Transcribing data on a Sunday afternoon
Excerpt of transcribed audio from the first TXT CONNECT youth advisory board meeting on March 12, 2013:
What we’re doing is building a communication platform for these young people. It’s not just mobile text messaging. It’s Facebook--and another thing I was thinking with the Facebook page is to do exactly what you guys are saying and suggesting, which is to build this community online where young people can feel like ‘Okay, I know exactly where I need to go to get information.’ The platform that we’re trying to build--the purpose of it is to connect all of these resources together for young people. It’s like a one-stop shop for [court-involved youth] who want to get information about A, B, or C. They know they can go to whatever it is that we’re calling it.
Notes on J. Lave and Situated Learning Communities
Situated Learning Perspective, Ecological Theory for Learning, Networks, & Situating Learning Communities of Practice – (Barab, Lave) Barab, S. and M.W. Roth. (2006). “Curriculum-Based Ecosystems: Supporting Knowing from an Ecological Perspective” Educational Researcher, Vo. 35, No. 5, pp.3-13. June/July.
Lave, J. (1991). Situating learning in communities of practice. In L. Resnick & S. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on socially shared cognition (pp. 63-82). Washington, DC: APA.
Summary of Situated Learning Perspective, Ecology Theory for Learning, Networks, and Communities of Practice:
Barab and Roth’s analysis of networks situates the environment at the center of learning. The authors demonstrate “the role of the environment in distributing cognition” (pg. 6). They breakdown the simplistic idea of applied knowledge by deconstructing networks with discussions about the ways in which agents (or learners) engage and participate within the environment; the tools they use, how resourceful they are with the tools, the ways in which agents “wax and wane” (pg. 5) within a particular network depending upon targeted goals and understanding. The network, the authors argue, “is bounded by its function” (pg. 6). That is, how agents participate and contribute to the network itself determines its overall function. The authors believe in participation over acquisition. They state, “[i]ntegrating this theoretical conviction into our argument suggests that knowledge acquisition may be overrated and that a more important role of education is to stimulate meaningful participation” (pg. 6).
Jean Lave, a social anthropologist, puts a social (and to some extent, a human) face on cognitive science. Her article on situated learning asks us to rethink the idea of learning as a “emerging property of whole persons’ legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice.” She asks the question “why is learning problematic in the modern world?” and briefly outlines a historical perspective of Marxist social theory to explain 1) alienated conditions of contemporary life, and 2) how commoditize labor diminishes possibilities for “sustained development of identities and mastery” (pg. 65). From the onset, we understand Lave takes a social and cultural approach to cognitive science. As such, she critiques two genres of situated activity theory by introducing the theory of situative learning. The first, Cognition Plus View (CPV) locates situatedness in the individual, internal business of cognitive processing, representations, memory and problem solving, and cognitive theory. (This view has a fixed Cartesian view of the world). The second, Interpretive View (IV) locates situatedness in the use of language and/or social interaction. Meaning is negotiated [and] the use of language is a social activity rather than a matter of individual transmission of information, and situated cognition is always interest-relative. Unlike CPV and IV above, situated learning, according to Lave, “claims that learning, thinking, and knowing are relations among people engaged in activity in, with, and arising from the socially and culturally structured world” (pg. 67).
Lave discusses Jordan's 1989 ethnographic research on apprenticeship in the Yucatec Mayan Midwifery community (pg. 68). The apprentices in this community are peripheral participants, legitimate participants, and legitimately peripheral to the practice of midwifery. Community members of Yucatec Mayan Midwifery have access to broad knowledgeability of the practice of midwifery and to increasing participation in that practice (pg. 70). With this example, Lave argues against prior notions that teaching resources (in the Western sense) are necessary in order for effective apprenticeship. Though this community is impoverished, and despite a lack of identifiable teaching resources, Jordan’s ethnography shows that “learning activity is improvised” (pg. 7) and knowledgeability and an ongoing transfer of newcomers to oldtimes are established in this particular community. Lave’s discussion of Alcoholics Anonymous is also an example of a community of practice where newcomers gradually develop identities as nondrinking alcoholics—i.e. learning as legitimate peripheral participation (pg. 71). Both examples Lave mentions resonates with Jenkins' (2006) notion of affinity spaces (pg. 9) in a participatory culture, that is, spaces where informal learning communities acquire skills and knowledge through apprenticeship. These spaces, according to Jenkins, are powerful sites of generative learning where “aesthetic experiments and innovations emerge” (pg. 9).
Though Lave initially presents a “seamless whole” (pg. 74) of communities of practice, she also acknowledges that continuity and displacement (of oldtimers) are necessary for someone to become a full practitioner in a community of practice—a complex and muddy reality.
The crux of Lave’s article comes toward the end with further analysis on what Henning (2004) discusses of Lave as the commoditization of knowledge. That is, the commoditization of knowledge and learning results in the anthropomorphizing and objectification of people (Lave, 1991). People become products within an exchange system of learning (pg. 75). As a result, the learner, or agent “has little possibility of fashioning an identity that implies mastery [since] commodification of labor implies the detachment of the value of labor from the person” (pg. 76). In other words, personal identity, a significant factor in knowledgeability according to Lave “devolves elsewhere” or is lost.
Lave’s 1991 article as well as her work mentioned in Henning’s 2004 article, "Everyday Cognition and Situated Learning", establishes nicely the ways in which Lave puts a human face on cognitive science.
My NCA Statement on Feminism and Communications
Due to lack of travel funds I am unable to attend NCA (National Communication Association) Conference 2012 this year. Below is my official statement that will be presented on my behalf during Saturday morning’s roundtable session entitled “Critical Perspectives on Feminism and Activism in the Third Wave”. I’ve spent the last few years grappling with feminist identity. Despite over the years having performed so-called “feminist duties” as an academic and as a political activist, (i.e. earning a MA in Women’s Studies, caucusing for Hillary Clinton in 2008, and volunteering as a hotline operator for a women’s shelter), I realize that my feminism has less to do with declaring a feminist identity and more to do with how my feminism emerges through work and scholarship, both of which almost always reflect a feminist ethic grounded in an inquiry stance. That is, I’m always questioning my-self in relation to Other; always replaying Trinh T. Minh-ha’s mystifying question in my head, “If you can’t locate the other, how are you to locate your-self?”
I worry, however, that feminism as a discipline, as a politic, as a form of activism, and as an idea(l) has become institutionalized within a western moral, ethic, and capitalistic framework that looks more and more like hierarchy, chronology, and characterized by waves (eg. generations). I also wonder about feminism as a capital enterprise. The notion of “professional feminism” troubles me. I realize folks have to make a living off of their work, but the label “professional feminist” conjures up awkward emotions. And no, I’m not referring to the welcomed contradictions of personhood that Gloria Anzaldúa brilliantly theorizes in Borderlands La Frontera, but rather I’m talking about the idea of professional feminism that exist in conflict with how I understand feminist consciousness; that is, something as sacred. Something that cannot be bought or sold. Untouched.
That said, however, I’m happy to see and feel feminist ideas spread throughout our home lives, our governments, our schools, and disseminated by way communication technologies.
To see feminist activism travel throughout time and space has been incredible to witness. With technology we are able recognize the multivalent nature of our potential of doing feminism, and by extension being feminist. Feminists have been able to spread our advocacy projects across time and space, and organize our bodies to protests in cities and neighborhoods across the globe. We have brought together domestic and international partners as we strive for justice and relief. We have called out others and at times we have had to confront ourselves. We have moved our advocacy beyond stationary online and offline spaces.
As we move throughout these spaces and places, I hope we can approach third space consciousness where we fight as much for the preservation of our selves as we fight for the preservation of others. This movement toward consciousness—born of techno advocacy practices that span across computer mediated and non-computer mediated contexts, is a threshold space of place where we can (I hope!) see ourselves through the eyes of others and by way of panoramic views.
This kind of feminism spreads like sun rays and warms me up everytime I think about it.
Feminist theory and ethnography is peppered throughout the discipline of communications. I know of researchers at my institution who look towards feminist theory and ethnography to inform their work in communications and education, and of course, I have peers who see no use for feminist theory and ethnography. In fact, they may have never heard of feminist theory and feminist ethnography throughout their academic careers. The beauty of academia and research is that we can take multiple approaches to understanding the worlds around us. As a researcher and scholar of both education and communications, I carry with me an understanding of feminist theories and methodologies that I apply to my research on media, Internet/web 2.0, and youth culture. Feminist theory and ethnography are just a few of my lenses, and I don’t expect anyone else to wear them as I do when approaching research. I do, however, expect that the discipline of communications will continue to embrace interdisciplinary approaches. I expect communication scholars to acknowledge and embrace transdisciplinary analyses informed by theoretical approaches that take into account experiences and storytelling at the intersection of gender, class, sex, sexuality, ‘race’, dis/ability, religion, tribe, and ecology.
The Syllabus of My Dream Course
This week for class I was required to complete a syllabus for a course I would like to teach someday. My dream course, entitled "Exploring Perspectives of the Online-Offline Continuum" is a graduate level course that engages philosophical, methodological, and pedagogical perspectives to address meaning and function of the ONL-OFL Continuum. I suspect that the course will evolve as my understanding of the ONL-OFL Continuum evolves. Nonetheless, I thought I'd post the syllabus here for the world to see and critique. Exploring Perspectives of the ONL-OFL Continuum Syllabus [.pdf]
Included in the syllabus are a range of perspectives from some of the following writers, scholars, and educators I follow on Twitter.
I welcome your thoughts and comments.
The Evolution of a Definition: The ONL-OFL Continuum
I thought it would be useful to compile all of the working definitions for the Online-Offline Continuum (ONL-OFL) that I've been developing over the past year and a half. It all started in my "Social and Communicative Aspects of the Internet" class during the fall of 2010...
2010
Draft 1
The online/offline continuum is defined as an interactive and communication phenomenon characterized by the distribution of identities and social practices that shift between computer and non-computer mediated environments.
Draft 2
I define the online/offline continuum as an interactive and communication phenomenon that is characterized by the distribution of identities[1]and social practices that shift between computer and non-computer mediated environments.
[1] Sam Han reviews the history of Internet studies scholarship in his upcoming publication "Virtual Identities: From Decentered to Distributed Selves". I consider Han one of several scholars of an emerging new wave of scholarship that address the online/offline continuum. He suggests that we rethink assumptions about commonly held beliefs of virtual identity as disembodied and consider the process of identity construction as a sort of convergence (p. 25). In this analysis, I further introduce the concept of distributing identities as a way of understanding virtual identities in the future. Whether or not this conception proves meaningful to the scholarship is yet to be seen since further investigation is required.
2011
'Online' and 'offline' are not as distinct spheres, but may be conceptualized as a continuum of identities and socio-cultural practices across time, space, and of both computer-mediated and non-computer mediated interactions.
2012
Draft 1
I coin the term online-offline (ONL-OFL) continuum to describe a type of movement that shifts between computer (or machine)-mediated and non-computer (or non-machine)-mediated environments. As I describe this phenomenon, I am also arguing that the ONL-OFL continuum explains a theory of movement between and among networks across computer (or machine)-mediated and non-computer (or non- machine)-mediated environments.
Furthermore, it must be noted that the ONL-OFL continuum describes one type of movement of one type of network process between computer-mediated (or machine) and non-computer (or non-machine) mediated environments. Networks are a plural concept. For this reason, it is nearly impossible to present a single theory for the movement of all networks, since so many exist simultaneously, side-by-side, within and without each other. As well, movement of the ONL-OFL continuum, therefore, describes plurality of motion. Like with some articulations of theory, the ONL-OFL continuum seeks to explain a phenomenon of movement from multi-dynamic socio-cultural and communicative perspectives, which cannot be necessarily defined through typology, nor can it be absolutely traced if not for “things” also moving within an organized social space (Latour, 2005).
Current definition (2012)
The ONL-OFL Continuum describes what happens when our selves move, as well as describes the practices that constitute our selves moving within and among computer mediated and non-computer mediated contexts. Additionally, the ONL-OFL Continuum says that ‘connected’ realities inform ‘disconnected’ realities, and vice versa, and as such may very well result in the (re)shaping, (re)making, and co-construction of experiences across contexts.
It's worth noting that my ideas about movement (i.e. shifting and tracing) and being marked evolved once I began to ground them in the works of others like Bruno Latour and Gloria Anzaldua. This past year I've devoted a significant amount of brain power to fleshing out what it means to shift while allowing myself to be verbose for the sake of simply getting the ramblings out of my head. I think it's useful for anyone working on ideas to keep track of how they evolve. At this point, I'm more confident exploring ideas about movement and being marked as it relates to the ONL-OFL Continuum because folks like Leander and McKim (.pdf) and others have already been talking about the notion of tracing in the Latourian sense to frame concepts.
I'm currently re-reading Anzaldua's essay "now let us shift" (.pdf) in search for better grounding to further my discussions about being marked by trauma while shifting within/among 'connected' and 'disconnected' realities. I'm in the process of finishing a draft for an upcoming anthology in which I will take a more narrative approach to discuss how being marked by the trauma of confronting my late father in so-called 'cyberspace' both informs and is informed by the experiences I (re)member (as in re-organize and re-call) with him in 'disconnected' reality. Some argue that the traumatic dimension is a characteristic of the Lacanian 'Real'--i.e. that too strong, too intense Reality that can never really be experienced and instead is repressed through our everyday reality, also known as fantasy. This idea fascinates me because I believe we can and do experience the traumatic dimension while shifting in/among online and offline contexts as evident when we confront loved ones who have passed away yet still 'exists' via social networks, blogs, and online videos. Other ways I intend to continue exploring the notion of being marked by trauma, which is characteristic of the ONL-OFL Continuum, includes cyberbullying, 'cyber' racism, sexism, and sexual exploitation. Admittedly, I need to better familiarize myself with Lacan to see if I'm on the right track with his ideas. Nonetheless, I do believe there is a connection between trauma and being marked while shifting within/among computer mediated and non-computer mediated contexts. More on that in a latter post.
Ciao for now.
If anyone out there reading this would like to expand on my ideas or use them in other contexts, please be kind to cite my developing work:)