--- We got the session proposal off on Friday amidst a flurry of forms and credit card numbers.Here are the abstracts. I think it's going to be an excellent session. Once it's officially accepted we might all want to put pointers to it in our Web pages. I'll let you know when we get official word.
Best,
Bonnie
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ENGESTRVM, Yrjv THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ACTIVITY THEORY AND ITS FOUNDATIONAL CONCEPTS
The crucial predecessor of activity is to be found in the Theses on Feuerbach by Karl Marx. This text presents the agenda of overcoming the opposition between idealism and mechanistic materialism by means of the concept of activity, or Tdtigkeit.
The first generation of activity theory is to be found in the cultural-historical psychology developed by Vygotsky and his close collaborators in the 1920s and early 1930s in Russia. The key concept of the first generation was mediation. Activity theory came of age in the 1930s and 1940s when Leont'ev worked out the concept of activity as an expansion of Vygotsky's ideas. The cornerstone of the concept was the distinction between individual goal-directed action and collective object-oriented activity, achieved through division of labor. The second generation of activity theory was enriched and deepended by Il'enkov's, Lektorski's and Davydov's elucidation of the dialectical epistemology inherent in activity theory.
Today the third generation of activity theory is taking shape. The birth pains of this generation deal with incorporation of cultural diversity, dialogue, and boundary crossing in networks of multiple activity systems. This transition includes the reconceptualization of activity theory as a genuinely multidisciplinary paradigm, beyond the confines of psychology alone.
Inga Treitler. Ideology as Mediating Device: Understanding Political Culture as Process in Antigua, West Indies.
If we look at an ideology the way we look at language overall, i.e., as a means for organizing and communicating about experience, then ideologies are mediating devices for individuals in the context of political culture. With this conceptualization, the way is paved to thinking about ideology not as concrete and immutable, but as constitutive of individual cognition. Ideology in Antigua (West Indies) and, I will say, in all political cultures, is multi-dimensional. An external, official ideology is internalized by citizens and recast according to individual experience, and according to individual, contextual needs of the moment. Examining ideology in the framework of activity theory helps understand the process by which individual cutlural systems are created.
Charles Keller and Janet Dixon Keller
Cognition and Tool Use: Enhancing Activity Theory for Anthropology
What does someone need to know to successfully accomplish an activity and how do they gain this understanding? In addressing these questions we develop an anthropology of knowledge out of the empirical settings of everyday life. Activity theory allows us to situate research in productive circumstances and provides an orientation toward learning. Vygotsky characterized the development of the intellect as an ongoing dialectic of instrumental and abstract processes. In this way the fully adult mind takes shape in the reactive and transformative relations in which people engage with the world. We have built on this foundation to account for the emergent quality of human behavior. Our research, like that of many colleagues, extends activity theory from the realm of child development to adult learning. We shift the focus from the speech centered development of higher psychological functions to the practice based acquisition of conceptually governed skills. And we move from experimental to ethnographic methods.
Using Activity Theory to Grow and Analyse Microcultures Mike Cole
This paper will summarize the methodological strategy I have been using for the past decade to study the processes of learning and development in cultural contexts. The methodology requires the implementation of model systems of activity in differing institutional contexts and the comparative analysis of such systems over time. The activity is structured according to principles of cultural-historical activity theory. Despite a common conceptual/procedural starting point, unique cultural formations emerge in such systems. My talk will focus on the relationship between qualities of the model systems as a whole and the qualities of the culturally mediated actions that co-constitute them.
Back To Basics: Reformulating Activity Theory To Restore Its Original Significance
Carl Ratner
Activity theory originated in the work of Marx and Engels. They emphasized that practical, socially organized life activity is the basis of consciousness. Activity is socially organized in different ways to achieve different purposes in different social systems. Succeeding activity theorists have verbally acknowledged this thrust to activity, however they have tended to lose sight of the concrete social character of activity. Examples of this tendency will be presented. Profitable future use of activity theory in the human sciences requires emphasizing its original significance. Examples of research which do this will be presented.
Session abstract:
ACTIVITY THEORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
This session addresses the importance of activity theory for anthropology. Activity theory has had a profound impact on Russian and Scandinavian research, and some impact in the U.S. Its concerns with culture and history make it a natural for anthropology and it is surprising that it is not more widely known and used in American anthropology. The first papers in the session describe foundational concepts of activity theory as articulated by German and Russian psychologists (e.g., Vygotsky, Leont'ev) of the cultural-historical school and those that followed, as well as reviewing the impact of Marx, especially the Theses on Feuerbach. The historical discussion is followed by papers on the contemporary use of activity theory in anthropological theory and empirical research. Contemporary use of activity theory will be compared with the foundational concepts to identify points of continuity and divergence. The final section of the session considers ways in which activity theory can be refined and extended to become more viable in anthropology. Certain limitations of the theory are noted and suggestions made for improving it and making it applicable to anthropological research.