On Fri, 10 Sep 1999, nate wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Eva Ekeblad <eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se>
> To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Friday, September 10, 1999 3:16 AM
> Subject: Re: Silent participation
>
>
> "We are living with a contradiction here, and when I look at the patterns
> of participation I am always reminded that there's a
> lot of silence in this conversation -- and I am convinced that this is not
> just the silence of participants who are subscribed but "absent" --
> travelling, offline, or just too busy to even read the mail they're
> receiving -- and not just the silence of active readers (whose invisible
> contribution to the activity puzzles me, methodologically, as much as Nate)
> or the silence due to lack of time for writing or disinterest in current
> topics. There will also be the silences of participants for whom the XMCA
> is NOT a safe place for "speaking"."
>
> Speaking of contradictions, what I have found interesting is where silence
> is not. I have had a steady flow of messages by members interested in
> having the benefit of a collective reading. On one end we have members who
> see a collective reading / discussion as beneficial to their own work, yet
> on the other end that benefit is contingent upon the members that read and
> discuss their work.
>
> XCMA has given me a degree of "cultural capital" that would be difficult to
> receive in any other place. That "cultural capital" is primarily the
> breaking down of walls (student-professor, teacher-professors,
> anthropology-psychology etc) that is often difficult to achieve in other
> contexts. The breaking down of the division of labor still needs to
> address the diversity of needs of its members. One such tension is of
> course putting out half backed ideas and the critical processing of those
> ideas. Another such tension are members that may or may not participate in
> ongoing multilougue but see more structured activities such as collective
> readings beneficial.
>
> The contradiction, for me, is how XCMA can be a community to meet (and
> support) the diversity of needs of its members. I am probally taking it
> out of context (sorry Vera) but one thing that stood out in *Notebooks of
> the Mind* was creativity (papers up for discussion) as a gift to culture
> (XCMA). In this sense, (not always directly) those half backed ideas
> formed something "more baked". The collective reading and discussion (from
> my point of view) is a way to keep the circle going.
>
> As a gift, Eva's papers are very interesting. The relationship between the
> emergance of XCMA and the poilitics of a conservative restoration (not so
> much unlike the present) where the idea of having a diverse group of
> professors and students was too threatening. The history of struggles over
> time in attempts to support members through collective readings. The
> relationship between trust/community building and multilougues. These
> issues (contradictions) seem very pertinant to the present.
>
> Nate
>
>
---------------------------------
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 unm.edu
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