INFORM ATION TO USERS
This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly fi'om the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer.
The quali^ of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.
Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book.
Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North2^eeb Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600
OPENING TECHNOLOGY DISCOURSES TO DIFFERENCE: A RHIZOANALYSIS
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University
By
Patricia Ann O'Riley, B.Ed., M.A.
*****
The Ohio State University 1999
Dissertation Committee: Approved by
Dr. Patti Lather, Co-Advisor Co-Advisor College of Education
Dr. William Taylor, Co-Advisor Co-Advisor College of Education
Dr. Robert Donmoyer DMI Number: 9931664
UMI Microform 9931664 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.
Tliis microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 ABSTRACT
This research project was an effort to seek a cultural politics of difference within the two areas of education claiming 'technology^ as an area of study: technology education and educational technology. This study also troubled the practice of doing research, in particular, the 'right to know', collecting and analyzing data', and the possibility of ethics from within a professional frame of reference.
One segment of the study was with technology education high school students and their teacher in British Columbia, Canada, and another segment was with educational technology graduate students at a university in New
Jersey, USA. The co-participants, including a colleague from Kenya, and I examined how technology discourses in education reverberate with the language and practices of the dominant culture, which foreground commodity production, consumption and 'high' technologies, silencing and/ or ignoring indigenous and other non-western epistemologies and technologies. Paying particular attention to the languaging of gender, culture and environment in technology curricula, we worked to affirm difference. What appeared to be or were identified as contradictions within and between cultures were recognized and validated. We
worked toward an intercultural conversation, a flow between and among
different knowledge communities, concerned that our work not become another
multicultural 'hybrid/ an accumulation of indigenous epistemologies for the
West.
Methodologically, I explored the possibilities of doing research which was not primarily about 'knowing/ 'other' in order to study, act upon, validate or transform. I thought against myself as researcher in an effort to engage in a more respectful and mutual conversation in the 'regeneration' of knowledge, rather than 'generating' more and better for the western knowledge project.
m Dedicated to indigenous people
around the world
who are reviving their culture,
language and spirituality
who are reclaiming
their land, voice and traditions
who are finding ways of overcoming the effects of colonization
as well all those
who have been marginalized
by the ways of the West
IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would Like to thank Patti Lather for her creative and courageous work in research methodology. She has opened doors for so many.
Bill Taylor is a breath of fresh air in educational technology, moving the conversation to include body and spirit.
I thank Bob Donmoyer for being a gentle man, a gatekeeper who encourages different ways of doing scholarly writing.
mutindi ndunda, of the Mkamba community of Kenya, my sister and co-irritant, thank you for being a strong, brilliant and passionate woman, who fights every minute of every day to make this world more equitable, more caring.
You hold my hand, you push me to the edges of my knowing, as we journey together.
Annette and Noel Gough, thank you for your love and encouragement and your invitation to lecture in Australia. You have always been there. Kate and Simon, thank you for welcoming me into your home.
Peter Fensham, you will always be a special person to me, to so many.
I would like to thank my long-time friend, Len Millis, for his belief and me and encouragement to return to school. Thank you for your love, your friendship, your advice, and for finding the leak on the houseboat. Jane and
Catie, your love has been felt across the miles. Peter Cole, my partner and friend, thank you for your love, your delightful spirit, and for bringing me home to the land, into the Stl'atl'imx community, and on a journey to find my own indigenous roots.
Lee O'Riley, my daughter, thank you for just being you. Even as a little girl, you showedme how to love and how to be loved. Chris Babcock and Lori
Quance, my son and daughter, thank you for coming back into my Life. Thank you for your love. Daniel Delaquis, my first bom, I think of you often, and with affection: o:na.
This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship. I would particularly Hke to thank Michael Hodgson.
VI VITA
Bom November 18,1947—Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
EDUCATION
1992 M.A. Education The University of British Columbia
1991 B.Ed. Secondary Education The University of British Columbia
1989 Diploma in Industrial Education Teacher Education British Columbia Institute of Technology
WORK HISTORY
1986 - 88 Canada Safety Officer/ Labour Standards Officer Labour Canada
1984 - 86 Industrial Relations Officer/ Human Rights Officer British Columbia Ministry of Labour
1982 - 84 Provincial Factory Inspector British Columbia Ministry of Labour
1979 - 82 Planchecker / Building Inspector District of the Municipality of Surrey, BC City of Vernon, BC
1976 - 79 Residential Housing Designer Nu-West Development Corporation, Surrey, BC Freelance
1973 - 74 Architectural Draftsperson Bel-Con Engineering Ltd., Belleville, ON
vu TEACHING EXPERIENCE
1998-present Lecturer Massey University Palmerston North, Aotearoa New Zealand
1997-1998 Instructor William Paterson University Wayne, NJ, USA
1996 duly) Visiting Lecturer The University of Victoria Victoria, BC, Canada
1992 -1994 Graduate T eaching Associate The Ohio State University Columbus, OH, USA
1977 -1979 Architectural Drafting Instructor Douglas College New Westminster, BC, Canada
SCHOLARSHIPS & AWARDS
1994 - 95 D octoral Fellowship Renewal Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada 1992 - 93 Doctoral Fellowship Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada 1992 University Graduate Fellowship (declined) The University of British Columbia 1992 Overseas Research Scholarship (declined) University of London 1991 Dr. M axwell C am eron M em orial M edal & Prize The University of British Columbia (highest standing in graduating class) 1990 British Council Grant British H igh Commission 1989 Summer School Scholarship The University of British Columbia
vm PUBLICATIONS
O'Riley. P. (1996). A different storytelling of Technology Education curriculum re-visions: A storytelling of difference. Journal o f Technology Education, 7(2), 28-39. O’Riley, P. & & Scott, D. (1996). Psycho logics: Techno bits and desire bytes in the worlds of virtuality & analysis. Australian Educational Researcher, 23(3), 97- 107. O'Riley, P. (1992). BC technology education curriculum: Appropriate for all students? Status of Women Journal, 23-26. O'Riley, P. (1991). Technological literacy: In search of a paradigm. VIEW, Journal of the BC Technology Education Association,14-17. 1 ,
HELD OF STUDY
Major Field: Education
IX TABLE OF CONTENTS
D edication iv
Acknowledgements v
V ita vii
Plateau 1001: Pream ble 1
Plateau 1002: S o . . . 6 One true story revisited 8 Technology discourses as manifest manners 11 Technology discourses as storytelling practice 14 S'S-stuttering as cartographic gesture 16 Rhizomatics: writing plateaux 17
Plateau 1003: Re:Mapping 22 Situating the geography of the study 22 Theories of diEerence 26 Rhizoanalysis 29 Nomadics 32 Rhizoanalysis as minorizing majority discourse 34 A critical look at rhizoanalysis 36 Technology of empire and manifest manners 38 Rhizoanalysis meets trickster discourse: Canis rhizomatmus 43
Plateau 1004: M esa M orph Ing M ethodology 48 Methodological framings 48 Research Design Prior ethnography 52 The sites for this study 54 A. Technology education: Co-participants, entrée and field relations 54 M ethods 57 B. Educational technology: Co-participants, entrée and field relations 60 M ethods 63 Field relations and data analysis: Some ethical considerations 64 M aking ro om for story 70 Validity as incitement to discourse 76
Plateau 1005: Critical realist tale 82 Two tales spinning 83 The W ord— Deus ex machina 84 Standardizing the curriculum 86 From Homo jaber to Homo cyberneticus 88 Techtonic shifting of the dominant discourses 89 A new subject or ideology? 94 Integrated world capitalism (IWC) and education 98
Plateau 1006: Beyond the terrain of technology discourses 107 Toward gender, culture and environment 107 A feminist reading 108 Culture / gender intersections 114 Virtual silence on environment 119 From the bordertalk to cybertalk 123
Plateau 1007: A Cultural Tale 125 Culture and technology education 126 Students' reflections on culture and technology 133 Western discourse as manifest manners 136 Unlearning manifest manners 138
Plateau 1008: Virtually a tale 143 Cyborgology 143 Cyber-witch teachers 147 Cyborgs as narrative experiments 149 W orld as screen habitacles 151 First W orld N etscape 154 Third World landscape 157 Modest_Witness 161 Tricksteria prefigures cyborgia 163 No bio for trickster/Coyote 166 From virtual talk to teacher talk 168 XI Plateau 1009: D atapIay 170
Flateau 1010: Plus de plies 194 Re-situating the study 195 Implicating technology discourses in the schooling of difference 197 Toward multistoried pedagogy 207 Troubling my research: Coming out of the co- closet 211 Mutual learning communities 216
Appendix A—Overview of study 221
Appendix B—Grounded Survey/Questionnaire 223
References 225
xu PLATEAU 1001
PREAMBLE
A Coyote Columbus Story
You know. Coyote came by my place the other day. She was going to a party. She had her party hat and she had her parly whistle and she had her party rattle. I'm going to a party, she says. Yes, I says, I can see that. It is a party for Christopher Columbus, says Coyote. This is the one who found America. That is the one who found Indians. Boy, that Coyote is one silly Coyote. You got to watch out for her. Some of Coyote's stories are covered with scraggy Coyote fur but all Coyote's stories are bent. Christopher Columbus didn't find America, 1 says. Christopher Columbus didn't find Indians, either. You got a tail on that story. Oh, no, says Coyote. 1 read it in a book. M ust have been a Coyote book, 1 says. No, no, no, no, says Coyote. It was a history book. Big red one. All about Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue looking for America and the Indians. Sit down, 1 says. Have some tea. We're going to have to do this story right. We're going to have to do this story now. It was all Old Coyote's fault, 1 tell Coyote, and here is how the story goes. Here is what really happened. So. Old Coyote loved to play ball, you know. She played ball all day and aU night. She would throw the ball and she would hit the ball and she would run and catch the ball. But playing ball by herself was boring, so she sang a song and she danced a dance and she thought about playing ball and pretty soon along came some Indians. Old Coyote and the Indians became very good friends. You are sure a good friend, says those Indians. Yes, that's true, says Old Coyote. But you know, whenever Old Coyote and the Indians played ball. Old Coyote always won. She always won because she made up the rules. That sneaky one made up the rules and she always won because she could do that. That's not fair, says the Indians. Friends don't do that. That's the rules, says Old Coyote. Let play some more. Maybe you will win the next time. But they don't. You keep changing the rules, says those Indians. No, no, no, no, says Old Coyote. You are mistaken. And then she changes the rules again. So, after a while, those Indians find better things to do. Some of them go fishing. Some of them go shopping. Some of them go to a movie. Some of th em go on vacation. Those Indians got better things to do than play ball with Old Coyote and those changing rules. So, Old Coyote doesn't have anyone to play with. So, she has to play by herself. So, she gets bored. When Old Coyote gets bored, anything can happen. Stick around. Big trouble is coming, I can teU you that. Well. That silly one sings a song and she dances a dance and she thinks about playing ball. But she's thinking about changing those rules, too, and she doesn't watch what she is making up out of her head. So pretty soon, she makes three ships. Hmmmm, says Old Coyote, where did those ships come from? And pretty soon, she makes some people on those ships. Hminmm, says Old Coyote, where did those people come from? And pretty soon, she makes some people on the beach with flags and funny-looking clothes and stuff. Hooray, says Old Coyote. You are just in time for the ball game. Hello, says one of the men in silly clothes and red hair all over his head. I am Christopher Columbus. I am sailing the ocean blue looking for China. Have you seen it? Forget China, says Old Coyote. Let's play ball. It must be around here somewhere, says Christopher Columbus. I have a map. Forget the map, says Old Coyote. I'll bat first and I'U tell you the rules as we play along. But that Christopher Columbus and his friends don't want to play ball. We got work to do, he says. We got to find China. We got to find things we can sell. Yes, says those Columbus people, where is the gold? Yes, they says, where is that sük cloth? 2 Yes, they says, where are those portable color televisions? Yes, they says, where are those home computers? Boy, says Old Coyote, and that one scratches her head. I must have sung that song wrong. Maybe I didn't do the right dance. Maybe I thought too hard. These people I made have no manners. They act as if they have no relations. And she is right. Christopher Columbus and his friends start jumping up and down in their funny clothes and they shout so loud that Coyote's ears almost fall off. Boy, what a bunch of noise, says Coyote. What bad manners. You guys got to stop jumping and shouting or my ears will fall off. We got to find China, says Christopher Columbus. We got to become rich. We got to become famous. Do you think you can help us? But all Old Coyote can think about is playing ball. I'll let you bat first, says Old Coyote. No time for games, says Christopher Columbus. ril let you make the rules, cries Old Coyote. But those Columbus people don't listen. They are too busy running around, peeking under rocks, looking in caves, sailing all over the place. Looking for China. Looking for stuff they can sell. I got a m onkey, says one. I got a parrot, says another. I got a fish, says a third. 1 got a coconut, says a fourth. That stuff isn't worth poop, says Christopher Columbus. We can't sell those things in Spain. Look harder. But all they find is monkeys and parrots and fish and coconuts. And when they tell Christopher Columbus, that one he squeezes his ears and he chews his nose and grinds his teeth. He grinds his teeth so hard, he gets a headache, and, then, he gets cranky. And, then he gets an idea. Say, says Christopher Columbus. Maybe we could sell Indians. Yes, says his friends, that's a good idea. We could sell Indians, and they throw away their monkeys and parrots and fish and coconuts. Wait a minute, says the Indians, that is not a good idea. That is a bad idea. That is a bad idea full of bad manners. When Old Coyote hears this bad idea, she starts to laugh. Who would buy Indians, she says, and she laughs some more. She laughs so hard, she has to hold her nose on her face with both hands. But while that Old Coyote is laughing, Christopher Columbus grabs a big bunch of Indian men and Indian women and Indian children and locks them up in his ships. When Old Coyote stops laughing and looks around, she see that some of the Indians are missing. Hey, she says, where are those Indians? Where are my friends? 3 I'm going to sell them in Spain, says Christopher Columbus. Somebody has to pay for this trip. Sailing over the ocean blue isn't cheap, you know. But, Old Coyote still thinks that Christopher Columbus is playing a trick. She thinks it is a joke. That is a good joke, she says, trying to make me think that you are going to sell my friends. And she starts to laugh again. Grab some more Indians, says Christopher Columbus. When Old Coyote sees Christopher Columbus grab some more Indians, she laughs even harder. What a good joke, she says. And she laughs some more. She does this four times and when she is done laughing, aU the Indians are gone. And Christopher Columbus is gone and Christopher Columbus's friends are gone, too. Wait a minute, says Old Coyote. What happened to my friends? Where are my Indians? You got to bring them back. Who's going to play ball w ith me? But C hristopher Colum bus d idn't bring the Indians back and Old Coyote was real sorry she thought him up. She tried to take him back. But, you know, once you think things like that, you can't take them back. So you have to be careful what you think. So, that's the end of the story. Boy, says Coyote. That is one sad story. Yes, I says. It's sad alright. And things don't get any better, I can tell you that. What a very sad story, says Coyote. Poor Old Coyote didn't have anyone to play ball with. That one must have been lonely. And Coyote begins to cry. Stop crying, I says. Old Coyote is fine. Some blue jays come along after that an d they play ball w ith her. Oh, good, says Coyote. But what happened to the Indians? There was nothing in that red history book about Christopher Columbus and the Indians. Christopher Columbus sold the Indians, I says, and that one became rich and famous. Oh, good, says Coyote. I love a happy ending. And that one blows her party whistle and that one shakes her party rattle and that one puts her party hat back on her head. I better get going, she says. I'm going to be late for the party. Okay, I says. Just remember how that story goes. Don't go messing it up again. Have you got it straight, now? You bet, says Coyote. But if Christopher Columbus didn't find America and he didn't find Indians, who found these things? Those things were never lost, I says. Those things were always here. Those things are still here today. By goUy, I think you are right, says Coyote. 4 Don't be thinking, I says. This world has enough problems already without a bunch of Coyote thoughts with tails and scraggy fur running around bumping into each other. Boy, that's the truth. I can tell you that. (King, 1993, p. 121-127) PLATEAU 1002
SO...
In the act of writing there's an attempt to make life something more than personal, to free life from what imprisons it.... You write with the view of an unborn people that doesn't yet have a language. Creating isn't communicating but resisting. (Deleuze, 1995, p. 143)
A Columbus Coyote Story seems like a most becoming-story as an entry point into
a dissertation written to meet the requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy degree at The Ohio State University—in Columbus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that 1
started my doctoral degree in the Fall of 1992, the five hundred year anniversary
of Christopher Columbus' 'discovery' of America and 'Indians.' Thomas King's,
A Columbus Coyote Story, is a creative storytelling of resistance, freeing life and lives through language from the discourses that have imprisoned it, and 'them'—
and 'us.' Coyote's storytelling is a different kind of relation introducing
playfully, yet in all seriousness, a different mapping, a performative storytelling, a dancetelling, with quite different tails / tales on it. This dissertation is also a resistance storytelling. It is an interruption of contemporary technology discourses offered in schools, in particular those of technology education and educational technology. This study is not an enclosed storytelling, nor an elaborate system of textual defense moving toward a gripping conclusion, rather it is a remapping of the terrain of the dominant technology discourses, opening them to difference. The overall purpose of this study is to loosen the tightening technology discourses in schools which focus primarily on the reproduction of a 'technologically literate' workforce—human
'resources' for high tech 'growth' industries. In our technologically-mediated society ordered by a compression of time and space, telecommunications, "social control, surveillance, and repression of self' (Harvey, 1989, p. 213), 'technological literacy' takes on a whole new set of meanings and configurations.
As co-researchers, technology education students and their teacher, educational technology teachers, a colleague from Kenya, and First Nations colleagues offer different stories of technology from a variety of positionalities and territorialities, providing the data for this study. Working with the co researchers, as well as with and through a variety of theories, as Deleuze, I too, write from the view of an unborn and into a language that is not yet. This study is a geopolitical reshaping of reductive and restrictive technology discourses—an incitement to the "insurrection of subjugated knowledges" (Braidotti, 1994b). It is about tactile, embodied, and spiritual engagement in a world increasingly being inscribed by, and compressed into, normalized discourses and anaesthetized virtual environments. It is about possibilities for regaining and elaborating sensibilities beyond the technoterritorial maps of standardized technology discourses, as well as the unfolding and refolding of the hypertexts and hyperreahties of educational technology. This study is an effort to fluctuate, modulate and deviate from the normativity of realist technology tales, to break open and recombine, to open space for the sounds, the unheard and the unutterable drowned out in the stimulation and noise of progress and
"hyperreality" (Borgmann, 1992; Eco, 1986). One true story revisited
Any narrative that predetermines all responses or prohibits any counter narratives puts an end to narrative itself by suppressing all possible alternative actions and responses, by making itself its own end and the end of all narratives. (Carroll, 1982, quoted in Vizenor, 1993, p. 6)
When one curriculum, one set of knowledges and narratives is constructed as representing 'the truth' or 'the real', and its obUterates or marginalises alternative conceptions, it is an act of violence. (Bishop, 1998, p. 8) Over the past two decades, industrial education/ arts curricula in North America and most westernized countries has gone through major revisioning. The revised curricula have been renamed 'technology education', and have been viewed as constituting a paradigm shift (Clarke, 1989; Todd & Hutchinson, 1991). However, from my positioning as one of few women in this area, and writing within feminist, antiracist and poststructural leanings, the possibihties for a revisioning of technology education that remaps space for difference, have been missed, as have the opportunities for realizing the justificatory rhetoric of creating curricula 'for all students.' While the selection of knowledge and technological processes within the revisions are more diverse and more 'high' tech than the previous industrial education/ arts curricula, many of the values, assumptions and beliefs underpinning industrial education/ arts curriculum
(which has historically excluded many students), remain unproblematized and unchallenged.
Furthermore, there is currently a high-profile and well-funded movement in North America, Technology for All Americans (Dugger, 1995), to create
'standards' for technology discourses in education. Donna Haraway (1991b) writes that questing for universals is nothing less than reductionism, "when one language ... must be enforced as the standard for all translations and conversions " (p. 187). The desire to configure standards resonates with what 8 Sandra Harding (1986) refers to as "the longing for the 'one true story' that has been the psychic motor for Western science" (p. 193). This movement to tighten technology discourses closes the borders to the time, space, and bodies of other storytellers. Technology is much more complex, fluid and ambiguous than the partial perspectives offered in the revised curricula. If female students, and students from a diversity of cultural backgrounds, are to become more than ontological and epistemological optical illusions in technology discourses, a reshaping, a different way of seeing, a move beyond rhetorical gestures about gender and cultural inclusivity are needed. Sanders (1995), writing specifically about the
Technology for All Americans project, suggests that technology educators "should welcome those different models while unabashedly promoting those which have made us so successful for the past century" (p. 3). The 'us' is male and white and inclined to technical and trades interests. The curriculum narratives are reflections of their own backgrounds and interests, which are within the browse and tether of western technologies and the accompanying notions of progress, efficiency, productivity and competition.
Educational technology, however, is not so rooted, but rather a recent upshoot since the introduction of computers into classrooms. It is not always taught as a specific discipline, with educators at all grade levels and areas of education taking on the role of 'educational technologists'. Educational technology is principally about teaching and learning with electronic technologies, predominantly computers and other multimedia technologies.
Some form of 'technological literacy' is mandated by Ministries (Departments) of Education at the provincial and state levels, which most often translates into certain proficiencies in the use and application of computers. Teachers are required to integrate the use of computers into their teaching practices, and students are to use computers and multimedia technologies in their learning situations. Both technology education and educational technology are about teaching 'technology' in schools. Although the emphasis of technology education remains embedded within industrial technologies (now high teched) the rhetoric of technology education and educational technology discourses are surprisingly similar. Throughout this dissertation, I write of technology education discourses, educational technology discourses, or simply of
'technology discourses' which refers to the overlapping of both.
Considering global restructuring with its gamut of different allegiances and arrangements of information, capital, time, space, bodies, geographies, and poststructuralism's skepticism of narrative authority, I question the adequacy of the selection of technology discourses to represent the study of technology in a postmodern world. The shift to 'standardize' the conversation takes the con out of conversation, leaving a series of parallel monologues. "Unless we take seriously as educators the various cultures out of which student identities are formed, we are inviting students to view schooling as Little more than a form of cultural imposition" (McLaren, 1993, p. 278). I question also their relevancy to the diversity of students entering, and not entering, today's classrooms, as well as their responsibility to the larger society—and the environment. What are the effects of ignoring gender, socioeconomic, cultural and environmental issues in educational discourses? It is time to turn our revisioning angles from an "arrogant perception" (Damarin, 1993) to a more modest and shared revisioning practice with 'other' knowledge communities as an incitement to the disruption and remapping of current technology discourses in education and toward a more
10 equitable and habitable world for all people, other hving things and the
environment.
Technology discourses as manifest manners A Columbus Coyote Story as pre text in this dissertation is not a coincidental happening, considering the Columbus debates which have opened wide the cracks in colonialist discourses of 'discovery' of the 'New World,' Gerald
Vizenor (1994) writes that imperial imaginings are too often "manifest manners" having "no relations," or simply "bad manners" as Old Coyote says in A Coyote
Columbus Story. For Shohat & Stam (1994):
[T]he Columbus story is crucial to Eurocentrism, not only because Columbus was a seminal [sic] figure within the history of coloniahsm, but also because idealized versions of his story have served to initiate generation after generation into the colonial paradigm. For many children in North America and elsewhere, the tale of Columbus is totemic; it introduces them not only to the concepts of "discovery" and the "New World," but also to the idea of history itself. The vast majority of school textbooks, including very recent ones ... describe and picture Columbus as handsome, studious, pious, commanding, audacious. Young pupils are encouraged to empathize with what are imagined to be his childhood dreams and hopes, so that their identification with him is virtually assured even before they encounter the New World others, who are described variously as Mendly or fierce, but whose perspective is rigorously elided. Only some voices and perspectives, it is implied, resonate in the w orld, (p. 62)
Cultural framings of Western language practices and so-called universal discourses mask their historical, socio cultural and political reproductions within their "linguistics of domination" (Shohat & Stam, 1994), perpetuating the "legacy of imperialism" (WiUinsky, 1998). G ayatri Chakrovorty Spivak (1995) refers to "the ferocious standardizing benevolence of most U.S. and Western European human-scientific radicalism"—recognition by assimilation, the collecting and consuming of cultures—as "epistemic violence" (p. 294). These discourses are
11 translinguistic, rather than supralingnistic, carrying Western ideas, theories and practices across the curricula. Western technology discourses are not only a cultural issue, but also an issue of "ecological violence" (Gough, 1994c), manifest manners having devastating affects on the environment, as currently being played out with global warming, droughts, ice storms, toxic waste, and El Nino, to name a few. Progress in the form of individual, national and global competition is promoted, downplaying local and global co-operation, sharing and sustainable communities. These discourses are about 'resourcing' people and the earth.
Trees, forests, minerals, rivers, people, and sunlight are 'resources,' packages of economic jargon, a first step to transforming them into growing profits for an ever shrinking (in numbers) elite. Gough asks how the "language[s] of environmental education capture, construct, and constrain nature?" (p. 210).
Considering the state of the real' environment, and now the significant push to get students and teachers wired into 'virtual' environments, it is urgent that technology educators begin asking how technology discourses are implicated in the capturing, constructing and constraining of nature." Daniel Quinn (1993) allegorizes the human condition through the intellectual journey of Ishmael, a gorilla of immense wisdom, and his acolyte, a male human. Quinn writes that life in one cage is like life in any other cage. We humans are captives to a civilized system directed toward destroying the world.
The world is our captive; and we are unable to find the bars of the cage because the bars are out thoughts and rituals. Western humans in particular are captives of a story which is so pervasive, so taken-for-granted, that there is no need to name it or discuss it. We know tlie story before we enter school, and if we do not, we leam very quickly what our place is in the story. We see the earth as a
12 human-support system, a machine, a hinterland, designed to produce, sustain, and enhance human life at the expense of others and other forms of aliveness.
Our story is that the destiny of humans is to tame and conquer the chaos and
'wilderness' of our world. The world and its humans are paying a heavy price for enacting this storyline. Quinn argues that western knowledge ends at the border of western culture. If westerners venture beyond that border, they will fall off because their story cannot imagine that there is anything beyond these borders. Like Columbus, the thousands of discoverers and researchers who posted him, his map, his rules, his vision, his language system, could not imagine, hear, see those who Uved elsewhere and otherwise. However, what is invisible on western maps is in plain sight, and seen, for billions of others. The world of thought in technology discourses is still deeply rooted on Columbus' map, which 1 had the opportunity of viewing for the first time last year in its resting place in the Beinicke Library at Yale University. Ironically, 1 was attending Translating Native
Americans: A Conference on Representation, Aesthetics, and Translation, the first academic conference in the USA at which all the speakers were First Nations or
Native American.
According to Brian Massumi (1992), the content of education itself plays a largely irrelevant role, and is relatively disengaged from how education is
"expressed." For example, when politicians say that education is "to build good citizens" this is expressed not m curricular content, but in "the making docile of an adolescent" (p. 25). Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari (1987) refer to such expressing as "order-words" or "order(ing) words" (Deleuze, 1995) which are comprised of both statements of commands and the positioning of bodies "that place the concerned body and bodies in a position to carry out implicit
13 obligations or follow a preset direction" (Massumi, p. 31). Prescribed technology discourses become such order(ing) words. How might it be possible to remap technology discourses increasingly devoted to "integrated world capitalism (IWC)" (Conley, 1993) turning students into fec/zno thinking techno subjects for the global factory of 'the future'? How might it be possible to remap these order-words with stories that circulate both within and beyond the dominant borders into a different geography of different languages, thoughts and subjectivities? How might students be able to hear their own cries and laughter, the cries and laughter of others, and the murmurs of the earth? Is it possible to find stillness and quiet amid the noise and hyperactivity, so that other stories 'out there' and out of sight on the western horizon might be heard as well?
Technology discourses as storytelling practice
[S] tory telling.... "does not aim to convey the pure essence of the thing, like information or a report. It sinks the thing into the life of the storyteller, in order to bring it out of [her/ ]him again. Thus traces of the storyteller cling to the story the way the handprints of the potter cling to the clay vessel" (Benjamin, 1968, p. 91-92).
Storytelling is words and bodies in non-linear time and space. According to
Verena Andermatt Conley (1993), "[tjhrough the telling of a story, through enunciation, the speaker establishes a place and conunands a relation to time and space" (p. 88). However, Walter Benjamin is concerned that storytelling as 'real' embodied experiences is coming to an end. We are in what is heralded as being
the information age' where embodied, multidimensional experiences are being exchanged for a world of virtual experiences, reduced to a time-space compression (Harvey, 1989) of surface/screen (Hay les, 1993) marked by a
14 profusion of fragmented bits and bytes, and swallowings—force feedings, IVs, free of mastication and rumination.
Information is dangerous when it has no place to go, when there is no theory to which it apphes, no pattern in which it fits, where there is no higher purpose that it serves. (Postman, 1993, p. 63) With our growing reliance on techno-toys, baubles, prosthetics, we are radically changing our senses, and we are devaluing and substituting storytelling and experience for information. Virtually without moving, we speed along with/ in the hyperreality of the 'information highway' virtually without movement, abled and disabled by a proliferation of digitized, byte-sized information bits. We are
communicating' with each other like never before—or so we have come to believe.
Quoting Madelaine Grumet, Noel Gough (1993) suggests that educators think of any curriculum narrative as a "collective story we tell our children about our past, our present, and our future" (p. 71). He adds that curriculum narratives are not only configured as collective but "selective" stories, and in the case of technology discourses in education, the selection of stories is increasingly being dictated from a particular, relatively small, cultural corrununity string
—government, miÜtary and corporate interests—who not only hold considerable power, but also have control over the purse strings. Furthermore, Gough maintains that realist curriculum stories "largely ignore the ways in which agency is produced by and within the complex circuits and relays that connect—and contingently reinforce—knowledges and subjectivities in the technocultural milieu of postmodern societies" (p. 81).
Gough uses narrative theory in innovative ways in his own teaching and research to open environmental discourses in education to other stories, by the
15 rereading of environmental education discourses through postmodern science
'fiction/
Narrative theory has challenged literary critics to recognize not only the various strategies used to configure particular texts within the literary canon, but to realize how forms of discourse in the natural and human sciences are themselves ordered as narratives. In effect narrative theory invites us to think of all discourses as taking the form of a story. (Knoespel, 1991) Taking a cue from Gough's work in environmental education, a part of this study
is a reconceptualizing technology discourses as a postmodernist/structural
practice.
One way of interpreting the proliferation of 'post... isms' in academia—postmodernism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, post- Fordism—is that they actually signal a failure of vision, our inability to imagine what is next as anything other than an immanent space towards which their precursors gesture. (Gough, 1997, p. 7)
Remapping from a position, and vice versa, that there is no uiunediated reality is
a move to make visible the invisible—the historicity, materiality, and agency of
the textual practices of technology discourses in schools. This will require a
remapping of technology discourses which moves within and beyond the
technological of 'one true story', and toward a more geological storytelling practice.
S-s-stuttering as cartographic gesture
How...can one write of those things which one doesn't know, or knows badly? It is precisely there that we imagine having something to say. We write only at the frontiers of our knowledge, at the border which separates our knowledge from our ignorance and transforms the one into the other. Only in this manner are we resolved to write. (Deleuze, 1994, p. xxi)
I, too, am writing at the frontiers, the borders of my knowledge as I work on the edge of trembling, stumbling and s-s-stuttering within technology discourses.
16 Agreeing w ith Laurie A nderson (1994) that "language is a viru s/' m y hope is to interrupt and "contaminate the structures" (Braidotti, 1991) of technology
discourses. To restate Deleuze's question, how can I write of those things which I
don't know, or know badly? How might I open technology discourses to
different stories, the unsaid, the unthought, and create a richer vocabulary and
different geography to talk about and practice technology in schools? How is it
possible to m ap an elsewhere and otherwise in schools and in the world, rather
than a map of grids and isobars? And from what projections? How often do we
see a polar projection, or a map that has Africa or New Zealand at the top centre?
A stutterer himself, Gilles Deleuze (1994b) writes that stuttering is a
performative language-making, a merging of language and speech, a poetic speech, that moves beyond preexisting words and "ushers in the words that it
affects ... the words do not exist independently of the stutter, which selects and
links them together. It is no longer the individual who stutters in [her / ]his speech, it is the writer who stutters in the language system (langue): [she /]he
causes language as such to stutter" (p. 23).
Rhizomatics: writing plateaux
In A thousand plateaus: Capitalism & schizophrenia, Deleuze & G uattari (1987), wrote plateaux rather than chapters as a stuttering textual practice. Writing plateaux "abandons any semblance of narrative or argument exposition in favour of random, perspectival juxtaposition of chapters, or 'plateaus' (Gregory
Bateson's term), comprised of complex conceptual flows" (Best & Kellner, 1991, p. 98). Instead of being singular or plural, plateaux are "incompletely plural" and "singularly incomplete" (Barthes, quoted in Stivale, 1998). Each plateau is
17 composed of segments of writing, a type of consistency or holding together of
disparate elements; a style, a network, a combination of concepts that '%ring an
activity or thought to a pitch of intensity that is not automatically dissipated in a
climax leading to a state of rest'' (Massumi, 1992, p. 7). The dynamic afterimages
and sounds can become reanimated or con.bined with other activities creating a
non-homogeneous texting of any number of conjunctive possibilities—a
thousand tiny folds, microperceptions. For Deleuze & Guattari, each plateau deploys vocabularies from a variety of disciplines. Each plateau is a different stuttering—a resonance, a vibration toward finding and creating holes in enclosed narratives. Each is a "throw of the dice" (Nietzsche, 1961). Deleuze and
Guattari (1987) write that :
[A] book composed of chapters has culmination and termination points... . We are writing this book as a rhizome. It is composed of plateaus. We have given it a circular form, but not for laughs. Each morning we would wake up, and each of us would ask himself what plateau he was going to tackle, writing five lines here, ten lines there. We had hallucinatory experiences, we watched lines leave one plateau and proceed to another like columns of tiny ants. We made circles of convergence. Each plateau can be read starting anywhere and can be related to any other plateau, (p. 22) Plateaux are places of connection and transition, between mountains and riverbeds, places of erosion and new growth, hoodoos, the soil becoming silt, plant, and animal in another geography and time. "These plateaus range promiscuously across diverse topics, time frames, and disciplinary fields and are to be read, the authors suggest, in any order" (Best & Kellner, 1991, p. 98).
This dissertation is a series of stutterings, a series of plateaux of resonances and vibrations to encourage more complex, contingent, and indeterminate theories and practices. Each chapter is a different plateau, an inchoate and alternative mapping, a "cartographic gesture" to make the hegemonic languaging of technology "cry, to make it stutter, mumble, or 18 whisper" (Deleuze, 1994b, p. 25), Geographically, topographically, epistemologically, methodologically, each plateau becomes an isthmus in that it connects. I write them as an archipelago—a smattering of seemingly unconnected isolated epistemo-geographies which are commonly identified not by their submarine and occulted connections with one another, but by their surface features, such as being other, being surrounded by water (disconnected).
Islands, like understandings, have to do with levels of awareness, tidal shifts, gravitation, points of view. If the sea level went down sufficiently, the (conceptual) archipelago would become one island or even part of the mainland, a peninsula. The story changes as 1 change or as I am layered by my experiences.
I seek to include non-visual metaphors to companion plant here—heard/unheard, felt/unfelt, tasted/untasted smelled/ unsmeUed—to get away from contemporary Western culture's addiction to the visual. I am aware of the trap of using paired perceptivities, mcluding the prefix 'un-' as an antonymie gesture which polarizes the mind as it makes efforts to divide ideas into camps or cold frames as it journeys through the dynamic templates of grammar and usage. Patti Lather (1991a) articulates the importance of language in the construction of knowledge-making:
The linguistic turn in social theory focuses on the power of language to organize thought and experience. Language is seen as both a carrier and creator of culture's epistemological codes. The ways in which we speak and write are held to influence our conceptual boundaries, (p. 13) And, Tyler (in Vizenor, 1993) believes that discourse is the "maker of the world, not its m irror.... The world is what we say it is, and what we speak of is the world" (p. 4). Examining how power functions to produce both meaning and the subject within the growing technologization and institutionalization of knowledge, Foucault (1979) cautions that:
19 It is in discourse that power and knowledge are joined together .... [W]e must not imagine a world of discourse divided between accepted discourse and excluded discourse ... but as a multiplicity of discursive elements that can come into play in various strategies.... Discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy, (p. 100-101) My research and writing journey required that 1 become an itinerant,
sojourner, without a permanent resting place. An irritant. From a place of
awkwardness and oblique angles stretching the gap between the terrain of
technology education discourses, as one of few women in this 'discipline,' and
educational technology, 1 tried to become othenvise and elsewhere, manoeuvering through the perverse etymologies and fossilized landmarks that appear as landmines to me. Elsewhere and otherwise are not something or somewhere else but among, within and without each of us—not in the future, for it is here. This remapping is an appeal to imagination—tremblings on the verge of a different conversation for technology in schools.
The co-researchers and myself journeyed across and beyond the dominant discourses, taking different paths and making different connections, as we changed our angles of seeing and used other senses, letting go of conventional wisdom. As 1 gathered up my thoughts and tried to stuff them into chapters, plateaux, or mesas (depending on Coyote's sense of humour), they leaked out, disappeared, and then reappeared in other places and forms, asking different questions. While this study is about the deadly seriousness and ethics of reshaping the landscape and Netscape of western technology discourses to foreground gender, cultural, socioeconomic and ecological implications of the
"New World Order, Inc." (Haraway, 1997). This storytelling is indeed partial, fluid, and ambiguous and 1 ask for "a generous literacy from the reader" (p. 15).
20 A Columbus Coyote Story, by Native American, Thomas King began this study. "You do want to finish don't you?" King asked when he realized that
Coyote would be tracking throughout this dissertation, and would act in aeolian ways to prolong its completion. Plateau 1003: Re:Mapping, positions the theoretical geography for the cartographic remapping journeys of this dissertation. Plateau 1004: Mesa Morph Ing Methodology situates my methodological positionings. Plateau 1005: Critical realist tale is a realist tale composed of three dialogues: the 'official' curricula, theories and practices; data stories collected from questionnaires and interviews with technology education students and their teacher; and an initial analysis of these data stories. Next is an intermezzo with Plateau 1006: Beyond technology tales as a shift to some of the stories that have been left off the maps of technology discourses—feminist, antiracist and environmental readings. Plateau 1007: A cultural tale is a space of intervention to unlearn and rethink western cultural knowings. This plateau is a classroom interaction between a colleague from Kenya and the technology education co-participants, which is then joined in by other indigenous writers from this land, as well as from other continents. Plateau 1008: Virtually a tale is an 'about- poststructuralism' space, where theories of 'real' and 'virtual' environments blur as they converge and digress. Plateau 1009: Dataplay is a poststructural writing space, an enactment in the form of a play by the educational technology co-participants to share their stories of technology. This study comes to an end with Plateau 1010: Plus de plies which folds back to previous plateaux, in particular to the data, for further analysis and consideration of the implications of this study for the teaching of technology and educational inquiry.
21 PLATEAU 1003
RE:MAFPING
I want to draw a map, so to speak, of a critical geography and use that map to open as much space for discovery, intellectual adventure, and close exploration . . . without the mandate for conquest. (Morrison, 1992, p. 3)
[T]he map of the world that we carry within ourselves would do weU to include the boundaries of its own geography.... If there is a geographic determinism of the world, it lies in how we have learned to imagine distance and difference. (WiUinksy, 1998, p. 158)
Situating the geography of the study
With this plateau, 1 map the theoretical and methodological geography for
this study, situating the boundaries of my own notions of being/ becoming
and knowing in the world. I am reasonably grounded in critical and feminist
theory, intrigued by the possibilities of poststructural theory, and learning
ways of knowing which are different worlds than theoretical constructs.
Feminist and critical theories have done much to transform our
understandings of patriarchal industrial capitalism, while poststructural
theories offer a way of opening the rhetoric of universal technology
discourses beyond oppositional reflections and toward a dynamic horizon.
They provide a "theoretical vocabulary and a language of decolonizing for
22 piercing the closed horizons of technology, and for listening intently to the
'intimations of deprival' in the midst of the celebratory ruins of the American
way," as well as "resistance strateg[ies] for living in a culture tattooed by
digital reahty" (Kroker, 1992, p. 165). Language and technology become
viruses, contaminating the structures of one another. Postmodern discourse
is a form of speaking in tongues as "writing focuses on the outer flow of
speech, seeking not the thought that 'underlies' speech, but the thought that
is speech" (Tyler, quoted in Vizenor, 1993, p. 4). Poststructural theories s-s-
stutter.
My theories are intersected by my experiences with, and knowledge of,
technology in industry. For over twenty years, I worked in private industry
and in government in positions which included building designer,
planchecker, building inspector, factory inspector, industrial relations officer, human rights officer, and Canada safety officer. Much of my work was in areas generally considered non-traditional for women. I have inspected berry farms, the homes of 'knitting women', foundries, construction sites, international airline hangars, rail yards, terminal grain elevators and office buildings for non/ compliance with building, occupational health and safety, labour, and human rights regulations. My work has provided me with valuable hands-on knowledge of, and experience with, the diversity and complexity of workplace technologies, as weU as their social, cultural and environmental implications. In 1984, 1 designed and built my own home.
23 My theories also come from my positioning as one of few women who
has entered the terrain of technology education. In British Columbia, for
example, there are over 1,000 technology teachers, 10 technology instructors at
the British Columbia Institute of Technology where the technical component
of the Technology Education Teacher Education Programme is undertaken,
and 2 technology education professors at The University of British Columbia,
where students complete the pedagogical component of the programme. At
present, there are 5 female technology education teachers, no female
technology education instructors and no female technology education
professors. I am either on the margins of technology educators^
understandings with respect to technology education, or right off their
cultural maps, even with my diverse industrial background. Rather than see
this as deficit positioning, I prefer to celebrate this space of awkwardness as a place where I can inhabit and explore different worlds. I experience a lot going on from this aisle seat.
My knowledge of technology discourses goes beyond the geopolitical and cultural maps of institutionally legitimated discourses of the two northern countries of North America. I have first-hand knowledge of the new Technology curriculum in the United Kingdom, where significant curricular revisioning has gone on in comparison to the work taking place in
Canada and the United States. Funded by the British High Commission in
1990, 1 completed research on teacher education programmes at Goldsmiths'
24 College (University of London), Middlesex Polytechnic, Leeds Polytechnic, as
well as at private and public schools. In February 1997,1 was invited to guest
lecture in Melbourne, Australia, at the Centre for Education and Change,
Geelong and Burwood campuses, Deakin University, and at the Centre for
Studies in Mathematics, Science and Environmental Education, Geelong
campus. My involvement was primarily to explore the possibilities of
integrating technology education with environmental education. Currently, I
am a lecturer in technology education at Massey University in Aotearoa/ New
Zealand, with my primary role to build up the postgraduate programme from
critical, cultural and environmental positionings.
Through my participation in my husband's community, the Stl'atl'imx
Nation of BC, and with people from indigenous communities around the
world, in particular Kenya, Australia, and Aotearoa/New Zealand, I am learning ways of being in the world which are neither theoretical nor linguistic, but are different conversations within the world. This involves reciprocal "nurturing and being nurtured" (Apffel-Marglin, 1998, Grillo,
1998), a conversation of humans, plants, soils, waters, animals, climates, and so on (Cole, 1999; ndunda, 1995), quite foreign to anything I have learned in any of my formal education. I am deeply affected by these conversations which I became immersed in part-way through this research. They turned what seemed like a relatively straight-forward-with-some-rhizomoves project, into a chaotic dance between what I have to do to meet the
25 requirements of the academy, and what I have to do to honour my engagement w ith/in these conversations.
Theories of difference
My desire for this study, as the title suggests, was to explore a different technological literacy in education, one which affirm s difference. Rather than paying allegiance to universels and standards, my desire was to 'minorize' technology discourses and to destabilize their "history-lessness" and "context- lessness" (Morrison, 1992) which contribute to the division of the 'West' and
'the resf in their assertions of civilization and attendant global geography of capitalism.
John Willinsky (1998) writes that the legacy of imperialism in the West is that we are "schooled in differences" and, I add, to become indifferent. We are taught how to divide the world and to construct borderlines of discrimination and difference "between civilized and primitive. West and
East, first and third worlds .... to the disadvantage of so many people" (p. 1-
2). Difference is constructed as 'other', as negative. Despite this, Russell
Ferguson (1990) writes:
Perhaps it is not too much to hope for a future in which we can recognize differences without seizing them as levers in a struggle for power. But making this future must involve us all. Men cannot dislocate themselves from "women's issues," straight people cannot ignore the struggles of gay and lesbian people, and white people cannot declare themselves indifferent to racial politics. It is too easy for a "sympathetic" self-effacement to become another trick of quiet dominance, (p. 13).
26 The work of Gilles Deleuze, a philosopher and s-st-utterer himself, and
his partner, Félix Guattari, a psychoanalyst. Their project is a radical poUtics
to subvert the normalizing theoretical and institutional barriers and codes of
both psychoanalysis and capitahsm, which is particularly relevant to this
study as technology discourses become more disciplinary and standardized.
According to Michel Foucault (1983), Deleuze & Guattari (1987) are especially
concerned with the growth of fascism, not only in political movements, but also within each of us, the "fascisms that cause us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us" (p. xiii). They refer to the social apparati within the dynamics of capitalist economy as "machines," which record, channel, and regulate the coded flows of the "body of the earth . . . the body of the despot. . . and the body of capital"—machines "because their operations are not simply random; they are coded, or, rather, are loci where coding forms and maintains itself" (Lingis, 1994, 291).
Deleuze & Guattari call attention to the problem of creative and vital existence in a global capitalism predicated on the narcoticization and robotization of its subjects. They emphasize the importance of combatting the ('paranoiac') personaHty type that requires rigid centredness, authority, stabUity, and obedience, the kind of subjects that cannot tolerate difference of others and march readily in fascist movements. . . . Their work is highly political in character, drawing out the pohtics of language, desire, and everyday life. (Best & Kellner, 1991, p. 105)
In Repetition & Difference, Deleuze (1994a) analyzes what he refers to as "capitalist axiomatization," in which the subject is folded inside from an outside through repetition and discipline, decoding the subject for recoding
27 and reforming into ^identity' to coincide with capital and surplus-value.
Michel Foucault (1979) refers to such folding of the subject into the inside by
the dominant culture's codings as "technologies of normahzation." He
argues that it is within the spaces of the shifting relations of the power/
knowledge apparati where people become re-identified and re-coded. Such
social mapping and surveillance transforms people into both objects of an
exterior gaze, and subjects of an "interiorization of the gaze" (technologies of self). His most famous example is Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon or
Inspection House, manifest in the form of a French prison. According to
Deleuze (1995), the "disciphnary society" Foucault wrote about is surreptitiously turning into a "control society."
This is evidenced in schools through standardization, hardening of the categories, of technology discourses in education—"curriculum as code"
(Robins & Webster, 1989), with students becoming technically caHbrated, coded and code dependent—" pharmacodedependents" (Ronell, 1993) for a culture of compUance. Technological hteracy' in schools seems to be about the making of "commodity bodies" (Massumi, 1992) isomorphing to capital as
"connoisseurs" and "virtuosos of the code" (Foster, 1985, p. 175).
[Djifference and repetition have taken the place of the identical and the negative, of identity and contradiction. For difference implies the negative, and allows itself to lead to contradiction, only to the extent that its subordination to the identical is maintained. The primacy of identity . . . defines the world of representation. But modem thought is bom of failure of representation, of the loss of identities, and of the discovery of the forces at work beneath the representation of the identical. . . . [thinking] difference in itself independently of the forms of representation which reduce it to the Same, and the relation of 28 different to different independently of those forms which make them pass through the negative (Deleuze, 1994a, p. xix)
Of repetition, Deleuze writes that "perpetual displacement of difference, restores bare, mechanical and stereotypical repetitions, within and without us" from which we extract "little differences, variations and modifications
.... Repetitions repeat themselves, while the differenciator différenciâtes itself." This research project was a différenciation, extracting little differences, variations and modifications from bare, mechanical and stereotypical repetitions, and finding the "holey space" in the "apparatus of capture"
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) of textual and material practices which fuse space and time in western technology discourses. How might it possible to get out of the capitalist grid in the teaching and learning of technology?
Rhizomatics
Deleuze (1995) suggests that humanity's "only hope lies in a revolutionary becoming: the only way of casting off their shame or responding to what is intolerable" (p. 171). These are revolutionary becoming ways of affirming difference by occupying the order(ing) words, taking up space-time, or inventing n e w space time. They are desire for engaging in the world as affirmation of life.
Deleuze & Guattari (1987) offer the concept oi rhizom e as acartographic gesture of deterritorialization in contradistinction to what they refer to as w estern arborescent thought which is organized systematically and
29 hierarchically as branches of knowledge grounded in firm foundations.
While arborescent thought seeks to colonize rhizomes and to turn them into deeply rooted structures.
The rhizome is altogether different, amap and nota tmdng. Make a map, not a tracing .... V^at distinguishes the map from the tracing is that it is entirely oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real . . . The map is open and cormectable in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be tom, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group, or social formation. It can be drawn on a wall, conceived of as a work of art, constructed as a political action or a meditation .... has multiple entryways, as opposed to the tracing, which always come back "to the same." The map has to do with performance, whereas the tracing always involves alleged "competence." (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 12-13)
Rhizomes affirm what is excluded from Western thought and reintroduce reality as dynamic, heterogeneous and non-dichotomous; they implicate rather than replicate; they join, circle back, fold. Emphasizing the materiality of desire, like crabgrass, ants, wolf packs, and children, rhizomes reterritorialize space. Rhizomatic lines have no beginning or end, they are always in the process ofbecom ing. Deleuze & Guattari write of three types of lines: m olar, which fix and normalize identities within social institutions; m olecular, which are the cracks in the rigidity of the molar; and, lines of flig h t, "where cracks become ruptures and the subject is shattered in a process of becoming multiple" (Best & Kellner, 1991, p. 100). As such, multiplicities are created which are not multiples of the Same, thus interrupting overcoding. Such a multiplicity is a syncretizaton changing territorialities
30 and positionalities, much like Coyote, with lines of flight folding back "on its
rhizome-multiplicity to become one of its dimensions" (Canning, 1994, p. 75).
Elizabeth Grosz (1994) writes that "rhizomatics is a form of pragmatics:
it is concerned with what can be done" (p. 200). She suggests that rhizomatics
"provide a powerful ally and theoretical resource for feminist challenges to
the domination of philosophical paradigms, methods, and presumptions that have governed the history of western thought and have perpetuated,
rationalized, and legitimated erasure of women and women's contributions
from cultural, sexual, and theoretical tife" (p. 190). Grosz enters into the rhizomatic project articulated by Deleuze & Guattari as an exploration and navigation of "feminist conjunctions" toward "nomadic" thought and subjectivity. Grosz is particularly interested in resurrecting the question of the "centrality of ethics, of the encounter of otherness" (p. 196), rather than prescriptive moral imperatives. Rosi Braidotti (1994b) also considers rhizomatics as a way to rethink alterity and otherness. For Dorothea
Olkowski (1994), rhizomes are active forces which operate "by means of self- affirmation," while reactive forces "deny the other" (Olkowski, 1994, p. 129).
Working rhizomatically, "there may be some surprises in store in the form of upsurges of young people, of women, that become possible simply because certain restrictions are removed (with 'untechnocratixable' consequences)" (Deleuze, 1995, p. 172). Rhizomes re-root and re-route the terrain, its tracks, and narratives which has been covered, inhumed and
31 otherwise disestablished through oUgarchy in its many guises. The botanical
nature of the rhizome figuration blurs the boundary between 'human' and
'nature', with becoming as "ecosophy" and "points aléatoire" (Deleuze &
Guattari, 1987), inclusive disjunctions, sensibly needed for understanding
between all living things,
N om adics
"Nomadic thought" is a form of rhizomatics which breaks with "State
thought" and makes it s-s-stutter (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). Nomadic
thought rides difference:
Rather than analyzing the world into discrete components, reducing their manyness to the One of identity, and ordering them by rank, it sums up a set of disparate circumstances in a shattering blow. It synthesizes a multiplicity of elements without effacing their heterogeneity or hindering their potential for future rearranging (to the contrary). (M assumi, 1987, p. xiii)
Brian Massumi writes that "analogical thought starts from an isolated
individual considered to be typical, and ends in a category coherent enough to
take its rightful place in a preexisting system of good/common sense" (p. 99).
Nomadic thought is "becoming" bodily thought, unhinging habitual and
reactive thinking, regularity and normalized inscriptions. It grows from the
middle, the cracks, the voids, the hyphens, the slashes. It is in relation.
Nomadic thought is an undoing which pulls the door open on analogy, not by overturning habit, molarity and reactivity, but by remapping a different space. Nomadic thought cherishes derelict spaces and holes in habits, and
32 maps a whole new virtual landscape featuring other-worldly affects, always marginal and transversal. Nomadic thought acts to blur boundaries, activate metaphors to become figurations, and "create a new body at the ground"
(Massumi, p. 94). Other bodies and life-spaces emerge, but need to come out and throw off the camouflage as they are never complete; they are always becom ing.
Nomads traverse territory, they know the land, they follow customary routes, but, "[t]hey have no points, paths, or land" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 381). They inhabit rather than own/possess land. Like the First People of
Canada, they know where they can find water, and food and where to make shelters. Their routes are not fixed or in closed space, rather they are both the river and the tributaries that flow into it—that make up the mainstream.
"The life of the nomad is the intermezzo" (p. 380). Nomads are not the same as migrants or immigrants, they speak the language o fthe land, not logos, but no m o s. Nomads are not technologically primitive (Benjamin, 1997; Cole,
1999; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). They know how to liberate difference, provide new models, disorganize and decode State thought and subjectivity and experiment with creativity to become or remain non-fascist. "The nomad knows how to wait, [s/]he has infinite patience (p. 381). Becoming- nomad is giving up a place that is safe, that is home, redefining what home is.
For this study, this means the safety of universals and standards, the taken- for-granted of the hegemonic technology discourses.
33 Rosi Braidotti (1994) suggests that to animate a nomadic subjectivity
requires a "qualitative leap of the feminist poHtical imagination" (p. 3) to
create a figurative style of thinking which is a politically informed way to
"think differently about the subject, to invent new frameworks, new images,
new modes of thought" (p. 1).
The cartography of the . . . embodied subject, just like Foucault's diagrams of power, is always already the trace of what no longer is the case. As such it needs to be started all over again, constantly. In this repetition of the cartographic gesture there lies the potential for opening up new angles of vision, new itineraries. Nomadism is therefore neither a rhetorical gesture nor a mere figure of speech, but a political and epistemological necessity for critical theory at the end of this century, (p. 182)
Nomadic subjectivity starts with thought rooted in the body. The "new
nomadism" advanced by Braidotti is not simply a matter of willful practice; it requests working through our history, our representations and the storylines we hve within.
Rhizoanalysis as minorizing majority discourse
Hal Foster (1986) sees Deleuze & Guattari's concept of "the minor" as one way to resist, exceed and disrupt the monopoly of the code. The minor is a cultural practice that is in excess of the differential logic of the code. It is "an intensive, often vernacular use of language form which disrupts its official or institutional functions" (p. 177). The minor does not want to become an official language, nor does it romanticize the marginal or individual. It is a
"collective arrangement of utterances" (Bensmaia, 1994) rather than
34 standardized coding. "A minor literature is not the Literature of a minor
language but the Hterature a minority makes in a major language" (Deleuze
& Guattari, 1987, p. 16). It is a matter of finding a way out of the labyrinth of
the majority language.
[I]t is not a matter of opposing "reality" (which one?) to myth, but, on the contrary, given the existing circumstances, of extracting from the myth a "lived actual" that would make it possible to account for the impossibility of living in the conditions that people have inherited. (Bensmaia, 1994, p. 224)
Deleuze (1994b) writes that we should not simply mix or add up minor
languages, but that we need to cause the language to flee, to grow from the
middle, placing it in a state of perpetual disequilibrium.
It is when the language system overstrains itself that it begins to stutter, to murmur, or to mumble, then the entire language reaches the limit that sketches the outside and confronts silence. When the language system is so much strained, language suffers a pressure that delivers it to silence, (p. 28)
For Homi K. Bhabba (1990), minority discourse is a "performative space of the perplexity of the Uving in the midst of the pedagogical representations of the fullness of life" (p. 307), where signs are turned into paradoxes of modernity.
For the purposes of this study, minority discourse can deterritorialize and remap a missing terrain, and people. The geography and the people are not missing, only in the majority language. First Peoples have had to learn how to minorize the majority language in the reclaiming of their land and their culture through the revival of their traditional oral languages which have been whited out by the dominant culture. Minor language presents
35 uncompleted pasts repressed by capitalism and intensifies these
contradictions in the present. It is a "need to connect the buried .... the
disqualified (the minor) and the yet-to-come (utopian or better than desired)
in concerted cultural practices" (Foster, 1985, p. 179).
A critical look at rhizoanalysis
As exciting as Deleuze & Guattari's politics of difference is, 1 have some
similar concerns as those raised by Steven Best & Douglas Kellner (1991).
Their first concern is that collective struggle and possibilities for large-scale
social transformation (mainly against capitalism), get lost in microanalysis
and politics, "a postmodern replay of the aesthetidst tradition of modernity . .
. seeking refuge in art, the body, and highly individualized modes of being"
(p. 109). Deleuze (1995) writes himself that "[w]hat we are interested in, you
see, are modes of individuation" (p. 26). Best & Kellner beheve that issues of
intersubjectivity and social relations become undertheorized in the
individuality of 'becoming' and rhizomatic lines. A second concern is the productivist mode of discourse of their concept of desire. Best & Kellner
question how the "Deleuzo-Guattarian 'ethic' . . . breaks from capitalist and
consumerist behaviour" (p. 107). They argue for intersubjectivity and a
politics of alliances at both micro- and macro-levels. For me, such a politics
also fives between the micro- and macro-levels.
36 Such concerns resonate with my own disquiet about the explicit emphasis on the needs and desires of the (western) individual and production, as the modus operandi of both technology discourses in education and educational inquiry. Traditionally, both have been about
'more', 'better' and 'new': one, creates new products for the market, the other, creates new knowledge for the academy. Best & Kellner suggest that:
For Deleuze and Guattari, desire is neither inherently good nor bad, only dynamic and productive; desiring machines can travel along the path of becoming-revolutionary as well as becoming-fascist; lines of escape can turn into hberation or destruction, (p. 105, emphasis added)
Verena Andermatt Conley (1993) takes up the concern of the appropriation of becoming' by IWC for destructive ends.
Next to exhorting subjects, in a miniscule semantic shift, to remain flexible, it mirrors another, false becoming, one of temporal obsolescence, hence new markets. ... In a market economy, it has shifted toward destruction and the staggering p ro d u ctio nof unusable trash, (p. 85, emphasis added)
Conley maintains that under "the guiseot fake becoming, that is, of a betterment and irreversible improvement of reality used for the marketing of products, capitalism thrusts people forward while engaging them in a deadly race in which profit is the only motive for advancement" (p. 82). This fake becoming masks the perpetuation of colonialism and colonization as it mobihzes those who have creating a greater divide between those who have and those who have not, "exacerbating local ecological struggles anywhere and at once, all over the globe" (p. 85).
37 Technology of empire and manifest manners
So I would return to the classroom's unfurled maps and ask, what geography lessons on this georacial understanding of the world, so critical to the work of imperialism, do students still acquire? (Willinsky, 1998, p. 140)
Western educational discourses, and technology discourses, specifically, are
"geographies of difference" (Willinsky, 1998), fixing and constituting culture as assembled on western maps for education, and absenting indigenous epistemologies and technologies in western signification. They are manifest manners. For example, while studying at The Ohio State University, I was saddened by the absence of Native Americans as students and in the academic discourse. As in Canada, Native Americans have been all but eradicated from the land, from the histories and from the memories of the academy. When I raised this absence in a graduate seminar, one of the graduate students laughed and responded: "Why? We don't have any 'Indians' left in Ohio."
Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood, written by Robbie Robertson (1994), a
Haudenosaunee (Mohawk) songwriter/performer, and inspired by a speech by Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Nation, does not take the absence of 'Indians' so lightly:
Perhaps you think the Creator sent you here to dispose of us as you see fit If I thought you were sent by the Creator I might be induced to think you had a right to dispose of me Do not misunderstand me But understand me fully with reference to my affection for the land I never said the land was mine to do with as I choose 38 The one who has a right to dispose of it is the one who has created it I claim a right to live on my land And accord you the privilege to return to yours
Brother we have listened to your talk Coming for our father the great White Chief at Washington And my people have called upon me to reply to you
And in the winds which pass through these aged pines We hear the meanings of their departed ghosts And if the voice of our people could have been heard The act would never have been done But alas though they stood around they could neither be seen nor heard Their tears fell like drops of rain
I hear my voice in the depths of the forest But no answering voice comes back to me All is silent around me My words must therefore be few I can now say no more
He is silent for he has nothing to answer when the sun goes down.
Indigenous people, like other rhizomes and nomads, such as crabgrass, dandelions and coyotes, have been pulled up by their roots and expected to die (Blaeser, 1994b).
A buried root. A nuisance people dig up and throw into the sun to wither. A globe of frail seeds that's indestructible. (Erdrich, 1993, p. 258)
39 The biggest holocaust in history happened in North America and in
Australia, with 85% of the First Nations, Native American and Aboriginal people being eradicated through bounties, starvation and European diseases.
At the same time it has tried to eradicate the indigenous "nuisances," the dominant culture has been discovering some uses for the traditions and technologies of the indigenous people. First Peoples' spirituality and
'artefacts' (technologies) are being appropriated, trivialized, trinketized, and marketed for healing Western ills—for profit. But, indigenous knowledge and spirituality are not for sale. Their culture is not some prehistoric untapped 'natural resource'—pre because it is beyond Euro understandings and histories (Attwood, 1994). First Peoples' sensibilities, cultural meanings and connections are lost in the transactions. Imagination and performance are reduced to New Age sweats and curiosities—Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow's, The Song of Hiawatha, Michael Blake's, Dances with Wolves,
Robert Bly's "wild man" in Iron John, Disney's Pocahontas (brown Barbie).
Wannabes are the world's largest tribe.
Western people don't know what they are catching when they have dreamcatchers in the offices, homes or cars (Cole, 1997).
white people sell sweetgrass dreamcatchers eaglefeathers medicine bags you name it they got it or can get it in taiwan hongkong japan formosa indonesia ko rea those newager highwager trinketizer whities dishonour the indian people whose land they stole hey monias wanna buy some authentic ated First Nations poop midden locally hooo you got that one good so whydon'tchatakedown all that stuff 40 about my culture off your wails and shelves and tables and display boards and sell your own how about that oh you don't hmmmmm (Cole, 1997, p. 3)
Many of those who have survived five hundred years of colonization are reviving their culture through the recovery of their indigenous languages, epistemologies, technologies and spirituality, as well as reclaiming some of their traditional lands which have been taken away through treaties, flooding, pollution, resource extraction, and expropriation. I was invited to attend two academic conferences: Indigenous Traditions and Ecology at
Harvard University in November 1997; and Translating Native American
Cultures: A Conference on Representation, Aesthetics, and Translation at
Yale University in February 1998. The Yale conference was an historic event.
It was the first major academic conference in North America at which every speaker was either First Nations or Native American. At the Harvard conference more than half of the speakers were anthropologists, sociologists or historians speaking/or indigenous people. Western perceptions of indigenousness can only be Western. This is spelled out quite well by
Eduardo Fernandez Grillo (1998), writing about Andean culture in particular:
[Ijntellectuals, technicians and artists in general consider that the terminology of modem Western culture is the only valid one. . . . Academia has taught them that there is a single world and that it is the modem Westem world; and they have taken pains to learn it well. But the reality is not like that; there are as many worlds as there are cultures. Therefore, whatever evaluation that can be made of the Andean world in terms that are foreign to it, simply does not concem it. That is why there is a great mismatch between Westem or Westernized intellectuals and the Andean people. The Andean world and the modem Westem world are incommensurable, (p. 128)
41 I am learning through my involvement with my husband's community, the
Stl'atl'imx Nation of BQ that there are many knowings I will never have because I have not been raised in a First Nations community. My Mohawk maternal heritage was a place of silence and kept from me, my sisters and brother as we were growing up, except for a stop each summer at the
Kahnawake reserve on the way to visit our Irish- and French-Canadian relatives in Quebec.
I pause and wonder about my own indigenous ancestry geography about my Mohawk grandmother a place of silence in our family and trickster/Coyote emerging from and surviving my general examination in the midst of talk of cyborgian imagery in schools is my own geography such a coincidence the Pacific Northwest where the weather is ever-changing unpredictable where First Nation's people are gaining stren gth is it a coincidence that the small ‘cf coyote is resisting all human endeavours to eradicate h/er/im moving into urban areas including the endowment lands at The University of British Columbia not to mention parking lots around Simon Fraser University named after Simon the 'discoverer' paddle, paddle... perhaps, they want to move trickster discourse into the university the place of one true story that one g ot away.
42 It is important to do more than merely communicate across a border to another culture, transiting the imaginary line of 'othernesses'. How did the border got there in the first place, and how it is sustained? Although
'post'colonial and 'minority' critics have challenged the dominant politics of knowledge, as Robert Warrior (1998), a member of the Osage Nation and associate professor of English at Stanford, said at the Yale conference,
"Postcolonial theories will never help us. What is needed is the unsettling and undoing of hierarchies, rather than piecemealing alterNatives."
Rhizoanalysis meets trickster discourse:Canis rhizomaticus
Serious attention to cultural hyperrealities is an invitation to trickster discourse, an imaginative liberation in comic narratives: the trickster is postmodern. (Vizenor, 1993, p. 9)
Trickster discourse is a minorizing discourse which has been around long before Deleuze's conceptualization of 'the minor' and is an important dimension of the culture of First People of North America. According to
Gerald Vizenor (1993), trickster discourse creates "narrative chance," "comic holotropes" and "dissident narratives." It offers potential for remapping, freeing our imagination so that it can do "pleasurable misreadings" and rewriting of technology. Trickster discourse is a postmodern storytelling, which has been around long before modernism, and its 'posts'; it has different in/sights/sites, an at once serious and comic discourse.
The trickster is not a structural code or an invitation to the arcane. The trickster is a comic sign not a trope to power in social science, (p. 192)
43 It is relational, a collage, a pastiche of utterances that deny completion for reintegration.
The trickster is "within language" and not a neutral instrument that reveals codes and structural harmonies.... The trickster is a sign and a patent language game in a narrative discourse; science is language closure, a monologue in theoretical contention, (p. 194)
Orthodox science demands one true story, one that is objective, valid. Wild knowledge has no place in social science monologues; it escapes and exceeds capturing (for consumption and analysis). Hyperreality talks with hyperreality, not with the land, nor with the people. Trickster, whether it be
Coyote or Raven or Nanabuzho, speaks to the imagination, speaks with anyone who will listen, and listens to anyone who wishes to speak.
The best listeners were shadows, animals, birds, and humans, because their shadows once shared the same stories. [Bagese] said there were tricksters in our voices and natural sounds, tricksters who remembered the scenes, the wild visions in the shadows of the words. She warned me that even the most honored lectures were dead voices, that shadows were dead recitations. She said written words were the burial grounds of shadows. The tricksters in the word are seen in the ear not the eye. (Vizenor, 1992, p. 7)
Trickster discourse is an aeolian harp and an "unstudied landscape" (Vizenor,
1993), whose horizons are forever in motion. Trickster/Coyotes and coyotes are weatherers/ whetherers and need a lot of space, not the closed and sterile environments of hyperreality.
The colonists strained to tame the wild, the tribes and the environment. Now, high technologies overbear postcolonial promises and transvaluations; the tragic mode is in ruin. (Vizenor, 1993, p. 10)
4 4 Vizenor (1993) points out the paradox in Westem culture that when so
much emphasis is on image, there is a corresponding demise of imagination.
He cautions that too much surveillance and observation [research?] by
academics abrogates narrativity—and orality. Trickster discourse is s-s-
stuttering; it is pregnant pauses, the beat of the unmanifest. It does not
presuppose all silences to be the same. Hearing surpasses seeing in trickster
discourse. Trickster discourse is intentional gaps, ambiguity, equivocality,
narrative chance arising in the silences of heard stories which are not voids
needing fulfillment; it is a discordance, "rumour and wild conversations"
(Vizenor, 1993), making words "flee from the middle" (Deleuze & Guattari,
1987) creating ululations, semiomorphs—glossolations.
The trickster narrative situates the participant audience, the listeners and readers, in agonistic imagination; there, in comic discourse, the trickster is being, nothingness and liberation; a loose seam in consciousness; that wild space over and between sounds, words, sentences and narratives. (Vizenor, 1993, p. 196)
Trickster discourse animates and liberates language. Trickster discourse creates contradiction between presence, absence and silence leaving no mechanistics for representation. It is not about prescription, rather about wonder, chance and coincidence.
Trickster narratives are suspensive, an ironic survivance; trickster metaphors are contradictions not presentations of culture. The peripatetic trickster is a deverbative narrative in translation, a noun derived from a verb, an elusive name that bears the shadows of the heard in active narratives and the tension of nominalism. (Vizenor, 1994a, p. 170)
nanabuzho that crazy one he dances and moves and jives and shadows 45 and does all kinds of verb things the english language has no idea about he's a coyote raven transformer wüd and crazy spirit wrestler that one (Cole, 1997, p. 3)
Trickster discourse provides labyrinthine language directed toward different knowings, refigurations of what is possible in the impossible. It is learning to disimbricate our own stories, to become epiphytes, or airplants which need neither stem nor root, thriving from the nutrients of the air. Airplants are botanical hitch-hikers seeking a place in the sun; residing between the trees, and the rhizomes. Bromiliads are one type, which themselves host an array of small life, but need no real host themselves. They just become.
The trickster is real in those who imagine the narrative, in the narrative voice. (Vizenor, 1993, p. 189-190)
It is not the place of westem intellectuals to simulate First People. That would be manifest manners. Besides, Trickster is not something to celebrate, revere, and romanticize, and non-indigenous people are unaware of the dangers of the Trickster. As researchers and educators, we might, however, leam to recognize the tricksters in our own cultures, and in ourselves.
This study is a rhizoanalysis, a remapping effort locating ruptures and
"holey space" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) in the molecular lines of technology discourse for lines of flight which affirm difference. To do so, ethically, I need to move to the same side of the lens as those left out of the westem conversation, and without assimilation or appropriation. Rather than entering the narrow fields already furrowed (and too often planted with
46 monocultures and cloned cultivars), I need to step aside for volunteer crops, adventitious shoots and rhizomes. I need to resituate myself from centre stage so that I might leam from those in the wings and the audience, especially the aisle seats. This requires that rhizonanalysis become Canis rhizomaticus remapping a multicentred geography, and inscribing a different and intercultural conversation that addresses the disappearance of other in education. This means learning and researching with indigenous people, and standing with them in their struggles for physical and spiritual survival.
47 PLATEAU 1004:
MESA MORPHING METHODOLOGY
Methodological framings
Lather (1991a) defines methodology as "the theory of knowledge and the interpretive framework that guides a particular research project" (p. 4). The stories of Westem science are stories of "clear-sighted vision" (Haraway, 1991, p.
4) through "eyes that see without being seen" (Foucault, 1984, p. 189), guided by the conventional notions of value-neutrality, impartiality, and rationality that result in 'imbiased', dispassionate, disembodied objectivity. They are about the
"view from everywhere" (Haraway, 1991c), which is the view from nowhere, the view from out of the (ocean) blue.
The eyes have been used to signify a perverse capacity—honed to perfection in the history of science tied to militarism, capitalism, colonialism, and male supremacy—to distance the knowing subject from everybody and everything in the interests of unfettered power, (p. 188)
Ann Game (1991) refers to this subject-object distancing of the gaze as the
"sociological mirror," which "refers to a conception of knowledge as correspondence or as adequate reflection" (p. 20). Michel Foucault (1980) argues that such modes of objectification can be understood as practices of power-
48 knowledge that transform people into both objects of an exterior gaze
(technologies of normalization), and subjects of an interiorization of the gaze
(technologies of self). Such a structure of scientific vision, with both external and internal surveillance, turns everything into a resource for appropriation— females, people of colour, people of less-industrialized cultures, this planet, outer space—to benefit patriarchal capitalism.
With orthodox science in crisis, there is a proliferation of contending and overlapping paradigms including positivist, interpretative, critical, and deconstruction (Lather, 1992). The following is a condensed sketch of these paradigms, all the while acknowledging their complexities, contradictions and impossibilities for such fi"aming. Positivist research methodology signifies a
"leap out of the marked body and into a conquering gaze ... like the god-trick, this eye fucks the world to make techno-monsters ... the cannibal eye of masculinist extra-terrestrial projects for excremental second birthing" (Haraway,
1991, p. 188-189). Such a researcher insists on an objectivist ontology, thus moving about as a spectator, or flâneur, using the power of a disengaged and limitless vision to distance the subject from everybody and everything.
A researcher has several methods to use when moving about on an interpretivist map—hermeneutics, constructivism, symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, and naturalistic inquiry. This map has an ontology that can fluctuate between objectivism and subjectivism as meaning is sought in 'context.'
49 Working on this map, a researcher acknowledges multiple realities/ ways of
knowing with multiple stories, rather than universalizing narratives of positivist
inquiry. Although researchers working on this map have done much to question
science's construction of women and people of other cultures, because the
research is "tied into developmental stage theories, the research adds to without
problematizing the limits of such frameworks" (Lather, 1992, p. 94). Another
shortcoming is that the research does not go beyond rationalist explanation.
Researchers on a critical map want to know the world in order to work
towards changing it. The different methods on this map used to negotiate
change—participatory, neo-Marxist, praxis-oriented, microethnography,
Freirian, race-specific, minoritarian, and feminist, as well as variation and combinations of these methods. Much of this map is marked by hegemony theory which posits the subjects as needing emancipation from the dominant ideologies of capitalism, patriarchy, and colonization, and the researcher acts as advocate or change agent. However, researchers on this map need to tread carefully so that they do not appropriate or romanticize the voices of the
'oppressed,' while claiming to see from their positions.
The borders of a deconstruction m ap/ territory are more blurred and fluid than the others, with multiple and complex ways of telling data stories. There is no fully knowable. On this map, a researcher unthinks and rethinks her/his assum ptions, beliefs, and values, vy^orking with the researched rather than for or
50 on. This map is not an integration of the positivist^ interpretive, and critical
maps, nor a paradigm shift from them, but it co-exists with them as pre-/"post-
paradigmatic diaspora" (Lather, 1992). Rather than single or totalizing
narratives, the stories are "partial, locatable, and critical knowledges sustaining
the possibility of webs of connections called solidarity in politics and shared
conversations in epistemology •.. but not just any partial perspectives"
(Haraw ay, 1991c, p. 191-192).
The stories and practices of this study move within and between the
borders of the positivist, interpretive, critical, and deconstruction maps, which
are in flux themselves, as well as maps that are not in the 'knowledge producing'
conversation. Plateau 1005: Cnfzca/rea/isf ta/e, is a realist tale located m ainly on
the positivist map. Plateau 1006: Beyond technology tales, stretches across an
interpretivist and critical map. Plateau 1007: A cultural tale, m oves between a
critical map, a deconstruction map, and maps alteric to these. Because of its
mainly theoretical geography. Plateau 1008: Virtually a tale, is situated virtually
on a deconstruction map, whilePlateau 1009: Dataplay, is more nomadic, actually
deconstructing and creating its own map. Plateau 1010: Plus de plies is a. revisiting of the epistemological and methodological learnings from the study, as well as a consideration of different possibilities for technology discourses and educational inquiry.
51 Research Design
Prior ethnography
Although ongoing for twenty years in industry, my ^formal' remapping of technology discourses began at The University of British Columbia with my master's thesis (O'Riley, 1992), and continued at The Ohio State University through the prior ethnography for this study with technology education students and their teachers, as well as my general examination. My master's thesis,
Contextualizing the gendered and industrial bias of technology education, was limited to critical and feminist critiques, dealing primarily with gender issues and capitalist agendas for schooling generally, and for technology education specifically.
In the prior ethnography, a complicated/complicating enactment of technology education discourses was played out by two technology education teachers and their Grade 12 students in Columbus, OH. The imprint of the dominant technology storylines was unmistakably imposing and tedious.
However, having experienced great resistance to females in technology education during my studies, I was pleasantly surprised at the openness of the two male technology educators. They wanted to know how to encourage girls to take their classes. I was fascinated with the circulation of power among the students, teachers, and myself as researcher, and encouraged by the resistance of the students to the interpretations of the prescribed curriculum as played out by
52 their teachers. Their resistance was not about wanting to act out, but rather a
'smartness' about the irrelevance of their education to their lives.
For my general examination at The Ohio State University I completed a preliminary topology of the terrain of the discourses on technology already 'out there' by such storytellers/mapmakers as: mainstream philosophers —Albert
Borgmann, John Dewey, Jacques Ellul, Martin Heidegger, Don Dide, Karl Marx,
Langdon Winner; poststructuralists —Michel Foucault, Noel Gough, Elizabeth
Grosz, Donna Haraway, David Harvey, N. Katherine Hayles, Fredric Jameson; feminists —Ruth Swartz Cowan, Suzanne Damarin, Teresa de Lauretis, Corlan
Gee Bush, Cynthia Cockbum, Barbara Garson, Sally Hacker, Heather Menzies,
Ursula Franklin, Judy Wajcman;anti-racists —Sandra Harding, Aida Hurtanto,
Chandra Mohanty, Joseph Needham, Third World Network; popular culture— student, media, trade union, cyberpunk; andtechnology educators—British
Columbia, International Technology Education Association, and two classroom teachers.
These mappings are made even more complex by the multiple positionalities of the writers themselves. Their stories, at times in contradiction and in tension, are a tangled web of technology tales that are more comprehensive than the contemporary notions of technology which focus on electronic paraphernalia, tools, and systems. Several of these writers' include discussion of technologies considered 'primitive' and 'low' tech by the westem
'high' tech standards.
53 The sites for this study
The research for this study took place at two sites: a high school in
Langley, British Columbia, Canada, and a university in Wayne, NJ, USA.
Following my own beginnings in academia with a B.Ed. in Industrial Education
and an M.A. in Technology Education, my initial research was done paying
particular attention to technology education discourses. The study expanded to
include educational technology discourses through my doctoral studies in
Educational Technology at OSU, and my teaching experience in Educational
Technology at WUliam Paterson University.
A. Technology education:
Co-participants, entree and field relations
Peter M cLaren (1992) w rites th at w e "need to connect ou r empirical
data to the discourses that produce them" (p. 80), and Jim Thomas (1993) writes
that we should choose participants who possess "insider knowledge." In my
study, the insiders who were intimately connected to technology discourses both inside and outside school include technology education students, their teacher, the educational technology teachers, a colleague from Kenya and myself, as co researchers.
Nietzsche (1979) writes that no one can extract from things more than they already know, and that for "what one lacks access to from experience one will have no ear" (p. 70). Counter-practices and counter-discourses are most likely to
54 come from those who fall outside of the overcoded westem gaze. Anti-racists and feminists, in particular, have played a major part in "challenging the dominant politics of knowledge through their 'wild' practices that have been in general counter-systemic, contestatory, and antidisciplinary" (Behdad, 1993, p.
43). Their voices insist upon a counter-disciplinary mode of knowledge, troubling Westem culture's sociopolitical propensity for compartmentalization—
(bar)coding. Regardless, many attempts at including the voices of those overcoded by Westem master narratives and practices have simply been "add and stir" tokenism, leaving unchallenged their exclusionary structures. As
Audre Lorde (1981) contends, "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" (p. 99).
One way for me to remap technology stories, was to include those stories and storytellers outside of the cultural borders of traditional technology talk. My own positioning as 'other' marked by my gender in technology education, and the positioning of mutindi ndunda as other-other' by her gender and race / ethnicity / geography, provided analytic geographies which disrupted and reshaped technology discourses. Our voices joined in to introduce "difference into repetition" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983), w ith repetition representing the rituals and codes on the dominant maps, and difference as the 'wild' and untheorized ontologies and epistemologies outside Westem technology sites/ sights.
55 The research for the technology education segment of my study began in
Langley, BC, Canada, with a technology education teacher, Phil Crawford, and
his Grade 11 and 12 students. I chose this particular technology teacher because
he was educated as a technology teacher at Goldsmiths' College, University of
London, and he taught technology in London, where the Technology curriculum
had just gone through significant change in comparison to the re/visions in
Canada and the United States. Phil Crawford had also been reconsidering the
male ocddentation of technology education for some time. We both served on
the executive of the British Columbia Technology Educators' Association. After
getting verbal approval from PhU Crawford, I met with his principal. Les
Dukowski, then sent a formal letter to the school district, including Appendix A ,—
Overview of the Study requesting permission to complete my research with him
and his students.
In the third week of September 1994,1 held an orientation meeting with
Phil Crawford's Grade 11 and Grade 12 technology classes, and gave a synopsis of my initial thoughts for the direction of this study. 1 asked if any of them would be interested in working with me to reconsider 'technology' differently in schools. I asked for volunteers who felt enthusiastic/ troubled / curious about creating a different discourse for technology in schools, and sent home a copy of
Appendix A —Overview of the Study, as well as consent forms, for their and their parents / guardians signed consent. Twelve students agreed to participate in the research project the only female in technology education and 11 males. Both
56 verbally and on the consent form, the students were informed that they could withdraw from the study at anytime.
Methods
Between October 1994 and June 1995,1 proceeded as follows:
• I held a group meeting with the 12 volunteers, including their teacher, at
which we explored three broad and overlapping questions: 1) how they
perceived technology?; 2) how did they come to these understandings of
technology?; and, 3) where do they see themselves in these discourses? I
asked them to take home Appendix B—Grounded Survey I Questionnaire so
that they could have more time to think about our discussion and to write
down their thoughts.
• I analyzed their responses and met with them again as a group to discuss
the questionnaire responses. This meeting took place in the technology
lab. AH students were present and four of the male students did not speak
during this discussion, although I had been in their classes several times
over the preceding four weeks. These four students sat at the back, and
several of the other students appeared hesitant to speak in front of the
group at the back. I wanted to find out if they were able to move beyond
their curricula and to consider what and what might be left out of the
57 technology talk in schools. The interview with Phil Crawford took place
over lunch following the class discussion.
Two weeks later, another large-group meeting was convened at which
time I talked with the students about what came out of the previous meeting and asked for their feedback. I also asked them to start thinking
about what they might like to have as a technology curriculum if they had a say, and about the im / possibilities of remapping to include what and who was left out in their current curriculum.
In a group meeting a week later, I introduced storytelling and trickster/
Coyote through a reading and discussion of Thomas King's,A Columbiis
Coyote Story, which is the pretext for this dissertation. We had a discussion about who gets to teU stories, whose stories are listened to, and curriculum as a storytelling practice. We discussed possibilities of remapping technology discourses in schools from more diverse and complex 'perspectives', as well as from other than visual knowings.
Two weeks later, at the request of Phil Crawford, I gave a talk to the entire
Grade 11 and 12 technology classes on Gender and Technology.
One week later, I m et with the co-participants as a group to talk about their thoughts/feelings about what I had presented on gender and technology, and if it made them think and feel differently about technology.
58 • Two weeks later, mutindi ndunda, a colleague from Kenya, who was
completing her Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in Science
Education, gave a talk to the entire Grade 11 and 12 classes on traditional
technologies in her culture, and on what westem technology is doing to
the way of life for the people of her country, and in particular, the people
of her district, KUome.
• I met with the Grade 11 and 12 classes two weeks after mutmdi^s visit to
talk about their thoughts and feelings regarding their discussion with her,
and to consider the possiblities of including the knowledges and
technologies of non-Westem communities into technology curricula. We
also discussed environmental implications of Westem technologies, both
at home and around the world.
• Because of the students' unease with the gender talk, as well as mutindi's
culture talk, I asked if they might like to talk in smaller groups so that they
would have a chance to say things that they might not feel comfortable
about in a larger group. They decided on groups of two. In these
interviews, they students were more open and reflective. We also
discussed their thoughts and feelings about the research project to that
point as a way of tracking my own biases.
59 • Four weeks later, I held a large a group meeting where we discussed how
technology discourses might be reshaped, and if so, what they might
become and who might be included.
• We held a final large group meeting to go over the data collected to
ensure that I was presenting their stories as accurately as possible. We
ended this meeting at a local restaurant which they had decided on at the
earlier meeting. This was my pizza treat to thank them for their
participation. Over dinner, they expressed thanks for being asked to have
a say in their education.
• mutindi ndunda provided written feedback on the entire dissertation,
with specific attention to Plateau 1007: A cultural tale.
B. Educational technology:
Co-participants, entree and field relations
In the Fall of 1997 and Spring of 1998,1 taught educational technology undergraduate and graduate students at William Paterson University in New Jersey, on a one-year NAFTA contract. In September, I was given four courses to teach, two of them graduate courses—CISE 611-60, Telecomputing for
Educators, a course on how to use the Internet, andCISE 611-60, Hypermedia:
Theory & Practice, a course on how to useHyperStudio in classrooms. 'Theory^ was in the title, but nowhere in the course description for the latter course. The
60 students came to class expecting a different teacher, a person familiar to them,
who had designed and taught these courses predominantly as hands-on
computer training. The computer programmes were accepted by the graduate
students as givens, and they assumed that they needed only leam the
^technicalities.'
When I took the appointment, the Department Chair agreed that I would
be adding theory and critical analysis of computers in education. I tried to find a
way to work witii the hands-on expectations of the students by balancing
practice and theory, and encouraged discussion of technology as more than
computers and multimedia through readings on gender, cultural, socioeconomic
and environmental implications of Western technology. It was a very difficult
term—for tiie students, and for me.
For the Spring 1998 semester, to my surprise, many of the same students
took my classes although they had other electives available to them, and they
knew that 1 would only be there until June. CISE 612-60, Integration of Multimedia
into the Curriculum, was designed as a course to leam a database programme, and
CISE 625-60, Learning Technologies Seminar, was designed as both hands-on and
theory.
Once again, concerned about the heavy emphasis on hands-on at the
graduate level, with no courses in the programme area on curriculum theory,
and one course offering quantitative research methods, 1 approached the
Department Chair about the possibility of changing the course orientations.
61 Coincidentally, in the Fall 1997 semester, many educational technology teachers
(grad students) had expressed concerns about wanting to know more about research methodology. The Department Chair agreed that I could change the database course to include some preliminary data collection and analysis for their thesis. I renamed the course, CISE 612-60, Integration of Multimedia into the
Curriculum: A différent take on data. CISE 625-60, Learning Technologies Seminar became a place for the students to become introduced to a variety of theories on technology.
Since educational technology is one of the two areas claiming the word
'technology' for what they teach, during the Spring 1998 semester, I decided to ask the grad students, all female, who were completing a Master's degree in
Educational Technology if they would be interested in contributing to the technology conversation. They were all teaching fulltime in public and parochial schools, while completing graduate coursework in the evenings. The teachers were given Appendix A —Overview of the Study, and consent forms. Eight of the teachers from the previous semester agreed, stating that it might be a rich learning experience for them to be in someone else's data, while doing their own data collection and analysis, and six joined in once we started writing up the data. They became both researcher and researched, as well as co-writers of their own data stories on educational technology for this study.
In the reseach methodology class, the teachers had already been through some discussion and reading on data collection and analysis, and were exploring
62 their own possibilities for writing up data for their Master's thesis. I had explained my own tentative explorations, and the teachers knew at that point that they might end up as 'characters' rather than as 'citations' in my dissertation. They were delighted by this, although they knew that when it came to their own writing, depending on who they would end up with as an advisor, or committee, that they might have to do a more restricted data analysis and writing. A few had already written journal entries in a poetic voice, and one teacher tentatively read one of her poems in class a few weeks into the semester.
A few were beginning to play with writing, having words grow from the middle, in their journal writing and in their own classroom teaching practices.
M ethods
The teachers were asked to respond to the following questions in any form at/genre they wanted:
• What were your understandings of 'technology' prior to taking my classes?
• Has this changed, and if so, in what way?
• How has it changed what and how you teach 'technology' in your own classrooms?
• Have these different understandings changed how you live in your everyday life in a technological society?
63 I collected their responses, which were in standard prose, as well as the poetic and dramatic voices with a variety of fonts which they felt expressed their ideas and feelings, then wrote them into a draft of the dataplay on Plateau 1009. They were given of copy to rewrite their parts, which was then revised and returned to them for another writing rehearsal. The six teachers who did not volunteer at first joined in after the first rehearsal, which was not only a great deal of fun, but a place of much learning and sharing. They were all given a final copy.
Field relations and data analysis: some ethical considerations
Working with co-participants who volunteer, communicating my agenda orally and in written form, requesting signed consent, assuring anonymity, and involving the co-participants in both the design and the retelling/remapping of their stories can work towards minimizing harm. Judith Shulman (1990) talks of the tensions between anonymity and visibility as participants may want to remain visible. Because "[t]he researcher needs to share with .., her subjects the discourses at work that are shaping the field site analysis and how the researcher's own personal and intellectual biography is contributing to the process of analysis" (McLaren, 1992, p. 84), the co-participants were given an abstract of my study outlining the purposes, methods, and theories grounding my study as well as researcher background information.
According to Susan Noffke (1990), "[mjethodology, epistemology, and ethics are couched... not in terms of the establishment of the rules for
64 proceeding, butin the exploration of research relations and relationships" (p. 5).
She writes that for research to be "ethically defensible," not only anonymity and
confidentiality are important but also responsibility for how the research affects
the participants. She cautions researchers to pay particular attention to the
"potentials for manipulation and misuse" (p. 16) of the openings into the lives of
the participants. It was important to make visible contradictions and tensions by
tracking the circulation of the power of my own voice in how I dealt with the
responses and different mappings of the co-participants. For purposes of
trustworthiness, this study needed to be a "mutual, dialogic production of a
multi-voice, multi-centered discourse" (Lather, 1991b, p. 14). If 1 was to walk my
talk with respect to affirming difference, the study needed to be respectful, reciprocal and coUectively-made. For example, the educational technology co researchers and myself mapped adataplay as a montage/pastiche/poesis—a
'valid' piece of academic writing—allowing for the untidiness and provisionality of their data stories that refused and exceeded containment, confinement and codification. This study was concerned with both coded/coding technology discourses, as well as struggling to find ways to author(ize) my research without undue categorizing and coding. Scheurich (1996), drawing on the work of
Spivak, makes connections between our drive for knowledge with its "incessant deciphering", and the historical western "territorial and cultural will to power"
(Spivak, quoted in Scheurich, p. 55).
65 One of the reasons for my angst about coding is that many of the students in technology education are there because they are often coded 'special needs' students, categorized as 'low' ability and 'low' performing academic students.
Special needs is too often about gender and colour and socioeconomics. Students are there to undergo transformation and correction, their 'wild knowledge' mastered/ (dis)solved. The current hot-wired solution is to plug technology education students into a shop-programme-tuming-into-computer-lab.
Supposedly, students are to come out the other end of the electronic-lab- assembly-line education 'technologically literate' à la Bill Gates and his virtual pals—marketable commodities for hire. Perhaps it is the teachers who have special needs, seeing their role as refabricating students into "docile and obedient subjects" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983). Educational technology is no different— computers are used for 'drill & practice' on 'special needs' students, too often children of non-Westem heritage. The 'gifted' students, on the other hand, are allowed room to 'explore' hypermedia in ways that suit their particular 'learning styles.' For me, all children are special and gifted, often though, these gifts are neither visible nor valued to those trained to seek out 'mistakes' so that their
'deviant/ deficient/ different' behaviour and ways of knowing can be reformed to fit inside the lines of the dominant 'norms'—forcing a child to colour within the lines of someone else's drawing, to follow the 'high'ways of someone else's map.
Coding of data discourses are not distant cousins of standardizing discourses, but more intimahily related. Coding becomes a mobius twist, an
66 ironie twist, though one taken with extreme seriousness. As researchers, we collect data, cut it up and reduce it to codes, then sustain these codes until they turn into large generalizations to explain and validate the universe and ourselves. But, the earth and people are already valid. W e/it exist/s. Ye^ we insist that this unanalyzed manifestation is not sufficient evidence intellectually, and we set out to methodologically reify. We then make ^arguments' to support our data coding, because this is considered epistemologically more respectable than acausal takes. Tracking the perfect code— this convinces us, and our peers, that we have a better story, that we have gone beyond, that we have 'added to' the western knowledge project. By reconstituting the already constituted. And, we have satisfied our 'passion for the code.'
Strauss & Corbin (1990) talk of researchers "purposely tracking down relationships" (p. 112) through "a systematic precise set of procedures that can't be done haphazardly or at the whim of the researcher" (p. 46). They set the scenario and provide a set of analytic tools, open andaxial coding, for researchers as code hunters, excavators, and spelunkers to categorize and inscribe research data. With open coding, the researcher's 'gaze' can dissect, then examine and compare, the byte-sized 'chunks' of data. Axial coding is then used to link these fragmentations to other fragmentations to form sub-categories through a
"paradigm model" which enables the researcher to "think systematically about data.... [for] density and precision" (p. 99). From here, the researcher is to go on to a process of selected coding by "filling in the categories that need further
67 refinement and development" (p. 116). Their next suggestion is to "arrange and rearrange the categories in terms of paradigm until they seemto fit the story, and to provide an analytic version of the story" (p. 127, added em phasis). This story is to be told accurately, logically and sequentially.
There is an abundance of literature on how to code data stories, how to get the story 'right'—finding the 'Truth' or 'essence' of the data. For example, Juliet
Corbin (1986) describes coding as ordering, recording, storing, and "reducing raw data into concepts that are designated to stand for categories" (p. 102) which then are used to develop theories. Janice M. Swanson (1992) quotingWebster's
Dictionary defines "category... [as] any of the basic concepts into which all knowledge can be classified ... [and] a class or division in a scheme of classification; as, to put a person in the samecategory w ith another" (p. 122).
Data is something to be dissected, "taken apart fact by fact" (p. 104). Similarly,
Judi Marshall (1981) contends that researchers need to categorize the data so that it can be reduced to a "manageable form." Crabtree & Miller (1990) also use data management/ control talk, and they go so far as to suggest that researchers outfit themselves for their journey as "code hunters and excavators" with a "codebook as tool." Once the data is broken into its code bits, according to Crabtree and
Miller, the goal is to summarize the data, placing another layer of coding, an overcoding, to contain and compress the research data. Stratification.
Composting. A middens approach to epistemology.
68 Glesne & Peshkin (1992) take a less stringent approach to data analysis, suggesting that from the outset of their own inquiry they create "analytic files" such as a subjectivity file, a title file, a beginnings/ endings file, and a quotations file. This initial coding scheme is to assist researchers, when "entering the code mines" to negotiate their way through dense and complex "fat data" in order to move beyond "information bits" to some ^^knowledge construct" (p. 132).
Regardless, these stances of data mining, extraction and inscription, assume that there are isolatable 'truths' disguising human agency and 'generative' imagination in the construction of 'facts'. Coding becomes a technology, an arte/ factual strategy, for researchers to turn their data fictions into facts for academic consumption and distribution.
In work on readers' theatre. Bob Donmoyer (1985) writes that "human beings are more than a collection of cognitive constructs" and he suggests that we may need to find other ways of collecting/reporting data than "traditional
'antiseptic modes'" (p. 54). Peter McLaren (1993) suggests that researchers "must camivalize the lifeless terrain of empirical research so that the concept of agency is not reduced to frozen statistics but can be embodied in the critical affirmation of the researcher as laughing fool who challenges the ideas of the rational western self-identical subject wrapped in reifications and rationalizations" (p.
290).
69 Making room for story
Several writers are looking at storytelling as a more ethical way to do research.
However, as Cathy Woodbrooks (1991) points out, much of academic storyteUing
is told in the third person with researchers distancing themselves from the
storylines and storytellers. Laurel Richardson (1994), maintains that writing is
more than teUing 'other' stories, it is also a way of knowing and a method of
discovery and analysis. She suggests "writing from ourselves" so that our
writing is not only more honest and engaging, but also a way to leam and unfold
ideas. Richardson argues for a postmodern context as a way of writing-up
qualitative research, with the co-researchers as both site and subject,
acknowledging the partiality of both researcher and co-researcher, and
acknowledging that language is composed of competing discourses which lead
to data and data analysis, creates space for critique and retelling.
As Elizabeth St. Pierre (1997) writes, "[tjhose who try to problematize the
language of humanism and its demand for instant and transparent
understanding believe that language of the logos has produced very real structures in the world that have been terribly brutal to many people" (p. 185).
Since the concept, data, is so crucial to the research process ... my desire is that it transform itself so that w e can use different methodology and different knowledge to describe the world. [That is if w e are still into describing.] (St. Pierre, 1997, p. 180)
St. Pierre brings to the foreground and affirms data traditionally "burdened and even violated by the language and practice of humanism" (p. 176). Once she
70 "placed dato under erasure," she was able to let go, theorize, refigure and rename
"data that escaped language" (p. 179) and "to ask different questions and thus
change the topic of the conversation entirely." (p. 176). St. Pierre's "transgressive
data"— emotional data, dream data, sensual data, and response data —are "out-of
category and not usually accounted for in qualitative research methodology" (p.
175). Emotions defy textualization, coding, categorization and analysis, yet affect
our data in profound ways. "Dreams refuse closure; they keep interpretation in
play" (p. 183). Sensual data is about the "physicaHty of theorizing" (p. 184),
bringing the body into the data and blurring the m ind/body splitting of
traditional theory making. Response data is a renaming and reworking of
member checks and peer debriefing. St Pierre writes, "I will continue to use the
w ord data, its meaning has forever shifted for me and will continue to shift as I
prod and poke [Is delving the only way?] at this foundational signifier on which
knowledge rests. I will, in the future, undoubtedly write sentences using data
that may not be too clear" (p. 185). "Attempting to follow the rhizomatic
disintegration of the narrative knowledge production in qualitative research is
more than one researcher can manage," suggests St. Pierre as she encourages her
readers "to follow their own 'Hnes of flight'... based on their own work as they
think about data with me in this discussion" (p. 179).
Similarly, the co-participants and myself followed our own lines of flight, not only as disintegration, but also as mutual learning, making connections with
different conversations of taking up the world. Why do rhizomes come up?
71 Desire to live, to be engaged in the world? Heliotropism? Geotropism? Both figure and ground. Rhizoanalysis was a tool for the co-researchers and myself, as co-cartographers—geoanalysts—to reshape technology talk. We revisited the territory and resurveyed from a diversity of positions and geographies, learning to see, hear and feel the unseen, the unheard, the unimaginable, resisting stratification, solidification and unification, and creating new passwords to modify the standards and disrupt the electrical currents. Rhizoanalysis is fluid, flexible, conjunctive, regenerating, and fun—not a place of dry intellectualization.
Robert Donmoyer (1996), finding himself in a ^gatekeeper' position as editor of the Educational Researcher, opens the validity question as to what is
'acceptable' academic writing. The Educational Researcher has advanced "all sorts of nontraditional ideas," however, the writing has been in "relatively traditional ways, that is in a way we have come to recognize as academic as opposed to some other form of discourse" (p. 20). In other words, researchers could write
'about' but not 'do' otherwise. Writing was to remain in western intellectual conceptual space—whatever that might look like. If education is sincere in its commitment to acknowledge difference, then "nontraditional" and experimental language need to be acknowledged as well. Donmoyer is concerned that
"incoherent nonsense" (p. 21) not be accepted just because it is different, and suggests the following: "submission of nontraditional scholarship should be encouraged, and virtually all papers... should be sent out for review"; "a range
72 of reviewers be selected to assess each manuscript;" and, "the editor's decision
making about the fate of a particular manuscript should reflect and mus^ in fact,
be constrained by reviewers' judgments" (p. 23).
Over the past decade, different genres of writing have been affirmed as
acceptable academic writing. Daphne Patai (1988) wrote the stories of the
Brazilian women she interviewed as a prosepoem, a voice closer to the women's
own voices than academese. In an article on student resistance to liberatory
curriculum, Patti Lather (1991b) "explores what it means to write science
differently" (p. 123). She crafts four narrative "vignettes" to tell her data stories
in a ways that allow her to "move outside the domain of conventional textual
practices." Her self-reflexive vignette is written as a "playlet" that "foregrounds
the performativity of language" (p. 124). Lather ends the article with a poem by
A. R. Ammon.
In 1993, Laurel Richardson had an article published in TheSociological
Quarterly in which she presents "sodal-sdence writing transgressions" (p. 695) using dramatic, poetic and an academic voices to present her data.
I try to write sodology that moves people emotionally and intellectually. When successful, the texts violate sodology's unwritten emotional rules. Sodal sdence writing is supposedly emotionless, the reader unmoved. But, just as other sodal sdence writing conventions (e.g. prose, passive voice, omnisdent narrator) conceal how truth -value is constituted, the affectless prose style conceals how emotions are harnessed in service of a presumed truth-tale. Readers of traditional sodology think they are feeling nothing because what they are feeling is the comfort of Similac, a formula, which maintains the illusion that sodal sdence is all intellect. Suppressed are complex, differentiated, intense, and more mature feelings. The suppression of these feelings shapes a sodology which is
73 lop-sided—lopped off in the body. How valid can the knowledge of a floating head be? (p. 706)
Richardson writes that it was not an easy process. Her article had been given a dismissive reading by one reviewer, and "trivializing-as-commonplace" com m ents by another.
Another example is Peter Cole's (1998) recent article in the Canadian
Journal of Environmental Education, which is written in a poetic/ storytelling voice, a voice more in keeping with the orality of his First Nations culture. As weU,
Cole's (1997) comprehensive examination (general examination) for his Ph.D. in
Education at Simon Fraser University set a precedent as it was written in a combination of voices—traditional academic prose, storytelling, dramatic and poetic.
I knew that, in order to continue writing and producing knowledge, 1 had to find a different strategy of sense-making, one that might elude humanism's attempts to order what never can be contained ... I wrote, determined to become a stranger in my own language and leam some of w hat it is hiding. (St. Pierre, 1997, p. 176)
Elizabeth Adams St. Pierre (1995) wrote a courageous, creative and 'moving' dissertation using poststructural theories, including Gilles Deleuze's image of the fold— la pH—as a "metaphor to help us move toward the unthought"— a performative figuration "to trouble the meaning ofdata in a study" (St. Pierre,
1997, p. 177). La pH [déplié —deployed; rapliament —retreat] is a form of rhizo/schizo/analysis. Similar to Van M aanen (1988), St. Pierre (1997) is critical of the prevalent notion that only textualized data can yield data, which we then
7 4 "[re]translate ... into language, code that data, then cut up pages of text in order to sort those coded data bits into categories How can language, which regularly falls apart, secure meaning and truth? How can language provide evidentiary warrant for the production of knowledge in a postmodern world?"
(p. 179).
If language falls apart, does that mean that it becomes incoherent? Do meaning and truth rely on language staying together? What about Deleuze's
(1995) s-s-stuttering and minorizing language and Vizenor's (1993) trickster discourse? And, what about indigenous communities whose conversation within the world is both linguistic and nonlinguistic (Apffel-Marglin, 1998; Cole,
1997)?
More transgressing. Elizabeth Grosz (1995) writes of transgressing transgression, "rethinking and questioning the presumptions of radicality—not from a position hostile to radicalism or transgression (as the majority of attacks are) but from within" (p. 4). To dissolve the "relentless forces of sameness" requires endless negotiation, "more inventive kinds of [inscription and] subversion ... and more joyous kinds of struggle we choose to be called into" (p. 6).
Plateau 1009: Dataplay is offered as an experiment in a more joyous kind of struggle to write up data. It is offered not as a superior positioning or challenge to transgressive validity an d transgressive data, rather as a rhizom atic dance loith them , another dress rehearsal, including the dynamic (and appropriate) integration of technical cues into the action. The dataplay is an "excessive analysis" (Grosz, 1995),
75 an experiment in holding together seemingly disparate elements—explosive rage, silence, tenderness, and humour. It is a move not to subordinate, homogenize, reduce and regulate the movements and thoughts of the co-participants to my codes/grids/ templates. It is a co-production of creative language through material practice with my co-participants, their co-participants, and with theorists from the other plateaux rhizomatically resurfacing as characters in the dataplay. It is
"turbulent impredictability'^ (Cage, 1994), trickster discourse, whether in any weather. It is a political act of affirming life, by moving rhizomatically to break with fedi wo thinking fgdzwosubjectivities and reconstituting ourselves as nomadic thinkers and nomadic subjectivities, in our efforts to remap the terrain of technology discourses in schools.
Validity as incitement to discourse
In research grounded in humanist-positivist assumptions, method has primacy relying on internal validity, external validity, reliability, and objectivity as criteria for
^trustworthiness.' Postpositivist researchers view such methods as little more than a smoke screen to presume trustworthiness. Lincoln & Cuba (1989) enter the paradigm war talk by introducing parallel postpositivist trustworthiness criteria: credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. In their chapter on data analysis, Glesne & Peskin (1992) write about triangulation of observations, interviews, and questionnaires as a way to achieve trustworthiness. They also suggest that the alertness to biases, sharing the interpretations with the participants,
76 and realizing the limitations of the study all enhance the credibility of the data analysis. Lather (1986) suggests four frames of validity that are "more systematic about establishing the trustworthiness of data" (p. 65): triangulation, construct validity, face validity, and catalytic validity.
In later work. Lather (1993) writes of validity as inciting discourse and contributing to "an ^imjamming' effect in relation to the closed Truths of the past, thereby freeing up the present for new forms of thought and practice" (Bennett, as quoted in Lather, p. 676). She wants to "retain the term [validity] in order to both circulate and break with the signs that code it" (p. 674), opening the dialogue on her former notions of validity with four "provocateurs of validity after poststructuralism [that] are performances of transgressivea validity that works off spaces already in the making" (p. 683)— ironic validity, paralogic validity, rhizomatic validity, and voluptous validity. Lather's transgressive validity has "a critical focus, a postmodern focus, and an ethical/political focus" (Scheurich, 1996, p. 57). They seek to simultaneously move to critique dominant storylines, and to undermine the assimilation of difference into the Same.
James Scheurich (1996) argues forvalidity as the play of difference, "validity practices that are respective and appreciative of the Other" (p. 56). This new imaginary is not about questing for knowledge at the expense of others. Validity as the play of difference requires multiple perspectives, bodies and voices. And silences.
There must be a "willing suspension of habitual speech" in spite of the "persistent.
77 anonymous, invidious proliferation of the Same/Other binary both within our
practices and our very subjectivities" (Ruddick, quoted in Scheurich, p. 57).
Lather's transgressive validity and Scheurich's validity as the play of difference
mark a move to "a Bakhtinian dialogic carnival, a loud clamor of a polyphonic,
open, tumultuous, subversive conversation [with] validity as the wild,
uncontrollable play of difference" (Scheurich, p. 58). For this study, I joined into this
conversation, engaging both Lather's and Scheurich's validities.
Lather's four frames oftransgressive validity appeared to be most intriguing in anticipating an opening of technology discourses in schools. All four valdities are significant to this study. Ironic validity acts much like trickster/Coyote taking on many forms and disguises. It is a shifting location of the knowable, foregrounding the insufficiencies of the one true story, displacing and decentring the universality and homogeneity of traditional technology discourses. It is not a simple variation or alternative, but a repositioning and reshaping of the master narratives to allow for more performative and dynamic discourses. The students, their teacher and I, looked at the rhetorical nature of technology talk, disrupting it as a 'regime of truth', displacing its historical inscription as 'industrial' technology, and gesturing towards the problematics of representations of/for technology talk in schools. We started with Thomas Kings's, A Columbus Coyote Story, a delightful retelling and shapeshifting of Columbus' 'discovery' of 'America' and 'Indians" fi-om a First
Nations point of view. The curriculum universals and standards were placed in question, by examining the ruptures between the languaging of technology in
78 schools and in the world. We considered the "failure to represent", by looking at other realities, both who and what is left out of the technology curriculum, and what might be, displacing and remapping a different terrain, and a terrain of difference.
Paralogic validity fosters differences, undermines and implodes controlling codes of the frameworks of the master narratives, all the while acknowledging the existence of these codes. Recognizing the multiplicity of languages (including our own multiple languages), "fragmenting and colliding with both the hegemonies and opposition codes...[we] work[ed] to loosen the thematic codes". For example, the technology students, their teacher and I considered biotechnology, information technology, and control technologies as they become implicated in technologies of gender and race, reproductive technologies, environmental racism and sweatshop technologies in underprivileged countries.
Rhizomatic validity allowed us to move within the spaces of the cracks and interstices of the pro- anti-technology discourses and to work against/within the traditional technology tales, "creating a nomadic and dispersed validity" (Lather,
1993, p. 677). This is a place of conjunctions and webs w here w e created new stories of technology, decentring our own commonsense, as we moved among different contestatory technology storylines, leaving the contradictions in tension. This was initially an uneasy place for the students as they started to break down and to rethink their present practices. However, it turned out to be a place ofaffirmation of their own knowledge, knowledge often discounted in schools. The data collected.
79 working within these three validities, shaped both Plateau 1005: Critical realist tale
and Plateau 1006: Beyond techrwlogy tales.
The fourth framing, voluptuous validity, is a place to 'Toosen the m aster code
of positivism" (p. 674). This is a place of excess, disruption and insubordination,
going AWOL. This is a place of ethics, a politics and epistemology of positionality
rather than universal and objective claims, a place of self-conscious partiality that is
situated and embodied. Here we situated the epistemological foundations for
technology education as shaped by a Western male imaginary, as we moved to
disrupt and exceed the borders of the mappings of technology by including the
knowledges and experiences of women and people of other cultures. I gave a talk
on gender and technology, and a colleague from Kenya, mutindi ndunda, talked to
the students about the traditional technologies of her community as well as what
Western technology and ^development' has done to her people, the Mkamba of
Kilome District. The data from this part of the study forms part a section ofPlateau
1006: Beyond technology tales, and is a major part ofPlateau 1007: A cultural tale.
For the Educational Technology segment of the study, I called on Scheurich's
notion of validity as the play ofdijference to work with the data. I attempted to
background and silence my voice as principal researcher, and to foreground the points of view of the co-participants. Together, we mapped dataplaya as a creative
montage/pastiche/poesis—a 'valid' piece of academic writing—allowing for the untidiness and provisionality of the data stories that refused and exceeded containment, confinement and codification. The writing, staging, editing and
80 rewriting acted as both data collection and analysis, and formed one of the plateaux of dissertation. Plateau 1009: Dataplay.
Scheurich (1996) cautions that postpositivist forms of validity are simply
"masks that conceal a profound and disturbing sameness" (p. 49) because they are still part of the Western knowledge project with both trustworthiness and validity as border making, bifurcating, and policing strategies; they fix norms, demarcating what is valid and what is not valid. The borders of these successor forms of validity still remain a "regulatory" (Foucault 1977) process that acts to "exclude views that question or attack the paradigmatic status quo as well as views outside the understanding available to the status quo across both conventional approaches and more radical versions of postpositivism" (Scheurich, 1996, p. 53). Scheurich views validity as an imperialist project and "redeployment of the Same" (p. 56) and argues for a "difference project." Similarly, Gayatri Chakrovorty Spivak (1990) w rites of valid as a word to "to dodge around the harsher and more legalistic correct" and suggests instead "scrupulous and plausible misreadings ... without the cant of theoretical adequacy" (p. 389-340). On Plateau 1010: Plus de plies I begin a consideration of possibilities for a 'difference project' for educational inquiry— research as an intercultural conversation and mutual learning community.
81 PLATEAU 1005:
CRITICAL REALIST TALE
She said: What is history? And he said; history is an angel Being blown backwards into the future He said: History is a pile of debris. And the angel wants to go back and fix things. To repair things that have been broken But there is a storm blowing from paradise And the storm keeps blowing the angel Backwards into the future. And this storm, this storm Is called Progress. (Anderson, 1994, p. 282)
This plateau is where the territory of ^one true story' of technology offered in education is surveyed. This is a critical realist tale and the "first ordering"
(Van Maanen, 1988) of the data for this study. According to Van Maanen, four conventions are required for a realist tale: absence of the author from the text; documentary form describing and redescribing 'discovered' details into categories; translating routine events, slogans, and cliches of the 'native' point of view; and, interpretive omnipotence, interpreting the data through
'proven' grand theories. Van Maanen suggests:
82 Embarrassment with such realist conventions is one response in some fieldwork communities. When viewed as literary creations, realist tales may not seem so very real at all. (p. 67)
The first section on this plateau is an historical overview of the 'field'
of technology education, which is then followed by a description of the 'facts'
of current technology education curricula. Data collected from the grounded
survey (Appendix B), journal writing and interviews with the technology
education students and their teacher is analyzed in relation to the prescribed
curricula and pedagogy, as well as the business influence in the curriculum
design. Critical questions are raised about the equity, relevancy and
appropriateness of the 'technological literacy' of the technology discourses.
Two tales spinning
Over the past two decades there has been a flurry of curriculum re visioning in education to ensure that students become 'technologically literate' with two areas emerging from the fray as the primary areas for the design and dissemination of 'technology' discourses: technology education and educational technology. Technology education is industrial education rewired, while educational technology is the new kid on the block (or some might say new block on the kid), and across the curriculum, an area of study concerned primarily with the skills and applications of computers and other related multimedia in classroom teaching and learning.
83 The W ord—Deus ex machina
D ear Ms. CXRiley: .... I have noted your concern about the relevancy of technology education curriculum revisions for all students and the adequacy of these revisions to represent the study of technology. In response, the Integrated Resource Packages (IRPs) for Technology Education K-7 and 8-10 were developed to represent the most current and relevant perspectives of British Columbia's economy and to match what is happening around the world.... Meaningful hands-on activities have been retained and combined with new skills and knowledge for the future. The curriculum represents the essential aspects of technology, production, communication, systems and control, energy, power and transportation. The K-7 IRP represents one of the few curricula to be written for technology education and demonstrates the Ministry's strong commitment to emphasize applied skills. ... I must refute your statement that the revisions have been articulated from a relatively small cultural community. (The Hon. Art Charbonneau, Minister of Education, The Province of British Columbia, 1995)
The new promise of the global economy, the Information Age, unimagined new work, life-enhancing technology—all these are ours to seize. That is our honor and our challenge. We must be shapers of events, not observers. For if we do not act, the moment will pass—and we will lose the best possibilities in our future. (President Bill Clinton, State of the Union Address, USA, 1997)
We must bring the power of the Information Age into all our schools. Last year, I challenged America to connect every classroom and every Library to the Internet by the year 2000, so that, for the first time in our history, children in the most isolated rural town, the most comfortable suburbs, the poorest inner city schools, will have the same access to the same universe of knowledge. (President Bill Clinton, State of the Union Address, USA, 1998)
For at least a century, industrial education has primarily taught boys hands- on skills such as woodworking, metalworking, mechanical repair, electricity/ electronics, and drafting/graphic arts. Girls were taught domestic science, later called home economics. In the 1980's, industrial educators chose to revise and update their curriculum stories, renaming them technology
84 education. In some places technology education has been constructed as a separate subject for study; in others as an emphasis to be included in all subject areas—technology-across-the-curriculum (e.g. Saskatchewan
Education, 1988). In the United Kingdom and Wales, technology education has incorporated several subject areas (craft, design and technology; home economics; art education; business education; and information technology) into one programme area (Department of Education and Science, 1990). On the other hand. North American technology education re/visioning exists mainly as a new version of industrial arts/education.
In the United States, a conceptual framework for industrial education,
th e Jackson's Mill Industrial Arts Curriculum Theory, was developed in
which the authors identified four 'universal technical systems:
communication, construction, manufacturing, and
transportation—technical systems that are basic to every society" (Snyder &
Hales, 1981, p. 16). In 1990, the International Technology Education
Association [ll'EA], which is based in the United States, updated the Jackson's
Mill model, also identifying four universal content reservoirs (ITEA, 1990, p.
17): bio-related; communication; production; and transportation. In British
Colum bia, four content organizers have recently manifested to represent
technology: information technology; materials and products technology;
power and energy technology; and, systems integration technology (BC, 1992).
In a recent re-writing, the BC writers have re-named their four prescribed
85 curriculum organizers: communication; production; control; and energy and
power (BQ 1994), complete with Integrated Resources Packages, as articulated
by the Hon, Art Charbonneau above. The following is a summary of the
revisions:
Jackson's Mill ITEA BC'92 BC'94 communication communication information technology communication transportation transportation power & energy energy & power manufacturing production materials and products production construction bio-related systems integration control
Standardizing the curriculum
standard-», object, quality, or measure serving as a basis, example, or principle to which others conform or should conform or by which others are judged. (The Pocket Oxford Dictionary, 1992)
In the case of technology education, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have recently given substantial financial support to the U FA for a project entitled.
Technology for All Americans. The goal of this project is to create "new
National Standards for Technology Education. . . . to enhance America's global competitiveness in the future" (Dugger, 1995, p. 4). British Columbia, through joint participation of the British Columbia Technology Education
Association (BCTEA) and the British Columbia Ministry of Education are active participants and proponents of a standardized 'technology' curriculum as illustrated in the chart showing the consistency and similarity of the four
86 prescribed 'domains' of knowledge for the revised technology education
curriculum in British Columbia.
Not only is the content of technology being prescripted into universal
components, but, also how students and teachers are to think and act in
technology classes is being standardized. 'Problem-solving' has been one of
the code words making its way into the revisioning of curriculum content
and teacher education programmes in technology, as well as many other areas
of the curriculum. In addition to limiting technology education to four
purportedly universal' systems of technology, the ITEA curriculum authors
propose that curricular content should be delivered through a "universal
problem solving" process called "the technological methods model." The BC
curriculum writers call their version, "technological methods." The aim of
problem solving activities is to "[create] technology for human purposes . . .
using appropriate technological knowledge, resources, and processes to satisfy human wants and needs" (ITEA, 1990, p. 20), and to make "high-quaHty articles, systems, and environments" (BC, 1992, p. 13). Although not excluding non-technological solutions, problem solving is effectively promoted as the one way to teach technology education, and within the framework of problem solving, only one approach is identified—the technological method.
In the T echno lo gy curriculum in England (Department of Education and Science, 1990), the word design' is used rather than problem-solving.
8 7 The curriculum also converges on making products, however, not for the
'global market' but for themselves or their local community. For example, students make things for seniors centres, work on water purification projects of local streams, and design urban garden plots.
From Homo faber to Homo cybemeticus
Technology labs are replacing industrial shops and are another aspect of the standardization process. In British Columbia, for example, many industrial shops are being renovated and refitted with prepackaged 'technology labs' from a consortium in Texas— Lab 2000, at a cost of approximately $250,000
(Cdn.) per classroom. These labs consist of a series of computer and multimedia stations to teach Communications, Transportation, Control and
Power & Energy to match the standardized domains of knowledge. The industrial processes of mechanics, woodworking, metalworking, electricity and drafting are computerized in these labs using CNC (Computer Numerical
Control) lathes, computerized diagnostic equipment, robotics and AutoCad drafting programmes.
In many cases, the walls and hardware have been repainted from industrial green to pinky-mauve with blue accents. Pictures of girls and students of 'colour' smiling into computers hang on the walls, often as advertisements from the particular lab in that classroom. Large plants are scattered around the labs. Instead of the dark blue/green shop coats, the
88 teachers now wear white lab coats or street clothes. The school districts which
choose to spend less on technology labs have at least one classroom outfitted
as an A utoC AD lab, or some facsimile.
These technology labs have been designed, not by educators, but by
ranks of outside technological ^experts'—engineers, systems analysts,
computer programmers, manufacturers, etc. who all have vested interests in
marketing their hard and soft wares. A large part of the annual conferences
of both the ITEA and BCTEA is a huge computer lab trade show. A p p lied
Educational Systems, Lego Dacta, Lab 2000, Principles of Technology,
CADKEY, Pitsco, Paxton Action Labs, MTL Mobile Factory 2000, AutoCAD,
for example use these conferences to sell their 'learning systems' to technology educators. Very often the first lab is offered at prices teachers and school administrators have a hard time refusing. Technology educators are relinquishing their particular local knowings, and their autonomy as teachers in the classroom, for generic technical/ technological systems instructional packages. They are becoming managers of curricula designed by outside
'experts' who have little understanding of schools, teachers, students and a narrow and self-interested understanding of technology.
Techtonic shifting of the dominant discourses
West Point transferred military models to industry as well as education. . . . During the nineteenth century, military needs for "command" technologies fostered standardization and interchangeability of men and parts. . . . Patriarchal and military values
89 of discipline, pervaded society through both education and industry. (Hacker, 1989, p. 65)
As in the 19th century, technology discourses today echo the perceived needs of government and industry. As Sally Hacker points out in her preceding quote, standardizing efforts in education have been around for a long time.
According to WiUiam D. Taylor & Jane B. Johnsen (1994), standardized testing was introduced in schools in the USA during the war years, institutionalizing the sorting of humans for their usefulness as technological components, human resources for commerce and the military. Regardless of the various revisionings that have taken place in education since WWl, little has changed.
What follows are responses from the students in one of our first meetings about their perceptions of technology:
Pat: How is technology talked about in school? SI: How Mr. Crawford talks to us about technology. S2: To provide a solution for a human needs, using resources and manipulating materials. S3: Computers, fixing cars, building speakers. 54: Technology is something that has not been invented yet. Make things more productive. S3 Technology is the invention of new stuff. S2 It is about getting something that someone else doesn't have. S5 It is anything better. Pat: Better for what reason? 55: Faster, cheaper. Pat: For whom? S5: The consumer. S2: In computer class, they just say 'computers.'
90 Although their perceptions echoed the notions of technology as prescribed in the BC curriculum, their teacher, Phil Crawford, felt that he was providing a more comprehensive view:
Phil: What Tm trying to do with technology is to give the students as much exposure to different technologies, like a technology petting zoo; to let them know that they are surrounded by technology, that is is not a single subject.
Standardizing how students are to learn and how teachers are to teach and is a very serious political act: "When such truths become official [curriculum], when they are presented as discourses of sanctioned legitimacy, then they often serve as in impediment to further truth and must therefore be deformed—even perverted— by rhetorizing moves on the part of the
[student, teacher, and] researcher" (McLaren, 1993, p. 280). Technology discourses give the impression of "sovereign judgement, of stable subjectivity legislated by 'good' sense, of rocklike identity, 'universal' truth, and (white male) justice" (Massumi, 1980/1987, p. ix). Standardizing of curriculum is about conserving the status quo by conforming to the requirements of the established order. Although the British Columbia Technology Educators'
Association has bought the 'standardizing' rhetoric of the HE A, which is headquartered a stones throw from the Pentagon, the technology education teacher was not as convinced:
Phil: The nature of the subject of technology is being squeezed into a subject in the curriculum, the old industrial education. But it isn't working, as technology is much larger than shop. It is also needlework, mathematics, art. Technology is the in-word. We must all have a fax, modem, cellular phone, computer. Schools are a market for these products. Parents don't understand. They 91 are just following what the media and business are telling them. Business wants 'ready-made' workers, without the companies doing any training.
Teaching technology primarily through technological problem-solving is another area of concern for this study.
Phil: With problem-solving, students can organize their thinking. If they are not organizing their thought processes then problem solving will help them organize them. They can end up confused if they can't organize their thought processes and they won't experience success. If they get through a problem-solving process, and are not successful they will be able to identify their m istakes. Pat: If things didn't work as planned, would these be considered mistakes? What about as different and unexpected results which might be as good or better than what they had started out to do if looked at from different perspectives? Phil: Here, we want to control knowledge, ourselves, others in our culture. School is about control. I think that technology is key, yet we are always talking about design and making and com puters.
For Sally Hacker (1989) the "arid technical rationality" (p. 67) of problem solving reflects methods that have been practiced in male-dominated areas such as science, the military, engineering, and industry for centuries.
Problem-solving sets up the world as a series of problems that lend themselves to technical solutions. Within technidst framings, technology is assumed to be good, and to extend human potential for 'all.' There is Uttle or no space for discussion about who the 'all' is, or technology's potential to create human and environmental problems and disasters. Ivan Snook (1996) argues that:
[Tjechnical problems are not the only problems of life and arguably are not the main ones: we face ethical problems, relationship problems, financial problems, emotional problems and, of course, political, sodal 92 and cultural problems. The school should help its students with all these sorts of problems. It is a blatant ideological take-over to imply that the only real problems are those related to altering the material world and making money, (p. 10)
Snook (1996) writes of the "banality" of the design and making emphasis of
technology discourses and suggests a more critical technological literacy in
schools. He discusses a sample project 'to create a fashionable garment'. For
there to be critical technological literacy, Snook argues that there would need to be questioning the role of fashion artificially generated for profit, the grounds for stiletto heels, bras and bikinis for 9-year olds, tight jeans for adolescents, field trips to the factories and cottage industries, the cotton fields, the homes of 'knitting women'—all of which would be threatening to powerful business interests. These are problems in the "real world of technology" (Franklin, 1990).
Phil: A lot of industrial educators haven't thought much about what they are actually teaching. They teach as they were taught, and often the same projects. It is not that they are lazy; it is that they haven't thought outside their little area.
In spite of the banality of the examples for problem-solving in curriculum documents, a creative teacher such as Phil Crawford, can engage students in local and social issues:
Phil: Within drafting, we design a collapsible structure to take to a disaster area for shelter that is lightweight and easy to assemble, easy to erect and can connect for family units. Pat: This type of structure could be used for homeless people in our own back yard. Phil: Students are excited about these things. But, getting them to think is really tough, they are not used to it. And this is not what is expected in the BC curriculum.
93 Stephen Petrina (1993), contends that educators' perceptions of
problem-solving—the technological method—is flawed and "should be
viewed as it is: a heuristic whose efficacy is limited to systems thinking.
Methodological claims to the 'technological method' are bereft of any
epistemological grounding within the history, philosophy, or sociology of
technology" (p. 72). For Robins & Webster (1989), within such a "process-
oriented model for the curriculum . . . the concept of knowledge that is
mobilized is instrumental in the extreme and is concerned with control" (p.
226), privileging analytical thinking over holistic, and downplaying intuitive,
emotional, aesthetic and spiritual dimensions of human experience.
Instrumental thinking is dangerous "with its vision of continued progress in
technology and personal freedom, that is now exceeding the life sustaining
capabilities of the natural system that makes up our habitat" (Bowers, 1993, p.l04). And, habitat is more than human environments, "rather it is all of us who live together in a locality: humans, plants, animals, rivers, mountains, stars, moon, sun" (Grillo, 1998, p. 128).
A new subject or ideology?
Regardless, curriculum revisionists, for the most part, have taken on the role of cultural missionaries of the world, spreading the gospel of business, and teachers and students are being asked to become their agents preaching
"survival of the fittest"—he who has the most powerful technology wins.
94 Mastery of technological knowledge and skills (capabilities) deemed important for capitalism comes before justice. The rights of business come before the rights of children.
Snook (1996) asks if technology is a new subject or a new ideological strategy? He sees this new subject area as "a patsy" for business to get their feet firmly grounded in education and questions the epistemological warrant for technology as a separate subject area. "The technology curriculum ... is neither vocational in any interesting sense; nor is it liberal. It is a domesticating curriculum aimed at producing passive followers of other people's agendas (p. 10, emphasis added). Snook believes that it about creating a new species of child—the kind technology and business want them to become.
High tech corporate interests are calling for a reliable cadre of
"adaptable, flexible, loyal, mindful, expendable, 'trainable' workers for the 21st century"—corporate "human capital" (Noble, 1993, p. 12), technicians and troubleshooters presumed to require "higher order" thinking skills.
"Westerners are said to be competitive but they are only self-promoting"
(Grillo, 1998, p. 125). A telling comment from John Sculley, Apple CEO and
Chair of the National Center on Education and Economy in the USA:
We in the personal computer industry are really in the behaviour- changing industry. We have the challenge to create the tools that fundamentally are going to change the way people learn, the way they think, they way they communicate, the way they v/ork. (Inglesby, 1989, quoted in N oble, p. 12)
95 Higher order thinking rhetoric often teams up with the progressive
constructivist conversation which presumes that students are constructors of
their own learning and designers of new reahties, in most cases virtual. For
Noble, while students are constructing electronic fantasy worlds, they lose out
on a "more substantive struggle for meaning and character and understanding^' (p. 8) in the material world.
Phil: Students don't have an awareness of ways of communicating because they are stuck in front of TV or a computer. I was talking to my students about visual communication, body language. How they interpret it would depend on their cultural, personal experiences. We are teaching them a 'technology' of communication which is about electronics and computers. This is not communicating.
Whether it is in educational technology or technology education classrooms, plugging children in only further intensifies schools' already widespread deification of virtual realities and environments for learning and teaching.
As Langdon Winner (1996) writes:
You would suppose that interactive learning would have something to do with people talking and meeting, sharing ideas maybe face to face .... It turns out, however, that aU that's required to earn the label of 'interactive' these days is to involve a computer somewhere, (p. 4)
Jacques Ellul (1990 ) is also concerned about the lack of criticism regarding computerized learning for children. He strongly objects to wired learning set up as games to entice students into the Net, a practice he refers to as
"terrorism in a velvet glove" (p. 384).
Suzanne Damarin (1993, March) raises questions about what we are teaching students, with the emphasis in schools on visual learning, as they
96 learn to become "gazers" and "perceivers." In multimedia learning situations, are they learning to become "tourists or travellers"?
Playful world travelling," the comfortable movement from one knowledge situation to another, requires that "arrogant perception" be absent from the travelling learner/knower and from the situated knowledge community. Here "perception" refers to the knowledge/attitude with which a person meets a situation. A person's perception (of another situation) is arrogant when it exists or is expressed in subtle or overt ways which devalue the other or the situation. When an arrogant perceiver is around, the cooperative construction of knowledge from a shared standpoint or situation is impossible, (p. 28)
Damarin asks how a perceiver can be in the same "critical plane as the objects of knowledge" in virtual learning situations? Communicating via computer from the situated position of the knower in Canada to another child on a First
Nations reserve in their own country, or to 'exotic' cultures in other geographies around the world, is "not the same as living in the village" (Cole,
1999). Damarin writes that such learning does "not create situatedness" and asks educators to consider seriously how "to educate for and honor the travel, not only to virtual worlds, but also back from them" (p. 31).
While the electronic global reach is indeed far and broad, students perceptions of their own bodies and the physical environment, as well as the interrelationships between these are abbreviated. Bodies collapse into a virtual spatiaHty of screen/ surface (Grosz, 1992; O'Riley, 1994). The mind and cognitive is given precedence over body, practice and spirituality. It is difficult to feel and fight issues, as a distant observer, when sitting in front of
97 a television or computer screen, reclined and disengaged. Feeling and
resisting require bodies, and a lot of hard work.
Is this technology called high tech because it is technology of 'advanced'
societies/cultures? Why is such technology viewed as higher? And, by
whom? Is virtual learning another form of colonization? What and who is
left out with so much emphasis on students becoming "conscripts" (Taylor &
Johnsen, 1994), electronic soldiers?
Phil: It is businesses who are pushing this, and trying to tailor education to meet their needs, to sell their electronic labs and computers. And it is these companies who set up in Mexico and pollute and destroy the environment as much as they want to get around our laws.
Regardless, education appears to be running as fast as it can to be caught in the
Net—wired classrooms, wired curriculum, wired teachers, wired students.
Integrated world capitalism (IWC) and education
The Technology for All Americans project perpetuates the historical practices
of Linking not only industrial education, but education in general, with
industry and military interests. Education has been, and still is, based on a
military systems approach with "federally funded discipline-centered curriculum movements" (Taylor & Johnsen, 1994, p. 7) engineered by external 'experts' and packaged for classroom applications. In the case of technology education, intervention and control of education by powerful
98 State industrial-military state apparati is evidenced with the funding from
NASA and N SF to standardize the curricula.
Taylor & Johnsen write that since the post-Sputnik paranoia, with its
"nation at risk" and "crisis" fallout, technological experts have been called in to "save" schools.
Why this pressure to press onto school children the latest technological innovations, be they new methods of curriculum generation or technology-based instructional systems. One major reason is that much of what is done in schools is done ultimately in the name of national defense and security, (p. 8)
They ask some important questions concerning economic imperatives which link 'technological change' and 'progress' with education change:
• Can we foresee a vision of the future in which children appear as something other than conscripts securing our international position? • Can we countenance a life where our children's future is not held hostage by the escalating debt of maintaining our current privileged way of life? • Can we envision children as something other than craven warriors marching in defense of the gross national product? (p. 10-11) A nd, • In the name of efficiency, that is to say, in the name of progress, is there anything to keep the power of curricular and instructional decision making from migrating totally to the state level to insure that each individual teacher and student is finitely responsive to the desire of state legislature? No. • And what will keep teachers from becoming petty bureaucrats accountable to state functionaries and assigned to the electronic nether regions somewhere between the students and capital? Nothing, (p. 28)
Not all Western countries have notions of competency' and 'efficiency' in their goals for education. In Canada, most areas of curriculum stand on their own, and are not connected to any 'big brother' as the British Columbia
99 Technology Education programme is connected to the ITEA. In Australia, for
example, the educational system is very serious about minimizing
competition. Purging schools of any type of competition has been the object
of sustained systematic efforts in curriculum reform at various times during
the past three decades (Gough, in press).
In The Classroom Arsenal: Military Research, Information Technology and Public Education, Doug Noble (1991) writes:
[Rjecent corporate celebration of "human capital" reflects a number of corporate concerns about retooling its workforce. For one, corporate leaders have been greatly influenced by (increasingly controversial) studies predicting both a shortage of skilled workers and a burgeoning level of skill required by the high tech workplace; this dubious double prophecy has generated a torrent of human capital rhetoric in the last few decades, catapulting corporate leaders into school reform, (p. 25)
In a later article. The Regime of Technology in Education, Noble (1993) writes
of the irony of corporate insistence on schools producing high skilled 'humein capital' for the high performance workplace as corporations—IBM, AT&T,
Kodak, Ameritech, BellSouth, Time Warner, Philips Electronics, Apple,
Xerox, to name a few—"are busy lopping off millions of present and future high skill jobs in the name of productivity and competition (while also tapping cheaper skilled labour overseas)" (p. 7). The technology teacher related one such situation which effected the community in which he taught in England before moving to Canada:
Phil: In London, the students' parents worked at Philips. So, the technology programmes were aimed toward the same company skills for the students. Pat: What if the company pulled out? Phil: They would have skills, and no jobs. 100 Another example of corporate partnering with education are the 'tech-prep' programmes in high schools. At the high school in Columbus, OH, where I completed a prior ethnography for this study, tech prep' was about training the students, all boys in this case, to work in the Honda factory. It is no different in Canada where 'tech prep' programmes are on the increase turning high schools into training grounds for industry.
According to Noble (1993), it is no coincidence that the retooling and restructuring of schools is taking place at the same time that military- corporate interests are retooling and restructuring. "[R]estructured schools have less to do with improvements in education than with the easy assimilation of technology into curriculum" (p. 10). Education is a crucial market for self-interested corporate marketeers conjoined by technocrat politicians and "a legacy of military fantasy" (p. 12), a powerful regime alien to education and desperate for new markets. Much of the research and development of these companies has been "lavishly bankrolled" by the
Department of Defense. The "military spends seven dollars for every civilian dollar spent on educational technology research. Each year the military spend as much on educational technology research as the Department of Education has spent in a quarter of a century" (p. 7). Noble gives examples of many prominent educators touting the mihtary / industrial language and practices of
'problem solving' skills, 'learning strategies,' integrated learning systems' and authentic performance assessment,' who have received military/ corporate
101 funding: John Seeley Brown of Xerox and its Institute of Research on
Learning; Seymour Paper of the MTT Artificial Intelhgence Lab and Media
Lab, and developer of LOGO (originally funded by the Office of Naval
Research); Robert Gagne and Robert Glaser of the National Academy of
Education; Lauren Resnick, Director of the Learning Research and
Development Center, University of Pittsburgh.
SI: They invented a water car but the carmakers wouldn't allow it. S6: On a TV programme it showed washing ducks covered with oil from a tanker spill. The company didn't want to clean it up but they had to. Pat: Do you think that these companies should have a say in your education? S5: Business is teUing schools what to do because they know what the jobs are. S9: Industry won't Like this project. Companies are getting bigger because people consume and waste, waste and consume.
Phil: Do the sales people care where the computers are made? It is like this athletic footwear made in some sweatshop in Taiwan and sold here for 300% mark-up. That is where values come in. We should cover these aspects in school. This is technological literacy.
The technology education students and their teacher were very aware that large corporations take little or no responsibility for what they do to people,
(locally and globally) or the environment. They also knew that profits, not their education, was the motive for businesses becoming increasingly implicated in their education.
Noble (1993) cautions educators to pay attention to the number of CEOs who are underwriting curriculum for schools and reinventing education in their own image. Corporate America is a huge patron pushing high
102 technologies in education. Apple'sClassrooms of Tomorrow and similar
corporate high-tech excursions in/to the classroom are billing themselves as
research and development, as distinct from sales or marketing ventures.
Langdon Winner (1996) refers to the current entrepreneuring of education
through industry-school partnerships as "technoglobalism's assault on
education."
Contemporary capitalist production and exchange are at a excessive state of an accelerated "time-space compression" (Harvey, 1989) where
Baudrillard's theory of reproduction and hyperreality can be reconceptualized as a process of "hyperaccumulation, that provides a radical temporal and spatial response to the pressures of capital accumulation to shrink space and reduce turnover time" (Schoonmaker, 1994, p. 184). Virtually instantaneous transborder data flows allow corporations to control geographically dispersed service and commodity production under the flexible accumulation regime.
Such economic production and exchange of services / commodities is a key feature, transforming contemporary social relations and nature of reality and environment. Digitized software, media information and new technologies play a major role in advanced capitalism and the ensuing political and environmental struggles.
Recent prototypes of a global investment pact and global deregulation is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Uruguay Round of the mid 1980s, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the
103 Asia-Pacific Economic Council (APEC), all under the governance of the
World Trade Organization (WTO). The most recent and alarming is the
Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI) Treaty, being negotiated
under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD). The MAI is composed of large multinational
corporations, including major financial interests and 29 of the world's
wealthiest nations, including Canada and the USA. According to the Pubhc
Citizen's Global Trade Watch Backgrounder (1998), the MAI Treaty "would
greatly hinder the abiUty of governments to combat the worst consequences of
economic globahzation: increased disparity of wealth and income, growth of
national and global monopohes and loss of democratic control of a wide
range of policies, from human rights to the environment, from labour rights
to welfare policy."
The first 'principle' of the MAI is that of National Treatment, which
demands that foreign corporations be given every right, concession or
privilege that a government may provide local companies or communities.
This would grant transnational corporations equal standing with nation
states and "would give corporations the right to conduct business and move
their operations wherever and whenever they like without government
regulation" (The Council of Canadians, 1998), without regard for occupational safety and health, labour, human rights and the environment. The MAI rules will prohibit any government regulation that even indirectly reduces
104 the profitability of corporate investment. "Under the MAI, foreign investors have an unqualified right to sue governments under rules of international arbitration that are so secretive that they would rival those of the Star
Chamber Court abolished three centuries ago" (West Coast Environmental
Law Research Foundation, 1998).
These meetings have been going on in secret until a February 1997 document was leaked to the press. Since that time citizens groups and the press around the world, including Canada, have been vocal in its opposition to the MAI. The American press and policy-makers have paid little attention to something that has wide-ranging implications for American citizens. How this latest extension of corporate power affects what and how we teach in our classrooms is yet to be seen.
With the ascendancy of economic globahzation, there has been increased economic disparity, with the richest 20% of the world's population increasing their share of the world income from 70% to 85% over the last 30 years (Pubhc Citizen's Global Watch Backgrounder, 1998). Winner (1996) suggests that:
Rather than connect our vision of educahon to the needs, priorities and ephemeral whims of transnational commerce, we need to connect that vision to the enduring needs, concerns, and increasingly urgent problems of civil society, the communities in w hdh we hve, and expeciahy to those peole who correctly sense that they are being left behind by the bold innovations that mark the route into the 21st century, (p. 4)
105 It is time for educators to pause in all the flurry of technological stimulation and noise and to ask: Is it our desire that education become a business in the production oftech uocodependents—fec/znodesiring fec/x nosubjects for IWC?
106 PLATEAU 1006:
BEYOND THE TERRAIN OF TECHNOLOGY DISCOURSES
Toward gender, culture and environment
O n Plateau 1005: Spinning the tale, I include analysis of the content and
pedagogy (problem-solving, not to mention problem-creating) of the
corporate investment in technology as focus in education. With few
exceptions, discussions of gender and culture, as well as environmental
implications of technology have been neglected, camouflaged or dismissed in
the curriculum materials and teaching practices in the dominant discourses.
On this plateau, I connect with conversations that are already in
existence, but are not included or identified as being part of technology discourses in education as illustrated in the data from the technology education students. The first section on this plateau, which is a feminist reading, looks at the gendering of technology and the technologizing of women's bodies, in particular, biotechnologies and reproductive technologies.
The second section deals with the implications and effects of western technologies on poor and non-westem people, as well as the triple binarizing of technologies as high/economic or exploitative / western and
107 low/sustainable/non-westem. The third section is concerned with the absence of environmental responsibility within technology discourses.
Environmental talk would be counter to the ^development' and selling of
'resources' of the environment.
A feminist reading
When girls start school, the discourse they leam is that of he/they (il(s)X or the between-men culture (l'entre-il(s)). (Irigaray, 1993, p. 50)
This feminist reading, reincidents the angles of revision to reconsider the
'facts' as staked out in technology discourses, using other senses to reconsider who and what is left off the technology maps.
S12: I'm the only girl! I have a goal to become an interior designer so I need to take drafting. If 1 didn't have a goal, I wouldn't take technology because it has an image of being so nerdy. Pat: Why are the there no other girls in this technology class? S12: Math keeps girls out. Math is directed at boys, yet the boys don't get math, so it is slowed down for boys, and girls get bored. Schooling is for boys. This has lots to do with it because math and technology are so related.
Concepts such as 'universal man' and human adaptive systems' underpin technology education curriculum narratives. Haraway (1989), documents how these concepts have been challenged as a result of feminist struggles for decolonization and liberation. She points out that universal man and human adaptive systems were fostered at a particular historical time by geneticists and physical anthropologists in response to flawed, but important, struggles against racism in science. Universality was judged an advance over
108 views that explicitly placed women and non-whites at a 'lower' order/species/phylum than white males. Regardless, as Foucault (1984) writes, "the universal intellectual, whose task was to speak the truth to power in the name of universal reason, justice, and humanity, is no longer a viable cultural figure" (p. 23).
Pat: How do your friends talk about technology? 84: M ostly stereos, cars. Pat: What about your female friends? 85: They talk about makeup, nail polish remover. 87: Bras. 85: We talk about sports. And, they don't want to be here because they think that technology class is about building. You don't see guys in cooking a sewing. It's guys' jobs to build. I don't know how to get to the cooking class. 87: My m om cooks, or I can go to M cdonalds. Pat: What about sewing? 85: We copy how our parents brought us up. If we took sewing we wouldn't learn anything about electronics. Pat: 8hould girls learn anything about electronics? 82: Yeah. 85: Next year we're just doing electronics. It is what we know, not the girls. Pat: Do you discuss technology at home? 87: Mr. Clean. 88: Entertainment is technology to us. Pat: What about appliances? 84: Technology is new stuff. A refrigerator has been around for a long tim e.
Technology stories, both in and out of schools, are predominantly universal stories informed from men's perspectives (O'Riley, 1992, 1996). The students, all boys in this conversation, played out stereotypical gender roles, including the stereotyping of 'his' and 'her' technologies, regurgitating what
109 they had learned in the larger society and in their schooling, and in this instance, in their technology classrooms.
The only female student in the study took one of the technology classes which had a drafting component, so that she would leam some basic drafting skills before she went on to study interior design. She worked alone during my visits and had little interaction with the boys in the class, who in turn ignored her presence. She was quiet during the group meetings, but was a bit more open during our one-to-one interview.
S12: The whole image of technology has to change. Pat: What about the skills you are learning. S12: We can cut out so much of the stuff. We don't need a $2000 machine, the big fancy machines. Pat: What would you like to see happen in a technology course? S12: I'd like to see us talk about the how technology affects us. Not just here and now, but in the future, on the long term affects. Pat What might encourage girls to take technology courses? S12: Girls need to know that technology is more than making things. They think that it doesn't apply to what they do, so they think that everything will be new for them.
The learning of technology for this lone female student was in shops filled with industrial technologies, some computerized. Her experiences and feelings came as no surprise to me, echoing many of my own when I was the lone female student in the technology teacher education programme at The
University of British Columbia. Technologies and technological issues that were, and still are, familiar and important to me in both my personal life
(sewing, designing leaded glass windows, organic gardening, community housing) and professional life (occupational health and safety issues, human
110 rights issues, environmental issues) were nowhere in the shops filled with heavy industrial equipment and their electronic ^upgrades', or the teachings within the shop/lab walls.
A multiplicity of exclusionary practices has contributed to the mapping of women on the periphery or as invisible in technology stories, including: the assignment of women to the private sphere since the Industrial
Revolution; the gendering of work and tools; and the omission of women's perspectives and contributions to technology in historical records.
Representations of technology have historically been "devices, machinery, and processes which men are interested in" (Kramarae, 1988, p. 5), and
"largely interested in manufacturing" (Wajcman, 1991, p. 162). Many inventions designed by women, or for women, have been overlooked altogether as they are not considered to be technology—they are 'tools' and
'technology' when associated with men, and implements' when associated with women (Cockbum, 1988; Kirkup & Keller, 1992; Wajcman, 1991). Ruth
Swartz Cowan (1979) underscores this point with her discussion about a baby bottle, "a simple implement . . . which has transformed a fundamental experience for vast numbers of infants and mothers, and been one of the more controversial exports of Western technology to underdeveloped countries—yet it finds no place in our histories of technology" (p. 52).
Renate Duelli Klein (1987) argues that many technologies represent
"powerful socio-economic and political instruments of control" (p. 65),
111 particularly over women. Faulkner & Arnold (1985), Leto (1988), and
Wajcman (1991) document how technology has been used as a "social tool" to
both construct and maintain stereotypical gender roles. For example,
household technologies have been a significant market for manufacturers
who have a monetary interest in reinforcing ideologies of gender, which is
further complicated by women's complex and contradictory embrace of particular technologies. And, outside of the home, industrial and office automation is often used as a technology of power and surveillance to monitor and control workers, "keeping an eye on her nimble fingers" in electronic sweatshops (Carson, 1988; Fuentes & Ehrenreich, 1988). In a film.
Global Assembly Line, Linda Gray (1986) exemplifies technologies of control as she documents the experiences of poor, primarily non-white, women working for slave wages, under slave working conditions, in transnational electronics assembly plants in the free-trade corridor between Mexico and the
United States, in the Phitippines, and in Tennessee.
Some feminist researchers consider bio technologies to be at the core of women's status, with women's bodies increasingly becoming colonized by new reproductive technologies (Corea, 1985; Duelh Klein, 1987; Haraway,
1991). When intersected by race and socioeconomics, bio-technologies take on other dimensions. According to the Third World Network (1993), women in non-Western countries are often used as guinea pigs in the experimentation and testing of contraceptives, drugs, reproductive high-technologies and
1 1 2 techniques, which are restricted or banned in Western countries before they are considered acceptable for consumption and practice on white women.
Added to this are the influences of massive evangelical-like crusades to impose Western values on non-Western women about birthing techniques and birth control, as well as the downplaying of breast feeding in favour of
Western infant formulae and other Western commodities.
Bio technologies are inscribing more than women's bodies. Billions of dollars are being allocated for high-tech, militarized, bio technology projects to code our imperfect human bodies for retrieval as perfected genetic mutations (Haraway, 1991c; Kroker & Weinstein, 1994). With the current emphasis on nationahsm and global competitiveness, there are increasing political and corporate demands for "productive and efficient human resources"—the same rhetoric as technology education curriculum narratives. Wells (1995), a technology educator who is concerned about
"confusion" around understandings of bio technologies, writes that they are
"far too inclusive, and by definition inaccurate" (p. 11). He presents a taxonometric structure of eight bio-technology knowledge areas for consideration by technology educators, and although genetic engineering has a place in his structure, reproductive technologies are absent. From my positioning as a mother, and as a woman with considerable experience inspecting workplaces as a factory inspector, occupational health and safety officer and human rights officer, I believe that technology talk and practices
113 need to include discourses which include reproducing bodies, bodies-as- commodities, and commodity-produdng-bodies, not to mention bodies as bodies.
Culture/gender intersections
Talk of gender and technology cannot be separated from talk of culture and socioeconomics, as indicated above, yet both are neglected in technology education. Technology crosses borders. Technological issues are dynamic and multi dimensional, arising in the context of economic, political and social change. As well as providing learning opportunities, educational institutions play a vital role in initiating societal change, and carry significant responsibility in helping to facilitate understanding and respect for all people and concern for the environment. Western technology affects billions of people, most of whom have little say in the design and use of these technologies.
Pat: Who is excluded in how our society talks about technology? S2: Poor people. SI: Third world cultures. 82: N ative people. Pat: It seems that technology is about guys, mainly white, who have money to buy all these things. What about technologies such as weaving baskets? 87: That's technology to them. Not us. I'm not going to do that. I can go and buy them at the store for 50 cents. Pat: What about talking about technology in a way that would include girls and people of other than Western culture? 83: We have enough problems here, we don't need to think about th em .
114 As participants in global economies, economically and technologically
privileged countries need to pay attention to, and take responsibility for, how
our technology disrupts traditional ways of Life, affects workers, and plays
havoc with ecological systems far beyond our national borders.
Modem science and technology has dislocated Third World societies, destroyed traditional cultures and played havoc with the environment of Third World nations. It has also replaced a way of knowing, which is multi dimensional and based on synthesis, in Third World societies, with a linear, clinical, inhuman and rationalist mode of thought. Western science and technology has systematically plundered Third World countries in the name of scientific rationality. (Third World Network, 1993, p. 486)
Rural workers around the world, particularly women of colour, have been
pushed and pulled off their land and into factories by transnational
agricultural corporations that have replaced their way of life and diversity of
crops with monocrops, requiring the "latest piece of machinery which may
render her labour obsolete, ineffective or more difficult: or with pesticides
which endanger her (and her unborn) or her family" (Third World Network,
1993, p. 499).
mutindi ndunda (1995) has studied the implications of Western development for the women of Kithumba and Kyandue villages and Salama town in the Kilome Division, Kenya, ndunda's mother and the other women now have to spend much of their day walking to find potable water, because their water supply is polluted by pesticide runoff and toxic waste, whereas twenty years ago they would only have had a short walk. The water they do collect is barely suitable for drinking, cooking, and washing, and
115 when they return there is little time left for the children, community, or
themselves.
In North America, Karl Grossman (1993) maintains that the discriminatory practices of dealing with toxic waste and polluting by-products of industrial and technological development amount to no less than
"environmental racism." He writes of toxic waste dum ps located in/ near inner cities, radioactive contamination of Native American reservations (e.g.
Utah), pesticide-related cancers of Hispanic farmworkers, lead poisoning of inner city children, and the exportation of toxic waste to non-Western countries. What about the flooding of First Nations land for hydro-electric
"projects," and the placing of high-tension lines across Indian reserves?
SI: I guess because its high technology, we think of it as ours. Pat: Do you think that non-Western cultures have technology? S4: They're not as technical. S3: They're just not educated. S4: Yeah, some of them, they drink out of things they go to the bathroom in too. That's just not educated. That's not technology. Pat: Other cultures have different ways of doing things and may see our ways as very strange. SI: Technology is based on consumerism. S4: Technology is what is new. Phil: If you are saying that technology is based on what is new, that is a very narrow definition of technology. My mother used a scrub board. That is technology. And before that you had people down at the river pounding with a stone. TTiat was technology. Your comments on toilets. That is a cultural thing. If you go to Japan or Asia, then its a little hole in the floor, even the top class hotels. S6: In China they actually use human crap to fertilize their crops. Phil: There are people in this country who are recycling everything too, turning it into fertilizer. S7: If they know about toilets, then why don't they get them?
116 Phil: Because they are not as important to them. If you have a choice to buy toilet paper or soap what are you going to buy? S7 Toilet paper. S4 Soap. S7 How come so many don't have an education?.
Western narrative configurations ignore altogether, or portray as antiquated or primitive because of their simplicity, technologies that fall outside a mechanical model of reality, and technologies associated with non-Western cultures. These do not allow for cheap, fast production—assembly line mentality. Technology discourses generally consider technologies pre-historic if they are pre- or proto-Euro. There is little recognition that a mechanistic view of the world is simply a 'western knowledge project,' and that other cultures' more organic ways of viewing the world, as well as their 'low' technologies, are equally valid, and perhaps more ethically and ecologically sound. Joseph Needham (1993) writes that although Chinese, Indian, and
European-Semitic are the three 'greatest' historical civilizations in the world, only recently has attention been paid to their technologies and sciences.
Indigenous people have always been technological for tens of thousands of years; their technologies are very sophisticated. For example, in
February 1997, there were huge forest fires in the Dandenong mountain range north of Melbourne, Australia. Non-Aboriginal immigrants to Australia harvested' and managed' the forests without having a relationship to the forests. Koori people warned forestry officials for over a decade that if they did not burn some of the undergrowth the forests would bum. British
117 Columbia also has problems with forest fires because of similar forest management policies and practices, as well as a lack of understanding of the land.
S4: That's not our fault that we don't know these things. We don't learn that in school, so if s not our fault.
How we language the world has much to do with how we take up the world.
Archaeologists, historians and linguists are finally admitting that the First
Nations people of Canada have been here for at least 15,000 years, and that the
Koori people of Australia have been there for well over 40,000 years.
Indigenous Lived w ith nature. Some of the surviving indigenous people—those who have not been westernized—still do. This is not back to nature' romanticism. Eduardo Fernandez Grillo (1998) writes of colonization and discounting of indigenous ways of Life:
Here in the Andes we feel that development is a symptom of the senile dementia ... of the plague that has infected us for five hundred years. . . . [T]he plague in its ravings is led to affirm that we must stop being what we are, that we must develop, that is we must change, that we must exert ourselves to become as similar as possible to the United States of North America which sees itself as a model of a developed country. In this demented game . .. because we are different, because we are ourselves, we are classified as underdeveloped.... But this senile madness of the plague has only been able to infect... the brothers of the plague, those who accompanied it here; the state, the church, the market, and the estate of intellectuals, professionals and functionaries .... and they are in a significant minority. But the Andean people do not accept development; they reject this foolish game. . . . Here in the Andes, we appreciate diversity. We know that there are as many different worlds, forms of life, as there are cultures. We do not accept that any culture propose itself as the paradigm, (p. 137-139, emphasis added)
118 However, over the past few years piracy of indigenous knowledge, sacred
plants, and genes has become the new frontier for pharmaceutical and
agribusiness corporations who "have pushed for a reinterpretation of
intellectual property permitting private ownership rights" (Benjamin, 1997),
threatening cniltural diversity and indigenous survival. It was acknowledged
at the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, that the survival of indigenous knowledge systems might mean the survival of the earth.
Indigenous biotechnologies and sustainable technologies have not been a part of the conversation in tecdmology education. Educators have much to learn from indigenous people; their knowings can no longer be backgrounded to Euro knowings. Gough (1994d) suggests that educators do
"comparative readings of their mythologies [myth is a word that, for me, discounts indigenous spirituality] and ours" (p. 194). It is important that these comparative reading be done w ith indigenous people, otherwise the comparative reading can be no more than translation.
Virtual silence on environment
[T]he abandoned earth was overtaxed with words, choking knowledge, and with no living ear on it to listen into the cold, and the animals and birds escaped to the city'. . . Even here, the wordies have overtaxed the cities with too much eye and not enough ears. The wordies lost their connections with the earth. . . . Wordies have forgotten how to hear and when to surrender to nature and their stories. Electronic church bells sounded in the distance. The crow bounded on the bench and spread her feathers. The great river runs 119 past the cities like a sewer, and the wordies hear nothing but dead voices at the university. (Vizenor, 1992, p. 131)
Technology is also an ecological issue; it crosses borders and is about
exploitation of 'resources' from the environment. There would no
technology without the environment. However, environmental concerns
play a very small part of the conversation in technology education.
Pat: Have you discussed oil spills or other environmental issues in any of your classes? S6: Not really. S7: I don't know why we need to know what is going on in the world in a technology class. What difference does that make to what we do? S4: If we talked about the environment it would slow us down a lot th o u g h . S3: We want to build things, we want to do stuff. Pat: What about thinking about whether we need something in the first place? And, if we decide to make it, what materials to use, if it is biodegradeable or recyclable? 84: Do you mean that if we know what they are made of we can shop better, and we will make things more efficiently?
Other students showed more awareness and concern for the environment, as well as the implications of making more products for consumption:
56: We have these big CocaCola companies and car companies who are pushing us to buy all these things. They shove it in our face, to buy and throw it away. Everything is disposable. We need to think less about space technologies and more about recycling and responsible technologies to fix up the mess we've made. Big companies should be forced to do this. They won't do it if they are not forced to. 85: If gas companies in BC were told you have to sell 94 octane as a minimum, the emissions would go way down. We would not need AirCare. If California was told that all vehicles had to be 0- emission vehicles, if it is by law. then this would happen. 86: We need this to be part of technology education. Instead of sitting in technology education and making a box or something that shoots balls, talk about this too. The projects mean nothing to most kids.. The projects waste wood. We are learning to make 120 it, but big deal. I will never make a catapult thing again in my life. We are not attacking castles anymore. S5: We could think about making a package that uses less garbage. S2: The emphasis on the making teaches us to make more stuff. Look at all stuff on the market that we don't need. S6: Our school has just bought these new machines with these plastic bottles. These things are filling up the garbage cans and are not being recycled. S6: They make something so it won't last long. The dryer. You buy this now and it will last 5-6 years. They made them to last 16 years and they lasted. Then nobody is buying anything. One of the pressures is to get people to buy, so they want to make things poorly so that we buy. S6: We used to have clean water and a beautiful ocean. We need to understand what we are doing around the world instead of saying what we do in Canada doesn't affect the rest of the world. S2: We should think of these things, but we don't.
When asked, students had a lot to say about the environment although it was not a significant part of the design and making focus of technology education.
They were also well aware of the irrelevance of their technology projects, as well as their contribution to pollution and waste. Some felt that discussing environmental issues in technology education was a needed part of the conversation:
SI: We need to do some of this in technology because it could be important to us in the long run how the environment is. S2: We need a subject to talk about this, or maybe talk about this in other classes like Socials or a technology history course. Putting everything together is too much. SI: We need to start this at kindergarten, not at grade 11 and 12. Maybe at grade 5. We need to know about pollution in technology, more about recycling, using products that are biodegradeable. The earth can't take it anymore. We have lots of stuff and huge garbage dumps full. S5: If everyone walked to school we would have less pollution.
121 How environmental issues are taught, or not taught, in schools, varies from
country to country. For example, in Australia environmental education is a
curriculum area, while in Aotearoa/ New Zealand, there is no curriculum,
and in Canada environmental education is a relatively new subject area.
However, as Annette Gough (1997) points out in Education and the
Environment: Policy, trends and the problems of marginalisation, having a
subject called ^environmental education' does not mean that environmental
issues are dealt with in any substantive way. This resonates with what is
happening in technology education in which technological issues are not
taken up in any substantive way. Gough writes that the environment is approached as an object to studyabout, rather than w ith.
The silence on environmental concerns in technology discourses is itself "a political act that contributes to the reproduction and circulation of particular forms of power and authority in society" (Gough, 1994b, p. 191).
Educators are "playing at ecopolitical catastrophe," according to Gough, with
"the yawning gap between some unarticulated sense of ecological catastrophe experienced by others, elsewhere, and the popular discourses of ecological crisis that are mobilized 'in our hyper-protected society . . . where life is excessively easy" (p. 190).
But as I reflect on the material consequences of building a global political and economic system in which it often seems that "everywhere" is equated with North America and Europe, I am led to conclude that everyw here —such as in the many rural areas of the non- Western world that are home to at least one billion people living and dying in abject poverty —survival is not an "issue"; the people who dwell in such circumstances have no choices, there is no "play" in the 122 operations, relations, and conditions that determine if they live or die. Thus, while "playing at [ecological] catastrophe" may "prove" that "we"—the "we" of Western worlds and worldviews—"are very much alive," it does not hold similar assurances for the people and inhabitants of the non-Western world that we have systematically destroyed: "the ease with which w e now live . . . makes survivors of us all" (p. 189-190)
Entering the culture-environment-technology terrain is not an easy task. As
Gough (1997) writes, what counts as nature, culture, and environment in urbanized societies is ambiguous and entangled with different notions of subjectivity and technology. Gough argues that it is important, however, for educators to come to "pedagogic terms" with this "narrative complexity" which "consists of the measurement and projection of human culture's interactions with the biosphere in and on a virtual ecology of global information flows" (p. 157).
From the bordertalk to cybertalk
This plateau consisted of some of the conversations which are on the borders of the curriculum maps drawn for the study of technology in schools.
Although technology education curriculum documents in Canada, the USA,
Britain, Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, for example, all have a 'strand' in their technology curricula called 'technology and society,' which could be a place for gender and culture, they are rarely acknowledged. Ivan Snook
(1996), former Dean of Education at Massey University, points out that:
[Tjhis strand ... is either a bland statement of the ways in which cultural norms have affected technology and vice versa or (more commonly) a hymn of praise about the great benefits which 123 technologies have brought to social life. What is missing is any reflection (even a shallow one) on the relationship between economics, profit, and powerful interest groups on the one hand, and the particular developments blandly called ^technology' on the other, (p. 10)
Environmental concerns are right off the maps of technology discourses in most schools because addressing these would be contradictory to the production focus of technology education. If we continue to place environment into the margins, the environment will marginalize us.
The majority of technology discourses in education with which I am familiar pay little or no attention to this bordertalk. Plateau 1006: A cultural tale engages an intercultural conversation on the margins of western technology discourses. As Vizenor (1992) suggests, the "wordies" (i.e. those of western culture) have lost connection with the earth and are becoming more excited by virtual worlds than 'real' ones. Relevant to this study, the
"wordies" of technology discourses in education are abandoning the earth as they are becoming virtual tourists in their own world and at home in virtual/cyber worlds. Plateau 1007: Virtually a tale is concerned with their enthusiasm for plugging children into cyberspace and cybertalk.
124 PLATEAU 1007:
A CULTURAL TALE
There is a growing awareness that there is something intrinsically wrong with the very nature of contemporary science and technology .... Reductionism, the dominant method of modem science, is leading, on the one hand, in physics, towards meaninglessness, and on the other, in biology, towards "Social Darwinism" and eugenics. There is something in the very metaphysics of modem science and technology, the way of knowing and of doing, of this dominant mode of thought and inquiry, that is leading us towards destmction. (Third World Network, 1993, p. 484-485)
A disruptive move to open technology discourses to difference was to have the technology education students consider indigenous technologies
(technologies that are beyond, or have fallen right off the edge of Westem maps), as well as consider how Westem technologies affect people and the environment both locally and globally. This plateau begins in a Grade 11 and
12 technology education classroom in British Columbia with a conversation between the students, their teacher, and mutindi ndunda, a colleague who was bom and raised in a small village in Kenya. This is followed by a conversation with the students and their teacher two weeks after mutindi's visit. The conversation is the translation. An analysis through indigenous discourses of this continent is next, bringing the 'otheri home to this
125 continent. This is a rhizoanalytic journey, a conjunction and dispersion of
different theories and writing genres, some knotting Columbus in their tale
telling.
Culture and technology education mutindi ndunda is Mkamba from Kilome, Kenya and had just completed her doctoral research with women in Kithumba and Kyandue villages and
Salama town in the Kilome Division, Kenya (ndunda, 1995). She was completing her degree in Science Education at the University of British
Columbia at the time of this study. We have been colleagues and friends since 1991, and have had many talks regarding the overlaps between Western science and technology, particularly where they intersect with gender and culture.
mutindi provided a brief overview to the technology classes of her study, which looks at women^s perceptions of the uses of education in Kenya.
'The study focuses on rural women's experiences making visible the cultural, historical, social, economic and political factors that have shaped and continue to shape women's educational and employment opportunities"
(ndunda, 1995, p. 1). Her research is centred around the women's education, paid and unpaid labour, family and sexuality, as well as women's self-help groups, mutindi is "committed to women's liberation and justice" (p. 50), because like the discourses of technology, the women's voices are silenced.
126 As European sexism was added to patriarchal elements in indigenous cultures, sex roles changed to the detriment of women and they lost political power. While women retained responsibility for feeding their families, the prevalence of male labour migration in many areas left them to do even more of the agricultural work. Colonialism not only exacerbated inequality, but ultimately turned over governmental mechanisms of extracting wealth to new African ruling classes [after independence]. (Robertson, 1986, quoted in ndunda, 1995, p. 17) mutindi's research makes visible the "harsh, social, economic, and political climate" (p. 2) particularly for the women in Kenya, because they are not allowed to own land. Ownership of land changed during the colonial time when land was registered in the names of the men. Prior to this, the land belonged to the entire clan. The land that the husbands now own is increasingly being taken away by government and multinational corporations, such as Starbucks, to grow coffee, and other cash crops to service
IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank loans. This practice has reduced the little land that is able to grow beans and maize for their own food.
mutindi explained to the students that women are responsible for the high labour demands for the growing of coffee, although the coffee is registered in the name of the husband. In her dissertation, mutindi (1995) writes;
I met one woman in Kithumba who neglected her husband's coffee (as she called it) and concentrated on subsistence crops. She did this because her husband always collected the money from the cooperative to spend it with his other wife. She noted that she could not uproot it because it was not only against the law but she would also be killed by her husband, (p. 55)
127 Women's health is impacted profoundly with the increasing intensification of women's labour, yet there are few medical facilities and most women cannot afford the few medicines that are available, mutindi related that many of the women in her study were physically ill, having severe lower back and leg pains from the long hours of planting, picking, weeding and watering. She also told the students that some of the women in her study were very young, still girls, who had moved to the town of Salama to earn a living as vegetable sellers, barmaids and prostitutes. Salama is on the main truck route between Nairobi and Mombasa which is considered the AIDS corridor of Africa.
Although I had talked to the students two weeks earlier about mutindi—where she was from, what her research was about, and why she was coming to talk with them, they had no knowledge of Kenya. As mutindi wrote in her feedback on this plateau, "this is an example of the 'selected' stories that are called education". They did not know how to talk with mutindi, and how to deal with their own silence.
mutindi: What does the silence mean? If I came to your house, how would you feel if I treated you this way?
More silence.
mutindi: Kenya is a country on the east side of Africa. What have you heard about Kenya? SI: That you don't have things and we do. mutindi: What are you encouraged to do about this in school?
128 mutindi then went through a flyer from a local drugstore, London Drugs, which had advertisements for such things as deodorant, nail polish, shaving cream, toaster ovens and hairdryers. She told the students that no one in her village would have any use for these products, and asked if any of them might be able to do without these items.
SI: We have never been told, 'T)on't do this, don't buy that." If it's cool and we want it then we go out and buy it. S2: Yeah. Whatever you want, get it. SI: If you want something, get yourself a job and buy it for yourself. mutindi: What about the people at the back? Is there anything wrong with your just buying and accumulating things? Can we keep doing this—buying? S3: If you are working hard for your money, why shouldn't you get what you want? We get a reward for working hard. If you have food then you can get what you want with your m oney. S4: Here we kind of expect to have dinner every night. There you work to get a meal and stuff. Here we don't think of food and a place to live, so we get what we want on top of that. We're used to it. Pizza, not beans and. rice. S3: Yeah. Like, we like more junk food. It is just the way we are. S5: I think it is different for each society. It shouldn't be, but it is. mutindi: Why is it? S5: Nobody wants to change it. It is easier to remain the way w e are. S6: We like to treat ourselves. Why is it wrong to work hard and get what we want? mutindi: Who says that it's wrong? S6: To us, buying things is the way we are. mutindi: Why are you laughing?
A student at the back of the classroom who was laughing asked mutindi what the boys their age do for 'fun' in her village. She explained that fun isn't separated out from the tasks of everyday life in her culture as it is in North
129 America, and she gave example of herding the goats as something that the boys in her village enjoy doing. The goats are their friends. Animals for many indigenous people are included in "all my relations":
We are in a living world in which everything talks with us and everything sees us. . . . The shepherd girl or boy, who have inspired poets who call themselves metizo or creole to wax lyrical about the shepherds' loneliness, are in fact surrounded and accompanied by all those around them, the mountains, the lakes, the rivers, the stars, the plants and animals, who incessantly converse with them, tell them stories, sing to them, whistle to them and do ayni with them. The animals in their flock, the Apus, the pastures, the thickets, the trees, the rocks, the springs, the birds, the insects, are their friends and their relatives at the same time. (Grillo, 1998, p. 226)
mutindi also talked about listening to the 'old ones' tell stories as something everyone enjoys, as well as it being very important to the education of the community by passing on knowings and traditions from generation to generation. However, mutindi explained that these stories are being stolen by Westem anthropologists, and for the children especially, being replaced by Westem 'knowledge.' She talked about the great loss the community feels when a storyteller dies, and made an analogy to a library burning down.
mutindi: What about the environment? Can we keep buying and throwing things out and getting new ones? 87: If we work and can afford things, why should we buy things for them, and do everything for them? Then they don't have to worry about getting a job. mutindi: I'm glad you brought up something very interesting about 'them' and 'us.' It's very critical. 88: Other people come here because there are more opportunities here. But we don't have enough jobs for th em . 87: Yeah. They come and take our jobs.
130 mutindi: Have you ever thought about why it is that it is so restricted in Africa, and yet here we have so much? S9: P o p u latio n . mutindi: You think it is population? S9: That's what we leam. SIO: What would you do if you had extra money? mutindi: That is a good question. SIO: If you lived in Kenya and you got extra money—I don't know how you would get it—you would probably buy a big house. Right? mutindi: I don't need a big house, thaf s what I'm saying. If I had extra money I would start a bank. I told you about these women I'm working with from Kenya. These women work very hard, very long days, and they only end up with about $10 to $50 Canadian at the end of each month. What they are trying to do is trade vegetables, take them to the market, and get a profit of another $1 or $2, and then save it so that they can buy food. If I had money, I would start a bank for these women. You want to support people so that they can support themselves. Why is it that they are poor? That is a big question. SIO: That's because you're following Westem ways. The First Nations people didn't build big houses like we do. mutindi: Our houses are made of mud with thatched roofs, mud with corrugated iron-sheets or bricks with corrugated iron- sheets. They last a long time, and they can trap the water because we don't have plumbing. SIO: You're trying to become Western, because that house is not a hut. Sll: If you're trying to become Westem then you need to buy and sell. Those materials just don't appear, mutindi: You've forgotten Kenya is a colonized country. You're forgetting that white people came there, and established their own multinationals there. They started their own companies to sell these products. It is not that we are trying to become Western, these things were brought to us, and we were actually forced to buy these things. Sll: How can you be forced to do anything? mutindi: I don't know what kind of history you are reading. I'm going to be honest. You read what you want to read, you hear what you want to hear. Here I am telling you exactly this is what is happening and you don't want to hear. SIO: Nobody asked you to build that kind of house, mutindi: Westem society comes and says, "This is what it means to be modem," and because you are powerful you begin to 131 build these houses and you begin to sell this kind of thing. And you give these people some little education, and whatever it means to be modern is what looks like white. SIO: You don't say, "Hey, this is white." You know it came from us, the West. So, it must be modem. mutindi: What is being modem now? Who are us? Did you know the White House was built by black slaves? S8: I d id n 't know that. mutindi: So, who is us? Whose sweat has this country been made of? First Nations people were here and supported people who came in. And, what happened to them? Their land was taken and they were killed. I'm glad we're talking about these things—'us' and 'them.' Sll: There is a difference though, right, between 'us' and 'them' because we live in this kind of society, and they live in Africa. We never talk about them. mutindi: That is why 1 am here, right? To talk to you about how your lives and your technology affects people in my country. S8: I don't know why it is 'us' and 'them.' Why it's not equal? Phil: Just look, guys, at what the industrialized countries do to places like Africa. S8: We don't know. That's what we are learning here. Phil They go there, they strip the country of its natural resources, and then there is nothing left for the people who live there. Sll: We don't think of this as technology. What has this got to do with technology? mutindi: Everything. They come with their big machines, and fertilizers, and coffee, and we have to take out loans to plant coffee. And, those who have economic power devalue our money so much they get the coffee for nothing. One woman, she wants to cut all the coffee plants down because she is getting nothing out of it. They're not allowed to plant anything else on the land that has coffee. You can't plant your beans, you can't plant your maize. This is how people die because the coffee has to be first rate. You want the cash crop fresh so that we can service our debt. S8: You have to produce it for us. mutindi: My mother is an old woman, she is 76. She carries 15 kilograms of coffee on her back. She carries it 4 to 5 kilometres all day long from 8 o'clock in the morning until night. You pick this the whole day, and by the time you're home you're done in. Like I said earlier, it is the women who do this work. It's all in the gender politics. Who controls the coffee? Your husband. You don't dare take a 132 thing out of it, or you lose your eyes, or whatever. So you also have this political Structural Adjustment Policy. The whole province. They're being dictated to from Washington and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The government is supposed to cut spending on education, cut spending on health. So what happens to the lives to these people? Do you see where you need to come in? S8: What can we do? mutindi: In a small way by dealing with yourselves, you can deal with the big issues. S7: Does this mean that we shouldn't buy coffee? mutindi: If we learn to ask more question about our privileges. It shouldn't be normalized—this is the way of life, this is the way it is. We leam to question about these things, how we have designed things to work for ourselves. Take that little first step.
The technology teacher, Phil, suggested that the students could start in their technology classes, by thinking about the implications on others and the earth of what it is they want to make, before making it. They may decide to make it, and they may decide that they can do things differently, or do without it altogether. Phil asked them to try surviving that evening without their 'fun,' without their computer, stereo, or CD player and that they would talk about this in next class.
Students' reflections on culture and technology
The technology education students were very uneasy about the class discussion with mutindi. Many of them did not want to know. After the talk, mutindi expressed concerns that they understand that she was not blaming them. She wanted them to get some feeling about what Westem
133 policies and technologies are doing to her country and other less economically privileged countries around the world, so that they might do things differently in their own lives. The following data is from a large group meeting, two weeks after mutindi s visit to the classroom.
Pat: Let's talk about what happened when mutindi was here. mutindi felt that it was very difficult for you to listen to what she talked to you about. She wanted me to tell you that she loved you all. She wanted you to know what Westem societies have done to her country and other less economically privileged countries around the world. S3: m utindi w as amazing! S4: Yeah, she really opened my eyes to things I had never thought of before. S4: 1 didn't realize how we affected other cultures on the other side of the world. S6: I already knew that we were doing this to them. I didn't bother me that much. Pat: Would it make you think about what you buy? S7: Most people don't care. 1 thought about Starbucks coffee for that one day she was here, but, then 1 forgot about it. S6: If we brought them over and showed them all our technologies, would they want to stay, or would they want to go back home? S4: Before this project, I thought of technology as computers. Technology was only electronic. After mutindi, 1 thought more than just electronics, computers, graphics, space ships. S3: Now I think differently. 1 sort of knew before, having things produced in other countries, having them take the garbage end of the deal, the workers, effluent from all the plants, the crap. Our technology definitely affects other people. We need to think when we buy things. S4: Of course, we use these places to our advantage. They don't grow what they need the com and potatoes because we want our coffee beans. We never think about how this affects their way of life. Because I want to drive my car, I never think about how it affects other people, yet it does. S3: The day after mutindi came in, I went to the store to buy a new toothbrush. It was cool and had this bristle up the side. I didn't buy it. I didn't need it. I was proud of myself.
134 S4: Seriously, I questioned getting a new pair of ski goggles when I don't even need it.. It was nice to know that there is money there. Now I have $300, and not just $200 51: We don't have people from Kenya coming in and talking to us about these things everyday. 51: We need to hear this more often and starting at kindergarten. 57: It would get kind of expensive flying someone in from Kenya. Pat: Do you think it should be mutindi's responsibility to educate us about what we are doing to other cultures? What about us taking that responsibility on to find out what we are doing so that we are not hurting others? 57: Because she should want to because we are a stubborn culture. Why would we want to know what we have never heard about? 51: We need to hear this more in school. Why aren't teachers telling us these things?
The following is a conversation with their teacher during a break period the same day as this class meeting.
Phil: The students didn't know how to respond to mutindi because they have not been exposed to someone from her culture before and they did not know how to react. To them, the way they behaved was okay. 1 saw immaturity. Because they didn't know how to react to her on a mature level, they acted on a childish level. It wasn't as hostility or resistance. More of an uncertainty, mutindi made them feel uncomfortable. 1 felt uncomfortable with my beliefs. Pat: Perhaps this is where learning takes place, when we are not feeling comfortable. Phill: Definitely. 5ome of them were surprised. It is different when someone from a western culture talks of 'third world'. I've been thinking about it for the last few weeks.
The last comments by Phil Crawford are noteworthy. "It is different when someone from a western culture talks of Third World." The students and
Phil were very uncomfortable with mutindi's presence, of hearing her talk
135 about what western epistemologies and technologies have done to her
culture and her country. According to Phil, the students had viewed several
documentaries on ^third world' cultures, but the material presented was
easier to handle when filtered through a video screen and dispassionate, and
most often white, narrator, mutindi was not a docu-genre-voiceover with
the appropriate timbre, such at that on the Discovery channel. National Film
Board of Canada, and Channel 4 on British Broadcasting Corporation, with accompanying exotic and sensationalized film footage, mutindi brought her uncensored and unsanitized concerns into the technology classroom, in her
'coloured' flesh, with breath, passion, humour and anger. The students came face to face with an 'other' reality and with western privileges; they did not have the technology to tune out and/or fUp to another channel.
Western discourse as manifest manners
Technology education curricula are discourses of absence, with schooling as a continuation of cultural genocide. Gerald Vizenor (1994) refers to these bad manners as the "manifest manners" of colonialist mentalities and white language, with their "aversion to the presence of tribes" and literary annihilation through the capturing, silencing, and hiding indigenous cultures in the shadows of white signification.
Manifest manners are the simulations of dominance; the notions and misnomers that are read as the authentic and sustained as representations of Native American Indians, (p. 4)
136 The land and new nation were discovered with nouns and deverbatives, consumed with transitive actions, and embraced with a causal sensation of manifest manners, (p. 9)
Although mutindi's talk was very difficult for both the students (and their teacher) initially, cultural considerations of technology surfaced in almost all of the subsequent conversations with them. They were learning that they had been schooled in manifest manners. Over the next few months of the study most of them asked to have mutindi return to the class.
S7: People need to know about what it is Like to live in other cultures We need this to be constant, not just one time. We don't know much about the outside world. We need to talk about this in school. S5: W e are very privileged here. S2: If you made me think about how technology affects other people and the world, you did a good job. S4: I really feel that a lot of the Third World cultures would have developed better if we had just left them alone basically. In Chemistry we talked about many of the places where the British and the European countries went are not doing as well with this imposed technology. S7: We are just taking and taking. We need to listen to what we are doing to other cultures. Pat: How might we do this? S7: Everyone should be involved. Everyone is taking things. We are destroying Third World cultures. I still watch too much TV. I have been asking myself, do 1 really need this? Not really? S5: We need a whole new course instead of technology course, like a world education, teaching about the world and combined with other courses, maybe spread out over all the courses. We need to leam to respect other countries.
Ironically, while the students had come to discuss technology and indigenous people 'over there', throughout the research project the only conversations in which the local First Nations communities were
137 acknowledged were ones which I initiated. First Peoples in technology education curriculum (and other curriculum areas) are dismissed or treated in some token way. For example, in the BC curriculum, the only reference to
First Nations people is in a sample project in which students are to carve totem poles.
Phil: Forest Gate where I taught in London was a very multicultural school with many transients from East India. 5% of budget had to go to multiculturalism. It was mandated by the school board. It was difficult. You want to bring in multicultural projects, but you don't want token projects, it has to have some meaning. Pat What is Canadian culture? Is it Western? Does it include the First People of this land? Phil: It is still Western. I don't want to do token projects, Uke First Nations carving as suggested in the new BC curriculum, unless it is done as a whole project so that students learn what it means to that culture. What do the signs and symbols means? Why make native masks? Why? They are not going to wear them in Forest Cate, or in Langley?
Unlearning manifest manners
Technology discourses, not urdike other curricular areas, are manifest manners. Manifest manners become manifest in the universal discourses of standards and wiring for the teaching of technology in education. There is no place for the indigenous people of North America, or Africa, or Australia to dispute their colonizing stories because they have not been "in the same universe of discourse" (Creenblatt, quoted in Vizenor, 1994a, p. 115).
Pat: Do you think that it is possible to teach about gender and technology and culture and technology in technology education? Phil: Only if that environment they are in is radically changed. Changing the environment is going to remove stereotypical attitudes and showing the type of projects that are relevant to 138 their lives. ... It all goes back to the teacher education programmes, who we recruit, who does the teacher training? We have so many people involved in education who know little about education, like the business push.
Until the teacher demographics change substantially, and until there is the political will for substantive curriculum revisions, concerned educators need to find ways to affirm difference in their teaching practices. 1 read A
Columbus Coyote Story to the students with the hope that it would encourage them to look at their curriculum as a storytelling practice. Who were the storytellers? How did they become the storytellers? Whose knowledge was and was not included? What might the stories become if told from other perspectives? What shape might stories of technology take if gender, cultural and environmental concerns were also part of the conversation?
S6: The Coyote story made me think that we need more ways of looking at things. S5; It is encouraging to know that someone is talking about technology from so many perspectives like Coyote does. S12: When you read the Coyote story, 1 thought what if people were made to be more responsible for what they do? Starting at the younger grades. We just can't keep on making. SI: Grade 5 students wouldn't be able to see how Coyote and technology are similar. My little brother is in Grade 5 and he would get the storytelling part, that there are lots of ways of telling a story. Grade 8's would understand Coyote. It would be better than doing that flashing light thing that we do for the electronics. We never use it, ever. With the LEDs. S4: Coyote makes us think twice about things. We would think about why we are building these things in the first place. Who needs them? S3: [Coyote] makes us think of the people part of technology. We just do the assignments and don't think about anything else. Most students wouldn't want to think about this, they would want to just do the project. 139 S4; We are told that the story changes each time a government changes, like in Russia and the United States. And here too. The propaganda by the governments—I thought of that when you read the Coyote story. 82: I see Coyote like technology. It is good and bad. Our technology is bad for mutindi, but it is good for us.
Inviting mutindi to talk with the students and the teacher in this
study, and reading A Columbus Coyote Story, was an endeavour to
acknowledge that there is much going on beyond the cultural horizons of the
technology education curriculum writers, and in the margins of the stories
being told in schools. Indigenous people in many countries, including
Canada, are determining for themselves what their educational needs are.
For example, Peter Cole of the In-SHUCK-ch/ N'Quatqua Nation (SPatTimx)
and members of his community are working together to have First Nations
knowings as a 'legitimate' discourse in education—not as augmentation to western epistemologies, but as equivalent epistemologies. Peter and I are also both involved in a pilot project with School District #75 (Mission) and members of his community in the design of a First Nations curriculum. This is a very difficult task which can be better articulated in Peter's words from a talk he gave at Queen's University in May 1998, than through my interpretation:
Our community is N'Quatqua, Ska tine, Saktin, Samahquam, Port Douglas, Mount Currie, the old Pemberton Meadows Village and those places up there where people don't live anymore because the animals and fish are gone, the forests have been cut down and the water is polluted and the sacred burial places have been flooded or excavated. Many of us now live far to the south in the towns and villages and reserves around the Fraser Valley where the children were taken to and made to live in residential schools. Very often parents moved 140 away from our traditional places to be close to their children. Many stayed in those communities because they adopted the habits and religions of the white people.
In terms of schooling, many elders have received no formal education. Others attended public school, band school, residential school and had their culture and language forced out of them. Many of the young ones today have quit formal schooling or have been kicked out and they can find no jobs. Many are on welfare because they feel they have nothing to offer—no-one wants to employ them. There is only bingo and smoking and lottery tickets and hanging around the friendship centres. And the bars. The Tl'atl'imx language class in Mission is bringing a few back.
The Stl'atl'imx community have begun with the learning and teaching of the oral language, Tl'atl'imx, which is done, not through linguistic rules, but through their traditional singing, dancing, drumming, and storytelling. They are also reviving their traditional technologies such as drum design and construction, weaving, basketmaking, together with respect for the trees, grasses, and animals from which these materials are taken.
A way of discontinuing the practice of manifest manners is to encouragecM/fwra/ literacy as a part of technological literacy; they are not separate. This would require inviting members of local indigenous and other cultural communities to work within the schools and to become participants in both curriculum design and implementation, not as volunteers on the day(s) set aside to leam a b o u t'Indians' and 'others', but as coequal knowers and learners. Such a dialogue would embody a very different mode of teaching and learning, necessarily with incommensurable worldviews.
141 However, a different cultural literacy is being encouraged in schools, a culture of high technology, which even further distances students not only from themselves and the earth, but also from indigenous people, and indigenous technologies. The preferred participants in curriculum design are not members of the Mkamba, First Nations, or Maori communities, rather business interests promoting computers and multimedia in education.
Plateau 1008: Virtually a tale addresses this new politics of alliances once more ignoring the borderlands with their latest engineered extension of imperialism into education.
142 PLATEAU 1008:
VIRTUALLY A TALE
Cyboigology
Perhaps our hopes for accountability, for politics, for ecofeminism, turn on revisioning the world as coding trickster with whom we must leam to converse. (Haraway, 1991b, p. 201, emphasis added)
The entry point onto this plateau is a virtual analysis, a theoretical space
about virtual realities and education, the subject of educational technology.
The first segment is composed of a predominantly western academic
discourse, and a commingling of non-westem academic discourse, on the
wisdom and folly of cyborgs as both narrative and material experiments, both
at-large and in schools. A not-so-'coding trickster' plugs into the discussion as
a rhizoanalysis, adding a local cultural dimensionality to this plateau, and
creating a few power outages. A further analysis of virtual realities and
education is taken up onPlateau 1009: Dataplay, through data enacted with
the educational technology co-participants of this study.
As we move more and more toward visual learning in schools, with the increasing emphasis on computer technologies, educators need more than ever to pay attention to the epistemological and ontological implications
143 and repercussions of the texts of these technologies: their narrative and material constructions for pedagogy, curriculum, and educational inquiry.
Kroker & Weinstein (1994) are not alone in their belief that technology has altered our senses and already become our ontology, and that the age of the human has given way to the ^posthuman.'
For some time now there has been a rumor going around that the age of the human has given way to the posthuman. Not that humans have died out, but that the human as a concept has been succeeded by its evolutionary heir. Humans are not the end of the line. Beyond them looms the cyborg, a hybrid species created by crossing biological organism with cybernetic mechanism. (Hayles, 1995, p. 321)
Michel Foucault (1980) writes of "technologies of the self' and "technologies of normalization" and how the increasing supersaturation oftechnological thinking contributes to the docility and receptivity of bodies to the language of science and technology. According to Donna Haraway (1991b), an
"informatics of domination" has shifted an "organic industrial society to a polymorphous information system" (p. 161) which has already transformed our bodies into cyborgs—part human, part machine. She contends that we need to find ways to converse with "[t]his world-as-code ... a high-tech military field, a kind of automated academic battlefield, where blips of hght called players disintegrate . . . each other in order to stay in the knowledge and power game [in which] . . . [t]echnoscience and science fiction collapse into a sun of their radiant (ir)reaÜty—war" (p. 186). Haraway argues that we need to understand that "nature has been reconstructed in the belly of a heavily
144 militarized, communications-system-based technoscience in its late and
capitalist and imperialist forms," and that we need to make alliances with
those who practice on those terrains so that we can contest from "inside the
belly of the monster" (Penley & Ross, 1991, p. 6) so that we might imagine a
possible world.
Haraway recognizes increasing human-machine interface not only as a
product of social relations but also as a potential site for contesting and
redefining those relations. She rejects appeals to anti-technological and
organic naturalist and essentialist body wholeness, and calls for transgressive
acts in the "border war" between humans and machines. Viewing global
sisterhood projects and common interest alliances, based on "innocence" and
"victimhood" as tiresome and a waste of our energies and time, Haraway
(1991b) invites us to consider a new politics that would unfold "partial,
contradictory, permanently unclosed constructions of personal and collective
selves" (p. 157).
Haraway (1991a) advocates the use of metaphors, such ascyborg, coyote
and trickster which "show us that historically specific human relations with
'nature' must somehow—linguistically, scientifically, ethically, politically,
technologically, and epistemologically—be imagined as genuinely social and
actively relational. And yet, the partners in this lively social relation remain
inhomogeneous" (p. 21). She challenges her readers to consider embodied refigurative writing practices, troping and knotting together key
145 technosdence discourses, and producing "worldly interference patterns" (p.
60), as a hope for more livable worlds. For Haraway (1991b), cyhorg zuriting
creates new language and sensibilities:
Cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other. The tools are often stories, retold stories, versions that reverse and displace the hierarchical dualisms of naturalized identities. In retelling origin stories, cyborg authors subvert the central myths of Western culture. We have all been colonized by those origin myths, with their longing for fulfilment in apocalypse. The phallogocentric origin stories most crucial for feminist cyborgs are built into the literal technologies—technologies that write the world, biotechnology and microelectronics—that have recently textualized our bodies on the grid of C^I [command-control- communication-intelligence]. Feminist cyborg stories have the task of recoding communication of intelligence to subvert command and control, (p. 175)
"Mixing, juxtaposing, and reversing reading conventions appropriate to each
genre can yield fruitful ways of understanding the production of origin
narratives in a society that privileges science and technology in its constructions of what may count as nature and for regulating traffic between what it divides as nature and culture" (Haraway, 1989, p. 370). She, however, suggests that to transgress borders we need to do more than textual re- readings.
The point is not just to read the webs of knowledge production; the point is to reconfigure what counts as knowledge in the interests of reconstituting the generative forces of embodiment. I am calling this practice materialized refiguration; both words matter. (Haraway, 1994, p. 62)
146 Rather than resist postmodern capitalism and its cyborg culture, Haraway
writes that we should embrace the subversive possibilities of cyborgian
imagery, because we have no choice but to move through "artifactualism" to
a geography as elsewhere. The cyborg is the boundary creature, as split and
contradictory self, "partial in all its guises . . . always constructed and stitched
together imperfectly, and therefore able to join with another, to see together without claiming the other" (Haraway, 1991a, p. 22).
From one perspective, a cyborg world is about the final imposition of a grid of control on the planet, about the final abstraction embodied in a Star War apocalypse waged in the name of defense, about the final appropriation of women's bodies in masculinist orgy of war. From another perspective, a cyborg world might be about Hved social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints. (Haraway, 1991b, p. 154)
A much quoted line from Haraway's writing: "Though both are bound in a the spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess" (p. 181).
Cyber-witch teachers
Suzaime Damarin (1994) explores how cyborg and goddess mythologies relate to the "spiral dance" of teaching, noting that teachers are always already both cyborg and goddess. She searches for a third term to the binary of cyborg/goddess binary positionalities for teachers. The goddess myth has been placed on women for centuries, with the "continuance of mothering and nurturing of the individual child" (p. 3) being extended into the classrooms of
147 female teachers. Notwithstanding the added political demands being placed
on teachers for productivity and efficiency, the goddess myth persists and
inscribes female teachers. Damarin resists the teacher as goddess myth,
arguing that "teachers are...earthly creatures who must negotiate their
sustenance and positionalities in the material world" (p. 5).
With the current push for technologized education, Damarin points
out that the teacher as goddess is now assigned "those (sub)service tasks
required to establish and continue the hegemony of man-machines in the re
definition of education" (p. 7). She maintains that "postmodern teachers can
no more elect not to he cyborgs, than they can elect to be goddesses" (p. 7,
emphasis original). Concerned about the lack of other than goddess role
models, Damarin provides her own imaginary of cyborgian teachers.
Cyborgian teachers roam with us today....[They] accept computers into their classrooms only to divert the effects of C3 I [command-control- communication-intelligence]. . . . subvert the intentions of machine donors and use computer to reproduce and magnify their own personalities .... take pleasure in ironies and reversals unthinkable to their pre-cyborgian mentors .... mess with the machines to create ficts and faction from socially constructed facts and fictions .... play with the anthropomorphism of machines .... may be unfaithful to the fathers, but she does not forget what they have done .... [recognizes] technophilia and technophobia as the love-hate binary that sustains technocentrism. (p. 11-12)
Damarin proposes a third term to transgress / resist Haraway's cyborg/goddess binary —postmodern witches, mothers, and loners. A
W.I.T.C.H. (Wild Independent Thinking Crone and Hag) has "transformative powers like the cyborg. .. . [but] unlike the cyborg whose müieu is surface and
148 boundary .. . the witch is at home with depth and duration" (p. 13). A witch becomes cyber-witch in her technologized classroom, engaging students in
"robotidde" against the "State of Robitude" (p. 14).
According to Damarin, laughing mothers, and alone standing woman are co-inhabitants with the witch within the third term space. The laughing teacher exists outside the world of Freud, Lacan, and even Chadorow and Dr.
Spock ... as she dances with the children on a cyberspace dancefloor" (p. 15).
Unbounded by the her "worldly search for good sex" and "an income reflecting her comparable worth'" (p. 16), she is the extension of a laughing mother. The alone standing teacher is a border creature, standing/sweeping with one foot out (goddess-like) and one foot in (cyborgian). Laughing teachers "share the humanity of their students, but escape humanness as understood by the youngsters in her class" (p. 17). The task, then, of cyber witch teachers, is to teach children "witchcrafty sweeping, alone standing laughing, and cyborgian spellcasting" (p. 18-19), so that students can create their own humanness as they are being constructed to be more like machines.
Cyborgs as narrative experiments
Noel Gough (1994d) writes that schooling ought to be a place to deconstruct, construct and interrogate the world-as-text and to consider carefully the implications of technocultural and ecopolitical constructions of
"multistoried" textual practices, so that we might optimize the "constructive
149 possibilities provided by the 'wildness' of language itself" (p. 210). He writes
that educators "need to provide students with more complex and
complicating discourses; we can no longer assume to re/present, interpret,
and explain 'reality' and the "complexity and instability of the phenomenal
world that presents itself to human sensibilities" (Gough, 1993, p. 621).
With nature increasingly becoming a technocultural construction, "an
artefact," Gough (1993) contends that educators need to attend to the
"narrative complexity" of such concepts as "self, culture, nature and artefact."
How many of us rely on television, radio and newspapers to interpret or
forecast the weather?
Our cultural activities—industrial, pollution, urbanisation, agribusiness—have quite literally 'constructed' the greenhouse effect and eroded the ozone layer but our knowledge of these and many other complexities of climate change is constructed by the global network of weather stations, satellites, supercomputers, meteorologists and broadcasters that produce the images, models and simulations that are the material representations of that knowledge, (p. 7)
Culture is increasingly foregrounded, becoming "second nature" (Jameson,
1991). For McKenzie Wark (1994), nature is even further destabilized by
"virtual geography":
Second nature, which appears to us as the geography of cities and roads and harbours and wool stores in progressively overlayed with a third nature of information flows, creating an information landscape which almost entirely covers the old territories, (quoted in Gough, 1997, p. 7)
Gough (1994b), similar to Haraway, views cyborgs as "significant narrative experiments in the discursive formulation of emergent posthuman
150 subjectivities" (Gough, 1995b, p. 2). Gough emphasizes the "machineries of
texts" that construct cyborgs, not simply their hardware—the narrativity of
cyborgs and how they function textually and intertextually—their "pretexts"
toward digital narratives using hypertext authoring programmes. In his
classrooms he encourages graduate students to question what curriculum
storylines their "nonessential, fragmented, decentred selve^' (p. 1) are part of
by using three categories of cyborgs as codes: theoretical construction of
cyborgs, human/ machine creature in SF storylines, and as "real" people
dependent on and mediated by technology.
Arguing that the gap between the concept and materiality of cyborgs no
longer exists, Gough (1995a) writes:
The kinds of cyborgs we and our children are now—and are possibly becoming—will be shaped by the stories we mutually construct. Furthermore, the generation and materialization of these possibilities is as much a function of textual silences, denials, and refusals, as it is of whatever may explicitly be privileged by a text. Even if we ignore cyborgs, I doubt that they will go away. (p. 76)
For Gough, manifesting cyborgian imagery in curriculum inquiry takes
responsibility for "the radical anxiety of human consciousness about its own
embodiment at the moment that embodiment appears almost fully
contingent" (p. 76) and turns that radical anxiety into hope.
World as screen habitacles
The body and its environment. . . . produce each other as forms of the hyperreal, as modes of simulation which have overtaken and transformed whatever reality each may have had into the image of the
151 other: the dty is made and made over into the simulacrum of the body, and the body, in its turn, is transformed, "citified," urbanized as a distinctively metropolitan body .... counterpoint to the notion of a global economic and informational exchange system. (Grosz, 1992, p. 242-243)
Many writers are not so willing to embrace high tech figurations. For example, Elizabeth Grosz explores how our notions of spatiality are effected by the technologization/ technocratization of urban space. She uses the metaphor of the city as machine, however, not one modeled on the engine but on the "computer, facsimile machine, and modem, a machine that reduces distance and speed to immediate, instantaneous gratification (p. 251).
Grosz argues that "the replacement of geographical space with the screen interface, the transformation of distance and depth into pure surface, the reduction of space to time, of the face-to-face encounter to the terminal screen" (p. 251) transforms our "mutually defining relations between corporeality and the metropohs" (p. 243).
Geographical space and bodies collapse into the surface of the terminals screen: space implodes into time/instantaneous communication, bodies converge into terminals—terminal bodies. Moreover, in the hyperreallity of patriarchal. Western, technocapitalism, Grosz reminds us that the body is subordinated to the mind and is merely a bridge linking a nonspatial consciousness to the material. As the mind has always been associated with males, and body with females, "female" is effectively obliterated from this emerging world as screen/ surface. With this implosion
152 of time into space and "the ^cross-breeding' of the body and machine," Grosz
(1992) asks "whether the machine will take on the characteristics attributed of
the human body ... or whether the body will take on the characteristics of the
machine?" (p. 252).
Along similar lines, Verena Andermatt Conley (1993) asks whether
people are becoming "terminal humans" or "human terminals" as social
links are disrupted and people are confined into"habttades"(tmy Living
spaces), where they are glued to their chairs, linked by various threads and
remote controls . . . and tuned into virtual realities" (p. 87)—both terminus
and terminal. Conley is concerned that the "becoming," such as that
advocated by Deleuze and Cuattari is being appropriated by integrated world
capitahsm (IWC) "for destructive ends ,.. fake becoming . . . staggering
production of unusable trash" (p. 85).
At the end of our century not much wül remain of this planet that is not only polluted and impoverished, but also shrunken and reduced to nothing by the teletechnologies of generalized interactivity. (Virilio, 1993, p. 12)
Limitless utopian views, accelerated loss of physical and metaphorical space,
shortened horizons. Is there a possible exit— sortie? Conley writes of
"mapping a practice of eco-subjectivity" in an ecological society based on
more constant time and 'low' technologies. For this, Conley joins Walter
Benjamin's storytelling, with Deleuze & Cuattari's becoming, as a potentiality to decompress, renarrativize, and "live in a habitable world" (p. 90).
153 First World Netscape
Haraway's cyborg is an important effort at resisting the dehumanizing
cultural effects of the artifactualization of the world, however, some feminists
are concerned that the cyborg may rehabilitate, rather than subvert the
artifice.
The representation of femininity as artifice and/or machine is already a well-established trope in modernity existing alongside, and sometimes in conflict with, the more familiar ideal of woman as redemptive, unalienated nature. Such representations, however, seem to function less as subversive challenged to the ideology of humanism than as misogynistic fantasies of gaining final control over an unruly female body. Haraway's assumption that the appeal to artifice is more transgressive than the evocation of nature becomes questionable in the Hght of such history. (Felski, 1989, quoted in Goshom, 1994, p. 280-281)
N. Katherine Hayles (1993) writes that "our sense of our physical
bodies, their capabilities and limitations, boundaries and extension, deeply
informs both the objects and the codes of representation" (p. 173). For her the
merging of physical and textual bodies into actual and virtual reahties is now
joined by technologies of cyberspace that "splice a human subject into a
cybernetic circuit by putting the human sensorium in a direct feedback loop
with computer data banks" (p. 174). Hayles points out that in cyberspace,
human sensory and cognitive habitation becomes displaced by a cybernetic
construct.
Haraway's cyborgian metaphor, according to Hayles, although doing much to untie women from the goddess image and opening spaces for other possibüities, also brings with it problems. She maintains that the thrill of
154 creating and exploring such "technosubjects," in disembodied space consisting
of a better-than-Iife sensorium, diverts attention away from the cultural
forces behind the machine logic that is "the Procrustean bed into which
human perception must fit" (p. 175). Those who have access to cyberspace,
have the privilege to escape from the everyday difficulties of being bodily
engaged in the world. For example, Hayles writes that "cyberspace can be used
to cope with that affliction of the postmodern age,too much information" (p.
177).
Hayles writes of other problematics, such as sense and empathy, and
eroticism with the dissolution/modification of bodies; "[tjeledildonic
fantasies" (p. 183) provide titillation and escape for those in cyberspace while others are dying of AIDS; computer constructs for "more flexible, easier to design, less troublesome to maintain [forms]" (p. 182) are privileged over our messy, imperfect, unpredictable physical bodies.
Body politics, already well articulated within feminist theory, will mean not only the imbrication of the body in gendered structures, but also a politics of physicality shaped by the technologies of technomorphism and informatics, including computer simulations, cybernetics, genetic engineering, organ transplants, bioactive drugs, and reconstructive surgery, (p. 182)
The escape fantasy of cyberspace worlds, relieves people of and diverts them from facing the often irreversible messes and problems created with technology. Hayles argues that, "[Ijeaving the body behind equates to the belief that if the problems won't go away from us, perhaps we can go away
155 from the problems" (p. 183). Participants in the high tech world of cyborgs never meet face-to-face with the actual sounds of war and the cries of starving children. These are un-realities, unrealized in this uncontaminated playground.
Hayles maintains that cyberspace and cyborgs are not only male constructs, but they are an intensification of the logic of patriarchal capitalism, where machine language and "binary logic . . . follow linear decision paths"
(p. 184). While virtual reality gives the illusion of "connectivity, sensitivity to others' choice, open-ended creativity, free-wheeling exploration" (p. 184), she argues that masculine ethics of control prevails.
External space is not a contraction into a surface/screen for Hayles, but a darker reconstitution of spatiality that extends into the "endo spaces of the body as well as the cyberspaces of virtual reality" (p. 185)— terminal identities.
[I]n the cyborg mirror, three-dimensionality is reconstituted only after the encounter with the two-dimensional surface of the screen. ... As gendered patterns of concavity and convexity move through the surface of the screen, they become more arbihary, subject to rearrangements and reassemblies that are bound by informational rather than physical constraints....the fictional worlds of cyberspace are replete with androgynous figures. . . . the Other is either assimilated into the self to become an inferior version of the Same or remains outside as a threatening and incomprehensible alterity. So women are constructed as castrated men or Medusa figures; blacks as inferior whites or cannibalistic devils; the poor as lazy indigents or feral criminals, (p. 187-188)
For these reasons, Hayles suggests that we take seriously the metaphor of
"colonization," as well as the seduction of cyberspace. Hayles does not
156 advocate abandoning cyberworlds as she does see them opening up new vistas, but she asks that we look at the underside of the seductive powers of cyborg imagery and "to remember what cannot be replaced" (p. 188).
Third World landscape
Joseph Gabilando (1995) writes that the "postmodern, fetishist obsession" (p.
423) with the reproduction and simulation of cyborgs now replace First World
"Man." He reminds us that "capitalism does not get rid of its old technologies and apparatuses; instead it exports them to the Third World" (p. 423). This is evident with the creation of free trade zones and export processing zones, not only in economically poorer countries, but right here in North America.
The cyborg is not the general, postmodern form of subjectivity created by multinational capitalism but rather the hegemonic subject position that its ideology privileges. (Gabilando, 1995, p. 424)
There is no such thing as "postcolonial cyborg," argues Gabilando, because
'post'-colonial subject positions are left 'outside' cyberspace.
Postcolonial subject positions are necessary in order to create the outsideness that cyberspace and consumer culture need to constitute themselves as the new hegemonic inner spaces of postmodernism. To put it bluntly, Africa owns 1% off all television sets in the world, (p. 434)
I don't need a computer I got a pen and when that runs out I got a knife and lots of pencils my kids crayons charcoal lots of hardware anyway I got no 'lectricity in my shack like most of us (Cole, 1997, p. 2)
Might virtual reality or computer simulation be harnessed, one wonders, for the purposes of multicultural pedagogy? ... It would be naive to place exaggerated faith in these new technologies, for their
157 expense makes them exploitable mainly be corporations and the military. As ever, the power resides with those who build, disseminate, and commercialize the systems. . . . The point is not merely to communicate sensations but rather to advance structural understanding and engagement in change. (Shohat & Stam, 1994, p. 356)
Cyberspace subjectivities are privileged sites, "primarily hved, constructed,
and legitimized as the interior to the . . . cyberspatial interface of the
apparatus-continuum constituted by phones/modems/PCs/cable-
television/ cellular-phones/ faxes / etc. of late capitahsm" (Gabilando, p. 425).
Gabilondo contends that when Haraway wrote her Manifesto for
Cyborgs in 1985, cyberspace was not as developed as it is today so there was
"space for a utopian caU." He suggests that the global culture in which we hve today cannot be represented or thought out as a presence or agency, since the global condihon does not exist; "that moment has passed" and it is necessary to "conceptualize and map in order to access it and use it, not utopicaUy but historically" (p. 431).
Derek Gregory (1994) has another take on Haraway's cyborg. He writes that cyborg geographies do not take into consideration the differently conshtuted places around the integrated circuit:
For ah the appeals to Spivak, Trin Minh-ha and others,is the cyborg myth a First World fantasy? The electronic and biotechnological freedoms that Haraway anticipates are withheld from many people in many places, and the high technology that she invokes in her deconstruction is disproportionately concentrated in the North/First World. Haraway knows ah this of course" (p. 165, emphasis added).
158 Haraway (1991a) realized that her cyborg needed redefining in an interview with Andrew Ross and Constance Penley:
1 think what I want is more of a family of displaced figures, of which the cyborg is one, then to ask how the cyborg makes connections with these other nonoriginal people (cyborgs are nonoriginal people) who are multiply displaced. Could there be a family of figures who would populate our imagination of these postcolonial, postmodern worlds that would not be quite as imperializing in terms of a single figuration for identity? (p. 13)
Listening to the polyglot languages that actually, historically fill up the New World ... I have tried to look again at some feminist discards from the Western deck of cards. The search is for the trickster figures that might turn a stacked deck into a potent set of wild cards for refiguring possible worlds, (p. 24)
Haraway (1991b) cautions of transformation emanating from the practices of the holistic, transcendentalist movements such as New Age, because she believes that their alternatives are still in love with technoscience. For her "family of figures," Haraway turns to Third World cultural forms in the U.S. such as "mestizaje" and "women of color"
(Sandoval, 1995). As written above, Haraway calls upon the trickster/Coyote of First Nations and Native American as "witty agent" and a "useful myth" to enrich "feminist theory as a reinvented coyote discourse" (1991b, p. 199).
According to Cole (1997), and many indigenous people, referring to indigenous spirituality as myth is racist, and a way for the dominant culture to give itself permission to appropriate others' spirituality.
Gregory (1994) raises concerns about another "borrowing" by Haraway from indigenous people, in particular, the word "inappropriate/d" from Trin
159 Minh-ha. For Haraway (1992), "inappropriate/ d" is both a tactic "not to fit into the taxon, to be dislocated from the available maps specifying kinds of actors and kinds of narratives, not to be originally fixed by difference" and model of "diffraction," blurring of boundaries and "the promises of monsters" (p. 299). For Minh-ha (1989), it is refusal to know one's "assigned" place, a strategy typically unknown and marginaHzed in dominant societies.
Seeing the possibilities of Haraway's cyborg. Chela Sandoval (1995), a
"woman of color," looks at a dimension that is left out of much cyborg theory,
"namely, that cyborg consciousness can be understood at the technological embodiment of a particular and specific form of oppositional consciousness . .
. U.S. third world feminism" (p. 408). She is referring to the colonized people of North America who "flips burgers, who speaks the cyborg speech of
McDonalds"—the cyborg workers of the now dominant global world order."
Sandoval argues for a cyborg methodology for resistance and survival of First
World transnational technocultural conditions, inner/psychic and outer/ social praxis "oppositional technologies of power" (p. 409). Her U.S.
Third World feminism "differential consciousness" technologies have five
"vectors": semiotic, outsider/within de-constructive, strategic essentialism meta-ideologizing, womanism/moral, and mestiza/world travelling/loving cross-cultures differential.
Both Haraway and Sandoval are writing of a type of joint kinship, lines of affinity, border crossings. Haraway (1991c) writes of "elaborate specificity"
160 and an opportunity for "the loving care people might take to leam how to see
faithfully from another point of view" (p. 190). Nobody, including Haraway,
can see from another point of view. We can cross borders but our seeing can
only be partial from our "situated" positioning. If we are not of that land, we
do not know the language of that land. Going to mutindi ndimda's village,
will not teach me to see from the point of view of the woman who wanted to bum down the coffee crops, or mutindi^s mother, or mutindi. I can only see
from my body, my mind, my spiritual engagement with the land. Looking to the margins, across the borders, and around the world, to save the dominant culture and prop up Eurotheories can easily become another form of Western imperialism and colonization—another form of intellectual racism. Haraway and other caring academics can, however, stand w ith people of different points of view to create a different and dynamic horizon. Caring academics can learn to stand aside, and leam to listen, so that there is room and silence enough to hear what people of less-economically advantaged cultures, both here and around the world, can articulate very well for themselves.
Modest_Witness
In later work, Haraway (1997), introduces to her "family of displaced figures,"
Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan®_Meets_OncoMouse , a mutated bio/ textual/techno figuration which both inhabits and is inhabited by technoscience. Modest_Witness is an e-compression of real and virtual, a
161 spliced hybrid map of knowledge, power and language. E-Mail and
Fem aleM an.
[W]ith a raging sense of humor .... FemaleMan® ironically and oxymoronically reembodies the collective processes of making feminism, and of making science, that are decontextualized and privately appropriated in the markets of texts, products, and authors. S/he is part of a bushy shrub of feminist interpretations of what counts as subject and object. . . . With OncoMouse™, and other natural obscenities, s/he is a fallen woman, (p. 75)
Modest_Witness is a diffractive cyborg writing producing "promising interference patterns" in technology discourses—a cyborg "conversation that prepares one for life in the narrative webs of the techno/bio/ power of the
New World Order, Inc., biopower, the Second Millennium, and the Net" (p.
75). Haraway asks her readers to "have a good time" and join her as she enters "the wormholes of contemporary millenarian technoscience" and
"tinkers with mechanisms for unwinding sticky threads and making new articulations in the dense knots and hypertextual webs" (p. 15).
Haraway's work provides exciting new metaphoric grounds of resistance under Western conditions of transnationalization. Her cyborg, now mutated into Modest_Witness, is an imaginative figuration not only for women but for anyone concerned with the humanist concept of technology as an extension of male freedom, now further extended through the global reach of pancapitalism. Modest_Witness' validity depends on "nurturing and acknowledging alliances with a lively array of others, who are like and
162 unlike, human and not, inside and outside hegemonic selves and powerful places" (p. 269).
No matter how virtual the subject may become, there is always a body attached. It may be off somewhere else—and that "somewhere else" may be a privileged point of view—but consciousness remains firmly rooted in the physical. Historically, body, technology, and community constitute each other. (Stone, 1991, p. Ill)
For many indigenous scholars, the popular cultural phenomena of 'hybrids' is another form of orthodoxy, another form of colonization, a "hybrid global soup" (Rengifo, 1998), in which all difference disappears. For Apffel-Marglin
(1998) hybrids are interbreeding and genetic manipulations which "makes visible the disparate origins of various traits," while rendering invisible tens of thousands of years of "the knowledge, work and inventiveness" of the indigenous people who nurtured the varieties of 'seeds' (p. 10-11). She argues for a "flowering of diversity—diversity nurtured and strengthened by intercultural cross-pollination" (p. 13). Interculturalism. The modesty of
Modest_Witness will be demonstrated by who and what constitutes the lively array of others, and how they do, or do not, have access to the New World
Order, Inc.—if they so desire.
Tricksteria prefigures cyborgia
This part of the plateau is trickster/ Coyote mesa-ing around with virtual realities because as Haraway says:
T]he subjects are cyborgs, nature is coyote, and the geography is elsewhere. (Haraway, in Penley & Ross, 1991, p. 4)
163 Or is it that:
The actors are characters, we are all Coyote, and Donna Haraway is elsewhere (and otherwise)?
Are actors, nature and geography different from one another? Haraway writes that nature is coyote, a potent trickster of a non-Western imaginary that "can help us refigure the kinds of persons we might be" (p. 21). To her, geography is about being in the world materially, which means that we "just aren't everywhere at once. To relocate, you have to dislocate" (p. 17).
So, nature is not a physical place to which one can go, nor a treasure to fence in or bank, nor as an essence to be saved or violated.. . . Nature is not a text to be read in codes of mathematics and biomedicine. . . . Neither mother, nurse, nor slave, nature is not matrix, resource, or tool for the reproduction of man.... Nature is, however, topos, a place, in the sense of a rhetoricians's place or topic for consideration of common themes; nature is, strictly, a commonplace. (Haraway, 1992, p. 296)
To Koori people and First Nations people. Dreamtime and the Spirit World are non Unear spatiotemporalities which are not removed from the actors, nature or geography.
Dreamtime and the Spirit World are within and without space. In and out of time. Spatiotemporal/ temporospatial. Time is elsewhere. Elsewise. Time is else. Where is time. Where else. (Cole, 1997)
While, Haraway (1992) contends that all of nature in the 1990s has become artefactualized, Vizenor (1992) maintains that "nature for us ism ade
[verbalized or nomalized?], as both fiction and fact" (p. 297). Haraway tries to narrow the space between cyborgs and her understanding of the
164 trickster/ Coyote, merging them together as "trickster cyborgs" (1991b) and
"cyborgtricksters" or "cyborg-coyotes" (1995).
In the interview with Constance Penley (1992), Haraway does not
answer questions about being a colonizer by appropriating the trickster from
Native American stories. I hope that this is not more manifest manners. I
applaud Haraway's efforts to "provoke rethinking social relationality within
artifactual nature" (1991a, p. 23), however, I am troubled by her not-troubling
her appropriation of trickster / Coyote, by her not-acknowledging her
indebtedness to First Peoples for trickster/Coyote. Haraway's understanding
of trickster / Coyote can only be through her own "situated knowing" within
Western culture, to quote Haraway herself. In First Nations and Native
American literature, both trickster and nature seem quite different from
Haraway's. Haraway asks us to embrace cyborgian figurations as ways to converse in this world as "coding trickster." But "coding trickster" must be a
Columbus person's idea of trickster. First Peoples have a very different conception of the ubiquitous trickster / Coyote, a totally different new/old type of becoming, a commingling of sacred and secular in manifested narrativity.
Trickster/Coyote is the will to survival of the human spirit. Cyborgs need to hve through the codes of information technologies; theirs is a w ill to technolog]/, a "will to virtuaHty" as Kroker (1994) argues.
165 No bio for trickster/Coyote
Haraway (1992) also writes that the coyote she is referring to has nothing to do
with the biological one. In First Nations and Native American cultures,
trickster / Coyote cannot be separated from, and is not 'other' than, the animal
coyote—or actors/subjects, or nature, or geography, or you, or me—whether
here or elsewhere. The elusive small 'o' coyote continues to outsmart all
human endeavour at extermination. Coyotes are survivors despite the
millions of government, military, and private dollars and Western technologies (steel-jawed traps, poisons, hunting from land and air, burning of their dens). Their population and geography keep increasing (Harrison,
1994). Coyotes have also survived their trinketization and merchandization into WHe Coyote coffee mugs, salt and pepper shakers, jewellery, and into the literature of the "wordies" (Vizenor, 1992)—the Euros. Coyotes cannot be so easily elinünated, appropriated, or extraterritorialized, extrapolated from trickster/Coyote as Haraway does. Trickster / Coyote is coyote; coyote is trickster/ Coyote. Neither is it a mere narrative trope.
Wayne Grady (1994) writes of the tenacity and spirit of coyotes in their struggle to survive inhumanity. He writes that we interpret coyotes' different vocalizations as arising from fear, pain, pleasure, curiosity and "probably some deeper feelings and needs of the caller, and the listener (p. 14)." Is there a border between the coyote howl and the human voice?
I had just stepped outside to look up at the stars when I heard a sudden ghostlike chorus rising and falling ululations coming from the other
166 side of a granite ridge that cuts across a muskrat swamp to the south of the cabin. I listened for nearly half an hour, caught by the haunting melody, fascinated by what was obviously not just a random series of howls but parts of a conversation. The sounds seemed to tremble on the verge of language, to be, almost literally, the voice of wilderness. (p. 13)
William Bright (1993) writes that the storytelling coyote and biological coyote are not different, but many manifestations integrated into a non- homogeneous, non-static singularity/plurality.
The simultaneous manifestations ofHomo sapiens and Canis latrans. Coyote can only be isolated by a kind of dangerous intellectualism, against which we have been warned by mythmakers, poets, and Zen Masters" (p. 182)
Bright cautions that if we think we can grasp, stabilize, or taxonomize Coyote or try to take over the role of Coyote we will be out-tricked. If we ever think that we have or understand 'if. Coyote will respond with, "Thafs not it, thafs not it."
Trickster turns to the wind Trickster turns to the sand Trickster leaves you groping when you forget who you are (Rose, 1980, quoted in Bright, 1993, p. 183)
You're the same as Coyote when you forget who you are thafs all [s/]he ever did! (Staple, 1977, quoted in Bright, p. 142)
There was coyote, and there was nothing. (Vizenor, 1994a, p. 173)
Is Haraway referring to a virtual coyote? Can Haraway's coyote be imagined as other than hardwired into the technocapitalist machinery of
167 western culture? Can her coyote be an un plugged coyote? Is trickster
/Coyote not already that? Both. And. And anything else imagination requires? Can cyborgs become trickster/Coyotes? Can anything? And, so as not to leave Deleuze & Guattari out, what about the possibility of becom ing- cyborglTrickstersl This might be quite a different entity. Perhaps this is
'being' turned inside out, reverberations of Gilles Deleuze's 'fold'.
From virtual talk to teacher talk
This plateau has been a theoretical analysis of virtuality in education. I have raised questions about virtual learning as an extension of the imperialist project, with its predominantly western discourse and practices. I have also critiqued the appropriation of trickster discourse and other indigenous epistemologies and practices by western academics, which they have used to support their take on and use of virtual reality.
Computer literacy has been mandated as a fix(ture) for education in many western countries, including Canada and the USA. Educators have responded in a variety of ways, from enthusiastic enlistment to refusal of conscription. Many educators are concerned about the erosion of academic freedom through forced adoption of computers across the curriculum. As Kit
Grauer ("Art education," 1999), President of the International Society for
Education through Art, said in a keynote address on art education at the
Wellington College of Education in Aotearoa New Zealand, "I don't quite
168 understand why [technology] is a curriculum area any more than pencils are."
She also spoke of art education creating thinkers rather than painters.
Continuing with the analogy, what is technology in education creating? If computers are doing the thinking, what is left for educators and for students to do?
Plateau 1009: Dataplay is an embodied analysis of virtual realities in education by the educational technology co-participants of this study, with me as the ultimate scribe. This play acts as the data and the analysis, with the educational technology teachers writing their journals about their classroom experiences with computer and multimedia technologies, then rewriting them as co-authors and co-editors. This process was enacted as both written and oral form, taking place in the teachers' journals, and journal revisions, and in the collective, interactive, negotiated oral space of our graduate sem inar.
169 PLATEAU 1009:
DATAPLAY
I would rather be a character than a citation. (Gough, 1997) Cast of Characters: Coy ote / Trickster N o m ad R hizom e Simuiac/rum Cyborg Ironed m an Stutterer VO (Voice-Over) Educational Technology graduate students: Joanne JoanneM M ichele M icheleG K aren M ichele M argaret S herri Jennifer Rachel R oseann C laudia M ichalene K im N arrato r Props crew Costume crew Stage Manager Professor Patti Lather 170 Noel Gough Betti St Pierre John Cage Pat O'Riley
Notes to the director The truth you are about to portray is fictional.
Notes to the acton The fiction you are about to portray is true.
Notes to the crew: Ignore the directions of the director and the actions of the actors and use your own common sense and your intuition.
Notes to the Front of House: Speak with the customers nicely—they pay y/ our salary.
Notes to the audience/reader Grab a rhizome and join in.
General Notes: Please feel free as a reader or audience member to insert your comments. For that purpose, we leave large spaces in the text and the dialogue/blocking/play.
Tim e an d place: Between September 1994 and June 1998, between Vancouver, British Columbia, Melbourne, Australia, Columbus, Ohio, Wayne, New Jersey, Warwick, New York, Belleville, Ontario, here, there, every/w/here, nowhere, on and off the reserve.
SFX: (Sharp soprano sax note then a riff.) Enter Noel Gough followed by special spotlight
Noel: 1 would rather be a character than a citation. (Cough, 1997) (exit)
Enter Narrator (in special spot)
Narrator: Let the dance begin: Da ta ta ta Da ta
Lights out briefly then on again with flashing lights, rotating mirror globe. Whole cast and crew on stage together in freeze frame then dancing to music which suddenly stops. Lights out.
171 Enter Coyote. Dancers are in freeze frame. Spotlight opens on Coyote. Music from Yothu Yindi, Robbie Robertson or Kashtin. Music gradually quietens and the dancers move offstage and some into freeze frame.
Coyote: (winks) I know this dance . . . but you got to close your eyes when you do it or nothing will happen. You got to close your eyes tight. (King, 1994b, p. 77)
Narrator: (aside) But, Coyote, she doesn't close her eyes, and all of them start dancing. (King, 1994b, p. 77)
VO: You too coyote! Close them.
Coyote: They call me the trickster, my taxonomy card says Canis latrans, but I go by Coyote. In different cultures I come in different morphs, but for now let's just stick with Coyote. This is a story about human beings and language and how they got that way. No solutions are offered or pre/sumed. IfU probably end up being just a bunch of talk and not much listening—if it's like the other runs. A lot like everyday life. Everybody knows everything and nobody knows the value of not knowing anything. Except maybe John Cage, ah ah ah ah that's how a coyote laughs because most of the time we're going backwards in time trying to fix things up that got mussed by people inventing past tenses. This is a visual gag so it usually goes over everybody's head—except the reader^s. This play is about rehearsal and collaboration and spontaneity. It is about improvisation. It is a script, wanting liberation from the page.
Lights out, then spots open onto another part of stage Coyote and a cyborg are in one spot each: Coyote walks over and puts in big wind-up key into the back of Cyborg. And then a big battery into cyborg's costume. Cyborg creaks to life syllable ^ syllable.
Cyborg: (creak, groan) Trans/it/cry trans/it/ive/ trans/ition/mission/ portation / uranic / trans/world enterprises welcomes you home to the cyberspace of the global village. Well come on in. Trans/it/ory trans/it/ive/trans/ition/mission/. . .
Coyote makes face and pushes remote to shut Cyborg off.
Coyote: Not much of a vocabulary that one. No small talk. No imagination.
Enter Ironed Man and Rhizome. Rhizome has many tendrils as befits a rhizome. Coyote gestures with thumb to them. Winks. 172 Ironed Man: Hi folks! Ironed man, here. Irony is my game. Ferric humour. Ferrous/ed one of all. Ha.
Rhizome: Irony (pause) is the overproduction of ferric acid ferrous sulphate culture fair ic just ask Donna Haraway she has the figures on the tongue in the words the neo-cortex makes you not say what you mean to say what you don't mean to under/ mines your language strip/mines/field notes withorwithout to/from/about under/ground school under/education ground/under school
Cyborg turns itself back on with remote control.
Cyborg: SFX: (creak) Delve into the monster's belly let it colon/ize you ingest you delve ... down.
VO: Ground yourself .. . any/every/ thing if you want to finetune in to your station of choice get aer ial borne again.
Coyote: But attend ground school first under ground test your theories first on a simulator unless you trust your wings your aero/dynamics
Coyote howls
Rhizome: Don't sub/ob/ject /ify / igate yourself your talk control the nomads the sub / text / terranian / trusive.
Enter Nomad . . . who roams about the stage and enters and exits at will during the whole play, acting and speaking improvisationally. Nomad is dressed for all kinds of weather/whether.
Cyhorg: (moves stiffly) Pre/position lo/cate lo/calize lo/cativize parse everything . . . how do you parse whaf s not there case your talk person it get across your point your point across your line across your geo/metric across via/ducts obscure bridges going nowhere joining nothing nobody knows about 'about'—if they understand what you're 'about they'll take you down with the weapons of language how do you say herecomethelanguage police in a code they can't trans/ iter/ oops/ tool/ ate.
Coyote howls
VO: I am the voice of else/where other/ wise knowing without knowing using avalanches groundswells of words to re/ mis/ peri/ drcum / direct/ ionalize.
173 Enter Stutterer. Coyote blows bubbles around stage—dances
Stutterer: LI 11 let gggggo of know and other / iiiings 111 let loose of rather than wwwith words. (Jbe^nsto sing) K k k katie beautiful katie, you're the only g g g girl that I adore. When the m m moon shines over the cowshed, I'U be waiting at the k k k kitchen door, (begins to sing in sign)
Ironed Man: W what's wrong C cy - you look d down?
Cyborg: It's about the industrial revolution it didn't 1 last 1 long enough. I was bom too late to participate.
VO: Too late? I thought it was still going on. Could you be more specific?
Cyborg: No. 1 can't be. I am a global general sort of person. I do not deal with specifics specifications specificities. I have no time left once I'm done with the generals. And field marshals. Not to mention their horses. And all the e-MAI/1. I'm talking MAI Treaty missive.
VO: GiUes Deleuze says humour is fourth person singular.
Coyote: So that's why the English language never had a sense of humour? And if you can't be funny in fours you can always start a quartet.
Enter Professor with mortar (and pestle) and convocation robes. Professor is also Stage Mattager, just with a different mask. Sits.
VO: (musical riff) Ahem. I have been told there is a learnéd self (pause) professor hereabouts. An esteemed person of much(ahem ) lear ning.
Professor: Do you have an appointment? Tm busy until the year 2009.
VO: You are popular. And optimistic. Well it just so happens I rang up your secretary and he . ..
Professor: Said what—that we have a cancellation and he'd pencil you in? I don't recall an invisible person in my appointment book. Name?
VO: I am else/ where other/ wise. You've been raking the ground a lot lately on the subject of validity. Maybe try summerfallow. It's an alter/native means of sustainable semio / en/ culturation.
174 Professor: Can you get to a point. We have the/atre to per/form. Offthestreet persons are not welcome to attend rehearsals.
VO: You've been proclaiming yourself an expert on data analysis round tow n.
Iron Man: Da ta ta ta DA ta dadadadadada TA (f/ieme of Beethoven's 5th)
Stage Manager: Look, mister or ms or what/ whoever you are, buy a ticket for the show. We have work to do and you were not invited. Don't muss with our rehearsal time.
VO: I don't see any act/ors. I just see a bored audience hohumming—just on the other side of the page. Your thoughts on research methodology have been whirlagigging like lost birds.
Professor: You got places to go. Cheerio. Adieu. Goodbye Farewell. Ciao.
Coyote: He got airmiles—kilometres in Canada.
Professor: (looking toward soundbooth) If you got a point, spew. I have a life. You must have better things to do than sit in the sound booth with terminal lallorhea.
Coyote: There is no-one in the soundbooth professor. She's in the air. Like Ariel. Hello wake up. SmeU the muzak.
VO: Profess (pause) or you think too much with your head.
Professor: What do you think with?
VO: I don't have (pause) to. I have ten ure.
Professor: For an unbibliographized uncontexted discursive nonperson, you do a lot of interrupting.
VO: It's my role. I've insinuated myself into your play.
Professor: You're not in the script.
VO: I am extracursive. Impromptu. Improvisational.
Professor: For heaven sake. Have your say and begone.
VO: You spend too much time in your head professor. 175 Professor: Where did you say you did your graduate work—MTT?
Coyote howls
Cyborg: (croaky) Don't know about the voice, I don't know that I like this voice you gave me. I want a different voice. I did my graduate work in the lab /o r/a/tory. 1 was labbed. I was / oratoried. I did graduate work nowhere and everywhere. Bits and bytes at Global U. RAM DAM A DOO DOO Humpty Dumpty pixel mixel patta patta fixel
Professor: You wouldn't be pretending to be André Breton Lao Tzu Carol Burnett Gilles Deleuze lapsing paraffin with banal profundities?
VO: I don't have a catching glove for that kind of humour.
Coyote: Pitching arm not too good either. Whirlagag a doo. (how ls)
VO: I want to talk about validity.
Stage Manager: Look you, we got a play to practice up for.
Coyote: Or is it a practice to play up for?
Ironed Man: Hooooo! Ending a sentence in not one but two pre/ positions. Next you'll be conjuncting all over the place.
Coyote: That's not in the script Stayprest—and I'll do the humour ing around here, (howls)
Cyborg: Who gave you the author ity to run things?
Coyote: Who's askin' wind-up?
Cyborg shuts down. Professor exits. Lights out, then up. Technology education classroom with Pat. Ed tech students and others sitting in a big circle. Patti Lather is sitting crosslegged on top of a desk. SFX: John Cage plays his silent piece, 4'33 " on a miniature piano. There is a big flipchart on which is written: Educational Technology Sem inar.
Cage: (stops playing, begins blowing soap bubbles which Coyote tries to bite) Sound is merely bubbles on the surface of silence. (1996)
Coyote: Bubbles contain the noise of silence. People hate silence ... it's like a mirror mirror on the wall. It offends them. Which is to say, 176 they are offended by it. (howls) Me too. I like sounds. Especially m y ow n. (sings) You ain't nothin' but an old coy o te howlin' all the time ain't never caught a bad habit and you ain't no friend of .. .
Pat: What could those of us who are economically privileged do so that there is no 'us' and them'?
Simulacrum: (has a mirror for a face) This Kenya woman was going on talking about—those indigenous people they bought into the whole capitalist agenda. Don't blame me or us the West. I didn't vote in their social policies. I didn't vote in their regime. I didn't ask Starbucks to stick its fist down their throat. Read the New York Times. It's all there.
Coyote: Ask Doug Noble. Have a fireside chat with Noam Chomsky. You got the threads between your neck and your head all stripped. Either go metric or imperial/ ist—and don't complain to me if you got stuck by the picket fence get off that fence your head is gethng soft.
Cyborg: Get in the modem world. Put some money down on a semi detached wired bungalow. Live for today for tomorrow is . ..
Coyote: Hey you all. Do it. Start payments on a new gasguzzler sportsutility vehicle. Got to have a four-wheel drive to go to the grocery store. Potato chips coke and fluffy cookies are hard on the suspension. Next year they'll all be driving eight-wheel drive 10-ton triple axle utes to pick up the kids some McTreats. Good for the environment—all that gas. Mm smells hke Newark Chardonnay 1983 maybe Eau de Lodi.
Cyborg: Get uptodate. Leave the past behind in the dust. Modernize.
Coyote: I'm a dipsy doodle dandy—come one come all to the new age of in for ma tion bring your scoop shovels and your thimbles and your melmac cups—get your paw out of that pie . . . that's right folks step right up and commodificate before if s too late. Buy buy.
Simulac/ rum: On the other hand why not just pull out your plastic money charge up a trip for the whole family to Disneyland or Las Vegas or better yet buy the latest computer war games—virtual violence virtual destruction virtual elimination. Welcome to the West.
Coyote: (how ls) I got videogames I got video I got videogames enough to last me all my life at least until the next generation comes up.
SFX: Beach Boy's Let's Surf Coyote surfs on a mousepad. Ill Cyborg: Plug in. Turn power switch on. Adjust vertical control. Insert disk. Do not question. Inter net.
Karen: Our students . .. are being so influenced by the technological world around them that they claim to be easily "bored/' and can hardly stay in their seats long enough to attend to what you are teaching. We constantly feel as though we are competing with the computers, the video game, the MTV world, and other outside stimuh.
Noel Gough: While . . . many of us live inside enormous novels . . . our subjectivities—and certainly those of many young people—also reside (at least partially) in enormous videos, movies, computer games, and body languages. (1995, p. 3)
Coyote: (sings) What good is sitting all alone in your room, come watch el nino play.
Cyborg: Stay in your room go into that computing place zero in get screened. Virtu alize.
Coyote: Computers are no good for coyotes. The keys are too close together and we have no thumbs for the spacebar and the screen doesn't take into account the length of our noses—they get in the way of looking. Besides there's nothing to eat in cyberspace. There's not even room to run around.
Jennifer: The great thing about computers is the fact that they can allow children to have pen pals all over the world without having to wait for the postman to deliver the letter. Email is instant and worldwide. The Internet is an incredible source of information, not all of it accurate or worthy of being on the net, but never-the-less it is an awesome tool to teach children about other cultures. You can experience the world— virtually and interact with it, to an extent, via the Internet and telecommunications. People are able to access all kinds of information at the press of a button, which has unlocked a whole new world of knowledge. You can now search the web for ethnic recipes if you'd like and you would probably find just about everything you were looking for and a whole lot more.
Simulacrum: Don't need knowledge, just information. Don't need real, just v irtu al.
Cyborg: It does not com pute. Domain error. Error of type -23.
178 Bettie St. Pierre: If we entertain the possibility that all might not be what we have been led to believe—that there might be worlds other than the one described by liberal humanism, then poststructural theories offer opportunités to investigate those worlds by opening up language for deployment in revitalized social agendas. (1997, p. 176)
Rachel: We are much like the children we teach each day: Questioning Searching for answers Love of learning Longing for knowledge Seeking guidance into a whole new world unfamiliar in many ways Slightly scared of the imknown, comforted by answers from a trusted Hero or Shero, an educator
Pat: Novel approach, Rachel.
Coyote: Poetic approach, Rachel.
Cyborg: Well come on in to the new industrial revolution. Free silicon chips for every body. Just bring your own dip.
Coyote: (sings) Stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff. "We don't need that stuff. You got to stop making all those things. You're going to fill up this world." (King, 1993, p. 76)
John Cage: Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very Life we living which is so excellent when we put our desires out of its way and let it act of its own accord. (Perlis, 1992)
Cyborg: New hardware all around. New every thing. Snap out the old snap in the new. Snap out the knew snap in the know.
Simulacrum: Don't question. Just produce process re produce re process. Buy buy.
Kim: Technology is the future, there is no doubt, but it's a futurezoith technology not a future desigped around technology.
Rachel: Sure technology is the way of the future but you need to look for the "happy medium." Yes, we know how to use technology, but do we know when, or if it is right for our children? 179 Bettie St. Pierre: We must leam to live in the middle of things, in the tension of conflict and confusion and possibility; and we must become adept at making do with the messiness of that condition and at finding agency with rather than assuming it in advance of the ambiguity of language and cultural practice. (1997, p. 176)
Pat: Do you see technology affecting teachers jobs?
Joanne: Sometimes I wonder if [teachers] are frightened they will be replaced /lose their jobs. ... I do not feel that the increase in technology poses any threat to jobs. However I do believe that some people m ay/will be displaced. There will be an increase in jobs but there will be a different kind of job and therefore more / different training will be required. I believe we will see a further decrease in manufacturing jobs and yet an increase in demand for workers in the service sectors. Those who do manufacture computers must be protected (working conditions / health issues must be addressed).
Pat: What about sharing jobs, Uving differently, doing with less?
Cyborg: Do not share jobs. Jobs are for ma chines. I love work. It makes me strong. It makes me feel good. I love to work over / time. It makes me lots of money I can use to buy more things.
Coyote puts glasses on her nose, sits on the edge of a desk, dangles her feet and leafs through A Coyote Columbus Story.
Coyote: I loooove this book—it doesn't mean anything to me but it's my favourite.
Lather: [Rjeading without understanding is required if we are to go beyond the imaginary 'real' of history. (1996, p. 528)
Simulacrum: I like to discover new maps—I am not interested in territory because it changes—maps are my specialty. I jump right in and get lost and never worry about anybody else's reality. Code uncode.
Rachel: I enjoyed A Coyote Columbus Story. I thought it has a unique spin to it. ... I think the way in which it was presented really allowed the reader, in our case, the hstener, to make his/her own inferences on the way the world is. It did not conform us to a view of the way things are, rather it gave us the chance to question what we might have always wanted to question but were told "that's the way it is."
180 Bettie St. Pierre: We are in play, working on the verge of intelligibility with no guarantee of liberation (1997, p. 176). To play in the possibilities of that space outside language that is opened when words fall apart is my desire, (p. 186)
Coyote: I tried the outside of language but there were too many words trying to get in and the silence oh the silence it made me howl (howls). Give me language. Give me words give me a preposition or two give me lots of verbs and nouns and inbetween and while you're at it make me a quick cappuccino, (how ls)
Cyborg: I don't need anything except money and memory chips. I don't need to know anything—I have RAM and harddrive. Ghp. Glip. Put away those books and get out your laptops.
Pat: Lap means you're sitting down. We don't have laps when we stand up. Laps are about recline.
Coyote: I enjoyed being read readed rode erode de/ride but I got a bit sad die sore we coyote's weren't aren't built for horsetravel. . . gid dee yap.
Jennifer: We must take into account cultural differences and must strive to find the benefits of each perspective. Makes me think of Babe, the movie, the animals lived and behaved based on stereotypes and they had one another. The sheep hated the dogs and call them wolves and the dogs thought the sheep were stupid and the cat said the pigs only purpose was bacon. The brown chickens only stayed with the brown chickens and the whites with the white ones. They along comes Babe—he is innocent and unbiased, or so it seems, and see the good in everyone—should we try to be hke Babe?
Coyote: Hey! What about me! Those who call themselves the First Worlds think of me as Third World and I live right here. I got lots of technology those First Worlds just can't see it. They got science.
Pat: How do gender and technology intersect?
Michele: I never gave much thought to gender equity before. . . . My feeling regarding gender, cultural/ race, technology, socioeconomics and environment have changed how I am teaching technology in my classroom .
181 Joanne: How much technology in urban areas is dedicated to drill and practice? I do notice that the girls like the word processing/ composing/cut and paste parts of the classes and the boys like the straight copying/accounting/ graphics; I encourage them to try both.
Cyborg: Hup two three four about march present arms — men always remember you are soldiers first
Margaret: I have begun to notice gender issues in technology more frequently. ... I honestly didn't notice them too much before. Because of the topics we have discussed, I am considering doing my thesis on something related to gender.
Pat: What about our physical bodies with this push to virtual realities?
Jennifer: Computers ignore the sense of smell and touch and taste—they are, at least for now, purely visual and auditory stimulation which only gives you a piece of the picture. You are limited by the interpretation of the person who put together the program or filmed the video footage you scroll through. ... I wonder what aspects of the tree were left out or went unnoticed when the program or video was made? How can we say that by presenting matter in one form, by one view, that we are letting our children fully experience all that we are teaching them? We should let them go out and touch the bark and leaves, play in the shade, climb on the branches—fully experience the tree and bring to it all of their knowings and past experiences. They may discover something we otherwise would have never thought of. . . . Only by experiencing all different senses can we truly connect. The computer is still a virtual world.
Michele: I am concerned with the "docile bodies" we are creating with the use of technology. Children need to play with and converse with each other in order to get along socially. They need to witness body language, hear different verbal expressions and dialects and converse in person to remain human.
Margaret: One of the faculty members in my school... is afraid that the students are going to lose fine motor skills that we develop by practicing handwriting. He feels that all of the typing we do will hurt children's motor skills and eventually have tremendous negative effects on the use of our thumbs.
Michele: Some of the children . . . have parents who even pick up lunch for them at McDonalds and drive it to them at school. Walking or riding 182 bikes is almost a lost art. This lack of exercise is also becoming more and more apparent on their little bodies.
Margaret: Is faster and easier always better? Are we just getting lazy? I see a large number of overweight students in the elementary grades of my school. Is technology taking away the physical activity that we performed in our youth? Are the fast foods that children are eating full of preservatives and artificial flavorings and colorings that may eventually compromise the health of these generations?
Pat: What were some of your thoughts on technology prior to this study and our classes?
Joanne M: I believed that computers developed skills in ways they would never have been otherwise achieved. Ra-Ra mentality—can't get enough—it is a necessity since everyone/job will use a computer. Sharpen those computer skills, they are as important as academia. SPEND, SPEND, SPEND.
Margaret: I would only consider high tech devices. The low tech devices seemed to slip my mind. It is not that I didn't know they existed or that I didn't know that a pen and paper are high tech in some culture, I guess 1 was only thinking of myself and my culture and my experiences. 1 do consider pen and paper technology in my culture, it is low tech but it is still technology. The high tech "newer, faster, better" peripherals are what I would have thought of first. I sometimes get caught up in the hype of the businesses producing these technologies.
Michele: I always thought that technology was the way of the future. After reading many articles, I am somewhat skeptical about technology in education. I never thought that I would think this way, but I no longer feel guilty when my students are not spending as much time on the classroom computers. ... I want to slow down, evaluate my software programs and use them in a more meaningful maimer in my classroom .
Margaret and Sherri hold up placard and read.
183 M argaret:
T e r m in a l s
E lec tr o n ic mail Co ROMS
N e t s c a p e
O n l in e se r v ic e s
LASER DISC
O v erhead p r o je c t o r
G r o l i e r s
Y o u r future
Sherri:
T each that technology in all cultures is not the same E veiy culture give technology its own name C ost of computers is such a strain H ealthy communities wiU be the ones to gain N ag the students to get out from behind the computer screen Organize a lesson outdoors, maybe plant some beans Look at aU software and choose ones that are gender free Opportunity should be equal for aU that is key G reat things do come from technology, it should not have a bad name Y ou should look out for Tricksters or you are the one to blame 184 Pat I hear you say that we need to be more aware of how we think about technologies, how we live in the world, in today's technological society.
Sherri: (reads while writing on whiteboard)
Pre/course
Optimistic, Naive Admiring, Conforming, Adhering
Trend/follower, Novice, Evaluator, Critic
Questioning, Pondering, Evolving
Careful, Wary
Post/course
Sherri: I would like to say how difficult it was for me to write poetic responses. . . It was not finding the words to the poems that was hard, but really getting in touch with how I felt about the questions you asked. . . . This Cinquain represents me in today's technological society:
Sherri R.
Cautious, informed
Growing, learning, willing
New points of view on technology Critic
185 Joanne: (writing with a pen—writing increases in size with each sentence) Low tech/hi tech both have dis/advantages; however, today I un/dis/covered one very big disadvantage of hi tech and one extremely big advantage of low tech (computer vs my pen). Computer (writing) cannot express my emotions as clearly as pen or one's own handwriting. Several hours have passed since writing . . . journal entries. Look again over the beginning, continue looking over each page toward the end. No one can deny the emotion/expression of the writer!
Jennifer: If asked what I thought technology was a year ago, I would have answered computers and software. So many people think of technology as limited to computers because ultimately that is what we are bombarded with each day. Technology to me can be so many things—anything that helps you complete a task, no matter how crude it seems—I fell victim to Üie trap that it had to have all of the whistles and bells if it was to be considered technology—how could they consider a book technology—it cannot move or solve an equation or retrieve information. It can however supply valuable information, show you how to solve an equation granted it must be in steps and you must manually maneuver through them.
Suzanne: (reads aloud to class)
Computers, computers is it true, that what they do is better than you? Pretty graphics, nicer than your illustration, anything to cause less frustration. Neater is better, for your eyes to see, but is penmanship really the key? Creativity smothered, perfection a MUST, I sometimes think it would be better if we let it collect dust. Are we pushing too hard with a child, by having them explore on a machine and not in the wild? Many children get tired of being wired! Do computers make a child bright? or is it the teacher that plans up til midnight? A child should feel it is OK to take a risk even if they aren't getting help from a disk. W e must step back and question What are we really preaching? and think about what we are teaching! 186 Pat: How have you changed what and how you teach technology?
M argaret: (reads as she writes on flipchart)
TRUTHS ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES CRITICAL REPRESENTATION H y pe r Studio 3.0 may never co m e in
N ative c u ltu r es
O nline da n g ers
L a t h e r ’S critiques
p O stmodernism G ENDER ISSUES Y/ o u r fu tu re
Joanne M: Noble is right that technology, or the use of it, is not top on every teacher's list. We struggle with Idds' social/family/drug/peer problems. We struggle to teach our kids how to live, . . . Tech represents an escape from these struggles, a bandaid!
Jennifer: I think about gender, culture, environment.
Joanne: Integrating environmental awareness into lessons. Recycling has become a hot topic. We discuss workers, conditions. Students have become interested as well; I give them extra credit if they bring in articles from newspapers, magazines regarding environment. 1 require my students to THINK—think about this / that. I tell them they can
187 make a difference. Just as adults are responsible for youngsters now, I remind them that they will someday be responsible for me and the world I live in. The circle of life continues!
Michele: Environment is an issue that I feel needs to be taught to all children. Since we are such a throw-away society, it is important to teach children how to recycle. We also need to be thinking about where we wiU be dumping our waste. Pollution is a large concern.
Joanne: Talked to my kids about environmental issues (since they brought up great weather we are having!). Hey it's January and this is Nl—^o n 't you wonder why we have no snow? Did you read about the colossal icebergs breaking up in Antarctica? Don't throw away batteries and buy new ones instead purchase re chargeable ones! .... We have become a disposable society—don't need to throw it away. No—either do with less or recycle.
Coyote: Emission transmission, (fart) Clean air clean air. (muffles fart in paper bag) Experiment not always duplicable, (fart)
Margaret: 1 am a firm believer that most technology is very useful. However it is just a tool. One that can be overused and that can cause damage.
Joanne: 1 play around with language. Technology is tightening its rei/ g/ ns .... I use the yesterday / today / tomorrow scenario weekly and sometimes more. I encourage the students to think about their use of language. Do they communicate their thoughts clearly? Is there a difference in student talk and grown-up talk? Do you use both? I let the students know that I too am a student in my classroom. I am not afraid to let them know that I don't know and that I enjoy learning w ith them .
Claudia: I notice a change in attitude throughout my classroom. The students have taken charge of their own learning. We read a poem. If I Were to Change the World, by Judith Vorst. I then asked the students to rewrite the poem as if they were in charge of the world. Their responses were incredible!
Roseann: We discussed ... a technology high school in Napa Valley, California [which] preps the students for high-tech jobs and involves a curriculum that connects teamwork and computers. The climate of the school is said to be "businesslike." Some of the students are even given vacation days. This type of environment sounds great to me as long as they are also preparing these students for social skills as well as business skills. The jobs that will be out there for these students w ill be 188 high-tech jobs, however, the basics that have always been out there from my grandparents through to my parents, to me and still continuing are the social concepts of respect for others, cooperation and understanding. Teachers are needed to discuss and guide the students on human relationships.
Karen: I resent the fact that big business is using school budgets in an attempt to bolster its own lagging profits. I resent the fact that big business is making itself look like the Good guy by offering contests, impressive prizes, technical support, etc. when, in the end, it will be the big winner. I resent the fact that CEO's of major technological companies, whether it be computers or telecommunications, are also sitting as chairmen of committees that they can influence and ultimately benefit from. But, perhaps, most of all, I resent the fact that Roger Schank would replace teachers with computers since [according to him] most teachers . . . are intellectually and temperamentally ill-equipped to deal with schoolchildren. . . . Will computers be able to temperamentally deal with children? Will they have feelings at all? And if children learn a lot by following role models, what will they turn into?
Cyborg: Technology prepares you to be an efficient cog ....
Karen: Why do we use our children as guinea pigs? I often ask myself this question. . . . Many of the educational practices we so quickly introduce to our children are often times thrown out after a few years when somehow it is suprisingly discovered that the technique did not work. Take for example whole language.. . You don't just throw out ideas that have been successful for the sake of innovation. And in some cases, I fear this is what technology without "healthy skepticism" is doing.
Joanne: Does the Department of Education place too little value on education, or the Department of Defense place too much value. . . . Why not by educators or the Department of Education? Now we follow? Why must we follow? Why don't we initiate? .... I am insulted by Schank's comments that "most teachers are ill equipped to deal with schoolchildren." (p. 23). ... It is those m industry who are ill- equipped and do not know how to deal with emotions/ problems/baggage of children ___
Karen: Or what about the report, just this past week, that New York City is spending thousands of dollars on art work to display in the schools. They passed some suggestion that the schools needed this art. Again it made me think—just as they need technology. The students they interviewed said they needed textbooks and supplies more than they 189 needed these works of art. Is this the same way that some districts are misspending funds on technology?
Coyote: Yup! "Some of these stories are flat. . . . Thaf s what happens when you tty to fix this world. This world is pretty good all by itself. Best to leave it alone. Stop messing around with it." (King, 1994b, p. 80)
Michele: Glad to see the word is getting out about the MAI. 1 have a child of congressman Steve Rothman in my class. 1 plan to speak to him about the MAI.
Cyborg: (Beethoven's Fifth theme played by John Cage) MAIMAIMAI MAllll MAlll MAIMAIMAI MAI day eMAIl (sings) MAI be I m right and MAI be Tm wrong doo wacka do
Claudia: The tactics being used in the MAI can be paralleled to the arguments and treaties being negotiated in public education. Just as "big business" is running the country, so too is the political agenda in pubhc education
Bettie St. Pierre: [E]thics is no longer transcendental and clearly defined in advance for everyone in every situation. Rather, ethics explodes anew in every circumstance, demands a specific réinscription, and hounds praxis unmercifully. (1997, p. 176)
Coyote: hounds . . . haaa rooooo
Pat: Has this research project helped you in other ways?
Jennifer: 1 think 1 am a better, more aware, more thoughtful person .... Things 1 would have never thought about that mattered ... 1 now look for the unseen, the unheard and the unobserved. 1 want to know what wasn't said—1 have begun to look for perspectives other than m y own.
Rachel: [W]e discussed something that really made me think about the importance of perspective and how much a difference it can make in research and interpretation. The discussion revolved around a map of New Zealand where New Zealand was the central focus on the map. How different this must be than the way we are accustomed to looking at things. That is the whole key . . . gaining new perspectives.
Joanne: What relevance does any of this software have to us. Kids clicking on a color palette and coloring on the screen! Use a crayon—leam to hold a crayon and color/shade/ outline—learn to write and print the 190 alphabet rather than punch a key on the keyboard. The teachers complain there is not enough time for aU they must teach. Quit playing on the computer and you will have plenty more time.
Rachel: I am intrigued by the issue of andragogy .... we not only leam from the professors, but from one another and our own experiences. In turn the professors leam from us. I can then take this manner of learning and/or teaching and alter it for use in my classroom.
Jennifer: I don't always look at the obvious and try to realize my biases when planning a lesson or anything at all. Be aware of the cultural differences and realize how what you see as fine may highly offend someone of another culture. Also search for gender biases when you preview software or even in the articles that you read.
Joanne: It certainly is not such a big earth. Somehow we are all connected. I have become more aware of global warming / environmental issues. I realize that I can make a difference in their environment, perhaps individually on a small scale. But as a teacher, I realize, I reach 125 students daily and that is a much larger scale!
Margaret: I am more aware of other cultures, especially First Nations cultures. ... I did not pay much attention to cultural differences in technology. I was the typical self-centered American, too wrapped up in my own world thinking whaf s good for me should be good for everyone else. I wasn't considering other cultures and what is good for them. I didn't realize that those decisions should be made from within the culture.
Suzanne: As teachers we need to be more critical, we need to take the blinders off. We have an incredible responsibility to these kids. Standardizing curriculum is "manufacturing consent."
Joanne: Experienced "reality shock" last/ this semester .... now I have a name for it thanks to Lather. Page 120 sums it up—never be the same: happy, sad, intelligent, dumb, responsible, AWARE!
Pat: Some of the lessons we learn can be very difficult for us. Learning to look at the world differently can be painful. It can leave us feeling pow erless.
Michele: I could see myself in many different areas of Lather's article. Staying Dumb? Student resistance in liberatory curriculum. Many of her students had the same reactions that I am currently experiencing. I still am realizing how naive I am while also questioning what I am 191 learning .... I know that a great deal of what I am experiencing in class and reading is very hard for me because I don't want to know that it exists. I guess there is an element of denial here. I am also gaining new insight but am questioning myself at the same time. 1 now understand that some of these issues are real, but what can I do about them? How can I make a difference?
Claudia: At first I wondered why the "s" on the end of truth. Now I am beginning to understand that the "s" is the most important part of tru th .
M ichele G: (reads from her journal)
A s I started out this year, I thought that I had much fear. But what I was going to find Was that the fear was in my mind. Confusion seemed to overwhelm. But then I found my very own realm.... And then my research took a different turn. As I looked for more that I could leam. What would I see if 1 opened my eyes?. . . . What I looked for I didn't find. There was so much more on my mind. . . . And what I found out was more about What specifics I sort of left out. There were other opinions left unknown. As I researcher I have grown. . . .
Pat: How do you feel about being in someone else's 'data' as you write up your own data stories?
Michele G: When you first explained the play to us, I was not sure how the information would be presented. I like the way the citations are "spoken."
Suzanne: I thought the idea of characters was wonderful. Coyote was very funny. ... I have never been exposed to anything like that before. Data is not just the answer; it is always the question.
Rachel: It is amazing to see even your (my) own words take on more meaning [in tlds play] than I had truly intended for them. It opened up another opportunity for me to leam from you and from myself. Using our voices, gave us a chance to speak and be heard. By including us, it has really brought it all to life. Our part in the play really shows how 192 much we have learned individually and together. I have learned a lot, a lot more than I ever expected to leam.
Suzanne: I always have a picture of the trickster in the back of my mind. That helps me poke fun at myself.... The trickster allows me to acknowledge there are many ways to look at things. . . . Sometimes I do not like this. I feel that it makes a shamble of my thoughts and words.
Patti Lather: It is not a matter of looking harder or more closely, but seeing what frames our seeing—spaces of constructed visibihty and incitements to see which constitute power/knowledge. (1993, p. 675)
Coyote: (wiping glasses with tail) These glasses they keep getting smudged. I can't see like I used to.
Suzanne: At times I would like to be ignorant. It is easier to just believe what you read or observe and not look beneath the surface. That is what I have done up until now. Searching for validity compHcates the issues.
Claudia: I am thinking of writing my data stories in the form of a conversation. Whenever I engage in conversation with my students, I feel as though they really understand what is going on. If they do not know, they are not afraid to question. ... I had them critique their own presentations. Their questions were wonderful. We used their questions in our reflections survey. That was much more valid than anything I could have done.
Suzanne: In previous classes my research always ended in a conclusion. How can a conclusion be reached? No work (research) is ever complete. I like how Lather ended Staying Dumb with a quoted poem. We need to look at research in this way. . . . I'm going to continue my data collection by creating a third tale that includes dialogue between my students and myself. Data as dialogue. Since they are the reason for my research, they are the subjects I should include. It would give my research more validity.
Coyote: Oh boy ... it looks like we got to do this all over again. (King, 1994, p. 429)
Those [researchers] push their tape recorders, fix their cameras. All of those ones smile. Nod their head around. Look out window. Shake my hand. Say happy noises. Say goodbye, see you later. Leave pretty quick. We watch them go. My friend . . . put the pot on for some tea. I clean itp all the coyote tracks on the floor. (King, 1993, p. 10) 193 PLATEAU 1010
PLUS DE PLIES
This plateau is a "repetition, another layer, the return of the same, a catching on something else, an imperceptible difference, a coming apart and ineluctable tearing open" (Deleuze, 1995, p. 84) of my dissertation. Folding back to previous plateaux (plus de plies), I seek isomorphic conjunctions by juxtapositioning or otherwise montaging dialogue, situation, and theory so that new connections and directions will syncretLze from (and sometimes despite) the data. This plateau is also an unsettling of my own 'one true story' through re-enacting and re- situating some critical epistemological and methodological learnings from this study. Unjbrgetting, remembering and regenerating act as folding and unfolding
"expressibles" (Deleuze, 1994a) to engage within and between dominant discourses and those which have long been in the world and have been interfered with and negated through western discourses and practices of 'development.
What follows is a brief summary of the study, a discussion of theories of difference, and a revisiting of some of the data for further analysis and consideration in terms of their implications and possibilities for the study of technology in schools. I bring this study to an end by troubling the practice of doing research, including my own practice, 'the right to know', collecting and
194 analyzing data, and the impossibility of ethics from within a professional frame
of reference.
Re-situating the study
This research project was positioned within two areas claiming Technolog)/ as an area of study: technology education and educational technology. The first dimension of my research was with technology education high school students and their teacher in British Columbia, Canada, and the second dimension was with Educational Technology graduate students at a university in New Jersey,
USA, where I was teaching at the time. The study had two primary foci. The first was examining how technology discourses in education reverberate with the language of the dominant culture, excoriating and silencing those whose ways of taking up the world do not fit their prescribed standards and universalizing narrative funneling. Concerned as much with 'universalizing' western technology discourses as with academic gazing and codification, as a second focus of my study, I explored ways to 'do data' which enacted a different methodology, and a methodology of difference.
Having its roots in industrial education for over a century, 'technology education' began to emerge in the 1980's as industrial educators and craft teachers in Canada and many other westernized countries began to revise, update and rename their curriculum area. As outlined onPlateau 1005: Spinning the tale, the curriculum writers have divided the study of technology into discrete
195 components of knowledge (from four to seven, depending on the country,
province, or state) which are assumed to be 'universals' basic to every society. In
addition to limiting the content to their purported universal categories, problem-
solving,another assumed universal, has been prescribed by the curriculum
writers for the learning and teaching of technology. Assessment has also been
standardized through learning outcomes' ensuring thatall students colour
within Ministry-drawn hnes.
John WiUinsky, in his recent book. Learning to divide the world: Education at
Empire's end, suggests that the "legacy of imperialism" is its continued "desire to
unconsciously instill standards and values in the young" (p. 96). Similarly, Gilles
Deleuze (1995) writes that the "quest for 'universals' of communication should
make us shudder.... They are permeated by money—and not by accident but by
their very nature" (p. 175). Further on this he adds:
It is a capitalism no longer directed toward production but toward products, that is, toward sales or m arkets.... Marketing is now the instrument for social control and produces the arrogant breed who are our masters, (p. 181)
Technology discourses are very much intertwined with integrated world capitalism (IWC) or market economy; the language and practices of 'making' and
problem solving' carry certain assumptions, 'progress', competition, increased production and consumption. The principal stated goal in technology education curricula is to produce designers and makers of 'new' technologies for the 'global economy', with claims that this is 'the way of the future'.
196 Global competition has become much more than a nation striving for economic viability as it links up to new forms of electronic technology and capitalism. John WiUinsky (1998) cautions that "[imperialism has been transformed in recent years into a new form of global economy no longer dominated by a handful of European powers" (p. 53). With the ongoing MAI
Treaty negotiations, there is reason for concern about the increasing corporate intrusion into education, and about students becoming more than disciplined and marketable commodities as technological components for the New Right global factory.
Deleuze (1995) argues that the disciplinary societies Michel Foucault wrote about are "stealthily" being turned into "control societies" in which schools (factories, hospitals, and prisons) have given way to sites for businesses, and to "frightful continual training, to continual monitoring ofworker-schoolkids or bureaucrat-students" (p. 175 emphasis added). Technology education, in particular, is a "parody of education" with its "caU to reform character and to create imperial subjects under the guise of education. Here too, is the empire's promise to make the world over in its own image through education without diminishing the lines of racial difference" (WiUinsky, 1998, p. 97-98).
Implicating technology discourses in the schooling of difference
If, as WiUinsky (1998) suggests, difference is the inteUectual engine of the empire, then a compelling question for educators is "how the lessons that were drawn
197 from centuries of European expansion continue to influence the way we see the world retain their position in education" (p. 25). No curriculum area is exempt, however, technology discourses are especially implicated in the persistence and continuance of the colonial rule of classifying and categorizing knowledge as an "apparatus of imperialism... to enumerate, order and identify a world of difference" (p. 27). Willinksy argues emphatically that
"remembering" how the legacy of imperialism has created difference in education is an important and urgent survival strategy for getting out of the productivist mode. This research project was, in a major part, a remembering of the role of technology education and educational technology in the legacy of imperiahsm, as well as a regeneration of what has been dismissed and otherwise obhterated. It was an effort to remap different discourses and to enact and inscribe a "critical geography" (Morrison, 1992) of the "historical divisions out of which we have fashioned ourselves as educated people, even as we work together to move beyond our current understanding of an inexorably divided w orld" (p. 20).
The following outcropping revisits some of the data to assemble a few instances of the legacy of imperialism in the technology discourses in education as they create divisions of past-present-future, us / them, official knowledge/ student knowings, and culture/ nature. One manifestation of imperialism is how the history of technology is taught. If and when it is taught at all, it is a short
198 history (and predominantly of the benefits) of western technology (Needham
1993, Petrina, 1993; CTRiley, 1996).
S5: Technology is the way of the future. Kim: Technology is the future, there is no doubt, but it's a futureluith technology not a future des%ned around technology. Michele: I always thought that technology was the way of the future.
Foregrounding the future disavows the past and diverts attention from the
present, the particular, and the local. However this "great forgetting" (Quinn,
1997) of the past and present problems created by technology, as well as the tens
of thousands of years of indigenous epistemologies and technologies, is essential
for the cultural explosion of the West.
SIO: We should think about the next frontier, which is space. We would be more driven to getting off earth. As there is more stuff to do off earth, that wül support us. If we start heading for the moon and stuff, that will open up a whole new area. S4: Technology is new stuff. A refrigerator has been around for a long time.
Limitless perspectives and conquering discourses of continued discovery,
resourcing other, and the novel are not called into question. The students had learned distinctions between contemporary western technologies in order to demarcate communities of 'us' and them'. Epistemologies and technologies outside of imperialism and neocolonialism are considered non-existent or pre historic and not of much 'use' to the West, fostering imperialism's claim to
education' and presumptions of what it means to be educated'.
Pat: Who is excluded in how our society talks about technology? S2 Poor people. SI Third world cultures. 82 Native people. Pat: Do you think that indigenous cultures have technology? 199 S4: They're not as technical, S3: They're just not educated. 87: How come so many of them don't have an education? 84: Yeah, some of them, they drink out of things they go to the bathroom in too. That's just not educated. That's not technology. 81: I guess because its high technology, we think of it as ours.
Even though western education attempts to generate global knowledge, for all and "all around the world" (Gough, 1998), the economic interests of developed countries are reflected "obscuring the exploitation, domination, and social and political inequities underlying global environmental degradation" (p. 511).
Gough continues:
[I]f global warming is understood as a problem for all of the world's peoples, then we need to find ways in which all the world's knowledge systems—Western, Blackfoot, Islam, and the like—can jointly produce appropriate understandings and responses.... I am prepared to assert that a coexistence of knowledge systems is unlikely to be facilitated by the adherents of any one system arbitrarily privileging their own criteria ... and therefore laying claim to producing "universal truth regardless of cultural context".
Indigenous technologies are absent in the majority of technology education curriculum documents. As the data shows, indigenous technologies are not considered technologies, and people of indigenous cultural communities have not been part of the conversation in technology education, rather they are viewed as pre-historic, because theirs was not an orthographic society. "Ecological societies, or other societies based on more constant time, low technologies, and various archaisms ... are thought to be hopelessly 'backw ard'... in relation to an international capitalist system" (Conley, 1993, p. 82)
811: There is a difference though, right, between 'us' and 'them' because we live in this kind of society, and they live in Africa. We never talk about them. 200 mutindi: Have you ever thought about why it is that it is so restricted in Africa, and yet here we have so much? S9: Population. mutindi: You think it is population? S9: T hat's w hat w e leam ....
mutindi: You've forgotten Kenya is a colonized country. You're forgetting that white people came there, and established their own multinationals there. They started their own companies to sell these products. It is not that we are trying to become western, these things were brought to us, and we were actually forced to buy these things (emphasis added). Sll: How can you be forced to do anything? m utindi: I d o n 't know what kind of historj/^ you are reading. I'm going to be honest. You read what you want to read, you hear what you want to hear. Here I am telling you exactly this is what is happening and you don't want to hear----- S7: I don't know why we need to know what is going on in the world in a technology class. What difference does that make to w hat w e do? S3: We have enough problems here, we don't need to think about them. S6: I already knew that we were doing this to them. I didn't bother m e that much. S5: Nobody wants to change it. It is easier to remain the way we are. 57: Most people don't care. I thought about Starbucks coffee for that one day she was here, but, then I forgot about it..
"The mastery of difference enabled students of imperialism, whether they traveled abroad or followed pubUshed accounts at home, to possess the world- as-knowledge" (WiUinsky, 1998, p. 49). The excerpts above from the talk mutindi ndunda had with the technology education students bring to the surface just how weU the students have learned the mastery of difference. While a few of the students expressed outright indifference to those less advantaged, there was a range of responses including blaming and denial. Both mutindi and myself felt badly, however, "[i]n attempting to find a way beyond colonized forms of
201 knowledge, one has to be careful not to imagine that they invariably colonize the learner. Students can and do turn to their own advantage what they are taught"
(WiUinsky, 1998, p. 109). The first response for som e w as that they d id n 't w ant to know, but as they became more familiar with other narratives and them', over the ten months of the study they wanted to know more.
One student felt that it was the responsibility of mutindi and those marked them' to educate 'us', while another felt that everyone needed to take responsibility.
S7: Because she should want to because we are a stubborn culture. Why would we want to know what we have never heard about? S7: Everyone should be involved. Everyone is taking things. We are destroying Third World cultures.
Most of the students in the study believed that their schooling had let them down, and they felt strongly that they had a right to know how the space of difference between 'us' and those less economicaUy advantaged was created, what is in the between-space, and how space might become more reciprocal and shared.
[Cjurriculum that obscures the discipline's contributions to the meaning of race is complete and irresponsible. The obscured yet present legacy of race [technology], if it were made part of the curriculum, would have the potential of serving both those students who understand race as a part of who they are and must be, and those who have learned to think of race as someone else's problem. (WiUinsky, 1998, p. 187)
Students have a right to know that exclusion of 'other' is "not simply an oversight but a feature of how the disciplines ... have gone about dividing the world since the age of the empire" (Willinsl^, 1998, p. 250).
202 S4: That's not our fault that we don't know these things. We don't leam that in school, so if s not our fault S8: 1 don't know why it is 'us' and 'them.' Why it's not equal? We don't know. That's what we are learning here. S6: We n eed to understand w hat w e are doing around the w orld instead of saying what we do in Canada doesn't affect the rest of the world. SI: We need to hear this more in school. Why aren't teachers telling us these things? 58: People need to know about what it is like to live in other cultures. We need this to be constant, not just one time. We don't know much about the outside world. We need to talk about this in school. 51: We need to hear this more often and starting at kindergarten. 55: I don't know if this has changed how I think but it brings things to the surface. 53: Now I think differently. I sort of knew before, having things produced in other countries, having them take the garbage end of the deal, the workers, effluent from all the plants, the crap. 55: We need a whole new course instead of technology course, like a world education, teaching about the world and combined with other courses, maybe spread out over all the courses. We need to leam to respect other countries.
Technology education curricula, whether in the UK, New Zealand,
Austraha, the U5A or Canada, have been written from within, and assume a
"monoculture ... that is tacitly Westem" (Gough, 1998, p. 515)—and male.
Gough argues that education "does not necessarily problematize the cultural construction of [its] knowledge; rather, it attempts to use knowledge of leamers' personal constructs togenerate more effective strategies for persuading students to adopt Westem [technologists] social constructions" (p. 515-516, emphasis added). In technology education, students are required to legitimate the cultural and disciplinary assumptions of the world as imagined from within the cultural horizons of technology educators (with a heavy influence from business).
203 Pat: How is technology talked about in school? SI: How Mr. Crawford talks to us about technology.
Such pedagogical strategies often neglect and dismiss the understandings that
technology students bring to the classroom from their everyday lives. The world
is a very different place from the one in which many of us grew up. Famüy,
church, and school are no longer the primary source of information for students.
From the grounded surveys which were completed early in the study, it was
glaringly apparent that the students’ understandings of technology were
informed largely from texts outside of school: students made meaning of their
relationships in the world through television, videos, movies, computer games,
comic books, magazines, music, body language, and other cultural and
technological interactions.
S4: Nobody has ever asked us before about what we want. This is all new. S12: We need someone to ask questions to. Instead we just go numb, like a vegetable sitting in front of a machine. We need more classes that puts our brain and feelings together. S5: Teachers don't want us to critique. Dialoguing m a class is new for me, talking about my education. Sometimes it is so hard to sit there. A teacher would take offense to questioning. They say, "That is just the way it is." Teachers don't' know how to do this. It is not their fault. It is as far as they go, so it is like go away.
The students in the study were pleased about having themselves and their
knowings acknowledged, being listened to, and being involved in working through ways to reshape their technology curriculum, even those students who expressed anger, scorn, and disrespect for both themselves and others. Early on in the study, one of these boys expressed surprise to be asked, because, as he put
204 it, "we're seen as the dummy students, in the dummy wing, with the dummy
teachers."
The students expected more from their education which they felt that their
teachers were unable to dehver. Not only do educators need to allow for students' knowings, WiUinsky (1998) argues that "[s]tudents have a right to see what the West, and its proud process of education, has made of them, even as this knowledge is bound to complicate and implicate their education" (Wülinsky,
1998, p. 246). It is important for them to know how the 'truths' of their technology curriculum were constructed and how they benefitted the dying profession of industrial arts/crafts teachers who appropriated the word
technology' to advance and empower themselves. To rethink technology discourses' significant investment in difference, "wiU take an educational effort at least equal to the one required to put those meanings in place to begin with"
(WiUinsky, 1998, p. 245). How technology discourses assist "in the racial and gendered ordering of social relations needs to be promoted for the ... curriculum and the preparationo f... teachers" (p. 186), and students need to be introduced
"to the fragUe nature of truth, to the moral dimensions of this inquiry, and to the responsibUities we have as practitioners and students.... is to propose an education concerned with the historical dimensions of universal truths" (p. 187).
Students wUl then leam how the West divided the world to its advantage, basing the divisions on a technological basis (high/ westem technologies and low/ indigenous technologies). As the saying goes, "he who has the most toys
205 wins/' and it is quite obvious who is 'winning'. This learning and teaching will not be an easy task considering the structures and aUiances of existing technology education and educational technology.
From the foregoing, eliminating current technology discourses in education might look like a sensible possibility, but this would be a "righteous will to ignorance" (WiUinsky, 1998, p. 52) and antithetical to difference as affirmation as articulated by Deleuze. This study was a caU for a politics of education which is about respect for aU people, aU living things and this planet with "historical lucidity a matter not of clarity but of justice." (Shohat & Stam, p.
359). WiUinsky maintains that the "responsibility of an advanced civilization' was assumed to be to make the world fathomable and sensible for the benefit of aU hum ankind" (p. 52).
S8: W hat can we do? mutindi: In a smaU way by dealing with yourselves, you can deal with the big issues. S7: Does this mean that we shouldn't buy coffee? mutindi: If we leam to ask more question about our privileges. It shouldn't be normalized—this is the way of life, this is the way it is. We leam to question about these things, how we have designed things to work for ourselves. Take that little first step.
As mutindi says, a place to begin is starting with our selves and own schooling, being self-critical and having the courage to deal with controversial issues and the "problems in teaching about this legacy when it is critical of the school subjects themselves" (WiUinsky, 1998, p. 257). There needs to be an examination of how our past has become the present which is then displaced into the future.
206 There needs to be a critique of how westem ^high' technologies have become
foregrounded in education to occulted indigenous and sustainable technologies
and how these technologies might interfere with IWC. The agenda of our
classrooms needs to become an unfolding of how westem technology is promoted and marketed for Westem education and society, as well as to disadvantaged countries, continuing and contributing to the legacy of imperialism. The small unfolding enacted in the study encouraged humility, as well as a desire to take responsibility for what is leamed and taught. How can these beginnings be sustained? WiUinsky (1998) proposes supplementing our education with teaching of imperialism's influence on schooling in the hope that it wiU change how this legacy works on us. To supplement is not to add on, but
"to leam again, rather than to imagine walking away from being the educated subjects we have become" (p. 263).
Toward multistoried pedagogy
Learning again wül require decolonizing, with "decolonization[as]... dewestemization as taught by the White man" (Minh-Ha, 1991, p. 20). It is about displacing image and information in technology discourses with a shared and storied engagement in the world, reshaping the rigid and patriarchal techné into a m ore poetic techné as poiesis. For Trinh T. Minh-ha (1990), story is a form of mediation, a reflection of reality, always adaptive and open to imagination from imposed forms of closure. The mediator-storyteUer becomes a creator, teacher
207 and learner. Gough (in pressa) suggests that "we need to tell stories about stories we need to encourage 'sustainable conversation' about the meanings we exchange and the effects of privileging some and diminishing others"^ (p. 8).
He offers possible criteria for the engagement of critical perspectives on the stories told in schools: critically analyze the meanings of their words and discourses; locate the meanings each text produces from historical, political, economic, cultural and linguistic perspectives; and illuminate, explore, analyze and criticize the categories of discourse, modes of expression, metaphors, argumentative styles, rules of evidence and literary allusions that, as texts, value and celebrate.
Who is to be involved in this critical analysis and "multistoried" (Gough,
1994d) practices, and whose stories and notions of history are to be included?
Mary Bryson & Suzanne de Castell (1994) offer an "ethics of narration":
We suggest, then, that probably the most important job for researchers ... is to seek out those stories that are not being circulated, to stop making sense, to look for... technology's version of Foucaulf ssubjugated knowledges within which the complications, contradictions and complexities of this new educational domain are most likely and most productively to be discerned. For it will most likely be in these tales, we suspect, that radically innovative possibüities for the transformation of hegemonic practices might best be found" (p. 217)
Pat Thom son (1998) suggests "negotiated curriculum " and "inverted curriculum" as more contingent and permeable alternatives to current curriculum reform as instances of amnesia and myopia. This entails curriculum design with and from the knowings of the students and their community. An important part of the empirical dimension of this study was to acknowledge and
208 encourage the high school and graduate student co-participants to take some of
the responsibility for what goes on in their schooling. Students, if given a chance, want to become active participants in this curricular conversation.
Students could collaborate and cowrite with a member of the community materials for use in the life of the community, all of which could advance the degree of cultural exchange and understanding between community and school. Students could work with members of the community on compiling, organizing, preserving, and presenting different senses of the community's experience. Such a project could lead to an understanding of how communities have been mapped, as well as to a remapping of the communities and their positions in the world. (WiUinsky, 1998, p. 158)
Who might the community members be? Gough (1994d) cautions that westem inteUectuals must not "import ecopolitical wisdom from the narratives of others.," rather we might do "comparative readings [listenings, if oral cultures]"
(p. 201) of other ways of taking up the world so that we might consider different conceptions and interrelationships of self, subjectivity, nature, and landscapes towards multistoried residency in the world rather than universal residency of the world.
How might such an ethics of inclusion take shape? As Trinh T. Minh-ha
(1990) points out, "[t]he margins, our sites for survival, become our fighting grounds and their site for pilgrimage" (p. 330). It is important that the "margins not to be coUapsed, they are important positions, to recover ourselves and move in solidarity to erase the category colonized/ colonizer" (hooks, 1990, p. 342).
What about those written off as prehistoric, which accounts for a large part of the world? ComeU West (1990) suggests:
a new kind of critic ... associated with the new cultural poUtics of difference ... with improvisational and flexible sensibiUties;... persons 209 from all countries, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, ages ... intellectual and freedom-fighters with partisan passion, international perspectives, and ... a sense ofhumour.... [W]e will struggle and stay, as those sisters and brothers on the block say, "out there", (p. 36)
Russell Bishop (1998), a Maori scholar, speaks of "epistemological racism" and calls for a "spiral discourse" for education, different and collaborative
"storying" in schools, in which different cultural communities become main characters in collaborative negotiations to re construct the curriculum. He sees storying as a curriculum context catalyst, developing curriculum from Maori students stories and Maori knowledge. Shohat & Stam (1994) suggest a
"polycentric multiculturahsm," as a global politics of culture—"mutual and reciprocal relativization" (p. 359). This has nothing to do with romanticizing or embracing cultures not your own, but learning to "at least to recognize it, acknowledge it, take it into account, be ready to be transformed by it" (p. 359).
There is no need to travel; this can begin in our own classrooms and communities. In my own teaching at Massey University, I have invited members of the Maori and Pacific Islander communities to co-design and co-teach the courses I am responsible for. This is not without much apprehension as we are not following Ministry of Education dictates, which at this particular time in
New Zealand are extremely regimented and ironclad through prescribed content, learning outcomes and continual assessment. We are working toward
"heteroglossic proliferations of difference within polygeneric narratives" (Shohat
& Stam, 1994, p. 359) in our remembering and regenerating of epistemologies, geographies and technologies.
210 Troubling my research: Coming out of the co- closet
In this segment, I trouble the practice of doing research, including my own
investments of privilege as researcher. I provide a brief overview of the
methodology used in this study, then question how this research might have
contributed to the legacy of imperialism in spite of my considerable efforts to
create a rhizoanalytic research and writing project. I end with a discussion of the
potential for classrooms and educational inquiry becoming "mutual learning
comm unities" (Apffel-Marglin, 1998).
Plateau 1004: Mesa Morphing Methodology, was a journey through a variety
of methodological possibilities to work as resistance strategies. For the
technology education part of the study, I engaged with Patti Lather's (1993) four
"provocateurs" of "transgressive validities," and for the educational technology segment, James Scheurich's (1996) "validity as the play of difference." In both scenarios, technology education and educational technology, the effort was to
"minorize" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) the majority narratives by going into them, but not depending on them, as we created different stories not to become a majority but to encourage a different pedagogy. The co-participants and myself companion-planted our knowings rather than monocropped them with both weeds and seedlings. As Bishop (1998) writes "my engagement with the stories was not singly theirs with mine" (p. 10).
Because I could not escape that I was always already there in the languagmg and mapping of the study, as chief cartographer, I had to continually monitor my
211 own biases, so that my positioning was not the "paradigm of humanity" from which
I "construct[ed] the origins of this universal presence in [my] selected ethnographic methodologies" (McLaren, 1992, p. 80). I needed to step aside and make every effort not to pull the co-participants into my own regimes of truth. The languaging and remapping needed to emanate from the historical and cultural experiences of the co participants, as well as from my own historical and cultural experience, according to
Giroux & Simon (1989). With the considerable effort to create a rhizoanalytic research and writing project, was my research respectful, collectively-made, and reciprocal? How successful was I at not coding difference into the Same? What was hidden in my co- closet under the names of validity and ethics?
My beliefs, perceptions and passions were not hidden, not separate. They very much intertwined within and between each word of this dissertation.
"Researcher imposition" (Bishop, 1998) was evident in the choosing of the foci of the dissertation, the sites and co-participants, the theorists and non-theorists 1 wanted to or did not want to work with, the overall shape of the dissertation, the selection of data, whether or not to analyze the data, and so forth. Living in the within and between of western and First Nations (Stl'atl'imx and
Haudenosaunee) ways of taking up the world informed the contours and directions of the research and writing. My efforts to foreground culture and environment as important and urgent for technology discourses played a significant role in the mapping of this study through the grounded surveys, interviews, and general topology of the plateaux.
212 In putting forth my argument regarding technology discourses, I created a disjunction or chasm between my 'one true story' and the current technology discourses ('other one true stories'). My one true story consisted of many stories, presented as a consolidation into my overall take or read on technology, foregrounding mainly the stories of the marginalized, the not-present, the invisible, the excluded, the silenced rather than the scientific and other academic stories.
Because of the prevalence of the immanent 'one true story' of technology in schools, such knowings are unlikely to come from technology students or their teachers. 1 did not trot out or support the point of view of Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Dupont,
Proctor & Gamble, the United States Government, the British Columbia Ministry of
Education and their converts in education except to show them as the heard (i.e. the powerful) stories.
The research project did not emanate from the needs and struggles of the co participants, rather from my own concerns as a member of the culture of research'.
The technology education students and their teacher, in particular, had Little part in determining the accountability, credibility and validity of their part of the study.
They also had little input into the writing up or analysis of the data they so generously provided. With the dataplay, 1 was in the paradoxical positioning of both voice-over and co-writer, reseacher and co-researcher evoking a distance in our textual, visual and linguistic play. Although there was significant co-writing and co editing, 1 set the stage and ultimately was the director and producer ofPlateau 1009:
Dataplay.
213 Susan Noffke (1990) cautions researchers to pay particular attention to
how our research projects might implicate and complicate the lives of the
participants. How students were able to deal with remembering the history of
imperialism and western privilege was a concern. Most of these students would be considered wmfer-privileged in Canadian society. "[TJhey may be the ones who suffer" (Willinsky, 1998, p. 259). This surfaced in the study as the students experienced disruptions and dislocations of meaning. For many of the students,
"relativizing" the asymmetry of western privilege and technologies, was a defamUiarization process, which placed them in an unflattering position which they experienced as "shock, an outrage, giving rise to hysterical discourse of besieged civility and reverse victimization" (Shohat & Stam, 1994, p. 359). There were a few who already knew the violence in their bodies and were less upset, although ashamed at their complacency and complicity in monoculturalism.
How ever, for Ella Shohat and Robert Stam (1994):
A radical, polycentric multiculturalism... cannot simply be ^nice', like a suburban barbeque to which a few token people of color are invited. Any substantive multiculturalism has to recognize the existential realities of pain, anger, and resentment, since the multiple cultures invoked by the term "multiculturahsm" have not historically coexisted in relations of equality and mutual respect. It is therefore not merely a question of communicating across borders but discerning the forces which generate the borders in the first place. Multiculturalism has to recognize not only difference but even better, irreconcilable difference, (p. 358-359)
As Jim Scheurich (1996) suggests "[i]t is in the particularities (the differences) of the local moment where the appropriate direction or choice may be conflict
214 rather than collaboration, separation rather than unity, unknowing rather than
knowing" (p. 57). He appeals for the "clarity of the unknowing":
I fear the arrogance we enact "unknowingly^'; 1 fear my seeming lack of fear in proposing new imaginaries of validity, even transgressive ones. Perhaps, instead, we (I) ought to be stunned into silence—literally into silence, into a space of emptiness, into the clarity of the unknowing that appropriates no one or no thing to its sameness, (p. 58)
This resonates with John Cage's behef in a willingness to not knowing as the
beginning of ethical action (Perloff & Junkerman, 1994). Here, not knowing is a
space of silence, which is not absence of sound, rather a space of letting go of our
desires and our desire to know 'other'. Cage sees two predominant theories of
ethics (Bruns, 1994):
• one characterizing ethics in terms of our beUefs, desires, values, principles, perceptions, actions, and experiences; • the other, characterizing ethics in terms of how we respond to and respect others (not like me).
For Cage, western culture leans toward the first theory, a "morality based on
perception" by a perceiving, moral agent, judgements based on having the right
or wrong theory. For the second, claims of the other come before our reason and are often obstructed by our reason. The perceiving subject reaches, grasps and reduces, removing alterity and strangeness. Cage's second theory of ethics is about intimacy, not as consuming, possessing or exploiting, but as intimate engagement w ith/in our worlds. Cage's poethics regards knowing as not only about knowing or not knowing, but as letting go and receiving rather than capturing assembling and ordering.
215 This has significant implications for our questing for knowledge, the traditional practice of western educational inquiry. Who benefitted from my research? The co-participants? Maybe. The academy? My career?
Mutual learning communities
This study raised many concerns for me about the right to know: my right to know, the students' right to know, the academy's right to know, the right of participants who know to not share what they know. Where does permission reside with respect to the right to know? Has it multiple residences? Is it nomadic and rhizomatic? How is this different from previous ages of discovery and exploration? Who is mapping whom? Who is doing the deterritorializing?
Who carries the transit and survey stakes and fieldbook? Is it the elite: the academy, the courts, the legislature and its agents—or is it the poor, the powerless who are doing the researching? What is the direction of research?
Western research methods and methodologies have historically been an urge to get inside, to discover, to tear apart bit by bit, 'to know' through analysis dismembering, disembodying and devouring the unknown, the investigated. In a system based on consumption, new knowledge must be perpetually supplied, a process depending on continual novelty. The right to know, which has been fostered by imperialism in its many guises, is accepted as a given and "too often dedicated to defining and extending the privileges of the West" (Willinsky, 1998, p, 27). The aim of such knowing is not about looking for relationships among
216 things, rather it is to determine and compare differences; it is "thoroughly
im plicated in the desire for pow er" (p. 51),
Frédérique Apffei-MargKn (1998) w ith PRATEC {Proyecto Andino de
Technologias Campesinas, Andean Project of Peasant Technologies), a community of
Andean peasants and scholars, writes that the professionalization of knowledge has
made it a commodity, as well as anindividual pursuit that "is the very condition of
the commodification of knowledge, which is why it is so strictly taught at all levels of education,.. where rules and regulations polic[e] the individualized production of knowledge" (p. 19).
Primarily, the purposes forwhich... researchers do their work is to 'contribute to the knowledge of their professions', to use a trite but nevertheless serviceable formulation. Another way of putting this is to say that professional researchers live their work lives within the parameters and the paradigms framing their professions.... [0]ne must attend to its theories, its concepts, its strict separation from the attending to one's private' life. Passion and values belong to the latter whereas sobriety and attention to facts belong to the former. Thus the facts must be presented with affective detachment under penalty of being labelled 'romantic', or 'biased,' labels damaging to one's professional reputation. (p. 14)
This way of taking up the world, is not something that is a part of the traditional culture of the Mkamba people of Kenya or the Stl'atl'imx Nation of British
Columbia, the Haudenosaunee of the Great Lakes Region, or any indigenous communities practicing their traditional ways. As Grimaldo Vasquez Rengifo
(1998), a member of PRATEC, writes of his Andean culture:
Wisdom for the Andean people is not associated with an accumulation of knowledge—to know a lot about many things—rather it is associated with the attribute of nurturing, where the sensitivity to know how to nurture is as important as knowing how to allow oneself to be nurtured. This reciprocal
217 nurturing is what recreates life in the Andean world, and not the power- giving knowledge that one can have about others, (p. 174)
PRATEC and many other indigenous communities are working to enact knowing as "mutual learning... mutual nurturance — [where] nurturing is not the sole prerogative of humans" (Apffel-Marglin, 1998, p. 32). Mutual learning is living respectfully and reciprocally within the world. Eduardo Fernandez Giillo (1998), also a member of PRATEC, refers to such engagement as living "equivalency":
Each one of the beings who inhabit this living Andean world is equivalent to every one else; that is, every one (be it man, tree, stone) is a person, complete and indispensable, with its own and inalienable way of being, with its definite personality, its own name, w ith its specific responsibility in the keeping of the harmony of the world. It is in such condition of equivalence that this living world relates with each one of the others, (p. 224)
This might be a difficult thing to leam for those of us schooled in western ways which differentiate and hierarchize humans and other Living things. Such worldviews are non-oppositional and non-vindictive; they refuse a victim stance.
They are not about gaining concessions from the state or validity from the academy, or creating universal truths. Neither do they preclude alliances and dialogical coalitions with those schooled in western ways; none is an wholly anti imperialist or anti-colonialist metanarrative. They are, however,regeneration of their traditional knowings and rejection of western 'development.' Regeneration is a means of breaking a long history of silences, and as Apffel-Marglin (1998) cautions:
[Rjegeneration is not transformation. The dynamic of regeneration emerges from the attitude of loving the world, as it is, as a parent loves a child, not wanting to transform him or her into someone else. (p. 40)
218 This is incongruous with much standard academic research which has been about
'generating' more and better for the academy, adding to the western knowledge project. Deleuze (1995) writes of finding ways of "occupying, taking up, space-time, or inventing new space-time: revolutionary movements" (p. 172). Perhaps researchers need to not only generate new space-time, but to slow down and regenerate space-time. This is not about combining the best of the West with the best of indigenous cultures—hybiidity. As Eduardo Grillo (1998) writes, hybridity will never work because of the radical differences in world 'visions' and power differentials. Hybridity masks and erases tens of thousands of years of indigenous epistemologies and nurturing. Despite the efforts of the New Age movement and orthodox western science to understand indigenous ways, the conversations are far apart.
What might research become if 'valid knowledge' had no borders constructing other' to 'know' in order to study, act upon, validate or transform, and / or if the borders are porous with a mutual two-way flow? According to
Apffel-Marglin (1998), to write the world of the other,' a researcher living equivalency would need to "de-professionalize" and write "not primarily to know or study but as a world to live in, to participate in, to be a part of and collectively to make" (p. 21).
Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1998) cautions that research is a dirty word in indigenous communities. She suggests that there needs to be a code of ethics and a principle of precaution to deal with the complexity of interaction.
219 Educational practitioners and researchers need to become proactive and to leam to anticipate cultural harm, local criteria, and involvement of local communities, and to know when to intervene and / or withdraw. Smith says that there needs to be a "dynamic interactive cycle" of dialogue with the community, a relational positioning Shohat & Stam (1994) refer to as "within and between." Grillo suggests that what is needed is an intercultural mutual conversation at the local and world levels, denundating "the aggressive nature of imperialism" (p. 236) and deciding what research gets done, by whom, and to benefit whom. As mutindi ndunda says, "just get out of the way, so that we can open our own doors" (ndunda, 1998).
A becoming-revolutionary validity might occur when the research moves beyond researcher desires and designs and toward collectively made and mutually accepted conversation, where "a [nurturing] Hfe-space opens"
(Deleuze, 1994b) consisting not only of people, but all living things, including things orthodox western science tells us are not living. Perhaps then, there can be a cultural politics of difference which is neither oppositional nor transgressive, a place for more loving, thoughtful and caring technology discourses, and more loving, thoughtful and caring research methodologies—plus de plies.
o:na (peace, in Haudenosaunee)
220 A p p en d ix A
Opening technology discourses to difference: A rhizoanalysis
Pat O’Riley
Educational PoHcy & Leadership The Ohio State University 29 W. Woodruff Avenue Columbus, OH 43210
Researcher Background After working for over 20 years in industry as a residential designer, industrial relations officer/human rights officer, factory inspector, and Canada safety officer, I entered the industrial education teacher education programme (now renamed technology education) at The University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1988. 1 was the only woman in my class as there were / are few women in this programme area.
While completing an MA at UBC in technology education, I was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship to continue with doctoral studies at The Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, Ohio, as there is no technology education PhD programme in Canada. Currently, I am in the research and dissertation stage of m y PhD.
Overview of Research Project Over the past decade, industrial education curricula in many countries world wide have undergone extensive revisions. In brief, the revisions include: a name change to technology education (USA), technology, (UK), or technology studies (BC); incorporation of "hi-tech" to industrial technologies; and, the addition of a "problem solving " approach to skills-oriented curricula. Although the curriculum writers claim that their new approach is relevant, appropriate, and equitable for " all students, " their concept of technology is still limited to " industrial " technology, which has historically excluded many students. Industrial educators" perspective on technology is merely one piece of a much larger, more diverse map of technology. The focus of my research is to reshape the BC technology education curriculum (BC, 1992) to include " other " perspectives on technology, thereby creating a richer vocabulary and larger framework to talk about/practice technology in schools.
221 Procedure Students traditionally are left out of dialogue regarding their education. W orking w ith students and teachers as coresearchers, rather than o n or fo r them, this research will explore multiple perspectives on technology, including their own. The following is offered as tentative and preliminary, as it may change substantially once the coresearchers are involved in the design of the project.
In class settings from m id O ctober to M ay 1994: 1. The coresearchers will be asked to brainstorm th e ir notions of "technology" both verbally and in written form. I wUl then prepare an overview of the discussions and writings. 2. Next, the coresearchers will be presented with industrial educators' and "other" perspectives on technology and they will again be given an opportunity to dialogue about these multiple notions of "technology" both verbally and in written form. I will prepare another overview of the discussions and writings. 3. These responses will be returned for discussion regarding the impossibihties of (re)mapping technology discourses in BC schools.
Injune, 1995, once a draft of the data stories is prepared, a "member check" will provide the coresearchers an opportunity to give feedback on the draft, and negotiate any differences of interpretation.
Protocol This study must meet the approval of The Behavioral and Social Sciences Human Subjects Review Committee, The Ohio State University.
• All participation must be voluntary. • The coresearchers will be asked for their permission to audiotape the discussions. • School and coresearcher confidentiality will be protected through the use of pseudonyms. • A consent form will be given to the coresearchers prior to interviewing, and in the case of students, to their parents. • Coresearchers are free to withdraw from the study at anytime.
Funding for this study is made possible through a:
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship #752-92-2987
222 A p p en d ix B
Grounded Survey/Questionnaire—Students Pat O'Riley Educational Policy and Leadership The Ohio State University
Technology Stories
Technology is a word that appears to have many meanings, depending on who is telling the story. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to ask you about your own understandings (your own story) oftechnology, how you have come to these understandings, and about the possibilities of telling different technology stories than those currently told in schools.
There is no need to write your name on this survey / questionnaire—only if you want to. There are no right and wrong answers to these questions. Use them only as a guide to think about how you understandtechnology. If you feel more comfortable answering in a different format such as writing a short story, poem, or song, please do so.
1. From your own experiences, how is technology talked about: in school? on TV? in your home? among your friends? other places not listed above?
How do you understandtechnology (your story)? What does it mean to you?
3. How have you come to think and talk about technology in this way? • who (no names) have been most influential in shaping your understandings of technology? How do they talk about technology? • what things or activities have been most influential in shaping your understandings oftechnology? In what ways?
4. In your experience, do girls and boys talk about and do technology differently? If so, how?
223 5. Who Cgender, cultures, countries) and what (things, activities) are included in the storylines of technology as told within and by: • popular culture (e.g. TV, science fiction, games, street talk)? • schools (e.g. teachers, books, courses)? • you?
6. Who (gender, cultures, countries) and what (things, activities) are excluded in the storylines of technology as told within and by: • popular culture (e.g. TV, science fiction, games, street talk)? • schools (e.g. teachers, books, courses)? • you?
Ought the people and activities generally excluded from prevalent stories of technology be included? Why/why not?
8. What do you think you need to know about technology^: • for your personal needs and interests? • for post-secondary education and/or employment? • for the benefit of other people? this planet?
9. Do you think that we should change how technology is talked about and practiced in schools? • if so, what do you think ought to be added, eliminated, changed?
Questions and Comments:
• questions and concerns regarding technology which I have overlooked in this survey / questionnaire, but that you feel are im p o rta n t • your questions and comments regarding both my research project and this survey / questionnaire
224 REFERENCES
Anderson, Laurie. (1994). Stories from the nerve bible: a retrospective 1972- 1992. New York: Harper Perennial.
Apffel-Marglin, Frédérique. (Ed.). (1998). The spirit of regeneration: Andean culture confronting Western notions of development. London & New York: St. Martin's Press.
Art education promoted. (1999, March 6). The Dominion, p. 9.
Attwood, Bain, (Ed.). (1996). In the age of Mabo: History, Aboriginees and Australia. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Behdad, Ali. (1993). Traveling to teach: Postcolonial critics in the American academy. In Cameron McCarthy & Warren Crichlow (Eds.), Race, identity, and representation in education (pp. 40-49). New York and London: Routledge.
Benjamin, Craig. (1997). Biopiracy and native knowledge: Indigenous rights on the Last Frontier. Native Americas, Akwe:kon's Tournai of Indigenous Issues, 14(2), 22-31.
Benjamin, Walter. (1968). Illuminations. New York, NY: Schocken Books.
Bensmaia, Réda. (1994). On the concept of minor literature from Kafka to Kateb Yacine. In Constantin V. Boundas & Dorothea Olkowski (Eds.), Deleuze and the theatre of philosophy (pp. 213-228). New York and London: Routledge.
Best, Steven & Kellner, Douglas. (1991). Postmodern theory: Critical interrogations. New York, NY: The Guildford Press.
Bhabba, Homi K. (Ed.). (1990). Nation and narration. London and New York; Routledge.
Bishop, Russell. (1998). New metaphors for educational practice. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the New Zealand Assodaion for Research in Education, Dunedin, Aotearoa/ New Zealand. 225 Bishop, Russell. (1997). Maori People's concerns about research into their lives. History of Education Review, 26(1), 25-41.
Blaeser, Kimberly M. (1994a). An introduction. In Mark A. Lindquist & Martin Zanger (Eds.), Buried roots and indestructible seeds: The survival of American Indian life in storv, history, and spirit (pp. 3-8). Madison & London: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Blaeser, Kimberly M. (1994b). Trickster: A compendium. In Mark A. Lindquist & Martin Zanger (Eds.), Buried roots and indestructible seeds: The survival of American Indian life in story, history, and spirit (pp. 47- 66). Madison & London: The Universityof Wisconsin Press.
Borgmann, Albert. (1992) Crossing the postmodern divide. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Borgmann, Albert. (1984). Technology and the character of contemporary life. Chicago, IL: Chicago U niversity Press.
Bowers, Chet A. (1993). Education, cultural myths, and the ecological crisis: Towards deep changes. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press
Braidotti, Rosi. (1994a). Nomadic subjects: Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theorv. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Braidotti, Rosi. (1994b). Toward a new nomadism: Feminist Deleuzian tracks; or, metaphysics and metabolism. In Constantin V. Boundas & Dorothea Olkowski (Eds.), Deleuze and the theatre of philosophy (pp. 187-212). New York and London: Routledge.
Braidotti, Rosi. (1991). Patterns of dissonance: A studv of women in contemporary philosophy (Elizabeth Guild, Trans.). New York and London: Routledge.
Bright, William. (1993). A coyote reader. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
British Columbia Ministry of Education. (1992). Technology education: Primary through graduation curriculum / assessment framework. Victoria, BC: Author.
226 Bryson, Mary & de Castell, Suzanne. (1994). Telling tales out of school; Modernist, critical, and postmodern "true stories' about educational computing. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 10(3), 199-221.
Cage, John. (1994). Overpopulation and art. In Marjorie Perloff & Charles Junkerman (Eds.), John Cage: Composed in America (pp. 14-38). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Canning, Peter. (1994). The crack of time and the ideal game. In Constantin V. Boundas & Dorothea Olkowski (Eds.), Deleuze and the theatre of philosophy (pp. 73-98). New York and London: Routledge.
Carroll, David. (1982). The subject in question. Chicago: The Unversity of Chicago Press.
Chomsky, Noam. (1998). Whose world order. Lecture given at the State Opera House, Wellington, NZ.
Chomsky, Noam & Herman, Edward S. (1988). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of mass media. Newy York, NY: Pantheon.
Cockbum, Cynthia. (1988). Machinery of dominance: Women, men, and technical know-how. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
Cole, Peter. (1998). An academic take on "Indigenous traditions and ecology". Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 3 ,100-115.
Cole, Peter, (1997). First Nations knowings as legitmate discourse in education. Ph.D. comprehensive examination, Simon Fraser University. Unpublished manuscript/
Conley, Verena Andermatt. (1993). Eco-subjects. In Verena Andermatt Conley (Ed.). Rethinking technologies (pp. 77-91). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Corea, G. (1985). The mother machine. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
The Council of Canadians. (1998). The MAI. [On-line]. Available: http: / / www.web.net/ coc.
Cowan, Ruth Swartz. (1979). From Virginia dare to Virginia Slims: Women and technology in American life. Technology and Culture. 20(1), 51-63.
227 Crabtree, Benjamin F. & Miller, William L. (1990). A template approach to text analysis: developing and using codebooks. In Doing Qualitative Researc/i_(pp. 93-109).
Damarin, Suzanne K. (1994). Would you rather be a cyborg or a goddess? On being a teacher in a postmodern century. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association, New O rleans, LA, A pril 1994.
Damarin, Suzanne K. (1993). Technologies of the individual: Women and subjectivity in the age of information. Research in Philosophy and Technology, 13, Technology and Feminism. 183-196.
Damarin, Suzanne K. (1993, March). Schooling and situated knowledge: Travel or tourism? Educational technology, 27-32.
Deleuze, Gilles. (1995). Negotiations (Martin Joughin, Trans.). New York and Chichester, UK: Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1990).
Deleuze, Gilles. (1994a). Difference and repetition (Paul Patton, Trans.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1968).
Deleuze, Gilles. (1994b). He stuttered. In Constantin V. Boundas & Dorothea Olkowski (Eds.), Deleuze and the theatre of philosophy (pp. 23-29). New York and London: Routledge.
Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Félix. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Department of Education and Science. (1990). Technology in the National Curriculum. London, UK: Author.
Donmoyer, Robert. (1996, March). Eductional Research in a era of paradigm proliferation: What's a journal editor to do? Educational Researcher, p. 19-25.
Donmoyer, Robert. (1985). Cognitive anthropology and research on effective principals. Educational Administration Quarterly, 21(2), 31-57.
Duelli Klein, R. (1987). What's new' about the new' reproductive technologies? In G. Corea et al (Eds.), Man-made women: How new reproductive technologies affect women (pp. 64-73).
228 Dugger, Jr., W. E. (1995). Technology for all Americans. The Technology Teacher, 54(5), 3-6.
EUul, Jacques. (1990). The technological bluff. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Erdrich, Louise. (1993). Love medicine. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.
Faulkner, Wendy. & Arnold, E. (1985). Smothered bv invention: Technology in women's lives. London, UK: Pluto Press.
Ferguson, Russell. (1990). Introduction: Invisible center. In Russell Ferguson et al (Eds.), Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures (pp. 9- 14). New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Foster, Hal. (1985). Recodings—art, spectacle, and cultural politics. Seattle, WA: Bay Press.
Foucault, Michel. (1984). The Foucault reader, (edited by Paul Rabinow). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, Michel. (1983). Preface to Anti-oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press
Foucault, Michel. (1980). Power / knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977 (edited by Colin Gordon). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Foucault. Michel. (1979). Discipline & punish. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Fuentes, A. & Ehrenreich, B. (1988). Women in the global factory. Boston, MA: South End Press.
Gabüondo, Joseba. (1995). Postcolonial cyborgs: Subjectivity in the age of cybernetic reproduction. In Chris Hables Gray (Ed.), The cyborg handbook (pp. 423-432). New York & London: Routledge.
Game, Ann, (1991). Undoing the social: Towards a deconstructive sociology. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Garson, Barbara. (1988). The electronic sweatshop: How computers are transforming the office of the future into the factory of the past. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
229 Glesne, Corrine & Peshkin, Alan. (1992). Becoming qualitative researchers: an introduction. White Plains, NY: Longman.
Goshorn, Keith A. (1994). Valorizing the feminine' while rejecting feminism—Baudrillard's feminist provocations. In Douglas Kellner (Ed.), Baudrillard: A critical reader (pp. 257-291). Oxford & Cambridge: Blackwell.
Gough, Annette. (1997). Education and the environment: Policy, trends and the problems of marginalisation. Melbourne: The Australian Council for Educational Research.
Gough, Noel, (in pressa). Decolonising sustainability: Subverting and appropriating mythologies of social change.
Gough, Noel, (in pressb). Introduction: Voicing curriculum visions. In William Doll, Noel Gough & William Schubert, Curriculum Visions.
Gough, Noel. (1998). All around the world: Science education, constructivism, and globalization. Educational Policy, 12(5), 507-524.
Gough, Noel. (1997). Weather^” Incorporated: Environmental Education, postmodern identities, and technocultural constructions of nature. Canadian Tournai of Environmental Education, 2 ,145-162.
Gough, Noel. (1996). 'Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you': Environmental education, postmodern identities, and technocultural constructions of nature. Paper presented at the Regulating Identities conference. Surfers Paradise, Queensland, A ustralia.
Gough, Noel. (1995a). Manifesting cyborgs in curriculum inquiry. Melbourne Studies in Education. 29 (1): 71-83.
Gough, Noel. (1995b). Pretexts for posthuman pedagogies. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, Monteagle, Tennessee, October 1995.
Gough, Noel. (1994a). Chaos and curriculum inquiry: More than a metaphor? Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA, April 1994.
Gough, Noel. (1994b). Narration, reflection, diffraction: Aspects of fiction in educational inquiry. Austrialian Educational Researcher, 21(3), 47-76.
230 Gough, Noel. (1994c). Playing at catastrophe: Ecopolitical education after poststructuralism. Educational Theory. 44(2), 189-210.
Gough, Noel. (1993). Environmental education, narrative complexity and postmodern science/fiction. International Tournai of Science Education. 1^5), 607-625.
Grady, Wayne. (1994). The nature of coyotes. Vancouver, BC: Greystone Books .
Gray, Linda. (Producer), and Gray, Linda et al (Director). (1986). Global Assembly Line. [Film]. National Endowment for the Humanities.
Gregory, Derek. (1993). Geographical imaginations. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Grillo, Eduardo Fernandez. (1998). Development or cultural affirmation in the Andes? In Frédérique Apffel-Marglin (Ed.), The spirit of regeneration: Andean culture confronting Western notions of development (pp. 124-145). London & New York: St. Martin s Press.
Grossman, Kenneth. (1993). Environmental racism. In S. Harding (Ed.), The racial economy of science: Toward a democratic future (pp. 326-334). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Grosz, Elizabeth A. (1995) Space, time, and perversion: Essays on the politics of bodies. New York and London: Routledge.
Grosz, Elizabeth. (1994). A thousand tiny sexes: Feminism and rhizomatics. In Constantin V. Boundas & Dorothea Olkowski (Eds.), Deleuze and the theatre of philosophy (pp. 187-212). New York and London: Routledge.
Grosz, Elizabeth. (1992). Bodies—cities. In Beatriz Colomina (Ed.), Sexuality ^space (pp. 241-154). Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press.
Cuba, Egon & Lincoln, Yvonna. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Hacker, Sally. (1989). Pleasure, power & technology. London, UK: Unwin Hyman, Inc.
Haraway, Donna J. (1997). Modest Witness ©Second M illennium. FemaleMan® Meets OncoMouse™. New York & London: Routledge.
231 Haraway, Donna, J. (1995). Cyborgs and symbionts: Living together in the New World Order. In Chris Hables Gray (Ed.), The cyborg handbook, pp. xi-xx. New York & London: Routledge.
Haraway, Donna J. (1992). The promises of monster: A regenerative politics for inappropriate/ d others. In Lawrence Grossber, Cary Nelson and Paula Treichler (Eds.), (pp. 295-337), Cultural studies. New York & London: Routledge.
Haraway, Donna J. (1991a). The actors are cyborg, nature is coyote, and the geography is elsewhere: Postscript to "Cyborgs at large". In Constance Penley & Andrew Ross (Eds.), (pp. 21-26), Technoculture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.
Haraway, Donna J. (1991b). Cyborgs at large: An interview with Donna Haraway. In Constance Penley & Andrew Ross (Eds.), (pp. 1-20), Technoculture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.
Haraway, Donna. J. (1991c) Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. New York, NY: Routledge.
Haraway, Donna J. (1989). Primate visions: Gender, race, and nature in the world of modern science. New York and London: Routledge.
Harding, Sandra. (Ed.). (1993). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What is strong objectivity? In Linda Alcoff & Elizabeth Potter (Eds.), Fem inist epistemologies (pp. 49-82). New York and London: Routledge.
Harding, Sandra. (Ed.). (1993). The racial economy of science: toward a democratic future. Bloomington, LA: Indiana University Press.
Harding, Sandra. (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge?: Thinking from women's lives. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press.
Harding, Sandra. (1986). The science question in feminism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Hartsock, Nancy. (1983). The feminist standpoint: Developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism. In Sandra Harding & Merrill B. Hintikka (Eds.), Discovering reality (pp. 282-310). Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Harvey, David. (1989). The condition of postmodemity. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
232 Hayles, N. Katherine. (1995). The life cycle of cyborgs: Writing the posthuman. In Chris Hables Gray (Ed.), (pp. 321-335), The cyborg handbook. New York & London: Routledge.
Hayles, N. Katherine. (1993). The seductions of cyberspace. In Verena Andermatt Conley (Ed.), Rethinking technologies (pp. 173-190). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. hooks, bell. (1990). Talking back. In Russell Ferguson et al (Eds.), Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures (pp. 337-340). New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art.
International Technology Education Association [HEA]. (1990). A conceptual framework for technology education. Reston: Author.
Irigaray, Luce. (1993). Te, tu, nous: Toward a culture of difference. New York & London: Routledge.
King, Thomas. (1994). Green grass, running water. Toronto, ON: Harper Perennial.
King, Thomas. (1993). One good story, that one. Toronto, ON: Harper Perennial.
Kirkup, G. & Keller, L. S. (1992). Inventing women: Science, technology and gender. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Knoespel, Kenneth J. (1991). The emplotment of chaos: Instabilit}'^ and narrative order. In N. K. Hayles (Ed.), Chaos and order: Complex dynamics in literature and science (pp. 100-122). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Kramarae, Cheris. (1988). Gotta go Myrtle, technology's at the door. In C. Kramarae (Ed.), Technology and women's voices: Keeping in touch (pp. 1-14). New York, NY: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Kroker, Arthur. (1992). The possessed individual: Technology and the French postmodern. Montréal, QC: New World Perspectives.
Kroker, Arthur & Michael A. Weinstein. (1994). Data trash: The theory of the virtual class. Montreal, QC: New World Perspectives.
Lather, Patti. (1994). But is it research? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA, April 4-8,1994. 233 Lather, Patti. (1993). Fertile obsession: Validity after poststructnralism. The Sociological Quarterly, 34(4), 673-693.
Lather, Patti. (1992). Critical frames in education research: feminst and post- structural perspectives. Theory into Practice, xxxi(2). 87-99.
Lather, Patti. (1991a). Feminist research in education: W ithin/against. Geelong, Australia: Deakin University Press.
Lather, Patti. (1991b). Getting smart: Feminist research and pedagogy with / in the postmodern. New York and London: Routledge.
Lather, Patti. (1986). Issues of validity in openly ideological research: between a rock and a hard place. Interchange, 17(4), 63-84.
Lingis, Alphonso. (1994). The society of dismembered body parts. In Constantin V. Boundas & Dorothea Olkowski (Eds.), Deleuze and the theatre of philosophv (pp. 289-303). New York & London: Routledge.
Lorde, Audre. (1981). The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. In Cherrfe Moranga & Gloria Anzaldua (Eds.), This bridge called my back: Writings of radical women of color (pp. 98-101). Watertown, MA: Persephone Press.
McLaren, Peter. (1993). Schooling as a ritual performance, second edition: towards a political economy of educational symbols and gestures. New York, NY: Routledge.
McLaren, Peter. (1992). Collisions with otherness. Qualitative Studies in Education, 5(1), 77-92.
Marshall, Judi. (1981). Making sense as a personal process. In P. Reason and J. Rowan, Human Inquiry (pp. 395-399). John Wiley & Sons Ltd..
Massumi, Brian. (1992). A users' guide to capitalism and schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari. Cambridge & London: The MTT Press.
Massumi, Brian. (1987). Translator's fore ward: Pleasures of philosophy. In Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia (Brian Massumi, Trans.) (pp. ix-xv). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1980).
234 Minh-ha, Trinh T. (1990). Cotton and iron. In Russell Ferguson et al (Eds.), Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures (pp. 327-336). New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Minh-ha, Trinh T. (1989). Woman, native, other: Writing postcoloniality and feminism. Bloomington, EST: Indiana University Press.
Morrison, Toni. (1992), Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. (1979). Ecce homo. (R. J. HoUingsdale, Trans.). New York, NY: Penguin Books.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. (1961). Thus spoke Zarathustra. (R. J. Hollingdale, Trans.). New York: Penguin Books.
ndunda, mutindi. (1995). Educational policy: The experiences of the women of Kilome, Kenya. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. The University of British Columbia.
Needham, Joseph. (1993). Poverties and triumphs of the Chinese scientific tradition. Li Sandra Harding (Ed.), The racial economy of science: toward a democratic future (pp. 161-179). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Noble, Douglas. (1993). The regime of technology in education. Holistic Education Review, 6(2), 4-13.
Noffke, Susan E. (1990). Researching together: Curriculum inequity with, not on teachers. Paper presented at the twelfth conference of curriculum theory and classroom practice, Dayton, OH, October, 1990.
O’Riley, Patricia. (1996). A different storytelling of technology education curriculum re-visions: A storytelling of difference. Journal of Technology Education, 7(2), 28-39.
O^Riley, Patrica. (1994). Women, space, and knowledge in the 'Information Age': From multidimensional spaces to world as surface/screen. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Educatioal Research Association, New Orleans.
O'Riley, Patricia. (1992). Contextualizing the gendered and industrial bias of technology education. Master's thesis. The University of British Colum bia.
235 Olkowski, Dorothea. (1994). Nietzsche's dice throw: Tragedy, nihilism, and the body without organs. In Constantin V. Boundas & Dorothea Olkowski (Eds.), Deleuze and the theater of philosophy. New York and London: RouUedge.
Patai, Daphne. (1988). "Constructing a self: A Brazilian life story." Feminist Studies. 14(1). 143-163.
Petrina. S. (1993). Diversity, not uniformity; united, not standardized: A reaction to Wright's Challenge to all technology educators', lournal of Technology Education. 4(2). 71-78.
Penley, Constance & Ross, Andrew. (1991). Cyborgs at large: Interview with Donna Haraway. In Constance Penley & Andrew Ross (Eds.), (pp. 1-20), Techno culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.
Postman, Neil. (1996). The end of education: Re defining the value of school. New York, NY: Alfred Knopf.
Postman, Neil. (1993). Technopoly: The Surrender of culture to technoloev. New York: Vantage Books.
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch Backgrounder. (1998). The alarming Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI) now being negotiated at the OECD [On-line]. Available: http://mai.flora.org/
Quinn, Daniel. (1997). The story of B. New York: Bantam Books.
Quinn, Daniel. (1993). Ishmael. New York: Bantam Books.
Rengifo, Grimaldo Vasquez. (1998). The A llyu . (In Frédérique Apffel-MargHn, (Ed.), The spirit of regeneration: Andean culture confronting Western notions of development (pp. 89-123). London & New York: St. Martin's Press.
Richardson, Laurel. (1993). Poetics, dramatics, and transgressive validity: The case of the skipped ine. The Sociological Quarterly, 34(4), 695-710.
Richardson, Laurel. (1994). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of quahtative research (pp. 516-529). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Robertson, Robbie. (1994). Robbie Robertson &: The Red Road Ensemble [CD], Mississauga, ON: EMI Music Canada.
236 Robins, Keith. & Webster, Frank. (1989). The technical fix: Education, computers, and industry. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
Ronell, Avital (1993) Our narcotic modernity, in Verena Andermatt Conley, (Ed.). Rethinking technologies (pp. 59-73). Minneapolis and London: University of Miimesota Press.
St. Pierre, Elizabeth Adams. (1997). Methodology in the fold and the irruption of transgressive data. Qualitative Studies in Education.l0(2), 175-189.
St. Pierre, Elizabeth Adams. (1995). Arts of existence: The construction of subjectivity in older, white southern women. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.
Said, Edward. (1990). Reflections on exile. In Russell Ferguson et al (Eds.), Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures (pp. 357-366). New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Said, Edward. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Sanders, Mark E. (1995). Technology for all Americans. Tournai of Technology Education. 6(2). 2-3.
Sandoval, Chela. (1995). New sciences: Cyborg feminism and the methodology of the oppressed. In Chris Rabies Gray (Ed.), (pp. 407-421), The cyborg handbook New York & London: Routledge.
Saskatchewan Education. (1988). Understanding the common essential learnings: A handbook for teachers. Saskatoon, SK: Author.
Scheurich, James Joseph. (1996). The masks of validity: A deconstructive investigation. Qualitative Studies iu Education. 9(1). 49-60.
Scheurich, James Joseph. (1995). A postmodernist critique of research interviewing. Qualitative Studies in Education. 8(3), 239-252.
Schoonmaker, Sara. (1994). Capitalism and the Code: A critique of Baudrillard's Third Order Simulacrum. In Douglas Kellner (Ed.), Baudrillard: A critical reader (pp. 168-188). Oxford & Cambridge: Blackwell.
Shohat, Ella & Stam, Robert. (1994). Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturahsm and the media. London & New York: Routledge.
237 Shulman, Judith H, (1990). "Now you see them, now you don't:" anonymity versus visibility in case studies of teachers. Educational Researcher, 11- 15.
Smart, Barry. (1992). Modem conditions: Postmodern controversies. New York and London: Routledge.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. (1998). 'Been there, done that don't need anymore'—Can Maori research make a difference? Keynote address at the Aimual Conference of the New Zealnd Association for Research in Education, Dunedin, Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Snook, Ivan. (1996). Technology: A new subject or an ideological strategy? Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the New Zealand Association for Research in Education, Nelson, Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Snyder, J. F. & Hales, J. A. (1981). Jackson's Mill industrial arts curriculum theory. Charleston: West Virginia Department of Education.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. (1990). Explanation and culture: Marginalia. In RusseU Ferguson et al (Eds.), Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures (pp. 377-393). New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. (1989). Who claims alterity? In Barbara Kruger & P. Mariani (Eds.), Remaking history (pp. 269-292). Seattle, WA: Bay Press.
Strauss, Aslem & Corbin, Juliet. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: grounded theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, NY: Sage Publications.
Swanson, Janice M. (1986). Analyzing data for categories and description. In W. Carole Chenitz and Janice M. Swanson (Eds.), From practice to grounded theory: Qualitative research in nursing (pp. 121-132).
Taylor, William D. & Johnsen, Jane B. (1993). The reduction of teachers and students to components: An essay of technology and classrooms. Unpublished manuscript. The Ohio State University.
Third World Network (1993). Modem science in crisis: A Third World Response. In Sandra Harding (Ed.)The racial economy of science: Toward a democratic future (pp. 484-518). Bloomington, lA: Indiana University Press.
238 Thomas, Jim. (1993). Doing critical ethnography. Newbury Park: Sage Publications
Thomson, Pat. (1998). Doing justice: An Australian cautionary tale about bell curves, outcomes data and language games. Paper presented at the New Zealand Association for Educational Research Annual Conference, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Van Maanen, John. (1988). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Virilio, Paul. (1993). The third interval: A critical transition. In Verena Andermatt Conley (Ed.), Rethinking technologies (pp. 3-12). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Vizenor, Gerald. (1994a). Manifest manners: Postindian warriors of survivance. Hanover & London: Wesleyan University Press.
Vizenor, Gerald. (1994b). Trickster Discourse: Comic and tragic themes in Native American literature. In Mark A. Lindquist & Martin Zanger (Eds.), Buried roots and indestructible seeds: The survival of American Indian life in story, history, and spirit (pp. 67-84). Madison & London: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Vizenor, Gerald. (Ed.). (1993). Narrative chance: Postmodern discourse on Native American Indian literatures. Norman & London: University of Oklahoma Press.
Vizenor, Gerald Robert. (1992). Dead voices: Natural agonies in the new world. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
Wark, McKenzie. (1994). Third nature. Cultural Studies, 8(1). 115-132.
Warrior, Robert. (1998). Postcolonial discourse and Native Americans. Paper presented at Translating Native American cultures: A conference on representation, aesthetics and translation, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Wajcman, Judy. (1991). Feminism confronts technoloev. North Sydney, NSW: Allen and Unwin
West Coast Environmental Law Research Foundation. (1998). MAI fact sheet [On-line]. Available at: [email protected].
239 West, Cornel. (1990). The new politics of difference. In Russell Ferguson et al (Eds.). Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures (pp. 19-36). New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Willinsky, John. (1998). Learning to divide the world: Education at Empire's end. Minneapohs & London: University of Minnesota Press.
Winner, Langdon. (1996). The handwriting onf the wall: Resisting technoglobalism's assault on education. Unpublished manuscript. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Woodbrooks, Cathy. (1991). The construction of fidelity through the presentation of self. Doctoral dissertation. The Ohio State University.
240