Cultural-historical activity theory: Exploring a theory to inform practice and research

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Citation: Kirsten A. Foot (2014) Cultural-historical activity theory: Exploring a theory to inform practice and research. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): http://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2013.831011
Semantic Scholar (metadata): http://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2013.831011
Sci-Hub (fulltext): http://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2013.831011
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Cultural-historical activity theory: Exploring a theory to inform practice and research
Tagged: Sociology (RSS)

Summary

This article summarizes and synthesizes work from Engstrom and others on the key elements, contours, and lenses employed in cultural-historical activity theory, or CHAT. CHAT invites scholars to model activity systems in a holistic manner, considering Tools, Object/Outcomes, Division of Labor, Community of Significant others, Rules, and the Subjects themselves. An activity system elaborated through CHAT can then be assessed for key features such as contradictions -- which are not seen as problems per se but rather viewed as places of growth and innovation. A problem may be solved by exercise of a system as it is, but a contradiction requires the system to change; all activity systems have a primary contradiction within them (defined as the conflict induced by capitalism, which assigns both an inherent use value and an exchange value, which may not always align). Contradictions may also arise in secondary positions (component versus component, such as rules conflicting with tools), tertiary positions (when an object from a more “culturally advanced” activity is introduced), and quaternary positions (activity system versus another activity system). CHAT proposes what Foot calls an Expansive Cycle as a process for resolving contradictions, with the following steps: questioning, analyzing, modeling, analyzing the model, implementing the model, reflecting, consolidating (into a new, stable form of practice).

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

This article can serve as a primer for scholars characterizing and theorizing any phenomenon as an activity system or a component of one, or for reflective practitioners seeking to understand and engage with transformation processes of their own environments.