WOW!
It seems AT is the perfect lens to examine all the conflicts, tensions etc.
Reading your post for me carried the anticipation of reading a great novel.
I think years ago in reading Wertsch there was this discussion in regards
the similarity between sociocultural / AT and a good novel Burk?).
Anywho I think its great to have AT used to explore the more political /
conflict ridden reality we find ourselves in most of the time. I guess more
importantly, how AT can be used to explore realities that extend from
"acadamia".
nate
>From: Helena Worthen <hworthen@igc.org>
>Reply-To: hworthen@igc.org
>To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>Subject: Re: BB and that not for Bill Barowy
>Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 09:49:38 -0500
>
>Nate, Bill --
>
>Thanks to both of you...
>
>When I "reply" to these messages, it goes to xmca on my screen. Yes, I'm on
>a
>Mac here at home, where I do my xmca stuff. Bill, while one of your
>messages
>went to xmca, the other went to me with copy to xmca, which would be ok,
>wouldn't it? Although it would start a thread that wasn't really a thread
>becuause it would be a message to me only.
>
>Come to think of it, there have been several times when people seemed to be
>writing to me privately and I've wondered why they didn't want to put their
>comments into the xmca stream... maybe it was just a quirk of the machine,
>not
>an intentional creation of a backchannel. Hmmmm, how do I fix this?
>
>The kind of comments that I'm looking for have to do with AT. I find that
>AT
>really helps me sort out the different groups (activity systems) involved
>in
>this project. It's kind of like a pair of lenses that makes it possible to
>see
>things I couldn't see otherwise. Yet AT is NOT a familiar research tool in
>Labor Studies. In this field there tend to be the straight Marxists (who
>don't
>usually mention Marx) or the labor economists, who can quantify anything
>your
>heart desires, but only deal with small segments of a situation. But when I
>start to explain AT to my colleagues, you should see the eyes glaze over. I
>have to go all the way back to "What do you use a theory for?" and very few
>people have the patience for that one, especially coming from a junior
>colleague. But SOMETIMES, if I'm lucky, and I get as far as saying,
>"Theories
>exist in tension wth each other -- they are different ways of looking at
>the
>same stuff, and if you have one, you have to have another, in order to see
>what the effect of each is on your interpretation of what you're looking
>at..." then I get some time.
>
>Also, the flavor of my paper is really different from what I've read in
>Yrjo's
>books. I'm going to put myself out on a limb and say that the context here
>is
>much more conflicted -- Chicago versus Finland!!! Our labor and employment
>law is weak on protections and getting worse. So when I identify different
>activity systems and presume their different motives -- the motives of the
>Building Bridges students, the union apprenticehsip programs, the minority
>caucuses within the unions, the union organizing departments, the churches
>where the projects are sited, the community development corporations that
>hire
>contractors, the union and non-union contractors -- the motives of some of
>these systems are fiercely in conflict with each other. Hispanic
>construction
>workers, for example, who have a complaint about their sweatshop working
>conditions (for example, one worker on a job where people were getting paid
>$8
>per hour, no benefits, cash, no overtime) injured his leg in a fall; he was
>given ice packs and put back to work) actually do expose themselves to
>physical risk if they decide to meet with a union organizer at a church.
>The
>church is likely to have a parishioner who is connected to the contractor
>or
>the developer -- the church will experience pressure. The non-union
>contractors have management representatives high in the political structure
>of
>Chicago, which is nothing you want to mess with .....etc. But does this
>different flavor mean that I'm using a tool that's really different from
>what
>I'm trying to grasp from Yrjo's materials?
>
>In addition, I'm writing this for labor educators. We have one journal that
>is
>focused on labor education -- Labor Studies Journal, it's called, and I'd
>hope
>that this would get published there. The people who read it would be labor
>educators like myself. I personally think we're in serious need of some
>theory
>we can get our fingers around and use like a combination shovel and --
>what's
>the flat thing that bricklayers use? Anyway.....
>
>I'd also expect some comments on the interviews and the way they show up
>(or
>don't show up) in the body of the text.
>
>Stuff like that.
>
>Yes, I'm hoping for some actual discussion.
>
>Thanks -- Helena
>
>
>
>Nate Schmolze wrote:
>
> > Helena,
> >
> > I really enjoyed the paper, its too bad more work like this is not out
> > there.
> >
> > One of the things I enjoyed was your dealing with the contradictions of
>the
> > various subjects involved.
> >
> > So's the weather any warmer way down south in Chicago?
> >
> > nAtE
> >
> > PS: Your paper is more visable now - it can be found on the main index
>page
> > and via the archive link on the main index page.
> >
> > vygotsky@charter.net
> > http://webpages.charter.net/schmolze1/
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
>
nAtE
vygotsky@charter.net
http://webpages.charter.net/schmolze1/
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