The kind of work for which Wertsch argues in his conclusion is
recognizably Vygotskian in inspiration, but it is no longer, traditionally
speaking, a psychological enterprise. Wertsch argues, in effect, for the
construction of an integrative, critical, and self-critical social science
which incorporates a psychological 'moment' without separating this from
its wider context. This amounts to a revision of Vygotsky, inasmuch as it
implies that the 'object' of psychology - its unit of analysis, in
Vygotsky's terms - is no longer psychological at all, even in the
dialectical sense conceived by Vygotsky. Rather, the methodological
proposal is to focus analyses upon activity settings: that is, to
construct a psychosocial theory of situations and situated practices.
Within this framework, the role of psychology would be to approach the
definition of situation from the side, as it were, of the subject (or
subjects), rather than from the side of institutions. The institutional
moment, however, is implied in the subjective moment, since the subjective
appropriation of situational practices - the acting-in and
being-subjected-to of the practices - is incomprehensible without an
understanding of the regimes which regulate both subjects and situations.