Activity Theorists = Feminists & Polanyi's connection to Lacan

Any theorist relying on Vygotsky, or Polanyi for that matter, has some really basic feminist origins for the reason that "mediation" and "personal knowledge" are "feminine." Literally they are. Mediation is something occurring through internalization. Things that are inside other things are generally "feminine." (Hearkening back to Lacan and Freud). To think we need to re-externalize that which is already inside us in order to achieve "objectivity" seems rather inefficient. By relying on "personal knowledge" -- tacit knowledge, intuition, creativity, you can, I posit, advance knowledge much more quickly and efficiently, and on multiple levels.

But, as Polanyi points out, I think that some things about how we know, how we think, we can never see or understand. While many researchers have tried to externalize, map writing processes -- I believe they will never be able to do this adequately, because of the nature of "personal knowledge." You could argue that personal knowledge connects on some levels to Lacan's notion of "unconscious." I find comfort in knowing that it is there-just having evidence that it exists. So I guess in my study if I were to support the hypothesis that during the writing process, things happen that we cannot know or understand, or have access to completely, that would support the notion of personal knowledge as Polanyi discusses it. Heuristics can only go so far, and don't mean much out of context. To present a FYW student with a heuristic and then say: go write -- hum, I think this would not be effective.