Re: [xmca] Intravolutions and Representations

[Natalia Gajdamaschko <nataliag@sfu.ca>]

Mike,

I think your interpretation is about "vrashchatsya" and "vrashchivanie." These two words are close (you'll see why), but could be interpreted differently depending on the context.

"Vrashchivanie" doesn't really explain the method of this "immersing into something," just the fact that it is going to move "inwards" somehow.  I think it also could be "in-spinning" (spinning inward into something) as you seemed to translate it.  

Since we know from LSV that "vrashchivanie" also causes some sort of re-structuring of psychological systems, it is a possible to think of it as a dynamic process of "spinning around the axis of the core function" for a particular dynamic age.  My image of "vraschivenie" therefore has always included this "spin" (for its dynamic nature and role in re-structuring of psychological systems.)   So, yes,  "vrashchatsya" and "vraschivanie" could be interpreted as two different words because "vraschivanie" could be a straightforward line without spin, as in Dal's dictionary examples ("Dom vros v zemlyu: -- House "vrashchivaetysa" into the ground," and unless it is a Baba Yaga house, it doesn't spin doing it :)). Except I always thought of LSV’s "vraschivanie" as one with a spin (vraschivaetsya and vraschaetsya together). Otherwise, how, for example, could one imagine what happening when the text (written language) is "vraschivaetsya" into the thinking?  It has to somehow "spin" around conceptual development and restructure the psychological system by moving conceptual thinking into the center and move perception and memory to the periphery.  Make sense?

Cheers,
Natalia.


----- Original Message -----
From: "mike cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 11:34:00 AM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Intravolutions and Representations

Concerning "Vrashchivanie": My big Russian dictionary does not have it. But
it has the verbs, Vrashchat' and vrashchatsa.

Vrashchat' is defined as to move around one axis, to spin.
Vrashchatsa adds the idea of to move around something.


Neither of these work for me at all.

I will check the russian psych dictionary to see if its there when i get to
the office but in looking at the suggestions so far, and trying to get an
intuitive grasp of what it means in a Vygotskian context, I have come to the
tentative conclusion that "involution" might work. It has both "inward"
movement and qualitative transformation in it, at least as I understand the
term. Intravolution seems too "already-inside" to me, enculturation MIGHT be
used as a translation, but that depends upon your theory of the process of
enculturation which some equate with socialization and internalization --
two way that have their own
issues.

Its so interesting to try to come to grips with the intuitions underlying
such words!!

mike
On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Armando Perez Yera
<armandop@uclv.edu.cu>wrote:

> Larry:
> Could you offer to me the complete reference to this book. It´s very
> interesting the position of Sandra in regard to representation.
> Armando
>
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf
> Of Larry Purss [lpscholar2@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 10:16 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [xmca] Intravolutions and Representations
>
> Sandra J's book "Knowledge in Context: Representations, Community, and
> Culture" is a well crafted analysis of the notion of representation as a
> concept.
>
> She takes an historical and developmental perspective towards
> representation
> rather than  turn away from this concept. Her book is an attempt to
> analyize
> the intravolution or turn inward in our notions of representations and her
> attempt is to reclaim representation as a central notion to reflect on.
>
> Sandra locates the intravolutionary movement of interiorizing
> representation as an historical phenomenom that happened historically at
> the
> time of Descartes. His philosophy is representative of this historical move
> to interiorize thinking.  Charles Taylor, in "sources of the self"  is a
> resource Sandra uses to explore this historical time periord when the
> representational world [and worldview] was forming and being constructed.
> [produced?]
>
> In the 19th and 20th century this intravolution was consolidated and became
> crystallized in the cognitive intravolution when the concept of
> representation was BIASED towards the interiorization of the "epistemic
> function" of knowlege construction.  In this intravolutionary move two
> other
> central functions of reresentations were moved into the shadows as the
> epistemic function was privileged. The two other functions of
> representation
> [as an historical phenomenon]  are the "dialogical function" and the
> "expressive function"  which Sandra's book is trying to illuminate by
> returning to the social dimension of representations and reflecting
> on why Eurocentric notions of representation positioned representation
> as an intravolutionary movement.  Taylor points out that it was this move
> inward that produced a new kind of person the "expressive" self.
>
> She questions the "postmodern" attempt to deny the "reality" of
> representations by such authors as Rorty.  Instead, she looks to authors
> such as Vygotsky, Mead, Moscovici, and Winnicott as authors who have
> engaged
> with Descartes intravolutionary move of interiorizing representation as
> they
> reTURNED to the social dimension of representation as a microgenetic,
> ontogenetic, and sociogenetic phenomenon.
>
> Sandra makes clear that the notion of representations is a HISTORICAL
> phenomenon and does not exist outside of history.  BUT because of European
> history and the development of the concept of representations, the
> intravolution of representations became the "ideal model" with which we
> MEDIATED our constuctions of "self"  subjectively, intersubjectively, and
> objectively.
>
> Sandra's position on representation is that it is a mistake to do away with
> the concept because of its historical intravolution. I will end with a
> direct quote from Sandra.
>
> "Representations are constructive ACTS OF ENGAGEMENT. A mode of relating to
> the world outside. It is in the social and developmental psychology of self
> and other RELATIONS that puts back [returns?] into representational
> processes the DIALOGICAL and EXPRESSIVE functions that are, as much as the
> epistemic function intrinsic to SYMBOLIC FORMS."  I am reading this book on
> a kindle ebook so cannot give the page reference.]
>
> I know there has been a move to represent "representations" as
> "affordances"
> in order to escape the intravolutionary historical move.  From Sandra's
> perspective we should continue to engage with the concept of representation
> because she suggests it is a central concept in our historical time.  We
> moderns are immersed within representational space and to understand the
> complexity of that historically constructed space we should continue to
> ENGAGE the concept of representation as epistemic, dialogical and
> expressive. The move to interiorize the epistemic function and move the
> dialogical and expressive functions into the shadows is an insight that
> should continue to be engaged.  From Sandra's perspective, we moderns
> cannot
> escape representational concepts  as a model of the world. Howevr we can
> question the model as "ideal".
>  Vygotsky, Mead, Moscovici, and others,from Sandra's perspective,  are
> "talking back" to Descartes intravolutionary move and in that spirit Sandra
> is engaging the concept of representations.
>
> Larry
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