Phillip,
Thank you for expressing so clearly some of the primary
interpretation/applications of the "forms" of activity theory (ie, the
vocabulary of activity triangles and contradictions) that have led me to
believe that its fundamental theoretical insights and advances are not
really orienting much of the work that is currently carried out under its
banner.
You write,
> 1. What defines a contradiction for us is what actors in the system
> experience as a contradiction, and not some external 'objective'
definition.
> This approach seems to me to allow for Paul's requirement of theoretical
> consistency without imposing on the system under study an artificial
> definition of 'contradiction' which is incomprehensible to the actors.
I think that if this were the case, that is if the experience of the actors
in the system could be directly used to "define" the contradictions of the
system, there would be no need for activity theory or any theory at all.
Although there can be no doubt that the individuals who carry out the
different actions in any activity system do indeed directly experience the
contradicitons of the system, this in no way means that what they experience
can be directly used to explain their the processes and events they
experience. The primary contradiction in any activity system, according to
LBE, is that between individual and collective aspects, and in capitalist
society this assumes the form of the contradiction betwen use value and
exchange value, which is the same thing as saying, the primary
contradictions is the constant process of commodification. Taking direct
experience as capable of providing definitions overlooks totally the
dialectic of essence and appearance fundamental to all theoretical thought.
How an individual or a group of individuals experience that contradiction
can assume any number of forms depending on specific cultural and historical
contexts.
> 2. Similarly with 'rule', 'tool', 'community', etc. . . . . This has led
us to the view
> that while it is possible to create a list of criteria which we might
expect
> to find in a 'community', it is not possible to move from that to some
> reified definition.
I find the term "reified" (which carries most of the disapprobative weight
in your second point) is often bandied about without much precision and I
think that's the case here as well. The term derives directly from Hegel's
theory of an absolute spirit realizing itself in a material form through a
historical unfolding. As is often stated, Marx turned Hegel's theory upside
down (standing it on its feet) by showing how concrete human labor (not some
Absolute Spirit)produced a world of products that came to stand over against
its producers as something other than themselves, something other than the
product of their own labor. That is, "reification" is the process of
commodification itself which, as YE states in LBE, is the primary
contradiction in all activity systems in capitalist society. In short,
the desire to become more precise in the application of specific categories
that derive from a theoretical tradition and which do not manifest
themselves as such in everyday life (precisely because they are reified) is
not in itself an example of reification. It is simply a matter of being
clear that we are talking about the same thing. If this isn't the case then
there is in fact no theory at all, simply a collection of particular
experiences.
> 3. When Paul talks of 'interrelated, integrated activity systems'
> constituting an 'institution', I feel he is wrong to describe this as
> something "greater than an activity system." Instead we should think about
> the nested - as opposed to networked - nature of activity systems. This is
> the unit of analysis question. At any level below the whole of humanity an
> activity system is always nested within another larger system. . . . . .
>However we CAN say "some of the experiences this person has
> can be understood as contradictions embedded in the relationships between
> the perspectives one takes at one level and those one takes at another
> level.
I do believe that the concept of linked activity systems (that may or may
not be "nested") is one of key notions of activity theory that merits much
greater exploration. But I cannot see how "the whole international sales
force" can be characterized as an activity system. The levels you invoke
here are institutional categories but an activity system, in and of itself,
is not an institution. When one talks about "the international sales
force" one is certainly talking about a hierarchical system composed of
particular "sales offices" located in different places, each of which might
be an activity system (more likely a composite of multiple activity systems)
that have link to other activity systems (e.g., order processing units at
different plants") and are administered by one or more central offices that
themselves constitute a separate activity system pursuing
administrative/coordinative object-motives with respect to the particular,
geographically distributed sales offices. You say, "At any level below the
whole of humanity an
activity system is always nested within another larger system" but this is
only true in the very recent past . Here the distinction between the
all-embracing unity of the planet, or even the universe, as a whole must
clearly be distinguished from the unities made up from activity systems that
are composed of subjects using tools for different motives. That key
element is the historical-cultural dimension and only in so far as that
element is linked can one talk about a necessary linkage between activity
systems. Before 1492, the activity systems in the Western hemisphere could
not be said to be nested within the activity systems in Europe. One could
easily expand this to various activity systems that exist with no necessity
of the existence of others for their own continued existence.
The key issue concerning the integration of activity systems into
institutions concerns the necessity that different activity systems have for
each others reproduction. Without adopting a totally
functionalist/organismic orientation I think that we can identify linked
activity systems (assuming we can identify any) that depend on each other
for their own continued existence. It is clearly insufficient to simply
talk about some neutral, indifferent nesting.
> 4. It is not surprising therefore, that I do not believe that there is an
> absolute answer to Paul's question about what conditions need to be
> satisfied if we are to know that we are dealing with an elementary
activity
> system. The answer will always be relative to the currently operating unit
> of analysis. Leontiev - "...in the total flow of activity...analysis
> isolates separate activities in the first place according to the motives
> that elicit them. Then actions are isolated - processes that are
> subordinated to conscious goals...." . This definition of 'actions' does
not
> allow them to be understood as simply a 'smaller' unit of analysis - and
> therefore cannot be described in the terms that Paul uses 'something less
> than an activity system'.
>
In activity theory, as I understand it, "actions" are definitely not smaller
units of analysis. The smallest unit of analysis that retains the
characteristics of the whole (one of the desideratum YE states at the
outset) is the activity system itself. That is, without an activity system
there are no actions at all.
Paul H. Dillon
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 01 2001 - 01:01:58 PDT