I agree with Helena -- a researcher, for example a participant observer, engaging in activity theoretic research is at the boundaries of the system of study and that of the research. What is taken up by the researcher of the study system is influenced in many ways by the research system(s). Instrumentation artifacts of the study system are also taken up into the research system, becoming boundary objects, and going through what L* has called 'translation' into the research system. The translation is complex, and new meanings are made out of the artifacts -- a generative process that is characteristic of the intersections of the study and research systems.
Cultural contact.
One task of the researcher is to learn of the study system and inform the research system. This participation is not only a process through which one system of activity is influential of another, it is also an example of the way individual and social development are intertwined.
One can think of these intersections in the way that appears in learning by expanding, in which study systems are artifact/subject etc. producing systems for the research system. It seems very important to watch for the flow of people and things, however, with the 'meaning-making' baggage that goes with them. In strict observer research, in which much care is taken not to influence the study system (i.e. Bateson in Bali), the relations of study and research system are highly (but I might caution) not perfectly asymmetrical. As one moves towards design experiment research, as in 5D or change lab work, the relations are much more symmetrical as the influence of the research systems are allowed to flow more freely, through people and things, into the study systems.
Quite messy. Quite interesting.
These intersections of systems are of course not limited to research and study systems but are one example. Another that I can think of is when two or more institutions engage in joint work.
bb
>Hey, people -- The analysis has a perspective, too -- a motive. The analysis can't be "objective." So we've got nested activity systems, each defined by a motive. Where the motives are disjunctive, we've got the edges of one activity system bumping up against another one.
>
>This is one of the beauties of AT -- it allows us to keep in mind that we've got multiple systems running at all times and that what drives one system may not be what drives the one that forms its context or that lies within it.
>
>This is key to using AT for understanding work.
>
>Helena Worthen
>
>Judy Diamondstone wrote:
>
>> I know there are many xmca-ers who can help me here. Nate? Andy? someone?
>>
>> At 03:20 PM 1/30/01 -0500, you wrote:
>> >>>>
>>
>> This, I think, gets right to the heart of debates lately. The "real" motive in AT is supposedly objective, right? So while individuals may participate in an activity for different reasons, the difference between their version of affairs and the "real" social motive is irrelevant, unless it affects their actions, in which case they become the subjects of analysis and the disjunctions between what they think they're doing/their reasons for doing it and the collective object becomes the 'object' of analysis. Or do I have this wrong?
>>
>> In Yrjo's interpretation of the contradictions in Stanislavski's methods and of the workshops conducted as an intervention into theatre, the subject's version of affairs does not define the object -- on the contrary: the ideal of theatre is enunciated by the analyst. I buy it because it's illuminating, inspirational, but we don't know what participants in the workshop might have commented on Yrjo's analysis. So what makes the ideal he identifies the 'real' objective ....?
>>
>> At 11:41 AM 1/30/01 -0800, you wrote:
>> >>>>
>>
>> Questions:
>>
>> Does motive always determine the activity?
>> Or, does different people having different motives change the activity system for each individual even if they physically are doing the same thing?
> > Because people can have more than one motive while engaging in work (e.g., survival, pleasure, social influence, etc.), can one person with multiple motives doing the same thing be engaged in more than one activity?
>> Given the difficulty of determining motive(s), how do we identify the "real" activity?
>>
>> Charles Nelson
>>
>> <<<<
>>
>> <<<<
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