Dear Merja
I was wondering -- if objects are produced and transformed or become slippery is it that they do so in the relations between
different perspectives that are brought to activities by participants and their histories. Given that they are often tacit and not open to articulation there is an interesting question as to how a new participant in an activity orients themselves to the object which is hegemonic at a particular moment. I suppose I am still pondering on the value of analysing the discourses on the object that maintain an activity and hence considering the discursive field which allows for / shapes the possibilities for subject positions in that field. This may be a way of understanding the formation of objects in the relation between collective activity and indivcidual actions.
This is ( a probably unwise) attempt at thinking aloud in what for me is an unfamiliar medium
Harry
[Harry Daniels]
helsinki.fi]
Sent: 18 June 2003 13:10
To:
Subject: chasing object(s)
The object seems to be evolving also in our discussions and 'object ' is slippery indeed as Foot/Engeström remind us.
"The object should not be confused with a conscious goal or aim. In activity theory, conscious goals are
related to discrete, finite, and individual actions; objects are related to continuous, collective activity
systems and their motives...The slippery and transitional nature of objects sometimes evokes a denial
of their very existence."
In Helsinki many of us use the distinction between collective activity and individual/group actions and their goals, and how they influence each other, see Leontjev.
So in that sense there is no individual activity. Perspectives, interests, tensions are used to describe the slipperiness and multifacedness of the object.
Acouple of years ago I collected a list of concepts/approaches people in our center have been using in their writings about the object that.
My hunch is there are new ones out there.
*Emerging concepts of discussion: Potential object , *Rhetorical object , Disrupted object.
This also points to the issue of the temporal dimension of the object of activity. A historical analysis of a long station social 'institution' like heatlh service can produce an evolving object from curing a sickness to preventive medicine. But what about emerging forms of e. g. net/knotworking, scientific or design projects. How to figure out their object, if there ever will be a common enough and enduring object of an activity system?
*Object of activity/Y. Engeström
*Dual/double object/Miettinen
Epistemic object/Miettinen/Knorr-Cetina
*Emerging object/Hasu
*Partial object/Hasu
*Heterogeneous object/Contested
*field of negotiations/helle
*Shared object (in Competence Laboratory)/Ahonen
*Referential object/R.Engerström
*Boundary crossing object/Toiviainen
*Temporary object/activity in Border Crossing Laboratory/Kkerosuo
*Practical object of transformation/Miettinen/Hyysalo
*Objest as a learning Challenge/Seppänen
*Developmental task/Mott
*Object-tool shift/Miettinen etc
*Boundary actions/Kerosuo
*Boundary object/Star
*Levels of operations/Engeström Y.
Merja
working on an article about the heterogeneous object of journalism/publishing
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Merja Helle
Researcher
Center for Activity Theory
Box 47
00140 University of Helsinki
Finland
e-mail:merja.helle@helsinki.fi
phone 358-(0)50-4485 111
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You'll never know the facts before you know the fiction"
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