significant that nobody has replied directly to Philip Capper's
> points about why _he_ doesn't feel part of the XMCA community (which is
> just what he predicted, of course).
>I tend to share some of them, in that
> for me XMCA is not a community that is central to my work or
> self-identity,
> but somewhere I dip into and out of, read some interesting things,
> occasionally write to, get feedback from etc. Perhaps that's why I find a
> lot of the community-defining discussion is not useful.
----------------
Here are my comments to Philip (sorry, I'm might be off track since I did
not check the whole discussion thread).
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phillip Capper [mailto:pcapper@actrix.gen.nz]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 6:15 AM
> To: XMCA
> Subject: Re: RE: What am i missing?
>
>
>
>
> Nate wrote:
> >I don't want to impose a grand object on xcma, but rather contemplate
> >if multivoicedness was our object, what questions would open up
> or in what
> >ways could we look at the contradictions differently.
>
>
> And Kathie responded:
>
> "i agree with what i hear you suggesting,
> but i think it will take more than finding those illusive questions.
> if multivoicedness (what a mouthful!) was our object, or is our object,
> or might be the object of some of the participants,
> we would also look at _how_ the questions get asked,
> who is not encouraged (or actively discouraged) to ask them,
> what questions get dismissed as impossible or "not for the likes of us" or
> even dismissed because they weren't asked properly.
> what _are_ the rules? how do we know?"
>
> Here is a contribution to this enquiry from a person who feels like
> an outsider on xmca even though I have been a subscriber to the list
> since 1993 and am an active activity theorist who has visited and
> worked with
> Yrjo and Ritva Engestrom in both San Diego and Helsinki, had Yrjo
> and Ritva visit and work with us in New Zealand and participated in
> the Aarhus Congress. My daily work is informed minute by minute by
> an activity theory analysis. My long periods of silent lurking on
> xmca define
> my sense of isolation from this list.
>
> At core there are two reasons for my feeling:
>
> (1) I am not an American in a virtual community which is dominated by
> Americans (this issue is not restricted to xmca. The whole internet
> may well be the greatest instrument of American cultural
> imperialism). I note with interest that other New Zealanders
> who I know subscribe to this list are also usually silent.
Good point. I faced with this issue at least in several spheres:
a) Many international and US journals send me articles of my Russian
colleagues for review. The problem is that Russian academic style and what
is considered to be science in Russia is a bit (or not a bit) different than
in US. US controls academic money (grants) and media (internet, journals,
conferences) that makes national academic discourses difficult to survive.
They often perceived as low quality and deficient. Sometimes I make efforts
to communicate that to the editors when I send them my reviews but I'm not
sure i was being successful. I'd like to have a bigger discussion of that
phenomenon. US colleagues, please, join and do not feel guilty!
b) I noticed that some of non-mainstream grad students (e.g., from working
class and minority) families have troubles in grad school because their ways
of talking, writing, and thinking are often recognized as legitimate but
rather as deficient.
c) I see efforts of people to redefine the legitimate academic genre to be
fail only because challenging the genre itself is not legitimate academic
discourse.
>
> (2) I am not a person who works in an academic institution, in a
> community overwhelmingly dominated by academics whose objects are at
> least in part defined by that context.
>
> So, as an activity theorist, how can I understand my sense of
> alienation from a community whose overarching interests are also my
> own?
My suggestion is to expect it but not accept it. How? As a Russian Mafiosi,
my advice is force your agendas, build new coalitions, corrupt authorities,
smuggle your interests, talk the way you like to talk, share your pain and
concerns, hijack xmca discussions, find common (for some) problems, rock the
boat, collaborate with people you like, and, please, do not believe in that
BS about "peripheral participation," where you are supposed to stay silently
on the "periphery" to learn from "full-time wizards" how to be one of them
(For non-Americans, BS stays for "bull shit").
>
> "as an activity theorist" - ah, yes. What is this beast? Activity
> theory, it turns out, does not have the meta-level power to create a
> WE out of YOU and ME. "My" concerns are not the same as "your"
> concerns.
My favorite American cartoon is about a white cowboy and an Indian (who is
his "younger" friend, of course). Once they were surrounded by other,
non-friendly Indians, so the cowboy yelled, "We are surrounded by Indians!"
His friend replied, "How are 'we,' white man?"
In my view, community is not glued by sameness but by relationships and
public nature of people's concerns. In education, I developed mantra that I
teach my students, "Sameness provides comfort, diversity creates a
curriculum."
>I live in a different country to you both physically and
> metaphorically. This afternoon I need to figure out how to give a
> team of manufacturing process
> workers who don't speak English very well and don't read too well
> in their first language a fighting chance of saving their jobs if I
> can only get them to understand the inner contradictions associated
> with their current disequilibrium and consequent displaced goals
> and the consequent need to enter a cycle of expansive
> learning and rethink their objects.
I'd like to know how things turn out in what you did. Tell more about the
community. I remember Ray McDermott's presentation at AERA (American
Educational Research Association) when he was invited to New York city to
help bug exterminators with long experience to pass exam to get license that
was required for them to keep (and secure) their jobs. Despite their high
expertise and experience many of the bug exterminators could not pass the
multiple choice exam. They were exam illiterate. For example, one question,
I remember, was like, "Is it dangerous to spray the stuff on your hands?"
The "correct" answer was yes, but experienced exterminators answers no
because occasional spaying the stuff on hands was unavoidable in their
practice and was not a big deal. Ray ended up inviting bug exterminators who
passed the exam to teach others how to pass it. Their instruction to their
colleagues was to pretend that you are answering the questions to a fool or
to a child. I never saw this research published. Does anybody know where to
find it?
I'd love to hear what happened in your case!
>
> In my context you are a blip on my screen. And I am a blip on yours.
Hi, blips! :-)
> You live your lives in the context of American academic convention -
> content analysis of xmca postings is best understood in the cultural
> context of doctoral defence, the will to tenure and the pressure
> to publish. xmca does not take you out of that zone, and postings from
> the likes of me are a disturbance from another planet which are best
> dealt with by being ignored.
You are not a disturbance but fresh air...
>This is not a complaint or a criticism.
> Nobody deliberately excludes me. I just do not accord with their
> interests.
Well, I also noticed that here very few people speak Russian but if I can't
make them to speak Russian at least they have to tolerate my Russian ascent
and my Russian English!
>
> So where is this multivoicedness? When I stand in 'your' shoes I can
> see it - the multivoicedness concerns the validation of different
> ideological positions in the intellectual debate. When I stand in my
> own shoes what I see is a series of ritualised conflicts playing out
> within a rigid set of rules of engagement and where people, in fact,
> are speaking with only one voice - that of the US academic
> cultural context which
> produces those rules.
Good point although I feel it as a bit overgeneralization. But do you want
to try something else? Any suggestions how?
> The consequences of this for my participation in this list are always
> the same. Over the years I have experienced the following patterns
> again and again:
>
> (1) I am writing an academic paper.
Why academic? Do you want ACADEMIC paper?
>I test my ideas on this list in
> that context and using that language.
Why THAT language and not some other? You are not in academic institution,
you can afford to do non-academic stuff. Why do you feel you have to do
academic discourse?
>The result is always a familiar
> type of list discussion where my ideas are tested (sometimes to
> destruction) by others. Great - that's what I wanted.
Did you?! If not, say what you really wanted. You can perhaps help many of
us to become freer than we are.
>
> (2) I send a contribution to the list based on a problem from my
> own day to day
> practical context and using the language appropriate to that
> context. The result is either total silence - the message just
> disappears - or the appropriation of my message by the community
> such that within
> about three responses it has been redefined as an issue of angels and
> pinheads. I then get a few private messages from participants who
> tell me how refreshing my message was. Many of these people have
> become very dear to me over the years.
How common! This is a difficult and interesting problem. I think that you
are doing your job in trying to break the wall (please keep doing that!).
People who are interested in what you are writing should be a bit more brave
and risky replying you publicly and not just via back channel. I'm sure they
also feel that it is not comfortable to do. And they are right. But
sometimes, it is a good idea to try to do uncomfortable things. Out of many
failures magic may happen.
>
> So why do I stay? Because I need you far more than you need me (you
> don't actually seem to need me at all).
That may not be true. I just want to attract your attention that when you
wrote, "you" you probably mean some imaginary abstract "you." As far as that
"you" you may be right (so far).
>There aren't a whole lot
> of people
> who are using activity theory the way we are and there aren't a lot
> of people in New Zealand - period. So I become parasitic.
Do you?! :-)
> I feed on xmca because that is the way I can keep up with what is
> going on. But I don't contribute very much because my experience is
> that the bulk of the xmca community is not actually very interested
> in my context. I sometimes become intensely frustrated with the
> rituals of discourse in your context, but that's my problem, not
> yours.
You never know...
>
> But if you go one step further and start trying to proscribe how
> people from New Zealand and Mexico, Russia and Germany, Bangor
> and La Jolla must express themselves, it ceases to be a viable
> community at all. Whose linguistic conventions? Whose meanings? When
> you try to police the language used in a multicultural context, that
> becomes your problem, not mine.
So is your point that things are bad enough to make them worse? I hear you.
However, I do not think it is possible to prescribe how people have to talk
on xmca. Russian Mafia won't allow that. Trust me! :-)
>
> Oh woe that the subjunctive should abandon us at this, our hour of
> need!
Nice talking with you, Philip. And what you think?
Eugene
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> Phillip Capper
> Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business (WEB Research)
> PO Box 2855
> 9th Floor 142 Featherston Street
> Wellington
> New Zealand
>
> Phone: (64) 04 499 8140
> Mobile: 021 251 9741
> Fx: (64) 04 499 8395
>
> phillip.capper@webresearch.co.nz
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