Apt addition to the discussion, Larry.
I also want to "go back" to introduce what to me is a clear statement
of Bauman on liquidity. After going through the encyclopedia to get at
a notion of liquidity he sums up as follows:
What all these features of fluids amount to, in simple language, is
that liquids, unlike solids, cannot easily hold their shape. Fluids,
so to speak, neither fix space nor bind time. While solids have clear
spatial dimensions but neutralize the impact, and thus downgrade the
significance, of time (effectively resist its flow or render it
irrelevant), fluids do not keep any shape for long and are constantly
ready (and prone) to change it; and so for them it is the flow of time
that counts, more than the space they happen to occupy.
Seems a useful mode of thought to me, as applied to the forms of
activity flow that we struggle to analyze.
mike
On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com
<mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>> wrote:
Andy
I'm adding a quote from Stetsenko and Arievitch in the article
they wrote
for Jack Martin's edited book "The Sociocultural Turn in
Psychology The
Contextual Emergence of Mind and Self"
The quote is from the section they title "Human Development as a
Collaborative Process of Transforming the World"
Therefore, human activity - material, practical, and always by
necessity
social collaborative processes aimed at transforming the world and
people
themselves - is taken in CHAT to be the basic form of human life,
by which
is created everything that is human in humans, including knowledge
produced
by them.
Andy, in Jack Martin's latest writings Stetsenko's perspective now
holds a
place at center stage.
Anna also suggest Activity theory must re-engage with "agency" and
"subjectivity" as central aspects of our humannness that CHAT
currently
under theorizes. That's for another thread.
Larry
On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 7:04 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com
<mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>> wrote:
> Andy
> You wrote
>
> I stretch the patience of my xmca friends by rabbiting on about
projects
> because, if this is the case, actual research needs to be done on
> collaboration and projects. We need to learn more about
collaboration, and
> what faciitates or undermines the formation of long-term
collaborations. Is
> there any more important question?
>
> Andy, besides "courage" to change the world, patience is a virture I
> suspect is alive and well among yur friends. My patience
struggling to
> grasp your perspective has been warmly rewarded many times over.
>
> The research question and methods that develop to answer the
question
> "about collaboration" as we ACT to "realize" collaboration and what
> facilitates or undermines the formation of long-term
collaborations I would
> embrace as the BIG question worth grappling with.
>
> Andy, what may be CHAT's most significant perspective is the
realization
> that the process making collaborative acts "real" & the
> process exploring, RE-searching developing the compass [tool]
to help us
> "understand" and interpret "about collaboration" are the SAME
SIMULTANEOUS
> process.
>
> Larry
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 11:43 PM, Andy Blunden
<ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>wrote:
>
>> Thanks Larry.
>>
>> Although I do agree that collaborative projects are needed as a
response
>> to the problems of modernity, my point is that "collaborative
project" is a
>> *unit of analysis* for social life, i.e., that everything we do
is to be
>> taken as part of collaborative projects. I stretch the patience
of my xmca
>> friends by rabbiting on about projects because, if this is the
case, actual
>> research needs to be done on collaboration and projects. We
need to learn
>> more about collaboration, and what faciitates or undermines the
formation
>> of long-term collaborations. Is there any more important question?
>>
>> The other point you raise about duration and liquidity: given
that we
>> cannot have recourse to any eternal abstractions, human nature,
etc., being
>> able to theorise across duration is important, and
collaborative projects
>> do this because of the way individuals come and go, and are
inducted along
>> the way, actually weaving and maintaining durable social
fabric, even as
>> their identity changes. This gives a believable process for
ideas and
>> patterns of action which outlive individual persons. It
responds to the
>> observation about "liquidity" because projects continuously
*realise* their
>> aims, that is, aims and objectives (sources of motivation) are
continuously
>> revised in the light of the experience of the project. Projects are
>> "iterative" as they say. Occupy?
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> Larry Purss wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Mike, and others discussing solidity/fluidity.
>>>
>>> Andy is asking us to recognize the centrality for
collaborative projects
>>> to
>>> be a meaningful response to the issues Bauman is articulating. ...
>>>
>>> Andy, I agree that collaborative projects are the answer to
Bauman's
>>> question. The question then becomes "what particular
projects?" My
>>> suggestion is that these projects must be able to give an
answer to the
>>> limits and ambivalence of freedom and "self-expression". I also
>>> intuitively
>>> sense that the answers must also in*form structures of some
"duration"
>>> that
>>> recognize not only who we "are" and who we are "becoming" but
also are
>>> structures which recognize who we "were".
>>> ...
>>> Larry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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