[xmca] CHAT-AR: Seth's Table

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

I am still trying to figure out the issue of theory and methodology in this
CHAT-AR discussion but in the meantime, I am would like to know other's
views of Figure 3
in Seth's article.  Here is what I could capture from the pdf. (Hey! It
worked!!).
"Proposition" refers to a set of analytic characteristics that Seth uses to
compare Lewin and Vygotsky. I raise questions below.

Proposition

               Lewin
Vygotsky

1. Direct consideration of improvement of

societal practice
                            +     + ?

2. Necessary to intervene into societal practices
                                     +     +

3. Explicit attention to societal values used
 O    O

4. Part of being objective is to consider

societal values and interests
                                                                    O    O

5. Advocacy and objectivity
                                                                    O   O

6. Distinction between “basic” and

“applied” is meaningless
                                                                         +
+

*Note. *+ indicates concordance; ? indicates uncertainty; O indicates
absence.

I want to focus on propositions 3,4,5. I think that they might provide a
rough pointer
towards some of the differences that appear to exist between different forms
of research that claims some relation to some form off action research.

3 and 4 are closely related in that both presuppose that there is more than
one social value and interest to be considered. Neither LSV nor Lewin, it
seems, attended to these issues explicitly. Then, of course, they would not
pay explicit attention to advocacy.

I believe that in general people who participate in this discussion assume
that there are in fact multiple societies in Society, we would point to
socioeconomic class as fundamental, but however we do it, we would argue
that those "for whom" the research is being done are not members of a single
society with a single set of values and a single set of criteria of virtue.
So we MUST raises these issues.

When we do, the issue of agency jumps in our face.  Whose interests are
being served here, given that there are different social groupings involved?
Who gets to decide what gets remembered out of these encounters and who does
not?

When conducting joint research with Soviet colleagues in the 1980's I
learned that the question of who initiates a proposed collaborative project
is a central concern in human interaction.  At the diplomatic level, my
Soviet colleagues did all they could to be sure that it was the Americans
who initiated any interaction. Why? Because they could go to their bosses
and say, "We have been asked to engage in these activities, what should we
do?" Once they were told to do what they wanted to do in the first place,
the could perceive. They were absolved of the crime of exerting agency.

When working with local communities, the balancing of responsibility for the
joint activity is an ongoing and major concern. I take Yrjo's focus on the
method of dual stimulation in the Change Lab as a way of providing the
"other" (postal workers, medical workers, etc.) with agency.... to become
their instrument.

I like the phrase I learned from Olga Vasquez, "reciprocal relations of
exchange." Sounds like the definition of non-profit capitalism, but when one
achieves such reciprocity, good things happen.

What do others think about the absence of these concerns shared by Vygotsky
and Lewin that we do not, I am surmising, share with them? (Judging from
Seth's account.)

mike
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