What I had in mind was that ideologies are coherent; activity systems are
by definition riven with contradictions that unsettle the terms in which
they're known -- so while ideologies are always in play, within the
activity system that is subjected to an activity theory analysis, the
contradictions that emerge in the course of "moving ahead" override/
challenge/ test whatever system of belief might otherwise sustain the
status quo. Since I have never done an analysis on a system wider than the
classroom, and I haven't used AT as a mean of intervention, I am
projecting/ speculating about how it would, really, work.
Judy
Judy
At 05:27 PM 11/4/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Judy writes,
>>As everywhere, the dualism, the line, should be understood as
>>problematic.
>>Our activities, not our ideologies, are the basis for meaning. There I
>>think everyone concurs.
>
>if ideologies are beliefs accepted as normal practice, how do you _know_
>that
>your ideologies are not the basis for meanings?
>it's like saying i'm aware of my unconscious - our activities are
>inescapably related to
>our beliefs about normal practice,
>just as the dominant discourse here is normative, normalizing, norming the
>ideas through its speech-acts -
>our ideologies are what we base our beliefs on - i don't see how any
>academic can deny this,
>although, of course, it being an unconscious normalization, i can
>absolutely see how it must be denied, which doesn't help understand
>normativity, of course,
>but helps explain how it must be protected.
>
>you also write
>>Woops. I left out one comment, a response to something diane said, which I
>>think is an interesting challenge -- that AT leads logically to "radical
>>behaviourism" -- change the activity, force people to change the ways they
>>think.
>>
>>Of course what disrupts that logic is that AT [in my own, Yrjo-influenced
>>understanding of it] presupposes community, different perspectives,
>>contradictions between goals and motives, constant negotiation of the
>>object, the nature of the activity, what it's for; looking 'up' and 'down'
>>levels of analysis -- across strata...
>
>again, if we disregard the ways communities are normalized in order to
>function as communities,
>then that assumption of diversity working against behaviourism slips,
>slightly, doesn' t it?
>
>i mean, if one person in a community does not perceive the activity in the
>same way as every other participant does, will the others change their
>behaviours to accommodate the singular acts of dissent? no, of course not.
>the other will be regarded as disrupting the community practice,
>abnormalizing the accepted normal practice - all communities rely upon
>normalized practice,
>discourses, of course (look HERE i mean right HERE it is right under our
>NOSES the normative practice and its effect on participation) - really.
>
>what people say, and what they do, are as different as what they can admit
>to, and what they believe - belief systems are the unshakable foundation
>of historical reproduction. no change has ever been effected, really, to
>any of the dominant discourses.
>what makes anyone think that AT is somehow exclusive to this?
>
>the very word, dualism, functions to maintain dualities, of course.
>the desire for problematizing it is, as well, a function of maintaining
>it, don't you think?
>diane
>
> **********************************************************************
> :point where everything listens.
>and i slow down, learning how to
>enter - implicate and unspoken (still) heart-of-the-world.
>
>(Daphne Marlatt, "Coming to you")
>***********************************************************************
>
>diane celia hodges
>
> university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
>instruction
>==================== ==================== =======================
> university of colorado, denver, school of education
>
>Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu
>
>
>
>
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