The Self in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

Abstract

Abstract. This paper suggests a framework in which the importance of the individual dimension and agency can be reclaimed within a profoundly social and relational view of the self. Juxtaposed with recent research on the self, cultural-historical activity theory is discussed, including its foundational premises formulated by Vygotsky and its conception of the self articulated by Leontiev. Expanded in a number of ways proposed in this paper, this theory helps to theorize the self (a) in its practical relevance, as a lawful and necessary moment in human collective practices, (b) as endowed with the capacity to generate new cycles of practice, and (c) as immanent in activities that position individuals to contribute to meaningfully changing the world. The concept of 'self as a leading activity' is discussed as a way to capture what the self is, where it is located, and what its purpose and relation to society are.Key Words: agency, cultural-historical activity theory, development, dialectical, Leontiev, personality, self, social-individual dichotomy, Vygotsky Although much of psychology today remains devoted to the cognitivist agenda of studying human functioning as context-free information processing in individual minds, there is a powerful current of ideas, both in psychology and in neighboring disciplines, that contests the most cherished individualist assumptions of cognitivism. Perhaps more clearly than in any other field, the research on the self has witnessed a move away from the essentialist and context-independent notions of individual possessions (e.g. personality traits, attributes) toward viewing the self as being embedded within sociocultural contexts and intrinsically interwoven with them. The recent approaches to the self, although united in their quest to overcome the extreme individualism of traditional accounts by capitalizing on sociocultural contexts, vary greatly in how the very notions of the self, contextTheory & Psychology

Dialogism and dialogicality in the study of the self

“…In opposing trends that conceive the self as a "mental construct" (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004), these conceptions face a double challenge well formulated by Salgado & Gonçalves (2007): the first is the task of developing a conception of the self that avoids social reductionism, or radical ecologism (Clot, 2008). The challenge here is to avoid reducing the subject to a simple component of a system consisting of undifferentiated individuals and artefacts, or (as Stetsenko & Arievietch [2004] put it) to avoid dissolving "the self in the collective dynamics of social processes" (p. 479).…”

“…The challenge here is to avoid reducing the subject to a simple component of a system consisting of undifferentiated individuals and artefacts, or (as Stetsenko & Arievietch [2004] put it) to avoid dissolving "the self in the collective dynamics of social processes" (p. 479). It is therefore necessary to account for the subject's uniqueness without falling into an individualist, if not solipsist, stance (Cresswell, 2011;Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004;Valsiner, 1997;Zittoun, 2007). The second challenge is to account not only for the multiplicity and constant change of the self, but also for its stability .…”

Students' views on their transition from school to college mathematics: rethinking ‘transition’ as an issue of identity

“…Holland et al (1998), drawing on Vygotsky, Bakhtin, Bourdieu and others, put forward the concept of 'positioning' in 'figured worlds' to explain how identities are developed ''through continued participation in the positions defined by the social organisation of those worlds' activity'' (41), therefore constructing the 'self in practice' through their engagement in activity (see also Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004). It is through this concept that we realise that students construct their identities as they travel from one institution (school) to the other (college), where they encounter different social relations and most of them are positioned in different, new ways, by the new institution.…”

Meeting youth in movement and on neutral ground

“…This articulation of The Crew's pedagogy as part of a radical transformation of institutional forms and forms of knowledge is an expression of what I referred to above (with Stetsenko, 2013) as the "transformative activist stance" which is implied in an epistemology of practice. Thus, I am not claiming that this is the only possible way to articulate it; when I suggest this articulation as prototypical, it is because I believe that learning from it can be relevant in practices and struggles that aim for a democratic kind of social engineering.…”

“…Although it may appear paradoxical, empiricism and scholasticism are two sides of the same coin, and conversely, theoretical work is closely related to practice and social transformation. Recently, Anna Stetsenko has coined the term transformative activist stance for this epistemology of practice (Stetsenko, 2013), which originates in the philosophical tradition going from Spinoza through Hegel to Marx, explicitly stated in Marx' Theses on Feuerbach (Marx, 2003, see also Jensen, 1999. Freire was one of the most important in a line of pedagogical theorists who drew out the implications of this general epistemology for education: working with concrete universals, engaged in transforming fundamental socio-cultural standards and conditions, is formative of persons as well as of theories.…”