Bill, you wrote:
"IMHO, one powerful feature of ch2 is the ability to treat multiple
categories while maintaining their relations to the whole. For example,
from primary to quaternary contradictions, one is able to engage in the
"ethnography of troubles" from within a category, i.e., the exchange/use
value of computers (artifact category) to the much larger scale of troubles
between systems. One is not bound to a unit of analysis that is fixed in
relations and time. So as the explanatory need emerges from the data, one
can "zoom in" to the development of a single person, and relate it to the
development of an institution the person works in, and further embed the
analysis in the political and economic conditions of the region and time,
and go back. "
My concern is the flip side of this flexibility. One of the important
characteristics of theoretical activity is consistency of interpretation.
Among linguists, for example, there can be disagreement at the theoretical
level itself, but fundamentally there is a common recognition of such units
as morphemes, verb phrases, etc. From what I've seen there is no such common
agreement as to what constitutes a rule, a community, a tool, a subject, a
division of labor, and last but not least, an object or a motive. Almost
anything seems capable of becoming Similarly, and probably as a consequence
of this absenceof common use of the basic elements of the activity
triangle, there seems to be a wide and varied interpretation of what
constitutes a contradiction within the activity system let alone the level
of contradiction.
while I totally agree with you that the model is powerful and that insights
do acrue from almost any application/interpretation, I am concerned about
the comparability of studies, the development of specific areas of
theoretical interest. This comes to mind most clearly when considering the
problem of division of labor and subject or the delineation of the patterns
in which the primary contradiction plays itself out and determines the
secondary, etc. contradictions.
What are the conditions that must be satisfied so we know we are dealing
with an elementary activity system and not something else; either something
less than an activity system (eg, an action such as "smoking") or something
greater, such as an institution composed of interrelated, integrated
activity systems?
Paul H. Dillon
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