Lisensiaatintutkimukseni toinen luku jatkaa tarjouman ymmärtämisen syventämistä. Ajallisen etäisyyden päästä luettuna mitään olennaista uutta, jota ei olisi jo aikaisemmissa bloggauksissa käsitelty, ei luvussa tule esiin. Kuitenkin siinä on joitakin toisella tavalla tarjouman luonnetta avaavia näkökulmia. Katsotaan nyt niitä.
Mielenkiintoinen luonnehdinta tarjoumasta on sen ymmärtäminen resurssiksi. Tarjoumat ovat voimavara kuten auringon energia, joka on olemassa riippumatta siitä hyödynnetäänkö sitä vai ei. Toisin sanoen kohtaamisissa ihmisten kanssa on aina myös hyödyntämättömiä mahdollisuuksia. Kokous, tapaaminen, työyhteisö, webinaari, mielenilmaus, kehityshanke, kunnallisvaaliäänestys, pandemia jne. sisältävät aina paitsi käytettyjä mahdollisuuksia paljon muita tarjoumia, jotka jäävät käyttämättä. Tarjoumaosaaminen merkitsee sitä, että ihmisten sosiomateriaalisesta kanssakäymisestä pystytään löytämään enemmän mahdollisuuksia kuin ensi näkemällä ja kokemalla huomataan, ja sitten osataan tuoda ne julki tilanteen tarjoumaresponsiivisuudessa.
Tarjoumien ymmärtäminen resursseina ja käyttöarvoina (eli merkityksinä) liittyy niiden historiallisuuteen ja kontekstuaalisuuteen. Esimerkiksi luonto on viime vuosiin tai vuosikymmeniin saakka nähty lähinnä taloudellisina käyttöarvona, ei laajemmin elämää ylläpitävänä ja mahdollistavana elonkirjona. Ilmastokriisin, luontokadon ja luonnonvarojen riistokäytön tullessa yhä laajempien ihmisjoukkojen tietoisuuteen, luonto historiallisena tarjoumana on saanut uuden merkityksen tai oikeastaan on löytynyt uudelleen sen ikiaikaiset merkitykset, joissa ihminen ymmärretään osaksi luontoa ja muuta oliokuntaa. Ihmisen suhde luontoon tarjoumana historiallinen.
Historiallisuuden rinnalla tarjoumaa luonnehtiva tekijä on sen kontekstuaalisuus. Tarjoumat (resursseina) avautuvat eri tavoin riippuen siitä, millainen on kyseisen tarjoumatodellisuuden rakenne ja dynamiikka. Jos ajatellaan vaikkapa viime aikoina paljon puhuttuja liikkumisrajoituksia käytännössä, niin niiden tarjoumapotentiaali on täysin erilainen kaupunkikeskustassa ja maaseudulla, autottomilla ja autollisilla ihmisillä sekä pandemian aitouden hyväksyvillä ja kulkutautimyönteisillä ryhmillä. Tarjoumakontekstit ovat itsessään monella tavalla avautuvia ja niiden tarjoumavuossa tai -virrassa ihmisten mahdollisuudet resonoida niihin ovat riippuvaisia tarjoumaresurssin materiaalisista (esimerkiksi kaupunki vai maaseutu) ja sosiaalisista (ihmisten yhteisö-kulttuurinen kyvykkyys ko. tarjoumakontekstissa) tekijöistä.
Tarjoumien resurssiluonne (ja sen oivaltaminen) ulottuu sen perustavaan määrittelyyn. Tarjouma ei ole suhde sen yksilöllisen kohtaajan (minun, sinun) ja itse tarjouman sosiomateriaalisuuden välillä. Koronapandemia ja liikkumisrajoitukset ovat tarjoumia minusta ja sinusta riippumatta. Ne ja ihmiset ovat systeemisesti toisiinsa kietoutuneita eli systeemisessä suhteessa. Pandemiaa ja liikkumisrajoituksia tarjoumina ei ole olemassa ilman ihmisiä. Ne ovat konkreettisia, historiallisia ja kontekstuaalisia tarjoumia, jotka mahdollistavat jotakin ja ovat mahdollistamatta jotakin muuta riippuen siitä inhimillisestä elinpiiristä (tai elämänkäytännöstä tms.), missä ne toteutuvat.
Kolmas tarjoumaymmärryksen syvennys, joka em. tutkimuksen 2. luvusta työntyy tajuntaan, on se että ihmistarjoumiin sisältyy välitön tietoisuus toisesta tai toisista ihmisistä tietoisina siitä, että he ymmärtävät havaitsijansa ja kohtaajansa käsittävän nuo toiset ihmiset inhimillisinä tarjoumina. Yksinkertaistaen: kun näet minut sinua tarkkailevana olet tietoinen tai ainakin tajuinen siitä, että tutkailen, millainen ihminen sinä (potentiaalisesti) olet, ja tässä responsiivisuudessa tutustumme toisiimme tai ainakin yritämme sitä.
Lisensiaatintutkimukseni toisen luvun pedagogiikka osiossa yritetään selvittää opetustapahtuman tarjoumaluonnetta. Sen keskeinen anti nykyperspektiivistä katsoen on ajatus tarjouma-analyysista. Edellä on todettu, että sosiomateriaalinen tarjoumatodellisuus on koko ajan läsnä rikkaana voimavarana käytettäväksi ”viisaalla tavalla”. Tämä ”resurssiviisaus” tarvitsee aktualisoituakseen tarjoumatodellisuuden (ja -teorian) avaamista ymmärrettäväksi ja hyödynnettäväksi ihmisten arjessa. Lyhyesti sanottuna sosiomateriaalinen arkemme pitäisi olla tietoisesti jatkuvassa tarjouma-analyysissa, jotta tarjoumien voimavararikkaus tulisi oivallettua ja käytettyä monipuolisesti. Tarjouma-analyysi pitää sisällään responsiivisuus- eli vastakaiuttamiskyvykkyyden kehittämisen.
***
A second chapter of my licentiate thesis continues the deepening of understanding the affordances. Nothing especially new is visible compared with the contents explicated in earlier blog texts. However, there are some new perspectives to look into affordance reality. Let´s take a glance to them now.
The affordances can be understood as resources like a solar energy, which exists independently is it used or not. A meeting, encounter, work community, webinar, rally, development project, municipal election, pandemic etc. encase always except used possibilities also potentials for activities, which do not become utilized.
The affordances as resources connect themselves to historicalness and contextuality. A nature for instance has been up to last years or decades mainly seen as an economic use value, not as a broader life affording biodiversity. When extinction and climate crisis have become recognized by a more vast amount of people the nature as a historical affordance has received a new meaning, or actually it has been founded anew as it has been sempiternally. A context constitutes affordances as well. If we think a covid-19 pandemic and movement restrictions of people, the affordance potential is very different in city centers and rural areas, or for people with or without a car.
When affordances are defined as historical and contextual resources it makes visible a systemic character of affordances. This means that the affordance is not a relation between an experiencer and her/his sociomaterial environment, but a systemic relationship between humans and their surroundings. The affordance is not dependent of the individual I, but humans as ecological creatures. The affordance is a systemic sociomaterial entity of human landscape.
A pedagogy section of the licentiate thesis brings fourth the need of affordance analysis. Our present sociomaterial life should consciously be ongoingly analyzed as affordances so that ”the resource wisdom” included in affordances could become realized and benefited diversely.
Hello there Pekka,
This bit is rather interesting and something I suspect that could be a real contribution:
‘A pedagogy section of the licentiate thesis brings fourth the need of affordance analysis. Our present sociomaterial life should consciously be ongoingly analyzed as affordances so that ”the resource wisdom” included in affordances could become realized and benefited diversely.’
First, affordance analysis could be explored further and detailed methodologically. How might one perform an affordance analysis (I have ideas but curious to hear yours!)?
Second, resource wisdom is a really fascinating concept and an interesting pedagogical position as well. Are we teaching students to be capable of a: identifying resources b: understanding their interdependencies and interconnectedness and c: use them (or not) as appropriate? Interesting position that I hope you explore more!
Stay well Pekka!
Good questions, Michael. I try to formulate my answers though the statement of the need of affordance analysis is still rather open to me; a task to work on during my research trip.
How to run affordance analyses of learning and teaching spaces and events? For me the first thing is an affordance awareness and knowhow. Affordances as potentials (i.e. existent meanings) for activities in the sociomaterial environment of responsive attendants occur in all possible learning/teaching settings and processes are they open, informal, serendipitous, formal etc. So, to conduct an affordance analysis of the educational event one should develop her/his capacities of perceiving-knowing to become more competent in her/his affordance awareness and knowhow. In other words, the affordance analysis is dependent of abilities and skills based on analyzers´ affordance awareness and knowhow.
When I have made research about possible affordances in some actual learning-teaching events I have been able to recognize affordances like observability, partakeability, solvability, collaborateability and peer produceability. I will continue this “pedagogical affordance analysis” in my coming research projects within a year or two. This analysis is mainly reflective and reflexive thinking of learning, assessment etc. events and their features in sociamateriality.
These affordances mentioned above are a sample of potential affordances available in educational vistas, and to make other educational affordances explicit unique learning and teaching processes and events should be analyzed by competent researchers having developed responsivity skills (alignment and attunement abilities) to meet those affordances. This also means that especially human interactive affordances has to be seen as part of the affordance dynamics, that they are in continuous move depending of the social settings and their development in time and by social structures.
For me – to be honest – it is so far very difficult to name concrete affordance analysis acts and methods. However, I can imagine that asking people to try to recognize and label in different kinds of learning-teaching spaces and settings what possibilities they can see for various and specific acts and what functionalities for doing things are not available would help in acknowledging affordances. This could be implemented e.g. in the beginning of a certain study period, in the middle of it, and in the end. This kind of concrete figuring out possibilities of an educational setting might make visible and understandable affordances available and potential in the setting and those not-available as well?
The second question of yours – are we teaching students to be capable of identifying resources (a), understanding their interdependencies and interconnectedness (b) and use them (or not) as appropriate (c).
My short and rather tenuous answer goes that all the three are important, especially when you remember that affordances are energy-like resources in move. That they compose embedded and nested affordance structures and dynamics of many “single” affordances. And that affordances often are ongoing, sort of vistas in landscapes (soundscapes, felt/movedscapes).
And finally, I am sure that what we have developed and explicated about alignment (align, adopt, absorb, assimilate; perceptual sensitivity) and attunement (attune, adapt, cultivate, modify, accommodate; behavioral rhetorics) belong to the field of affordance analysis to make educational responsiveness better to meet authentic realities of learners (humans). Is it possible to see here (the affordance of) the next joint article, Michael?
‘When I have made research about possible affordances in some actual learning-teaching events I have been able to recognize affordances like observability, partakeability, solvability, collaborateability and peer produceability. I will continue this “pedagogical affordance analysis” in my coming research projects within a year or two. This analysis is mainly reflective and reflexive thinking of learning, assessment etc. events and their features in sociamateriality.’
Interesting and again I think will make a worthwhile contribution to the field. I for one look forward to it!
‘My short and rather tenuous answer goes that all the three are important, especially when you remember that affordances are energy-like resources in move. That they compose embedded and nested affordance structures and dynamics of many “single” affordances. And that affordances often are ongoing, sort of vistas in landscapes (soundscapes, felt/movedscapes).’
I like the idea of nested somehow in all of this, that depending on the gaze of the individual some of these nested affordances would be invisible or backgrounded. Still existing in their energy but dormant in terms of use.
‘And finally, I am sure that what we have developed and explicated about alignment (align, adopt, absorb, assimilate; perceptual sensitivity) and attunement (attune, adapt, cultivate, modify, accommodate; behavioral rhetorics) belong to the field of affordance analysis to make educational responsiveness better to meet authentic realities of learners (humans). Is it possible to see here (the affordance of) the next joint article, Michael?’
Agreed, the idea of alignment is more the ‘act’ of affordance while attunement is more the ‘recognition’ of affordance? That seems to me a useful distinction in all of this. The next joint article: yes indeed!
> Agreed, the idea of alignment is more the ‘act’ of affordance while attunement is more the ‘recognition’ of affordance? That seems to me a useful distinction in all of this.
Yup. Something like that. The alignment is more a part of materiality in the affordance analysis and the attunement of sociality. But they both still belong to responsiveness in the reciprocity of environment (learning space) and humans (learner).
> How might one perform an affordance analysis (I have ideas but curious to hear yours!)?
Your ideas, curios as well? :).
I seem to have forgotten my ideas here! Might an affordance analysis be almost something similar to field work practice (https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Under_Construction/Book%3A_Cultural_Anthropology_(Wikibook)/3%3A_Anthropological_Methods/3.3%3A_Fieldwork_Methods), ie a range of practices/activities designed to ascertain the affordances within the context and to insert reflexivity?
> Might an affordance analysis be almost something similar to field work practice
Not sure, maybe? If/when we have a conception, what we mean by affordance analysis – the answer could be available. :-).