Hello All,
I have been studying the Kirsten Foot article "Pursuing and Evolving
Object" and have been following the posts closely. There are many
fundamental questions facing CHAT in this theoretical discussion about the
activity system object. I thought I would try to summarize some of the
discussion so far. Many important points have been raised in the past few
days. Several threads are opening up that I think are worth summarizing in
the hopes of continuing to draw people into the discussion.
Harry (Jun 12) opened with three central points and a question. First, he
points out that Kirsten's paper offers a clarification of the CHAT meaning
of the term object that is thought-provoking and useful. Second, Harry
speculates on a way to extend the CHAT discussion of the production of the
object, where he suggests applying an analysis of the division of labor,
social rules and discursive practices to an activity system. Third, he
explains that Kirsten offers a good starting point in her data - for
extending the CHAT discussion of the concept of object - by revealing two
object conceptions within the Network, monitoring ethnic relations and
epistemic community building. Harry generalizes, and suggests that the
former could be considered a task related object, and the latter a social
relations object. Finally, he asks whether these two are object
conceptions, or are they elements of a discourse on the object?
Mike (Jun 12) also presented a discussion-opening post. He brought up
three points. First, he feels that the concept of "object" in CHAT has
problems, at least for him, and welcomed the opportunity to read about this
complex topic in Kirsten's paper. Second, one of Mike's problems is the
double-sided definition English provides for the word "object": (1) a
material thing and (2) something aimed at, purpose, end. How can we
reconcile the CHAT concept of activity system object with these common
meanings in English? Third, Mike asks how to interpret the phrase "Given
the dual nature of object as both material and socially constructed ..."
(pg 132). He asks several more questions. Does "socially constructed"
mean "ideal"? Isn't social construction both ideal and material? Is there
such a thing as social interaction without materiality?
Dale (Jun 14) responded to Mike with a post that picked up on a definition
of the object offered by Kirsten: "An object that is embedded in activity
can be understood as a complex, multifaceted, organizing principle of an
activity that evolves over time ..." (page 139). Dale makes two important
points from this. First, Dale explained that yes, individual members of an
organization do operationalize the organizing principle as an "objective",
aim or goal, and yes, the outcomes of an activity do have material aspects,
but neither of these is really the object in a CHAT sense. Dale promotes
instead Kirsten's term "organizing principle" because it captures the
larger organizational sense of creating the CHAT activity system object.
Second, Dale pointed out that he would go on add a third component to
Harry's generalizations from Kirsten's paper that an activity system object
contains two elements - "task related" and "social relationship". Dale
added "individual aims". Dale explained that conflicts between "task"
object and "social" object and "individual" object are often major issues
in the effectiveness of an activity system.
Kevin (Jun 14) opened his post with some thoughts on the relationships
between the way object-oriented programming and CHAT use the concept
"object". He then asks two challenging questions. First, is an activity
system object really an organizing principle? And second, is an activity
system object really unitary - aren't there multiple objects? Kevin also
asks Dale for a clarification of what he means by the term.
Dale (Jun14) responded that instead of the two choices for definitions
Kevin provided for principle - did Dale mean ethical or rule-based
principles - Dale had a third in mind - principles as a guiding set of
values, such as a "vision" in business jargon. Dale went on to explain
that this concept of principle reminded him of the concept of
self-organizing systems and some posts from Jay Lemke in the past. He
suggests these ideas could be applied to an activity system object, such
as, quoting Dale, "that sort of emergent "sense" of being that both arises
when activities move toward ... shall we say an object?...and (re)creates
its own sense of self as a result of that process." Dale also emphasizes
the importance of the developmental and constructive nature of the object,
along with the multi-faceted, even contradictory range of perspectives held
by the participants.
Mike (Jun 14) posted that he agreed that the activity system object has
both the task and social relationship aspects, just as we can speak of
labor activity in general as creating both means and relations of
production. He suggests this may be axiomatic to CHAT theory. He
wondered, however, whether adding the third aspect, the individual, isn't
adding a different analytical perspective.
Mike (same post) then brings up some questions along a new line of inquiry.
He asks how clearly the international and inter-ethnic aspects of the
EAWARN project came through to the reader. The LCHC was involved with this
project in the 1990's. In particular, Mike asks how clear to the readers
of Kirsten's paper the dynamics of the provision of Internet access and
resources to the FSU participants was - both from the point of view of the
impact of the internet on the participants and from the point of view of
the impact this project had on the internet and on Rossian computer
resources. Mike points out that this provision was one of the Carnegie
Corporation's central goals, and was inviting commentary on the
cross-mediation this likely created.
Kevin, Ricardo and Bruce (Jun 15) then posted useful questions and answers
about the German words for object, Objekt and Gegenstand. But this summary
is quite long enough and I will end it here!
- Steve
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