People -- the idea of an "encapsulated" activity system is helpful (I'm responding to Bill's note about sharpening the language surrounding ch activity theory). When activity bubbles along and looks as if it's going to stir something up (I'm thinking about rank and file activism here, in a particular labor union that I"m studying -- where the organizational structures DO encapsulate this activity) -- and then doesn't...
Helena
Bill Barowy wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> I think more than just the two of us will agree that more effort is necessary to, in shorthand, sharpen the language surrounding ch activity theory. There are several areas I have put on the back burner -- the quantitative connections for example between the categories of production, exchange, consumption with economics, system dynamics, complexity theory -- perhaps the former would be obvious for the economists at my alma mater. Another is clarifying the boundaries, and this is closer to the front burner.
>
> >This comes to mind most clearly when considering the
> >problem of division of labor and subject or the delineation of the patterns
> >in which the primary contradiction plays itself out and determines the
> >secondary, etc. contradictions.
>
> The sequencing of primary to secondary, etc. in expansive activity is an ordering that has been puzzling me too. I can't say my own latest data support that particular sequence, but also as a partially retrospective account, any pattern may be hidden behind the resolution of the data. But with you, my hunch is this could be a highly productive problematic. There certainly is lots of work to do.
>
> bb
> --
> Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
> Lesley University
> 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
> Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
> http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
> _______________________
> "One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
> and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
> [Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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