“This is not a cake recipe”: Historicity as an element for the understanding and transformation of a waste management activity at a university hospital in Brazil

Abstract

This work analyzes how the expansive learning cycle is covered by a work group, from the intervention of a Change Laboratory, held in a waste management activity at a university hospital. The theoretical basis is derived from the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory and documentary research was used as methodology. In the learning movement, the workers realized that the organization of activity was and still is insufficient to meet the demands of the hospital and society. The intervention did not provoke structural transformation in the activity. But the historicity present in the learning experience allowed the apprentices to be aware of themselves and the importance of waste management, either from a functional or a social viewpoint.