Hi,
Perhaps you have all gone through this debate before, but I will give it
try: What do you consider being the correct unit of analysis for
understanding human activity? I am reading the works of Yrjö Engeström quite
a lot now and he states that the prime unit of analysis is a collective,
artefact-mediated and object-oriented activity system. Others, such as James
Wertsch, state the correct unit is an individual acting with mediational
means. Meantime, Mike has for example stated that “Mediated action and its
activity context are two moments of a single process, and whatever we want
to specify as psychological processes is but a moment of their combined
properties.”, which to me sounds like something in the middle of Engeström’s
and Wertsch’s descriptions.
PhD student that I am, I might be totally off track here, but it would be
interesting to hear your views on this since I am thinking about this in
relation to studying the online game World of Warcraft as a learning
environment. As far as I can see, it can have large effects on a study if
one chooses to study individuals and their meditational means, compared to
also incorporating the whole activity system (including its history).
Best,
Patrik Bergman
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