Health Warning: Archetypes Abroad!
Graham Durant-Law has been mounting an aggressive campaign against archetypes, resulting in a detailed exchange with him on his weblog this past few days, to the point where I think his position is against an overly simplistic use of archetypes, with plenty of health warnings attached. I’ve found the discussion useful (go visit his blog post to see it), as well as some comments from Mark Gould, who warns against the use of archetypes for labelling and as a substitute for engaging directly with people.
So some of the health warnings I get from the discussion are:
- Risk of labelling and stereotyping
- Applying the archetypes to contexts they don’t represent
- Over-estimating the extent to which they are a legitimate representation of the population
- Treating them as universals (or as permanent)
- Simplistic interpretations by people who may not share the context they come from
4 Comments so far
- Graham Durant-Law
And my reply to Dave is at this link.
Patrick I too have found the discussion most useful.
Best Regards, Graham
- Dave Snowden
Your link does not work Graham - it says “Requested page not found - please notify Graham Durant-Law”
- Graham Durant-Law
Sorry Patrick and Dave. Try this
http://tinyurl.com/yuvx7aRegards Graham
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My contribution to this debate is here.
Posted on March 22, 2008 at 02:06 AM | Comment permalink