Dear XMCA-o-philes,
There are two papers in the XMCA "papers for discussion" section that
I am sure the authors would like comments on. The first by Michelle Minnis
and Vera John-Steiner, the second by Carl Ratner. The following passages
from the Minnis and Steiner article, a review of the Engestrom et al
Perspectives in Activity Theory book seem to me a rich source challenges
for folks to think about and comment on. On the off chance that there are
some relaxed vacation-filled members of xmca who might be interested in
discussion, I have copied those passages and will make an opening comment.
Lets see what grows. someone might want to do the same for Carl's article.
mike
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Much of the power of Perspectives lies in its penetrating discussions, scattered throughout the chapters, about AT's relationships to theories in other traditions.
While the book gives much attention to these cross-theoretical articulations, it does not gives comparable attention to other contemporary theories in the Vygotskian
tradition. The Introduction does mention Wertsch's socio-cultural theory and its unit of analysis, mediated action (Wertsch 1995, 1997), as well as Lave and
Wenger's theory of situated learning and its unit of analysis, community of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991), and Rogoff's related idea of community of learners
(Rogoff, 1995; Rogoff, Radziszewska, and Masiello, 1995). But these references are brief and focus on the relative weaknesses of these other theoretical
approaches in areas staked out as central to activity theory. There is no effort to show how each of these theories accentuates aspects of the Vygotskian
legacy about which activity theory is silent. This comment also applies to cultural-historical theory, the one other Vygotskian theory repeatedly mentioned in the
book. In Perspectives, activity theory and cultural-historical theory are treated as if they were either identical, or interchangeable, or so closely related that their
combination as CHAT was well understood and long established. But none of these conditions obtains. What is needed is a systematic, thorough, and thoughtful
comparative analysis of the scope and particular strengths of all the theoretical approaches that have grown out of the seminal work of Vygotsky, Luria, and
Leont'ev.
Considered alone, activity theory is masterful in the social domain. It is most convincing when it is focused on activity systems in teams and organizations. But it does
not resolve well at the level of the individual person. We miss in this collected work the documentation of simultaneous transformations in activity systems and in
individual actors in these systems. There is only one instance of that in Perspectives, the longitudinal study by Bujarski, Hildebrand-Nilshon, and Kordt. The young
man in that study is one of the few persons we remember from the book.
A true bridging of the individual and social domains, as the Introduction promised AT could provide, would permit concurrent monitoring of change in various
subsystems and in units of analysis appropriate to each. The focus of inquiry at a particular moment or on a particular issue would determine the immediate salience
of a subsystem. For example, in examining literacy development as an activity system, a full analysis would include an examination of simultaneous changes within the
brain and nervous system, in individual consciousness, in intersubjective relationships, and in artifact-mediated social dynamics in the classroom, in the family, and in
larger institutional and cultural systems.
The mention of culture raises another dimension overlooked in this book. Although various cultures and national histories are represented by the authors of
Perspectives, the book itself contains no cross-cultural research. It lacks, that is, any attempt at comparative analysis of culturally-patterned activity systems. It is
also incomplete in the kinds of changes it treats. That is, Perspectives is so oriented to learning, expansion, and development, that it overshadows both the perils and
renovating possibilities of destructive cycles. It is only in Ryle's chapter (and, to some extent, in a couple of others not mentioned in the review) that the possibility of
disintegrating transformations, their functions, and their trajectories is considered.
........ (buffer died out here, but there is more
to be had on the web page........
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Comment/Question:
Michelle and Vera state:
In Perspectives, activity theory and cultural-historical theory are treate
d as if they were either identical, or interchangeable, or so closely related th
at their
ng established. But none of these conditions obtains.
------
I would be helped a lot if someone could summarize important disagreements
betweenb Leontiev and Vygotsky. I do not mean differences in emphasis, but
disagreements. I failed to detect them in the recent reading of Leontiev,
but it was an overly busy time for me and perhaps I was not paying proper
attention.
My null hypothesis: There are no principled disagreements with empirical
consequences.
mike
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