Kwang-Su,
I wish i could just say yes or no. But i think it is important to locate
this question as institutional - that is, it is an academic question and so
implicates an academic context, in this case, you are asking about word
meanings in an article. The article, furthermore, is a discourse of a
particular
theoretical frame: Activity Theory. I cannot say anything about
Activity Theory (it is not an area i am well-read in); however,
what is interesting is your question of Activity as a term. So,
what follows is my response to your question as one of conceptual practices;
that is, theory as a practice of conceptual work.
The history of this word "praxis" is quite interesting - it seems to be
strewn throughout histories of what has been predominantly
patriarchal language structures, defining and establishing the
functions for any particular word.
So, praxis is not necessarily specific - clearly it is complex and
dispersed both as a concept, and, crucially, it is most often positioned
as a claim to a particular activity (here i mean activity, which is
different from Activity in conceptual practice, the capitalization alone
signals something about its
meaning, e.g., authorized as a particular theory)
In the context of your question, i think that Theory is the activity you
are asking about; however, i can also agree that
"praxis" can be a local activity that is practiced globally.
i think of "Activity" as a naive theory:
where a "naive" theory is apolitical, lacking accounts of political relations,
and lacking accountability for how these power relations structure
privilege (what books will be referred to? whose theory will influence this
thinking? what faculty of knowledge make claims to certain meanings? and so
on) -
these are the relations that determine participation, and
these are the relations that work to contain/limit or determine what is
significant, and/or make claims regarding "activity" -
Activity, as a term, is deliberately benign, but i would not say general;
"Activity" as a term is itself institutional activity,
a carefullt constructed concept,
it is nonetheless built upon innocent assumptions about what happens when
people are acting in any context or activity.
Activity is academic theorizing. That is the dominant activity.
In my writing and reading in academic contexts, I have chosen to understand
"praxis" as explicitly political, and as potentially "radical" when it
engages an interrogation of institutional authority, complicity and power;
i say this
because these are the only contexts that I have encountered the word as
a claim about political activity that takes sides with the oppressed.
Activity is a categorical tool required for a particular kind of
theorizing. In terms of what happens in the real world, whatever word you
use to frame an understanding will determine what has meaning. If you read
a phenomenon, in the service of Activity Theory, then activity will have
meaning from those conceptual practices.
If you are engaged with Activity Theory, however, and make use of terms that
have different histories than AT, then i think it's important to be
accountable for that.
I think the issue that might need clarification is how Activity Theory is an
activity of conceptualization and writing about sociohistorical interpretations.
it is like trying to understand the difference between brain and mind and
soul without locating these within the historical flesh of one's own
body...
.
It will eventually be up to you to establish meaningful parameters
for how you want to use/understand the words as relations to
institutional histories, in this case, in the institutional activity of
Activity Theory.
I am referring mostly here to the work that has been done by
Dorothy Smiith and the politics of academic theory claims are quite
briliantly discussed and explored in
(1990) _Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge_
(Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press.)
i hope i've made some sort of sense here.
i don't really see
these as simple questions, even as they certainly can be simplified:
i am not sure that conceptual simplification in any social
theory provides much substance for the work of developing social theory
that has material (flesh-based/people) relevance..
diane
""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""
When she walks,
the revolution's coming.
In her hips, there's revolution.
When she talks, I hear revolution.
In her kiss, I taste the revolution.
(poem by Kathleen Hanna: Riot Grrl)
******************************************
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia
centre for the study of curriculum and knowledge
vancouver, british columbia, canada