Bill,
I quickly reread the Cole/Engestrom article in Solomon's book. I think
the dyadic interaction depiction you were alluding to is the one in the
sections describing the reading acquisition study (pp. 22 ff.). The
diagram certainly shows the intersection between the two activity systems
of student on one hand and teacher on the other. It is a good abbreviated
diagram that depicts how student and teacher can be thought of as
simultaneously separate activity systems and also a single combined
activity system. It introduces rather neatly the notion of simultaneous
"levels" of activity system that can be variously attended to according to
one's focus at the moment.
In my own study (see back channel note, dated Jan 2), I depicted student
and teacher as separate activity systems, but showed how they interacted by
conceiving them as "neighbouring activity systems". Although this
ignores the conception of student and teacher as a combined "subject"
within a larger activity system, it permits me to examine very closely how
the "object" of the teacher and student essentially differ but also
interact. Specifically, I viewed the outcome of the teacher's activity as
a continuously modified mediating instrument within the student's activity
, while the outcome of the student's activity becomes the object of the
teacher's activity.
I'm not sure whether I am making relevant sense of the notion of
"between-ness" you are referring to when you say "The sense of
'between-ness' that the oldtimers discussed, as in the message
mike reposted of arne's, is not captured well in the expanded
triangle...". I take it that the key passage from Arne's archived
comments is this:
"To say that the object-structures pointed at by such signs are external to
the communities is clearly nonsense, because political structures belong to
the kernel of societal association. However, they might be external to some
or even many individual actors in some communities. If you think this case
over, it becomes clear that external ideas in this sense are
incomprehensible at the same moment in time, and thus cannot be giving
activity its >motive< or direction."
I wonder if seeing individuals and groups as interacting neighbouring
activity systems (rather than as a single "combined" activity system) with
different motives which nevertheless produce outcomes which influence each
others' activity systems allows us to make sense of Arne's complaint about
the incomprehensibility of the notion of "external" ideas as motives for
activity??
(I read the note that Mike sent containing Arne's comments, but I also get
the sense that I have missed a previous xmca conversation about this, so I
apologize in advance if my comment misses the point.)
--glenn
Glenn D. Humphreys
glenhump@soonet.ca
P.O. Box 11,
Echo Bay, Ontario,
Canada, P0S 1C0
Home: (705) 248-1226
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