Understanding the starting point of development and history from a subjective perspective requires the comprehension of the notion of personal identity as opposed to the more essentialist idea of culture.

The notion of identity as defined by Wenger (1998)
Lived: Identity is not merely a category, a personality trait, a role or a label; it is more fundamentally an experience that involves both participation and reification
Negotiated: Identity is a becoming. The work of identity is on-going and pervasive.
Social: Community membership gives the formation of identity a fundamentally social character
A learning process: An identity is a trajectory in time that incorporates both past and future into the meaning of the present
A local-global interplay: An identity is neither narrowly local to activities nor abstractly global

Furthermore, Wenger relates the notion of identity to participation and non-participation, where the latter given a certain historical trajectory can mean marginalisation (ibid, 1998, p167). Identity is a reflexive construct effected by the picture people build up of their position in the world.

Wenger identifies a notion of belonging related to identity and learning as follows (ibid, pp174):

– Engagement; active involvement in mutual processes of negotiation
– Imagination; creating images of the world and seeing connections through time and space
– Alignment; co-ordinating our energy and activities in order to fit with the broader structures and contribute to broader enterprises.

Identities based on identification (belonging, communities) and negotiation (economy of meaning) will bring issues of power to the fore (ibid, pp189). Wengers refers to power in terms of identity and negotiation of meaning rather than political/instutional power. Power has a dual aspect: Primarily as the reflection of the ability to act in line with the enterprises we pursue and only secondarily in the domain of competing interests (domination and subordination)

Wenger relates identity and practice to the ideas of learning and emergent design that appear to be aligned to the notion of self-organised/autonomous environment i.e. there could be a cogent theoretical/philosophical connection between subject-object; reflection-action in the realm of emergent identity and learning.

This structure appears to provide broad aims for Conversation Analysis

Continuing the discussion regarding the nature of truth and a potential shift in the ontological view from post-modern to a critical realist stance (Harre vs Bhaskar; Human Reality vs Social Reality). It seems to me that, in line with the post-modern perspection there are an infinite number of potential interpretations of an event. Philosophically at least, there can be no essential reality that we all know i.e.no eternal truth. However, social norms based on perceptions of acceptable behaviour have emerged as a consequence of social inaction/constructive and its reflexive relationship with society over time (structuration, Giddens) i.e. human interaction based on relationships effects the shape of society in terms of the nature of laws and institutions while the reverse is also true. Which came first i.e. Harre vs Bhasker appears to be largely immaterial. A temporal and negotiated consolidation of understanding in terms of social norms, laws and institutions then reflects an idea of truth. However this truth only exists in Society (Foucault). In a similiar vain, Plato recounts the metaphor of man in a cave, only seeing the shadows of some possible eternal truth.

In terms of my research, it is suggested that cultural and social norms (whatever there moral basis) represent a reality for the children and that reality will be reflected in their discourse. The potential for change in society is a question of changing the discourse, though naturally this can be a difficult task. Rather than focus on development and progress at this time the research is slanted towards and limited to the interpretation of understanding within the SOLE

What is important here the temporal requirement to link my research to the notions of development in some way. This requires some notion of what reality is for the participants and what progress means for them i.e social truths for marginalised Colombian children. This goal may only be achieved as a post doc but this research will provide the framework for achieving a meaningful learning environment for the children involved i.e in the absence of a certain truth, the post-modern paradigm is to limited. Now I require the appropriate interpretation of Foucault to fit my view (see Lopez and Potter, 2001).

Boudieu (Lopez, Potter, 2001; pp47) uses Marxist rhetoretic to suggest that the notion of social structure in subsequent divided by class. Furthermore Critical Realism seems to suggest that the entities of self concious individuals and social structure are of a different order; self conciousness characterises human actions but never the transformation of social structure. The relation of social structure to individuals conditions a reality where unconcious predispositions unconciously produce structure. Which suggests that if these relationships are made conscious that change is the result.
Pearce and Woodiwiss (in Lopez and Potter) also suggest that while the need to implement social change is positive, scientific work does not provide an adequate basis for moral commitment without knowledge of the prevailing political discourses. (ibid, pp53). Furthermore (to make Foucault intelligible ) ontological assumptions include the social world being composed of structural entities and their interactions rather than human beings. While human beings are self evidently social presences, they are only of interest in so far as they can be rendered socialogically intelligible; through their patterned enactment of social identities or the part they play in discursive formations (Foucault, 1977)

It should also be noted that Archer in addition to a social world also argues for an individual world an selfhood not totally subject to social influences (a personal identity). Reality is in essence a convergence of different world’s (personal, social and the natural)

The difficulty I am facing is the difficulty of producing a structured thesis through a postmodern approach. This in certain respects is a contradiction because unlike the rational scientific method, post modernism decries the notions of truth and theory based on a pre-eminent position of the author.

This can be readily shown in the context of the literature review which in a positivist terms will often attempt to define the research context in terms of essentialist ideas of culture and history. The tension arises from the fact that postmodernism doesnt recognise a unified and coherent form of history. In contrast, the likes of Foucault and Said suggest that definitions of history are in fact localised, fragmented, relative and subject to interpretation. Ergo, Historicism is a subtle form of oppression that reformulates and distills events in the form of a narrative that re-presents historical facts to suit the political and ideological aims of the author.

Hence, postmodernism raises concerns regarding the accepted authority of the author and the need to reconceptualise and prioritise the notion of human subject (attack on Sartres humanism and existentialism), the reader and the text. Foucault first identified knowledge in terms of discursive eras suggesting that knowledge is social (and constructivist) and only emerges from within specific settings (Archaeology as a philosophical rather than an historical analysis). The three periods (ages) he identified were: Classical,

What Foucault suggests is that the ontology of the marginalised cant be expressed from within the modern paradigm as (by its very definition) marginalised views are beyond this rational domain. Rather than attempt to present these views directly (you cant get into peoples minds), Foucault reconceptualises knowledge to illustrate the (historical) changes that have occurred in relation to accepted modern truths: penality, sexuality etc and suggests that knowledge and modernity are not in fact the coherent, unified entities they appears to be but contingent on the social and discursive settings that shape the dominant discourse. Knowledge within the social settings is therefore a political phenomena that is subject to the influence of power (reflexive relationship) i.e. there is no truth, no human nature, no definitive subject all are created within the bounds of society and the institutions that emerge, consolidate and support it.

Foucault always focused on the societies outsiders and believed thats an analysis of society and knowledge (an analysis of power) is more effective from the bottom, up. In line with postmodern thought, this approach will provide an often fragmented, partial even contradictory reflection of events however its purpose it to reveal social realities rather than solve specific social issues, capturing the views of the marginalised who are most effected by the use and abuse of power. In this context, Foucault suggests that power inscribes the soul (During, 1992; pp135).

In practical terms what Foucault appears to be suggesting is that individual identity within the SOLE is far more significant that the potential impact of culture (which is an essentialist and historical notion). Instead of looking for the purpose and intelligibility in history, Foucault presents it as a nexus of tensions comprised of discrete categories i.e penality, sexuality, poverty. Examples of the types of questions that arise from Genealogy include (ibid, 138):

1) How do aims, institutions and discursive formations change
2) What problems and struggles do documents about poverty address
3) How do these discourses, struggles, institutions affect lives

In the Order of Things foucault suggests that Western thought started in the Renaissance and since there have been four systems of possible discourse; categorising, ordering and connection of things and determining what passes for knowledge (ibid, pp54)

1st episteme: resemblance of things.
2nd episteme: Classical concerned with relations of identity and difference
3rd episteme: Modern

In terms of cross cultural research, ethnology can assume its proper dimensions only within the historical sovereignty….of European thought and the relation that can bring it face to face with all the other cultures as well as itself.(pp56)