Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off.

Build your wings on the way down.

~Ray Bradbury

Meaning(s) of Action Research

I got closer to an actual definition during the blog commentary that followed my first talk on paradigm consciousness.  Julian provided a terrific stimulus when he wrote, “I get the feeling you are discussing the research of a system with the consciousness of being within that system.”

What keeps returning to mind is Edwin’s German translation, “All scientific research is action research.”  He utilized one of German’s functional strengths to establish a context of comparison, yet he remained uneasy with the need to invent a new term. I have felt uneasy with de-limiting the notion of ‘research’ only to the scientific, as the broader motivation is to show all uses of language (in any sense, research or everyday living and working) as a force that generates effects. The entire discussion of all the translations has continued to percolate: what do such translational moves accomplish?

Two weeks later (!), I finally had the aha about the meaning of “all research is action research.”  Where we got hung up, I think, is because of the focus on translating, instead of on interpreting. Julian’s insight struck such a responsive chord in me because of the ever-present challenge of distributing one’s attention: if you’re looking to the left, for instance, you simply cannot also see what is happening to your right. In group dynamics, this plays out most starkly at the division between “content” and “process.” The whole notion of paradigm consciousness is to develop the perception to recognize the juxtaposition of different frames and – ideally – begin to learn how to tack back-and-forth among them as suitable for one’s aims.

All research has consequences.

Or, to put it more neutrally: All research has effects. I’m willing to bet (and I invite everyone to try!) that this interpretation of the claim, “all research is action research” is easier to work with, and more clear to convey, than the tight linguistic mapping attempted during the workshop.

I am not forgetting that I offered no help! The honest truth is: I did not yet know – myself – the most concise way to convey the meaning of the claim! And here you see the heart and soul of action research as always-and-forever in motion. This understanding provides the criteria, I believe, to distinguish the essential difference between “translating” and “interpreting.” Translation presumes a static target, and its goal is precision (in the engineering sense). Interpreting, however, presumes a dynamic process (at least relatively so, I know we can quibble!), and thus relies on the possibility of iteration (i.e., turn-taking to build clarification and mutual understanding) in order to generate greater accuracy.

Engineering precision vs engineering accuracy

I am finding the language of engineering quite useful to muddling through some bits of the tangled morass of social theories – be they critical or otherwise.  This site illustrates the distinction between accuracy and precision very well. As interpreters and translators, our goal is to be both accurate and precise, however I suggest that the material with which we work – language – is inherently not amenable to the achievement of both goals, simultaneously. It seems to me that what interpreters do (in the face of uncertainty about a particular meaning in a specific social interaction) is select the highest probability ‘meaning’ for the context of the situation and according to the character (if known) of the speaker. I am not versed enough to know whether translators rely on established discourses to the same extent, but my suspicion is that they do: on what other basis can one decide among the range of potential meanings for any given snippet of text?

My observation is that if you listen carefully to how interpreters and translators talk about our work, it winds up – more often than not – that we privilege precision over accuracy. I would describe this as an empirical feature of our professional discourse. I suspect we do this because it is reassuring to interlocutors, who are generally even less inclined to consider the trajectories of their utterances (written and spoken), if they are even aware of communicating in patterned ways.

And herein lies the power of interpretation and translation: we know these patterns – even if we have yet to figure out the extent of our own participation in them!

My buddy Chris Boulton wrote and produced this short film as a birthday gift for a friend’s son.  Described by the dad as, “A little Dr. Seuss, a little Shel Silverstein, and a lot of the good old unselfconscious love,” the sentiments compose an anthem for current and future generations.

I’m pretty happy to have been included in it!  I render the third stanza in American Sign Language. (Click the title to watch and listen to the video.) Hale is obviously one lucky kid; I bet he’ll grow up to be okay sharing the wish with all the other children in the world – including us grown-ups with bits of “kid” still in us.  Come on ya’all – let’s really make this our century!  Do well for people you don’t even know!

HAIL TO YOU HALE TRUE!

HAIL TO YOU HALE TRUE!
TODAY IS YOUR DAY
THOUGH I CAN’T BE WITH YOU
I’VE GOT SOMETHING TO SAY

WHEN YOU BURST ONTO THE SCENE
JUST ONE YEAR AGO
YOUR PROUD PAPA CALLED ME
TO BE SURE I WOULD KNOW

“HE’S HERE!” HE BELLOWED.
“OUR BIG BUNDLE OF BOY!”
“AND WE LOVE HIM SO MUCH –
LIKE OUR MOST FAVORITE TOY!”

AND WHEN I HEARD THIS GOOD NEWS
I KNEW JUST WHAT IT MEANT:
THEY WERE READY FOR YOU
READY ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!

[Cuando escuche las noticias
Sabia justo lo que significaban
Estaban listos para ti
Eras justo lo que esperaban!]

YES, YOUR PARENTS HAVE SKILLS
AND THEY FLY WITH GREAT SPEED
TO MEET BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
WHO ARE POOR AND IN NEED.

BUT DO THEY RUN? DO THEY HIDE?
STICK THEIR HEADS IN THE SAND?
NOT A CHANCE!
THESE CATS ARE CURIOUS.
THEY WANT TO UNDERSTAND.

WITH CAMERAS AND MICS
THEY ASK QUESTIONS AND LISTEN
IN DESERTS OR JUNGLES
OR EVEN SOMEBODY’S KITCHEN.

[Con cameras y microfonos
Investigan un poquito
En desiertos y selvas
O hasta en la cocina de Fulanito!]

SO DON’T BE SURPRISED
IF THEY STUDY YOU TOO
AND START ASKING THEMSELVES
WHO IS THIS HALE TRUE?

NO ONE KNOWS JUST QUITE YET
AND THAT’S PART OF THE FUN.
AND THE BEST PART IS
THAT THE FUN’S JUST BEGUN!

SURE, THERE WILL BE BAD TIMES
AND SAD TIMES
AND DOWNERS INDEED
BUT THERE IS ONE THING TO COUNT ON
AND I MEAN GUARANTEED:

WITH YOUR MOM FULL OF AMY
AND YOUR DAD A GREAT SCOTT
YOU’LL BE LOVED TO THE LIMIT
WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!

SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY HALE TRUE
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
THIS IS YOUR YEAR LITTLE BUDDY
AND THE NEXT ONE IS TOO!

HECK! THIS IS YOUR CENTURY
IT’S YOUR TIME TO SHINE
AND YOU’LL DO IT QUITE BRIGHTLY
ONE STEP AT A TIME!

I recently gave my first talk on paradigm consciousness. The ideas have been floating in my mind since the spring of 2003, but only in the last few months has the knowledge come together well enough for me to try teaching them. My own mode of learning is through action research, and there actually is a sub-division called action learning, which is how I labeled my methodology after fending off the attacks of my dissertation committee’s self-appointed “bad cop” faculty member during the defense of my research proposal.

My main objective for the presentation was to test a method for raising “paradigm consciousness,” because this is a pre-requisite for understanding what motivates action research. There is a variety of literature about action research, much of which tends to skirt the really hard stuff: like what to do when someone in an organization really does not want to learn, grow, or otherwise be open to, let alone support, dealing with new knowledge. By being transparent about my method, I am attempting a parallel task with social research as Yonjoo advocated when she said that it is not whether a particular translation is “right or wrong,” but that the translator has been conscious enough of making decisions and choices so that “the translation can stand up.”

Producing Research that Stands Up

Most scholars want their research to stand, but how many of us investigate the foundation on which research is supposed to stand? There is a choice between engaging knowledge as based in terms of philosophy (abstract, without application) or based in terms of practice (grounded, with consequences). Action researchers are engaged in practice, and “practice is messy” (personal communication, Dr. Leda Cooks). Applied research is messy because people are messy. No offense to anyone!

In Assault on Reason, Al Gore (2007) explains, “One of the world’s leading neuroscientists, Dr. Vilaynur S. Ramachadran, has written,

Our mental life is governed mainly by a cauldron of emotions, motives and desires which we are barely conscious of, and what we call our unconscious life is usually an elaborate post hoc rationalization of things we really do for other reasons.”

The tension that action research taps derives from fairly modest claims: that

1. meaning is co-constructed in interaction, and that the
2. meaningfulness of interaction (especially at the microsocial level) is malleable by human consciousness.

(If you disagree, let’s get it on!) I use a distinction between “meaning” and “meaningfulness” that tries to distinguish between definitions for words, phrases, behaviors and such that are relatively fixed in social time (the present) and the relationship between this ‘fixity’ and dynamical processes of understandings, disagreements, and other outcomes of communication that occur over time.

My imagination about how the presentation would go is that I would share new information (specifically Burrell & Morgan’s four paradigms of social theory), and create some activities that would make it possible for participants to find ‘where you fit’ in that scheme. I realize some of you rejected the model outright or found it too simplistic, but I am not convinced that the schema is inadequate…? I am quite interested in further engagement on this point! Cris caught my attention with his observation that translation theory in recent years has moved quite far away from the “objective” end of the horizontal axis toward the “subjective” end. We did not get into the details of Burrell & Morgan’s components, but they include individual views on ontology, epistemology, human nature, and methodology along the horizontal axis. Their vertical axis involves views on social cohesiveness and unity (how societies regulate themselves to stay together) and modes of domination and structural contradictions (how individuals strive to overcome structural limitations by inducing radical change).

At any rate, I’d like to reflect upon the notes I scribbled all over the board while we were talking about the challenges of translating the claim:

“All research is action research”

The diversity of languages was pretty exciting in and of itself: Chinese, French, Galician, German, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese. There are different tools one can bring to the service of action research; my primary tool is discourse analysis. So what interested me the most was not the actual translations, but what was said about making the decisions. (The words and phrases I recorded appear mostly in blue, but sometimes black – I wanted more colors, and a few times I was rushing and didn’t switch colors.) This level of discourse (the descriptions, opinions, and judgments) shows what is normative about translation decisions – and these norms and prescriptions bring paradigms into view. In this ‘on-the-spot’ workshop-like situation, unless you were lucky enough to know the equivalent jargon for “all research is action research” in the target language (as happened with Korean), you had to rely on “literal” or “equivalent” words on a term-by-term basis that everyone recognized was probably inadequate. Maria Jose succinctly summarized this choice: “Be literal or guess!”

We spent the most time talking about the Chinese translation because of its idioms and the special way it treats quantities. Also, I admit that I especially enjoyed its artistic quality because of the combination of precision (at the level of semantic meaning) and accuracy (the general aim of what I am reaching toward: interpretation – and action research – as kinds of art). The French version also captures the definition: it was back-translated as, “All research has an element of action.” But – so what?! Does the content knowledge (the “finding” of an acceptable way of saying “all research is action research” in another language) establish the baseline for what matters most in the work of translating and/or interpreting? Is the bottom line always the “non-risky” translation, the one that is confirmed when two or more translators come up with the exact same diction, grammar, verb tenses, and phrasing in the target language?

Work with me here, okay? Let me extrapolate a little bit. The need to know context, relationship, or ‘what comes next’ is about control. Remember the vertical axis of Burrell & Morgan’s paradigm grid: from the sociology of regulation at the bottom to the sociology of radical change at the top? Now, I am not saying interpreters or translators do not need to know context, or that it does not matter whether we do or do not know the terms of engagement. Several of you said you needed to know the context, that you understood there is an implicit movement, even a kind of changeability that comes about because of interaction, because of the implications of engagement and interaction… and I agree in general, but why do you need to know?

In our example, someone explained that the term “action research” is “loose,” it “tends to the subjective,” and “is charged with possible meanings.” Yes, but is it the range that is so problematical, or is it because, as someone else said, the meaning of action research is “more political”? Let me ask, why is this “meaning” – the meaning of this term, this concept – any more, or less, “political” than any other? While acknowledging that you may consider all translation choices political, let me get really crazy and pose a hypothesis: the stakes are higher because claiming an element of action in all research means NO research is without effect. The German translation boldly went all the way, “scientific-research is action-research.” In other words, any and all kinds of research ACTS upon the world, in this or that direction, for this or that purpose, with effects that have material consequences. Good, bad, sloppy, indifferent….. and so it is with language, too, even conservative choices have an effect. If, for instance, the goal of interpretation is to strive to say the most common thing (the non-risky, that which is verified by others), what happens when the interlocutors are not seeking such banality?

goddag yxskaft

What is “the action” of action research? If I’ve done my job well, you are considering paradigms more carefully. This matters, because the way we talk about translation and interpretation shapes what clients expect. I suspect that Members in the European Parliament, for instance, are motivated to use lingua francas partly because they have been consistently disappointed in the measurement of ‘objectivity’ they were taught to expect. It is as if, in the professional desire to reassure clients that we are sticking true to their text, e.g., not changing anything, we wind up contributing to a structure of regulation that minimizes or discounts our labor. If you are happy with this, no problem! But if you are not, the take-away is not to confuse the current lean toward subjectivity as necessarily having anything to do with societal change. This is precisely the point that Loc Pham asked about: can one tread between paradigms? Finding a meaningful answer to that question requires much more attention to the vertical order-conflict axis. As interpreters and translators, we must be able to conceptualize our work in terms of a ratio between supporting the current regulated order and working toward radical change.

One Sunday of an unseasonably warm weekend, I hauled out the bicycle and decided to try my luck on the bike trail. Had it been warm enough, for long enough, for all the ice on the densely tree-shrouded path to melt?  No. I approached the first patch with determination, choosing the path of most visible pavement, where the tracks of others had contributed to wearing down the ice. That was a mistake. I did not fall, but the ruts and grooves grabbed the tires, forcing me along channels contrary to my desired direction, threatening to pitch me into the trees.

What to do?

I rode until the next patch of ice and dismounted, walking its expanse, struck by the parallels with writing the dissertation, and especially with the process of negotiating the action research follow-up.  There are so many typical paths of reaction and response, how can I avoid being sucked along a vortex of assumptions that winds up replicating dynamics that have played out before?

It is the dilemma of agency in the face of organization. There are many cross-cutting forces, occurring at nested levels of interaction….is it possible to retain awareness of an alternative chronotope at the crucial moments? Can one dissent from expected norms while maintaining not only personal integrity but also respect for the motivations of others who are doing their jobs as best they understand them? I decided to experiment. What if I ride where others haven’t?

It was tense! I could make headway on the snowy-ice mixture if I focused hard on relaxing. It seemed counter-intuitive, but I trusted what I’ve been learning about physics. The forward momentum had more inertia than the jerks to the front wheel if I could just manage to trust a casual grip on the handlebars, give a bit with each jolt and allow an intuitive sense of balance to keep me upright. As long as I didn’t overreact, or stop paying attention, I could ride over the slippery terrain without resorting to the established routes. But for how long can one avoid pre-grooved channels? It is much easier to manage the calibration when it was just me and the ground! As soon as I encountered other people I chose to dismount; the congestion was too risky – now a fall wouldn’t just hurt me, it could potentially injure others, too.

Call it a chance encounter….

Walking, I meet a physicist and his wife. We chat about bicycle-riding on ice. I’ve been puzzling over the relatively inaccurate diction of social theorists in describing social phenomena.  For instance, “tension.”  I’m guilty of using this word too, don’t we all?!  My suspicion is that the use of this term by engineers (for instance) is much more precise.  Tension involves at least two forces, not just one. What do social theorist mean when they use this term?  Do they have only elongation in mind?  Only compression?  The combination of the two? Have they located the position of either the strain (of elongation) or the stress (of compression)? Is there a particular conceptualization of the relationship, like engineers have with their stress-strain curves? Why are social theorists so sure that the imagery, the meaning, ascribed to labeling something a “tension” is uniformly shared by all readers and writers using it?  The possible variations seem to me quite significant!

“Why do they do that?” the physicist asked me. The only answer I have is that I think there is a general assume of understanding. English speakers, anyway, assume we all mean the same thing, that we are referring to a singular phenomenon with which we are all familiar and agree is unproblematic (in the sense of its labeling).  His wife, however, shared with me the real gem of the day.  Such are the signs by which I decide I’m on a useful investigation!

Harmonia

The original Greek for tension is harmonia, and – get this! – the original definition is not “harmony” (although my quick googling gives this common sense)  but, rather, harmonia refers to the tuning of a lyre to get it to the right pitch. Calibration, baby! I’ll need to learn more about the mathematical application in geometry, particularly this application: “A famous one line argument shows that calibrated p-submanifolds minimize volume within their homology class.”  Part of the argument I’m developing (in my imagination, if not as much on paper, yet!) is that calibrating to timespace influences the use of space and maybe even the shape of place. I am referring directly to Bakhtin’s chronotope, of which I’m unsatisfied with current available explanations on the web but the notes by Taylor Atkins are a decent beginning if you’re unfamiliar with Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel.

I got excited by the January 20th NYTimes movie blogentry, “You saw What in ‘Avatar’? Pass those glasses!” because I scooped Dave Itskoff by two days. Really!  He wrote:

That so many groups have projected their issues onto “Avatar” suggests that it has burrowed into the cultural consciousness in a way that even its immodest director could not have anticipated…

“Some of the ways people are reading it are significant of Cameron’s intent, and some are just by-products of what people are thinking about,” said Rebecca Keegan, the author of “The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron.” “It’s really become this Rorschach test for your personal interests and anxieties.”

I wrote:

“A Window upon Us?

The drama of Avatar is less about the movie itself than how it serves as a blank screen for viewers to project a firestorm of passionate support and cynical disdain. There is a principle of feedback usually applied to interpersonal communication: whatever someone tells us about ourselves is more informative about the feedback giver, a window upon their perception – such as what they value and what assumptions they use to interpret behavior – than it is about ourselves as the target of feedback.

Itzkoff did more homework than me: he provides three categories of protest and lists about a dozen specific critiques offered by particular groups or individuals representing diverse perspectives.  I have one bone to pick regarding the quote he uses from Annalee Newitz in which she seems to back off from the strength of her critique, “When will white people stop making films like ‘Avatar’?

“Just the idea of whiteness is a local phenomenon,” she said. “It’s certainly not in parts of the world where white people are not dominant.”

Newitz confuses whiteness with skin color and Itzkoff goes right along. Whiteness is an ideology that imbues an attitude of privilege in most people with white skin, but the assertions, aims, and theories of whiteness can be found in people of any ethnicity in any part of the world. Perhaps not often in some places, but commonly enough in many. In general, whiteness is associated with “white people” but not exclusively: to assume an automatic equation between ‘being white’ and ‘whiteness’ would be stereotyping.

Avatar as a different kind of opportunity? Really?

“I read your blogpost,” a friend confided recently. “I can see that academics would be pissed.”  Another friend continues to critique what he calls my ‘rescuing’ of the film, explaining that all cultural products provide that same kind of blank screen/projection effect, so this fact hardly makes Avatar special. But so many people are engaged with it, that’s my point!  Bah, he shrugs it off. “That’s just because of the hype.”  (shhhhh…I suspect some academics are pissed because they fell for the hype; we’re supposed to know better. Dammit.) At any rate, Itzkoff’s interview with Gaetano Vallini confirms the hype factor. Vallini writes for the Vatican, and also seems to backpedal a bit from the assertions in his critique of Avatar:

[Vallini's] assignment to write about “Avatar” was not an attempt to advance a particular agenda, he said, but rather “a compulsory choice” given the anticipation surrounding the film.

The western tendency to valorize “understanding”

I don’t assume that friends in fields other than Communication would be aware of this, but I’m surprised how many of my colleagues seem to be operating under the assumption that we can only talk with each other if we already share a known, recognized basis of understanding. Chang’s Deconstructing Communication makes a compelling case that misunderstanding is also a legitimate starting point for communication. And who could forget Professor Cronen’s story of the couple who consistently misunderstood each other and because of that were able to maintain their relationship?!

My thesis is that the challenge presented by Avatar is not how well or poorly so many groups come to use, misuse, or abuse it, but what we do – specifically how we talk with each other – about the fact of such diversity. If the assumption is that no conversation is possible without a priori or telepathic understanding, well that’s the end of it, eh? But if some curiosity could be cultivated, perhaps some new connections could be forged. Not theoretical linkages (although these may be there, too) but bonds of human relations arising out of the material use of a common reference point – egregious though it may be.

Meanwhile, back in school…

A friend shares:

“I haven’t seen Avatar yet. Speaking of imperialism, capitalism, private property and China, I heard and found it disgusting that in China it would cost 200 RMB, more than US$30, for one to see this movie. That is about a seventh of the monthly pension of my father, who had worked more than 30 years in Socialist China and who thus fares far better than the worst cases.”

And another sends a link to Avatar: The Abridged Script: “Sure it’s easy to poke fun at Avatar.  But it’s so entertaining!” The abridgement does dual oxymoronic labor: transforming “lazy screenwriting” into pop cultural commentary while laying bare a host of scientific contradictions and technological implausibilities. It is fun! But – - a dead end if a few good laughs is all it gives.

Finally, on the first day of classes this semester, in an engineering course on manufacturing processes:

“Don’t pick unobtanium as a material if its only available in North Korea.

We don’t get along very well.”

A Golden Globe for best drama? Ouch. Most of my friends and colleagues will be disgusted. There is barely even a story in Avatar, because the re-presentation of the colonizing logic that elevates white men as heroic figures is left completely unproblematized.

I am not supposed to like Avatar. There are so many problems with it.  Really. And I did not enjoy watching much of it.  I winced, squirmed in my seat, felt bored, and was not even enthralled by the visual effects.  The three-dimensionality is pleasing at an aesthetic level, yes, and may deserve awards, but to consider Avatar drama is to cheapen the real human lives of actual indigenous peoples, women, environmental activists, and anyone else who applies their conscience to the experience of watching this film. Drama involves, by definition, “serious subject matter…usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue.” As a buddy keeps reiterating, there was not a single surprise, no unexpected twist, no nod or wink of any kind from the director, actors, script-writers, camera-operators or graphic artists of Avatar to a socially-intelligent audience.

A Window upon Us?

The drama of Avatar is less about the movie itself than how it serves as a blank screen for viewers to project a firestorm of passionate support and cynical disdain. There is a principle of feedback usually applied to interpersonal communication: whatever someone tells us about ourselves is more informative about the feedback giver, a window upon their perception – such as what they value and what assumptions they use to interpret behavior – than it is about ourselves as the target of feedback. As social and cultural critics, many academics in the social sciences/humanities believe it is our job to pounce upon popular culture to try and dismantle what we see as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in the public sphere. It does not matter if the object of analysis is classified as ‘high’ or ‘low’ art, was intended for our explicit consumption, or purports to promote or hide overt political intentions. The debate over Avatar, however, is dramatic because it complements the very dynamics critical analysis intends to combat.

I cannot – nor do I want to – dispute the specific criticisms made of the racism, sexism, ableism, colonialism, out-of-control capitalism, and militarism in the film. I agree with these analyses. The question I’ve been mulling is whether this mythic representation of a glorified white male savior has an equivalent meaning in today’s world as it did in the historical world that postcolonialist, social justice, cultural studies, and critical communication scholars and teachers rightly deplore? I think not. I suspect that by assuming these images and representations “mean the same” as they did in the past, i.e., that they will lead to the same kinds of attitudes and behaviors, uneven relationships and hierarchical oppressions as has enabled white domination in recent centuries, then we contribute to “making” them mean what they used to: we collaborate, discursively, in co-constructing the social continuation of stereotypical hierarchies and inhibit processes of identity development and social change.

We. Perhaps I should resist writing in the plural, but what I mean to admit and expose is that I am also part and parcel of these discursive dynamics. Does my whiteness make me more susceptible to the folkloric elements in this classic story? Am I more willing to forgive egregious excess because I overvalue the seeds of incremental change? Perhaps. What might have improved the story of Avatar would have been for Jake Sully to support and affirm Tsu’Tey (Laz Alonzo) as the heir to Aytucan (Wes Studi) instead of competing to replace him. Or he could have given the idea of riding the monster raptor, Toruk, to Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and supported the matriarchs in leading completely and openly.

Calibrating to another timespace

The running debate I’ve been having with friends involves things like how so many of us got suckered by the hype, and whether or not there is any redemptive value in the film, and if so, what the heck could it possibly be? My attention was originally captured by a fan review posted by a friend on Facebook, which was followed in quick succession by a blistering anti-racist critique and a thoughtful examination of prosthetic relations and doubled consciousness. I continued reading and listening somewhat incredulously as the debate rose in pitch, arriving even to the edge of tension with friends. I keep wondering to myself, how can so much be at stake? And what do these arguments “do” as communicative work in the world? SEMP suggests the furor is evidence of addiction, an intriguing hypothesis that reminds me of how I interpreted the panic of the monied class in the early days of the financial crisis.

Here’s what I perceive. It is (on the one hand) the same ol’ same ol’ white supremacist myth but with a twist (on the other hand) that matters. The audiences who are most responsive to the positive message of ‘going native’ are among some of the ones who most need to get it: young people (mostly men and some women) who have had enough privilege and/or culturally-constructed desire to experiment with the alternative realities invoked by videogaming.  Many have grown up in such insulated conditions that patriotism (to nation, to the profit imperative, to so-called legitimate uses of violence – to name the most obvious) is so embedded as to be unquestionable.  Yet these same young people are a bit freaked out (if they’re paying attention whatsover) to the inevitability of climate change, the sensationalism of terrorism, and subsequent threats to the security and comfort that is all they’ve ever (really) known.

The lack of any sophistication at all in Avatar’s storyline (a major bone of contention from erudite friends) allows the alternative message to shine: endless consumption has to be reckoned with, and there must be other options than fighting-to-death over natural resources. As caricatures exaggerating some of what is ‘good’ (albeit in a culturally-biased and fragmentary way) and ‘bad’ about the types of people cultivated by the present global political-economic system, it seems clear that the primary intended audience of director James Cameron’s “story” is not graduate students or intellectuals – by assuming that we are Cameron’s target we miss the potential use of a culture’s particular and situated mythology to generate change from the inside.

Interrupting kneejerk belief in the bad

I was intrigued to learn that the cast was contractually forbidden to discuss the storyline. I am definitely prone to finding silver linings, and I’ve always been drawn to the underdog – just as I’m glad the Na’vi survive, I am unsettled by the intensity of academic attack, not on the film per se, but on the viewers of the film who are inspired by its story of betrayal to the military-corporate ethos. Because, ultimately, the critiques say nothing “to” the inanimate film or its characters. Whether or not they are rendered in two- or three visual dimensions they are merely symbols. What matters are the uses to which these symbols are put, and I am concerned that the main thing being accomplished is the reinforcement of cynicism and general hopelessness in the face of perceived inevitabilities.

Avatar is not science fiction; it is fantasy. Fantasy asks for the willing suspension of disbelief. Fantasy evokes a temporary reality, a vision of possibility premised on a vein of reality – emphasize the hope or dwell on dread, its your choice. I prefer to support the chance that plunder and profiteering can be made methods of the human past, rather than surrender to the empty promise of a futile future.

References/Resources:

Barbara, Speculum de L’Autre Femme, Why critics of Avatar are missing the point
Rob Beschizza, boingboing, What storytelling risks could Avatar have taken?
Mary Bustillos, The Awl, I Hated ‘Avatar’ with the Fire of a Thousand Suns
Mary HK Choi, The Awl, Flicked Off: Avatar
Adam Cohen, New York Times, Next-Generation 3-D of ‘Avatar’ underscores its message
Joshua Davis, (esp. language details – inventing Na’vi) in Wired, James Cameron’s New 3-D Epic Could Change Film Forever
Erkan, Erkan’s Field Diary, Avatar, the movie
Stephanie Jo Kent, Reflexivity, “believe the data”
Annalee Newitz, i09.com, When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”?
Lisa, Sociological Images, On Avatar, The Movie
Sr. Rose Pacatte, National Catholic Reporter: Riffing with Myth
Christina Radish, AvatarMovieZone, Laz Alonzo talks James Cameron’s Avatar
Selva, The Scientific Indian, review
The Snake Brotherhood, NationStates, The whole Avatar debate
Emmanual Reagan, merinews, Avatar a Spiritual Fantasy

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Organizational Strategy

Creative Community Co-Construction

Tooling around Nantucket over New Year’s weekend, I was struck by the sense of place evident in the care given to the landscape, not to mention our host’s keen interest in birding – a demonstrably popular island activity. Twin ethics of conservation and continuation, combined with a robust sense of humor, reminded me of the work of Dr Arturo Osorio, whose dissertation defense explored the intersection of economic geography, economic sociology, and strategic management as a town re-creates itself as a community of and for artists, composed of members who utilize local resources to co-construct themselves as a creative class.[1]

Looking at a place (Easthampton, MA) through an integrated analytical lens, Dr Osorio applied a collaborative multi-firm network theory[2] in which relationships are interdependent with the environment (conceived broadly) and the environment (including the embedded and implicit relationships) is inseparable from any given company, firm, or business. This fluid and dynamic model disallows sharp divisions between, for instance, “the company” and “the market,” or “employees” and “residents” and those whose physical residence is beyond town lines but whose livelihood is firmly founded within the community. While organizations are purpose-driven, the core economic transactions are deeply social – interpersonal, cognitive, cultural, and political. All of the activities of a company and the community that hosts it are intricately intertwined.

Dr Arturo Osorio refines Florida’s popular “creative class” model from its static premises, turning the notion of a creative class from a thing (an aggregation of people who fit required characteristics and are rather singularly motivated) to an on-going, interactive, socially-dynamic “process whose potential emergence may or may not be sustained over time.” Osorio pulled an audience of seventeen on a late fall day to listen to him tell a tale of a town where personal actions and associations coalesced into creative class organizing that generated a range of positive consequences for the community that continues, today, to feed back into organizing and interpersonal/professional community ties.

Choosing to contribute to a place

The most interesting point that I found in Dr Arturo Osorio’s dissertation defense was a question his results raised about why people may tend to identify themselves more on the basis of language than of the place where they live. Such as speaking Spanish, for instance, rather than English. The matter came up in relation to limits on extending Dr Osorio’s findings to more urban, mixed areas, although it caused me to wonder about rates of bi- and multilingualism in/around Easthampton.  Language fluency is a separate indicator than skills – Easthampton has above average concentrations of people with skills that are recognized as creative regardless of industry, as well as an above average concentration of people with skills that are used in industries recognized as cultural or creative. I wonder if diversity of language can contribute to creativity? What Dr Osorio studied are the interrelationships of skilled people who consciously grew a creative culture by recognizing and validating the various skills everyone had to contribute, and interweaving them into a strong and vibrant economic community.

Dr Osorio supplements Florida’s depiction of the creative class, which has come in for its own share of criticism. Florida describes the creative class through a lens akin to the hard sciences, as a concrete thing composed of particular elements which, if put together according to the right equation will reliably reproduce the desired end result. Osorio’s view is more nuanced, recognizing the role of variation and emergence in modes of self-organization when elements catalyze in ways that are not necessarily predictable. Because Osorio is focused on the combination of social factors along with economic factors, he is able to highlight the ways in which individuals can cohere positive socioeconomic changes in specific civic locations over measurable spans of time.

“It takes a community to build a creative class”

~ Dr Arturo Osorio

Dr Osorio conducted an extensive participatory ethnography and a complex social network analysis to demonstrate the relationships among narrowly-defined cultural groupings and broadly-defined socioeconomic structures.  The sociality is not always visible, but operates nonetheless. While the generic public is presented with the closed doors of artists at work, the artists themselves engage each other vigorously on all manner of concerns, including finding common cause and mutual gain with other community groups, such as persons with disabilities. As one might expect, the closest relationships are formed on the basis of homophily – emotional affinities, shared values and perspectives on issues of mutual concern, and enjoyment of similar kinds of people and events.

But, a crucial element in generating a creative class, artists in Easthampton reached out beyond these most comforting relationships to learn about the needs and concerns of different artists and other community members in diverse affinity groups. Then they all consciously used this knowledge to proactively strike up alliances and strategize agreements to satisfy everyone’s desire to live/work in a community that promotes their individual, independent ability to be a certain kind of person. One of the novel discoveries of Dr Osorio’s work is that the key question in Easthampton’s successful transformation from an old mill town to a thriving artistic community is that the key question motivating collaboration was not “Where do we want to go,” but rather, “Who do we want to be?”

The process was not free of conflict or contradiction, however the influence of the artists (a widely-inclusive category in Osorio’s frame) on the economy and standard-of-living in Easthampton is proving to be resilient and sustainable, because – as an organizational process – it was always ground-up, involving multiple instances of grassroots, indigenous effort that culminated in a process that, in retrospect, can be identified by normal science.  Dr Osorio calls it “a fragile plural phenomenon” in order to emphasize both the inherent organic quality of self-organization as well as the necessity of continuous nurturance and commitment if the collective benefits are to be retained over the long term. This can conceivably happen if town planners traditionalize the collaborative approach to problem-solving that has characterized the rise of Easthampton’s creative class to date.

Sound utopian?

Well, it is a small town in Western Massachusetts rather than a massive urban area.  “The Planning Dept is two people,” explains Osorio, who are “doing mediation not planning.” They accomplish so much, so effectively, “not through dictating policies but by addressing specific problems and issues as they arise and working them through collaboratively – which [is what] generates policy.”  Can this model be extended? I guess those are the experiments we all are waiting for.  Dr Osorio affirms, “…[creative class] cohesion can only be reached, not by dictatorship but by communication.”  An important question is the extent to which western Massachusetts is unique: few other places will meet similar contextual criteria that define this region (such as the proximity of several elite colleges, museums, historical/traditional work in the arts, etc).

As the committee hurled questions at Dr Osorio, it became apparent how momentous is the potential in his work. His chair commented on “the open-endness of what you’re doing” – a comment clarified by Daphne, another Management graduate student: “The ‘creative class’ is an empty signifier, you can fill it up in different ways.” This rather blows Richard Florida out of the water (IMHO). Instead of a precise configuration of ascribed statuses available mainly to the elite and those brilliant few from historically disenfranchised groups who manage to thread the needle and arrive in the top ranks, Osorio brings membership in the creative class within reach of all of us.  We just have to decide to begin working with each other, in specific and targeted ways that are rooted, anchored, and otherwise defined by a real physical place.  This may mean facing down racial antagonisms and divisions constituted by language/identity difference and infrastructural oppression. Dr Osorio’s dissertation research suggests the bridge is to build value and meaning into the physical, geographic place where you live or work.

[2] Miles, Snow & Miles 2005

Albuquerque Sky

As the plane taxied from the gate in Dallas/Fort Worth to takeoff en route to Albuquerque last Friday, the sunset evoked Mom’s favorite landscape. As my brother said, mom found her peace here. Missing her these past few months has been odd, a sensation I rarely felt: I don’t recall experiencing homesickness, our bond just wasn’t like that. The intimacy of our relationship grew gradually over the years, culminating in a slow summer full of sweetness followed by a precipitous ten-day dive.

Decades ago, inspired by some radical crip friends of mine (notably Mary Frances, and one or two others) and motivated by a penchant for creative fiddling, Mom had wanted me to apply for a patent on her over-the-shoulder bag that allows for the equal distribution of weight to the front and back. At the time, I was as intimidated by the process as she was, and it wasn’t too long before somewhat similar designs began to appear on the mass market.  I always felt that I had missed that moment for her; a regret that I carried even before she died. But otherwise there are relatively few, a tribute, I believe, to her insistence in carrying forth her mother’s ethic of not imposing on her children. At least, that is how Mom explained, in her last coherent conversation with me, the hands-off approach to parenting that was a source of angst for much of my life.

Now, in retrospect, I discover depths of dimensionality that were obscure to me while she was alive, such as her singing with the New Mexico Women’s Chorus.  It was a bold move for mom to branch out from choral singing with church groups to join a group composed mainly of lesbians, whose eclectic choices of material ranges rather far afield from the Christian hymnal. As George said in the Chorus’ tribute to mom, “Elaine always tolerated our choices,” elicited a low rumble of appreciative laughter from the audience who had just been regaled with such numbers as the “Menstrual Tango” (by Jamie Anderson, this was Sangria Girl’s favorite), “The Lesbian Second Date Moving Service” (David Maddux), and a liberal adaptation of Paul McCartney’s “(Now) I’m 64.”

Reciprocal Tolerance

It is probably unwise to dwell too much on what an odd bird my mom was.  “I know she was awkward,” I told one member of the chorus. She responded, “That’s a good way to put it.” Then she told me how Mom often came to rehearsal with her own mini-electric keyboard, which she played according to some logic that had nothing to do with the numbers being practiced by the chorus.  “Everyone remembers her for that!” Oh boy. I couldn’t help but wonder at potential parallels: how often am I plinking away at my own tune at the edges of some group who’s trying hard not to let the annoyance get to them?! But Mom was usually responsive to feedback (hopefully me too!), and she brought interesting music from her background for the group to consider.

I can’t imagine Mom acting in any of the skits. That would have been something to see!  But it seems she did break out and display her independence every now and then. “If she liked a different part, she just sang that one.”   The most common adjective used to describe her was quirky.  “She had her quirks, but then we all do,” one of the Directors told me. “That’s alright,” Emilio observed. “People remember odd people.” Some people really did click with her, and several appreciated that I had come to share, vicariously, in that part of Mom still reverberating in the rhythms of this vital community.  “I appreciated her sense of social justice,” a public school teacher told me, “she was always bringing me articles from Teaching Tolerance. It was her way of learning and passing it on.”

Singing for our Lives

There were several numbers that really got to me.  The whole trip was emotional, of course, although I had not anticipated when, where, or how the grieving would strike: such as walking off the plane into an airport with no mom to greet me. Still, the loss was compensated for by an incredible sense of gain. This group of women whom I had only heard about in the barest sketch from Mom welcomed and embraced me – just as they had done, for several years, with Mom herself.  Living the talk, sharing the walk.

The chorus had chosen a beautiful song by Jane Siberry to dedicate to Mom, Calling All Angels. On the night of the performance however, a few soloists were ill and they weren’t able to sing this one.  Luckily I had heard it during rehearsal the night before. I was surprised at the first point that caught me in the throat during the concert. I have always enjoyed Dar Williams, but I don’t think I’d ever carefully listened to the lyrics of When I was a boy. The last stanza makes a surprising shift, from a woman’s gender assertions to a man insisting “when I was a girl,” and then recalling moments he had shared with his mother.  My brother leapt immediately to mind. You were there, Rich, in all the ways that matter, during childhood and now.

The last stanza of the song, May I Suggest, rendered by soloist Kathy Morris , also brought tears to my eyes. The wonderful thing that I have always experienced at both gay men’s and women’s choruses is the mix of humor and poignancy about real life.  So, while one of the Directors earned a posterboard advertisement – “Director Needs 1^st Date” – from a helpful member of the chorus, another member’s boss snapped photos of her in pap exam stirrups while she bewailed the rigors of maintaining the reproductive organs (”Women’s Health Medley” by Lisa Koch). I don’t think too many other members of the audience were crying in-between laughing, but there is a spirit of communality that can be felt when everyone is simply paying close attention – it generates a force invigorating the mix of joy and pain we all experience while living these, our precious and irreplaceable lives.

In lieu of the planned dedication number, Mom got the whole concert dedicated to her before the final song, an original piece by Director Liz Lopez, “I Remember Falling.” I am hopeful the audio-recording comes out because it is quite a beautiful piece. And then, according to tradition, the New Mexico Women’s Chorus closed by inviting the audience to join in the singing of a popular civil rights anthem:

“We are a gentle angry people, and we are singing, singing for our lives.”

Thanks Mom, for singing with and for us.

Due to winter weather, it took us more than nine hours to make the drive from New York City to Hyannis. As it happened, at least one of us (STFU) understood the need to be on Nantucket for New Year’s Eve, because such an opportunity truly doesn’t happen too often in a lifetime.  So we managed the drive, caught the fast ferry and arrived to a full panorama of downtown lights only 12 hours after departure. We enjoyed a midnight meal, plenty of good cheer, and a long leisurely sleep to usher in the new year.

Nearly all of the “new year” accounts I have read express relief for the change of year and also for the turning of the decade. Only one suggests that the future may be worse than the past. Daniel Gilbert writes in a NYTimes Op-Ed, “Ours may be the last generation of Americans to suffer for return — to remember events that took place when place still mattered.”

How place still matters

Optimism is reputed to be a survival trait; humor even more basic. I witnessed both in abundance at Nantucket’s annual Audubon bird count meeting on the evening of New Year’s Day. More than thirty serious birders gathered at the UMass-Boston Field Station to report tallies of birds sighted by volunteers who spent the entire day outdoors, scanning island skies, thickets, and beaches for hints of wing. I hardly qualify as even a novice birder, so the sense I make of what I heard is certainly suspect…nonetheless, as I listened to the rote calling out of bird-names and the response in numbers from each designated area’s representative, my attention was captured by the reactions of these hardy experts. An image began to emerge in my mind of an incredible ecosystem of avian life – I would love to see an accurate animation of bird flows over time, specific to geographic regions and types of bird. It would be beautiful, I’m sure. And alarming.

The concern with place presented by Gilbert has to do with the human ability to fix memories. As individualized shops give over, increasingly, to chain stores promising the same product everywhere, the ability to associate key events with particular places anywhere becomes blurred. We will still remember, he says, but in a displaced fashion:  “… reliving experiences that are located in time but dislocated in space. ” At the bird meeting, someone asked, “When’s the last year we had a bobwhite?” “I keep hoping,” was the scorekeeper’s reply, while someone else answered, “Thirty years.”  It looks like their range is typically south of Massachusetts, although bobwhites have been common here in summer. I was surprised by how many summer birds are in the count, such as 2,328 American Robins! Imagine the double shock when someone commented, “A little lean, that!” and another echoed, “It’s got to be low.”

“Anyone hear a fish crow today?” “No.” “Well said.”

I am sure I missed many jokes whose point was based on insider ornithological knowledge. There were more birds named that I have never heard of (especially varieties of ducks and gulls) than those I know I’ve seen, but I was pleased to be familiar with a bunch of songbirds, woodpeckers, and hawks. More than half of the reported bird counts did not inspire commentary one way or the other. Either the numbers were in the range to be expected, or whatever change was apparent did not warrant verbal exchange. Sometimes there was an audible sigh, or a slight deepening of silence. But most of the banter was intended to keep the mood light and you wouldn’t know (unless you know) that there may be cause for concern. Besides, some of the counts were higher than anticipated – evidence of adaptation that will yield its result only as changes (whether of climate or development) continue to unfold.

Note: this is not a full account of all
reported birds, only those to which
there was active response
from the birders.

There was “a pile” of black ducks (596), and a “crapload” of coots (@41?). I know there’s quite a developed scientific vocabulary for these things, so I checked technical terms for groups of specific birds. Nope. I was relieved – the whole meeting would not be conducted in jargon I couldn’t understand! “Crapload” would come between a covey of grouse, partridges, ptarmigans or quail and a deceit of lapwings. And “pile” is missing between a peep of chickens and a pitying of turtle doves. Isn’t language marvy?! There were 19 harlequins (”Wow! Nice count!”), and 24 gadwalls (”Holy cow”), but the Old Squaws seemed to have disappeared. “There was no flight this morning – that was weird.” “There were more than 22,000 over Barnstable the other day, where did they go?” “What?! Have you been drinking again??” “That’ll get ‘em wondering.” “They’re somewhere, we just don’t know where.”

Good news first

There were 190 Lesser BlackBacked Gulls. “Is that a record high?” “First time we’ve had that.” “It’s pretty phenomenal.” “It’s up there!”  Seven Hairy Woodpeckers were spotted: “that’s of a lot of them, a lot for us,” and 91 Flickers: “Seems like a good flicker year.” There were also “a lot of crows here today” (704), and another potential high: 1,026 chicadees. Eleven golden-crowned kinglets. “That’s amazing; they’re kinda scarce.” Someone saw a tundra swan: “Who is that guy?!”

A murmur greeted the single viewing of a pied-billed grebe, “a rarie” and “good count” for the 46 hornbilled grebes. One bittern: “Wooo, nice.” Eighteen Great Blue Herons was exciting (”Wow!”) There were six blackbelly plovers and a single snipe, “Good job,” and one Glaucus: “Way to go! Thank you!” Two dovekeys were seen, “Yea!” “Exciting!” “So dramatic!” and 252 Razorbills, “Wow!” “Whew!” “Woohoo!” “Sweet!” for seven seen Barn Owls, and another “whoo” for the single Longspur. And so it went, for about an hour, with these highs punctuated by lows intermixed with unremarkable counts in a syncopated rhythm larger than all of us.

Not such good news

Not a single killdeer, a fact greeted with a low groan followed by a few seconds of silence. At the news of only three Black Legged Kittywegs, there was a sharp, collective intake of breath. A bird whose name I missed had a very low count: “That’s pretty puny. Horrible.” No ringnecked pheasants had been seen: “Bummer. There are some around.” It was “too much to ask for” a blue wing shoveler, although there was a sole pine warbler: “Good job, they’re scarce this year.” No pippins. “Just thought I’d ask.” There was a veritable protest when no one reported a Kestral. “Ahhhhh!” “I thought we had one!” “It was a rumor.” “Who started that one?!”  Thirty-six redtail hawks, however, was “not so bad.” Overall though, “the songbirds are not strong. This is really weird. Songbirds are really down this year.”  Seven towhees. “That’s low too, isn’t it.” Field sparrow? No. “Oh, just checking.” Eleven savannah sparrows: “Really crummy.”

About halfway through the meeting, the group had a moment on the edge… there was an eider of a type I didn’t catch but the question was posed, “King or Queen or One Who Wasn’t Sure?” [Seen at the museum the next day: 'Captain, the lad's a girl!' about a sailor who fooled the crew for eight months until she became sick.] Meanwhile,”We had a bird we think’s a hybrid,” regarding which they decided to count “1/2 of each.” Clearly, evidence of a natural drama is discernible between the lines of these birder’s spare and functional statements and dry humor.

Signs of Change

Erosion of the island has been occurring at an increasing annual rate for the past several years. Houses have been lost to the sea; others have been relocated to their innermost property line in order to persist as long as possible. Scientists suggest that within 600 years, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard both might be gone. Birds will find other habitats, of course. Unless they lose elements of native habitat required for survival. See “Life in the Boundary Layer” for a taste of what some of these elements might be.

The Gillmont? “Going once, going twice….count week.” It took me a few follow-up questions to understand the system.  The “week” of the official bird count is centered on a region’s chosen date.  For Nantucket this is January 1, which means the full week for the official, annual birdcount is December 29 to January 4, but because this is an inexact poll, bird species seen during the three days before and after count week can be added to the final tally. Last year, there were 134 species in the literal count and 142 with the additional days before-and-after. This year, so far, only 117 species have been counted during the official week, with another 8 that were seen in the three days prior to the start of the official week, that’s 125 total. If no additional species are seen before January 7th, the overall species count will be down by 17.

The Faraway Place

Despite the zero count for Tufted Ducks, “I feel in my bones there is one here. Stay on your toes.” Zero Egrets inspired a pun, “No regrets,” which got quite a chuckle, “It’s so late,” apologized the scorekeeper. No Common Mergansers drew a whistle (of dismay?) and the absence of Ruddy Ducks (”Uh oh”) led to, “We know what we’re looking for tomorrow.” As with many things in life, much comes down to being present at the “right time, right place” in order to see (as did one lucky soul) a Short-Eared Owl.

There will be a tomorrow. As these birders showed me – reinforcing life lessons from friends – how we get there (enduring the weather, teasing each other, sharing passions), and what we make of it once we arrive, is up to us.

Am in the process of transforming my ‘old’ blog categories into tags (in this new incarnation of Reflexivity) and also setting up “series” that re-present certain types of blog-entries in chronological order. One of the original conceits in deciding to write in this fashion was to create a record of intellectual growth.  Whether or not there’s been any is an open topic…

Social FAIL

Wild Buffalo Wings, Hadley Mall

Who would have thought that our fallback position from arriving too late to acquire tickets to the 3d showing of Avatar would be malling in a sports bar?  It was an ill-fated venture from the start.  Later we learned we didn’t even have the movie’s start time correct! In the moment we just thought it had sold out.  Trying to order a Twisted Margarita to salve someone’s disappointment generated a series of telepathic maneuvers which deteriorated from early success to an unpalatable beverage.  And how many graduate students does it take to split and pay a bill?  Ok ok, so there was friendship involved, after all.  Geez.  At least that!