Rosa,
You wrote:
> Judy mentions one particular stance that could be taken to participation:
> if I am speaking from a position of power, I don't see the need to adjust
> my speech to others. There's another quote that is relevant for me [Paul,
> I'm going to take a snippet from one of your messages and hope that I
> don't totally decontextualize you]:
> >I guess what I'm
> >trying to say is that I shouldn't have to worry so much about how other
> >people interpret what I say given that they might not be part of the
> >specific audience to which my remarks are really relevant.
I guess you're saying that the stance I expressed in the above statement
reflects speaking from a position of power but I'm not sure. If that is
what you mean to say, then I'd sure like you to tell me what position of
power I might be speaking from??
But I think that you clearly express the position with which I disagree
concerning the structure of the xmca "audience" or "community of
practice". I don't equate these concepts but they have both been applied in
similar ways in the ongoing thread. You write,
> Both of these pieces speak of adjusting to the "intended" other and I
> think that what we're all, in various ways, trying to delimit is who that
> other may be ("participation framework") and how much we're willing to
> adjust ("audience design"). "
I disagree with this characterization of the intent of my statement. First
of all, I usually don't try to "adjust" anyone when I write although
lately, when posting to xmca, I've found that I spend a lot of time worrying
about the way I say something so as to not set off fire alarms. I also
don't consider that "trying to delimit ... who that other might be" in some
abstract way is something that I'm trying to do.
But I think this disagreement is based on a more fundamental disagreement:
that there is any unitary audience that anyone could construct, or that even
could be constructed through dialogue. I think that there are a number of
related audiences (I mean 'audience' in the sense that Bakhtin used when he
associated genre, utterance, and audience). At this point, trying to define
a common one and assign it a suitable language seems a lot like making an
Esperanto for xmca. I think that a more diplomatic way to approach it would
be that those interested in a certain topic or approach learn the specific
genres of audiences for whom that topic has relevance. I still believe that
basic netiquette and refraining from jumping to unwarranted conclusions (or
shouting at the person five rows over from you) should provide a frame
within which the cross fertilization of ideas that takes place here can
continue.
I recognize your concern for maintaining an environment that is or includes
or approximates a ZPD. But I think that your conclusion that someone or
something has implied " that it's the "novices" responsibility to create
their own space if they feel left out" doesn't follow from the position I'm
advocating. Anyone who has subscribed to xmca already had a reason, an
interest in something discussed here and therefor already has a basis for
participation. However, the specific interest might not be the common
property of all the different audiences. Complementary to the proposal that
people become versed in the genres of the audiences in which they have an
interest, so the responsibility for nurturing the interested novice voice
falls to the members of the audience that the novice implicitly or
explicitly addresses.
You identify two approaches in two threads that have been recently taking
place and ask if their concerns are so different. You cast these threads as
though they were discussing the same topic. I think there are probably a
lot more than two approaches on xmca. it seems to be composed of a number
of audiences and voices that have some common ground with each other.
although I'm not sure it's fully transitive there's still a lot of
connectivity. Nevertheless, xmca also offers a space within which people
interested in very specific and also uncommon topics can discuss them.
Without that type of discussion (e.g., dialectics of modeling in IS, the
intelligence factor, school testing) there would be no basis for the
"ongoing" discussion at all.
So, to anticipate my response to Bruce, i would suggest that any attempt at
identify an abstract totality for xmca, will require that someone define the
limits of that totality. Who will that be? Furthermore, so defining the
totality will necessarily exclude some voices. The more flexible way would
be to assume that there is a complex unity in which one component may or may
not be the concrete universal. But even if this is the case, the
subordination of the other components to the development of the forms of
that concrete universal will unfold in relation to the internal dynamics of
those components themselves.
Paul H. Dillon
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Mar 07 2000 - 17:54:10 PST