Wow, Phillip - that was really helpful. Thanks!
Judy
At 03:30 PM 6/6/01 +1200, you wrote:
>Judy and diane,
>
>We are now into our 4th year and fifth project as users of DWR within a
>single manufacturing company (although over 3 countries and 7 sites). We
>constantly encounter the issues that you two are discussing. I can only
>describe how it feels to us.
>
>(1) Our metaphor for own engagement is that we are a tool to be used by the
>people we work with. But we are a tool with 'artificial intelligence', which
>explains why we are not a passive tool. We are explicit about this, and we
>tell them that they are free to 'put the tool-us' down whenever they feel we
>aren't being useful to them. There are tensions in the operation of this
>metaphor. They are funding us to intervene, and sometimes we don't, because
>nobody explicitly asks us to. Then they complain. And then we have a
>conversation about the boundaries of our involvement, and together we expand
>into a new kind of relationship.
>
>(2) We are explicit about our own motivation for being there. We invite them
>to join with our motivation if they wish, or to disregard it if they wish.
>As Mike has said in a message here today, we would not be there unless they
>had a motivation to change radically. A consequence of that is that choices
>by some of them to engage with our motivation as researchers are frequent.
>
>(3) On the other hand, as time goes on we become inclined to lose sight of
>both our theory and our method as we become increasingly motivated by the
>desire to help them work through immediate operational imperatives, and also
>we slip into emotional engagement with them as individuals and in their
>personal lives. We predicted that these things were likely to happen over
>time. So we have set up a dual team. There is an 'insider team', which works
>in the field, and there is an 'outsider team' which works only with the
>insider team. There are meeetings - at least weekly - at which the insider
>team describes its actions within the company, and these descriptions are
>scrutinised by the outsider team using such questions as 'What has that got
>to do with DWR?' 'In what way was that helping them to learn by expanding?'
>This is necessary for us because, unlike Yrjo's students in Helsinki, we are
>not doing PhD's and we do not have supervisors to perform that role for us.
>
>(4) The foregoing demonstrates, I hope, that we are NOT leading them to the
>'big contradictions' in a direct sense. We speak when we are spoken to, but
>when we speak we try to speak in the manner of Yrjo's 'fourth umpire'.
>Occasionally when we are spoken to the words are 'help us, we are drowning'.
>At such times we become directive. But always, afterwards, we ask them to
>consider why it was that they used us in a role that our contract with them
>specifically excludes. Such dialogues about the secondary contradiction of
>our active intervention is one of the most powerful routes to making visible
>primary contradictions.
>
>(5) Over time these people have gained faith in the utility of us-as-tool.
>This makes delicate methodological judgments easier to make. But we still
>fail often - actively intervening too soon and too heavily, or too late and
>too lightly. But we are also able to use our theory most effectively at such
>times, and it is through engaging with the group we are working with to
>explore the nature of our own failure, that some of the most productive
>expansive visibilisations occur.
>
>(6) A so far unexplored aspect of the AT's I am describing is that of
>funding. Our first project was a research project funded by our equivalent
>of your NSF. The firm 'let us in' to them as a case study site. The 2nd and
>3rd. projects were purely contractual consultancy relationships, although
>the project designs LOOKED like DWR academic research designs. The current
>project is 50-50. That is the company has put up half the money and the
>science agency has put up half the money. We are absolutely clear that the
>funding source profoundly modifies the way in which the system works. We
>have not yet carefully set out to document and analyse this.
>
>
>
>Phillip Capper
>WEB Research
>PO Box 2855
>(Level 9, 142 Featherston Street)
>Wellington
>New Zealand
>
>Ph: (64) 4 499 8140
>Fx: (64) 4 499 8395
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Judith Diamondstone [mailto:diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu]
>Sent: Wednesday, 6 June 2001 05:02
>To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>Subject: Re: Re(2): chapter 5
>
>
>
>>this assumes quite a lot - isn't it more likely that the conditions are
>>always present, but concealed by traditional practice, institutional
>>ideology, discourse, and so on? meaning, the "conditions" are not
>>"created" but are revealed as always-already present?
>
>Your phrasing is much better. What about the hypothesis (i.e., the point)
>
>>>That would require familiarity w/ and trust
>>>of the external researcher whose actions bring to the surface the Big
>>>Contradiction that explains the prevailing cycles of activity & the
>>>different tensions/problems that everyone sees; and yes, diane, the
>>>duration of the project and number of analyses performed and shared seem
>>>central to this stage-setting.
>>
>>hm. again, in my experience, the Big Contradictions come from within, not
>>from an other's deliberate attempts to "induce" such a recognition - i
>>always thought that a serious understanding of writings by folks such as
>>Foucault, or Althusser (biographies and all) would point towards more
>>revelation about practice than any particular manipulation - reading
>>Perkins-Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," or Kafka's "Metamorphosis," can
>>point towards Foucault, Althusser, and other institutional criticisms -
>>understanding Freud, or Judith Butler, as well - in my experience, it is
>>through understanding the available interpretations of social systems and
>>structures that the Big Contradictions
>
>the whole point and for me potential excitement of AT is that it
>presupposes much critical and contemporary theory but it is directed to
>actual conditions of real participants in everyday activities. THAT
>distinguishes it from critical interventions by authors, performance
>artists, whatever -- it's not only disrupting us as reflective selves but
>disrupting us in our everyday practices.
>
>And for that, the researcher as outsider may perhaps be necessary. I don't
>know. Action research certainly shares the potential for disrupting the
>everyday. But AT offers a flexible but rigorous / systematic tool for
>intervention, which, if participants buy into it, might have pervasive
>effects. Now whether the effects it has on an institution are "good" in MY
>sense of good, I'm not sure. I mean, maybe we (as participants in some
>institution, like health or academia) have to get better at life within
>fast, global capital, but better at it for what? It's the critical edge,
>the relation of the institution to the status quo, that I'm not sure about.
>
>>emerge.
>>as such, a duration is conditioned by learning, not methods. ooh. radical!
>>ha ha
>
>well, we have a different perspective on the utility of methods,
>systematicity, and all that. The value of systematicity and of theory in
>general is that it affords collective learning, eh?
>
>
>>>My questions concern the stage-setting steps of the process, but I agree
>>>the springboard metaphor has potential as the moment where
>>>individual/collective terms seem least to be in concert and most in need
>>>to
>>>be concerted.
>>
>>again, the idea that a single individual can "orchestrate" the Big
>>Contradiction strikes me as Highly Unlikely. the idea that a coordinated
>>concert will produce the conflicts that lead to learning is also mythical,
>>really, since it is conflict that produces conflict - a tidy methodology
>>will, invariably, construct a tidy interpretation - regardless of the
>>collective activity.
>
>Well, that's not how i read the last chapters of LBE. It's a complicated
>and not solo effort -- but you're right, it is still mythical for me since
>I haven't done it. And I agree with your previous agreement with my
>previous political commentary :) the role of the researcher(s) in relation
>to the others in the institution should be always in question....
>
>>to immerse in the collective activity, i'd suppose a large amount of
>>research-control must be given up in order to really be receptive to the
>>processes of an activity. don't you think? i mean, in order to be "true"
>>to CHAT?
>
>yeah, and I interpreted the methods of developmental research to be
>procedures for giving up control....
>
>>>But IF the stage were effectively set, then springing towards a better
>>>understanding rather than out of the playing field seems probable.
>>
>>again, the idea that one could "set the stage" for change is, to me,
>>wildly presumptuous.
>>it's impossible to know what will "set it off" so to speak.
>>by the same token, it is entirely possible to participate in an activity
>>where the ambition is to "set it off" so long as the process remains the
>>condition of activity, and not the researcher's agenda. know what i mean?
>
>This is what I'd like to understand more about -- how the researcher(s)
>'set it off' both shaping the course of change and then stepping out of the
>way. I jez
>dunno.
>
>>hm. my thinking suggests that as people learn new languages (say, please
>>say "THEORY") the interpretations of that, in terms of significance and
>>meaning, emerge - these emergent interpretations of theory can become the
>>condition of change,
>>because it entails self-reflection.
>>frankly, i don't understand how anyone can "study" Foucault and not become
>>partially insane, if only because of the inherent contradiction of
>>institutionalizing the institutional critique, silencing the very
>>articulation in an effort to articulate the silence, so to
>>Wittgensteinian-esquely infer,
>>(ahem) -
>>
>>IDEAS change people's perspectives about how they see and do things,
>>languages alter the ways people speak about things,
>>and it seems to me that theories, as ideas and languages, offer any
>>activity a valuable point of departure as well as a critical investigation
>>into what "practice" engages.
>
>diane, diane, what about performance? it's not the word it's the act or the
>word AS act....
>
>judy
>
>
>>
>>diane
>>a.k.a. theory slut!!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>"If you'll excuse me now, I'd like to be alone with my sandwich."
>>Homer
>>
>>
>
>
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