Beyond Giddens' notion that structures are both enabling and constraining,
I believe there are other parts of his work that are also quite
complementary with some aspects of CHAT. In particular, I'm referring to
his essay "Structuralism, post-structuralism, and the production of
culture" in _Social theory and modern sociology_ (1987). In this work,
Giddens introduces the concept of the "cultural object," which he defines
as "artifacts which escape from contexts of presence, but which are
distinct from objects generally in so far as they incorporate 'extended'
forms of signification." This essay also focuses a great deal on the human
agency of cultural production as well as contextuality of action, both of
which dovetail nicely with some of the main concepts in activity theory.
There are many useful connections to be made between Giddens and CHAT, but
for me, one of the most useful is that between Giddens' concept of the
"cultural object" and activity theory's notion of mediating artifacts.
-- Lee
Lee Honeycutt (honeyl who-is-at iastate.edu)
Assistant Professor
English Dept., 247 Ross Hall
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50011-1201
(515) 294-4617
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~honeyl/