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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: June 5, 2004
Latest Update: June 5, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Illocutionary Solutions: Participatory Vision

Notes:

When participatory information matters: html and the tech - so turn off the color - the color gives me an immediate clue to a mistake in programming - occrectable by color - but the tech doesn't do programming as part of textual discussion - he writes programs. In that case, I agree, turn the color off. That dialog was never resolved = I ignored him. How many dialogs are so ignored? Would have taken sample bits of programming to show him what I meant. No way for such an exchange. I should put up samples and show kids that it is possible to visualize the complaint , even if I didn't know how to explain it technically.

another example: we decided to put people in cells and lock them up. or we decided on house arrest. or we decide that someone who doesn't take proper care of her children should lose her children. On what basis did we make these decisions? Ones like that of the tech who told me to turn off the colors? Go bakc to Ways of Knowing and the work they did with high school students who didn't have parental skills. Instead of locking her up or taking away her kids for inappropriate child care or neglect, require her to attend a parenting group like day care with her child, where she and the child can learn. Instead of doing this once a week, make her do child care along with the child. This is much more effective than making her work at exploitative wages while child gets marginal care, and she learns nothing.

Teach nutrition. Have day care kitchen prepare fruits and veggies. Emphasize cleanliness, care of the kitchen, proper foods and amounts. Then come the small businesses, offering to pay her minimal wages for preparing more veggies and fruits than she needs. No. That translates her learning, not into living skills, but into low-wage exploitative production and will not change the social structure. This is where we need the courts to enforce that that time is for skill learning and practice and may not be exploited by others for excessive profit.

Now, one of the frequent complaints about welfare moms is that theyre lazy and don't want to work. Assuming arguendo that that's true, taking their children away only gives them more time to by lazy and do nothing productive. Making them work during that time for exploitative wages exhausts, discourages them, reduces their selfesteem and sense of personal control. Sening them to preschool with their kids would engage them in meaningful activity that would alleviate some of the structural problem.

identity and the poor: exmple from pp. 201- 203 in Unruly women: four categories of assimilation of Native peoples. At p. 197: "If a young girl fought back in a residential school - - - that's the thing that she knew protected her there. When she comes out on the streets, she comes in conflict with the law, she fights back. The correctional system, going into the Prison for Women, is a lot like going to residential school. From one institution to another. A lot of those kids grew up lacking parenting skills. They were in an institution all the time. (Faith et al., 1990: 182.)

Then go back to Cosby's comments on "knuckleheads."

If a young girl has a child, but doesn't have the discipline or the training for caring for the child, then the infrastructure does need to do something, but something based on grounded theory.

Illocutionary solutions to participatory vision. Sometimes its hard to tell why things aren't working as some of us thought they would. George wanted me to watch an hour sermon. I had a show to curate and host. I didn't have an hour. George didn't include my agenda in his vision of what would happen. Only later did I realize that I should have talked to him about his vision of what would happen. WE ended up frustrated and fussing at each other. And I ended up even more frustrated when I tried to sit and watch the blasted sermon just to please him. Visitors kept walking into the gallery, and there was no way I could have justified just sitting there watchin a TV program. Could I articulate that to George during the exhibit. NO., Not with all my training. George just repeated that I had to watch the sermon. And I just repeated that I couldn't or wouldn't. This is the level at which we need to teach governance skills. We can't teach them if we never permit enough answerability to have the conflicts arise.