[Xmca-l] Re: Wikipedia CHAT entry

Sun Jan 28 10:13:50 PST 2018

Dear Colleagues-

     I am kind of surprised at the response to my query about the
authorship of the Wikipedia
page. I have always interpreted the 1-2-3 generation characterization of
Helsinki's school's as
indexing the increasing complexity of the systems of activity that are
being described/analyzed,
and used for the design of new interventions that seek to address perceived
problems of some
community/organization. The subject-medium-object unit, the s-m-o unit as a
constituent of a collective activity, and the collective activity in
relation to other activities with which it interacts. News of the fourth
generation has not filtered down here to the periphery.

This kind of expansion has been accompanied by a shift in disciplinary
identity. CHAT is not a classical psychological approach. The Russians use
the term, "non-classical psychology" even for LSV's work. But once one
moves to the study of activity, anthropology and sociology come into
play.... at least so it seems to me. And of course, the linkage with
various flavors of linguistics have been present since before the beginning

I felt a strong kinship with the idea of a psychology that took everyday,
joint, mediated, activity as a unit of analysis. Perhaps no more than
sloppy eclecticism ensued. Many of my Russian and Western European
colleague seem to think so. Certainly, my everyday notion of activity did
not take on the philosophical heritage of German/Russian discussions of
deyatelnost and Tategkeit. Nor was I sensitive to the social/societal
distinction, Etc. But I found Yrjo's reconstruction/expansion
useful and still do. At the same time, ideas associated with the "3rd
generation" formulation have proven useful in thinking about
university-community collaborations. I would, of course, prefer
even strong intellectual tools, so like Yrjo I look to actor network
theory, distributed cognition, and other frameworks that seem to help me
understand the processes of learning/development/change that I observe and
participate in.  Reducing Yrjo's work to self aggrandizement seems to be
really
unfortunate.

If one looks at the iconography of American appropriations of Vygotsky, the
cover of Luis Moll's (1990) book on Vygotsky and Education has a triangle
inside a circle -- mediated action in context. Yrjo declared that the
activity IS the context a couple of years later. Now look at the
iconography in the newest edition of that book. No triangle, just circles
-- the activity has become the context (a la
Bronfenbrener). Doesn't feel like progress to me.

Was there politics in the research of LCHC? Of course. It involved
agreements over the distribution
of resources within the university, the professional community, etc. I
would like to think that the work
was more than self-aggrandizement, but may that is simply a self
aggrandizing illusion.

So, I renew my question. Does anyone know who the author of the wikipedia
page is/was? A lot of
work went in to creating it, and it seems that the best way to block
invidious interpretations of
"third generation" as new, better, shinier, and truer, is to continue the
narrative of the wikipedia
entry through inclusion of other variations in the development of
Vygotsky's ideas. Of course, that would
require labor, but if there is no will, there is no way.

In the meantime, a discussion on XMCA that was inviting to our colleagues
who think they are participating in the development of 3rd Generation AT
theorizing a la Helsinki, and do not think of themselves as self
aggrandizing bad people, seems to me as if it might be useful.

my two centavos

mike

On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 5:44 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
wrote:

> There are a couple of related senses in which the term "generation" may be
> heard here: as in a new major development in the theory, so that this
> generation is some form of evolution from the previous one; and as it
> regards to nationality, of being the third, fourth or "n" line of offspring
> following some original.
>
> As a new comer to CHAT, when I went to the ISCAR Summer University in
> Moscow in 2011, I remember people there complaining that, if someone in
> Finland was claiming the third generation, who were then they, who had been
> attending to and learning from the lectures of those who had attended to
> and learned from the very founder's lectures?
>
> It soon comes into issues of legitimacy and authorship that may easily
> confuse newcomers, I think. But then again,
> there is a history, there are indeed lineages and developments, and we
> need categories to mark those up, I guess.
> Alfredo
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> Sent: 28 January 2018 14:17
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Wikipedia CHAT entry
>
> Re "The work you do by calling it 3rd generation is making a distinction
> with other forms of AT. That's all."
>
> Of course it isn't all, Michael. It is misleading anyone new to the field
> (and who has not had the experience of knowing how knowledge gets reduced
> or made superficial) into thinking that this is where the new work is done
> and that this is supposed to represent the leading edge of the work. It is
> political in that this unwarranted status functions as an attractor for
> such research-related attention, which is further supported in other ways.
>
> Best,
> Huw
>
> On 28 January 2018 at 12:51, Wolff-Michael Roth <
> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
> > Huw,
> > you may be hung up with words, perhaps in search of these elusive
> meanings.
> >
> > I am not doing that kind of work anymore, but I think using the adjective
> > distinguishes other forms of theory use from the one that has evolved
> > around the Helsinki triangle. The work you do by calling it 3rd
> generation
> > is making a distinction with other forms of AT. That's all.
> >
> > And your comment about politics---this appears a truism if you take the
> > stand of Voloshinov.
> >
> > Michael
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 4:41 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Anyone who has carefully studied the historical works of AT, which are
> > > psychological, would know that it is nonsense to call this a "third
> > > generation". Calling it a "third generation" is a political manoeuvre.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Huw
> > >
> > > On 28 January 2018 at 01:56, Wolff-Michael Roth <
> > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com
> > > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Huw,
> > > >
> > > > I had worked on those ideas as well:
> > > >
> > > > Roth, W.-M. (2007). The ethico-moral nature of identity: Prolegomena
> to
> > > the
> > > > development of third-generation cultural-historical activity theory.
> > > > International Journal of Educational Research, 46, 83-93
> > > > Roth, W.-M. (2007). Emotion at work: A contribution to
> third-generation
> > > > cultural historical activity theory. Mind, Culture and Activity, 14,
> > > 40-63.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > >
> > > > Michael
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Jan 27, 2018 at 5:25 PM, Huw Lloyd <
> huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Is anyone other than Engestrom claiming that their work is 3rd
> > > generation
> > > > > AT? Are there any Russian psychologists clamouring to understand
> what
> > > > > improvements have been made to their system in this "3rd
> generation"?
> > > It
> > > > > doesn't seem like a careful depiction to me.
> > > > >
> > > > > Best,
> > > > > Huw
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On 27 January 2018 at 18:49, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > I just stumbled across the wikipedia page. Someone put a lot of
> > work
> > > > into
> > > > > > that entry. It would be
> > > > > > interesting to discuss with whose who put it together so
> carefully.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Check it out.
> > > > > > mike
> > > > > > ------------------------------------
> > > > > >
> > > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cultural-
> > > > > > historical_activity_theory&action=history
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
>