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An Essay Review of Activity Theory and Social Practice edited by Seth Chaiklin, Mariano Hedegaard and Uffe Juul Jensen1
The assumptions, the foundations, the implications and the consequences of an activity approach to human development are brought into discussion in Activity Theory and Social Practice, edited by Seth Chaiklin, Mariane Hedegaard and Uffe Juul Jensen, derived from the Fourth Congress of the International Society for Cultural Research and Activity Theory (ISCRAT, Denmark, 1998). The editors' comprehensive introductory article weaves together questions, issues, points of anchorage and references to the founding texts of authors such as Marx and Engels, Vygotsky, Leontiev, Elkonin, Davydov, Ilyenkov, among others. Ghita Vygotskaya's chapter provides her memories of a bright, hard working, affective man, her father, and his relationships with colleagues, friends and family.
The book displays a network of inquiries about the specificity of human action, and the conditions of productions, kinds and features of such actions, in a broad multidisciplinary effort. Many of the contributing authors call attention to philosophical fundaments, arguing for the need of keeping or searching for a consistency between the developing theories and Marxist principles. Tracing back from the roots, they try to make explicit some basic concepts and categories. The book contributes to current debates as it points to a collective effort towards expanding on the fundamental notions of Activity Theory. Although the book has a basic, founding theoretical orientation, the whole set of texts is not homogeneous. It becomes interesting, then, to analyze the articulating assumptions, some of the topics and focuses of research.
A first point that deserves attention concerns the very concept of activity. As we attempt to place the issue of activity into perspective and we examine its theoretical status within specific frames of reference, we become aware of the fact that it has been conceived in many diverse ways and it has acquired many different meanings. Taken as object of study, interpreted as human behavior, seen as unit of analysis, conceived as explanatory principle, activity has become a founding and most relevant category characteristic of a school of thought in Psychology - particularly, but not exclusively, from Russia and Scandinavia. Indeed, the concept of activity has been at the core of the cultural-historical perspective which assumes and states...