Hi Mike,
My message was not intended as any criticism. And writing to xmca does invite
"shorthand" as it has to fit into the competition for time in ones own
mesosystem. So it's more about my own struggle to put together words that
capture the sense of the dynamics, and as you entered that struggle, you
experienced "collateral damage". My apologies.
It's the phrase "if one uses a hodepodge of methods with no systematic ideas
about how they relate to each other and relate theory to data, THAT is
eclecticism." that gives me the impression of coordination only on an ideal
basis. The problem, which I don't claim you have, especially because your own
developmental trajectory will deny it, is that "ideas" carries the baggage of
being only the product in-the-head action. (the "if one uses" seems to
emphasize a unit of one person.) Being only in-the-head implies that all the
coordination must be done in the internal plane, to a person, to be considered
non-eclectic. Immediately many grad students, teachers, and researchers
(perhaps especially ethnographers and grounded theorists) become eclectic.
Even if they are part of a bigger-than-themselves endeavor that involves
interaction with "non-eclectic" others.
I'll set aside rambling thoughts about emic/etc business as it doesn't seem to
lead anywhere at the moment.
A problem also exists with how we determine the degree of systematicity, and
how we account for theories (as systems of ideas) in development on
microgenetic, ontogenetic, or even greater scales of time. By example. Yjrö's
work is, imho, more systematic than that of Leont'ev, in that, in the product
LBE the relations between subject, object, and artifact are more richly
expressed, even in graphical form, and hence more formalized than in the
product "the problem of activity...". The relations are extended to rule,
community, and division of labor -- I won't go into all the details -- you know
all of this better than i. In comparison, is it fair to claim Leont'ev is
eclectic, or make the softer claim that Leont'ev is more eclectic than
Engeström?
How do we determine what is systematic and to what degree? How do we
determine, if systematicity extends beyond the individual, the degree of
systematicity for a collective, with whom each member varies? How do we
account for formalisms that once expressed, through routine become taken for
granted, go underground, and become no longer expressed, and perhaps become
forgotten?
gotta go,
bb
--- Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu> wrote:
> Bill --
> your point about the dynamic relationship between theory, system of methods,
> and data is not anything I would disagree with. I do not know what in my
> statement made you think I believed there could be static relation between
> the three. So if I erred, and you are correct, clue me in on how to say it
> righ.
> t
> mike
> ,.
>
=====
"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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