Interesting thoughts on culture and development and these weave through the ideas in Lave's 'Cognition and Practice' that I read on the plane recently, long time coming. A particular paragraph caught me and it's reproduced below in its original form, then slightly enciphered by simple substitution. I wonder if Lave's notion of 'durable' can be related to culture taken as static in development.
"A setting for activity cannot adequately be conceptualized as a weighted list of environmental components such as that of Barker, nor as an intersubjective construction, nor for that matter as a knowledge structure. And it certainly is not a direct realization of political economy, writ small. To avoid the one-dimensional character of each of these characterizations, a setting is conceived here as a relation between acting persons and the arenas in relation with which they act. The supermarket, for instance, is in some respects a public and durable entity. It is a physically, economically, politically, and socially organized space-in-time. In this aspect it may be called an "arena" within which activity takes place. The supermarket as arena is the product of patterns of capital formation and political economy. It is not negotiable directly by the individual. It is outside of, yet encompasses the individual, providing a higher-order institutional framework within which setting is constituted. At the same time, for individual shoppers, the supermarket is a repeatedly experienced, personally ordered and edited version of the arena. In this aspect it may be termed a "setting" for activity. Some aisles in the supermarket do not exist for a given shopper as part of her setting, while other aisles are rich in detailed possibilities." (lave, p151)
In transformation: supermarket->school, shopper->student/teacher, aisle->classroom
"A setting for activity cannot adequately be conceptualized as a weighted list of environmental components such as that of Barker, nor as an intersubjective construction, nor for that matter as a knowledge structure. And it certainly is not a direct realization of political economy, writ small. To avoid the one-dimensional character of each of these characterizations, a setting is conceived here as a relation between acting persons and the arenas in relation with which they act. The school, for instance, is in some respects a public and durable entity. It is a physically, economically, politically, and socially organized space-in-time. In this aspect it may be called an "arena" within which activity takes place. The school as arena is the product of patterns of capital formation and political economy. It is not negotiable directly by the individual. It is outside of, yet encompasses the individual, providing a higher-order institutional framework within which setting is constituted. At the same time, for individual students and teachers, the school is a repeatedly experienced, personally ordered and edited version of the arena. In this aspect it may be termed a "setting" for activity. Some classrooms in the school do not exist for a given student/teacher as part of her setting, while other classrooms are rich in detailed possibilities." (apologies to Jean Lave)
Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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