Abstract
As the editors of the book point out in the Introduction, the authors of the volume have common interests in the study of practices about knowledge generation and mobilization (Daniels et al., 2010: 1). This interest is addressed through the lens of what had been called ‘one of the best kept secrets of the academia’ (Roth and Lee, 2007: 186): activity theory, a theory that inherits the constructivist work of Lev Vygotsky and a whole tradition of scholars that developed what is now known as the second and third generation of the cultural historical activity theory (Engeström, 2001).
Interestingly, this theory developed by the Helsinki activity theory group of researchers, had been receiving some interest in organization studies; however it is still of minor use in those academic circles (Blackler, 2009). Nevertheless, the first three chapters of the book are focused on the potential of this framework to address relevant questions that researchers of this field of study have been struggling with. In those chapters, the Helsinki group of researchers deals with problems about process optimization (Kallio), the production of health care service (Nummijoki and Engeström) and about collaborative work between education and the workplace (Virkkunen, Makinen and Lintula). What is interesting about the school of Helsinki, and its version of the activity theory, is the interventional approach that this group of researchers puts into practice. This is something that Jaakko Virkkunen had explained elsewhere as the imperative to put forward practical ideas in order to change societal activities (Virkkunen, 2009: 146). This is a fundamental difference from other knowledge production theories. Cultural historical activity theoretical informed studies of the Finnish tradition look for the revelation of possibilities of emancipation (Virkkunen, 2009: 147).
The emancipation search is closely related to a fundamental aspect of the Engeström version of activity theory, which is the idea of the basic contradictions in the capitalism system and the socialization of the forces of production. Here, the work of Marx in the Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy is a fundamental antecedent. Within this Marxist line of analysis, Virkkunen points out that the socialization of production forces becomes increasingly complex (Virkkunen, 2006: 61) Activity theory-oriented studies are a comprehensive path to study and actively understand the complexity of the actual socialization of production forces.
Studying the problem of collaboration between the workplace and professional education, Virkkunen, Makinen and Lintula advance a robust idea of how to deal with what activity theorists call the expansion of the object. In this case, the object is the academic activity in Finnish vocational education. In activity theory the concept of the object has a very particular meaning that evolved historically. It was Leont’ev who formulated the historically evolving object idea as one of the fundamental pillars of activity. This object is the unit of analysis and over all is the illuminating model to find out the origin and constitution of the human mind (Roth and Lee, 2007: 189). The object of the activity is the ‘raw material’ or ‘problem space’ at which the activity is directed and which is shaped or transformed into outcomes with the help of artefacts (Hasu and Engeström, 2000: 63) In Leont’ev’s words: ‘It is the object of the activity that endows it with a certain orientation. The expression “objectless activity” has no meaning at all’ (Leont’ev, 1978: 52). So what the Finnish authors follow is the historical change of vocational education as an object and the correspondent interconnections of this object with practitioner activity. This provides orientation and leads to the learning process of this particular group of practitioners.
Nummijoki and Engeström advance, in Chapter 3, a practical exploration about how care service production is shaped by a phenomenon named co-configuration. Bart Victor and Andrew Boynton (1998: 193–297) have used the term ‘co-configuration work’ for a form of production that is characterized by the following features: (1) a customer-intelligent product that can be continuously adapted to changing conditions and customer needs; (2) a collaborative value-creation system in which the value is not produced in the provider activity nor in the user activity separately but in the interaction and collaboration between them; (3) reconfiguring of the product by the client. The customer can ‘teach’ the product; (4) continuous customization. The producer does not customize the product only once but continuously and updates it continuously, for instance through changes in the software. The product becomes increasingly well adapted to customers’ needs but is never complete. The Finnish authors observe that in the health care arena, the client is actively contributing in his or her own care at home. The authors, building on a traditional programme of more than 20 years about care organizations advanced an approach where the agency is considered as a quality of each individual and at the same time as a collaborative effort (Engeström, 2005)
In Chapter 3, the authors build on previous analysis of the central contradictions between the evolution of the home care worker and the home care client; from this previous study and interventions in the care system a tool called ‘Mobility Agreement’ emerged. This tool embodied the work of researchers and practitioners and included the expanded object where the necessities of the care givers and the care home clients have come together. The new object and the mediation of the tool must be studied in the interaction of the care giver and the care receiver. In congruence with the interventionist approach of the Finnish activity theory school, Nummijoki and Engeström designed a research methodology where they could understand this interaction and consequently the use and deployment of the new tool. An interesting point about the study of the interaction is the use of conversation analysis (CA) using video records of the experimental visits of the care givers to the client’s home. This chapter definitely offers interesting empirical material and some new theoretical avenues to the so-called third generation of activity theory (Engeström, 1999)
After the presentation of the Finnish block, the book offers four chapters developed by British scholars. These chapters have a common root in the ‘Learning in and for Interagency Working’ (LIW) project, a project that between 2004 and 2007 was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP). This project had the focus on ‘examining and supporting the learning of professionals who are engaged in the creation of new forms of multiagency practice’ (Learning in and for Interagency Working, 2004–2007). Chapter 4: ‘Expansive learning, expansive labour (Warmington and Leadbetter); Chapter 5: ‘Identifying learning in interprofessional discourse: The development of an analytic protocol’ (Middleton); Chapter 6: ‘Implicit or invisible mediation in the development of interagency work’ (Daniels) and Chapter 7: ‘Working relationally at organizational boundaries: negotiating expertise and identity’ (Edwards and Kinti) are empirical and theoretically connected with the cited research project. They directly build on the analysis of data and the creation of methodological solutions of this particular application of activity theory in the British context.
Maybe the most interesting common point of the chapters is the commitment to the expansion of the theory and, on the other hand, the methodology. In Warmington and Leadbetter’s work, there is a clear attempt to further expand the connection that activity theory has with the ideas of Marx. This is particularly attractive for researchers that are studying the relation between the social production of labour power and how this phenomenon is closely connected with the object of work activities. Following the ideas of the Finnish school the LIW project engaged with an interventionist methodology called developmental work research (DWR) (Engeström, 1999; Leadbetter et al., 2007). This intervention arranged in sessions/workshops of what the Finnish scholars called the ‘change laboratory’ is where the practices of the professionals are confronted with the theoretical tools from activity theory, permitting the emergence of the contradictions and leading to new ways to do the work activity (Warmington et al., 2004). What this insight offers is an improved cycle of expansive learning (Engeström, 1987) where the labour power is closely connected with the expansion of learning within the activity and at the same time gives possibilities for further expansion of the object and the learning process.
One of the fields where activity theory had been prominently used is that of information technology and information system research. As Kary Kuutti (1996) mentions, activity theory has become a theoretical framework that offers some important solutions to the ‘increasing criticism’ of the information processing cognitive psychology approaches to human-computer interaction research (HCI). In his view, activity theory succeeded in proposing solutions to this research and practical design problem. In the book, this stream of research is presented in the practical work of Chapter 10, where the Norwegian practice-oriented researchers (Mørch, Nygård and Ludvigsen) develop an important feature of the framework—the idea that there is an ongoing process of adaptation that responds to the changing nature of the activity object. This case offers some interesting insights about a software product development process.
The last chapter by Lund, Rasmussen and Smørdal is related to a traditionally important subject for activity theorists: education. The authors elaborate some outcomes that are closely connected with the research work of their academic group at the Faculty of Education at the University of Oslo, InterMedia (UiO InterMedia, 2011), research that is located in the intersection of information technology and academic activity. Following Blackler (2009) we could say that this connection between information technology and education presents a particularly fertile place for cultural historical activity theory, because the framework developed by Engestrom makes available a useful explanation of the relations between objects, individuals and language a strong account of agency by featuring the dynamics of relations between individuals, language and artefacts. The study of wikis for academic purposes is a natural topic for researchers that look for interdisciplinary studies about design of learning and virtual environments where students and educators interact and communicate each other.
Finally, a last word of caution if the reader is trying to avoid any superficial use of the insights that cultural historical activity offers. First, as Roth and Lee (2007: 197) point out the truly difficult aspect of the use of activity theory is the dialectical nature of activity theoretical analysis where the categories try to ‘be categorical universals because they assert the mutual presupposition of opposites’. Without this dialectic comprehension there is no possible way to understand how organizations, classrooms and any other non-alive entities can perform outwardly acts of learning like human beings. Second, as Engeström (2008: 258) recently pointed out, activity theory is build on a Marxist analysis of history and society and in a capitalist firm the motives of the alienation—that is based in the distance/gap between the activity object and the personal object of the persons who work within the firm—is not just based on the division of labour but mainly in the private ownership of the object of the activity. So, activity theory always looks for a critical reflection about the management notions regarding objects and purposes of the firm and the workers.
When activities and their constituent working spheres/engagements and actions are analyzed historically, with a keen eye on their inherent contradictions, many disturbances and dilemmas in everyday flows of work begin to make sense, more importantly, new zones of proximal development emerge as possibilities of expansive transformation (Engeström, 2008: 258).
Is within these zones of proximal development and expansive transformation that the practitioners experience the learning process and expand their knowledge.