change laboratory and developmental work research ritva engeström university of helsinki...
TRANSCRIPT
Change Laboratory and Developmental Work Research
Ritva Engeström
University of Helsinki
June 11, 2015
Faculty of Behavioural Sciences
Re-thinking Science
Co-evolution of knowledge production and society have
resulted in closer interaction of science and society,
signaling the emergence of a new kind of science. The rising complexity of society and its phenomena
demand for the contextualization of knowledge. In the new model of science, science becomes more
‘integrated’ with its social context. The integration model calls for more opportunities to
collaborate outside a disciplinary structure and to work
with a wider array of expertise, including innovative forms
of social organization. (Nowotny et al. 2001)
Knowledge Production
Specialisation, on the one hand, and horizontal
interdisciplinary and intersectoral boundary crossing, on
the other hand. Processes of closing and opening for producing
meanings in terms of semiotics.
Suggested solutions for complexity:
(1)evidence-based thinking (EBM) for simplifying
(2)all-inclusive market-oriented logic for improving society
effectively
Collaboration on the Boundaries
Akkerman et al. (2006) have found that alone by means of
bringing people with diverse background together is not a
sufficient condition to creative negotiation processes to
come to the fore. The participants of these processes
should also be aware of the diversity and the boundaries to
be crossed. Stacey (1999) has provided a certainty–agreement
diagram, which deals with the difficulty to manage jointly
problem solving when the complexity is arising. In the
complex zone, uncritical adherence to rules, guidelines, or
protocols may do more harm than good (see also Wilson &
Holt, 2001).
How to define Context (practice)
See paradigms like:Pragmatism (Dewey, among others)Action Research (see, Noffke & Somekh 2009)Practice-based Theorizing (Gherardi & Nicolini, et al.)Activity Theory Research
Above paradigms have in common the focus on practice as
interaction of humans with their social and material
environment. The mind is analyzable as distributed between
individuals and between humans and their artifacts (cf.
Cartesian paradigm).
Activity System
Activity Theory has its foundations in cultural-historical
psychology/CHAT (Vygotsky, Luria, Leontiev) Unit of analysis is an Activity System: a culturally and
historically mediated relationship between subject (actor)
and object (task) The first generation of this unit: an individual (child’s
developmental trajectory) The second generation: a social unit
(community/workplace) The third generation: interdependencies of social units
(activity systems)
The Activity System Model
Subject
Object
Outcomesense,
meaning
Rules Community Division of labor
Instruments:tools and signs
Source: Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit. (available online at: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm)
Wholeness
The object is a heterogeneous and constantly reproduced
purpose of a collective activity system that motivates and
defines the horizon of possible goals and actions of
individual practitioners.
Methodology of object-oriented activity directs to follow
the object.
The patient
Learning as an Activity – Expansive Learning The object: to understand and design reality
Zone of Proximal Development:
distance between present actions of the individuals and
the historically new form of the societal activity that can
be collectively generated as a solution to the double bind
potentially embedded in everyday actions
(Engeström , Y. 1987, p. 174)
Co-Configuration
Partnership in knowledge creation (to make the
collective subject) requires consciously created
conditions for joint learning (co-configuration).
Developmental work research is furnished with
paradigmatic tools, such as the activity system
model, expansive learning cycle, the historical
analysis of the inner contradictions, and mirror
data.
4. Examining the new model:APPLICATION AND GENERALIZATION
3. Modeling the new solution:FORMATION OF A NEW OBJECT
5. Implementing the new model:CONSOLIDATION
6. Reflecting on the process:
7. Consolidating the new practice:
2. Analysis:DOUBLE BIND
1. Questioning:NEED STATE
The Cycle of expansive learning
Change Lab
– A PLATFORM is less a thing than a way of arranging things in both a material and discursive sense.-A shift from the material to the figurative entails a shift in connotation from platforms as passive supports to platforms as springboards for future action.
– Instead of contrasting methodologically native terminology with scholarly, analytical notions, we seek intersections between the questions actors ask and the questions researchers raise, between the practical answers they provide and the theoretical framing offered by research
(Keating and Cambrosio 2003)
CHANGE LABORATORY SETTING
KP-Lab user-interface
CL session is oriented to
Collect mirror data on everyday acts attached with
reflections. Combine observations, analyses, ideas, and policy
views. Use methods for searching for double binds and
historically constituted contradictions of activity. Conduct pilots for obtaining more material on the
relationship of reality and ideas Produce models based on solutions of
contradictions.
Boundary Object
Materiality of the object derives from the action involved,
which motivates participants to create boundary objects.
These act as communal intellectual tools, which are at
the same time sorts of social arrangements and organic
infrastructures. Boundary objects are not only between social worlds
but, at once worked on by local groups “who maintain
their vaguer identity as a common object, while making
them more specific and better tailored to local use within
the social world.” Therefore, there is some tacking back-
and-forth between local and organizational forms of the
object.
(Star 2010)
what counts as knowledge
The CL works on conceptualizations of transformation and
brings forth information about the micro-genesis of novel
solutions and the possibilities and obstacles that will be met
during transformation processes . Collaboration that takes place across different stakeholders
and in a variety of settings, includes variety of concerns,
interests and priorities, expertise, and networks. Small cycles may remain isolated events if they are not
processed by the concentrated efforts to manage the
diversity of sources in knowledge creation in the context of
the overall expansive cycle of development.
Looking backwards DWR and CL method
1. phase (studies on work): go into the practice of work,
focus on disturbances in the work at stake, emphasis
on reality and interaction, using video recordings of work
processes and interviews, a more traditional
researcher’s role 2. phase (theory of expansive learning): developmental
work research in which university and work site are
collaborating for novel ways of problem
conceptualization, using knowledge from different
scientific disciplines and societal perspectives, and
doing justice to the inherently uncertain structures of
complex problems.
Future
3. phase (rising complexity): To put more research
emphasis on the socio-cultural dynamics of collaboration
and communication processes, being at the same time
inside and outside of the mind. Anchoring is an inner-directed process functions as a
stabilizing process that orientates the mind toward
remaining in the existing state of knowledge. Objectification is an other- and outer-directed process
during which a vague and unfamiliar idea becomes fixated
and concretized. It is primarily a sense-making activity in
which the individuals create new ones, and give meanings
to these new contents. (Marková 2012)
From Ready-framed Research Tasks to Freedom to Think
In art as well as in science the ambiguity of the
object brings about freedom to think and
passion to follow the object that generates
commitment, responsibility, and trust.
Lähteitä
Akkerman, S., Admiraal, W., Simons, R. J. & Niessen, T. (2006). Considering Diversity: Multivoicedness in International Academic Collaboration. Culture & Psychology, Vol. 12(4): 461–485.
Engeström, R. (2014). The interplay of developmental and dialogical epistemologies. Outlines - Critical Practice Studies 15, no.2, 119–138. http://www.outlines.dk
Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.
Engeström, Y., Engeström, R. & Vähäaho, T. (1999). When the center does not hold: The importance of knotworking. In S. Chaiklin, M. Hedegaard and U. J. Jensen, Activity Theory and social practice: cultural-historical approaches. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Engeström, Y. & Engeström, R. & Kerosuo, H. (2003) The discursive construction of collaborative care. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 24(3), 286–315.
Kanellopoulos, P. (2011). Freedom and responsibility. The aesthetics of free musical improvisation and its educational implications–A view from Bakhtin. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 19, no.2, 113–135.
Keating, P. and Cambrosio, A. (2003) Biomedical Platforms. Realigning the Normal and Pathological in Late-Twentieth-Century Medicine, 2003 MIT
Marková, I. (2012). Objectification in common sense thinking, Mind, Culture, and Activity, 19:3, 207-221.
Nowotny, H., Scott, P. & Gibbons, M. (2001). Re-Thinking Science. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Schatz, E. & Schatz, I. J. (2003). Medicine and political science: parallel lessons in
methodological excess. Political Science and Politics, 36 (3), 417–422. Stacey, R: D. (1999) Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics: the Challenge of
Complexity. London: Financial Times. Tsoukas, H & Hatch, M. J. (2001). Complex thinking, complex practice. Human Relations, 54
8, 979–1013. Wilson, T. & Holt, T. (2001) Complexity and clinical care. BMJ Vol. 323: 22 September: 685–
688.