Re: [xmca] Billet's paper

From: Wolff-Michael Roth (mroth@uvic.ca)
Date: Fri Oct 13 2006 - 09:12:57 PDT


Hi,

I think that Stephen's point is the one that we find articulated and
re-articulated in the phenomenological literature, in particular, the
one by Martin Buber in the I-Thou relation---whereas the first part
of the sentence BB quotes points to the I-IT relation in Buber's
work. Subsequent authors, such as Emmanuel Levinas further work out
this irreducible I-Thou relation, which he denotes by the term of the
"face." It is also the distinction between inter-action and
transaction, the former being thought in terms of two independent
entities coming together, stuff (information, sense) going back and
forth, mutually influencing the other; transaction pointing to the
irreducibility of a situation to two independent people, but where
subjectivity itself is an OUTCOME of the relation, once it is reduced
to the I-IT level. The point is further worked out in the analyses
that Didier Franck provided in his analysis of the aporia that
Husserl ran into with his egology project, where he ultimately
realized that the world, being, identity, relations are not
constructed by a self (subjectivity), but that--as Paul Ricœur
describes it--the oneself is another.

And perhaps more importantly, it is not that they are intertwined but
rather that the separate things are the product of a unity one-
sidedly expressed in the different terms---much as light comes to be
expressed as wave or particle, neither of which captures light in its
entirety.

Have a good day,

Michael

On 13-Oct-06, at 8:54 AM, bb wrote:

First, I'm surprised, given the general thrust of Billet's paper,
that there is no mention of Dorothy Hollands work. Now, I've seen
lots of other papers that fail to address others' relevant works, and
mea culpa, I wrote one for aera last year that failed to properly
address one of Gordon Well's papers, that just having reread, I'm
finding particularly relevant. So I realize how it is possible to
miss making these relations in the complex activity of conducting
research that builds cumulatively upon others, but the omission of
reference to Hollands work just seems such a big one.

Related to what's been posted here on the X before, Billet writes:
"This evidence suggests that rather than being subjugated, or the
relations between the individual and the social being mutual or
reciprocal, there is a need to view them as being relational, and, to
different degrees, entwined and interwoven." (bottom, p. 60)

It's not clear how to make sense of this sentence. When I reparse
part of the sentence to "here is a need to view [the relations
between the individual and the social] as being relational", filling
out the pronoun's reference, the sentence is tautological. But what
is important about this sentence is the need for us to share a better
understanding of 'relational' 'mutual', 'reciprocal', 'entwined',
and 'interwoven'. I, personally, do not view these as jargon,
ethereal and fleeting, but rather specifying particular kinds of
relations, projected by particular theoretical orientations. For
example, I cannot claim to know a lot about Mike Cole's deep
assumptions , although I've met him at least once, and I've read his
his most recent book in which he does use the term "interwoven". I
think Mike can best speak to what this means. But, having read a
bunch more of his work leading up to "Cultural Psychology" I think I
can grok his most recent work (i.e. accurately) and I thin
  k he i
s referring to the need to think about actions, artifacts, and much
more, not in isolation, but in relation to each other. This is an
important starting point, and when we begin to think about
qualitative causation, we confront the matter of determining what
affects what. I think qualitative causation is a major issue for us
to achieve theoretical clarity, especially in education. For example,
Terttu Tuomi-Grohn and Yrjo Engestrom (King Beach too) confront
causality in the issue of 'transfer" in the book "Between School and
Work".

Terttu Tuomi-Grohn and Yrjo Engestrom write:

"The conceptualization of transfer based on socio-cultural views
takes into account the changing social situations and individual's
multidirectional movement from one organization to another, from home
to school or from workplace to school and back. Based on activity
theory, this conceptualization expands the basis of transfer from the
actions of individuals to the collective organizations. It is not a
matter of individual moves between school and workplace but of the
efforts of school and workplace to create together new practices.
Novel is also that new knowledge and practices are consciously
created, instead of focusing on the transition of knowledge from one
organization or community of practice to another. In developmental
transfer, new practices expand also to the other collaborating
activity systems, not only to the original ones." (p. 34)

[Aside: It is in passages such as the above and in Engestreoms LBE
that I perceive a basis for the notion of "inter-institutional zone
of proximal development"]

I use the words "mutual" and "reciprocal" (and I also use
"codevelopment") to express two-way qualitative causation.
When I wrote in MCA about the "mutual development of a school
system ... with one of its teachers" it was exactly this
bidirectionality that I had in mind. And it was necessary to think
in terms of codevelopment between the units of analysis I had chosen
because of what I had chosen for units of analysis: These units have
meaning in the day to day practices for the people who participate in
them and make them, and although my reasons for choosing these units
are peripherally related to this discussion at the moment, the
important point is that they come with my particular theoretical
orientation. These units were:

1) The school system is the system of activity of which not only
individuals contribute to make a collective whole that is more than
the sum of it parts, but also of which the actions of all others from
the past (and that present) had shaped that present through all forms
of artifacts (as defined by Wartofsky and certainly including
language), forms and scales of social organizations, relations to
systems beyond the school system, etc.

2) The educational service district, similar to (1).

3) My coauthor, whose ontogenesis I had investigated in relation to
the above (1) and (2).

Having made these delineations, the [historical] data spoke to me of
changes in both organizations being related to changes with my
coauthor, and I found instances that exemplified these bidirectional
relations. But there were also influences from the past and from
outside these units, i.e. the unsustainable fishing and logging that
lead to the community's economic decline and the appearance of TLCF
grant money. The former influence (the town's economic past) was
purely unidirectional and the latter may well have been also.

So, I think the recent more-widespread emergence of relational terms
is not purely fad and jargon, but actually reflect a developing
understanding of the human condition. I find that it's important to
be clear (as possible) about what we mean, and what others mean, in
our communications, especially when making strong claims. Mike Cole
suggested something at aera 2006 like "reading more and writing
less" -- and the former I agree with, but the latter I take to be an
important part of making collective meaning, especially in fora such
as xmca. But I bet dollars to donuts that if Mike actually said
"writing less" and not "publishing less" the latter is what he
meant. And I only wish my memory could serve me better.

bb

.
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