Some thoughts on artefacts

Sally Fincherhci Disciplinary Commons

Third Meeting: 7th December 2007

The story so far …

We’ve explored “institutional” context

• Me, my background, my colleagues

• The sort of University/Department I teach in

• The sort of students I teach

• The expectations of my environment (“standards”)

• The sort (and size) of my class

• The sort of space and place I work in

We’ve started to explore “disciplinary” context

• What stuff do I teach? (Why?)

• Which textbook do I use? (Why?)

• Who gets to choose?

• What can I change?

• Why would I change it?

• What influences my decisions here?

We’re documenting our reflections/discoveries

• Portfolio construction

• The problem of artefacts What do they illustrate? What function do they serve?

Research artefacts: Angwandte ChemieResearch artefacts

Angwandte Chemie

• [a typical paper] … is about three pages long. Almost one page contains experimental detail. Half a page is endnotes. The body of the article is then about one and a half printed pages, of which roughly a third consists of graphics

Angwandte Chemie: research results

“The authors speak, as chemists today do, of molecules that they do not see, but for which they have excellent indirect evidence … I have written of this incredible process, and the way that the chemists’ necessity to move simultaneously in macroscopic and microscopic worlds forces chemists to use a mixture of symbolic and iconic representation of compounds/molecules”

Hoffman (2002)

Angwandte Chemie: research artefact

A particular feature of Angwandte Chemie is the mandatory inclusion at the end of any experimental paper is an “Experimental Section”, detailing procedures for the experiments carried out

“Experimental Section” as artefact

“This is a general statement that, in effect, states that anyone, anytime, anywhere who treats the same ingredients in the same way as I did, will make the same chemical compound”

- and yet, it is based on a single empirical study at one specific time and in one specific place

But we’re not researchers … we’re commoners …

• We do not have the guarantee of scientific method

• Equally, we’re not interested in abstraction

• Nor are we interested in generalisation

• We are pursuing a different sort of knowledge, with a different sort of representation (a portfolio, not a paper)

• Our focuswith the greatest clarity we can musteris on the specific, the particular

The power of situation

• In a society that attaches particular value to "abstract knowledge," the details of practice have come to be seen as nonessential, unimportant, and easily developed once the relevant abstractions have been grasped.

• Abstractions detached from practice distort or obscure intricacies of that practice. Without a clear understanding of those intricacies and the role they play, the practice itself cannot be well understood, engendered (through training), or enhanced (through innovation).

(Seely-Brown & Duguid, 1991)

Situation: a familiar power

“To cook rice correctly requires not only patience and skill but an abstract conception of an idealized form.

So what I turned to for help was the basic artisanal sense of task. Make it simple by making it particular: what can I do with this rice, this rice pot, this need, this temperament?”

“The problem, I gradually realized, was that I wanted to simply follow a set of instructions, whereas what was required of me was to establish a close working relationship with a particular cooking vessel—my personal rice pot.”

(Thorne & Thorne, 2000)

Losing the particular

“I've never been much for technology, so when I bought a car recently that came with GPS, I imagined that the device would go largely unused. But a few months later, on my way to visit friends at their new home in Oakland, California, I decided to give it a try. A patient yet firm woman's voice guided me easily to the exact location, and much to my surprise, I fell in love with the feature.

Then one night, as I drove to see my friends for the fourth or fifth time, I realized that I had no idea how to get there. I'd been blindly following instructions from a disembodied voice without paying attention to where I was going.”

(Patterson, 2006)

Our artefacts

• Don’t think recipes: think ricepots

References

• Roald Hoffman (2002) Writing (and Drawing) Chemistry in Jonathan Monroe (ed) Writing and Revising the Disciplines, Cornell University

• John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation 1991, The Institute of Management Sciences http://www2.parc.com/ops/members/brown/papers/orglearning.html

• John Thorne, Matt Lewis Thorne, Serious Pig: An American Cook in Search of His Roots, 2000, North Point Press

• Daniel Patterson Do Recipes Make You a Better Cook? Food & Wine Magazine June 2006

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