They are also venues where people forge collective identitiesand extend their solidarities beyond their immediate familiar circles toinclude also the unknown, the strangers.
People are using their built environment to form connections with others who share the same passion or interest.. this can be seen almost anywhere, not just the streets.
The data were compiled in apublished report that had professional features—it had a glossy cover, it had beenedited for grammar and punctuation, it presented evidence in support of the resolu-tion, and each section included policy recommendations. For example, one pagediscussing student leadership included pie charts showing student support forgreater leadership and also included specific recommendations, such as trainingstudents to be able to sit on school decision-making bodies.
Undoubtedly this is a reflection of the formation of identity as well. I'd be hard-pressed to think that this is what students found to be the most compelling way to present information, but certainly it matched perfectly with ideas that they had about what a "professional" report ought to look like.
Alonzo,the Youth Rising coordinator, told me that he wanted organizing to be an attitudethat youth brought to their peer interactions outside of the program and not justsomething they did when they were at Youth Rising.
Another clear example of the importance of identity formation. This is not an exercise in getting the students to come together for a time to work around organizing, but rather, to see themselves as community organizers in their daily life. Very similar to the discussion around the importance of personal stories to get A.A. members to identify themselves as alcoholics, not simply as people who attend A.A. meetings
But because so much of the workwas performed collaboratively with adults, youth had fewer opportunities to prac-tice and master skills on their own, which makes it challenging to draw inferencesabout their learning. This does not, however, mean that they did not learn. Rogoffet al.’s (2003) description of “intent participation,” for example, suggests that theprocess of attentively observing an activity is a central part of the learning process.Opportunities to observe, listen to conversations, and engage in shared endeavorswith adults may be meaningful even if they do not lead to independent perfor-mance.
Rogoff would probably argue that joint work helps youth develop identity in ways that the other GP don't because it involves both keen observation of and active participation in the environment.
Second, unlike either facilitation or apprenticeship, joint work rarely includedelements of a youth-centered environment, such as skill-building workshops or ef-forts to foster group belonging. Aside from periodic check-ins at the beginning ofmeetings, there were no team-building activities. The TRUE project resembledwhat one might expect a planning process to look like in a workplace or commu-nity group, in which the primary goal is to complete the project successfully ratherthan to teach, mentor, or counsel certain members.
This paragraph has me rethinking the pros/cons of joint work. It does seem arguable that by" throwing them" into a context that most resembles what an adult activist group would look like/how it would run, TRUE is treating youths as full participants without the youths having to do any apprenticing. Looking at it like this makes the other two forms feel more like the youths are "learning what it would be like through supported simulation" - kind of a schooling of youth activism, where as in joint work they are "learning by being treated as an activist".
Might the type of guided participation lead to a different formation of 'youth as political' identity?
The facilitation ap-proachcreated opportunities for youth to participate in a variety of leadershiptasks. Youth participants routinely initiated the meetings, explained the agenda,and helped keep the group on task.
This finding seems to support the idea that more student involvement and less hierarchical adult control leads to more access for students to participate and, potentially to form identities of "youth activist" in their own terms.
Differences between facilitation, apprenticeship, and joint work.
This table has me thinking about Holland (Chapter 5) when they talk about the directive force of figured worlds.
On page 100 they write, "thoughts and feelings, will and motivation are formed as the individual develops. The individual comes, in the recurrent contexts of social interaction, to personalize cultural resources, such as figured worlds, languages, and symbols, as means to organize and modify thoughts and emotions."
How might the level of youth versus adult engagement impact the individual's development? (Identity specifically, their place in the FW of youth activism). Holland et al argue that recurrent action/interaction in social settings is key to identity formation. It seems a different kind of "youth activist" identity would be formed depending on the type of guided participation most used.
Unlike in YELL or Youth Rising, in TRUE adultsand youth treated me as a regular participant in the conference planning process—Iwas expected to offer opinions, vote on decisions, and implement necessary tasks
Identity of Researcher-participant blurred in observation at TRUE. Kirshner adds below that this gave particular insight into aspects of division of labor and access. Ties here to being a "participant observer" in our own independent observation projects...if possible, how might "being involved" like Kirshner was, shed new/different light on learning there?
One unique aspect of youth activism groups, however, has to do with an em-powerment discourse that assigns political significance to the distinction betweenyouth and adults.
So being a part of "youth activism" is partially about or results in developing a particular identity? Maybe even an identity that will impact future identity development when they age out of the youth bracket?
I define jointwork as a form of collaboration whereby adults participate alongside youth, likeapprenticeship. But, unlike apprenticeship or facilitation, in joint work the envi-ronment is not youth-centered. During this phase of the project there appeared tobe little effort to position youth as leaders of the project, distance adults from theproject, or operate as if one group or another were supposed to be in charge.
I think the lack of wanting to make the youth members hold leadership roles, hinders their identity development. On the one side, I like that the environment is not altered to be youth-centered, but on the other I do not like the clear cut lines that is created when thinking about leadership roles. (By me, I am referring to how I have understood Kirshner's lens)
adults sought to hand over progressively more re-sponsibilities to youth organizers. Although adults did not fade from active moni-toring to the same extent as those in YELL, they did invite youth to help shape thedirection of the campaign and play a variety of leadership roles.
Is this more along the lines of what time of mutual involvement Kirshner was referring too? I feel like this is almost the perfect middle point in aiding in identity development of youth.
Instead,adults shared political views with youth, pitched in to complete campaign tasks atkey points, and participated in most decisions. I describe this form of guidance asapprenticeship: Adults were veteran activists who participated in the same en-deavor as novices, while nevertheless structuring activities in ways that were sensi-tive to youths’ skill levels.
Sometimes I read this and think of mutual involvement, and other times I read it and think more of leadership from the adults. I also don't know if I agree of the term apprenticeship as it makes me think of lpp.
As one adult said, to a chorus ofagreement from others, in a debrief meeting, “I’d prefer for us to be like referees,help youth come to their own beliefs, rather than prod them towards ours.
Is there much involvement from the adults to be like peers to the youth? I think Kirshner would want to focus on that .
Youth-centered activities include team-builders designed to foster group belonging;workshops designed to improve youths’ skills or understanding; and participantstructures, such as small-group activities, designed to foster participation from allmembers. Activities in facilitation and apprenticeship were typically youth-cen-tered, unlike those in joint work.
I don't know how much Kirshner would appreciate this, because it is an alteration in the context to make it youth-focused which doesn't necessarily promote mutual involvement with social partners, but only mutual involvement with their peers.
Michelle, the program director, ex-plained that she saw her role as supporting youth in making decisions but not mak-ing decisions for them.
Promoting an environment where children can make their own decisions
Adults across the groups expressed their desire for youth to take ownership ofthe campaigns, in the sense that youth would care about the campaign goals andtake initiative to carry them out, rather than just follow the leadership and guidanceof adults.
This is something I think Krishner would agree with because it encourages mutual involvement, and given youth members many times to participate and take ownership of the cause.
In a youth empowerment context, adults are frequently viewed as obstacles toaccess rather than exemplars to emulate, for example by making decisions withoutthe input of youth (Hogan, 2002), creating only token opportunities for youth par-ticipation (O’Donoghue, Kirshner, & McLaughlin, 2002), or promoting punitivepolicies toward minors
The identity development of youth in this aspect, how I view it, is VERY limiting. In this example, their social partners are not necessarily pushing the youth to accomplish more.
Through interaction with public officials and community members, such groupschallenge social constructions of youth of color as apathetic or uninvolved
This includes mutual involvement from the individual and their social partner, but does this limit minority youth to only thinking they can be involved in youth activism at this level?
It is notjust an accumulation of skills and information, but a process of becoming-to become a certainperson or, conversely, to avoid becoming a certain person"
I really like this quotation. It highlights for me a big part of the issue with schooling - the focus on skills, tools, tricks, and information as "objects" to be obtained. No where in there does there seem to be thoughtfulness about the student as a person, just as some empty vessel to be filled.
The resources were made available to athletes by virtue oftheir presence in the physical space and through one-on-one interactions with CoachJ. Additionally, ideational resources were often conveyed as students were explicitlypositioned into particular roles with respect to the events at which they wouldcompete in meet
Coach J is the gate keeper, the mentor, who needs to provide the resources for a student to engage in building the identity of a track athlete. Therefore, he is the identity gate keeper. Why, therefore, examine this through the lens of resources instead of merely habitus or "cultural toolkit?"
Specifically, it makesthe case for a treatment of learning and identity that considers them to be intimatelyrelated to one another but also to be distinct processes. Thinking about learning andidentities in schools in this way might support a clearer conceptual understanding ofthe relation between learning and identity that does not conflate them or view themas unrelated.
This article, as I understand it, provides arguments that identity and learning are intimately related, but not that they are distinct processes. While I agree with this statement that I highlighted, I wonder in what ways we can look to studies like this one to provide the nuance Nasir and Cook are looking for and claiming. It seems that Holland et al.'s description fits more with an understanding that identity and learning are not distinct processes.
He does not figure his life in AP!s terms. He views AA as a measure to take when things get really bad. He does not share the set of values and distinctions that unites other AA members. The identity of "alcoholic" does not affect his actions, or his perceptions of self, beyond his drinking behavior. Andrew has never stayed in AA for more than one year, although he has been in treatment for alcoholism four times and in and out of AA at least three times
Andrew's identity did not contain Alcoholic in the AA terms yet. Therefore he was not engaged in the figured world of AA. Is this the only way one can be considered a part of a figured world in this analysis?
Apparently the story was consciously developed from the beginning as a vehicle for presenting an experience or person with whom the prospect could identify
How is this different from and/or the same as other socio-historical. cultural forces that drive the reproduction of this figured world of being an AA alchoholic? What about other figured worlds? Is this conscious social step, prescribed in literature that all must read and listen to in order to be part of AA figured world, truly indicative of the forces of reproduction behind other figured worlds?
We conceive this step as devaluation, rather than diffusion, as Schwartz and Merten call it
Interesting to move away from diffusion, which implies moving across a boarder, as a solution does across a membrane in diffusion, to devaluation which implies possible further connection;
It is a transformation of their identities, from drinkil1KJ1on-alcoholics to rion-drmldng alcofiO!ics·, a_�n:::d:_,:lt:.:a::l�le::;c:.:-ts::__. ���-�"--·--�·-'-" ·-----��.�-=---�----���·�� . --how they view and act in the world.
Why does it need to be that way? Why label something that is unnecessary, especially when it will not produce positive result for the individual's identity?
Telling AA personal stories also helps members identify with one another in ways that are harder to document. As a public event, one that is not only observable but material and co-participatory, the telling encompasses body practices, including vocalization, that realize structures of affect and disposition. Not only social theorists, from Durkheim and Mauss to Bourdieu, but any participant in such performances would tell you that the fellow-feeling born in these ceremonies is a powerful means of identification.
The personal story is a force in many directions for the figured world of AA, especially in creating and shaping identity of members.
In the formation of." ne� identity an individual comes, with the social -eiicaiiiagemeni··-�u.d:i�sist�n��-.-�L2r.����,--.. r<itmemrei: the�l.v�ild.. in new ways·, an:d··rcql'osifioii:' llerself and emotionally invest herself in that world. Indlviduals-UoThis through particiPating in -group activities, learning to· produce and enact cultural forms particular to that world, and taking up these forms as devices for mediating their own conception of self and world.
It's important to remember that identity formation is an ongoing process in relation to the figured worlds that a person is participating in.
Often times we think of identity as static - either you have it or you don't - and that it can only be measured through observing practice. I think that this reading is encouraging us to be wary of those assumptions.
I personal storie , oldtimers in AA tell their own life stories or partcll them-=Their drinking histories-and how they came to be involved in I AA. These stories contribute to cultural production and reproduction in three ways. First, they objectify many cultural elements-the beliefs, propositions, and interpretations-that new or potential AA members learn through listening. Second, by virtue of their" narrative forms, the stories realize a model of what alcoholism is and what it means to be an alcoholic. This model, in the absence of a well-defined, well-elaborated model shared by the wider culture, provides a basis for potential members to identify themselves as alcoholics, through comparing their lives to those in the stories. The storyline also provides a basis for labeling others, as others compare the lives of suspected alcoholics to the AA lives. Third, the AA story is a tool of subjectivity, a �p.ediat:ing-.de¥-iG€ for s�standing: As the AA member learns the AA story model, by listening to and telling stories, and comes to place the events and experiences of his own··· life into the model, he learns to understand his own�l.ife1 as an AA life, and himself as an AA alcoholic. The .l'ersonal_st"l}'_!s_a cultural vehicle for identity formation.
Storytelling is among the oldest traditions we have to pass on cultural norms - here AA is using that format to encourage members and prospects to identify with each other and see their own lives in each other's stories.
his transformation takes place througl:l rei11_terpret�ion, as_.'!'<:"lber_u<>_m� to 11nders�nd thatthdrpasts have b�en a progr�ssion ofalcoholi£ d,:lllk!!lg_;md_alcoholic -behj.vfor.
Emphasis on the fluidity and process of identity formation
identity reconstitu��Q11- i!l AA. takes place through reinterpreta-tion ()(self and of one'slif�, and that the major ve!ITCTefonhi:Sremferpretation_IS-illeAA persg11�1 story
Key piece - formation of a new identity. With reinterpreation comes the element of accountability to oneself, as well as the in-group and newcomers of the figured world
This is why, as members often say, "AA is for those who want it, not for those who need it." AA members must agree to become tellers, as well as listeners, of AA stories.
Entering into the AA figured world as a "non drinking alcoholic" must be an intentional choice.
I'm curious though what the authors would say about close family and friends of "non drinking alcoholics" - do you need to form an identity as such to enter (struggling with word choice here) a specific figured world?
There are therefore two aspects important to membership in AA: qualification as an alcoholic, based on ones past, and continued non-drinking behavior, or effort at not drinking, which is a . ne ation of the behavior that first qualified one for membership.J
Self-Identification, can't form identity based off other people's experiences, realities (hitting rock bottom and becoming motivated versus family/friends requesting person to join AA).
for "non drinking alcoholics) - the identity is formed as a response, it's reactionary
1_3tiid�ll�!.tz" Jn<::��ll:'_"'.ay a E::��."�.�'.'i<:rst� himself, an� is often viewed by others, at leasUru;main situatigps-a ��Q_Q:[§eTt. ih�i�<in�be:taidy���;;;;;:,tly-aehie,ve�
Clear definition of identity - culturally, contextually situated
Alcoholics are a labeled group of people who behave inappropriately after drinking alcohol.
I don't understand this - labeled by others after acting "inappropriately" AFTER drinking? I feel like the label is more contingent on the act or habit of drinking, rather than only after... Guess this speaks to the disagreements and lack of a clear definition of alcoholism
No distinct line runs between "social" or "normal" drinker and "problem drinker" or "alcoholic," and different sectors of U.S. society do not agree on what these terms mean.
Connects to Goodenough in the previous chapter: that there is no uniform, constant, or coherent set of meanings that applies equally in every situation. It must be situated culturally and contextually.
S�the defi!lition of an alcoholic is not agreed upon in the wider society, arriving at this i�t�;:pretatlon -�revent�-is-a process negotiated between the drinker and fhose arouncrller-:1\A stories provide a set of_c:riteria by which the al�olioliccailbeTclentified.
Who defines these criteria?
�
Our identities are not just shaped by our knowledge and interpretations, but how our knowledge plays off of cultural knowledge. The reading claims that for some "self-understanding" is transformed. Is this creating prototypical members of this group?
but his self as an alcoholic.
Is AA the figured world and alcoholic is the identity? So this means once one become a member of AA, they take on a new identity as well
He does not figure his life in AP!s terms. He views AA as a measure to take when things get really bad. He does not share the set of values and distinctions that unites other AA members. The identity of "alcoholic" does not affect his actions, or his perceptions of self, beyond his drinking behavior.
Andrew seems conflicted by his figured worlds. Though he acknowledges his alcoholism it is not how he identifies. For Hank, AA became a surrogate family (by way of his descri[tions of "Who am I?"). Andrew, though lonely, does not allow AA to serve that purpose for him. Is it a self fulfilling prophecy of lonliness that he is holding on to? An identity he wants to cling to?
The stories are used in what is simultaneously a social and a cognitive and affective, personal process. In the process of identity formation, the AA member undergoes a kind of reorientation in her self-understandings, a detachment from identities subsisting in other figured worlds, followed by the reconstitution-a process not only of learning but also of valuation, indeed elevation-of an identity predicated within A& world. She accomplishes this transition primarily by reinterpreting her life as an AA story.
I am intrigued by the example of AA members as they are adopting an identity without the traditional role models, ex: teachers, parents, peers.
This context of flux is the ground for identity development. It sets the conditions for what we called in Chapter 2 the authoring self-what in Chapter 8 we will expand to call the "space of authoring."
Within the theoretical frame of figured worlds, this looks to give space for individual/shared agency.
Figured worlds are evinced in practice through the artifacts employed by people in their performances.
I think this is fascinating and very interesting, but also that it is missing the other people included in a given context. I think both, together, are what help form the identity
These socially generated, culturally figured worlds, many linguists believe, are necessary for understanding the meaning of words.
I read this and I think, "what came first the chicken or the egg?"
Can you have worlds if you don't have words to define them? Can anyone have an identity if we have no words to use to describe our identities?
nipnll!ted JQ__p..Q)nt to other social feelings
It is being weird with the highlighting. What I want to highlight is "Meanings are manipulated to point...to participation in that scene. I think it is important to note here that a child's choice to engage in a particular environment/scene is also based on previous knowledge of the situation.
continual participation
This idea of embodiment through continual participation is a theme that runs throughout all of the readings - and also connects back to LPP.
The learner only becomes a master of a figured world by immersing themselves in it, first peripherally, and then more and more actively (see the descriptions in chapter 4 about the development of individual's AA story). Ultimately, if successful, they come to identify with the world and see themselves as a part of it.
lt. Discourse (or discursive) theory emphasizes many of the aspects of cultural resources that we discu
Cultural artifacts don't need to be material - pronouns as artifacts (example of ta/you). I'm thinking more about pronouns as artifacts, I'm curious what the authors would have to say about communities creating their own gender neutral pronouns in response to the gender binary (examples: ne, ve, ze, xe). Imagining and creating artifacts into being, learned within social interaction
the as-if character of possibility that marks fields (and figured worlds) is not an indifferent, "mental" abstrac-tion1 an "imaginary" in its usual sense, but a social rea"!!ty that lives within by relations of power.
I'm excited to see more discussion about power and privilege in these chapters - I felt like this has been lacking in previous readings
There is, Goodenough con-no uniform, conslstf.nt, or coherent set of meanings-no "cul-ture"-that applies equally in every activity.
Reminds me of the need for culturally responsive pedagogy - the teaching curriculum v. learning curriculum
Identities
Identities as products(?) of participation in figured worlds, thus identities are representative of larger sociohistorical circumstances.
They remain multiple, as people's trajectories through figured worlds neither take one path nor remain in the ambit of one cultural space, one figured world
Identities will change, depending on the figured worlds one encounters.
of social positions defined only against one an-other
Social positions don't exist alone, the comparison to others informs the social position (you can't have a king without any subjects) and social positions greatly affect one's identity
Cultural schemas or cultural models are stereotypical distillates, gen-eralizations from past experience that people make. They are akin to what Crapanzano (1990), speaking about the processes that maintain the self in continual change, calls "arrests"-representations of self at a particular time that people try to reassert, even under new conditions.•
I think it is necessary to be grounded in some practices and habits, and repeated, somewhat predictable, responses in order to form an identity.
The conceptual importance of figured worlds has been emphasized in anthropology for some time. Hallowell (1955a) argued that individuals live in worlds that are culturally defined and understand themselves in relation to these worlds. In a classic article, :'The Self and Its Behavioral Environment," he n
Can you live any other way?
It is certainly not divorced from these happen-ings, but neither is it identical to the particulars of any one event. l!.1§Jm_ abstraction, an extractio
Sounds like "schema" from the psychology world.
It is this compe-tence that makes possible culturally coustituted or figure-d consequently, the range of human (1985) points out the cleilnue lmk between Play worlds-and institutional life. Fantasy an game play serve as precursors to participation in an institutional life, where individuals are treated as scholars, bosses, or at-risk children and events such as the granting of tenure, a corporate raid, and the self-es-teem of at-risk children are taken in all seriousness. But to see imagina-tion extended so is simply to recognize that it pervades cultural life.
Children role-play, mimicking roles they are familiar with. This is true for adults as well. People get into realtionships that are familiar to them, like abused people with an abusive partner. This is a strong case for modeling. It's interesting that the figured world, though threatening, becomes so much a part of their identity that they maintain it rather than avoid it.
We believe this key transition that occurs in both schemes is best recast as identification-the formation of a concept of self as an actor in the system.
"culturally devised system" what everything seems to be coming down to
nli.e less expert women tended to repeat the words and follow the direc-ons of others. They had less of an overview of romantic relationships; hey had to work harder to come up with responses to romantic situ-1 ations. Not surprisingly, those who were less identified with the world of romance, and for whom it was less salient, also were less expert in / JP.anaging relationships.
This follows the structure of the AA story in chapter 4 - less experienced members first needed to hear others' stories and come to identify with the AA narrative before they could coherently tell their own story.
Her feelings about socialites--and her distaste when she thought about herself as one-made ·identification with the world of romance at SU difficult for her.
We often think about the things we want to identify ourselves with, but how many of our actions/decisions are shaped by avoiding identification with another group.
For the women we studied, the cultural interpretation of romance became salient and compelling as their expertise with romantic relation-ships increased and as they came to form an engaging interpretation of themselves in the world of romance
Within identity processes - reinterpreting the self and their location in the world
This suggests that involvement-the salience of and identification with the cultural system of romance-codeveloped with expertise.
Identity (and saliency of identity) is developed with expertise in a field. There are varying degrees of identity saliency - within multiple and simultaneous figured worlds.
Those who ap-peared to be less knowledgeable or less expert closely copied and took direction from others, attended to relatively circumscribed aspects of relationships, and had difficulty generating possible responses to roman-tic situations.
Participatory learning through observations (romance as an apprenticeship) - this identity as something that evolves
;, our neo-Vygotskian developmental approach, thoughts and feel-ings, will and motivation are formed as the individual develops. The individual comes, in the recurrent contexts of social interaction, to per-sonalize cultural resources, such as figured worlds, languages, and sym-bols, as means to organize and modify thoughts and emotions.
definition of culture for this context - in contrast to other anthropological positions. Motivation is developed within social processes
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Children role play, mimicking roles they are familiar with and that shapes their identity. This is true in adults as well. People get into relationships that are familiar to them...ex:the abused getting involved with an abusive partner. This makes a strong case for modeling.
Another began to examine built forms as metaphors for complex social and symbolic relationships: the Irish country- men's "west room" (21) or the French peasant "parlour" (393).
"complex social and symbolic relationships"
touches on how we are giving an identity to what we have built around us; we've found a specific purpose for each thing.
Another key area of research has focused on the relationship between individual or group identity and housing
Depending on how many people are involved in the use of an area, the dynamics can change
historical political boundaries of the native Americans
We view the world in these simplified 2D representations of clearcut political entities. Fredrik Barth and Benedict Anderson have said quite a few important things about these issues of maps and boundaries.
A very fundamental property to maintain in ontologies are the identity criteria. There is fundamental work by Nicola Guarino et al. about making ontological distinctions based on identity criteria, which led to the DOLCE ontology. For the Semantic Web, we must try ensure two things: a) that different parties see one thing as one, both at the same time and diachronically b) that things have well-defined properties.
all representations have essentially the same information content. And what we mean by "essentially" allows in fact some wriggle room, and in the end it rests on a common understanding between publisher of the information and quoter of the URI. The sameness we are after is the sameness of information content. That is what is identified by the URI. That is why we say that the URI identifies that conceptual information content, irrespective of its particular representation: the conceptual work. Without that common understanding, the web does not work. Some people have said, "If we say that URIs identify people, nothing breaks". But all the time they, day to day, rely on sameness of the information things on the web, and use URIs with that implicit assumption. As we formalize how the web works, we have to make that assumption explicit.
It demonstrates the ambiguity of natural language that no significant problem had been noticed over the past decade, even though the original author or HTTP , and later co-author of HTTP 1.1 who also did his PhD thesis on an analysis of the web, and both of whom have worked with Web protocols ever since, had had conflicting ideas of what the various terms actually mean.
an HTTP URI may identify something with a vagueness as to the dimensions above, but it still must be used to refer to a unique conceptual object whose various representations have a very large a mount in common. Formally, it is the publisher which defines the what an HTTP URI identifies, and so one should look to the publisher for a commitment as to the exact nature of the identity along these axes.
It’s the nature of Twitter to not research further, we all know, but if that nature is influencing the way we run museums, school lectures, and conferences, the future might be more bleak than any of us dared to predict.
It would be worth interrogating what it is about "the nature of Twitter" that makes this so.
I think it has to do with the intersection of a number of things:
I'm sure that's only the surface.
Most people reading this will already be fairly tolerant. But there is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you.
The only counter-argument that comes to mind for me didn't form itself until I had read this last paragraph a few times.
If your identity marker connotes tolerance then it hopefully has the opposite effect. Insofar as the experience of marginalization promotes empathy such identities might be good evidence for intelligence, and I do think individuals who feel oppressed or marginalized tend to empathize with others who suffer for different, marginalized identities.
These identities will only breed stupidity if the individual feels a competition for scarce resources that overwhelms their empathy, whence the perniciousness of the belief in zero sum attention economics as a greater threat to activism than inaction, ignorance, and exhaustion.
A path is not composed of positions. It is nondeeomposable: a dynamic unity, That comil/ulty of movement is of an order of reality other than the measurable, divisible space it can be con firmed as having crossed.
Again...another instance in which identity/position is subordinated to movement and emergence. Placing the position before the movement result in logical aporias, but forgoing identity/position is to acknowledge movement.
Gridlock
I find myself thinking here about intersectionality, and about a certain critique of identity politics which seems to target those whose identities are marked. White men e.g. can critique and transcend the grid, while those whose positions in it are sites of political organizing are accused of reifying the grid. Not sure if Massumi is even in that neighborhood...
Of course, a body occupying one position on the grid might succeed in making a move to occupy another position. In fact, certain normative progressions, such as that from child to adult, are coded in. But this doesn't change the fact that what defines the body is not the movement itself, only its beginning and endpoints. Movement is en tirely subordinated to the positions it connects. These are predefined. Adding movement like this adds nothing at all. You just get twO successive states: multiples of zero.
This is very much like [go with me on this one] an organizational chart that breaks down an organization's hierarchy. All the nodes are specialized and individual (person/position) but the lines are all the same. Thus...movement (of succession/information designated by the connecting lines in that org structure) is elided in favor of positions/identities within that organization. Verbs are lost in favor of the nouns.
There were actual politics at stake, and it would’ve been an ridiculously dangerous move to substitute identity affinities for political analysis.
Yes!!! Reminds me of this quote from Graeber's "Democracy Project": https://instagram.com/p/tjcYY9Og32/?taken-by=tilgovi
There is also no easy way of informing an author that someone has commented on his or her work, especially if he or she is not a Hypothes.is user.
Yeah...tricky part is finding the author of a web page in the first place.
Allowing users to submit more information about themselves will make communication easier.
Starts off on a difficult foot by attempting to deny common conceptions about how advertising works, and even legitimizes their function, but comes full circle to strong indictment of the insidiousness of brand ubiquity.
Avoiding ads doesn't help much either. Because brand images are part of the cultural landscape we inhabit, when we block ads or fast-forward through them, we're missing out on valuable cultural information, alienating ourselves from the zeitgeist. This puts us in danger of becoming outdated, unfashionable, and otherwise socially hapless. We become like the kid who wears his dad's suit to his first middle-school dance.
Unless you accumulate friends who also avoid ads, who think you're less cool for having allowed yourself to be exposed to them or for deploying them too conspicuous as social signaling, at least when that brand is not favored by that scene. Ironically, of course, most scenes are simply favoring different brands, because it's hard to accumulate any significant set of material trappings that aren't branded.
If I decide I want to be more outgoing, I could just print a personalized ad for myself with the slogan "Be more social" imposed next to a supermodel or private jet, or whatever image of success or happiness I think would motivate me the most.
The issue with this straw person is that there's a very real repulsion people experience at perceiving themselves being manipulated. Advertising works best when we aren't thinking much about its effects.
Cultural imprinting is the mechanism whereby an ad, rather than trying to change our minds individually, instead changes the landscape of cultural meanings — which in turn changes how we are perceived by others when we use a product. Whether you drink Corona or Heineken or Budweiser "says" something about you. But you aren't in control of that message; it just sits there, out in the world, having been imprinted on the broader culture by an ad campaign.
Yes! Whence the emotional inception. If you don't buy that product that says you're super cool you are then filled with anxiety about whether you're cool. Etc.
What's being described here isn't some other way in which advertising works other than emotional inception, it's the mechanism of that inception.
Of course, the radical feminist position that masculinity is natural and healthy, and femininity artificial and harmful, is also inherently sexist
Of course. That's an important theme. It's as though it's being suggested here that radical feminists chose this view, when I think it's more correct to say that they are reacting to it.
In contrast, she mentions and quotes a total of four trans women (zero from books), and two of them are quoted to supporting the radical feminist position.
Might one argue that since these feminists feel their fight has been co-opted and, despite the many ways trans individuals are less assured of their safety and rights than cis women, the radical feminist is actually the more oppressed insofar as identity politics has left them behind? In which case, might we celebrate that time is given to this minority rather than criticize the piece for being one-sided?
frequently providing physical descriptions
I count only three instances, none of which are offensively dwelling on appearance in the way that media often is scrutinizing women's bodies. One of these descriptions is particularly well meaning: it is given only to color the story of abandoned transition with the image of hormone-induced stubble. To mention that there are physical descriptions of any of the activists in the piece here is obvious pandering.
the Persians claim Asia for their own, and the foreign peoples that inhabit it; Europe and the Greek people they consider to be separate from them.
Hdt. 1.4 The Persians separate themselves distinctly as people of Asia from the people in Europe.