Nate wrote:
>I don't want to impose a grand object on xcma, but rather contemplate
>if multivoicedness was our object, what questions would open up or in what
>ways could we look at the contradictions differently.
And Kathie responded:
"i agree with what i hear you suggesting,
but i think it will take more than finding those illusive questions.
if multivoicedness (what a mouthful!) was our object, or is our object,
or might be the object of some of the participants,
we would also look at _how_ the questions get asked,
who is not encouraged (or actively discouraged) to ask them,
what questions get dismissed as impossible or "not for the likes of us" or
even dismissed because they weren't asked properly.
what _are_ the rules? how do we know?"
Here is a contribution to this enquiry from a person who feels like
an outsider on xmca even though I have been a subscriber to the list
since 1993 and am an active activity theorist who has visited and worked with
Yrjo and Ritva Engestrom in both San Diego and Helsinki, had Yrjo
and Ritva visit and work with us in New Zealand and participated in
the Aarhus Congress. My daily work is informed minute by minute by
an activity theory analysis. My long periods of silent lurking on xmca define
my sense of isolation from this list.
At core there are two reasons for my feeling:
(1) I am not an American in a virtual community which is dominated by
Americans (this issue is not restricted to xmca. The whole internet
may well be the greatest instrument of American cultural
imperialism). I note with interest that other New Zealanders
who I know subscribe to this list are also usually silent.
(2) I am not a person who works in an academic institution, in a
community overwhelmingly dominated by academics whose objects are at
least in part defined by that context.
So, as an activity theorist, how can I understand my sense of
alienation from a community whose overarching interests are also my
own?
"as an activity theorist" - ah, yes. What is this beast? Activity
theory, it turns out, does not have the meta-level power to create a
WE out of YOU and ME. "My" concerns are not the same as "your"
concerns. I live in a different country to you both physically and
metaphorically. This afternoon I need to figure out how to give a team of manufacturing process
workers who don't speak English very well and don't read too well
in their first language a fighting chance of saving their jobs if I
can only get them to understand the inner contradictions associated
with their current disequilibrium and consequent displaced goals
and the consequent need to enter a cycle of expansive
learning and rethink their objects.
In my context you are a blip on my screen. And I am a blip on yours.
You live your lives in the context of American academic convention -
content analysis of xmca postings is best understood in the cultural
context of doctoral defence, the will to tenure and the pressure
to publish. xmca does not take you out of that zone, and postings from
the likes of me are a disturbance from another planet which are best
dealt with by being ignored. This is not a complaint or a criticism.
Nobody deliberately excludes me. I just do not accord with their
interests.
So where is this multivoicedness? When I stand in 'your' shoes I can
see it - the multivoicedness concerns the validation of different
ideological positions in the intellectual debate. When I stand in my
own shoes what I see is a series of ritualised conflicts playing out
within a rigid set of rules of engagement and where people, in fact,
are speaking with only one voice - that of the US academic cultural context which
produces those rules.
The consequences of this for my participation in this list are always
the same. Over the years I have experienced the following patterns
again and again:
(1) I am writing an academic paper. I test my ideas on this list in
that context and using that language. The result is always a familiar
type of list discussion where my ideas are tested (sometimes to
destruction) by others. Great - that's what I wanted.
(2) I send a contribution to the list based on a problem from my own day to day
practical context and using the language appropriate to that
context. The result is either total silence - the message just
disappears - or the appropriation of my message by the community such that within
about three responses it has been redefined as an issue of angels and
pinheads. I then get a few private messages from participants who
tell me how refreshing my message was. Many of these people have
become very dear to me over the years.
So why do I stay? Because I need you far more than you need me (you
don't actually seem to need me at all). There aren't a whole lot of people
who are using activity theory the way we are and there aren't a lot
of people in New Zealand - period. So I become parasitic.
I feed on xmca because that is the way I can keep up with what is
going on. But I don't contribute very much because my experience is
that the bulk of the xmca community is not actually very interested
in my context. I sometimes become intensely frustrated with the
rituals of discourse in your context, but that's my problem, not
yours.
But if you go one step further and start trying to proscribe how
people from New Zealand and Mexico, Russia and Germany, Bangor
and La Jolla must express themselves, it ceases to be a viable
community at all. Whose linguistic conventions? Whose meanings? When
you try to police the language used in a multicultural context, that
becomes your problem, not mine.
Oh woe that the subjunctive should abandon us at this, our hour of
need!
Phillip Capper
Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business (WEB Research)
PO Box 2855
9th Floor 142 Featherston Street
Wellington
New Zealand
Phone: (64) 04 499 8140
Mobile: 021 251 9741
Fx: (64) 04 499 8395
phillip.capper@webresearch.co.nz
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