ANTH245 2007-10-01: Difference between revisions
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** B: Informal -- Ethnographic (thick) description; narrative | ** B: Informal -- Ethnographic (thick) description; narrative | ||
* Comparisons: | * Comparisons: | ||
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| Bateson |A = Purposive Mind | B = Greater Mind | |||
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| Rappaport | A = Cognitive Models | B = Operational Models | |||
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| Levi-Strauss | A = Myth → Structure | B = Event | |||
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| Colby | A = Folktale → Template | B = Template | |||
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= Suchman 1988, part 1 = | = Suchman 1988, part 1 = | ||
Revision as of 23:43, 2 October 2007
Business
- The Midterm is available on Blackboard
- Please send in your responses on time
Recap
- What is Coding?
- The process of converting texts into codes
- A kind of transduction
- A kind of reductionism
- informal → formal
- A : B :: Text : Code :: Discourse : Ontology
- The reduction of A to B is structuralism
Segue
- Structuralism = Cognitive Science
- Just as information culture represents text as code, CogSci represents activity as plan
- Activity = ritual, work, practice = parole, event
Intro
- We are now officially turning the tables -- from "culture as information" to "information as culture"
- We will explore continuities and discontinuities between the two approaches
- Path:
- Computer as metaphor
- Computer as tool
- Computer as artifact
- Next week: Expanding the scope
Suchman 1983
Background
- Description of Lucy Suchman
- One of the pioneers of "corporate anthropology," but from a critical perspective
- Sets the method:
- Office as ethnographic site -- "village"
- Computer as core artifact -- the "churinga"
- Work as ritual
- What are the symbols and myths?
- discourse, planning tools, documents
- Management and Labor
Procedures
- What is the problem? The status of formal procedures ...
- The "natives" view procedures as a description of work
- But the anthropologist sees things otherwise
- Note that here the denial of the native point of view does not strike as ethically problematic (as it did with Rappaport)
- What are the "real" procedures?
- So ... two kinds of description
- A: Formal -- Standard Procedures; flowchart
- B: Informal -- Ethnographic (thick) description; narrative
- Comparisons:
| A = Purposive Mind | B = Greater Mind |
| A = Cognitive Models | B = Operational Models |
| A = Myth → Structure | B = Event |
| A = Folktale → Template | B = Template |
Suchman 1988, part 1
- The planning model in AI
- Plans as reality
- But plans can't explain action
- Consciousness and unconsciousness
- Reversal
Suchman 1988, part 2
- Whiteboard as "cultural model" (Colby)
Forsythe 1993
- Knowledge engineering
- Representation of work
- Compare to coding
