Activity Theory for the De-Structuralized Modernity

‘Utility’ of education and the role of transformative agency: Policy challenges and agendas

“…It has always been like that: different stages of societal development and technological modes have required different human qualities. We argue that under the current conditions of progressing global 'de-structuration' (Mironenko and Sorokin, 2020;Sorokin and Froumin, 2020) skills and competences related to transformative agency might be of special importance. 1 In the final part of the article, we argue that education has the potential to become a driving force of transformational change by recognizing human capital's transformative agency and building respective positioning in expert and public debates.…”

“…The economy and society of the 21st century rely less on solid structures (like state or corporate organizations) and more on individual agency, including entrepreneurship (see Acs, 2016;Kuzminov et al, 2019;Mironenko and Sorokin, 2020;Sorokin and Froumin, 2020). For example, against the background of the mass spread of non-standard, including remote, forms of employment and learning, the recognition of entrepreneurial skills is growing (including intrapreneurship competences for corporate employment (Guerrero and Urbano, 2021;Kikas and Aaarna, 2019).…”

Art and Agency in the Era of De-Structuration: Exploring a New Field

“…Debates about the relationship between art and agency have a rich history. However, the new reality of de-structuration (Mironenko & Sorokin, 2022 ) puts the problem of agency in a new way. This makes us reconsider the usual concepts applied to agency in different spheres of social life, including art.…”

“…As argued above, we live in an era of “de-structuration” (Mironenko & Sorokin, 2022 ). This means that a person faces the need to navigate through a complex and dynamically changing world in which a significant number of factors that need to be taken into account to achieve success or even simple meaningfulness in life, often exceed the power of the intellect.…”

“…This article aims at an empirical analysis of the theme of agency in contemporary art (including its aspects such as creativity, independence or proactivity). It might be especially important in the context of the unprecedented volatility of social and cultural systems in the world when the “classical” methods derived from the naturalistic, deterministic and mechanistic approaches are inefficient in explaining or predicting the dynamics of both the inner world of the individual psyche and the outer social world (Mironenko & Sorokin, 2022 ). We select and analyse a number of the most illustrative cases in contemporary art, presented in recent years at prestigious art events in various parts of the world, and propose their typology, reflecting different approaches to and modes of agency manifested by the observed cases 1 .…”