People:
To help clarify how people engaged in what appears to be one activity
can be acting from different motives -- think about a situation where
someone hires another person to do something:
A small farmer hires a helper to work on the harvest. We might say they
are both engaged in the activity of farming. But the famer works to get
the harvest in, the helper works to get paid.
A clothing manufacturer hires cutters and sewers to make clothes. They
are both "producing clothing." But the manufacturer is working to
fulfill the contract, maintain the factory, and make as much profit as
possible; the employees are working to get paid by the piece or the
hour.
A lobbyist is hired by a corporation to influence legislation. The
lobbyist and a legislator talk and come to an agreement. When they speak
to the public, they say the same words, stand side by side. But they are
engaged in different activity systems: the lobbyist is working to get
paid by the corporation, the legislator is getting paid to represent the
best interests of the people who voted for him or her.
So in one single enterprise -- be it a family farm, a private business,
government -- we can see how activity systems can look congruent but be
in fact different because they are driven by different motives.
Helena
Ricardo Ottoni Vaz Japiassu wrote:
> <?smaller>Since I read your questions I've been looking for answers to
> them, thinking - when there's time to do it - erraticaly... (I'm not
> sure if there is such a word in english. If not, please, understand it
> as a neologism trying to figure out a non-formal or rigorous way of
> thinking) I try, below, answer to them - but, please, have in mind I
> do not have any pretention of being the owner of "the truth"... Just
> convert in words some embrionical ideas affected by the current
> discussion you fired in XMCA.
>
> -----Mensagem original-----
> De: Charles Nelson <c.nelson@mail.utexas.edu>
> Para: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Data: Terça-feira, 30 de Janeiro de 2001 17:55
> Assunto: Different motives
> Questions:
> Does motive always determine the activity?
>
> I do not think it can, always, determine an activity. Maybe,
> in turn, engaging in any activity could be possible only
> through some motive...
>
> Or, does different people having different motives change
> the activity system for each individual even if they
> physically are doing the same thing?
>
> Yes, I think the personal meaning of a specific activity can
> be different to those people engaged in it.
>
> 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?
>
> Maybe these multiple motives you refer to, could be
> summarized or reduced to one: the main one. Despite people
> engaged in an activity could, personaly, have different
> motives to be doing it, they would be involved in a very
> specific socio-cultural object-oriented one. But their
> actions within it, in turn, yes, could have very different
> goals.
>
> Given the difficulty of determining motive(s), how do we
> identify the "real" activity?
>
> If the "real" activity of a couple is, for example, "to have
> a dinner" in a very "in" restaurant, the motive of each
> partner to be engaged in it could be very different one
> another: Maybe for one of them the motive could be "eat and
> bannish hungry", to the other, "watch" and "be watched" in
> company. Even so, the "real" activity still be "having
> dinner". Don't you think so?
>
> Charles Nelson<?/smaller>
>
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