Hello Everyone,
I don't often comment here, but follow with interest.
Since I've been thinking a bit lately about what Activity is, as Andy asks,
and especially about what it is when engaged in "observant participation",
as a number of us have been doing here in San Diego in a 4 year long
LCHC-Community project, this question intrigues me.
Most of the time, in my research in the community, I feel caught-up in a
flow that is much more out of my control than it is within it, but still
interesting things (from a research point of view) take place. For example,
just last week, I was engaged with a number of girls in, ostensibly, making
a movie. We were rehearsing a dance scene while waiting for a participant,
but there wasn't really a "scene" to rehearse, only a vague idea that
dancing should be taking place. So, I took the opportunity to engage the
girls in some dancing (cause I like dance), but not the kind of dance
they're used to. They tried a bit of the moves, but mostly sort of enjoyed
watching me dance (what was this activity about?). So, OK, the missing
participant was still missing, so we sat down for a moment, and
spontaneously (probably cause it had been on their mind), the girls start
discussing the nature of "ghetto names", giving examples of names that are
and are not ghetto and enunciating with heavy accents and body gestures how
ghetto names sound. I thought this was incredibly interesting, so I
discretely recorded some audio for posterity, and was aware in the moment
that this activity of discussing ghetto names (but weren't we doing a film?)
was a very important one, and one in which I participated whole heartedly,
asking about the qualities of ghetto names, and how to "ghettoize" (a new
verb learned for the girls) my name, etc...
So, I guess one does not need to know what an activity is even to do
research, especially when that research turns often to the spontaneous
appropriation on both sides of opportunities for mutual discovery and
inter-subjective proximity.
Ivan
On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 7:39 AM, Denise Newnham <dsnewnham@bluewin.ch>wrote:
HI a quick reply. In the DWR approach time is taken at the beginning of the
intervention process to explain the activity system/s at play in the form
of
the triangle and its nodules to the participants.
Denise
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za
Sent: lundi 16 mai 2011 16:20
To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] CHAT-AR: Seth's Table
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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