Learning and Expanding with Activity Theory

ISBN-13: 9780521758109 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 390 str.

Annalisa Sannino

Opis

The book is a collection about cultural-historical activity theory as it has been developed and applied by Yrjo Engestrom. The work of Engestrom is both rooted in the legacy of Vygotsky and Leont ev and focuses on current research concerns that are related to learning and development in work practices. His publications cross various disciplines and develop intermediate theoretical tools to deal with empirical questions. In this volume, Engestrom s work is used as a springboard to reflect on the question of the use, appropriation, and further development of the classic heritage within activity theory. The book is structured as a discussion among senior scholars, including Y. Engestrom himself. The work of the authors pushes on classical activity theory to address pressing issues and critical contradictions in local practices and larger social systems."

Recenzje

“Humanity develops primarily through cultural evolution, the ultra-fast process by which knowledge and tools are accumulated and handed over from generation to generation. One of the most important mechanisms of this process is the constitution and development of activity systems that organize people's actions in relation to shared objects. This book is a homage to Yrjö Engeström, the leading theoretician of learning as a vehicle of, and a vehicle for, cultural evolution. It is written by his best and closest intellectual partners. In the world according to Engeström, people transform themselves by transforming the activity systems which their acts are a part of. You may or may not subscribe to such a deeply materialistic view, but without finding out what happens at one of its hottest frontiers, the field of contemporary research on learning will remain closed to you. This book is actually your key to it.”
– Ference Marton, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Spis treści

1. Activity theory between historical engagement and future-making practice Annalisa Sannino, Harry Daniels and Kris Gutierrez; Part I. Units of Analysis: 2. Cultural-historical activity theory and organization studies Frank Blackler; 3. Uses of activity theory in written communication and research David R. Russell; 4. On the inclusion of emotions, identity, and ethico-moral dimensions of actions Wolff-Michael Roth; Part II. Mediation and Discourse: 5. Mediation as a means of changing collective activity Vladislav A. Lektorsky; 6. Digital technology and mediation: a challenge to activity theory Georg Rückriem; 7. Contextualizing social dilemmas in institutional practices: negotiating objects of activity in labour market organizations Åsa Mäkitalo and Roger Säljö; Part III. Expansive Learning and Development: 8. The concept of development in cultural-historical activity theory: vertical and horizontal Michael Cole and Natalia Gajdamashko; 9. Two theories of organizational knowledge and creation Jaakko Virkkunen; 10. Contradictions of high technology capitalism and the emergence of new forms of work Reijo Miettinen; 11. Spinozic re-considerations on the concept of activity: politico-affective process and discursive practice in the transitive learning Shuta Kagawa and Yuji Moro; Part IV. Subjectivity, Agency, and Community: 12. From the systemic to the relational: relational agency and activity theory Anne Edwards; 13. Expansive agency in multi-activity collaboration Katsuhiro Yamazumi; 14. The communicative construction of community: authority and organizing James R. Taylor; 15. Research leadership: productive research communities and the integration of research fellows Sten Ludvigsen and Turi Øwre Digernes; Part V. Interventions: 16. Who is acting in an activity system Ritva Engeström; 17. Past experiences and recent challenges in participatory design research Susanne Bødker; 18. Clinic of activity: the dialogue as instrument Yves Clot; 19. Epilogue: the future of activity theory Yrjö Engeström.