On my initial reading of this chapter I was struck by its clarity in relation to the research journey that unfolds about a young Mexican boy, Cesar, and his homework activity through the employment of analytical snapshots that are underpinned by carefully articulated methodological imperatives. The detailed description of the methodology that underpins this data provides the reader with a rare glimpse into what, I believe, constitutes a new and exciting operationalisation of sociocultural theory in the form of Visual Vivencias. I am in no doubt that, for this reason alone, the chapter will be inspirational for researchers grappling with meaningful ways of entering into the complex world of the very young child

White, Elizabeth Jayne

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Commentary to Gloria Quiñones and Marilyn Fleer: "Visual Vivencias"

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Response to Gloria Quinones and Marilyn Fletcher’s “Visual Vivencias” E. Jayne White On my initial reading of this chapter I was struck by its clarity in relation to the re-search journey that unfolds about a young Mexican boy, Cesar, and his homework activity through the employment of analytical snapshots that are underpinned by carefully articulated methodological imperatives. The detailed description of the methodology that underpins this data provides the reader with a rare glimpse into what, I believe, constitutes a new and exciting operationalisation of sociocultural theory in the form of Visual Vivencias. I am in no doubt that, for this reason alone, the chapter will be inspirational for researchers grappling with meaningful ways of entering into the complex world of the very young child. The interpretation of Russian perezhivanie in relation to Spanish vivencias is a particularly interesting and fruitful contribution to the research arena, especially when considered from a cultural-historical standpoint. In this location the authors seem to be suggesting, with Vygotsky (1994), that lived emotional experience of the individual learner is the central point of gestalt for the researcher; and that it is located in the dialectical relationship that takes place between the environment and the child’s emotional engagement with that environment. I interpret this to mean that the environment, per se, holds relevance to the child’s learning or expe-rience only when it is imbued with meaning through interaction. This is an im-portant claim for research with very young children, since, as the authors point out, so much research with this age group (including in a non-Western society such as Mexico) is heavily weighted by measures of competency against pre-determined measures that are located ―in the environment‖ without consideration of emotional engagement, meaning and experience on the part of the learner. The ―wholeness approach‖ to research advocated by the authors in their re-search design represents considerable challenges when we consider affect and cognition as a dynamic system in unity. It is one that has perplexed researchers across the globe and, in early childhood research, led to the development of signif-icant frameworks for analysis (see for example the work of Carr, 2009, and Clark, 2007, among others). Several neo-Vygotksians have attempted to respond to the challenge drawing specifically from Vygotksy, including the foci of analysis mod-el (Rogoff, 1995) and activity theory (Engestrom, Miettinen, & Punamaki, 1999). In this chapter, the authors draw from Hedegaard’s (2008) framework—a recent addition to the field which bears close allegiance to these models; and invites the researcher to view institutional practices and individual activities as interrelated concepts. However, Quinones and Fleer go further to suggest that a wholeness ap-proach should also be concerned with intellect and affect, providing additional 2  provocations to guide the researcher towards dialectic approaches in research ac-tivity. It is here they invoke perezhavanie as a unit of analysis. If we take this idea seriously, as these authors most certainly have, the re-searcher must somehow search for meaning from the perspective of this child in specific contexts (that is, the life-world of this child), while recognizing the pre-vailing influences of the wider world—a constant quest for researchers and teach-ers alike in claiming any interpretation of ―voice‖; and one that is at the very heart of this collection. With Hedegaard’s inspiration, the authors of this chapter have a means of doing so. As many of the contributors have already pointed out, this is not an easy task when the very young child does not share the same semiotic lan-guage system as the adult, in particular the researcher. It was exciting, therefore, to read of the authors cognisance of non-verbal forms of language in understand the vivencias of Cesar, and the important part they play in meaning-making for the very youngest learners. The sections which explore skills and non-verbal commu-nication provide a particularly useful example of how interpretation might be pos-sible using Visual Vivencia as a methodology. Given Vygotksy’s (1997) claim that infants do not have the capacity for human speech, this section provides a very useful embellishment of the way a young child engages with human speech in subtle yet complex ways. I was consistently drawn to the authors’ interpretation of perezhivanie through-out this chapter. This is a Russian concept also employed by Voloshinov (1973), who suggests that meaning is always evaluative and therefore must have signifi-cance for the particular group in which acts take place (Liberali, 2009). Bakhtin’s additional use of the Russian term postupok (Bakhtin, 1993)—an answerable act or deed—suggests that the gestalt of this lived experience is determined not so much by the environment in relation to the individual, but by the people in that environment and the strategic orientation of the individual toward them in the lan-guage acts they present (Marjanovic-Shane, in press). Given that vivencias is also proposed as an extension of the term, and that it seems to take into particular ac-count the strong influence of family and society, I wonder if further attention to these orientations would be valuable in studies of very young children across cul-tures. In making this suggestion it occurs to me that there is much scope for en-riched interpretations of key theoretical constructs when language is shared across cultures and societies as a means of understanding complex ideas. Such an ap-proach, however, requires reflexive positioning on the part of researchers if their ideas are to be taken seriously across cultural and conceptual borders, and less universal certainty than many researchers are accustomed to. The dialogues that take place around these concepts help us to clarify our meaning as well as those of others, and to recognise the interpretative (and cultural) nature of research in this domain. In any case the authors solution is sought in an approach they carefully describe as a ―dialectical-interactive‖. This method, developed by Hedegaard and Fleer (2008), allows the researcher to study everyday activity, in this case homework, in complex ways that fulfil their promise of expanding on the notion of competencia 3 to take account of the dialectics at play. Like others in this book, their route is through video, and the employment of stimulated dialogue using that video. Here the emphasis seems to shift from ―child vivencias‖ to those of ―mother and child vivencias‖ (although this is not explicitly expounded) as a unit that are assumed to share the same emotional experience or speak for one another—a notion I ponder since I concur with Linell (2010) that the infant needs to be treated as a research subject in their own right (however hard that is). Having said that, it is important to note that the examples provided in this chapter are part of a larger study involv-ing home and school dialectics that are not discussed here, so the emphasis was less on the home as a sole institution than the home environment as an important part of the wider educational experience. Such is the value of research of this na-ture, since the authors are able to recognise a far more complex picture by investi-gating such systems. On a more pragmatic level, it was surprising to learn that Mexican approaches to very young children are so heavily influenced by discreet competencies with such emphasis on skills and physical development. It caused me to reflect on the significant influence and power welded by educational institutions on what fami-lies see as important learning—an aspect of discussion that this research explores in the wider study. However, I would suggest that the researchers’ choice to focus on homework as a leading activity for investigation lent itself more to this scholas-tic emphasis than other activities may have. It would be interesting to see this re-search repeated, in the home, with other cultural activities in mind, since it is like-ly that these hold significant emotional value to the child (indeed, it could be argued that they would hold more emotional value to Cesar). As one of very few sociocultural studies that has been conducted in this locale, this chapter provides a beacon of hope in research that is conducted in and between home and other lo-cales; since it is clear that any cultural-historical interpretation cannot ignore this significant institution in the life and learning of a young child. In Cesar’s case, the chosen vivencia raise important, but unexplored, questions concerning the emo-tional value of homework as an educational activity for the very young child de-spite its value to his family. To conclude, not only does this chapter provide important incentives for re-searchers to consider the wider contexts of the child’s life world, but it also sets the scene for future research that investigates the vivencias of young children in an increasingly diasporic world (I make this claim for both the researcher and the re-searched). The inspirational examples outlined here, underpinned by a unique methodological framework, provide a potential route to the emotional lived expe-rience of the infant and toddler as a means of bringing cognition/competency and emotion into dialectic interplay. Moreover, the notion of visual vivencia provides researchers with inspiration to go beyond current frameworks to develop methodo-logically sound approaches that best suit their purpose. Theorising of how best to understand and appreciate young children, through such exploration, is a route we must inevitably take if we are serious about deepening our understandings of our youngest children, ourselves, and the societies in which we live. 4  References Bakhtin, M. (1990). Art and Answerability (K. Brostrom, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas. Bakhtin, M. M. (1993). Toward a philosophy of the act (V. Liapunov & M. Holquist, Eds.; 1st ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Carr, M. (2009). 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A cultural-historical theory of children’s development.

A hundred ways of listening: Gathering children’s perspectives of their early childhood environment,

Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In Perspectives on activity theory (pp.

Art and Answerability

C.(2009) Creative chain in the process of becoming a totality: A cadeia criativa no processo de tornar-se totalidade,

Kei tua o te pae: Assessing learning that reaches beyond the self and beyond the horizon,

Marxism and the philosophy of language (L.

Pakeha ―paralysis‖: Cultural safety for those researching the general population of Aotearoa.

Studying children: A cultural-historical approach.

The collected works of L.

The problem of environment. In

With respect to Bakhtin: Some trends in contemporary dialogical theories. In

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