Thoughts while on a run

Thoughts while on a run About QP structure: 

The conceptual framework is about finding common ground for starting DBR. The result is fundamentally a working definition of literacy. I’d like to focus on what I mean by literacy in the conceptual framework, develop this through the DBR cycles, and then in the discussion/conclusion compare this with other ideas about literacy or sense-making, particularly in school disciplines. 

I want to work with many peoples’ definitions of literacy, but one path through it is to start with Gee’s description of literacy spaces. I like the term, and the way it avoids unhelpful distinctions about membership and boundaries. But I think there is a positive reason for describing literacy as spaces: it lets us talk about embodiment. Spaces [] are power relations, and embodiment is the conditions under which we participate in space. Literacy has always been embodied—

Indulge me for a moment. Think about the last time you made striking eye contact with somebody else. This can be a startling, jarring experience. It can be an experience of intensely sensual connection, of vulnerability, of confusion, of danger. It can shake our sense of who we are, especially if we have a sense of being understood as someone other than we think ourselves to be. We can find ourselves desiring someone we are not supposed to desire, or have our understanding of a space reworked. The important point is that it is both semiotic and embodied, in ways we cannot easily distinguish. This moment of eye contact can be understood as an attempt to understand—what was meant? But it can also be understood as an embodied interaction. When you consider that moment of eye contact, you probably remember where you were, how you and your inteoculator were positioned physically. Perhaps you remember corporal sensations. We know that joint eye contact is the basis of language. 

Actor-network theory is helpful in such a space. 

A note on identity> 

OTHER IDEAS

Could do an unfold.studio study on Lakoff’s discourse stances (clarity/distance/deference/camaraderie) or use this as part of Cyborg Camp. 

Queer media. Is there a sense in which semiotic technologies (draw on Fairclough’s discourse technologies)  instrumentalize ideology? They are technologies for making ideologies, potentially also for deconstructing them. AS our embodiment extends more into the artificial realm, we become increasingly morally obligated to be aware of the terms of our own constitution. It’s increasingly not OK to claim that you are unproblematically anything—white, male, American… It becomes more and more like claiming “My presence on this land is legitimate and yours is not.” Dimensions of embodiment previously taken as fixed are now malleable, and asserting them to be incontestably fixed is hegemonic. 

Doesn’t this go quite against the basic premise of gay rights? That no moral claim can be made against homosexuality because it’s just the way people are? How shall I address this? There are lots of analogies as well.