1. A Historical sketching of the issues. (all names are tentative!!)
Activity theorizing/Vygotskian research began with play, learning,
child development. A paper could compare beginnings of feminist
scholarship same topics. A next move by colleagues of LSV. was to
develop Vygotskian-theory into studies of aspects of developmental
processes in studies of language acquisition, instruction, and
generally the experience of parties to development. (education, non-
school based learning, joint-mediated activity). the experience of
instruction, language acquisition, formal or informal contexts of
learning.
(from action to interaction to activity)
--Here we have a historical sequence problem--where do we locate the
dawn of feminism? Vygotskian stuff started with LSV's synthesis of
European philosophers his interdisciplinarity and his focus on the
two psychologies problem...Even if others wouldn't put it in such a
"small" context, feminism's story is much harder to get a frame
around, no matter what...
What happened concurrently in the spread of feminist scholarship
and how were the issues framed differently/similarly?
(possible authors--Katherine Brown..?)
2. Mutuality & interdependence
in child development from feminist and Vygotskian perspectives.
3. Commenting on the First two pieces
Feminist theorists' view of the relationships in the two traditions
--Suzanne de Castells and Mary Bryson
-- Val Hartouni (UCSD political theorist)
--Diane Celia Hodges
--Walkerdine, Lois Holzman was suggested...
*( we didn't talk about this but maybe here is also the place to point
out that Feminist theory was accompanied by a vast social movement,
that was realized, limited, conflicted in many ways. Do we talk about
Marxism in Russia here or not? Where is the parallel revolution in
Vygotskian theory into practice?
4. Engestrom/DWR and studies of adult development
Currently, a lot of non-psychologists encounter AT through
Engestromian studies of work and technology, or other studies of
adult development, and then read backward in time. Here, the theme
would be a review of this stuff from Learning by
Expanding to the creation of the "change labs". (ten years of DWR)
Change lab students in Helsinki:
possibly others--Kristina Westerberg who is a Swede who studies
women middle managers, or Catherine Hasse who is a Dane who
studies women in Physics, or Merja Helle who studies journalism? )
to review and extend feminist potentialities for workplace research in
AT.
and/ or--Evilina Saari (sp?) on grand theory vs. ethnography.
Adults again: Male and Female socialization and behavior (the
popularly known -feminist books are about language and women's
ways.
Socialization: development of adult roles and adult language use.
Gender socialization and literacy:
feminist movement has not dealt with literacy
as cult-historical tradition has not with gender.
--Jay Lemke here?
--Margaret Gallego?
--others?
6. Overarching theory/method pieces
Where premises and methods in FT and AT are compared and mused
over with many questions.
A short list of shared ideas alone is worth a look:
Underneath AT is a Marxist/dialectical tradition. Marxian feminist
theory can help inform AT and vice versa.
How? Feminism tries to build bridges between its macro social
institutional critiques of law and society (political theory, the state,
marriage, stratification, wage gaps) and lived experience of inequality
(texture of daily life full of contradictions sex/gender roles).
AT explicitly purports to build bridges between micro and macro, with
analysis of institutional history in cycles, and the ethnography of daily
experience.
Next, AT's unit of analysis (in order to do this linking) is the object
oriented collective mediated human activity systems. How might
feminist theory and practice use this system-model-heuristic to do
feminist research? What issues cannot be worked out "with the
triangle" and why?
Next, AT and Vygotskians use the internalization/interiorization and
externalisation language to talk about human beings relationship to
the world as "shaped by/appropriaters of " and "changers of "culture.
Many feminists from the material basers to the students of social
movements like this combination.
Voice is a nice example of multiplicities of subjectivity that is
important to feminism and should emerge in AT more.
--Deborah Hicks in comparing Bahktin voice and postmodern theory
--Judy Diamondstone
Finally, the explicit use of analytic categories like "division of labor"
"rules" and "community" just begs, a feminist discussion of
transgression, formal and informal rules....( Who would write this
overall discussion of theory and method?
----Vera John Steiner .
--Ethel Tobach should be invited to take this on
(jointly with others if its too huge)
-----------------
We had said to have short pieces on each general theme would be ok.
Special issue length limit for a one volume deal is 80 pages.
Im sure I have some people in the wrong places so I put them in
multiple places.
So, that is the draft of one way into the toipic. There are
obviously many ways to get into this conversation. I visualized
it first by starting with the development of cultural historical
theories and looking at strands and categories of inquiry many
people
in the MCA audience know. Then I began to think of all of the
feminist theory that touched on, contributed to, discovered the same
or similar terrain from a different point of entry. Obviously
another way to go is to see what people are writing about, solicit
manuscripts with very general guidelines and then sort the bounty
into themes that emerge from the pool. \
anyway, this is where we are right now. What do you make of it?
Thanks!
Katherine Brown