Annalisa Sannino

Learning and expanding with activity theory.

1. Activity theory between historical engagement and future-making practice Annalisa Sannino, Harry Daniels and Kris Gutierrez Part I. Units of Analysis: 2. Cultural-historical activity theory and organization studies Frank Blackler 3. Uses of activity theory in written communication and research David R. Russell 4. On the inclusion of emotions, identity, and ethico-moral dimensions of actions Wolff-Michael Roth Part II. Mediation and Discourse: 5. Mediation as a means of changing collective activity Vladislav A. Lektorsky 6. Digital technology and mediation: a challenge to activity theory Georg Ruckriem 7. Contextualizing social dilemmas in institutional practices: negotiating objects of activity in labour market organizations Asa Makitalo and Roger Saljoe Part III. Expansive Learning and Development: 8. The concept of development in cultural-historical activity theory: vertical and horizontal Michael Cole and Natalia Gajdamashko 9. Two theories of organizational knowledge and creation Jaakko Virkkunen 10. Contradictions of high technology capitalism and the emergence of new forms of work Reijo Miettinen 11. Spinozic re-considerations on the concept of activity: politico-affective process and discursive practice in the transitive learning Shuta Kagawa and Yuji Moro Part IV. Subjectivity, Agency, and Community: 12. From the systemic to the relational: relational agency and activity theory Anne Edwards 13. Expansive agency in multi-activity collaboration Katsuhiro Yamazumi 14. The communicative construction of community: authority and organizing James R. Taylor 15. Research leadership: productive research communities and the integration of research fellows Sten Ludvigsen and Turi Owre Digernes Part V. Interventions: 16. Who is acting in an activity system Ritva Engestroem 17. Past experiences and recent challenges in participatory design research Susanne Bodker 18. Clinic of activity: the dialogue as instrument Yves Clot 19. Epilogue: the future of activity theory Yrjoe Engestroem.

Discursive manifestations of contradictions in organizational change efforts

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new methodological framework for the identification and analysis of different types of discursive manifestations of contradictions.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on the dialectical tradition of cultural‐historical activity theory. The methodological framework is developed by means of analyzing the entire transcribed corpus of the discourse conducted in a change laboratory intervention consisting of eight sessions and altogether 189,398 words.Findings – Four types of discursive manifestations, namely dilemmas, conflicts, critical conflicts, and double binds, could be effectively identified in the data. Specific linguistic cues were a useful first level of approaching the different types of manifestations. Critical conflicts and double binds were found to be particularly effective lenses on systemic contradictions.Research limitations/implications – The paper points to the need for theoretical and conceptual rigor in studies using the n...

On the Methodological Demands of Formative Interventions

Bringing design-based research and activity-theoretical formative intervention research into dialogue is commendable. William R. Penuel contributes to this effort by examining two cases that he considers to be “emerging forms” of formative intervention research in his article, “Emerging Forms of Formative Intervention Research in Education” (this issue). According to Penuel, although couched within the broad notion of design-based studies in the learning sciences, these cases go beyond standard assumptions and limitations of design-based research and take steps that seem to be in line with key ideas of formative intervention research. The approach taken by Penuel has the obvious advantage of showing that formative intervention is indeed an emergent and open-ended approach to theoretically guided research. Our concern with this approach is that the very idea of formative intervention research may lose its rigor and become blurred. This concern prompts us to use Penuel’s contribution as an opportunity to examine the methodological principles of formative intervention research as that approach has developed in recent years. Our goal is to sharpen the key ideas of formative intervention research while nourishing its open-ended and developing character. Our question is, To what extent and in which ways are Penuel’s two cases indeed examples of formative intervention research? We do not engage in a debate with design-based research in this commentary. Our critical perspective on design-based research has been presented recently (Engeström, 2011), and Penuel quite adequately discusses the relationship between design-based research and formative intervention research. Rather, our focus is on clarifying the demands of formative intervention research as a contribution to future discussion of the issues that Penuel raises.

Activity theory as an activist and interventionist theory

This article presents arguments used in current discussions on potential shortcomings of contemporary works within activity theory concerning subjectivity and the use of conceptual models such as the triangular representation of the activity system. It documents the history of activity theory as an activist and interventionist theory. It suggests that advances in activity theory depend on the ability of those within this framework to establish fruitful connections between the classic heritage and challenging possibilities of societal change. The main arguments of the critiques are examined in this historical perspective. Combined with design and implementation of material transformations, both the models and the voices of the subjects act as mediators and are embedded in collective change efforts. The article indicates a possible direction to reorient the current discussions toward interventionist methods developed within the framework of activity theory, namely the Change Laboratory, the Clinic of Activity, and the Fifth Dimension.

Embodied Germ Cell at Work: Building an Expansive Concept of Physical Mobility in Home Care.

This article presents a process of collective formation of a new concept of mobility between home care workers and their elderly clients, who are at risk of losing physical mobility and functional capacity. A new tool called mobility agreement was introduced to facilitate the inclusion of regular mobility exercises in home care visits and in the daily lives of the clients. Our analysis starts with an overview of those visits in 2008 and 2009. We then analyze in detail one visit conducted in 2011, after two years of implementation of the mobility agreement. The analysis brings together the dialectical principle of ascending from the abstract to the concrete with the help of a germ cell, and key ideas from embodied and enactive cognition. During the visits a new concept of mobility began to emerge in the simple movement of standing up from the chair. This new concept transcends and overcomes the contradiction between safety and autonomy. Also it embeds and integrates mobility into necessary everyday actions of the old person. It is accomplished jointly with the nurse and relying on often innovative uses of everyday household artifacts. Finally, the new concept frames physical mobility in terms of sustainability.

Formative Interventions for Expansive Learning and Transformative Agency

This article examines formative interventions as we understand them in cultural-historical activity theory and reflects on key differences between this intervention research tradition and design-based research as it is conceived in the learning sciences tradition. Three projects, including 2 Change Laboratories, are analyzed with the help of conceptual lenses derived from basic epistemological principles for intervention research in activity theory. In all 3 interventions, learners expansively transformed the object of their activity. The Change Laboratory cases, however, show that this learning process included productive deviations from the researchers’ instructional intentions, leading to significant outcomes, both practical and theoretical, that were not anticipated by the interventionists. Together these cases illustrate that an activity-theoretical formative intervention approach differs from design-based research in the following ways: (a) formative interventions are based on design done by the learners; (b) the collective design effort is seen as part of an expansive learning process including participatory analyses and implementation phases; (c) rather than aiming at transferable and scalable solutions, formative interventions aim at generative solutions developing over lengthy periods of time both in the researched activities and in the research community.

Cultural-historical activity theory and interventionist methodology: Classical legacy and contemporary developments:

The article discusses the growing interest in cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and its potential to promote change in work and educational practices through research interventions. Seeds for research interventions in CHAT are identified in the rich heritage of the works of Vygotsky and other classic authors. Particular attention is devoted to Vygotsky’s epistemic reasoning in “The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology” and to his emphasis on the use of an indirect method in psychological investigations. In “The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology,” Vygotsky formulated a program for the development of psychological theory and methodology. The article points out that the future of activity theory depends on the understanding and creative development of this heritage. On this basis, interventionism is presented as a central aspect in CHAT. Historical and theoretical foundations of CHAT are connected to current methodological implementations of interventionist research such as the Change Laboratory, the Clinic of Activity, and the Fifth Dimension.

Expanding Educational Research and Interventionist Methodologies

ABSTRACT This commentary focuses on the ways the set of articles in this issue, taken together, engage an important and much needed conversation in design-based approaches to inquiry: that is, what does it mean to do work in and with nondominant communities? Drawing on cultural historical activity theory, decolonizing methodologies, and indigenous perspectives, these articles seek to advance participatory design research as a means to foreground the development of socially just systems with equitable forms of teaching and learning. Specifically, the “social change making” projects exemplified reflect a generational and hybrid shift in design approaches, incorporating political and innovative dimensions of other methods with shared aims. A notable focus of participatory design research is that design and interventions are understood and addressed as part of everyday activity. In this way, change making projects are conceptualized from within the practices and commitments, and histories of communities. These new sensibilities about working with nondominant communities necessarily involve rethinking and explicitly redesigning the research and participants. subject positions across all aspects of the intervention. Finally, these emergent participatory design research projects argue that issues of race, equity, and inequality are neither sufficiently theorized or addressed by other theoretical approaches, including cultural activity theoretical approaches.

Double Stimulation in the Waiting Experiment with Collectives: Testing a Vygotskian Model of the Emergence of Volitional Action

This study explores what human conduct looks like when research embraces uncertainty and distance itself from the dominant methodological demands of control and predictability. The context is the waiting experiment originally designed in Kurt Lewin’s research group, discussed by Vygotsky as an instance among a range of experiments related to his notion of double stimulation. Little attention has been paid to this experiment, despite its great heuristic potential for charting the terrain of uncertainty and agency in experimental settings. Behind the notion of double stimulation lays Vygotsky’s distinctive view of human beings’ ability to intentionally shape their actions. Accordingly, human beings in situations of uncertainty and cognitive incongruity can rely on artifacts which serve the function of auxiliary motives and which help them undertake volitional actions. A double stimulation model depicting how such actions emerge is tested in a waiting experiment conducted with collectives, in contrast with a previous waiting experiment conducted with individuals. The model, validated in the waiting experiment with individual participants, applies only to a limited extent to the collectives. The analysis shows the extent to which double stimulation takes place in the waiting experiment with collectives, the differences between the two experiments, and what implications can be drawn for an expanded view on experiments.

Co-generation of societally impactful knowledge in Change Laboratories

Formative interventions and the specific method of the Change Laboratory (CL) are presented as examples of intervention research that generates actionable and societally impactful knowledge. In contrast with stabilization knowledge that fixates phenomena into static categories, actionable knowledge is understood here as collaborative and generative possibility knowledge intertwined with transformative action. The article asks what can be learned from the different ways the epistemological principles behind formative interventions are implemented in different CLs. Three CL interventions are analyzed. The analysis is summarized with the help of a grid covering the key characteristics of formative interventions: contradictions, conflicts of motives, double stimulation, zone of proximal development, germ cells and emerging concepts. Comparison of the three cases shows that understanding the specific historical stage of the development of contradictions in a given organization is of foundational importance. In transformations induced by CLs, contradiction and conflict may be seen as acute push and the future-oriented concept as gradually emerging pull, with the change actions of the local practitioners in the middle. Constructing a germ cell and eventually an expanded concrete concept based on it are the most demanding challenges for CL interventions.