I agree with you too. It is not so much problematic (anymore) as long as we
are aware of the dynamic changes of the objects during the unfolding of an
activity; accompanied by the multi-layeredness of its meaning for different
or even the same participants.
I like here the "ascending to the concrete" methodology Yrjo suggested.
This is very esoteric when discussed without concrete examples.
I have to think a bit more about your remark that LBE does not work in less
structured settings which have little or no apparently structured scripts.
I think that in any setting there is a degree of unstructuredness and that
learning by expanding is taking advantage of this portion of the unscripted
and free aspects of the situation to start re-making the rules, the tools
and the "roles" (the division of labor).
Ana
At 10:10 AM 4/4/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>Just a quick post, Ana, I tend to agree with what you wrote below, but do
>not find it necessarily problematic (anymore). My take on object in lbe
>is that object is both material and ideal, ideal in that, for example,
>when the object of schooling is literate children, that may not
>materialized until the child is at the end of schooling. Similarly in the
>tool building industries. That there are differences in what meaning the
>collective object has for individuals becomes the source for disruptions
>and the potential for change (sometimes not realized) -- this is handled
>in the various kinds of dialectical contradictions Yrjo has laid out.
>
>One thing that i have learned is that the lbe framework does not handle
>well those settings in which there is not a great deal of
>routinization, i.e. scripts. Meeting over coffee or beer is outside of
>the domain in which the activity systems approach is viable -- while one
>can, for example, consider a division of labor regarding pouring the
>coffee, it is not one which is stabilized and conditioned by a
>developmental history of participation in that system, neither is the
>object, if there could even be such a thing in a chance meeting.
>
>That's why a historical analysis is so important. It helps to establish
>in part, whether the lbe modeling approach can be applied well to the
>situation. And it is not to say that all things must fit well for the
>model to work -- rather, where the model does not work is where the
>investigator is compelled to find out why, and how the differences between
>what is modeled and the model can be reconciled -- this, itself, is a
>dialectical development in the research system, focusing research inquiry
>at the "boundaries" of the model.
>
>my take also is that L*'s formulation of boundary object is quite
>different -- (I use both, and should probably delineate these better in
>writing) and this raises the issue that we all must address: what
>different notions of 'object' we bring to the interpretation of 'object'
>in lbe.
>
>my watch just told me I have gone into time-debt
>
>bb
>
>At 12:41 AM -0400 4/4/01, Ana Marjanovic Shane wrote:
> >
> >If we want to take "collective activity system" for an analytic unit,
> then I need more discussion of the notion of an "object" .
> >In my own work - regarding development of metaphors in children - that
> particular point of the triangular relationship between an individual and
> her communicative partners - I called a TOPIC. It seemed to me that as
> soon as an "object" enters into a social relationship as a mediating
> artefact, even if it is a focusing artefact, it becomes transformed into
> a "socially relevant object", i.e. a TOPIC or - that "thing" what the
> social relationship is about.
> >However, as soon as we make that transformation, the "object" becomes a
> complex system in itself with all kinds of dynamic "properties" that
> depend on every other relationship within the activity system. It may
> even not be the same "thing" for different participants in the "same"
> activity...
> >This is more apparent if we think of an "object" as a topic, because we
> are aware of the interpretative nature of the discourse (I think) and
> many possibilities for misinterpretations and multi-interpretations. We
> are maybe less aware of the interpretative nature of the activity
> systems, so it may look like the "object" is something more stable and
> more definite than it in fact is.
> >
>--
>Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
>Lesley University
>29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
>Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
>http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
>_______________________
>"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
> and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
>[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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