Learning and Expanding with Activity Theory

This book provides researchers with an accessible text that also supports the use of the classic tradition of activity theory.

Annalisa Sannino (Edited by), Harry Daniels (Edited by), Kris D. Gutiérrez (Edited by)

9780521758109, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 17 August 2009

390 pages, 28 b/w illus. 3 tables
22.6 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.52 kg

“Humanity develops primarily through cultural evolution, the ultra-fast process by which knowledge and tools are accumulated and handed over from generation to generation. One of the most important mechanisms of this process is the constitution and development of activity systems that organize people's actions in relation to shared objects. This book is a homage to Yrjö Engeström, the leading theoretician of learning as a vehicle of, and a vehicle for, cultural evolution. It is written by his best and closest intellectual partners. In the world according to Engeström, people transform themselves by transforming the activity systems which their acts are a part of. You may or may not subscribe to such a deeply materialistic view, but without finding out what happens at one of its hottest frontiers, the field of contemporary research on learning will remain closed to you. This book is actually your key to it.”
– Ference Marton, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

This book is a collection about cultural-historical activity theory as it has been developed and applied by Yrjö Engeström. The work of Engeström is both rooted in the legacy of Vygotsky and Leont'ev and focuses on current research concerns that are related to learning and development in work practices. His publications cross various disciplines and develop intermediate theoretical tools to deal with empirical questions. In this volume, Engeström's work is used as a springboard to reflect on the question of the use, appropriation, and further development of the classic heritage within activity theory. The book is structured as a discussion among senior scholars, including Y. Engeström himself. The work of the authors pushes on classical activity theory to address pressing issues and critical contradictions in local practices and larger social systems.

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 Rückriem
7. Contextualizing social dilemmas in institutional practices: negotiating objects of activity in labour market organizations Åsa Mäkitalo and Roger Säljö
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 Øwre Digernes
Part V. Interventions: 16. Who is acting in an activity system Ritva Engeström
17. Past experiences and recent challenges in participatory design research Susanne Bødker
18. Clinic of activity: the dialogue as instrument Yves Clot
19. Epilogue: the future of activity theory Yrjö Engeström.

Subject Areas: Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Psychology [JM]