I've asked Eugene to send me the message again - and I can unwrap the
lastest version - It's a tedious job - but the messages are well worth it.
Barb Smith
OISE
>From ematusov who-is-at cats.ucsc.eduFri Oct 27 15:31:02 1995
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 15:21:07 -0700
From: Eugene Matusov <ematusov who-is-at cats.ucsc.edu>
Reply to: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
To: "'xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu'" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: Individual activity
Resent-Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 15:20:43 -0700 (PDT)
Resent-From: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
Hello everybody--
Mike recently asked, "Would someone please explain to me what an individual
activity is? Is this term used by Leontiev? Engestrom? Davydov?
This sort of thing often confuses me."
To tell the truth I am confused too. I am confused with the experiments
conducting in the 80s attempting to examine what is better individual or
joint activity as if they can exist separately from each other.
As if the experimenter was not a "collaborator" (or a participant), as Ellice
Forman recently put it on the net.
I found more helpful to use the notion "solo activity." For me, solo and
joint activities are aspects constituting a sociocultural activity. Any solo
activity (or solo aspect of the activity) is embedded in joint activity (or
in joint aspect of activity). In some regard these aspects depend on the
considered time frame: for whatever long solo activity, there is always a
larger time frame that situates it in joint activity and whatever short joint
activity, there is always a small time frame that extracts solo activity. So
far I have found not reason to distinguish "solo activity" and "individual
action" but I'd not be surprised if I find it in the future.
I think also that recent paper by Keith Sawyer on improvisational performance
and product creativity [1995, Mind, Culture, and Activity, 2 (3), 172-191] is
somehow relevant here. Western culture extreme stress on product creativity
seems to overemphasize the solo aspect of any sociocultural activity and
de-emphasize joint aspect. But on the other hand, I'd not go so far in
rejecting solo aspect of activity at all.
Eugene Matusov
UC Santa Cruz
>From ematusov who-is-at cats.ucsc.eduFri Oct 27 15:37:54 1995
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 18:00:14 -0700
From: Eugene Matusov <ematusov who-is-at cats.ucsc.edu>
Reply to: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
To: "'xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu'" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Subject: Progress & Diversity
Resent-Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 18:02:34 -0700 (PDT)
Resent-From: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
Hello everybody (long post, sorry)--
I just want to share two extremely interesting papers that by chance, I read
on one day by Ian Moll, a South African psychologist (and a xlchc-er, is Ian
on the xmca now?), and Peter Smagorinsky, an American psychologist (and a
xmca-er).Moll, I. (1995). Cultural people and cultural contexts: Comments on
Cole (1995) and Wertsch (1995). Culture & Psychology, 1 (3), 361-371.
Smagorinsky, P. (1995). The social construction of data: Methodological
problems of investigating learning in the zone of proximal development.
Review of Educational Research, 65 (3), 191-212.
Both of the paper discuss historical progress and diversity, both use the
example of Luria's experiments in Asia. But they came to very different (if
not opposite) conclusions which is a remarkable fact taking into account that
both of them consider themselves Vygotskians. Let me give two big
fragments from both papers. It seems that Vygotskian tradition in psychology
is now in its phase of rapid grow and diversification. It seems to me that
Jim Wertsch's distinguishing between [American] sociocultural approaches and
[non-American] cultural-historical approaches is a really important contrast.
But, judge yourself.
Ian Moll (1995), "[H]ere is one feature of the contemporary South African
context which I think has a strong bearing on what cultural-historical
theorists try to do in this situation: in South Africa, we are in a
process of 'nation-building', of forging a common, national cultural
identity amongst people (despite their differing ethnicities) who have been
artificially separated and indeed forced apart for centuries by the political
practices of segregation and apartheid. There is thus a great deal of
emphasis in this country on 'unity rather than diversity', not least in
relation to cognitive development and both schooling and everyday community
life. So, for example, in the context of South African cultural-historical
psychology, Ronnie Miller (1984) -- its leading local theorist -- has
described cultural relativist perspectives as kin to apartheid ('their most
malignant form'). There is also a great deal of emphasis on the psychological
universality and (biological) identity, as opposed to differences, of all
individuals (see, e.g., a recent paper in which I seek to 'reclaim' a notion
of natural universality in Vygotsky's theory -- Moll, 1994a)" (pp.362-363).
Then Ian Moll went on criticizing Wertsch and Cole for their relativism and
rehabilitating Luria's famous cross-cultural experiments in Soviet Asia in
the 30s.
He wrote, "The contemporary world is characterized by increasingly dominating
forms of international economic, technological and cultural control (despite
recent theoretical trends which construe phenomenal experiences of 'diversity'
as accounts of social reality). When we study the mechanisms that account
for the rupture and transformation of cognitive processes, it does not help us
to concentrate only on 'process' in one particular domain or context. We are
obliged as well to study the way that different, more powerful, cultural
contexts create (and impose) the conditions under which cognitive activities
in that particular context are transformed willy-nilly. An old insight of
Cole and Bruner makes this point strongly (despite their inclination in the
rest of the article towards a 'cultural difference' position): 'When cultures
are in competition for resources, as they are today, the psychologist's task
is to analyze the source of cultural difference so that those of... the less
powerful group may quickly acquire the intellectual instruments necessary for
success of the dominant culture (Cole & Bruner, 1971, p. 876)'" (Moll, p.368)
Peter Smagorinsky (1995) wrote (almost in a 'response'), "Many cultures lead
people to internalize 'higher' or sociocultural mental processes that from
other perspectives, are not 'positive' or optimal. Urban youths participate
in street gang activities,for instance, and internalize codes of behavior that
are antithetical to civil law. A genocidal society such as Nazi Germany
might provide signs and tools that lead its citizens to believe in that
participate in the extermination of other groups or people, a practice labeled
by members of other cultures as war crimes and atrocities. ... [I]n stressing
the idea of telos [in development - EM], I should emphasize that a person is
not limited to a single developmental focus, but can be developing in several
ways at once. Tulviste's (1991) principle of heterogeneity is informative on
this point. In his account of activity theory, Tulviste maintains that an
environment, or overlapping social networks, can present a learner with a
variety of types of problems to solve, thus allowing individuals to develop a
number of frameworks for thinking... simultaneously..." (pp. 194-5)
And further, "Luria's (1976) remarks [about illiterate Moslem Uzbeks being
backward -- EM] reveal that he had a specific view of telos, one that emerged
from the same Russian middle-class view espoused by Vygotsky (1934/1987) in
valuing the development of speech-mediated scientific concepts as the ultimate
form of cognitive maturity. Luria's means of testing these remote peasants'
cognitive activity were distinctly Western, as were his criteria for judging
mature thought. As the following examples will illustrate, the peasants
shared neither the researcher's sense of telos nor his regard for specific
mediational means. As a consequence, I believe, the research is not
mediational and therefore of questionable validity (cf. Cole, 1985; Saxe,
1994)" (pp. 205-6)
Sorry for long quotes, folks, but I feel they deserve to be long because they
packed with ideas and voices.
Eugene Matusov
UC Santa Cruz
On Mon, 30 Oct 1995, vera p john-steiner wrote:
> Eugene,
> great message, I wanted to print it, but I was unable to. Must be your
> new software. Would you send me a copy by snail mail,
> thanks,
> Vera
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Vera P. John-Steiner
> Department of Linguistics
> Humanities Bldg. 526
> University of New Mexico
> Albuquerque, NM 87131
> (505) 277-6353 or 277-4324
> Internet: vygotsky who-is-at triton.unm.edu
> ---------------------------------
>
>
>