________________________________ From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Denise Newnham Sent: Sat 5/14/2011 2:44 AM To: 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity' Subject: RE: [xmca] Aristotle's PRACTICAL philosophy as providing historicalperspective Dear Mary et al I enjoyed your argument (Mary) and yes it is so important as in this way of working the researcher and the practitioners are a team in the real sense of the term, discovering and finding solutions together through redesigning the activity. Obviously in sensitive subjects such as HIV, poverty, refugees, third world education etc etc this approach allows the participants to retain their dignity and empowers them. I beg to differ though on the methods used part...In the DWR methodology there is a continual back and forward movement between theory and practice. An ongoing questioning on behalf of the interventionist researcher and the practitioners about the theory of the object and how this is to be transformed. There are several methods within the process and they are at the level of actions, as Mike said earlier on in this discussion. These methods are like a tool box one does not make use of a hammer when a screw driver is needed and sometimes it is even finer as one type of a hammer does not suffice for all situations. Or for that matter use a saxophone to play the oboe partition in "Vivaldi's 5 concerti per oboe". The various methods have been carefully designed in relation to the theory and are not "decorations on a Christmas tree". All together this makes up the methodology which is at the level of the activity. Without an internal- to- the- activity- analysis of the contradiction and its double binds, that have been created historically between the nodules of the activity system, and the correct stimulus first or second (double stimulation)to transform the moment of tension that arises, the whole process becomes senseless. As Ilyenkov, 1982 said 'to comprehend a phenomenon means to establish its place and role in the concrete system of interacting phenomena in which it is necessarily realized, and to find out precisely those traits, which make it possible for the phenomenon to play this role in the whole' And now back to my concepts... Denise -----Original Message----- From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Mary van der Riet Sent: vendredi 13 mai 2011 13:58 To: lpscholar2@gmail.com; xmca@weber.ucsd.edu Subject: Re: [xmca] Aristotle's PRACTICAL philosophy as providing historical perspective Dear Jay, Larry, Christine et al I really appreciated your post Jay, because it highlighted all the difficulties of Soft;vs hard' research practice. And I have been following the discussion on method/methodology. I wanted to make a few points. As a researcher trying to work with CHAT, there really is no clear method, because it is a set of epistemological/ontological assumptions about human behaviour. If you are going to use it as an approach one has to draw from the wealth of research methods that exist in the social sciences. The trick is to match these methods with the CHAT assumptions. For example, how does one get at an 'historical' account of a phenomenon? Can you use historical records, or biographies or oral history? For me these operate on the level of 'methods', to achieve the 'methodology'. In HIV research which is heavily biased towards quantitative predictive research designs, there has been a shift towards understanding 'context', but it is treated primarily as a variable. I argued in my thesis that one of the things a CHAT analysis does is it 'produces' context. It provides a way of working with he many interwoven processes which mediate behavior. On the point raised by Jay, there is a lot of politics in research funding. I have recently been fortunate to receive a grant for Change Lab/interventionist research in my doctoral study site, a rural, poverty-stricken context in SA. It was not easy to propose such a study (which I called rather vaguely 'activity theory and behavior change research') which has no defined outcome and follows broad questions about practices. The grant is from our national research fund which tends to prefer clear hypothesis driven quantitative designs. I wonder how much the current ethos in SA contributed to granting the funding. There is strong emphasis on community involvement and "participation' of research participants in research concerning the poor and vulnerable, for ethical and political reasons. Sometimes participation is just involving the local chief in a meeting and in presenting the findings to the community. I argued that the CL approach combined with participatory research has the potential to be participatory in ways that conventional research is not. Where else do participants engage in analysis of data which profoundly affects their lives? Mary Mary van der Riet; School of Psychology; University of KwaZulu-Natal Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209 email: vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za tel: 033 260 6163; fax: 033 2605809 >>> Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> 05/13/11 08:27 AM >>> Jay I appreciate your reply as it gives some validation to my questions about *perspectives* or *forms* of awareness such as Aristotle's 3 *modes* of intelligence. He suggests each form is a valid way of constructing knowledge but makes a value statement that phronesis is the most fundamental. If we are skillful at constructing *theory* [episteme] or PRODUCING *techne* but don't engage with *value-knowledge*, then Aristotle suggests we will remain adrift. Philosophical hermeneutics as a tradition is exploring this mode of knowledge. Anna Stetsenko seems to me to be clearly engaging in explicit phronetic social research which takes a strong *collaborative* value STANCE within cultural historical narratives. Mike has mentioned she is representative of a particular approach within CHAT which also includes Vladimer Zinchenko and Dot Robbins, among others. [others think she is moving beyond CHAT] Stetsenko, Zinchenko, and Robbins are including *motivation* and *subjectivity* as concepts within cultural historical perspectives. I'm wondering if their perspective of CHAT can link up with Aristotle view of *episteme*, *productive techne* [art & craft], and *phronesis* as contrasting FORMS of intelligence? This linking may lead to a way to bridge across various traditions that are engaging with issues of value and power within evolving historical consciousness. The statement that we have a "prejudice against prejudice" captures the value of embracing uncertainty and inquiry as a *disposition* that can be developed which embraces historical consciousness. I have a particular question if "historical consciousness" requires a narrative form and if narrative as a particular form of communication is central to phronesis [as historical] Larry On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 10:33 PM, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote: > > Christine and all -- > > Important observations about the relationships among progressive modes of > research praxis, dominant paradigms, and policy aims in this thread! > > Doing genuinely collaborative-participatory research is really not easy for > many reasons, including both the problems of including the very different > cultures of academic researchers and of participants oriented to their own > practice, needs, and goals AND the conflict between the nature of the system > we create in such studies and the dominant paradigms of planned, controlled > research. > > Someone who has done a pretty good job I think on both counts is Michelle > Fine at City U of NY Grad School, a former colleague whose work I much > admire. > > But I am rather conflicted about some of the paradigm assumptions. I don't > happen to believe that there are useful general laws about social systems. > They are not the kind of objects of study about which such laws are > possible, primarily because what usually turns out to matter about them are > more their differences rather than their similarities (as opposed to the > ways in which natural science's objects are defined, so that similarities > matter more than differences). Social systems are in this sense a bit more > like literary texts. So there are ways of not having to start from scratch > in understanding a new one, but not ways that rely on general laws of their > behavior. More like check lists of things to pay attention to, and of > possible or frequent kinds of connections seen before. Weak similarities, > embedded in strong differences (the uniqueness, individuality, and > unpredictability of real complex systems). > > The methods of controlled research depend on predictability, and on the > dominance of similarity over difference. They have their uses in social > science and psychology, but they don't get one very far, and in particular > they don't enable social engineering. Which may be a good thing! As someone > like Latour might note, academic disciplines, and indeed all organized, > historically long-lived institutionalized activity systems work at making > things seem and sometimes even be more predictable and regular than they > would be "in the wild". But when their norms are violated, when objects of > study are defined in new ways, when systems under study combine things that > do not normally combine, or combine them in new ways (e.g. combining > researcher culture and practitioner culture), the predictability and the > illusion of control and regularity quickly evaporates. > > The pursuit of general laws is not a good route to the practical knowledge > and wisdom needed to make our way toward a better society. We cannot afford > to be misled by superficial generalizations when we are dealing with real, > particular communities and their problems. We need particularist research > that adds to our capacity to help out in the next particular case. > > So how do you write a grant proposal, or a dissertation, or even a journal > article about such studies? The dominant future-oriented genres are hardest: > they expect predictability when what you're going to learn depends mainly on > the aspects you can't predict and which will come as a surprise to you. The > retrospective genres are easier, you can say what happened, and even what it > probably means, but you can't meet the dominant expectation for broad > generalizations, for universal laws, or even for findings people can count > on seeing again in every new instance. What you can do is add to the > checklist of phenomena, to the toolkit of methods, to our collective > capacity to generate helpful hypotheses and potentially insightful theory. > Theoretical models in this view are just little boats bobbing on the waves > of particularity. They are not the currents that drive those waves. Research > communities should aim to make good theoreticians, not general theories. > Because very good research program has to create its own local theory. Good > luck with yours! :-) > > JAY. > > > Jay Lemke > Senior Research Scientist > Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition > University of California - San Diego > 9500 Gilman Drive > La Jolla, California 92093-0506 > > Professor (Adjunct status 2009-11) > School of Education > University of Michigan > Ann Arbor, MI 48109 > www.umich.edu/~jaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/~jaylemke> > > > Professor Emeritus > City University of New York > > > > > > > > On May 6, 2011, at 9:17 AM, christine schweighart wrote: > > > > > Dear Andy, > > > > Thanks for being so frank, it helps ! Research proposals which 'begin' > having engineered access and manipulated various threads hide this really > important observation. Not that this 'engineering ' is wrong necessarily, > but it can be a blind spot ripe for many kinds of influences , including > funding and prestige, to go through the back door in the context of > agreements and publications. Things happen for the 'prestigious' in > ways that they might not otherwise- of course. > > I tried to 'begin' to enter academic research practice 'officially' > without doing this - probably too naively, with a notion that I would find > out what the thresholds and ' advantages of belonging to a research > community and its costs' were, perhaps I rather hoped to rediscover a > reaffirmation of collaboration in academic research practice, which had > seemed to be eroded in my teaching settings..... I remember thinking that if > I failed to gain access to research in an educational context, it would > still reveal something important to discuss about the nature of academic > practice. I now think this might be one value which sits in the 'costs' - > one that is not upheld as much as it might need to be- in many instances. > > Learning about the timing of what to propose and how to align that to > personal preferences and sacrifices in morals, is as much part of the > inter-generational project as writing and polishing research products ( > appearing in many researcher conferences and communities). I get the feeling > that the two are related (a need for frankness in relation to the process of > doing and writing about research). Anyway for my part, hearing this > acknowledged takes a bit of the edge out of an opaque boundary area, makes > it easier to live with.. > > Christine. > > > __________________________________________ > > _____ > > xmca mailing list > > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu > > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca > > > > > > __________________________________________ > _____ > xmca mailing list > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca > __________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca Please find our Email Disclaimer here: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer/ __________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca __________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
<<winmail.dat>>
__________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca