Re: [xmca] CHAT-AR: Seth's Table

[vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za]

Mike- absolutely. Who initiates the interaction often determines its terms (and outcome). 
Andy- yes we need to know what an activity is. But in interventionist research such as DWR is it not just defined within the/each engagement? Perhaps those who have experience with the approach could respond. 
Mary
-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Date: Mon, 16 May 2011 22:57:55 
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Reply-To: ablunden@mira.net
Cc: <lchcmike@gmail.com>; Mary van der Riet<vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za>
Subject: Re: [xmca] CHAT-AR: Seth's Table

No, no, Mike, of course you don't have to know anything about AT in order to engage in joint activity, etc.. I am saying that if want to solve the complex mix of problems around how to collaborate under the range of difficult imbalances of power etc., and other problems raised by interventions and participatory research, and so on, then, as theorists I think we nee to clarify what we mean by "an activity." Otherwise I think AT cannot help us in this situation. People outside of this reflective framework, when posed with or posing "participation" are going to ask questions like: "OK, what we are going to do then? What are you trying to achieve?" and so on. 
 
 Andy
 
 mike cole wrote: Mary/Andy--
 
 Right, Mary. One has to include the question WHOSE moral imperative. 
 
 Do you think that the issue of who initiates interaction is relevant?
 
 Andy-- Your comment about needing to know what an activity is in AT terms in order to engage in joint activity among groups of the sort contemplated here puzzles me. Why?
 
 Mike
 
 PS- Locally we have been using the term, ,"observant participation" to characterize involvement with the folks we work among and with. 
 
  
 
 
On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 12:17 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net> > wrote:
 In my view Mary, this brings us to confront what "an activity" is.
 Andy 
 

 
 Mary van der Riet wrote:
 The ‘participation’ component of PAR (participatory ACTION RESEARCH) is
 what intrigues me. Emphasis on participation  was a result of  criticism
 of approaches in development and rural agricultural research by the
 World Bank and IMF which was extractive and ultimately exploitative.
 They used approaches such as Rapid Rural Appraisal, which also developed
 into Participatory Rural Appraisal. Robert Chambers has a book called ‘Putting the last first’ and a chapter entitled ‘Whose knowledge?’.
 Both of these highlight the moral imperative behind participatory
 research approaches.
 But for me what is lacking in these approaches is a theorization of what
 ‘participation’ does, how it is the cornerstone of change on individual
 and social levels. I think that is what Vygotsky and CHAT approaches
 (and DWR in particular) add to PAR etc., a way of understanding how it
 is that participative processes are so significant in bringing about
 social change. A moral imperative is not enough to ensure change.
 Mary
 
 
 
 
 Mary van der Riet; School of Psychology; University of KwaZulu-Natal
 Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209
 
 email: vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za <mailto:vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za> 
 tel: 033 260 6163;  fax: 033 2605809
 
  
 Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net> > 05/16/11 04:19 AM >>>
        
 I think Vygotsky's absence of concern for ownership of a collaborative research project arose from what we would see today as a naive acceptance of the Soviet Union as the inheritor a popular revolution. I am sure he knew better, but it seems to have been a working assumption. It meant that he could see himself as a participant in that revolution, exercising popular agency. It doesn't look like that to us in historical
 
 retrospect and few of us on this list see it that way here and now.
 
 I have to say that we I first got interested in this stuff I saw it that
 
 way (like LSV). My activism was as an elected trade union representative
 
 and thinking about what I was doing was one of the responsibilities of that role. So also was maintaining a high level of participation in and commitment to the work. Things have changed, both in the world outside and my relation to it, and I now take these questions to be as relevant to me as they were to those academic researchers who would interview me as a subject years ago.
 
 But apart from many experiences with change consultants brought in by successive managers, I really know nothing of Lewin and AR or Mondragon,
 
 so I can't help with this issue any further, other than to affirm that I
 
 now believe that the dynamics of collaboration are a central problem for
 
 psychology, maybe even *the* central problem, and this question rightly deserves attention. It tends to be hidden until class divisions or neo-liberal atomisation of society, puts collaboration into relief
 
 Andy
 
 mike cole wrote:
  
 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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 Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ 
 Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&amp;pid=34857 <http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857> 
 MIA: http://www.marxists.org

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