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Title: Transforming & Understanding

Transforming & Understanding

An Introduction to Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

by Yannick Lémonie (Author)
©2025 Monographs 460 Pages
Education
Series: Exploration, Volume 214

Summary

There is a clear and pressing need for collective action to develop alternative approaches to the way we organize our activities. This necessity implies the development of a robust theory that outlines a potential, attainable, and desirable future, which is embedded in the inherent contradictions of the present. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory represents such a strong interventionist theory.
The initial section of this publication outlines the evolution of this theory, from its origins in the work of 20th-century Soviet psychologists to its more recent developments. The second part of the book provides insight into the key concepts and their application in research. The third part of this book describes the potential for intervention aimed at transforming activity systems. It also explains the methodological principles of formative intervention and the change laboratory.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • book About the author(s)/editor(s)
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Table of Contents
  • Foreword The Future of Activity Theory Is Happening By Yrjö Engeström
  • Chapter 1 Introduction Unity and Diversity of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory
  • What Is Cultural-Historical Activity Theory?
  • The Difficulties Behind CHAT Appropriation
  • The Antecedent of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory: The Theses on Feuerbach
  • Activity as a Collective Process of Transformation
  • The Author’s Position
  • Book Structure
  • Part 1 Four Generations of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory
  • Introduction to Part 1
  • Chapter 2 The First Generation of CHAT and the Vygotskian Revolution
  • The Main Scientific Milestones in Vygotsky’s Career
  • Vygotsky’s Cultural-Historical Approach: A Basis for Further Development
  • The Need to Expand the Unit of Analysis?
  • Chapter 3 The Second Generation of CHAT: Leontiev’s Work
  • When Cultural-Historical Theory Becomes Activity Theory: The Kharkov School
  • Leontiev’s Stages in the Formation of the Activity Concept
  • Leontiev’s Specific Features of Human Activity
  • Human Activity Is Collective. The Multiplicity of Interpretations of the Hunting Example
  • The Hierarchical Structure of Human Activity
  • The Relationship Between Activity and Actions
  • The Relationship Between Actions and Operations
  • The Dual Dynamic of Activity Development
  • Leontiev’s Contribution To CHAT
  • Some Criticisms of Leontiev’s Approach
  • Chapter 4 Third Generation of CHAT: From the Development of Mind to the Development of Activity in Engeström Work
  • Context: The Difficult Transformation of Teaching Practices
  • A Response to Mainstream Cognitivism
  • Collective Activity as Unit of Analysis
  • The Activity System
  • Activity System as an Ideal Type
  • The Dynamic Dimension of an Activity System
  • Four Uses of the Activity System
  • Extending Activity Theory to the Third Generation
  • Benefits and Risks of Extending the Analysis Unit
  • Some Criticisms of Engeström’s Approach
  • Engeström’s Contributions to CHAT
  • Chapter 5 Towards a Fourth Generation of CHAT? Sannino and Real Utopias
  • Current Social Issues… And Their Systemic Causes
  • New Information and Communication Technologies: An Opportunity to Transform CHAT?
  • The ‘Runaway Object’
  • Inclusion in an Emancipatory Social Science: Real Utopias
  • Eradicating Homelessness and Sannino’s Work
  • Critical Discussions on the Fourth Generation of Activity Theory
  • Conclusion
  • Conclusion of Part 1
  • Back to the Idea of CHAT Generations
  • Some Typical Features of a Common Parentage
  • Part 2 Four Central Concepts for Analyzing Activity
  • Introduction to Part 2
  • Chapter 6 The Object of Activity
  • The Concept of Object and Its Importance for Chat
  • Differentiate the Object of Activity From the Goal of Actions
  • The Characteristics of the Object of Activity Through Six Principles
  • There Is No Objectless Activity: From Object to Activity Delimitation
  • The Controversy Over the Notion of Object
  • Identifying Objects and Their Evolution in Empirical Research
  • Chapter 7 The Concept of Contradiction
  • The Concept of Contradiction: A Dialectical Concept
  • Contradictions as the Driving Force Behind the Development of Activity Systems
  • Observable Symptoms and Manifestations of Contradictions
  • Experiencing Contradictions
  • Contradictions Are Not Problems, But Their Systemic Causes
  • From Manifestations to Contradictions in Activity Analysis
  • Identifying Developmental Periods and Contradictions in Historical Analysis
  • Four Forms of Contradiction
  • To Sum Up
  • Chapter 8 Expansive Learning. Learning What Is Not Yet There
  • Expansive Learning Versus Other Forms of Learning
  • The Expansion Metaphor
  • Theoretical Sources of Inspiration for Expansive Learning Theory
  • Expansive Learning as a Process: The Expansive Learning Cycle
  • Expansive Learning as the Construction of a Zone of Proximal Development
  • Expansive and Defensive Learning
  • Expansive Learning Scales and Their Articulation
  • Analyzing Expansive Learning
  • Transformative Agency as a Trigger for Expansive Learning
  • Chapter 9 Development as Qualitative Reorganization
  • The Problematic Nature of a Polysemic, Totemic Concept
  • Four Dimensions of Development to Discuss
  • Conclusion of Part 2
  • Part 3 The Interventionist Dimension of Chat: Formative Intervention and Change Laboratory
  • Introduction to Part 3
  • Chapter 10 The Change Laboratory Methodology
  • The Epistemological Legitimacy of Interventionist Research
  • Key Principles of Formative Intervention Methodology
  • Material Organization of the Change Laboratory
  • Methodological Principles of a Change Laboratory
  • The Principle of Double Stimulation
  • Transformative Agency
  • The Change Laboratory Versus Some Intervention Principles
  • Key Tasks and Artifacts in a Change Laboratory
  • The Phase Before Change Laboratory
  • Some Examples of Change Laboratories
  • Chapter 11 Formative Interventions in Relation to Other Interventionist Approaches
  • In Search of an Analytical Framework for Comparing Approaches
  • Design Based Research
  • Participatory Design
  • Participatory Action Research
  • Towards Forms of Hybridization?
  • Conclusion of Part 3
  • Conclusion: The Urgency of Expansive Learning in the 21st Century
  • Postface The where-to of 4th generation culturalhistorical activity theory By Annalisa Sannino
  • References
  • Table of Illustrations
  • Table of Tables
  • Acknowledgements

Foreword The Future of Activity Theory Is Happening

– By Yrjö Engeström –

Fifteen years ago I published a paper titled ‘The future of activity theory: A rough draft’ (Engeström, 2009b). I examined several emerging issues as indicators or signposts of the future development of cultural- historical activity theory. These included the growing importance of ‘runaway objects’; the need for a fourth generation of activity theory; the significance of new forms of mediation and digital media; the necessity to understand key mechanisms of development of activities; the challenge of grasping authority and agency in activity theory; and the centrality of formative interventions in activity-theoretical research.

What I did not foresee in that paper was the globally distributed emergence of flesh-and-blood people, individuals and collectives, who take initiatives, make long-term commitments and produce durable contributions to actually push and pull activity theory forward, both in academic research and in practical efforts to transform activity systems in various fields. Such living movement of human actors has emerged in the past few years, distributed in various parts of the world. The book of Yannick Lémonie is a powerful testimony of that. The future of activity theory is happening as a result of the actions of people like Yannick.

This book is special in several ways. It is a full-scale introduction to cultural-historical activity theory–a rare accomplishment in itself. But it is not just a book about a theory. It is a book that interprets and develops further the theory for the purposes of intervention and transformation. The book presents activity theory as ‘an instrument for empowering operators and enabling them to take back control of their own work, an instrument for transforming and developing collective agency, and an instrument for cultural production’ (p. 45). This is exactly the spirit of the living movement that today carries forward the application and development of activity theory.

The issues I proposed as markers of the future in 2009 are integral components of the present book. The future is happening in this text, not anymore as a projection but as a working conceptual and methodological instrumentality. Lémonie’s discussion of ‘runaway objects’ is a good example. He starts by defining the concept of runaway object, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an illuminating example. He points out that runaway objects are not simply negative or threatening; they have great transformative potential, ‘articulating levels of analysis ranging from the local to the global’ (p. 167).

The author then expands the concept by invoking Eric Olin Wright’s idea of real utopias and Annalisa Sannino’s concept of enacted utopias. The latter is presented by examining Sannino’s formative Change Laboratory interventions in support of the eradication of homelessness in Finland–a research program emblematic to the fourth generation of cultural-historical activity theory. Thus, in this segment of the book, the concepts of runaway object, fourth generation activity theory, and formative interventions are organically interconnected. They have become integrated into an instrumentality that is put to work on a daily basis.

This book also opens up and elaborates on themes that are only now becoming focal for activity theorists around the world. Here I want to highlight but two such themes. The first one is power and politics. Some critics argue that activity theory has been too narrowly focused on local transformations, thus neglecting broader political forces and power relations. Lémonie points out that these criticisms were formulated ‘prior to the emergence of what Engeström describes as the fourth generation of CHAT. However, in order to transcend the limitations of localism within a single interacting activity system, it is necessary to implement interventions that can effectively address the societal scale. This is the objective of the fourth generation of CHAT’ (p. 238).

Steps toward incorporating politics into the conceptual framework of CHAT are indeed being taken, primarily by examining and redefining the concept of power. Examples of this work come from different domains, from classroom studies (Choudry, 2023) to studies on the eradication of homelessness (Sannino, 2023b) and research on information systems (Simeonova, Kelly, Karanasios, & Galliers, 2024). Common to these studies is that power is seen as ‘present-in-actions’ rather than as static structures. This leads to the realization that ‘power can be put in motion […] as demonstrated by the influence of agentive use of specific instruments offered by the professionals to their colleagues, as well as by the Change Laboratory researchers to the participants of the interventions’ (Sannino, 2023b, p. 51).

The second theme is that of dialectics. Dialectics is the epistemological and methodological foundation of activity theory. However, especially in empirical and interventionist research, it is often difficult to make explicit how dialectics is actually informing and guiding the research–there is a gap between concrete studies and their underlying philosophy. Lémonie tackles and bridges this gap, especially in Chapter 7, devoted to the concept of contradiction, and in Chapter 10, focused on Change Laboratories and the processes of ascending from the abstract to the concrete in these interventions. The dialectical concept of contradiction is powerfully explained by means of three empirical examples, namely studies of food production in the United States, on preventing accidents at work and occupational illnesses in France, and on the development of different models of co-working.

In Chapter 10, Lémonie addresses the difficult issue of specifying steps in the dialectical method. ‘While the method of ascending from the abstract to the concrete is not reduced to a set of rules and procedures, it makes progress through stages that can be described. It can thus be seen as a ‘dance with time’, as Ollman (2008) puts it, with four stages that proceed from the present to the past to the future, and then back to the present. The typical ideal cycle of expansive learning and the seven expansive learning actions represent this dance over time’ (p. 316). The author again examines powerful empirical examples, showing that the dialectical method is actually something extremely practical and consequential in formative intervention research.

The appearance of a book like this makes it clear that the future of cultural-historical activity theory is happening here and now.

Chapter 1 Introduction Unity and Diversity of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

I regard Activity Theory, in this sense, as a family of practices sharing grandparents but which over the years, like any family, has diverged in interests and characteristics (Blunden, 2023, p. ix).

Separated from practice, theory is imperious verbalization; unbound from theory, practice is blind activism (Freire, 1975, p. 11).

Some thirty years ago, Engeström suggested that Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was a ‘best-kept secret in academia’ (Engeström, 1993, p. 64). Since this statement was made, there has been a growing interest in the theory, which has led to the diversification of fields of study and interventions, as well as an exponential increase in references to the original work of Vygotsky and Leontiev, or to the more recent work of what can be called the Scandinavian school of CHAT (Daniellou & Rabardel, 2005), referring to the work of Engeström and his colleagues.

Today, some thirty years later, the secret seems, to say the least, out in the open, internationally widespread, despite the difficulty of circumscribing, appropriating, and mobilizing CHAT in dialectical thinking (Langemeyer & Roth, 2006).

[…] When a Western researcher begins to realize the impressive dimensions of the theorizing behind the activity approach, he or she may well ask: Is it worth the trouble? Can it be used to produce anything interesting? How do you do concrete research based on activity theory? (Engeström, 1993, pp. 64–65).

We believe deeply, as Paolo Freire suggests in the quotation that opens this chapter, in the profound connections between theory and practice. In this sense, Activity Theory1 is not speculative. Nor is it blind activism. It is a profoundly ‘practical’ theory, oriented towards the transformation of human productive activity. It is activist and transformative, placing the question of intervention at the heart of its methodology (Sannino & Sutter, 2011). But it’s a challenging theory. That’s what this book is about. Its aim is to present CHAT, its origins, its past and emerging developments, and its interventionist orientation.

What Is Cultural-Historical Activity Theory?

CHAT is a ‘theory’ in the sense that it provides a coherent set of concepts, principles, and ideas for the study of human activity (Allen, Karanasios, & Slavova, 2011; Engeström, 1993, 2000a): ‘It provides tools for understanding activity, empirically studying its individual and collective components, and supporting its development’ (Eyme, 2017, p. 497). If we follow these initial definitions, then CHAT would be better placed in the category of theories of analysis, description or explanation (as a theory for describing or understanding how and why things happened) rather than in that of ‘predictive theories’ (see Gregor, 2006).

However, it would be a profound mistake to categorize CHAT too quickly as an analytical or descriptive theory. CHAT is first and foremost a theory aimed at transforming human practices, mobilizing a dialectical framework of thought based on the values of social justice and emancipation (Stetsenko, 2015). It is a predictive theory in that it mobilizes dialectical thinking to project and implement a desirable future. It is also a descriptive theory in that it provides a framework for explaining human activity and its development. As Blunden (2023, p. ix) notes, ‘Activity theory is a powerful theory for the transformation of human life toward social justice and emancipation’.

CHAT is thus part of a model of science that is neither neutral nor purely contemplative (Vianna & Stetsenko, 2014), but rather focused on the realization of a future (Engeström, Rantavuori, Ruutu, & Tapola-Haapala, 2023b), the overcoming of the status quo (Stetsenko, 2022), and the realization of real utopias (Sannino, 2020). CHAT transcends the traditional dichotomy between research and practice by refuting positivist and empiricist approaches.

However, CHAT’s commitment to this transformative and emancipatory orientation is neither fully shared nor fully understood, judging by current scholarly publications. Most of these publications focus on qualitative analysis to understand and explain current practices (e.g. Nussbaumer, 2012; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010), without adopting and mobilizing interventionist methodologies capable of supporting desirable transformations in human activities. In this orientation, the question of the possible future of human activity remains in abeyance, diluting both the practical dimension and the dialectical anchoring of CHAT, which allows us to analyze the past, present and potentially future movement of phenomena (Langemeyer & Roth, 2006).

Nevertheless, the relevance of CHAT’s main concepts seems to make it increasingly attractive to a generation of researchers who wish to ground their work in the reality of social practices, freeing themselves from disciplinary boundaries. In the field of educational research, Roth, Lee, and Hsu (2009) note an exponential increase in references to three major CHAT authors (Vygotsky, Leontiev, and Engeström, respectively) between 1987 and 2010. We did the same work with Vygotsky and Engeström respectively, over a 25-year period from 1995 to 2019. The result is the same: the increase in the number of citations continues after 2010. Figure 1 shows the significant increase in these citations over 25 years, based on data obtained via Google Scholar.

Figure 1:Increase in number of citations of two major activity theorists: Vygotsky and Engeström.

Figure 1:Increase in number of citations of two major activity theorists: Vygotsky and Engeström.

Although CHAT developed in the field of psychology from the initial work of Soviet psychologists, especially Vygotsky, its postulates on the sociocultural determination of the mind, as well as its roots in the ideas developed by Marx, make it a transdisciplinary theory of human life. CHAT is characterized by the great diversity of its fields of study and intervention. These include:

This list is by no means exhaustive. This brief overview reinforces the idea that CHAT provides a transdisciplinary framework conducive to interdisciplinary research and intervention projects. This is what Durand and Barbier (2003) emphasize when they share an observation in which they see as the concept of activity as a possible integrator for the social sciences:

Today, it seems that there’s a general pressure to format the objects of the social sciences in terms of activity or in relation to activity. We are convinced that, even if this pressure runs up against the compartmentalized organization of scientific and social fields, activity constitutes a privileged entry point for the progressive construction of transversal tools of thought in several corresponding fields of research and practice (Durand & Barbier, 2003, p. 100).

Its transdisciplinary nature and the values embodied in its central concepts make CHAT a theory capable of responding to the issues identified by researchers in the field of labor studies. For example, in a recent book, Guérin et al. (2021) set out some of the challenges facing workplace interventions: to enable ‘emancipation through work’, ‘well beyond emancipation in work’, which implies, among other things, ‘changing scale’. For these authors, this change of scale implies, ‘bringing together several disciplines: economics, management, anthropology, history, geography, political science, urban planning, engineering, public health, psychology, law, etc.’. (Guérin et al., 2021, p. 375). These challenges are already being addressed by work rooted in CHAT, which emphasizes the emancipatory dimension of transformative agency and expansive learning processes. Meeting these challenges means revising the concept of activity and restoring its emancipatory nature: activity is not a process ‘determined’ by socio-technical contexts. Rather, activity is the process by which people shape, construct, and develop these contexts.

The primary abstraction, the central concept of CHAT, conceived here as a transdisciplinary and emancipatory theory, is, of course, the concept of activity. Not behavior, not practice, not action. Vygotsky (1997c) gives an example of how a primary abstraction determines the content of a science, based on the difference in the observation of a solar eclipse between an astronomer and an ordinary onlooker. It is the concepts mobilized by the astronomer that transforms a natural phenomenon into an object of scientific knowledge. The astronomer will see something different in the eclipse than the simple onlooker, insofar as he mobilizes a conceptual ensemble in a project aimed at building new knowledge in astronomy.

In the context of CHAT, it is essentially the way in which the activity is conceptualized that makes it possible to transform a phenomenon–what subjects do–into a scientific fact and a methodology of an emancipatory nature. Here, it is undoubtedly necessary to break with the commonsense acceptance of the concept of activity (Chaiklin, 2019):

Another challenge in practical scientific work with the activity concept is the legitimate similarities and important differences in the everyday and scientific meanings of activity. It is important to recognize that it is possible to make a statement like ‘a person develops through their activity’, […] which can be read meaningfully with both scientific and everyday meanings of the term activity. Everyday meanings of activity focus on observable appearances, referring to ‘states’ (e.g. being in motion), ‘qualities’ (e.g. doing something), and ‘things’ (e.g. a particular task; cf. Oxford English Dictionary). The scientific meaning focuses on the essential relations that underlie or motivate activity (in an everyday sense). In everyday speech, one can do an activity to make transformations where one’s activity is the transforming action. It is not immediately apparent that the scientific meaning of activity in this case is referring to specific structural relations within the everyday meanings. At the same time, it is valid to say that activity, in its everyday meaning, is relevant to activity in the systematic meaning (even if it is not sufficient and is missing the most critical aspects); therefore it is all too easy for scientific speakers to sometimes shift into using an everyday meaning or for listeners to interpret a scientific meaning in an everyday way (Chaiklin, 2019, p. 11).

Chaiklin’s distinction between appearances and underlying relationships is an important one. It lies at the heart of dialectical thinking, and we’ll return to it regularly throughout the book.

The Difficulties Behind CHAT Appropriation

However, this increase in references to activity theorists, as well as the extension of CHAT to a variety of disciplines and fields of study, is not without its difficulties for those who wish to appropriate CHAT, as it tends to transform its initial conceptual content. In this sense, CHAT is a theory that ‘travels’ and is transformed as it travels. Thus, in a recent book chapter, Dafermos (2020) points out that the exponential growth of references to CHAT raises several epistemological, theoretical, and methodological questions. He sees the reception of CHAT in different research and intervention cultures as a challenge that is likely to transform the original project from which the theory emerged:

Scholars and practitioners tend to accept these sides, dimensions or ideas of the initial theory that make sense in their own intellectual and cultural milieu, from the perspective of the problems that arise within their social and intellectual space. At the same time, scholars and practitioners tend to ignore other sides, dimensions or ideas of the initial theory that have no direct connection or link with their context (Dafermos, 2020, p. 15).

The Journey of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

Theories and their key concepts travel, cross borders, are mobilized in other research cultures, and inevitably transform themselves (Stengers, 1987). In this book, therefore, we do not intend to criticize other possible uses of the central concepts of activity theory (activity, development, contradiction, object, instruments, mediation, etc.), but to emphasize the need to understand the scientific and practical project from which these concepts derive their meanings and, from a usage point of view, of to use them.

Details

Pages
460
Publication Year
2025
ISBN (PDF)
9783034351485
ISBN (ePUB)
9783034351492
ISBN (Softcover)
9783034351478
DOI
10.3726/b22324
Language
English
Publication date
2025 (March)
Keywords
Cultural Historical Activity Theory Methodology Intervention Expansive Learning Development Work Dialectics Contradictions Activity System Vygotsky Leontiev Engeström Sannino transdisciplinarity
Published
Bruxelles, Berlin, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, Oxford, 2025. 460 pp., 48 fig. b/w, 15 tables.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Yannick Lémonie (Author)

Yannick Lémonie is associate professor. He teaches ergonomics at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (Paris) and conducts developmental research at the Centre pour la Recherche sur le Travail et le Développement (CRTD, E.A. 4132) in the team of work psychology and clinic of activity.

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