Sunday 22 July 2007

Just to say

I am off to New Jersey, going to talk to some teachers in Princeton about artefacts and identity - here is my friend Jennifer's account of her work;
Drawing on a longitudinal study that follows twenty high school students struggling with literacy in a secondary school in central New Jersey, I will consider student portfolios of texts as artifacts of identity (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain, 1998). Photographs, digital spaces, written work, artwork, family artifacts have been gathered, archived and reflected upon and the study builds on a recognition that the materiality of these artifacts have deep consequences and significance for these students’ senses of self.

Back on 31st July

4 comments:

spodsheff said...

Have a lovely time - do you think we may be encouraging children to look for themselves in objects because of our obsession with owning things. It's not very spiritual - perhaps we are encuraging a new simulcra investing to much in the material with a very adult eye - the golden calf in your Ferum case?

kate g said...

but isnt it important to look to selves and think about our identity, it might stop us always trying to be something we are not, or disappointed with our lot, i think we do it well, maybe some people dont. ?
yes we see in their stuff amazing things and perhaps we want them to see it too, is that a bad thing?

spodsheff said...

Your right we are using the objects as a hook or a starting point to try and get people to value themselves and their space and how they are part of a local and collective history. It was just that when I was in town the kids just want to buy stuff all the time and stuff which shapes and defines identity - chav not a chav emo mini emo type stuff and I thought about things and stuff and the fact that so much of our lives revolves around it - the stuff in artemis or a museum is different but I suppose that material culture studies which is sort of what we are doing is another massive field and the ideas around canoes and Cargo and meaning reflects changes in society as well as anthropology. I might write a book called the argnauts of the river Don where I live with the people of the Win garden estate as they ferry their flood damaged items on inflatable dingies.

kate g said...

i agree about the point about objects chav not chav etc - depends how authentically the works/ thinkings been done i suppose
but more importantly i like your new book idea!