Re: passed along/AT boundaries

From: sbaumer@weber.ucsd.edu
Date: Fri Mar 30 2001 - 02:46:30 PST


I don't know Yrjo's work so well to be able to comment
about his intent. Anyhow, we have in AT Leontiev model
which is (in my opinion) clearly hierarchic, although
somewhat differently than what we discussed here.
Perhaps terms like "constraints/affordances" should
be preferred on "causes" and "determinants". But this
is a whole another issue.
Back to the issue of boundaries: My problem is exactly
the "flexibility" that Phil and Bill talked about. I
don’t feel quite comfortable with that. I have a
problem with identifying an activity system. In
deciding how to name it (e.g., swimming, recreation,
physical exercise, etc) and explaining to myself or to
others why something is and something else is not an
activity system. The answers on these questions do not
seem to clearly emerge from my data and my concern is
that this process is somewhat ad hoc. (I am also aware
that an alternative explanation to this would be that
I am not a good researcher :-)
It is certainly more convenient when an activity takes
place of an institution, because in that case we can
use the boundaries that are more clear/cut and
physically established. But there are other cases…For
example, here in LCHC we had a discussion about 5th D
as an activity system and had rather different
opinions about it. Certainly we can always say “it
depends’ and adhere to “pragmatic” criteria. But can
we do any better than that?
Sonja
 



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