Re: [xmca] Project

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

Brecht,

Lots of good points, which deserve detailed thought and consideration. Until I can do that, let me simply ask you this.

Here is an important passage from Andy's paper on projects:

"The projects I have in mind here might be a social movement, such as the women’s health movement, or a campaign against asbestos production, or it might be a capitalist firm promoting a new product under its own brand name, or a fashion or youth trend, a government program to mobilise for war, or a branch of science. But in every case, it is an evolving and expanding social practice which arises as a protest against and remedy for some problem. A project begins with a break from the former practices of the community. In particular projects generally arise within some definite form of practice or institution which is intolerant of contradictions, and overcoming a problem necessitates a self-conscious break."

This shows very clearly what I have called the failure to appreciate reproduction. Certainly, social protest movements, such as the one you are currently studying, are of great interest. But surely we can't say that the fundamental unit of human activity is protest? The fact that Andy refers here to "the former practices" shows that the project, defined in this way as protest, cannot be fundamental. 

Martin

On Apr 6, 2013, at 7:03 PM, Brecht De Smet <Brechttie.DeSmet@UGent.be>
 wrote:

> I decided to refrain from the discussion, but let's reiterate my friendly
> criticisms of your friendly criticism of Andy's friendly criticism of AT,
> Martin :)
>    
>> A few days ago I explained why a project - if it's going to be the fundamental unit of analysis of human activity - needs to be conceptualized in terms not only of collaboration but also of differentiation.
> Why is "differentiation" not embedded within the notion of collaboration?
> Collaboration does not mean friendly cooperation, it just means people
> doing stuff together, which historically led to a technical and social
> division of labor, to hierarchies, to class society.
> 
> The point of a unit of analysis is that it does not posit a series of
> derivative truths about a phenomenon, but a starting point, a basic
> premisse, to generate questions about a phenomenon. Differentiation is
> often a logical step within the development of collaboration. But this
> notion already represents a specific development of collaboration.
>> And why we need to think of a project not simply as arising from a contradiction, but as arising from a human need. I can now add a few more points to that starting place. I've said that a project is a response to a human need, and that it has as its product something tangible that can satisfy that need. A project is a transformation of the material circumstances, physical, biological and social, in order to satisfy a need. That transformation is accomplished through human ingenuity, both skillful action and cognition-in-action. I agree with Andy to the extent that he is trying to link thinking to action, theory to practice. But that's been done before - in, for example, Heidegger's account of the different modes of engagement (ready-to-hand, unready-to-hand, and present-at-hand), all of which are structured by thrown-projection. So let's stipulate that it takes intelligence to transform the world, and a project employs (and extends) human intelligence.
> 
> But this conceives of human collaboration only from an object that is
> external and prior to the activity itself. As Marx notes in the German
> Ideology, the process of satisfying needs leads to the production of new
> needs. The whole history of mankind is the continuous transcendence of
> original goals by new ones that emerged from the process of collaboration
> itself.
> 
> "It takes intelligence to transform the world" - What does that *mean*?
> Isn't every human an "intellectual", to paraphrase Gramsci? How can human
> collaboration take place without human intelligence?
> 
>> That means that we can take what we already know about physical and biological reality to help us understand our own social reality (that is, we too are engaged in a project, transforming the state of our understanding of human activity). The physical and the biological provide constitutive conditions for human projects. Because there are regularities in the physical world (e.g., the earth spins on its axis) and biological organisms are adapted to these regularities (e.g. cycles of activity and sleep), human needs recur (e.g. I want to eat breakfast every morning). When we define projects as responses to human needs, we can see that because human needs are cyclical projects will often become routine.
> 
> But that's only true for the base projects of production and reproduction,
> upon which whole cultural edifices are erected that are irreducible to any
> of these physical aspects of human "species-being", as Marx called it.
> We're not only talking about eating, but also about gastronomy; not only
> about sexual reproduction, but romance; not only about communication, but
> poetry; etc. Animals have cycles, animals don't have projects.
>    
>> I don't think Andy's definition of 'project' handles routines very well. It seems to work better with activities like the strike that Brecht is studying. A strike is a newsworthy event, with explicit demands. But most projects are not so eventful, or so explicit in their ends. However, under my definition a routine is also a project. Or, to put it the other way around, a project often becomes routine, because it needs to be repeated. A routine is about meeting needs through repeated transformation of the world. Bread must be baked fresh each morning and sold each day. The crops have to be planted every spring, not just this year.
> 
>   Just like differentiation, "routine", "spontaneity", "organization",
> etc. can be unfolded from the concept of human collaboration. As you
> quoted Vygotsky before, a unit of analysis has to be the simplest
> determination, from which a complex phenomenon can be understood. Adding
> "differentiation" and "routine" as an a priori to the UoA of activity, is
> expanding its cell-form, and thus reducing its capacity to function as a
> UoA. What about projects that are not routineous, but spontaneously, ad
> hoc, sudden, and almost destined to last only for a short period? For
> sure, a UoA should try to account also for these types of activities?
>    
>> This is important, because when a project becomes routine it acquires a normative character, which can develop into explicit rules. And when a project becomes routine its differentiation can become a division of labor. Or it can become playful competition. Or it can become a conflict. Or the division of labor can become exploitation. Each of these is a qualitatively distinct combination of collaboration and differentiation. Also, because of its differentiation every project will require specific social relations. When the project becomes routine these will become recognized *kinds* of relations, which can define recognized positions, or explicit roles, and identities.
> 
>   I think we are in agreement of these issues... but in his ITA book Andy
> in fact unfolds these aspects from the notion of collaboration. The point
> is not if most activities acquire these characteristics, but if these
> characteristics should be part as premisses of a unit of analysis. I think
> not, because then you create a system, theory, (metaphysics? :)
>   You are already one step ahead of developing a UoA and are already
> answering the questions that a UoA should generate.
>> In this way, through necessary repetition, a project becomes routinized, objectified and institutionalized. It will define the positions, resources, and identities from which and with which people can take up a new project. A project doesn't start from nothing and nowhere: it starts from a need and a concrete circumstance, but both these will usually be products of previous projects. History accumulates. New projects emerge within and among the routinized and objectified forms of prior projects. This will both constrain them and enable them. People involved in a new project may find that there is simply no room for it alongside existing projects. Or, they may find that the existing projects facilitate and provide the raw materials (not now so raw) for their new project.
> 
> Yes, I like much what I read in this paragraph. Although I don't know if
> it is mere routine or repetition that institutionalizes projects, but
> that's another discussion.
>    
>> And, as Lubomir pointed out, humans are sociospatial organisms. The next step is to explore how that fact establishes conditions for projects....
> 
>   Indeed, the encounter between the notions of "space" and "activity"
> interests me as well.
> 
>   All the best from tear gas filled Cairo...
> 
>   Brecht
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