Re: [xmca] Refugees and Conception

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Thanks for recommending this book.  I opened up the website and clicked on
"excerpt" and read the first 10 pages of the book.  It is critiquing
"psychopathological" models of "post traumatic stress disorder" and
contrasting these deficit INTRApsychic models to  traditions [discourses]
with models which construct  perspectives within a cultural-historical
framework. I've bookmarked this book to read as it seems very relevant to
making EXPLICIT the contrasting models or accounts of PTSD and refocuses our
narratives "from youth subject to SUBJECTIVITY"  [within contexts].  It
seems very relevant as a book to recommend to school counsellors,
principals, and others working in school settings.

Thank you

Larry

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 2:59 AM, smago <smago@uga.edu> wrote:

> Related to this theme, some might find the following book to be of
> interest:
> http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521767804
> Human Development and Political Violence
> Colette Daiute
> The Graduate Center, City University of New York
> Hardback (ISBN-13: 9780521767804)
>
> Also available in Paperback | Adobe eBook | Mobipocket eBook
> Published April 2010
> In stock
> $90.00 (C)
> Human Development and Political Violence presents an innovative approach to
> research and practice with young people growing up in the context of
> political violence. Based on developmental theory, this book explains and
> illustrates how children and youth interact with environments defined by
> war, armed conflict, and the aftermath involving displacement, poverty,
> political instability, and personal loss. The case study for this inquiry
> was a research workshop in four countries of the former Yugoslavia, where
> youth aged 12 to 27 participated in activities designed to promote their
> development. The theory-based Dynamic Story-Telling by Youth workshop
> engaged participants as social historians and critics sharing their
> experiences via narratives, evaluations of society, letters to public
> officials, debates, and collaborative inquiries. Analyses of these youth
> perspectives augment archival materials and researcher field notes to offer
> insights about developmental strategies for dealing with the threats and
> opportunities of war and major political change.
>
> Contents
> 1. Beyond the youth gap in understanding political violence; 2. Youth and
> society work together; 3. Living history; 4. From frozen narratives to
> critical narrating; 5. Power genres; 6. Sociobiographies; 7. Human
> development in conflict.
>
> Reviews
> "Colette Daiute's interviews with adolescents who lived through the tragic
> smash-up of Yugoslavia are gripping. The story that emerges is a mix of
> stout courage and deep uncertainty, the tale of a generation growing up in a
> world that they must reconstruct, despite their doubts. Yet, there runs
> through it what might well be called a persistent sense of a possible
> future."
> - Jerome Bruner, New York University
>
>
> "An innovative approach to listening to youth in the context of political
> violence, this is essential reading for policy makers, researchers, and
> development workers on how to effectively tap the potential of youth and to
> ensure their positive contribution to societies emerging from the ravages of
> political conflict."
> - Victor Karunan, Chief, Adolescent Development and Participation, UNICEF
>
>
> "This is an extraordinary, powerful book that contributes to our deeper
> understanding of the complexities and dynamism of young people's experiences
> in the context of dramatic social changes, which put their well-being and
> development at risk. It challenges some common approaches to the explanation
> of the impact of political violence, militant ideologies and armed conflicts
> on the way young people conceptualise their environments and develop their
> potentials. Drawing from the cultural-historical theory that explains human
> development in terms of daily interactions between the individual and the
> society, the author engages in an in-depth inquiry into the meaning-making
> of young people living in the violent context. Highly recommended for
> educational researchers, policy-makers and practitioners, a thorough
> analysis of these narratives proves the importance of taking into account
> the voices of young people in all aspects of education."
> - Vedrana Spajic-Vrkas, University of Zagreb, Croatia
>
>
> "Colette Daiute has written a moving, insightful, and inspirational account
> of her interventions and research with children who have suffered from
> political violence. She offers concrete examples of how to use writing to
> help children process their experiences and move forward in positive ways.
> Our hope for breaking cycles of violence lies in healing the next
> generation. This book is a must-read for those interested in human rights
> and children's rights."
> - Sarah Warshauer Freedman, University of California, Berkeley
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of mike cole
> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 6:43 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity
> Subject: [xmca] Refugees and Conception
>
> I am responding here to Denise's note about her work with refugee women. I
> have started a new
> thread because her message came trailing a mile of previous messages (we
> need to find some way
> to not include every previous message with a new one; its a special burden
> when we get very long threads and the archive has all the prior messages in
> a thread anyway).
>
> Denise wrote (in part):
>
> I (one of my hats) work with refugee mothers and the concept
> of "foreign mothers" for the local population. I ran a CL [Change
> Laboratory]
> with a group that is working on integrating refugee mothers so that their
> children can perform
> better at school. The subjects of this CL had relatively little or no
> knowledge of what happens in foreign mothers lives or world on a daily
> basis. This I attempted to introduce through mirror data and models etc.
> What remains as a question is to me is if these persons minds where
> constructed within their environment and they are relatively isolated
> within
> their new environment what kind of mind is there? The question that you put
> forward at the end of the video is of great interest to me and an important
> argument for involuntary displaced adults.
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> Your note raises dozens of questions for me, Denise.
> First of all, I would love to read a description of your Change Lab
> experiments. The first
> question your note brings up is "who initiated the intervention?" A central
> principle of
> the Development Work Research Change Lab methodology, as I understand it,
> is
> that
> focal participants are the ones to decide what is a problem in their lives
> (at work in the work that
> I have read). Are the moms the one's who are concerned about their kids'
> performance in school?
> Or is this some govt agency's concern?
>
> If it is the mom's concern, what is revealed about the history and current
> state of their problems as they
> see them in the mirror?
>
> What sort of intermediate solutions do they come up with?
> Is it difficult for them to use the theoretical model?
>
> I think that just starting with data generated by the conversations that
> are
> meant to be evoked by the
> mirror part of the methodology would reveal a lot about how these women
> think about the world. Anyway, I would start there (and for sure would give
> them Vygotsky blocks to find out how their minds work!).
>
> I understand what you mean, in common sense terms, by saying that they lead
> isolated lives here. But it is not literally true, is it? From the little i
> know about domestic refugee situations, the world around them impinges on
> them from every side. For example, in the book
> *The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American
> Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures *by Anne Fadiman, the Hmong
> people who are her subject matter could easily be said to live in isolation
> from the life around them in the Central Valley of California, but it is an
> odd sort of isolation as they struggle to reconcile the two worlds they
> have
> experienced. And its odd for those around them who seek to be helpful. And
> many around them are actively seeking to isolate them even as they seek to
> isolate themselves from "those alien creatures."At present I am working in
> an African American community which is, so to speak, isolated in a housing
> project in southeast san diego. After a few years of involvement with these
> folks, the main thing i have learned is that there is so much I do not
> understand that I am constantly suspending judgment and seeking deeper
> understanding by engaging with them in activities that they think are good
> for their kids, all the time trying to understand the discrepancies from my
> expectations/values, the choices they make, their selective appropriation
> of
> the advice that rains down on them, and so on.
>
> I am really interested in the problem you raise, but I almost certainly
> have
> little to contribute with so little knowledge of the particulars.
> Tell us more!
> mike
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