[xmca] MCA Call for papers: Concept Formation in the Wild

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

Mind, Culture, and Activity: An International Journal.
Call for Papers

Special issue on “Concept Formation in the Wild”

DEADLINES. Abstracts submission: April 15 2011. Manuscripts submission: 
July 15 2011

Guest editors Yrjö Engeström <mailto:yrjo.engestrom@helsinki.fi> and 
Annalisa Sannino <mailto:annalisa.sannino@helsinki.fi> (University of 
Helsinki)

It is commonly accepted that concepts are among the basic building 
blocks of human cognition, knowledge, and learning. What is not so often 
realized in cognitive science and educational research is that coping 
with the world requires that we operate with increasingly complex 
theoretical concepts. Terms like terrorism, global warming, HIV-AIDS, 
globalization, or human genome are not merely words. They are names for 
multi-faceted and ill-bounded - sometimes monstrous - objects, ideas, 
and practices, which human beings and their institutions desperately try 
to understand and manage, or /conceptualize./

It is not an accident that in many languages the word ‘concept’ (e.g., 
in German ‘Begriff’) is derived from the word ‘to grasp’, literally to 
take or grab with one’s hand. It is equally interesting that the English 
word concept is related to ‘conceiving’, that is, imagining, envisioning 
or making up a possible future state of affairs. These two roots 
indicate the dual meaning of concepts: they are practical tools for 
handling and mastering objects, and they are also future-oriented 
visions or ways of world-making.

The examples listed above make it clear that complex concepts are 
restless, contested and contradictory. They carry ethical and 
ideological challenges. They evolve and generate surprising 
manifestations. They cannot be easily defined and put to rest as 
categories in a dictionary. In other words, our conceptualizations also 
grab and mold us. Yet we need concepts as tools, which makes it 
necessary that we try to fix and stabilize them, at least temporarily.

Standard cognitive theories of conceptual change have been preoccupied 
with the individual formation of stable, well-defined and relatively 
neutral concepts, typically those taught in schools in natural sciences 
and mathematics. These theories offer relatively little for the 
understanding of collective formation of and work with emergent, 
unstable and contradictory complex concepts. Concept formation ‘in the 
wild’, especially in workplaces and grassroots community movements, is 
practically absent in these studies.

The study of concept formation in the wild may require and foster 
epistemological and theoretical approaches that differ radically from 
dominant ideas about concepts. The Hegelian and Marxist legacy of 
understanding theoretical concepts in terms of ascending from the 
abstract to the concrete (Il’enkov, Davydov) is one such avenue. Ideas 
of double stimulation (Vygotsky), conceptual blending and material 
anchors (Hutchins), model-based reasoning (Nersessian), cognitive trails 
(Cussins), social representations (Moscovici, Markova), and embodied 
cognition (Lakoff, Gibbs) are further examples of promising openings.

The special issue is aimed at bringing together alternative theoretical 
and methodological frameworks for studies of concept formation in 
historically changing practical activities, organizations and 
institutions. In this context, concepts are understood as collective, 
emergent and contested constructs that have serious practical 
consequences. The articles of the issue will be selected so as to 
represent theoretically and empirically important studies in this 
emerging field of inquiry.

We are especially interested in articles that illuminate the 
relationship among the three categories that are on the journal's 
masthead (mind, culture, and activity). We also encourage potential 
contributors to look back over prior issues of MCA to see what topics 
have been visited and especially how the authors' work contributes to 
the problematics of MCA.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS

Potential contributors should first submit an abstract of their 
manuscript. Abstracts should be up to 500 words in length. The authors 
of selected abstracts will be then asked to submit manuscripts up to 
8,000 words in length. Manuscripts will be subject to peer review 
process. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the /Publication 
Manual of the American Psychological Association /(5th ed.) For further 
information and abstract submission, please write to 
contactmca@lchc.ucsd.edu <mailto:contactmca@lchc.ucsd.edu>.

PLEASE CIRCULATE AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE


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