Diane writes,
> YES!!!! institutions , by their historical structure, can NOT endorse
> learning III
> because this invariably calls the institution itself into question -
> again, i think an actual context would help me - a specific activity -
> like introducing new agriculture technologies into rural communities, and
> what kinds of structures are
> involved - beliefs, values, histories, traditions, ideologies, politics -
> these are, to me,
> particular to the context, and so potentially more expansive in terms of
> OUR learning here.
A lot of the time I think about activity theory and the ideas expressed in
LBE in relation to the problems of technology transfer, particularly in the
Andes, since I worked there and in that field (applied anthropology) for
about 10 years. The problem is complex since there are so many different
actors involved in processes of technology transfer and their are a lot of
different kinds of technologies, too. Most of the time, the new
technologies, are oriented to the production of market crops and often
require a lot of purchased inputs -- ranging from the seed itself, through
various kinds of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Technology
transfer, in this context, can only be viewed from the perspective of the
expansion of market systems and many of the foreign aid organizations (eg,
USAID) realize that the change of agricultural technology is only feasible
when other conditions ranging from technical support to roads to irrigation
systems to market storage facilities, etc. are in place as well. So, if
change of ag technology is viewed as a type of learning, it must be seen as
something subordinate to a transformation of the entire system at numerous
other levels as well. Another way to say this is: improved agricultural
technologies rarely help the poorest farmers because they dwell in areas
where the conditions for market economies are weak and can't be artificially
transformed through government intervention where there are market
economies.
Then too, there is the entire range of so called "appropriate technologies"
in which the extension people do not go out with a specific technology to
offer but rather go out with a took kit of possible technologies and
approaches and work collaboratively with the people to develop systems that
fit the needs and the possibillities. These approaches look a lot more like
Freirean type interventions and his ideas have been seminal in a lot of that
work. In some cases I think there is often an implicit activity systems
type approach. One of these is known as "farm systems analysis" and it
basically starts from an examination of the agricultural production unit in
terms of all of the internal and external relations that make it up with
reference to the basic productive activity. Interventions are based on an
in-depth familarity with that totality and include an understanding of all
of the various social and cultural elements. (They hired a lot of
anthropologists to work on farming systems analysis-oriented af
development projects for that very reason. Farm systems analysis was a
very important approach the last time I was working in this area (1989) but
I've been out of the field for some time now. I wouldn't be surprised if it
isn't so important anymore, not because it wasn't effective and successful,
but because it didn't really focus on producing capitalist farms and, in
some sense reinforced, the peasant sectors, since it aimed to give them the
ability to withstand the fluctuations in the market prices. As you might
well imagine, this didn't set well with the U of Chicago oriented economists
for whom such "obstructions" to the price-mechanism represent limits to the
operation of the market whose freedom from constraint they believe (or at
least maintain) is necessary for "democratic society", etc.
Anyway, you're right, it's an interesting area for the extension of more
self-conscious activity theoretic ideas and I'm sure, if you're interested,
that a quick look into farm systems analysis would be fruitful.
Paul H. Dillon
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