I appreciate Eugene, Vera and Diane's responses to the issue and questions
abou feminism, feminist labels and the connection between gender and cultural
historical activity theory. I smiled to read Vera's point that she has "long
thought" of feminist and CHAT parallels--I have had the same feeling and have
promised on several occasions to "do something about it" in terms of writing.
orally, I can reel off the connections but I never have the occasion to
produce a text. Perhaps Eugene's invitation will provide the object/audience,
and Vera's precedent in Aarhus will encourage more of us to discuss the similarieite and differences.
One of the things I think that feminist methodology (in qualitative research)
and CHAT can do for each other is inform discussions of voice (multiple
subjectivities) role conflict (contradictions within the experience of
subjectivity with respec to different objects of life-activity) and inequities
across and within strata (race, gender, class) as issues in both the
difinition of community (of inquirers, workers, pratitioners) and in the notion
of division of labor.
One thing that a CHAT methodology would assist with, for example, is rioght here in this discussion--we have powerful tools for historicising and modelling
the transformations over time in the meaning and doing of feminist/feminism, etc. For example, several of our Scandinavian and Northern European visitors
remark and report upon the negative cachet that the term feminism and feminist
have in their homelands. It is associated with having "no chance" and being
"rude" in academic circles. The word stigma was used. This reminded me of
Bryson and DeCastell's finding that undergraduate women are hesitant to align
and id them selves as feminists. One visitor was relieved to hear me comment
that "yes, men in the US can call/consider themselves feminist" . This
cheered her up a bit. But then, I said, some factions of feminist practice
distrust male feminists, fearing that in the end they can "go back" to those
positions of power and authority--when status abdication gets tiresome. So,
yes, just as someone said earlier, there is no one "complete source" or
even a short list of key feminist classics that we could check out to compare
scorecards of issues across CHAT and feminist/gender studies. What I get
out of the general theme of diversity common to both literatures is this:
the feminist literature Imost appreciate tries to hold gender, race and
class issues in while doing analysis. This requires historical grounding
and an apprecaition for dialectical thinking. It also generates huge numbers
of contradictions in thinking and practice when you see how interest-group
politics plays out in the construction of normsrked and unmarked catagories.
(examples that come to mind right now are OJ simpson; Anita Hill; Tailhook;
wage and tenure gaps in non and academic workplaces, etc. etc.). I think
CHAT gives a fruitful structure of units and levels of analysis for the
study of phenomena of interest to feminists.
What do others think?
Katherine Brown