"I appreciate the Kuhnian point about exemplars, but also cannot help but
thinking that the perspectives we are afflicted with also derive from what
parts of the unkempt forests of literature we have traversed and where in
those forests we have made ourselves at home and planted our own sprigs:
these wanderings in the overflowing underbrush (there is always too much to
read) will, through the years, have been in dialogue with the "phenomena we
have chosen to examine".
Rightly or wrongly CHAT has always been for me the, maybe too idealistic,
vision of a theoretical framework that can unite the segmented diciplines
we currently have. One that can unite semiotics, psychology, sociology,
anthrolpology, cultural psychology, genetic etc under the banner of
Activity Theory. In reading Perspectives on Activity Theory that "ideal"
was reinforced. Jim's comments got me thinking if having "a unit of
analysis", rather than "the unit of anaysis" is more realistic. Can CHAT
realistically be a theoretical framework to explain everything? It seems
many of Vygotsky's struggles with creating a "Marxist Psycholgy" was based
on a similar ideal.
It does seem like Engestom's example of those concerned with CHAT or Eva's
very interesting paper on X-Family are very well suited to an Activity
Theory theoretical approach. Mike's approach of micro-macro and various
interacting activity systems are very consistant with readings I have done
in rethinking anthropology. I found the *Construction Zone* very
worthwhile but if my memory serves me correctly, Mike himself criticized it
for its lack of the macro or outside the "garden" view. As a teacher the
inside the garden as in the *Construction Zone* was very useful and what
occurs outside the garden is less "useful" because I perceive a lack of
control about what happens outside the garden. Of course the outside the
garden perspective is useful, it is essential in order to create a Frierian
Teachers As Cultural Workers, I would think.
Jim's work interests me specifically because of its "unit of analysis" that
focuses on production and consumption. Specifically in regard to the
Foucaultion discourse "power as knowledge" stuff I have been reading
lately. The emphasis is solely on how knowledge/power is produced, as in
Foucault's assertion of the production nature of power, not consumed. Jim
puts forth a unit of analysis, I believe, that would allow us to understand
that literature less deterministically. This goes back for me if its
really possible to have one theoretical framework that can be all things.
I guess I always was under the impression, probably wrongly, that a CHAT
perspective could be a way to unite the various disciplines under one flag.
Reading Perspectives in Activity Theory, I was in awe at so many
disciplines using Activity Theory as an explanatory tool. It explained
organizations, education, "mental illness", genetics etc under more or less
one theoretical model.
Nate