Engestrom et al. (1999) Perspectives on Activity Theory (4)

Engestrom (1999) provides a close analysis of activity theory, activity systems and expansive learning, the latter occurring when tensions in an activity system are exposed. The exposure of tensions within an activity system can lead to the system’s reconfiguration, via expansive learning. 

Engestrom touches on the Marxist roots of activity theory, by affirming it ‘is based on a dialectical theory of knowledge and thinking’ (p. 378). The tensions within an existing system are the breeding ground for new forms of knowledge.

Engestrom is particularly interested in the object node in an activity system, and in the determining effects of the object node. Activity theory argues that purposeful human activities are mediated through tools (material or symbolic), but Engestrom also argues, ‘Activities are social practices oriented at objects’ (p. 380). Hence, ‘the object gains motivating force that gives shape and direction to activity. The object determines the horizon of possible actions’ (p381). The object of the activity system, therefore, shapes the parameters of the activity, as the activity is configured to attain the object (though an object and an eventual outcome need not be one and the same).

Engestrom’s analysis becomes more complex when he distinguishes objects from goals: ‘Objects are not to be confused with goals. Goals are attached to specific actions. Actions have clear points of beginning and termination and relatively short half-lives. Activity systems evolve through long historical cycles in which clear beginnings and ends are difficult to determine’ (p. 381). The essential difference appears to be one of scale; specific actions can be directed towards goals, but activity systems are more longitudinal, in the sense that, being dialectical, they exacerbate and expose tensions over time.

Building on his understanding of the importance of objects in activity systems, and on the distinction between objects and the more localised, immediate and thus more easily identifiable goals, Engestrom writes, ‘being a horizon, the object is never fully reached or conquered’ (p. 381). It appears to me that activity systems are more likely to get reconfigured under the pressure of their own internal contradictions than they are to get fully and unproblematically realised, other than in the short term context of a specific action leading to a goal. Tension between nodes appears to be the natural state of activity systems over time. 

Given the focus on change over time, and the distinction between objects and goals, Engestrom draws a further distinction, between innovative learning and an expansive cycle. The former can be localised, but the latter needs a more substantial temporal frame in which to play through: ‘Miniature cycles of innovative learning should be regarded as potentially expansive. A large-scale, expansive cycle of organizational transformation always consists of small cycles of innovative learning. However, the appearance of small-scale cycles of innovative learning does not in itself guarantee that an expansive cycle is going on’ (p. 385). Hence, the localised event of innovative learning can signify the emergence of expansive learning, but need not necessarily do so. However, one form of innovative learning prompting another and another comprises the ground work and the catalyst for expansive learning.

Engestrom also constructs a similar distinction between a solution innovation and a trajectory innovation: ‘A solution innovation typically applies only to the specific case for which it was invented, whereas a trajectory innovation is aimed at becoming a more or less permanent, repeatedly used procedure. Of course, it is possible that a solution innovation is subsequently repeated consciously in similar new situations, thus becoming a trajectory innovation. Conversely, a trajectory innovation may fail to generalize beyond the first application, thus effectively becoming a one-time solution innovation’ (p. 387).  Again, the essence of the distinction is between a localised event, and a bigger, structural change. However, the solution innovation can comprise a template that can be applied to solve other problems, hence establishing itself as a trajectory innovation, without having been conceived as one in the first place.

Engetsrom’s article as a whole brings additional complexity to activity theory, activity systems and expansive learning. The article argues that changes in activity systems and the emergence of expansive learning are only observable over time (typically, 2 to 3 years in research studies). However, individual innovations can develop into expansive transformations. Individual innovations, therefore, are unlikely to arise on the basis of an analysis of an activity system, and are more likely to be constructed in the face of an immediate, not recognisably structural, problem. However, localised solutions can accumulate, thus creating the conditions in which existing, structural problems are more manifest, leading to a collective desire to overhaul the existing structure, and replace it with an activity system better suited to its current context.

Reference

Engestrom, Y. (1999) ‘Innovative learning in work teams: Analyzing cycles of knowledge creation in practice,’ in Y. Engestrom, R. Miettinen and R.-L. Punamaki (eds.) Perspectives on Activity Theory,Cambridge,CambridgeUniversity Press, pp. 377-404.

 

 

 

 

Allman et al. (2003) ‘After the Box People…’

Allman et al. argue, from a Marxist perspective, that education plays a key role in perpetuating capitalist society. They see the underperformance of working class students, relative to their middle class peers, as an inevitability given the function of education in capitalist society, and see research that identifies the relative underperformance of working class students as ‘non-research’ (p. 2).

Where Allman et al.’s analysis overlaps with Activity Theory (Engestrom 1987, 2001) is in relation to dialectics, but Allman et al. centre their analysis on the primarily economic and political concept of class. They argue, ‘All dialectical contradictions are internal relations’ (p. 6) which links with Activity Theory in the sense that Engestrom argues conflicts occur internally between nodes in an activity system. Allman et al. develop their argument by suggesting that one of the antagonists in a dialectical relationship benefits from the status quo and will thus have an interest in sustaining it, whereas the other party can only marginally improve its circumstances within the existing relationship and will therefore have an interest in getting rid of the relationship. Engestrom’s analysis is less interested in the balance of power in conflicts between individual nodes.

Allman et al., citing Rikowski, also see tension within the subject: ‘We are social beings incorporating antithetical social drives and forces’ (Rikowski 2001, p. 20, cited in Allman et al. 2003, p. 18). Where Engestrom sees the subject as a node within a system in which conflict is inevitable, Allman et al. see conflict inhering within the subject. Moreover, Allman et al. cite Merrifield’s analysis, which argues that ‘class is always a dynamic process, an intricate battle of roles and relationships’ (Merrifield 2001, pp. 74-75, cited in Allman et al. 2003, p. 21). Applying the Activity Theory framework to Merrifield’s analysis, class itself becomes an activity system, with its own social nodes and inevitable conflicts.

Allman et al. argue conflict between labour and capital is inevitable, as the wealth generated by people in their labour exceeds what they obtain for their labour, with the surplus being retained by the capitalist. They cite Marx in Volume 1 of Capital who, writing before the advent of mass state education, identifies a structural feature of work which prevails irrespective of the kind of work being undertaken: ‘a school master is a productive worker when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his pupils, he works himself into the ground to enrich the owner of the school. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of a sausage factory, makes no difference to the relation’ (Marx 1867, p. 644, cited in Allman et al. 2003, p. 8).

Viewing education and society through an explicitly political lens, Allman et al. see the expansion in higher education as serving an end of capitalism: ‘One of capital’s needs, on a global scale, is millions of young people with a similar skill level – often a very high level. This is not because there are jobs for all of these people. Rather, their level of skills will make them eligible to compete with one another for the jobs that do require this level of skill, thereby, as is true of all competition, driving down the value of their labour-powers expressed as wages’ (p. 9).

Allman et al. argue that educators can present alternative value systems to students, calling their approach ‘revolutionary critical education.’ However, rather than lay down a template for how this new approach might look, they argue it is more ‘praxiological than prescored. The path is made by walking, as it were’ (p. 19). There is a further, and presumably unintentional, overlap with Engestrom in this regard, as his theory of Expansive Learning (1987, 2001) is centred on constructing new knowledge out of existing conflicts, but without the end of learning being known a priori.

That there are similarities between Allman et al.’s Marxist reading of education and Engestrom’s Activity Theory is not surprising, as Activity Theory has its roots in research undertaken in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. The modern link between the two may be found in Avis (2009) who argues that Engestrom eschews the political implications of his own analysis.

References
Allman, P., McLaren, P. & Rikowski, G. (2003) ‘After the Box People: The Labour-Capital Relation as Class Constitution and its Consequences for Marxist Educational Theory and Human Resistance,’ in J. Freeman-Moir & A. Scott (Eds.) Yesterday’s Dreams: International and Critical Perspectives on Education and Social Class, Christchurch, NZ, Canterbury University Press. Also available at http://gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/pages/mclaren/Publications/afterthebox_AllmanMcLarenRikowski.pdf (accessed 7 June 2011).

Avis, J. (2009) ‘Transformation or transformism: Engestrom’s version of activity theory?’ Educational Review, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 151-165.

Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 28 April 2011).

Engestrom, Y. (2001) ‘Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization,’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 133-156.

Marx, K. (1867 [1976]) Capital: a critique of political economy – Volume 1, Harmondsworth, Penguin.

Merrifield, A. (2001) ‘Metro Marxism, or Old and Young Marx in the City,’ Socialism and Democracy, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 63-84.

Rikowski, G. (2001) ‘After the Manuscript Broke Off: Thoughts on Marx, Social Class and Education,’ a paper presented at the British Sociological Association Education Group, King’s College London, 23 June.

Literature round-up

Awaiting the reports on the pilot study, I’m catching up on reading. I’m also preparing my paper for the European Conference on E-Learning.

The subject node in an activity system is particularly problematic because contradiction can be inscribed within it. If there is a gap between the subject’s use value, the functional value of what they produce, and the subject’s exchange value, the wealth their labour creates for their employer (which exceeds the subject’s rewards for their labour), then some contradiction is created for the subject. Daniels and Warmington (2007) argue the subject node in the activity system is under-theorised, as the system takes insufficient account of the relations within and between subjects.

Part of education’s function is shaped by the economic and political context within which education occurs. Hence, for example, the Education Act of 1870 existed primarily to make UK subjects functioning units within a fully-fledged industrial economy (regulated hours of attendance, regulated conduct within the institution, punishment for transgression). Rikowski (2002) argues, ‘General education… nurtures those attitudes and personality traits pertinent to working in capitalist enterprises in general’ (p. 20).

Activity Theory presupposes that activity is purposeful. There is no activity system without an object. Engestrom and Kerosuo (2007) argue that Activity Theory ‘is strongly committed to pedagogical and interventionist actions to facilitate and change learning’ (p.337). Hence, as a practical approach to learning it is not about waiting for change to happen via the internal pressures of contradictions, but, instead, provoking change through an analysis of activity systems and the contradictions between their various nodes.

Activity Theory argues that human activity is mediated through tools, a term broadly defined to include signs and codes as well as physical artefacts. However, and as with subjects, the tools node is complex, as Engestrom and Blackler (2005) argue (using objects to signify tools, not objects to signify outcomes): ‘First, it would be a mistake to assume that objects are “just given”; objects are constructed by actors…. Second, at the same time it would also be a mistake to assume that objects are constructed arbitrarily on the spot; objects have histories and built-in affordances, they resist and “bite back”’ (p. 310). On the one hand, meanings for objects (tools) are constructed by users through usage, but on the other hand objects have a back-story created by their previous uses, which are likely to exert an influence on how they are used subsequently. Using an object in an unfamiliar way can provoke resistance.

A significant value and potential of Activity Theory is that it can expose contradictions in existing human activity, and posit alternatives. In this sense it is empowering, and can, potentially, resolve contradictions experienced within subjects. Rikowski (2002), placing his analysis within an explicitly political context, defines Marxism as a ‘promethean scream: we are everything, there are no gods, no superhuman forces. People are the sole creators, it is labour alone which constitutes social reality’ (p. 1).

References
Daniels, H. and Warmington, P. (2007) ‘Analysing third generation activity systems: labour-power, subject position and personal transformation,’ Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 377-391.

Engestrom, Y. and Blackler, F. (2005) ‘On the life of the object,’ Organization, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 307-330.

Engestrom, Y. and Kerosuo, H. (2007) ‘From workplace learning to inter-organizational learning and back: the contribution of activity theory,’ Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 19, no. 6, pp.336-352.

Rikowski, G. (2002) ‘Methods for researching the social production of labour power in capitalism,’ University College Northampton School of Education research seminar, 7 March 2002.

Warmington et al. (2005) ‘Surfacing contradictions…’

Warmington et al. explore professional learning in multiagency settings, with particular reference to children’s services provision in local authorities. However, their work is also useful for understanding the evolution and application of Activity Theory.

In terms of how Activity Theory is applied in professional settings, Warmington et al. state its value is that it surfaces contradictions within an existing activity system, leading to the proposal of new working practices.

Warmington et al. also outline the origins of Activity Theory, which lie in Vygotsky’s ‘framework for analysing relationships between human actions and cultural artefacts in order to dispense with the individual/social dualism and create a Marxist social psychology’ (p.3). Activity Theory does not privilege the individual, but, instead, sees the individual as one of a series of nodes influencing the outcome of purposeful activity.

Engestrom (Warmington et al. argue) is responsible for the second generation of activity theory which, influenced by Leont’ev, focuses on the ‘Tools’ node of the activity system.

Engestrom argues that the purpose of a tool is not constrained by design. Instead, purpose and meaning arises through usage. Engestrom states, at various points, ‘the material form and shape of the artifact have only limited power to determine its epistemic use’ (2007, pp. 34-35) and ‘reconfiguration of given technologies by their users is essential’ (2007, p. 35). Hence tools, like the other nodes in an activity system, are not static but in a constant state of redefinition, shaped by the interaction of all the nodes in the activity system. Warmington et al. argue, ‘An activity system is always a nexus of multiple points of view, traditions and interests’ (p. 5).

Warmington et al. go on to identify a third generation of Activity Theory, also spearheaded by Engestrom, in which the interaction between activity systems is the focus of interest.

Engestrom is also interested in how change happens, and sees contradictions as the source of change. Engestrom’s analysis is Marxist in this regard, as he sees contradictions as ‘historically accumulating structural tensions’ (2001, p. 137), as a result of which (and according to Warmington et al.) ‘some individual participants begin to question and to deviate from its established norms. In some cases, this escalates into collaborative envisioning and a deliberate collective change effort’ (p. 5).

Warmington et al.summarise the developments in Activity Theory, and its increasing complexity. While the third generation Activity theory enables broad social analysis, with contradictions between as well as within activity systems, the second generation Activity Theory is useful for analysing specific practices in isolation, recognising that the analysis is an abstraction, but using the model to identify tensions in activity systems, and potential means for resolving those tensions.

References
Engestrom, Y. (2001) ‘Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization,’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 133-156.

Engestrom, Y. (2007) ‘Enriching the Theory of Expansive Learning: Lessons From Journeys Toward Coconfiguration,’ Mind, Culture and Activity, vol. 14, nos. 1-2, pp. 23-39.

Warmington, P., Daniels, H., Edwards, A., brown, S., Leadbetter, J., Martin, D., Middleton, D. Parsons, S. and Popova, A. (2005) ‘Surfacing contradictions: intervention workshops as change mechanisms in professional learning,’ paper presented to the British Educational Research Association annual conference, University of Glamorgan, 14-17 September 2005.

Engestrom (1987), ‘Learning by expanding…’ (2)

Notes on ‘3. The zone of proximal development as the basic category of expansive research,’ ‘4. The instruments of expansion’ and ‘5. Towards an expansive methodology.’

Engestrom argues that human activity does not occur in a vacuum. Instead, it always occurs within a social context: ‘Human activity is not only individual production. It is simultaneously and inseparably also social exchange and societal distribution. In other words, human activity always takes place within a community governed by a certain division of labor and by certain rules.’

Furthermore, Engestrom argues that meaning is not constrained by design. Instead, meaning is forged out of usage: ‘A tool always implies more possible uses than the original operations that have given birth to it.’ Similarly, ‘The instructor’s task and the learner’s perceived task are seldom the same thing.’ In this specific sense there is a close connection between Engestrom’s standpoint and Wenger’s analysis of how communities of practice work (1998, p. 80): ‘Even when a community of practice arises in response to some outside mandate, the practice evolves into the community’s own response to that mandate.’ Thus, meaning is not a given (though it may be prompted), but a construct.

In addition, Engestrom challenges the scaffolding metaphor which has, in recent years, become a favourite descriptive tool for social constructivists in learning and teaching. Engestrom’s problem with the metaphor is that it still imposes limits on the knowledge that the learner can construct and, ultimately, ‘the idea of scaffolding is restricted to the acquisition of the given.’

Engestrom’s description of the activity system, the tensions therein and hence the creation of new knowledge and understanding, implies that human activity both works within and challenges tradition. Considering creativity, he argues ‘a work of art (or science)… requires simultaneously acceptance of a convention… and passing beyond it’ and, ‘scientific discoveries… are to a large extent achievements of synthesizing and crystallizing elements that were already “there.”’ A similar argument for the creative process is made by T.S. Eliot in The Sacred Wood (1922), in which Eliot accepts that the artist is always working within an inherited tradition, which is there to be used in order to enable new creation, an argument which takes Eliot to the position of ‘immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.’ Both writers, therefore, see creation not as a spontaneous process (generating that which had not been conceived of before) but as a significant reconfiguration of existing, though not static, economic, social and cultural resources.

In seeking to understand how an activity system changes, and having recognised that tension between nodes in the activity system precipitates change, Engestrom uses the metaphor of the springboard: ‘the springboard is a facilitative image, technique or socio-conversational constellation (or a combination of these) misplaced or transplanted from some previous context into a new, expansively transitional activity context during an acute conflict…’ Tension between nodes, therefore, is a precondition for creativity, and springboards offer a route out of tension towards a new activity system, but they do not in themselves comprise the solution to tensions: ‘Springboards do not come about smoothly and automatically. They appear in times of distress, almost as lifebuoys… Springboards are not solutions. They are starters or hints toward a path leading to an expansive solution.’

Engestrom’s analysis is broadly Marxist in the sense that he sees tension as the spur to progress. Furthermore, he uses the Marxist term ‘dialectics,’ though with his own definition: ‘In my analysis, dialectics is the logic of expansion. And expansion is essentially a social and practical process, having to do with collectives of people reconstructing their material practice.’ However, Engestrom argues that existing structures of learning and teaching militate against the collective construction of new knowledge and understanding: ‘Industrial capitalism is the triumph of individualism. Here, the mature form of learning is obligatory school-going. In the obligatory school, the dominant unit of functioning is the individual, spatially and temporally discrete task.’ Therefore, formal education exists to hinder creativity, not to encourage it.

Engestrom’s distinction between the individual and the social may be problematic in the sense that the activity system presupposes that individuals inhabit, inescapably, social contexts. Furthermore, the activity system within which people function, and which they may go on to transform, is a tradition, an inherited set of values and practices. Therefore, the distinction between the individual and the social may be a false one. As Wenger (1998, p. 141) argues: ‘Our knowing – even of the most unexceptional kind – is always too big, too rich, too ancient, and too connected for us to be the source of it individually.’

In his conclusion, Engestrom returns to Vygotsky and the idea that, in human behaviour, a stimulus and a response have ‘a human-created symbolic stimulus mediating between the two.’ Furthermore, Vygotsky’s object of analysis was ‘observations of behaviour in daily life,’ and, more broadly, ‘the historical transformation of cultures.’ Engestrom follows Vygotsky’s lead, but is also interested in where tension is experienced, arguing ‘individually manifested doubt, hesitation and disturbance is the starting point. The direction is from the individual to the societal. However, the individual point of departure is itself understandable only as a cultural-historical product.’ As individuals and collectives respond to tensions and seek to create resolutions, ‘The practical solutions that represent the unexpected, the unrecognizable, are actually initial forms of new theories.’ Tension is necessary to create the new, and the breakdown of one activity system prompts the creation of a new activity system, more suited to its economic and social contexts. Hence, social progress is facilitated by tension, and expansive learning arises when existing activity systems are no longer fit for purpose.

References,
Eliot, T. S. (1922) The Sacred Wood: essays on poetry and criticism, Bartelby.com, http://www.bartleby.com/200/ (accessed 28 April 2011).

Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 28 April 2011).

Wenger, Etienne (1998, repr. 2005), Communities of Practice, Cambridge , Cambridge University Press.

Avis (2009) ‘Transformation or transformism…’

Avis (2009) engages with Engestrom’s idea of co-configuration, ‘an emerging type of work in which customers and producers become partners and in which there is interdependency between multiple producers’ (p. 153). Avis draws on the work of Victor and Boynton (1998) who cite Microsoft as an example of co-configuration. New iterations of Windows are informed by user feedback on previous iterations, and forums (both inside and outside Microsoft’s control) enable users to identify and resolve problems. Avis, however, is sceptical of how much co-configuration actually goes on, suggesting organisations are re-imagined as open systems, not re-configured (2009, p. 154). Hence, the involvement of users is, Avis’s argument suggests, more of a marketing strategy to generate the sense of a community, rather than a community in practice.

For Avis, co-configuration, and Engestrom’s metaphor of knotworking, ‘imply dynamic processes in which groups form, break up and re-form with different partners’ (p. 154). In this context, ‘groupings may form to pursue a particular project and then dissolve’ (p. 154). Online campaigns, via Facebook and other media, can assemble and then disperse without prior or subsequent allegiance. Organisations can assemble teams for particular projects, the team dispersing once the project is completed, with a new team formed for a new project, in which the same individuals can occupy different roles.

Avis points out that co-configuration is similar to Marx and Engels’s reading of the bourgeois epoch: ‘Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguished the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away…’ (Marx and Engels 1973, p. 38, cited in Avis, p. 156). Hence, it may be the case that co-configuration comprises the rebranding of a pre-existing practice, or that co-configuration reproduces the social relations of the economic base of the society within which the co-configuration occurs.

Engestrom uses a triangular structure to show how activity happens. There are three focal points: a subject, a purpose, and tools. Where a collective pursues an object, the division of labour becomes an important factor. Moreover, the activity occurs within a specific historical context, comprising a further determinant. Learning occurs through the questioning of current practices, leading to ‘new conceptualizations and forms of practice’ (p. 159). This is Engestrom’s Expansive Learning: ‘Such learning carries with it the development of new forms of knowledge and identity as well as changes in the division of labour’ (p. 160).

Avis ties down a specific definition of Engestrom’s idea: ‘expansive learning is tied to the resolution of contradiction at the site of a specific activity system or cluster’ (p. 161). However, for Avis, as for Hayes (2003), Engestrom’s development of Activity Theory eschews Marx’s analysis: ‘Engestrom’s AT veers towards becoming a form of comfort radicalism, its transformative rhetoric has a progressive appeal but ultimately it readily lends itself to becoming no more than a management technique’ (p. 161). Hence, for Avis, Engestrom articulates how the formation of new knowledge can happen, but avoids the implications of his own analysis, whereby subjects can challenge the practices they have inherited, and use the tools at their disposal to construct new analyses, new concepts, and new practices.

References
Avis, J. (2009) ‘Transformation or transformism: Engestrom’s version of activity theory?’ Educational Review, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 151-165.

Hayes, D. (2003) ‘New Labour, new professionalism’, in Discourse, power, resistance: Challenging the rhetoric of contemporary education, ed. Satterthwaite, J., Atkinson, E. and Gale, K., Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham.

Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1973) ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ in Selected Works, London, Lawence and Wishart.

Victor, B. and Boynton, A. (1998) Invented here: maximizing your organisation’s internal growth and profitability, Boston, Harvard Business School.

‘Inside-out: analysis of the insider-outsider concept as a heuristic device to develop reflexivity in students doing qualitative research’ (2006)

David Hellawell (2006) has successfully supervised doctoral candidates. He argues, ‘this ability objectively to stand outside one’s own writing, and to be reflexive about it, and about one’s own relation to it, are some of the hallmarks of a good thesis’ (p. 483). This is sound reasoning, but the means by which critical self-reflection can be incorporated into research are less clear. For reflexivity to become a governing preoccupation in the composition of the research itself could be an invitation to be introspective, digressive and self-referential. Hellawell gives one case-study example of how to manage reflexivity in research effectively, with the candidate writing a reflexive appendix as a supplement to the research methodology chapter (p. 484).

Hellawell’s anxieties about the role of the researcher in relation to the researched are not recent. He cites Lewis (1973) who criticised the then-dominant practice of being an outsider. Lewis had argued that such assumptions coincided ‘with those engendered by the colonial relationship’ (Lewis, p. 585).

The position of the researcher in relation to the researched is contentious, and it is not resolved by categorically being an insider or an outsider. Instead, the researcher is constantly shifting, what Hellawell defines as ‘a continuum from insider to outsider’ (p. 488).

Hellawell is attracted to ‘alienation’, which he intends in a Brechtian rather than strictly Marxist sense. Alienation involves detachment, a refusal to be convinced of the uncomplicated reality of what may appear in front of the researcher. Alienation can be understood figuratively as looking at something familiar from an unfamiliar angle, thereby allowing some hitherto unnoticed feature of the object to be foregrounded.

In my original research proposal I was cautioned against using the personal pronoun, yet the use of scientific language in academic research (‘it was done’ instead of ‘I did it’) is arguably just a conceit; a construction of impartiality masking the actual, unavoidable involvement of the researcher with the researched. The researcher is immanent, and can never be wholly removed from that which they research. Even the most external researcher is still bound and shaped by history and culture, carrying the baggage of their own epoch. Triangulation makes the researcher’s findings more credible, but the researcher is still a storyteller, a role they needn’t eschew.

References

Hellawell, D. (2006) ‘Inside-out: analysis of the insider-outsider concept as a heuristic device to develop reflexivity in students doing qualitative research’ Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 483-494.

Lewis, D.K. (1973) ‘Anthropology and colonialism’ Current Anthropology, vol. 14, pp. 581-602.

Miettinen, ‘The Sources of Novelty…’ (2006)

Miettenen (2006) repeats Csikszentmihali’s argument that creativity cannot occur in a vacuum, an argument which challenges the concept of original creation: ‘Edison’s and Einstein’s discoveries would be inconceivable without the prior knowledge, without the intellectual and social network that stimulated their thinking, and without the social mechanisms that recognized and spread their innovations’ (p. 174). Wenger (1998, p. 141) makes the same argument: ‘Our knowing – even of the most unexceptional kind – is always too big, too rich, too ancient, and too connected for us to be the source of it individually.’ T.S. Eliot said essentially the same of artistic creativity in Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919). Innovation finds a form in its historical context.

Miettenen also repeats the idea that failures prompt learning. Knowledge can be transferred from one generation to another, but when contexts change the old knowledge no longer works, and hence reflection can lead to the production of new knowledge appropriate for a new context (an argument carrying echoes of the saber-tooth curriculum). Hence, knowledge is not static but is in a constant state of renewal.

In common with Engestrom, it’s hard to avoid the presence of Marxist thought in Miettenen’s analysis. He cites the ongoing tension between use value (functionality) and exchange value (price). Is it his contention that this tension is likely to precipitate a failure, resulting in reflection and, thereafter, a new form of economic organisation? This could well be a good idea (given that the capitalist economic model profits from scarce resources rather than protecting them), but the durability of the market economic model doesn’t seem to be considered in the article.

Miettenen acknowledges ‘the impossibility of predicting the various historical developments that may turn out to be significant for the emergence of an innovation’ (p. 179). What seems to emerge here is that new creations come from trial and error, with the parameters for any new creation being shaped by the historical moment. Miettenen, therefore, seems to be steering towards Foucault’s notion of epistemes, that each historical period has knowledge parameters determining the limits of the achievements of the era.

Engestrom’s theory of expansive learning may help us to recognise knowledge limits (if only in localised contexts), and maybe even challenge them. The Marxist thread comes from the recognition of dualistic tension as a structural feature of societies. Learning and teaching can be on either side of the dualism, either reaffirming existing knowledge and understanding, or attempting to catalyse new forms of knowledge.

References
Miettinen, R. (2006) ‘The Sources of Novelty: A Cultural and Systemic View of Distributed Creativity’ Creativity and Innovation Management, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 173-181

Wenger, Etienne (1998, repr. 2005), Communities of Practice, Cambridge , Cambridge University Press.

Rodriguez ‘The Playful and the Serious…’ (2006)

Rodriguez (2006), in article that takes Huizinga’s Homo Ludens as its starting point, argues that play is more important intrinsically than extrinsically. People play for ‘the experience that it affords. We do not characteristically play to fulfil a practical task…’

Rodriquez reminds us of Huizinga’s idea of the magic circle, ‘a spatiotemporal frame within which play occurs’. One of the problems with using technologies for learning is that they blur the boundaries of the circle; play becomes intermeshed with learning, which can cause confusion for the learner who expects the two to be demarcated. I would argue that this is a conceptual legacy of the Industrial Revolution, before which life was shaped by the agrarian and ecclesiastical calendars. With the advent of industrial production, however, workers attended workplaces at given hours, with leisure time marked off, a fact signified by the accelerating commercialisation of leisure in the second half of the nineteenth century, including paying entrance fees for horse racing, and the formation of the F.A..

Towards the end of Rodriguez’s article he moves into a Situationist position, citing Knabb (1981) when he argues that ‘the process of learning does not consist in the transmission of skills from teachers to students, but in the active design and execution of experimental actions by the learners themselves, without any utilitarian purpose.’ There is a connection with Engestrom’s expansive learning theory here and, because it’s Engestrom, the ghost of Marx is present, too. My understanding is that Marx posited a utopia in which people would be largely freed from the trammels of work, and creation could occur for the very pleasure of creating. This is the position that Terry Eagleton comes to in his talk on Socialism and Culture at a Marxism conference (2009).

Rodriguez is clear that ‘Curiosity and risk-taking become fundamental values of exploratory learning.’ Playful, exploratory learning, consequently, is not about the enhancement of learning and teaching, but about ‘a profound rethinking of its [teaching’s] methods and subject matter.’ What this means for technology-enhanced learning is that learners can be given the technology and simply see where it takes them. If the outcome is not utilitarian then the learning has not failed, because playing with technologies can be intrinsically fulfilling for the learner. Rodriguez’s position is arguably utopian, yet it also seems to be the next step on from expansive learning, with the removal not only of an authoritative centre, but of a clear and functional purpose too.

References

Eagleton, T. (2009) ‘Socialism and Culture’ Resistance mp3, http://www.resistancemp3.org.uk/cgi-bin/standardsearch.pl (accessed 6 August 2010)

Knabb, K. (1981) Situationist International Anthology, Berkely, CA: Bureau of Public Secrets.

Rodriguez, H. (2006) ‘The Playful and the Serious: An approximation to Huizinga’s Homo Ludens’ Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research, vol. 6, no. 1, http://gamestudies.org/0601/articles/rodriges (accessed 6 August 2010)

Engestrom – Expansive learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization

Engestrom’s opening position is not controversial: who are the learners, why do they learn, what do they learn, and how do they learn? However, as he moves into analysis his position becomes more complex, and broadly Marxist.

Engestrom sees contradictions as a potential source of learning. Furthermore, he describes contradictions as ‘historically accumulating structural tensions’. This carries echoes of Marx’s idea of dialectical tension. Moreover, Engestrom seems keen to locate his analysis in economic and political contexts: ‘the primary contradiction of activities in capitalism is that between the use value and the exchange value of commodities’ (p. 137).

Engestrom directs his analysis to the impact of technology: ‘When an activity system adopts a new element from the outside (for example, a new technology or a new object), it often leads to an aggravated secondary contradiction where some old element (for example, the rules or the division of labor) collides with the new one. Such contradictions generate disturbances and conflicts, but also innovative attempts to change the activity’ (p. 137). This analysis overlaps with Christensen’s disruptive technology theory, in the sense that a new technology can contradict existing practices (thereby risking rejection), but also that the new technology can go on to change the practice itself.

The idea of expansive learning also features in Engestrom’s article. Traditional learning theories posit knowledge as stable. It is there to be obtained by the learner, with guidance from a teacher who has a priori possession of the knowledge. However, this can impose limits on knowledge. It becomes a stable commodity being perpetuated from one generation of learners to the next. Engestrom argues, however, that ‘people and organizations are all the time learning something that is not stable, not even defined or understood ahead of time. In important transformations of our personal lives and organizational practices, we must learn new forms of activity which are not yet there. They are literally learned as they are being created. There is no competent teacher’ (p. 137-38).

One of the implications of Engstrom’s analysis is that it complicates the communities of practice theory, because it challenges the extent to which a stable centre is a structural feature of learning. Centripetal learning presupposes a centre; Engstrom’s analysis challenges that proposition.

However, in Engestrom’s analysis there is a still a purpose to learning, or a goal. Therefore, there is movement towards an objective. What may be lacked is the expert facilitator to steer the learners towards the goal. Instead, a community of learners learns collectively, pooling resources to achieve the common goal. The advantage of this model of learning is that it brings learners to somewhere they have never been before. In this sense Engestrom proposes an exciting, pioneering learning journey.

Constructivist theories of learning position knowledge not as a stable commodity that can be acquired, but as something that is constructed, with the facilitator acting as a form of scaffolding, giving support and parameters but letting the learners do the learning, acquiring valuable skills and knowledge by that route. Constructivism therefore seems to align more closely with Engestrom’s idea than the communities of practice theory. Leaning is a journey but, crucially, a journey into the unknown.

Reference

Engestrom, Y. (2001) ‘Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 133-156.