the transformative mind: expanding vygotskyâ€™s approach to development and education

i

The Transformative Mind Th e book suggests a transition from relational worldview premised on the sociopolitical ethos of adaptation toward transformative worldview premised on the ethos of solidarity and equality Expansively developing Vygotskyrsquos rev-olutionary project the transformative activist stance integrates insights from a vast array of critical and sociocultural theories and pedagogies and moves beyond their impasses to address the crisis of inequality Th is captures the dynamics of social transformation and agency in moving beyond theoretical and sociopolitical canons of the status quo Th e focus is on the nexus of people co- creating history and society while being interactively co- created by their own transformative agency Positing development and mind as agentive con-tributions to the ldquoworld- in- the- makingrdquo from an activist stance guided by a sought- aft er future this approach culminates in implications for research with transformative agendas and a pedagogy of daring Along the way many key conceptions of mind development and education are challenged and radically reworked

Anna Stetsenko is recognized for contributions to sociocultural and activity theories around the world Rooted in Vygotskyrsquos project she has worked to advance it across several decades and international contexts bringing in experi-ences of teaching and researching in leading universities and research centers in the United States Germany Switzerland Austria and Russia She is widely published in several languages With her interdisciplinary expertise in psychol-ogy philosophy and education in an international background her writing cuts across many fi elds and connects cutting- edge developments and insights from a variety of frameworks

of use available at httpwwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpdxdoiorg1010179780511843044Downloaded from httpwwwcambridgeorgcore New York University Libraries on 14 Dec 2016 at 230110 subject to the Cambridge Core terms

ii


iii

Th e Transformative Mind Expanding Vygotskyrsquos Approach to

Development and Education

Anna Stetsenko Th e Graduate Center of Th e City University of New York


iv

One Liberty Plaza New York NY 10006 USA

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge

It furthers the Universityrsquos mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence

wwwcambridgeorg Information on this title wwwcambridgeorg 9780521865586

copy Anna Stetsenko 2017

Th is publication is in copyright Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements no reproduction of any part may take place without the written

permission of Cambridge University Press

First published 2017

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Name Stetsenko Anna author

Title Th e transformative mind expanding Vygotskyrsquos approach to development and education Anna Stetsenko

Description New York NY Cambridge University Press 2017 | Includes bibliographical references and index

Identifi ers LCCN 2016024243 | ISBN 9780521865586 (hardback alk paper) Subjects LCSH Vygotskiĭ L S (Lev Semenovich) 1896ndash1934 |

Developmental psychology | Critical theory | EducationndashPhilosophy

Classifi cation LCC BF109V95 S74 2016 | DDC 15092ndashdc23 LC record available at httpslccnlocgov2016024243

ISBN 978-0-521-86558-6 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URL s for external or third- party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is or will remain accurate or appropriate


v

No society has yet lived up to the principle that everybody matters hellip Our defections are particularly scandalous I think because we began with the proposition that wersquore all created equal

Kwame Anthony Appiah 2015

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure hellip Actually who are you not to be hellip Your playing small doesnrsquot serve the world

Nelson Mandela 1994 (quoting Marianne Williamson)


vi


vii

vii

Contents

Acknowledgments page ix

Introduction Setting the Stage Th e Paradox of Continuity versus Change 1

Part I

1 Charting the Agenda From Adaptation to Transformation 23

2 Situating Th eory Th e Charges and Challenges of Th eorizing Activism 41

Part II

3 Vygotskyrsquos Project Methodology as the Philosophy of Method 95

4 Vygotskyrsquos Project Relational Ontology 115

5 Vygotskyrsquos Project From Relational Ontology to Transformative Worldview 156

Part III

6 Transformative Activist Stance Ontology and Epistemology 171

7 Transformative Activist Stance Agency 206

8 Transformative Activist Stance Encountering the Future through Commitment to Change 230


Contents

viii

viii

Part IV

9 Th e Mind Th at Matters 265

10 Illustration Memory and Anticipation of the Future 303

Part V

11 Implications for Education Teaching- Learning and Development as Activist Projects 325

Concluding Remarks Toward Democracy and a Pedagogy of Daring 367

Bibliography 373

Name Index 411

Subject Index 415


ix

ix

Acknowledgments

Given the emphasis on transformative agency and mind as facets of collab-orative projects that are individual and collective at once it is more than fi t-ting to begin with acknowledgments of contributions by many colleagues mentors friends and family members Th e list is too long to mention each and every person who has played a role in the work presented here because it extended across several decades and encompassed several countries and many institutions around the globe First of all my gratitude is to my teachers from Vygotskyrsquos project who have provided invaluable lessons of passion commitment and collaboration ndash especially Alexey A Leontiev Piotr Y Galperin Bluma V Zeigarnik and Vassily V Davydov Th e teachers from this generation of scholars unmatched in their commitment to both rigorous science and deep humanity provided those who knew them with invaluable tools of being knowing and doing Second but no less impor-tantly my gratitude goes to my colleague friend interlocutor addressee and critic Igor Arievitch We had started this book as a joint project which was a natural inclination because we share so much in terms of our back-ground trajectory and thinking We later opted for splitting this project into two parts in view of how large each of our respective contributions has grown to be even though they remain compatible and complementary at many levels Yet Igorrsquos input is ever present in this book albeit that the ulti-mate responsibility for it is mine Th is came about through many amicable and joyful dialogues even as these were coupled with unwavering confron-tations and encounters because we disagree on almost as many points as we share My infi nite gratitude is to my parents Ekaterina and Pavel Stetsenko who have lived through turmoils and struggles that very few people can fathom and yet came to be an amazing inspiration each in their own unique way not just to me but to so many people that listing their names


Acknowledgments

x

x

would take more than the whole volume of this book A surgeon- oncologist and a physics professor who grew up in abject poverty (and by western standards remained poor through their lives) they literally saved the lives of and educated thousands of people across several generations and from many parts of the world and I can only hope to do justice in at least a very modest way to their legacy knowledge courage and wisdom Including the lesson they taught me that there is no such thing as ldquomyrdquo child or ldquomyrdquo book or ldquomyrdquo anything that belongs to one person only Th e sisterly support from Oksana and Elena who share the gift s of our parents and take them to their own new heights and from their ever- growing beautiful families has been felt from across the borders and the oceans My dear personal friends also from all over the world many of whom are friends- colleagues you know who you are your inspiration and friendship are forever with me

My special thanks to those who saw the promise in what I was gradually attempting to develop and provided much- needed support and encourage-ment including in many cases even early in the process (here in no par-ticular order) Alexey A Leontiev Vassily V Davydov Joachim Lompscher Urie Bronfenbrenner Vera John- Steiner Jerome Bruner Alfred Lang Katherine Nelson Ethel Tobach Mariane Hedegaard Eduardo Vianna Chik Collins Peter Jones Robert Rieber James Lantolf Arne Raiethel Bruce Dorval William Cross Jr Yehuda Elkana Peter Sawchuk Susan Kirch Marilyn Fleer Mariolina Bartolini- Bussi Ines Langemeyer Gordon Wells Bonnie Nardi Pedro Pedraza Michalis Kontopodis Bernd Fichtner Maria Benites Alan Amory Kenneth Tobin Azwihangwisi Muthivhi Jack Martin Jeff Sugarman Cathrene Connery Jennifer Vadeboncoeur Lisa Yamagata- Lynch Jean Anyon Ofelia Garcia Michelle Fine Geoff rey Lautenbach Victor Kaptelinin Irina Verenikina Ritva Engestroumlm Jytte Bang Sharada Gade Kristiina Kumpulainen Olga Bazhenova Dmitry Leontiev Maisha Winn Cathrine Hasse Cristiano Mattos and Katerina Plakitsi Many of you created zones of proximal development and spaces for teaching- learning in truly collaborative and productive ways

My thanks also to those who have left their marks if even (in some cases) we had only fl eeting interactions and my wish is for more dialogue and col-laboration ndash Barbara Rogoff James Wetsch Michael Cole Yrjouml Engestroumlm Lois Holzman Vladislav Lektorsky Harry Daniels Jay Lemke Lois Mol Kris Gutieacuterrez Kai Hakkarainen Dimitris Papadopoulos Peter McLaren Anne- Nelly Perret- Clermont Morten Nissen Sunil Bhatia Anne Edwards Karen Barad Jean Lave Dorothy Holland Kenneth Gergen Th omas Bidell Th omas Teo Mikael Leiman Wolff - Michael Roth Annalisa Sannino Sarah


Acknowledgments xi

xi

Amsler Alan Costall Bernard Schneuwly Manolis Dafermos and Alex Levant

In addition my many colleagues at the State Lomonosov University and the Institute of Psychology and Pedagogy in Moscow the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education in Berlin the University of Bern and now the City University of New York who I worked with together in the past and continue to work with now oft en in such a close proximity that it is hard to pause and connect at deeper levels certainly count in many ways

And those in the younger generation of scholars and students who I had the privilege to teach and learn from ndash in Moscow University University of Bern New York University and the City University of New York ndash you have been and continue to be an incredible infl uence in my journeys and a joyful challenge that motivates and inspires Last but certainly not least this book is for my daughter Marusia who grew up in parallel with the writing of it (and one could safely say also under the pressures of this process) to be an unwavering activist with a deep sense of solidarity and equality You are teaching me about passion for social justice and commitment to the future in ways that only someone from your young generation just entering the world stage in joining its struggles and defi nitely not prepared to settle with the status quo ever could You are making and will make an important con-tribution and will realize the future you are seeking together with others 1

1 Note that many quotations from Vygotskyrsquos works have been compared with the origi-nal texts (in Russian) and changes made in cases in which it was necessary to better convey the meaning and correct mistranslations


xii


1

1

Introduction Setting the Stage Th e Paradox of Continuity versus Change

Th is book has been written with an acute sense of a radical change in the many facets expressions and forms that it takes today ndash in the social dynam-ics and political landscapes in patterns of human development and educa-tion in social sciences and critical theories that endeavor to address and sometimes shape these processes For various reasons discussed through-out this book social change became the key theme in theorizing human development and mind Th is conceptual shift toward social change ndash as the central category and the leading premise of the evolving approach to human development and mind ndash was a gradual process that necessitated many changes transformations reconsiderations revisions and signifi cant expansions in concepts and ideas along the way As a result writing has turned into a process of exploration inquiry and discovery ndash rather than a recording or a representation of an already established and fi nalized posi-tion Th is was indeed a journey (to use a clicheacute) and a long one at that of exploring how social change is implicated in human development and what picture results if change and transformation and human agency in instigat-ing and implementing them ndash rather than stability and fi nished orderliness of the world in its status quo to which people passively adapt ndash are taken as the guiding principles and foundational premises

Th e process of writing therefore included many unexpected twists and turns in ideas and argumentation arising every step of the way in the changing dynamics of this project Th ere are still many riddles that remain unsolved and many aspects that demand more consideration ndash and so the most diffi cult task is to fi nd a moment to pause and let the journeyrsquos incomplete products congeal and become reifi ed in this book Yet perhaps no timing will ever be perfect because no journey of this kind is likely to ever be completed instead remaining forever in the making ndash unless it is ldquodone withrdquo and left behind as something that needs neither revision nor

available at httpwwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpdxdoiorg1010179780511843044001Downloaded from httpwwwcambridgeorgcore University of Florida on 14 Dec 2016 at 230607 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use

Th e Transformative Mind2

2

continuation Taking to heart Bakhtinrsquos words that ldquonothing conclusive has yet taken place in the world hellip everything is still in the future and will always be in the futurerdquo ( 1984 p 166) the resulting approach is off ered as one of the steps however incomplete in a continuing endeavor of discov-ering what can be as an open- ended quest rather than a fi nal answer set in stone

Why the Mind

Given the emphasis on change and transformation the title of the book Th e Transformative Mind came about quite naturally Th is title admit-tedly is somewhat narrow because the book is not exclusively about the mind instead its focus is on the broader dynamics of human development and social practices of which the mind is an integral part and an inherent dimension Yet the title is chosen to intentionally challenge those increas-ingly powerful approaches that understand the mind in starkly internalist individualist and reductionist terms ndash as a strictly individual possession situated inside the brain of an isolated individual fl oating in a vacuum or as a computer- like device activated by cognitive or brain modules presumed to be shaped in the course of evolution Whereas many critical and socio-cultural approaches have abandoned the topic of mind in a shift away from anything that seems to appeal to isolated individuals the belief here is that it is important to stake a claim to this topic from a position that is explicitly sociocultural historical relational- materialist dynamic situated and dia-lectical Such a position is focused on social dynamics and cultural matri-ces of collaborative practices in their historical ceaseless unfolding through time yet without neglecting what is traditionally understood as the mind agency and human subjectivity more broadly ndash the processes of thinking knowing feeling remembering forming identity making commitments and so on Th at is the strategy is to reclaim the mind ndash in conjunction with agency and other expressions of human subjectivity ndash and expand a ter-ritory for critical and sociocultural approaches to engage this notion and related problematics in opening up the possibility to take up the dialectics between the social and the individual the external and the internal the person and the world the mind and the shared communal practices

Th ough there have been many books published with titles that employ the same descriptive schema of ldquoTh e X Mindrdquo (cf Zlatev Racine Sinha and Itkonen 2008 ) the leading motivation in most of them especially in recent years has been to look ever more deeply into what is presum-ably the mindrsquos internal workings ndash the ldquodepthsrdquo assumed to be contained


Setting the Stage 3

3

in the cortical neuronal structures and other processes within the brain Th ese recent books with the titles such as Inside the Brain or others close in meaning are typically in the mode of thinking that can be summarized (as one journalist did) by the expression ldquothe amygdala made me do itrdquo On the best- seller lists today are works that rely on the new tools (especially brain scans and genetic testing) and aim to prove that the mind and pro-cesses such as self- determination intentionality agency and consciousness play a much less signifi cant role in our lives than we ever realized Th is is the type of approach that the present book is in stark and unequivocal opposition to Instead the book falls within a very diff erent tradition of writings on human development and mind Among works in this tradition for example are Mind in Society by Lev Vygotsky (though not an original title it did become associated with the Vygotskian scholarship across the globe) Voices of the Mind Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action by James Wertsch Language in Cognitive Development Th e Emergence of the Mediated Mind by Katherine Nelson and Naming the Mind How Psychology Found Its Language by Kurt Danziger among others Th is is a line of work that challenges the biological reductionism dichotomous thinking and other traditional premises that decontextualize and individualize the mind Instead these works strive to focus on the social dynamics of context cul-ture history activity and discourse Th is is not to say that the present book replicates these approaches or is in a perfect alignment with them (which is not the case) but rather to indicate a line of work with similar broad inten-tions and goals

The Challenge of Change versus Tradition

As will be discussed in the last section of this introduction change was not an abstract notion for the present author but rather a very tangible aspect in the fi rsthand experiences of moving through the drastically diff erent rapidly changing and not infrequently confl icting and clash-ing contexts ndash politically geographically academically and personally Th is process made salient the challenge of preserving some degree of stability and continuity amidst changes movements and relocations in time and space and across ideological and political ruptures and fault lines Associated with and directly expressing the paradox of continu-ity and change is that while being tailored to the notion of transforma-tion the book is written in continuation of Vygotskyrsquos tradition yet it also critically reassesses and moves beyond this tradition ndash in thus striv-ing to straddle the paradox of change and continuity Th is relates to a



4

motivation to continue this project while preserving its legacy and yet at the same time to critically interrogate and expand it with the new tools of the radically diff erent cultural political and academic contexts and practices

How can tradition be continued without succumbing to indoctrination and traditionalism that require compliance and inevitably limit innovation and imagination Th e grappling with this paradox is intimately connected to the question central to this book If human power and agency to trans-form reality in enacting social change are to be made central in theorizing human development and mind how is this position to be reconciled with the notion that humans are embedded within and shaped by sociocultural contexts and their histories How can people be understood fundamentally as agentive persons choosing and making ldquotheir wayrdquo and at the same time as constituted at the very core of their being and existence by the social forces and structures seemingly beyond themselves

Th e approach in this book which I chose to term the transformative activist stance (TAS) builds off from the dialectical premises of Vygotskyrsquos project and their broader foundations in Marxist philosophy and does so for many reasons Th e main one among them is that this project had pioneered (albeit not in a fully- fl edged form) an explicitly dialectical and more implicitly ideologically non- neutral perspective on the core ques-tions about human development mind and learning No less importantly in a clear contrast with the reigning theories of its time ndash and of today too ndash this project at least initially was not only not detached from historical con-fl icts such as war imperialism discrimination and displacement Instead it was directly produced by precisely such a dramatic historical texture in its most vivid and drastic expressions Even more critically this project was guided by the eff ort to overcome injustices wrought by these forces and contradictions Th is project was intricately and intimately entangled with the revolutionary struggle that was an epic attempt (its no less epic failures especially through the later periods notwithstanding) to overcome con-fl icts and social ills of its time

It is this projectrsquos active participation in and contribution to the gigan-tic historical sociopolitical and ideological transformation of the time that has shaped its major tenets and ideas In this regard Vygotskyrsquos project stands out in the history of psychology in it contrasting with the domi-nant models described by Edward Said ( 2000 ) ndash as produced by minds ldquountroubled by and free of the immediate experience of the turbulence of war ethnic cleansing forced migration and unhappy dislocationrdquo (pp


Setting the Stage 5

5

xxindash xxii) Given the present crisis and turbulences in our societies and the need for new social practices especially in education turning to the legacy of Vygotskyrsquos project albeit in a critical engagement appears to be justifi ed

While fully crediting Vygotsky as a pioneering scholar who charted a truly new chapter in psychology and education the following commentary is warranted Focusing as is the goal herein on the bidirectional nexus of social practices simultaneously realizing human development social life and reality ndash while at the same time placing emphasis on these practices being realized by people contributing to social change at the intersection of individual and collective agency across the time dimensions (and with a particular emphasis on the sought- aft er future) ndash is a shift away from a number of tacit interlocked impasses present in Vygotskyrsquos project and the broader system of canonical Marxism Th ese impasses are in urgent need of being interrogated and addressed Vygotskyrsquos project just as Marxism at large cannot be mechanically employed to develop novel approaches without expansive critique and creative elaboration ndash which of course is very much in the spirit of this project itself with its celebration of critique as a major indispensable premise and a methodological condition with-out which it ceases to exist Th e expansive elaboration of the worldview- level premises that can be used to ground developments in the spirit of this tradition therefore seeks to overcome a number of polarities especially with regards to the status of reality and change in conceptualizing human development the role of human agency in enacting them and the notions of contribution and commitment to the sought- aft er future as central to human ways of being knowing and doing

Th is approach is also congruent with many recent theories that capital-ize on the role of culture mediation and social interaction in development yet it diff ers in its emphasis on human subjectivity (mind agency etc) as a necessary vehicle of collaborative meaningful practices activities of people aimed at purposefully transforming the world in view of the sought- aft er future Th e mind in this approach is understood as a facet (or an emergent property) of a simultaneously social and individual process of contributing to the future- oriented dynamics of transformative shared social practices of communal life in their world- changing and history- making status Many critical and sociocultural approaches employ the notion of social practice activity and transformation ndash for example this is the case in the works by Foucault Bourdieu the feminist and standpoint theories some currents of pragmatism and quite centrally critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire



6

among others Within the scholarship inspired by Vygotsky and his school these ideas can be found for example in Engestroumlm ( 1999 ) Jones ( 2009 ) Lantolf and Th orne ( 2006 ) Newman and Holzman ( 1993 ) Rogoff ( 2003 ) Sawchuk ( 2003 ) Wartofsky ( 1983 ) among others and I will make an eff ort to engage these works Many Russian scholars in Vygotskyrsquos school had also made similar points in earlier works especially in the late 1970s through the 1980s ndash most prominently Alexei N Leontiev Evald V Ilyenkov Vassily V Davydov Alexey A Leontiev and Valdimir P Zinchenko (in his early works) and their followers such as Aleksandr G Asmolov Fedor E Vasilyuk Elena E Sokolova and Dmitry A Leontiev to name a few As I will discuss the ways to fashion and then proceed from such broad premises however can still diff er in many respects Th e major eff ort herein is to undertake an expansive and critical commentary on the basic tenets of Vygotskyrsquos philosophy ontology and epistemology of human development in order to create a context in which they can be critically advanced to more centrally integrate human transformative agency and mind

Understandably this eff ort does not and cannot do full justice to the decades of creative writings by several generations of Marxist and Vygotskian scholars around the globe ndash such as in addition to the ones already mentioned by the feminist ecological and activist scholars the German- Scandinavian critical tradition (especially Klaus Holzkamp and his colleagues on this school see eg Langemeyer 2006 Nissen 2000 Teo 2013 ) earlier works such as by Ernst Bloch Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt school and contemporary works by the French- speaking Marxist writers A continuous critical engagement with this tradition is justifi ed because narrow interpretations continue to persist equating the notion of materiality with ldquoeconomic structures and exchangesrdquo understood ldquoto stand for the materialist perspective per serdquo (Bennett 2010 p xvi) Th e same author is absolutely correct in asking ldquowhy is there not a more robust debate between contending accounts of how materiality matters to politicsrdquo (ibid) and this relates to some of the discussion in the following chapters

In a sense the book is perhaps especially (though not exclusively) ori-ented to an audience such as the one described by Sarah Leonard ( 2014 ) ndash those who have come of age aft er the end of the Cold War and are ldquoless wary of Marxism more willing to be creative in learning from the history of socialist thought and care less about old labels and memories of sec-tarian disputesrdquo (p 31) For this generation in Leonardrsquos words it is clear that ldquoin troubled times utopian impulses fl ourish because the impossible seems more reasonable than the realisticrdquo (ibid p 30) To which I would


Setting the Stage 7

7

add that the seemingly impossible ndash the imagined future if we commit to creating it ndash is indeed more reasonable and even more realistic than what only appears to be the seemingly frozen and stable structures of a presum-ably unalterable and immutable status quo

Whatever else TAS is or can be its starting premise is that every person matters because the world is evoked real - ized invented and created by each and every one of us in each and every event of our being- knowing- doing ndash by us as social actors and agents of communal practices and collective his-tory who only come about within the matrices of these practices through realizing and co- authoring them in joint struggles and strivings Th is posi-tion is a departure from the canonical interpretations of Marxism that tra-ditionally eschew the level of individual processes such as agency mind and consciousness It is also an expanded and critical take on Vygotskyrsquos tradition in which agency was undertheorized for various reasons includ-ing the political ones (for details see Stetsenko 2005 ) Whether the result-ing product presented in this book is ldquoVygotskianrdquo or Marxist for that matter (and I believe it can be cast as such) is a question that has to remain moot ndash in view of the transformative methodology and epistemology that prizes attempts to move (however imperfectly) beyond the given including the canons of previous theories while also anticipating that it too will be hopefully critiqued and transcended in the next rounds of eff orts and works (by others and myself)

One additional note in the spirit of self- refl ection might be needed to conclude this section Th e act of naming the TAS as an original approach might be read as immodest too ambitious or less preferable than a humble following in the footsteps of those who are typically described as ldquogiantsrdquo such as Vygotsky in the all too familiar ldquoGreat Menrdquo tradition (for a cri-tique of this tradition see Stetsenko 2003 2004 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004a ) Also the act of naming always carries the risk of essentializing and setting ideas and approaches in place rather than leaving ldquono- place where everything is possiblerdquo (see Sandoval 2000 p 141 quoting Roland Barthes) Given the transformative gist paramount in this approach how-ever such connotations I believe can be avoided on both counts With the emphasis on change and transformation this approach is open- ended and thus has been and should continue to be subjected to constant amend-ments revisions transformations and stringent critique ndash because it stands for a kind of thinking that never fi nds itself at the end even though it posits an end point of where it strives to arrive and commits to its real-ization Th e TAS does not and is not meant to provide fi nal answers and



8

hopefully would not be read as an attempt at creating a totalizing narra-tive Quite to the contrary the intention is for this approach to be one of the many ways and steps that might be useful in creating theoretical accounts in support of social changes specifi cally at the intersection of development and education which are urgently needed in light of the unfolding crises we all are presently witnessing Th ese steps need to be made by collective eff orts and the approach developed herein critically depends and relies on these In addition even though naming this approach does carry some risks it is a conscious act that echoes the central premise of this book that we all each and every one of us matter and have the right to co- authoring the world shared with others through our agentive authentic and unique contributions

Interpreting Vygotsky through the Non- Neutral Lens of Activist Methodology

In the foregoing discussion it transpires that the goal undertaken in this book is to continue and at the same time to critique and critically expand Vygotskyrsquos uniquely revolutionary and activist (in multiple meanings of this term as discussed later in the book) project Th is is consonant with what has been captured by Osip Mandelstam a poet whose background and predicament shared much in common with those of Vygotsky in an approach that strives to ldquonot merely repeat the past to deliver it intact and unaltered into the presentrdquo (see Cavanagh 1995 pp 7ndash 8) In the words of Mandelstam cited by Clare Cavanagh in her book with an eloquent title Osip Mandelstam and the Modernist Creation of Tradition (note the play of contradictory meanings in this title) ldquoInvention and remembrance go hand in hand hellip To remember means to invent and the one who remembers is also an inventor rdquo (ibid p 8 emphasis added) As Cavanagh further relates to Mandelstam yet in strongly resonating with Vygotsky too he ldquoweaves the upheavals that mark his and his agersquos histories into the fabric of a resilient tradition that draws from the very sources it is intended to combatrdquo (ibid p 11) She further relates Boris Eikhenbaumrsquos comment that Mandelstamrsquos works are fueled by the ongoing ldquobattle with the craft rdquo of other poets In his words those who would wish to learn from this great poet must likewise be prepared to do battle ndash ldquoyou must conquer Mandelstam Not study himrdquo (quoted in Cavanagh ibid p 11)

And so is the goal here too not to uncover what Vygotskyrsquos theory was ldquoreallyrdquo about Rather than pursuing such an antiquarian goal the intent is to reinvigorate the gist of this project by expansively critiquing and


Setting the Stage 9

9

developing its foundational premises while interrogating its relevance and sorting out its conundrums in the context of challenges stemming from the present historical location and under the angle of our own sociopo-litical goals agendas and commitments In this aspect I solidarize with Hannah Arendtrsquos bold assessment which is as relevant today if not more as it was decades ago when she wrote that ldquo[n] one of the systems none of the doctrines transmitted to us by the great thinkers may be convincing or even plausiblerdquo ( 1971 1977 p 12) To be truthful to the legacy of Vygotskyrsquos project it is imperative to move forward and beyond it in a spirit of cri-tique and expansion albeit on the foundation it has provided including through restoring its revolutionary gist and while contesting accounts that have sidestepped its transformative activism and its liberating sociopolitical ethos of empowerment

Th is expansive interpretation of Vygotskyrsquos project is not claimed to be the most accurate or ldquotruerdquo to its ldquooriginalrdquo intentions and ideas Moreover on theoretical and methodological grounds (implicated in the notion of TAS as discussed throughout the book) an assessment of past theories and their ldquotruthfulnessrdquo along these lines is not feasible at all In my view it is not desirable either

Given the fl uidity of Vygotskyrsquos thought as shaped and colored by the brisk pace of his life and career embedded within a tumultuous indeed dramatic historical and political context and events ndash coupled with the many permutations that his works went through in appropriations by his immediate followers and later within the international scholarship (the latter facing many problems of accessibility and translation) and in light of taking any act of understanding to be an activist endeavor ndash the interpreta-tion here is not an attempt to discuss what Vygotsky ldquotruly and really had in mindrdquo

Any interpretation or understanding of a theory is much more than an ldquoextractionrdquo of its meaning putatively contained in or implied by the original instead it is an endeavor loaded with personal political and ethical dimensions just as any act of knowing and understanding Unless the intention is to literally represent a theory (a highly dubious endeavor because in this case one would be better off reading the original) any interpretation is carried out from a historically politically and sociocul-turally unique place position and most critically commitment Any inter-pretation represents an act of authoring and thus an original viewpoint whether this is acknowledged or not Claiming and debating faithfulness to the original in ways that religious dogmas are claimed and debated are impossible and fruitless from the position that accepts that knowledge is



10

not produced ldquofrom nowhererdquo and instead takes positionality and activ-ism as central to it Several authors in surveying modern interpretations of Vygotskyrsquos works have argued that most of these are selective and serve to fortify an authorrsquos perspective rather than to delineate Vygotskyrsquos own ideas based on a careful and extensive reading of his work (eg Gredler 2012 Miller 2011 )

It is certainly true that a careful and extensive reading of Vygotsky is useful and necessary (and I have engaged in such a reading through several decades in various languages including in the original) Th e strategy here however is self- consciously of an activist type At stake in it is what can be done on the grounds of Vygotskyrsquos deep insights (in ways we can make sense of them) for solving problems and addressing issues in our world today including contemporary views and debates and in our present projects and endeavors Th e naiumlve position that the truth of the past ldquoas it really wasrdquo can somehow be discovered (if only one reads Vygotsky a little bit more carefully and cites him a little bit more extensively) needs to be transcended in view of the situated contextual-ized and activist nature of knowing and understanding Th e problem is not with carrying interpretation from onersquos own location and in exten-sion of onersquos position but in leaving such a grounding unexplicated and obscured in thus obscuring and tainting the resulting products Th is is not just a pronouncement of an academic disagreement but an expres-sion of a theoretical position that is central to the whole project under-taken in this book

Th is position goes along the lines of Bakhtinrsquos notion of addressivity as a constitutive dimension of every utterance implying that to make sense of any utterance any word ndash and any theory ndash requires much more than simply extricating their ldquooriginalrdquo meaning and ideas Instead this process involves the full situation in which an act of understanding takes place and in which it is made available to others It also requires an actively respon-sive understanding implying an exchange between the original work the present interpretation and its location and most critically also the future reader to whom interpretation is addressed In my take on these ideas the work of interpretation is unavoidably embedded in meaning making as an activist striving from a position ndash by authors and readers ndash in a chain of historically culturally and ideologically- politically situated understand-ings and struggles that represent an amalgamation of meanings positions contexts and most importantly activist pursuits and commitments Th is position is broadly compatible with the general shift away from the trans-mission model of language and meaning toward active interpretation and


Setting the Stage 11

11

moreover participation in the practices of inquiry dialogue and commu-nication As Th omas and Brown ( 2009 ) recently commented using exam-ples from the changing practices of journalism

What we are witnessing now hellip is a second transformation marked by a shift from interpretation to participation [aft er the fi rst transforma-tion from passive reception to interpretation] In just the past ten years we have seen that change happens throughout the world of journalism with news itself fi rst being seen as factual later being seen as interpre-tive and with the emergence of the blogosphere fi nally being seen as participatory

Th omas and Brown (ibid) draw attention to the structural transformations in the ways that communication is carried out in todayrsquos Internet- facilitated contexts such as blogging Th is new communication is as dependent on the text the writer produces as it is on the participants and audiences As these authors state ldquoIn blogging authorship is transformed in a way that recog-nizes the participation of others as fundamentally constitutive of the text It is not an author writing to an audience but instead a blogger facilitating the construction of an interpretive communityrdquo (ibid emphasis added)

Th e theory and methodology in the present book take one step aft er (and beyond) this realization of a participatory nature of communication It builds on the premise that not only communication but all human endeavors including acts of being knowing and doing are participatory In addition and most critically what is suggested by the transformative approach is yet another shift ndash a transition from participation (as derived from the notion of dwelling in the present and adapting to it) to contribution ndash a more active and activist stance implying that all acts of being knowing and doing take place at the sites of ideological struggles and are part and parcel of such struggles

To understand any theory of the past we have to attempt to grasp it from a position we take vis- agrave- vis the present confl icts and challenges that we face Th is requires that we understand these confl icts and challenges but even more importantly that we envision how they can be resolved and commit to changing them engaging in struggles to achieve our goals in pursuit of a sought- aft er future Th is is impossible until we take an active and indeed activist position ndash a stand ndash of concern and care as engaged and activist actors who can never remain passive or neutral Th is is perhaps the deeply seated meaning of the word ldquounderstandrdquo implying that indeed we understand while and by means of taking an activist stand

Paradoxically such an approach indicates that any interpretation neces-sarily moves beyond the initial theory and precisely through this movement



12

beyond becomes meaningful Such ldquomovement beyondrdquo entails entering in dialogue with a given theory through our own active work and struggle that inevitably change the initial meanings under the contextual realities and imperatives of our own currently existing challenges and in accord with the beliefs aspirations and concerns we have in a complex merging of these dimensions Th is also implies a broader view on where meaning can be ldquofoundrdquo ndash namely that meaning inheres not in something already given (such as a theory of the past) but in making the next step on the grounds of what is given including through critiquing expanding and transcending the theory one attempts to understand

Interpretations of the past including theories of the past are always also about the present and the future with the value of understanding laying in making the next step while openly explicating our commitments and embracing the risk of shift ing a given theoryrsquos emphasis and changing its ldquoinitial intentrdquo Th e view that there is one universally fi xed way good once and for all to show what a particular author really meant to say (her or his real intent) or what particular words mean is untenable because words are undetermined and open- ended (as is made abundantly clear at least since the hermeneutical works by Gadamer and Ricoeur and the dialogical writings by Bakhtin) Th e belief that we can understand theories in terms of how they ldquoreally arerdquo is tantamount to an expectation that we can think like computers that extract and juggle quotations to analyze them in search for some formulaic consistencies and crude logistics of word combinations outside of human pursuits (cf Ludlow 2012)

Th is is what is implied in saying that theories are alive ndash in multiple senses including because they are brought alive and real - ized each time anew by each new act of understanding (as I attempted to formulate in my earlier works see Stetsenko 1988 2004 ) Bringing words and theories of others to life through our own pursuits is the work of understanding worth doing in that it goes beyond merely antiquarian purposes and instead weaves this work into the larger projects through which we address our present context construct our future and carry out our struggles in view of our own unique challenges and commitments

Working at the Intersection of Theory and Practice

Although the focus in this book is on theoretical and apparently abstract topics such as the worldview- level assumptions about human development and the mind the ultimate goals are concrete and quite practical Th ese



13

goals have to do with elaborating conceptual tools for research policies and practices especially in education that challenge the currently preva-lent ethos of adaptation to the status quo and its attendant ideals focused on competition for resources and putatively ldquonaturalrdquo hierarchies stratifi ed according to some presumably inherited and unalterable human nature An alternative ethical- political ethos foregrounds theory with an orienta-tion toward social justice and equality and attendant ideals of collaboration solidarity and communality

Th is strategy at the intersection of theory and practice follows a long tradition of simultaneously studying critiquing and striving to provide con-ditions for transforming social institutions Examples of such an approach can be found in the philosophy of praxis developed by Antonio Gramsci Paulo Freire and other scholars in the Marxist tradition It centrally relies on the model off ered by Vygotskyrsquos project that can be expansively inter-preted to belong to the same tradition (as will be discussed throughout the book and especially in Part 2 ) Th is project embraced critical praxis and encompassed a deeply seated ideological orientation refl ective of its authorsrsquo engagement with the revolutionary changes that shaped and infused their work through all of its seemingly ldquopurelyrdquo theoretical levels and concepts

In a more contemporary exposition this strategy aligns with Toulminrsquos suggestion for a recovery of ldquopractical philosophyrdquo ( 1988 p 349) Toulmin shows how the primary locus of discussions regarding the most abstract issues such as causality rationality and mind body interface have to move (and I would add de facto have already moved) out of the ldquopurelyrdquo aca-demic discussions into applied realms such as psychiatric practice crimi-nal courts and end- of- life care In expanding this list it can be argued that the locus of problems pertaining to human development and mind subjectivity and agency belongs in classrooms because every theory of these matters is implicitly a theory of education of teaching and learn-ing in their linkage to development It is especially the schoolroom today that is the scene of a large- scale experiment in social Darwinism with its principles of a natural hierarchy of inborn capacities presumably fi xed by biological inheritance that necessitates constant control and testing Th e schoolroom is also a site of experiments in psychopharmacology with an ever- increasing number of students in the United States now receiv-ing medication for problems supposedly caused by naturally produced chemical imbalances in their brains Th e school reforms are supposed to mitigate the worsening situation including growing inequality by focus-ing on testing and assessing student performance ndash rather than on how to better prepare teachers how to provide equal access to cultural resources



14

for teaching- learning and how to identify develop improve invent and distribute these resources

It is at practical sites such as schools that the failures of the dominant philosophies and theories to capture human development and learning in terms commensurate with their open- ended dialectics and historically situated dynamics and with the challenges that education currently faces are most vividly exposed and have the most pernicious eff ects Developing alternative conceptualizations and methodology are steps needed in the struggle to stave off the assaults of marketization on science and education in order to advance alternative visions and theories that could grasp and support the possibilities of human development and education beyond the status quo Such an approach entails exposing the blindfolds of the neo- Darwinian ethos of adaptation and passivity to instead elevate and capi-talize on human subjectivity and agency for social transformation Th is approach takes an activist stance to be central to doing research and to theorizing both aligned with and premised on agentive and transformative ways of being knowing and doing

Th e crisis of inequality most certainly cannot be resolved at the level of theory only ndash it has wide systemic and structural economic and political causes and it would require radical changes at these levels for progress to be made However neither can this crisis be resolved without challenging the starkly outdated theories including their underpinning philosophies worldviews and ideologies that in eff ect support and perpetuate this cri-sis Developed in and for a world of fi xed hierarchies rigid dichotomies exclusionary practices and impenetrable barriers the presently dominant theories of human development and mind are increasingly out of sync with the current demands of social transformation and with the imperatives of equality and solidarity brought about by the rapidly changing and dynamic world in transition and crisis Unless theoretical gaps and problems in the reigning theories are radically challenged and reworked at all levels includ-ing worldview- level ontological epistemological and ideological assump-tions that underpin them the changes in practices and policies will remain hard to achieve

It is in light of these introductory remarks that the theoretical construc-tions and ideas pursued in this book can be understood as part of a situated struggle for knowledge- and practice- building predicated on a striving for liberation from a dogmatic and stifl ing worldview that embeds conceptions of human development and mind on one hand and from closely associated practices of inequality and injustice especially in education on the other Th is position undoubtedly represents a minefi eld of conceptual practical



15

and ethical conundrums ndash at every step of the way Th ese conundrums need to be explicated and tackled in order to avoid undesirable connotations of individualism instrumentalism and eurocentrism that might be in some interpretations associated with this position Yet I believe that this eff ort is worth the potential costs of failure

A Personal Reflection An Autobiographical Sketch

Th e way to grapple with the paradox of continuity versus change in prefac-ing this book inevitably takes on an autobiographical fl avor A brief per-sonalized account might help illustrate the methodology and the overall approach through presenting a set of broad orientations that had come to guide this work even before I realized they did At one level this book is an attempt to summarize my fi rsthand experiences within Vygotskyrsquos project that have spanned several decades Th ese experiences include fi rst study-ing and then working and teaching as a researcher and instructor at the psychology department of the Moscow State University at the time when it was the hotbed of Vygotskyrsquos approach (from the mid- 1970s through the late 1980s) Th is included interactions and in some cases collabora-tion with several key representatives of this approach including Alexander R Luria Alexey N Leontiev Alexey A Leontiev Piotr Y Galperin Daniil B Elkonin Bluma V Zeigarnik Vassily V Davydov and others

No less importantly these experiences span various geographic loca-tions (across four countries on two continents) relocation (not just once) and with it an entry into new cultures customs and languages (again not just once) Th ese relocations inevitably brought with them experiences of being a newcomer and outsider who must straddle boundaries of oft en col-liding practices traditions and norms while constantly moving between the poles of sameness and diff erence in negotiating new identities and positions resulting from cultural transitions and disruptions Th e starkly ethical- ideological and simultaneously personal navigation and negotiation of what it means to be an outsider and how to continue onersquos own tradi-tion and cultural heritage while integrating new experiences and positions have been a constant personal and professional challenge throughout these experiences

An entry into new cultures as an outsider and immigrant (albeit in a highly privileged position within the academy) spurring the need and desire to carry on with interrupted relationships to space and culture has been challenging in many ways Th e most important one was the challenge



16

of seeing the world through a new lens while learning not only to under-stand new culture(s) but to also see onersquos own culture and oneself from a newly acquired distance Th ese experiences highlighted with striking clar-ity the prescience of Bakhtinrsquos words that ldquoour real exterior can be seen and understood only by other people because they are located outside us in space and because they are othersrdquo whereby ldquo[a] meaning only reveals its depths once it has encountered and come into contact with another foreign meaningrdquo ( 1986 p 7) Th rough the years of relocation and coming in touch with foreign meanings there have been many truly eye- opening encounters leading to profound changes in understandings self- understandings and identity that always remained in a state of fl ux and disequilibrium Th is process of identity change included due to an impossibility of belonging to a single place a heightened need of integrating a dimension of the ldquootherrdquo (and an alternative viewpoint) who provides new oft en foreign meanings that ldquointerruptrdquo the self- evidence of onersquos life and understandings for these meanings to be juxtaposed and clashed with the older ones in the process of creating new connections and ever- unstable synthesis

Th e experiences I am describing have spanned not only the changing geographic locations but also the dramatic historical events that imbued these locations with starkly disparate sociopolitical connotations in condi-tions that spanned distinct historical eras Th is span included entering uni-versity and then making fi rst steps in academia during what is known as the period of political and economic stagnation gradually giving way to a grow-ing openness of the Soviet society and a soft ening of the Cold War climate in what is known as the international movement of deacutetente (the mid- 1970s through the early 1980s) Later on the developments of the fi rst outlines of professional identity coincided with invigorating changes during the short but incredibly intense period of ldquoperestroikardquo at the end of the Cold War in the mid- to- late 1980s and then living through the dramatic disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 Th e experiences aft er that with the move fi rst to western Europe and then the United States motivated by a desire to expand onersquos horizons (literally and metaphorically) both professionally and per-sonally were situated at the temporal and geographic epicenter of what can be considered a unique page (if not a unique era) in history

Th is era (not yet named as such by historians but clearly distinct in my view) is the postndash Cold War period marked by a highly celebratory atmo-sphere in the western world conveyed by the infamous ldquoend of historyrdquo metaphor that set in place aft er 1991 and extended for almost two decades (approximately until the world economic crisis of 2008) During this time



17

history and with it the need for large social projects and political imagi-nation premised on radical possibilities of change and transformation had supposedly come to an end History has been proclaimed to have reached its ostensibly glorious end embodied in ldquothe fi nal triumphrdquo and an unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism (as Fukuyama has notoriously claimed) Th e ldquoend of historyrdquo metaphor conveyed the sense that there was nothing left to imagination and social action by ruling out the possibility to envision a world that is essentially diff erent from the status quo along with the need of committing to changing it Th ese years were rewarding professionally yet infused with feelings of a profound disconnect from this stifl ing ldquoend of historyrdquo mentality along with its discourses normativity and sociopolitical ethos In a remarkable twist of events and contrary to predictions this peculiar historical period has abruptly ended as it ensued in an unprecedented turmoil and crisis in the world economy and politics that is still unfolding today

In this apparently sudden ending of the period of euphoria (perceived as such especially by the elites) it is hard not to see some uncanny parallels to another equally sudden event that too had not been anticipated ndash the collapse and disintegration of the Soviet Union Th is resemblance especially concerns the rising self- awareness and critique the awakening of political consciousness and the emergence of new political imagination and nascent social movements Th e disintegration of the Soviet Union and the tectonic shift s it has spawned (with its eff ects still reverberating today) including shift s toward democracy yet also stark changes in the world balance of pow-ers and the rising global and local strife of national confl icts and inequalities (contrary to predictions of the historyrsquos peaceful ending) played a particu-larly instructive role in my life and scholarship Th at practically no one was able to predict the dramatic indeed earth- shattering events of this mag-nitude that had been brewing and gathering momentum while apparently remaining undetected is a striking lesson I take from these experiences

Yet another lesson of living through a turmoil and then a collapse in 1991 of a giant sociopolitical system that had been deemed stable and immutable by those inside and outside of it on its periphery and at its very center is that this tumultuous change despite appearances was in fact neither sudden nor unprepared Instead in hindsight it becomes clear that this change did not just ldquohappenrdquo as a sudden disruption in an otherwise stable and steady course of events Neither was it imposed by the powerful outside forces as many have assumed In fact this change had been inconspicuously prepared and gradually brought to life by the



18

very unsuspecting people who nonetheless through their seemingly mundane deeds and eff orts however ordinary and minute together made this titanic change and this tectonic shift possible and de facto real-ized it ndash even while not being fully aware of how their lives and deeds including their acts of ldquomerelyrdquo witnessing (which were never ldquomererdquo) and of struggling to live through the diffi cult times had powerfully con-tributed to in no small way and in essence created the dramatic shift s of such a historic magnitude

Perhaps more important is that this lesson is striking not so much in application to the past but rather in what to me is its striking relevance for the present and the future ndash for understanding the presently unfolding highly volatile events and cataclysms that are shaping up with unprece-dented force the rapidly changing and globalizing political and socioeco-nomic landscapes today Th e lesson I was able (and lucky) to learn is that the future is actually always already in the making now in the present and that big changes and shift s might be around the corner even as the present status quo still appears to be immutable and stable Stability might be just an illusion that many are trying to cling to while history is rushing ahead with numbing speed like a moving train without breaks

Th e implications I tend to draw from these experiences are at once conceptual political and personal It is that we all are not just passen-gers on this moving train of history ndash as if we were just gazing outside at the rapidly changing landscape while merely observing coping with and adapting to it Instead the train itself is made to move and to move in a concrete though fl uid and ever- changing direction by the collective eff orts of people who act together yet with each person mattering in individually unique ways at every step of the way at every move of history We are all actors who contribute to social practices bring about their historical realization and contribute to the future that is to come and moreover a future that is always already in the making by us now In this sense a neutral and detached position is truly not within anyonersquos aff ordance because it is impossible to avoid being implicated in the ongoing shift s and transformations and therefore we need and have to take a stance on and stake a claim in the ongoing events and their unfolding key contradictions and struggles

Th is suggests that we all are participating in and contributing to the making of history and of our common future bearing responsibility for the events unfolding today and therefore for what is to come tomorrow Th e social structures and practices exist before we enter them carrying



19

the weight of tradition and the inertia of the past yet it is our action (or inaction) including our work of understanding and knowing that helps to maintain them in their status quo or alternatively to transform and transcend them Th is making of history in the ldquohere and nowrdquo occurs in immediate and powerful albeit oft en inconspicuous and modest ways as is certainly true for most of us and our utterly modest and common indi-vidual biographies and ordinary lives (though no person is really ldquocom-monrdquo and no life merely ldquoordinaryrdquo) through our action or inaction that matter (if only on a small scale) for realties far beyond ourselves Th is is the central theme of this book ndash that human development is a collaborative project of people together changing and co- creating the world Th e world is fully enmeshed with our collective strivings and collaborative projects in a spiral of mutual historical becoming wherein each individual act of being knowing and doing ndash unique authorial and irreplaceable as it is ndash matters Human development is about people together creating our common future in the course of today while enacting history through active and activist projects of co- authoring the history- in- the- making thoroughly contingent on commitments we make to creating the future we seek and deem to be worth struggling for

Th is interpretation I believe is not inconsequential for providing conceptual support for some timely changes in perspective on human development and education For example there has been an upsurge of interest in issues of agency following social upheavals and ensuing polit-ical movements in eastern Europe in the mid- 1980s (cf Ahern 2001 ) that vividly exemplifi ed the power of activism as a human capacity for history- and world- making It is indeed important to discern and learn the lessons from what has been and still is going on in various distant parts of the world But it is the presently unfolding circumstances con-tradictions and confl icts of our own place and time our own present historical- political and geographic location that deserve much scrutiny with regards to how we understand the impact of these changes and what kind of agency and imagination ndash what kind of activist contributions ndash they necessitate and call for

In applying these lessons of an outsider who had lived through a dra-matic historical change I wrote a piece long before the economic crisis of 2008 calling on psychology to make an eff ort to capture not only patterns of social change aft er they had played out their course but also those that are emerging and taking shape right in front of our eyes in oft en tacit yet powerful forms Such eff orts are defi nitely worth making especially if we


Th e Transformative Mind

20

20

do not want to miss out on an opportunity ldquoto discern the impending social changes hellip in our ever- dynamic world that perhaps only appears to be sta-ble and fi xedrdquo (Stetsenko 2002 p 153) A later elaboration on this point is perhaps worth quoting too

By paying attention to continuing inequality and other problems fester-ing in our own societies we can become more attuned to social change not only in its sudden and dramatic expressions such as the fall of the Berlin Wall or the dismantling of the Soviet Union but also to incremen-tal tacit gradual processes building up behind the facades of the seem-ingly stable and immutable contexts and structures It is hellip through such a critical lens that we are best equipped to recognize social change in its various guises and to fi nd ways to deal with it not only aft er the fact but while we are right in the middle of change with its contours and direc-tions just now being shaped and formed Th is may be quite some task at this point in time at the beginning of this new century much social change is to be expected as it unfolds judging by its fi rst years which have already shaken up many of our received notions of society history and democracy (Stetsenko 2007a p 112 emphasis added)

Th e conclusion that can be drawn from this attempt at a personal refl ection is that it makes no sense to try to grasp or understand the world and our-selves ndash including through theories that situate these processes within the status quo ndash as if we could just pause and see them for what they are now at this moment in preparing for the future that we take to somehow just con-tinue in line with the present almost intact and steady Th is is because even as we pause the world and we have already been changed by this very act of pausing by our refl ections questions and above all by how we attempt to grasp and change the world in moving forward as it too grasps and changes us Th is is about a mutual entanglement that relentlessly propels into the future and that we encounter confront and bring into realization if only in small ways and on local scales Th ese themes and how they can be conceptually worked into an account of human development and mind including their educational implications for a pedagogy of daring will be discussed in what follows


2121

Part I


22


23

23

1

Charting the Agenda From Adaptation to Transformation

I am what time circumstance history have made of me certainly but I am also much more than that So are we all

James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son

With the notion of change at the forefront (as discussed in the Introduction) and therefore with an unavoidable sense of incompleteness and unfi nalizability of any project the approach in this book aims to spur dialogues and exchanges on how critical and sociocultural scholarship (in the broad connotation of this term cf Leonardo 2004 ) including Vygotsky- inspired approaches can be expanded and recontextualized for a new and very diff erent world ndash even more volatile unstable and unpredictable ndash than the one in which the pio-neers of these approaches have worked In particular the contemporary acute crisis of inequality including growing disparities in education requires criti-cal engagement with concepts and theories of human development and learn-ing that underpin discriminatory policies and provide them with a seeming legitimacy based in appeals to a presumably fi xed and unalterable ldquohuman naturerdquo and inborn ldquomental architecturerdquo taken as explanations for unequal achievement and social stratifi cation An engagement with broad theories and concepts of human development and mind is necessary because inequality is causing disintegration of social structures and processes that bond individuals and communities and make their development possible To paraphrase Urie Bronfenbrennerrsquos (one of the public intellectuals among psychologists who fought for social justice) stern warning ldquosocial changes taking place in mod-ern industrialized societies may have altered conditions conducive to human development to such a degree that the process of [human beings] making [themselves] human is being placed in jeopardyrdquo ( 2004 p xxvii)

Th e presently reigning theories portray human development as a solo process occurring in an isolated organism understood to be a separate



24

entity equipped with putatively inborn capacities that unfold independently of social cultural and economic supports opportunities and mediations Th ey are increasingly tailored to social (neo- ) Darwinist and mechanistic understandings that assume a static society composed of individuals who are reduced to engaging in survival through competition for resources by having to adapt to a status quo that is presumed to remain stable over time Th e resulting dominant research orientation today can be characterized as ldquothe resurgence of extremist biological determinism laden with mythic gender [and other types of] assumptionsrdquo (Morawski 2005a p 411) Most of all this research is conspicuously in sync with ideology associated with the unquestioned reign of unregulated market economies and their social Darwinist values of competition ldquosurvival of the fi ttestrdquo and struggle for advantage in an unrestricted pursuit of individual self- interest Appealing to innate unalterable and rigid biological mechanisms and determinants of human development while in fact there is no evidence to support such claims serves to supply conditions for rationalizing and justifying inequi-ties of the social order because they are viewed as biological inevitabili-ties In eff ect we are facing a new resurgence of eugenics as a means of social control ndash much in similarity with the 1920s and against the same background of deep economic crisis bitter anti-immigration sentiment and social upheaval (cf Allen 2001 )

Th e reign of views on human nature as predetermined and fi xed on the one hand and the failure of social theories to provide an alternative broad vision that could unhinge ideas of development from the ethos of adapta-tion and control on the other is a serious obstacle that needs to be dealt with to achieve changes in present policies and practices Sociocultural theories of development in particular off er many useful tools for concep-tualizing development and mind as situated in context mediated by cul-tural tools and distributed across ecosystems in which development takes place Yet they have not suffi ciently focused on broad ontological and epis-temological underpinnings in terms of the worldview- level premises about development and mind especially on how these premises are coupled with the sociopolitical ethos including as they relate to inequality and regimes of power One symptom of this for example is a lack of discussion about race and power in sociocultural theories including those in Vygotskyrsquos lineage (cf Nasir and Hand 2006 )

A number of steps for such an alternative approach off ered in this book aim to address the challenges arising especially in the context of the rapidly growing inequality particularly in education Th is approach attempts to continue and expand on the radical theories of Vygotsky and


Charting the Agenda 25

25

also Bakhtin Freire and other critical and sociocultural scholars while critically engaging and interrogating their ideas expanding on them and grappling with their contradictions Th e key premise in setting up this approach is that human agency in carrying out and realizing changes in the shared communal practices of the social world is a natural part of the material reality and the key dimension of ontology and epistemology of human development and mind At a deeper level the key premise of a political- ideological nature is that all individuals are endowed with equal potential for social achievement intelligence creativity and other capac-ities and faculties Th at is all individuals are truly considered equal not just in their legal and moral rights nor only in opportunity but in their fundamental capacities and abilities ndash albeit only as these can and have to be brought to realization within shared collaborative practices of com-munities through individually unique and authorial contributions and with the support of collectively invented and continuously reinvented cultural mediations and tools

From this perspective no inborn predispositions can be posited to pro-duce let alone legitimize the putatively ldquonaturalrdquo status hierarchies and inequalities including in education Human developmental paths are not predefi ned nor preprogrammed in advance of development situated in context and shaped by the powerful socioeconomic political and cultural forces that position individuals within the material- semiotic practices of their time and place Instead human capabilities and capacities are consti-tuted in and through the process of development ndash as they are brought into realization in the course of people actively engaging in contributing to and transforming collaborative social practices that are culturally mediated socially contextualized and contingent on material resources including critical- theoretical tools (cf Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 ) of agency Th ere are no imposed or rigidly predetermined ldquonaturalrdquo limitations on the pro-cess of development ndash neither genetic nor any other types of ldquohard- wiredrdquo inborn dispositions or modules in the form of evolutionary inheritances that unidirectionally shape development Th is implies that all human beings have unlimited potential ndash and are thus profoundly equal precisely in this infi nity of their potential regardless of any putatively ldquonaturalrdquo endowments and ostensibly ldquointractablerdquo defi cits Th is potential however needs to be actualized by individuals themselves as an ldquoachievementrdquo (with no con-notations of either fi nality or predetermined norms) of togetherness while being supported with access to authoring requisite cultural tools and spaces for their own agency within the collaborative dynamics of shared commu-nity practices



26

Th e argument about humans all having infi nite and therefore equal potential at the start of life ndash not the same as in exactly a replica of each other but equal precisely in its infi nity ndash is supported by scientifi c discov-eries and advances of recent years in various research areas from biology and epigenetics to neuroscience and developmental psychology Th ese dis-coveries and advances testify to the malleability of genetics the practically infi nite plasticity of the brain the vast potential of cultural mediation to propel development forward and the ldquoenormous potencyrdquo (Nisbett et al 2012 p 149) previously unacknowledged of experience environment cul-ture and social interactions in development Even Charles Darwin ndash under the limits of his era and his elitist social status ndash was prescient enough to make a conjecture that ldquoif the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature but by our institutions great is our sinrdquo (cited in Gould 1996 p 19) Today more than 150 years later and aft er decades of research into human development it is well past time to unequivocally acknowledge in the face of the obvious that poverty is not the result of nature and even more importantly that our sins as society are truly great Th at appeals to ldquoinnaterdquo diff erences to justify the social status quo and entrenched power hierarchies continue unabated across broad swaths of society from mass media and everyday beliefs to policy making and social discourses is bor-dering on distorting knowledge and misleading the public to a huge detri-ment of all involved

Th e premise of fundamental equality does not negate that each person is at the same time individually unique How these notions of individual uniqueness and fundamental equality can be reconciled and how educa-tional practices can be based on the principle that all human beings have infi nite potential ndash unidentifi able in terms of any preconceived inborn limi-tations and immeasurable in terms of possible future outcomes ndash will be discussed as one of the major implications of the transformative activist stance (TAS) in continuation of Vygotskyrsquos legacy Th is social justice work can only be done in combination with a recognition and respect for diff er-ence and plurality and an acknowledgment of systemic inequalities power diff erentials and persistent discrimination in society (discussed in more details in Stetsenko in press )

Th is radical notion of equality is used in a dual way serving as both a presupposition for and a product of theory building and research On the one hand this notion is derived from an ethical- political com-mitment to social equality taken as an ideal that is underwriting and guiding theory and explorations into human development On the other hand this notion is arrived at in the course of a systematic study into



27

human development and the concepts that describe it Th is approach does not take the ideal of equality as an abstract notion nor test it in some detached and neutral way Instead it takes a stand on and commits to matters of equality as the fi rst analytical step that leads all other meth-odological strategies conceptual turns and theoretical choices and thus attempts to realize equality in the process of theory- and knowledge- building Th is is about undertaking eff orts to provide conditions for making the assumption of equality true including at the level of sup-portive theoretical constructions as one of the steps in the overall proj-ect of creating equality in society and education (for a related though not identical approach see Ranciegravere 1991 )

Such an approach counterintuitive from the standpoint of traditional objectivist and value- neutral models of science employs methodology premised on TAS and is consistent with some trends in critical and socio-cultural scholarship It centrally builds on Vygotskyrsquos notion that the meth-ods and the objects of investigation are always ldquointimately linked with one anotherrdquo (Vygotsky 1997b p 58) whereby methodology and knowledge products are not ontologically separate but instead indivisibly merged in one process In my interpretation this position implies that methodologi-cal tools strategies and techniques have to be tailored not to and result not in the uncovering of facts ldquoas they arerdquo at the present moment Rather they are about intervening with and co- constructing phenomena and processes that we investigate and grapple with together with others in non- neutral historically situated ways in line with the ontological epistemological and ideological commitments and goals (for a related yet not identical interpre-tation see Newman and Holzman 1993 )

What lies beneath these claims is a deeper- seated layer of commit-ment to and a vision for a better future that is ineluctably social moral and political at once Th at is Vygotskyrsquos method of theory and theory of method ndash and the tool and result of his approach ndash are based in an irrevoca-ble commitment to social equality and justice to the task of building a new psychology for a society in which people have equal rights especially with regards to equal access to education and to social supports and cultural mediations that they need in order to realize their development Th is broad political ethos at the core of Vygotskyrsquos project and its methodology coun-ters principles of adaptation and competition for resources as the central grounding for human development that takes the ldquogivennessrdquo of the world for granted and assumes that individuals have to fi t in with its status quo

Th e approach charted in this book is congruent with several per-spectives that break away from the constraints of maturation- based



28

physiology- driven essentialist individualist and ultimately reduction-ist accounts of human mind and development In particular it draws on a variety of cutting- edge ideas advanced in areas such as critical pedagogy feminist and science studies collaborative situated and distributed cogni-tion theories dynamic systems and actor- network theories participatory learning approaches and theories of embodiment enactment and cultural mediation As such this position is aligned with what is gradually emerging as the key direction sometimes termed the conceptual revolution in social sciences across a number of disciplines Th ese approaches bring across an extraordinarily important message about human development being situ-ated in context while putting emphasis on the relational co- constitution of human beings and the world Several of them in addition focus on the continuously unfolding historically situated and culturally mediated developmental dynamics of human embodied acting in environments

Th e recent developments in critical and sociocultural theories however oft en avoid theorizing agency mind and other processes of human subjec-tivity because these are traditionally associated with the individualist and mentalist tenets of mainstream approaches especially in psychology It is quite understandable especially given the overwhelming power and the disastrous ramifi cations of individualistic assumptions (and not just in sci-ence and education but also in economy and politics as exemplifi ed by the present global crisis) that many critical and sociocultural scholars move as far away as possible from anything to do with the level of individuals and human subjectivity Indeed because human development is generated by people collaborating within historically evolving social practices as the core condition of their existence theories limiting development to universal processes within individuals are shortsighted impoverished and politically hegemonic However excluding processes traditionally associated with the individual levels of functioning ndash such as identity mind agency thinking making decisions and choices forming concepts committing to goals and so on ndash as if they were defi nable only in terms of autonomous solipsistic and self- suffi cient processes ldquoinsiderdquo the person might be a remnant of the dualistic worldview

While building upon and integrating many important insights stem-ming from these perspectives the approach in this book suggests steps to move beyond the notions of human subjectivity including the mind as situated relational contextualized embodied enacted and dynamic Th is is achieved by more directly focusing on human agency and the power of commitment and imagination in highlighting human capacity to transform and transcend the status quo and its artifacts of reifi cation An additional



29

and no less critical specifi cation is that this capacity for agency along with other expressions of human subjectivity are understood to be fully social that is developed and realized in acting collaboratively and cooperatively with the cultural tools and within the communal spaces of the world in its ongoing historicity shared with others

Th is approach requires a number of broad and radical changes in the worldview- level assumptions about human development and mind and about reality itself along the lines of transformative propositions Th is ana-lytical shift can be achieved if instead of privileging one of the poles on the continuum of social versus individual realms of social practices the dichot-omy between these poles is deconstructed with an emphasis on agency at the intersection of individual and collective dimensions of human practices and across the scales of the past present and future Th is in turn is pos-sible if a strong emphasis on the sociocultural embedding and a situated contextualized nature of development is complemented with an eff ort to devise a thoroughly reworked model of mind agency and personhood (ie individuality of persons qua agentive actors of social practices) along with a scrutiny of attendant sociopolitical assumptions

Th is approach strives to avoid the extremes of mentalist views that limit the mind to individual mental constructs neuronal processes in the brain and computation or information processing ndash even if these are acknowledged to be embodied and situated in context and augmented with (or expanded by) external tools However it also attempts to over-come some limitations within the relational approaches ndash including eco-logical dynamic distributed situated and embodied cognition theories and theories of participatory and situated learning ndash that fuse the mind with the context and relatively disregard agency and other forms of human subjectivity Th e intention is to open the way (or at least make some steps in this direction) to advancing a fully non- mentalist situated and dynamic approach to mind and agency while also capitalizing on their transfor-mative role and relevancy in realizing communal forms of social life and human development

Th is interpretation rejects the possibility of quaint epistemology in which the mind is a copy or a refl ection of the world because it rejects fi niteness permanence and stability of social practices and of correspond-ing forms of social life and human development Within the worldview that posits reality as human praxis ndash in the connotation of ldquoworld- historical activityrdquo (Marx and Engels 1845ndash 1846 1978 p 163) or ldquohistory- making actionrdquo that always transcends the status quo through struggles and con-testation ndash the door can be opened for an idea of mind and other forms of



30

human subjectivity as active interventions and transformative forces within the world rather than its somehow accurate picturing Th at is the mind can be understood to be part of the larger practices aimed at making and remaking the world in line with envisioned alternatives and the sought- aft er future Th is is a highly ambitious and diffi cult task that involves many risks (such as of anthropocentrism individualism and mentalism) and it is important to admit at the outset that the book is likely to fall short of at least some of its stated goals

Outline of the Transformative Activist Stance

At its base this book is about critically examining the idea that runs through many works in critical and sociocultural scholarship ndash namely that circumstances change people inasmuch as people change circumstances or in another presentation of the same idea that ldquohistory does not command us history is made by us History makes us while we make it rdquo (Freire 1985 p 199 emphasis added) Tracing its roots to Marx this idea fi nds many expressions and forms For example Holland and Lave ( 2009 p 2) wrote recently

Like activity theorists and students of Vygotsky we share strong com-mitments to the historical material character of social life Th at in turn requires that we begin our inquiries about persons in practice with the ongoing historically constituted everyday world as people both help to make it what it is by their participation in it while they are being shaped by the world of which they are a part

In sharing similar strong commitments I see the need to further explore and probe this idea interrogate and problematize it ndash in the belief that its meaning is far from self- evident and that its depth and implications have not been fully plumbed yet What does it take for human beings and com-munities to make history and be made by it and what kind of theory can account for such a process More importantly in what kind of a world do people have the agency to change it and thus make history while being made by it In addition what does it mean to say that history makes us while we make it ndash what kind of a process actually stands behind this seem-ingly straightforward expression and this deceptively simple conjunction ldquowhilerdquo

Clearly an analytical focus on social structures and processes shaping human development is insuffi cient for adequately framing and addressing



31

issues that arise when considering human subjectivity mind agency and especially human ability to resist and to act in the face of uncertainties and challenges It is also not enough to say that there are active individu-als and an active world or that they are somehow interlinked ndash because this position does not specify the processes behind the ldquolinkrdquo that con-nects the two and oft en still presupposes a dichotomy between them In many approaches people are viewed as if they were removed from the world as outsiders who only construct meanings about and interpret reality or alternatively as fully and seamlessly immersed in the world to such an extent that they lack ability to resist the all- powerful forces of culture history and society Th e ways of working out issues surrounding these conundrums as will be suggested herein is to conceptualize and centrally focus on the nexus of people changing the world and of them being changed in the process of themselves bringing about changes in the world including how the world is changing them In this dialectically recursive and dynamically co- constitutive approach as will be discussed throughout the book people can be said to realize their development in the agentive enactment of changes that bring the world and simultane-ously their own lives including their selves and minds into reality

Th ese transformative processes are situated in shared contexts of communal history enacted by collective practices while relying on their resources tools spaces and collaborative interactivities Yet the active and activist role of people in realizing these processes while acting on commit-ments to a sought- aft er future to what they themselves deem important and worth struggling for cannot be ignored Acting on a commitment to how the world should be ndash instead of merely expecting changes and prepar-ing for them or of imagining them as already in existence ndash amounts to affi rming and creating the future- to- come already in the present Th is is because the present the seemingly indomitable status quo always already is changing and morphing into the future as we attempt to grasp and grapple with it in the acts of our becoming which are always transformative of the present

Moreover affi rming the future in realizing it in the present is coextensive with persons affi rming themselves ndash and not as isolated individuals but as actors and agents of social practices in their ongoing communal historicity ndash along with affi rming others as such actors and agents too in their hetero-geneity and plurality through commitment to solidarity (note some over-laps of this position with Derridarsquos writings on the future see eg Owen 2004 ) Envisioning a diff erent world making a commitment to bringing it about and struggling to realize it by altering and transcending it now is the



32

process of creating the future in the present as a reality in its own right Th is reality is not confi ned to the status quo and instead is always in the pro-cess of being realized in the ldquohere and nowrdquo beyond what it just appears to be ndash because the present encompasses the past (in inevitably continuing it) and always already inaugurates the future in its ongoing historicity Th us this stance is about inventing the future through struggle and contestation an activist striving for a better world ndash and thus about co- creating reality rather than merely expecting or hoping for the futurersquos somehow predes-tined arrival

Importantly the social change and transformation enacted in the move-ment beyond the given is taken to be no less and in fact more real than what is oft en believed is the abstract and neutral ldquobruterdquo reality of the world as it exists now in its status quo and its seemingly unalterable ldquogivensrdquo rei-fi ed in the taken- for- granted states structures circumstances and ldquofactsrdquo Th erefore it is the process of co- creating co- authoring and inventing the future all embodied in the struggle to change the world and the ways in which it is shaping us ndash in the acts of taking a stand staking a claim making a commitment and claiming a position and thus coming to know and to exist while working and laboring to realize them ndash that is rendered founda-tional to human development and subjectivity

In this interpretation an activist stance is understood as part of carry-ing out social communal practices and therefore as part of reality ndash rather than merely a sociocognitive product of abstract calculations by an isolated individual A stance of committing to realizing the future is not a domain of ldquosheerrdquo subjectivity (traditionally understood) but a grasp of reality ndash and in eff ect part of reality Th is is about understanding the event of grasping and taking a stand as something that happens not only in the world but to the world (cf Stengers 2002a in elaborating on Whitehead 1920 cf Latour 2005a ) and importantly also to us From TAS taking up a position and making a commitment are acts that realize the- world- in- the- making ndash and therefore are instances of mattering through making a diff erence in the world ndash acts that are real and productive and even ldquomore than realrdquo (as will be discussed in more detail throughout the book and especially in Part 3 through Part 5) Th e core point is that we come to be and to know in the always non- neutral ndash that is passionate and activist ndash acts of making and working out commitments to a sought- aft er future that are formative of the bidirectional and mutual becoming of ourselves and our world

Th e stances and commitments to a sought- aft er future are not posited as a universal and abstract mental telos that is as some kind of an ideal meta-physical fi xed destination that history presumably aims to reach because



33

of its own inherent logic Instead they are understood in their relevance within concrete and situated activities in the present as a mode of grap-pling with contradictions of the status quo in a quest to overcome them in the furtherance of onersquos path that always contributes to ongoing com-munity practices and thus is never merely individual Th is position aims to undo the boundary not only between the individual and the social (or agency and structure) but also in a related move between the real and the possible (cf Crapanzano 2004 ) specifi cally through a focus on articulating and committing to the sought- aft er future that brings the future into the present within the struggles for alternatives including in creating possibility against probability (cf Stengers 2002b ) In this emphasis there is an affi nity (though not a complete alignment) between commitment and notions such as ldquohope against hoperdquo (cf West 1993 p xi) and ldquohope against probabilityrdquo (Stengers 2002b p 269) Th e commonality across these notions is about persistence in the face of apparently insurmountable obstacles and seem-ingly invincible social ills Th is position strives to avoid extremes of utopian thinking on one hand and gloomy pessimism on the other Importantly it does so while acknowledging the harsh reality that no individual act might be fully suffi cient to enact broad social changes yet highlighting the value of such acts

Th is approach is underpinned by a transformative worldview that encompasses ontology (what reality is taken to be) and epistemology (what the process of knowing about reality is taken to be) that are coupled most critically with a socioethical commitment to radical equality and solidarity Importantly this ethos is not merely added to considerations at the level of foundational assumptions about human development Instead the princi-ples of equality and solidarity are understood to be integral parts of theory whereby theory is devised in ways that can embody and carry out (and hopefully also advance) an ethical social practice ontological vision and epistemological principle in one encompassing logic

Th e transformative ontology and epistemology are both premised on the notion that agency embodied in activist stance is inherent in human development in its interrelated dimensions of being knowing and doing Agency thus understood is associated with and emblematic of people col-laboratively moving beyond the status quo (ie the presently ldquogivenrdquo real-ity) through individual agentive contributions to this process while relying on cultural tools of creating social change predicated on a sought- aft er future Activism conveys the sense that all individuals and communities are immersed within and are always contributing to not just the neutral con-texts or environments that somehow peacefully ldquosurroundrdquo them Instead



34

human development is part and parcel of the unfolding drama and struggle that constitute the world infused with confl icts and contradictions dilem-mas and challenges ndash which even in their daily expressions and everyday contexts are always about the struggle for transformation of the world (cf Freire 1994 )

What is highlighted by the term activism (in contrast to the more neu-tral notions such as experience engagement dwelling or participation) is that development is about participating yet is also and even more critically about contributing to transformative communal practices from one or the other side or position and stance on their dilemmas and contradictions Th is entails persons taking an agentive position within the social processes that are powerfully shaping them ndash taking a stance and staking a claim on what is going on in their context and its community practices ndash in order to change these contexts and practices in line with their own vision and com-mitment to a sought- aft er future Th e related premise is that social change and agency are ubiquitous endemic and immanent in the world under-stood as a realm that not only embeds grounds and gives rise to human development but is co- created by social collaborative practices embodied in individual and communal ways of being knowing and doing Th us human development and the world are viewed as coterminous and coextensive with the ongoing social collaborative practices extending through history and across generations and therefore as also commensurate coterminous and coextensive with each other

Th e emphasis is on the world (reality) and human development being brought into existence ndash that is realized and actualized ndash precisely in and through the process of collaborative transformation that people instigate and carry out as actors of collective practices and agents of communal history Th e dynamic and recursive unending transitions within these continuous bidirectional open- ended and co- evolving circuits of social practices ceaselessly unfolding through time ndash as the nexus of human beings and their world at the interface of collective and individual agency and across the time dimensions ndash are taken to be the constitutive ldquofab-ricrdquo from which the world and human ways of being knowing and doing evolve and which in the same process they bring into realization From this position not only are agency and human subjectivity this- worldly parts of the natural world (as has been claimed already by William James 1907 ) but the world and reality are not some neutral unitary unchanging realms separate from us Instead they are imbued with the human dimen-sions including struggle rupture disputability contestation commitment and imagination



35

Th is orientation is expressed in the notion advanced throughout this book that human development is a collaborative and creative work- in- progress by people acting together in pursuit of their goals while in the pro-cess always moving beyond the status quo and its existing conditions and limitations Th e emphasis is not on people acting under given conditions as in many relational and contextualist accounts and also in the canonical interpretations of Marxism Instead the primary emphasis is on struggle and striving ndash on people encountering confronting and overcoming the circumstances and conditions that are not so much given as taken up by people within the processes of actively grappling with them and thus real-izing and bringing them forth in striving to change and transcend them It is this process of struggle and striving that is ascribed with an ontologi-cally epistemologically and methodologically central signifi cance

While being profoundly social and reliant on cultural supports and mediations and thus comprehensible only against the background of his-torically specifi c collective semiotic- material practices in their communal histories and collaborative dynamics development is understood at the same time to be fully contingent on individually unique contributions to communal social practices in ways that propel them forward Development is therefore enacted and realized by individuals yet by individuals act-ing as social subjects and actors of collective history who are brought into existence by collaborative practices that is as community members and co- creators of their own communal world and collective history In this approach individuals come to be to know and to act only within social practices and while critically relying on access to these practicesrsquo cultural resources and tools indispensable for development and learning Yet these practices are co- created by individuals who in contributing to changes in communal forms of life collaboratively enact and carry out both their own development and the social fabric of their world

Th e notion that people contribute to and thus change the world enacted through social practices (rather than merely participate in them) while struggling for a sought- aft er future that they commit to ndash posited as onto-logically and epistemologically central to development and mind ndash in fact expands and moves beyond Vygotskyrsquos tenets Th ese tenets were centrally focused on the present communal practices and perhaps especially their past history A critical expansion off ered herein concerns the relevance of the forward- looking activist positioning vis- agrave- vis the future and of a com-mitment to social change in order to bring this future into reality Th e criti-cal constituent of human development mind and learning therefore is posited to consist in taking stands and staking claims on ongoing events



36

confl icts and contradictions in view of the goals commitments and aspi-rations for the future ndash the process of making up onersquos mind as literally a process through which the mind comes about and develops

In this view in continuation of Vygotskyrsquos legacy and its underpinnings in Marxist philosophy yet with a number of revisions made to their canonical postulates development does not just somehow happen to people Instead it is creatively and collaboratively carried out organized and performed that is worked out as an ongoing eff ort and a continuous open- ended striv-ing at being knowing and doing in ways that transcend the present Th e goal is to show how activism premises human development understood as a continuous and uninterrupted striving for contribution to communal forms of life that is simultaneously the condition for self- realization and realiza-tion of fellow human beings Th is is about positing the normative ideal of solidarity as the condition for self- determination of each community mem-ber and vice versa positing the ideal of self- determination as the condition for solidarity and interdependence of all

Th ese ideas are advanced as an alternative to the principle of adapta-tion in the role of a broad underpinning for human development and social life Adaptation assumes that human development is shaped by impera-tives of survival and competition for what is typically taken to be limited resources available in the present by individuals acting in solitude each on onersquos own in maximizing individual gains while adjusting to the sta-tus quo Furthermore adaptation is tied up with the sociopolitical ethos of controlling disciplining and regulating public life and individual conduct within established social structures in their existing order and normativ-ity What is highlighted instead by the TAS is that human development is co- constructed by people as agentive actors of communal social practices their own lives and common history In their acts of being knowing and doing people can and always do challenge the taken- for- granted reali-ties and rules ndash while transcending them in collectively moving forward and jointly co- authoring these practices and simultaneously themselves Underlying these notions is a shift away from the ethos of competition and survival to that of collaboration and solidarity

Th is conceptual move opens up ways for a dynamic and dialectical the-ory of human subjectivity mind and agency In particular these phenom-ena can be understood to be possible only within collective practices and solidaristic communities yet at the same time they are posited as legitimate and indispensable dimensions and even constituents and ldquodriversrdquo of these very practices What is acknowledged and strongly emphasized in this con-ception most critically is that solidaristic communities are only possible



37

if activism of each and every person ndash as an ability to form onersquos unique stance position and voice that make contributing to communal practices possible ndash is socially and culturally co- constituted nurtured supported and sustained through collective practices Th is can be achieved by a com-munally organized provision of sociocultural structures mediators shared spaces and cultural tools that individuals can agentively and creatively take up and carry out in novel and authentic ways from their unique positions and stances that are formed in this very process of ldquotaking uprdquo their world

Such a conceptual shift as mentioned previously involves many risks of falling into the traps of individualism instrumentalism mentalism and universalism of dominant ldquomaster narrativesrdquo However by explicitly integrating social change activism and transformation into the very basic descriptions of human development and the world the risks associated with the traditional anthropocentric appeals to humansrsquo role in fashioning their world and development can be avoided Th e framework premised on trans-formative stance by its very defi nitional anchoring in the notions of change instability struggle and contestation is opposed to ideas of a static fi xed ahistorical and universal world and human nature Th e transformative onto- epistemology challenges the key canons of universality and immutability of sameness and fi xed orderliness of the status quo to instead embrace the fl uid dynamic contingent historical and ever- changing nature of human devel-opment and of the world as ldquoawash in the sea of changerdquo

Methodology

Another central thread elaborated in and running through this book is that the notions of activism and transformation are applied not only to concep-tualizing human development and mind Th e same notions are applied to the practices of doing theorizing and research and to associated processes of knowledge production and its practical applications Th ese practices and processes too are highlighted as activist endeavors launched from a posi-tion situated in the present and steeped in the past and thus inevitably continuing and contributing to history ndash rather than as a neutral and value- free processes carried out ldquofrom nowhererdquo (as is widely acknowledged in many strands of critical scholarship) Along with this emphasis on the pres-ent and the past however the added focus is on how knowledge necessarily builds also upon a commitment vis- agrave- vis the sought- aft er future that seeks to transcend the status quo

In solidarity with other critical traditions of activist research still largely marginalized this orientation seeks to establish closer links between



38

research and theory as scientifi c endeavors on one hand and a commit-ment to instigating and supporting social changes at the intersection of theory and practice on the other Th is eff ort is underpinned by a com-mitment to reconceptualizing human mind and development as one step within the larger project that is simultaneously theoretical- conceptual and practical- ideological Th is larger project is a quest to transform current prac-tices especially in education so that they embody and enact ideas and ideals (and ideologies) of radical equality solidarity and freedom Moreover an ethical- normative dimension of this approach is that equality and freedom are achievable with equal access to the requisite tools of agency and self- determination practiced in concert with and for solidarity with others as the major goal of education Th at is though the issues discussed in this book belong to the level of theoretical discussions and arguments (and one could say quite ldquoheavilyrdquo so) the major eff ort is of a practical- ideological nature and (hopefully) import

Th ere have been many important achievements within postmodern-ist sociocultural and critical scholarship of the past decades especially in that it has consistently and successfully demonstrated that knowledge cannot be usefully conceptualized to simply mirror reality in disconnec-tion from social practices and power structures contrary to traditional mainstream ldquocorrespondence to realityrdquo approaches Th is scholarship has revealed with striking clarity that traditional accounts ignore social contingencies and power dynamics inherent in knowledge pro-duction inevitably ending up in an untenable position that there is one true answer to any inquiry and problem ndash typically produced by those in power In place of this ldquoknowledge- as- mirror- refl ectionrdquo canon con-temporary works in critical and sociocultural scholarship have advanced many useful notions and approaches such as situativity and plurality of knowing Especially in its critical gist that resists normativity of estab-lished canons these lines of social theory represent an important anti-dote to reductionist views on human development and knowledge that naturalize them as independent from social practices Whereas theoreti-cal lineages and specifi c positions vary widely across this scholarship the abiding sense of resistance and critique of value- neutrality empiricism and normativity indicates similarities potentially uniting them as allies in one powerful current of thought

However there remain ambiguities and tensions especially pertain-ing to how knowledge claims can be evaluated in terms of accuracy reli-ability and validity Th e continuing conundrum is that on one hand it is clear (aft er decades of work in critical scholarship) that a one- to- one



39

correspondence between reality and knowledge posited by objectivist sci-ence leads to intractable problems On the other hand the position that knowledge is situated within practices organized by discursive resources and therefore contingent contextually relative plural and historically specifi c has come to be associated especially in postmodernism with the view that it is impossible to discern among competing knowledge claims to ground social actions Although groundbreaking and progressive in many respects some strands within postmodernist critical and socio-cultural scholarship lead (or at least are interpreted to lead) to relativ-ism and radical indeterminacy that are ontologically mute and politically indecisive

Th ere also exists a tradition of research with radical activist agen-das of social equality and justice (discussed in more detail in Chapter 2 ) Th is scholarship is oft en accused of partisanship and lack of objectivity Moreover oft en it still grapples with these charges and struggles to come to terms with them not infrequently equivocating on the key premises that can ground activist approaches Th is kind of scholarship can benefi t from more work at the level of broad theories and worldview assumptions that could help to theorize activism and research with transformative agendas in ways that clearly and fi rmly legitimate them One of the tasks is to show how knowledge is always not value- and politics- free and partisan ndash yet there are ways to claim that it can be also at once accurate veridical and even in a sense realist (under the condition that reality is understood in non- traditional ways) Th is is especially important if critical scholarship is to pursue the goals of social change and action beyond those of interpreta-tion and deconstruction

Lewis Feuer observed that Dewey ldquowas the fi rst philosopher who tried to read democracy into the ultimate nature of things and social reform into the meaning of knowledgerdquo (quoted in Garrison 1994 p 13) Th is is a deep insight Yet it is possible to argue that it was Vygotsky working in the con-text of an unprecedented giant social experiment within the crucible of the revolution ndash with its great impulse for and a powerful unleashing of individual and collective agency in the struggle for new social practices and structures (all its tragic failures notwithstanding) ndash who off ered an outline for an even more radical approach Th is approach can be used to read into the ultimate nature of reality and of human development not only the exist-ing models of democracy as Dewey arguably did but the passionate activ-ism ndash a quest for and a commitment to a just and truly democratic society that still needs to be created rather than taken for granted or assumed as being already in existence



40

In addition Deweyrsquos insight that ldquosociety not only continues to exist by transmission by communication but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission in communicationrdquo ( 1916 1922 p 5) can be dialecti-cally expanded based in the legacy of Vygotskyrsquos project From such an expanded viewpoint society exists indeed not by transmission and com-munication ndash and this is in agreement with Dewey However society does not exist in transmission and communication either ndash contrary to what Dewey surmised In moving beyond his insight it is possible to argue that society may fairly be said to exist in transformation ndash in the process of activist change undertaken by individuals and communities based in a solidaristic commitment to creating novel social arrangements and forms of democracy that truly support equality and equal access to resources including the tools of agency for all


41

41

2

Situating Th eory Th e Charges and Challenges of Th eorizing Activism

Are new broad theories of human development mind and learning needed today Th e answer to this question ndash just as to any question about theory and knowledge ndash is not purely theoretical but also historical practical and political It is important to contextualize and situate this question in the unfolding dynamics of the present steeped in history while also project-ing into the future in considering the possibilities of what could and most critically what we think ought to be Such work of contextualizing situat-ing and historizing theoretical questions and inquiries has to stretch across the time scales of the past present and future in order to develop a lens through which knowledge production including theory building and the realities that embed it can be examined

Th rough this lens the present moment can be seen as a peculiar time of an acute crisis that is unfolding since at least the economic collapse of 2008 apparently unexpectedly following what many had seen as the end of history aft er the fall of sociopolitical systems in eastern Europe and on the global scale Indeed preceding the present crisis was a period of time when the general perception of having achieved the desired social ends of liberal democracy had settled in accompanied by what later turned out to be a false sense of certainty fi nality and predictability Not only history had supposedly come to an end With it also the need for broad social projects and related theoretical work that could support such projects had been cast as either unnecessary or impossible ndash and oft en as both Th e time for theory too presumably ended with motivation for radical ideas wan-ing as radical transformation appeared increasingly unwanted and implau-sible even utopian and dangerous Capturing this spirit Fredric Jameson wrote already in the mid- 1980s that the ldquopremonitions of the future cata-strophic or redemptive have been replaced by senses of the end of this or thatrdquo ( 1991 p 1)



42

Th e crisis across all levels and strata of social life ndash from economy and international politics to education and public policy ndash is presently unfold-ing in place of what could have been an era of reconciliation and social transformation aft er the end of the Cold War which had opened pros-pects for a shift away from polarized and hegemonic politics and policies Instead the world has witnessed increasing inequalities growing economic turmoil and an unprecedented global ecological disaster ndash that all had been brewing almost undetected through the euphoria and triumphalism of the 1990s and early in the new millennium With the onset of the crisis how-ever the euphoria and triumphalism not so much slipped away as crashed to the fl oor Now it is the senses of the end of history and of certainty and fi nality that have ended rather abruptly and violently ndash replaced by high anxiety confusion and a realization that everything that appears solid in fact melts in the air Th is is a time of rapid transitions when conceptual and theoretical realizations might be lagging behind the sweeping changes in the world and when new ways of thinking and theorizing might be needed to capture these changes and to support approaches that could steer them in desired directions

Th e ongoing crisis in social economic and political landscapes is accompanied not coincidentally by a no less drastic crisis in approaches to science especially at the intersection with education Th is latter crisis has many reasons dimensions and its own complicated dynamics One of its hallmarks is an enforcement of a crude narrow model of evidence- based disinterested value- neutral science that is devoid of theory and tailored to reductionist views of nature human development education and mind Th ese models prize biological explanations that put human development in service to natural selection and adaptation focus on isolated individu-als as prime units of analysis equate mind with the brain and promote the mantras of neutral evidence all taken as standards of what is claimed to be the only way to do objective science

In place of building off from the many breakthroughs in understanding nature and human development what knowledge is and how science works that have been accumulated throughout the twentieth century ndash in fact amounting to no less than a conceptual revolution ndash there is now a resur-gence of naturalist superstitions that parallel if not outdo the prior forms of supernaturalist orthodoxy While limitations and faults of this latter (and older) orthodoxy are striking the current excesses of pseudo- naturalism and pseudo- objectivity are no less alarming and harmful (cf Howe 2009 ) According to the charge central to this new orthodoxy research is supposed to be based on presumably ldquonakedrdquo evidence composed of ldquorawrdquo facts about


Situating Th eory 43

43

ldquoindomitablerdquo nature and ldquopristinerdquo reality (all supposedly residing in bio-logical processes and phenomena) ndash as we fi nd them ldquohere and nowrdquo some-how purged of human dimensions and independent from not only society history and context but even from the more immediately situated processes and practices of knowledge production and research Emblematic of how widely these views are disseminated is that even science textbooks act as egregious purveyors of outdated myths and inaccuracies (Gould 1988 )

Psychology and many approaches in education that oft en follow its suit have been especially susceptible to the pressures to comply with the strin-gent criteria of objectivist and reductionist models supposedly free of nor-mativity and ideals Having emerged during the time of striking advances in natural sciences at the turn of the twentieth century psychologyrsquos pursuit to establish itself as a credible science meant that it emulated methods epis-temologies and models of inquiry predominantly developed in physics and biology taken as the paradigmatic sciences Yet lacking requisite theoretical tools and without much of a philosophical engagement with the cutting- edge advances in these sciences psychologists were taking over outmoded models and methods of scientifi c inquiry

Not surprisingly psychology ended up being shaped by a model of sci-ence and inquiry that had been consolidated at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and abandoned by the twentieth century largely unbeknownst to psychologists in the fl agship disciplines and approaches within natu-ral sciences such as physics and biology Psychologists de facto lagging behind natural sciences just as (and probably because) they aspired to emulate their models moved away from the early psychological concepts and redefi ned their discipline in the name of natural science as being con-cerned with phenomena in their dependence on a physical organism As Jill Morawski ( 2005a ) states objectivity became the banner of the early- twentieth- century experimental psychology when researchers paradoxi-cally discarded with all methodologies but experimentation because of what they saw as their moralism and subjectivism Instead psychologists ordained objective experimentation with its moral order and ethics of disinterestedness and distance (see Danziger 1990 1993 Hacking 2002 Hatfi eld 1995 ) In pursuing ideals of objectivity as ldquoself- commanding triumphing over temptations and frailties of fl esh and spiritrdquo (Daston and Galison 1992 p 83 quoted in Morawski 2005b p 85) by the mid- twentieth century psychology started relying heavily on what it took to be the exclusive staples of scientifi c rigor ndash experimental design signifi -cance testing and classical test theory Th is in turn has directly aff ected education research (which has oft en relied on psychology for its theory



44

and methods) shaping it in similar directions of objectivist normativity purged of human and political dimensions

Today when the neutral ldquoobjectivistrdquo views and models of what is science are imposed through various policies that govern research and even when they are critiqued by scholars who strive to develop alterna-tive positions it is oft en ignored that they actually go against the signal breakthrough developments in the fl agship natural sciences of the twen-tieth century especially in physics and biology and particularly as these developments became refl ected in the philosophy of science and science studies including in feminist epistemology In these works the premise of a uniform pristine empirical foundation for knowledge has been rejected In its place the central insight garnered from various disciplines has been that knowledge is inextricably connected to the situated practices of its produc-tion and therefore is neither theory- neutral nor independent from history and context

Strong critiques of value- neutral models have been developed expos-ing their contradictions mythologies and dead ends to show how the supposedly neutral conduct of science is rooted in history and entangled with cultural and political dimensions (eg Eisenhart and Howe 1992 ) Historians have revealed the contextual and situated ldquoconnectivity of sci-encerdquo as a human endeavor of practical import (eg Danziger 1990 1997 ) including the reciprocal relationships co- constitutions and bindings among evidence methodology normative assumptions political interests instrumentalities variables and models of reality (cf Burman 1994 1997 Rutherford Vaughn- Blount and Ball 2010 ) Th ese works illustrate how sci-ence is about descriptive and normative ldquoacts in the making and sustain-ing of the modern social worldrdquo (Morawski 2012 p 20) In constructing ldquoan artifactual empirical order whose relationship to the natural order is problematicrdquo (Danziger 1993 p 20) research products such as classifi ca-tions and categorizations of individual conduct and mentality are de facto manufactured historical entities that ldquoresult from highly conventionalized constructive activities of psychologistsrdquo (ibid p 21) including nomencla-tures used in aptitude testing (see eg Hacking 1995 2002 Rose 1996 )

Th e critical point for the present discussion is that none of these claims invalidates science and knowledge as is oft en stated by proponents of the positivist value- neutral orthodoxy and sometimes even by critical scholars (albeit less frequently and from a diametrically opposite stance) Instead science and knowledge can and need to be depicted in a diff erent light which entails changes in the notions of objectivity validity reliability and truth rather than obliteration of these notions It is quite telling that this was



45

apparently clear to many scholars already in the early twentieth century who pioneered some of the most signifi cant breakthroughs across humani-ties and sciences For example when William James stated in 1907 quite poetically and prophetically that ldquo[p] urely objective truth hellip is nowhere to be foundrdquo because ldquothe trail of the human serpent is hellip over everythingrdquo (p 60) this position did not imply a rejection of knowledge pursuits and of truth Or when Lev Vygotsky wrote that ldquoeverything described as a fact is already a theoryrdquo ( 1997a p 249) and that ldquopure objectivity in the educator is utter nonsenserdquo ( 1997c p 349) he was not dismissing science and objec-tivity Similarly when Niels Bohr accepted the radical premise that ldquo[i]t is wrong to think that the task of physics is to fi nd out how nature isrdquo (quoted in Newton 2009 p 40) independently of our questions instruments and methodologies this did not imply the impossibility of physics but instead laid grounds for its most signifi cant advances

Th e later developments in sciences have built off from these insights with scholars such as the chemist and system theorist Ilya Prigogine stating for example that ldquothe more we know about our universe the more diffi cult it becomes to believe in determinismrdquo ( 1997 p 155 see also Prigogine and Stengers 1984 ) Remarkable expressions of and deep insights into the con-tingent nature of objectivity came from the Afrocentric perspectives that represented alternatives to traditional scientistic positivism developed by dissenters involved in political struggles of their time As Kenneth B Clark wrote in the Dark Ghetto Dilemmas of Social Power ( 1989 p 78 emphasis added)

Objectivity without question essential to the scientifi c perspective when it warns of the dangers of bias and prejudgment in interfering with the search for truth and in contaminating the understanding of truth too oft en becomes a kind of a fetish which serves to block the view of truth itself particularly when painful and diffi cult moral insights are involved

When James Vygotsky Bohr Prigogine Stengers Clark and many other scholars refused to chase the impossible ideal of a purely objectivist science they were working out alternative models of science rather than abandoning the pursuit of knowledge and objectivity as such What they were arguing against was the notion of objectivity devoid of human dimen-sions the one captured so well by Gloria Anzalduacutea who wrote that ldquo[i] n trying to become lsquoobjectiversquo Western culture made lsquoobjectsrsquo of things and people when it distanced itself from them thereby losing lsquotouchrsquo with themrdquo ( 2006 p 260) Th e point that knowledge is produced (or constructed) within the processes of inquiry that represent human endeavors situated in



46

worldly contexts ndash with their historically culturally and politically shaped discourses intellectual traditions ideologies interests and instruments ndash does not render knowledge impossible or unreliable On the contrary it is an imposition on social sciences and education of models that insist on neutrality ldquorawrdquo objectivity and evidence ldquouncontaminatedrdquo by contin-gencies of practices and contexts in which knowledge is produced that is doing a huge disservice to these fi elds rather than providing any warrants for improvement and progress

Such considerations against the new unbridled pressures of pseudo- objectivism are oft en dismissed as if they were claims against science and warranted knowledge by some obscurantist positions But again note how a leading geneticist of the twentieth century Th eodosius Dobzhansky ( 1962 p 138) whose ideas were far from any Marxist inclinations wrote on these matters

Scientists oft en have a naiumlve faith that if only they could discover enough facts about a problem these facts would somehow arrange themselves in a compelling and true solution Th e relation between scientifi c dis-covery and popular belief is not however a one- way street Marxists are more right than wrong when they argue that the problems scientists take up the way they go about solving them and even the solutions they are inclined to accept are conditioned by the intellectual social and eco-nomic environments in which they live and work

In a similar vein the economist Uwe E Reinhardt ( 2010 ) reveals a far from neutral ldquounderbellyrdquo of a seemingly objective research as it transpires even in the most mundane and supposedly impartial value- free research activi-ties even when they rely on quantifi cation and measurement

a researcherrsquos political ideology or vested interest in a particular theory can hellip enter even ostensibly descriptive analysis by the data set chosen for the research the mathematical transformations of raw data and the exclusion of so- called outlier data the specifi c form of the mathemati-cal equations posited for estimation the estimation method used the number of retrials in estimation to get what strikes the researcher as ldquoplausiblerdquo results and the manner in which fi nal research fi ndings are presented

To emphasize again arguments against objectivist models of science are not a plea from a position that rejects knowledge and science as such Rather these arguments build upon insights into how knowledge production is entangled with its contexts ideologies and practices and therefore how it needs to be redefined away from the orthodoxy



47

of impartiality and neutrality Highlighting the coupling of context history power and knowledge does not entail automatically reducing knowledge to power or rejecting claims to validity and discussions of evidence

When research is supposed to be based on presumably ldquonakedrdquo evidence composed of ldquorawrdquo facts about ldquoindomitablerdquo nature and neutral reality understood under the banner of objectivity as somehow purged of human dimensions we are actually dealing with what is a highly subjective inven-tion of a mythological neverland ndash a virtual reality that is situated nowhere has no history and aims at nothing Th is objectivist doctrine obscures that science is a human historically situated culturally mediated and ultimately practical enterprise carried out by people who have interests and agendas sit-uated in history context and time Most signifi cantly the dominant trends pushing for a narrowly understood objectivity that portrays science as a practice- context- and history- free process of collecting facts conveniently disregards its own practice context and history Such narrowly objectivist ideals are not only outdated Th ey are highly ideologically charged in that they have roots in and are entangled with the practices and ideologies that promote inequality control and asymmetry of power and privilege among social groups In this entanglement with the hegemonic social structures and policies the objectivist model of science is in eff ect starkly ideological and strikingly partisan ndash just as it denies the role of interests and obscures the complicated political and ideological work behind knowledge produc-tion and research practices While claiming value neutrality and normativ-ity of objective standards such as evidence- based research the dominant perspectives in social sciences and education especially those related to intelligence and achievement testing carry with them an old legendry of ldquothe magic science and religion all mixed togetherrdquo (White 2000a p 39) Th is legendry is recently epitomized in the eff orts with boldness not seen in over a century to account for human diff erences in evolutionary and biological terms based in the logic of adaptation by natural selection or in abstractly quantifi able measurements disconnected from theory context and history

The Neo- Darwinian Ethos of Adaptation

Addressing the faults of objectivist models is not a matter of airing idle aca-demic frustrations Much more is at stake Th e enforcement of these models has to be understood within the broader context of current marketization and privatization of science and knowledge along with practically all other



48

spheres of life Th ese trends are especially pronounced in education where recent reforms subordinate it to economic interests and drain it of its aspi-rational goals Th e pressures to conform to the logic of market reforms require education to fulfi ll expectations of a narrowly understood objec-tivity and accountability at the expense of its core obligation to promote engaged and active citizenship while increasing opportunities for social equity and democratic participation for all As part of this highly ideologi-cal agenda under the banner of objectivity a radical expansion of testing in schools reduces education to rote memorization of raw facts disconnected from their human dimensions Th e implementation of this kind of reforms stands in the way of education promoting engaged participation in learning through a passionate quest for and a creative exploration of knowledge and the social world ndash as it is and as it could be

It is not that concerns for objectivity warranted conclusions rigor and accountability are inherently inimical to ideals of democracy and social justice However when educational reforms are centered on developing standardized tests as the sole arbiter of performance and in place of eff orts at improving teachersrsquo preparation while also alleviating systemic poverty and inequality as the background conditions for underachievement these strategies work against their own proclaimed goals of improving education No less importantly such approaches consistently stifl e diversity in disad-vantaging poor and minority students (eg Darling- Hammond 2007 ) for example through disparities in funding compounded by categorically fallacious diagnostic and testing systems (Artiles 2012 ) Th ese systems long since revealed as legitimizing purported ldquodefi ciencyrdquo of minority and poor students under the guise of rationalism (eg Ladson- Billings 2006 ) categorize students based in arbitrary procedures and medical- sounding nomenclature of questionable validity (Apple 1996 Artiles 2012 Kohn 2000 cf Hruby 2012 ) With education funding starkly segregated along racial and social class lines ldquoTh e children who most depend on the public schools for any chance in life are concentrated in schools struggling with all the dimensions of family and neighborhood poverty and isolationrdquo (see Kucsera and Orfi eld 2014 )

Th ese trends in education are parts of the larger shift s in the overall social economic and political- ideological landscape that are associated with the market- driven deregulation competition and stratifi cation ndash as has been discussed in many works by critical and sociocultural scholars What needs to be further emphasized is that this is a highly entangled web in which the ldquoneverlandrdquo version of the supposedly neutral objectivity the biologically reductionist views of human nature and development and the



49

ldquotesting maniardquo spawned by the metric- based reforms in schools are closely related In fact they are directly mirroring and supporting the trends of marketization as well as each other It is as part of this web that research and scholarship are channeled into oft en theoretically impoverished approaches that reduce knowledge building to collecting facts about how the world is It is also part of the same web that the mind is reduced to the brain and indi-viduals to pawns who react to stimuli under control of brain chemistry or who passively process information by means of inborn cognitive modules guided by hardwired genetic programming

Th e attendant models of education follow suit and play into the same dynamics when teaching is reduced to a passive transmission of facts while learning is watered down to processes of mechanically receiving and mem-orizing ldquoneutralrdquo information It is as if the expectation is that learners can be turned into computers ndash controlled and extraneously guided machines that somehow process transmitted neutral information and facts in ways that are disconnected from and devoid of their own interests goals aspira-tions and strivings Implementing these dehumanizing strategies in hopes of improving education to increase market productivity and effi ciency of the labor force is utterly futile even in terms of these narrowly conceived technological instrumentalist and market- driven goals

All of these trends and policies are intertwined and interlocked and they need be tackled as such at once or at least in view of each other ndash while foregrounding one or the other dimension of this entangled web without losing sight of the others Critical to this task as will be elaborated in this book is discerning the neo- Darwinian (aka sociobiological) ethos of competition and survival of the fi ttest under the leading notion of passive adaptation to the status quo that lies at the core of these trends According to this ethos people have intrinsic inborn and largely unalterable abili-ties and traits that become manifested in performances and achievements independently of the social economic and cultural contexts and supports that individuals are provided with or deprived of Th e immediate ldquoobjec-tiverdquo implication is that this proclaimed inborn diff erentiation among peo-ple in their abilities and traits inevitably produces natural social hierarchy supposedly an expression of immutable human nature that rigidly dictates outcomes of development and shapes its paths

Th is sociopolitical ethos of adaptation became dominant especially dur-ing the last approximately three decades along with the waning of orga-nized political movements since the 1980s and especially aft er the end of the Cold War (for various political and historical reasons) It is during this time that social sciences adopted ever more stringently the reductionist



50

and declaratively value- free (though de facto starkly ideological) models of studying human development mind and learning Th e presently reigning ideology is about how it is the powerful outside forces such as genetics and brain chemistry rather than people themselves who are fully in charge Th e reduction of human development to machine- like biologically deter-mined automatic processes is actually clashing even with the proclaimed ideals of individualism central to western democracies let alone with alter-native communitarian ideologies Notions such as nondeliberate conduct and emotions unconscious habits inherited instincts and automaticity of choice ndash all devaluating agency responsibility and even consciousness ndash are reaching crescendo in the broadly disseminated ideas such as that ldquowe are all puppetsrdquo or ldquosurvival machinesrdquo under the control of genetic blueprints brain chemistry or cultural memes

Th e consolidation of these views recently amounts to a powerful global metanarrative and policy that are imposed across the wide spectrum of social practices and discourses perhaps especially relentlessly in education According to Allen ( 2001 ) we are presently facing no less than a new resur-gence of eugenics as a means of social control ndash much in similarity with what was happening in the 1920s and against the same background of deep economic crisis bitter antiimmigration sentiment and social upheaval Other authors echo this assessment in exposing the rise of eugenics across history again in sharp evidence today refl ecting the power of persistent genetic essentialist biases in sciences and societies (Dar- Nimrod and Heine 2011 ) For example as Smedley and Smedley state ( 2005 ) ldquoRecent advances in the sequencing of the human genome and in an understanding of biolog-ical correlates of behavior have fueled racialized science despite evidence that racial groups are not genetically discrete reliably measured or scien-tifi cally meaningfulrdquo (p 16 emphasis added)

Th e dominant and interlocked sociobiological value- neutral and reductionist understandings are underwritten by the core assumption of a static society composed of solitary individuals who are reduced to engaging in survival through competition for limited resources by having to adapt to the status quo in community practices and society at large Along with this the status quo is perceived as invincible and indomitable and thus naively projected to remain stable in continuing unchanged into the future ndash as if mechanically stretching across time in an objective continuum that is fun-damentally linear stable and predictable In this view the future would be like a carbon copy of the present

Th e resulting positions support conservative views of society that empha-size the rule of a presumably inert nature inherent constraints ldquowiredrdquo



51

capacities and rigid limitations somehow imposed on human development and agency of both individuals and communities Remarkably though evi-dence for any ldquowiringrdquo of any capacity is lacking it is widely accepted as an established fact Importantly the neo- Darwinian ethos also prioritizes the notion of individual that goes all the way back to the liberal society of the eighteenth and nineteenth century (eg Smith 1994 ) According to this view individuals are autonomous and solitary beings who develop inde-pendently of societal and cultural contexts mediations and supports and who are responsible each on onersquos own for achieving individualized goals typically selfi sh and self- centered such as surviving and winning in com-petition with others

Most importantly these approaches assume and even insist that indi-viduals and communities cannot and should not try to intervene or remake themselves and their world against the impositions from ldquothe rules of naturerdquo believed to be refl ected in existing social hierarchies inequalities and stratifi ed power structures Appealing to innate and unalterable bio-logical mechanisms and determinants of human behavior and development (accepted as mantras of faith within the new orthodoxy) serves to supply conditions for rationalizing and justifying inequities of the existing social order because they are viewed as biological inevitabilities In Marilyn Fryersquos words it is for the goal of effi cient subordination that the social and natural processes and structures ldquonot only not appear to be cultural artifacts kept in place by human decision or custom but that they appear naturalrdquo (quoted in Plumwood 1993 p 41)

Th is kind of thinking is associated with the almost religious belief in ldquothe imagined essence an underlying nontrivial fundamental naturerdquo (Dar- Nimrod and Heine 2011 p 801) of what are perceived to be natural entities including living organisms and human beings Th is imagined essence typically presumed to be contained in some material substrate is believed to make natural things what they are As Dar- Nimrod and Heine (ibid) convincingly demonstrate with the advances in genetic sciences genes have been taken to be the placeholders for the imagined essence of human individuals and their development Th is essentialist thinking which is widely disseminated in scientifi c and popular discourses oft en evokes neural processes and substrates to explain human development while linking these explanations to genetic forms of essentialism (see also Robert 2004 ) Th e appeals to unalterable genetic underpinnings of human attributes have grave social consequences and negative implica-tions for how people are treated and how social resources are distrib-uted As aptly summarized by Haslam ( 2011 ) the common thread of both



52

neurological and genetic essentialisms is the tendency to deepen social divisions and promote forms of social segregation ldquomaking diff erences appear large unbridgeable inevitable unchangeable and ordained by naturerdquo (p 819) Essentialist thinking attaches he argues to the same social distinctions that are the focus of some of the most troubling forms of prejudice and discrimination along the dimensions of race gender sexuality and mental disorder Th e most pernicious applications include the rationalization of unequal treatment of diff erent groups and segrega-tion of minorities (cf Robert 2004 )

Th e ldquoneverlandrdquo version of reality comprised of the objectivist ortho-doxy reductionist views of human development and test- and- control approaches in schools all frame inquiries in terms of diagnosing and testing what ldquoisrdquo as a fi xed and static given that is not subject to interven-tion and change In this overall approach there is no place for an explo-ration into what could or ldquooughtrdquo to be as per imagination and striving for what is not yet Moreover attempts to change things are perceived as utopian ineff ective and even dangerous Th e core tacit assumption of neo- Darwinian ethos is that how things are at present must be taken as unproblematic (cf Howe 2009 ) and should be accommodated by adapt-ing to the status quo Th is includes teaching students to fi t in with the status quo in preparing for the future ndash which is assumed to continue unchanged in line with what exists today Along the way students are being constantly tested for their presumably wired capacities thought to be realized by brain functions (with fMRI machines in schools to monitor studentsrsquo brains perhaps not far behind in some policy mak-ersrsquo imagination save for the prohibitive costs of such an undertaking) Th e overall import of these models is that individuals are utterly passive and merely adapting to their world as it is thereby lacking in agency and self- determination and in need of being controlled by outside forces Th e overriding implicit message appears to be that individual persons ndash let alone communities because these are typically completely left outside of the purview ndash do not matter that they cannot make or even hope to make a diff erence in the course of events in their communities and the wider world and even in their own lives and development

The End of Theory

Th e leading directions in critical and sociocultural scholarship of recent years including postmodernist pragmatist hermeneutical phenomeno-logical ecological participatory critical pedagogy and psychology and



53

feminist approaches among others have not been fully equipped to counter this entangled web of objectivist models of science biologically reduction-ist views and market- driven reforms Despite its many important break-throughs inspiring discoveries and stellar achievements this scholarship is scattered across diverse fi elds employs disconnected methodologies and disparate assumptions and is typically focused on contingency plurality and indeterminacy of knowledge and development Th e prevalent post-modernist directions and those associated with the interpretive discursive and cultural ldquoturnsrdquo oft en oppose the task of developing broad answers to questions about human mind development and nature including their practical implications such as in terms of reforms in education

Th is lack of engagement with broad issues especially the worldview- level assumptions and the associated gaps in integrating sociocultural critical feminist and other approaches alternative to the mainstream orthodoxy can be attributed in large part to the recently cultivated general suspicion of what is perceived to be old- fashioned ldquograndrdquo theories Th ese theories are viewed as totalizing discourses that dangerously fl atten diff er-ences in points of view impose rigid standards of truth and undermine the politics of diversity ndash as they oft en do especially in the context of the western enlightenment tradition Th is attitude is encapsulated for example in Lyotardrsquos ( 1984 ) postmodernist skepticism toward all metanarratives pragmatismrsquos position that philosophyrsquos chief task is ldquoto keep conversa-tion goingrdquo (Rorty 1979 p 378) rather than to deliver answers Foucaultrsquos notion that no discourse is closer to reality than any of the others the social constructionist view that no theory can be privileged because all theories are ldquolanguage gamesrdquo and the like

Th e skepticism and incredulity about broad (or ldquograndrdquo) theories is by no means new and goes back to early positivism that was striving to purge philosophy from social theory (Connelly and Costall 2000 Costall 2006 Danziger 1997 ) American pragmatism has inherited and strength-ened this skeptical view about philosophical foundations for psychology and education developing an outlook that is many have argued both antiintellectual and politically disempowering (eg Diggins 1994 Malik 2001 ) What pragmatism suggested was a vision of science as a continuous open- ended and de facto endless inquiry in which answers and solutions are always deferred till the next step ndash next round of inquiry next experi-ence next phase of negotiation etc ndash and no foundations can or need to be worked out ahead of inquiry which is infi nite and always contingent on specifi c contexts and circumstances As a result pragmatism oft en portrays inquiries as ldquoan extraordinary form of bootstrappingrdquo (cf Margolis 2010 )



54

whereby all that humans can do is to ldquomuddle throughrdquo leaving nothing else but as one scholar puts in a startling revelation ldquothe pleasure of think-ing about thinking freed from the burdensome expectation that we will fi nally get somewhererdquo (Fish 2010 )

Many sociocultural and critical scholars today are interested in diff er-ence for example addressing complexity and fl uidity of identity and sub-jectivity by focusing on their permeable boundaries infi nite diff erentiation and fl eeting expressions in dispersed networks and multilayered sites Th ey typically focus on diverse phenomenologies of experiencing the world and prioritize situated meaning making and contextualized interpretations ndash while oft en avoiding questions about human condition mind and devel-opment what kind of knowledge matters and what are the possibilities of objectivity and warrants for knowledge claims Th ey are less interested in explicitly addressing broad worldview- level questions about human devel-opment and learning and how these are entangled with certain types of political- ideological ethos Th ese latter questions are typically bypassed or the old traditional answers are sometimes implicitly and unwittingly assim-ilated into the sociocultural and critical frameworks Moreover general skepticism about the value of knowing science and education in general is not uncommon

Given the overriding emphasis on critique many of these approaches document and incisively expose the fl aws of existing realities including in education and in traditional models of science ndash a much- needed work that helps to debunk the many myths of objectivist and positivist science and education Importantly these approaches help to give voice to previ-ously marginalized perspectives scrutinize hidden repressive agendas and hegemonic assumptions and generally democratize inquiries against pres-sures that have traditionally constrained them (eg Th omas 1993 ) Th ese works reveal how traditional models ldquoposture a unifi ed science an axiom that justifi es all axioms and off er a metaphysical nonrational and possibly even a mythical notion of sciencerdquo in a ldquonostalgia for a simple and ordered universe of science that never wasrdquo (Popkewitz 2004 p 62) Th ese develop-ments are hard to overestimate especially in their insights and demonstra-tions about how knowledge is never disinterested and instead is always ideological political and permeated with values and interests

Yet to emphasize again these approaches rarely engage in developing radical alternatives in terms of broad theories about human nature and development learning and mind ndash especially at the level of worldview premises ontologies and epistemologies What oft en dominates in critical and sociocultural perspectives is a focus on deconstructive critique endless



55

variation and plurality of locations and viewpoints Th is is typically cou-pled with pessimism and indecision of an ironic ldquodetachmentrdquo (especially in many versions of postmodernist approaches) Th is tendency follows with the widely shared ldquoend of theoryrdquo sentiment ndash the desire to deprivilege the ldquogrand narrativesrdquo of the past and instead to focus on positionality and provisionality of knowledge Such approaches do not concern themselves with developing premises and foundations for making judgments about truth validity and objectivity Many of them de facto leave concepts and phenomena of human agency identity and mind undertheorized (if not dismissed) along with the broader notions of development nature and progress Furthermore the critical and sociocultural approaches have not suffi ciently challenged the ethos of adaptation and associated premises at the worldview- level about human development mind and learning ndash that is the level of the core ontological and epistemological premises ndash espe-cially in applications to education

Th is lack of interest in broad questions of ontology and epistemology can be connected to the present epoch of global delocalized capitalism in which as many scholars claim the radical impossibility of social totalities and generalizations has to be addressed by focusing on diff erences and non- overlapping contexts practices and situated positions of various subjects and groups As described by many scholars this turn has been spurred by a new stage of technocapitalism ndash ldquoa new regime of capital and social order hellip characterizing a transnational and global capital that valorizes diff erence multiplicity eclecticism populism and intensifi ed consumerism in a new information entertainment societyrdquo (Kellner 2004 see also Harvey 1989 Jameson 1991 )

Th e end of ldquograndrdquo theories coincided with a move away from what many considered to be equally ldquograndrdquo and totalizing politics characterized by what was perceived to be hegemonic ldquomaster plansrdquo such as equality and emancipation In rejecting such plans the shift was toward a micropolitics claimed to be more appropriate to the emerging new social and economic realities of late capitalism

However the expectation that we do not have to deal with the ldquobigrdquo questions of this sort might be naiumlve and politically disempowering because such questions do not and will not go away When they remain unaddressed and undertheorized the door is left open for reductionist and essential-ist premises to sneak right back into critical and sociocultural conceptions and above all into social practices including those in education Because the grounding assumptions are not worked out and oft en even claimed to be undesirable there is a risk to fi nd ourselves on a thin ice of only partially



56

developed conceptualizations and thus in danger of slipping right back into the conventional views As Smith ( 1994 p 408) alerted two decades ago ldquothe fl ow of discourse leaves us bereft of anchors to stabilize a view of self and worldrdquo in approaches that are imbued with radical skepticism

Because no void remains unfi lled this is exactly what happens again and again when for example arguments are made that constructs such as iden-tity mind and gender are the products of cultural constructions negotia-tions and dialogues yet the notion of the biological ldquorealrdquo as a universal given and the motif of nature as prior to social practices are left intact (cf Alaimo and Hekman 2008 ) Even critically mindful works in education still sometimes operate with the notion that students need to be lift ed to their ldquonatural abilitiesrdquo as if these were somehow pregiven and predefi ned from birth Others oft en refer to children being somehow born wired to learn at varying degrees of success with an understandable intention to acknowl-edge the material base of human development and learning in terms of bodies and conditions in which these processes take place However such views disregard the danger that if children are believed to have naturally ldquowired abilitiesrdquo the door is open to speculate that they are also wired for diff erential achievement potential and outcomes and place in society which inevitably even if unintentionally sets the stage for justifying pro-found social and educational inequalities and disparities Or in research on mind and cognition the novel conceptualizations focus on their distributed and situated nature yet a number of traditional assumptions such as that cognition is about information processing realized by brain mechanisms or mental computation oft en remain part of these novel developments (to be discussed in more detail in the following chapters)

Rather than disappearing the same ldquobigrdquo questions continuously reoc-cur under diff erent guises in what seems to be a cyclical pattern that contin-ues to plague social sciences and education For example Winston ( 2004 ) demonstrates how claims of a genetic basis for diff erences in achievement emerged receded and emerged anew across the years with few disputes settled till the present day leaving psychology and other social sciences in a dual relationship with problems of inheritance still involving both racist and antiracist dimensions As Winston (ibid p 3) writes ldquoeven aft er a cen-tury of severe criticism discussions of the size of Black versus White brains still appear in psychology journals race is still treated as a set of distinct biological categories and racial comparisons of intelligence test scores are still presented as meaningful scientifi c questionsrdquo

Th e broad position that humans are products of both nature and nurture and that genes and environment interact and are interdependent which is



57

recently disseminated as the resolution on this topic is certainly progressive and laudable if compared to the one- sided biologically determinist views However this position still oft en hides many important distinctions and conceptual specifi cations that are far from resolved In particular despite the proff ered ldquointeractionist consensusrdquo stating that genes and environ-ments interact in the generation of individual traits it is not uncommon that alongside these statements one fi nds views associated with what has been termed ldquogenomaniardquo (Robert 2004 p xiii see also Oyama 2000 ) further accompanied by beliefs in nature and nurture serving as indepen-dent sources of variation

Yet another eff ect is the disagreement among scholars within the same traditions (such as the one launched by Vygotsky) regarding even the most basic premises of their frameworks including unresolved ten-sions as to whether concepts such as human mind and individual agency have a place in sociocultural approaches at all It is not totally surprising that scholars even those who have worked in Vygotskyrsquos and activity theory tradition for decades and have gained certain authority through this work now confess that they are uncertain and confused One recent statement deserves a direct quote (including for its emotional cri de coeur tone)

I must now be brutally honest and confess that I am much less confi dent that I know what the concept of activity really amounts to I am uncer-tain that there is anything that warrants the name ldquoactivity theoryrdquo or even that there is any stable view of what the ldquoactivity approachrdquo is or might be I wonder if we really know what it means to say of activity that it is a fundamental ldquounit of analysisrdquo or that as Leontiev writes activity is ldquothe substance of consciousness helliprdquo (Bakhurst 2009 p 198)

Bakhurst further suggests that much confusion is evidenced in recent symposia on activity theory where no settled view emerges about the nature and signifi cance of the concept of activity He concludes that ldquothe activity approachrdquo is in crisis ndash the sentiment I share though from a diff erent set of premises and with an important qualifi cation that this is by no means unique to activity theory only and instead is typical across many socio-cultural critical non- reductionist and non- deterministic approaches For example Danforth ( 2006 p 377) in summarizing three decades of special education research and his own important work on the topic observes that ldquothe search for a stable rational epistemological foundation though infor-mative and interesting has yielded more disagreement than consensusrdquo He goes on to propose that this longstanding search is neither practical



58

nor necessary to the ongoing development of knowledge and practice and should be given up for the benefi t of research on more concrete topics

As a result the sociocultural and critical approaches have not been a strong antidote against the pressures of objectivist and especially biologi-cally reductionist trends in sciences and aligned educational strategies steeped in ideology of adaptation control and testing Indeed so far resis-tance to these dogmas on the part of sociocultural and critical scholars has been sporadic and poorly coordinated with the strongest rebuttals off ered mostly from within the biological sciences (eg in works by Stephen Gould Richard Lewontin Ethel Tobach among others for a rare exception in Vygotskyrsquos lineage see Jones 2003 ) It is hard not to share Ingoldrsquos ( 2007 p 17) emotional and forthright statement about being

depressed by the timidity and ambivalence with which [social scholars] have reacted to the challenge if they have reacted at all and by their willingness to reach an accommodation with a pseudo- biological funda-mentalism that compromises everything for which [social scholarship] rightfully stands

Most regrettably in the situation in which the critical and sociocultural approaches lack a coherent theoretical framework to unify or at least coor-dinate their views and positions it might appear as though it is the bio-logical reductionist paradigm that has all the answers grounded in its ldquonew grand synthesisrdquo and its proclaimed universally ldquoobjectiverdquo approach In a sense it is not surprising though highly unfortunate that those working in education and other applied fi elds including policy makers oft en turn to this paradigm for guidance and solutions Th e answers they fi nd are bold and speak in a unifi ed voice ndash including claims to a vision of human nature that purportedly resolves all its complexities with the help of notions such as genetic endowment natural ranking based in putatively inborn abilities innate cognitive modules procreation and mind- as- brain metaphor Th at this vision is closely tied to and continues theories that had been developed to justify racial inequalities and other social injustices and thus inevita-bly sustains essentially the same sociopolitical order is oft en conveniently ignored Th e ldquoresurgence of extremist biological determinism laden with mythic gender [and other types of] assumptionsrdquo (Morawski 2005a p 411) that we are observing today remains in need of stronger rebuttals critique and resistance

Th ere are no doubt exceptions to this trend such as the intellectual movement known as ldquonew materialismrdquo Th is movement includes eco-feminism agentive materialism and feminist materialism which have all



59

off ered critiques of deconstruction and postmodernism and revived inter-est in broad theorizing in an eff ort to bridge the traditional divides such as between body versus mind at the levels of both ontology and epistemol-ogy (eg Barad 2007 Bennett 2010 Coole and Frost 2010 some of these works will be engaged with in this book) Other exceptions (also discussed later on) include works on metatheories and worldviews (eg Altman and Rogoff 1987 Overton 1984 ) competing paradigms for research (eg Guba and Lincoln 1994 Heron and Reason 1997 ) and dynamic systems theory (eg Th elen and Bates 2003 ) among others Yet the prevailing tendency can be characterized in the words of David Harvey ( 1996a ) as corrosive skepticism and cynical fatalism Th e antidote to this according to Harvey is in working out some guiding principles however provisional that are necessary as an adequate basis for the ldquofoundational beliefs that make inter-pretation and political action meaningful creative and possiblerdquo (ibid p 2) Th e task in this approach is no less than to ldquodefi ne a set of workable foundational concepts for understanding space- time place and environ-ment (nature)rdquo (ibid)

Psychology has been remarkably ldquoaheadrdquo of other fi elds in staunchly adhering to and promoting atheoretical ahistorical and decontextualized approaches Th is is strongly conveyed by Esther Th elen ( 2005 ) a develop-mental scholar credited with advancing precisely the ldquogrand theoryrdquo that is now gaining a much- deserved acclaim across developmental sciences Th elen counters common sentiments that the search for a grand devel-opmental theory is futile In the latter view the traditional big issues of developmental theory ndash nature and nurture continuity and discontinuity modularity and distributed processes ndash should be cast aside in favor of the specifi cs of content In responding to this attitude Th elen states

I beg to disagree We surely need the details of content but we also need the big picture We need to grapple with the hard issues at the core of human change hellip We must use as models hellip bold visions to probe deeply into the mystery and complexities of human development and to articu-late general principles that give meaning to so many details (ibid p 256 emphasis added)

Rejection of modernist foundational metadiscourses and ahistorical uni-versalistic claims about mind nature and human development constitutes a genuine advance in sociocultural and critical sciences of recent decades Th is includes rejecting notions that there can be an absolute ldquoobjectiverdquo foundation for knowledge that is neutral and universal as if somehow fi xed once and for all in favor of a position that inquiry and knowledge are never



60

outside of contexts and practices of their production including power dynamics and contested sites of struggle Th e proliferation of new ideas concepts methodologies and insights developed from previously margin-alized locations has opened the doors for much- needed cultural diversity in voices positions and experiences Th e general contrarian and democratiz-ing thrust of these critical directions and their eff ects on social sciences and discourses is hard to overestimate Yet more work is needed at the level of broad theories to counter the all- powerful biological reductionism and the value neutrality models of science that presently are winning in terms of political infl uence and clout

It is important to directly and unambiguously acknowledge (in reiterat-ing the point made in the introduction) that traditionally throughout the history of social sciences and beyond broad theories based on assumptions about human nature and development have been used for purposes far removed from ideals of equality justice and solidarity Moreover they con-tinue to bring about undesirable and even dangerous consequences asso-ciated with dogmatism hegemony and universality claims that disregard diff erences in human experiences As Linda Tuhiwai Smith ( 1999 p 26) wrote ldquoTh e principle of lsquohumanityrsquo was one way in which the implicit or hidden rules could be shaped To consider indigenous peoples as not fully human or not human at all enabled distance to be maintained and justifi ed various policies of either extermination or domesticationrdquo However rather than making the issues of human nature obsolete this painful history demands that they be reconstrued on radically new foundations under-pinned by alternative sociopolitical ethos that overcomes the obstinacy of the colonial legacy Again as explained by Linda Tuhiwai Smith ldquoColonized peoples have been compelled to defi ne what it means to be human because there is a deep understanding of what it has meant to be considered not fully human to be savagerdquo (ibid emphasis added)

Precisely because broad notions at this level such as about human nature and mind have been used for discriminatory purposes they can and should be reclaimed within progressive dialectical approaches rather than left under the purview of ideologies that support discriminatory practices of social hierarchy rigid social stratifi cation and stark inequality Because every social practice operates with and presupposes particular views of human nature that it claims are true (cf Fowers and Richardson 1996 ) any social change in these practices would need to be based upon novel approaches and models at this broad conceptual level too ndash not as a suf-fi cient but a necessary ingredient for moving forward with social change It should be possible to treat questions about human nature and development



61

as a radically open and politically contested turf and within this broad quest to theorize human development and subjectivity ndash including mind self- determination self- regulation and agency ndash on the new grounds Th is position is in agreement with for example Fraser and Nicholson ( 1990 ) who have argued that a ldquocritique needs forswear neither large historical nar-ratives nor analyses of societal macrostructures hellip [as long as theory is] explicitly historical attuned to the cultural specifi city of diff erent societ-ies and periods and that of diff erent groups within societies and periodsrdquo (p 34)

Claims that broad theories and epistemologies were of interest in the colonial epoch but are of no relevance in the present context when what matters is diff erence fl uidity and fl exibility are countered by the postcolo-nial scholarship that resists the stance of political indecision typical of many postmodernist works In Edward Saidrsquos ( 2003 ) words

hellip whereas postmodernism in one of its most famous programmatic statements (Jean- Franccedilois Lyotard) stresses the disappearance of the grand narratives of emancipation and enlightenment the emphasis behind much of the work done by the fi rst generation of post- colonial artists and scholars is exactly the opposite the grand narratives remain even though their implementation and realization are at present in abey-ance deferred or circumvented (p 349 emphasis added)

Also there is the risk of unfortunate parallels between objectivist sci-ence and postmodernism in that both reject generalizations and metatheo-ries even though with an important distinction that the former is focused on neutral (ldquorawrdquo) facts while the latter gives priority to local discourses and points of view Th e eff ects of avoiding broad worldview- level theo-rizing and general principles in sociocultural and critical scholarship can be politically paralyzing because the contrarian biologically reductionist approaches rely on a unifi ed and seemingly powerful albeit deeply fl awed discourse of evidence- based justifi cations and access to ldquoobjectiverdquo data and facts while critical approaches abstain from claims to knowledge beyond plurality of voices and perspectives Because of this lingering rel-ativism and indecision these important and innovative perspectives are oft en perceived as weak (eg by policy makers and practitioners) com-pared to the reductionist explicitly value- neutral approaches that claim that they ldquoknow the factsrdquo ldquohave the evidencerdquo and can deliver answers ndash creating an aura of being ldquomore scientifi crdquo and more reliable (and oft en deemed as such) Furthermore in arguing that there is no basis for knowledge beyond the swirl of discursive constructions within particular



62

communities postmodernism and related currents of sociocultural and critical theory increasingly risk ldquoa wholesale collapse into discourse ideal-ismrdquo (Parker 1998 p 2)

The Charges of Research with Activist Agendas

Central to the predominantly critique- and diff erence- oriented sociocul-tural and critical approaches is that they typically refrain from articulating a stand on how to transform existing practices such as in education in order to change the existing order of things One could say that there has been more explicit work on challenging the status quo in terms of exposing and documenting its contradictions and fl aws and less on developing sug-gestions for changing it in any particular direction taken as a guide for the work of critique Indeed even scholars who have done important work in critiquing the limits of objectivist science oft en express strong reservations about taking a position on one or the other side of political debates and practical reforms as part of their theorizing and research

Th is includes not taking sides in debates about the goals of education reforms which is seen by many as the faulty project of ldquore- engineeringrdquo schools along the lines of instrumentalist concerns that are believed to not qualify as science Such projects for example are strongly dismissed as ldquoterrains where the expectations relate to seers and prophets ndash dispensers of sacraments and revelations that merge the vocation of science with the vocation of politicsrdquo (Popkewitz 2004 p 74) In another telling example as described by Young ( 2008 ) research in the sociology of the curriculum has predominantly delved into how knowledge is entangled with power while critiquing the ldquoknowledge of the powerfulrdquo Th ese works have resulted in many important insights about schools serving the goals of social repro-duction through disciplining students to fi t into an unjust social order Yet in this line of work as Young (ibid) describes relatively little attention has been paid to developing alternatives based in exploring what powerful knowledge actually is and how it can be developed for and with the mar-ginalized groups for their benefi t and for the goals of generally improving education for all

Th ese broad trends grew out and further supported the overall sociopo-litical and cultural developments of the last decades expressed in a skeptical stance vis- agrave- vis the possibilities of broad political changes ndash as epitomized in the infamous ldquoend of historyrdquo and ldquoend of ideologyrdquo metaphors that came along with the ldquoend of theoryrdquo sentiments all coalescing in what some have



63

called ldquothe diet of unrelieved gloomrdquo (Crook 2003 p 13) Th e prolifera-tion of epistemological relativism came about together with a retreat from the ethico- political praxis due to a loss of faith in the capacity of collec-tive action and agency to foment progressive social change (cf Aronowitz and Bratsis 2005 ) Th e belief that there is not much left to imagination and social transformation has settled in ruling out the need to envision a world that is essentially diff erent from the status quo along with the imperative of committing to creating such a world ndash while importantly viewing such commitments as inherent parts of doing science theorizing and conducting research Emblematic of this tendency is that although it is acknowledged that the origins and workings of science are infused with political and moral commitments that impress the entire project of science these commitments are oft en perceived to lie outside scientifi c work (cf Morawski 2011 )

Many critical and sociocultural approaches are reluctant to affi liate themselves with what is perceived to be an old- fashioned and presumably wrong- headed ldquoteleologyrdquo of development ndash that is with explicitly ideolog-ical and sociopolitical goals and end points that express a specifi c orienta-tion and a destination for moving forward with reforms and social changes Such concerns are understandable and justifi ed given the history of science and research in the western world Indeed when constructs of end points and visions are posited as ahistorical timeless universals and transcenden-tal absolutes or as fi xed ontological teloi that are true ldquoonce and for allrdquo (as is the case in positivist science) and that are imposed top- down by ldquomaster narrativesrdquo then this inevitably leads into hegemonic discourses and prac-tices However with the purging of all types of end points and articulations of political vision ndash rather than the ones that are imposed through top- down indoctrination and without regard to historically situated ongoing struggles ndash any grounds on which claims to knowledge can be appraised are abandoned too As Appadurai has observed ldquoTh e importance of value- free research in the modern research ethic assumes its full force with the subtraction of the idea of moral voice or visionrdquo ( 2000 p 11) Th is weak-ens the options for critical researchers to position themselves in claiming authority vis- agrave- vis the contrarian objectivist and biologically reductionist frameworks that do claim that they have ldquoall the answersrdquo typically derived from the studies of brain functioning and genetic programming As Harrist and Richardson ( 2012 p 40) note

Liberal individualism seems to be harmfully embroiled in the paradox of advocating relative neutrality toward all values as a way of promoting



64

certain basic values of liberty tolerance and human rights Individuals hope to protect their rights and prerogatives while ensuring that no one can defi ne the good life for anyone else

As a result in their lack of resolve to take an ideological position and stance beyond deconstructive critique and description many of the postmodern-ist and some of the critical and sociocultural approaches too risk siding with the positivist and biologically reductionist approaches Th at is some of these progressive approaches risk converging ndash in their bordering on neutrality stance that does not explicitly take up value orientation as to what should be done to redress inequalities and other injustices as part of conceptual work and research ndash with the traditional positivist science that is based in fact- value dichotomy and neutrality canons Indeed it so hap-pens that postmodernist approaches sometimes even fl ip sides with their positivist opponents in abstaining from formulating sociopolitical goals and agendas

For example it is highly paradoxical that in the debate between Foucault and Chomsky it is Foucault ndash the critical theorist ndash who insists that no program for the future can or needs to be considered valid for the present theorizing and critique (because no grounds exist for adjudicating among values and positions) while Chomsky ndash the hard- core nativist ndash suggests that we cannot move forward without such a program Chomskyrsquos elegant statement which is hard not to share (though this by no means indicates accepting his nativist theory) is that ldquo[i] t is of critical importance that we know what impossible goals wersquore trying to achieve if we hope to achieve some of the possible goalsrdquo (Chomsky and Foucault 2006 p45) For Foucault engaging such a vision inevitably involves normative ideals and therefore must be seen as inherently oppressive In Foucaultrsquo words ldquoWhen you know in advance where yoursquore going to end up therersquos a whole dimen-sion of experience lackingrdquo ( 1990 p 48)

Th e theme of not knowing onersquos destination and hence the focus on ldquowandering aboutrdquo as the core metaphor continues in later works that insist on relentless empiricism and research as ldquoempirical wanderingrdquo open to surprises (see Watson 2014 ) For example Latour ( 2005b ) elaborates the metaphor of the fi eldworker as an ant poking around refusing to indulge explanations generalizations or critical frameworks In this approach the researcher can do no more than diligently trace the network with the aspiration to produce a good description good account and good map to reterritorialize on the topos of the real (cf Watson 2014 ) As another illus-tration I share the conclusion regarding Deleuze (which I think could be



65

extended also to Foucault and others) that ldquo[f] ew philosophers have been as inspiring as Deleuze But those of us who still seek to change our world and to empower its inhabitants will need to look for our inspirations elsewhererdquo (Hallward 2006 p 164)

Th e working out of broad foundations to legitimate research with rad-ical agendas of social change premised on a clear directionality of such change has been complicated even in critical pedagogy ndash a line of research that inherited its radical inspirations from Marxism In response to cri-tique by alternative postmodernist currents of thought critical pedagogy sometimes can be seen to equivocate in terms of its most radical prem-ises such as about human nature reality and knowledge In an illumi-nating overview of critical theory and pedagogy Leonardo ( 2004 ) states that under recent criticism especially by postmodernist scholars critical pedagogy has been moving in the direction of ldquocomplexifying the search for quality educationrdquo so that now this education ldquois less the search for a particular social arrangement but rather is coterminous with the very process of criticism itself Th at is the forward motion of criticism is part of the good liferdquo (p 15)

Along with this shift and in place of directionality of education and human striving central to Freirersquos works the focus has been shift ing to the values of living with diff erence limitless sense of hope politics of represen-tation production of meaning and the narrative structure of educational processes (cf ibid) In a similar vein it has been suggested (see Glass 2001 ) that the Freirian notion of authenticity entailed in his ideas about ontologi-cal vocation and calling is incompatible with the thoroughly historicized existence that is also central to his works Th e historicized existence in the next step of this interpretation is taken to imply the ldquonaturalrdquo ontological opaqueness of identity associated with epistemic limits and uncertainties Th at is according to Glass because ldquohuman existence cannot transcend its rootedness in particular situations hellip the loss of certainty extends to the emancipatory guarantees Freire hoped for from actions aimed at overcom-ing situational limitsrdquo (ibid pp 20ndash 21 emphasis added) grounded in ideals of humanization

Th e shift of this kind is a reaction to what many perceive to be an elit-ist ldquovanguardismrdquo of Freire (oft en traced back to Marx) ndash the positing of desirable goals and ends for social struggle that envelops education and human development and provides them with rationale and direction as well as grounds identity However such positing of goals for social strug-gle ndash achieving humanization premised on ideals of social justice and equality ndash is arguably at the very heart and the very core of both Freirian



66

and Marxist approaches To eschew this position as a ldquoregime of truthrdquo is to eff ectively dismiss the project of critical pedagogy and theory all together Instead of such a de facto dismissal what might be needed is an elabora-tion of Marxist and Freireian approaches that would not cancel their core premise of a desired directionality of knowing and development yet guard against these notions morphing into a regime of truth that leads into indoc-trination and passive transmission of ideology as is the risk given some of their stated positions Such a work is inevitably highly contentious because it needs to navigate the extremes of relativist epistemic uncertainties that paralyze action on the one hand and of an unquestioned imposed moral certitude based in foundationalist and universal principles that rigidly pre-scribe direction and thus lead into indoctrination on the other

Th e answers provided by postmodernist approaches as to how choices among competing knowledge claims can be justifi ed prioritized and most importantly taken as the guides for social change and action invariably entail relativism or its slightly updated versions represented for example by ldquoplural realismrdquo and perspectivism sometimes modeled on the ques-tionable legacy of the Heideggerian philosophy According to this position reality can be revealed in many ways and none of these ways can be pri-oritized over others that is human beings ldquowork out many perspectives ndash many lexicons ndash and reveal things as they are from many perspectives And just because we can get things right from many perspectives no single per-spective is the right onerdquo (Dreyfus 1991 p 280) However in repudiating the idea that beliefs are true or false and political principles good or bad relativist approaches weaken resolve for social change and undermine the possibility of understanding that is not only about registering how things are but also about how to change them (Menand 2001 cf Malik 2001 )

Th e Vygotskian scholarship of the past two to three decades can be seen as oft en too affi liating with the stance of political neutrality and ideologi-cal uncertainty In cases of explicating political views as part of their con-ceptual work some scholars have sided with Fukuyamarsquos infamous ldquoend of historyrdquo position (Packer 2006 ) Yrjo Engestroumlmrsquos (eg 1987 2001 2005 ) version of activity theory is progressive in many ways and premised on the notion of transformation yet it does not directly address ethical- political commitments and ideological antagonisms as part of this theoryrsquos ldquointer-nalrdquo make up (cf Avis 2007 and for further critique see Jones 2009 )

Furthermore approaches that are structured around notions of ldquocommu-nities of practicerdquo and ldquolearning as participationrdquo do not necessarily explic-itly identify with an equity stance and issues of race and discrimination



67

(cf Nasir and Hand 2006 ) nor do they explicitly take side on social trans-formation as inherent parts of their conceptualizations Similar critique has been raised vis- agrave- vis other approaches such as by Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens that are dynamic and focused on active role of humans and their social relations in society yet are not critical in the full sense of the term (cf Fuchs and Hofk irchner 2009 )

Th is is not to dismiss that many critical and sociocultural approaches share moral and political orientation focused on freedom empowerment emancipation social justice and egalitarianism Indeed a number of frameworks such as especially critical ethnography and critical pedagogy action research ecological performative feminist queer indigenous and participatory approaches have explicitly associated themselves with the goals of advancing social justice and progressive politics In many fi elds such as critical cultural studies political geography critical anthropol-ogy and psychology and critical multiculturalism there is a shift toward developing approaches in line with oppositional politics that strives to reverse the conservative hegemony of the past years Th ere is a growing consensus among those who work in these approaches that moral and political matters enter into and circulate through research programs (cf Morawski 2011 ) Moreover a number of scholars take a radical position that ldquoexploring what should be valued ndash is valu able ndash in human endeavors is at the heart of much scholarship in the humanities An education sci-ence that jettisons this freight also jettisons its compassrdquo (Howe 2009 p 439)

To emphasize again there are many examples of scholars in critical and sociocultural framework openly embracing a political agenda of empower-ment for example speaking for distributive justice in what has been termed affi rmative postmodernism (for a detailed analysis see Prilleltensky 1997 Teo 2015 ) Th ese approaches build on traditions of political consciousness and activism that had been diminished though never completely elimi-nated under the weight of empiricist and objectivist science models In education this research has drawn inspiration from a broadly conceptual-ized ldquopolitics of resistancerdquo and ldquopedagogy of hoperdquo articulated by Paulo Freire (eg Apple 1990 Giroux 1983a McLaren and Jaramillo 2007 ) among others In a more recent strand of works researchers also draw on the philosophy of hope by Ernst Bloch the Frankfurt school and works by political activists (for a recent exposeacute see Amsler 2008 ) Drawing on vari-ous sources such as scholarship of Martin- Baro and Kurt Lewin the partici-patory action research (eg Cammarota and Fine 2008 ) and transformative



68

research (eg Mertens 2003 ) also make important advances in developing ideologically non- neutral approaches

Praxis- related research (Mattson and Kemmis 2007 ) and closely asso-ciated directions of ldquophronetic researchrdquo (Flyvbjerg 2001 ) ldquoeducational research as practical sciencerdquo (Carr 2007 ) and ldquoresearch as practical phi-losophyrdquo (for overview see Kemmis 2010 ) also strive to develop forms of research that might contribute to changes in social praxis rather than contributing to knowledge and theory alone as is the case in conventional research Th is orientation places emphasis on the role of values power and politics in conducting research especially in conjunction with the goals of increasing youth participation and facilitating trajectories toward more equitable futures (eg Gutieacuterrez and Larson 2007 Jaramillo 2011 Penuel and OrsquoConnor 2010 ) In employing these methodologies research-ers shift away from the ldquoobjectivistrdquo experimentation model that dictates that researchers act as disinterested impartial and neutral observers and interpreters of reality

Recent research in Vygotskyrsquos and activity theory tradition has also made eff orts to more centrally integrate issues of power and social inequal-ities (eg Collins 2011 Gutieacuterrez 2002 Gutieacuterrez Baquedano- Lopez and Tejeda 1999 Kontopodis 2012 Sawchuk 2003 among others) It has been strong in research in education in uniting with critical approaches to pedagogy identity agency and power (cf Th orne 2005 ) However that much more work needs to be done is apparent in that researchers inter-ested in social justice and antiracism issues in specialized fi elds such as mathematics education have moved ldquobeyond the sociocultural view to instead espouse sociopolitical concepts and theories highlighting iden-tity and power at playrdquo in turning to conceptual tools from critical race theory and poststructuralism (see Gutieacuterrez 2010 p 1) Th at this task so far has not been fully resolved is further evidenced by equivocations that oft en accompany discussions of these matters A recent important and illu-minating article by Gergen Josselson and Freeman ( 2015 ) for example draws attention to the possibility of doing research with a political agenda yet formulates this point in a tellingly interrogative rather than assertive manner (literally leaving question marks prominently at the center of expressing this position)

Rather than embracing the traditional dictum that science is devoted to understanding ldquowhat is the case rather than what ought to berdquo hellip what might be accomplished if we place ought in the forefront of our endeav-ors How can we as psychological researchers actively build the kind of



69

society in which we wish to live And donrsquot we gain valuable knowledge in our eff orts to bring about change (p 5)

Th ese works represent an important site of struggle against entrenched biases injustices and power diff erentials yet much work still remains to be done in this direction It is highly paradoxical that psychology ndash a science by defi nition about human subjectivities including interests values aspi-rations commitments motives and goals ndash became the mainstay for the ideal of knowledge purged from precisely these human dimensions Th is creates a clash between psychologyrsquos engagement in human welfare versus its accepted models of disengaged and objectivist research conducted in a detachment from the sociocultural historical and political contexts As a result psychology lacks theoretical resources necessary to support not only its status as the social science primarily concerned with an understanding of human experience and action but also its claims with respect to applica-tion and relevance (cf Martin and Sugarman 1999 ) In refl ecting on this contradictory situation Bradley ( 2008 ) writes that psychology

in its passionate desire to mime the natural sciences hellip has taken to exalting a scientistic imagery of objectivity as capturing its primary aim an aim which subordinates its longstanding aim to ldquopromote human welfarerdquo Th is positioning embroils the discipline in a series of hobbling contradictions most notably the contradiction between being at one and the same time value- free scientists with no responsibility for the solution of ldquosocial problemsrdquo hellip and welfare- promoters whose raison drsquoecirctre is pre-cisely the solution of social problems (pp 42ndash 43)

The Challenges of the Sought- After Future

Th e political vision and the sense of possibilities that inspired critical work in earlier decades still capture the imagination of many researchers (cf Young 2008 ) However the question of how the moral and political matters enter into and circulate through research activities and programs remains undertheorized if not unacknowledged Th is is especially so in terms of explaining the inextricable linkages between the moral and political mat-ters on one hand and the methodological and epistemological matters including theory building and conceptual work on the other To establish such links a common broad foundation has to be developed on which matters of politics and ideology could be rendered ontologically compatible



70

with matters of theory methodology epistemology and other dimensions of research practices and knowledge building Without such foundation researchers who accept that values interests and power dynamics perme-ate knowledge are still facing ndash and themselves inevitably grapple with ndash the charges of ideological partiality that is considered to be incompatible with the traditionally understood objective science and moreover with what are believed to be acceptable standards of research

Th e dominant view even by leading critical scholars still typically priori-tizes multiple perspectives that are elevated over what is seen as a ldquobiasrdquo of doing research from a commitment to particular goals and end points To take one example from a recent work whose overall gist I share and salute it is stated that ldquo[t] o the extent that we can remove our biases and learn from multiple perspectives we will understand our world betterrdquo (Medin Lee and Bang 2014 ) As mentioned previously such a position is important and much needed in that it opens doors for the marginalized perspectives and scholars to express voice and make contribution to research that for too long has remained exclusionary and discriminatory Yet to call for the multiplicity of perspectives might not be enough to push through with the social justice and other activist agendas Th is still leaves many scholars who are drawn to a social justice viewpoint feeling that these values are personal or private matters (see Harrist and Richardson 2012 )

To be able to provide strong answers to these charges and for non- neutrality positions and research with activist agendas to hold in general a radically revised ontology and epistemology and a general worldview that embeds and supports them are required and urgently needed Especially challenging is the task of developing a foundation on which the explicitly ideological dimensions and political orientations expressed in end points and ethical- normative goals could be integrated directly into research process and theory building as their inherent components If critical and sociocultural scholarship is to pursue the goals of social change and action beyond those of interpretation critique and deconstruction (which inevi-tably limit the scope of political commitment and action) such scholarship requires a worldview that takes knowledge to be always perspectival situ-ated and even partisan (ie not value- and politics- free) yet the grounds are provided for adjudicating among knowledge claims and for legitimizing how it is possible to form accurate and veridical albeit neither disinterested nor incontestable understandings about and knowledge of the world

Th is is precisely the kind of orientation that has been largely missing With most directions of critical research oriented predominantly toward critique through documenting injustices from positions of pluralism and



71

diversity only very few call for a profound reworking of our understand-ings of ontology and epistemology (cf Morawski 2011 ) and especially of such a reworking in light of an ideological- political ethos that is alternative to neo- Darwinism sociobiology and the attendant free market ideology

Without such a broadly based theoretical work however there remains an unfortunate rift between what some see as a purely ideological and polit-ical legitimation of knowledge and research on one hand and an equally purely epistemological justifi cation of knowledge on the other ndash as if these two types of inquiries were fundamentally disjointed and even incompat-ible In such a dichotomy the former is viewed as de facto outside of the purview of science whereas the latter is cast to be somehow necessarily non- ideological or at least not directly and non- essentially ideological In this dichotomous view the work of critique and claims about knowledge being entangled with political- ideological agendas substitutes for devel-oping epistemological warrants for adjudicating among various positions and knowledge claims Such an approach precludes possibilities to advance critical science that is shot through with values interests and agendas yet does not eschew either ontological or epistemological considerations along with ethical justifi cations for valuing some positions above others and using them as guides for action

An alternative non- dichotomizing and activist critical position would see ontologies of knowledge and epistemological considerations as inher-ently imbued with human interests politics and values without making them unreliable or illegitimate One of the critical steps necessary in such a reworking is to reveal action and knowledge doing and thinking ndash and concomitantly also practice and theory ndash as ontologically compatible and unifi ed (non- disjunctive) dimensions of one and the same process of the semiotically mediated and historically contingent material praxis of science including production of evidence and knowledge Th is is a precondition for revealing how political values and commitments enter research and belong into its ldquoinner workingsrdquo In this case it should be possible to address how any and all dimensions in the process of knowledge production are imbued with values and moreover also embody and enact these values in a com-plex refl exive circuitry whereby moral and political matters enter into and circulate through research programs and activities Moreover it should be possible to demonstrate that such value- based ndash and even partisan ndash approaches are supremely realist in the sense that breaks with the ortho-doxy of what realism means

Again it is not a coincidence that African American scholars and Black activists in particular engaged in struggles against the status quo have been



72

most explicit in establishing the role of values commitments and even moral certitude and guidance against value neutrality of a narrowly objec-tivist science on one hand and of accepting multiplicity of positions as all equally valid typical of postmodernism on the other Th e link between scholarship and political activism was the hallmark of this tradition espe-cially during the Civil Rights movement that spanned the middle decades of the twentieth century (see Phillips 2004 Sandoval 2000 ) Indeed William Cross ( 1991 ) argues that antiracist activism was the key feature of the Black social movement centered on ldquoa relatively coherent and organized agenda for antiracist social changerdquo (quoted in Phillips 2004 p 233) As Layli Phillips further states (ibid)

Th e emblem of this desegregation eff ort was the legal desegregation of public schools and universities but the entire US desegregation move-ment it should be noted was part of a larger international decoloniza-tion movement whose aim was the liberation and humanization of the worldrsquos people of color

According to Chela Sandoval ( 2000 as conveyed in Phillips 2004 p 254) ldquoBlack and other lsquoUS Th ird Worldrsquo women in particular actually pio-neered the prototypical methods of postmodern activismrdquo In this research tradition people of color and others on the margins of the dominant power structures collectively developed progressive methods linked to political activism Much of this scholarship as conveyed by Phillips ( 2002 ) in build-ing on works by Hill Collins ( 2000 ) and Myers (1991) among others has developed ldquoculturally situated alternative to traditional scientifi c positiv-ismrdquo (p 579) In particular

Hill Collins hellip rejected the dichotomy between scholarship and activism thinking and doing for Afrocentric researchers In addition she has included empowerment as a step in the scientifi c process that is she claimed that an Afrocentric scientist cannot rest on her or his scientifi c production but rather must somehow apply it toward the betterment of humankind before the scientifi c process can be considered complete or onersquos role as a scientist can be considered fulfi lled (Phillips 2002 pp 577ndash 578 emphasis added)

Indeed Hill Collins is putting emphasis on the ldquoorganic links between Black feminism as a social justice project and Black feminist thought as its intellectual centerrdquo (Hill Collins 2000 p xi) Th is position directly chal-lenges the binaries of activism of emancipatory struggles on one hand and scholarship and theory as its intellectual center on the other (ibid p 10)



73

Notably such an approach does not shy away from elaborating ldquoauthorita-tive metanarrative claimsrdquo (Nayak 2014 p xiii) ndash in the face of a patriarchy and racism that denies the legitimacy of black women and other marginal-ized voices ndash while accepting that there are no absolute universal grounds for such claims outside of historically situated struggles for equality (eg works by Audre Lorde eg 1984 cf Nayak 2014 ) In place of adhering to existing metanarratives this work is grounded by the dialogical and dialec-tical relationship between practice and scholarship while highlighting the necessity of activist positioning (Hill Collins 2000 p 30 cf Phillips 2002 ) A number of works in education directly speak up for such a position (see eg Ladson- Billings and Donnor 2005 )

Th is approach does not bind theory to practice in a one- way manner and does not reduce knowing to a multiplicity of viewpoints but instead puts emphasis on how activist positioning emerges out of and confronts the oppressions of racism and sexism To quote again Kenneth B Clark ( 1989 )

In the social sciences the cult of objectivity seems oft en to be associated with ldquo not taking sides rdquo When carried to its extreme this type of objectiv-ity could be equated with ignorance hellip It may be that where essential human psychological and moral issues are at stake noninvolvement and noncommitment and the exclusion of feeling are neither sophisticated nor objective but naive and violative of the scientifi c spirit at its best (p 79 emphasis added)

Th is line of work however is still marginalized even in critical directions of scholarship Th e reason for this has at least partly to do with seeing research as an interpretive endeavor rather than an ethical practice that necessitates commitment and activist agendas If research is about interpretation rather than transformative action then indeed taking a stand and committing to one or the other direction of social reforms and movements are neither the essential precondition nor the inherent constituent of doing science and producing knowledge

To reiterate the leading relativist and skeptical uncommitted trends that avoid articulating a worldview in which values and commitments could fi nd their due place as legitimate and inherent dimensions within the basic ontology and epistemology of human development and social prac-tice ndash and therefore within science and research too ndash have dominated even approaches with progressive and emancipatory orientations and inten-tions with few notable exceptions especially exemplifi ed in the Black femi-nist theory Th e result of this is that critical and sociocultural scholarship



74

especially in the postmodernist tradition ldquodoes not provide support for the type of political project that educational transformation must be in addi-tion to the conceptual and empirical problems and paradoxes it containsrdquo (Beyer and Liston 1992 p 393)

Th e line of research that most directly integrates issues of values inter-ests and ideologies with knowledge production traces its philosophical roots to Marxism and sometimes is also associated with the pragmatist tradition of James Peirce and especially Dewey (though the two tradi-tions are strikingly diff erent even though they also share some points in common) Marxist philosophy can be interpreted to be premised on the centrality of human productive activity or praxis for all forms of individual and social life including its highly interrelated economic political ethical intersubjective and psychological (subjective) dimensions Although well established and through the years submitted to varying and sometimes confl icting interpretations this central Marxist premise requires further elaboration (as will be discussed in Part 3 and here only a brief mention is warranted) Th e most commonly accepted position (one could say the canonical one) suggests not only a close correspondence but also a full fusion between action and mind the practical and the subjective ndash all based in the experiential reality of how things are To illustrate from the recent scholarship Paula Allman ( 1999 ) in her thoughtful and perceptive inter-pretation of Marxism representative of the presently ongoing debates (as one of their most powerful expressions) writes that

[i] deas and concepts arise from the relations between people and from relations between people and their material world (the world created by human beings as well as the natural world) hellip [where] we actively and sensuously experience these relations therefore our consciousness is actively produced within our experience of our social material and natural existence (p 37 emphasis added)

In this and similar positions dominant in Marxist philosophy however the ways of knowing (epistemology) on one hand and the ways of being (ontol-ogy) on the other though posited as dialectically connected nonetheless are oft en understood to closely correspond to and even mirror each other If in addition material production and social practice are equated with ldquothe sheer actualityrdquo of what is going on in ldquothe here and nowrdquo then this position closely binds knowing with acting in the present as it exists in its status quo If what we know is conditioned by what we immediately experi-ence or participate in and if thought directly and immediately depends on material reality in its status quo then this approach has profound limiting



75

implications for the problems of social change and agency In leashing the mind to the present the premise in many works in the Marxist and other critical traditions does not leave much space to theorize activism ndash how individuals and communities struggle to transcend the present and instead invent the future However if the full force of Marxist philosophy is linked to the centrality of material productive practices in their immediate existence and status quo of which thought and mind are presumed to be derivative and faithful refl ections then the possibility of social activism and of challenging domination and oppression is curtailed

Theorizing Subjectivity and Mind Progress and Challenges

Th e changes spurred by recent critical and sociocultural approaches have been especially pronounced in shift ing the focus away from isolated indi-viduals to the novel analytics that describe human subjectivity including the mind as socially situated interactively constituted culturally mediated dynamically enacted materially embodied and distributed through the matrices of material- semiotic practices and discourses Signifi cant devel-opments include growing interest in the dynamic intertwining of the psy-chological and the sociocultural realms so that individuals are understood to be constituted through relationships within particular contexts and their interactive dynamics across micro- and macrosocial levels

Th ese developments aim at overcoming a detachment of psychologi-cal accounts from the social historical cultural and political contexts Notable examples in this direction within what has been termed the ldquosec-ond psychologyrdquo (Cahan and White 1992 ) or constitutive sociocultural approach (Kirschner and Martin 2010 ) are the now classical works by Jerome Bruner Michael Cole Sylvia Scribner Barbara Rogoff Vera John- Steiner Jean Lave Dorothy Holland and James Wertsch among others A vast fi eld of research in cultural- historical and activity theory has become prominent around the world (Engestroumlm 1987 Kaptelinin and Nardi 2006 among many others) including and especially in their applications to edu-cation (eg Daniels 2001 Daniels Edwards Engestroumlm Gallagher and Ludvigsen 2009 Hedegaard and Fleer 2013 Jones 2011 Kontopodis 2012 Lee and Smagorinsky 2000 Lemke 1997 Lompscher 2004 Milne Tobin and Degenero 2014 Moll 1990 Roth and Lee 2007 Sannino Daniels and Gutieacuterrez 2009 Vadeboncoeur 2006 van Oers Wardekker Elbers and van der Veer 2008 Wells and Claxton 2002 ) in addition to other works engaged with throughout this book



76

Furthermore overlapping positions can be found in dialogical (eg Hermans 2002 Markovaacute 2003 ) discursive and social- constructionist (eg Gergen 1985 Harreacute and Moghaddam 2003 Shotter 1993 ) phenomenological- hermeneutical (eg Guignon 2002 Martin and Sugarman 2001 Martin Sugarman and Th ompson 2003 Richardson Fowers and Guignon 1999 ) and ecological (eg Bateson 1972 Costall 2006 Ingold 2011 ) frameworks Many of these works trace their roots to Lev Vygotsky while others rely on Mikhail M Bakhtin George H Mead Heinz Werner and John Dewey as well as the philosophical traditions of Hegel Marx Dilthey Wittgenstein Levinas Gadamer Whitehead and others (for a recent review of a broad range of works on this spectrum see Kirschner and Martin 2010 ) Works by Urie Bronfenbrenner can also be seen as belonging to this tradition although his links to the sociocul-tural school have not been well explored (on his roots in and kinship with Vygotsky see Stetsenko 2008 Wertsch 2005 )

In strongly opposing the canons of ldquoobjectivistrdquo science the key import from many of these theories is the notion that social and psychological phe-nomena exist in the realm of relations and interactions ndash that is as pro-cesses that are embedded situated distributed and co- constructed within contexts rather than as isolated private possessions of individuals develop-ing in a vacuum Perhaps the most evident common achievement of recent years across these works is in advancing this relational mode of thinking Its core has to do with overcoming the Cartesian split between the object and the subject the person and the world the knower and the known ndash to off er instead a radically diff erent relational ontology in which processes occur in the realm between individuals and their world Th us the reductionist meta-phor of separation (typical of the mechanistic worldview) is replaced with the metaphor of mutual co- construction co- evolution continuous dia-logue belonging participation and the like all underscoring relatedness and interconnectedness blending and meshing ndash the ldquocoming togetherrdquo of individuals and their world that transcends their separation (cf Bidell 1999 ) With its broad message at the metalevel this perspective has pro-found implications for practically all steps in conceptualizing and studying phenomena in the social world including the self identity mind agency and knowledge as well as human development at large

Yet in spite of signifi cant shift s and advances these novel ideas and insights need to address more fully the traditional worldview- level prem-ises to suffi ciently challenge them along with their ideological connota-tions and underpinnings In particular there remains the task to more resolutely break with the ethos of adaptation that typically comes along



77

with these assumptions Th is is partly because many of these works too oft en share ldquoan aversion to foundational metadiscoursesrdquo (cf Kirschner and Martin 2010 p 16) and reject the need to develop ldquofoundational prop-ositionsrdquo (ibid) In rejecting the search for general laws and principles and opting instead for a focus on particular practices and local contexts how-ever there is a risk of ceding too much conceptual territory to the power-ful movement shaped by biological reductionism objectivist canons and neo- Darwinian ethos

Indeed amid much progress a number of gaps persist with some of the old dualisms remaining unchallenged and the new ones erected along the way such as especially between the distributed social processes and prac-tices on one hand and the phenomena of human subjectivity agency and mind on the other One of the voids is that suffi ciently dialectical notions pertaining to human subjectivity and mind especially in their agentive expressions that are not separate from materiality of social practices remain elusive and contradictory Many critical and sociocultural approaches in overcoming traditional emphasis on solipsistic individuals and instead focusing on collective dynamics of social processes either avoid theorizing mind agency and identity or are satisfi ed with rather generalized descrip-tions focused on their relational distributed and situated character Th e dominant belief appears to be that these notions are remnants of the old dualistic thinking and therefore they must be rejected Th e success in overcoming traditional portrayals of human beings as solipsistic creatures preprogrammed by their evolutionary ancestry and other natural forces outside of society oft en comes at a price of retreating from the issues of subjectivity ethics agency and personhood (albeit with notable exceptions discussed in the next chapters)

For example many developments in sociocultural research includ-ing in Vygotskyrsquos tradition took the route of advancing the notions about distributed processes ndash those beyond the individual level ndash as the major and oft en the exclusive realm of human development in opposition to the notion of development as an individual process understood to be con-fi ned to an internal ldquomentalrdquo realm In many works cognition and mind (including processes such as thinking attention emotion self- regulation and memory) are attributed exclusively to groups rather than individuals Other sociocultural scholars have noticed and commented upon the focus on distributed cognition in place and at the expense of the individual mind For example Wertsch ( 2000 p 20) pointedly though briefl y and with-out taking an evaluative stance has commented that ldquosome recent studies go beyond Vygotskyrsquos claim somewhat in their emphasis on intermental



78

functioning as a stable end point rather than a way station to the intra-mental planerdquo In addition many works acknowledge and demonstrate how the mind is situated ldquoin the midst of actionrdquo or activity and within the context but are less concerned with describing how the mind emerges from action and develops thereaft er In light of these trends I share assessment by Katherine Nelson ( 2007 p 13) that

the mainstream view on cognitive development seems to be that culture is an important conveyor of social knowledge but that it is not a signifi -cant factor in the development of mind hellip On the other end those who write from a cultural perspective oft en emphasize the importance of the cultural contribution to knowledge but are less interested in the work-ings of the individual mind

Furthermore while striving to overcome the old dualisms endemic in positivist science sociocultural theories sometimes tacitly introduce new unwarranted dualisms such as acquisition versus participation continu-ity versus change transmission versus transformation and communal-ity with nature versus agentive change and agency For example even in an important and infl uential scholarship by Jean Lave one can fi nd traces of a residual dichotomizing (cf Greiff enhagen and Sharrock 2008 and note that the focus on Laversquos work is because it represents one of the most signifi cant and strong advances so that its diffi culties are refl ective of the fi eld at large) Th is is transparent in Laversquos juxtaposition between social structures based in ldquoprinciples of production and political organizationrdquo on one hand and how these structures ldquopresent themselves to the experi-ence of individuals in the arenas of everyday action in the worldrdquo as dis-tinct processes on the other ( 1988 p 193 emphasis added) In this take on the social and individual processes the structural and social aspects of the world are seen as diff erent and ontologically independent from individual experiences

Th is is further evident for example in the contrasting of the two root metaphors in educational research ndash learning as acquisition versus learn-ing as participation (for an overview and succinct exposition see Sfard 1998 ) Th at studying acquisition of knowledge and cognitive development more broadly became viewed as contrasting and even incompatible with studying participation dynamics reveals an unfortunate lingering chasm of a dualistic type In this approach the focus on the dynamics of participa-tion whereby learning and learnersrsquo identities are functions of becoming part of a community is taken to somehow automatically exclude the level



79

of cognitive change and development (for later discussions either uphold-ing or questioning this position see eg Hodkinson Biesta and James 2007 Saumlljouml 2003 Stetsenko 2008 ) Th ese and other forms of a residual dichotomizing can be traced back to unresolved tensions and ambiguities at the level of broad ontology and epistemology still lurking in sociocultural activity theory and social practice theories

Other trends that oppose mainstream orthodoxies of traditional cogni-tivism for example in research that has been dubbed ldquoa new science of the mindrdquo (eg Clark 2008 ) do operate with the notions of mind as embodied dynamic situated and distributed yet they rarely engage with the broader underpinnings and philosophies at the level of worldview assumptions about human development Even less oft en are this and other lines of schol-arship including current research in the Vygotskian tradition interested in discussing sociopolitical ethos and ideologies that underpin accounts of human mind and development thus leaving many assumptions of this magnitude intact

Th e important developments in critical and sociocultural scholarship to be viable and strong enough to combat alternative reductionist and posi-tivist approaches need to be placed within a suffi ciently broad historical and methodological framing including political ethical epistemic and ontological stakes that abide in such considerations Otherwise the ramifi -cations associated with the reign of the adaptationist ethos remain insuffi -ciently challenged One of such ramifi cations is that the currently dominant thinking across the spectrum of views ndash from the biologically reduction-ist ones to those that focus on the relational socioculturally situated and contextualized character of human development ndash still largely implies that it is extra- personal forces that guide and shape human development and learning Th ese extra- personal forces are understood either as neurological processes shaped by genetics or alternatively as collective processes such as culture discourse dialogue and power In both cases the emphasis is de facto on the forces beyond agency imagination and human subjectiv-ity in thus eschewing the status of human beings as agentive actors in their own lives and communities and communal history at large What is oft en either neglected or undertheorized by the frameworks on both sides of the spectrum (with some notable exceptions) is the transformative agency of people qua social agents of communities and their histories to shape and essentially create their world their future and their own development while relying on the social and cultural resources that they bring into exis-tence and co- create in each and every act of their lives



80

It is perhaps especially the overall postmodernist zeitgeist typical of the ldquoaft er the subjectrdquo context (to use Kristevarsquos expression) that many socio-cultural and critical theorists understand concepts of identity mind and subjectivity as fl uid indeterminate and even epistemically untenable (cf Moya and Hames- Garcia 2000 ) Th e recognition that human development is profoundly situated and contextualized and that individuals are fun-damentally immersed in the world that shapes their development makes issues of mind identity individuality and subjectivity seem outdated With the understandable thrust to dispel the longstanding myths of solipsistic hyperindividualism hardwired into neoliberal canons in both sciences and broader politics however there comes the risk of losing the individual the subjectivity and the processes at the personal levels altogether As Williams and Gantt ( 1998 ) aptly summarize the spirit of postmodernism consists in ldquo a rejection of individual subjectivity as the fundamental undergird-ing of our humanityrdquo and as the locus and source of both knowledge and identity (p 253 emphasis added) In the next step however the conclu-sion is not infrequently that to consider identity mind agency and other expressions of human subjectivity as being critical to social functioning is to unduly essentialize and naturalize them (cf Mohanty 2001 Moya and Hames- Garcia 2000 )

Th e rejection of individual subjectivity is expressed by postmodern-ism for example in the emphasis on process and fl ux suggesting that the subject is ldquothe contingent accidental eff ect of the play of surfacesrdquo (Morss 2004 p 87) such as power dynamics discourses and community practices Marxism has been interpreted as a ldquotheoretical anti- humanismrdquo (the view fi rst suggested by Althusser and passed on to Derrida and Foucault see Hartsock 1998 ) ndash an account of how individuals are subjected by the pow-erful economic and structural forces beyond their control In this interpre-tation the subjects who matter are not individual persons but exclusively the collective ones such as especially social classes An important contri-bution of this scholarship in highlighting how group locations and collec-tive experiences associated with structural inequalities shape identities and voices however leaves the issue of individual voice and agency unattended to As recently admitted by one of the leading authors in critical and cul-tural theory ldquoTh e concept of agency actually functions as a place marker It refers to a space that one does not yet quite understandrdquo (Apple 2010 p 161)

Even more critically positions advanced in the spirit of ldquothe death of man [ sic ]rdquo have been exposed by feminist scholars to undermine the



81

autonomy and self- refl ective subjectivity as the basis on which commu-nal and progressive politics such as feminist and Civil Rights movements depend For example Fraser ( 1995 ) makes a strong statement that ldquoit is arguable that the current proliferation of identity- dereifying fungible commodifi ed images and signifi cations constitutes as great a threat to womenrsquos liberation as do fi xed fundamental identitiesrdquo (p 71) Other feminist scholars such as Gloria Anzalduacutea Linda Martin Alcoff Seyla Benhabib Patricia Hill Collins Dorothy Smith Linda Nicholson Martha Nussbaum Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Val Plumwood among oth-ers have also critiqued approaches that exclusively focus on diff erence discourse and play of symbolic resignifi cation as the central processes grounding identity subjectivity and gender politics Th e point made in many of these works is that approaches based exclusively in diff er-ence might dull the cutting edge of critical work and make it impossible to develop a common vision of radical transformation In abandoning points of convergence and anchoring groundings especially in theoriz-ing agency and human subjectivity researchers risk to resort to catalogu-ing pluralities without off ering alternatives (cf Giroux 1983a b Gitlin 2005 McLaren 1994 )

To reiterate the success of sociocultural and critical frameworks in overcoming traditional portrayals of human beings as solipsistic individu-als developing outside of the sociocultural world oft en comes at a price of retreating from issues of mind agency subjectivity and personhood Yet the challenge of individuality remains important and even pressing for both theory and practice and especially for educators and others working in practical fi elds who are otherwise left to their own devices and oft en are pressed to turn to reductionist paradigms Th e work of deconstructing the modernist views of human development and subjectivity ndash based as these views are in the hegemony of the solipsistic private self disconnected from society and cultural practices and ontologically privileged as the center of the universe ndash does not need to end up in eschewing the notions of self mind and identity altogether

When human beings are understood ldquoto be fundamentally social always and already living within moral orders in social cultural historical conver-sation among things but with othersrdquo (see William and Gant 1998 p 254) this important insight needs to be complemented by an account of agency self- determination and other phenomena and processes of human subjec-tivity within such non- individualist frameworks It is not enough to say that persons are defi ned by the social cultural systemic and relational contexts



82

in which they interact and live Adding that language and discourse are at the heart of identity does not fully solve the problem either ndash because this view does not suffi ciently specify the processes at the core of human subjectivity in their agentive role and in their relation to the social world of human practices and struggles

Th e alternative solutions need to discriminate between the rejection of liberal individualism and its mythology of solipsistic self- suffi cient indi-viduals versus the loss of models of persons as agentive actors in social community practices Th is is tantamount to making a distinction between hyperseparation that posits atomistic individuals as completely isolated from sociocultural dynamics versus concepts that preserve individual sub-jectivity within a profoundly social communal and shared worldview ndash as ldquoidentity within communityrdquo (to build off from Merleau- Pontyrsquos expression ldquoidentity within diff erencerdquo cf Plumwood 1993 ) Th is theory would need to negotiate in Plumwoodrsquos ( 1993 ) poetic expression

the path between the Desert of Diff erence and the Ocean of Continuity rejecting both merged ideals and the individualist- egoist accounts of self characteristic of liberalism Th e distinction between separation and hyperseparation allows for a concept of community which negotiates a balance between diff erence and community hellip It allows for social but non- fused selves it does not aspire to oppressive unity or to the elimi-nation of otherness in the form of confl ict or of cultural diff erence or attempt to absorb or reduce individuals into social wholes (p 159 emphasis added)

A positive (not positivist) and fundamental (not fundamentalist) under-standing of these processes of human subjectivity is crucial to developing counterhegemonic practices and policies Such broad theories would need to be able to embrace specifi city plurality heterogeneity and particular-ity of everyday experiences and of local knowledges yet also chart con-ceptual spaces where agency mind and other forms of human subjectivity can be understood as inherent dimensions of solidaristic communities (to use Seyla Benhabibrsquos expression) and their shared practices Th e alterna-tives that need to be sought along the lines of this critique are for historized approaches that can show the fl uidity of positions and discourses without the extremes of either reifying phenomena and processes of social life such as identity agency and mind into atomized and static forms on the one hand or of doing away with them as if they were fl eeting and inconsequen-tial epiphenomena on the other



83

Developing Alternatives for Research with Transformative Agendas

What remains undertheorized in many contemporary critical and socio-cultural approaches is the focus on active human persons and communities who can engage in the world as its co- creators imagine a better future and commit to its realization thus bringing it into reality while in the process creating themselves in the mutual process of becoming and co- authoring It is the need to rectify this situation described in the previous section ndash the context of the multiple crises socioeconomically and politically driven at the intersection of theory and practice both in sciences and in education ndash that motivates this book

Arguably what is required today to combat the parallel eff ects of mar-ketization on science and education is an eff ort to advance far- reaching encompassing theories and explanations of human development including processes of human subjectivity agency and mind Such theorizing needs to be attuned to and compatible with the notions of human agency and activism within a framework that does not follow with the dictates of a value neutral normativity and reductionism Imperative at the same time in order to avoid connotations of solipsistic individuals creating themselves in a vacuum is a revision of the notions of objectivity and reality away from ideas of a human- less world Instead to thoroughly reconstrue the notion of agency the world has to be thought of as a human realm composed of meaningful social practices that encompass as their inherent aspects the situated dimensions of culture politics and power along with the ever- shift ing interactivities and subjectivities

Th e key challenge is to capture the power of human transformative agency understood as an individually unique achievement of togetherness ndash while in the process retaining the full scope of critiquing traditional indi-vidualism and rogue instrumentalism that come together with what Ethel Tobach ( 1972 ) called ldquothe four horsemen of racism sexism militarism and social Darwinismrdquo especially in the context of eurocentrism and positiv-ism Above all given the relevance and even the preeminence of sociopolit-ical dimensions in knowledge production especially in social sciences and education this framework needs to be premised on an alternative ethos of collaboration and solidarity while avoiding connotations of master narra-tives focused on pursuits of external power that manipulates and controls

Th e core eff ort is to expand the premises of materialism to capitalize on human agency and activism in ways that do not exclude them from the



84

ldquonaturalrdquo dimensions of the world in its full materiality and historicity Th is diffi cult conceptual move is only possible if the material world is under-stood to be composed of collaborative practices extending through history and transcending the status quo ndash as the ldquoworld- historical activityrdquo (Marx and Engels 1845ndash 1846 1978 p 163) One of the important implications of such an expanded materialism is that it might open ways to bridge the gulf between the principles of essential sociality of human beings with those of freedom and self- determination while reclaiming the latter principles within a materialist and non- dualist approach Th e principles of freedom and self- determination are seen traditionally as the province of the neolib-eral discourse that has appropriated them for far too long as its own and exclusively so supreme territory Th e move to cast the principles of equality and social justice to be not in opposition to those of liberty and freedom is an important task to pursue if only in terms of making preliminary steps in this direction

Th is set of challenges can be addressed as one of the steps by advanc-ing theories that are premised on interrogating the core assumptions at both ontological and epistemological levels implicated in the traditional mechanistic worldview and even in the more advanced relational one Especially critical at the present time is an attempt to move in the direction of what Gramsci termed ldquoopen Marxismrdquo that is founded on the primacy of human agency in the shaping of history while not extricating agency from the situated dynamics of historical practices as these are co- constituted by and co- implicated in the production and transformation of a constantly changing world Th is in turn is only possible if a broader worldview is developed that could also at the same time posit agency not as an auto-matic natural ldquogivenrdquo somehow inherent in the nature of self- contained individuals Instead agency needs to be conceptualized as a situated and collectively formed ability of human beings qua agents of social practices and history to project into the future challenge the existing status quo and commit to alternatives in thus realizing the world and human development Importantly this ability has to be revealed in its contingency on the mastery of cultural tools for transformative action and activism through participat-ing in and contributing to the inherently social processes and practices of human communities

Th e movement in the direction of such an open account premised on the centrality of agency and activism necessitates many changes in the received philosophies and theories of human development and of real-ity that embeds it Th e biggest challenge is to overcome the dichotomies



85

between objectivity (matter) and subjectivity (intentionality) body and mind nature and culture social practice and human agency and commu-nity and individuality Th e alternative approach cannot consist in merely stating that these are non- dichotomous dimensions or that they are inter-related intertwined and interconnected ndash if this is done without suffi cient specifi cations as to how this is possible and what processes ground such interrelations and interconnections

What is needed is a position that determines processes at the level of basic ontological groundings of both reality and human development (at the intersection of development with teaching- learning) in ways that allow for complex and non- dichotomous relationships between these pro-cesses and also among various dimensions within their dynamics What is required is a position that charts a unifi ed (albeit not uniform) ontology of human development and of the world that grounds development and co- evolves with it with no ontological gaps posited between them Th is includes inquiry into the principles and assumptions about no less than what is reality and what is the place of humans in the world ndash a set of highly contested and complex issues that all their complexity and dark legacy not-withstanding cannot be set aside or left unaddressed in developing concep-tions that could support activist projects of social transformation Th e role of such a unifi ed grounding as will be elaborated in this book based on Vygotskyrsquos approach and the broader tradition of Marxist philosophy can be assigned to the social- material collaborative transformative practices that unfold in history while engendering multiple dimensions including subjectivity and intersubjectivity in their productive that is world- forming and history- making and especially world- and history- changing agen-tively transformative roles

Traditionally materialism including in Marxist and by implication in Vygotskyrsquos theory is predicated on the ontological centrality of mate-rial practices Yet this position is coupled in the works by both Marx and Vygotsky with the political commitment to social change based in the notion that human activity is a positive and productive force in the constitution of human nature and reality Th is broad political commitment although not directly explicated by these scholars in terms of its ontological epistemo-logical and methodological status can and needs to be closely examined along these lines

Th e key challenge is to concretely specify the relationship between materiality on one hand and agentive social practices imbued with human subjectivity on the other ndash while viewing both realms as ontologically



86

commensurate co- evolving and coterminous For this position to hold the reality has to be understood in its unfolding and open- ended dynamic historicity where the present is a continuously emergent process tied not only to previous historical and material conditions (the point highlighted by most scholars in the Marxist tradition) but also most critically to future conditions as these are envisioned committed to and acted upon by human beings qua social actors of human collaborative practices and their collec-tive history Th is issue remains a key conundrum for critical and sociocul-tural scholarship Th e challenge to address is how to stay on the grounds of materiality and accept its primacy in engendering and shaping processes of human subjectivity and interactivity yet at the same time to view these lat-ter processes not as separate from materiality but instead as co- implicated and instrumental in social practice in their status of agentive interventions in the course of history and the materiality of the world

It is within such an approach that the challenge can be addressed to simultaneously denaturalize the narrowly reductionist (biologizing) view of nature that renders it immutable and devoid of human dimen-sions while also renaturalizing culture in line with the concept of the natural beyond the narrow focus on extraneous forces that impact and even somehow wire human beings in establishing preprogrammed paths for development A related challenge is to rematerialize human mind and subjectivity in employing an expanded notion of materiality beyond an impoverished mechanistic view that reduces it to tangible things out in the world This in turn can be achieved if yet another concomitant challenge perhaps least addressed so far is also tackled ndash the need to resubjectivize (reenchant) materiality including human bod-ies and material practices on the premise that subjectivity and agency are inherent parts of the natural world if the latter is understood in non- reductionist ways The many attempts undertaken along these lines in the past have typically pursued one of these aspects rather than tackled them in their systemic totality and most critically did so often without addressing the broad worldview- level premises underwritten by an ethos alternative to the one that had spawned these dead- ended dichotomies in the first place

Vygotskyrsquos approach can be regarded as one of the earliest attempts in psychology and social sciences at large and an exceptionally bold one at that (albeit unfi nished and not without remaining substantial contradic-tions and gaps) to address these issues in moving from a relational to a transformative worldview Th is perspective allows for no essentialist or universal foundations for knowledge mind human nature and identity



87

Instead these notions are evoked based in a very diff erent set of premises the guiding ones of which have to do with positing a communal shared historical and situated character of human development Th at is human development is understood as an ldquoachievementrdquo of togetherness ndash resulting from its entanglement with the historically evolving and culturally medi-ated process of self- and world- creation based in collective and collabora-tive dynamics of social material practices in their ongoing historicity

Foregrounding the Ethical

Importantly what is required in working along these lines is a provision of ethical- normative grounds for agency and social change Th is is a highly contested territory where the notions of what is desirable and what ought to be such as in moving forward with education reforms and broader changes in existing social practices need to be worked out at least in broad strokes and contours Th is is in line with the feminist works that suggest alternatives to ideological neutrality in terms of normative ideals and end points of development and ldquoconcede that ethical evaluation is unavoidablerdquo (Fraser 2002 p 23) even though with a full realization that such evaluation is problematic

While deferring normative evaluation Fraser in the end does take a stand in terms of a normative position specifi cally in assessing equality according to the normative ideal of equal access to democratic participa-tion In a move that builds on the centrality of agency and commitment to change as the formative co- constituents of human development and soci-ety in the approach developed herein normative evaluation is regarded as unavoidable in doing research and theorizing In particular the grounds for such evaluation are devised on premises of a profound equality and solidarity that replace those of passive adaptation self- interest and accom-modation to the status quo In this the emphasis is not only on the norma-tive ideal of democratic participation and associated need for recognition both tracing their roots back to Hegel and the politics of consensus building and communication (eg as exemplifi ed in the works by Habermas 1994 ) While not rejecting this position the normative ideal at stake in the discus-sion herein has to do with providing opportunities for authentic contribu-tion by all to a society that needs to be improved changed and co- created rather than taken for granted and adapted to

In approaches premised on the ideals of participation and recognition ldquothe success of achieving equality is to be measured according to the aim of putting all members of society in a position to partake in social participation



88

without disadvantagerdquo (Honneth 2004 p 357) A more radical alternative as suggested herein in line with the Vygotskian- Marxist legacy is that suc-cess of achieving equality is to be judged (rather than measured to avoid undesirable connotations of what is recently an ideology of control) accord-ing to the aim of providing access to all members of society (rather putting them in one or another position to avoid connotations of passive subjuga-tion) to be in a position to contribute to social innovation and transforma-tion (rather than to merely participate) without disadvantage

Th e approach in this book is devised and implemented based on a vision of and a commitment to the sought- aft er future as it can be imagined today while explicating the alternative ethos (and its end point) that are driving each and every step of theorizing and knowledge building In this pursuit the ethical dimension is rendered central to the ontological epistemologi-cal and methodological considerations with an activist commitment bring-ing all these dimensions together as elements of a single approach and logic Th e strategy is to bridge the gap between the narrowly understood natu-ral science and the ideologicalndash critical orientation in the process of theory building In particular the intention is to construct theory closely aligned with ideology ethics and politics of social justice and equality and thus provide conceptual handles for possible practical interventions through radically altering theories employed to shape education as one step on the way to broad social changes in respective social practices Th is entails the need to explicate the ethical- political matters and positions in their relation to the conceptual and methodological ones

Bringing the ethical and the political to the forefront is clearly a con-tested proposition Th erefore it might be useful to remind of the long tradi-tion behind such ethically and politically non- neutral models of research such as expressed already by Dewey who realized long ago that

any inquiry into what is deeply and inclusively human enters perforce into the specifi c area of morals It does so whether it intends to and whether it is even aware of it or not When ldquosociologicalrdquo theory withdraws from consideration of the basic interests concerns the actively moving aims of a human culture on the ground that ldquovaluesrdquo are involved and that inquiry as ldquoscientifi crdquo has nothing to do with values the inevitable con-sequence is that inquiry in the human area is confi ned to what is super-fi cial and comparatively trivial no matter what its parade of technical skills (Dewey 1920 1948 p xxvi emphasis added)

Th e explicit goal is to build a robust theory that makes claims about human nature and development with implications for the notions of



89

truth and progress in order to provide warrants for knowledge claims as foundations for social action Yet this can be done not by embracing postulates of logical empiricism objectivism and positivism according to which events and phenomena are determined by outside forces and mechanical laws in a strong metaphysical sense It is hard to improve on the eminent evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gouldrsquos characterization that ldquoprogress is a noxious culturally embedded untestable nonopera-tional intractable idea that must be replaced if we wish to understand the patterns of historyrdquo ( 1988 p 319) Indeed if fashioned within the doctrine of adaptation along the lines of a mechanical worldview the idea of prog-ress inevitably gives false and conservative ldquocomfort of seeing ourselves hellip as quintessentially lsquorightrsquo at least for our local environments of natural selectionrdquo (Gould 1993 p 369) Instead a viable position is that ldquohumans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress but rather a fortuitous cosmic aft erthought a tiny little twist on the enormously arbo-rescent bush of life helliprdquo ( 1995 p 327) While sharing this position it is also important as also expressed by Gould that ldquo[p] rogress is not intrinsically and logically noxious Itrsquos noxious in the context of Western cultural tradi-tionsrdquo (quoted in Grant and Woods 2003 p 105) Th e idea of progress if fashioned outside of the biases and blinkers of this cultural and sociopo-litical tradition ndash that is not as an impervious dogmatic version of what is right or wrong ndash is needed for a position on the nature of knowing that includes a possibility of adjudicating among competing positions and claims Th e alternative is in developing such a theory while embracing the idea that human beings are fully enmeshed with the dynamics of the world yet also are active agents of their lives communities and society at large ndash and that each individual person matters and makes a diff erence in these processes

Vygotskyrsquos well- known theoretical notions about cultural- historical and social embedding of human development and about cultural mediation as the main pathway for development were combined with and embedded within his social activism and a passionate quest for equality and justice (the point that has been all but ignored in western interpretations of his scholarship) Th is orientation was realized and made possible by Vygotskyrsquos participation in the radical revolutionary project of his time Th e project of immediate relevance to Vygotsky and his colleagues consisted of eff orts at creating a new system of education for society that was in the process of being created and forged practically from scratch rather than taken for granted presupposed and adapted to Taking on from Vygotskyrsquos approach and theorizing his stance of equality and justice as a central component



90

of both theory and methodology (even though it remained implicit in his works) is the core eff ort in the present book

Th e resulting broad framework is developed precisely with an intention for it to be part and parcel of the practices policies and research grounded in ideals alternative to sociobiology with its malignant beliefs in inborn inequalities coupled with a ldquotesting maniardquo in educational strategies steeped in assess- and- control ideology of social Darwinism Th is approach there-fore does not take the ideal of equality as an abstract notion Instead it takes a stand on and commits to matters of equality as the fi rst analytical step that leads all other methodological strategies and theoretical choices and thus attempts to realize equality (cf Ranciegravere 1991 ) in the process of theory- and knowledge- building (with theory and knowledge understood as not opposed to nor separated from the larger social practices and politi-cal projects)

Th e approach that privileges the act of taking a stand on matters of sociopolitical and cultural- historical signifi cance is consistent with the transformative onto- epistemology In this framework the questions about ldquowho is talkingrdquo and the location from which one is talking high-lighted in recent critical scholarship (eg standpoint epistemology and other feminist frameworks) is augmented by the ldquowhat forrdquo question Th is latter and the most crucial question is focused on the purposes and goals the destination and address that scholarship (including theories and all knowledge building processes) aims at achieving in contributing to the future through the changes instigated in the present Th ese ques-tions are embraced in elevating the demand to explicate and refl ect upon the end points and goals of theorizing (which do not have to be fi nal and set in stone yet require explication as provisional horizons of where the research and theory are heading) ndash as a facet of transformative practice a form of doing that contributes to the transformation of the existing status quo

Th e strategy is not to test the assumption of equality in some abstractly neutral detached and ldquoobjectiverdquo sense but instead to undertake eff orts at providing conditions for making this assumption true in particular at the level of theoretical constructions that could support it as one of the steps in the overall project of creating equality in education Th is approach shift s away from the traditional standards of objectivity as a study of ldquonakedrdquo brute facts disconnected from the histories contexts and practices that spawn and give them meaning It also shift s away from understandings of equality as a self- executing ldquogivenrdquo attending instead to the need to bring



91

about equality through continuous eff orts of supporting sustaining and achieving it including eff orts at the level of theories and concepts

Th at is the approach is not so much to prove that all human beings are equal as rather to work out a theory of human development and learn-ing within an explicit quest of achieving equality and creating conditions in which this can be done under the assumption that equality ought and can be achieved Th is strategy epitomizes transformative activist stance in its claim that the taking up a stance (or a stand) on matters of social and political sig-nifi cance is the key onto- epistemological step and an inherent dimension in any investigation ndash and the broader foundational principle for human act-ing knowing and being Th e role of knowledge in this approach is radi-cally recast ndash knowledge and theory- building are deliberately turned into instruments of social practice marked by activism in a pursuit of transfor-mative change In this light research is carried out not with the neutral goal of uncovering what is ldquoout thererdquo in the world that is posited to somehow exist independently from human practices but instead with the goal of moving beyond the status quo in creating and inventing new forms of social practices and human development

Th is method is in line with what can be considered to be the very gist of Vygotskyrsquos project that is the ideological- political ethos (derived from Marxist ideology and philosophy) embedded in this project and shaping all of its layers ndash the passionate egalitarianism premised on the need to create psychology for a society that itself needs to be created rather than merely reproduced or adapted to Th is future society cannot be charted nor pre-dicted in full detail in advance that is it cannot be construed as a utopia in the sense of an abstract idea ndash imagined as something one can simply await in hopes that someday it might arrive Instead this society is imagined through actively carrying out practical steps toward its realization already in the present if even only in nascent and modest forms Th is is only pos-sible based in a commitment to struggling for what ought to be along the lines of a sought- aft er future one takes up as a guiding principle

Th e commitment pursued in this book however incomplete and imperfect its realization might be has to do with the orientation toward the ethical- practical goal of establishing social practices especially in education in which people are not ranked according to some preex-isting natural endowments and putatively inborn capacities and traits Instead such practices need to be based on the principle that all human beings have infi nite potential ndash unidentifi able in terms of any precon-ceived inborn limitations Moreover this potential is only realized in the



92

course of development that does not happen in a vacuum but instead is critically reliant upon sociocultural supports and mediations under-stood as integral parts of development Th is implies that the requisite cultural mediations and supports (broadly understood to include incen-tives artifacts spaces and tools for being knowing and doing) need to be made accessible and available to each individual with an understand-ing that she will agentively and creatively develop and transform them from onersquos own unique stand and position Reconceptualizing human mind and development on these grounds is envisioned as a step on the way to promoting education that is based in egalitarian principles Th e core of these principles is that all children with no exception can learn and develop without any assumptions of preimposed ldquonaturalrdquo limits or ceilings provided that they are given requisite (and individually tailored) access to cultural tools supports spaces and incentives ndash especially for their own agency as actors who contribute to social community prac-tice and co- author their world and development in bringing them into realization Th is means building developmental theory that is based in activism and agency and also dispels the mythology of supposed innate and immutable dispositions associated with rigid social stratifi cation and control dictating predetermined social hierarchies and structures to support them


9393

Part II


94


95

95

3

Vygotskyrsquos Project Methodology as the Philosophy of Method

In many ways Vygotskyrsquos project ndash conceived and implemented in the cru-cible of a radical revolutionary project that unfolded in Russia in the early twentieth century ndash predated many of the later developments in critical cultural sociocultural and postmodernist frameworks In fact this project remains unique in the history of psychology for its clear grounding in dia-lectical materialist philosophy and its commitment to ideals of social jus-tice and equality directly embodied in its theoretical tenets methodology and practical applications Th e profound saturation of Vygotskyrsquos project by these ideals and the sociopolitical ethos of equality and social justice at its core (oft en ignored in contemporary interpretations) make it relevant and applicable within current struggles of great urgency given the current sociopolitical and economic crisis to improve social practices especially in education Th e unique vision on human development mind and teaching-learning developed within the cultural- historical school has radical and quite contemporary implications for theory and methodology that reso-nate with critical scholarship today

In particular this project evolved as a value- laden collaborative endeavor immersed in the revolutionary practices of its time came to embody these practices and ultimately contributed to them through its participantsrsquo civic- scholarly activism Indeed rather than being confi ned to an ldquoivory towerrdquo of purely academic pursuits Vygotsky and his followers were directly engaged in practical endeavors fi rst and foremost in policies of reorganizing the national system of education and devising special programs for the home-less poor and children with special needs (and oft en all of these together) Th is engagement situated Vygotsky and his colleagues directly at the epicenter of highly charged sociopolitical practices of the time as imme-diate participants and actors (Vygodskaya and Lifanova 1996 ) turning their pursuits into a unique blend of theory practice ideology and politics

terms of use available at httpwwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpdxdoiorg1010179780511843044004Downloaded from httpwwwcambridgeorgcore Access paid by the UCSB Libraries on 14 Dec 2016 at 231853 subject to the Cambridge Core


96

(Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004a ) Participants of this project worked not on abstract ideas but rather on developing theory in the midst of advanc-ing new approaches for a society that itself was in the process of being cre-ated ndash under the aegis of an emancipatory agenda rooted in ideals of social justice and equality (the subsequent retreat from and drastic failures of this agenda notwithstanding) One of the immediate goals was to provide equal access to education for all especially those with special needs and millions from underprivileged backgrounds including homeless children and those impoverished by war and turmoil Th is goal was directly coupled with the stance of solidarity and egalitarianism ndash an unwavering belief in funda-mental human equality that knows no boundaries imposed by nature yet requires cultural supports and mediations interactively provided by others for it to be realized

It is likely the embedding of this project within the highly turbulent con-text of an unprecedented sociopolitical turmoil and transformation ndash span-ning two revolutions World War I and a civil war ndash that opened up the opportunity for its participants to take a uniquely activist stance attuned to immediate realities of human struggles and dramatic expressions of human agency at the nexus with historical change In actively and agentively con-tributing to ongoing social transformation in a direct link to creating new radical alternatives in the conditions of social existence especially educa-tion this project de facto challenged traditional models of science steeped in the ethos of adaptation and solipsism Participants of this project did not explicitly address ideological- political issues and the embedding of their project within transformative social practices of their time nor how their own commitments values and ideology were parts of their theory and methodology

Yet Vygotsky elaborated a number of critical elements for a new model of psychology at the intersection with education and pedagogy pre-mised on activism and the ethos of solidarity and equality Th ese elements included (by way of a brief account) (1) insistence on cultural- historical origins of mind in shared and collaborative culturally mediated activity and on psychological processes being co- constructed by interacting indi-viduals relying on historically evolved cultural resources within the ever- shift ing and dynamic zones of proximal development (2) the notion of dis ability as socially constructed and contingent on access to requisite cultural tools for development and (3) the positing of practice to be the linchpin of knowledge and science

In this conception the mind and its products such as knowledge (and other forms of human subjectivity traditionally understood as an inward


Methodology as the Philosophy of Method 97

97

ldquomentationrdquo of solo individuals) were conceived of as forms of social activ-ity ndash initially always intersubjective that is carried out as inter actions that only gradually are turned into intrasubjective actions that have their ante-cedents constituents and consequences in material social practice Also remarkable was Vygotskyrsquos non- traditional model of experimentation that eschewed a moral order of disinterestedness and distance central to so- called objective experimentation (cf Morawski 2005b ) Instead of copying reality and striving to disclose it ldquoas it isrdquo this model actively and intention-ally created ldquoartifi cialrdquo conditions to co- construct the very processes under investigation in order to study them in the acts of their co- construction through cultural mediation Th e radical crux of this approach was cap-tured by Leontiev whose words were conveyed by Bronfenbrenner ( 1977 ) a scholar directly and profoundly infl uenced by Vygotskyrsquos project in con-cluding remarks of his infl uential work

It seems to me that American researchers are constantly seeking to explain how the child came to be what she is we [however] hellip are striv-ing to discover not how the child came to be what she is but how she can become what she not yet is (p 528 emphasis added)

Th is approach thus posited a number of principles and above all directly embodied and enacted in its own realization a model of science that does not fi t with the exclusively positivist goal to provide a naturalistic account of human development based on a ldquoview from nowhererdquo Instead its paramount goal can be interpreted to be about overcoming the sepa-ration between scientifi c exploration on one hand and an ideological- critical orientation and emancipatory action on the other In this work theory and methodology were developed in close (though implicit) alli-ance with an ideology and an ethics of social justice and equality in order to make possible a practical intervention into the course of human devel-opment as the pathway to social change Th is project laid the grounds for a novel type of psychology with a new mission Th is was a psychology devoted not to pursuit of knowledge per se but to creating knowledge as part and parcel of larger- scale projects that self- consciously commit to and participate in creating new forms of social life and communal practices

Th e type of methodology theory and worldview at the core of Vygotskyrsquos project are not easy to describe by traditional labels that can be derived from todayrsquos literature Given their novelty (even vis- agrave- vis todayrsquos research) they seem to defy defi nitions in such categories For example Vygotsky is an evolutionary scholar who pays much attention to the Darwinian insights



98

yet his thinking has nothing to do with the recently popular renditions of the theory of evolution in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology that reduce human life to the struggle for survival and essentially reify human nature as fi xed and immutable He is a materialist but his views are world apart from todayrsquos eliminative materialism that reduces the mind to the internal workings of the brain Vygotsky is also clearly focused on discourse and the role of signs and symbols in human development yet he is not a postmodernist or poststructuralist type of a thinker who takes discourse to be the ultimate realm in which human development takes place Vygotsky takes a self- avowedly non- dualist position striving to defy Cartesian splits between the body and the mind the social and the individual the subject and the object yet his thinking is not directly nor fully equivalent (although parallels exist and will be discussed in Chapter 5 and in Part 4 ) with the presently popular situated contextualist embodied and distributed per-spectives Vygotsky is consumed with exploring the biological foundations of development yet he seems to suggest that culture is of a paramount importance in human development Finally he is a critical theorist engaged in a sharp and unyielding critique of practically all extant traditions and approaches to human development and learning of his time ndash calling for a new psychology of a radical sort ndash yet he seems to favor tradition and historicity of knowing including through systematic classroom teaching- learning and scientifi c concepts above all else Th ere is a riddle about Vygtosky perhaps even one that is wrapped in mystery inside an enigma (to paraphrase a famous expression) Th e way to address this riddle is to consider his approach in its entirety based in the core elements of its meth-odology and its worldview

In what follows I discuss in more detail Vygotskyrsquos methodology to pre-cede discussion of his theory ndash as situated in the transition between the relational ontology and the transformative worldview ndash in Chapters 4 and 5 It should be noted at the outset that Vygotsky can be seen as sometimes equivocating between the old and the new approaches views and posi-tions (for details see Stetsenko 2004 2009 ) Th is is by no means unusual or unexpected Like any revolutionary scholar who is creating ideas that are changing the very foundations of a given discipline or fi eld of study (or creating a new discipline all together) he too can be seen as situated on the cusp between the old and the new Th is observation is aligned with interpretations of scientifi c revolutions that reveal how the players in such profound changes from Copernicus to Newton while making break-through advances at the same time had one foot in the old traditions and heavily relied on their predecessors (see Nickles 2014 ) For example as



99

J M Keynes remarked Newton ndash the founder of modern science ndash was the last of the magicians not the fi rst of the moderns (ibid) Th e same meta-phor applies to Vygotskyrsquos works as well in that he too had one foot in the old traditions yet made a radical breakthrough in theorizing human devel-opment mind and teaching- learning

Methodology as the Philosophy of Method

In a powerful statement Fredric Jameson ( 2006 ) has stated that he pre-fers ldquoto grasp Marxism as something rather diff erent than a philosophical system hellip an as yet unnamed conceptual species one can only call a lsquounity of theory and practicersquo which by its very nature and structure stubbornly resists assimilation to the older philosophical lsquosystemrsquo as suchrdquo (p xiii emphasis added) I share this view in a belief that much more needs to be explored and addressed in grasping Marxism as a unique conceptual species Moreover it would be fairly accurate to say that Vygotskyrsquos proj-ect too needs to be grasped as a yet unnamed type of an approach that in inheriting the revolutionary spirit of Marxism moved beyond the old divide between theory and practice and instead embodied their unity in a peculiar blend with distinct philosophical and theoretical underpinnings Th e resulting approach was radically diff erent from traditional canons of positivist objectivist and empiricist models of science

Given this novelty and originality very much is at stake in how we understand and implement Vygotskyrsquos theory and method It takes much conceptual and theoretical eff ort and analysis to articulate explicate and justify this approach (while also critically reassessing some of its gaps and contradictions) so that it can be advanced gain wider recognition and fi nd more implementation across various fi elds and subject domains than has been achieved so far While attempting this kind of analysis the account in this chapter joins ongoing debates on Vygotskyrsquos methodol-ogy (eg Newman and Holzman 1993 Sannino 2011 ) Th e main argu-ment developed herein is that the core of Vygotskyrsquos method is the novel transformative ontology and epistemology coupled with the sociopolitical ethos of equality and justice that challenge ideology of adaptation and con-trol I also draw attention to some of the precursors to the current debates with notable parallels that unfolded within Vygotskyrsquos project as it was advanced in the previous decades especially between the 1960s and 1990s I address what appears to be the most contested issue in this approach ndash how to theorize and account for researchersrsquo agency and commitments



100

in conducting research in line with the transformative worldview and methodology

It is well known as can be found in many comments on Vygotskyrsquos works that he spoke about his desire to fi nd the method for psychology including through learning the whole of Marxist approach and method-ology Th ere is less of a consensus on the type of method that Vygotsky discovered and implemented In my view he found the answers at the inter-section of his theory with practice rather than in theory only In one of his most philosophically grounded works Th e Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology A Methodological Investigation ( 1997a ) Vygotsky stated that

hellip [previously] practice was the colony of theory hellip in no way depen-dent on practice Practice was the conclusion the application the depar-ture beyond the boundaries of science all together an operation that is extra- scientifi c and aft er- scientifi c hellip Now hellip practice enters the deepest foundations in the workings of science and reforms it from the begin-ning to the end practice sets the tasks and serves as the supreme judge of theory as its truth criterion it dictates how to construct the concepts and how to formulate the laws (pp 305ndash 306)

In further highlighting the central role of methodology Vygotsky wrote that ldquoanyone who attempts to skip this problem to jump over methodology in order to build some special psychological science right away will inevi-tably jump over his horse while trying to sit on itrdquo (p 329) One might be tempted to think of these words as a call to develop methods of empirical investigation However Vygotsky is talking about something much broader in scope ndash the notion of methodology as in his expression the philosophy of practice In discussing this notion Vygotsky echoes the epigraph that he chose to open this work with ldquothe principle and philosophy of practice is ndash once again ndash the stone which the builders rejected and which became the head stone of the cornerrdquo (ibid p 306) He clarifi es that ldquo lsquomethodrsquo means lsquowayrsquo [and] we view it as a means of knowledge acquisition But in all its points the way is determined by the goal to which it leadsrdquo (ibid)

Th is broad usage of the term methodology is consistent with how it has been traditionally employed in Russian philosophy and social sciences To take an example from contemporary sources that continue this tradition methodology is defi ned as ldquoa system of principles and ways of organizing and constructing theoretical and practical activities as well as a theory of this systemrdquo (Iljichev 1983 p 365) Th e intricacies of the notion of meth-odology as compared to that of method has been discussed in Stetsenko ( 1990 ) and later included in textbooks on methodology of psychology



101

(eg Lubovskij 2007 ) Th is usage is akin to that in philosophy of science and science studies in the western academic tradition Vygotskyrsquos point in drawing attention to methodology is to critique empiricist- positivist mod-els that understand science as a straightforward process of accumulating and gathering facts and data His critique is aimed at Piaget whose works are ldquoa virtual ocean of factsrdquo that are gushing from the pages as Vygotsky puts it Indeed Piaget made an explicit attempt to deal with direct ldquorawrdquo facts in developing his theory as expressed in his own statement that ldquoall I have attempted has been to follow step by step the facts as given in the experimentsrdquo (quoted in Vygotsky 1987 p 55) While crediting Piaget with seminal discoveries Vygotsky nonetheless faults him for thinking that facts exist on their own and can be described or accepted somehow ldquoas they arerdquo

Piaget attempted to hide behind a protective high wall of facts But the facts betrayed him hellip He who considers facts inevitably considers them in the light of one theory or another Facts and philosophy are inextrica-bly intertwined hellip If one wants to fi nd the key to this rich collection of new facts one must fi rst of all uncover the philosophy of the fact how it is obtained and made sense of Without this the facts will remain mute and dead (ibid)

What Vygotsky asserts in place of empiricist models of science is fi rst the principle of underdetermination of scientifi c data ndash the position later dis-cussed in philosophy of science by Karl Popper and in postpositivist educa-tional research (Phillips and Burbules 2000 ) according to which facts are theory- laden contingent on theoretical assertions and shot- through with values Second Vygotsky speaks not just of methodology of science but of methodology or philosophy of practice Th is expression is non- traditional counterintuitive and even questionable from the point of view of not only empiricist and positivist models but also of postpositivist ones that might agree with Vygotsky on the previous point yet here part ways with his position

In positing philosophy of practice as the pathway and the model for ldquodoingrdquo science Vygotsky is suggesting to overcome in truly radical ways the tradi-tional separation between theory and practice that has permeated sciences from their inception What is a philosophy of practice In my view in using this term Vygotsky is introducing his activist transformative methodology as a metalevel principle at the pinnacle of his whole project and its system of ideas inclusive of both theoretical premises and investigative methods (the latter standing for empirical ldquomethodrdquo of data collection in the traditional



102

usage of this term) Th is stance is not about adding practice to theory as is common in many appeals to fi nd application for theoretical ideas Neither is it only about verifying theoretical ideas in practice as is commonly asserted within the Marxist tradition and in many forms of pragmatism Rather in Vygotskyrsquos approach which is radical even by todayrsquos standards at stake is a novel project as an as yet ldquounnamed conceptual speciesrdquo

What is at stake in my view is an uninterrupted continuum of practice- theory- practice cycles in which ideas concepts and actions forms of knowing and doing and words and deeds belong together in an inseparable blend This blend is constituted by one and the same reality of human praxis albeit in its varied facets and dimensions Importantly praxis is understood in its human relevance ndash as a pro-cess of people producing their life through material expenditure of efforts and creation of recourses that is constitutive of human devel-opment and the reality in which it unfolds (discussed in more detail in Part 3 and see Stetsenko 2010a Stetsenko and Vianna 2009 ) The cycles of praxis include multidirectional movements through and among the layers of ideology broad metatheory (worldview) theo-retical concepts methods and practice One of the most crucial (and often misunderstood) points is that the layers and dimensions in the cycle of praxis dialectically interpenetrate so that each layer is present in all others while all others are present in each one ndash in a dialectical mutual embedding and expansion in a spiral of knowing- being- and- doing that constitutes one composite and unified continuous flow of praxis Thus for example the famous dictum by Kurt Lewin that there is nothing more practical than a good theory has to be expanded by and appreciated simultaneously with the notion that there is nothing more theoretical than a good practice ndash with both dimensions interpenetrat-ing presupposing mutually supporting and bidirectionally infusing each other essentially blending into one composite yet non- additive reality (though in shifting balances of varied dimensions) This simul-taneous appreciation of the theoretical value of practice and practical value of theory highlights the real (not just proclaimed) interpenetra-tion of theory and practice

Implications from this position including the ineluctable saturation of knowledge with ideology ethics politics and practical concerns ndash and the reciprocal saturation of practice with ideology and knowledge including of the most abstract sort (such as the worldview- level assumptions) ndash are discussed in the next section



103

Transformative Methodology

In implementing this approach to the philosophy of practice many tra-ditional ideals and norms of a presumably ldquoobjectiverdquo science understood as a neutral and disinterested pursuit of knowledge came to be challenged by Vygotsky and his colleagues Importantly this included challenging tra-ditional notions about language as a separate mental faculty that mirrors reality and exists in and for individual speakers and about thinking and speech as two independent processes In place of these views and as one component in revising the philosophy of practice Vygotsky proposed to understand language and speech as processes grounded in collaborative practices by people interacting and communicating with each other In his words the chief problem with previous theories was exactly that the ldquoorigin and development of speech and any other symbolic activity was considered as something that had no connection with the practical activity of the child just as if the child were purely a rational subjectrdquo ( 1999 p 13) Vygotsky in contrast regarded the role of speech as ldquofl owing in the process of practical activityrdquo (ibid p 25) insisting on practical relevance of speech in unity with other forms of socially and culturally situated activities as realizing the relations of individuals to themselves to other people and to the world (on language in Vygotskyrsquos works see Jones 2008 )

Th at is Vygotskyrsquos seminal contributions epitomized a shift away from viewing language as an abstract system of signs and speech as an individual and isolated mental process toward understanding them as powerful tools that originate and participate in social collaborative practices undergoing dynamic developments in cultural history and in ontogeny Th e path to explaining language and speech was charted through explorations into their genesis and the role of language and speech in organizing these complex specifi cally human collaborative activities No less importantly speech and thinking were elucidated to be interrelated in dynamic and changing ways Th is point is expressed in Vygotskyrsquos oft en- quoted excerpt from Th inking and Speech ( 1987 note that unfortunately it has been mistranslated from Russian) Th e closest translation appears to be as follows

Th e relationship of thought to word is above all not a thing but a process this relationship is a movement from thought to word and back ndash from word to thought hellip Th e movement of the very process of thinking from thought to word is development Th ought is not expressed but brought into realization [or accomplished sovershaetsja ndash Rus rather than completed] in the word It should be possible therefore to speak of the



104

becoming (unity of being and non- being) of thought in the word (1987 p 250 emphasis added)

Th us in Vygotskyrsquos interpretation that rejected representational theory of mind and language the speech acts and other psychological processes are not fl eeting ephemeral phenomena that merely refl ect the world in the shadow of action but instead are powerful players in carrying out activi-ties that are always social and situated in context (cf Sawyer and Stetsenko 2014 ) His analysis of the evolving ability to speak as representing a natural continuation of the childrsquos practical contacts with the world is very tell-ing in this regard (Vygotsky 1999 ) Th is is what transpires in his powerful statements that ldquolanguage is consciousness that exists in practice for other people and therefore for myself rdquo and that ldquo the word is the end that crowns the deed rdquo ( 1987 p 285 emphasis added) ndash with the latter statement standing out in its force and crowning the whole of Vygotskyrsquos psychology

In addition and no less critically Vygotsky introduced methodology premised on principles of actively co- constructing phenomena and pro-cesses in place of merely observing or registering them as they are Th at is instead of appealing to the objectivist maxim that methods should mir-ror reality as faithfully as possible (as per traditional canons of observa-tion) he argued that ldquothe strength of the experiment is in its artifi ciality rdquo ( 1997a p 320 emphasis added) According to Vygotsky instead of striving to copy reality the researcher should actively and consciously co- create conditions (by necessity artifi cial) together with participants that per-mit to construct and generate objects of investigation in the processes of studying them Th is method moved beyond the limits not only of the classical experimental paradigm but also of descriptivist methods at large Th e staple of Vygotskyrsquos method is an active co- construction of investiga-tive situation including the very objects of investigation with pedagogical practice representing its paradigmatic form ndash such as in teaching- learning experiments where the learner is provided with tools necessary to solve problems

Vygotsky set to explore the course of human development not ldquoas it isrdquo in its status quo as a presumably natural process but instead through aid-ing amplifying and de facto creating it using cultural tools and other forms of mediation Th ese considerations ensued from and formed the basis for Vygotskyrsquos concept of the zone of proximal development and the method of ldquodouble stimulationrdquo that combined experiment observation and peda-gogy in one unifi ed procedure (note that its designation as ldquodouble stimula-tionrdquo is outdated due to behaviorist connotations of the term stimulation )



105

Th erefore he called his approach ldquogeneticrdquo (and sometimes instrumental) ndash to emphasize its contrast with the traditional experiment which taps into behavioral outcomes (completed results) instead of addressing the very process in which psychological phenomena are co- constructed and copro-duced together with participants

Vygotskyrsquos followers most notably Galperin (eg 1985 ) and Davydov (eg 1983 1990 ) focused their eff orts on specifying and further expanding ideas about the relationship between theory and practice while addressing bidirectional links between teaching- learning and development Th e psy-chological research of this type represented a form of practical engagement with educational practice in which disciplinary theoretical and conceptual tools were deployed in a morally grounded search for better practices of education premised on ideals of equality Th e scholars of this direction thus stepped beyond the boundaries of psychology understood in a tradi-tional way as a value- neutral endeavor that can be developed and advanced somehow over and above and prior to educational practice Instead their research and inquiries were coupled with and carried out through active pedagogy steeped in a political commitment to seeing all children as equally (though not uniformly) ldquoendowedrdquo to be successful learners Th at is the far from neutral goal of education as a praxis that endeavors to sup-port development of all children on one hand and the goal of understand-ing and theorizing development on the other were essentially blended into one pursuit

Remarkable were also works by Meshcheryakov ( 1979 for further dis-cussion see Bakhurst and Padden 1991 Sannino 2011 ) organized for the ldquoawakeningrdquo of the mute and blind- deaf children through engag-ing them in culturally mediated and initially material (sensorimotor) shared activity with other people (such as getting dressed and fed in relying on culturally developed tools of such activities) Th e underly-ing approach contrasted with traditional methodologies premised on the ldquodefi cit modelrdquo of dis ability with its core empiricist belief that the solitary processing of information is the primary motor of psychologi-cal development and its associated claim that inborn ldquodefectsrdquo cannot be remedied through social engagement and mediation Based in the premises about cultural- historical origins of the mind in shared cultur-ally mediated activity this research was infused with the optimistic and deeply egalitarian belief that all children any dis abilities notwithstand-ing can be initiated ndash if provided with the requisite cultural tools for act-ing ndash into social participation not constrained by any preset limitations of a biological nature



106

Many works by Russian scholars within Vygotskyrsquos tradition expanded on his insights about the method in psychological research being an active endeavor of co- constructing psychological reality and essentially creating its ldquoobjectsrdquo of investigation For example Puzyrei ( 2007 ) has elaborated on the notion that human development is an artifi cial process that can be cap-tured only under conditions of active engagement in the co- construction of this very process and while deploying special mediating devices ( lovushki ) Th e works by the present author (eg Stetsenko 1990 ) highlighted in the same vein the need to radically reorient psychology away from a contem-plative stance while devising a new conceptual apparatus for it along the lines of an active and even activist enterprise In this shift psychology can be conceived as a discipline with a unique status that aff ords bridging the gap between theory and practice while giving up the notion that knowledge can be achieved in an abstract contemplation and outside of active engage-ment with what it strives to study and understand Th is proposal focused on viewing objects of investigation and knowledge claims as produced by and enmeshed with the valuational and goal- directed investigative practices of an ultimately practical import suggesting that

[p] ositing psychology as a science of a constructive [ie non- contemplative] type means that in explorations of psychological processes mere observation conducted outside of concrete goals of transforming and guiding these processes turns out to have no scientifi c value (ibid p 48)

In this approach ldquothe very formulation of the traditional question of what the psychological processes such as self personality and cognition are like has been changed into the question of how these processes are pos-sible what are the conditions sine qua non that create (construct) them that make them both possible and necessaryrdquo (Stetsenko and Arievitch 1997 p 165) In this work ldquothe method of active co- construction has been granted priority and a special epistemological statusrdquo (ibid) It is ldquothrough actively changing constructing the psychological phenomena that their essence can be grasped and their development understood lsquoUnderstanding through constructing through changingrsquo ndash this has become an epistemo-logical motto beyond the concrete empirical research conducted in the post- Vygotskian frameworkrdquo (ibid)

Th e other direction developed by researchers within Vygotskyrsquos school focused on switching from a position of a neutral observer toward the ldquopar-ticipatory positioningrdquo so that the researcher is willing to take the risk of including oneself ldquoinsiderdquo the realm that is being investigated (Vasilyuk



107

1988 ) Bratus ( 1988 ) insisted that psychology needs to address psychologi-cal mechanisms that mediate processes through which human subjectiv-ity develops and comes into being rather than concern itself with static ready- made outcomes of these processes Th ese scholars along with many others working on methodology (understood as a philosophy of method) took heed of Bakhtinrsquos caution against thinking of identities as stable and bounded and explored methodological implications of this premise Th ey thus followed with Bakhtinrsquos claim that

the genuine life of a person is accessible only through a dialogical pen-etration into it which it responds to while freely disclosing itself Truth about a person that is spoken by someone alien and that is not addressed to her or him dialectically hellip turns out to be a degrading and deadly lie hellip (Bakhtin 1984 p 10)

Th e pioneering work in Vygotskyrsquos project (especially by its so- called fi rst generation see Engestroumlm 2001 ) predated many later developments such as in critical pedagogy and other directions that took Marxism as their guiding principle (eg by Paulo Freire) It has also predated devel-opments in action research including Kurt Lewinrsquos idea of conducting research in the fi eld rather than in the laboratory and his insistence that action research experiment must not only express theory but do so in such a way that the results of the experiment can be fed directly back to the theory (cf Gustavsen 2001 ) Many similarities can be discerned between this approach and those contemporary strands of critical theory that are attuned to social injustices such as critical race theory (eg Delgado and Stefancic 2001 Ladson- Billings and Donnor 2005 ) and those that analyze the role of research in relation to social change such as equality studies (eg Lynch 1999 ) In both of these lines of work it is acknowledged that with-out democratic engagement premised on solidarity there is a danger that research can be used for manipulation and control rather than challenging the injustices and inequalities

Methodologically in contrast with many approaches that till today remain stalled between the two extremes of naiumlve positivism on one hand and an uncommitted laissez- faire relativism on the other Vygotskyrsquos project presented a viable alternative linked to the critical- humanistic liberatory and activist tradition Th is position entailed that science and knowledge that it produces depend on cultural contexts social discourses and their histories and politics ideologies Importantly however instead of focusing on these contingencies and seeking to deconstruct knowledge claims as the ultimate goal of scholarship (though such a goal was by no



108

means ignored let alone rejected) Vygotskyrsquos project charted an alternative path that consisted in devising foundations for a new type of research car-ried out in the form of social praxis grounded in a vision ndash a deeply ideo-logical one ndash of a possible better world based in ideals of social justice and equity Th e set of ideas developed in Vygotskyrsquos project is best viewed as an outline for the renewal of society especially education (cf Ivic 1994 ) rather than an abstract corpus of theoretical principles and ideas

To emphasize again what lies beneath these claims and this methodol-ogy is a deeper- seated layer ndash the layer of commitment and vision for a better future that is ineluctably social moral and political at once Th at is Vygotskyrsquos method of theory and theory of method ndash and the tool and result of his approach ndash are based in an irrevocable commitment to social equality and justice to the task of building a new psychology for a society in which people have equal rights especially with regards to equal access to educa-tion and to social supports and cultural mediations that they need more generally Th is broad political ethos at the core of Vygotskyrsquos project coun-tered principles of adaptation and competition for resources as the core grounding for human development that takes the ldquogivennessrdquo of the world for granted and assumes that individuals have to fi t in with its status quo

Th is approach followed the tradition in social sciences and philosophy to link understandings of human development to value- laden concep-tions about self and society (as was later the case in Freirersquos works) All major ideas and principles developed in this project including its concept of human nature and mind were value- laden tools infused with Vygotskyrsquos (and many of his followers) desire to empower subordinate groups ndash espe-cially through education ndash across divisions of social class ethnicity gender and dis ability Th eir approach and the knowledge they produced were part and parcel of the practical and simultaneously deeply ideological and polit-ical project that came out of drama of life not of ideas only and that also returned to life to transform it Th is knowledge was a product and simul-taneously a vehicle of their collaborative practical engagements with a unique sociohistorical context that presented them with an unprecedented challenge ndash and opportunity ndash to devise a new system of psychology in par-allel with creating a new society

In shift ing away from the ldquoobjective experimentationrdquo with its moral order and ethics of disinterestedness and distance (cf Morawski 2005b ) Vygotskyrsquos project was launched not with the exclusively positivist goal to provide a naturalistic account of human development construed based on a ldquoview from nowhererdquo Instead its paramount (though not directly



109

explicated) goal can be seen as that of overcoming the separation between the narrowly understood natural science on one hand and the ideological- critical orientation and emancipatory action on the other In this work theory and methodology were developed in close (though implicit) alli-ance with ideology ethics and politics of social justice and equality in order to make possible a ldquopractical interventionrdquo into the course of history and human development as the pathway to social change

Th is project can be interpreted as taking up the challenge to formulate a position alternative to both positivist type of modernist realism with its notion of knowledge as a mirror- refl ection of reality and its naiumlve belief in ldquoobjectiverdquo facts disconnected from human practices on one hand and to postmodernist relativism with its uncommitted stance regarding broad ontological questions and values its self- defeating skepticism and its gen-eral avoidance of ldquogrand theoriesrdquo on the other Such a challenge was an enormously diffi cult undertaking and not surprisingly it has not been fi nalized within this project Yet the groundwork that has been laid out in this approach is of great value and can be creatively (and critically) explored and expanded today especially in line with an orientation of further devel-oping psychology with emancipatory potential

Similarly to pragmatism (though only at one level) the Vygotskian approach can be expanded to understand knowledge claims to be sub-ject to valuational judgments not in terms of their abstract metaphysical objectivity and validity nor as based in ldquoagreementrdquo with and correspon-dence to presumably independent objects and realities out in the world Neither can stable consensus among stakeholders (as eg per pragmatists the works by Habermas and even many postmodernist and critical schol-ars) be taken as the yardstick to evaluate knowledge and its claims Instead knowledge claims are subject to scrutiny in terms of their role in resolving problems and injustices that are created and upheld within material- semi-otic practices and therefore are contingent on our own actions and subject to change Within such a radically materialist and historical conception of knowledge the criteria for adjudicating between competing claims are nei-ther purely epistemological nor philosophical but are instead concretely practical yet not in the narrow sense of practical utility or instrumentality Th at is truth is taken to be an essentially practical rather than a purely philosophical matter just as is the case in pragmatism (cf Wood 2000)

However an additional contrast is also crucial For pragmatists too ldquotruthrdquo does not have to do with copying but rather with coping with the world (cf West 1991 ) Within an expanded Marxist- Vygotskian view this



110

position can be accepted but only on a condition that coping with the world is recast away from connotations of adaptation to the status quo (as in cop-ing with what is ldquogivenrdquo) Instead coping is replaced with the notion of social transformative practice as the process through which people actively and deliberately transform circumstances and conditions of their life in simultaneously co- creating their world and themselves It is within this radically revised notion of transformative social practice as the foundation of human existence ndash the very fabric of life development and human sub-jectivity ndash that the problem concerning warrants for knowledge and truth can be addressed Namely these notions can be recast so that truth (which never becomes fi nalized) is not established nor found but instead created in the course of ethical- political endeavors ndash including conceptual endeavors of theory building ndash of concretely realizing socially just conditions of life

Th ere is no place for relativity of truth in this approach ndash truth is not rel-ative even though it is not obtained through a direct correspondence with some putatively independent dehumanized and strictly objective reality Actually truth is not obtained at all because it does not exist ldquoout thererdquo somehow outside of us and our collective practices for it to be somehow simply registered observed or discovered Instead truth is created in and as the process of people together struggling and actively striving in the face of uncertainty yet as guided by the end points to which people are com-mitting (even though these end points might never be achieved) Knowing therefore is about neither copying the world nor coping with it but instead about creating the world and knowing it in the very act of bringing about transformative and creative change ndash in the act of making a diff erence in communal forms of life and collaborative practices and thus mattering in them and through this of us coming to be and to know

Building off from Vygotskyrsquos works there might be a way out of conun-drums spawned by the rigid dichotomy of relativism versus objectivist fun-damentalism and absolutism Instead of this dichotomy the methodology charted on the basis of Vygotskian and other activist scholarship such as Freirersquos suggests how to relativize relativism ndash a fair move given that relativ-ism insists on relativity as the supreme lens and thus should be subjected to its own major prescription In this approach people are ldquofl agrantly par-tisanrdquo (to use Deweyan expression) and so is truth fl agrantly partisan But this does not make truth relative in any traditional sense that is not in the sense of various viewpoints and positions all being equal because they are all ldquoequally relativerdquo that is all partial situated and subjective Instead truth is historically and politically relative if viewed on the scale of infi nite dynamics of human history yet robust and concrete within a historically



111

particular epoch as each defi ned by its specifi c predicaments that are determined in no uncertain terms by concrete sociocultural and political- economic conditions of the status quo and the struggles to overcome their contradictions Th ese conditions are immediately accessible to anyone liv-ing in their midst because these are processes that are carried out by people in their own ongoing struggles and strivings with these activities constitut-ing no less than the fabric of human development and of the world

Th e truth about these contradictions and confl icts is therefore positively (not positivistically) and in historical terms concretely (not universally) determinate Truth is relative vis- agrave- vis practical projects and agendas of resolving existing confl icts and contradictions such as struggles by dis-advantaged groups for equal access to resources Yet within these histori-cally concrete conditions truth is far from relative instead it is strongly determinate and robustly concrete For anybody experiencing fi rsthand or merely sharing and witnessing the struggle of disadvantaged groups and individuals ndash and it is hard not to witness these struggle and plight given their powerful presence for anyone willing to see and feel ndash there is nothing relative about its urgency and truth and not much relative about the need to take a stand and a commitment on one or the other side in the struggle to overcome injustices

Claims to knowledge and its validity are as determinate and robust as it gets though only within the practical- political projects ndash defi ned by goals and visions for a better future ndash that spawn this knowledge to serve their purposes Th is does not make claims to truth and warrants for knowledge any less valid ndash in the sense that this position constitutes not a relativity of truth but on the contrary the truth of the relative (cf Deleuze and Guattari 1994 ) such as the truth of struggling against inequality Th at is while any struggle is always historically and politically specifi c and contingent it is also determinate and concrete within a given historical epoch that each ldquoknowsrdquo its own truth (to use Sartrersquos 1968 expression) Th ere are paral-lels here to considerations such as the one expressed by Giroux ( 1983b ) namely that

[t] he link between ideology and the notion of truth is not to be found in the peddling of prescriptions or in a deluge of endless recipes instead it is located in what Benjamin (1969) has called the distance between the inter-preter and the material on the one hand and the gap between the present and the possibility of a radically diff erent future on the other (p 27)

Th erefore to interrogate knowledge claims in terms of their validity it is imperative to interrogate and validate sociopolitical projects and movements



112

that spawn and necessitate knowledge in the fi rst place Moreover critical in validating knowledge claims is to interrogate it in terms of what kind of a future they contribute to and whether they contribute to creating a society in which individuals are free to create themselves in ways that at the same time open up ways for others to do so too all in pursuit of solidarity equality and possibility for all individuals to be free At the core here is the profound ndash essential and existential ndash solidarity with others as the condition of human development and social life that is not in confl ict with human freedom and the right to self- determination As expressed by Kwame A Appiah

[I] trsquos precisely our recognition that each other person is engaged in the ethical project of making a life that reveals to us our obligations to them hellip If my humanity matters so does yours if yours doesnrsquot neither does mine We stand or fall together ( 2008 p 203)

Truth is still provisional and incomplete in the sense that it has to be proven in practice (Marx 1945 1978 p 144) that is in the unfolding struggles so that only the outcomes of such struggles and their success in bringing about a more just society will ultimately legitimize claims to knowledge and truth Yet this does not absolve one from taking a position and creating truth however provisional and fallible it might be in the present that real-izes the future ndash because taking a position is understood to be an inalien-able part and parcel and the most critical ingredient or the very pivot of doing research and producing knowledge Strong objectivity therefore has to do above all with making onersquos own ideological underpinnings agendas and goals of research transparent so that others can object to them

Central to Vygotsky (as can be imputed from his works) was the ethos of struggling for a society in which individuals would attain their own freedom and autonomy in and through contributing to freedom and autonomy of others thus blending onersquos self- realization with that of others making self- realization and solidarity coordinated and even indistinguishable ndash as both embedded within and making possible the life- forming and life- changing (and therefore also life- sustaining) col-laborative endeavors of carrying out our communal forms of life and our very existence Freedom in the spirit of Vygotskyrsquos approach and in a continuation of the Marxist legacy can be understood to be aligned with the full self- realization of individuals as social actors and agents of history ndash interdependent and acting in solidarity with their fellow human beings within collaborative practices yet each from onersquos unique stance and position Th is is expressed in the ability of people to take own stands and stake own claims on the confl icts and contradictions that they



113

encounter and have to discern and interpret (make sense of) in making a commitment to resolving them while necessarily aiding in the self- realization of fellow human beings Self- realization and freedom there-fore are centrally premised on solidarity ndash people recognizing each other as equal not only in a formal and instrumental way but as ends in them-selves and moreover as inextricably entangled with and reliant upon each other within their unifi ed (albeit not uniform) quests of becoming It is because collaborative practices of carrying out communal forms of life are taken to be at the core of human nature of what ldquomakes humans humanrdquo ndash and not as an abstractly posited eternal realm but instead as a collective endeavor and joint struggle ndash that solidarity and equality can be seen as evaluative criteria for progress and development (to be discussed in more detail in Chapter 11 )

In view of the suggested expansions and amendments the whole force of Vygotskyrsquos project can be seen as depending on it being simultaneously (1) an analysis of how psychological phenomena are co- constructed within social conditions and contexts through the prism of their major contradic-tions and the struggles that derive from these contradictions (2) a histori-cal analysis of how these conditions contexts and contradictions came to be that is how they have been formed through continuous changes strug-gles and transformations in the past and (3) a commitment to a vision of how these present contradictions should be resolved that is an ideological- normative view of how society could and is desired (or ldquooughtrdquo) to be Th e latter is inevitably based in a set of values and political commitments to certain ideologies and concepts of social justice equality and human rights

In addition in the spirit of an expanded Vygotskyrsquos project there is no need to contrast a rigorous causal account of social events with the goals of social transformation Instead constructing an ethically- politically and normatively grounded approach and thus making possible a practical inter-vention in the status quo can be seen as inextricably related to a rigorous causal account of phenomena and processes of development in their histo-ricity and their sociocultural or contextual embedding Th at is all three types of endeavors ndash a theory of human development as a duly historicized account of psychological processes an ethical- political stance achieved within a critical inquiry into socially constructed forms of life knowledge and their history and a practical intervention in the course of social life predicated on a commitment to a sought- aft er future ndash can be seen as all interrelated and presupposing each other

In this sense the proposal is for a method that is neither positivist nor relativist but instead transformativist ndash in line with the calls made



114

by many critical researchers through the years for a new ldquotransforma-tive psychology not of what is but of what may yet berdquo (Sampson 1981 p 730) designed to increase social justice human welfare solidarity and freedom Th is is a strategy in line with the broad orientation of Vygotskyrsquos project More recently similar ideas have been proposed within develop-mental psychology with Sheldon White ( 2000b p 288) insisting on psy-chologistsrsquo responsibilities to ldquopenetrate below the settlements that form the political intelligence governing the cooperative arrangements of our timerdquo and into the ldquopolitical intelligence of the futurerdquo Most of all this methodology is consistent with the Marxist method in which the central task was that

of overcoming the separation between the ldquoisrdquo and ldquooughtrdquo which Kant had established and positivism had reasserted in order to construct a theory of ethics and politics and thus make possible a practical interven-tion in the course of social life based upon something more than subjec-tive caprice hellip (Bottomore 1975 pp 10ndash 11)

To summarize the model of science built on transformative ontology and epistemology developed on the foundation of Vygotskyrsquos project and its exemplary commitments steers a course between detached objectivism with its myopic rejection of human subjectivity and agency and blind faith in ldquonakedrdquo facts on one hand and relativism in which all is interpretation and no claims to validity of knowledge exist on the other Th e transforma-tive activist stance is intentionally and consciously devised ndash hence the term stance ndash in ways that start from a set of values and goals (end points) and proceed to exploration and theory building under commitments to realiz-ing these values and goals as an intervention into the status quo Vygotsky ( 1997a p 342) expressed an important insight when he stated that ldquoOur sci-ence could not and cannot develop in the old society hellip so long as human-kind has not mastered the truth about society and society itselfrdquo In further developing this view from the transformative activist position it can be argued that mastering truth about society and ourselves requires that we fi gure out our stake in the world and its communal practices and commit to changing them


115

115

4

Vygotskyrsquos Project Relational Ontology

At one level Vygotskyrsquos project can be described as premised on a fully relational ontology or a relational worldview In this regard it is akin to conceptual systems developed by Dewey Piaget and many other think-ers of the early to mid- twentieth century At the heart of this ontology is the idea that development is a relational process that connects individuals and their world eliminating the dualism of subject and object the knower and the known Vygotskyrsquos project can be seen as making important steps to refute the core of the mechanistic worldview that had given rise to the two extremes represented by mentalistic psychology on the one hand and brain reductionism on the other ndash with these two polar opposites bearing much similarity (as many extremes do) in that they both eschew human agency from their respective accounts Th is type of relational ontology was worked out by members of Vygotskyrsquos project as a result of them absorbing the key infl uential strands of research and thinking at the start of the twen-tieth century (see Stetsenko 2009 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2010 )

Th ese strands included fi rst the philosophical system developed by Marx (itself assimilating and critically expanding on earlier achievements of the German classical philosophies of Kant and Hegel) with its dialec-tical premise about reality as a unitary (total and indivisible rather than composite) process that is constantly and dynamically in motion transi-tion change and development Th is view replaced commonsense notions of things and entities as the building blocks of reality with notions of dyna-mism process interaction and relation Second Vygotskyrsquos project inte-grated understandings of development worked out in and on the foundation of Darwinrsquos theory that centered on dynamic relations between organisms and their world as the driving force of evolutionary change According to this understanding fully absorbed by Vygotsky all living forms evolve and develop within processes of continuous relations with their surrounds and



116

other living forms rather than as preordained and fi xed ldquoinner essencesrdquo unfolding from some primordial universal source Th ird Vygotskyrsquos proj-ect included many insights from literary theory linguistics and semiot-ics that provided foundations to incorporate processes of sign mediation and symbolization into an account of human development and mind Fourth it assimilated and further advanced insights from critical thinking in education of his time (such as the liberal tradition tracing roots back to Konstantin D Ushinsky see Alexander 2011 ) as a basis to link the processes of teaching learning and development

Conceptualizing human development to be a process based in relation-ships to the world was one of the great achievements of Vygotskyrsquos psychol-ogy likening it to systems of thought developed by Dewey Piaget and many thinkers of his time Th ough far from being widely accepted early in the twentieth century and even today it is this premise that connects Vygotskyrsquos project with many contemporary perspectives based in the notions of rela-tionality (or relationism) of development Th is notion does come across as particularly salient (though with various degrees of explicitness) and potentially unifying across a wide range of approaches It challenges the central essentialist premise about ldquothing- likerdquo entities that exist separately from each other and the rest of the world and are infl uenced in merely extraneous ways by other independently existing entities Delineating and ascertaining this common theme present in many sociocultural and critical theories amounts to establishing relational ontology at the core of human development In fact this idea can be regarded as the chief accomplishment across a range of social sciences in the twentieth century that has become especially evident in the past decades For example Lerner and Overton ( 2008 ) claim that

[o] ver the past 35 years developmental psychology has been transformed into developmental science hellip Today the cutting edge of the study of the human life span is framed by a developmental systems theoretical model one that is informed by a postpositivist relational metatheory that moves beyond classical Cartesian dichotomies ldquoavoids all splitsrdquo and transforms fundamental antinomies into co- equal and indissociable complementarities (p 245 emphasis added)

Th is broad theme of relationality however has many expressions and diverging formulations each stemming from a disparate set of prem-ises and each associated with a unique philosophical tradition and line of historic predecessors Th e diff erences among them are important


Relational Ontology 117

117

to discern in order to highlight the original worldview at the heart of Vygotskyrsquos works

The Varying Faces of Relational Approaches

According to one interpretation prominent in recent theorizing the theme of relationality is linked to the ldquogeneral systemsrdquo approach and associated ideas of part- whole relations holism emergence and self- organization (cf Lewis 2000 ) Th is approach is oft en attributed to Ludwig von Bertalanff y although many other scholars such as Rashevsky (who coined the term relational biology see Rosen 1991 ) Prigogine and Wiener have also contributed to its consolidation by the mid- twentieth century From its inception this approach refl ected much of the dynamism that had emerged already in the early twentieth century as captured by the leading linguist of the time Roman Jakobson When reminiscing about that time as a wit-ness and participant Jakobson wrote ldquoEverywhere there appeared a new orientation towards organizing unities structures forms whereby not the multitude or sum of successive elements but the relationship between them determined the meaning of the wholerdquo (quoted in Knox 1993 p 2)

Historically it appears that a series of meetings on interaction and cyber-netics by the ldquoPsychobiology of the Childrdquo study group at the World Health Organization between 1953 and 1956 attended by Bertalanff y together with Eric Erikson Baerbel Inhelder Julian Huxley Konrad Lorenz and Margaret Mead (see Bretherton 1992 ) has played a role in consolidation and dissemi-nation of these ideas One additional source of infl uence might have been Kurt Lewinrsquos ideas that brought the legacy of Gestalt psychology (which pioneered this approach in Europe) to the United States

Th e core premise of the general systems theory and of the structural relationism based in it is that many phenomena can be understood as self- organizing systems each representing a set of elements ndash unifi ed and orga-nized in a particular manner ndash that stand in relations with each other and with the whole to which they belong while deriving their characteristics from these relations In this sense the whole is understood as being non- additive ndash possessing qualities that are not reducible to a mechanical sum of its elements Th us the principle of holism asserts that identities of objects and events derive from the relational context in which they are embed-ded rather than from some outside forces or from acting of isolated enti-ties Th e whole is not an aggregate of discrete elements but an organized



118

and self- organizing system of interrelated and interacting parts each being defi ned by its relations to other parts and to the whole (Overton 1998) Interactions among components that comprise the system sustain the system and lead to new patterns and forms emerging as a result of these interactions in a nonlinear and unpredictable fashion Th e emergence of new patterns does not follow any preprogrammed blueprint or instruction and no design can be defi ned before actual interactions among elements take their course Th e principle of self- organization thus puts emphasis on development in terms of emergent novel forms whereby the system is self- organizing in the sense that through its actions it transforms its organiza-tion in a nonlinear dialectic fashion (Lewis 2000 ) In some interpretations of structural relationism relational means dialectical in character a dia-lectical system is any system that moves toward integration through cycles of paradox (ie contradiction and self- reference) and diff erentiation (see Overton 1998)

Importantly the notions of general systems theory have been largely derived from physics biology and other natural sciences and hence they apply to phenomena existing across a wide spectrum of levels from bio-logical to chemical to social ones It is therefore no accident that the oft en- cited examples of self- organizing systems include hurricanes and chemical reactions in which dramatic varied patterns result from the mixing of basic elements demonstrating how an increasingly complex pattern can emerge from interactions among components in a system in which no instruc-tions or plans for the patterns exist beforehand Th is type of relationality informs a number of approaches that belong to the Developmental Systems Perspective (DSP) having been variously described as the developmental systems frame dynamic systems and developmental systems (Lerner 1991 2006 Oyama 2000 cf Witherington 2007 ) Witherington ( 2007 ) has recently provided a helpful overview of various currents within the DSP showing that this metatheoretical framework currently relies on varied and potentially confl icting ontological premises about the specifi c nature of self- organization even within this line of research with disagreements present among the DSPrsquos proponents over key conceptual issues

In particular (integrating analysis from Witherington ibid) originating in natural sciences one line of works within the DSP relies on mathematical formalisms and modeling of dynamic processes without much specifi ca-tion as to the ontological premises of what constitutes self- organizing sys-tems unique to human development (eg van Geert and Steenbeck 2005 ) As Witherington (ibid) notes other existing versions of DSP are more explicit in terms of their ontological premises in that they are explicitly



119

associated with either organismic or contextualist worldviews Both organ-ismic and contextualist worldviews replace mechanicismrsquos atomistic stance that posits discrete entities exerting infl uences on each other in extraneous ways (like billiard balls) In place of this atomistic stance an organismic worldview posits organisms as irreducible integrated wholes with their development marked by irreversible progressive and qualitative changes in the formal properties of the whole (Meacham 1997 Overton 1984 ) Th e holism criterial to the organismic worldview mandates a contextualization of parts in terms of the whole the meaning of a systemrsquos part is primarily a function of its embedding within the system as a whole (Overton 1984 Sameroff 1983 ) Under a contextualist worldview the particularities of time and context assume paramount importance for understanding develop-ment Rather than appealing to abstract generalizable forms contextual-ism grounds itself in the real- time activities of organisms in specifi c settings and contexts (Overton 1991 Reese 1991 )

A number of works in DSP such as Lernerrsquos ( 2006 ) developmental con-textualism Gottliebrsquos ( 2006 Gottlieb Wahlsten and Lickliter 2006 ) devel-opmental psychobiological systems view and Overtonrsquos ( 2006 Overton and Ennis 2006 ) relational metatheoretical framework have focused on extending organismic worldview to integrate contextualist concerns with intra- and interindividual variability (cf Witherington 2007 ) As Overton ( 1984 p 219) has suggested ldquowhen contextualism combines with organi-cism the integrative plan takes precedence and the category lsquocontextrsquo as well as other contextualist categories serve to specify and articulate the nature of the organic wholerdquo

Both organicism and contextualism (as well as synthetic approaches that integrate the two) focus on relations that exist among components of a sys-tem rather than the components per se as in the mechanistic worldview Both assert the centrality of holism but the holism of organicism is about the parts- whole relations of self- organizing systems while the holism of contextualism is about parts- whole relations of the adaptive act (Overton 1984 ) Because relations among elements within any given system are central to dynamic systems and how they organize and emerge these approaches are oft en referred to as relational To reiterate the idea is that entities exist within certain systems where the relations between the whole and its com-posing parts (inclusive of relations among the parts) co- determine each other and cannot be understood in isolation from each other

Th e idea of holism and part- whole relations as central to development is also prominent in what became termed the transactional worldview associated with the works by John Dewey (see Dewey and Bentley 1949 )



120

Dewey introduced the notion of transaction according to which ldquosystems of description and naming are employed to deal with aspects and phases of action without fi nal attribution to elements or other presumptively detach-able or independent entities essences or lsquorealitiesrsquo and without isolation of presumptively detachable relations from such detachable lsquoelementsrsquo rdquo (ibid p 108) As Altman and Rogoff ( 1987 p 26) state in a similar vein within the transactional worldview ldquoone attempts to discern the nature of the whole without emphasis on antecedent and consequent relationships among variables without analysis of the whole into its elementsrdquo Instead the emphasis is placed on organization in the fl ow of events where multiple levels coalesce Th at is transactional approaches begin with the phenom-enon understood as a confl uence of psychological processes environmen-tal qualities and temporal dimensions Th e transactional view explores the ldquochanging relations among psychological and environmental aspects of holistic unitiesrdquo (ibid p 24) Th is perspective recognizes that individu-als and their psychological processes are situated within their social and physical environments and does not isolate components of the social and physical environments in order to understand phenomena Th e phenom-ena are understood as involving the synthesis of diff erent circumstances that include the changing relationships and elements of the whole system

As further elaborated by Werner Brown and Altman ( 2002 ) the core to this approach is that phenomena should be studied as holistic unities composed simultaneously of people psychological processes physical environments and temporal qualities (with temporal dimensions being integral to phenomena and events not separate from them) Th e notion of relations is accordingly subordinate to the notion of events as holistic unities in that the actions of one person are understood in relations to the actions of other people as well as the spatial situational and temporal circumstances in which the actors are embed-ded Understanding the whole the relationships among its aspects and how they work in combination is the key purpose of a transactional analysis While referring to psychological phenomena these authors provide an example of cel-ebrations and rituals as being composed simultaneously of participants and social context physical environment temporal qualities and psychological processes Additional features of transactional worldview include emphasis on the utility of understanding phenomena from diff erent perspectives

Another approach similar to those just described termed the transac-tional model (Sameroff 2010 p 16) is centrally predicated on the idea that

transactions are omnipresent Everything in the universe is aff ecting something else or is being aff ected by something else In the transac-tional model the development of the child is a product of the continuous



121

dynamic interactions of the child and the experience provided by his or her social settings What is core to the transactional model is the analytic emphasis placed on the interdependent eff ects of the child and environment

Although stated in diff erent terms and tracing its lineage to diff erent sources than the transactional worldview the transactional model too places emphasis on understanding that parts cannot be separated from the whole and that various eff ects on human development are coordinated and combined Th e core type of relationship is not that between the child and the world but rather between the child and the experience provided by the social settings ndash ldquo the interdependent eff ects of the child and environmentrdquo (Sameroff 2010 p 16 emphasis added) In addition in this perspective networks of relationships are posited as constraining or encouraging dif-ferent aspects of individual behavior (which therefore it is said can be interpreted to preexist relationships) rather than viewed as constituting human development thus playing the role of developmental constraints and assets rather than that of formative elements and constituents of development

Lerner (eg 1991 ) has proposed a similar model ndash a variant termed devel-opmental contextualism Th is model stresses that there is no single cause of the individual development Within- person variables (eg the biological and the psychological ones) interpersonal variables (such as peer group or personal relations) and extra- personal variables (such as institutional or environmental ones) are not suffi cient in and of themselves Rather the structure or pattern of relations among these levels of analysis produces behaviors and changes in the form (the confi guration) of these relations produce developmental change (Dixon and Lerner 1999 ) Th e type of the relation at the center of analysis is the relation between the structural and functional characteristics of the organism on the one hand and the fea-tures (eg the demands or presses) of the organismrsquos context on the other (eg Lerner 2002 )

Another meaning of relationality is expressed by Slife ( 2004 ) in his discussion of the radical character of practice understood as engaged and contextually situated activity According to Slife ldquopractices do not exist in an important ontological sense except in relation to the con-crete and particular situations and cultures that give rise to them imply-ing what we might call a relational ontologyrdquo (p 158) In this account the emphasis is placed on relations among practices with practices hav-ing a shared being because they start out and forever remain in rela-tionship with other practices Th e qualities and properties of practices



122

are understood to stem not from what is inherent or ldquoinsiderdquo them but are seen as dependent on how they are related to each other Th e same emphasis on interrelating components of a system can be discerned in this approach as in the ones previously described

The developmental systems and transactional perspectives make many useful and timely arguments critical to understanding human development Significantly they go beyond the simple dichotomy of nature versus nurture or biology versus culture in explaining human development Given their focus on emergence and change in devel-opment they successfully challenge the outdated nativist ideas about preexistent designs and genetic blueprints as purportedly explain-ing developmental change (see also Oyama 2000 Thelen 1995 2005 Thelen and Smith 1994 ) They also reveal faults in preformationist models that explain novel patterns in development by appeal to a single source or mechanism such as genetics

However I agree with Witheringtonrsquos ( 2007 ) claim that such perspec-tives need to more fully articulate their ontological framework in a way that provides a principled and coherent integration rather than focusing on amalgamation that brings with it ldquothe potential for conceptual obfusca-tionrdquo (p 147) Th e core idea for the DSPrsquos metatheoretical framework and many other works employing the notion of relationality in connotations reviewed in this section appears to be the dual emphasis on (1) emergence rather than design as the basis for system development and (2) the rela-tions among components of a system rather than isolated components as the source of development (ibid) Th is leaves relations between organisms and environment to play the role of a subordinate principle In addition the works conducted in DSP and transactional approaches do not suffi -ciently specify their ontological position vis- agrave- vis uniquely psychological phenomena Th is is evident primarily in that there is little specifi cation provided in these frameworks as to how psychological processes such as the mind and the self can be conceptualized while relying on the notion of relations Oft en ldquointernalrdquo mental processes are conceptualized merely in terms of their relations to (or interactions with) the biological processes external activities and sociohistorical processes with no further specifi ca-tion Alternatively the mind is defi ned as emerging from a relational bio-sociocultural activity matrix (Overton 1998) rather than specifi cally from the organism- environment interactions as an ontological realm in which and from which the mind and other psychological phenomena emerge Th e general idea is that ldquomeaning is as much a refl ection of the internal mental states of the subject as it is a refl ection of the external social and physical



123

worldrdquo (ibid p 144) rather than a property of a relational process that con-nects the organism with the world

To summarize there are many diff ering meanings attributed to the notions of relations and relationality in contemporary literature Th ese meanings vary from relations referring to the links of various parts of the organisms among themselves (within one ldquowhole organismrdquo) to those between genes and environment to those between childrsquos characteristics and environmental forces to fi nally those between various factors impact-ing development Th e relations between organisms and their environment let alone specifi c relations between human beings and the communal world of cultural practices shared with others mediated by cultural tools and extending through history are typically not prioritized over other types of relations However the latter has been precisely the core emphasis in Vygotskyrsquos project as discussed in the next section

Relational Worldview The Interface with the World

An alternative take on the topic of relationality to those described in the preceding section ndash albeit not without some signifi cant overlaps ndash origi-nates in the Darwinian ideas of mutualism between organisms and their environments It places the main emphasis on the notion that relations between the organisms and the world constitute the primary and original mode of existence for all forms of life and the source of development for all organisms including development of their morphology behavior the mind and the full range of psychological processes (see Stetsenko 2008 2011 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2010 ) What this amounts to is positing the worldview that is diff erent from both organismic and contextualist world-views and from their synthesis

In the relational worldview of this type the dynamic relations consti-tuted by the processes of reciprocal and bidirectional give- and- take back- and- forth exchanges between the organism and the world (the subject and the object) are taken as an ontologically unique and genetically primary realm that takes precedence over any structural connections such as parts- whole relations or relations among variables and factors acting upon organ-isms Rather than (or perhaps in addition to) an epistemic principle of strategically merging various theoretical and metatheoretical standpoints and positions this approach does posit one foundational (but not founda-tionalist) ontological reality ndash understood precisely as constituted by the organism- world relationality that represents the mode of existence for all



124

living organisms and forms of life Th at is relations between organisms and the world rather than organisms taken in isolation from the world or the world taken in isolation from the organisms are posited as ontologically primary whereby organisms in all of their features forms behaviors and traits are seen as derivative from these relations

Th is core premise has to do with overcoming the Cartesian split between the object and the subject the person and the world the knower and the known ndash to off er instead a radically diff erent relational ontology in which processes occur and phenomena exist in the realm between individuals and their world In this broad metalevel approach organisms and their environment are not seen as separate and self- contained (neither in their origination nor in their functioning) but are posited to have fundamentally shared existence as aspects or facets of one and the same unifi ed reality of relations and relationships Th e object and subject are seen as ontologically (ie in their existential status) coexistent and co- determined through and as composed of relations between them and the world and among them-selves Th e subject and the world appear as mutually constituting whereby the former is fi rmly inseparably immersed in the world (eg Dewey and Bentley 1949 ) Any and all capacities of organisms including psychological processes emerge within and out of relationships between organisms and their world with organisms being assembled in the course of their func-tioning (eg Th elen and Smith 1994 )

To emphasize again the core to relational ontology in this connotation is not that the parts and the whole of a given system or phenomenon relate to each other and need to be understood in their relationship but rather that all phenomena including human subjectivity (mind self motivation experiences emotions etc) are forms of relations between human beings and their world Th at is the key idea is that the phenomena of human life and development (including practices) are posited not as merely standing in relation to some other processes but are relations connecting the organ-ism and the world Th ese phenomena are understood to originate and exist in the realm that stretches beyond the boundaries of isolated entities (or fi xed ldquothingsrdquo) such as organisms and ldquostimulirdquo in the environment and instead comprise the complex network of relations with the world in which organisms are involved and through which they are formed It is the rela-tions between the organisms and the world ndash as a dialogic continuum and a ceaseless process connecting and constituting them ndash that are the primary foundational realm within and out of which human development emerges and ensues All organisms therefore exist in the fl ux of relating to their world as driven by relational processes and their unfolding logic and even



125

more critically as made up of these relational processes and therefore as not being constrained by any rigidly imposed preprogrammed scripts or rules

Th us the reductionist notion of atomism (ie of reality as com-prised of separate entities that exist independently from and only exert extraneous infl uences on each other) whereby organisms are likened to machines upon which extraneous forces act and the metaphor of sepa-ration ndash both typical of the mechanistic worldview ndash are replaced with the notion of all- embracing and dynamic (process- like fl uid continuous and ever- ending) fl ow of relations understood to comprise the primary ontological realm of existence of all living forms Associated with this shift is the metaphor of mutuality and ldquoin- between- uityrdquo that is mutual co- construction co- evolution continuous dialogue belonging participa-tion and interpenetration of forms of life with the world all underscoring relatedness and interconnectedness blending and meshing ndash the ldquocoming togetherrdquo of individuals and their world that transcends their separation Th is is a position at a worldview level ndash a relational one ndash where develop-ment is seen as taking place at the intersection of the organism and the world and where both organism and the world are not only fully perme-able and integrated through their relationships and exchanges but also and most importantly co- constituted and brought into existence within and through these processes Dimensions of reality such as the social and the personal are not separate and self- contained but have a shared exis-tence as diff ering tendencies united within real developing systems Th e thrust of this worldview is that the reductionist metaphor of separation is replaced with the ldquodialectical metaphor of participation rdquo (cf Bidell 1999 p 307)

Analyses of organism- in- environment ndash conceived as a unity that is a complex overarching whole composed of relational processes that enfold both organism and the world ndash substitutes for analyses into separate and independent characteristics of organisms and environments Attempts to understand functioning and development of human beings outside of their profound connection to interrelation with and embedding into the world therefore are seen as futile Human beings as all other organisms are pro-foundly dependent upon enmeshed with situated in and connected to their environment

Th ese various articulations of what constitutes the hallmark of relational ontology are meant to clarify how this ontology contrasts with the similar ideas about relationality of human development that in eff ect are formu-lated based in a substantially diff erent set of premises Statements about gene- environment interactions humans as bio- socio- cultural hybrids the



126

relationship between environmental infl uences and human beings nature and nurture as both playing a role in human development (even to the eff ect that they interpenetrate and cannot be understood without each other) a complementarity of active organism and active environment ndash these and similar statements do not posit relations through which organisms connect to their world as constitutive of development (and instead posit them as merely a source of infl uence that is as merely an amalgam of constraints on and resources for development)

Th is seemingly simple conceptual shift is of a radical sort with a number of important implications At stake is a shift beyond the false ldquointeractionist consensusrdquo about nature and nurture somehow interact-ing with each other to produce development Th at the sources of devel-opment could be assigned to both nature and nurture rather than to one or the other exclusively that developmental resides not in one compo-nent of an interaction such as a genetic makeup but in the interaction of this component with other infl uences such as environmental conditions and factors that endogenous and exogenous infl uences on development interact in numerous ways ndash these statements do not do enough to move beyond traditional ways of thinking and into the relational ontological worldview

In this spirit more than half a century ago Daniel S Lehrman ( 1953 ) wrote that it has become customary to state that the ldquohereditaryrdquo and ldquoenvi-ronmentalrdquo contributions are both essential to the development of the organism the organism could not develop in the absence of either and the dichotomy is more or less artifi cial Lehrman goes on to say that this formulation frequently serves as an introduction to models that fall right back into the pitfalls of dichotomously splitting organisms from the envi-ronment His critique of Lorenzrsquos theory of instinct was an appeal to focus instead on the idea that

[t] he interaction out of which the organism develops in not one as is so oft en said between heredity and environment It is between organism and environment And the organism is diff erent at each diff erent stage (Lehrman 1970 p 20 emphasis added)

Lehrmanrsquos insight is as relevant in todayrsquos context if not more as it was four decades ago As Susan Oyama ( 2000 p 22) has convincingly demonstrated

Even though the distinction between the innate and acquired has been under attack for decades hellip and even though it is routinely dismissed and ridiculed in the scientifi c literature hellip it continues to appear in



127

new guises Th e very people who pronounce it obsolete manage in the next breath to distinguish between a character that is a ldquogenetic prop-ertyrdquo and one that is only ldquoan environmentally produced analoguerdquo hellip Vocabulary and styles of description shift but the conviction remains that some developmental courses are more controlled by the genes than others

The Complementary Roots of the Relational Worldview Dewey Piaget

and Vygotsky

Th is section will briefl y sketch the relational transactional stance of Piaget and Dewey and other conceptual frameworks rooted in Darwinian ideas of mutualism between organisms and their environments I then address in the following section and in more detail the Darwinian roots of rela-tional ontology as represented in Vygotskyrsquos project Th is account has an advantage of reintroducing (rather that splitting off ) Vygotsky ndash and with and through him an important part of the Marxist philosophical lineage of thought and its applications in psychology ndash to the discussions of DSP that typically do not engage this theory and this lineage (although Vygotsky is tacitly present in these discussion in that Nikolaj N Bernstein whose works were in many ways related to Vygotskyrsquos project are at the root of Th elenrsquos works see Th elen 1995 ) Although the primary goal is to address how Vygotskyrsquos worldview builds upon and also departs from the relational worldview in laying grounds for an activist transformative worldview the advantage of drawing comparisons across frameworks is that this might aid the long- term goal of unifying non- reductionist approaches and thus mutually strengthen them

One of the diffi culties of accepting relational ontology in all fullness of its implications is that it is based in ldquoprocess philosophyrdquo rather than in gen-eral systems theory with its emphasis on parts- whole relation Th e process philosophy although it has a long tradition is still hardly accepted in psy-chology because it goes against many habitual ways of thinking dominated by substance and structure ontologies (eg Bickhard 2012 ) As Christopher and Bickhard ( 2007 p 261) have argued

Psychology has yet to develop a generally accepted process ontology One implication of this is that much of psychology is left trying to establish relationships between ldquothingsrdquo that have been reifi ed such as mind and body culture and self inner representations and external realities facts



128

and values hellip Once split by these reifi cations into substantial domains entities or realms of entities however it has proven to be impossible to reintegrate them

One way to capitalize on and strengthen the impact of relational ontology as well as to overcome disconnections that still separate theories grounded in it is to realize that the three key frameworks on human development of the twentieth century ndash those by Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky ndash all embod-ied strong relational thinking and all advanced relational ontology (even though not using the latter term) In their works the goal was to overcome constraints of the mechanical worldview and the subjectndash object dualism by off ering a novel understanding of development as a process in constant dialogue and relation with the world Th eir theories can be viewed as the most articulate attempts to develop psychology based in relational ontol-ogy that replaced the traditional view of independent objects aff ecting each other with the concept of dynamic transaction encompassing objects and the ldquooutside worldrdquo and turning them into mutually interdependent aspects of one unifi ed fl ow of processes and events

Th e distinctive common theme underlying these approaches drew its principal inspiration from evolutionary theory rather than from the systemic approaches developed in physical sciences (cf Bredo 1994 ) as is the case with many contemporary approaches in developmental sys-tems theory (DST) Indeed Darwin can be credited to be one of the most important sources of ideas that paved the way for all of these three scholars Darwinrsquos seminal contribution in the philosophical sense was in placing the notions of change and dynamism at the heart of nature and the evolution of life Th ese notions eff ectively undermined the dual-ism of external and internal as separate forces acting on organisms from afar and of separate essences and entities existing independently of each other Although Darwin never discussed broad philosophical matters such as Cartesianism and dualism of objects and the world his innova-tions de facto off ered novel ways of thinking that undermined the key pillars of Cartesian mechanistic science and mentalistic psychology (cf Costall 2004 ) As Dewey put it in his work Th e Infl uence of Darwinism on Philosophy ( 1910 )

In laying hands upon the sacred ark of absolute permanency in treat-ing the forms that had been regarded as types of fi xity and perfection as originating and passing away the ldquoOrigin of Speciesrdquo introduced a mode of thinking that in the end was bound to transform the logic of knowl-edge and hence the treatment of morals politics and religion (pp 1ndash 2)



129

It is this shift that can be discerned in the works of Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky In this light these works have more in common than meets the eye although there are also profound diff erences among these scholarsrsquo theoretical assumptions Explicating these diff ering assumptions that typ-ify each of the three frameworks however is possible by fi rst taking into account their underlying commonality rooted in their shared view about the process (or the core reality) constituting human development Th is core reality was that of a unifi ed process of organisms- acting- in- environments Indeed all three scholars off ered accounts of human development that were to a large extent motivated by a critique of mechanistic worldview In its place these scholars off ered an approach based on evolutionary assump-tions giving priority to process ontology and the assumption about the primacy of relations rather than isolated entities as a constitutive realm of human development and subjectivity Mind was for them an intrinsic aspect of organisms engaging with their world rather than an illusory side eff ect mirroring spectator or expression of a larger universal mind (cf Bredo 1994 )

In particular Piaget based his theory on the notion of reciprocal inter-dependence between the subject and the object and consistently argued against splitting the two As the key alternative to such splitting he sug-gested that ldquothe substantialist language of whole and part ought to be replaced by a language based on relations between individuals or individu-als in groupsrdquo (Piaget 1995 p 188) Th us Piaget clearly favored a relational point of view according to which ldquothere are neither individuals as such nor society as such Th ere are just interindividual relationsrdquo (ibid p 210) Th e relations between individuals are primary and ldquoconstantly modify indi-vidual consciousnesses themselvesrdquo (ibid p 136) As noted by Kitchener ( 1996 p 245 cf Mueller and Carpendale 2000 p 141) ldquoPiaget hellip can be called a kind of transactionalist Ultimately real are the basic transac-tions between individuals or between individual and environmentrdquo Th e implications of this viewpoint for the study of cognition are enormous According to Piaget ldquothe establishment of cognitive or more generally epistemological relations hellip involve [ sic ] a set of structures progressively constructed by continuous interaction between the subject and the exter-nal worldrdquo ( 1983 p 103)

Perhaps most critically Piagetrsquos insistence that cognition stems from sensorimotor bases that is from the organismsrsquo material actions in the world can be seen as a profoundly relational premise Piagetrsquos theory has a profoundly dynamic feel due to its emphasis on continuous process and emergence ndash including understanding development to entail a balancing



130

between the processes of accommodation and assimilation that leads to continuous and ever- shift ing adaptations and readapations of the subject to its environment As Piaget noted

[A] ll structures are constructed and hellip the fundamental feature is the course of this construction Nothing is given at the start except some lim-iting points on which all the rest is based Th e structures are neither given in advance in the human mind nor in the external world as we perceive or organize it (quoted in von Glasersfeld 1997 p 296 emphasis added)

Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky were not alone to propose relational ontology in accounting for human development For example proponents of what has been termed the ldquosecond psychologyrdquo including William James Kurt Lewin George Herbert Mead and Maurice Merleau- Ponty among others also called for psychology of people in relation to circumstances to comple-ment the fi rst experimental psychology (see Cahan and White 1992 ) Klaus Riegel (eg 1979 ) reviewing dialectical interpretations of developmental processes ndash what he termed ldquopsychology in interaction termsrdquo ndash listed von Uexkullrsquos ecological paradigm of studying organisms in their natural envi-ronments Kurt Lewinrsquos analysis and Kantorrsquos interaction model among such interpretations

Riegel also drew attention to the prominent Russian philosopher and psychologist Sergej Rubinstein (a contemporary of Lev Vygotsky) whose works gave renewed expression to interactive ideas in his notion of constitu-tive relationism according to which every phenomenon is determined and constituted by its relations to all other phenomena Riegelrsquos own works too helped forge psychology that focused on relations between organisms and their environments (cf Lerner 2002 ) Similar themes come across in Meadrsquos understanding of selfh ood as constituted within and through conduct in relation to others (cf Martin 2005 ) ldquoSince organism and environment determine one another and are mutually dependent for their existence it follows that the life- process to be adequately understood must be consid-ered in terms of their interrelationsrdquo (Mead 1934 p 130)

Th e same theme is prominent already in William Jamesrsquos ldquoradical empir-icismrdquondash the idea that knowing is a functional relation in experience between a knower and what is known including relations and objects (cf Heft 2001 ) Indeed James replaced subject- object dualism with the notion that the mind is a process in constant dialogue with the world as captured by his metaphor of ldquothe stream of consciousnessrdquo In describing consciousness James wrote that it ldquolike a birdrsquos life hellip seems to be made of an alternation of fl ights and perchingsrdquo ( 1890 1950 p 243) He went on to lament that ldquoit



131

is very diffi cult hellip to see the transitive parts for what they arerdquo (ibid) and that philosophers had paid attention to the perchings and not the fl ights Moreover James eschewed dualisms of matter and mind physical and mental by postulating the centrality of experience Th e ldquodouble- barreled conceptrdquo of experience depicts something that is both at once objective and subjective thought and thing (cf Overton 1998 p 152) Experience is clearly the function of context (the known) but is also the function of the knowing mind and thus is deeply and profoundly relational In addition people experience the world as being in fl ux as a continuous constantly changing reality that produces equally fl uid and constantly changing con-tinuous fl ow of experiences and consciousness Experience is a realm in which the organism and environment come together in producing conjoint eff ects it is neither a private possession of an individual nor a passive regis-tration of external stimuli

Likewise for Peirce ( 1955 ) the repudiation of the Cartesian starting point in the duality of humans and their world means the recovery of fl esh- and- blood actors who are continuously defi ning themselves through their give- and- take relationships with both the natural world and each other (cf Colapietro 1989 ) Many similar formulations can be also found in the works by Merleau- Ponty according to whom ldquothe self is distinguishable but not separable from others indeed the identity of the self is constituted by its relations to othersrdquo ( 1962 p 456)

In shift ing to an evolutionary view and rejecting a mechanical one Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky all gave priority to activities rather than enti-ties Th eir approach depicted organisms as acting to alter their own envi-ronment rather than being prodded from behind to respond A number of contemporary approaches are fundamentally built on the notion of recipro-cal relations between organisms and the world For example the Gibsonian model that treats perception as a phase of activity of the whole organism through practical bodily engagements in response to environmental con-tingencies (cf Ingold 2000 ) is highly compatible with and falls under the umbrella of action- based relational ontology Th e same applies to theories that focus on enactment (eg Varela Th ompson and Rosch 1991 ) dialogi-cal communication (eg Hicks 2000 Markovaacute 2012 and many continu-ing Bakhtinian approach) some versions of social constructionism (eg Gergen 2009 Harreacute 2002 ) self- in- practice (Holland Lachicotte Skinner and Cain 1998 ) and embodied cognition and dynamic systems approaches (eg Clark 1997 Th elen 1995 ) Th e concepts of self- organization and emergence proposed in connectionism and in dynamic systems theory bear a strong historical relationship to these approaches Situative theories



132

(Lave 1988 1993 ) and theories of apprenticeship (Rogoff 2003 ) emphasize the reciprocal character of the interaction in which human development and learning are socially and culturally constructed In a number of theo-ries interactions with the world are viewed as not only producing meanings about the social world but also as producing identities that is individuals are fundamentally constituted through their relations with the world (see Lemke 1997 Wenger 1999)

Further an action- based or enactivist orientation is grounded in the assertion that people form complex fabrics of fundamentally and inextri-cably intertwined relationships with everything else physically biologically and experientially phenomenologically (eg Davis and Sumara 1997 ) From this viewpoint epistemological beliefs are not primarily or solely cognitive features but are temporarily crystallized enactments in ever- changing webs of mutually defi ning elements Gibsonrsquos approach brought together the functionalist emphasis upon the coordination of animal and environment with the Gestaltist reaction against atomistic analysis (cf Costall 2004 ) In his theory of ldquodirect perceptionrdquo and his overall ecological- relational approach Gibson placed emphasis upon activity of humans and other animals As he put it the visual system has legs (Costall 2004 p 75) and information is actively obtained not imposed

Vygotskyrsquos Relational Ontology

It is important to situate Vygotskyrsquos works as belonging to and play-ing an important role in this vast movement of thought ndash the relational worldview and ontology ndash developed in the twentieth century and now powerfully present in this century Vygotskyrsquos theoretical perspective was grounded in precisely this worldview and as such (in similarity with scholars like James Dewey Piaget and others just reviewed) was pro-foundly indebted to Darwinrsquos ideas of evolution Namely Vygotsky was able to appreciate the revolutionary breakthrough made by Darwin in terms of the very mode of thinking about nature and human develop-ment Vygotskyrsquos theory at its most fundamental subterranean level endorsed the worldview permeated by the Darwinian insight about principled insuffi ciency of the mechanistic worldview in one of its core components ndash the methodology of elementarism According to the lat-ter the universe is composed of separate entities that exist and can be studied in isolation from each other just as a clock or any other machine can be studied by looking at its parts Vygotsky substituted for this the worldview of nature as a process in fl ux and constant change with fl uid



133

and ever- changing open- ended and nonlinear indeterminate (ie nei-ther preordained nor fi xed) dynamic processes linking organisms and their environments at the center As I intend to show in this section Vygotskyrsquos position on human development is deeply relational ndash fully within the relational ontology premises ndash rendering it more complicated and nuanced (though sometimes only in subtle ways and not without some contradictions and gaps) than is typically acknowledged

Vygotsky quoted Darwin throughout his works was extremely attentive to the biological foundations of development (even preoccupied by them at some stages in his work) and highly receptive of the ongoing develop-ments in physiology biology anthropology and other natural sciences of the time At the same time he was striving for and anticipating psychologyrsquos liberation from the thrall of biology typical of a reductionist understanding that all psychological phenomena can be explained by reference to biologi-cal processes (and thus explained away) In this Vygotsky was not alone but shared his orientation with many scholars and thinkers of his time who were striving to wed natural sciences with philosophy As Clark and Holquist ( 1984 ) noted in their book on Mikhail Bakhtin (and this insight fully applies to Vygotsky too) many Russian scholars and intellectuals were infl uenced by biology that had been assigned a privileged status since the 1860s and turned to it to fi nd answers to the traditional philosophical ques-tions as well as to practical problems that plagued Russian society in seek-ing a balance between science and metaphysics

Crucial to Vygotsky and his followers adopting and further elaborat-ing the relational worldview was their acquaintance with and enthusias-tic reception of Darwinrsquos ideas of animate nature as a process imbued with collective relational and historicized dynamics Yet their understanding of evolutionary theory was unique accepting a number of its premises while rejecting others In this Vygotskyrsquos project again followed with the criti-cal ldquodomesticrdquo tradition in which his works were steeped Indeed in the interpretation of many Russian critical thinkers such as Kropotkin Herzen and Chernyshevsky (and writers such as Leo Tolstoy) evolution did not have to be understood through the lens of the ldquostruggle for survivalrdquo and the search for competitive advantage (see detailed analysis in Todes 1989 ) In a critique of what they saw as ldquoa purely English doctrinerdquo these think-ers believed that Darwinrsquos emphasis on overpopulation and ensuing need for intraspecies competition borrowed from Malthus refl ected a false and socially insidious image of nature (cf ibid)

As Vladimir M Bekhterev the leading physiologist of the time put it ldquoIt should be obvious to anyone that what is universal is not the struggle for



134

existence among individuals of the same species or of diff erent species but rather the struggle for the right of life generally for the acquisition of the necessary conditions of existence from surrounding naturerdquo (quoted in Todes 1989 p 118) Th is perception served as a foundation for mutual aid theorists especially Kropotkin who in contrast to Malthus and Huxley (whose views Kropotkin considered to be ldquoatrociousrdquo in terms of their social and political implications see ibid) called attention to cooperation in nature and to its role in evolution According to this theory the role of cooperation in the production of diversity and origination of new species trumps that of struggle among individual organisms of the same species As a result the development of the entire animal kingdom and especially of humankind was posited to be driven not by struggle and competition so much as by mutual aid cooperation and collaboration (cf Todes ibid)

In addition the Darwinian insights have been merged in Vygotskyrsquos project with the growing knowledge about the physiology of the nervous system and the brain (eg Helmholtz Sherrington Sechenov and later Pavlov Ukhtomskij Bekhterev and Bernstein) Following on from these two important strands Vygotsky and his followers viewed processes in the animate world as being in constant fl ux subject to change variation and chance and as having no predestined constraints nor following pre-programmed paths algorithms or putatively ordered stages Most impor-tantly Vygotsky and his followers inherited emphasis on the collaborative communal nature of processes at the core of development (in evolution and ontogeny) from the mutual aid theory by Kropotkin and other Russian scholars (for details see Stetsenko 2011 )

Th is account can help fi ll in the gaps in interpretations of Vygotskyrsquos works such as for example in developmental systems theory (eg Lerner 2002 p 32) where these works are seen as primarily stressing the social and cultural origins of individual development and their role in enabling instrumental activity Added in this interpretation ndash as a separate idea ndash is the concept of the zone of proximal development that is taken to illustrate an emphasis on person- context relations However no further specifi ca-tion is provided for how the relational worldview might have played a role in Vygotskyrsquos theoretical system of ideas Many other accounts within the same overall interpretative frame also give short shrift to the notion of relationality and other ideas in line with the DST in Vygotskyrsquos theory Th erefore it is important to bring Vygotskyrsquos relational ontology to the fore

First Vygotsky clearly was explicitly committed in strong similarity with the DST and DSP to a systemic view of development ndash the notion that any and all parts of a given system can only be understood in their systemic



135

interrelations and their embedding within the system as a whole Th is is evident for example in Vygotsky taking over from Gestalt psychology and stressing ldquothe holistic point of viewrdquo according to which ldquothe signifi cance of the whole which has its own specifi c properties and determines the proper-ties and functions of the parts that constitute it is foremostrdquo ( 1997b p 83) Further examples of this position can be found throughout Vygotskyrsquos works expressed in terms such as ldquothe interconnected dynamic unifi ed wholerdquo ( 1993 p 278) and ldquointegral whole which has its own lawsrdquo (ibid p 151) to describe development Th is position is also evident in Vygotskyrsquos critique of atomistic approach according to which processes such as think-ing and speech or intellect and aff ect are decomposed into elements that do not ldquocontain the characteristics inherent to the wholerdquo ( 1987 p 244) In contrast the unity of perception speech and action (in line with the dia-lectical approach) was the leading theme in Vygotskyrsquos writings and those of his followers (perhaps especially Zaporozhets and Elkonin see details in Chapter 10 )

Th e same idea is stated in the following passage ldquoIn a new environment hellip children display completely diff erent characteristics Such results occur when childrenrsquos characteristics and activities are examined not in isolation but in their relation to the whole in the dynamics of their developmentrdquo (1993 p 38) Vygotsky adds the Latin saying to highlight his meaning ldquo si duo faciunt idem non est idem rdquo (ibid translated as ldquowhen two do the same thing it isnrsquot the samerdquo )

Second Vygotsky clearly and unequivocally rendered the mind a part of nature stressing the unity of psychological and physiological processes exactly in line with Piaget and Dewey as is evident in the following passage

Dialectical psychology has as its point of departure fi rst of all the unity of mental and physiological processes For dialectical psychology mind is not in the words of Spinoza something that is situated outside nature like a kingdom within a kingdom it is a part of nature itself immediately linked to the functions of the highest organized matter of human brain Like the rest of nature it [this part] was not created but evolved in the process of development ( 1997a p 112)

Th e same idea is conveyed in the following passage by Vygotsky

It is absurd to fi rst isolate a certain quality from the integral process and then raise the question of the function of this quality as if it existed in itself fully independently of that integral process of which it forms a qual-ity hellip But until now psychology proceeded in exactly this way It revealed the mental side of phenomena and then attempted to demonstrate



136

that hellip it is entirely unnecessary hellip Already in the very statement of this question resides the false presupposition that mental phenomena may act upon brain phenomena It is absurd to ask whether a given quality can act upon the object of which it forms the qualityrdquo ( 1997a p 114)

Th e notion of systemic organization of psychological function became central to works by many of Vygotskyrsquos co- workers and followers For example Leontiev ( 1978 ) also pursued the notion of systemic organiza-tion of psychological functions and consciousness Alexander Luria (eg 1973 ) made it a cornerstone of his approach to neuropsychology ndash what he termed the principle of ldquothe dynamic- systemic localization of brain func-tionsrdquo (an approach that has a strikingly contemporary relevance) His approach to this day constitutes the cutting edge in neurosciences in that it posits that the brain serves as an instrument for carrying out meaning-ful goal- directed activities and that the brain functions are not prepro-grammed or inborn but instead are formed in development in response to specifi c life demands in the course of activities As such this approach was a precursor to what has been recently widely disseminated as the greatest discovery of the twentieth century namely that brain functioning can be sustained even in very old age and that new brain cells can grow in response to individualrsquos active engagement in activities thus likening the brain to a sort of a ldquomusclerdquo the strength and vitality of which depend on how much it is made use of

In addition to this emphasis on the interrelations among parts and between a given whole structure and the parts that belong to it Vygotsky is also very explicit ndash again in a strong consonance with DST and DSP ndash in his focus on dynamics of development as a nonlinear and ever- changing process characterized by novelty and emergence of new structures (cf Moran and John- Steiner 2003 ) His attention to the dynamics of devel-opment as a nonstatic and ever- evolving process that is shot through with change and novelty is exemplary for his time as is evidenced in the claim that

[t] o study something historically means to study it in motion hellip To encompass in research the process of development hellip in all its phases and changes ndash from the moment of its appearance to its death ndash means to reveal its nature to know its essence (Vygotsky 1997b p 43)

Th ird Vygotskyrsquos principles extend to include the key relational notion that development is a process that overcomes the traditional separation



137

of organism and environment From his early works on (see especially Vygotsky 1997a pp 158 ff ) he insists that organisms and the environ-ment cannot be understood as independently existing ldquothingsrdquo outside their intricate bond and relationship While positing that environment especially the social one is a systematic and powerful infl uence on devel-opment that is omnipresent and ubiquitous Vygotsky qualifi es this idea by saying that the role of the organism cannot be overlooked adding that the organism is part of the environment in so far as it acts in the environ-ment so that the biological organismic structures are always determined by preceding environmental infl uences He concludes that ldquoall this gives us the right to speak of the organism only in interaction with the envi-ronmentrdquo ( 1997a p 159 note that in the English translation the word only is omitted and the meaning is thus distorted) Th e word only plays a critical role here in conveying the core idea that there is no organism as such and no environment as such ndash if these are viewed as somehow independently existing entities ndash because both need to be viewed in their dynamic interplay Furthermore Vygotsky is very clear in his rejection to take outside conditions and internal infl uences ndash as if existing indepen-dently of each other ndash as the prime determinants of development

One of the major impediments to the theoretical and practical study of child development is the incorrect solution of the problem of the envi-ronment and its role in the dynamics of age in which the environment is considered as something external with respect to the child [that is] as a surround (okruzhenie ndash Rus) of development as an aggregate of objec-tive conditions that exist irrespectively of the child and aff ect the child by the mere fact of their existence ( 1998 p 198)

Vygotskyrsquos affi rmation of relational ontology is also evident in his statement that ldquointeraction with the environment stands at the beginning and at the endrdquo of development ( 1993 p 158) Moreover he was explicitly mindful of the diffi culty of affi rming relational premises given that general statements do not always convey the novel way of thinking associated with the rela-tional worldview Vygotsky writes

We admit in words that it is necessary to study the personality and the environment of the child in unity But we should not conceive of this matter in such a way that on one side there is the infl uence of person-ality while on the other side ndash the infl uence of the environment that the one and the other act in a manner of external forces In actuality however it is precisely how this is done frequently wishing to study the



138

unity we fi rst tear it apart and then attempt to link one part with the other ( 1998 p 292)

It is also quite telling that one of the latest works by Vygotsky ndash on early childhood (see 1998 ) begins with a resolute statement about relations rep-resenting the formative level of development

We shall fi rst of all consider the childrsquos relationship to the external reality to the external environment hellip [I] t can be considered a well established fact that the child stands in a unique relation to a given situation in the sense of his behavior and his acting in this environment (p 261)

Vygotsky goes on to give credit to Kurt Lewin for revealing how this rela-tion is unique ndash referring to Lewinrsquos term Feldmassigkeit as a fi eld of human activity considered in relation to the structure of the situation and his notion of Auff orderungscharacter ndash certain imperative character of objects that in eff ect calls actions to life (eg compelling the child to touch or pick up an object within the visual fi eld) Th us much of Vygotskyrsquos eff orts can be read as an attempt to reconceptualize human development based on rela-tional premises that is in terms of an organismndash environment nexus that is ever evolving and constantly changing and in which the two ldquopartsrdquo con-tinuously co- determine each other so that neither one can be conceived or studied independently of the other

Fourth it is important that Vygotsky goes on to spell out implications from these relational premises about organism- environment nexus in line with the ideas of emergence change and novelty as the key characteristics of devel-opment In particular he staunchly argued against fi xed preformist views on development and instead advanced the notion that development exists in fl ux and constant change as a fl uid and ever- changing open- ended dynamic process linking organisms and their environments For example Vygotsky ( 1997b p 100) challenged the dominant and widely accepted at the time view that development could be understood as a set of static predetermined steps that unfold from a preexisting ldquointernal potentialrdquo Such an understanding according to Vygotsky describes not so much a process of development as that of mere growth and maturation In an alternative account that Vygotsky charts development consists in the new stages arising not from the unfolding of potentials enclosed in the preceding stages As he wrote

Child development least of all resembles a stereotypic process shielded from external infl uences here [in child development] in a living adap-tation to the outside milieu is the development and change of the child accomplished In this process ever new forms arise rather than the ele-ments in the preordained chain being simply stereotypically reproduced



139

hellip [I] n the history of cultural development a much greater place is taken by another form another type [of development] which consists in that the new stage arises not out of unfolding of potentials enclosed in the preceding stage but out of an actual confrontation between the organism and the environment and an alive adaptation to the environment (ibid p 100 emphasis added)

In this sense Vygotsky is ndash just as DST and DSP are ndash strongly opposed to the nativist views as is the whole Vygotskian project that from its inception in the early 1920s (including works by Leontiev Zaporozhets and Elkonin among others) championed a resolute critique of nativism and preformism Moreover Vygtosky can be seen to make a seminal attempt to reconcep-tualize the very notion of development especially with regards to human development He clearly expressed his awareness that this notion is in need of a radical reconceptualization as a complex dialectical process Th ese ideas are summarized in what can be regarded as Vygotskyrsquos conclusion on this topic that represents in his own words a ldquoradical changerdquo in studying development Namely development is

a complex dialectical process that is characterized by complex periodic-ity disproportion in the development of given functions metamorpho-ses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others a complex merging of the process of evolution and involution a complex crossing of external and internal factors a complex process of overcoming dif-fi culties and of adaptation ( 1997b p 99)

As ldquothe most proximate conclusionrdquo from this position Vygotsky states that a change in the accepted view on development is needed

Usually all processes of child development are presented as stereotypi-cally occurring processes Th e prototype of development hellip to which all other forms are compared is taken to be the development of an embryo Th is type of development depends the least on external milieu and it is to this type that the word ldquodevelopmentrdquo [ldquoraz- vitierdquo ndash Russian meaning unwinding] in its literal sense can be applied with the stron-gest justifi cation that is as an unfolding of possibilities enclosed in the embryo in a furled from However embryological development cannot be regarded as a model of each and every process of development in a strict sense of the world hellip [because] it is an already steadied completed process that occurs more or less stereotypically ( 1997b p 99)

Th is position is extraordinarily contemporary in both its overall gist and even its literal expression For example Lewontin ( 1995 ) one of the lead-ing contemporary evolutionary biologists comments on exactly the same



140

connotation of the term development suggesting that it implicitly hinges on a static non- dynamic metaphor He writes

Th e technical word for the process of continual change during the life-time of an organism is development whose very etymology reveals the theory that underlies its study Literally ldquodevelopmentrdquo is an unfolding or unrolling a metaphor that is more transparent in its Spanish equiva-lent desarollo and in the German Entwicklung an unwinding In this view the history of an organism is the unfolding and revelation of an already immanent structure (p 121)

Fift h and quite remarkably Vygotsky moved in the direction of concep-tualizing development as a self- organizing system Th is is the point that is least understood in contemporary discussions of Vygotskyrsquos works in its shift beyond the traditional and widely accepted (till today) two- factorial models of development For example Vygotsky ( 1987 p 99) made explicit attempts to move beyond the ldquoprinciple of convergencerdquo according to which external and internal infl uences somehow are added or summed up (through their convergence) to jointly determine the course of develop-ment Th is is evident in that he critiqued William Sternrsquos position according to which development proceeds through a constant interaction of internal dispositions and external conditions Such a position for Vygotsky exem-plifi es a two- factorial (bifurcated in contemporary terms) model of devel-opment Th is is a faulty position because it de facto postulates some type of an ldquoinherent essencerdquo at the root of development that is then putatively somehow shaped by various factors acting on it as alien outside forces (be it from within or from outside the development per se) rather than positing self- organization and emergence as central to development

Relating to William Sternrsquos views that advocated summative (addi-tive) approach Vygotsky states that ldquo[c] onceptualized in this way devel-opment is not a self- movement but a logic of arbitrary circumstancerdquo ( 1987 p 89) He adds that ldquowhere there is no self- movement there is no place for development in the true sense of the wordrdquo (ibid) and the pro-cesses instead are limited to one phenomenon replacing the other rather than emerging from the preceding one Vygotsky explicitly critiques the principle of convergence that insists on the constant interaction of internal dispositions and external conditions including those created by adults as driving development (ibid p 99) Th is principle according to Vygotsky is but a ldquoshibbolethrdquo of a nondialectical approach that errone-ously substitutes for the real work of understanding the complexity of human development Anticipating todayrsquos critique of the two- factorial



141

models of development he suggests that what needs to be studied is not a convergence of various factors in human development but development as a process conditioned by the interaction of organisms and environ-ment (ibid)

Indeed Vygotsky insisted that it is not the presence or absence of some specifi c external conditions but the ldquo internal logic of the process of devel-opment itself rdquo ( 1998 p 192 emphasis added) that determines and drives development It might sound paradoxical that Vygotsky is talking about the ldquointernal logicrdquo of the development as if referring to something inside the organism (ldquounder the skinrdquo) to describe development Th is is not the case however A closer look at Vygotskyrsquos logic (especially in the context of the whole corpus of his writings) suggests an alternative ndash and more dialecti-cal ndash interpretation In particular given Vygotskyrsquos staunch insistence on the importance of culture and environment in development throughout his works (including in his famous ldquogeneral genetic lawrdquo according to which psychological processes emerge from social interactions) his reference to ldquointernal logic of the process of developmentrdquo should be viewed as having to do not with the processes internal to the organism per se but as hinging on a radically diff erent notion of development altogether

In fact Vygotsky is struggling to formulate a radically novel understand-ing of human development as a process sui generis ndash a unitary that is non- additive rather than hybrid process with its own logic that inheres in its own dynamics and contradictions Unlike the alternative hybrid- view of development according to which various infl uences are added and brought together or interlaced and interwoven rather than merged into one sin-gular process as a realm on its own Vygotsky is moving in the direction of overcoming this dual view of development Granted Vygotsky oft en de facto equivocates between this radically new position and the more tradi-tional hybrid- type approach sometimes falling back into asserting that it is the two processes (the natural and the cultural ones) that constitute devel-opment However his main thesis is expressed in no uncertain ndash and quite dramatic ndash terms when he states that

All originality all diffi culty of the problem of the development of higher mental functions of the child consists in that both these lines [biologi-cal and cultural] are merged in ontogenesis and actually form a single although complex process hellip ( 1997b p 15 emphasis added)

[T] he system of activity of the child is determined at each given moment by both the degree of his organic development and the degree of his mastery of tools Th e two diff erent systems develop jointly forming



142

in essence a third system a new system of a unique type (ibid p 21 emphasis added)

Michael Cole has also commented on this particular quote where Vygotsky rejects seeing environment as something external with respect to the child ndash noting Vygotskyrsquos interest in understanding context as not just a mere out-side infl uence on development However Colersquos interpretation again goes in line with a ldquodualrdquo (or hybrid additive) understanding In particular Cole ( 2003 ) states that

For Vygotsky the social situation of development is a relational con-struct in which characteristics of the child combine with the structure of social interactions to create the starting point for a new cycle of developmental changes which will result in a new and higher level of development (and a new relevant social situation of development) (emphasis added)

In the preceding quote the characteristics of the child understood to com-bine with the structure of social interactions are thus portrayed as de facto having a mode of existence independent from social interactions rather than stemming from these interactions as one of their inherent facets or dimensions that belong to the realm of social interaction from the start and therefore do not need to nor can be combined with social interactions An alternative understanding more in line with the gist of Vygotskyrsquos core message is that environment is not something outside of the child that can be added to (or combined with) the childrsquos own ldquointernalrdquo characteristics or to her interactions with the environment Th is alternative position is that the child is seen as included right from the start in the ongoing process of relationships with onersquos environment and it is these relationships (the give- and- take between the child and the world) that constitute the form of life the very mode of existence for the child Th is mode of life ndash an ever- evolving set of relations and activities the child participates in ndash one could argue is an irreducible reality of development in its own right It is this irreducible reality of a developing interactive activity system that represents the ldquothirdrdquo realm of a unique and complex process superseding any juxta-position and any duality of outside and inside infl uences (if understood as somehow existing separately from each other and from the child acting in the environment) In Vygotskyrsquos words

Th e biological and the cultural ndash both in pathology and norm ndash have turned out to be heterogenous distinctive specifi c forms of develop-ment that do not co- exist next to each other or one above another and



143

are not mechanically linked to each other but instead are fused together into a higher synthesis complex though still unifi ed (1997b p 26 emphasis added)

It is from this notion of development as a process sui generis or a realm in its own right that rises above the additive yet separate eff ects of the cultural and the natural infl uences to instead fully absorb them that the following position becomes understandable Namely Vygotsky states that this approach eventually resolves the argument between nativism and empiricism by showing that ldquo everything in personalities is built on a species- generic innate basis and at the same time everything in them is supra- organic contingent [uslovno ndash Rus] that is social rdquo (Vygotsky 1993 pp 154ndash 155) In formulating these apparently contradictory (counterin-tuitive) views Vygotsky directly and even quite literally intuits the DSTrsquos stance according to which development is ldquofully a product of biology and culturerdquo (Lickliter and Honeycutt 2003 p 469) and what counts as ldquobio-logicalrdquo falls entirely within the domain of what counts as ldquoculturalrdquo and vice versa (cf Ingold 2000 )

Sixth and most importantly Vygotsky provides a specifi cation for the ontology of psychological processes from the viewpoint of development as a dynamic relational and self- organizing system of activity Th is system of activity (or behavior as Vygotsky sometimes calls it) is understood as a generic form of organisms relating to their world as a form of their rela-tionship Th is is an important qualifi cation of the notion of activity because it links Vygotskyrsquos project with a much broader set of ideas across research fi elds spanning theory of evolution and biology physiology philosophy and approaches such as DST Just like Dewey and Piaget Vygotsky asserts that the mind is part of the larger process of organisms relating to their world through an integral process of activity

Th is general relational approach sets the stage to attend to questions about the place and role of mind within the broader context of life ndash that is in regulating activities of organisms in their environment ndash rather than in the workings of physiological processes or narrowly defi ned behavior (cf Arievitch and van der Veer 2004 ) In this perspective the prime task has to do with conceptualizing the mind as being a part of this organismndash environ-ment nexus instantiated in activity rather than existing in organisms taken in isolation and merely aff ected by contexts Th us Vygotskyrsquos works can be interpreted as elaborating the dynamic notion of development consistent with the relational worldview and the centrality of activity (bearing much resemblance to Deweyan transactionalism and Piagetian interactionism)



144

In Vygotskyrsquos words the mind plays ldquoan enormous fi rst- order of impor-tance rolerdquo in the system of behavior ( 1997a p 73) Th e terminology here is quite old- fashioned and the new language is not yet worked out leading to much confusion and many misinterpretations by commentators including propensity to see behaviorist inclinations in Vygotsky Th is is understand-able given that Vygotsky oft en speaks of behavior as the prime process to be analyzed

All the uniqueness of dialectical psychology precisely resides in that it attempts to defi ne the subject matter of its study in a completely novel way Th is subject matter is the integral process of behavior [ibid p 114] hellip In reality the mental process exists within a complex whole within the unitary process of behavior hellip [Th is] monistic integral viewpoint is to consider the integral phenomenon as a whole and its parts as the organic parts of this whole hellip [T] his is dialectical psychologyrsquos basic task In the same sense Severtsov (1922) talks about mind as the highest form of ani-mal adaptation (ibid p 115 emphasis added)

Vygotsky comes back again and again to this principle writing for example that ldquothe subject matter of psychology is the integral psychophysi-ological process of behaviourrdquo (ibid p 116) However these language and line of thought rather than falling within a behaviorist perspective need to be interpreted within the larger trends to wed the natural sciences with philosophy that were very powerful in Russia in the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth centuries Biologists such as Sechenov (eg 1947 ) who worked on the physiology of higher nervous system and refl exes were perceived as the prime authority on a broad spectrum of problems at the intersection of science and philosophy- metaphysics (cf Clark and Holquist 1984 ) Th ey laid foundations for seeing the relation of mind and world as a dialogic continuum rather than as an unbridgeable gap In particular

Th e bodyrsquos relation to its physical environment provided a powerful conceptual metaphor for modeling the relation of individual persons to their social environment In both cases the emphasis is on cease-less activity Th e body is seen as a system by which the individual answers the physical world hellip Th e body answers the world by author-ing it hellip Analogously the mind is seen as a system by which the indi-vidual answers the social world (Clark and Holquist 1984 p 175 emphasis added)

What transpires at the core of these views is not a behaviorist stimulus- response schema where human beings are prodded by external infl uences to react in a mechanical way but rather the notion that human beings are



145

actors ( aktivinij dejatel ndash Russian) of their own development and lives In this approach the key subject matter for psychology concerns actors in their ceaseless relationships with the environment as they ldquoactively participate in relations with the environmentrdquo (Vygotsky 1997b p 59) In its emphasis on human active relations to the world as the grounding for development and learning and on knowledge formation as a constructive and active process Vygotskyrsquos project is consistent with several other core theories of develop-ment especially those by Piaget and Dewey as well as with the more recent perspectives advancing constructivist ecological participatory and social- interactive notions of learning Indeed for example the ldquofunctionalrdquo school of psychology begun by James and developed by Dewey focused precisely on human beings as actors and on the uses of mind in acting in the world (cf Bredo 1998 ) In Deweyrsquos words

To see the organism in nature hellip is the answer to the problems which haunt philosophy And when thus seen they will be seen to be in not as marbles are in a box but as events are in history in a moving growing never fi nished process (Dewey 1925 1958 p 295)

Moreover having understood human development as inherently relational all three scholars also moved to the next level of analysis and struggled to answer the question as to how can the mind self identity knowledge and learning be reconceptualized anew within this profoundly relational world-view In making this move their goal was not so much to debunk the ldquosov-ereignty of the individualrdquo ndash indeed a faulty and untenable assumption ndash as to reconceptualize (rather than eschew) the psychological processes while unhinging them from the premises of mechanistic and elementarist world-view It is at this level that these scholars again exhibit remarkable similarity while also ndash at yet another level of analysis ndash revealing profound diff erence in their positions Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky can be said to have begun their analyses with the descriptive metaphysics of the conduct of life start-ing from subjects who need to act in order to be Defi ning subject of activity not as merely situated or embedded in environment but as acting in envi-ronment and thus through this acting coming to be and to know the world was the radical shift in perspective comparable to the Copernican revolu-tion (cf Bredo 1994 on Dewey)

Th ese developmental frameworks are therefore action- centered in that they implicate development including cognitive growth as occurring through an increasing elaboration of actions that is foundational to devel-opment Here Vygotsky Dewey and Piaget converge in that they imply that individuals know and learn by doing ndash through acting in and on their



146

world Importantly activities are neither ancillary nor complementary to development and learning instead they are the very realm that these pro-cesses belong to and are carried out in Moreover activities are the very ldquomatterrdquo that both development and learning are made of with no onto-logical gaps posited between people actively engaging their world on the one hand and their knowing and learning on the other Th is view places these three scholars in opposition to traditional views on mind as a passive container where knowledge is stored and on learning as a mere acquisition of information

It has been argued in the recent Vygotskian scholarship in the West that Vygotsky does not have a concept of activity and hence has no relation with activity theory approach associated with A N Leontievrsquos works (eg Kozulin 1986 ) In this light it is quite remarkable that Vygotsky does refer to the concept of the ldquosystem of activityrdquo and ldquomediated activityrdquo ( 1997b eg pp 20 22 34 108) In Vygotskyrsquos view this concept helps to conceptu-alize the merging of organic and cultural development into a single process a ldquo third system a new system of a unique type rdquo ndash the system of human activ-ity (ibid p 21) It is in light of taking activity as a process that is founda-tional to development that a bold implication about superseding the very distinction between nature and culture makes sense In Vygotskyrsquos words (ibid p 22) ldquoputting lsquonaturersquo and lsquoculturersquo in opposition within psychology of humans is correct only in a very conditional sense [ uslovno Rus]rdquo

Furthermore like Dewey and Piaget Vygotsky too stresses the sensorimotor unity that is ldquothe unity between sensory and motor functionsrdquo ( 1998 p 263) of aff ective and receptive components of activity Th is unity is critical for consciousness and especially evident in early childhood includ-ing the unity of perception and action that at the same time are merged with aff ect (or emotion ibid) Vygotsky goes on to analyze the key types of activity specifi c to the early childhood and singles out Elkoninrsquos interpreta-tion as the most promising one that treated play as a unique activity of the child giving rise to a whole set of psychological processes such as imagina-tion and conceptual development (ibid p 267)

Th at Vygotsky placed activity at the center of development is evident in his ldquogeneral lawrdquo of development which stated that psychological func-tions emerge out of social collective activity ( 1987 p 259) and never com-pletely break away from this activity Th us development is not the result of a broadly (and rather vaguely) understood transfer of mental processes from a social plane to an individual plane of consciousness (as is oft en implied in recent interpretations) but a result of activity transformations Th is theme cuts across many of Vygotskyrsquos works although he struggled to articulate



147

it clearly and sometimes even appeared to waver between a radical new framework and a more traditional mentalist view (cf Stetsenko 2004 ) Th is theme comes out particularly clearly if one considers a unifi ed Vygotsky- Leontiev- Luria school of thought that merged cultural- historical theory with ideas of activity into one composite framework cultural- historical activity theory (or CHAT for details see Stetsenko 2005 and on the history of this term see Cole 1996 )

Th at Vygotsky used the concept of activity should not be surprising given that he was well aware of works by Ivan Sechenov (eg 1947 ) Th is promi-nent physiologist already in the 1860s (eg in his book Th e Physiology of the Nervous System ) developed the theory of self- regulation and feedback which was later advanced by Nikolai Bernstein and subsequently provided the foundation for the dynamic systems theory (Th elen 1995 ) Sechenovrsquos groundbreaking theory established ideas about the role of feedback loops and refl ex circuit ndash in contradistinction to refl ex arc ndash in shaping and regu-lating behavior Th ese ideas were akin to Deweyrsquos ( 1896 ) work on the same topic in that they too rejected the notion that stimulus and response repre-sent separate unrelated entities suggesting instead that they are function-ally related to each other within purposeful activity

Th e centrality of activity for human development became articu-lated in Leontievrsquos works that continued the gist of Vygotskyrsquos approach Fundamental to Leontiev was a reconceptualization of the subject- object relationship as activity along the lines suggested by Marx in his theses on Feuerbach (1846 1978 ) Leontiev lamented that traditionally ldquoactivity is interpreted either within the framework of idealistic conceptions or within directions that are natural- science materialist in their general tendency ndash as a response of a passive subject to external infl uences the response which is conditioned by the subjectrsquos innate organization and learningrdquo ( 1978 p 45) Th is is the infamous ldquotwo- part schemerdquo that ldquofound direct expression in the well- known formula stimulus- reactionrdquo (ibid) that Leontiev found com-pletely unsatisfactory According to Leontiev

Th e inadequacy of this scheme consists of the fact that it excludes hellip the rich [or substantive ndash soderzhatelnij Rus] process in which are realized the real connections of the subject with the objective world [that is] the objective activityrdquo (ibid p 46)

Leontiev staunchly resisted solving this problem by inventing a third ldquomiddle groundrdquo factor such as some type of an intervening variable as suggested in neobehaviorism For him this creates the illusion of having overcome the problem ldquoA simple substitution takes place the world of real



148

objects is replaced by a world of socially elaborated signs and meanings Th us we once again have a two- part scheme S- gtR but now the stimuli are interpreted as lsquocultural stimulirsquo rdquo (ibid p 48) Leontiev concluded that in order to fi nd a real solution to this problem we must replace the two- part scheme of analysis with a fundamentally diff erent one Th is requires a rejection of the old ldquounitsrdquo of stimulus and response in favor of a new unit of analysis namely a unit that captures the dynamics of life and actual exis-tence in the world Th is new unit was represented by the notion of activ-ity that eschewed considerations of separate organisms reacting to outside stimuli on one hand and of extraneously existing stimuli aff ecting subjects on the other In Leontievrsquos defi nition

activity is a molar [substantial and non- divisible] non- additive unit of life of the corporeal material subject hellip It is the unit of life that is medi-ated by mental refl ection Th e real function of this unit is to orient the subject in the objective world In other words activity is not a reaction or aggregate of reactions but a system with its own structure its own internal transitions and its own development (ibid p 50)

In this perspective the mind originates out of transformations in activ-ity leading to ever more sophisticated levels that entail without ontologi-cal breaks what is traditionally and erroneously understood as separately existing mental processes Th is theme cuts across many of Vygotskyrsquos works even though (as mentioned previously) he struggled to articulate it clearly and sometimes even appeared to waver between the radical new framework and the more traditional mentalist view It is no accident that many of the diff erent units of analysis that have been chosen by scholars working in the Vygotskian tradition relate to acting and activity ndash medi-ated action (Wertsch 1991 1998 ) activity or event (Rogoff 1990 2003 ) activity system (Cole and Engestroumlm 1993 ) and activity setting (Th arp and Gallimore 1988 ) Although these researchers defi ne units diff erently there is consistency in that they all refer to activity as the entry point for inquiry and the fundamental unit of analysis (cf Blanton Moormana and Trathen 1998 )

For Dewey too the organism interacts with the world through self- guided activity that coordinates and integrates sensory and motor responses Th e implication for the theory of knowledge was radical ndash the world is not passively perceived and thereby known instead active manipulation of the environment is involved integrally in the process of knowing (and by implication of learning) from the start (cf Bredo 1998 ) Dewey ( 1896 ) sug-gested that the truly ldquoorganicrdquo (ie integrative) process to be studied was



149

that of coordinated action In this view the mind was not to be understood as having to do with passively observing the world but rather as a pro-cess that initiates with a check or obstacle to successful action proceeds to active manipulation of the environment to test hypotheses and issues in a readaptation of organism to environment that serves as the grounds for human action to proceed further in continuous circles of interactions (eg 1896 1916 1922)

Dewey placed complex interrelationships between organisms and envi-ronments at the very foundation of his explanatory schema already in his early works (eg Dewey 1896 1910 ) In Th e Refl ex Arc Concept in Psychology ( 1896 ) Dewey criticized the ldquodisjointed characterrdquo of the prevalent theories of the time (as they focused on the refl ex arc) for their mindndash body dual-ism and rigid distinctions among sensations thoughts and acts Instead Dewey sought explanations of perception and conduct not in separate infl uences of the environment impinging upon sensorial organs and thus unidirectionally ldquocausingrdquo sensations that in turn ldquocauserdquo movement and not in causal effi cacy of the mental taken separately from the whole activity of the organism but in continuous transitions ndash serial steps in coordination of acts in circuits of sensory and motor components Most importantly these acts and components were seen as being parts of adaptive behavior by whole organisms in the environment Th us the self- guided activity of organisms pursuing adaptation and growth was regarded as the founda-tional process from which the mind originates and in which it functions Rather that starting with separate atomic stimulus and response elements as in the refl ex arc theory Dewey started with a ldquocomprehensive or organic unityrdquo ndash the coordinated action in the environment (cf Bredo 1994 )

Positing action and acting as central to human development including development of the mind is characteristic of Piagetrsquos approach too Piaget affi rms repeatedly throughout his works that ldquohuman knowledge is essen-tially active To know is to assimilate reality into systems of transformations hellip knowing an object does not mean copying it ndash it means acting upon itrdquo (Piaget 1971 p 15) An elaborate expression of this position comes in the following form

Actually in order to know objects the subject must act upon them he must displace connect combine take apart and reassemble them From the most elementary sensorimotor action (such as pushing and pulling) to the most sophisticated intellectual operations which are interiorized actions carried out mentally (eg joining together put-ting in order putting into one- to- one correspondence) knowledge is



150

constantly linked with actions or operations that is with transforma-tions (Piaget 1983 p 104)

In this perspective mind and cognition emerge from the same dynamic processes as those governing early cycles of perception and action In con-temporary works such as by Th elen and Smith ( 1994 ) this theme is taken up higher order mental activities including categorization concept forma-tion and language must arise in a self- organized manner from the recur-rent real- time activities of the child just as reaching develops from cycles of matching hand to target And just as hand trajectories are not computed but actively discovered and assembled within the act of reaching so too does thinking arise within the contextual and time- dependent activity (see also Th elen 1995 )

Th ere are diff erences in how explicitly these ideas were expressed by the three scholars with Dewey tackling it perhaps most directly and con-sistently throughout his career In his latest works however Dewey treats all of behavior including most advanced knowing as activities not of the human being alone but as processes of the full situation of organism- environment (cf Garrison 1994 ) In addition Dewey does not draw a line suffi ciently clearly between experience and action and does not describe details of how psychological processes emerge from ongoing actions and experiences (resulting in his overall emphasis on ldquoa world without a withinrdquo see Garrison 2001 p 275) As to Piaget he advocated this idea with partic-ular clarity when he described early stages of development and the origins of practical intelligence in gradual elaboration of individual action struc-tures In describing the later stages of ontogeny he focused on how cogni-tive schemas evolve and transform as ldquoan organizing activity of knowingrdquo rather than an activity of human beings solving practical problems out in the world and how knowing evolves out of such practical activity (in keep-ing up with the Kantian tradition that had a strong infl uence on his views)

Drawing Parallels and Contrasts

Piagetian Deweyan and Vygotskian approaches represent the relational dynamic and contextualized modes of thinking about human development and learning In this they overlap signifi cantly with what is today termed developmental systems theory However these three frameworks diff er in important ways from approaches that take the whole situation of develop-ment ndash ldquothe biosociocultural matrixrdquo ndash encompassing organism and the environment in a combination of variables of diff erent order as formative



151

of development In contradistinction to this holistic approach that typifi es many works in DST the three theorists discussed here understood human action as constitutive of the relations between persons and the world and therefore of development Th e dynamics and developments of embodied human action in its increasingly complex transformations as taking place in the world and not just in the head is considered in all three frameworks to be the origin of psychological phenomena Th e latter appear to be instan-tiations or part and parcel of ongoing actions through which people relate to their world

What this specifi cation entails is a radical break not only with elementa-rism and essentialism of the mechanical worldview but also with the spec-tator stance on development that although challenged is not eliminated by the relational ontology per se According to the spectator stance that characterizes many contemporary works the development ndash though being profoundly relational ndash is not agentive that is it does not have agency of its own Instead phenomena and processes are seen as co- occurring as in the metaphor of ldquobeing togetherrdquo with no agency posited at the fundamental level of existence Relation implicates the ontological centrality of co- being as something that comes about through ldquocopresencerdquo whereby phenomena and processes are situated along each other but their mode of existence is fundamentally inert and passive

In contrast all three frameworks discussed herein have managed to overcome the ldquospectator stancerdquo in the realization that the only access peo-ple have to reality is through active engagement with and participation in it rather than through simply ldquobeingrdquo in the world Th is account resists depicting the mind as a mere eff ect of external or internal causes or a passive spectator gazing at the world Th eirs was a philosophy that focused on con-tinuous activity by agentive actors carried out to solve problems constantly emerging in the course of their life with the mind understood to be fully realizing itself in action thus abolishing the epistemological gap between thought and reality and between the actor and the world (cf Diggins 1994 ) Th e dependence of development upon activity has far- reaching conse-quences for understanding how human beings develop and learn including avoidance of problems inherent in empiricism and nativism

From this position it is in principle insuffi cient to consider infl u-ences (in any combination or hierarchy) on development in order to understand how development comes about and moves forward Infi nite number of factors in an infi nite number of combinations infl uence development at any particular time from the most general and distant ones such as the forces of gravity and solar energy (including fl uctuations



152

in climate changes) to factors such as societal structures access to cul-tural resources infl uences of proximate others biological characteristics of the organism and so forth However no research into these factors and infl uences per se however meticulous and broad in scope would be suffi cient to illuminate development unless attention is paid to the reality of development as a process in its own right While certainly not shielded from external and internal infl uences development can be seen as a pro-cess that arises on its own grounds and proceeds according to its own logic Th e outside sources of infl uence and other factors are not ignored in this case rather they are understood to remain indeterminate as to their eff ects until they are absorbed and reworked by the evolving activi-ties by the child within the dynamics and regularities of these activities It is only through the process of outside infl uences being absorbed into the fabric of activities and subsequently transformed into their dimen-sions or aspects (eg through the process of individuals acting in the world and making sense of these infl uences such as through including them into onersquos life story and life project) that these infl uences are turned into the forces of activities and therefore of development proper

Th is is a move that is much more radical than the popular versions of the bio- socio- cultural co- determinism and views that posit humans are hybrids with biology and culture (nature and nurture) being somehow intertwined in their eff ects on human development Th is latter approach insists on blending biology and culture into a composite (oft en referred to as a hybrid- type) process ndash a progressive step if compared to the narrowly one- sided perspectives that pit biology against culture as two independent forces and then attempt to calculate their relative impact on humans (eg by suggesting that variations in such processes as intelligence are due to both the genetic inheritance and environmental infl uences) However even these progressive co- constructivist approaches do not undertake a suffi -cient revision of the notion of development

Th e ldquocollectiverdquo move by Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky echoes the argu-ments made by Susan Oyama (eg 1985 2000 ) about interactive emergence and gradual construction over time as the pivotal process of development ndash a heterogeneous and causally complex mix of interacting entities and infl u-ences that produces the life cycle of an organism Th e system includes the changing organism because an organism contributes to its own future but it encompasses much else as well

To conclude the mind for Piaget Dewey and Vygotsky is not a container that stores knowledge nor a mirror refl ection of reality rather the mind is a dynamic system formed and carried out in and as actions by individuals



153

who through these actions realize their relations to the world and in this process come to be and to know Active engagement with the world there-fore represents the foundation and the core reality of development and learning mind and knowledge ndash where relationality as co- being and co- existence is dialectically superseded by the more agentive stance of acting in and engaging the world Note that the emphasis on acting does not and is not meant to eliminate the relationality of development and life in fact action is always and irrevocably relational for it entails and encompasses the subject and the object the knower and the known always crossing and essentially eliminating the boundaries between them Th erefore relational-ity entails activity that brings human beings into relations with the world and with each other and that becomes the supreme ontological principle In this more active approach the act is the basic unit of analysis rather than the mechanical part biological organ or abstract idea Th is position was steering a new course diff ering from both the notion that development is a matter of inevitable unfolding of latent powers from within on one hand and the notion that development is externally imposed from without on the other Dewey was prescient in saying that this position ldquois not just a middle course or compromise between the two procedures It is something radically diff erent from eitherrdquo (quoted in Cahan 1992 p 210)

It should be also noted that given all the commonalities among the posi-tions of Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky it is remarkable ndash and highly ironic ndash that the common grounds of their theories have been all but ignored in the extant literature in developmental psychology education and the neigh-boring disciplines For example much has been made of the premise that Vygotsky emphasized the social dimensions of human development and mind whereas Piagetrsquos theory did not attend to these dimensions (although see Cole and Wertsch 1996 Vianna and Stetsenko 2006 ) Yet because of the emphasis on human action as it develops in the world within chang-ing contexts and as a constitutive source of development Piaget Vygotsky and Dewey and with them many versions of contemporary constructivist approaches are de facto contextualist situated and social None of them completely ignores the social dimensions of human development For example social interaction involving cooperation collaborative problem- solving confl ict and communication is important in theories by Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky alike

Viewed from the vantage point of their shared relational worldview and ontology coupled with their emphasis on acting (action activity and engagement in various terminologies) as the source of development including psychological processes Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky are true



154

allies In fact they are united and stand together in a strong opposition to reductionistically innatist (ie Chomsky) biologically determinist or mechanistically mentalist (ie many in the mainstream cognitivism) frameworks Development understood as a contextually embedded process of fully embodied organisms acting in their world ndash actions that come to be constitutive of individuals ndash is not rigidly preprogrammed by anything either ldquoinsiderdquo or ldquooutsiderdquo of the individual before the individual actively engages the world Th erefore innate blueprinted mechanisms are by def-inition inappropriate for tackling the tasks imposed by an emergent and dynamic constantly changing reality of humans acting in contexts

All three scholars can be seen as united in opposing the fallacy of attrib-uting to separately considered components (such as the brains or inborn traits) what can only be ascribed to the whole person ndash as an agent acting in the world Organisms and environment are seen as aspects of a unitary continual process that evolves through time Although a distinction can be made between organism and environment it is a distinction that has to pre-suppose their relation ldquojust as riverbeds and rivers and beaten- paths and walkers imply one anotherrsquos existencerdquo (cf Costall 2004 p 191) Moreover reality in their perspectives appears as a ldquodynamic and self- evolvingrdquo pro-cess that is still in the making rendering human beings ldquoparticipants in an unfi nished universe rather than spectators of a fi nished universerdquo (Garrison 1994 p 8) Th e metaphor that ldquothe mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the worldrdquo (Overton 2006 p 63) especially with an emphasis on the process of ldquomaking uprdquo fully applies to all three scholars

Although these theorists oft en have been presented along the lines of conceptual contrasts among them the more recent analysis has moved in the direction of acknowledging broad similarities across their ideas Th is pertains especially to commonalities between Piaget and Vygotsky (eg Cobb and Yackel 1998 Cole and Wertsch 1996 DeVries 2000 Stetsenko 2001 2008 Vianna and Stetsenko 2006 ) but also though to a lesser degree to commonalities between Dewey and Vygotsky (eg Glassman 2001 Miettinen 2001 Popkewitz 1998 cf Stetsenko 2008 ) Th is new wave of comparative analysis places Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky in opposition to traditional views of mind as a passive container of knowledge and of learn-ing as a process of acquiring fi xed knowledge (facts and information) that are thought to exist independently of human activity Delineating these similarities is important for a number of reasons one of them being that this sets the stage for an analysis that is very diff erent from the one con-ducted when the common grounding of Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky in



155

the notion of organism- acting- in- context as the origin of development and mind is disregarded

No less importantly taking into account this common grounding also allows for a more targeted juxtaposition and ultimately for drawing critical contrasts among these theoretical frameworks Namely this makes it pos-sible to see that all the profound commonalities among Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky notwithstanding the meaning ascribed to the notions of action and environment as well as the explanations of how actions evolve radi-cally diff er across their frameworks Th is results in (and simultaneously stems from) their diverging conceptions of culture history social practice and tools and ultimately of what (or who) develops in human develop-ment Th is is the topic discussed in Chapter 5


156

156

5

Vygotskyrsquos Project From Relational Ontology to Transformative Worldview

All the similarity among frameworks developed by Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky notwithstanding Vygotsky can be seen as making the next and quite radical step aft er establishing and ascertaining the relational ontology at the core of human development and thus moving beyond both Dewey and Piaget in his theoretical insights Th is radical step consists in charting a new path for understanding how the human mind emerges within and out of collaborative practices while seeing these as carried out not by sole individuals but as uniquely human collective material- semiotic activities embedded within and defi ned by the sociocultural world that is as collab-orative historical practices of humanity continuously evolving through time from generation to generation Th ese practices are instantiated in socially interactive joint activities starting from their simple forms such as adult- child social interactions Th ese interactions though seemingly mundane and philosophically unsophisticated are not just a series of simple acts but meaningful and highly organized endeavors that are based in cultural rules and norms mediated by social artifacts and arranged based in complex principles that follow specifi c patterns As such adult- child social interac-tions are instantiations (or enactments) of broad sociocultural practices of parenting on one pole of the process and of growing up as a child on the other In drawing on this notion of collaborative social practice ndash extend-ing through history and saturated with communal and cumulative achieve-ments of people ndash as the driving source of development Vygotsky is unique in the history of psychology It is not that Piagetrsquos or Deweyrsquos approaches do not attend to social infl uences and factors or to the idea that cultural media-tion has an important role in development It is that the notions of the social the historical and the cultural are radically diff erent in Vygotskyrsquos approach compared to the other two seminal developmental theories and with them to much of traditional developmental theorizing that is alive and well today


From Relational Ontology to Transformative Worldview 157

157

First Vygotsky is taking the social to be the key to human condition that is the essential feature of human nature rather than just one type of infl uence on human development and mind among the others In particu-lar he writes

in what kind of a necessity does the driving forces of development hellip reside To this question there is only one answer in that which repre-sented the fundamental and determining necessity of all human life ndash the necessity to live in a historical social milieu and to transform all organic functions in accordance with the demands posed by this social milieu Only in the capacity of a defi nitive social entity can the human organism exist and function ( 1993 p 155 emphasis added)

Vygotsky is very clear in that he does not agree with Piaget on the meaning of what is social about development and gives a rather prescient critique of Piagetrsquos position in which

there would seem to be hellip an extremely clear recognition of the social factor as a determining force in the development of the childrsquos think-ing Nonetheless hellip [for Piaget] there is a gap between the biologi-cal and the social Piaget thinks of the biological as primal initial and self- contained within the child forming the childrsquos psychological substance In contrast the social acts through compulsion or con-straint as an external force which is foreign to the child as such hellip ( 1987 p 82)

Vygotsky was getting to this understanding gradually expressing it especially clearly on the last pages of his last work ( Th inking and Speech 1987) while again critiquing Piaget

what is missing then in Piagetrsquos perspective is the reality [understood socially] and also the childrsquos relationship to that reality What is missing is the childrsquos practical activity Th is is fundamental Even the socializa-tion of the childrsquos thinking is analyzed by Piaget outside the context of practice (ibid p 87 emphasis added)

In this sense Vygotsky concludes Piaget takes a position that the child is actually and quite ironically ldquoimpervious to experiencerdquo (ibid p 89) ndash if the latter is understood as a collective cumulative experience of humanity enacted in social practices Th is can be understood from Piagetrsquos conjec-ture about ldquoprimitive culturerdquo that Vygotsky also comments on

According to Piaget primitive man [ sic ] learns from experience only in isolated and specialized technical contexts As examples of such rare



158

situations Piaget names agriculture hunting and production Of these he writes ldquoBut this fl eeting and partial contact with reality does not have any impact whatsoever on the overall direction of his thinking Th is applies even more strongly to the childrdquo [quoting Piaget] Production hunting and agriculture however constitute not a passing contact with reality but rather the very basis of existence for primitive man [ sic ] (ibid p 89ndash 90)

In stressing that social practices and clusters of activities such as agriculture form the very basis of human existence Vygotsky concludes with a concise formulation refl ective of a truly novel perspective that is emerging in his very last works

Activity and practice ndash these are the new concepts that have allowed us to consider the function of egocentric speech from a new perspective to consider it in its completeness hellip But we have seen that where the childrsquos egocentric speech is linked to his practical activity where it is linked to his thinking things really do operate on his mind and infl uence it By the word ldquothingsrdquo we mean reality However what we have in mind is not reality as it is passively refl ected in perception or abstractly cog-nized We mean reality as it is encountered in practice (ibid pp 78ndash 79 emphasis added)

Th is is the position that is closely related to a Marxist understanding of practice and reality reminiscent of the famous formulation in the Th eses on Feuerbach (1845 1978) Vygotsky ( 1987 ) further suggests a reversal of argu-ment so that the material practical activity that is the human collabora-tive practice is placed at the forefront thus seeing logic as a refl ection of regularities emerging within practical activities In this he draws on Leninrsquos critique of Hegel ldquoTh e human practice repeated a billion times anchors the fi gures of logic in human consciousnessrdquo (ibid p 88) In its most dra-matic formulation this idea is expressed by Vygotsky in his insistence that in Piagetrsquos approach

Th e child is not seen as a part of the social whole as a subject of social relationships [who] hellip from the very fi rst days participates in the social life of the whole to which he belongs Th e social is viewed as something standing outside [apart from] the child as a force that is alien and distant from the child and that exerts pressure on him and supplants his own characteristic modes of thinking (ibid p 83 emphasis added)

In these quotations what transpires is Vygotskyrsquos insistence on understand-ing that each child develops as a social actor participating in sociocultural



159

practices that is as an active participant in the social situation Th e core premise of Vygotskyrsquos project therefore is that human development is grounded in the social ndash shared or collaborative ndash activities that constitute the primary relations connecting individuals to their world and that give rise to psychological processes (eg cognition self self- regulation and emo-tion) with individuals acting as agents involved in collaborative practices that issue in psychological processes and knowledge construction In this perspective activities are understood to be always embedded in particular social contexts carried out in interaction with other community members according to social rules and norms mediated by cultural tools continu-ously unfolding in history and fully material and embodied Th e mind ndash and all individual subjectivities that is processes such as contemplation goal setting planning understanding feeling thinking and so on ndash are viewed in this perspective as instantiations of collaborative practices

Vygotskyrsquos critique of Piaget accords well with the comments by socio-cultural scholars that Piaget ldquoemphasizes the mentalistic even as he speaks otherwiserdquo (Sampson 1981 p 734) Indeed Piagetrsquos core message appears to be that the world awaits for it to be accommodated to and assimilated by the transforming schemata of the active subject rather than being transformed through collaborative praxis In Sampsonrsquos words ldquoPiagetrsquos interactionism encourages subjectivism even while its terminology speaks of interactions between subject and objectrdquo (ibid) Vygotskyrsquos critique agrees also with the analyses by von Glasersfeld ( 1997 ) Piagetrsquos highly sympathetic follower who wrote

Piaget hellip presented a list of the types of knowledge whose acquisition seems to require social interaction as opposed to those that do not In his view the organization of immediate experience the sensorimotor intelligence that manifests itself in simple action schemes and the basic ability to consider one thing as the symbolic substitute for another are cognitive functions of the child before it has any conception of other people let alone their common social practices Conscious refl ection on the other hand arises for Piaget ndash very much as it does for Humberto Maturana another pioneer of the biology of cognition ndash in the context of interaction or collaboration with others (p 304)

A nuanced critique of the Piagetian assumptions (acknowledging their overall progressive import yet discerning points on which they fall short) is extremely important in order to bring to the fore in a comparative light what is unique in Vygotskyrsquos approach It is notable that the unique and original understanding of the social in Vygotskyrsquos approach has not gone



160

unnoticed in recent scholarship even beyond the sociocultural tradition For example Th elen and Bates ( 2003 ) unequivocally state that ldquoVygotskyrsquos theory is the only one that has taken social interaction seriously as a source of structure in cognitive developmentrdquo (p 387) in direct contrast to Piagetrsquos theory dynamic systems theory and other major developmental frame-works In what I believe is a very perceptive and fair assessment Th elen and Bates (ibid) further write

Chomsky denies that social factors play any important structural role in language development and Gibson does not assign any privileged status to social factors Piaget oft en paid lip- service to the importance of social factors in the construction of mind hellip But it is fair to say that Piagetrsquos emphasis always fell on the child as a lonely architect of mind a small sci-entist working away on physical data Both connectionism and dynamic systems have also neglected social factors as a source of structure in mental behavioral development (p 387 emphasis added)

In contrast what is unique about Vygotsky is not some vague (or indis-criminately broad) idea that human development including that of the mind is a social process Instead his signal contribution is the idea that development including its cognitive aspects is an integral aspect and outcome of the ever- evolving through history material shared collab-orative practice Th e episodes of social interactions (such as between a parent and a child) as well as individual actions comprising these inter-actions are the constitutive parts of these shared collaborative practices whereby none of these parts can be understood in isolation from the whole to which they belong

Th e critical point is that even while Dewey and Piaget fully take recipro-cal interactions into account and so do the more recent interactionist and pragmatist approaches too and even while they emphasize the role that the subject plays in constituting environments and objects they lack the notion of social practice of transforming the world as a socially constituted and his-torically evolving unifi ed realm of which human development is a part and parcel Th is is not an accidental oversight this is a diff erence of a primary signifi cance and import and it has to do with the overall vision of human beings and society ndash as either disconnected and (primarily) in antagonism with each other or as indissolubly enmeshed together through the bonds of belonging communion and solidarity Th ere is likely an ideological under-current at play here ndash as Sampson wrote in expressing a similar position ldquo[a] certain ideological blindness thereby resultsrdquo ( 1981 p 734) It can be added that the same blindness applies to the collectivist and transformative



161

nature of human basic relations to the world embodied and expressed in social material practices

It is in this sense that Vygotsky makes the next step aft er Dewey and Piaget and thus moves beyond the relational worldview in considering human development specifi cally in the context of social and historically evolving reality and in a related move considering history specifi cally in the context of the human social practices Th is especially pertains to the starkly diff ering interpretations of history in these three frameworks Indeed Piaget and Dewey though only implicitly portray history as unavailable in the present (cf Diggins 1994 as this pertains to Dewey) that is as a passeacute that is completed and fi xed ldquodone withrdquo and practically irrelevant for the present and the future For example this transpires in Dewey focusing on consequent phenomena rather than their antecedents One could say that history is understood by Dewey and Piaget as a unidi-rectional process of discrete episodes in which the past and the present are disconnected (cf Perret- Clermont 1996 Vianna and Stetsenko 2006 ) Th is is clear in that the mind for both Piaget and Dewey is a contextual necessity that operates in response to contingencies in the immediate environment in the ldquohere and nowrdquo of problematic situations as they are ldquogivenrdquo to the subject whereby the processes of inquiry assimilation and accommoda-tion and ultimately adaptation are all launched In this conceptualization humans are viewed as responsive rather than deliberative and proactive with the mind understood as a biological organ of adaptation to the ldquogiven circumstancesrdquo rather than an instrument of change especially at the social level of community practices in their historical unfolding

Vygotsky in contrast can be read as positing the past as a ceaseless and continuous collective history of human communities and humanity as a whole ndash ldquo the total process of the historical development of humanityrdquo ( 1997b p 39 emphasis added) ndash while placing it at the center stage of his whole approach Moreover Vygotsky lays foundations for a dialectical view of his-tory as an ongoing fl uid and dynamic process of human collaborative prac-tices that exists in the unending and ever- expanding dynamic layering of social communal practices in which the past and the present interpenetrate each other (cf Vianna and Stetsenko 2006 )

Th ese assumptions of a philosophical level though not directly expli-cated by Vygotsky fi nd their way into his psychological conceptions of mind and knowledge and of learning and development For many progres-sive psychologists and educators capitalizing on the notions of history cul-tural heritage and their role in development is associated with conservative



162

ideas of passive transmission and inculcation of knowledge Indeed if cul-ture is conceived of as a fi xed and inert body of knowledge (a repository of facts and skills) and history as a unidirectional process of discrete episodes in which the past and the present are disconnected then any talk about culture and its tools leads into authoritarian and hegemonic discourses and practices

With this emphasis on culture and history is Vygotsky (and his follow-ers such as Leontiev and Davydov) expounding the authoritarian unidi-rectional approach by putting emphasis again and again on cultural tools and scientifi c concepts as instruments of mind on teachingndash learning as the process that leads development and on internalization as the driving force of development and learning How can these views be reconciled with Vygotskyrsquos freedom- seeking and revolutionary spirit

Th e solution to this apparent paradox can be found if history and cul-ture are conceptualized not as a collection of inert (dead) artifacts and not as a ldquopasseacuterdquo that is left behind and done with but instead as a living continuous fl ow of collective practices that stretch throughout history and are enacted anew by each generation of people and each individual Th is Marxist conceptualization was obviously present in Vygotskyrsquos own writ-ings but pursued with particular rigor by Ilyenkov (eg 1977 ) in his theory of ideal forms and taken up by A N Leontiev and A R Luria (although not without some contradictions in particular due to a lack of focus on individual agency see Stetsenko 1995a 2004 2005 ) and later also by A A Leontiev ( 2001 ) and V P Zinchenko ( 1985 ) Th is perspective can be inter-preted to suggest that the present generations always join in and continue the practices of past generations including transforming (necessarily) and even breaking away from these past practices ndash yet in a continuous and ceaseless process that entails dialectics of transformation and continu-ity Th e present thus is an enactment of the past that always transforms yet also inevitably carries it on while superseding and negating it One related implication has to do with viewing local communities as being not separate entities with clear borders but instead as belonging together and interpenetrating each other on a global scale interacting and infl uencing each other in numerous ways

In this non- traditionalist approach to history and culture and thus to tradition and its transmission across generations Vygotsky is a kindred spirit with other contemporaries who participated in the turbulent move-ment of the early twentieth century unfolding in the world that was on the edge of being ldquoshattered by a train of cataclysmsrdquo and possessing as described by Roman Jacobson



163

[t] he extraordinary capacity hellip to overcome again and again the faded habits of their own yesterdays together with an unprecedented gift for seizing and shaping anew every older tradition or foreign model without sacrifi cing the stamp of their own permanent individuality in the amaz-ing polyphony of ever new creations (quoted in Cavanagh 1995 p 3)

Vygotsky shared with these contemporaries including Osip Mandelstam (as mentioned in the Introduction) not only the historical place and time (and the tragic fate of an early demise) but a unique cultural location fraught with earth- shattering contradictions confl icts and crossovers of many tra-ditions It applies to both of them that ldquoonly a cultural orphan growing up in [Russiarsquos] revolutionary years could possess such an insatiable need for a continuous construction of a gigantic visions of culture meant to compen-sate for the impossibility of belonging to a single placerdquo (Freidin quoted in Cavanagh ibid pp 6ndash 7) As Cavanagh (ibid p 7) observes Mandelstam along with other great artists and scholars of the time to which in my view Vygotsky undoubtedly belonged have been ldquoexcommunicated from his-toryrdquo (Mandelstamrsquos phrase) because of the turmoil and cataclysms of his-tory they witnessed However

[g] ift ed with the capacity to generalize from his own dilemma to convert isolation to connection to turn disruption to his advantage and to use all these skills in the service of an encompassing cultural vision Mandelstam [like Vygotsky] was singularly well equipped to address his own and his epochrsquos paradoxical legacy of disinheritance and he responded with one of the hellip most complex ambitious and challenging visions of tradition (ibid emphasis added)

Th e striking vision of history that Mandelstam and Vygotsky off ered has to do with their ability to blur the boundary between traditions along with the boundary between the past and the present ndash expressed in the deeply dialectical idea (in the words of Mandelstam) that ldquoinvention and remem-brance go hand in handrdquo and that ldquo[t] o remember also means to invent and the one who remembers is also an inventorrdquo (cited in Cavanagh 1995 p 146) Th ese two thinkers weave the upheavals that mark their agersquos histo-ries into the fabric of a broad ever- renewing cultural tradition understood as a process that bridges the gaps between generations while in a supremely dialectical move drawing from the very sources it is struggling to combat (cf ibid)

Th e relational worldview is integral to Vygotskyrsquos approach Yet at the same time Vygotsky moves beyond its principles and notions and thus simultaneously absorbs and overcomes ndash or dialectically supersedes ndash this



164

worldview In its stead he outlines if only implicitly and in very broad strokes a novel worldview as a foundation for a new psychology with a progressive ndash activist and transformative ndash mission Th is psychology can be seen to be predicated on a transformative worldview in which human beings are not merely adapting to the world but instead are creating and inventing it while its novel mission is to help advance a society in which all citizens have equal access to resources and tools critical for their development

Th is diff erence at the worldview level can be attributed to Deweyrsquos and Piagetrsquos roots in the biological mode of thinking that developed on the grounds of the theory of evolution Th is orientation is a whole world apart from Vygotskyrsquos reliance on Darwinism interpreted in light of the Marxist tradition ndash understood as the next important step aft er Darwin (integrating his approach and superseding it with both an important continuity and a stark diff erence between them) in the broad modes of thinking about nature society and human development

Th at Piaget and Dewey are fi rmly grounded in a biological mode of thinking and naturalism postulating the essence of human development in the adaptation to environment is starkly clear on many levels Using the language of Darwinism both Piaget and Dewey insisted that the mind and other psychological functions arise when human beings as biological organisms encounter problematic situations containing obstacles to action (eg contingent and unstable elements) in the environment As Piaget states unequivocally his ldquotwo dominant preoccupations [were] the search for the mechanisms of biological adaptation and the analysis of that higher form of adaptation which is scientifi c thoughtrdquo ( 1977 p xii) Indeed the key commitment that Piaget very explicitly made early in his studies was ldquoto see in biology the explanation of all things and of the mind itself rdquo (Piaget 1952 p 240) Mind and knowledge evolving out of actions through which people adapt to the world are therefore also saturated by the goals mecha-nisms and processes of adaptation

For Dewey too social experience was a continuation of natural expe-rience and existence Dewey ( 1925 1958) insisted that ldquothe interaction of human beings namely association is not diff erent in origin from other modes of interactionrdquo (p 174) As Dewey made clear the processes of inquiry and other types of transactions are carried out in order for individ-ual organisms and the entire species to survive and exalt their existence (cf Garrison 1994 ) Th e specifi c character of social problems and how they may profoundly diff er from natural problematic situations was not in the focus of Deweyrsquos attention Both Piaget and Dewey insisted that it is the state of imbalance in organic organism- environment interactions that explains



165

the genesis of development For both of them people develop learn and achieve knowledge ndash all in the spirit of adapting to existing conditions in order to better ldquofi t inrdquo with these conditions and the world in its status quo

Th is emphasis on biological adaptation in explaining human develop-ment has an ideological component as well As Ernst Gellner suggested Deweyrsquos philosophy refl ected an environment that knew nothing of crisis and radical discontinuity (see Diggins 1994 ) Th is is further supported by comments made by Cornell West ( 1989 ) among others that Dewey had no sense of the tragic (or of the social ldquoevilrdquo ie of the root causes of social injustice and misery for an extended discussion and diverging opinions see eg Saito 2002 Springs 2007 ) due to pragmatismrsquos ameliorative stance and what some see as an ldquoinadequate grasp of the complex operations of powerrdquo (West 1993 p 140) Deweyrsquos faith in the creative potentialities of already existing democracies and in social progress through the ldquosocially planned use of sciencerdquo and the ldquomost eff ective operation of intelligencerdquo (Dewey 1931 1985 p 60) as epitomized in an open- ended inquiry and experimentation coupled with his pragmatist commitment to fallibilism and consequentialism risked his approach being implicated in the very dynamics of power he set out to criticize Although he advocated democ-racy and was more radical than generally assumed (cf Westbrook 1991 ) his emphasis on open- ended boundless and de facto endless quests for new problems and experiences without either predetermined end points or normative criteria of progress came at the expense of insisting on fi nding radical solutions for social ills Th is is exemplifi ed in his views on the goals of education In rejecting his earlier Hegelianism and ldquosetting forth a natu-ralism that excludes any transcendental element in the explanation of manrsquos experiencerdquo (Rucker 1969 p 60) Dewey sees education as fostering growth for the sake of more growth as promoting inquiries in order to open ways for more inquiries and as expanding experiences so that ldquoone experience is made available in giving direction and meaning to anotherrdquo (Dewey 1916 1922 p 401)

Th e overarching purpose thus appears to be about continuous dynam-ics that know no ends and strive in no particular direction epitomized in the naturalistic concept of growth as the capacity for more growth and education ndash as ldquoa constant reorganizing or reconstructing of experiencerdquo (Dewey 1916 1922 p 89) As Dewey writes ldquoIt thus becomes the offi ce of the educator to select those things within the range of existing experience that have the promise and potentiality of presenting new problems which by stimulating new ways of observation and judgment will expand the area of further experiencerdquo ( 1938 p 50) Deweyrsquos theory therefore though



166

linked to and instrumental for broadly defi ned participatory democracy is not grounded in a program of actions with a clear ideological and political direction ndash unlike visions of radical democracy such as by Cornell West that entail grappling with the systemic power that perpetuates forms of marginalization predicated on race class gender and ethnicity

Th e biological vision in works by both Piaget and Dewey seems to be aligned with the stability and continuous social growth at the end of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century perceived as such at least by the members of the highly privileged and fi nancially secure social class to which both scholars belonged However this approach left gaps between epistemological and ontological issues on one hand and ideologi-cal- critical orientation as a possible underpinning for research on the other

It is understandable that both Piaget and Dewey were pursuing the goal just as Darwin before them to explain human development in natural (ie non- transcendental and not supernatural) terms Th is was one of the criti-cal tasks of the time given the ideological and political pressures of the day ensuing from the need to overcome the dictate of narrowly understood religious dogmas and old- fashioned ways of thinking ndash both in offi cial and academic discourse and perhaps even more so in everyday beliefs biases and attitudes Yet this approach left many conundrums pertaining to under-standing specifi cally human development and agency that require solutions at the levels beyond those associated with the notion of biological adaptation

In particular understanding the mind to be directly molded by its immediate context and confi ned to acting in the present implies that it cannot break away from the constrains and aff ordances of this context in its status quo in being able to respond specifi cally and primarily to that context as it exists in the here and now Such an understanding does not fully address human agency in its forward- looking and goal- directed dimensions by excluding human capacities to either envision a future or to act on onersquos commitments to specifi c goals As Diggins ( 1994 p 226) states

To the extent that the thought processes of mind derive from experience thought itself cannot escape the contingences of experience in order to provide regulative principles of knowledge not to mention immutable ideas and universal truths hellip Th is pragmatic resolution raises the ques-tion whether a philosophy that conceives hellip knowledge as control can provide answers to questions that are not so much biological as moral and political

In contrast Vygotsky in following in the footsteps of Marx and Engels capitalizes on the centrality of transformative collaborative practices by



167

people who do not adapt to their world but collectively transform it and through this transformation also change themselves and thus develop with development therefore rendered ineluctably social historical and cultural (ie collaborative and collective) Th is point of view both in Marxism and in Vygotskyrsquos approach was not merely proclaimed but elaborated in great detail and supported by evidence from diverse sources ranging from the study of phylogeny and anthropogenesis to the historical developments of human civilization One of the key mean-ings of what is Marxist in the Vygotskian theory arguably is its empha-sis on the centrality of transformative collaborative practices in human development herein too lies the contribution of Vygotsky and his col-laborators (such as Leontiev 1978 ) to Marxism ndash in the sense of them bringing these ideas to the fore in research on human development and on teaching-learning

Th e dramatic shift at the worldview- level assumptions that Vygotsky likely had in mind (and that had been captured in Marxist theory before him though not in applications to psychology and human development) resides in a novel understanding of what constitutes the very foundation of human life ndash a shift toward what Vygotsky termed ldquoactive adaptationrdquo (eg 1993 pp 103 125 1997a pp 68 154) and what could be more precisely termed active collaborative transformation of the world In this logic the beginning of a uniquely human life in phylogeny (and the advent of the human species as such) is associated with and marked by a shift from adap-tation to a given environment that governs in the animal world to an active and even proactive ndash that is goal- directed and purposeful ndash collaborative transformation of the environment with the help of collectively invented and gradually elaborated from generation to generation cultural tools and modes of social interaction

Much of Vygotskyrsquos Th e History of Development of Higher Mental Functions ( 1997b ) is devoted to charting the foundation for studying human development in new ways He specifi cally calls it ldquoour main ideardquo (ibid p 39) that human development is not about a purely quantitative increase of processes and regularities in the animal world but a new quality Indeed ldquoat its center is a dialectical leap that leads to a qualitative transformationrdquo (ibid) Th erefore

the connection between natural development ndash the behavior of the child based in the maturing of his [ sic ] organic apparatus ndash and those [new] types of development that we are considering is a connection not of evo-lutionary but of revolutionary character hellip Here [in the latter case] in the very beginning we witness development of a revolutionary type or to put



168

it diff erently abrupt and profound changes in the very type of develop-ment in the very driving forces of the process hellip the presence of revolu-tionary changes along with evolutionary ones is not a characteristic that would exclude applying the concept of development to this process (ibid p 110 note that the published translation implies the opposite meaning)

Vygotskyrsquos project lays grounds for a radically diff erent ndash cultural- historical and transformative ndash ontology and epistemology of human development Th at is both Dewey and Piaget (and many of their todayrsquos followers) remained fi rmly within the Darwinian mode of thinking and treated human beings as not much diff erent from other biological organisms ndash thus keeping up with the notion that ldquonature makes no leapsrdquo (a phrase oft en used in biol-ogy since Linnaeus and Darwin ldquonatura non facit saltumrdquo) Vygotsky and his followers however postulated precisely such a leap and turned to explor-ing its implications In doing so these scholars primarily based themselves on the Marxist dialectical materialist view according to which ldquo[the] base for human thinking is precisely man changing nature and not nature alone as such and the mind developed according to how man learned to change naturerdquo (Engels quoted in Vygotsky 1997b p 56 emphasis in the original)

As Vygotsky ( 1997b p 18) stated ldquoIn the process of historical devel-opment the social human being changes the means and modes of own behavior transforms the natural pre- givens and functions works out and creates new forms of behavior ndash the specifi cally cultural onesrdquo It is important that in making this step aft er establishing the relational char-acter of human development Vygotsky nonetheless did not relinquish the anchoring of human development in relationships between people and their world and among people He thus joined in with the great achieve-ments of the relational view and ontology made by Dewey Piaget and many other thinkers of the twentieth century In fact all the insights about the relational ontology are dialectically preserved in the next step made by Vygotsky while they are also creatively transformed whereby they can be seen as included into a novel transformative ontology and epistemology It is this next step wherein the novelty and revolutionary import of Vygotskyrsquos project lies However Vygotsky did not fully articulate this position as an explicit and coherent worldview bound to replace the relational one with drastic implications for notions such as personhood agency and identity and in areas such as education and teaching- learning Th erefore his pro-posal needs to be reconstructed fully explicated and expansively devel-oped especially in view of the challenges that sociocultural perspectives face today and the tasks they need to fulfi ll


169169

Part III


170


171

171

6

Transformative Activist Stance Ontology and Epistemology

Th ere are ways to further develop Vygotskyrsquos project its concepts and ideas and especially its worldview- level premises while building on the notion of contribution to collaborative transformative practice instead of adaptation or participation as the principal grounding for human development mind and learning One of the ways to move forward in this direction while capi-talizing on human agency and social change in their ontologically and epis-temologically primary status can be carried out from the transformative activist stance (TAS) In elaborating specifi cally on the transformative nature of social practices and fully integrating the notions of social change and activist contributions to these practices as the basic onto- epistemological underpinnings of human development at both social and individual levels this perspective off ers broad worldview- level explications for the notions such as subjectivity identity knowledge and mind Taking collaborative transformative practice in the role of the primary onto- epistemological grounding for both the human development and the social dynamics shift s the emphasis away from the rules and constraints of the neo- Darwinian ethos and its notions about humans biologically and socially adapting to their immediate contexts through competition and struggle for survival

Instead in highlighting transformative practice the key premise is that reality is constantly realized changed and recreated through the dialectics and movements of social communal practices embodied in human acts of being knowing and doing ndash all understood as aspects of activist transformative activities that realize and contribute to the ongo-ing social practices Th at is these practices are carried by individuals qua social actors of collaborative practices who in contributing to these practices from their unique positions stances and commitments and therefore inevitably changing them bring these practices ndash and thus their world and themselves ndash into realization Furthermore and most



172

critically these forms of being knowing and doing are understood to be predicated on goal striving and commitments to social change at the intersection of individual and collective agency and across the timescales of the past present and future In this emphasis the TAS suggests that human beings are not antecedent to communal transformative practices that shape them (a premise that is shared with many sociocultural and critical approaches) however in a move that breaks with some of the orthodox notions of canonical Marxism (and many sociocultural and critical approaches) the world is posited as not antecedent to these prac-tices either as if reality was simply ldquothererdquo predefi ned and defi nitively organized before people enact and carry it out in their activist pursuits and strivings and thus bring it and simultaneously themselves into realization

In this approach human agentive purposeful and interconnected processes of being knowing and doing ndash constituted by and constitutive of culturally mediated historically evolving dynamic and collaborative social practices ndash are taken to be a world- forming process that produces the core ontological and epistemological relations in simultaneously cre-ating the world and human beings Th is perspective places human agency understood as a relational and transformative process ndash enacted in trans-actional and collaborative dynamics of social practices in the process of individuals contributing to their realization ndash at the core of human development

Moreover this historically unfolding and constantly changing real-ity of collaborative practices is neither value- neutral nor dispassionate instead it represents a constant struggle and striving in the face of cease-less changes and associated uncertainty indeterminacy and challenges that are created in the meeting of human beings and the world Th ese acts of meeting the world can be understood as encounters and confrontations immersed within social productive relations ndash as a confl ictual mix of relations of domination and solidarity ndash and concerned with the always contested issues of how to be and what to do in order to sustain or chal-lenge these relations of domination It is a terrain of confl ict and contes-tation and of human striving and struggle in the face of uncertainty and unpredictability Because human ways of being knowing and doing are seen from a TAS as all rooted in derivative of and instrumental within a collaborative historical becoming this stance cuts across and bridges the gaps (1) among these three dimensions as well as (2) between individual and social levels of human activities and life and (3) among ontological epistemological and moral- ethical (ideological) facets of activity


Transformative Activist Stance Ontology and Epistemology 173

173

Ontological Foundations of a Transformative Worldview

Th e critical step in furthering Vygotskyrsquos project consists in highlighting the onto- epistemological specifi cation for the unique type of relations that ground distinctly human processes of development while capitalizing on the notion of collaborative transformative practices in their historicity and materiality Th ese transformative practices are understood to be carried out by collaborating individuals qua agentive actors of society and history that is as co- creators of the world ndash rather than merely products and passive ldquoundergoesrdquo of extraneous infl uences who as subjects are literally subjected by powerful outside forces Instead these processes take place in the form of activist contributions by individuals qua social actors that enact social change at the intersection of collective and individual agency and across the time scales of the past present and future Th is premise entails an emphasis on commitment to and imagination of individuals and communities how the present community practices need can and ought to be changed for the better ndash while building upon and continuing with the historical dynamics of the past

Th is step makes sense if it is understood as fi rmly grounded in and continuing yet also dialectically superseding the notion of relationality (along the lines of interpretation presented in Chapter 5 ) Indeed the prem-ise that human development is grounded in collaborative transformative practices has its roots in the notion of development as a relational self- organizing and dynamic process where relationships among human beings and between human beings and their environments drive all developmental phenomena and processes including the evolution of species through the shift ing dynamics of individual- environment interactions and transactions At the same time the rendition suggested herein in continuation and expli-cation of Vygotskian and activity theoryrsquos legacy maintains that human development cannot be explained by the centrality of relations per se taken as any type of connections that obtain between organisms and their world

Th at is human development is seen as thoroughly relational yet at the same time it is not confi ned to the ontology of relations as such Instead people collaboratively and purposefully transforming their world is under-stood as a special type of a relation that obtains for human development and therefore that can be taken as the central feature and the core grounding for this process Th at is the notion that human development is predicated on and contingent upon people changing their world through collaborative transformative practice rather than merely adapting to it can be construed



174

as the specifi cation of the foundational ontological realm or the core grounding for human existence development and teaching- learning and for associated processes of human subjectivity and interactivity

To emphasize again an important analytical strategy used in laying out this position consists in acknowledging that people are inextricably bonded with and embedded in their world being constituted by relations with it including relations with other people and the whole of humanity Th is allows for a meaningful comparison of the TAS with the recent rela-tional approaches that posit social interactions and relations sometimes understood as dialogical relations at the core of development For example according to Markovaacutersquos ( 2012 ) recent explication of dialogical ontology

interdependence among minds rather than their isolation is deeply rooted in the human nature and it permeates all fundamental faculties like cognizing acquiring knowledge and believing imagining feeling and acting Sociality is so basic that it defi nes the human existence we can call it dialogical ontology (p 211 emphasis added)

It is important to acknowledge that this and other dialogical and relational approaches are compatible with the TAS at one conceptual level though not all in theorizing human development mind and social practices Because human beings come to be and develop in and through the dynamics of their relations with the world including other people the primary ontol-ogy of development is fully relational interactive and dialogical What the TAS highlights at another level however in continuation of the Vygotskian projectrsquos legacy is that the dialogical and other relational ontologies such as those that prioritize discourses experiences and participation are not suffi cient to account for all the diversity of phenomena and processes of specifi cally human development

A stronger conceptual move I suggest is to shift from relational ontol-ogy to a unifi ed (ie indivisible though not homogenous) transformative ontology of collaborative praxis It is an explicit materiality collectivity and historicity of human collaborative practices manifested in their produc-tive and enduring eff ects on the world that make them more suited for the status of originary onto- epistemology than is the relational ontology Th e embodied enactment of social life in and through uninterrupted col-laborative practical activities of humanity unfolding in history is onto-logically and epistemologically primary and supreme vis- agrave- vis dialogical relations discourses and experiences ndash essentially superseding them Th e term superseding used in a dialectical sense denotes a conceptual move that does not eliminate a given phenomenon (or process) and its properties



175

but instead ldquolift srdquo them up and includes them albeit in a subordinate role into a new (typically larger- scale) systemic whole comprised in this case by human collaborative practices Th at is these practices are fully dialogi-cal and relational implying participation and discursive relations as well yet what makes them what they are ndash that is their formative feature and character ndash cannot be reduced to these relations only Instead their forma-tive feature has to do with people collectively and materially changing their world in producing conditions of their existence while along the way nec-essarily interacting dialoguing relating and discoursing with and to each other and the world

What is placed at the center stage in an eff ort to eliminate the Cartesian polarity between human beings and the world is a unifi ed process of people collaboratively transforming circumstances of their life and simultaneously in this very process of people being themselves transformed and brought into realization by their own transformative practices Th is position high-lights a complex relational and dynamic network of continuous processes of material sociohistorical practices as the nexus of people purposefully changing their world while simultaneously being changed by and in this very process of transformational acting Th is dynamic and shift ing nexus of such circular transformative eff ects is posited as an onto- epistemologically primary specifi cally human relation to the world (which is more than just a relation)

Th at people transform their environment while acting together and relying on cultural tools has been a common theme in many Marxist and social practice frameworks and especially in Vygotsky- inspired research (and de facto mandatory during its Soviet- era existence) However what needs to be stressed explicated and ascertained more directly forcefully and consistently is the positing of this process as ontologically and epis-temologically foundational to human development and simultaneously to the world that embeds these processes and co- develops with them (in both its dimensions of agency and structure) Two points need to be highlighted here First the emphasis is not merely on people transforming conditions of their existence (as is in the most common reading of the Marxist philoso-phy) and not on them being transformed as a result ndash as important as these two notions are both focusing on transformative eff ects and processes In a tacit yet critical distinction the emphasis is on people being transformed by their own transformative engagements activities and social practices Th at is the important nuance of this position is that people are changed neither by the world per se nor even by the world as it has been changed by them and their agency but instead on people being transformed in and



176

as the process of transformatively changing the world as it is changing them ndash through the acts of agentive (and even activist as discussed later in this chapter) engagements with the world Second the critical specifi cation consists in positing the ontologically co- constitutive role of transformative practice in fashioning not only human development but also the world in which human development takes place

Th at is the core point is that the two realms of human development and the world come into existence in tandem with each other and through a dialecti-cally mutual coextensive transformative positing of each other ndash as facets of one and the same process that simultaneously brings them both into existence and makes them real It is not suffi cient to simply state that people transform their world and are transformed by it ndash what is needed is a critical interroga-tion of the many meanings and nuances that go together with this premise as well as of the many received notions that this position contests Most critically this entails reclaiming the value and the full scope of activist agency of human beings and communities as social agentive actors who are implicated in social change and co- creation of the world and of their own development

Th e ontological and epistemological status and signifi cance of transfor-mative social practices as well as profound implications of this position for practically all aspects in theorizing human development and social life need to be more fully explored and absorbed Th is is important in order to avoid the coupling of this radical premise as is oft en the case when similar ideas are discussed with the old- fashioned ideas and views such as the notion of adaptation stemming from the traditional mechanical worldview and its ethos Perhaps it is helpful to be reminded of an observation on a similar methodological point (though related to the notion of change) made long ago by Engels who wrote

Th e great fundamental thought that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready made things but as a complex of processes in which the things apparently stable hellip go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away hellip ndash this great fundamen-tal thought has especially since the time of Hegel so thoroughly perme-ated ordinary consciousness that in this generality it is now scarcely ever contradicted But to acknowledge this fundamental thought in words and to apply it in reality in detail to each domain of investigation are two dif-ferent things (1886 emphasis added)

It is especially identifying human existence with the principles of adapta-tion to the world in its presently existing form and status quo in its ldquogiven-nessrdquo and stability in the present ndash which eff ectively brackets off human



177

agency striving for and active engagement with the collaborative projects of changing the world ndash that represents an obstacle to radical reconstruc-tions of worldview and methodology for social sciences and education Even in cultural- historical activity theory the theme of people adapting to the world continues to permeate much theoretical work and needs to be consistently challenged

Critical to this interrogation as the fi rst step is acknowledging that social practice is a relational and transformative process that is neither objective nor subjective in the traditional connotation of these terms Th is is possible if social practice is understood to transcend the separation of human beings from their world in enfolding or blending and meshing them together (in line with the theme common to many works in sociocul-tural and other critical frameworks) Th e core process is understood to be that of a seamless oneness as duo in uno ndash the dynamic matrix and fl ow of continuing never- ending mutual and ceaseless back- and- forth transac-tions transitions exchanges and transformations between human beings and their world Th e emphasis therefore is neither on the external ldquoobjec-tiverdquo world that is somehow neutral and purged of human dimensions and presence nor on the features and characteristics of individuals taken as separate autonomous and self- suffi cient units Instead the emphasis is on the dialectical nexus in which these two poles are brought into one unifi ed and dynamically changing realm with its own history It is this dynamic ongoing and uninterrupted nexus or circuit of continuous relational tran-sitions between human beings and their world as one dynamic and unifi ed (but not homogenous) realm that is posited at the core of human reality and human development in its various forms of being knowing and doing Th at is the ldquoexternalrdquo world on one hand and human development in its incarnations in human ways of being knowing and doing on the other appear as co- evolving through fl uid bidirectional conjoint continuous reenactments in and by transformative practices

Th rough and in this process of social collaborative practices people not only constantly transform and create their environment but they also cre-ate and constantly transform and create their own mode of life consequently changing themselves in fundamental ways while in the process coming into existence becoming individually unique and gaining self- knowledge and knowledge about the world It is the simultaneity or in even stronger terms the unity of human transformative practice on one hand and the processes of becoming (and being) human and of knowing ourselves and the world on the other that is conveyed in this approach Human beings come to be themselves and come to know their world and themselves in the



178

process and as the process of changing and therefore creating their world ndash while changing and being co- created together with it ndash in the midst of this process and as one of its facets rather than outside of or merely in some sort of a connection with it

Th e ontological role that the process of transformative practice plays in human development and social dynamics is premised on Marxrsquos under-standing that human existence is created through human purposive labor ndash a coordinated activity by people who are altering and creating conditions of their life while merging their eff orts together and relying on collectively invented increasingly sophisticated tools and know- how as these are accu-mulated by human communities and passed through generations Th us human beings are self- creating species indirectly producing their actual life and society when they produce their means of subsistence and their conditions of life through activities and practices of labor Th is notion of transformative practice was advanced against the naturalistic understand-ing that only nature aff ects human beings and that only natural conditions determine their historical development Th e naturalistic understanding in both philosophy and natural sciences ldquoneglected studying the infl uence of human activity on manrsquos [ sic ] thinking [forgetting that] the most crucial and proximate basis of human thinking consists exactly in man changing nature rather than nature as such and human mind developed in accor-dance with how humans learned to change naturerdquo (Engels 1873 ndash 1883 1961 p 545)

What human beings are according to Marx coincides with the process of their material production of their own life Th erefore the historically developing means and forms of activities and relations of individuals to the world and to each other that serve to alter existing conditions ndash the sum of productive forces and relations ndash is the driving force of history society and human development Importantly this process can be understood as ldquoa defi nite form of activity a defi nite mode of liferdquo ( Lebensweise [German] obraz zhizni [Russian] see Marx and Engels 1845 ndash 1846 1978 p 150) Th us the notion of material production of life has a broad meaning beyond the commonsense emphasis on acting with instrumental goals to achieve cer-tain results or on producing goods for consumption to support individual existence

Indeed in capitalist society as Marx stated ldquolabour life activity pro-ductive life itself appears to man [ sic ] only as a means for the satisfaction of a need the need to maintain the physical existencerdquo (Marx 1844 1978a pp 75ndash 76) Yet this narrow instrumentalist meaning ignores the broader



179

ontological point that ldquothe productive life is species- life It is life- produc-ing liferdquo (ibid p 76) Th is suggests that labor is a life- producing process and ldquothe practical creation of an objective worldrdquo forming the ontological grounding for development as a life activity ndash because ldquothe whole character of a species its species- character resides in the nature of its life activity and free conscious activity constitutes the species- character of manrdquo (ibid) For Marx in addition ldquothe relations of production in their totality consti-tute what is called the social relations society and moreover a society at a defi nite stage of historic developmentrdquo ( 1891 1978 p 207) and it is their dynamics that determine history and its confl icts Furthermore all forms of consciousness such as ideas beliefs and ideology are understood to be socially and historically determined (but not mechanically so) by the exist-ing material conditions and constituent social relations within a given soci-ety at a given stage of its development

Th e transformative ontology of human practice that can be derived from this position suggests that it is directly through and in the process of (rather than in addition to) constantly transforming and creating their social world and thus moving beyond its status quo that people simultaneously create and constantly transform their very life therefore also changing themselves in fundamental ways while in the process becoming individually unique and gaining knowledge about themselves and the world Taking this premise in its onto- epistemologically foundational role means that human activity ndash material practical and always by necessity social collaborative processes mediated by cultural tools and aimed at transforming the world ndash can be seen as the basic form of human life a mode of existence that is formative of the world and of everything that is human in humans including psy-chological subjective processes such as the mind the self and knowledge produced by people

Th is ontologically primary unifi ed realm can be understood as the ldquolived worldrdquo but not in the sense of people merely being situated or dwelling in it as it exists in its status quo Instead this realm is better designated as the ldquolived strugglerdquo ndash an arena of human historical quests and pursuits enacted as collective eff orts at becoming fraught with contradictions and confl icts ndash infused with dimensions of values interests struggles power diff erentials and intentionality including goals visions and commitments to the future

Because of its grounding in collaborative social practices that is in peo-ple acting and doing things together while producing their life the designa-tion term for this realm I would suggest can be act uality (in its etymology deriving from the term act in many languages ndash Wirk lichkeit [German]



180

d eijstv itelnost [Russian]) Th is is a realm where human activities actions and deeds form the ultimate grounding of their world that is not discov-ered nor merely experienced but instead enacted fabricated and realized (or co- created) by people Th erefore the world is ldquoin needrdquo of people for its very coming into existence just as people are in need of the world and its social structures and supports for their coming into being ndash and not as a static relation but as a dynamic and transformative process Th is point can be seen as relating to in the formulation off ered by Stengers ( 2007 ) a demanding rather than eliminativist nature of such materialism ndash where the connotation of the ldquodemanding naturerdquo has to do with the struggle against social injustices and oppression

Th e human transformative relation to the world precisely as a new form or way of life ndash the dynamic process of sociocultural collaborative transfor-mative practices that unfold and gradually expand through time and across generations ndash is produced by human beings while reciprocally these very practices bring human beings into existence and thus constitute the foun-dation for and the ldquomatterrdquo of which their development in all its expres-sions and facets is composed and comprised

Th is position can be seen as an expansion of the point expressed by Marx in his Th eses on Feuerbach according to which ldquo[t] he chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism hellip is that the thing reality sensuousness is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation but not as human sensuous activity practice not subjectivelyrdquo ( 1845 1978 p 143) While this point has been typically interpreted to emphasize sensuous human activity or practice as the core ldquofabricrdquo of reality and the leading level of analysis which is indeed a crucial implication here the other aspect deserves much attention and explication as well Th is refers to how reality itself is cast in this approach in terms of superseding the narrow notion of objectivity which has been glossed over or even ignored in the canoni-cal Marxism In fact in this approach reality is unequivocally conceived of as a subjective sensuous human activity or practice ndash which impor-tantly doesnrsquot make reality somehow non- objective Th is understanding is counterintuitive from the point of view of the canonical Marxism because the latter typically conceives of the world as an objective reality that exists independently of human beings and social praxis Understanding real-ity as subjective can be made sense of if reality is taken to be an arena of human acting ndash realized in enactments by people transforming conditions and circumstances of their lives Th is arena is where human development and learning not only take place but that is co- constituted within and as human historical praxis



181

Th is approach is about seeing reality as a mutual communal world collaboratively created and transformed through shared social practices extending across generations and enacted in activist contributions to social practices by individuals qua social actors ndash contributions that change ongo-ing practices and in these transformative acts of change bring the world and people into reality Reality thus understood is a unique realm that we not so much dwell or fi nd ourselves situated in but rather that we agen-tively enact as co- creators who come into being through our own ldquoengaged agencyrdquo (cf Taylor 1993 ) understood as the material and historical force that creates the world Th is collective forum of human actions takes the world ldquointo its orbitrdquo and thus absorbs and transforms the world on its own unique grounds while itself being absorbed in and transformed by the world ndash as the two facets of one and the same process

Because human labor ndash as the process through which the life of human species is enacted and produced ndash inevitably entails collective eff orts of peo-ple acting together its development gives rise to increasingly complex social exchanges among people and to individual processes of human subjectivity allowing for these exchanges to be carried out Both forms emerge precisely because they are needed to help regulate the collective material produc-tion of the very lives of individuals and communities Th us human praxis on the one hand produces and engenders intertwined processes of social interactions and attendant forms of intersubjectivity along with agency and psychological processes (or human subjectivity) ndash the latter being a uniquely individual yet also profoundly social dimension of collaborative practice On the other hand ndash at mature stages of development in history and in ontogeny ndash praxis is reciprocally produced by these very interactions and subjectivities that it had spawned and continues to produce

Although these points will be discussed in more detail later on it is important for now to highlight that no ontological gaps are posited to sepa-rate phenomena within this realm of world- forming and history- making collaborative practices whereby human mind and personhood agency and self- regulation mind and cognition are all seen as instantiations (or moments) of human collaborative praxis evolving and expanding through time In this sense human praxis is the foundational reality within which out of which and for which human subjectivity and intersubjectivity ndash knowing and being mind and self ndash emerge and develop with no ontologi-cal gaps among them Once emergent however these dimensions become instrumental and especially at mature stages of development (of both society and individuals) begin to play an indispensable role in organiz-ing shaping and otherwise regulating social life and practices Th at is in



182

the course of history these processes become increasingly and enormously complex and even assume ndash as emergent properties ndash their own levels of quasiontological existence and associated qualities of durability and stabil-ity For example social relations among people become institutionalized in relatively stable forms ranging from the rules of conduct such as rituals and morale to collective forms of life institutionalized in social structures such as state religion schooling family and so on (Stetsenko 2005 )

Th at all phenomena and expressions of human life including subjectiv-ity and agency are grounded in the transformative collaborative practices means that they emerge from social practices constitute their dimensions serve their goals and never completely break away from them in an onto-logical sense No matter how specialized and sophisticated the processes of human subjectivity and intersubjectivity become in the course of devel-opment (historically and ontogenetically) they always bear the mark of participate in contribute to and ultimately return to collaborative practices that represent their ultimate mode of existence

Th ese social practices connect individuals and generations of people as every human being and each new generation enter their continuous fl ow by making a contribution and thus incurring changes in them if even only in modest ways and merely on local scales as is the case especially during the early stages of ontogenetic development Th e core point is that these social transformative practices (or praxis) represent an ontologically non- dualist and unifi ed (though not uniform and not without fractures and confl icts that actually drive this process) indivisible continuum or a dynamic fl ow extending through time and across generations of people Th at is collab-orative social practices can be seen as forming one continuously unfold-ing and seamless stream of historically unfolding communal social life not reducible to a chain of single discrete episodes disconnected elements or isolated dimensions ndash where instead all of these various facets dimensions and moments mutually interpenetrate co- constitute and reciprocally defi ne each other Th is is because of these processes all belonging to par-ticipating in and contributing to the co- constitution of one unifi ed larger- scale process of social praxis in its world- and history- forming status At the same time given the emphasis on transformation this position implies that each generation and each individual not only joins in with what has been achieved in the past but also always transforms these practices on a larger or smaller scale and sometimes quite radically under the challenges of the present historical conditions and in view of the future goals and visions for a better world



183

Th is interpretation to reiterate goes against some of the key tenets of the canonical Marxism In particular the common view is that Marx con-ceived of reality as objectively existing outside of social practice history and human agency and of knowledge as refl ecting independent objective reality However Marx did not hold the view that the world has to be under-stood in such an objectivist (or disenchanted) way Th is is clear already in the quotation about reality conceived subjectively as a sensuous human activity practice He also explicitly questioned the very notion of objective reality ldquoout thererdquo and of pristine nature in a sharp critique of mechanical materialism that treats nature in isolation from society and history Th is comes across for example in Marx writing that ldquothe nature that preceded human history hellip is nature which today no longer exists anywhere (except perhaps on a few Australian coral islands of recent origin)rdquo ( 1845 ndash 1846 1978 p 171) Th e whole sensuous world as it now exists writes Marx ldquois an unceasing sensuous labor and creationrdquo (ibid) In this emphasis nature is understood as a human- made realm in its dynamic historically evolving entanglements with human material practices rather than as an ahistorical and timeless ldquogivenrdquo

However Marx did leave some grounds for ambiguities in understand-ing the world as ldquoobjectiverdquo in the sense of it being stripped of human dimensions and agency Many Marxist scholars advocate the notion that to be a materialist means to acknowledge that consciousness and knowl-edge are refl ections of the independent material world Th is tradition began very early on with Plekhanov (eg 1940 ) ndash who infl uenced generations of Marxist scholars especially in Russia from the very dawn of Marxism ndash arguing for a strictly naturalist and objective understandings of what real-ity is Many strands within critical scholarship have been aff ected by this canonical understanding of Marxism about reality existing independently of human beings and social practices and known through some kind of ldquorefl ectionrdquo in consciousness

Th ese understandings have not been suffi ciently and explicitly chal-lenged by Vygotskyrsquos followers such as Leontiev and Davydov at least in part due to them working under the pressures of a unidirectional top- down ideology (see Stetsenko 2005 2013b ) Among more recent works Paulo Freire seemed to insist that there is a world that exists as ldquoan objec-tive reality independent of oneself capable of being knownrdquo ( 1982a p 3) even though he also suggested that the ldquoobjectivity and the subjectivity are incarnating dialecticallyrdquo (Davis and Freire 1981 p 62) and that conscious-ness is not a pure refl ection of the world Th e resulting views within critical



184

pedagogy today remain confl icted on this score with some scholars inter-preting Freire as rejecting that reality can be directly understood ldquoin itselfrdquo while others associating this interpretation with a Kantian tradition and therefore treating it as unacceptable (see Au 2007 )

Th e recent works by Marxist- feminist scholars and educators make eff orts to chart a reimagined notion of the social as a historically subjec-tive human practice thus more directly connecting human experience social practice and social relations (eg Allman 2007 Bannerji 2005 Carpenter 2012 Smith 1990 ) In particular these works trace the notion of experience to a complicated social reality as constituted by ldquohuman sensuous activityrdquo (Marx 1845 1978 p 143) and suggest that the ways for people to organize their collective life are always bound up in complex forms of human relations Th ese authors stress that the Marxist emphasis on material relations is not an argument for the economic determinism stripped of subjective dimensions because these relations are histori-cal and thus include mutual determination of subjectivity experience and the material production of life Th is approach is closely related to a position explicated within the culturalndash historical activity theory (eg Sawchuk and Stetsenko 2008 Stetsenko 2005 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004b ) endeavoring to reformulate its premises away from the canonical Marxism and toward a more dialectical interpretation that brings together social practice social relations (and the attendant forms of intersubjectiv-ity) and phenomena and processes of human subjectivity and agency ndash as all co- implicated in the processes that produce and are produced by human forms of life

Th e interpretation off ered herein is consonant with Gramscirsquos ( 1971 p 446) notion that praxis signifi es a ldquounifi ed process of realityrdquo ndash a ldquodialec-tical mediation between human beings and naturerdquo In this position nature is exactly not ldquoa beyondrdquo of the practical- historical reality of human beings not something external and alien to human beings (cf Haug 2001 relevant also are works by Carol C Gould 1978 Ollman 1993 among others) As further explicated by Gramsci

the idea of ldquoobjectiverdquo in metaphysical materialism would appear to mean an objectivity that exists even apart from man but when one affi rms that a reality would exist even if man did not one is either speak-ing metaphorically or one is falling into a form of mysticism We know reality only in relation to human being and since human being is his-torical becoming knowledge and reality are also a becoming and so is objectivity (1971 p 446)



185

Th e critical conjecture within the approach developed herein is that transformative collaborative practice (or creative labor) is taken to be a process of actualizing reality whereby no less than the world is transformed and thus real - ized (to borrow this hyphenated expression from Castantildeeda 2002 ) that is made real and brought into existence As a result of the com-plex dynamics of these processes each aspect of the world including objects and individuals as social agents and actors come into existence precisely through being constitutively imbricated into a web of activities practices that not only connect individuals to their world but also act to bring them both into a mutually co- defi ned and ontologically coterminous existence Th is view places practical sensuous activity understood as humanityrsquos ongoing eff ort to transform conditions of our own existence and thus to come into being by bringing forth the world at the center of ontology and epistemology

In insisting that reality is constantly transformed through the dialectics and movements of social practices embodied in human acting (encompass-ing ways of being knowing and doing) predicated on goal striving and commitments to social change it can be suggested that human beings are not antecedent to communal transformative practices that shape them Th is point is acknowledged by many critical sociocultural and social practice theories and by the broader interactionist approaches alike among others However ndash and no less importantly ndash in the interpretation off ered herein the world is not antecedent to human transformative practices either as if it was simply ldquothererdquo predefi ned and defi nitively organized before people collectively take up and transform in agentive in purposeful ways the very social practices that create them in thus de facto creating the world too

Some analogues of this position albeit at the level of addressing living forms at large beyond the topics of human development and agency can be found in biological sciences where living organisms and their trajectories through time and space are understood as lying at the center of life In Steven Rosersquos expression ldquothese trajectories or lifelines far from being determined continually construct their- our- own futures albeit in circumstances not of our own choosingrdquo ( 1998 see also Rose Lewontin and Kamin 1984 ) Or as Ingold ( 2008 ) puts it a world that is merely occupied ldquois furnished with already- existing thingsrdquo whereas one that is inhabited within which we exist as living beings ldquois woven from the strands of [our] continual coming- into- beingrdquo (p 1797) In his other expression of the same idea ldquothe world of our experience is a world suspended in movement that is continually coming into being as we ndash through our own movement ndash contribute to its



186

formationrdquo (Ingold 2000 p 242) Similar themes can be found in the actor- network theory with its notion that ldquo[a] cquiring a body is hellip a progressive enterprise that produces at once a sensory medium and a sensitive worldrdquo (Latour 2004 p 207) Th ese are important insights that can and need to be further expanded to include human agency and transformative activism at the level of analysis that addresses the social dynamics of human life

The Notion of Reality in Activity Theory

Th e notion of social practice or activity in its ontological status of the basic grounding of human life and development was articulated within Vygotskyrsquos project by Alexei N Leontiev (eg 1978 1981a ) though not dis-cussed in suffi cient detail by him (this being one of the causes for many subsequent misunderstandings and misinterpretations even within his own school of thought) Th is articulation can be found in his following (oft en- cited) defi nition

Activity is a molar non- additive unit of life of the corporeal material subject hellip In the more narrow sense that is on the psychological plane it is a unit of life mediated by mental refl ection Th e real function of this unit is to in orientate the subject in the objective world In other words activity is not a reaction or aggregate of reactions but a system with its own structure its own internal transitions and its own development (Leontiev 1978 p 50)

In contemporary works on activity theory this quotation is typically not suffi ciently dwelled upon being instead quickly followed by a discussion of Leontievrsquos three- level scheme of activity- action- operation and its corre-sponding levels of motive- goal- task A lack of discussion of this defi nition of activity which was apparently central to Leontievrsquos theory is puzzling and speaks to the complexity of what this defi nition conveys and more to the point what it fails to convey (due to its brevity and complexity and because its underpinnings in philosophical arguments remained implicit) Indeed the notion that activity is the unit of life has been misinterpreted as a statement about activity being a unit of analysis (a diff erent notion all together namely an epistemological rather than an ontological one the latter implied by Leontiev) that moreover presumably can be somehow complemented by other units of analysis such as action and operation at other levels of analysis Moreover the conclusion has also been some-times drawn that these three levels of analysis must be kept separate from one another Th ese interpretations apparently contradict the very gist of



187

Leontievrsquos appeal to understanding activity as a non- additive unit of life that is as a constituent that forms the core of life and cannot be comple-mented by nor augmented with some ldquoextrardquo constituents components or elements of diff erent ontological order and status

Leontievrsquos defi nition is apparently much broader than just the idea that the notion of activity can be used as a unit of analysis Th is is clear from the context in which this defi nition comes up namely as it is shaped by a question (in the immediately preceding paragraph) about no less than ldquowhat is human liferdquo (ibid) It is in answering this question that Leontiev suggests that ldquolife is the sum- total or more exactly a system of alternating activitiesrdquo (ibid) Th is is further specifi ed in the sense that ldquo[i] n activity a transition of the object into the subjective form into an image takes place while at the same time the transition of activity into its objective results its products also takes place From this perspective activity appears as a process in which mutual transitions between the poles lsquosubject- objectrsquo take placerdquo (ibid)

It is in elaborating this undoubtedly broad ontological idea about the status of processes and phenomena of life (unfortunately expressed very briefl y and cryptically especially to readers not familiar with the Russian philosophical parlance) that Leontiev goes on to suggest that activity is the unit of life Th is implies that activity is primarily and most importantly the core and ultimately constitutive process of which the life of corporeal human beings is composed Th is is what is captured in the notion that activity is the unit of life ndash note not the unit of analysis but the unit of life that is its constituent or its constitutive process Th is defi nition has to do with what is nothing less and nothing more than human life described as a system of consecutive activities revealing the character of life as an activity and a process

Th is interpretation connects activity theory with the works in critical pedagogy Indeed Freire conceived of praxis as a conscious transforma-tive action on the world (Davis and Freire 1981 Freire 1970 1982a 1982b ) which is the core of his epistemology He further explained that ldquo[h] uman beings hellip are being of lsquopraxisrsquo of action and of refl ection Humans fi nd themselves marked by the results of their own actions in their relations with the world and through the action on it By acting they transform by transforming they create a reality which conditions their manner of act-ingrdquo ( 1982b p 102) Freirersquos notion of humanityrsquos eternal striving toward completeness in the context of an ever- changing social and physical world which he used as the basis for his conceptualization of education ( 1970 ) can be applied to characterize praxis too



188

Another line of work that is also consistent with this approach is Mikhail Bakhtinrsquos writings on becoming ( postuplenine see Chapters 7 and 9 ) and chronotope Indeed what transpires in this account is the similarity between the notion of collaborative social practices ndash as the primary onto- epistemological realm that grounds human development as can be derived from Vygotskyrsquos ideas ndash and Bakhtinrsquos ( 1981 ) concept of chronotope (liter-ally time- space) Th e notion of chronotope refers to the space- time matrix (Bakhtin 1981 1986 ) where time and space are deeply interconnected (cf Brown and Renshaw 2006 Kumpulainen and Renshaw 2007 ) In some interpretations the chronotopes are the means by which time is material-ized in space that function as organizing centers for signifi cant narrative events (cf Hirst 2004 ) In a broader sense ldquochronotopes are not so much visibly present in activity as they are the ground for activityrdquo (Morson and Emerson 1990 p 369) ndash they are descriptors of what human reality is ndash the ldquoliving events that are inextricable from existencerdquo Chronotope there-fore can be understood as certain stabilizations of acting that perhaps like energy fi elds are intangible yet powerful in that they organize and regulate aff ord and constrain how we act and therefore how we come to be and to know Th ese time- space arrangements place people in distinct positions regarding access to social resources and agency (or a lack of access) within ongoing dynamics and fl ows of social practices ndash although these positions are not set in stone and instead need to be real ized and negotiated includ-ing through resisting and challenging them

Furthermore the concept of chronotope suggests inseparability of acts of individual agency (taking stances making choices enacting responsi-bility and answerability) and the social- historical context in which these acts take place Chronotopes according to Bakhtin are about intrinsic con-nectedness of temporal and spatial relationships in which ldquotime as it were thickens takes on fl esh becomes artistically visible likewise space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time plot and historyrdquo ( 1981 p 84) Th erefore chronotope can be interpreted to describe the unique realm of human existence composed of human deeds co- constituting and composing social practices as fl exible and dynamic fi elds of acting in which human agency rather than ldquoobjectiverdquo reality independent from human dimensions is implicated Th is is in unison with ideas developed by Alexey A Ukhtomsky ([1875ndash 1942] a physiologist whose works both Bakhtin and Vygotsky greatly admired and relied on) who wrote that

from the point of view of chronotope what exists is not some abstracted points [in time] but alive and indelible irrevocable from existence



189

events [со- бытия in Russian literally co- beings or co- existences] hellip not abstract lines in space but ldquothis- worldlyrdquo lines by which the events of the distant past are connected to the events of the given moment and through them to the events of the disappearing in the distance future (1924 2002 p 342)

In this perspective life (or being) as chronotope is coterminous and coex-tensive with human agentive actions deeds at the intersection of collective and individual agency entailing an integration of past and ongoing actions with yet- to- be- accomplished ones

Similarly complexive and holistic understandings come from political ecology and geography especially in the tradition of Henri Lefebvre ( 1991 ) Th ese approaches take reality (or ldquothingsrdquo) to be hybrids or quasi- objects ndash simultaneously subjects and objects phenomena that are material and discursive natural and social at the same time Moreover political ecol-ogy captures the continuous process of the production of the world as a historical- geographical process of perpetual ldquometabolismrdquo in which social and natural processes combine in a ldquoproduction process of socio- naturerdquo (Kaika 2005 p 22) Th eir outcomes embody chemical physical social economic political and cultural processes in a highly inseparable way (see Harvey 1996b Smith 2002 Swyngedouw and Kaika 2000 ) For example the city is a striking manifestation of human social practices of urbaniza-tion ndash yet there is nothing unnatural about it (Harvey 1996b ) because cit-ies are the natural or socionatural habitat (see Smith 2002 ) Urban life is simultaneously human material natural discursive cultural and organic (Swyngedouw and Kaika 2000 ) ldquoa process of perpetual metabolic socio-ecological change that produces distinct (urban) environmentsrdquo (p 567) Th e myriad of transformations and metabolisms that support and maintain urban life such as dwelling structures water and food supplies transporta-tion and schooling systems entertainment institutions and so on always combine environmental and social processes Th is complex amalgamation of various processes all united within the productive ldquoperpetual metabo-lismsrdquo of social practices echoes the notion of realty as grounded in social- material transformative practices as suggested here

Historicity

Th e foregoing discussion highlights the centrality of history in Vygotskyrsquos project ndash and not as a separate dimension that complements other dimen-sions but rather as an inextricable inherent characteristic of social practices



190

understood as the processes that are realizing history and are history Th is is because through collaborative practices in which individual eff orts are blended together people continuously build on and continue processes and achievements of previous generations and also inevitably expand on these through their own cumulatively evolving eff orts as each new generation and each human being joins in with the ongoing practices and thus con-tinues carries them on yet all the while also resisting challenging and ultimately always changing them too Th is collaborative process involves passing on and gradually elaborating upon across generations the col-lective experiences discoveries and inventions in meeting the challenges posed within the collective life (in what has been termed the ldquoratchet eff ectrdquo see Tomasello 1999 )

In this dialectical process there is always an enduring nexus of rela-tions with the past and future generations because practices in the present inevitably build on and continue previous practices and their complex power dynamics and circulations of interactivity and relationality Th erefore history is understood to be an inalienable dimension of human practices as they continuously unfold through time as one unending ceaseless process Th is intricate link between social practices and history is vividly conveyed by Wade Nobles who wrote that ldquo[t] he experiences of one generation becomes the history of the next generation and the his-tory of several generations becomes the traditions of a peoplerdquo (quoted in Boutte 2016 ) Or as Whitehead ( 1929 ) put it life is an enduring entity that ldquobinds any one of its occasions to the line of its ancestryrdquo (p 104) ndash and it could be added from the transformative approach to the line of future generations too

Th is idea of historicity permeates all of Vygotskyrsquos writings with its central emphasis on continuity and cumulativeness of human develop-ment It can be interpreted in the sense that human activities and social practices never end and can never be completely left behind instead these practices constantly evolve moving forward without breaks so that the past activities and associated experiences are not completely elimi-nated Instead they are carried over into the new forms and structures that emerge on their foundation becoming absorbed into and trans-formed within these new processes and forms In this sense the past is powerfully present in what happens in the ldquohere and nowrdquo and moreover not as some compendium of dead and static remnants but rather in the form of constantly and continuously renewed and transformed condi-tions and resources for acting within the presently unfolding practices



191

and activities New actions continue on the foundation of past actions ensuing from and inevitably building on them (including achievements and practices of previous generations) However these past practices are never exactly copied instead undergoing continuous transformations as they are included into new actions and practices and transformed in accord with their ever- changing dynamics in response to the constantly emerging new challenges and tasks

Th is approach suggests that individuals never start completely from scratch and never completely vanish Instead they enter and join in with social practices as participants who build upon previous accomplishments and also inevitably and forever change (if only in modest ways) the whole social matrix of these practices leaving their own indelible traces in his-tory In this sense social practices are similar with an ongoing unending conversation (Burke 1973 ) except that they extend far beyond the level of conversations and discourses only ndash into the concrete and palpable ldquoworkrdquo of people laboring in co- creating their world Paralleling Burkersquos notion and also expanding it to include actions and deeds it can be said that every human being enters into the stream of what has been going on before ndash a historical arena of social practices composed of actions and deeds of oth-ers as encompassing but not reducible to interactions discourses and communications

Viewed from this perspective any human practice like any discussion and any individual act ndash because it is embedded within the history of social practices ndash is interminable multidetermined and in an important sense without clear limits of a beginning middle or end Again paraphrasing Burke the shared social practices begin long before we enter them and con-tinue aft er we have departed yet not without us leaving traces in them It is this historical fl ow of collaborative practices expanding through time and forming one uninterrupted fl ow of sociocultural history of human civiliza-tion that eff ectively constitutes the very foundational reality in which the development of each individual qua social being that is as an actor and agent of history and society is embedded and that is enacted by each and every human being Th e metaphor of ldquouninterrupted fl owrdquo does not fully convey the agentive nature of social practices in their ontologically primary status as will be discussed in the following sections But this metaphor does help to capture the continuity and historicity of social collaborative practices and therefore of the human realm in which development takes place and with which it co- evolves highlighting it as a unifi ed endeavor of humanity expanding through time and extending across generations



192

The Status of Change

What is central to TAS to return to one of the main points made in the opening part of this chapter is theorizing social practices while capitalizing on their transformative nature as a characteristic that renders these prac-tices material historical and ontologically primary Th is implies highlight-ing the phenomena of change and transformation as the primary mode of existence of these practices and therefore of human development and of social dynamics (agency and structure) as well Th is position entails a radi-cal shift away from the notion of adaptation to that of transformation ndash a shift with profound implications for understanding human development and learning as fi rst formulated by Marx and later developed by Vygotsky

Expanding upon this approach it is important to delineate the status of change as ontologically real Th is shift necessitates that the continuous historical and ever- shift ing transformative dynamics of social practices is understood to be no less and de facto more durable tangible and real than what is traditionally taken to be the ldquotruerdquo (or ldquobruterdquo) reality of things and objects ldquoout in the worldrdquo

Th at is phenomena and processes of social transformation and change are understood to be more material than anything else ndash including literally any thing taken in isolation from human practice Th is is because in the concept of reality as a dynamic fi eld or arena of collective practice reality cannot be seen in any other way but as an ever- shift ing and moving process that is always on the cusp and at the threshold of turning into new forms and shapes transcending the givenness of the present and thus always in the process of becoming ndash rather than frozen and identical to itself across time and even at any given moment In this sense social transformation is more enduring and non- perishing than the seemingly ldquosturdyrdquo and solid things understood as isolated items existing ldquoout in the worldrdquo on their own as static and frozen

In this understanding of social change human ways of being know-ing and doing are ontologically constituted by acts of transformation that contribute to social communal praxis in the connotation of creating change and novelty in moving beyond the given and transcending its status quo Th is position contrasts with the ldquosituationistrdquo and ldquocontextualistrdquo expla-nations focused on development as a process associated with and result-ing from people being situated in their context or environment (the latter understood as that which simply environs or surrounds people as if some extraneous force) that is as merely dwelling in or experiencing the world



193

as in the metaphor of ldquobeing thererdquo (see Clark 1997 ) and in many works in distributed sociocultural and situated cognition theories

Th e analytical import of taking transformative social change to be the core characteristic of human social practices as fi rst suggested (though not fully explicated) by Marx implies a conceptual shift in theorizing human development and society that is arguably no less radical than the import of Darwinrsquos revolution in biological sciences (see Stetsenko 2010a 2011 ) Whereas Darwin introduced the notion of change into what had been static thinking about nature as fi xed and inert the Marxist philosophical- conceptual innovation consisted in overturning the traditional and similarly static modes of thinking about not only nature but human devel-opment and society as well Th e centrality of collaborative transformative practice for human development can be seen on a par with the centrality of evolution in the development of biological systems Just as the noted geneti-cist Th eodosius Dobzhansky ( 1962 ) argued that nothing in biology makes sense without considering evolution an argument can be made from the Marxist and Vygotskian legacy point of view that nothing in human devel-opment makes sense outside considerations of collaborative transformative practices and the changes they bring about

What the traditional modes of thinking about society and human development were tacitly based on during the time of Darwin and Marx and what they continue to be based on today in traditional and even sociocultural accounts is the assumption about the superiority and sov-ereignty of the existent that is of the sociopolitical and cultural status quo Th is status quo is presumed to be somehow static and fi xed immu-table and unchanging existing as a ldquogivenrdquo that can be taken for granted in way of an essentialist reifi cation Similarly to the Darwinian insight yet also moving beyond it the conceptual and analytical shift implied by the transformative onto- epistemology presupposes another profound change in the habitual mode of thinking In this shift the processes such as social practices and their products are not reifi ed at any analytical step in their descriptions Instead the very mode of existence of both individuals and societies (and their products) is characterized as the dynamics of ever- shift ing and moving continuously restructuring and reorganizing movement and fl ow of ceaseless changes transformations transmutations and reassemblages In this perspective the changes and transformations in social communal praxis is what exists and what sub-stitutes for the world in its fi xity status quo permanence and immutable ldquogivennessrdquo



194

Th e change is ontologically primary whereas stability of static forms and structures is derivative of what is the primary reality comprised of ceaseless and ever- shift ing changes and transformations in the unfolding realm of dynamic communal praxis Th is is a radical shift away from the current ide-als of science that are still based in essentialist substance ontologies hold-ing variation and change as anomalies to be eliminated in grasping some presumably static essences and their ahistorical ldquouniversal lawsrdquo Similar views focused on internal relations (eg Ollman 1993 ) rather than enti-ties maintain the ontological primacy of the process of change including its embodiments in products patterns and structures

Moreover the change implied in the Marxist and by extension Vygotskyrsquos approach is of a particular kind It is not a type of change that supposedly just occurs or happens ndash indeed happens to happen ndash out in the world due to some presumably autonomous and universal immanent logic of processes that unfold all on their own to subsequently aff ect peo-ple as extraneous factors and forces that act from the outside (as inputs stimuli and other external infl uences) Instead the notion captured in the Marxist tradition can be interpreted as pertaining to change that is brought about and created by people in their active and activist strivings and struggles in pursuit of their goals Th is type of change takes place because people commit to achieving desired outcomes and also strug-gle to bring them about in transcending the status quo through their own actions and deeds in carrying out collaborative projects of social transformations

Th e diff erence between these types of change is tacit yet critically sig-nifi cant To highlight this diff erence it is useful to turn to alternative for-mulations exemplifi ed in Deweyrsquos works ndash because they capture what many contemporary pragmatist and also postmodernist and social constructivist perspectives stand for Th is position comes very close to the Vygotskian understanding yet stops short at a critical juncture of fully acknowledging human agency and activism

Dewey ( 1910 ) strongly objected to the ldquoassumption of the superiority of the fi xed and fi nalrdquo (p 1) and instead claimed that ldquochange rather than fi xity is now a measure of lsquorealityrsquo or energy of being change is omnipres-entrdquo ( 1920 1948 p 61) He concluded that ldquonatural science is forced by its own development to abandon the assumption of fi xity and to recognize that what for it is actually lsquouniversalrsquo is process rdquo (ibid p xiii) Th at change is a powerful presence in all of organic life has been acknowledged across many fi elds at least since Darwinrsquos works and Dewey was among the fi rst schol-ars to stress its profound signifi cance Evidently the world was undergoing



195

tectonic shift s great turbulence and remarkable changes that did not go unnoticed by Dewey and other scholars of the time Yet the specifi c type of change Dewey was fathoming had to do more with biological and organic dynamics than with changes incurred by collective agency and social move-ments in pursuit of goals such as equality and social justice

One of Deweyrsquos ( 1908 p 81) defi nitions for pragmatism was that it is ldquothe doctrine that reality possesses practical characterrdquo which directly aligns with the Marxist notion that ldquoall social life is essentially practicalrdquo (Marx 1845 1978 p 145) Dewey saw the organism as co- evolving with the environment rather than passively conforming to environmental demands His key insight was that inquiry was a powerful ldquotoolrdquo for transforming the environment Moreover for him inquiry had ontological signifi cance and action was considered to be a means of ontological change (cf Garrison 1994 ) Th e resulting conception presents a much more active view of human development than the one that was and still is common in psychology edu-cation and other social sciences (cf Bredo 1998 ) In this emphasis there is much overlap between Deweyrsquos position and the Marxian- Vygotskian approach yet the diff erence is no less signifi cant It is notable how Dewey formulates his core thesis

Th e words ldquoenvironmentrdquo ldquomediumrdquo denote something more than the surroundings which encompass an individual Th ey denote the specifi c continuity of the surroundings with his [ sic ] own active tendencies hellip the environment consists of those conditions that promote or hinder stimulate or inhibit the characteristic activities of a living being (1916 1922 p 13)

Th e signifi cant import of this quotation is that the environment is taken to be continuous with rather than separate from a living being Yet the environment is understood to be merely continuous with active tenden-cies of organisms rather than directly contingent on actions of human beings qua social actors let alone on productive social communal prac-tices in their world- forming status (the notion that is not salient in Deweyrsquos works) Furthermore environment is taken by Dewey to be active mostly in terms of its correspondence or relational relevance to individual acting Th is understanding though progressive vis- agrave- vis traditional static ontolo-gies (or ontologies of statism) is evidently further limited to considering only ldquowhatever is currently aiding or inhibiting onersquos actionsrdquo (Bredo 1998 p 458) that is limited to considerations of what exists in the immedi-ate present In contrast taking purposive transformation of environment as ontologically primary means that change refers to people ldquodoingrdquo and



196

bringing about change rather than them undergoing change that is to people changing the environment and being changed in this very process of onersquos own transformative acts To put it more directly people actively changing their environment and moreover being brought into existence by and through their own transformative acting is quite diff erent from act-ing in a changing environment Deweyrsquos focus is more on the latter that is on acting in a changing environment even though he does view adaptation as ldquoa dynamic aff air of continually working with the changing tendencies and possibilities in a situation which onersquos own actions alter rather than a matter of achieving a static fi t between one structure and anotherrdquo (Bredo 1998 p 458)

Progressive as it is especially for its time and place Deweyrsquos position is still affi liated with the ethos of adaptation as expressed for example in his core metaphor of organic growth Perhaps the most telling point is that he also insists as Bourdieu will later do too on non- teleological nature of action ndash how action is ldquodirected towards certain ends without being con-sciously directed to these ends or determined by themrdquo (Bourdieu 1990a p 10 cf Emirbayer and Schneiderhan 2013 ) Th at is although Dewey gives full credit to development and mind being active and like ldquoa dance with a partner that acts backrdquo (Bredo 1998 p 458) there is no accounting for how imagination of and commitment to the future plays into the dynamics of development especially in terms of sociopolitical projects of overcoming injustices and power hierarchies

Perspectives that are mindful of the phenomena of change further include Derridarsquos elegant distinction between the types of future in refer-encing two French nouns that each stands for the ldquofuturerdquo ndash ldquole futurrdquo and ldquolrsquoavenirrdquo (the latter literally meaning ldquoto comerdquo ldquoagrave venirrdquo cf Cheah 2008 ) and more recently Shotterrsquos ( 2006 ) eloquent discussion on the topic of change As Shotter writes

Rather than changes taking place within an already fully realized reality instead of changes of a quantitative and repeatable kind ie ordinary changes they are unique irreversible one- off changes novel changes of a qualitative kind ie living changes changes in and of reality itself And as living changes such changes are creative developmental changes changes making something possible that before was impossible Such changes ndash against a Cartesian background ndash strike us as changes that hap-pen unpredictably unexpectedly not according to any laws or principles but capriciously dependent on circumstances (p 599 emphasis added)

While sharing the general thrust of this description it is important to note that it does not fully accord human agency with an ontologically central role



197

ldquoIn order to know the world we have to change itrdquo has been a power-ful and admittedly dangerous idea since Francis Bacon stretching through Marxism and extending to contemporary works in critical approaches Yet its role in casting the grounding ontology of human development has been undertheorized and also substantially limited because it was linked to the narrowly instrumentalist ideas associated with the goals of control over nature and the drive for material gains Th e full force of this premise cannot be fully appreciated outside of a relational- transformative ontology where collaborative human agency and its moral dimensions and entailments is addressed as formative of human development and of the world

Marx formulated this idea in his famous statement that ldquo[t] he philoso-phers have only interpreted the world in various ways the point however is to change itrdquo ( 1845 1978 p 145 emphasis in the original) Importantly this statement draws attention to and has been interpreted only (or mostly) in its epistemic dimension as a maxim that people know the world through changing it or sometimes and erroneously as a premise that rejects the value of knowing and thus heralds the demise of philosophy Th e expan-sion suggested by the TAS however goes beyond the epistemological level (while not relinquishing it either) in stating that while there is no gap between changing onersquos world and knowing it there is also no gap between changing onersquos world and being (becoming) a human being ndash qua unique person who is a social actor and agent of communal practices ndash with both dimensions simultaneously created within the dynamics of collaborative practices

Th ere is no knowledge and no person that exist prior to and can be separated from onersquos transformative engagement with the world includ-ing importantly with other people and oneself Human collective prac-tice is therefore not excluded from the facts phenomena and events in the world but instead included as their constitutive foundation Th rough this conceptual move social change is inserted into the very basis of the onto- epistemology of human development Th e famous epistemic principle ldquowe- know- the- world- as- we- change- itrdquo therefore is supplemented with an ontological emphasis on ldquowe- come- to- be- as- we- change- the- worldrdquo ndash a process that enfolds being knowing and doing

Th e stress on change as a modus vivendi of society and human develop-ment and of reality aligns with the deconstructivist notion of matter as designating radical alterity which is taken to be more real than any other seemingly more ldquosturdyrdquo phenomena or processes According to Derrida ldquonothing is more realist hellip than a deconstructionrdquo (quoted in Cheah 2008 p 147) In suggesting that people indirectly produce their actual material life when they produce means of subsistence through labor as a force of



198

transformation material reality can be understood to be produced by nega-tivity Th is is consistent with how Marx defi ned creative labor as a process of actualization whereby given reality or matter is negated through the imposition of a purposive form (cf Cheah 2008 ) Th is argument is also in line with the notions about the power of negative thinking of the critical questioning of all existing social arrangements and norms by Marcuse (cf Anderson 1993 )

Th is position makes visible that human activity in its capacity to produce change and thus to negate the givenness of the world in its status quo is a force in the constitution of the real that is constantly emerging and moving beyond that which exists in the present Th e transformative ontology dis-places naturalist explanations that exclude human dimensions to instead open ways to theorize and account for human emancipatory agency Again this position is not fully incompatible with some postmodernist interpreta-tions of materialism and reality (cf Cheah 2008 ) For example to return to Derrida it is noteworthy that he makes a remark about his ldquoobstinate inter-est in a materialism without substancerdquo ( 1994 p 212) and further suggests that ldquoif and in the extent to which matter in this general economy desig-nates hellip radical alterity then what I write can be considered lsquomaterialistrsquo rdquo (Derrida 1981 p 64)

Highlighting the process of change and transformation as ontologically and epistemologically basic and primary suggests that the sheer ldquogivennessrdquo of reality is superseded through the ever- changing dynamics of purposive human activity made up of transformative eff orts and struggles carried out by people in pursuit of their goals and commitments It is the material-ity understood as a struggle and active striving that is as a movement of freeing from the givenness of the present and thus of transcending the sta-tus quo ndash through people contributing to collaborative social practices and thus transforming them ndash that counts in and accounts for human reality and development

Th e struggle of becoming against the odds of what is stifl ing together-ness free development and solidarity then can be seen as ontologically and epistemologically primary and foundational that is more- than- real or ldquorealer than realrdquo (to borrow this expression from Massumi 1987 who builds off from Deleuze and Guattari 1977 ) compared to what is tradition-ally taken as ldquoobjectiverdquo or ldquobruterdquo reality Th e hallmark of these activities is that they do not narrowly conform to reality as it exists in the present and do not aim to fi t in with its status quo Instead their goal is to agentively change the world and by implication the persons whereby both of these poles on the continuum of social practices are instantaneously co- created



199

or co- constituted in bidirectional exchanges and interpenetrations (entan-glements) Th erefore importantly the transformative collaborative practice supersedes adaptation and natural selection ndash dialectically negates (without fully eliminating) them Th e notion of ldquosupersedingrdquo conveys the sense of something being taken over by a new process and integrated into its struc-ture so that the former process continues to exist within the new formation yet now in a subordinate role without directly and unilaterally defi ning this overall process or structure now in existence (for details see Stetsenko 2010a )

Reclaiming S Objective Reality

Because reality is understood to be composed of (or constituted by) the historically unfolding and constantly shift ing social practices carried out through individuals acting together in pursuit of their goals and thus enact-ing changes in the world the reality is rendered profoundly material and deeply humanized (or meaningful) at the same time Being purposeful and goal directed that is guided by visions and aspirations for the future the process of transformatively engaging the world posited at the core of human development and learning is an endeavor of a profoundly activist nature Th e goals for the future (how one believes onersquos world and onersquos life should be) and commitments to their realization penetrate reality and infuse it with subjectivity Th us reality is understood as an arena of human struggle and activist striving that is therefore immanently and inherently infused at its core with emotions passions feeling values and interests ndash while not ceasing to be material and practical at the same time

Th is is a radical position even by standards of Marxist philosophy because the world is taken to be fully material yet at the same time ndash because it is understood to be created in the acts of transformation ndash also profoundly humanized and inherently at its core imbued with human values positions interests commitments and goals Most critically these dimensions are not considered to be added as a separate add- on realm onto human conduct nor onto the world in which this conduct takes place Instead communal and individual subjectivity and agency embodied in activist struggles and striving inclusive of values ideologies and ethics are posited right at the center of reality ndash the world in which we exist and which we come to know as we create it while being ourselves created in this very process Th is approach operates with the notions of human goals and pur-poses as fully legitimate and central aspects (or dimensions) of material reality rather than as a separate and ontologically distinct ideational realm



200

of inward ldquomentationrdquo or as information processing and brain functioning Th is implies that the world exists through being continuously recreated in certain ways because people envision the future to be a certain way make commitment to this way and thus bring it into realization (and not just because they are on a path that leads to certain outcomes predetermined in advance as assumed in traditional teleology)

Th is does not imply that later events cause earlier ones but instead and perhaps more radically that later events are created in the present Th e point is that our practices and therefore our reality (taken to be contermi-nous with our lived world) is already shaped by or tailored to a future that is sought aft er and posited as desirable and necessary ndash as an ldquooughtrdquo that one commits to and works to create in the present Th is is consonant with Derridarsquos ( 1994 ) ldquoordeal of undecidabilityrdquo ndash the notion focused on that which ldquois yet to come in excess of our codes but still always already forces already active in the presentrdquo (cf Lather 2009 p 345) Th is position places human agency ndash intentional actions at the intersection of collective and individual levels that change the world according to plans and goals embed-ded in social commitments underpinned by social imagination vision and activist striving ndash at the center of both human development and reality that co- evolve together

According to most common formulations of realism any metaphysi-cal dependence on human subjectivity in accounting for phenomena and processes in the world vitiates claims to reality and objectivity From the TAS position however the values and interests commitments and stances fi rmly belong to reality and form its inextricable constituents yet do so not as an ontologically separate realm that is ephemeral and fl eeting (nor ideal as opposed to real) but instead as an inherent and inalienable dimension of practical material process of social transformation that brings the world into existence

Ontologically the assumption is that the world is not just ldquogivenrdquo in its status quo as a fi xed and static structure ldquoout thererdquo that exists indepen-dently of us and unfolds on its own grounds no matter what we do Instead the world is seen as historically evolving that is continuously changing and constantly moving because of what people do in their collaborative practices and enactments of social life their struggles and strivings Th us the world is understood as being ldquoin the makingrdquo and moreover not on its own but in the making by people that is as composed of collaborative practices to which all individuals qua social actors contribute in their own unique ways Reality therefore is seen as an arena of social practices enacted through individually unique acts and deeds that at the same time are profoundly



201

social A related assumption is that human beings do not preexist social transformative practices to then join in with and adapt to them Instead human beings are ldquoalways alreadyrdquo constituted by social practices that are formative of their lives and development yet by those practices as they are carried out and constantly transformed by people in their own pursuits and eff orts at becoming

Epistemologically the process of knowing is understood to be contingent on activist involvements in and contributions to collaborative transforma-tive practices Th is is in line with the well- known Marxist maxim that in order to know the world we have to change it Th is maxim is extended by highlighting that because change is impossible without an orientation to the future a commitment to a destination of onersquos projects and pursuits indelibly colors the process of knowing in all of its dimensions and expres-sions Th us knowing is fully reliant on how we position ourselves vis- agrave- vis ongoing social practices and their historically evolved structures and con-fl icts (reliant on our knowledge of these practices and their histories) Yet such positioning is only possible in light of how we imagine the future and what we take ldquoought to berdquo

Th is point can be expressed by saying that the world is rendered s objec-tive that is subjective and objective at the same time or rather that the dis-tinction along these lines becomes inapplicable Reality is objective but not in the sense of it being a human- less neutral disenchanted realm purged of human presence and social practices in the fullness of their human dimen-sions At the same time reality is subjective but not in the sense of it being created by the ldquopowerrdquo of the mind wherein the latter is understood to be a possession of solitary individuals creating realities ldquoat willrdquo whichever way they please Neither is it subjective in the Hegelian sense of a self- creating transcendental universal reason existing in disconnection from the dura-bility facticity and materiality of human social practices including impor-tantly their transformative eff ects and products Instead the notion of reality as co- constituted by human collaborative practices in their historical unfolding provides a foundation for transcending the very division between subjective and objective Reality is s objective because it is collaboratively built by people in their everyday lives and strivings ndash composed of a col-lective and fundamentally shared (not individual) practical- material (not ephemerally mental) realm of people acting together in pursuit of chang-ing and thus de facto co- creating the very world that creates them and that they come to know in the process of changing it

Th ese processes are constituted by mundane material actions under-taken within the everyday contexts of our ordinary lives ndash yet this



202

ldquoordinarinessrdquo is belied by the fact that these processes contribute to and essentially constitute no less than the reality of the world and its communal history Th at is the world is invented reinvented and sustained by people collectively and practically in collaborative pursuits and active strivings within the political cultural and moral terrain that frames ndash informs con-strains and supports ndash but does not defi ne their lives and development Th is position suggests amalgamation of subjective and objective dimen-sions whereby knowledge is guided by our subjective attachments and points of view yet these attachments and points of view are in a certain sense ldquoobjectiverdquo because they are situated within and co- constituted by the particulars of ongoing social practices and their conditions ndash in the process of people overcoming and transcending them

Th e fundamental reality and materiality of human practices and deeds imbued with subjectivity ethics and axiology can be established in light of the ceaseless and imperishable (though never permanently fi xed) changes they incur as they always do in the unfolding collaborative practices ndash changes that matter to someone and for something Th at is it is the dura-bility of social practices in their world- changing and thus world- creating role that comes about through the ceaseless and permanent changes they instigate in a world shared with other people In this process people and their world are understood to be coextensive co- evolving interanimated and interdefi nable through the nexus of social practices Th is premise con-trasts with an impoverished notion of materiality that follows a common brand of everyday sense according to which what is real is mostly ldquothingsrdquo that we can touch weigh smell or taste that is what people can come in direct and palpable contact with Also the social practice is not exclusively subjective insofar as it unfolds in collective dynamics and within given con-texts that is under given circumstances albeit in transcending them so that their very status as something that is ldquogivenrdquo is contested

However these contexts and circumstances are understood to be brought into realization by people in the acts of their transformative collec-tive and individual agency extending through generations as an answer to the historically changing challenges these contexts pose and the aff ordances they off er in interaction with other people (both immediately present and distant the latter represented in mediated forms of activity products action potentials patterns and arrangements of social practices) and with the help of collectively invented tools that are recruited from collaborative practices Yet again though carried out within and in response to given conditions and circumstances activity is not ldquoobjectiverdquo in the traditional connotation



203

of this term because it is shaped not solely by the outside contexts and their circumstances per se Instead it is human activity that transforms condi-tions and circumstances and through this process enacts the lived world in the acting by human agents for whom they are circumstances and who co- create them

Taking transformations of the ongoing social practices as ontologically primary moreover suggests that activities are not fully subjective because their mode of existence is contained in the diff erence or change which they produce ldquooutrdquo in the world ndash eff ecting material changes including by creat-ing new objects and patterns of actions as well as by shift ing the overall dynamic landscape composed of changing action potentials (cf Holzkamp 2013 ) or fi elds of possibilities (cf Bourdieu 1998 ) in which novel ways of being knowing and doing can be realized for all the participants Th at is each and every act of being knowing and doing by each and every indi-vidual changes conditions and aff ordances for subsequent activities by the actor and by other people as well Th ese acts are defi ned and legitimized in the fi rst place as enduring and mattering insofar as they are productive that is to the degree that they incur changes in the world of shared prac-tices while leaving traces and making a diff erence in the them Th is process is about contributing to how the stage is set for future activities ndash at once for oneself and for the others because this is about a collective drama of life in which all of us participate Actions and practices transcend subjectiv-ity of an isolated individual (which in any case does not exist) not only in the sense that they always build on actions of others and employ the tools that are oft en not of ldquoour own makingrdquo but also because they ldquoescape our controlrdquo (see Habermas 2003 ) as they become part of a material historical reality of the shared social praxis insofar ldquoas they are spiraling lsquooutrsquo in space and lsquodownrsquo through timerdquo (Kemmis 2010 p 12) while also having unin-tended consequences diff erent from what had been intended expected or hoped for

To reiterate the materiality of social transformation and change thus understood is actually more material than anything else ndash because social dynamics and transformations are more enduring and non- perishing than the seemingly ldquosturdyrdquo and putatively solid things understood as isolated entities existing on their own ldquoout in the worldrdquo A personrsquos actions and even ldquomererdquo presence in the world (which is never mere) through contrib-uting to social collaborative practices as they always do inevitably create new situations by changing the totality of existing circumstances in which this person as well as all others have to and can from now on act in new



204

ways ndash to thus again change these circumstances and conditions in a con-tinuous circuit of ceaseless transformations that constitute the texture of the process at the intersection of the world and human beings Th at is human actions have more direct and more enduring presence than any putatively sturdier more material more tangible things that in fact inevitably always completely vanish and ldquomelt in the airrdquo It is the practices and activities composed of human deeds that transform the world that are really real (to use Harrersquos expression) because they are the most consequential phe-nomena of all ndash comprising no less that ldquothe fabricrdquo of human reality and development

Th is account overlaps in part yet is not identical with the works in femi-nist materialism that understand matter not as a fi xed essence but as ldquoa moving fl ow of substance in its intra- active becoming ndash not a thing but a doing a congealing of agencyrdquo (Barad 2007 p 151) According to what Barad terms ldquoperformative metaphysicsrdquo

the world is an ongoing open process of mattering through which ldquomatteringrdquo itself acquires meaning and form in the realization of dif-ferent agential possibilities Temporality and spatiality emerge in the course of processual historicity Relations of exteriority connectiv-ity and exclusion are reconfi gured Th e changing topologies of the world entail an ongoing reworking of the very nature of dynamics hellip In summary the universe is agential intra- activity in its becoming (ibid p 135)

In Baradrsquos account ontologically central is the ongoing fl ow of a general-ized agency of the worldrsquos matter through which one ldquopartrdquo of the world makes itself diff erentially intelligible to another ldquopartrdquo of the world ndash a process that takes place not in space and time but ldquoin the making of space- time itself rdquo (ibid p 140) Th is is a kind of realism that is not about representation of something substantialized that is already pres-ent but rather about real eff ects of intra- activity as these eff ects become elements in further ongoing and fl uid intra- activities (cf Hoslashjgaard and Soslashndergaard 2011 ) Human beings and their agency however in this account are not privileged vis- agrave- vis the fl uid totality of processes of mat-terrsquos intra- activity that encompasses discourse nature culture technol-ogy and so on Th erefore people are parts of the intra- activities that make up the world but they are not the point of departure because the diff erences (ldquocutsrdquo) in the world ldquoare agentially enacted not by willful individuals but by the larger material arrangement of which lsquowersquo are a lsquopartrsquo rdquo (Barad 2007 p 179) Similarly in the actor- network theory social



205

reality and its components are dynamic and contingent ldquoassemblagesrdquo of wide networks composed by both humans and nonhuman actors and agencies (Latour 2005b Law 2004 Mol 1999 2002 ) Th ese accounts ele-gantly capture the complex fl uidity of processes that make up the world yet they do not conceptualize social practices human agency and histo-ricity of human communities in their eff ects on the world


206

206

7

Transformative Activist Stance Agency

From the discussion in the previous chapter it follows that what fi gures under the designation of the ldquoreal worldrdquo in the transformative worldview is not the world that is merely ldquoidealizedrdquo in already existing forms and processes (as was oft en stated in the Vygotskian tradition such as by Ilyenkov eg 2009 for varying interpretations see Bakhurst 1991 Jones 2001 ) but the world constantly created and recreated invented and reinvented changed and transformed and thus ndash realized by and through human agency which is a this- worldly process of contributing to social changes that bring forth the world Contrary to this tradition that risks reifi cation of the world the metaphor of entering the stream of social collaborative practices through agentive contributions does not imply that individuals fi nd these practices as a preformed and static realm ldquoout thererdquo that is as some kind of a back-ground condition that is always already given to unidirectionally shape and determine human development from the outside Rather these practices are not only dynamic and fl uid contingent and continuous as they are they are of this kind because they are continuously enacted embodied realized ldquofabricatedrdquo and assembled by people in their everyday lives and interactions exchanges relations and above all struggles and strivings In this sense there is similarity to Baradrsquos and Latourrsquos accounts of reality as a fl uid contingent and ever- shift ing process with an emphasis on performa-tivity and production of the world Indeed ldquothere exists no society to begin with no reservoir of ties no big reassuring pot of glue to keep all those ties togetherrdquo (Latour 2005b p 37) Yet in distinction with the performative metaphysics and actor- network theory the transformative activist stance (TAS) suggests that it is human beings who enact perform and carry out these processes

To emphasize again social structures cultural traditions and communal processes exist before each individual person joins them yet not as fi xed


Transformative Activist Stance Agency 207

207

inert systems or structures that can be somehow imposed on human beings from outside Th e dynamic fl ow of social practices understood as a continu-ous process of communal becoming and striving cannot be handed down ready- made Instead these practices are perpetually and dynamically circu-lated enacted and reenacted by fully embodied social actors who are acting together in their daily situated interactions ndash yet also always in view of their own commitments and purposes that extend into the future Th erefore not only are individuals not doomed to repetition of the social and power struc-tures into which they are born as is oft en stipulated by scholars who cri-tique Vygotskyrsquos and similar sociocultural views for placing too strong of an emphasis on the role that society and culture play in human development It is exactly the opposite we are doomed (and perhaps blessed) with the impossibility of repeating or reproducing existing social structures (though their powerful eff ects are not thereby denied) instead leaving our mark on these structures every time we act ndash if even only in very modest ways and oft en by ldquomerelyrdquo witnessing and suff ering injustices Th is view is conso-nant with for example Paula Allmanrsquos suggestion that

Marxrsquos ontological vision was for human beings to become the criti-cally conscious creators the ldquomakersrdquo of human history hellip Rather than human nature for better or worse being antecedent to social being preexisting our existence within historically specifi c socioeconomic relations it develops as does humanityrsquos nature within human praxis (2007 p 61)

Th is position is impossible without appreciating the role of human agency in its ontological role and status that is without acknowledging people as agents not only of their own lives but also of the very world they live in and come into realization together with Th e notion of ontological centrality of social practices requires that human beings are portrayed as social actors or agentive co- creators (the Russian word sozidatel literally co- creator conveys this sense in a very direct and unambiguous way) not only of their development but of the world composed of collective prac-tices in their ongoing communal historicity In this sense people and their development including phenomena and processes of human subjectivity are neither products of culture and social practices nor their subjects as is oft en assumed in critical and sociocultural approaches but co- creators of culture and social practices

Th roughout the history of philosophy and social sciences including psy-chology this position has been resisted because it explicitly contradicts both the still- reigning positivist notion of objective reality ldquouncontaminatedrdquo by



208

human presence and the canonical dogmatic version of Marxism that too posits the world independently from human beings and social practices Th e weight of a stringent interpretation of Marxism (sometimes termed ldquoeconomistrdquo or ldquovulgarrdquo) oft en imposed as a dogma according to which the outward independently existing reality dictates consciousness has likely hindered developments of a consistently transformative ontology in the works of Vygotsky and his followers including Ilyenkov Leontiev and other representatives of cultural- historical activity theory (for details see Stetsenko 2013a 2013b )

Many scholars in the pragmatist phenomenological and constructivist perspectives have highlighted the role and the eff ects of human involve-ment in what they oft en describe as a ldquoperceiver- dependentrdquo world (eg Varela Th ompson and Rosch 1991 ) However this position has been oft en framed so as to imply that it is ultimately the human mind ndash variously con-ceptualized as spirit reason or representational thought ndash that is the cre-ative force in the world For example in psychology William James was one of its fi rst and most vocal advocates In his words ldquoTh e world contains con-sciousness as well as atoms ndash and the one must be written down as just as essential as the other hellip Atoms alone or consciousness alone are precisely equal mutilations of the truthrdquo ( 1890 p 336) James insisted that reality philosophically understood must include the human mind and therefore ldquowhat matters in human and subjective terms matters in factrdquo (Robinson 2010 ) In Jamesrsquos eloquent approach the mind has a vote (ibid)

Th ese interpretations formulated as they typically are within the rela-tional worldview that does not acknowledge social practice as ontologi-cally central do not go far enough in accounting for the constitutive role of human goal- directed and purposive collective practice Th e focus on mate-rial collaborative practice in line with Vygotskyrsquos legacy goes beyond these constraints by focusing on actual corporeal incarnated embodied work by people acting and striving together as the grounding of their lives and development Th is work is endowed with this- worldliness and concrete-ness of doing material practices while people are acting and coming into being together Th is is the process in which people are not merely perceiv-ing imagining understanding interpreting or talking about the world (although these processes are by no means excluded) but rather to use the words of McDermott and Varenne ( 1995 ) it is the process of ldquopeople hammering each other [and the world itself] into shape with the well struc-tured tools hellip availablerdquo (p 326 insert added) Th is ldquohammering intordquo (no allusion to Heidegger) or the embodied incarnate fl esh- and- muscle work of creating the world and ourselves including through the down- to- earth



209

mundane and practical processes has been downgraded and ignored by traditional philosophy and by many among contemporary constructivists phenomenologists and postmodernists

It is perhaps associating labor exclusively with manual work for profi t which especially in capitalist society is alienating and dehumanizing that makes it diffi cult to see the extent to which human nature and develop-ment are entangled precisely with work and labor ndash understood as the abil-ity to collaboratively produce the means and the very fabric of existence including through the gradual build- up of know- how skills tools and technology Th us it still appears unfathomable that the roots of human development and mind of the supposedly mysterious human spark might actually have something (and likely everything) to do with the phenom-ena that are typically disregarded and even frowned upon ndash the seemingly mundane processes of human social practices of doing and making things out in the world Th e critique spelled out by Engels more than a century ago still applies

All credit for the fast development of civilization was [traditionally] ascribed to the head to the development and activity of the brain hellip Even the most materialistically minded natural science scholars of the Darwinian school are still unable to formulate a clear idea of the origin of man because under hellip ideological infl uence they cannot recognize the role that labor has played therein (1973ndash 1883 1978 p 493ndash 494)

If the traditional philosophical prejudice against labor is given up in favor of understanding it as a broadly based ontological process of people collec-tively producing their life while co- creating their world and themselves one could see many similarities of this position with works in a diverse set of approaches including social practice theory For example there is a concep-tual overlap with Bourdieursquos core ontological stance In his words ldquoWhat exists is a social space a space of diff erences in which classes exist in some sense in a state of virtuality not as something given but as something to be donerdquo (Bourdieu 1995 p 22)

Th e view of human development and reality as ontologically grounded in individuals purposefully and collaboratively acting in and thus realiz-ing their world and themselves rather than experiencing or contemplating reality in its status quo is supported by Bakhtinrsquos (eg 1993 ) theorizing of human deeds and active becoming ( postuplenie ndash [Russian]) It is the con-crete deed always relational and cognizant of the others and their voices according to Bakhtin that is the axiological center around which no less than our existence revolves and of which it is composed Th e ldquoanswerably



210

performed actsrdquo constitute an architectonic reality of existence that brings together the ldquosense and the fact the universal and the individual the real and the idealrdquo ( 1993 p 29) In bridging the gap between the individual ldquosmall scrap of space and timerdquo and the ldquolarge spatial and temporal wholerdquo the answerable deed allows for bringing the sphere of intimate personal life and the public realm of culture and society into alignment yet without negat-ing the specifi city of each (ibid p 51 cf Gardiner 2004) No less critically this position challenges contemplative phenomenology of the immediate experiencing of the world What it captures instead is a radically diff er-ent reality composed of ldquopractical doingsrdquo in the sense of bringing about eff ects in communal life as the realm that revolves around and is composed of incarnated activities and deeds Th e life- world does not exist before or outside of these deeds (or actual ldquodoingsrdquo) by individuals and communities and instead is entwined with them in an ldquoactual communionrdquo (ibid p 9)

What is at stake here is the unique phenomenological and ontological richness of each and every human deed of each and every act of being knowing and doing When coordinated and pulled together across time scales and contexts as they are in the course of life the deeds form a seam-less stream of life as an active project of what can be described as ldquobecom-ing- through- doingrdquo ( postuplenie ) In Towards a Philosophy of the Act (1993) Bakhtin states that

[e] very thought of mine along with its content is an act or deed that I perform ndash my own individually answerable act or deed [ postupok ndash Rus] It is one of all those acts which make up my whole once- occurrent life as an uninterrupted performing of acts [ postuplenie ] For my entire life as a whole can be considered as a single complex act or deed that I perform I act hellip with my whole life hellip (p 3)

Th is grounding of human life in the activity of becoming- through- doing bears similarity to Vygotskyrsquos position in signifi cant ways His understand-ing of how human subjectivity emerges within and out of shared activi-ties with others to never completely break away from these activities is indicative of the same broad understanding of human development as an active project of becoming that stems from and is constituted by participa-tion in communal shared forms of social practices encompassing all forms of being and knowing

An important conceptual step consists in specifying the process of individual contributions to social practices inevitably transforming these practices rather than merely reproducing them as the concrete process that realizes connections between the individual and the collective levels



211

of shared social practices Th e notion of contribution makes it possible to conceptually take full account of how it is that individuals and collectives are not only and not so much products of society but its producers Human agency is directly implicated in the workings of social structures because these structures are dynamic processes realized by human beings in agen-tive acts (or activist agency) at the same time human agency is impossible outside of or in disconnection from social structures because this agency is realized only within the dynamics of social processes and as one expres-sion or moment of these processes Th e status of individuals specifi cally producing or enacting changes within social practices and thus of them-selves coming into reality in the process of producing these changes ndash that is in the process and as the process of making a diff erence and mattering in these practices ndash provides ontological justifi cation for the material histori-cal and social character of human agency On the other side of the same process it also provides ontological grounding for the humanized ethical and moral- political character of social practices

The Dialectics of Individual- Collective Layers of Social Practices The Centrality

of Contribution

If the world is understood as a collective forum of human practices consti-tuted by interrelated contributions by individuals qua social actors then it follows that each personrsquos actions or better each action of each person and even her or his ldquomererdquo presence in the world (which is never mere) do cre-ate new situations through changing existing circumstances and potentials for acting Th is change comes about as a change in the dynamic fi elds of acting (or chronotopes see Bakhtin 1981 ) within which a person as well as all others can ldquofrom now onrdquo act diff erently within these changed cir-cumstances to thus again change them for the future acting by oneself and others ndash all in a continuous circuit of ceaseless transformations that constitute the texture and dynamics of human development at the nexus with the world

In this view each person simultaneously defi nes oneself and the world and moreover through the process of changing social practices and con-tributing to them in meaningful ways ultimately comes to be oneself ndash a unique individual who has an irreplaceable role to play and a unique mis-sion to fulfi ll within humanityrsquos collaborative ongoing pursuits and common history Th is process therefore is the exact opposite of what is sometimes termed ldquothe loss of individualityrdquo (or ldquothe death of man [ sic ]rdquo) Instead



212

individual uniqueness as the core attribute of personhood is revealed to be forged precisely and singularly in the social arena vis- agrave- vis social matters and within the social events that constitute human historical practices

Th e conceptual advantage of the notion of individual contribution to collaborative practices as ontologically central is that it transcends the dichotomy of social and individual levels of social practices in an unambig-uous and concrete way Clearly contribution is something that individuals do but do only as members and agents of their communities who matter in the workings and realizations of these communities and their practices and who come into being precisely through such mattering Th is notion also highlights that for agency to develop and be eff ectual not only do individu-als need to engage with their society but society also needs to develop the necessary means and spaces to allow for individuals to act as truly agentive participants who are empowered and welcome to make a contribution to society through enacting transformative changes in it (Stetsenko 2007a ) Th e notion of contribution places emphasis on the interface (or nexus) between collective and individual agency and thus avoids reducing human development to either individual processes or alternatively to only the ldquoimpersonalrdquo collective dynamics of social practices understood to some-how automatically eff ace individual levels

Indeed although human transformative practice is carried out by individuals in and through their unique and irreducibly personal (but not a social) contributions from their unique positioning in history and society the collective dimension is taken to be primary ndash because each contribution is inextricably relational representing a nexus of interac-tions with other people and thus with society and its history Th erefore instead of connotations associated with the concept of individual as an ontologically primary sui generis entity what is captured here is the blending of each and every human being with all of humanity and its history ndash due to their profound existential interdependence and to them being mutually co- constituted by social practices that they themselves bring into existence

Th at is while restoring the ineluctable role and importance of each individually unique human actor this shift does not signify a return to the notion of individual as an isolated unit a self- suffi cient autono-mous and independent ldquoentityrdquo that exists prior to and outside of col-laborative practices and the social bonds and interconnections that bind people and these practices together In contrast to the notion of iso-lated individuals (as in the ldquoprototype of the bourgeois individualrdquo see Horkheimer and Adorno 2002 p 35) individually unique human beings



213

are simultaneously ineluctably social ndash because they create their human-ness precisely through participating in contributing to and otherwise co - authoring historical social practices being shaped by these practices through and in the process of shaping these practices in the course of their mutual becoming

Social practices are always collaborative and collective yet they are agent- dependent for their coming into existence and their eff ects Th is position is oft en stated in various approaches yet typically without a specifi cation of how this process is ontologically grounded and concretely realized Such a specifi cation is possible exactly in light of the focus on the processes at the nexus of people transforming their world and being transformed in this very process Th e point about this ontologically central mutually co- constitutive process of social practices inclusive of individual and collec-tive agency can be expressed in saying that social practices form the agent who acts to form these practices ndash as a simultaneous process of their mutual becoming Th is resonates with Maxine Sheets- Johnstonersquos ( 2011 ) eloquent point that ldquo movement forms the I that moves before the I that moves forms movementrdquo (p 119 emphasis in the original) Note that whereas this latter expression theorizes the nexus of bodily movements with the world the TAS is focused on human beings acting as agents of social practices who cannot be reduced to their bodily movements alone (though this important level is not thereby excluded)

Th at is the individual and the social dimensions of collaborative trans-formative practices are seen not as two separate realms but rather as exist-ing in unity ndash as complementary and interrelated aspects or dimensions of one and the same reality composed of social collaborative practices carried out by interacting individuals who bring each other and their word into existence In particular these transformative practices continuously and cumulatively evolve through time constituting the realm of social history and culture while being enacted and carried out by human collectivities through unique contributions by individual actors who come into being and always act as participants in social endeavors (rather than solipsistic and isolated self- suffi cient individuals) Th erefore all individual processes are seen as embedded within shaped by and also instrumental in carrying out transformative collaborative activities Given their grounding in col-laborative social transformations of the world the human ways of being knowing and doing that are carried out in the present always build on and continue past collaborative practices while through this and simultane-ously in so doing they are also setting the stage for future practices and transformations Th is formulation therefore highlights complementarity



214

of individual and social dimensions of collaborative practices while sug-gesting contingency of human social practices on both the past and the present and also most critically on the future

Th is is the point where the duality of and the opposition between the social and the individual planes of activity need to be addressed and con-tested with full force In predicating itself on the ontological primacy of social practices of collaboratively changing the world enacted through indi-vidually unique contributions the TAS suggests that these planes do not exist other than through bidirectional co- constitution and enactment by particular individuals who always act collaboratively as social and agentive actors even when performing seemingly solitary activities such as acts of theoretical refl ection Even in this latter form (as was understood by both Marx and Vygotsky) activity is inevitably and profoundly social commu-nal and collaborative through and through Th is is so for multiple reasons including that even putatively individual forms of being knowing and doing are always carried out with the help of collaboratively created cultural tools and artifacts (eg language literacy writing know- how and technol-ogy) according to social rules and norms (be it either in alliance or contra these norms) motivated by social contexts and circumstances including relations with other people directed at social goals and most critically coming into existence through making a diff erence by contributing to the overall dynamics of shared social practices

Yet again each individual undertakes these activities from onersquos own standpoint with unique goals and commitments to individually authentic agendas that pave the way for each personrsquos irreplaceable contribution to collaborative transformative practices Th ese tools standpoints motives goals and other important constituents of activity while being uniquely individual are not a social either representing instead an amalgamation of the social and the individual in each particular instantiation of social prac-tices refracted through the prism of each human beingsrsquo inimitable role and positioning in history and context as well as his or her irreducible agency and responsibility

In this sense the transformative ontology of collaborative practice ndash with individual contributions understood to be its immediate carriers and constituents ndash supersedes the very distinction between collective and individual levels of human practices What is off ered instead is the notion of one unitary realm or process ndash perhaps in need of a new term to con-vey the amalgamation of the social and the individual such as the ldquo collec-tividual rdquo In this process individuals always act together in pursuits of their



215

common goals and are inescapably bound by communal supports obliga-tions bonds and fi laments In this dialectical approach there is no need to get rid of the concept of individual because there is no such ldquothingrdquo as an isolated individual ndash if the latter is understood as a solitary human being existing in disconnection from other people and outside of collaborative practices their history and paramount social bonds Instead an individual human being is an ensemble of social relations (as Marx famously stated) fi rst formed within and out of these relations (the point underscored espe-cially by Vygotsky) and then (as needs to be emphasized more in distinction from canonical Marxism) coming to embody carry out and expand these relations through onersquos own unique contributions

Individuals are participants in communal practices who are unfi nished without these practicesrsquo formative social relations supports and cultural mediations as is now widely acknowledged in sociocultural and critical scholarship Yet this point needs to be accompanied by the recognition that each individual is a unique irreplaceable actor with an important role to play in communal life and social practices through making unique contri-butions to them that enact and realize these practices Th at is these con-tributions serve as major ontological constituents or building blocks of no less than community practices and reality itself People cannot be fi tted into some larger social systems seen to somehow exist prior to and inde-pendently of participating in and contributing to them Th is view suggests concrete ways to see the interplay between individuals and society human mind and communal practices and agency and structure without collaps-ing one onto the other Th e critical premise grounding these steps away from the dichotomous splits is that all of society ndash and reality itself ndash is understood to be contingent on each and every individual human being and changed as a whole each time individuals act or do not act

Th is approach gives full credit to collaboration and collectivity and moreover to solidarity and communion emphasized in emancipatory approaches such as Freirersquos (eg 1970 ) critical pedagogy without eff acing the role of the individual actor in thus reinstating the initial message con-tained in Vygotskyrsquos overall orientation (though less pronounced in later works of his research project due to the pressures of the top- down regime that did not assign individuals with any signifi cant role in creating their world) Th e dynamics that aff ords and constitutes human development is indelibly collaborative and communal that is profoundly social through and through ndash because human beings always act together and rely on each other including through the use of cultural tools that embody discoveries



216

and inventions of previous generations and shape how we act in and know the world Yet these dynamics are composed of individually unique contri-butions to collaborative practices by community members who each matter in her or his unique way that is who each has an irreplaceable role to play and an indelible mark to leave in carrying out and realizing these practices Th is implies that agency exists at the interface of individual and collective levels or dimensions within the unfolding social practices and therefore opens up ways to move beyond their either unduly strict dichotomy or for-mal alignment

Th is is a deceptively simple point that oft en gets stated without full appreciation of its implications and deep meaning To truly appreciate it and thus to resolutely break away from the dualism of the individual and the social it is important to conceive of each and every individual human being as both individually unique and deeply social ndash that is as represent-ing the totality of history and humanity (in all their complex vicissitudes) carrying them on in contributing to and thus altering their dynamics and ultimately also bearing responsibility for their future in onersquos own original and unique way To see history and society embodied and expressed in and even created through the deeds by communities and generations yet also by each single person ndash regardless of how powerless and oppressed seem-ingly insignifi cant and fragile this one person may appear to others or even to oneself ndash is a truly formidable task that the sociocultural and critical scholars are only beginning to grapple with And because the opposition of society and the individual is intricately connected to power hierarchy and relations of oppression that still dominate our world with all dualisms rep-resenting forms of domination (cf Plumwood 1993 ) this task is not merely theoretical but also practical and ideological

Novelty versus Reproduction

Th e position charted in the previous section is consistent with the works that contest the strict dichotomy of agency and structure individuals and the world as supposedly irrevocably polarized and ontologically indepen-dent Th ere is no lack in this kind of theorizing against the dualist views in social theory Indeed the common theme in many critical cultural and sociological works across the past (at least) one hundred years (eg by James G H Mead Bourdieu Foucault Garfi nkel and Goff man) has been the need to replace what is sometimes termed agency structure dual-ism with a more fl exible account in which there is a commensurability and complementarity between them A prominent theme in these works as



217

expressed for example by Giddens ( 1984 ) is about the bidirectional rela-tions between people and the world so that there are no agents without structured practices and no structured practices without agents

Th is and many similar solutions off ered so far however leave room for improvement especially in terms of accounting for the agentive role of peo-ple together and one at a time in ldquofabricatingrdquo realities of their lives and resisting the impositions of power Th is is evident for example in recent critiques that have exposed an overemphasis in many social theories on how people are constituted as subjects who are formed by forces beyond their control In this critique the attention has been drawn to a sociological reductionism that might be as dangerous as the biological one In this kind of determinism as Delpit ( 1995 ) puts it

Instead of being locked into ldquoyour placerdquo by your genes you are now locked hopelessly into a lower- class status by your Discourse [or social practice] Clearly such a stance can leave a teacher feeling powerless to eff ect change and a student feeling hopeless that change can occur (p 154)

Indeed such determinism leaves little room for conceptualizing human agency and the potential power of individuals for resistance (cf McNay 1999 2000 ) agency and change To take one example a mutual relation-ship between society and social actors rather than unidirectional eff ects of one category onto the other has been central in the works by Pierre Bourdieu Bourdieursquos dynamic and relational position contains much dia-lectics in portraying the bidirectional processes of interchanges between human beings and their social world Indeed Bourdieu insisted that there is

dialectical relationship between the objective structures and the cogni-tive and motivating structures which they produce and which tend to reproduce them hellip [T] hese objective structures are themselves products of historical practices and are constantly reproduced and transformed by historical practices whose productive principle is itself the product of the structures which it consequently tends to reproduce (Bourdieu 1977 p 83 emphasis added)

Yet it is striking that Bourdieu even in his insistence on these relations being bidirectional still displays ambiguity in acknowledging human agency to transform society Th is transpires in his asymmetrical usage of terms when he indicates that objective structures produce cognitive and motivation structures whereas the latter ndash which are termed ldquoincorporated structures of the habitusrdquo ndash merely reproduce society rather than creatively



218

and agentively change and produce it Th e same ambivalence transpires when Bourdieu states that ldquo[t] he social space is indeed the fi rst and last real-ity since it commands the representation that the social agent can have of itrdquo ( 1995 p 22 emphasis added) His ultimate ontological stance is clear in his own words his paramount focus is on the mechanisms that ldquoguarantee the reproduction of social space and symbolic space without ignoring the contradictions and confl icts that can be at the basis of their transformationrdquo ( 1998 p 13 emphasis added)

It is also in this vein that Foucault has been critiqued as a ldquoprophet of entrapmentrdquo (Simons 1995 ) who does not account for agency and resis-tance of individuals and communities In later works Foucault admit-ted that in his earlier studies he ldquoinsisted hellip too much on the question of dominationrdquo (Foucault 1993 p 204) paying only limited attention to agency within historical relations between individuals and what he termed the ldquogames of truthrdquo Th is latter position acknowledged that subjects within social institutions and power relations are ldquofaced with a fi eld of possibili-ties in which several ways of behaving several reactions hellip may be real-izedrdquo (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982 p 221) However even in exploring the issues of the subjectrsquos self- constitution through the technologies of the self Foucault ( 1988 ) makes it clear that these practices are ldquopatterns that he [the subject] fi nds in his culture and which are proposed suggested imposed upon him by his culture his society and his social grouprdquo (p 11 emphasis added) Th e subjects fi nd patterns that are imposed on them rather than co- create these patterns Th us the charge of the ldquohyperdeterminationrdquo of the subject has not been fully resolved in these works

In countering this kind of determinism many scholars studying race class and gender as the major axes of stratifi cation and power suggest that systems of oppression operate simultaneously at the social structural (ie macro) and social psychological (ie micro) levels (eg Weber and Dillaway 2001 ) While emphasizing ldquothe macro- institutional political economic and ideological power arrangements that shape every interac-tion among individuals and our societyrdquo (ibid p xiv) these scholars also pay attention to people experiencing and interpreting these arrangements in diff erent social locations Along similar lines Calhoun LiPuma and Postone ( 1993 ) argue that ldquosocial life hellip must be understood in terms that do justice both to objective material social and cultural structures and to the constituting practices and experiences of individuals and groupsrdquo (p 3 cf Th orne 2005 ) Another approach suggests ldquoswitching between multi-ple viewsrdquo (Engestroumlm 1990 p 171) in order to transcend the dichotomy



219

between the subject and the system such as that the actor takes the system view and the researcher takes the personal view (see also Engestroumlm and Sannino 2010 )

Yet in many cases the specifi c ways in which the processes at the micro- and macrolevels are connected remain undertheorized As a result these and similar positions remain in danger of vacillating between the poles of subjective and objective and of individual and collective dimensions of social practices or falling into the traditional superimposition of one dimension (or pole) over the other Th is happens again and again in spe-cifi c applications of these views and might continue in this vein unless this position is followed with reassessments and concrete formulations that rec-oncile the individual and the social as ontologically commensurate includ-ing through indicating specifi c processes making such commensurability possible and necessary In addition not infrequently the macrolevel pro-cesses come to be associated with social structuresrsquo oppressive character only rather than with their diff erential potential to oppress yet also under certain circumstances promote agency and freedom Th ese negative con-ceptualizations of social processes bear the risk of neglecting the role of cultural mediation in human development and thus result ironically in views that essentialize individuals and human nature with the power of resistance and agency portrayed to be somehow inherently natural

Th e legacy of Vygotskyrsquos project however can be expansively read to suggest a focus not on reproduction of society and its social and symbolic spaces but on their agentive transformation as the core dimension of human being knowing and doing Th e transformative and revolutionary indeed rebellious gist of the historical time and place in which Vygotskyrsquos project emerged and developed cannot be subtracted from its theoreti-cal system even though this gist was not directly articulated but rather implied by it (and gradually squashed with the advancing totalitarianism of his society) Th e resistance to the ethos of reproduction and adaptation and the deep grasp of the realities of social change were inescapable dur-ing the fi rst years of the revolution when all the old structures were swept away along with all the familiar spaces taken- for- granted assumptions constructs notions rules and even ways of everyday life ndash which all truly melted in the air In this situation all persons let alone activist intellectu-als were denied ldquothe luxury of a spectatorrsquos rolerdquo which made it impossible to ldquoopt out of the energies revolution unleashesrdquo (Holquist 1982 p 6)

Many unsurpassed breakthroughs in art architecture literature cinema and poetry all came to embody this energy and rebellious agency Perhaps



220

Bakhtinrsquos scholarship is especially telling in this regard Bakhtinrsquos writings on the genres of novel carnival and satire for example convey the sense of profound and unavoidable confl icts and collisions of discourses All of these genres parody and contest each other while invading subverting framing and dismantling those before and around them Bakhtin there-fore (especially in some of his works such as on Rablais) captures the sense of social practices and discourses that are almost entirely without rules ndash a non- canonical and deconstructive yet also creative force that challenges all the canons without becoming one (cf Eagleton 2007 )

It is in seeing social practices as complex and contested matrices or fi elds of forces comprised of human deeds and action potentials understood to be enacted each time anew by individuals ndash where all the extant rules are changed and challenged rather than faithfully reproduced or imposed ndash that the role of individuals as social actors capable of exercising agency in challenging and contesting the status quo can be ascertained Th is is con-sonant with Bakhtinrsquos understanding of culture not as a fi rmly delineated domain but rather as a constant negotiation over its own boundaries ndash where every cultural act derives its signifi cance from always taking place on the boundaries (cf Tihanov 2000 )

Th at people contribute to bringing social practices into realization while necessarily changing them in the process as well as being themselves changed and realized in the same process does not entail symmetry in these relations It is quite obvious that a person might be powerless to perma-nently and drastically change the circumstances of onersquos life and especially the overall landscape of social practices Yet there is much value in empha-sizing that even seemingly mundane events and acts of life such as when people relocate into racially and economically segregated neighborhoods because of a lack of resources and without an explicit intention to change society are not minor events Instead these are de facto starkly agentive and transformative acts of huge sociohistorical import with tremendous systemic consequences ndash demographically economically ethically and politically (cf Bennett 2010 ) Moreover in many cases there might not be much an oppressed person can do to resist oppression other than through suff ering and recognizing that something is deeply wrong with the situa-tion As Carol Hay ( 2011 ) remarks however such recognition by a person is

in a profound sense better than nothing It means she hasnrsquot acquiesced to the innumerable forces that are conspiring to convince her that shersquos the sort of person who has no right to expect better It means she rec-ognizes that her lot in life is neither justifi ed nor inevitable (p 32)



221

It is possible and necessary to add from a transformative perspective that wit-nessing and recognizing injustice is not only better than nothing but it is not nothing at all Th e act of bearing witness and suff ering injustice is an active and valuational stance that is also a strikingly political act that does make a diff er-ence Th is is resolutely not to justify or acquiesce to oppressive circumstances that cause injustices and suff ering and not to suggest that they represent suf-fi cient forms of resistance Rather this is to acknowledge agency of all people including in the acts of suff ering resisting and bearing witness to injustices

Th is transformative approach opens ways to simultaneously overcome both outdated biases ndash that of seeing the world as composed of static things or structures separate from individuals and that of seeing individuals as separate from the material world of human practices Prioritizing trans-formative practice opens ways to grasp that the apparently outward (and seemingly ldquofi xedrdquo) social phenomena and institutions on the one hand and the apparently ldquolocalrdquo mundane and seemingly insignifi cant every-day processes on the other are not separately existing static phenomena Rather these seemingly ldquosturdyrdquo social institutions and these purportedly mundane and fl eeting activities by individuals and communities (appear-ing to be separate and opposing poles in the traditional mode of thinking) are closely connected ndash representing interrelated moments (more or less fl eeting or durable) of one and the same realm of social human practices enacted by people in their collective pursuits

Th e materiality of the world is revealed as endowed with meaning and relevance though always only for someone that is for an agent who is engaged in and realizes the world And vice versa human subjectivity at the same time stands infused with the materiality of the always tangible human practice (and its artifacts and products) out of which it emerges and through which it exists Th at is the most critical point is that unlike in moral philosophy and in some neo- Marxist interpretations the realms of facts and of human experience are bridged through ascertaining the human relevance of material practice alongside and simultaneously with ascertaining the material practical relevance of human agency including its dimensions of subjectivity and intersubjectivity

Acting to Matter Agency versus Self- Control

Th e emphasis on goals and stances within the transformative world-view that begins with assumptions about social practices forming the



222

ontological core of human development and mind does not assume that goal setting has to do with isolated individuals engaged in ldquomental algebrardquo of cognitively calculating and predicting the future In the latter case the core assumption is that of an omniscient mind computing intricate prob-abilities and utilities (cf Todd and Gigerenzer 2000 ) Such an approach is characteristic of some directions in mainstream psychology that take goals to be the building blocks of personality yet construe personality within what is at its base a cognitivist individualist and adaptationist account of human development In this line of work personal goals are typically defi ned as ldquoconsciously accessible cognitive representations of states an individual wants to attain or avoid in the futurerdquo (Freund and Riediger 2006 p 353) It is further assumed that goals link the person to their contexts while individuals actively shape their development in inter-action with a physical cultural social and historical context However because the ontological groundings of human development and mind are not addressed the explanations focus on individual mental states such as attributions and beliefs ldquoas a causal force and are typically advanced with-out benefi t of thinking about the pattern of relations in which player [ sic ] is involvedrdquo (Burt 1992 p 190 cf Dannefer 1999 ) Other research direc-tions such as social capital theory (eg Burt 1992 Dannefer 1999 Lin 2001 ) are more attuned to the specifi c role of social context in providing individuals with the resources to initiate and maintain their goal pursuits Th e latter theory takes into account how the resources are unequally dis-tributed and not under the individualrsquos control

Emirbayer and Mische ( 1998 ) in their infl uential work on agency place a particular emphasis on temporality that has to do with an ability to ori-ent oneself to the past present and future Th is approach builds upon and captures the pragmatist notion about actorsrsquo capacity to envision alternative possible futures and to pursue them in search of ldquoa fuller and richer issue of eventsrdquo (Dewey 1929 1960 p 215) Practical evaluation involves ldquothe capac-ity of actors to make practical and normative judgments among alternative possible trajectories of action in response to the emerging demands dilem-mas and ambiguities of presently evolving situationsrdquo (Emirbayer and Mische 1998 p 971) In their words ldquoEnds and means develop continu-ously within contexts that are themselves changing and thus always subject to reevaluation and reconstruction on the part of the refl ective intelligence rdquo (ibid pp 967ndash 968 emphasis added) Similar articulations of agency can be found in Somers ( 1994 see recent overview by Erickson 2013 ) who writes that ldquo[p] eople are guided to act in certain ways and not others on the basis of projections expectations and memories derived from a multiplicity but



223

ultimately limited repertoire of available social public and cultural narra-tivesrdquo (p 614)

Th e perspective on agency developed by Emirbayer and Mische ( 1998 ) can be described as an ecological approach that does not treat agency as an individual ldquopowerrdquo but rather as a quality of the engagement of actors with their world within a particular ecology (cf Biesta and Tedder 2007 ) Notable further is that agency is understood to be future oriented in high-lighting ldquothe imaginative generation by actors of possible future trajectories of action in which received structures of thought and action may be cre-atively reconfi gured in relation to actorsrsquo hopes fears and desires for the futurerdquo (Emirbayer and Mische 1998 p 971) In taking up this approach Biesta and Tedder ( 2007 ) further connect agency to learning and empha-size that development of agency depends on the availability of economic cultural and social resources within a particular ecology In their words

this concept of agency highlights that actors always act by means of their environment rather than simply in their environment hellip the achieve-ment of agency will always result in the interplay of individual eff orts available resources and contextual and structural factors as they come together in particular and in a sense always unique situations (Biesta and Tedder 2007 p 137)

Th ese are important developments yet more eff ort needs to be invested in advancing ecological and sociocultural perspectives on agency understood as more than a strictly individual process confi ned to cognition and other processes in the mental realm even though aided by ldquoavailable resources and contextual and structural factorsrdquo (ibid) Such eff orts might include a more resolute demarcation from traditional views such as Bandurarsquos infl u-ential social cognitive perspective (eg 2001 ) that highlights human agency as ldquocharacterized by a number of core features that operate through phe-nomenal and functional consciousnessrdquo (p 1) Although Bandura makes the point that people are producers as well as products of social systems these social systems are understood as a ldquobroad network of sociostructural infl uences rdquo (ibid emphasis added) and as such are posited as ontologically separate from the exercise of agency and from cognition in thus upholding a dichotomous position on human development Most critically the world in this approach is taken for granted and understood as somehow already given and static For Emirbayer and Mische ( 1998 ) too agentic orientation is taken as ldquothe capacity of actors to critically shape their own responsive-ness to problematic situationsrdquo (p 971) and as onersquos ldquo own structuring rela-tionship to the contexts of action rdquo (p 1009 emphasis in original) Th at is



224

although ability to make a diff erence in the world is acknowledged agency is centrally tied to making a change in onersquos own orientations responsive-ness and thinking that apparently are somehow ontologically separate from the world- making agency and activity

Biesta and Tredder ( 2007 ) make a perceptively critical comment that Emirbayer and Mische ( 1998 ) seem to assume that it is the insight by actors about their responsiveness to contexts that will lead to change In contrast Biesta and Tredder ( 2007 ) suggest that we should remain open to the pos-sibility that it is change in peoplersquos lives that will actually lead to insight and understanding Yet even they retain the focus on agency in conjunction with the ways in which people are ldquoin controlrdquo of their responses rather than the ways in which people co- create their world and the very situations that not simply ldquoaff ectrdquo people but co- emerge and co- evolve with them in agentive processes of historical communal praxis

Indeed in most extant approaches including the ones just mentioned individuals are understood to respond to their circumstances and to express their agency by interpreting these circumstances in various ways which in turn aff ects the course of actions individuals take Much less is the empha-sis on acting upon and changing these circumstances ndash so that individuals appear to be free to think howsoever they please and do anything except transform the world Th eories that conceive of agency as a mental process or as responsiveness to ldquogivenrdquo contexts risk impoverishing agency because they sever it from historically situated social- collaborative and material- productive practices out in the world as these are realized by collectividual contributions to these practices Such theories in the last instance risk blam-ing marginalized people for their problems because they begin and end with the individual though oft en nodding at ldquothe socialrdquo or ldquothe environmentrdquo in between (to paraphrase Jean Laversquos ( 1996 ) words on a closely related topic of learning) Th ey are primarily concerned with individual success or failure personal well- being and adaptation to life circumstances ndash and less about how to make sure social structures support and provide space for agency both collective and individual (cf Stetsenko 2007a ) In these accounts ldquowe are all free to dine at the Ritz provided no- one bars the door black South Africans are as free as whites overnight when they acquire formal voting power and the alienated and ignorant are as free as holders of substantial cultural capitalrdquo (Jonathan 1997 p 131 cf Martin 2004 )

To more resolutely shift away from the mentalist conception of agency ndash centered on self- contained subjects primarily concerned with the construction of knowledge as epitomized in the ldquoI thinkrdquo Cartesian motto ndash requires conceptualizing agency at the intersection of social- collective and



225

individual- psychological planes of collaborative practices (rather than focusing on just one of these planes) as well as across time dimensions and also while deconstructing the dichotomies of knowing versus doing and thinking versus acting Moreover it also requires that agency is grasped not only as a quality of acting or of engagement of actors with their world within a particular ldquoecologyrdquo of given contexts but rather as an engagement that takes part in co- creating this ecology and these contexts in the fi rst place Viewed through this lens agency is about activity of agents interven-ing in the conditions of existence and co- creating their world while defi ning what is problematic about it One could say paraphrasing Isabelle Stengers ( 2002a in elaborating on Whitehead 1920 cf Latour 2005a ) that agency is something that happens not only in the world but also to the world Th is is about paying attention to how agency gains its existence and status (its modus vivendi ) through its transformative eff ects out in the world of social practices shared with others

From the TAS position agency is a quality of activity by actors that is contingent on how this activity contributes to and makes a diff erence in the world of social practices It is undertaking projects of changing onersquos own life in conjunction with those of others through contributing to collab-orative projects of social transformation that is formative of agency (with insight and understanding being inseparable from life- changing and world- creating activities) Th is position takes to heart Freirersquos words that ldquohumans fi nd themselves marked by the results of their own actions in their relations with the world and through the action on it By acting they transform by transforming they create a reality which conditions their manner of actingrdquo ( 1982b p 102)

Th e suggestion herein for a conceptual push needed to advance a more ecological sociocultural and activist conception of agency can be illus-trated by applying Foucaultrsquos enigmatic words that ldquopeople know what they do frequently they know why they do what they do but what they donrsquot know is what they do doesrdquo (quoted in Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982 p 187) My suggestion is to understand agency as being precisely about what our actions do in always enacting changes of one sort or another in the social drama of collectividual life (even if only in the negative sense of stifl ing changes) Agency is about changing how the world is changing us ndash in high-lighting the transformative ontology in which we change the world through gaining the resources (always collaborative) of aff ecting changes in how the world is changing us (and thus the world itself) In this light agency is a collaborative and relational (yet not somehow de- individualized) achieve-ment and its development is contingent on gaining the tools of acting at the



226

nexus of shaping the world while being shaped by it and at the intersection of individual and collective agency

Th is means among other things that for agency to develop and be eff ectual not only do individuals need to engage with their society but society also needs to develop the means to engage individuals in ways that allow for them to be truly agentive participants who have opportuni-ties to make a contribution to social life and its practices Th is also means paying more attention to how subjects in their ongoing strivings and struggles are not only situated within but also enact various social- level projects within the broader ongoing confl icts and struggles in societies ndash that is how each person matters not only in and to onersquos own life (though this too) but also in and to the shared world of social collaborative prac-tices Such a transformative view of agency echoes yet also expands upon Lantolf and Pavlenkorsquos ( 2001 ) take on Vygotskyrsquos ideas In particular they write that human agency ldquois about more than performance or doing it is intimately linked to signifi cance Th at is things and events matter to people ndash their actions have meanings and interpretations It is agency that links motivation hellip to action and defi nes a myriad of paths taken by learnersrdquo (pp 145ndash 146)

From the TAS agency is not a strictly individual possession played out in the head of each person isolated from the worldly concerns and socio-political cultural- historical practices ndash as if each person was abstractly cal-culating onersquos options and probabilities for the future within personalized quests for happiness survival and other types of adaptation Instead the primacy is given to social practices and sociohistorical projects that indi-viduals fi nd in place when they come into the world Yet individuals are not automatically worked (or interpellated) into these practices and projects Although subjectsrsquo positions are established within particular social forma-tions including in terms of their class- ethnicity- and gender- related struc-tures of power each person still has to do the work of establishing oneself vis- agrave- vis these structures and positioning while inevitably changing and co- creating them

Th at is each person has to do the work of grappling and struggling with and oft en resisting and withstanding these forces all while drawing on the tools and supports they off er in an active striving for onersquos authenticity and onersquos place in the shared world of communal practices Th is is in line with understanding society not just as a context in which we develop but also as ldquoa critical site of social action and intervention where power relations are both established and potentially unsettledrdquo (Procter 2004 p 2) As



227

Stuart Hall has stated with much precision and passion (in a documentary devoted to his life see Akomfrah 2013 ) ldquoWe always supposed really some-thing would give us a defi nition of who we really were our class position or our national position our geographic origins or where our grandparents came from I donrsquot think any one thing any longer will tell us who we arerdquo

In taking up this approach there is no need to reduce agency to inter-nal cognitive calculation yet there is also no need to eschew the processes that individuals do engage in when evaluating planning imagining and anticipating the future as part of their own becoming It is just that in the transformative worldview these latter processes are not abstract cal-culations disconnected from the world Instead they are practices of self- constitution recognition and refl ection that are also simultaneously constitutive parts of shared social practices at the core of human develop-ment and reality Agency is constituted by activities we perform including the ones in which we anticipate and imagine the future ndash as parts of the larger process of positioning ourselves within these practices that is tak-ing a stand on how one is positioned within social practices and most critically on these practices Agency is about having the tools to change these positionings and therefore and simultaneously the world itself ndash and thus to always transcend both how the world positions us and its status quo Importantly a critical refl ection is only possible from within a chang-ing trajectory of engaging the world as a social actor ndash not as a separate ldquomentationrdquo As suggested herein critical refl ection and critical knowledge are forms of transformative activity out in the world that enact new activ-ity paths as they are already being created here and now if only in nascent forms Th is position attempts to expand on the Marxist logic as expressed in the deeply dialectical statement that ldquo[w] hen people speak of ideas that revolutionize society [and themselves] they do but express the fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been createdrdquo (Marx and Engels 1848 1978 p 489)

Even more critically agency is about having the tools for breaking with the immediacy of the processes through which society is shaping us to instead move beyond its present status quo ndash to thus being shaped not by society and its power structures ldquoas they arerdquo but instead by our own acts in which we challenge and transform these structures from a commitment to a sought- aft er future Th is is not a breakage with society ndash because in these struggles and eff orts at becoming new society and new culture are created if only on a small scale (and especially because the magnitude of such a scale cannot be judged right away) Th is is powerfully captured by



228

Gloria Anzalduacutea ( 2007 ) in her writing about practices through which she challenges oppression

I am cultureless because as a feminist I challenge the collective cultural religious male- derived beliefs of Indo- Hispanics and Anglos yet I am cultured because I am participating in the creation of yet another cul-ture a new story to explain the world and our participation in it a new value system with images and symbols that connect us to each other and to the planet (pp 102ndash 103)

Th is account of agency builds upon and attempts to expand on the old dia-lectical adage that ldquothe process is made by those who are made by the pro-cessrdquo (ldquoprocessus cum fi gures fi gurae in processurdquo cf Ernst Bloch 1954 ) Th e critical albeit tacit expansion is that while human beings make the pro-cess (of their lives their communities and society) and are made by the process ndash it is far more critical that they are made of the process of them-selves making the process out of what the process makes of them Th at is people are shaped by their acts of shaping the world out of ways in which the world is shaping them ndash and thus by making a diff erence in and co- authoring and also de facto co- creating the world Th is position puts the notions of resistance and struggle rather than adaptation and even partici-pation at the forefront of analyzing human development and agency

Agency and identity gain their status and have to be revealed in their practical relevance within material and productive social practices (see Stetsenko 2005 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004b and for further elabora-tion of this position see Burkitt 2008 ) Th at is our agency and how we make sense of ourselves is contingent on how we contribute to the world and make a diff erence no matter how small or big in the social life of our communities Identity is then about the search for this kind of a broadly organizing meaningful activity that can make a diff erence that matters to others and to ourselves and that therefore constitutes the uniqueness of our own selves (see Leontiev 1978 on leading activity for application to iden-tity see Stetsenko 2004 ) Th is means making commitments and working on realizing them to something near and dear to us yet always in light of how this ldquosomethingrdquo matters and makes a diff erence in the larger world of shared social practices and communal lives

One important caveat is that individuals might not always be aware of how exactly their activities contribute to the world or they might be in a constant search for such activities struggling to make sense of their lives through internal dialogues and personal narratives However the lack of awareness and the oft en continuous struggles to fi nd a meaningful leading



229

activity notwithstanding people always do contribute to something that goes on in the world even if only on a small scale and even if by doing nothing (because the latter type of a ldquocontributionrdquo oft en helps to per-petuate the existing status quo and to stifl e changes in society) Th erefore ultimately how the person is positioned by his or her activities to change the world and oneself as part of the world ndash what kind of sociohistorical ethical- political project in the world she or he contributes to ndash is the pivotal question the answer to which reveals the uniqueness and integrity of each individual that is the ldquoselfrdquo Th is is a highly complex matter to be addressed through explorations into what it is that people are actually doing by their acts of being knowing and doing ndash in the sense of contributing something unique to communal social practices and thus to co- authoring and chang-ing the world

It is this message that can be discerned to reiterate in Foucault saying that the important question is about what onersquos ldquodoing doesrdquo More recently Appiah ( 2006 ) refers to ldquoan ethics of identityrdquo and how it plays out in the realm of power dynamics in society Such accounts suggest that identity depends on ldquohow from what by whom and for whatrdquo it is constructed whereby power and identity are inextricably linked (Castells 1997 ) Th ese diff erentiations highlight the need to explore the processes of what it is that our actions discourses and narratives actually ldquodordquo out in the world that is what kind of a diff erence they make in shared actual lives and communal social practices that embed and intersect these lives ndash as the critical way to understand identity and agency


230

230

8

Transformative Activist Stance Encountering the Future through

Commitment to Change

From the position of the transformative activist stance (TAS) persons are agents not only for whom ldquothings matterrdquo but also who themselves matter in history culture and society and moreover who come into being as unique individuals through their activist deeds that is through and to the extent that they take a stand on matters of social signifi cance and commit to mak-ing a diff erence by contributing to changes in the ongoing social practices Th is means that there is no way that we can extract ourselves out of this activist engagement ndash we can never take a neutral stance of disinterested observers uninvolved in what is going on A human being who in order to be needs to act in the social world that is constantly changing and more-over that is changing through our own deeds cannot be neutral or uncertain because such acting (unlike reacting or passively dwelling) presupposes knowing what is right or wrong and which direction one wants and needs to go next for oneself and community practices too

Th at knowledge is always achieved in context and from a position or a location is perhaps the singular most important achievement by critical and sociocultural scholarship of the recent decades ndash in critical pedagogy cultural theory science studies feminist standpoint epistemology and his-torical ontology among others (eg Harding 1992 2004 ) Several amplifi ca-tions and extensions can be added to this position from the TAS Given that transformative engagements with the world are taken as ontologically and epistemically supreme and because transformation can only be achieved from a certain location position ndash culturally socially spatially temporally ndash and simultaneously also vis- agrave- vis the goals and purposes of transformation the dimension of the future is elevated ontologically and epistemologically Transformation cannot be directionless or future- less Th at is because all human activities ndash including interrelated processes of being knowing and doing ndash represent contributions to collaborative transformative practice


Encountering the Future through Commitment to Change 231

231

they inevitably imply a vision for the future in terms of how persons and communities believe the world ought to be and commit themselves to real-izing this vision

In prioritizing transformative activity as an enactment of change the orientation to the future and the value- laden directionality of social prac-tices become critically important Without such visions and commitment meaningful transformative acting is impossible On the one hand a person cannot act without knowing right from wrong that is cannot be an actor without some goal and envisioned orientation embodied in a commitment to a destination of onersquos ldquopostuplenierdquo (Bakhtinrsquos term see Chapter 7 ) and movement forward As Marilyn Frye ( 1990 ) states

Just as walking requires something fairly sturdy and fi rm underfoot so being an actor in the world requires a foundation of ordinary moral and intellectual confi dence Without that we donrsquot know how to be or how to act we become strangely stupid hellip If you want to be good and you donrsquot know good from bad you canrsquot move (p 133)

On the other hand any and all acts deeds entail and carry ldquothe rightrdquo and ldquothe wrongrdquo directly in them because they inevitably change the world for better or for worse for oneself and for others even if a change is some-times not immediately transparent even to the actor herself Th e ethical is therefore a distinctive and inherent characteristic of activity of becoming- through- doing at the intersection of individual and social levels rather than some sort of an extraneous add- on to this process Th e ethical and ideological dimensions are central in and integral to human becoming including subjectivity and intersubjectivity (because they too are acts deeds within shared social practices on the inherent link between subjec-tivity and intersubjectivity in Vygotskyrsquos project see Stetsenko eg 2005 2013a 2013b ) rather than additions that come about in some ldquospecialrdquo cir-cumstances of addressing and solving moral dilemmas Ethical and pur-poseful dimensions are aspects inherent in how we do things in the world in the fi rst place ndash that is they are integral to acting and realizing the world in collaborative transformative practices and therefore to knowing and being as well

What is highlighted in the transformative approach is the activist stance vis- agrave- vis the world embodied in goals and commitments to social transfor-mation as the key constituent of being knowing and doing Th e realiza-tion of this activist stance through onersquos answerable deeds ndash possible only within ongoing collaborative practices ndash forms the path to personhood and knowledge In this perspective the ethical future- oriented goals and end



232

points appear as foundational because they are integral to acting through which we become who we are and also get to know our world ndash all while contributing to collaborative pursuits of social transformation Th is notion expands and moves beyond Vygotskyrsquos and other sociocultural theoriesrsquo tenet that is centrally focused on the present communal practices and their histories In this aspect the transformative ontology of human praxis just like Freirersquos pedagogy of hope builds on the premise that human existence ontologically depends on and even begins with the right and ability as well as the duty and responsibility ldquoto opt to decide to struggle to be politicalrdquo (Freire 1998 p 53) ndash in a move that is similar to critical democracyrsquos model of dialogic action (Jaramillo 2011 ) As Freire ( 1994 ) expressed this notion

I cannot understand human beings as simply living I can understand them only as beings who are makers of their ldquowayrdquo in the making of which they lay themselves open to or commit themselves to the ldquowayrdquo that they make and that therefore remakes them as well (p 83)

Committing oneself to ldquoonersquos wayrdquo moreover is only possible within col-laborative social practices Forming onersquos way and committing oneself to it means fi nding how to be responsible to others within the shared struggles and pursuits of humanness Th is aspect ndash as captured by Bakhtin ( 1990 1993 ) in his notion of dialogue if it is understood broadly as endemic to all acts ndash entails a form of answerability that is morally and ethically respon-sible to unique others Considered outside of such goals orientations and ends the processes of human subjectivity lose their crucial grounding and concreteness that stem from them being bidirectionally realized within col-laborative social practices at the nexus of individual and collective levels of these practices Th at is acting and understanding are bound up in the fi rst place with a sense of direction ndash the posited end points that persons and communities aspire to reach ndash that grounds the notions of value and truth

To reiterate because all human activities (including processes of being knowing and doing) represent contributions to collaborative transforma-tive practice the vision for the future in terms of how persons and com-munities believe the world ought to be (hence the notion of ldquoend pointrdquo) and the commitment to realizing this vision are posited to be the for-mative dimensions of human development In prioritizing transforma-tive activity ndash with its orientation to the future and its ethically concrete value- laden directionality toward the future ndash the emphasis is placed on activist stance vis- agrave- vis the world embodied in goals and commitments to social transformation as the key constituent of being knowing and doing From this perspective development and learning is a collaborative



233

work- in- progress of activist nature not confi ned to people adapting to what is ldquogivenrdquo in the world instead these processes are reliant upon and realized through people forming future- oriented agendas and carrying out social changes in line with these agendas within collaborative projects of social transformation

Th ese commitments to and identifi cations of possible futures provide the frames of horizon within which a person can act Acting is impossi-ble without fi rst envisioning a future determining its shape and commit-ting oneself to bringing it into reality Th e key point is that our practices and therefore our reality (coterminous with our lived world) are already shaped or tailored to a future that is sought aft er and posited as desirable and necessary ndash and not as an abstract notion but rather as something one commits to and struggles to bring into reality Th is horizon of where people strive to get this ldquoyet to comerdquo reality therefore is taken to be no less real than anything going on in the present At the center of human practices and the social reality are human practical material- semiotic activist pursuits ndash intentional actions at both collective and individual levels that change the world according to plans and goals embedded in social commitments underpinned by social imagination vision and activist striving Th erefore our knowledge too being embedded in and derivative of social practices (as is broadly acknowledged in critical scholarship) is at the same time and most critically premised on and constituted by activities not merely in the world ldquohere and nowrdquo in its status quo but at the intersection of the past present and future

Th is requires that we develop a ldquocompassrdquo about our location in the ongoing fl ow of transformative collaborative practices ndash where we are com-ing from where we are now and where we are going and want to be going next What is highlighted is the activist forward- looking stance and there-fore the horizon and the destination of onersquos pursuits as defi ning no less than the foundation for our being knowing and doing in the present To emphasize again this brings activism and with it the ethical- valuational and political power dimensions to the very center of all human endeavors including activities of theorizing and research

Imagining a diff erent world making a commitment to bringing it about and struggling for it amounts to creating the future in the pres-ent ndash affi rming the future- to- come and thus real izing it in the here and now Th is is the process of inventing the future rather than merely expecting or anticipating its ldquoautomaticrdquo arrival And because any move-ment beyond the given is taken to be no less and in fact more real than what is traditionally taken to be the ldquorealityrdquo of the world as it exists in



234

the present in its status quo and its seemingly unalterable forms reifi ed in the taken- for- granted structures and ldquofactsrdquo the process of inventing the future is brought to the fore

Th is is in line with insights sometimes characterized as utopian (cf Leonardo 2004 ) by many critical scholars for example with Freire insisting that

[i] magination and conjecture about a different world than the one of oppression are as necessary to the praxis of historical ldquosubjectsrdquo (agents) in the process of transforming reality as it necessarily belongs to human toil that the worker or artisan first have in his or her head a design a ldquoconjecturerdquo of what he or she is about to make ( 1994 p 30)

A continuation of Freirersquos pedagogy of hope (Freire 1994 see also Giroux 1983a 1994 ) can be found in works that speak of the ldquodialectic of freedomrdquo (Greene 1988 ) and ldquocurriculum for utopiardquo (Stanley 1992 ) and suggest that ldquohope is not a future projection of a utopic society but a constitutive part of everyday liferdquo (Leonardo 2004 p 16) In these various emphases ldquothe idea of utopia is integral to human and educational progress because it guides thought and action toward a condition that is better than current reality which is always a projectionrdquo (ibid)

Th e emphasis on social change and people transcending the status quo through their agentive contributions to social practices implies novelty and creativity as the core characteristics of being knowing and doing Importantly these characteristics can be seen not as some superadded power of consciousness Instead novelty and creativity along with imagi-nation and anticipation can be applied to describe the entirety of human acting ndash inclusive of being knowing and doing ndash as it necessarily projects into the future and through this realizes its freedom As Sartre described this point imagination ldquois the whole of consciousness as it realizes its free-domrdquo ( 1966 p 270) He further suggested a connection of imagination not only with freedom but also with the ability to overcome the status quo In his words ldquothat which is denied must be imaginedrdquo (ibid p 273) and the imaginary serves as a horizon toward which acting strives in its perpetual negation of the given Th is is consonant with Maxine Greenersquos ( 1995 ) insight that captures the nature of imagination

A space of freedom opens before the person moved to choose in the light of possibility she or he feels what it signifi es to be an initiator and an agent existing among others with the power to choose for herself or himself (p 22)



235

Greene ( 1997 ) further conveys the thoughts about the capacity of imagina-tion by Hannah Arendt and Adrienne Rich as

the capacity of human beings to reach beyond themselves to what they believe should be might be in some space they bring into being among and between themselves Th e two remind us (by speaking of an uncer-tain light and of something diff erent) of what it signifi es to imagine not what is necessarily probable or predictable but what may be conceived as possible Imagination aft er all allows people to think of things as if they could be otherwise it is the capacity that allows a looking through the windows of the actual towards alternative realities (pp 1ndash 2)

Th e most critical distinction off ered by the TAS in expanding on these views is that the future is understood not as something we can just prepare ourselves for in awaiting its somehow ldquoautomaticrdquo predestined arrival ndash as if what will happen in the future does not depend on what is being aspired and struggled for in the present Instead the future is understood to be cre-ated in social practices carried out in the present while being profoundly contingent on what is to come which is always already in the course of being formed albeit in incipient forms Th is future- to- come is based in the political imagination and vision of how the world should be including through social transformation that community members espouse and bring into reality through their collective and individual agency within the ever- shift ing zone of proximal development co- created together Th is position recognizes that not only ldquothe past is like a stream in which all of us in our distinctiveness and diversity participate every time we try to understandrdquo (Greene 1997 p 9) but also that the future is changed and created every time we envision it and act on this vision thus powering it into existence

Th e resulting conception is that human acts of being knowing and doing are never about getting ldquoneutralrdquo facts about how things are and never about just getting along with them ndash because things are constantly changing already by the mere act of our presence (especially because our presence is never ldquomererdquo) and even more so by our investigations our pos-ing questions about how things are and envisioning them being otherwise Th us the reality carried out through and in the form of active engagement with the world is infused with human subjectivity tailored to a future ndash with the goals hopes expectations beliefs and commitments Th at is because people always act in pursuit of their goals rather than mechanically react to the world as it ldquoimpingesrdquo on them as if they were passive recipients of external stimuli the production of knowledge is profoundly contingent on what individuals and communities consider should be while actively



236

realizing these commitments in the present Moreover because knowledge is seen as participating in the creation of the world and as one dimension within the ceaseless fl ow of social practices that constitute no less than real-ity itself producing knowledge too is an act of creating reality and inventing the future

It is widely acknowledged in critical scholarship that knowledge is con-textually and historically situated and that only by gaining insight into the kind of historically situated reality to which knowledge is tied can we raise questions about its relevance and validity (eg the point made in the historical ontology of Foucault) To this claim the more recent critical scholarship including feminist writings (eg Harding 1992 ) adds that it is important to include the perspective of the subjugated and their experi-ences of oppression into discussions of how knowledge is produced A fur-ther addition to these important directions is that claims to knowledge and its validity are contingent not only on presently existing conditions and their histories (hence the value of standpoint epistemology and historical ontology) Th ese claims are also and perhaps most critically contingent on the future- oriented projects that aim to overcome existing conditions and their injustices carry out changes in the present community practices and thus enact the future and realize it the present Th is actually makes knowledge from the marginalized perspectives supremely objective in the strongest sense of objectivity (as discussed in Chapter 11 )

What the TAS highlights is precisely how the future ndash embodied and enacted in people envisioning and committing to it ndash powerfully shapes our being knowing and doing in the present Th e central point is that these acts are guided by and intelligible in light of the destination we want to achieve and our commitment to achieving it while not ignoring how this can only be done from onersquos specifi c location and its history Th is requires both a thorough foregrounding of the historically formed locations from which being knowing and doing are launched and a consideration of how the sought- aft er future is playing out within these processes

Latourrsquos ( 1999 ) metaphor describing the process of knowing can be used to illustrate this point In his words ldquoto know is not simply to explore but rather is to be able to make your way back over your own footsteps follow-ing the path you have just marked outrdquo ( 1999 p 74) What the TAS high-lights in a critical expansion of this view is that while it is true that to know is to be able to make your way back over onersquos own footsteps these footsteps are never just onersquos own but instead are always merged with the footsteps of others and thus with communal history In addition and most critically



237

however to know is to make forays not only into the past but also into what is to come making onersquos way into the future in transitions between the past present and future (cf Soslashrensen 2012 ) Th e complex dialectic implied in this premise is that it is impossible to imagine a possible future unless we have located ourselves in our present moment and its history however the reverse is also true in that we cannot locate ourselves in the present and its history unless we imagine the future and commit to realizing it

Th e notions of vision and end point in line with the broad Marxist tradi-tion imply discriminating among several types of possible relations to the future within the broad set of anticipatory processes and phenomena (cf Miceli and Castelfranchi 2002 ) Th ese include phenomena of expectation forecast vision and hope among others Importantly in the context of TAS vision needs to be diff erentiated from fi rm forecast on one hand and from sheer hope on the other A forecast is a belief that a future event (at a personal or communal level) is ldquoprobablerdquo ndash and it is thus akin to a hypoth-esis or a sense and even a calculation about what is likely to happen in the future in the sense of exceeding the intuitive chance threshold (cf ibid) No personal preference interest concern or goal is necessarily involved in a forecast Forecasting the weather is a generic example of such a type of anticipation When the weather prognosis is made it is not related to any form of intentionality In contrast an expectation can be understood as an anticipated event that is both forecasted and desired Th at is an expectation is a forecast plus the wish or desire that certain event obtains (cf ibid)

As to hope it is typically understood to be independent from both an expectation and forecast because in its generic form hope does not appear to rely upon any calculation nor a sense of a probability that the desired events are likely to occur with a given degree of certainty Th is nuance might help to highlight how hope displays a paradoxical combination of strengths and weaknesses ndash a certain ldquolightnessrdquo in the sense of it not being moored to what is presently going on and hence its loose if any connection with obli-gations to undertake actions in a pursuit of hope Th is ldquolightnessrdquo of hope might explain what makes it so enduring ndash when people persist in hoping for some events in the future no matter the reality of the present including its odds and obstacles and most critically with no obligation to do much to achieve what one hopes for

A vision however is diff erent from all other types of anticipations In the use endorsed herein a vision is like a hope in that it too is not based in a calculation of probability and not directly moored to present circum-stances yet vision is much more ldquoburdenedrdquo than hope in that it includes



238

a commitment to working toward reaching certain ends irrespective of whether these ends appear as either likely or easy to obtain In this sense vision does imply a sense of obligation or better a determination and even perhaps a compulsion to act in its pursuit as captured in the related notion of commitment

Th ese conceptual distinctions are not meant to be absolute or fi xed nor do they imply a reliance on some ldquoobjectiverdquo phenomena separated from each other and independent from the descriptions and practices by which they are produced Instead these distinctions are meant to highlight through conceptual contrasts useful within the present discussion what the intended connotations of the concepts of vision commitment and end point are To illustrate a dream such as the one epitomized in Martin Luther King Jrrsquos famous speech can stand for a vision of change a commit-ment to bringing it to life and a hope that it comes to realization thus defy-ing strict boundaries among these notions and phenomena Th is reminds of Marcusersquos ( 1972 ) imperative ndash that ldquo[t] he dream must become a force of changing rather than dreaming the human condition It must become a political forcerdquo (p 102)

Th e notion of activist stance bears some similarity yet is not identical with the notion of prolepsis as a ldquoubiquitous feature of culturally medi-ated thoughtrdquo that draws attention to ldquothe representation of a future act or development as being presently existingrdquo (Cole 1996 p 183) What the TAS accentuates is that rather than focusing on the representation of the future as being presently existing (a concept that does not fully avoid traditional mentalist connotations) human acting is contingent on individuals com-mitting to a certain version of the future and most importantly as ldquoalways alreadyrdquo gradually creating this future through their activist being know-ing and doing in the present Th is allows for a more direct linkage of acting in the present to how individuals enact the world they seek and what they take as an ldquooughtrdquo for the projected futures of community practices and their own lives ndash thus breaking the absolute barrier between the present and the future and highlighting the making of the future in and through the presently ongoing activities and actions

Th at is prolepsis is akin to an expectation that a certain future is impend-ing or likely and thus similar to Bakhtinrsquos notion of addressivity ndash acting with an expectation of a response to onersquos utterance in Bakhtinrsquos works (eg 1990 ) or to onersquos action as is implicated by a broader notion of prolepsis In these approaches the future response although only anticipated mediates the production of the utterances and actions already in the present Th e dif-ference however is that whereas both prolepsis and addressivity are based



239

in the notion that the future is imagined and anticipated while the person is acting as if this future already obtains the TAS notion of human deeds predicated on a commitment to the future ndash as something that one believes ought to be ndash is more agentive and purposive

What the notion of commitment suggests is that a person not so much expects or anticipates the future but rather actively works to bring this future into reality through onersquos own deeds and oft en against the odds that is even if a particular version of what is to come in the future is not antici-pated as likely and instead requires struggle and active striving to achieve it Th is applies in cases when a person struggles for onersquos vision of ldquowhat ought to berdquo in spite of the powerful forces that might be pulling in other directions In this sense the notion of commitment central to the TAS is closer to Nikolai N Bernsteinrsquos (eg 1966 ) notion of ldquothe requisite futurerdquo or ldquothe sought - aft er futurerdquo (the latter I suggest is an accurate translation of the original term potrebnoe budushee ndash [Russian]) rather than to the notions of prolepsis and addressivity

Bernstein (see also related works by P K Anokhin eg 1974 ) posited that individuals base their activity not only in responses to what exists in ldquothe here and nowrdquo but also on what one is anticipating and forecasting will and also projecting what should exist in the future In Bernsteinrsquos ( 1966 ) words

We have by all accounts two connected processes One of them is prob-abilistic forecasting in accordance with the perceived current situation [akin to prolepsis] hellip Alongside this probabilistic extrapolation of the course of surrounding events hellip there is the process of programming of the act that must lead to the realization of the sought- aft er [or needed requisite] future (p 438 emphases added)

Th e latter process of seeking the future and acting based on what one believes should be and what one is seeking can be understood as a con-tinuing struggle to attain change in carrying out goal- directed activities Extending this notion to capture what is unique about humans acting as social actors of community practices as ldquocollectividualsrdquo (rather than what is characteristics of all living organisms as in Bernstein and Anokhinrsquos works) the following specifi cation can be made Th e ldquosought- aft er futurerdquo is the taking up of what one aspires to achieve in the present through acting on the premise of what ought to be created ndash enacted and invented in the present as a realization of the future to come In this emphasis the notion of a commitment to the future accentuates not so much that the future is brought into the present through imagination or



240

representation as in prolepsis but that the future is created and invented in the present

Th e key distinction is precisely between an expectation that something will happen or is likely to happen in the future while preparing oneself for it or acting as if it already exists versus a commitment to the future that a person seeks and believes ldquooughtrdquo to come and thus that she strives to carry out in the present in eff orts to bring this future into reality now thus actively inventing the future ndash rather than merely preparing oneself for it Th is conceptualization is derived from and itself supports the over-all message about development (and teaching- learning too as discussed in Chapter 11 ) as an activist project of historical becoming at the intersection of individual and collective processes in the zone of proximal development understood as that which is being created now in the form of a realization of the future in the present

As is oft en the case it is the poets and novelists who grasp the notions with unusual and as yet not well- established connotations To illustrate the point discussed herein consider how Rainer- Maria Rilke described the future

[T] the future enters us hellip in order to be transformed in us long before it happens hellip [N]othing alien happens to us but only what has long been our own People have already had to rethink so many concepts of motion and they will also gradually come to realize that what we call fate does not come into us from the outside but emerges from us hellip Just as people for a long time had a wrong idea about the sunrsquos motion they are even now wrong about the motion of what is to come Th e future stands still hellip but we move in infi nite space ( 1904 emphasis added)

Focusing on end points and visions for the future as formative of being knowing and doing in the present is not the same as implying that this acting is rigidly and unequivocally defi ned by a preconceived destina-tion Instead there is great value in recognizing as was Bakhtinrsquos idea that human acting is always about an ldquoopen striving in a world of uncertainty and diff erencerdquo (Morson 2004 p 331) Yet the vision of what one believes ought to be no matter what the outcomes might and actually will turn out to be plays an indispensable role in such an open ndash yet not directionless ndash striving Th at is this position in no way negates that intended results of our acting are not always achieved that these results oft en go astray and do not comply with our expectations and predictions and that events can and indeed run in improbable unexpected directions every step of the way Yet even in this fl exibility of end points and goals as ever- shift ing and changing



241

the need to unfl inchingly commit to a destination is not cancelled though it is tempered by the sense of fallibility readiness for dialogues and open-ness to negotiation

Another important distinction is that visions are not like ready- made packages or preformulated values that individuals can simply take on from others or that could be imposed on them top- down from ldquooutsiderdquo In a strong refutation of a paternalistic attitude that could reinforce social hier-archies and reproduce dominant hegemonic agendas the starting point is in acknowledging that people have to develop their own sets of values aims and visions Th at is importantly the end points cannot be imposed from above they have to be worked out as fl exible and shift ing lines of possibili-ties of onersquos own acting and becoming through critical explorations into the presently existing confl icts and contradictions and their histories

Th e centrality of activism and end points in development and teaching- learning does not imply that these processes are either fi xed or static On the contrary developing and adopting end points is a process that is always shift ing and changing because it is embedded in and constituted by the constantly changing and dynamic fl ux of collaborative practices Th at is commitments stands and agendas are always in the process of coming about requiring continuous renewal and contestation in dialogues and relationships with others and while facing up to the newly emerging chal-lenges contradictions and problems that arise every step of the way Th ere is no built- in infl exible linear directionality closure or fi nalism in this process End points are more like shift ing horizons that are changing with the ongoing movements and dynamics of activity in the present ndash just like the real horizon shift s with every step on the way toward it existing in the balance of pursuing far- off goals while making more immediate decisions as to which step to take next right here and right now Th at is though the far- off horizon is changing depending on the immediate moment- to- moment steps and movements that are taken in the present an overall ori-entation or a direction is indispensable in making each and every step each and every decision possible and meaningful

What is implied in the notions of visions and end points then is that there is a dialectical relation between immediate decisions in the present and the striving for the broader goals Th e latter even when they appear to be impossible to reach nonetheless represent a much- needed critical anchoring for our being knowing and doing as these processes are already projecting and stretching into the future Th is corresponds to what many scholars have expressed in various ways in the past For example Marx wrote that the future is not ldquoan ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust



242

itself rdquo instead it is ldquothe real movement which abolishes the present state of thingsrdquo (Marx and Engels 1845ndash 46 1978 p 162)

In a certain sense then end point is not about an ldquoabsolute endrdquo as a fi nal fi nite and preprogrammed destination It is a kind of a fl uid imagina-tion and projecting ndash and of thinking if the latter is understood in its origi-nal Greek connotation of stochasmos which stands for an activity of aiming for a target or stochos (see Richardson 2007 p xiv) Th ese acts of imagina-tion and projecting never fi nd themselves at the end and instead are fl ex-ible and malleable combining a sense of commitment (which is taken as its crucial dimension) with hope promise expectation and desire Forming a vision is also inherently connected to a critical perspective because it always is an indirect questioning of the already existing (cf Johansson 2013 ) Recognizing the possibility and necessity of an overarching direction and end point is not as many sociocultural and postmodernist scholars claim authoritarian On the contrary if understood non- dogmatically it is a necessary condition for critique and social action ndash as the overall frame that provides grounds for the eff ective criticism of the present and its status quo and dogmas Such a non- dogmatic interpretation draws on the politi-cal sense that Derrida ( 1994 ) conveyed in writing that

not only must one not renounce the emancipatory desire it is necessary to insist on it more than ever it seems and insist on it moreover as the very indeconstructibility of the ldquoit is necessaryrdquo Th is is the condition of a re- politicization perhaps of another concept of the political (p 75)

Th is position can be interpreted to suggest that the development of norms and goals fundamentally relies on the critical analysis of existing contro-versies and confl icts while also being tied up with the striving at under-standing how to resolve them through struggles against injustices and distortions Such norms and goals or end points are therefore inextricably related to the ongoing struggle for freedom and social justice serving in the fi rst place to express the direction for such a struggle ndash its ldquocredordquo as it were Th us forming end points and commitments serves as a negative critique of the present that exposes its fault lines yet also charts direction in which we need to move in order to repair these fault lines and overcome limitations imposed by them Th is is in contrast to the types of critique that also strive to expose the confl icts and conundrums in the present yet do not off er alternatives for the future thus lacking a political cutting edge

Making a commitment to a just society is inevitable if the ongoing con-fl icts are revealed for what they are ndash leading ever more rapidly to the destruction of communities and nature and therefore as already implying



243

the need to resolve them and also as already developing means for com-bating them from within these confl ictsrsquo own present dynamics Th e act of making such commitments imperative as it is given that there is no alter-native to developing a just and socially equitable society as the only soci-ety that would be capable of stopping self- and world- destruction is what produces the sense of inevitability Commitments to end points therefore are inescapable and immanent in the dynamics of the present even though they are always subject to revisions as the struggle unfolds Such commit-ments then are like ldquoan unending adventure at the edge of uncertaintyrdquo (Bronowski 1976 p iv) as actually all human endeavors are

Th eorizing the notion of commitment as part of the process of social critique and as an expression of struggle for transformative change expands upon and clarifi es the meaning of inevitability (necessity) in the Marxist tradition ndash while also amending some of its connotations Indeed the point is not that social change is predetermined as nothing is nor can be fully predetermined in advance It is that the present confl icts require and call for in historically concrete ways our activist commitments Th ese com-mitments even if the visions they are anchored in might seem impossible given the uncertainties and contingencies of history are nonetheless indis-pensable for any movement forward Th is movement given its fl uidity and situatedness will inevitably bring about in its own unfolding logic new conditions and therefore continuously will call upon updates and amend-ments along the way

Th erefore this position does not claim either knowledge about a some-how unavoidable future course of history in its presumably essential deter-minations or some privileged insight into the future in the form of a utopia that is fi xed a priori and laid up in advance by some messianic forces In so doing this position refutes the notion of the ldquoend of historyrdquo ndash that his-tory has achieved or will achieve sometime in the future its logical ending in the form of an ideal society that can be fully predicted in the present In this sense this position does not support the illusion that history and society are moving in a steadily progressive direction either Yet some form of an end point akin to but not identical with the notion of utopia ndash as a sought- aft er future ndash needs to be posited as a shift ing horizon against which the present events and phenomena are judged evaluated and most criti-cally grappled with ndash all in light of a visions of and under a commitment to transcending the status quo and its present conundrums and confl icts Moreover that a commitment to such end points and ideals is a necessity for human meaningful (and therefore also ethical) acting can be seen as a hallmark of Marxist and other forms of activist research ndash a watershed



244

criterion that delineates these works from the postmodern currents that abandon ethico- political praxis as part of their theorizing and lack commit-ment to collective action with clear agendas that could foment large- scale progressive social change

Th is approach draws attention to the need to navigate the diffi cult conundrum that change always requires solidarity and some sort of pro-visional consensus regarding goals means and tactics on one hand and that purposive collectivities must be understood as temporary coalitions voluntarily and democratically constituted on the other In such a ldquodialectic without synthesisrdquo (to borrow from Merleau- Ponty) any emancipatory and social justice project cannot claim to be fi nite (as it would be in the spirit of ldquothe end of historyrdquo metaphor) but will only result in unstable open- ended social institutions and practices always amenable to further change As Merleau- Ponty puts it ldquowhether it bears the name of Hegel or Marx a philosophy which renounces the absolute Spirit as historyrsquos motive force which makes history walk on its own feet and which admits no other reason in things than that revealed by their meeting and interaction could not hellip postulate a fi nal synthesis resolving all contradictions or affi rm its inevi-table realizationrdquo ( 1964 p 81 emphasis added)

Other authors in the Marxist tradition such as Žižek have suggested that radical change is inevitable while rejecting the end- of- history meta-phor Yet Žižekrsquos position seems to indicate that a radical change is possible and inevitable mostly and primarily because it had happened before and thus can be expected to happen again What Žižek suggests is that change is what happens rather than what people accomplish and the political strat-egy he suggests is to wait for the arrival of the event act because the subject capable of realizing revolutionary changes only comes about as the eff ect of such changes that is essentially ldquoaft er the factrdquo (see Johnston 2010 )

Th e alternative is in committing to the future even if this entails affi rm-ing what might appear at the moment to be impossible with the full real-ization that these commitments need to be and in actuality will be revised along the way Th is is what perhaps can be expressed as a ldquononalibirdquo in being (to use Bakhtinrsquos term) ndash hereby interpreted as an impossibility of being neutral or uncertain and of the need to take a position even in the face of uncertainty and unpredictability when failure to arrive at a destination is perhaps almost guaranteed A ldquononalibirdquo is about being implicated in what is going on ndash as an open human striving and vulnerability in the face of not knowing what is to come Th is position is in sync with Patti Latherrsquos ( 2003 p 262) call for a praxis ldquoaft er the lsquotrial of undecidabilityrsquo a praxis of apo-ria lsquoas tentative contextual appropriative interventionist and unfi nished



245

eff ort to shift the terrainrsquo rdquo (quoting Rooney 1995 p 195) In Latherrsquos words ldquoTh e goal is to shape our practice to a future that must remain to come in excess of our codes but still always already forces already active in the presentrdquo (Lather 2003 p 262) Lather (ibid) goes on to say that

[p] erhaps a transvaluation of praxis means to fi nd ways to participate in the struggle of these forces as we move toward a future which is unfore-seeable from the perspective of what is given or even conceivable within our present conceptual frameworks

Th is position is shared from the perspective of the TAS however what it attempts to emphasize even more is the urgency of committing to inventing the future within the present ndash not based on a premise that there can be some mystical insight as in ldquopeering into the futurerdquo but rather based in a strug-gle for what one deems ought to be Th is centrally includes critical exami-nation and interrogation of the present and the past while understanding that the ldquooughtrdquo that we take on and realize ourselves is already shaping the future while also changing based on the dynamics of the present and its examinations and interrogations by us Alasdair MacIntyre ( 1983 ) describes this process as a quest that is ldquonot at all hellip a search for something already adequately characterized hellip but always an education both as to the charac-ter of that which is soughtrdquo (p 219) Yet the certainty is in the urgency to take the stand no matter what ndash as Apple has put it ldquoone has no choice but to be committedrdquo (1979 p 166) In the words of Molefi Kete Asante ( 2015 ) ldquoone must claim space or take space intellectually or physically in any situ-ation however diffi cult and dire it may seemrdquo while always ldquobeing on the side of fi ghting for transformation in the societyrdquo on the side of those who are most subjected to injustices and exploitation

Th e danger is not in taking a stance and making a commitment because these acts constitute the core human condition and cannot be avoided To demand otherwise that is that people relate to the world act learn and form knowledge in neutral and ldquoobjectiverdquo ways while in essence forget-ting themselves is actually akin to an expectation that we stop being human and instead act as computers ndash dispassionately neutrally impartially and care lessly Th e danger is in understanding stances and commitments to be fi nite immutable infallible and not subject to negotiation Th e danger is in neglecting the need for constant exploration of movements and processes that are ceaselessly unfolding and changing with each action we take and each question we ask and for continued interrogation and self- critique including through open- ended dialogues with others who have diff erent visions and commitments Th at is the danger is in elevating onersquos own



246

agenda as a rigidly preestablished dogma not amenable to change instead of exposing and critically interrogating it including in self- critique all while probing emerging realities and confl icts and negotiating points of agree-ments and disagreements with others

However a diffi cult dilemma that comes with theorizing activist stance and with making an activist commitment to ideas and visions is that all human actions including their most dogmatic and conservative forms are in a sense also future- oriented Th ey too imply visions and commitments that they struggle for albeit oft en in the form of preserving the status quo Indeed it takes much eff ort to preserve a status quo and the actions that support and upheld it in line with conservative agendas are too activist in a negative sense Th e strength of a commitment and readiness to struggle for it do not suffi ce to justify the end points of this struggle Albert Camus ( 2013 ) clearly evokes this dilemma when he writes

Although it is historically true that values such as the nation and human-ity cannot survive unless one fi ghts for them fi ghting alone cannot jus-tify them (nor can force) Th e fi ght must itself be justifi ed and explained in terms of values One must fi ght for onersquos truth while making sure not to kill that truth with the very arms employed to defend it (p 32 emphasis added)

To emphasize again this makes it imperative to cultivate a persistent criti-cal exploration into the ongoing problems in their leading contradictions and confl icts in order to know how to address and resolve them in line with Freirersquos notion that ldquo[w] hen people lack a critical understanding of their reality apprehending it in fragments which they do not perceive as interact-ing constituent elements of the whole they cannot truly know the realityrdquo (Freire 1970 p 104)

Th is exploration has to be carried out from a position of caring about what is going on in the world especially in terms of the hidden confl icts and contradictions that are only exposed by those who are on the margins of society As Kwame A Appiah states ( 2015 ) ldquoOne thing that I think is absolutely true in Du Boisrsquos remark is the recognition that the oppressed oft en have a deeper understanding of the lives of oppressors than vice versa because they have to make sense of the powerful to surviverdquo I think one could add that the oppressed have a deeper understanding not only of the lives of oppressors and not only because they have to make sense of the powerful to survive Th e oppressed have fi rsthand knowledge and therefore a deeper understanding of the true confl icts contradictions and injustices in our societies that are hidden from those who are privileged



247

because the latter are complicit in the embedded hierarchies of power It is the oppressed who struggle with injustices and face the most brutal contra-dictions in thus enacting the core struggles and dimensions of the world and therefore knowing it better It is the oppressed who ldquohave accessrdquo to what the presently forming fractures and fault lines in society are including its leading confl icts and contradictions while the privileged overlook misdi-agnose and underestimate them Th ese fractures and fault lines are enacted by and cut through the lives of the oppressed on the societyrsquos forgotten and ignored fringes and sidelines ndash conveniently ignored by the powerful elites and those who affi liate with them Yet these fractures and fault lines are already shaping the present in the most powerful ways imaginable (and beyond imagination) ndash indicating what the impending changes and thus also what the future and therefore also the reality itself actually are

Agency as an ldquoAchievementrdquo of Unique Individuality through Togetherness

Human beings are not just situated in the world ndash rather they actively par-ticipate in and contribute to its co- construction and circulation of power while coming into being ontologically exactly through and by these pro-cesses of agentive contribution Th erefore individuals are not predeter-mined in any of their features abilities or characteristics instead their coming into being is constituted by the social dynamics of their own eff orts to contribute to social practice and its movements forward in defying the preestablished categories and deconstructing the taken- for- granted rules and modes of operating while making the familiar seem strange ndash and not as some kind of an intellectual exercise but as a means to open up possibili-ties for new social arrangements and ways of life Th is highlights the co- constitutive and co- evolving enmeshed dynamics of identity development and of the production of power in social interactions

Individuals are co- emergent with social practices of communities and of their historical dynamics whereby each person is interdependent with others rather than separated autonomous and isolated Every per-son is profoundly relying on others and on society at large for onersquos very existence and development including onersquos agency When the notions of individuality and personhood are evoked in this approach this does not imply the conventional meaning of asocial singular autonomous persons for whom acting within and contributing to social practices and relat-ing to other individuals is somehow additional to their being knowing and doing



248

Th e agency of human subjects qua social actors of community practicesrsquo transformations is central to this account of activism and social change and to the attendant transformative worldview However the critical point from the position of the TAS is that agency cannot be taken for granted as some metaphysical property that somehow inherently ldquobelongsrdquo to an individual Instead agency and the capacity to be social actor have to develop (and be developed) within a solidaristic community and with the help of cultural mediations and tools of its social practices Th ese collective cultural prac-tices and their mediations are not inherently constraining and hegemonic but have both an oppressive and a liberational power the latter consisting in these practicesrsquo potential to open up ways for human agency to be devel-oped Agency in this sense is not a preexisting entity or trait it is continu-ally co- constructed (or debilitated) and realized as a qualitative function and an emergent property of collaborative social practices and activities

Seyla Benhabib ( 2001 ) wrote that ldquo[a] s opposed to the postmodernist vision of the fragmentary subject hellip the human subject is a fragile needy and dependent creature whose capacity to develop a coherent life- story out of the competing claims upon its identity must be cherished and protectedrdquo (p 37) What needs to be added to this important insight is that this capac-ity to develop a coherent life story depends upon a more primary capacity to have onersquos own unique position stance and voice onersquos authentic indi-viduality and agency Moreover and most critically this capacity to have a unique stance and authentic voice must be not only protected and cher-ished (though this is of utmost importance) Because it cannot be taken for granted as if it could develop and come about automatically on its own this capacity has to be formed within the nexus of collaborative social practices out of these practicesrsquo fabric and while relying on their tools within soli-daristic communities and social interactions

What transpires in this description is what can be termed a fundamental paradox of identity ndash that the individuals who can realize social practices in co- authoring while also necessarily transcending them have themselves to be shaped by these very practices that is have to arise from ndash and together with ndash these practices Th e ways to acknowledge and move past this para-dox is to conceive of human beings as truly agentive actors of social prac-tices who are ldquoalways alreadyrdquo in the process of authoring these practices (at fi rst in nascent forms of an action potential) always in the process of becoming As Benhabib ( 1999 p 230) writes ldquofurthering onersquos capacity for autonomous agency is only possible within a solidaristic communityrdquo and it could be added the one that provides the tools and spaces to form and sustain identity ndash and not only through listening to one and allowing one



249

to listen to others but through providing spaces where individuals can act freely and in solidarity with each other in co- authoring community prac-tices and contributing to their ceaseless transformations

Th is position elevates the importance of education of teaching and learning as one of the spaces and pathways for individuals to acquire the cultural tools that allow for their participation in and contribution to social practices and thus the pathway to becoming individually unique actors of communities with inalienable agency and rights In this view education is not about transmitting and acquiring knowledge for the sake of know-ing but a project of providing conditions and tools for persons to become agentive actors and co- creators of society culture and history Th is posi-tion goes together with many ideas articulated in critical pedagogy What is added is that the project of education is about providing the tools for agency and activism ndash the tools for students to develop their own activist pursuits premised on stances and end points vis- agrave- vis a sought- aft er future that they learn to envision and commit to Th is will be the topic in Chapter 11 of this book

Addressing the Risks of ldquoAnthropocentricrdquo Positions and

ldquoTeleologyrdquo

Th e conceptual position of the TAS is formulated with the full awareness of the dangers and pitfalls associated with focusing on material collaborative practices and thus on the role of humanity in the world as having the key ontological signifi cance Traditional approaches that have operated with such anthropocentric notions across the project of modernity and into the present are closely tied up with the western hubris in its generic combina-tion of in the words of Ethel Tobach ( 1972 ) ldquothe four horsemen of racism sexism militarism and social Darwinismrdquo (p 3) Th ere is understandable resistance to possible dangers of dogmatism ideology of control and per-nicious instrumentalism that can be and de facto oft en are associated with positions fashioned on anthropocentric notions

Th ese dogmatic positions have portrayed nature to ldquobe the inert ground for the exploits of Man [ sic ]rdquo (Alaimo and Hekman 2008 p 4) in the unabashedly racist and sexist traditions (with their tarnished political underbelly oft en conveniently ignored in contemporary works) ndash as gen-erations of critical and feminist scholars have demonstrated Th e prevailing powers practices and interests of western cultures have determined and in eff ect appropriated even colonized the meanings and implications of



250

positions that take human agency as central just as they also have appro-priated the values of reason and the logic of progress (cf Plumwood 1993 ) However as Plumwood suggests ldquoto reject this classical structure of reason does not imply the rejection of all attempts to structure or systematize rea-son but rather the rejection of those which promote dualistic accounts of othernessrdquo (ibid p 42) In a similar vein to reject the traditional notions of anthropocentrism does not imply the need to reject the goal of working out the notion of social practice inclusive of human subjectivity agency and mind in its world- forming status without connotations of control hierar-chy dominance and otherness

Th e need to grasp ethical issues that are not fully accounted for in social practice and actor- network theories agential realism and other relational and posthumanist approaches is presently pressing more than ever before ndash in light of the growing power of those frameworks that are tailored to the ethics of social Darwinism biological reductionism and attendant market ideology Th is challenge is especially urgent if psychology and other social sciences are to develop perspectives that not only describe reality but also help develop the guides for progressive action Th is position is shared with Isabelle Stengers ( 2007 ) who suggests that ldquoactively eliminating every-thing about lsquousrsquo that cannot be aligned with [posthumanist] conception of what matter is all aboutrdquo (p 7) separates materialism from its relations with struggle and thus puts it in danger of losing its meaning In Stengerrsquos words ldquothe demands of materialism cannot be identifi ed in terms of knowl-edge alone scientifi c or other Rather just like the Marxist concept of class materialism loses its meaning when it is separated from its relations with strugglerdquo (ibid)

In another strand of critique Marx and by implication Vygotsky have oft en been accused of positing a rigid telos that history (and human development) must presumably somehow arrive at on iron rails Indeed Marx can be read as suggesting that the demise of capitalism is unavoid-able and inevitable Yet his position is much more nuanced especially given that Marx defi ned his approach in opposition to utopian thinkers and their fantasy predictions of the future in the form of predetermined ends and predefi ned blueprints Th e Marxist position on this matter can be expansively interpreted as implying a non- traditional sense of inevi-tability wherein what is inevitable is neither some inherently predeter-mined course of history nor its somehow predestined outcome Instead the non- traditional sense of inevitability has to do with the unavoidabil-ity of taking a stance on and of committing to one or the other direction of onersquos own and broader societal developments Th at is inevitability has



251

to do with the unavoidable need to commit to one or the other goal or vision and end point not as a dogma but as a contingent horizon that grasps present injustices and social confl icts in striving to overcome them As Marx ( 1844 1978b) stated

I am hellip not in favor of setting up any dogmatic fl ag hellipTh e critic can hellip start out by taking any form of theoretical and practical consciousness and develop from the unique forms of existing reality the true reality as its norm and fi nal goal hellip [W] e shall confront the world not as doctri-naires with a new principle ldquoHere is the truth bow down before itrdquo We develop new principles to the world out of its own principles We do not say to the world ldquoStop fi ghting your struggle is of no account We want to shout the true slogan of the struggle at yourdquo We only show the world what it is fi ghting for and consciousness is something that the world must acquire like it or not (pp 13ndash 15)

Attempts to account for an undoubtedly growing power of human civiliza-tion to shape the world ndash and now also to destroy it ndash can be made while rejecting implications that promote divisive patriarchical dualistic hege-monic and mechanistic accounts Th e ghosts of the dogmatic past ndash and their aggressive resurrections today ndash need not make it impossible to reclaim these notions within a radically diff erent onto- epistemology of reality (mat-ter) as a dynamic continuous open- ended and ever- shift ing process while taking human collective and individual agency premised on solidarity and equality fully into account Th e political challenges and crisis in social sci-ences and society at large make it imperative to reappropriate reconstrue and reconfi gure ldquoanthropocentricrdquo notions while resisting temptations to eliminate them in order ldquoto ward off rdquo instrumentalism and authoritarian-ism To paraphrase Lather ( 2012a 2012b ) this is an eff ort to harness the powers of agency without (and against) the subsequent controlling forces of modernity that work to limit reasoning by connecting it to a number of restricting modern ldquoinventionsrdquo including the rule of private property the ldquonaturalnessrdquo of the nation- state and ndash as can be added from the Vygotskian perspective ndash the notion of a presumed natural predetermined and inert hierarchy of individual abilities and associated unequal social standing

ldquoEncounteringrdquo versus Experiencing the World

Th e point that the transformative onto- epistemology brings across is that development is not a process that somehow happens to people so that they



252

merely can and sometimes do transform conditions of their existence ndash through ostensibly supplementary eff orts at changing their surrounds and themselves in addition to their overall (somehow presumably exter-nally driven) existence Instead human development from this perspec-tive can be conceptualized as a sociohistorical project and a collaborative accomplishment ndash that is a continuously evolving ldquowork- in- progressrdquo an ongoing collaborative eff ort at historical becoming by people as active agents (or agentive actors) who together change their world and in and through this process come to be and to know this world and themselves In this perspective our engagement in realizing the world and inventing the future through co- authoring community practices and contributing to their ceaseless transformations is at one and the same time also the process of our own becoming that encompasses the processes of being knowing and doing

Th ese creative eff orts and acts (as all human acts essentially are) do not just take place in the world as the notions of situated and embedded cognition and the metaphor of ldquobeing thererdquo suggest rather these creative human acts of being knowing and doing bring forth the world and the reality essentially co- constituting the world as a collective forum of human deeds a drama played out in and through individually unique contribu-tions to collaborative practices in their continuous collective historicity

Th is approach implicates a radical shift away from seeing human devel-opment and the mind as processes of solo individuals developing in a social vacuum and outside of the world separately from other people and com-munities that is as entities that are antecedent to constitutive communal practices Yet the role of individual human beings is ascertained as central to their own and their communitiesrsquo development and ultimately to the historical process of realizing the world Th e Marxist conjecture that ldquomen make their own history but not of their own free will not under circum-stances they themselves have chosen but under the given and inherited circumstances with which they are directly confrontedrdquo (Marx 1852 1978 p 595) has been typically taken in support of the notion that people do not make history whichever way they please Th is is an important implication at stake in this quotation However another meaning that is more affi rma-tive of human agency is equally if not more important ndash namely that peo-ple do make their own history In addition in strengthening the ontological argument implied by this premise it can be suggested that people act and create history not so much under the given and inherited circumstances (as Marx can be interpreted) but more importantly they do so in the process



253

of actively grappling with struggling against and generally striving to overcome these circumstances while inevitably changing them in moving beyond the status quo

Th at is while acting is always taking place under the given conditions within the present its dynamics can neither be explained nor reduced to the eff ects of these conditions as if they were some outside forces acting on pas-sive individuals subjected to extraneous eff ects of the world Instead these conditions are changed and transformed along the way in the acts of our being knowing and doing in their continuous unfolding because these acts are contributing to and co- emerging with the ongoing social practices Th e given conditions are never just ldquogivenrdquo ndash they are not just simply ldquoout thererdquo as if presented to us in a ready- made form to be experienced understood mirrored copied and ultimately reacted and adapted to Instead these con-ditions are met by people halfway (to borrow this expression though not the full viewpoint from Barad 2007 ) in an active work that meeting the world and coming together with it requires

Such meeting halfway or better such creative en counter with the world is an active work and eff ort at becoming a coming face- to- face also with ourselves because we are simultaneously co- created in and through such encounters Note that the key emphasis is on active work because meeting the world and becoming a partner in such a meeting requires more than passively ldquobeing thererdquo as if merely waiting for the meeting to happen in order for the other (the world) to encounter us Instead meeting with the world requires that we actively relate to participate in dialogue with and ultimately do the work or the labor of carrying out our encounters with the world Th is process is about facing the world even con fronting it in what is an active and passionate striving in the face of challenges and dilemmas

Th e active nature of such bidirectional (and multidirectional) encoun-ters entails that we simultaneously greet and are greeted by the world appraise it and get appraised by it deal with and are dealt with by it ndash wherein therefore both poles on this transitional continuum are continu-ously and constantly mutually reconstrued refashioned and recalibrated Th is process also involves as the other facet of the same continuous co- creation and active production of the world the work of active co- creation and production of our own contingent and continuous subjectivities ndash our minds selves identities knowledges beliefs biases and so on Th is cen-trally involves forming values- based passionate and even partisan ethical stands and stances that ground human active pursuits in the world includ-ing toward others as actors in the same collective process or drama of



254

communal life and collective history In Bakhtinrsquos approach ldquoevery utter-ance is like an eff ort toward solving the impasse in one way or another favoring in diff erent possible ways one interest or anotherrdquo (Larrain and Hayes 2012 p 599) Th is notion can be expanded beyond the bounds of discourse to suggest that every human act even a seemingly neutral and mundane one such as an act of perceiving or remembering is part of our overall uninterrupted striving our eff orts at achieving broader goals of becoming ndash through bringing about changes in a world shared with oth-ers ndash while addressing and solving inevitable impasses and conundrums that we experience at every step of the way

Th e emphasis on en counter and con frontation suggests that this is not an ethically neutral meeting nor an unproblematic interpellation of agency and structure Th e transformative onto- epistemology of encountering the world in the process of activist striving dialectically supplants the relational onto- epistemology and agential realism (Barad 2007 ) with the notion that collaborative purposeful and activist transformation of the world steered in certain direction aligned with imagined horizons of a sought- aft er future or end points is the core unifi ed realm of development that is subjective and objective at the same time indeed s objective (see Chapter 6 )

Th e notion of encountering the world as an active and passionate striv-ing in the face of uncertainty and challenges and therefore as a process full of drama collision and challenges is not meant to convey that this pro-cess is always somehow antagonistic or openly confrontational although it more than oft en is Indeed very little in our encounters with the world is unproblematic and uncontested which is especially true for those on the margins of society It is no accident that for example Foucault did not shy away from using the metaphor of history as war when he wrote that ldquo[t] he history which determines us has the form of a war rather than that of language relations of power not relations of meaningrdquo ( 1980 p 114) A similar sentiment is expressed by Marshall Berman ( 1983 ) in his poignant description of modern life ldquoas a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal of struggle and contradiction of ambiguity and anguish hellip a uni-verse in which as Marx said lsquoall that is solid melts into airrsquo rdquo (p 15 note that this quote is actually from Marx and Engels 1848 1978 p 476)

Yet another broad connotation of development as an activist striving is that it is about an inevitably non- neutral passionate partial partisan and thus de facto creative and authorial character of this process Th is puts emphasis on the ubiquity and the everlasting presence of challenges and dilemmas conundrums and confl icts ndash including especially those



255

associated with power diff erentials ndash that persons inevitably need to deal with and actively address in their own unique ways rather than merely experience and apprehend or passively undergo Th is is in contrast to tra-ditional psychologyrsquos premise that people act because they are impinged by stimuli from the ldquooutsiderdquo world and thereby are prodded to act in response to these infl uences At the same time the reverse is again perhaps true ndash that we as human beings present a challenge to the universe as in humanly caused geopolitical catastrophes to which the world reacts back

Th ese descriptions account for the confl uence of a mutually co- defi ned fl ow of our collective acting and becoming in the world on one hand and of the world acting on and reacting to our presence on the other Th is is ldquoa continuous circuitrdquo or circulation and iteration of cycles encompassing processes of ldquobeing- knowing- doingrdquo on one hand and of the world coming into being as a facet of the same process on the other In this exposition practical activity (social practice) at the core of human existence cannot be separated from human relationships because they are coextensive belong-ing together and sustaining co- defi ning each other

Th is view immediately presupposes that any contact with the world any encounter with it has a form not of a neutral relationality and rationality but of active striving and struggle Th at is these encounters and confron-tations are only possible based in people playing partial (even ldquopartisanrdquo) roles and occupying non- neutral positions directly implicating issues of power and social antagonism but also and equally importantly issues of belonging and care In this sense reality is not ldquogivenrdquo ndash rather it is taken by persons as social actors that is as community members who are simul-taneously creating themselves and the world ndash always in collaboration with others and with the tools that communities provide Or perhaps more pre-cisely one could say that reality is given in the act of taking it

Extreme forms of subordination such as political violence persecution and social deprivation can be interpreted to present exceptions that lead to extreme passivity and dehumanization of both individuals and communi-ties however available fi rsthand accounts by people who were submitted to the most unimaginable and inhumane conditions and treatments testify to the extraordinary strengths and resilience of human beings even under such duress Th is is powerfully exemplifi ed in Viktor Franklrsquos amazing tes-timony of surviving the Holocaust and persisting with his humanist and activist striving in spite of utmost inhumane events and circumstances (see Allport 1992 ) Nelson Mandelarsquos life feat serves as a further example of how not even a life sentence can condemn a person to abandon meaningful life



256

pursuit and social mission and perhaps can sometimes even facilitate onersquos strength and resolve Th e emphasis on human agency does not equal belief that personal behavior can completely countervail structural oppression yet it acknowledges the value of struggle and striving in the face of chal-lenges and strife

Th is view challenges positions premised on the notion of experience as central to human ways of being knowing and doing such as that our ldquoexperiential encounter with the presence of the world is the ground of our being and knowingrdquo (Heron and Reason 1997 p 2) Th e emphasis on experience has become ubiquitous across critical and sociocultural schol-arship in recent years with its roots going back to the pragmatist tradition of William James and John Dewey Its appeal is understandable in light of its anchoring in the bodily processes and the immediacy associated with its ldquogivennessrdquo and accessibility Th e popularity of the notion of experience might have to do with the palpable need to account for material daily and authentic realities of human life

Yet the notion of experience might not be fully suitable to provide an adequate epistemological basis to understand the processes of being know-ing and doing in their direct connections to social transformative prac-tices Th is is because experience is fully and inevitably immersed in the immediacy of the present it is clearly about ldquoundergoingrdquo that which exists in the present Th at is by insisting on human experience as the starting point of analysis a suffi cient engagement with activism that has to do with the future- oriented dimensions of human practices is not fully exercised Th e premise that development and learning are rooted in experiential presence in or experiential encounter with the world does not completely avoid connotations of adapting to the status quo To be sure the notion of experience and related notions of interpretation dialogue and situativ-ity of knowing have been important in challenging traditional ldquoobjectivistrdquo models and accounts Yet these notions require further critical elaboration to more resolutely break away from the idea that individuals need to adapt to what is ldquogivenrdquo in the present in order to develop and learn Th e notion of participation as the basis for development and learning (eg Lave and Wenger 1991 ) only partly revoke this adaptationist connotation because it is premised on similar dynamics of learners being situated in community practices as they exist in the present rather than on learners transforming and transcending these practices in creating a diff erent future

From the TAS position people do not just fi nd themselves within the conditions and circumstances of the world Instead we always have to and



257

de facto do actively grapple with these conditions and circumstances ndash including through understanding making sense of and interpreting them yet most importantly while taking stands and staking claims on these con-ditions and circumstances while acting to change them thus taking part in transforming the status quo It is this process of grappling and striving of struggling and actively dealing with the given conditions and circum-stances in eff orts to transcend and transform them ndash rather than adapt to the status quo ndash that counts in and accounts for our coming into being and development Th e process of active striving of grappling with and changing conditions and circumstances of our lives (which are always communal) is the ldquoimmediaterdquo reality we live in Th ese processes therefore consist in a dynamic transformation or ldquodecompositionrdquo of immediately present reality rather than in experiencing a somehow ldquogivenrdquo metaphysical world as it is In this sense the defi nition of art as the ldquogreat refusalrdquo and the protest ldquoagainst the established realityrdquo (Marcuse 1969 ) ndash can be expanded to describe the broader processes of human development and human reality Th is position importantly is in line with Martin Luther King Jrrsquos ( 1968 ) insistence on maladjustment as the central dimension of human development

Freire famously wrote that ldquo[h] uman beings are not built in silence but in word in work in action- refl ectionrdquo ( 1970 p 88) Th is position can be strengthened and fully justifi ed especially against the challenges of reduc-tionist and positivist views if the notion of reality is reconceived and elabo-rated based in the notions of ldquoactivist encounterrdquo with the world in meeting and shaping its challenges as ontologically central and even foundational And Freire says as much too ldquoIt is thus possible to explain conceptually why individuals begin to behave diff erently with regard to objective real-ity once that reality has ceased to look like a blind alley and has taken on its true aspect a challenge which human beings must meetrdquo (Freire 1970 pp 105ndash 106)

In following with Vygotskyrsquos tradition human development can be understood to be a matter of collaborative eff ort and work of craft sman-ship artisanship and invention of making up the mind by people acting ndash essentially laboring and striving ndash together within the sites of historical struggles while always moving beyond the status quo Development there-fore does not just happen to people ndash it is a collaborative and creative accomplishment a process that comes down to work and eff ort within and through collective social practices and their aff ordances and mediations as well as obstacles and contradictions as these are created by people collabo-rating in together agentively enacting these very practices



258

Though non- traditional and somewhat counterintuitive this notion finds resonance in recent research outside of Vygotskyrsquos and sociocul-tural traditions especially in works attuned to the dynamics and nonlin-earity of human development This is expressed for example by Esther Thelen ( 2005 p 263 emphasis added) who wrote that ldquo[d] evelopment is thus the product of the childrsquos everyday and continual efforts to make things happen in the world rdquo rather than a process that is prede-termined and preprogrammed by any initial conditions at the start of development

ldquoMake up your mindrdquo ndash a common expression that is typically taken to mean that people form opinions and positions in addition to the oth-erwise somehow neutral ndash impartial and passionless ndash mental activities and psychological processes might actually be interpreted in a much broader light as a general stipulation that the minds are quite literally made up An activist engagement has to do with positioning oneself and acting within the ongoing circumstances and events of communal prac-tices and their unfolding collective dynamics in their historic drama of struggles and striving from a stance ndash because these dynamics are always composed of challenges and dilemmas facing actors in these practices Th e critical constituent of human development and learning therefore consists in taking stands and staking claims ndash making up onersquos mind ndash on ongoing events in view of the purposes goals commitments and aspira-tions for the future

A radical implication of this view as expressed in many works in criti-cal pedagogy phenomenology and moral philosophy is that a ldquopersonal interpretation enters into the very defi nition of the phenomenon under studyrdquo (Taylor 1985 p 121) Yet in a more radical vein it can be stated that a personal interpretation (or better a personal stake stand and commit-ment) enters not only into our defi nitions but into the objects and phe-nomena themselves Furthermore it is more than our interpretation that enters these phenomena and processes ndash it is we ourselves in the fullness of our becoming in the world our modes of life and our active striving to change the status quo that enter into the very defi nition of the world that we encounter and deal with inclusive of its phenomena and processes Th is suggests that we are coterminous with the co- construction or co- real ization of the world that we come into contact with while changing it it is our positionality and biases related to our needs wants hopes capaci-ties and above all our forward- looking stands and visions inclusive of our past histories and future- oriented perspectives (who we are where we come from and who we want to become) that enter into any interpretation any



259

utterance and any aspect of the world shaped through our engaged acts of being knowing and doing

We can never take a neutral stance of a disinterested observer unin-volved in what is going on in the world Th is point has been expressed in various ways in critical and feminist scholarship (eg Fine Weis Weseen and Wong 2000 Harding 1992 Howe 2003 Morawski 1994 ) What the TAS adds to this is the specifi cation at the level of the basic onto- epistemology ndash namely that we can never take a neutral stance of a disinterested observer uninvolved in what is going on in the world because what is going on in the world is a process in which we are directly implicated as agentive actors and co- creators through our activist con-tributions that always matter (if only on a small scale and typically in modest ways) and moreover that make up the world and us in one and the same process Th at is what is added is the worldview- level ground-ing to legitimize the point that knowing is always not only situated and perspectival but also ineluctably partial passionate and partisan which however does not make it less objective than the one based in any puta-tively ldquofactualrdquo and ldquopurerdquo evidence disconnected from human struggles and striving

Objectivity ndash in the old connotation of this term as describing passion-less impartial neutral and disinterested knowledge of ldquobruterdquo facts ndash is therefore truly not within our aff ordance because of how the world is and how we are by our very ldquonaturerdquo Any time we try to deal with the world around us we fi nd ourselves (oft en without directly acknowledging or real-izing this) involved in actively changing the status quo through interpreta-tions and negotiations valuations and judgments choices and actions in search for answers and alternatives ndash all from within our activist strivings and struggles that are formative of the world understood as the process of a ceaseless becoming Th e saturation with values interests and biases ndash the fl agrant partisanship ndash is the very fi rst principle that organizes human activities and endeavors and therefore the human world Th is theme comes through in works by various philosophers and critical scholars although so far it has hardly become widely accepted in developing epistemology and methodology of social sciences and the present chapter can be seen as a call for its elaboration legitimation and stronger recognition

In Conclusion

Th e position of the TAS is not a revival of the old subjectivism nor a ver-sion of the presently fashionable human- less materialism but a distinctive



260

alternative to both Th e basis of this alternative is that human subjectivity is understood not as merely refl ecting reality but instead as a critical dimen-sion of historical praxis and moreover as an enactment of this praxis by agentive actors who are created by these very practices in the process and as the process of people creating them Such enactments always bring about changes in the world thus making a diff erence and therefore mattering and thereby becoming real or real ized ndash as a process that actually contributes to the constitution of reality and thus gains its ontological status and its actu-ality precisely through making a diff erence out in the social world

In the transformative worldview this position does not lead to relativ-ism and uncertainty of knowing Because reality is understood as an arena of human deeds co- created by human actors who themselves bring the world into existence as acts of their own becoming across dimensions of time our knowing- through- changing the world cannot but constitute (or give us) an immediate and reliable ldquoaccessrdquo to the world Th at is because the acts of changing ldquothe circumstancesrdquo of what exists now constitute no less than the reality in its mutual becoming the world cannot but be reliably known albeit only in the act of changing it And because the act of changing the world is taken as coextensive and synonymous with the act of realizing or bringing it forth the validity and veracity of activist knowing and of its claims are not undermined but instead strongly ascertained and acknowl-edged albeit only through the anchoring of knowledge in the processes of agentive change and transformation

An important specifi cation from the TAS is that our acts of knowing are constitutive of the world yet not on their own not as separate mental faculties (as posited by many versions of constructivism) but instead as dimensions in the carrying out of our overall projects of becoming in their unity of being knowing and doing that is ontologically realized as a contribution to social practice at the intersection of individual and collective planes of human praxis Th erefore we can and do know the world ndash yet not ldquoas it isrdquo in some abstractly objective way but as it is con-tinuously co- created by ourselves in collaborative pursuits of changes in social practices In this sense at stake is more than ldquoaccessingrdquo the world because the world constituted in the process of our own acting does not need to be accessed Instead the world is immediately present in the very act of changing qua creating it It is in this sense to reiterate that the world is not given ndash instead the world is taken or rather the world is given ndash and reliably known ndash in the act of agentively taking it up from a commitment to change



261

Th is approach represents a signifi cant shift beyond the pragmatist ecological situated and participatory approaches (that all de facto share the core premises of pragmatism) that also evoke notions of knowing as a practical engagement with the world Pragmatism too posits acting at the core of onto- epistemology and thus too does not separate knowing from acting Yet pragmatism implies that people gain knowledge not about the world but about the relations between our actions and their consequences in a particular situation ndash the realm that somehow is bracketed from the world ldquoas it isrdquo As Biesta ( 2007 ) argues in voicing the Deweyan position ldquo[A] ccording to Deweyrsquos transactional framework this is the one and only way in which the world will ever lsquoappearrsquo to us hellip In neither case how-ever do we learn truths about a world lsquoout therersquo rdquo (pp 15ndash 16) Th is view very progressive in many ways still allows for an onto- epistemological gap between the acts of knowing and doing (and by implication of being) on one hand and the world in its full reality ldquoas it isrdquo on the other ndash by leav-ing space to speculate about the gap between how the world appears to us and how it ldquoreallyrdquo is ldquoout thererdquo Th e TAS position however suggests that our acting is a way of knowing the world itself because the world and our acting are not ontologically separate ndash because this acting contributes to co- creating the world and ourselves Th is is an activist notion of being and knowing in and as the act of changing the world in line with the stipulation that the world is not given but instead that it is taken up contested and realized by each person qua social actor in each act of onersquos being knowing and doing ndash as the act of actively encountering and creating the world that is in the constant process of coming into being through collective practices and struggles in which everyone matters and makes a diff erence

Th is is an extension on the famous Marxist tenet that ldquothe coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self- change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionizing practicerdquo (1845 1978 p 144) What the TAS extension suggests is to stress the coinci-dence not only of the changing of circumstances with the ldquohuman activity or self- changerdquo but also the coincidence of these processes with reality ndash with both brought about in and through social practice that is always transcend-ing the status quo and thus is always transformative and revolutionary at least potentially

Th ese creative eff orts and acts of human activity ndash our ways of being knowing and doing ndash do not just take place in the world as the notions of situated and embedded cognition and the metaphor of ldquobeing thererdquo sug-gest Rather these creative acts bring forth the world and reality essentially



262

co- constituting the world as a collective forum of human deeds or as a drama played out in and through collaborative practices in their continu-ous collective becoming and communal historicity Th is approach impli-cates a radical shift away from seeing human development and the mind as processes of solo individuals developing in a social vacuum and outside of the world separately from other people and communities that is as enti-ties that are antecedent to constitutive communal practices Yet the role of individual human beings qua actors of social practices and agents of his-tory is ascertained as central to their own and their communitiesrsquo develop-ment and ultimately to the historical process of realizing and actualizing the world and our common humanity

Development is a process of genuine work of creating novelty of eff ort at making and inventing new ways of being knowing and doing and of inventing new realities within the always non- neutral pursuits and activist strivings ndash rather than just of refl ecting on interpreting making sense of acquiring or transmitting what already exists Th is is the work that each and every person is engaged in throughout onersquos life as we join in with the shared practices of becoming It is therefore completely understandable that Bakhtin could come up with a stunning formulation that ldquocreation is genu-ine making and the most ordinary thing in the worldrdquo (see Morson and Emerson 1990 p 215) All of these processes are collaborative and collec-tive even though personal agency and commitment are centrally involved in them as nothing is accessible to individuals isolated from the world and other people Hence the responsibility is on society on all of us to provide conditions and supports for all people to have access to the tools of activism and agency ndash of taking part in realizing the world through co- authoring it in thus coming to be oneself


263263

Part IV


264


265

265

9

Th e Mind Th at Matters

Th ough we do not wholly believe it yet the interior life is a real life and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible eff ect on the world

James Baldwin Nobody Knows My Dream

Within the expansive transformative approach to human development dis-cussed in the preceding chapters the concept of mind can be reconstrued in ways that resolutely break away from the Cartesian and other types of traditional dualisms In this chapter a number of steps in this direction is outlined in an attempt to directly align the mind with the social world of human collaborative practices through a developmental account pre-mised on the centrality of activist agency in pursuit of social transforma-tion through contribution to collective social practices and their communal history Th e motivation is to do justice to psychological processes being dynamic contextually situated distributed embodied and socioculturally mediated while not losing sight of their unique qualities and phenomenol-ogy To achieve this goal it is useful to go to the roots and restore the initial proposal by Vygotsky and other scholars of his project while expansively reconstructing it and addressing some of its remaining gaps and conun-drums Th eir proposal can be interpreted to suggest that the mind (and other forms of human subjectivity such as the self and identity) is inher-ent in human collaborative and transformative practices ndash emerging out of these practices not just within these practices as well as implicated and instrumental in these practicesrsquo historical dynamics at the intersection of collective and individual agency In this account the workings of the mind are rendered commensurate with the realities of human collective practices rather than an ephemeral and separate mental realm an epiphenomenal by- product of brain functioning or alternatively an inconsequential side eff ect of collective processes such as discourses and activities



266

At the center of Vygotskyrsquos approach is the idea (though not explicated by him in a fully fl edged form) that human development including the development of psychological processes can be captured by positing a unifi ed dynamics of human collaborative and transformative practices instantiated through individual contributions to these practices as the core ontological foundation Based on this assumption it is possible to eschew dividing human development into disconnected parts and realms Instead the traditional dichotomies such as those of mind versus body ideality ver-sus materiality subject versus object knowing versus doing and the like can be transcended by focusing on the inherent dynamics of social practices and their emergent transformations as a unique and indivisible (though not homogenous) realm that gives rise to human development and subjectivity while it itself is realized by people acting together in pursuit of their goals and agendas

Ontologically the mind is understood to be constructed from the same ldquofabricrdquo as all other human cultural practices and activities ndash that is from the ldquofabricrdquo of collaborative (shared) purposeful activities and as a particu-lar type of such activities Th e faculties of the mind come about as human acting undergoes complex processes of development associated with the growing sophistication of interactivity and meditational means employed in acting ndash culminating in unique ways of acting characteristic of human subjectivity Importantly these changes take place within an ontologically seamless process ndash albeit not without fractures confl icts and contradic-tions ndash of activity expansively developing and growing in complexity (ie becoming more interactively coordinated structured and organized) in ontogeny Th at is development of the mind is conceptualized as the gradual transformation of socially shared culturally mediated fully embodied and contextually situated activities into psychological (ldquointernalizedrdquo or men-tal) processes without positing any ontological breaks between internal ver-sus external individual versus collective and practical versus mental types of processes and phenomena

Th e mind in this non- dualist and dynamic account is neither a purely neuronal process inside the brain nor a separate and shadowy realm of mental representations in some mysterious inner theater ldquounder the skullrdquo Instead the mind is an instantiation of this- worldly activities by embodied intentional agents ndash acting together within complex matrices of social prac-tices bound to the materiality of these practicesrsquo structuration and tempo-rality including their cultural conventions and cultural tools (meditational means) as instruments of symbolization and interaction In this account the myths about the mind as a by- product of brain processes or a separate


Th e Mind Th at Matters 267

267

reality of internal representations (ie pictures in the mind) existing on their own and developing according to some idiosyncratic rules and regu-larities is emphatically rejected However the developmental approach at the same time aims to reveal how the continuously evolving forms of cul-tural mediation and social interaction and the respective seamless develop-mental transitions across activity levels engender increasingly sophisticated processes that have been traditionally associated with a somehow separate ldquomental realmrdquo of the mind Th is account opens the door to understand phenomena of perception memory deliberation imagination planning goal setting reasoning and the like without any mentalist individualist and solipsistic connotations

Vygotskyrsquos most critical step toward a dialectical understanding of human development personhood and subjectivity was in him insisting that they come into existence in the form of initially always intersubjective processes carried out as inter actions that only gradually are turned into intrasubjective actions that have their antecedents constituents and consequences in social practices that is in collaborative acting Th is position entails understand-ing the workings of the mind including its imaginative and transformative powers without evoking traditional mentalist biologically reductionist and individualist connotations such as in the form of preexistent representational structures or inborn brain modules Vygotskyrsquos account of how the psycho-logical processes evolve within the dynamics of joint activities mediated by cultural tools was de facto a great leap away from the traditional Cartesian view that had long since dominated ndash and continues to dominate ndash cogni-tive mentalist and biologically reductionist approaches

In these traditional approaches the emergence of intrinsic intention-ality and consciousness begins in the biological brain proceeds with its maturation results in language capacity as a natural outgrowth of biologi-cal process and concludes with the mechanisms of social institutions and ldquothe foundation for all institutional ontologyrdquo created by language- use (eg Searle 2010 pp 61ndash 63) Th us the whole of social life from individual development to social institutions is fundamentally owed to the essentially biological individual processes inside the organism In Steven Toulminrsquos ( 1979 ) elegant expression our minds in such an account operate according to the ldquono exitrdquo principle ndash because people are portrayed ldquolike prisoners who are born live and die in permanent deadlockrdquo One could add that not only the mind but the whole of social life in this account is in permanent deadlock of ldquointrinsic naturalismrdquondash exactly in line with the ethos of adapta-tion and its celebration of the status quo that is taken to be immutable and invincible



268

One of the pillars of Vygotskyrsquos project is its focus on the richness and com-plexity of human acting due to its culturally mediated and contextually situated collaborative dynamics and its immersion in and attunement to the worldly processes of social life and its shared practices in their ongoing historicity Th is dialectical understanding of human activity and acting stands in stark contrast with the oft en- impoverished views inherited from the traditional philosophy committed to the dualisms of doing and knowing being and acting behavior and mind As Costall and Leudar ( 2007 p 292) described

Modern psychology has taken over from neo- behaviourism an offi cial conception of behaviour which disenchants behaviour and equates it instead with ldquocolourless movementrdquo ultimately separable from any wider ldquocontextrdquo and devoid of inherent meaning and value hellip Given this dualistic conception of behaviour the mental could only be relegated to a hidden realm concealed behind behaviour and related to it in an arbitrary rather than constitutive way

An important part of Vygotskyrsquos position has been aptly summed up by Evald Ilyenkov a philosopher who collaborated with many scholars in Vygotskyrsquos school (A N Leontiev A V Zaporozhets V V Davydov and others) In describing the phenomena of mind and consciousness and in following with the Marxist and Vygotskian premises Ilyenkov ( 2009 ) sug-gests that the mind is

an entirely real process specifi cally inherent to human life- activity the process by which the material life- activity of social man [ sic ] begins to produce not only a material but also an ideal product begins to produce the act of idealisation of reality (the process of transforming the ldquomaterialrdquo into the ldquoidealrdquo) and then having arisen the ldquoidealrdquo becomes a critical component of the material life- activity of social man and then begins the opposite process ndash the process of the materialisa-tion (objectifi cation reifi cation ldquoincarnationrdquo) of the ideal (p 158)

In building off from this position the account that follows provides fur-ther specifi cations explications and clarifi cations from the transformative activist stance (TAS) including critically revising a number of remaining conundrums and contradictions

A Focus on Activity

In the transformative worldview all major ontological and epistemologi-cal positions on human development and the nature of reality in which



269

it unfolds are radically disassociated from the notion of adaptation and accompanying ideas about a static and unchanging world and an equally static and immutable nature in which people are presumably situated and that they have to ultimately somehow adjust and adapt to Instead the emphasis is on the world in a continuous transformation that is instantiated and enacted in human collaborative practices understood as a collective forum of human deeds and struggles In this emphasis there is a shift away from accounts of the agent- world relations as contemplative passive and essentially ldquodisengagedrdquo (cf Taylor 1993 ) Th at is the shift is away from see-ing human beings as merely dwelling in the world ndash as situated in shaped by and connected to it ndash to a focus on active and activist type of a transfor-mative engagement with the world guided by a sought- aft er future Th is is a step in a continuation of Vygotskyrsquos and activity theory position

In the transformative worldview reality is reconceived as being con-stantly transformed by persons acting together as members of social com-munities and moreover as agentive actors who co- create these communities and their social practices while in the same process being co- created by these very acts of enacting and realizing changes in social practices It is in view of this nexus that the Cartesian gulf between the conscious mind-ful human sphere and the putatively mindless clockwork natural universe can be eff ectively contested Th at is if reality is conceived as being real-ized and co- created by people acting together in communities then there is no need to posit a specialized separate mental realm that portrays (or refl ects) reality and provides representations through which the world can be accessed In the transformative worldview reality does not need to be accessed ndash because human beings are always already in reality and not as simply immersed in it but as fully implicated in its historical dynamics because of their central role in co- creating and enacting the world of shared social practices Th is position lays the grounds for overcoming other dual-isms endemic to traditional approaches

In focusing on an engaged agency of human actors who together co- create their world and themselves in meeting it halfway the mind can be understood non- mentalistically (cf Arievitch 2003 ) Namely it can be understood to not merely refl ect or describe the world nor to perform operations of storing and otherwise dispassionately processing informa-tion ndash putatively about abstract facts ldquoout thererdquo dissociated from human pursuits of being knowing and doing Instead the mind can be conceived as part and parcel of individuals actively realizing their world ndash and not through just any acting in or relating to the world but rather through acting



270

that contributes to shared collaborative practices and makes a diff erence in them Th e most critical specifi cation (including vis- agrave- vis the tenets of Vygotskyrsquos and activity theory) is the emphasis on the transformative nexus of people changing the world while being changed by and in this very pro-cess of enacting their transformative agency Th is implies that while inevi-tably making a diff erence in collaborative practices by contributing to their unfolding dynamics individuals are transforming these practices as part of their own continuous striving and eff ort at becoming In this approach the mind ndash including each act of getting to know the world and oneself ndash inevi-tably interferes in the materio- semiotic networks of the world and brings it into realization and therefore is itself an act of existential and practical import Moreover the mind is also an act of bringing forth not only the world but also the human actor herself ndash in what is a simultaneous and bidirectional spiral of mutual becoming

Th e mind and other psychological processes can be understood non- mentalistically and non- individualistically if human beings are posited to be agentive and striving actors who enact social life and its community practices ndash that are therefore constantly evolving and changing as they are made and remade by these very actors ndash rather than some solitary entities passively dwelling in a stable world of the status quo each on onersquos own in pursuit of individual survival and other self- contained outcomes and self- centered gains Th e mind can be assigned its due place in this- worldly reality of material social practices and processes if both this reality and the human acting are reconceived away from passive and static connotations typical of the ethos of adaptation

Based on this position it is possible to consistently implement a collec-tive distributed and ldquoexternalistrdquo approach to mental phenomena and at the same time acknowledge their important role and grant them effi cacy Th e mind and all forms of human subjectivity can be conceived not as an internal ldquomental theaterrdquo or epiphenomenal by- products of brain activity instead they are cast as a meaningful activity (or a facet of it) out in the world through which people participate in and contribute to its transfor-mations ndash an activity with the same ontological status as all other human social collaborative activities Th is position secures a central place within the world not only to human collaborative practices but also by implica-tion to their subjective and intersubjective dimensions Th e mind in this perspective can be understood as an inalienable dimension of social prac-tices and therefore as a material and full event in the world that partakes in its realization by making a diff erence in it Th is position is made viable not



271

by claiming some singular importance of the mind per se as is the case in many traditional frameworks (such as the one developed by William James and in many versions of contemporary constructivism) but by underscor-ing the transformative agency of human activist striving that is cotermi-nous with people co- creating collaborative human practices and therefore bearing a central ontological signifi cance

Th ese seemingly opposing phenomena and processes are viewed as interrelated poles (separate but not hyperseparated that is not disjunctive cf Plumwood 1993 ) on a continuum of one unifi ed reality of human collab-orative social practices composed of individually unique but interactively co- created and sustained contributions to them What substitutes for the traditional views is the notion of subjectivity in its practical relevance (or radical ldquofacticityrdquo see Merleau- Ponty 1962 ) ndash as a process that is involved and implicated in changes and transformations in collaborative practices that take place out in the social world understood as a forum of shared strivings and human deeds Human subjectivity and mind gain ontological status through their role and place within social transformative practices ndash as contingent on and determined by how they matter in the larger realms of communal social life and its ongoing transformations Th e practical relevance of human subjectivity can be ascertained by duly acknowledg-ing materiality of human social practices and their constitutive deeds ndash established precisely in light of the ceaseless and permanent changes that they incur (as they always do) in the world that unfolds as a continuous stream of social practices in which we and our world are co- created and interanimated

To reiterate the mind is a unique dimension of carrying out purposeful activities within the matrix of social- material collaborative practices medi-ated by cultural tools and continuously expanding through history Th is process entails highly elaborated acting on the ldquointernal (or mental) planerdquo that aff ords effi cient organizing planning coordination and evaluation of actions and activities Most critically and most emphatically the expression ldquointernal planerdquo does not connote ldquoinside the headrdquo or ldquoinside the brainrdquo of an individual Instead this expression points to a complex structure of activities that encompass various layers of multiple actions being ldquobuilt intordquo or bracketed within each other and the larger fl ow of activity process What is unique about this form of acting is that it is carried out in abbrevi-ated compressed (or condensed) forms because it relies on various sorts of shortcuts for acting that are embodied in signs and symbols including concepts and words



272

Th us the mind is ldquosimplyrdquo a form of acting that is mind ful and meaningful in the sense that it allows human beings to mind the course of their con-tinued processes of being knowing and doing within communal practices shared with others at the intersection of collective and individual levels Yet the mind still belongs to the realm of this- worldly (and therefore in a sense objective and practical or productive) activities performed in the carry-ing out of relations with and transformations of the world other people and oneself Th e mental therefore is the quality of action that a person performs in coordination with others and within the matrices of social practices ndash the degree of its generalization and abbreviation and how well it takes into account and relies on relevant features of phenomena as they matter within the course of a certain activity It is this quality of acting that diff erentiates the ldquoexternalrdquo and directly observable material activity from its incarnations that are typically described as mental Th is point has to do with distinguishing acting in its mental ndash or ideal ndash form from the material one based in the most common colloquial connotation of the term ideal (oft en overlooked in philosophical discussions though traceable to Marx) Ideal most directly means ldquothe bestrdquo ndash the most relevant and suitable vis- agrave- vis current circumstances and goals ndash form or expression of some phenom-ena process and so on An ideal action is action that is ldquobetterrdquo compared to others as more suited for the purposes and goals of ongoing activities Th e ideal action is one informed by or imbued with the ldquobetter suitedrdquo (and therefore ideal) know- how and grasp of what needs to be done and how it can be done

In the latter aspect this account builds on the works by Piotr Galperin (eg 1985 1989 ) and by other members of Vygotskyrsquos project who specifi -cally focused on exploring the intricacies of acting on the ldquointernal planerdquo without implying any mentalist or Cartesian connotations In summarizing and expanding on this line of work Igor Arievitch ( 2003 2008 Arievitch and Haenen 2005 Arievitch and Stetsenko 2000 2014 Arievitch and van der Veer 1995 2004 ) has provided many useful specifi cations In his inter-pretation mental processes are not some mysterious ldquopsychicalrdquo faculties nor are they a refl ection of brain processes Instead they are object- related actions in the outer world that proceed according to this- worldly dynamics and regularities Th e critical feature of these actions however is that they are carried out in a specifi c form namely without physical execution As this position is further described

mental actions just like all hellip actions deal with the properties of exter-nal objects and processes and are performed in compliance with specifi c



273

characteristics of these objects and processes Th ey have the same objec-tive content as the relevant material actions hellip When we transform the situation physically say rearrange the furniture of our room we have to take into consideration relevant properties of things we are acting upon ndash the size of the room of pieces of furniture their shapes hellip [T] he same holds true when we are just planning the changes only transform-ing the situation mentally hellip [N]othing of some other ldquopsychicalrdquo or ldquointernalrdquo nature is involved hellip ndash no matter whether we are standing in the center of the room and looking around ie performing the transfor-mations on the perceptual plane or are doing this just in our imagina-tion away from the immediate spot (Arievitch and van der Veer 1995 p 119 emphasis added)

Temporality

Most critically the complex dynamics of activity that is implicated in human subjectivity includes developmental temporality Th at is each action within activities builds upon and continues those performed in the past each time in novel ways under presently given conditions and importantly in view of the future goals of activity Each of these actions can bracket ndash by way of mutually embedded layers like in a Russian doll ( matryoshka ) ndash the pre-vious and the future actions within its own present patterns thus bring-ing together the past present and future Th is view is consistent with the dynamic principles that describe epigenetic nature of change As Esther Th elen ( 2005 p 263) puts it epigenetic means

ldquoone thing follows anotherrdquo development happens not because of either a genetic program or imperatives from the environment but by a seamless interweaving of events in time both internal and exter-nal Oyama Griffi ths and Gray (2001) call these the ldquocycles of contin-gencyrdquo because the ensemble literally creates itself through reiterative activity

Th ere is an additional specifi cation to this notion of temporality that is cru-cial to a non- dualist transformative account Th e human mind ndash embedded in derivative of and instrumental in collective social practices ndash although fi rmly located in the present as it carries on and continues the past (and thus contains history in it) is at the same time and most critically pre-mised on and constituted by a projection into the future Th at is the mind is constituted by our activities not merely in the ldquohere and nowrdquo but at the intersection of the past present and future and in always projecting into and planning for what is to come



274

In this way no action completely ends or vanishes instead past actions accumulate and are preserved in the present ndash in the form of them becom-ing embedded and enacted within the order and structure of the present acting which is carried out in view of the future In such a process of mutual embedding within the present activities of the past acting and of acting that is imagined and projected into the future the past is continuously regenerated reassembled and changed in light of ongoing and impend-ing changes and challenges In this sense the mind is a human capacity of acting in ways that convert that which has already passed into the present acting while making it attuned to what a person is striving toward as a pro-jection into the future For this reason ndash and not only metaphorically ndash to act mindfully is to relive the past yet not in mechanically repeating it but rather in converting it into what can be applied to the conditions in the present and most critically to these conditions as seen through the prism of the sought- aft er future

Th e mind thus understood is about purposefully acting in the world in pursuit of onersquos goals and aspirations in way of a continuous activist and meaningful striving rather than about processing information inde-pendently of what the person is engaged in and caring about and most importantly what she or he is committing to and aiming toward Th is is not a recording of what is ldquooutrdquo in the world but instead a form of taking up and authoring the world ndash always in collaboration with others even when individuals are seemingly acting alone Th e mind can be said to serve as an instrument of carrying out our continuous and ever- changing pursuits of a fl exible and constantly updated long- term perspective embodied in life agendas and projects Th e mind is about acting mind fully in an active engagement with some tasks in the here and now (which themselves come to be actively defi ned by the actor) yet while continuing the past engage-ments in view of the present challenges as these are coordinated with the sought- aft er future It is not just a reenactment of the past but a continuous carrying out of the past under the present challenges and conditions and in view of the meaningful goals of activity that is transcending the ldquogivenrdquo status quo

In this approach human relations to the world are always on the cusp between what has been what is and what is about to be ndash in the gap between what exists in the present as the present continuously carries on the past and what is sought out in the future To relate to the world in activist ways then means to act in light of its ongoing continuous and ever- shift ing challenges opportunities problems and aff ordances



275

while always focusing on what is coming about and is to be done next as per onersquos imagination and striving Relating to the world therefore is critically contingent on fi guring out who to become and how to act in the next moment within what is being shaped in the present and only bound to happen yet is always already embodied in our eff orts even though not yet fully realized nor made actual before the person acts and takes a stand

Even ldquosimplerdquo acts of seeing are passionate acts of striving contingent on taking stands and committing to a sought- aft er future Th ey are deeply personal and fi lled with signifi cance and meanings that stem from how the person relates to what she perceives and what is ldquoin itrdquo for her as an actor of social practices striving for and seeking something in the future Th e acts of perception are about the future more like anticipating what is to come rather than reacting to or recording ldquowhat isrdquo In fact perceiving or reacting to ldquowhat isrdquo right at this moment what exists in front of us in ldquothe here and nowrdquo would be a useless endeavor because the world is constantly mov-ing and changing being transformed already by our presence and in the very act of us perceiving it A purely passive neutral and reactive mode of perceiving ldquowhat isrdquo even if such a process were possible (which it is not) would not serve any meaningful purpose and would not be useful for the person who has to deal with things that are to come and are already coming about even if not yet in fully realized forms Th e person does not act merely in the present because acting in the present always already cre-ates the future- in- the- present In this sense even seemingly ldquosimplerdquo acts of perception are only meaningful to the extent that they help the person to orient in the constantly changing and dynamic reality that is help to fi gure out what to do and who to be next while sharing the world with others

Th is set of ideas can be characterized as a broad expanded understand-ing of Vygotskyrsquos famous concept of the ldquozone of proximal developmentrdquo Th is notion has been typically used in a rather restricted sense in research on achievement testing and evaluation to refer to the diff erence between what learners can do independently of social supports versus what they can do with the help from a more experienced partner (although a number of works have moved past this connotation eg see Chaiklin 2003 Cole 1985 Hedegaard 1990 Karpov 2005 Lantolf 2000 Moran and John- Steiner 2003 Wells 2000 ) A broader connotation in expanding the notion of the ZPD to capture the whole spectrum of human activities and functions is that the human mind is always operating within and helping to co- create the zone of proximal development at the threshold of what exists and what



276

is yet to come and moreover coming about precisely through creating such zones of what is possible as a fl exible orientation to the future Th is is in tune with Vygotskyrsquos emphasis on for example intelligence as not an ldquoaccu-mulation of already mastered skillsrdquo but as a ldquodialogue with onersquos own future and an address to the external worldrdquo (cf Emerson 1996 p 132)

Knowing as all forms of human pursuits and activities therefore can be understood to be ontologically determined by acts of transformation in the connotation of creating novelty and moving beyond the given of tran-scending the status quo rather than by passive processes of people being situated merely dwelling in or experiencing the world (as implied by the ethos of adaptation) Forming knowledge is a creative endeavor in a very direct sense ndash because it is an act of change and transformation of what exists ndash albeit not on its own not as an isolated cognitive process ldquoin the headrdquo but as a dimension of acting in pursuit of this- worldly and always collaborative activities projects and goals that co- constitute the world communities and the persons themselves Knowing is about neither copy-ing the world nor coping with it but instead about creating the world and knowing it ndash and oneself ndash in the very act of bringing about transformative and creative change that is in the act of making a diff erence in communal forms of life and thus mattering in them and through this of coming to be and to know

The Sought- After Future Seeing as Acting

Th e goals and the sought- aft er future are elevated as the most critical dimensions of being knowing and doing because they are central to acting by agents of community practices who do not (and cannot) adapt to the status quo but are in pursuit of changing and transcending it In moving beyond what exists in the present human beings cannot mechanically react to the world as it ldquoimpingesrdquo on them ndash as if they were passive recipients of outside stimuli Instead the mind and the production of knowledge are profoundly contingent on what individuals and communities project into the future and consider should be while actively realizing these commit-ments in the present by moving beyond it

Th e challenge is to describe how we can fully immerse ourselves into the present confl icts and contradictions of ongoing struggles yet not stay confi ned to the status quo and instead project and move into the future through committed actions based in the sought- aft er future Th is does not imply that imagination and related phenomena of hope anticipation pro-jection and the like are somehow separate from acting in the present In the



277

transformative worldview it is possible to not only posit that new realities and other versions of the social world can be imagined (as is the assump-tion in a number of sociological approaches) Rather given the dialectics of how the future is always shaping the present in its ongoing historicity these new realities are inherent in the transformative practices in their movement that is overcoming the status quo already in the present ndash specifi cally in the form of a commitment to bringing the sought- aft er future into reality Th e critical constituent of human development and learning therefore consists in taking stands and staking claims ndash making up onersquos mind ndash on ongoing events in view of the purposes goals commitments and aspirations for the future I will return to this idea at the end of this chapter

Th e activist positioning and taking a stand are dimensions present already at the level of processes that are traditionally and quite errone-ously considered to be elementary passive and value- neutral such as perception ndash to continue with the same example Th e classical represen-tational theory asserts that perception is built out of sensations that result of stimuli impinging on the body (eg on the eye retina) A causal rela-tion is supposed to obtain between any given stimulus and a sensation In the next step the sensation is supposed to be reworked in the brain or in some cognitive process to yield an image and a mental awareness of it Foundational to no less than four centuries of perception theory is the notion that ldquopercepts are cognitively transformed sensations and the basis of perception is an awareness of states of the brain that are the remote eff ects of physical causesrdquo (Harreacute 1986 p 155) Th is is a fundamentally passive process of ldquoundergoingrdquo the eff ects of the external world and reg-istering its stimuli in a process that is abstracted from who is perceiving from what perspective why and most critically for what purposes and from what commitment

Moreover the traditional account makes invisible the active work involved in perceiving that is neither eff ortless nor passive What is con-cealed is that perceiving is an active and creative endeavor ndash an agentive deed colored by and infused with the dimensions of the past present and especially future that is with goals desires hopes and commitments vis- agrave- vis matters of concern and care to us Th is point has been well captured by Max Wartofsky ( 1979 p 115) who wrote that ldquothe sensation I have the thought I think the desire I express the action I perform as a human being is hopelessly infected with my personal biography my species- history my social and historical past and present and future rdquo (emphasis added)

Th e apparent ease and automaticity of perception is actually deeply deceptive as illustrated in patients who gain vision aft er surgery to repair



278

sight and thereaft er struggle in learning how to do the work of seeing (Luria 1973 ) It is in this sense that seeing needs to be conceived of as an active process of looking ndash the point articulated by many philosophers and schol-ars such as Dewey Gibson and Merleau- Ponty among others Dewey was able to establish this already in his early writings especially his classical paper Th e Refl ex Arc (1986) Th e notions pertaining to how perception is an activity out in the world and descriptions of ldquothe learning to perceiverdquo process can be found in Eleanor and James Gibsonrsquos ecological approach (eg Gibson 1969 1991 Gibson and Gibson 1955 ) Th is view was also elaborated in great detail by activity theorists such as especially Alexander Zaporozhets a close colleague of Vygotsky Signifi cant parallels between the activity theory position on perception as an active process of explora-tion and orientation in the world on one hand and the works by (espe-cially) Eleanor Gibson on the other are not coincidental as she explicitly credited research by Zaporozhets as the source of her insights As Herbert Pick has documented ( 1992 )

Gibson followed in detail a body of Soviet research in the late fi ft ies and early sixties which searched for commonalities between hand move-ments and eye movements in children (Zaporozhets 1965 Zinchenko Chzhi- Tsin and Tarakanov 1963 ) hellip she found a distinction the Soviets made between executive and investigatory movements quite appealing (p 791)

Indeed one of E Gibsonrsquos most stunning conclusions directly indebted to Zaporozhets as she attests to was that ldquoperception is action but it is explor-atory action not executive action in the sense of manipulating the environ-mentrdquo (Gibson 1969 p 120)

Th e active nature of perception was also highlighted by Merleau- Ponty ( 1962 ) who wrote that vision and perception are forms of action Neisser (eg 1975 ) too insisted that images are anticipatory schemata built as a phase in active cyclic interactions with the world In more recent approaches the mind is explicitly connected to the practical motor action ndash ldquothe key to [the enactive theory] is the idea that percep-tion depends on the possession and exercise of a certain kind of practi-cal knowledgerdquo (Noeuml 2004 p 33) Similar themes are present in recent accounts premised on the notion of embodiment As Overton ( 2008 p 5) states ldquoa body actively engaged in and with the world necessitates that not only cognition and learning but emotions and motivations and all psychological functions are co- constituted by the sociocultural and envi-ronmental contextrdquo



279

More generally there exists a long and now vibrant tradition of action- oriented theories of mind extending back at least to James Dewey Bergson Merleau- Ponty Piaget Gibson and Wittgenstein (among others) and con-tinuing in current research by psychologists philosophers developmental biologists linguists and cognitive scientists who seek to understand how the mind is situated embodied and enacted (eg Carpendale and Lewis 2004 Clark 1997 Damasio 1999 Noeuml 2004 2010 Th elen 1995 Th elen and Smith 1994 Tomasello 1999 Varela Th ompson and Rosch 1991 ) Th e many layers of what such an approach implicates however are still in need of more discussions and explorations One of its common (though still oft en misunderstood) applications today ndash in dynamic systems theory post- Piagetian and embodied enacted cognition theories ndash is that we per-ceive know and understand the world not with an abstract intellect but with our actual acting and sensory- motor capacities Th ese bodily sensa-tions and activities are not complementary to cognition but instead are their very source and fabric As Ether Th elen ( 2000 ) powerfully expressed this point

It is precisely the continuity in time of the embedded and coupled dynamic systems essential for fl uid adaptive behavior that gives mean-ing to the notion of an embodied cognition Th ere is no point in time when these dynamic processes stop and something else takes over Th us there are good reasons to believe in not only the sensorimotor origins of cognition but in the intimate and inextricable mesh between think-ing and acting throughout life Th inking begins in perceiving and acting and retains the signatures of its origins forever Th e goal of development is not to rise above the mere sensorimotor but for cognition to be at home within the body (p 8 emphasis added)

Th is conceptualization was central to Vygotskyrsquos project too most explicitly so in the second generation of activity theory represented in the works by Leontiev Elkonin Zaporozhets and others (Th elen 2005 acknowledges this indirectly in her tribute to Nikolai Bernstein a virtual coparticipant of Vygotskyrsquos project) For example this was succinctly expressed by Ilyenkov who wrote in summarizing this theoretical position that ldquo[t] hinking is not the product of an action but the action itself rdquo ( 1977 p 35 emphasis in the original)

Th e other and closely related connotation is that in Noeumlrsquos words ldquothe mind reaches ndash or at least can reach sometimes ndash beyond the limits of the body out into the worldrdquo (2004 p 221 emphasis in the original) One of the highly received (and considered by many to be quite radical) approaches that combines ideas of embodiment and the notion of contextual embedding



280

of the mind has been developed by Andy Clark ( 1997 ) Th e premise is that there is

no general fracture between cognition the agentrsquos bodily experience and real- life contexts Here the body is viewed as constraining distributing or regulating cognitive processing Specifying how the body performs these functions in particular environments raises the prospect that cog-nition itself is neither bounded by the brain nor perhaps even by the body itself (Wilson and Foglia 2011 )

In this approach therefore the mind is no longer assumed to be ldquoonlyrdquo in the individual rather it is in the individual yet it is also distributed across the environment and augmented by artifacts

Yet another common implication is that the mind and its various incar-nations such as ideas and memories are for acting Th is follows in line with what Louis Menand characterized as the core of pragmatism ndash its position that ldquoideas are not lsquoout therersquo waiting to be discovered but are tools ndash like forks and knives and microchips ndash that people devise to cope with the world in which they fi nd themselvesrdquo (Menand 2001 p xi)

As important as these premises are they leave many connotations about what it means that the mind is action unattended to Oft en left aside in particular is the focus on the collective dynamics of meaningful shared activities extending through history ndash as a unifi ed ongoing and continuous praxis constituted by individual contributions to these dynamics stretch-ing through generations ndash in the workings of the mind Missing is that the activity and the ldquodoingsrdquo of the mind are indelibly colored by what the per-sons qua social agents of collaborative practices are striving for in their situ-ated pursuits and life agendas out in the social world shared with others grounded in social values positions and interests

From the TAS rather than being a passive refl ection of reality perception and all other faculties of the human mind are implicated in and implicate collaborative transformative contributions as parts of collective and shared practices Moreover and quite critically being transformative the mind is a sort of action that is always attuned to the future to what is not yet Th is is to say that perception is always anticipatory that is it is a sort of acting that is stretching beyond the present and transcending the givenness of the status quo Perception is an activity of encountering the world as part of and in light of onersquos own active positioning struggle and striving toward the future ndash what one wants to achieve where one wants to go next and who one wants to become Th is implies that simply undergoing or being exposed to ldquostimulirdquo is not enough (and not meaningful per se) and that



281

instead a person has simultaneously to do the work of seeing and the work of understanding evaluating assessing and interpreting ndash as the always intertwined facets of one and the same process of being- knowing- doing

In this sense seeing and all other acts of being- knowing- doing are not some neutral process of fi guring out the ldquoorder of thingsrdquo in itself as if this order was already in existence and could be taken for granted understood and appraised as such Instead perception is about grasping what is going on in light of what we consider will and should be going on as per our own convictions commitments expectations (including hopes and fears) and activist stands Th is also means that we see things as per what it is that we want to do with them ndash specifi cally how we want to and actually always already are changing them and with them also changing ourselves already in the present

As the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead ( 1920 ) wrote to see is to take hold of what is there in front of us to grasp its precise application to discover what we see (Gouldner 1982 p 382) What can be added to this from the TAS is that discovering what we see is possible in the process of also and simultaneously discovering ourselves in what we see and what we want to see Th at is seeing is contingent on what we want to achieve in and by the act of seeing as part of our meaningful activities out in a world shared with others Seeing is not just ldquodoing the workrdquo of seeing in discover-ing what we see but also and simultaneously discovering ourselves in the act of seeing ndash with this act being contingent on where we come from how we are positioned in the present and where we are heading ndash in moving along the path of our continuous becoming which is a process of contributing to how we want ourselves and our world to be

Life- Long Pursuits of Agentive Becoming

Th e mind understood as an elaborate mind ful acting far from being a soli-tary mental theater in the head or a self- driven neuronal activity played out in the brain of an individual instead represents a continuous hierarchi-cal enactment of a ceaseless and uninterrupted life- long pursuit and striv-ing at becoming by each person qua social actor of communal practices Th e mind is attuned to and commensurate with each personrsquos evolving and ever- changing long- term agenda or life project inclusive of identity dimensions such as interests goals passions and motivations Th ese agen-das and projects ndash as broad quests to understand who one is and who one wants to become through changing oneself and the world ndash are always in the process of coming about as they are continuously worked and reworked



282

by each person in the course of life within collaborative social practices Th ey are not a fi xed predetermination but a constantly reworked and fl ex-ible orientation to the future Such projects are updated every step of the way and attuned to the challenges demands and aff ordances of the world as they have emerged from the past (hence the relevance of history) and are dynamically unfolding in the present while also ndash and most critically ndash being premised on the sought- aft er future and what actions we believe need to be carried out to achieve this future In this process the past is brought into and enacted in the present through purposefully acting under pres-ently given conditions

At the same time these conditions are not just ldquoout thererdquo to be expe-rienced as they are Instead they are actively engaged and grappled with by the person ndash and therefore changed fabricated recreated and real-ized from each personrsquos unique standpoint ndash along the lines of what one considers ldquoought to berdquo that is in light of onersquos commitments to changing these conditions in aiming for the future in projecting forward in the furtherance of onersquos life project in thus connecting the past present and future Life projects are not preexisting structures Instead they develop along with and through the developments and dynamics of collabora-tive activities realized through onersquos own evolving contributions to these activities practices Th is means that each new encounter with the world and each new act of being knowing and doing are not just inserted into the somehow preexistent life pursuits and agendas Rather these new encounters and acts are absorbed into life agendas and reworked on their own grounds so as to modify and transform these agendasrsquo ever- unfolding stream by reorienting reorganizing and channeling it in new directions

Th ese agendas or life pursuits are deeply personal yet also indelibly social because they are always embedded within mediated by and tailored to the collective projects of transformative changes ndash being realized through per-sons contributing to these ineluctably collective projects In this sense the mind begins in social collaborative practices and never breaks away from them thus always remaining social and collaborative (or better collectivid-ual) even in its utmost private expressions

Th e notions of life project and life agenda capture what is oft en referred to as ldquobecomingrdquo and what Bakhtin termed postuplenie [Russian] Th is term refers to a ceaseless and open- ended quest for onesrsquo unique role and place within the communal world shared with others that all people embark on and pursue throughout their lives ndash within the fullness of each personrsquos



283

ldquoonce- occurrentrdquo answerable life (Bakhtin 1993 ) Note the richness of Bakhtinrsquos idiosyncratic term postuplenie Although literally meaning ldquoenter-ingrdquo ldquoentryrdquo or ldquojoiningrdquo and oft en translated in the English versions of Bakhtinrsquos works as ldquodeedrdquo or ldquoactrdquo due to etymological similarity to ldquopostu-pokrdquo (literally meaning ldquodeedrdquo) postuplenie also derives from ldquopostuprdquo Th e latter means ldquostepping forwardrdquo (with a connotation of solemnity as in a measured tread) and also ldquocommitting oneself to somethingrdquo and even ldquosac-rifi cingrdquo or ldquosurrenderingrdquo Postuplenie conveys the sense of a process- like continuous (uninterrupted) and dynamic (ever- changing and cumulative) unfolding of onersquos life as a becoming- through- doing It also captures the unitary character of this process as one seamless continuous fl ow under-standable only in its totality as not reducible to a chain of single discrete episodes (Bakhtin 1990 1993 for interpretation see Stetsenko 2007b )

Th is totality of life is what makes each and every deed count as something that irreversibly and irrevocably forever changes the whole life and the whole world What is at stake here is the unique phenomenological richness of each and every human deed of each and every act of being knowing and doing When pulled together across the time scales as they are deeds form a seamless stream of onersquos life as an active project of postupleine ndash a ldquocoming forward through doingrdquo Th is process begins already early in child-hood and draws on a vast repertoire of tools including narratives and play for example Th e playrsquos hallmark features are that it creates the space for imagination creation of novelty in transcending the given and projection into the future ndash and thus the space for transformative agency (for details see Stetsenko and Ho 2015 )

Freire utilizes a similar notion when he ldquoaffi rms men and women as beings in the process of becoming ndash as unfi nished uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfi nished realityrdquo ( 1970 p 84) From the TAS becom-ing can be cast as a process of becoming- through- changing- the- shared- world to convey the value of each personrsquos unique role and participation in community practice a ldquononalibirdquo (to use Bakhtinrsquos term) in them ndash a sense that each and every act of being knowing and doing by each and every person inevitably changes not only this personrsquos life (as it does) but also the world itself by leaving irreversible and unique traces in it

Th e notion of the mind that anchors it within the life- long pursuits and projects fi nds support in many studies on the mind and related phenom-ena of awareness and consciousness for example as surveyed by Merlin Donald ( 2001 ) As he summarizes in relying among others on Alexander Luriarsquos works the human mind is occupied more with longer- term



284

planning and self- assembly than with immediate sensation and responses to what is given in experiencing the world in a merely refl ective and reac-tive mode In this vein clinical studies suggest that executive functions are not some separate faculties but a high- level ldquosupervisionrdquo of onersquos lifespan activities ndash a process of placing oneself in the immediate moment itself understood to be situated within a larger context of onersquos entire life (ibid) Along these lines Oliver Sacks ( 1987 1995 ) described how conventional neurological tests and pathology diagnostics traditionally reduce patients to an inventory of defi cits while instead the patientsrsquo own experiences and self- understandings develop through a compensatory reorganizing process aimed at preserving and reestablishing continuous identity through the life span (cf Clancey 2009 )

Th ese considerations have profound implications for the notions of mind and consciousness Th ough typically understood to be focused on the inter-mediate time frame within which people act and think ldquo[t] he entity that clinicians call consciousness constructs and maintains our working mod-els of the world and the course that the individual takes over its lifetime rdquo (Donald 2001 p 70 emphasis added) Th is does not imply that we carry around conscious images of our embodied selves or clear- cut life agendas in our heads but rather that we engage in an active work of maintaining and developing our identities across the time scales of the past present and future Yet the critical point from the TAS is that this work of identity devel-opment is not separate nor separable in principle from the work of prac-tically doing things out in the world ndash contributing to its transformative changes and precisely through this fi nding onersquos authentic voice and onersquos unique place in the world Th is is what grounds identity and human subjec-tivity at large ndash these processes of making a diff erence and thus mattering in the materiality of human communal life and its collective practices

Th ese matters and our identities are never settled and never terminated as if there could be some fi nal defi nitive resolution on them and some fi nal defi nitive answer to questions about our role and place in a world shared with others In actuality this place and this role can and do constantly change along with our understandings of them perhaps even till the very last days of life (as attested to by many poets and novelists)

In this sense the psychological processes ndash however localized and fl eet-ing they might appear to be ndash are always reaching beyond the givenness of the present moment in meeting the need for us to fi gure out and decide who we are and who we want to be next how we are positioned and posi-tion ourselves vis- agrave- vis our world including other people and what we



285

want can have to and hope to do next within the communal world shared with others Th at is this is the work of fi guring out not only an answer to the question ldquowho am Irdquo (as suggested by many authors eg Luttrell 1996 Packer and Goicoechea 2000 ) but also to the questions ldquowho am I becom-ingrdquo and even more to the point ndash ldquowho do I want to becomerdquo and ldquowhat do I want my world to becomerdquo Th e specifi c emphasis in the TAS is that the latter two questions are interconnected and presuppose each other and can only be answered in light of each other ndash as both contingent on explor-ing what it is that one can and should do to bring about the sought- aft er future into reality

To emphasize again the mind is not about merely refl ecting represent-ing recording or experiencing the world instead it is about actively carry-ing out onersquos ways of being doing and knowing in one unifi ed (though not uniform) and continuous (though not without contradictions) process of becoming from onersquos unique position and in light of onersquos goals and aspira-tions in the world that we share with others As such this process does not consist of separate episodes and cannot be broken into distinct components or isolated parts Instead the mind is cumulative and evolving in one seam-less movement (or uninterrupted fl ow) of deeds that all interpenetrate and interconnect with each other thus co- evolving together and co- defi ning each other

In this light the psychological processes of perception cognition thinking memory and so on are not independent modules or gadgets in the service of partial isolated self- standing and discrete goals ndash such as cognitive understanding problem solving memorization or information processing ndash as if they were disconnected from the overall course of life itself somehow sheltered from social and collective processes and practices Instead because the mind is posited as but one dimension in the realiza-tion of the entirety of life of each person qua social actor of community practices and their collaborative projects every act of being knowing and doing is a stepping- stone in this process Th at is every act is a stepping- stone in carrying out a unitary and unique (though dynamic and constantly changing) seamless and ceaseless path of becoming an individually unique person with an authentic voice unique individuality and a distinct role among other people through making a diff erence in the communal world of social practices and their collective history (see Stetsenko 2010a ) Th e psychological processes are part and parcel of each personrsquos continuous and unifi ed ndash though at the same time fl exible dynamic and ever- changing ndash postuplenie as an eff ort at becoming someone and getting somewhere while



286

actively struggling to fi nd onersquos place and role in the communal world and its history always shared with others

Th e direct implication of this position is that each aspect or dimension (facet) in the workings of the mind and each act of being knowing and doing are understandable in light of each other and can be interpreted against the background of them belonging to the overarching process of becoming and its constituent life projects and agendas within the com-munal world shared with others Th e mind is a sort of acting that tran-scends the immediacy of the present including contingencies of social practices and discourses as they are in the ldquohere and nowrdquo and instead moves beyond the status quo in creating novelty and inventing the future Realized through the creative powers of transformative practices the acts of mind just as material doings too are transformative processes that pro-duce ontological relations inclusive of the persons and the world who are co- created together through world- making and self- making actions as one unifi ed (though not uniform and instead fraught with contradictions) process

The Ethical Dimensions

Th is position puts the ethical dimensions of being knowing and doing squarely at the forefront Because becoming has to do with fi nding onersquos place and role in community practices in their ongoing historicity and while contributing to them from this unique place each dimension and facet of this process has an evaluative quality including even the more ldquoelemen-taryrdquo processes of perception and memorization Th is does not mean that life agendas and commitments have to do with abstract contemplation and strictly inward mentation on moral dilemmas that are imposed in a top- down fashion from outside the developing person Rather from the TAS moral and ethical dilemmas and conundrums ldquonaturallyrdquo and inevitably arise within the course of our daily journeys Th is is because these journeys are about active strivings and struggles rather than abstract contempla-tion and information processing ndash in which there are decisions to be made every step of the way in light of demands and aff ordances engendered by the dynamics of collaborative social practices and the struggle to contribute to them It is the activist character of the process posited to ground human life and development ndash the continuous becoming through activist contribution to collaborative social practices ndash that makes the ethical directly visible and palpably present and even imperative within all acts of being knowing and doing Th is is why it is highly ironic that most conventional methodologies



287

and accounts of the mind designed to register achievements on disparate tasks such as problem solving memorization concept formation and so on fi nd ways to leave the ethical dimensions behind and render them invisible

Th e ethical (and ideological) dimension is central in and integral to human being and becoming including subjectivity and intersubjectivity because acting in ways that contribute to social practices requires ethical deliberation every step of the way rather than only in some ldquospecialrdquo cir-cumstances where the need to solve moral dilemmas putatively arises On the one hand a person cannot act without knowing right from wrong (cf Frye 1990 ) cannot be an actor without some goal and envisioned orienta-tion some commitment to a destination of onersquos becoming (or postuple-nie) On the other hand any and all acts deeds entail and carry the ethical (ldquothe rightrdquo versus ldquothe wrongrdquo) in them because they inevitably change the world and life ndash for better or worse for oneself and others ndash even if this change is sometimes neither self- evident nor immediately clear even to the actor Th e ethical is therefore a distinctive and inherent characteristic of being knowing and doing rather than a separate ingredient that is just somehow added to human life and becoming

Th is suggestion overlaps with and also expands on many philosophi-cal works ndash such as by Emmanuel Levinas (eg 1989 ) and by many in the tradition of Russian philosophy (which Levinas was familiar with and relying upon for example through Dostoevsky) that have challenged the ldquoepistemology- fi rstrdquo cognition- focused outlook of western philosophy Whereas the traditional philosophy disconnects knowing and being from evaluative concerns the motto of Levinas is that ldquoethics precedes ontologyrdquo Indeed instead of the thinking ldquoIrdquo epitomized in the Cartesian ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo Levinas began with the ethics of interconnectedness as the fi rst reality in which human existence unfolds For him the self is possi-ble only with the recognition of ldquothe Otherrdquo along with the moral ldquooughtrdquo that carries responsibility toward what is irreducibly diff erent In Brian Vandenbergrsquos ( 1999 ) interpretation of Levinasrsquos works

Ethics does not simply arise from ldquomoral dilemmasrdquo that force diffi cult decisions Moral choices do not leap out of a fl at epistemic landscape in moments of crisis Rather our daily in this moment journey is a moral one every action a decision about how to comport ourselves in the face of ethical demands engendered by being [as well as acting and knowing too] with others (p 34)

In the works by Levinas and in other dialogical- relational philosophies one can grasp the phenomenology of relationality with its centrality of



288

mutuality relatedness and interconnectedness of each person with all oth-ers On this view our being is essentially always a co- being because we are never alone in whatever we do and whoever we become In this co- being the relationships are fi rst and foremost that is relationships precede individuals (while entailing them) and never disappear from the fabric of human life in any of its expressions such as processes of subjectivity And because all relationships are ineluctably fraught with ethics and ideology ndash confl ict and power responsibility and commitment ndash these dimensions turn out to be fi rst too

Th e notion that the ethical considerations and concerns permeate the stream of everyday activities and inhere in these activities rather than are merely added to them as some ldquoextra ingredientsrdquo is highly relevant in the context of the ongoing discussion However there is a diff erence too in that Levinas seems to shun or at least is not concerned with the realm of social practices and the socially productive character of con-sciousness and mind resulting from their affi liation with these practices as expressed in the TAS To illustrate this diff erence it is useful to refer to the infl uential works by Charles Taylor (eg 1989 1993 ) who expressed the relevant critical point in strikingly vivid ways Taylor ( 1989 ) views a ldquofundamental moral orientation as essential to being a human interlocu-torrdquo (p 29) In his words

because we cannot but orient ourselves to the good and thus determine our place relative to it and hence determine the direction of our lives we must inescapably understand our lives in narrative form as a ldquoquestrdquo But one could perhaps start from another point because we have to deter-mine our place in relation to the good therefore we cannot be without an orientation to it and hence must see our life in story From whichever direction I see these conditions as connected facets of the same reality inescapable structural requirement of human agency (ibid pp 51ndash 52)

From the Vygotskian position and the TAS it would be more precise to say that we cannot do or be without acting together with others and hence without fi guring out our place and the place of our doings and agentive acts within the social practices and among other people and their doings ndash that is without fi guring out what is needed necessary and possible within the space of these collaborative ldquodoingsrdquo or practices It is in the context of life and development unfolding within and as part of social ndash that is shared joint interrelational interactive and communal ndash practices that working through the ethical issues is necessary and central including sorting out of the dialectics of ldquoisrdquo and ldquooughtrdquo It is these inherent (ie ldquonaturalrdquo rather



289

than metaphysical) attributes of our acting together with others in real-izing our communal world of social practices ndash taken as the fundamen-tal condition of human existence ndash that can be called morality Hence an orientation to the good is necessary and inescapable in such collaborative acting together in changing and inventing the world Fact and value ldquoisrdquo and ldquooughtrdquo are dialectically interrelated and even inseparable because a fundamental moral orientation is essential to not only ldquobeing a human interlocutorrdquo as Taylor has suggested but also and more originary to our acting as social agents and co- creators of a communal world that we share with others

As such the mind has to do not only with matters of cognitive compu-tation or information processing in the abstract but also ndash simultaneously and even primarily ndash with the moral ethical issues of commitment choice value worth accountability meaning and responsibility Th is is what is meant by statements by many scholars in the cultural- historical activity theory that processes such as aff ect motivation and emotion (beyond the cognitive and computational ones) are situated at the very core of human subjectivity and the mind Th is follows with Vygotskyrsquos ( 1987 ) insistence on the unity of aff ective and intellectual processes along with the unity of social cognitive and emotional experiences (Vygotsky 1994 for a recent elaboration see Vadeboncoeur and Collie 2013 ) As Vygotsky eloquently stated this position ldquoaff ect is the alpha and omega the fi rst and last link the prologue and epilogue of all mental developmentrdquo (Vygotsky 1998 p 227) Th is statement can be interpreted to suggest not the special role of emotions and aff ect taken as one ldquouniquerdquo and somehow discrete type of psycho-logical processes but rather the centrality of personal striving and struggle at becoming ndash inclusive of emotions cognitions feelings and so on ndash as grounding all psychological processes in one unifi ed process

Mediation and Meaning Making

One of the implications that follow from the concept of becoming- (inclu-sive of knowing and doing)- through- changing- the- world through contri-butions to shared social practices (ie through answerable deeds) is that it helps to put human subjectivity and specifi cally meaning back into the world ndash yet not by ldquoobjectivizingrdquo them and not in elevating them to a sta-tus of a separate realm or isolated activity Instead this task is approached by recognizing how deeds directly connect human beings with others and their environment through immediate agentive engagements that have the eff ects of blending and meshing the ldquoinsiderdquo and the ldquooutsiderdquo just like



290

walking connects persons to the surface on which they walk and de facto realizes their inseparability with their surround through a relationship of ldquoa circular ontological complicityrdquo (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992 p 128)

However the use of signs and other symbolic (semiotic) devices and tools from words to narrative forms and genres of speech opens up dis-tance between ourselves and the immediate contexts in which we act Th is opening up of a distance can be interpreted not as a process that breaks with the world and puts us outside of our engagements with it ndash as is oft en assumed by scholars who question the value of mediation and decontex-tualization (eg see Costall 2007 ) Instead the signs opening the distance between ourselves and the context in which we act can be interpreted as a diff erent way of acting that is less tied to the present and more attuned to temporalities of the past and the future Th is is not a minor aspect of human development but rather as Vygotsky so vividly expressed its fundamental achievement and major milestone Th is achievement (which is a continu-ous work- in- progress) takes work and eff ort ndash and other people who can supply cultural tools necessary to succeed in this task

Th ere exists a long tradition elaborating on the concept of distance as achieved by the use of signs For example Aby Warburg has stated that ldquo[t] he conscious creation of distance between oneself and the external world may be called the fundamental act of civilizationrdquo (cited in Young 2008 p 5) Th is is related to ideas by Ernst Cassirer according to whom as con-veyed by Habermas ldquothe objectifying force of symbolic mediation breaks the animal [ sic ] immediacy of nature which impacts on the organism from within and without it thereby creates that distance from the world which makes possible a thoughtful refl ectively controlled reaction to the world on the part of subjects who are able to say lsquonorsquo rdquo (Habermas 2001 p 7)

Th is point was also powerfully captured in the literary scholarship con-temporaneous with Vygotsky ndash which likely directly infl uenced him given that his career was launched from the fi eld of literary studies For example Victor Shklovskyrsquos position expressed in his essay Art as Device ( 1991 origi-nally written in 1917) was that the problem is not that we are too alienated from the world It is rather that we are not alienated enough that we are too closely immersed and too quickly fi nd ourselves indistinguishable from our surroundings (cf Holquist and Kliger 2005 ) and I would add with an illusion of being comfortably adapted to it For Shklovsky the routines of everyday life and practices oft en lead to automatization and familiarity that conceal the meanings and nature of things As he puts it automatization ldquoeats away at thingsrdquo whereby ldquo[t] he object passes before us as if it were



291

prepackagedrdquo (Shklovsky 1991 p 5) Holquist and Kliger ( 2005 ) interpret Shklovskyrsquos position in the sense that

we come to identify with our world too quickly and thoughtlessly to believe that things must be as they are Automatization is stronger than estrangement like entropy it happens all by itself inexorably unless eff ort is made to resist it Like entropy it has as its endpoint the ulti-mately undiff erentiated state (p 629 emphasis added)

Shklovsky insisted that it is specifi cally art and literature that are called upon to inaugurate and sustain the gap between us and the immediacy of our environments and experiences ndash to make familiar strange and thus to reveal for example how the ldquostone is stonyrdquo Otherwise there is no place for understanding things not only as they are but also how they can be changed to be otherwise In a sense I would suggest that in case of an abso-lute blending with what is present in the ldquohere and nowrdquo there is no place for understanding at all As Bakhtin ( 1986 p 7) suggested ldquoIn order to understand it is immensely important for the person who understands to be located outside the object of his or her creative understanding ndash in time in space in culturerdquo

Th is is directly relevant to the present discussion because to tie acting and thinking to context while not parting with the ethos of adaptationism and narrow naturalism bears the danger of losing sight of human capacity to transcend the immediacy of the given In particular positing acting and thinking to be inextricably fully and faithfully related to and fused with context in which they take place ndash as in mirroring the world and copying it as it is ndash wipes out the possibility of persons taking distance from the world and with this the possibility of changing the world Th at is such equalizing of the mind with adaptively and faithfully acting erases the space for choice individual identity and ethical deliberation

Th e strength of Vygotskyrsquos approach especially if taken as a multigenera-tional project was in making the attempt (however incomplete) to under-stand the mind as a form of symbolically (semiotically) mediated activity out in the world that is profoundly immersed in the world and in tune with it yet not faithfully copying it and instead leaving space for freedom and self- determination Th at is it was an attempt to understand the mind while pos-iting no ontological gaps between knowing and doing the knower and the known the external and the internal (and other traditional dichotomies) ndash yet at the same time not suggesting full equivalence between these poles either in particular at levels other than their core ontological groundings



292

Rather than celebrating the spontaneity of immediate experiencing and acting that is supposed to be completely merged with the fl ow of life in a totally faithful and non- distanced (ldquonon- alienatedrdquo) form Vygotsky was focused fi rst and foremost on symbolic relations and activities that are mediated by words and tools as exactly providing the space of distance and therefore for freedom self- determination and choice His immersion in the literary scholarship and arts of his time might have played a tremen-dously important role in this

In this emphasis one can see the originality of Vygotskyrsquos approach in contrast to the recently infl uential ecological embodied enacted situ-ated dynamic and distributed theories of the mind Th ese theories have advanced the extraordinarily important message about the contextual and situated nature of mind and cognition Some even went further to establish that the mind is inextricably connected to individuals acting in the environ-ment and as a facet or a dimension of such acting Th e critically important implication from these works (eg by Dewey and Piaget and those who continue in their traditions) is that the world is not passively perceived and known but that instead we have access to the world through acting in it with active manipulation being integral to knowing from the start To know something deeply is to understand it through our embodied engagement Scholars working in and elaborating on works by Dewey and Gibson (eg Costall 2007 Ingold 2008 ) suggest that cognition is relational instead of representational It is not a property of the individual but of the individualrsquos relation with the environment

Yet acting that brings forth the mind is oft en portrayed in these tradi-tions in ways that are confi ned to the immediacy of the present In this approach the mind and subjectivity are not considered to have power but rather are either excluded as epiphenomenal or viewed as ecological func-tions that mirror material interrelatedness of the mind with the environ-ment For example as Ingold ( 2011 p 6) writes the ldquoessence of production lies hellip in the attentional quality of the action ndash that is in its attunement and responsiveness to the task as it unfolds ndash and in its developmental eff ects on the producerrdquo (emphasis added) In another statement he suggests that ldquo[t] he perceptually astute organism is one whose movements are closely tuned and ever responsive to environmental perturbationsrdquo (Ingold 2000 p 260)

Similarly in ethnomethodology (eg Garfi nkel 2006 ) and studies of sit-uated and participatory learning (eg Lave and Wenger 1991 ) knowledge is not primarily conceptual or cognitive but rather an embodied knowledge



293

that comes only from engaging and participating in practices ldquoin concerted co- presence with othersrdquo (to use this expression from Rawls 2015 p 5) Th is is also captured in Gregory Batesonrsquos ( 1972 1979 ) notions about the ldquoecol-ogy of mindrdquo as the fundamental unity of the human self and the broader system of ecological organization Similar positions are further exempli-fi ed in many practice theories (such as by Pierre Bourdieu) and in similarly orientated sociocultural approaches (implicitly or explicitly) Th e key con-structs used in these approaches are everyday practical understandings and know- how embodied skills and habits and instrumentalities of conduct as they are shaped by tools and technologies ndash all of these connoting custom-ary practical propensities of a typically routine conduct in coping with the everyday world (see Packer 2011 ) Much less at the forefront are creativity and goal pursuits resistance and struggle projectivity and ability to move beyond the given

In such approaches there is a danger of what can be called a truncated reversal of traditional dualisms including the Cartesian one between the body and the mind (cf Plumwood 1993 ) In the truncated reversal the original dualism is not eliminated but rather and quite ironically affi rmed through a reduction of one pole on the dichotomy to the other which is de facto in line with the assumption that this dichotomy is legitimate in the fi rst place Th is happens when the novel notions meant to substitute for the traditional ones in rejecting Cartesian dualisms are construed under the premises inherited from the very Cartesianism they purport to reject Fully and completely reducing the mind to practical acting (or to embodi-ment and participation) without assigning either specifi c phenomenology or uniqueness to the workings of the mind tacitly affi rms the Cartesian view that the mind per se cannot fi nd its place within an account of how humans engage their world in embodied ways Th at is the stipulation is that the mind cannot be understood in any way other than in opposition to the bodily and practical acting in the world ndash exactly in line with what Descartes had surmised To consider processes of the mind to not be part of acting in the world (because the mind is presumably disembodied acon-textual and internal in some mystical ways etc) ndash and therefore on these grounds to reject the mental ndash is not to dismantle the dualistic position but to merely modify it

In this way the opposition of external versus internal of mind versus body of knowing versus doing is tacitly upheld even though one of the poles on each of these pairs is eliminated Th at is to reduce one of the poles on a given dichotomy to the other one is to nonetheless follow through with



294

the fundamental assumptions of this dichotomy instead of dismantling it by not accepting any of its premises in the fi rst place In this the sociocul-tural approaches inadvertently join in with the traditional conceptions that also eschew human mind and agency for example by reducing the mind to the brain (as in neuroscience) to bodily behavior (as in behaviorism) to social discourses (as in postmodernism) or to complex organizational machine states (as in functionalism)

Th e Vygotskian project attempted a diff erent and more complex route than just eliminating what seems to be if we operate on the premises of the Cartesian worldview an ephemeral realm of the mind Namely the attempt was to fi rst establish that the mind is immersed in how people are posi-tioned and situated in the world in how they are acting in and engaging it ndash initially (in developmental terms) in a full union with other people and then in more self- reliant ways In the second step however the attempt was to explore and reveal how the mind and psychological processes develop in ways that allow a person to act from a distance ndash and therefore with self- determination and freedom It is to this point that the TAS adds one specifi cation ndash that to act mindfully is to act from a distance created by onersquos stance on and commitment to the future that one seeks rather than in ways that faithfully refl ect mirror and adapt to what is in existence in front of us

Creating a distance from the reality in which we act and even from our own acting is an ability uniquely achieved by the use of symbolic tools and other cultural artifacts that release us from the ldquoprison- house of our sensesrdquo (Eagleton 2000 p 219) Th ere is nothing unnatural about this act of taking a distance ndash it is still an act in the world albeit also to it that is an act that does not faithfully bow to reality but is anchored in the process of changing it Eagleton ( 2000 ) provides an eloquent summary of this point

It is because our entry into the symbolic order ndash language and all it brings in its wake ndash puts some free play between ourselves and our deter-minants that we are those internally dislocated non- self- identical crea-tures known as historical beings History is what happens to an animal so constituted as to be able within limits to determine its own determi-nations What is peculiar about a symbol- making creature is that it is of its nature to transcend itself It is the sign that opens up that operative distance between ourselves and our material surroundings which allows us to transform them into history (p 219)

Th e semiotic processes of symbolic structuration signifi cation and mean-ing making have been taken as the ontological grounding for human devel-opment and social dynamics in many sign- centric and discourse- based



295

perspectives Th ese semiotic processes are indeed fundamentally important as this has been amply demonstrated through the recent decades of discur-sive narrative and linguistic ldquoturnsrdquo predicated on the notion that humans are self- interpreting beings who as this approach suggests partially create themselves on the basis of their own self- interpretations (Giddens 1984 ) Th ere is much truth in that human reality is discursively structured by lan-guage discourses meanings genres of talk and texts insofar as it is even made up and woven as text ile (cf Cheah 2008 )

Yet the role of signs needs to and can be further specifi ed in their ontological status if they are assigned with such a prominent role In the tradition of Vygotsky and Bakhtin (and also Vološinov) signs can be understood to be embedded within and constituted by a unifi ed realm of social collaborative practices in their particular historical forms and dynamics Th at is they are not separate entities but aspects of socially situated and dynamically unfolding living social practices What tran-spires in this case is that meaning making and sign mediation are not separate from ldquoour participation in disjointed social relationsrdquo along the ldquofault linerdquo of dissonance in praxis (Dorothy E Smith 1988 ) Th is sug-gests moving away from understanding ldquothe ideas images and symbols in which our experience is given social form hellip as that neutral fl oating thing called culturerdquo (ibid p 54) Instead cultural mediation of human ways of being doing and knowing (including emotions and identities) are co- constituted by and co- evolving with the sociocultural ethnic gendered and above all political and ideological dimensions of produc-tive practices expressing power relations that are socially and historically constituted

Th ese processes take place within the preexisting cultural and socio-political fl ow of practices and their order including structures and mean-ings that are enacted to organize sustain reproduce and also transform society and human development Yet these practices are preexisting indi-viduals not in the sense of these practices just statically ldquolyingrdquo outside of each individual who presumably has to establish connections with them somehow in addition to onersquos otherwise individual solo existence Instead our very existence begins with and is constituted by our active engagement in and encounters with these practices by us ldquoalways alreadyrdquo dealing and grappling with and also enacting and bringing forth these practices as the starting point of the uninterrupted fl ow of our being and becoming

Th e mindful and meaningful acting is not about interpretation or mean-ing making as a separate semiotic or mental process Th at is meanings are neither physical events nor some supranatural properties of a private



296

mental sphere disconnected from social practices and what human beings do in their lives Instead the mind and its meaning making and imaginative capacities are directly inherent in the dynamics of social practices ndash their continuous unfolding uninterrupted transformations interactive dynam-ics and ceaseless changes ndash based in the material- semiotic events that are interactional and transformative and thus not reducible to isolated entities

Th e meaning obtains in acting collaboratively with and building upon actions of other people and thus mattering to them and to oneself Th at is it obtains in acting together with or in view of others (even if compet-ing with resisting or struggling against each other) including those who are immediately present and those from a distant past ndash who are present through the indelible traces they have left in the balances and shift ing dynamics of continuously unfolding uninterrupted social practices In thus contributing to and making a diff erence in the overall dynamics of commu-nal acting by changing conditions of acting for oneself and others people make their actions intelligible and comprehensible (meaningful) to oneself and to others Th erefore the process of signifi cation and meaning making comes about through changes in material practices predicated on human beingsrsquo unavoidable togetherness as the prime condition of their existence ndash while individuals are positioned and position themselves and each other as a defi ning condition of their communal acting

Th is is the process of taking into account actions of others in each occa-sion of onersquos own acting (in its unity of being knowing and doing) ndash or stated from the other side of the same process of making onersquos own act-ing to be occasions for acting by everybody else now and in the future Such positionality is impossible without a complex process of fi guring out diverse and oft en diverging interests and conditions while also considering possible consequences and outcomes of onesrsquo actions for oneself and for the others Th is togetherness makes social practices inherently meaningful and ethical thus escaping objectivism of action understood as a mechani-cal reaction ldquowithout and agentrdquo on one hand and the subjectivism that portrays action as a free project of a conscience pursuing its own ends and maximizing its utility through rational computation (cf Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992 ) on the other

Furthermore the materiality of signs and meaning making can be estab-lished in light of them being inherent parts and enactments of social prac-tices ndash due to the durability historicity and facticity of these practices that is their more or less persistent mattering across time and space Actions are intelligible to others precisely because of how they shape communal spaces



297

and grounds for each instance of being knowing and doing It is in this sense that people can be said to endow things with signifi cance and mean-ings Th is is the materiality not of economic or social structures and mate-rial things ldquoout thererdquo taken on their own independently of human beings and their acting (ie when things are presumed to be somehow ldquoendowedrdquo with meanings independently and apart from the unfolding dynamics of collaborative practices) Instead this is the materiality of human practices in their expressions in dense and vital interrelations among persons act-ing together while co- creating the world and in resulting durable structures that endure through time as the grounds for acting in the next cycles of communal social practices

Th e emphasis on discursive structuring of sociocultural practices has to be coupled with revealing how reality is permeated with human struggle that is not only interpretive but also existential and productive in that it constitutes an arena on which persons act in constructing their lives and conditions of existence and through this also create and invent themselves and their world Th us it is important to emphasize that these discursive practices do not emerge in an independent process of meaning making only Instead they need to be revealed as a material productive process con-stituted brought into existence (rather than merely shaped infl uenced or limited) by social forces and power dynamics beyond discourse conversa-tion and textual realm ndash that is by the dynamics of collaborative transfor-mative practices in their history- making and world- creating role

Th e categories of discourses and acts of meaning making then are not merely means and ways of reinterpreting or reinscribing reality and mak-ing sense of it (as implied by many sociocultural and discursive perspec-tives) and not merely a matter of dialogues with the world and others (as in many dialogical approaches eg Markovaacute 2003 ) Rather discourses and meanings stories and narratives signs and acts of making sense of reality can be understood as inherent characteristics of human collabora-tive practices realized through individually unique contributions to them Th ese processes occur in the realms of power because human beings qua social actors strive to be know and act in contexts that are not only sites of but themselves struggles permeated with class ethnic racial and or gender confl icts In this sense the emphasis on signs and other cultural forms is fully legitimized yet under a condition that these cultural forms are fi rst understood to be ontologically derivative of and intertwined with the grounding realm of material practices in their productive role that is in these practicesrsquo status of a world- creating ontology Th e cultural forms



298

co- implicated as they are with other modes of productive social practices are therefore productive and ultimately even ldquomore than realrdquo in this world- changing and world- creating role of theirs Such a view is consistent with the ldquocultural materialismrdquo or ldquoculturalismrdquo that takes productive material practices to be foundational to human development and social life links the production of meanings to specifi c social formations and regards language and communication as formative social forces while focusing on interac-tions among institutions forms of social relationships and cultural tools (see Williams 1980 ) It is not an accident therefore that as Williams stated he has ldquoreached but necessarily by this route [of fi rst accepting the notion of productive social practices as foundational] hellip a theory of culture as a (social and material) productive process and of specifi c practices of lsquoartsrsquo as social uses of material means of productionrdquo (ibid p 243)

Mind and Brain

Th e work of becoming ndash and all acts of being knowing and doing con-stitutive of this process ndash stretch far beyond neuronal processes in the brain computations and mental representations in the cognitive appa-ratus Th is is not only because the mind is stretched or distributed across the body and the external resources drawn upon to support its workings Th is is because the work of the mind is done not by the brain or separate organs or processes (ie mental gadgets) and not even by the body organism taken as a whole Instead it is the work carried out but by the person herself as she is coming about and constantly evolving within the entirety of her life and in her role as an active agent or agentive actor who is acting in and on the social world of communal practices and collaborative projects ndash and mattering in them Th is position can be seen as building on yet also transcending what John Dewey wrote many years ago

To see the organism in nature the nervous system in the organism the brain in the nervous system the cortex in the brain is the answer to the problems which haunt philosophy And when thus seen they will be seen to be in not as marbles are in a box but as events are in history in a mov-ing growing never fi nished process (Dewey 1925 1958 p 295)

If this insightful view is shift ed away from the purely organic and natu-ralistic connotations of organisms acting ldquoin naturerdquo in adapting to it ndash toward a more sociocultural and transformative understanding in the spirit of Vygotskyrsquos school ndash then the following modifi cation is possible It



299

can be said that the mind is in the brain but only if it is also said at once that the brain is in the whole body that importantly is always engaged and active in the world Th at is the body is not simply situated in the world but is ceaselessly carrying out back- and- forth exchanges with the world Th ese relational activities represent the core modus vivendi and the foundational ontology of all forms of life including bodily processes and brain activities So far this reformulation is close in meaning to what Dewey and other pragmatists had surmised too Importantly and in dis-tinction with pragmatism however for humans these are not just any activities of the organism body but collective and transformative activities as they constitute dimensions of socially shared practices in their histori-cal temporality mediated by cultural tools and supports and carried out through interactivities dialogues and social interactions and above all through productive actions that make a diff erence in the world and tran-scend its status quo Th ese are activities by social actors and co- creators of communal practices in their ongoing historicity All of this has to be said at once with saying that the mind is in the brain if one wants to use this latter expression at all

As such the human mind is not the quality of acting merely by an organ-ism navigating its environment typically alone in the process of adapting to it Instead it is the quality of collaborative acting by social actors of com-munity practices ndash which they do not cease being even when acting alone ndash as they bring these practices and themselves into reality

Th e role of brain processes in this approach is not neglected but rather situated within a dialectical- systemic communal relational situated and transformative process at the foundation of human development It has been a common point in Marxist philosophy and explicitly in activity theory that it is not the brain that thinks or feels but that it is people who think and feel including with the aid or through the medium of their brains and other resources In these works the focus in studying the mind was on human activity out in the world as it shaped and determined the processes in the brain (rather than the other way around) in countering the biologically reductionist views that focus on the brain alone as if it was isolated from the rest of the body and from the person acting in the world together with other people It is based in this broad philosophical position that Alexander Luria (1902ndash 1977) the preeminent neuropsychologist and one the founders of this discipline was able to develop principles of brain functioning that are still at the forefront and even ahead of the most recent advancements in neurosciences such as his notion of dynamic- systemic and distributed localization of brain functions (eg Luria 1973 see also Cole Levitin and



300

Luria 2010 Homskaya 2001 for a brief outline of Luriarsquos contribution to cultural- historical theory see Stetsenko 2003 )

As Steven Rose ( 2005a ) observed the dominant position on the role of the brain in psychological processes today still largely echoes Th omas Huxleyrsquos (the nineteenth- century scholar) view that the mind is to the brain as the whistle is to the steam train ndash a mere epiphenomenon Th is leads to an endless number of conundrums and dead ends including misguided eff orts to reform education through the means of neuroscience and to iden-tify mental illness as a purely biological phenomenon (to name just two examples with grave practical implications) Without dismissing the value of brain research it is important to warn of overstretching claims to its util-ity in purporting to explain all of human development and encroaching on the territory where explanations in purely (and narrowly) biological and organic terms do not work

Broad questions of how human beings develop act learn and come to understand their world and themselves as persons and actors ndash rather than assemblies of ldquosubpersonalrdquo parts who are nothing but packs of neurons (Crick 1994 ) and carriers of selfi sh genes (Dawkins 1976 ) ndash require theo-ries and methods that are commensurate with the broad level of analysis that does justice to complexities of human development To paraphrase Bennett and Hacker ( 2003 ) it is the person who thinks and acts rather than their various parts as vitally required as these parts may be One should add that persons think and act not in a vacuum but in the social world fi lled with obligations and expectations contradictions and challenges tasks and demands constraints and aff ordances Th is social world and its constitutive activities and practices imbued with complex dimensions require persons to act at commensurate levels of complexity Examples of a judicious atti-tude to carefully determining the type of questions that can be answered through brain and genetic research is to be found in works of neurosci-entists mindful of theory and philosophy such as Steven Rose ( 2005b ) In his words

[T] o understand and hopefully to treat Alzheimerrsquos disease we need to know about the biochemistry of the amyloid precursor protein but it would be folly to try to explain the causes of the invasion of Iraq in 2002 in terms of fl uctuations in transmitter levels in US President Bushrsquos brain

Th is position echoes earlier insights by Alexander Luria who (in building on Vygotskyrsquos ideas) stated that the mysteries of human psychology cannot be resolved by looking into either ldquothe loft y realms of the mind or the depths of the brainrdquo (1982 p 25) Instead as Luria suggested to fi nd these answers



301

one has to abandon the confi nes of an isolated organism and instead seek ldquothe sources of human conscious activity in the external conditions of life in the fi rst place in the external conditions of communal social life in the social- historical forms of human existence hellip Th e idealist approach of the phenomenologists is as hopeless as the positivist approach of the natural-istsrdquo (ibid)

Luriarsquos unique take on the problem of how the mind and the brain are related was based in the application of Vygotskyrsquos and activity theory prin-ciples Th is included ideas that brain processes (1) serve the purposes of carrying out meaningful goal- directed activities that (2) are situated in con-texts formed in the life course of development in response to the demands of these contexts and (3) are shaped in important ways by cultural artifacts such as language Th ese ideas de facto signifi ed a new path for studying the old mysteries of the mind enabling Luria to make a whole array of important discoveries about how the brain works and to formulate many groundbreaking principles of its development

Th ere is a plethora of works in neuroscience that are moving in truly radical ways beyond many of the traditional assumptions in opening new horizons in research and theorizing about the brain For example recent research shows that contrary to the longstanding stereotypes brain struc-tures are neither rigidly preformed (ldquowiredrdquo) nor unidirectionally driven by maturation Instead brain structures and patterns of neural activation appear to be constructed within development dynamics and in relation to individual experiences and learning (eg Gottlieb 2003 2006 ) In a related vein many researchers recently caution against disregarding that the brain is not a separate organ but is part and parcel in activities of organisms as a whole (eg Bremner and Slater 2003 Fox Levitt and Nelson 2010 Nelson and Luciana 2001 )

Neural plasticity in particular is used to refer to processes that involve major connectional changes of the nervous system in response to experience (eg Huttenlocher 2002 Kolb and Gibb 2011 Li 2013 Loumlvdeacuten Baumlckman Lindenberger Schaefer and Schmiedek 2010 ) Whereas the traditional view throughout the twentieth century was that the adult human brain is organized in fixed and immutable function- specific neural circuits the discovery of the profound plasticity of the brain in the late 1990s has overturned this canon (cf Rees 2010 ) This work highlights the property of neural circuits to potentially acquire nearly any function depending on vicissitudes of individual ontoge-netic development This is aligned with the notions of neuroconstruc-tivism or ldquointeractive brain specializationrdquo that put emphasis on the



302

activity- dependent nature of brain development (Johnson Grossmann and Cohen- Kadosh 2009 )

Some researchers link neuroplasticity to an evolved under - specialization of brain circuits in humans at birth (following a long tradition of thought that goes back to at least Herderrsquos philosophy see Moss 2006 Moss and Pavesich 2011 ) that is absence of their close ties to specifi c sensory or motor functions As a result the brain appears to be able to acquire a wide range of non- innate skills linked to the use of tools interacting with oth-ers and learning from others during ontogeny (eg see works that use the Tools of the Mind approach by Bodrova and Leong 2007 eg Diamond Barnett Th omas and Munro 2007 ) long past the supposedly critical fi rst years of life Th e idea of brain plasticity and the associated premise that the growth of neural connections across the life span (though especially in childhood) is highly contingent on individual experiences of acting in the world cultural mediation social exchanges and learning was the singularly important hallmark of Luriarsquos ( 1973 ) approach

Th is signifi cant shift in neuroscience parallels developments in biol-ogy and genetics that are now also moving past the impasses of biological reductionism As recently expressed by Charney ( 2012 ) for example

[t] he science of genetics is undergoing a paradigm shift Recent dis-coveries hellip are challenging a series of dogmas concerning the nature of the genome and the relationship between genotype and phenotype According to three widely held dogmas DNA is the unchanging tem-plate of heredity is identical in all the cells and tissues of the body and is the sole agent of inheritance (p 331)

In dispelling these longstanding stereotypes Charney draws on a vast literature to show how ldquo[r] ather than being an unchanging template DNA appears subject to a good deal of environmentally induced change Instead of identical DNA in all the cells of the body somatic mosaicism appears to be the normal human condition And DNA can no longer be considered the sole agent of inheritancerdquo (ibid) Th ese works advance a critique of genetic ldquoblueprintrdquo models of development in taking on from the works dating as far back as the 1950s including by Schneirla ( 1957 ) and Lehrman ( 1953 1970 ) Similar critique of genetic determinism was present as one of its hallmark themes in Vygotskyrsquos cultural- historical and activity theory


303

303

10

Illustration Memory and Anticipation of the Future

Invention and remembrance go hand in hand hellip To remember means to invent and the one who remembers is also an inventor

Osip Mandelstam

Th e principles presented in the previous chapter can be addressed using an example of how memory works ndash not because of a special status of memory but for illustrative purposes (the special or distinct status of memory oft en claimed by those who study it is thereby neither disputed nor asserted because this point is not directly relevant for the present discussion) Most extant theories and models in cognitive psychology artifi cial intelligence and brain research explicitly endorse the view that memory is about storage and retrieval of discrete traces from the past in a process of forming neuro-nal constellations connections or circuits in the brain Th is understanding of memory as ldquoa storehouserdquo has shaped much of the history of memory research (Koriat and Goldsmith 1995 ) while relying in large part on the study of item memorization such as random lists of words or sequences of meaningless stimuli

Th ere have been many developments even within the mainstream cog-nitive sciences that challenge this passive view of memory as merely a stor-age of information and facts For example neurobiologist Gerald Edelman ( 2006 ) has suggested that the passive view of memory is mistaken because ldquothe brain does not operate by logical rulesrdquo (p 21) Edelman describes how instead of having fi xed memories we invent what we remember Th at is we creatively recategorize what we have learned in the past depending on present circumstances and ongoing situations Furthermore according to Edelman the brain draws up maps of its own activities and not only of exterior stimuli Along similar lines Rosenfi eld ( 1988 ) has argued against the commonplace view that human memory is a kind of a fi ling cabinet



304

or database dedicated to storing permanent records that are then retrieved upon demand In his view every new perception or behavior is a generaliza-tion composed of past perceptions and behaviors (a claim associated with Vygotskyrsquos position) Current neural organizations are thus related to those constructed in the past without rigid diff erentiation of memory into index-ing retrieval and matching processes (cf Clancey 1991 ) In this approach perception categorization and memory are not treated as separate systems but believed to share common underlying mechanisms

One distinct line of research especially relevant to the ongoing dis-cussion situates the working of memory within the functional context of organismsrsquo active interactions with the environment Prominent in this line are works by Neisser (eg Neisser and Winograd 1988 ) who insisted that memory is a form of ldquodoingrdquo and focused on the social functions of memory in everyday life More recently Glenberg ( 1997 ) goes into great detail to develop an account of memory based in its function of serving goal- directed thought and action Most memory theories presuppose that memory is for memorizing Glenbergrsquos alternative proposal is that memory evolved in service of perception and action in a three- dimensional envi-ronment and that memory is embodied to facilitate interaction with the environment In a similar vein Anderson ( 1997 ) stressing the contribution of memory to the formation of value judgments (eg attitudes) opts for a ldquovalue metaphorrdquo in which memory involves online construction of values and their integration in the context of activities

Further works highlight how memory processes overlap and interlink with sociocultural activities and contexts For example Schank ( 1990 ) sug-gests that conceptual memory requires that we relate memories to ourselves and to others through telling stories about past events More recent research has confi rmed that telling stories and listening to other peoplersquos stories shape memories in signifi cant ways Th e sociocultural model of autobio-graphical memory (Nelson and Fivush 2004 ) describes the role of social interaction language and narrative in the development of autobiographical memories Th is model is focused on how social cognitive skills for tempo-ral understanding and causal reasoning allow autobiographical memories to be integrated into an overarching life narrative that defi nes emerging identity (Fivush Habermas Waters and Zaman 2010 ) Habermas and Bluck ( 2000 ) use the term autobiographical reasoning to illustrate how the dynamic process of thinking about the past links memory processes to the self McLean Pasupathi and Pals ( 2007 ) use the term situated stories ldquoto emphasize the fact that any narrative account of personal memory is


Illustration Memory and Anticipation of the Future 305

305

created within a specifi c situation by particular individuals for particular audiences and to fulfi ll particular goalsrdquo (p 262) Th ese works continue in line with Jerome Brunerrsquos ( 1987 1990 ) proposal that memory enacted through autobiographical narratives enables individuals to structure their experiences and thus facilitates making sense of life and identity develop-ment (Pasupathi 2001 )

From the transformative activist stance (TAS) a number of steps can be made to further challenge the passive reductionist solipsistic and neu-tral portrayals of memory to instead connect it with identity development meaning making and the agentive processes of becoming of persons as agents of social practices In commonality with the preceding approaches an argument can be made that memory cannot be understood as a mental storage of past events that are piled up somewhere within the depths of the brain as constellations of neurons fi xed in traces that are catalogued and preserved intact and unchanged ndash until they are retrieved upon demand in some willful act of recollection Instead memory serves goal- directed thought and action Moreover memory not only serves goal- directed action but also ndash and this is an additional critical specifi cation to the extant accounts ndash human memory is a form of action by persons who are not only situated and embedded in environments but also are acting as agents of communal practices who realize and change them in a constant personally meaningful quest and striving for a sought- aft er future

From this additional specifi cation all acts of remembering the past are actually never just about the past Instead memory is determined by goals and commitments and thus by an orientation to the future and an activ-ist striving to change the present (and the past too as it is extending into and enacted within the present) in furthering onersquos life agenda predicated on a commitment to a sought- aft er future Remembering is the work of keeping things alive of continuously recreating the past and recruiting its resources in the service of onersquos becoming that is of achieving something out in the world (in a non- instrumentalist sense) and thus of mattering in a world shared with others Th is includes a continuous process of developing onersquos own identity as a social actor of community practices while inevitably changing these practices ndash by constantly moving beyond the past and pres-ent into the future Th at is memory is a tool of creating novelty and invent-ing the future including reimagining what is possible and who one wants to be within the overall work of identity development and becoming ndash viewed as activist projects situated in and constitutive of the communal world of shared social practices Rather than a neutral and merely cognitive process



306

memory is an aspect of activist struggles of being knowing and doing across the time scales and at the intersection of individual and collective levels ndash as persons are continuously striving to meet (in also co- defi ning) the shift ing challenges of their lives while projecting into and de facto also inventing the future

Th is position can be illustrated with an example from the hypotheti-cal everyday life scenario such as the case of remembering someone from the distant past of onersquos autobiography From the position of TAS it can be argued that a person does not remember someone from onersquos past say an acquaintance from long ago simply by ldquostoringrdquo a mental image of this particular person ndash as a fi xed inert and separate entity (or a memory trace) that is put away and passively preserved in the form of a mental or neuro-nal constellation with stable boundaries Rather to have a memory of an acquaintance is to perform the active work of continuing and thus keeping alive actions and pursuits associated with this particular person and our engagements with her or him Th is process is not about putting memories and mental images away to be hidden in the depths of the brain or inside our cognitive apparatus

Instead we remember a person (if we do at all) in the sense that this particular person or something associated with her or him has persisted through time because it constitutes a relatively distinctive part or layer more or less signifi cant of who we are and what we do in the world now in the present and especially of where we want to go next as we continu-ously engage with and carry out our future- oriented agendas of becoming through mattering in community practices Th is particular acquaintance and the way he or she has engaged us and we have engaged her or him (in always mutually reciprocal and relational patterns of activity) have per-sisted through time within our continuous activities composing one uni-fi ed unfolding life trajectory of our becoming that stretches from the past into the future ldquoHave persistedrdquo through time means that something asso-ciated with this particular person has made a diff erence for us and in us and thus has continued to be present in how we have since engaged with other people and the world and how we continue these engagements and activities in the present while also most critically projecting into the future

In this sense the fact that we remember an acquaintance from the past means that she or he has not ceased to be relevant (even if only implicitly) to something meaningful to us ndash to who we have been who we are now and especially who we are striving to be Memory of the past only exists if this past is relevant (and therefore also meaningful) to the present and



307

the future ndash with memory being a continuous work of keeping past activi-ties and actions alive through ongoing and unending enactments across the time scales of the past the present and the future in the furtherance of onersquos meaningful projects and life agendas In this sense nothing is ever forgot-ten to then be resurrected from the brain molecules or modules in some kind of a mysterious process of memory retrieval Th ings and memories are not stored away Th ey are kept alive if kept at all within what we con-tinue to do and how we continue to be in the world ndash in our ways of being knowing and doing ndash especially as these are grounded in our strivings for a sought- aft er future that uniquely keeps things alive

In this sense memories can be said to persist without completely vanishing within our uninterrupted becoming and thus to endure in its dynamic ldquobodyrdquo that is in the ongoing dynamic stream of our evolv-ing deeds struggles and strivings within a shared world of communal practices Memories are layers within the complex hierarchical systems and multilayered reality of continuous acting (the composite process of being- knowing- doing) that constitutes the core of human development Memory then is contingent upon what we are doing now in the present as we continuously carry out actions building on the past and as these actions are also always stretching into the future ndash with no interruption among these time dimensions and no ontological breaking down of this process of actively engaging with the world while striving to achieve our goals in co- creating and inventing it One could say then that to remem-ber means to never forget ndash to never completely leave behind what it is that we remember in keeping it alive within the fabric of our ever- renewing and active projects of becoming Th is is consonant with Mandelstamrsquos pre-scient words that ldquo[i] nvention and remembrance go hand in hand hellip To remember means to invent and the one who remembers is also an inven-torrdquo (cited in Cavanagh 1995 p 8)

Th is does not mean that memories cannot fade be hidden away or even lost ndash they can but again not in the sense of them being hidden in the brain parts that passively store information like in some kind of a fi le cabinet to be sometimes mechanically erased from this storage or to automatically fade away on their own Memories are oft en ldquokept beyond the surfacerdquo and do fade but only in the sense of them receding to more implicit layers within the multilayered reality of a continuous acting becoming across the time dimensions Th at is memories can be and oft en are delegated to the deeper layers of activity of what it is we are enacting in the present within our continuous becoming and therefore linked to



308

the presently active levels of this process in more tacit and more medi-ated ways than the other more immediately relevant levels of activity that carry on memories

Th is is again consistent with the principle of the Russian doll ( matry-oshka ) in which there are multiple layers of acting that are present within onersquos ongoing life activity of becoming in the fullness and entirety of this process Th ese layers are mutually embedded enacted within the overarch-ing process and structures of an activity of becoming ndash except that a matry-oshka is static and frozen whereas activity is alive and ongoing dynamically fl uid ever- changing and open- ended In this sense perhaps one could say that forgetting is also not something that simply happens to us and to our memories Instead forgetting is also an active process an active work of organizing and coordinating the layers (and goals) within our activities of becoming arranging them in a hierarchical order while prioritizing some and relegating the others to minor roles ndash all in view of what is going on now and where we want to move next in terms of changing ourselves and the world while shift ing some of these layers deeper within the overall activity structure of our becoming

Th is is a process that implicates the whole person ndash who is embodied situated and above all acting in a world shared with others while pursuing onersquos place in it by means of making a diff erence (mattering) ndash rather than simply ldquopossessingrdquo a memory gadget for an independent cognitive faculty to ldquosolverdquo problems in the ldquohere and nowrdquo Memory is therefore (as any other psychological process) at once material cognitive aff ective intentional and deeply personal Memory is intricately personal and moreover indica-tive of who we have been who we are becoming and where we are heading In activity theory A N Leontiev ( 1978 ) captured this in saying that the past (such as facts of onersquos biography) can be and is constantly reevaluated so that it plays a diff erent role in the present depending on onersquos personal-ity (the self) as it has since become Th is is an expression for Leontiev of the major psychological fact that the person enters into a relationship with onersquos past that therefore becomes integrated into the present in vari-ous ways depending on this relationship rather than being mechanically carried over or brought up in a purely cognitive recollection As Leontiev (ibid) aptly conveys Tolstoyrsquos advice relevant to this point ndash pay attention to what you remember and what you do not remember by these manifesta-tions you will get to learn about yourself about who you are and (I would add) about who you are striving to become

All of these processes furthermore happen not in a vacuum of individ-uals sorting out their own self- enclosed pursuits somehow disconnected



309

from the social world and its collaborative practices On the contrary each and every step and each and every act within these processes including acts of memory are part and parcel of a socially historically contextually and ideologically- politically situated striving to sort out onersquos place and role among other people Th is centrally includes sorting out how one can be contributing to what is going on in the world while committing to a sought- aft er future of how one aspires this communal world should be through social transformation of the status quo Th is process even at the individual level is nonetheless profoundly fully and inescapably social through and through

In Vygotskyrsquos present- day scholarship the tenet that psychological pro-cesses are profoundly and essentially social at their very base and core is oft en associated with the notion of cultural mediation by the tools and arti-facts of culture Th is tenet was indeed central to Vygotskyrsquos whole approach and perhaps especially in its application to memory His position was that

the fi rst use of auxiliary [mediating] devices the transition to mediat-ing activity radically [at the root ndash v korne Rus] restructures the whole mental operation just as the use of a tool modifi es the natural [organic] activity of the [bodily] organs and broadens immeasurably [or limit-lessly bezmerno ndash Rus] the system of activity of mental functions ( 1997b p 63)

Th is principle is specifi cally illustrative in its application to memory devel-opment Vygotsky writes that inventing an artifi cial object to support and guide memory such as in tying a knot to be later reminded of what one must do is an operation that is ldquoexceptionally complex and instructive hellip [I] ts appearance heralded the approach of humanity to the boundaries that separated one epoch of its existence from anotherrdquo (ibid p 50) In this example Vygotsky reveals how the act of signifi cation creates a temporary link between the present and the future and thus helps to ldquoobjectifyrdquo mem-ory (ie make it practically relevant to what is going on in onersquos life) In such acts of signifi cation the person moves beyond the power of immediate stimulation to shape activities and instead gains capacity to control onersquos own acts of memorization Vygotsky writes that through this the person ldquochanges the environment with his [ sic ] external activity and in this way aff ects his own behavior subjecting it to his own authorityrdquo (ibid p 212)

In a broader sense however the mind is social for additional reasons as well In particular the mind ndash as a mindful activity ndash takes place in the social world where everything a person does aff ects other human beings while what others are doing or have done in the past even the distant past



310

aff ects each personrsquos life now and in the future if only through the traces they have left in the world (eg when ideas notions technology know- how etc invented by others become an integral part of shared acting and becoming in the present) Not only that but everything a person does is motivated and regulated at its core by onersquos position in and relations to the social world of others ndash based in the social interests contacts contracts obligations expectations aspirations rules norms and sanctions typically not fully of onersquos own solo making Furthermore memory for example is social in the sense that it uses the tools and artifacts of culture invented by others and creatively taken up by each individual person Th ese tools range from cultural objects infused with meanings and recruited for the purpose of remembering such as various memorabilia and souvenirs to norma-tive patterns of being knowing and doing as these are embodied in rituals skills and habitual forms of participation ndash and all the way to the tools of language narrative and discourse that structure shape and organize memory

In all of these aspects memory relies on materializing the process of remembering in objects and patterns of activities is contingent on social rules norms conventions inputs supports and sanctions off ered and oft en imposed by others and is carried out through the medium of social inter-activities and relations (including dialogues narratives and discourses) in tandem and close coordination of onersquos actions with those of others Memory in other words is fully immersed in and intimately enmeshed with social practices and collaborative activities inclusive of interactions and relationships ndash arising in and out of them Yet memory is enacted in ldquothe doingsrdquo by the individual person who as the agent of these shared practices brings them into realization and thus is neither asocial nor sepa-rated from other people

All of these descriptions are premised on the notion that persons are always acting in collaborative ways (even when acting alone) while engaging in a world shared with others Bodily processes are directly involved too as they are put in the service of meaningful activities by persons For example memories can become literally embodied in direct and obvious forms ndash the marks on the body such as stretches wrinkles and tattoos the way we walk and dress and so on Speaking in an accent (an embodied and materialized process) is a powerful reminder ndash a form of memory ndash that one comes from a diff erent culture the memory of which cannot be erased Monuments are also forms of materializing memory of the past history that communities choose to elevate and



311

celebrate due to their relevance to the struggles taking place in the pres-ent and stretching into the future

Overall a whole variety of resources both internal and external ndash includ-ing bodily material social technological and even institutional ones all with their own histories and dynamics ndash are parts of memory processes and their ldquocognitive ecologiesrdquo In these ecologies the ldquoexpertise is spread across a heterogeneous assembly of brains bodies artifacts and other external structuresrdquo (Clark 1997 p 77 and see also Sutton Harris Keil and Barnier 2011 ) And yet the point to emphasize again is that the work of memory is carried out not by ldquobrains bodies artifacts and other external structuresrdquo even if they are understood to be heterogeneously assembled It is the work that is carried out by the person qua agent of social practices ndash in the fullness of onersquos embodiment and interactivity and even more importantly in the entirety of onersquos life project premised on participation and especially contri-bution to social practices out in the world Th is is in contrast to understand-ing the work of memory and the mind as carried out by or as a phase of the primarily bodily movements and actions of the organism or of the dynam-ics of discourses outside of productive processes of social practices

Comparison to Other Approaches

Th is account in its various parts is consonant with many works and approaches in psychology and beyond ndash both the relatively old ones and those that are just recently emerging across a number of fi elds Yet a num-ber of points highlighted by the TAS appear to tap into what has been rela-tively neglected and therefore in need of further elaboration especially in terms of an emphasis on the transformative- agentive and future- orientated nature of the mind including as illustrated herein the memory processes

In terms of the older approaches this account continues important works on memory in the activity theory tradition especially those of P I Zinchenko Th ese works date back to the 1930s and then were carried out through several decades (eg Zinchenko 1939 1961 ) Zinchenkorsquos works were conducted within the tradition of Vygotskyrsquos school and made an important contribution to its transformative developments Th e core of his approach is that memory is understood to be an active process of carrying out life activity by a person being itself precisely an action rather than an isolated mental faculty In Zinchenkorsquos words memory has to do with ldquoa selective consolidation of individual experience and in its further usage hellip in concrete conditions of the subjectrsquos life in his [or her] activityrdquo ( 1961



312

p 134) Th is view builds upon Vygotskyrsquos approach to memory and develop-ment more broadly according to which

psychological laws including laws of memorizing cannot be found out-side of research into the real meaningful activity of the subject in rela-tion to his surrounding reality Th ese laws express nothing other than the development of this activity in the course of which the consciousness is formed and restructured for it to then determine the subjectrsquos activity the life itself (Zinchenko 1939 p 147)

Th e account of memory from the TAS perspective also overlaps with the important works by the French philosopher Henri Bergson (eg 1911 ) and is particularly resonant (though not equivalent) with his view that memory accumulates in the body as a set of responses to a complex set of solicita-tions from the world (cf Gallagher 2009 ) In Bergsonrsquos words the body retains

from the past only the intelligently coordinated movements which repre-sent the accumulated eff orts of the past and it recovers those past eff orts not in the memory- images which recall them but in the defi nite order and systematic character with which the actual movements take place In truth it no longer represents our pasts to us it acts it and if it still deserves the name memory it is not because it conserves bygone images but because it prolongs their useful eff ect into the present moment (Bergson 1911 p 3)

Th is account is also consistent with Deweyrsquos ideas As elaborated for exam-ple by Clancey ( 1997 2009 ) Deweyrsquos classical work on the refl ex arc ( 1896 ) laid foundations for a concept of ldquoconstructive memoryrdquo Th is concept too highlights temporal dimensions of the mind and of memory in par-ticular because as illustrated by Clancey ( 1997 pp 95ndash 96) ldquoSequences of acts are composed such that subsequent experiences categorize and hence give meaning to what was experienced beforerdquo In this account as Clancey shows memory is not laid down in a fi xed form at the time of the original experience but is a function quite counterintuitively of what comes later on Th is is in contradistinction to traditional views of the mind including memory as being unrelated to either temporal situativity of experiences or to its application in and relevance to later activities

In expanding upon these insights while radically shift ing beyond a focus on organisms as biological entities acting in their natural habitat in pursuit of adaptation the TAS puts premium on more than bodily move-ments that accumulate as organisms carry on their dynamic relations with



313

the world While accepting this description as extremely apt and relevant at the level of biological explanations of how organisms function it is impor-tant to note that there is a diff erent level of explanation at which persons are understood as social and agentive actors of collaborative practices In the latter case the emphasis is on the activist striving by persons as social actors to be someone and to achieve something meaningful in the world by contributing to its unfolding collective dynamics and thus on meaning-ful social acts that each makes a diff erence in the world of collaborative practices and is meaningful precisely in light of making such a diff erence To paraphrase Bergson in a more radical activist way then the social actor ldquoretainsrdquo the past by way of continuously carrying it out in the present by means of coordinating onersquos past social acts with those in the present and in light of the sought- aft er future embedded in collaborative projects of social transformation Past actions therefore are retained precisely because they are continuously carried out in ldquothe here and nowrdquo while expansively accu-mulating eff orts of the past and in addition while being amalgamated with those that embody enact the sought- aft er future

In this sense the person does not need to recover past eff orts from the ldquodepths of memoryrdquo stored away somewhere in the brain ndash because these eff orts and acts are preserved if at all in the ldquofabricrdquo of them being con-tinuously carried out and enacted in activities stretching across the dimen-sions of the past present and future in one continual and uninterrupted process of becoming at the nexus of changing oneself through changing the world (and vice versa) Th e eff orts of the past are preserved as Bergson surmised ldquoin the defi nite order and systematic characterrdquo of activities in the present ndash yet in the order and character not only of actual bodily move-ments as such but rather in the defi nite order and systematic character of an ongoing ceaseless continuous and ever- evolving meaningful striving at becoming through changing our shared world Th e process of becoming supersedes the level of bodily movements per se that is lift s them up by integrating them into a diff erent (ie social situated and transformative) level of activities

Furthermore this account overlaps in a number of ways yet again also contrasts in other ways with how the process of memory has been presented within the recently emerging and increasingly infl uential research direc-tions that oppose narrowly conceived cognitivism ndash namely the situated embodied distributed and dynamic approaches A detailed description of memory that captures several aspects of these perspectives can be borrowed from Jay Lemke ( 2002 ) who gave a detailed description precisely of this process (which necessitates a lengthy quote from his work for illustrative



314

purposes) Lemke evokes the example of memory in a section of his book chapter titled ldquoMemory as Re- enactmentrdquo and in the context of discussing broader questions as to what binds one experience to another At the start just as in the preceding discussion of memory from the TAS perspective Lemke critiques the traditional notion that treats memory from the view-point of the individual organism in disregard of ldquothe activities in which we participate and all the people places and things around us that help make memory workrdquo (ibid p 39) Lemke further provides a highly helpful and detailed account from an alternative approach by drawing on an everyday example He writes

When I return to a distant city I have not visited for years each new vista evokes memories that I could never have recalled otherwise [suggest-ing] that memory is not something stored like a map or picture in my brain but is a partial re- creation of my perceptions and actions of a prior experience of being in a place and moving through it Remembering is a process that takes place in a system that includes both me and some parts of my physical environment Re- tracing my steps from years ago with recognition of the streets is one aspect of the whole complex activ-ity of ldquowalking- thererdquo in which my brain my muscles my eyes and the streetscape itself are all participants Memory is not autonomous within the organism it is an interactive process of engagement with an environment that re- evokes past similar engagements (ibid pp 39ndash 40 emphasis added)

In further extending this example to the case of reading a text with onersquos own pencil marks made in the past Lemke suggests that

[m] eaningful material objects shaped in one momentrsquos activity can pro-vide the link to another related activity in a later moment of time And the result is the construction of continuity on a longer timescale than that of each momentary activity Th e human body is itself such a meaningful material object that is shaped by time and bears the traces of our past activity (ibid p 40 emphasis added)

Lemke concludes that ldquoour memories are hellip in our muscle tone in the chemistry of our blood in every physiological part of us that lsquoremem-bersrsquo or persists for times long compared to the time of the events that change them A string on our fi nger a cut on our skin the twinge of an old injury hellip meet the requirements for binding us across timerdquo (ibid) Th is vivid description taps into many important dimensions of how memory works along the lines of the new approaches that successfully dispel the myths about memory as merely an internal and passive storage



315

of information by a solo individual In particular Lemke captures the dynamic embodied distributed temporal and situated character of memory and how it is comprised of much more than an individual brain (or mind) instead including objects and activities in the physical envi-ronment and the involvement of the whole body in remembering Th is account also hints at the active participatory and co- constructive char-acter of remembering

However a number of additional aspects especially associated with an in- depth understanding of who does the process of remembering why and for what purpose and within which (if any) meaningful pursuit this process takes place ndash all of this remains less articulated and even neglected Th is is not surprising given that the new approaches are focused on some but not all dimensions in describing the workings of the mind and Lemkersquos illustrative description is symptomatic of some gaps in these approaches in general In particular the emphasis on the person ndash qua actor in social practices that realize the world ndash doing the work of memory as part of the larger quest of and striving at becoming in the world shared and co- created with others as highlighted from the position of the TAS complements the extant sociocultural accounts

Summing Up Drawing More Parallels and Contrasts

Th e account presented in the preceding section to reiterate overlaps with a number of new advances in the study of the mind that directly contest its traditional cognitivist portrayals and thus too are useful in working out the non- reductionist dialectical alternatives Th ese recent approaches increas-ingly converge on the idea that the mind is inextricably related to persons being situated within contexts and therefore is embodied situated dis-tributed and dynamic Described as a new phase in the cognitive science revolution or ldquothe new science of the mindrdquo (Rowlands 2010 ) these recent approaches share a number of signifi cant similarities captured by the term ldquothe Embodied- Active- Situated- Cognitionrdquo (or EASC see Anderson 2003 Larkin Eatough and Osborn 2011 ) Th ese approaches build on various philosophical and psychological legacies of Dewey Wittgenstein Vygotsky Piaget Mead Merleau- Ponty and Bergson among others (cf Gallagher 2009 ) A signifi cant role in developing these approaches was played by the pioneering works of scholars who had launched cognitive science yet later came to denounce some of its core premises such as its reductionism and physicalism (eg Bruner 1990 Neisser 1995)



316

Th e EASC ldquomovementrdquo includes psychologists philosophers devel-opmental biologists linguists researchers in communication and science studies and cognitive scientists among others who seek to develop new understandings of the mind Among most widely known works within this movement are those by Clark ( 1997 ) Damasio ( 1999 ) Hutchins ( 1995 ) Th elen ( 1995 ) Th elen and Smith ( 1994 ) Varela (1992) Varela Th ompson and Rosch ( 1991 ) and others Th e editors of a recent authoritative and com-prehensive Th e Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (2009) sum up the core premises of this movement in the following way

First cognition depends not just on the brain but also on the body (the embodiment thesis) Second cognitive activity routinely exploits struc-ture in the natural and social environment (the embedding thesis) Th ird the boundaries of cognition extend beyond the boundaries of individual organisms (the extension thesis) (Robbins and Aydede 2009 p 3)

Th ese are important and innovative insights and the editorsrsquo assessment that they refl ect core advances in the fi eld is quite fair However these very insights also reveal that the developments so far mostly upgrade and amplify the notion of the mind by suggesting additional layers in its ways of operating rather than off ering a more substantive overhaul of views about what the mind fundamentally ndash and ontologically ndash is Th e majority of works within the EASC movement while contesting many traditional assumptions nonetheless still directly connect the mind to the brain and consider it to be a by- product (or an emergent property) of a cortical neuro-nal activity albeit interlinked with the broader bodily (non- neuronal) pro-cesses augmented by cultural tools and situated in context Th e premise that cognition is an internal mental process ldquoin the headrdquo ndash one that may be distributed out in the world embodied and augmented by its tools and objects as well as infl uenced by the surrounding context in various ways ndash yet one that is at its root internal (Sawyer and Greeno 2009 ) is still guiding many developments in this research movement Th at is the challenges to equating the mind with the brain or with something ldquoin the headrdquo even if the mind is not understood to be completely ldquoskull- boundrdquo still oft en do not go far enough Th is leaves intact the basic premise of the brain as pro-cessing information through computations or producing mental represen-tations or giving rise to the mind as a mere epiphenomenon of its activities An explicit position on the ontological status of the mind requires further elaborations especially in ways that directly connect it to the social world of collective material practices yet does not eschew the mind as a unique dimension of these processes



317

Many of the most advanced among dynamic and non- reductionist approaches to the mind and human subjectivity still relatively neglect or bypass the realm of social practices at the intersection of collective and indi-vidual agency instead anchoring subjectivity in the discourses bodily pro-cesses or aff ectivity understood as felt experience For example Johnston ( 2004 ) succinctly summarized this position (relying on the philosophical works by Slavoj Žižek) in the following formulation

Th e subject is emergent in relation to the body ndash that is to say such ldquoimmaterialrdquo (or more accurately more- than- material ) subjectivity immanently arises out of a material ground hellip Cogito- like subjectivity ontogenetically emerges out of an originally corporeal condition as its anterior ground although once generated this sort of subjectivity there-aft er remains irreducible to its material sources hellip subject conditions immanently arise out of a series of confl icts and tensions internal to the foundational embodied condition of human nature a nature inherently destined for denaturalization (p 231 emphasis added)

Th is is a very helpful account that overcomes many of the entrenched dual-isms in psychology and philosophy Yet it is clear that the social reality of human collaborative practices and of human agency in co- creating these practices are not at the forefront with prime attention given to the ldquothe corporeal conditionrdquo that is the body

Th ese important insights along the lines of the relational ontology (inclusive of the perspectives of distributed situated embodied and enacted cognition) can be expanded using the TAS perspective in the fol-lowing ways First in this perspective the emphasis is not only (although it is too) on people as beings with bodies versus some abstractly reason-ing Cartesian egos It is also not only (although it is too) about individ-uals being situated in the world and connecting to it by acting in ways that involve tools and objects beyond the bounds of the body Instead in positing an activist striving of people together realizing their world and themselves in one unifi ed process as ontologically primary the world is understood to be neither merely occupied nor inhabited ndash but rather real-ized and brought into existence by people in the acts of agentively trans-forming their communal practices Second this implies that the process of knowing is made possible not only by being in contact or in touch with the world and not even by acting in the world if the latter is limited to adapt-ing to the status quo but instead by being proactive and even ldquopartisanrdquo committed to and caring about what is going on and most critically what should come next



318

From the position of TAS in expanding upon Vygotskyrsquos approach the mind is composed of material and productive social practices ndash embodied enacted in individual contributions to these practices ndash inclusive of social relations entailed and generated by these practices whereby human beings acting together are realizing themselves through collaboratively bringing forth and co- authoring and in a very direct sense taking up the world Th e mind and broader processes of human subjectivity are immanently emerg-ing and immediately arising both ontogenetically and phylogenetically out of these collaborative practices of people acting together in pursuit of a sought- aft er future In serving the role of constituents in these material collaborative and transformative practices the human subjectivity inclusive of mental ldquofacultiesrdquo such as memory fi nds its status and due place in the world as ldquofully realrdquo processes of guiding social practices and furthering their ceaseless dynamics

Th is account does not foreclose but instead opens up the space to conceptualize the agency of the subject ndash who is understood to be indi-vidually unique and distinct and in this sense relatively independent yet not hyperseparated (cf Plumwood 1993 ) from society and instead coming into being through processes predicated on interactivity includ-ing struggles for individuality as well as solidarity and kinship Th is view radically reshapes what agency stands for based in reshaping the basic ontology of the world and of human development as processes that are co- implicated and co- realized Th is is a biologically and physically non- reductive yet at the same time non- mentalist and non- transcendental account of human mind in its productive world- forming and history- making role In place of a quaint epistemology according to which the mind copies or refl ects the world in some ontologically separate inte-rior space the mind is understood ndash along with the process of under-standing itself ndash to be an active transformative intervention into the course of collaborative social practices co- constitutive of reality and its transformations

To emphasize again this position follows in the tradition of Vygotsky and activity theory and also overlaps with many themes in the works by James Dewey Merleau- Ponty Bergson Gibson and those contemporary research directions that build on their insights However while building on and integrating many important insights stemming from these perspec-tives the TAS suggests steps to move beyond the notions of the mind as situated relational contextualized embodied and dynamic while integrat-ing them within a transformative onto- epistemology Th is is achieved by



319

more directly focusing on human agency and on the power of imagination and commitment in highlighting human capacity to transcend the status quo and its artifacts of reifi cation Perhaps the most critical specifi cation is that this capacity for agency is understood to be a fully social and continu-ous ldquoachievementrdquo of togetherness possible only in a world shared with others

What is central to conceptualizing the mind from the position of the TAS is the focus on the process of how the mind comes about ndash in per-sons making it up and doing so as actors of social practices who come to be and to know in the process of making a diff erence (mattering) in these practices always together with others In this sense the expression ldquomake up your mindrdquo (to reiterate the point made in previous chapters) has to be taken literally as describing what is at the core of our being knowing and doing

In following with the Vygotskian tradition the TAS highlights that fi rst the mind is always made in co- acting together with other people in shared collaborative activities that are part and parcel of wider social practices and collaborative projects Already the organism is the achieve-ment of togetherness (cf Stengers 2002a ) Th e human mind is ndash as all human ways of being knowing and doing are ndash a continuous ldquoachieve-mentrdquo of togetherness in even more striking ways Second and perhaps most importantly the embodied and enacted mind is always partial emo-tional and passionate even biased and partisan ndash implying that it has to be made up by taking a position or a stand Th e mind is a process that is primarily about interests motives hopes expectations and above all commitments to what the person deems is needed ndash what she or he believes ought to be Th e features of objects and experiences are artic-ulated against this backdrop of ldquoengaged agencyrdquo (cf Taylor 1993 ) and more critically the agentive ndash that is striving and activist ndash mode of act-ing in the world that gives rise to equally striving and action- performing consciousness (to borrow this expression from Bakhtin 1993 p 20) Th at is we experience the world because and insofar as we act in the world as engaged non- neutral actors who care and are concerned about what is going on and what should be Forming knowledge is a creative endeavor in a very direct sense ndash because it is an act of creation and change albeit not on its own not as an isolated cognitive action ldquoin the headrdquo but as a dimension of acting in pursuit of this- worldly ndash and always collabora-tive ndash activities projects and goals that co- constitute the world and the person herself



320

Th e mind thus understood is not only more- than- material (cf Johnston 2004 ) it is also more- than- embodied and more- than- situated though it is embodied and situated too Th is is due to the ldquonaturerdquo of the foundational realm out of which the mind arises and which it enacts and serves namely the social practices that fi rstly encompass human forms of being know-ing and doing (including as these are sedimented in objects in spatial and temporal arrangements in rules and concepts as expressed by Ilyenkov and Vygotsky) and that secondly are constituted by an ongoing continu-ous and ceaseless fl ow that each actor participates in but also agentively takes up transforms and thus brings forth Th is process of continuous cycles of being- knowing- doing not only takes place in the world but is co- constitutive of the world Th erefore this process literally is worldly and fully material yet not in the impoverished sense of materiality as relating only to a mechanical dehumanized entity- like and tangible ldquosubstantive- nessrdquo of things and objects Th e mind relies on embodiment (including the brain) tools of culture objects and discourses ndash yet it cannot be reduced to these levels only because human beings act productively creatively and authorially as agents and co- creators of communally shared and histori-cally evolving social practices Th e mind is a process that while fully rely-ing on practices and doings is ldquomore- than- materialrdquo ldquomore- than- situatedrdquo and ldquomore- than- embodiedrdquo because it is interactively coordinated socially shared culturally mediated historically unfolding and above all produc-tive creative authorial and therefore meaningful in its transformative impact on the world

Th is approach upholds yet also expands upon Vygotskyrsquos insight about the origin of the mind in social relations between and among people In Vygotskyrsquos words

Th e structures of higher mental functions represent a cast [or mold ndash slepok in Russian] of collective social relations between people Th ese structures are nothing other than a transfer into the personality of an inner relation of a social order that constitutes the basis of the social structure of the human personality Th e nature of human personality is social ( 1998 p 169ndash 170)

In expanding upon Vygotskyrsquos insight the added emphases in the perspec-tive developed herein draw on fi rst the dynamic fl uid and ever- changing nature not just of social relations but also of the broader overarching realm of productive life- and world- forming social practices encompassing these relations Second the added emphasis is also on the centrality of human



321

agency in enacting and bringing forth these practices processes and rela-tions rather than on people merely undergoing their eff ects or on people being situated and participating in these practices From this position to paraphrase Vygotsky the higher mental functions are nothing other than a process of authorially taking up social practices in contributing to changing them by actors of society and history in always creative novel agentive and transformative ndash that is activist ndash ways

Th is process takes place in the form of individuals contributing to the ever- changing collective unfolding of social life realized in and through productive and transformative communal practices In this process each person agentively co- authors social practices in individually unique ways by contributing to their social dynamics and thus themselves coming into realization in and through this process in each and every act of onersquos being knowing and doing ndash while taking responsibility for these practicesrsquo par-ticular instantiations at a given time and location in history as it propels into the future Th is formulation avoids the notion of a passive top- down transfer as merely an acquisition and reproduction of socially established knowledge and practices by the individual (which inevitably carries author-itarian and dogmatic connotations) At the same time it also breaks away from the notions of persons and their agency along the lines of individual-ist connotations that posit them as isolated atomistic entities to instead emphasize that each individual comes into being through actively continu-ing and creatively transforming what is going on in the world

Th e suggested interpretation is that the mind and other forms of human subjectivity are not something within the individual but are the ways of doing by the persons as they have been transformed by their own activi-ties of transforming social practices Th at is rather than merely ldquohavingrdquo (or possessing) minds or ldquoundergoingrdquo perceptions and experiences (and memories) people are always in the process of making them up ndash because the minds are literally ldquomaderdquo in the collaborative practices and pursuits as their dimensions and also because they are formed and enacted in the process and as the process of taking activist positions and stands It is the taking and carrying out of an activist stance that is necessary in order to be able to be act know and understand indeed to under stand

Th erefore it is not that the mind can no longer be posited to be in the individual to instead be understood as something beyond the individual distributed across the environment the person and the tools of activity A more radical position is that what is ldquoin the individualrdquo can be con-ceived in radically diff erent terms because the individual is understood



322

non- individualistically which in turn aff ords an understanding of the mind non- mentalistically If individuals are understood as social actors who bring forth the world ndash itself viewed as always unsettled ambivalent and ldquoin- the- makingrdquo ndash in their acts of being knowing and doing at the nexus with collective agency through contributing to social practices then the concept of the mind can be reconstrued without any mental-ist and individualist connotations If an individual is truly seen as pro-foundly agentive and social that is as ldquoan ensemble of social relationsrdquo (as Marx surmised all along) ndash rather than as an isolated autonomous and self- contained entity ndash then what the individual does even in utmost private and intimate moments is not a process that is solipsistic driven by internal regularities in passively refl ecting or representing the world (as in acts of contemplation or introspection withdrawn from social struggles and their conditions supports mediations challenges and aff ordances)

Instead the human mind can be seen as ldquoan endeavor of existential importrdquo that ceases to be an internal mentation and instead participates in and above all contributes to realizing the world of human social practices and human subjectivities in one bidirectional spiral of a mutual becoming Th is dialectical account in continuation of Vygotskyrsquos project challenges both the conventional cognitivist approaches that focus on lonely individu-als processing information or on neuronal activities in the brain on one hand as well as those sociocultural views that dissolve the individual mind in the processes of collective practices exchanges and communication dia-logues and discourses on the other


323323

Part V


324


325

325

11

Implications for Education Teaching- Learning and Development

as Activist Projects

You cannot aff ord to think of being here to receive an education you will do better to think of yourselves as being here to claim one hellip [to claim is] to take a rightful owner to assert in the face of possible contradiction hellip Th e diff erence is that between acting and being acted upon and for women it can literally mean the diff erence between life and death

Adrienne Rich 1977

Th e central and radical claim of Vygotskyrsquos project in the expanded inter-pretation off ered in the previous chapters is that human development is a collaborative and creative ldquowork- in- progressrdquo by people agentively and collaboratively realizing their shared worlds in pursuit of their goals aligned with a sought- aft er future each from a unique standpoint agenda and commitment In the course of these open- ended yet not directionless pur-suits people enact changes in their own lives their communities and the world at large ndash in thus themselves coming to be and to know through these agentive enactments of reality in their transformative eff ects that matter and realize the world in its ongoing historicity In these pursuits people rely on each other and draw on collectively invented cultural mediators tools and supports within collectively created zones of proximal development at the intersection of the past present and future Development represents a collaborative and continuous ldquowork- in- progressrdquo by people as agents of social change who struggle for their unique authorship and contribution to social practices in a world fundamentally shared and co- created with oth-ers Th ere are no imposed or predetermined ldquonaturalrdquo limitations on this process (no ldquoprewiringrdquo) implying that all human beings have unlimited infi nite potential ndash and are thus profoundly equal precisely in this infi nity of their potential ndash regardless of any putatively ldquonatural endowmentsrdquo and ldquointractable defi citsrdquo if provided with access to requisite cultural tools and



326

supports within collaborative spaces and interactivities of shared commu-nity practices

In one aspect namely in its emphasis on active relations to the world as the grounding for development and learning and on knowledge forma-tion as an active process of co- construction co- creation and discovery rather than passive transmission Vygotskyrsquos approach is broadly consis-tent albeit only at one level with several other core theories of develop-ment and learning including by Dewey and Piaget and especially with the more recent perspectives advancing ecological participatory situ-ated and social- interactive notions of learning All of these frameworks overcome the ldquospectator stancerdquo in acknowledging that the only access people have to reality is through active engagement with and participa-tion in it rather than simply this access being a matter of people ldquobeingrdquo in the world Th e connotation common to Vygotsky and these approaches is that the mind develops not a container that stores knowledge nor a mirror refl ection of reality Instead active engagement with the world represents the foundation and the core reality of development and learn-ing mind and knowledge ndash where relationality is dialectically superseded by the more agentive stance of engaging the world (for further discussion of these commonalities see Stetsenko 2008 2010b ) Th is common view presents a strong challenge to traditional conceptions of teaching and learning as a passive top- down transmission acquisition and processing of inert information

Th ese similarities notwithstanding the hallmark of Vygotskyrsquos project that distinguishes it from other action- centered and situated perspectives is that it directly and centrally predicates development and learning on joint collaborative endeavors extending through generations For him these processes are about collectively invented and collaboratively implemented cultural mediation of shared social practices through historically evolved and interactively implemented cultural tools Mediation in this light is the key fact and an indispensable characteristic present in all aspects of human life including and quite centrally in teaching learning and development Th e grounding of development in socially mediated and communally orga-nized cultural- historical collaborative social practices means that the recip-rocal processes of teaching and learning take the center stage as the major gateway for development ndash the emergence of psychological processes and the growth of knowledge mind and identity within the zones of proxi-mal development Th is is so because teaching- learning constitutes precisely the pathway according to Vygotsky that individuals take in acquiring the cultural tools that allow for participation in historically and culturally


Implications for Education 327

327

contingent community practices and thus no less than the pathway to their own becoming

In this way his theory provides a foundation on which to overcome the traditional gulf that separates development from teaching- learning and individuals from society history and culture and instead views all these processes as representing facets of one and the same continuous dynam-ics of collaboratively and continuously (through history) engaging with and acting upon the world Th is position can be further elaborated from the transformative activist stance (TAS)

Expanding Vygotskyrsquos Approach to Learning and Development from a

Transformative Activist Stance

In expanding Vygotskyrsquos position from the perspective of TAS the pro-cesses of development and teaching- learning are understood to be collab-orative processes of an activist nature in which individual contributions play a central role and that are not confi ned to people adapting to what is ldquogivenrdquo in the world in its status quo Instead these processes are under-stood to be reliant upon learners forming and carrying out their own activ-ist that is goal- directed and future- oriented agendas of contributing to and making a diff erence within ongoing community practices in their historical unfolding Th ese agendas pressupose and centrally involve taking an activ-ist stance grounded in a vision or ldquoend pointrdquo on how community mem-bers believe present practices can be changed and what kind of future ought to be created in common pursuits of a sought- aft er future

In this perspective teaching- learning can be considered to be the path-way to exploring and creating onersquos self and identity ndash yet only if these are understood not as an inherently individual possession of solipsistic indi-viduals (as discussed in the following sections) Th is view highlights the unity of being- knowing- doing as well as the unity of teaching- learning and development ndash all merged on the grounds of a transformative stance and its central motif of persons being social actors and creative agents who are agentively contributing to collaboratively changing and ultimately autho-rially co- creating (or co- authoring) a world that is always unsettled con-tested and unfi nalized

Th is conceptualization gives full credit to the historicized profoundly social and relational character of teaching- learning and development In this there is a clear overlap with the recently infl uential participatory learning and communities of practice theories (eg Lave and Wenger 1991



328

Rogoff 2003 and many works that build on their foundation) In a thrust similar to these theories the perspective suggested herein also considers it imperative to develop an alternative to todayrsquos mainstream views that naturalize learning as a purely cognitive process taking place within an iso-lated individual However in expanding on these theories the TAS puts more emphasis not only on participation in community practices but also on contribution to these practices ndash a more active purposive and goal- directed process ndash and not just to the practices of local communities in the ldquohere and nowrdquo but also to the unfolding social practices of humanity taken as a whole and stretching through history as a continuum of interrelated praxis extending across generations and always projecting into the future

An important strategy implicated in this approach is to critically interrogate and strongly contest the currently leading theme in theoriz-ing human development and learning especially prevalent in psychology (since long allied with the narrowly understood theory of evolution in its sociobiological incarnations) and spilling into theories and research mod-els in education Th is theme pertains to the notion of adaptation Taken as a broad underpinning principle of human development adaptation pictures individuals as compelled in order to survive to fi t in with what is given in the present ndash what exists in the world in its sociocultural economic and political status quo By extrapolation it is taken for granted that learners must prepare themselves for a future that is somehow expected to arrive no matter what they do and how they contribute to social practices in their communities Many of the grounding assumptions in current mod-els of educational research underwritten by political ideals of equality and justice very progressive and groundbreaking in many ways do not suf-fi ciently challenge this theme of adaptation and its oft en implicit connota-tions including political- ethical implications of passivity uncertainty and quietism

For example the premise that development and learning are rooted in experiential presence or experiential encounters with the world central in most participatory approaches does not completely avoid connotations of adapting to the status quo Th ese and related notions of interpretation dia-logue participation and the situativity of knowing have been seminal in challenging traditional ldquoobjectivistrdquo and solipsistic models and accounts of learning and development (as was discussed in Part 3 ) Yet these notions require further critical elaboration to more resolutely break away from the idea that individuals need to adapt to what is ldquogivenrdquo in the present in order to develop and learn By shift ing the emphasis from participation



329

to contribution the value of learners developing their own knowledge of both the present situations in their communities and of the history of these communities (ie how things are and how they came to be) is highlighted as a springboard from which contribution can be made based in a vision of what one believes ought to be and what kind of a future is imagined as worth struggling for and is therefore sought aft er

In this sense this conceptualization avoids unnecessarily stark oppo-sition between knowledge acquisition and transformation (the latter inclusive of participation as a ldquosubsidiaryrdquo dimension of transformation) between deference to the past (history and tradition) and the need to inno-vate and come up with novel solutions to ever- emerging and oft en unpre-dictable challenges In avoiding this opposition knowledge of the past is understood to constitute the necessary baseline from which people are able to critique challenge and transform the past while using this critique as a gateway for imagining innovating and de facto inventing a diff erent future through the social transformation of present communities and their prac-tices Th at is knowing of the past and the present ndash and the cultural tools necessary for this ndash is seen on certain conditions as the prerequisite to and even an initial form of transforming reality in a struggle for a new vision of the future and for novel social arrangements needed to achieve this future (see Stetsenko 2008 2010b )

Equally important is the reverse premise ndash that the commitment to transform the world or any of its aspects (including concepts and theories) based in the vision of where learners want to get and what they want to achieve is the condition sine qua non for understanding the world around us in its present forms and its history From this perspective to be able to understand the present and its history is only possible from within an activist striving and a desire to change and transcend the present A passive uninvolved understanding and knowing from ldquonowhererdquo that is outside of active strivings and struggles for a better future is humanly (and humanely) impossible ndash or at least incomplete transient a - meaningful and perhaps above all irrelevant Knowing then rather than being merely cognitive is a deeply personal passionate and ethically evaluative process achieved from a position of struggle care and concern ndash a desire to move forward and beyond the present in transcending its status quo Th is process represents an amalgamation of interests goals emotions desires hopes and commit-ments themselves formed within and as an active and activist engagement with a world shared with others across the dimensions of the past present and future



330

Th at is in order to know in meaningful and lasting ways we fi rst need to want to change something about things to be known in other words we need to be in pursuit of meaningful goals agendas and projects grounded in visions and imagination of a sought- aft er future It is these pursuits and activist struggles that come to enact knowing they are the overarching pro-cess within which meaningful understanding and knowing are uniquely possible Th e cornerstone of learning and knowing is formed by a commit-ment to social transformation that uniquely positions learners ndash and teach-ers alike ndash to see what is through the prism of how the present situations and conditions came to be and also in light of the imagined and sought- aft er future ndash of what they believe ought to be In this the historicity and situativity of knowledge are ascertained alongside the focus on its ineluc-table fusion with an activist stance as an orientation toward the future

Th e complex dynamics highlighted by the transformative approach is the following It is impossible to imagine and create the future and to embark on change and transformation unless we have located ourselves in and understood our present moment and location in the ldquohere and nowrdquo ndash which presumes that we grasp how these moments and locations have emerged and came to be historically that is presumes knowledge of history and the shift ing dynamics of the present However the reverse is also true in that we cannot locate ourselves in and understand the present and its history unless we have imagined the future and committed ourselves to cre-ating this future Th at is the present and the past can only be grasped and understood from a position that extends into the future ndash which implies persons locating themselves vis- agrave- vis ldquothe horizon of the oughtrdquo ndash of where they want to be and how they want the world to become as something that they fi gure out themselves In this dialectics the past present and future are rendered not only intricately connected but coextensive de facto interanimating and co- creating each other in one interrelated and multi-faceted process Importantly ldquothe oughtrdquo is not understood to be some-how delivered from high on up by some authority but instead has to be discovered and created by learners themselves In this ldquothe oughtrdquo is also not separate from desires hopes or strivings either Instead all of these various components (or dimensions) of being- knowing- doing are integral to personsrsquo overarching pursuits of life projects and therefore identities through contribution to community practices Th e process of knowing thus understood is profoundly imaginative and creative passionate and partisan as well as deeply personal and authorial because it involves the work of self- understanding and identity development ndash and it cannot be



331

otherwise unless knowledge is reduced to a mechanical data processing as performed by computers

Th e role of knowledge is therefore radically shift ed away (rather than eliminated) from viewing it as a compendium of inert information to be processed and stored into a dynamic personal and relational process that is moreover an instrument of activism and transformative change Importantly in this interlinking of the past present and future the call is for education to be not about preparing students for a future that can be expected to somehow arrive irrespective of what they do in the pres-ent Instead the key focus is on how teaching- learning and gaining knowl-edge including through critique contributes to creating ndash by teachers acting together with learners as equal participants and through the tools that expand their common agency and horizons ndash the very future that is to come through their own collaborative activist deeds and continuous eff orts at mutual becoming through struggle and contestation

In this conceptualization there is a place both for transformatively and critically engaging with the world in ways that contribute to transcending its status quo on the one hand and for continuing past practices includ-ing through acquiring knowledge though never in a passive and value- free manner that is not as a disengaged reproduction of transmitted ldquopurerdquo facts on the other Th is is possible on the condition that knowledge is understood as a non- contemplative practically relevant and personally meaningful transformative activist endeavor ndash in line with the radical reconstrual of the notions of mind and human development as has been attempted throughout this book Th us the emphasis is placed on the dialec-tical linkage between understanding onersquos world and critiquing transform-ing it ndash in the unity of being- knowing- doing constitutive of an ontologically continuous (ie non- additive although oft en ruptured and contradictory) becoming ndash as interrelated layers of one and the same process through which people are engaging with their world as social actors and agents as co- creators of their communities and our common history

Th is outline of development and teaching- learning can ground an unequivocal critique of the traditional narrowly instrumentalist models of education in expanding other critical and sociocultural approaches Th ese traditional models typically focus on teaching skills and knowledge includ-ing dominant discourses and power- genres of communication outside of the goals of providing the tools for agency and activism As such these mod-els can and oft en do carry politically conservative connotations of teaching to fi t in with the existing hierarchical power structures and to uncritically



332

accept knowledge that supports these structures Yet the teaching- learn-ing of skills and knowledge does not need to be conceived along the lines of such instrumentalist goals Instead the teaching- learning of skills and knowledge can gain a very diff erent status if this process is included within the broader ndash novelty- seeking creative and future- oriented ndash activist proj-ects that connect learning with the goals of social transformation includ-ing authorship through contribution to social practices In this rendition teaching needs to aff ord and be about learning that opens up possibili-ties for forming and discovering active social positioning voice and stance including critical appraisal of confl icts in current community practices the forming of a vision for what needs to be changed and a commitment to this vision that implicates carrying out the future in the present In such an approach teaching and learning are brought together whereby both teachers and students teach each other and learn from each other ndash as one process of teaching- learning (or obuchenie for history of this term in its Vygotskian connotation see Cole 2009 Wertsch and Sohmer 1995 )

From this position it is not surprising that so many pioneering schol-ars who struggled for emancipatory education such as Vygotsky W E B DuBois and Freire also advocated for and struggled to provide subor-dinate groups with access to what they saw as powerful forms of knowl-edge including through formal education In their placing such a strong emphasis on knowledge and education these scholars have been critiqued for supposedly promoting the traditional modern rational subject and abstract knowledge that serves the goals of the status quo ndash which would be a questionable endeavor indeed as has been highlighted by many in the critical scholarship However the quest of these progressive scholars is arguably not about traditional rationality and subjectivity Rather their quest can be seen to be about harnessing the power of knowledge and rea-son not in support of but instead against the dominant controlling and hegemonic forces that impoverish and dehumanize learning and knowl-edge by l imiting their goals to those of adaptation and reproduction of the status quo

Th is emphasis on the value and power of knowledge therefore does not have to mean a return to narrowly instrumentalist and rationalist models associated with the passive transmission of knowledge that inevitably go hand in hand with the container metaphor of the mind the individualist and self- centered construals of identity development and essentialist beliefs in immutable and hierarchically organized human nature ndash all coupled with the ethos of adaptation to society in its status quo In the alternative dialec-tical and transformative approach the teaching- learning of knowledge on



333

the one hand and the practice of critique including the grasp of possibili-ties for social change on the other are seen not as opposed nor as merely additional but as coextensive and dialectically constitutive of each other if they are premised on assumptions of transformation and activism

Th e ideological dangers of epistemological prescriptivism and master narratives endemic to most formal schooling settings is real and ever pres-ent associated with the brutally present ldquosymbolic violencerdquo (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977 ) as an important dimension alongside political and eco-nomic subordination which is no less harmful in its eff ects However in emphasizing the role of the learnersrsquo own agency stance and voice along with cultural mediation in teaching- learning and development as processes of collaborative becoming that realize the world in changing its status quo from an expanded Vygotskian position there is a way to avoid these and other ldquoemancipatory modernistrdquo traps (Pennycook 2001 ) present in the models that advocate for disciplinary knowledge and skills as the route toward a more equitable society yet supplant one form of domination with another (cf Th orne 2005 ) Th is includes among other steps a need for a renewed attention to the problematic of identity and learning and of the goals of education as discussed in the following sections

Identity and Learning

Th e strong ties and connections between learning and identity have been long since highlighted in sociocultural scholarship suggesting that learning involves the construction of identities ndash a process whereby learning creates identity and identity creates learning (eg Lave and Wenger 1991 Nasir and Saxe 2003 Packer and Goicoechea 2000 Stetsenko 2013b Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 Wenger 1998 ) Furthermore in expanding these ideas several researchers have noted that participation in community practices is not without tensions and costs (eg Hodges 1998 Linehan and McCarthy 2001 Packer and Goicoechea 2000 ) and that participation should not be reduced to a process of complying with the normativity of community rules and roles Th is line of research overlaps to some extent with a broader cri-tique of overreliance in sociocultural research on processes of internaliza-tion and appropriation at the expense of understanding participantsrsquo own agency that challenges and resists community practices (Engestroumlm 1999 Holland Lachicotte Skinner and Cain 1998 Stetsenko 2005 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004b Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 )

For example Packer and Goicoechea ( 2000 ) have made a number of useful suggestions about the ontological and epistemological underpinnings



334

of sociocultural theories Th eir resulting proposal is for non- dualist ontol-ogy in which it can be revealed how ldquothe sociocultural perspectiversquos notion of learning ndash gaining knowledge or understanding ndash is an integral part of broader ontological changes that stem from participation in a commu-nityrdquo (ibid p 234) Along these lines these authors maintain that ldquolearn-ing involves becoming a member of a community constructing knowledge at various levels of expertise as a participant but also taking a stand on the culture of onersquos community in an eff ort to take up and overcome the estrangement and division that are consequences of participationrdquo (ibid p 227 emphasis added) In this account however what learners take a stand on refers primarily to how community membership has positioned them and how they are seeking to overcome alienation

Th us the core ontological process involved in identity and learning is portrayed by Packer and Goicoechea as the learnersrsquo striving to come to terms with how community practices position them and thus concerns most of all individual conundrums and feelings stemming from experi-ences of participation including its negative aspects such as alienation rather than a stand on the overall dynamics and politics of community as a social institution Th at is the notion of ldquotaking a standrdquo is understood in Packer and Goicoechearsquos paper ( 2000 ) diff erently than in the TAS Although these authors acknowledge that ldquo[l] earning entails transformation both of the person and of the social worldrdquo (p 227) an activist transformation of what goes on in community practices along the lines of onersquos commitment to the future is not considered as the core direct ontological dimension of both learning and identity Th us the ontology discussed in Packer and Goicoechea ( 2000 ) is primarily the ontology of individuals as persons (ie in the consideration of what it means to be a person in the sense of being rather than just knowing) especially as they participate in communities in their status quo

Th e critical specifi cation to these lines of research off ered by the trans-formative onto- epistemology of individual contributions to social practices if placed at the core of both identity and teaching- learning implies that tak-ing a stand concerns positioning ourselves on how communities as social institutions need and should be changed for the better (rather than merely a stand on how communities position us) Th at is it includes imagining a future worth struggling for and making a commitment to carrying out this struggle and therefore this future within the present Th us learning and identity in the transformative approach are seen as coextensive with and only possible through the charting of a life agenda premised on a vision for social change in community practices enacted through collaborative



335

transformative practice and onersquos own contribution to this practice (for details and empirical illustrations see Vianna Hougaard and Stetsenko 2014 Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 ) In this respect the TAS is akin to the critical democracyrsquos model of dialogic action (Jaramillo 2011 ) tracing its roots to the Marxist- Freirian critical framework that begins with an under-standing that human existence depends on the ldquoright and the duty to opt to decide to struggle to be politicalrdquo (Freire 1998 p 53)

Th at is from the TAS perspective the key process at the interface of teaching- learning and identity has to do with the learnersrsquo active and activ-ist engagement with events and practices circumstances and conundrums and contradictions and predicaments of social practices that they not only partake in but also actively create and contribute to Moreover these engage-ments are understood in their contingency on the personal stake we claim and the activist stand we take vis- agrave- vis the overall dynamics confl icts and power diff erentials of these practices ndash that is vis- agrave- vis the social drama of human communities and their histories in which we are active agents rather than passive subjects or merely neutral participants and observers Yet to emphasize again these personal stakes and stands are never ldquojustrdquo personal ndash instead teaching- learning and identity development coalesce when and to the extent that we break away from concerns only about ldquoour-selvesrdquo only about how we are individually positioned treated by commu-nities and so on ndash as if we were isolated entities independent of others Th e meaningful stake in events then is about an active ndash indeed activist ndash process of becoming agentive actors and active agents of a world that is shared with others which is enacted through our past present and future ldquocollectividualrdquo deeds that co- create the world we live in together Th us learning becomes truly personally meaningful when it is put in the service of making sense of ldquowho I amrdquo and ldquowho I want to becomerdquo ndash with these processes being contingent on and only possible through fi guring out how one can contribute to what we want our world and its community practices to become

From the perspective of the TAS teaching- learning can be considered to be the pathway to creating onersquos identity and authentic voice by fi nd-ing onersquos unique place in community practices and among other people through gradually constructing a way to contribute to what is going on in the world ndash the continuous fl ow of sociocultural community prac-tices in their ceaseless transformations and ongoing struggles Th at is learning can be portrayed as a project of constantly striving not only to join in with historically evolving transformative practices of humanity but also to fi nd a way to make a diff erence in these practices and through



336

this to realize a project of a personal becoming that at the same time is always ineluctably social Th is is because personal becoming is construed as deeply and profoundly social due to its grounding and role in one unifi ed collectividual dynamics of shared struggles quests and pursuits Th is project is about becoming oneself ndash a unique human being who rep-resents a distinctive and irreplaceable instantiation of humanness with a capacity to uniquely contribute to and make a diff erence in the world of communal social practices that are profoundly shared and collective through and through

In this view education is not about acquiring knowledge for the sake of knowing but an active project of becoming human inclusive of eff orts to answer the central question of identity ndash ldquoWho am Irdquo (cf Luttrell 1996 Luttrell and Parker 2001 ) and even more centrally as can be added ldquoWho do I want to becomerdquo Th is is the process that drives identity development at the intersection with teaching- learning and makes it possible very much in line with the critical pedagogy stance What is added by TAS however is that this project needs to be understood as grounded in onersquos activist pur-suits premised on the activist striving to make a diff erence in the world ndash to achieve social change that one envisions and commits to in asking the question ldquoHow do I want my world to berdquo and ldquoHow can I contribute to thisrdquo to thus become myself

In this process the knowing of oneself and of the world needs to be understood as inextricably connected even unifi ed facets of one and the same process of becoming an agent and actor of historically unfolding com-munity practices and through this of becoming a unique person with an irreplaceable role position and voice in the world Th e learner getting to know and understand oneself (in answering the ldquowho I amrdquo question) is the critical basis for learning It is the ground from which and based on which the learner can do the broad work of meaningfully understanding the world in its confl icts and its historical becoming Th is work of understanding is always personally meaningful emotional partial and non- neutral as it has to do with fi guring out what one cares for and feels passionate about Th e knowing of oneself is therefore not an added layer onto the broader work of understanding and making sense of the world Rather the pursuit of the ldquowho I amrdquo question is the primary tool and a lens through which any knowledge and any meaningful understanding and action ndash any form of being knowing and doing ndash are possible

Yet again and most critically knowing ldquowho I amrdquo is dialectically inter-related with and impossible without an understanding of the world around



337

us in its historically unfolding practices ndash wherein we are agentive actors who shape them while being shaped by them at our very core Th erefore this work of broad understanding and knowing about the world (includ-ing through acquisition of knowledge that relies on cultural mediation and historical continuity) provides the necessary baseline and the tools that are indispensable for fi nding out ldquowho I amrdquo and what the person cares about commits to and struggles for

Th is inextricable connection is established and legitimated because the notion of identity is recast away from traditional connotations related to intrinsic individual properties and features (as in most traditional self- centered approaches to identity that view the self as an isolated solipsis-tic entity) in line with many sociocultural and situated perspectives (for a recent exposition see Martin and McLellan 2013 and for more details see Stetsenko 2012 2013a 2015 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004b ) In addi-tion and no less critically identity is broadened as compared to situated perspectives that focus on learners being members of communities who are shaped by the processes of participation As an expansion of this posi-tion identity is understood to be an ongoing activist project of forming and carrying out a purposeful life agenda aimed at contributing to social practices in ways that contest and transform these practices in pursuits of social change and innovation

Th at is teaching- learning appears as an important pathway to develop-ing onersquos identity and each act of learning and understanding is transforma-tive of our identity Yet this is possible only when knowledge and facts are authored that is revealed by the learners in their relevance to themselves to their evolving life projects that moreover are always more than about themselves Th e learnersrsquo identities are posited to be reliant on membership in community practices as well as also and critically on their own trans-formative agency that realizes and brings about changes to these practices

In this vein ldquoconceptual developmentrdquo is not about bits and pieces of information being drawn up piecemeal into an individualrsquos preexist-ing and somehow independent logical- conceptual system that henceforth becomes augmented with ldquonewrdquo additional information Instead it is about change in the full trajectory of onersquos development that is change in how individualsrsquo ndash qua actors of social practices ndash ways of being- knowing- doing are organized and carried out within their meaningful life projects To take a mundane example even learning a multiplication table is not just an addi-tion of new knowledge about numbers to a personrsquos preexisting conceptual knowledge Instead it is a change in the personrsquos whole trajectory of life



338

agenda as a way of being and becoming ndash so that what the person is doing in the present and what the person can and aspires to achieve in the future is changed together with and in every act of knowing and understanding including even knowing seemingly separate and mundane things like a multiplication table

Th e meaningful life projects (in what can be understood as a lead-ing activity see Leontiev 1978 and for an expansion see Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004b ) are invariably fl exibly organized by being constantly shaped and constructed fi gured and refi gured across the time scales of the past present and future in each act of being knowing and doing To learn something new in a meaningful way means to rearrange and reas-semble onersquos life project (who one is and who one wants to be) in light of new realities and possibilities for being doing and knowing that are opened up by each act of learning and understanding To learn means to be changed as a person ndash this is an important insight well known and widely acknowledged by many sociocultural and critical scholars (though far from self- evident in traditional education) What is added to this position from the TAS is an expanded understanding of what it means to be changed as a person Based in the idea that people are makers who are made by their own making of social community practices the notion of personhood identity is specifi ed in stating that to be changed as a person is only pos-sible through the process of taking a stand on what is going on in the world and instigating changes in it ndash and thus in oneself as a social actor Th is is indicative of an understanding that is deeply personally meaningful and always contingent on a stand one takes ndash as is hinted at by the word ldquounder- stand rdquo Importantly this is not about moving beyond cognitive rationality and toward the psychological emotional and ethical experiences as is oft en assumed (cf Amsler 2008 ) but rather about revealing how cognitive ratio-nality is always merged with psychological emotional and ethical experi-ences ndash unless special eff orts are taken to turn meaningful understanding and knowing into a mechanical dehumanized computer- like tossing of neutral ldquofactsrdquo and mental schemas

It has been noted by critical scholars (Guignon 2004 Taylor 1989 and for a recent exposition see Martin and McLellan 2013 ) that the ancient Socratic dictum ldquoknow thyself rdquo can be interpreted as an injunction to turn ourselves ldquoinward in order to get clear about our own most personal feel-ings and desiresrdquo (Guignon 2004 p 13) However other readings highlight instead that for Socrates individuals were considered fi rst and foremost to be parts of a ldquowider cosmic contextrdquo Th is connotation suggests that the best that a person could do for Socrates and other ancient philosophers was to



339

know her or his place within the cosmic order As Martin and McLellan ( 2013 pp 34ndash 35) further summarize

Not only did these ancient philosophies caution that the self only could be understood in relation to the cosmos but they also held more specifi cally that relations within a community of social others were fundamental to any notion of selfh ood hellip In consequence the severing of self- interest from social interest and the good of com-munities hellip was neither theoretically nor practically feasible in much ancient thought

Evoking the ldquoknow thyself rdquo dictum has an even more radical import in the transformative worldview where there is no isolated ldquothyself rdquo that can be known in a separate process of cognitive comprehension and moreover where personal and identity dynamics are seen to be fully immersed and implicated in activist pursuits of social change and transformation Th e ldquoknow thyself rdquo principle then in a transformative approach can be seen as possible only as a process of fi nding out ldquohow thyself matters out in the worldrdquo ndash what it is that one can and always already does bring about into the world by changing something in it including in other people and in oneself

In placing the issue of identity at the forefront there is potentially a danger of casting education as a process that is withdrawn from worldly matters and social realities and turned instead into a self- centered and self- absorbed intellectual enterprise Yet this danger arises out of the traditional dichotomous assumptions typical of the mechanistic world-view that dictates that issues of knowledge and identity of teaching and learning of transmission and transformation be polarized and rendered incompatible Th e alternative is to consider identity as fully social and individual at the same time as existing at the intersection of personal and collective dynamics ndash as can be suggested in line with the Vygotskian dialectics

The Tools of Activist Agency and Identity

Th e key suggestion by the TAS concerns the need to put a stronger empha-sis on agentive identity embodied in an activist stance as an important and indeed indispensable part of teaching- learning ndash while emphasiz-ing the contingency of agency on cultural tools and mediations that are made available to and become realized by (always in novel and creative ways) each person acting within and contributing to community practices



340

Because many critical and sociocultural theories are oft en predominantly focused on social dynamics such as participation in community practices the processes of how individual selves agency and self- determination come about remain relatively neglected taken- for- granted ndash or left behind under the purview of traditional approaches that unduly psychologize and individualize them

Th e point that can be drawn from Vygotskyrsquos project expanded in the TAS is that teaching- learning is the path for learners and teachers to together explore enact and realize the process of co- creating their unique identi-ties through co- creating and co- inventing something novel in our shared world Th is necessitates providing learners with access to cultural tools for these to be made into the tools of their own agency selfh ood authoring and activism In this case the emphasis is on learners gaining access to the means and tools necessary to develop their own interests motives goals and most critically their own activist stances inclusive of positions on how the world ought to be according to them Th is is about the process of learn-ers forming and fi nding their own original and unique voice and role in a world shared with others

In this light the educational principle that puts premium on the need to tailor teaching to studentsrsquo own interests goals and identities can be revealed to be insuffi cient Although commonly accepted in both con-structivist and critical pedagogy and now in even many mainstream approaches this principle does not problematize enough what these interests goals and identities are and how they come about instead tak-ing them for granted Contrary to these accepted positions however learnersrsquo selves and identities cannot be assumed to come from nowhere and just be ldquoalready thererdquo ndash as some kind of individualrsquos own idiosyn-cratic possessions or inherent traits Th e position in line with Vygotskyrsquos project is that these processes are not formed on their own in an individ-ual and autonomous self- development that is somehow automatic prede-termined and guaranteed in abstraction from community practices and their tools Instead these motivational and identity processes interests and goals agency and stances fi rst have to be developed and formed by students themselves yet within the matrix of community practices rather than simply assumed as already in existence In this emphasis the TAS suggests going beyond the learner- centered inquiry- based pragmatist and constructivist education models that are focused on making teaching and learning relevant to learners Instead of pedagogy trying to fi nd a way to be in rapport with learnersrsquo interests motivations and needs (which though desirable in principle is oft en unattainable and insuffi cient) the



341

focus is shift ed to an active and agentive exploration facilitation and support for learnersrsquo own quests in developing their identities and selves through their activist life agendas and therefore interests needs motiva-tions and so on

An additional and related specifi cation from the position advocated throughout this book consists in expanding on the epistemological focus that is oft en used to underpin contemporary models that strive to break away from the stifl ing constraints of transmission- based education Tracing its roots to traditional philosophy this common epistemological focus cen-ters on how ideas are used in solving problems posed in real life in con-trast to studying ideas and facts somehow developing in a vacuum through an isolated purely cognitive information processing While important and valuable however this focus relatively disregards the problem- posing aspect of knowledge construction Th e alternative from the TAS perspec-tive is to focus not only on problem solving but also and in the fi rst place on problem posing understood as part of an identity- and passion- spurring process contingent on taking activist stances staking claims and making commitments Th e problem solving is about fi nding solutions to existing problems ndash oft en the ones that are abstract and removed from the learn-ersrsquo own interests and at best in the pragmatist position the ones that stem from the learnersrsquo own lives as these are taking place ldquoin the here and nowrdquo within the confi nes of the present and its status quo In both of these cases however these problems are taken for granted that is assumed to be defi ned and specifi ed in advance rather than immersed in the ongoing quests of becoming and social transformation tailored to the future Th at is these problems are typically assumed to be independent of the learnersrsquo evolving identities and instead posed by those in authority or somehow emerging on their own due to some ldquologic of thingsrdquo and lives immersed in the status quo

Instead the focus in transformative teaching- learning is on identity spurring as the driving force of problem posing on learners fi nding out questions and issues that require solutions and are meaningful to them as something that they care about as actors of community practices that tran-scend the present in projecting into the future Th is focus highlights that the processes of fi nding and posing problems are not automatic mechani-cal or routine instead these processes and the status of what qualifi es as a problem need to be problematized and revealed as inherently com-plex and contingent on the overall quests and struggles that each person engages in and develops throughout life Posing a problem requires a great deal of work involving judgment evaluation meaning making and above



342

all deliberating on and fi nding out what onersquos concerns interests stakes and commitments are or could be Deliberating not only on how to solve problems but also on what problems require solutions in the fi rst place necessitates the work of identity building through positioning oneself vis- agrave- vis the ongoing collaborative practices and importantly fi nding onersquos own stake in them From this lens the critical step in teaching- learning and in knowledge production in general is developing the tools that aff ord the ability to grasp and determine the issues that need to be addressed and problems that need to be solved Th is step might be counterintuitively the most diffi cult one in all teaching- learning practices as expressed in the say-ing (conveyed in various forms by many thinkers) that to fi nd and pose the right question is infi nitely more diffi cult and yet also immeasurably more valuable than to fi nd solutions to an already established question or prob-lem Th e emphasis in this approach is on the bidirectional and coextensive status of problem posing and of identity development ndash because fi nding out problems that require solutions is impossible without seeking the future in fi nding out what one strives for cares about and commits to Th is approach is in line with Freirersquos ( 1994 ) problem- posing methodology and other works (eg some parallels can be found in Shoumakova 1986 ) In addition it explicitly integrates the level of agency and identity by highlighting the role of an activist stance and activist strivings in knowledge construction and problem posing

Many critical scholars have argued that education cannot consist in the transmission of knowledge from teachers to students ndash an excellent and thoroughly valid point (and fully in sync with Vygotskyrsquos approach) For example according to Jacques Ranciegravere ( 1991 cf Biesta 2012 Lather 2012a Means 2011 ) education is a question at the intersection of indeterminate processes of attention and exploration ndash the becoming of each individu-alrsquos capacity as a creative and equal subject in communion with others As Ranciegravere ( 1991 ) puts it ldquoTh e student must see everything for himself [ sic ] compare and compare and always respond to a three- part question what do you see what do you think about what do you make of it And so on to infi nityrdquo (p 23)

Th ere is here a congruency with the famous dictum ldquoHave the cour-age to use your own understanding [Sapere aude]rdquo Th is again is highly compatible with the TAS position Indeed it is the active and deeply per-sonal work of learners ndash their making sense of what is going in their world and their communities and their taking on a position and courage to form onersquos own opinion on dilemmas and confl icts always inherent in these



343

processes ndash that ultimately counts for and accounts for genuine teaching- learning as the path of becoming One specifi cation that can be made from the TAS position to that of Ranciegraverersquos is that the ability to make sense of the world and fi nd meaningful goals for oneself to ldquomake something of itrdquo to use Ranciegraverersquos expression is a capacity that needs to form and develop ndash as well as be aff orded and supported ndash rather than assumed or taken for granted Th is capacity does not stem from anything inside the person alone and instead is developed relationally and dynamically in interacting with the world and other people through the cultural tools of mediation and within interactivities in space and time ndash rather than given by nature or developed idiosyncratically by each individual in solitude and abstraction from society and its practices

In placing the responsibility of making onersquos own decisions on the learn-ers in abstraction from questions of how this ability comes about ndash in thus assuming that people automatically somehow by nature possess or come to form an ability to take on such a responsibility ndash might be ironically a reversal back to an individualist outlook Namely this can be a reversal to presumptions about individuals as solitary beings who are inherently endowed with various capacities including agency and thus who are self- suffi cient and independent from society in their ldquoabsolute sovereigntyrdquo Th e emphasis on learners making up their own minds and deciding for them-selves important and progressive as it is (and discussed as central through-out this book too) needs to be complemented with and balanced by the notion that learners have to and do thoroughly rely on social resources and cultural tools for this very capacity to make up their minds and positions to become agentive actors of social practices and to take responsibility for them Otherwise there is a danger of reverting back into discourses and practices premised on natural ldquogivensrdquo idiosyncratic selves and inherent abilities that ultimately risk being de facto affi liated with positions that legitimize the status quo and its hierarchies in line with the sociobiological ethos of adaptation

Th e alternative suggested by the TAS is to navigate the intricate balance between the two pitfalls on the opposite sides of the spectrum of views on teaching- learning and development ndash the pitfall of narrowly understood individualism versus the pitfall of understanding social context and culture to be independent outside forces that unidirectionally act as an imper-sonal exteriority on individuals who are mere subjects of social forces Both of these pitfalls can be avoided if the emphasis is placed on the intersection or nexus (as suggested throughout this book) of individuals creating social



344

practices of their communities out of the process of themselves being cre-ated by these practices

In stressing this intersectional process the learners can be understood in their full authenticity yet without any individualist connotations that is not as isolated entities but rather as actors co- constituted by community practices and moreover as developing through the process of transcend-ing themselves and the ldquogivenrdquo realities of the world (which are never just given) while partaking in and especially contributing to these practices in thus inevitably changing them In focusing on the nexus of these processes the polarity of the social and the individual dimensions of social practices can be dialectically transcended avoiding the danger of either unidirec-tionally imposing on learners the dominant forms of knowledge that sub-vert their own creativity and agency versus the equally one- sided emphasis on individuals developing their abilities and forming their selves all on their own in isolation from or merely in participation in society and its extant structures

What makes such navigation possible again is the focus on education providing learners with the tools of their own becoming and of their own identities as agents of social change and as ineluctably social beings ndash rather than on education providing any preconceived answers and notions even the progressive and critical ones Th ese tools are sociocultural in their origin and mode of functioning and are always based in communicative collaborative activities with others yet they have to be taken up by indi-viduals in an active process of authoring and co- constructing these tools while individuals expand their abilities to partake in and contribute to the world in co- authoring communal practices Such cultural tools ndash social ways of being knowing and doing ndash do not by themselves shape maintain or extend the boundaries of individual processes and capacities including identities (as is oft en assumed) Instead these tools have to be taken up rediscovered advanced and creatively employed by learners acting as agen-tive social actors who co- author and co- constitute the cultural tools at the same time as they are co- constituted by these tools and the social practices that these tools embody

Vygotskyrsquos pedagogy has been pursued by his followers such as research groups by Piotr Galperin (eg 1985 ) and Vassily Davydov (eg 1990 ) Th eir approach was to immerse students in meaningful sociocultural practices whereby they are introduced to knowledge as cultural tools for solving problems encountered in these practices Th us knowledge was introduced not as isolated bits of information but as practical valuable tools applicable



345

and therefore meaningful in particular sociocultural practices For exam-ple the concept of number was taught through introducing the practices from which this concept had emerged and in which its meaning inheres One related point that further expands this position is that knowledge needs to be introduced to students not only as a tool that has emerged from and makes sense within certain practice but as embodying activity and rep-resenting abbreviated templates for action (see Stetsenko 1999 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2002 ) In this approach rendering concepts meaningful through revealing practices ldquohiddenrdquo behind them makes knowledge tan-gible and practical while simultaneously making it truly theoretical Th is kind of learning allows students to grasp the oft en ostensibly abstract utmost theoretical generalities within a given subject domain through (1) understanding how knowledge ldquocomes to berdquo as a tool of practices and therefore (2) simultaneously grasping how this knowledge can be applied in practice Viewing knowledge as a form of practice did not entail merely hands- on manipulation Instead it brought about a focus on practical rel-evance and on origins of concepts as a way to reveal their most general theoretical aspects Understanding concepts in this theoretical way in turn entailed knowing the utmost practical ways of solving problems involv-ing these concepts Th eory thus was seen not as a separate way of knowing that was disconnected from practice but as a form of practice that encap-sulates the most effi cient ways of acting In this type of teaching- learning knowledge has to be actively reconstructed by students in their own activ-ity Th e active appropriation (or creative reconstruction) of cultural tools essentially bridged the gap between direct instruction entailing provision of cultural tools on one hand and independent discovery entailing learnersrsquo active reconstruction of these tools on the other ndash in a systemic- theoretical approach to teaching- learning (Arievitch and Stetsenko 2000 )

In this approach teaching- learning needs to integrate knowledge while revealing it (1) as stemming out of social practice ndash as its constituent tools (2) through social practice ndash where students need to rediscover these tools through their own active pursuit eff orts and inquiry and (3) for social practice ndash where knowledge and ldquofactsrdquo are rendered meaningful in light of their relevance to activities signifi cant to students that is to activities engendered by and engendering their identities (Stetsenko 2010b ) Th e latter aspect highlights that the learners are always on a path of discov-ering themselves as the process that embeds knowledge in co- creating their world and their own identities In this emphasis teaching- learning can be understood as serving the purpose of providing critical- theoretical



346

tools (see Vianna 2009 Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 2014 ) necessary for learners to position themselves and take a stand vis- agrave- vis current com-munity practices and their histories while developing activist commit-ments to how these practices can and ought to be changed in view of what is sought aft er by learners Th e purpose of education from this position is not to transmit knowledge but rather to provide access to cultural tools that facilitate learnersrsquo taking their own activist stance vis- agrave- vis their world and its confl icts ndash a stance geared toward creating their own futures in a society that itself needs to be created rather than merely reproduced or adapted to

Teaching- learning and knowledge construction are as can be high-lighted based in TAS intrinsic to projects of becoming unique individuals with an authentic voice and position ndash a process that comes about through contributions to collaborative projects of realizing and transforming societ-ies and communities Knowledge therefore cannot be extracted from such projects of meaningful deeply personal and simultaneously supremely social quests In fact it requires ldquospecialrdquo work and eff ort to dissociate knowledge from such meaningful ldquocollectividualrdquo projects at the intersec-tion of individual and social quests and struggles for transformation Such decoupling of knowledge from personal- social transformations (and thus from meaning relevance and human signifi cance) results in knowledge being turned into a mechanical dehumanized juggling of reifi ed informa-tion that is subject to a ldquohead- to- headrdquo transmission of meaningless ldquodatardquo abstracted from the living realities dramas and identities of learners ndash and teachers too Ironically it is precisely this type of work that is carried out so ldquosuccessfullyrdquo by existing practices of formal education leaving many learners (and not infrequently teachers too) with little faith in the value of knowledge and education Hence the decades of valuable critique by pro-gressive critical scholars and educators of existing education and knowl-edge production exposing their drastic limitations and their hegemonic and oppressive nature are extremely important and impossible to over-estimate Th ese scholars have revealed and drawn attention to symbolic violence top- down impositions and the hegemonic power of master nar-ratives and knowledge transmission models that subdue and disempower both students and teachers

Scholars working in the Vygotskian and Bakhtinian traditions have always emphasized that persons can act and speak only by invoking media-tional means that are available in the ldquocultural tool kitrdquo provided by soci-ety and discourses in which we operate Yet this process is not a passive



347

transmission of knowledge For example as succinctly formulated by Quarshie ( 2008 )

the curriculum cannot be a matter of jumping through hoops of othersrsquo devising What is to be explored found out has to be jointly negotiated by teacher and students in a way that is unique to those particular indi-viduals in that particular setting Th e process of exploration involves the challenge for students to go beyond themselves and achieve things that matter [to them]

In making a similar point from a Vygotskian position Lantolf and Pavlenko ( 2001 p 145) write that ldquolearners actively engage in constructing the terms and conditions of their own learningrdquo While fully agreeing with these and similar positions the TAS draws attention to the need for learners to fi rst and foremost gain the tools that aff ord the capacity to engage in constructing the terms and conditions of their own learning Th ese tools are eff ectively the tools of identity development whereby new interests and meaningful social goals of contributing to community practices ndash and therefore identi-ties ndash are spurred by experiences and engagements across the vast array of social collaborative activities and practices and their cultural tools

In this vein Bakhtinrsquos notion of authoring can be employed in expanding the Vygotskian emphasis on cultural mediation (on the broad compatibil-ity of their frameworks see Stetsenko 2007b Stetsenko and Ho 2015 and works by Dorothy Holland and Caryl Emerson) According to Bakhtinrsquos perspective voices and positions are orchestrated within the dynamics of community practices for example when people take on an ldquoauthorial stancerdquo as an internally persuasive discourse that over time helps priori-tize particular voices or orchestrate the new ones (Bakhtin 1981 1986 cf Holland Lachicotte Skinner and Cain 1998 ) In this argument the link between identity development and the authoring process is highlighted as follows

Th e self is a position from which meaning is made a position that is ldquoaddressedrdquo by and ldquoanswersrdquo others and the ldquoworldrsquorsquo (the physical and cultural environment) In answering (which is the stuff of existence) the self ldquoauthorsrdquo the world ndash including itself and others (Holland et al 1998 p 173)

In focusing on the tools of agency and activism as being at the core of identity development (and by implication of all development including its so- called cognitive dimensions) the TAS augments this position by high-lighting that the task of education is to work on developing learnersrsquo own



348

agency as actors of social transformation by providing them with access to the tools that aff ord such agency

One of the tools of this kind might be imagination and play (especially in early childhood see Connery John- Steiner Marjanovic- Shane 2010 Stetsenko 1995b Stetsenko and Ho 2015 ) and art throughout the life span especially as understood in the radical tradition of Bertolt Brecht Herbert Marcuse Jean- Paul Sartre and Stuart Hall Based in this tradition Barone ( 2006 ) has provided an excellent framework in which the role of art in spurring agency and activism is illuminated In reviewing the works by many progressive art- based educators he writes that the indispensable role of art is to open up the ldquoreaders and viewers to the multiplicities of experi-ence in the lives of young people hellip [with] a corresponding responsibility of the recipient of the work to assert him- or herself in the actualization of its potentialrdquo (p 226) He highlights the importance of the learner fi nding his or her own voice and vision through art forms in countering the estab-lished normativity and familiar schema and thus acting as ldquoa revolutionary readerrdquo (ibid) Importantly this sort of education is akin to an invitation that ldquorefuses to reach toward indoctrinationrdquo (ibid p 227) and acts instead non- authoritatively through moving learners aff ectively into critique skep-ticism of established canons and interrogation Th is is because as Barone suggests

we can never strictly speaking change minds We must believe that people within genuine dialogue change [make up] their own minds So instead we move to artfully coax them into collaborative interroga-tion of stale tired taken- for- granted facts of the educational scene (ibid)

In the spirit of such an artful and tentative approach critical to education is the task of supporting exploring notions of or at least posing questions about if not an active affi rmation right from the start what learners believe ldquoought to berdquo and where they want to go in critically self- refl ecting on their own situation (and getting to know about its history) through empathy compassion and solidarity as Freirersquos approach so vividly illustrated To emphasize again to avoid indoctrination into master narratives this work can be done ldquonot by proferring a new totalizing counternarrative but by luring an audience into an appreciation of an array of diverse complex nuanced images and partial local portraits of human growth and possibil-ityrdquo (Barone 2006 p 222) How to combine such an approach with calls for and invitations to passionate and daring activism is a topic that deserves much exploration



349

Returning to the three- part question formulated by Ranciegravere ( 1991 ) as central to the work of learning ndash ldquowhat do you see what do you think about what do you make of itrdquo ndash are all answerable only if this ldquoyourdquo the person is already there as a social actor and agent capable of positioning oneself within the ongoing social practices ndash while making decisions tak-ing a stance staking a claim and caring about their consequences Th is ldquoyourdquo however embodied and enacted in the personhood of individuals as social actors and agents of community practices cannot be simply assumed or taken for granted It has to arise in learnersrsquo own quests and in solidarity with others Th erefore although agency humanity and unique individual-ity can never be denied including from the fi rst days of life and in cases of any imputations of dis ability (which Vygotsky was resolute to reveal to be a matter of sociocultural co- construction and interactive dynamics) this does not eff ace the need for their evolving trajectories to be fostered supported and nurtured in interactions with others Even young babies are already on the path to becoming agents and actors of social practices and shared pursuits who reciprocally interact with others from the very start ndash within the shared distributed fi elds of co- being (for details see Arievitch and Stetsenko 2014 ) Yet if agency ndash as all human development ndash is acknowledged as a continuous work in progress and an evolving struggle for a unique contribution to a world shared with others then recognizing our incompleteness and the need for us all to learn and become more fully agentive throughout the life span and together with others opens up pos-sibilities for teaching- learning with a pedagogical stance without connota-tions of defi ciency or inferiority in need of correction

Th is is where much conceptual work still needs to be done to detach the goal of promoting individual development agency and self- determination from the constraints inherent in the traditional models with their notions of isolated and self- suffi cient individuals narrowly understood individual autonomy and the ethos of adaptation In the tradition premised on the sociobiological neo- Darwinist ethos of inborn inequalities competition and adaptation to the status quo and quite ironically in many postmod-ernist approaches too discourses of individual autonomy and freedom are oft en closely linked with freedom from social norms and obligation (or sometimes dismissed) In traditional models indeed freedom is taken to mean breaking away from social allegiances and used to advance the notion of citizens as client- consumers (cf Campbell and Pedersen 2001 ) As such this tradition relies on and inevitably results in narrow views of individuals as autonomous and self- suffi cient entities isolated from communities and taken for granted



350

From an alternative Vygotsky- inspired perspective on human develop-ment as a collaborative work- in- progress through individual and authorial contributions coupled with the ethos of social justice and solidarity the path to autonomy and freedom lies not in developing privatized and indi-vidualized identities focused on personal gains and competition Instead the path to autonomy and freedom lies in an ever- increasing community participation and contribution to social practices that are importantly still in the making and in need of radical transformation Th is goal cannot be accomplished without taking an activist position on contradictions and confl icts within these practices such as social inequalities from within an overall quest and pursuit of justice and equality Th erefore in this project personal autonomy is achieved not through freedom from society but in an ever- growing alignment and solidarity with society yet not with society as it exists in its status quo Instead this process is about creating a new society through contestation because society still is and will always remain in the making by us in solidarity with our fellow human beings

Th at is a personrsquos life path and unique identity develop through onersquos ever- growing ldquosocialityrdquo and based on its tools including knowledge ndash yet on the condition that society is not taken for granted but instead is chal-lenged and contested Th is relates back to the ontologically central notion of struggle ndash realized in the process of contributing to social practices in their ever- changing and open- ended dynamics of transformation from onersquos authentic stance aligned with onersquos unique own vision and commitment to a sought- aft er future Th is position has various implications for example implying a shift away from an assimilationist model of citizenship toward the model of activist citizenship Th is latter model would seek to bridge the gap between the need for all of us to develop as autonomous and personally responsible actors of communal practices and the need to resolve inequali-ties and eliminate disadvantages with the two endeavors premised on and necessary for each other

Th e need for such conceptual bridging is supported by the notion that power operates at all levels of social relations (eg Foucault 1980 ) which although well established needs to be more fully conceptualized Individual levels and the goals of identity development cannot be excluded from con-ceptualizing power dynamics It is risky to lose sight ldquoof the subtleties in which power operates in multiple arenas and social practicesrdquo (Popkewitz and Brennan 1998 p 18) including at individual levels of these practices as suggested herein Th is is so even though there is a clear and persistent danger in focusing on individual levels of agency only as if they were suffi -cient for social transformation However if the struggle against oppression



351

and inequalities is not embodied at individual levels of social processes and not embraced by individuals as their own meaningful pursuits then there is little hope that the large- scale liberational projects of social justice can be successful either (cf Vianna Hougaard and Stetsenko 2014 )

Within the traditional approaches that still operate with models of human development premised on social Darwinism and its principles of individual autonomy competition and social hierarchy the task of bridg-ing goals of solidarity and social justice with those of individual develop-ment and freedom is impossible Th is is because these approaches do not off er conceptual space to simultaneously understand individuals as fully social while also grasping social practices as developing only through being co- constituted by individuals qua social agents Th e way out of this conun-drum can be premised on realizing that both processes represent facets of one and the same historical transformative endeavor ndash at the nexus of indi-vidual and social agency and across the time dimensions of the past present and future ndash whereby each individual matters and can form this ability to matter in accessing and authoring the tools of agency Th is model does not assume an a priori inner nature of isolated individuals Instead as discussed throughout this book it implies a wholesale rejection of any independent interiority that is merely ldquoshapedrdquo by extraneous social forces acting on individuals (typically in a top- down fashion) Instead the emphasis is on co- constitutive and bidirectional dynamic processes of active and activist strivings and struggles as formative of both social actors and the world

Furthermore it has been argued that building radical alternatives to tra-ditional models requires a robust theorization of the social preconditions of individual autonomy (cf Honneth 2003 ) and this is consistent with the Vygotskian notion of a fundamentally shared ndash collective and collaborative ndash human development as a process reliant on solidarity social resources spaces tools and mediations At the same time however what is suggested in the present conceptualization is that building suffi ciently dialectical models also requires an equally robust theorization of individual precondi-tions of social life and community practices Th is can be achieved based on a diff erent cultural model of personhood ndash a non- individualistically under-stood person- qua- social- agent who co- creates oneself and the world and whose ability for authorship in realizing social practices is fully ascertained acknowledged and provided for

Again the point in question here and throughout this book is about the need to conceive of personhood without either reifying it into atomized and static forms on one hand or doing away with it as if it were unneces-sary altogether on the other Th e path toward alternative models as has



352

been acknowledged by many critical scholars demands paying attention to the need to celebrate and accept diff erence along with solidarity while also acknowledging the role of emotions imagination hopes and desires powerfully expressed for example in the notions of ldquomestiza conscious-nessrdquo (Anzalduacutea 1990 ) desire (eg Fine and McClelland 2006 ) agency as structures of feelings (Abu Lughod 1993 ) and intentions within a matrix of subjectivity (Ortner 2005 ) Th e TAS can be seen as off ering steps in explor-ing and advancing such positions in line with the notion of authentic and authorial contribution to collaborative pursuits in the spirit of Vygotskyrsquos project and its dialectical emphasis on communality and solidarity Table 1 summarily presents some of the ideas related to these steps in highlighting the notion of contribution to shared communal practices (in comparison to models focused on acquisition and participation see p 353)

Problematizing What Education Is For

Th e considerations discussed in the previous sections tap into the question about the purposes and goals of education Th is is a highly contested terrain where positions vary and oft en clash For example Tim Ingold ( 2004 ) in refl ecting on what he terms ldquoa fundamental insight of anthropological stud-ies of learningrdquo ndash and one could add also of many critical and sociocultural studies of learning ndash writes that

it is that knowledge is not transmitted across generations as a ready- made corpus of information but rather undergoes continual regeneration in the contexts of learnersrsquo practical engagement with their surroundings Th us the contribution that each generation makes to the next lies in shaping the contexts or providing the scaff olding within which learners develop their own understandings

Indeed major insights from many sociocultural theories of learning do focus on exactly these points In addition researchers in the Vygotskian tradition have worked to articulate the specifi c goals and purposes of edu-cation based on principles off ered by this theory For example Wells ( 2000 ) has concluded that

[t] he Vygotskyan theory hellip calls for an approach to learning and teach-ing that is both exploratory and collaborative It also calls for a recon-ceptualization of curriculum in terms of the negotiated selection of activities that challenge students to go beyond themselves towards goals that have personal signifi cance for them hellip Th ese activities should also be organized in ways that enable participants to draw on multiple sources


353

Table 1 Transformative activist stance Implications for a pedagogy of daring (in comparison to the key metaphors of acquisition and participation)

Acquisition Participation Contribution Daring

Key process of teaching- learning

Information process-ing obtaining knowledge indi-vidual process ldquoin the headrdquo

Becoming a member of community the permanence of having given way to the constant fl ux of doing

Co- authoring the world Contributing to col-laborative practices and knowledge cre-ation in collectividu-ally realizing the world and ourselves

Key words Knowledge facts contents acquisi-tion internaliza-tion transmission attainment accumulation

Community of prac-tice apprenticeship situatedness con-textuality cultural embeddedness dis-course communica-tion cooperation

Transformation change tools of agency end point vision direc-tionality commit-ment activist stance sought- aft er future daring

Stress on Th e individual mind and what goes into it test and control of acquisition outcomes

Th e evolving bonds between the indi-vidual and others dynamics of partici-pation and social interaction

Dialectics of continu-ity and transforma-tion tradition and innovation

Knowledge for and as daring to create novelty teaching- learning- as- change

Ideal Individualized learning

Mutuality and com-munity building

Free development for all in co- creating the world in solidarity with others premised on equality and justice

Role of the teacher

Delivering convey-ing inculcating clarifying

Facilitator mentor Expert participant preserver of prac-tice discourse

Activist open to collabo-ration and dialogue in co- creating zones of proximal development and tools of agency together with learn-ers simultaneously teacher and learner

Nature of knowing

Having possessing facts and skills

Belonging participat-ing communica ting

Co- authoring the world from a unique posi-tion and stand know-ing through claiming a position and taking a stand

(continued)



354


Time line Carrying out past experiences into the present future is irrelevant

Focus on the presently evolving patterns of participation

Interface of the past the present and the future the past and the present are known through onersquos activist pursuits of the future

Agency No agency for social change

Collective agency Nexus of co- evolving individual and collec-tive agency intersec-tion of solidarity and self- determination

Who develops

Individual learner Community and its practices

Learners- through- community and community- through- learners

Where is mind

In the head In patterns of participation

In contributing to a continuous fl ow of transformative prac-tices through making a diff erence in them and therefore mattering to oneself and others

Key goals of teaching-

learning

Knowledge of facts and skills

Ability to communi-cate in the language of community and act according to its norms

Co- creating the tools of agency for each learnerrsquos unique voice and stance in co- authoring a world shared with others Co- creating visions for the future from which the past and the present can be known and transformed

Note Descriptions of acquisition and participation models are partly based on Sfard ( 1998 ) and Collis and Moonen ( 2001 )

Table 1 (continued)



355

of assistance in achieving their goals and in mastering the means needed in the process hellip this means reconstituting classrooms and schools as communities of inquiry (p 61 emphasis added)

Th ese are important points and they convey much of what is unique about the Vygotskian pedagogy and education Th e stress on enabling participants to draw on multiple sources of cultural supports in achieving their goals and in mastering the means needed in this process is the hallmark of peda-gogy built on Vygotskyrsquos principles What the TAS highlights in expanding this approach is that multiple sources and supports are needed for students not only in achieving their goals but also and in the fi rst place in formulat-ing and developing their goals and meaningful pursuits Th e very process of forming goals including the goals ldquoto go beyond ourselvesrdquo is thus prob-lematized as well as drawn attention to and accounted for in a pedagogical stance For learners to move toward the goals that have personal signifi -cance to them is far from automatic because personal signifi cance is not a default ldquonaturalrdquo condition that is inherent to individuals Instead this process too is a collective ldquoachievementrdquo that has to be collaboratively sup-ported fostered organized and provided for by social means tools spaces and interactivities

Further a group of sociocultural scholars (see New London Group 1996 ) has directly addressed the need to defi ne the mission of education and conveyed what is central to many authors working in this tradition In refl ecting on the mission of education they wrote that

its fundamental purpose is to ensure that all students benefi t from learn-ing in ways that allow them to participate fully in public community and economic life Pedagogy is a teaching and learning relationship that creates the potential for building learning conditions leading to full and equitable social participation (p 66)

Th ere is space to move in the direction of seeing education in a more radi-cal light as preparing students not only for ldquofull and equitable social par-ticipationrdquo which can be interpreted as participating in adapting to and sustaining the status quo Instead in line with the approach discussed throughout this book the goal of education is to join with and support students in together seeking and realizing unique and authorial contribu-tions to transformative changes that constitute society- in- the- making in ways that co- create and invent society rather than accommodate or adapt to it Th is suggestion is in unison with Freire whose radical view on the



356

mission of education was conveyed by Richard Shaull in the foreword to the Pedagogy of the Oppressed ( 1970 )

Th ere is no such thing as a neutral educational process Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integra-tion of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it or it becomes the ldquopractice of freedomrdquo the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world (p 34)

Th is implies in a dialectical fashion that teachers too explore and develop their own identities positions and stances while embarking on an open- ended quests and explorations together with students Th is is a dialogical process in which no one delivers knowledge or truth from high- on up as sets of ldquofi nishedrdquo prepackaged facts and instead in which everything is open for contestation problematization creativity and invention and the task is to develop new knowledge and new truths as parts of co- creating new ways of being- knowing- doing and a new society itself

Another way to formulate this conjecture is to say that education must begin (and never stop doing so thereaft er) with learners and teachers together exploring refl ecting on and learning about ndash and thus develop-ing and expanding ndash their relationship with the world and how they can together and each at a time (which still is always non- solipsistic) contribute to changing it in light of and as the path of developing their own evolving commitments stances positions and identities Most certainly in this case the term learner has to apply to teacher as well and vice versa because every-body learns from everybody else throughout life and everybody teaches oth-ers also throughout life In this the emphasis is on learners and teachers mutually becoming at once teachers- learners whereby no one is inferior to anybody else and each person has unlimited potential yet there is much to learn from others constantly and throughout life Perhaps the metaphor of ldquostanding on the shoulders of othersrdquo conveys this meaning in suggesting that we need such shoulders to stand on yet even in such a standing there is a great need for our own authorial work of moving forward

Th is view does not privilege abstract knowledge analysis critique and refl ection over other forms of being- knowing- doing such as passions desires hopes and so on yet it does not exclude either one of these dimen-sions Th at is this approach leaves space for example for the identifi cation and demystifi cation of ldquofalse consciousnessrdquo ndash in which operations of power



357

are revealed and exposed ndash but only on the condition that such conscious-ness is not attributed to some groups only and instead is accepted as a default condition of us all Th is is because our condition is highly imperfect given our open- ended polyphonic and contradictory world in which there is always a need to learn more and to understand better while drawing on the tools experiences and (even) expertise of others because so much is done by elites to conceal operations of power and to produce ignorance and false consciousness

In this the emphasis is on the integral processes of being- knowing- doing as inclusive of learning understanding desires aspirations emotions and hopes ndash all premised on a unifi ed (ie overarching albeit contradictory and unsettled) deeply personal ndash and therefore fully social ndash quest constituted by the struggle of becoming agentive and individually unique actors of social practices in the world shared and co- created with others in moving beyond the status quo Th erefore the defi nition of critical pedagogy can be expanded to be about not only an ability to recognize injustice but also and at once about the hope and desire to change it as a project of onersquos own making of oneself through contributing to the making of a shared world and thus of being ldquomoved to change itrdquo (to use expression from Burbules and Berk 1999 p 50 quoted in Amsler 2008 ) In this there is no denying emotions aff ects or desires What is denied is that they are somehow sepa-rate from or merely parallel to cognition signifi cation motivation and other processes that together make up the stuff of being- knowing- doing and becoming

On these grounds the ldquopedagogy of hoperdquo can be merged with rather than replaced by the recently emerging ldquoeducation of desirerdquo (for an over-view and analysis of these recent approaches see Amsler 2008 ) Th e critical suggestion developed herein is fi rst that this move can be done without positing any immanent preexisting needs or longings somehow hidden in the interiority of subjectivity as if they were separate from onersquos fully social projects of becoming agents of the shared world of community practices Instead what is posited is that all human beings are unique individuals within a world shared with others who develop through their own quests to matter Second and quite critically this move does not cancel the truth- claims of critical pedagogy and the need to take a stand on what is going on in the world (unlike in some recent approaches see discussion in Chapter 2 ) Quite on the contrary the need to take a stand is taken to be inherent in and central to all forms of human being- knowing- doing including knowl-edge production and teaching- learning which in this case is turned into a



358

pedagogy of daring A number of conceptual provisions are required for this position to hold however as discussed throughout this book

In particular to reiterate the approach charted by the TAS does not exclude but instead centrally implicates the process of activist position-ing by both teachers and students alike ndash and therefore the need to take a stance and even stake a claim in the truth about what is going on in the world Although highly contested even in many critical (and more so in sociocultural) approaches this is taken in the TAS to be a condition sine qua non for any project of social and self- development Th is is because teachers and students already by virtue of being human always act from within their evolving (sometimes nascent and virtual yet always real and present) life agendas and visions for the future Th ey are thus activists who cannot and should not try to avoid developing exposing and nego-tiating their beliefs and commitments (and sometimes biases) tailored to notions of what is good or bad right or wrong Th ese beliefs and com-mitments to reiterate are inevitably critically embodied in every act of speaking and knowing

Th is stance exposes the naiumlveteacute and the political expedience of a peda-gogical position with drastic sociopolitical implications in wide circulation today according to which it is possible and desirable that teachers merely deliver ldquofactsrdquo and leave their personal beliefs behind classroom doors Th is traditionalist position states that the teacherrsquos job is to guide students in the acquisition of factual information in ldquopurerdquo intellectual inquiries rather than ldquosneak inrdquo their partisan preferences behind the backs of unsuspecting students thus indoctrinating them toward some undeclared and unwanted political goals From the TAS however the error is not in teaching tied to ideals and ideologies beliefs and commitments passions and interests Rather the error is in demanding that students share positions that teachers advocate instead of teachers engaging in open- ended dialogues with dispa-rate visions with students bringing in their own beliefs and commitments and a desire to develop them to all discussions and inquiries Th e error is in elevating a teacherrsquos ideology and agenda as the preestablished and immutable frame not amenable to change instead of bringing this agenda and agendas of students to light and critically interrogating them all while negotiating points of agreements and confl icts Developing knowledge and understanding from this position does not cease to be the major goal of teaching- learning yet this goal is included into the larger open- ended and ever- developing pursuits and meaningful life agendas centered around quests to contribute to collaborative social transformations and thus around identity development



359

Critical thinking and positioning oneself vis- agrave- vis ongoing struggles and confl icts in society as we contribute to them are absolutely central to educa-tion from this position Th is point was part of Vygotskyrsquos project in inher-iting the commitments of Marxism even though it oft en gets glossed over in interpretations of his pedagogy or when noticed is perceived as ldquoalarm-ingrdquo (McQueen 2013 ) Indeed for Vygotsky ldquoeducation always arise[s] out of lsquodiscontentrsquo out of troubles from discordrdquo (Vygotsky 1997c p 349) and is most meaningful when rebellion is in the air Th erefore according to him it is of utmost importance for teachers not to instill obedient conformity because ldquoobedience itself lacks all power of moral instruction inasmuch as it supposes in advance an unfree and servile attitude towards things and towards deedsrdquo (ibid p 232) Hence as Vygotsky writes ldquopure objectivity in the educator is utter nonsenserdquo (ibid) and good education cannot be politically indiff erent Good education ldquois never and was never politically indiff erent since willingly or unwillingly it has always adopted a particular political linerdquo (ibid p 348)

Solidarity and Freedom

A pedagogy of daring poses the diffi cult problem of addressing at least in broad strokes the normative grounds and end points of development ndash as wayward stations and horizons of possibility rather than fi xed and rigid determinations ndash on which commitments and stances can be compared argued for validated adjudicated and contested If this is not done then education with a pedagogical stance ndash and actually all projects of becoming as they presuppose teaching- learning from and with others ndash is not only directionless but impossible In the unsettled and ever- changing world that we co- create together with others while being co- created by it and that therefore is always ldquoon the gordquo and in the making ndash open- ended ambiva-lent contested confl icted and unfi nalizable though impossible without fl exible orientations to the future ndash there is no place for truth or normativ-ity in any static transcendental and universalistic sense Yet there is a place for the truth of the struggle contingent as it is on the quests for social justice and equality and predicated on the communality of both human develop-ment and teaching- learning

Although space does not permit a detailed account the premise of com-munality and the resulting need for solidarity as a condition of truth has sig-nifi cant parallels with feminist communitarianism where ldquosince the relation of persons constitutes their existence as persons hellip morally right action is [one] which intends communityrdquo (MacMurray 1961 p 119 and for a recent



360

illuminating discussion see Christians 2005 ) Premised on social ontology of human development feminist communitarianism suggests ldquoan entirely new model of research ethics in which human action and conceptions of the good are interactiverdquo (Christians 2005 p 158) Th e TAS provides an account along the lines of the core ideas developed in Vygotskyrsquos projects of how human beings are essentially related and interdependent for their very existence within the integrated ontology of shared social practices

An important connection also has to be established between solidar-ity and freedom in showing that this connection is possible in view of a profound communality of human development as a collectividual process Such a connection can be explicated based on Carol C Gouldrsquos ( 1994 ) contribution that in its turn expands on the Marxist notion about condi-tions of domination versus those of freedom Given his focus on economic aspects of productive practices Marx understood domination to be a mat-ter of unequal ownership and control over means of production and ensu-ing economic exploitation of labor For Marx in contradistinction with concepts of negative freedom as simply connoting absence of constraints there is a conception of positive freedom as agency that requires access to means of production such as tools and technology

Gould expands the notion of domination to include ldquoa matter of control hellip over the conditions of agenc y that is of those things that are required in order for persons to carry out their activitiesrdquo (Gould 1994 p 382) Th us the critique of domination includes an emphasis on the subjective and psy-chological conditions namely freedom of choice (traditionally included in liberal conceptions but eschewed in Marxist scholarship) as also necessary for the exercise of freedom Th ese two emphases in construing the notion of freedom ndash based on choice and on conditions ndash are combined in Gouldrsquos approach In her words

if freedom as self- development is to emerge whether in the society of the future or in the life of an individual then it presupposes agency or free choice as a capacity for such self- development Freedom in this sense remains abstract without access to the conditions necessary for the real-ization of choices but such realization must be based on the intentional activity or choices which only agents can make and which further hellip is what characterizes human beings as human (ibid p 388)

Gould adds emphasis on cooperative reciprocity that represents the rela-tion among individuals engaged in common joint activity deliberately coordinated around common tasks and goals in which each person is rec-ognized as participating in this activity Th is is complemented by the notion



361

of reciprocity as mutuality in which each agent not only recognizes the oth-errsquos freedom equality and concrete individuality but also chooses to act to enhance the otherrsquos development (as in the ethics of care)

Th e TAS provides ways to more directly connect these forms of coop-erative reciprocity and of reciprocity as mutuality with solidarity and free-dom Th e move is to bridge the notion of solidarity with the notion of freedom based in a dual emphasis on fi rst the essential communality of human development and second the need for access to conditions and tools of agency beyond access to choice as an ability to have a unique agen-tive positioning from which to contribute to collective and collaborative endeavors Persons are understood to come into being and to realize them-selves through contributing to collaborative endeavors in which participa-tion and contribution by others is an essential condition of carrying out these common collaborative endeavors Th at is a person comes about and can realize herself only through collective pursuits in which othersrsquo contri-butions to common projects through which personal becoming is possible are no less essential than onersquos own as the condition of mutual becoming

Given this emphasis mutuality can be understood as an enhancement of otherrsquos contributions to common endeavors and hence to onersquos own development Th is is so because in this view onersquos own development is impossible without and intertwined with (or fully interdependent with) the development of others In this case othersrsquo development is part of a common endeavor and therefore is as important as onersquos own ndash a con-dition of personal freedom that becomes possible only within a commu-nity Th erefore instead of opportunities for individual development being obtained in competition with and oft en at the expense of others in a truly free and democratic society ldquothe free development of each is a condition for the free development of allrdquo (Marx and Engels 1848 1973 p 491) Th at is given that conditions and opportunities for development of all individu-als are essentially interconnected and mutually co- constitutive a personrsquos deliberate enhancement of other personsrsquo fl ourishing for their sake does not at all mean abandoning onersquos own interests and needs Th is is because in pursuing the interests and needs of others one also pursues by implication and necessity that is non- accidentally onersquos own Th is essential interde-pendency has been since long understood by philosophers social schol-ars and activists (see Plumwood 1993 ) Th is was eloquently expressed by Martin Luther King Jr

All Irsquom saying is simply this that all mankind is tied together all life is interrelated and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality



362

tied in a single garment of destiny Whatever aff ects one directly aff ects all indirectly For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be ndash this is the interrelated struc-ture of reality John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms No man is an Island entire of itself every man is a piece of a conti-nent a part of the main hellip (1965)

Furthermore the principle of solidarity can be derived from considerations of the essentially social collaborative and simultaneously agentive nature of human development as a process that is directly contingent on social inter-actions and supports whereby individuals constitute themselves through and are bound by relations with others ndash all the while playing an agen-tive role in bringing about changes in communal practices Th is approach overcomes the unnecessary strict division between on the one hand the emphasis on community and collaboration (as in traditional Marxist dis-courses where solidarity can and has been interpreted as the subjection to social forces cf Gould 1994 ) and on the other the exclusive focus on individual agency and freedom for its own sake (taken as the sole principle of democracy by the traditional liberal thought) In the TAS individual agency is understood as supremely social constituted by onersquos contribution to collaborative processes contingent on social supports and thus ineluc-tably enmeshed with these processes (though distinguishable from them) while these social relations in their turn are constituted by agentive con-tributions by uniquely positioned individuals and thus impossible without individuals acting in pursuit of their goals Th erefore the full development of individuality requires the full development of societal relations (as Marx surmised) and mediations while ndash reciprocally ndash the full development of society as needs to be added no less importantly requires the full develop-ment of individuality qua social agency and the activism of all community members

In this approach the criterion of freedom can be understood as societyrsquos ability to provide conditions for self- development (agency and activism voice and position ie an ability to take a stand) to all of its members who thereby also develop a capacity to strive for and provide the conditions for a society that further provides for self- development of oneself and others all in a dynamic spiral of mutual becoming at the intersection of individual and collective dimensions of social practices Th is recursive position highlights the nexus of self- development as premised on agentive activism (ability to take a stand) on one hand and solidarity as the interconnectedness and



363

equality of individuals within the ethical quest for social justice for all on the other Th erefore in this account though it is profoundly communal the traditional norms of self- development and self- realization are not excluded but instead reconceived in a shift away from connotations of individuals as stand- alone autonomous and isolated entities driven by narrowly under-stood self- interests to instead highlight agency aimed at solidarity with oth-ers Importantly this position on solidarity freedom and social justice does not reject the plurality of knowledge because these ideals can be achieved and specifi ed in each concrete historical situation only by self- realizing individuals and communities in their own individually unique ways that do not repeat those of others

One fi nal specifi cation is that a necessary condition for truly free acts of being- knowing- doing is solidarity with and learning from and with those who are marginalized ndash on the fringes and the ldquolosing endsrdquo of society It is from the position of the marginalized and excluded that the most critical contradictions and confl icts in society ndash understood as a collective drama of life carried out and realized in struggles for a sought- aft er future ndash can be discerned identifi ed resisted and struggled against To expansively use Val Plumwoodrsquos ( 1993 p 1) expression ldquoit is usually at the edges where the great tectonic plates of [societal confl icts] meet and shift that we fi nd the most dramatic developments and upheavalsrdquo And it can be added because contradictions confl icts and struggles defi ne no less than the very core of reality- in- the- making in the process of transcending itself through contri-butions by communities and individuals these struggles are also more than real Th ese contradictions and these struggles by those marginalized and on the fringes of society are actually at the epicenter of what is to come It is at this epicenter that the world gets unstuck runs into impasse and incoher-ence and thus being unsettled in the extreme propels into the future as the process of its real ization In joining these struggles and thus learning about their contradictions through seeking to overcome them therefore the stage is set for co- creating truth in teaching- learning together from and with the marginalized

Any emancipatory project and any pedagogy in this sense still need to rely on truth about oppression and how to overcome it and even about what real human existence looks like (in contradistinction with those who take the critical edge out of critical pedagogy) From a Marxist- Vygotskian position there is truth about oppression and the struggle of overcoming it Th is truth is not given however and instead it has to be co- created by learners and teachers and all of us both together and one at a time in



364

coordinated pursuits guided by a sought- aft er future (which needs to be continuously rediscovered) of bringing forth and realizing what is imag-ined into the present through collective struggles and strivings Th is pro-cess entails knowledge craft smanship apprenticeship learning and also and at the same time rebellion and resistance ndash as integral parts of such pursuits that are essentially about daring to be to know and to act Th at is truth is created in and as the process of struggle and active striving in the face of uncertainty guided by the end points to which we are committing (even though it might never be achieved nor settled) Knowing therefore is about neither copying the world nor coping with it but instead about daring to co- create the world while knowing it in the very act of bringing about transformative and creative change ndash in the act of making a diff erence in communal forms of life and thus mattering in them and through this of us coming to be and to know

Truth is about what matters in the world as it now unfolds and comes unstuck right in front of our eyes in drastic forms and expressions with powerful confl icts and struggles now brewing beneath ndash and increasingly above ndash the surface of the supposedly stable and seemingly still indomi-table status quo A determination of what exactly these confl icts are is a product and a process of struggles and because history is in no sense preordained (as Marx Vygotsky and Freire all affi rmed) activist educa-tors do not own truth but engage in co- creating it with others And so we are compelled to defi ne what matters in joining in with the struggle for social justice be it in the form of attempting to build new radical theo-ries of human development or of joining with social movements such as Black Lives Matter (the two forms of activism not being separate) It is in this sense that mastering truth about society and ourselves to para-phrase Vygotsky requires that we fi gure out our stake in the world and its communal practices and commit to changing them in thus claiming our truth

All of the preceding discussion throughout this book can be seen as an attempt to join in with and hopefully off er support for critical and socio-cultural scholarship with activist agendas that address systemic marginal-ization and social inequalities Th ese include approaches at the intersection of education and human development in Freirian pedagogy of hope the more recently developed pedagogy of desire and imagination indigenous pedagogy and the pedagogy in Vygotsky- and Bakhtin- inspired sociocul-tural and dialogical approaches ndash especially as they focus on imagination and vision about a diff erent world than the one of oppression and inequality ndash as being necessary for the praxis of transformative change



365

As an illustration parallels can be drawn with Freirersquos methodology as it has been taken up in critical race theory (CRT eg Delgado and Stefancic 2001 ) to focus on preparing all teachers to acquire the knowledge skills and dispositions necessary to teach diverse learners (eg Darling- Hammond 2007 ) and to become culturally competent (eg Ladson- Billings and Donnor 2005 ) For example as discussed by Smith- Maddox and Soloacuterzano ( 2002 ) the methodology aligned with CRT challenges the traditional paradigms and methods by simultaneously foregrounding race and rac-ism in the curriculum focusing on the racialized and gendered experi-ences of communities of color and off ering a liberatory and transformative method when examining racial gender and class discrimination Th e TAS approach is or at least aspires to be aligned with these perspectives What it off ers is a conceptually grounded rationale for activism ndash in both research practice and theory ndash as a legitimate central and in fact the only way to conduct them Th is is about theorizing activism through recognizing the irreducible centrality of collective human struggles and quests for equal-ity and justice enacted through collectividual contributions to them ndash with these processes posited as the key ontological and epistemological ground-ings at the intersection of human development with teaching- learning Th e proposals developed herein hopefully could be used also in works where the purpose is ldquothe integration of cultural socialization and identity devel-opment processes into learning as a goal of educational research in order to improve educational outcomes for racial and ethnic minority youth and youth facing persistent intergenerational povertyrdquo (Lee Spencer and Harpalani 2003 p 7)

To summarize the position expressed throughout this book highlights fi rst the collectividual ldquonaturerdquo of human development and teaching- learn-ing through individual and authorial contributions to the open- ended ambivalent contested unstable ever- shift ing and evolving struggles by activist actors agents who dare to bring the world and themselves into reality through collective activist projects Second it highlights the role of cultural supports tools and mediations necessary for persons in their trajectories of becoming agentive actors of transformative social practices From this position education is truly vital in the full sense of the word as an endeavor that is life producing society realizing and history making Th at is education is existentially indispensable continually through life and for all persons in their continuous ndash ongoing and unending ndash quests for becom-ing Th is position asserts that we are all life- long learners and teachers at the same time with knowledge being of vital importance to this endeavor However this can be claimed only if teaching- learning are not about merely



366

adding abstract knowledge to cognitive tool kits (which in any event do not exist as separate ldquothingsrdquo) but about open- ended quests to develop as fully empowered agents of transformative social practices ndash a process that entails unity of agency identity motivation hope desire and cognition all merged within overall activist quests and pursuits

How to break away from the constraints of rigid and stifl ing models of education without losing what is absolutely essential and vital about it con-tinues to be an important challenge One element in meeting this challenge is realizing that teaching- learning and knowledge building radicalized as they are within the transformative worldview as endeavors that aff ord us all to become agentive actors who uniquely and authorially contribute to communal social practices and their confl icts and struggles are valu-able and indispensable resources for a free and full self- development by individuals who in solidarity with others together realize themselves and their fully free communities Th is is the process that can be described as an open- ended continuous dialectical spiral of a simultaneously individual and communal collective (ldquocollectividualrdquo) development premised on the notion of change instead of adaptation and on the fundamental equality of all society members who each matter in how the world is realized Th e criti-cal component of this dialectics is that being- knowing- doing is possible only from within an engagement in collaborative projects of social transfor-mation ndash the ones that attempt to transcend the status quo and transform key confl icts of the world ldquoin the makingrdquo ndash and while aiming to contribute to these projects in taking charge of these confl icts taking a stand on them and laying claim to our own position and stake on how the world is and how it could and ought to be


367

367

Concluding Remarks Toward Democracy and a Pedagogy of Daring

It is when radicals are decried as Jeremiahs by liberals and as starry- eyed utopianists by conservatives that they know they have got it more or less right

Terry Eagleton

Th e discussion throughout this book has centered on the processes of being- knowing- doing and those of development and teaching- learning as activist endeavors premised on commitments to contributing to a sought- aft er future in a world shared with others ndash and therefore as simultane-ously deeply personal and profoundly social quests ndash because people are co- creating the world and are ldquoin itrdquo that is in this process together Th e transformative activist stance (TAS) is fundamentally about the belief that change is possible and that social practices and structures are not only not beyond the scope of intervention and transformation but are always already in the process of being transformed and changed by people at the intersec-tion of individual and collective agency and across dimensions of the past present and future ndash both collectively and one at a time and each impossi-ble without the other Th e core assumption is that people always contribute in one way or another on a smaller or larger scale to such transformative changes in each and every act of their being knowing and doing as social agents of history and community practices ndash that is as activists who are co- creating and realizing their own communities and our common humanity in projecting into the future Yet this is not an inherent capacity somehow ldquogivenrdquo by human nature and automatically endemic to each individual as if coming about on its own Th e role of education is indispensable in pro-viding the tools of activism and agency that make these acts and ensuing transformative social changes and thereby also the free development of individuals and society possible



368

Th e TAS also stresses that ultimately we only know the world through actively and agentively engaging ndash always collaboratively yet in individually unique and authorial ways ndash in transforming the existing status quo while being ourselves transformed in the process It also highlights that achiev-ing critical consciousness and agency are made possible through teaching- learning that provides learners (ie all of us) access to tools of their own authorial and authentic activism and agency and opens up ways for us all to grasp the power to be agents of social change who are capable of chal-lenging and changing our own limit situations and oft en oppressive cir-cumstances ndash and to thus be able to further challenge and change ourselves

Th e resulting call for a pedagogy of daring which could complement pedagogies of hope and desire is perhaps the shortest expression of what can be drawn from the discussion as the main conclusion Yet in the spirit of the transformative stance where the world is understood to project itself into the future through our collectividual action and where nothing is settled permanent or fi nalized it is important to consider next steps in working along the lines suggested so far It is also important to bring in voices of others to dialogue argue about and contest whatever points have been made In any event there can be nothing conclusive about ldquofi nish-ingrdquo the project such as this book ndash it is up to others to critique and argue with it and through this to take up whatever ideas they fi nd meaningful and relevant or objectionable in realizing their own quests and pursuits As Gianni Rodari an Italian activist journalist and writer remarked (see Great Writers of Fairy Tales 2006 ) ldquo[E] very reader who is not satisfi ed with the ending can change it as she pleases adding one or two chapters Perhaps all thirteen of them Never let yourself be scared with the words lsquothe endrsquo rdquo

One of the diffi cult matters to grapple with is that the focus on agency ndash especially in highlighting that every person matters and makes a diff erence in a communal world shared with others ndash apparently shift s away from important considerations of economic conditions related to social class diff erentiations (the traditional core matter in Marxism) and other social divisions along the axes of race gender and so on Th is is the conundrum that is recently captured by Terry Eagleton ( 2003 ) who in reviewing a book by Georg Lukaacutecs (non- coincidentally because Lukaacutecs grappled exactly with this conundrum) wrote

How far is change up to us and how far is it constrained by objective conditions Pushed too far the former keels over into voluntarism and the latter into determinism Th e combination of these two heresies is the preserve of middle- class society which believes politically speaking


Toward Democracy and Pedagogy of Daring 369

369

in self- determination and economically speaking that the individual is merely a pawn in the marketplace Th e voluntaristic doctrines of capital-ism ndash the skyrsquos the limit never say never you can crack it if you try ndash are a convenient screen for the ldquotruthrdquo of its determinism the fact that the human subject is shunted around by random economic forces

Th is is a diffi cult charge Indeed the human ldquosubjectrdquo is shunted around by economic forces that are increasingly brutal and impersonal It would be naiumlve to disregard this by insisting on human agency as if it was an omnipo-tent and limitless power and it is my hope that this is not the message to be inferred from this book In fact the intention throughout was to acknowl-edge the power of societal forces and dynamics to then ndash on the foundation of positing social practices (inclusive of their economic determinations) at the core of human development and social dynamics ndash draw attention to processes at the nexus of human agency and the world Th is is an intri-cate balancing act and it is up to others to judge whether it was successful at least to some degree In emphasizing agency embodied in the activist stance the point is not to ignore the power of social forces but to acknowl-edge that ndash specifi cally in the transformative worldview where noting is settled or taken for granted ndash there is space for our agency too and a central one at that Th is is because the world comes through social collaborative practices ndash constituted by collective struggles and agentive quests made up of individual contributions ndash that realize simultaneously the world and human beings In this emphasis I depart from Eagletonrsquos and other extant positions on realism conformism and what it means to be a revolutionary According to Eagleton ldquoIf the romantic conforms the world to his desire and the realist conforms his mind to the world the revolutionary is called on to do both at oncerdquo (ibid) In the TAS there is no conforming to either desires or to the world either separately or at once because there is no place for conforming in an ongoing and simultaneous co- constitutive transfor-mation of the world in activist quests that continuously transcend reality without pausing or adapting

Th en again it goes without saying in any discussion grounded in Vygotskyrsquos project and given its fi rm rooting in Marxism that the neces-sary conditions for freedom require critical resolution of inequalities in economic and political spheres including in terms of economic exploita-tion unequal access to power and means of production and class- race- dis ability- gender- based and other types of domination and discrimina-tion Th erefore as Eagleton ( 2003 ) also expressed in his characteristically eloquent manner ldquothe problem is how to give voice to the importance of



370

the subject without giving comfort to bourgeois idealists who are fond of hearing that injustices can be put right with a bit more willpower and that a change of heart is always more deep- seated than a mere change in property relationsrdquo

Th is is exactly the provision that has been made directly and consis-tently in applications of TAS for example within a project carried out in a group home for underprivileged (and oppressed in the extreme) adoles-cents in an impoverished community in one of New Jersey metropolitan areas and another project in a community college for underprivileged stu-dents (with Eduardo Vianna working as the lead investigator in both proj-ects) In describing this work (see Vianna Hougaard and Stetsenko 2014 Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 2014 ) we wrote about systemic and structural issues such as inequality and poverty that are implicated in the staggering number of about half a million children (Childrenrsquos Defense Fund 2008 cf Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 ) presently living in out- of- the- home arrange-ments in the United States Among other points we insisted that wide and far- reaching systematic policy changes are urgently needed at many levels from the child welfare system to broad economic policies However as this work also dramatically illustrated

individual transformation is part and parcel of social change with both processes spurring and necessitating each other While personal transformation is not enough to bring about lasting and profound social change it is nevertheless an indispensable level in the struggle for social justice and equality that cannot result from changes imposed in a top- down fashion from the structural level onto individuals [Th e participantsrsquo] agency and personal transformation was a critical catalyst in changing [their] residential program Th rough [their] contribution [they] did make a diff erence both in [their] own life and in social prac-tices [they were] part of bringing about an important message about how individual and social transformations are part of one complex dialectical process of change and development (Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 p 336)

If the struggle against oppression and inequalities is not enacted at indi-vidual levels of social processes and not embraced by individuals as their own meaningful pursuits then there is little hope that the large- scale libera-tional projects of social justice are successful either Th is is in congruence with some of the recent interpretations of the Marxist ethics For exam-ple Blackledge ( 2008 ) provides an excellent analysis of this topic (see also Gould 1994 Mostov 1989 Niemi 2011 ) In this interpretation the central



371

theme of Marxrsquos moral theory is how to realize human freedom For Marx ldquofreedom evolves over time through a process of collective struggles that are best understood against the background of the development of human-ityrsquos productive forcesrdquo (quoted in Blackledge 2008 ) Th is position does not suggest however that freedom can be reduced to economic justice at the society- wide level only Instead it can be interpreted to suggest that ldquoalthough an individual cannot become free in isolation from others none-theless it is only individuals who are freerdquo (Gould 1978 p 108)

Th is conception of freedom emphasizes the need for broad political and economic structures that provide equal opportunities for all rather than these opportunities being predetermined by individual social roles or some presumably inborn endowments Yet the necessary conditions for freedom also include political democracy and a democratized civil society as Marx insisted all along as an eff ective activity of equal citizens (see Niemi 2011 ) For such activity individuals must have opportunities as added by the TAS to develop their own agency to be social actors who are co- creating and real izing society and themselves Th erefore in my take on these issues the classical stress on the provision of economic conditions for creating society without oppression and exploitation (which is understandably beyond the scope of the present book) is not a self- standing imperative Rather this position has to be interlinked with the ideal of creating a society that allows for freedom solidarity and equality all realized by self- developing self- realizing and self- determining individuals as agentive and activist actors of society and history

Th is latter point draws attention to the need to create social structures and practices such as especially in education which can support and ascer-tain the provision of cultural tools and collaborative spaces for learners who in authoring these tools and spaces develop their own agentive positioning and activist stances so that they as social actors can ldquotake uprdquo and develop their communities and themselves from their unique positions In stating this point the attention is drawn to the need to admit that not only is there no contradiction between freedom and solidarity but that in addition an elaborate and carefully devised system of social structures and institutions supports and mediations for agency and activism is absolutely necessary for the achievement of freedom and justice because they are intrinsic to both human development and society

In conclusion the main thrust of the foregoing discussions in this book is to argue for the use of research and theory as a means of advocating and supporting social change in the direction of equality and social justice Such



372

a possibility has oft en been dismissed by those who ldquocontinue to support the hierarchies of facts over values political neutrality over political per-suasion and the recording of history over the making of historyrdquo (Barone 2009 p 593) Th e claim of a fundamental somehow ldquonaturalrdquo inequality of human beings has also been used as part of this logic that the present book strives to contest Th is eff ort is spurred not by an ldquoidealistrdquo belief that collectividual agency and transformative mind are all that is needed in the struggle for equality Quite on the contrary the eff ort is motivated by a real-ization of the depth of crisis we are facing where as Terry Eagleton advises ldquoeither we act now or capitalism will be the death of us allrdquo ( 2011 p 237) In any case to what extent activist agency and transformative mind can be realized ndash as the capacity to transform reality and to co- create history and ourselves ndash is a dilemma that is moot if we understand theorizing not as descriptions of what is but as an activist project of daring to pursue what could and must be


373

373

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Amsler S S ( 2008 ) Pedagogy against ldquodis- utopiardquo From conscientization to the education of desire In H F Dahms (ed) No social science without critical theory (Current Perspectives in Social Th eory vol 25 pp 291 ndash 325 ) Bingley UK Emerald Group

Anderson K ( 1993 ) On Hegel and the rise of social theory A critical apprecia-tion of Herbert Marcusersquos reason and revolution fi ft y years later Sociological Th eory 11 ( 3 ) 243 ndash 267


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Anzalduacutea G ( 2006 ) Entering into the serpent In D Gilb (ed) Hecho en Tejas An anthology of Texas- Mexican literature (pp 253 ndash 261 ) Southwestern Writers Collection Series Albuquerque University of New Mexico Press and the Southwestern Writers Collection Texas State University

Anzalduacutea G ( 2007 ) Borderlands La frontera Th e new mestiza (3rd ed) San Francisco Aunt Lute Books

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data with social theoryrdquo Educational Researcher 39 ( 2) 160 ndash 161 Arendt H ( 1971 1977) Th e life of the mind San Diego CA A Harvest Book

Harcourt Arievitch I M ( 2003 ) A potential for an integrated view of development and

learning Galperinrsquos contribution to sociocultural psychology Mind Culture and Activity 10 278 ndash 288

Arievitch I M ( 2008 ) Exploring the links between external and internal activity from a cultural- historical perspective In B van Oers W Wardekker E Elbers and R van der Veer (eds) Th e transformation of learning Advances in cultural- historical activity theory (pp 38 ndash 58 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Arievitch I M and Haenen J P P ( 2005 ) Connecting sociocultural theory and educational practice Galperinrsquos approach Educational Psychologist 40 (3) 155 ndash 165

Arievitch I M and Stetsenko A ( 2000 ) Th e quality of cultural tools and cog-nitive development Galperinrsquos perspective and its implications Human Development 43 69 ndash 93


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Arievitch I M and van der Veer R ( 1995 ) Furthering the internalization debate Galperinrsquos contribution Human Development 38 113 ndash 126

Arievitch I M and van der Veer R ( 2004 ) Th e role of non- automatic processes in activity regulation From Lipps to Galperin History of Psychology 7 ( 2 ) 154 ndash 182

Aronowitz S and Bratsis P ( 2005 ) Situations manifesto Situations 1 (1) 7 ndash 14 Artiles A J ( 2012 ) Toward an interdisciplinary understanding of educational

inequity and diff erence Th e case of the racialization of ability Educational Researcher 40 ( 9 ) 431 ndash 445

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Avis J ( 2007 ) Engestroumlmrsquos version of activity theory A conservative praxis Journal of Education and Work 20 ( 3) 161 ndash 177

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Bakhtin M ( 1984 ) Problems of Dostoevskyrsquos poetics ( C Emerson trans and ed) Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Bakhtin M ( 1986 ) Speech genres and other late essays ( V McGee trans C Emerson and M Holquist eds) Austin University of Texas Press

Bakhtin M ( 1990 ) Art and answerability Early philosophical essays by M M Bakhtin (M Holquist and V Liapunov eds V Liapunov trans and notes K Brostrom supplement trans) Austin Texas University Press

Bakhtin M ( 1993 ) Toward a philosophy of the act ( V Liapunov trans V Liapunov and M Holquist eds) Austin University of Texas Press

Bakhurst D ( 1991 ) Consciousness and revolution in Soviet philosophy From Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Bakhurst D ( 2009 ) Refl ections on activity theory Educational Review 61 197 ndash 210

Bakhurst D and Padden C ( 1991 ) Th e Meshcheryakov experiment Soviet work on the education of deafb lind children Learning and Instruction 1 201 ndash 215

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of Psychology (vol 52 pp 1 ndash 26 ) Palo Alto CA Annual Reviews Bannerji H ( 2005 ) Building from Marx Refl ections on class and race Social

Justice 32 ( 4 ) 144 ndash 160 Barad K ( 2007 ) Meeting the universe halfway Quantum physics and the entangle-

ment of matter and meaning Durham NC and London Duke University Press Barone T ( 2006 ) Making educational history Qualitative inquiry artistry and the

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Bateson G ( 1972 ) Steps to an ecology of mind San Francisco Chandler Bateson G ( 1979 ) Mind and nature A necessary unity New York Bantam Books Benhabib S ( 1999 ) Sexual diff erence and collective identities Th e new constella-

tion In M A OrsquoFarrell and L Vallone (eds) Virtual gender Fantasies of subjec-tivity and embodiment (pp 217 ndash 243 ) Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press

Benhabib S ( 2001 ) From identity politics to social feminism In A M Melzer J Weinberger and M R Zinman (eds) Turn of the century (pp 27 ndash 41 ) Lanham MD Rowman and Littlefi eld

Bennett J ( 2010 ) Vibrant matter A political ecology of things Durham NC Duke University Press

Bennett M R and Hacker P M S ( 2003 ) Philosophical foundations of neurosci-ence Malden MA Blackwell Publishing

Bergson H ( 1911 ) Matter and memory ( N M Paul and W S Palmer trans) London George Allen and Unwin

Berman M ( 1983 ) All that is solid melts into air Th e experience of modernity (2nd ed) London and New York Verso

Bernstein N N ( 1966 ) Essays on the physiology of movement and physiology of activity [ Oчерки по физиологии движения и физиологии активности ] Moscow Nauka Press

Beyer L E and Liston D P ( 1992 ) Discourse of moral action A critique of post-modernism Educational Th eory 42 ( 4) 371 ndash 393

Bickhard M H ( 2012 ) A process ontology of persons and their development In J Martin and M H Bickhard (eds) Th e new psychology of personhood [Special Issue] New Ideas in Psychology 28 107 ndash 119

Bidell T ( 1999 ) Vygotsky Piaget and the dialectic of development In Peter Lloyd and Charles Fernyhough (eds) Lev Vygotsky Critical assessments vol 1 (pp 261 ndash 281 ) London Routledge

Biesta G ( 2007 ) Why ldquowhat worksrdquo wonrsquot work Evidence- based practice and the democratic defi cit in educational research Educational Th eory 57 ( 1 ) 1 ndash 22

Biesta G J J ( 2012 ) Doing emancipation diff erently Transgression equality and the politics of learning Civitas Educationis Education Politics and Culture 1 ( 1 ) 15 ndash 30

Biesta G J J and Tedder M ( 2007 ) Agency and learning in the lifecourse Towards an ecological perspective Studies in the Education of Adults 39 132 ndash 149

Blackledge P ( 2008 ) Marixsm and ethics International Socialism A Quarterly Review of Socialist Th eory 120 October 6 http isjorguk marxism- and- ethics 120blackledge58 (accessed September 23 2015)

Blanton E W Moorman G and Trathen W ( 1998 ) Telecommunications and teacher education A social constructivist review Review of Research in Education 23 235 ndash 275

Bloch E ( 1954 ) Th e principle of hope (vol 1) Cambridge MA MIT Press Bodrova E and Leong D J ( 2007 ) Tools of the mind Th e Vygotskian approach to

early childhood education New York Merrill Prentice Hall


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University Press Bourdieu P ( 1990 ) Th e logic of practice ( Richard Nice trans) Stanford CA

Stanford University Press Bourdieu P ( 1995 ) Physical space social space and habitus Talk delivered at

the University of Oslo Norway May 15 1995 http archiveslibraryillinois edu erec University20Archives 2401001 Production_ website pages StewardingExcellence Physical20Space20Social20Space20and20Habituspdf (accessed July 12 2016)

Bourdieu P ( 1998 ) Practical reason On the theory of action Stanford CA Stanford University Press

Bourdieu P and Passeron J C ( 1977 ) Reproduction in education society and cul-ture London Sage

Bourdieu P and Wacquant L J D ( 1992 ) An invitation to refl exive sociology Chicago University of Chicago Press

Boutte G S ( 2016 ) Educating African American students And how are the children New York Routledge

Bradley B S ( 2008 ) Commentary Th e Vygotskian family in the supreme court of practice Culture and Psychology 14 37 ndash 44

Bratus B S ( 1988 ) Abnormalities of personality Moscow Mysl Bredo E ( 1994 ) Reconstructing educational psychology Situated cognition and

Deweyian pragmatism Educational Psychologist 29 ( 1 ) 23 ndash 35 Bredo E ( 1998 ) Evolution psychology and John Deweyrsquos critique of the refl ex arc

concept Th e Elementary School Journal 98 ( 5 ) 447 ndash 466 Bremner J G and Slater A ( 2003 ) Th eories of infant development Malden

MA Blackwell Publishers Bretherton I ( 1992 ) Th e origins of attachment theory John Bowlby and Mary

Ainsworth Developmental Psychology 28 759 ndash 775 Bronfenbrenner U ( 1977 ) Toward an experimental ecology of human develop-

ment American Psychologist 32 513 ndash 532 Bronfenbrenner U ( 2004 ) Making human beings human Bioecological perspectives

on human development Th ousand Oaks CA Sage Bronowski J ( 1976 ) Th e ascent of man Boston Little Brown Brown R and P Renshaw ( 2006 ) Positioning students as actors and authors

A chronotopic analysis of collaborative learning activities Mind Culture and Activity 13 ( 3 ) 247ndash 59

Bruner J ( 1987 ) Life as narrative Social Research 54 11 ndash 32 Bruner J S ( 1990 ) Acts of meaning Cambridge MA Harvard University Press Burbules N and Berk R ( 1999 ) Critical thinking and critical pedagogy Relations

diff erences and limits In T Popkewitz and L Fendler (eds) Critical theo-ries in education Changing terrains of knowledge and politics (pp 45ndash 65) New York Routledge

Burke K ( 1973 ) Th e philosophy of literary form (3rd ed) Berkeley University of California Press

Burkitt I ( 2008 ) Social selves Th eories of self and society (2nd ed) London Sage Burman E ( 1994 ) Deconstructing developmental psychology New York Routledge


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Burman E ( 1997 ) Minding the gap Positivism psychology and the politics of qualitative methods Journal of Social Issues 53( 4) 78 ndash 101

Burt R S ( 1992 ) Structural holes Th e social structure of competition Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Cahan E D ( 1992 ) John Dewey and human development Developmental Psychology 28 205 ndash 214

Cahan E D and White S H ( 1992 ) Proposals for a second psychology American Psychologist 47 224 ndash 235

Calhoun D LiPuma E and Postone M ( 1993 ) Bourdieu Critical perspectives Chicago University of Chicago Press

Cammarota J and Fine M ( 2008 ) Youth participatory action research A peda-gogy for transformational resistance In J Cammarota and M Fine (eds) Revolutionizing education Youth participatory action research in motion (pp 1 ndash 12 ) New York Routledge

Campbell J L and Pedersen O K eds ( 2001 ) Th e rise of neoliberalism and insti-tutional analysis Princeton NJ Princeton University Press

Camus A ( 2013 ) Algerian chronicles Cambridge MA Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (Originally published in 1958)

Carpendale J I M and Lewis C ( 2004 ) Constructing an understanding of mind Th e development of childrenrsquos social understanding within social inter-action Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 79 ndash 151

Carpenter S ( 2012 ) Centering Marxist- feminist theory in adult learning Adult and Education Quarterly 62 ( 1 ) 19 ndash 35

Carr W ( 2007 ) Educational research as a practical science International Journal of Research and Method in Education 30 271 ndash 286

Castantildeeda C ( 2002 ) Figurations Child bodies worlds Durham NC Duke University Press

Castells M ( 1997 ) Th e power of Identity Malden MA and Oxford Blackwell Cavanagh C ( 1995 ) Osip Mandelstam and the modernist creation of tradition

Princeton NJ Princeton University Press Chaiklin S ( 2003 ) Th e zone of proximal development in Vygotskyrsquos analysis of

learning and instruction In A Kozulin B Gindis V S Ageyev and S M Miller (eds) Vygotskyrsquos educational theory in cultural context (pp 39 ndash 64 ) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Charney E ( 2012 ) Behavior genetics and post genomics Behavioral and Brain Sciences 35 ( 6 ) 331 ndash 410

Cheah P ( 2008 ) Nondialectical materialism Diacritics 38 ( 1ndash 2 ) 143 ndash 157 Chomsky N and Foucault M ( 2006 ) Th e Chomsky- Foucault debate on human

nature New York and London Th e New Press Childrenrsquos Defense Fund ( 2008 ) State of Americarsquos children wwwchildrensdefense

org childresearch- data- publications data state- americas- children- 2005- chpt5- child- welfarehtml

Christians C ( 2005 ) Ethics and politics in qualitative research In N K Denzin and Y S Lincoln (eds) Handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed pp 139 ndash 164 ) Th ousand Oaks CA Sage

Christopher J C and Bickhard M H ( 2007 ) Culture self and identity Interactivist contributions to a metatheory for cultural psychology Culture and Psychology 13 ( 3 ) 259 ndash 295


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Clancey W J ( 1991 ) Review of Rosenfi eldrsquos ldquoTh e Invention of Memoryrdquo Artifi cial Intelligence 50 ( 2 ) 241 ndash 284

Clancey W J ( 1997 ) Situated cognition On human knowledge and computer repre-sentations Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Clancey W J ( 2009 ) Scientifi c antecedents of situated cognition In P Robbins and M Aydede (eds) Th e Cambridge handbook of situated cognition (pp 11 ndash 34 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Clark A ( 1997 ) Being there Putting mind body and world together again Cambridge MA MIT Press

Clark A ( 2008 ) Supersizing the mind Embodiment action and cognitive extension New York Oxford University Press

Clark A and Chalmers D ( 1998 ) Th e extended mind Analysis 58 10 ndash 23 Clark K and Holquist M ( 1984 ) Mikhail Bakhtin Cambridge MA Harvard

University Press Clark K B ( 1989 ) Dark ghetto Dilemmas of social power (2nd ed) Middletown

CT Wesleyan University Press Cobb P and Yackel E ( 1998 ) A constructivist perspective on the culture of the

mathematics classroom In F Seeger J Voigt and U Waschescio (eds) Th e culture of the mathematics classroom (pp 158 ndash 190 ) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Colapietro V M ( 1989 ) Peircersquos approach to the self A semiotic perspective on human subjectivity Albany SUNY Press

Cole M ( 1985 ) Th e zone of proximal development Where culture and cogni-tion create each other In J V Wertsch (ed) Culture communication and cognition Vygotskian perspectives (pp 146 ndash 161 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Cole M ( 1996 ) Cultural psychology A once and future discipline Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Cole M ( 2003 ) Vygotsky and context Where did the connection come from and what diff erence does it make http communication ucsdedu lchc People MCole lsvcontexthtm (accessed December 14 2014)

Cole M ( 2009 ) Th e perils of translation A fi rst step in reconsidering Vygotskyrsquos theory of development in relation to formal education [Editorial] Mind Culture and Activity 16 ( 4 ) 291 ndash 295

Cole M and Engestroumlm Y ( 1993 ) A cultural- historical approach to distrib-uted cognition In G Salomon (ed) Distributed cognitions (pp 1 ndash 46 ) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cole M Levitin K and Luria A R ( 2010 ) Th e autobiography of Alexander Luria A dia-logue with the making of mind New York and London Psychology Press

Cole M and Wertsch J V ( 1996 ) Beyond the individual- social antinomy in dis-cussions of Piaget and Vygotsky Human Development 39 250 ndash 256

Collins C ( 2011 ) Refl ections on CHAT and Freirersquos participatory action research from the West of Scotland Praxis politics and the ldquostruggle for meaningful life rdquo Mind Culture and Activity 18 98 ndash 114

Collis B and Moonen J ( 2001 ) Flexible learning in a digital world Experiences and expectations London Kogan Page

Coole D and Frost S eds ( 2010 ) New materialisms Ontology agency and poli-tics Durham NC and London Duke University Press


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Connelly J and Costall A ( 2000 ) R G Collingwood and the idea of an historical psychology Th eory and Psychology 10 147 ndash 170

Connery C M John-Steiner V P and Marjanovic-Shane A (eds) (2010) Vygotsky and creativity A cultural-historical approach to play meaning mak-ing and the arts New York Peter Lang

Costall A ( 2004 ) From Darwin to Watson (and cognitivism) and back again Th e principle of animal- environment mutuality Behavior and Philosophy 32 179 ndash 195

Costall A ( 2006 ) ldquo Introspectionismrdquo and the mythical origins of scientifi c psy-chology Consciousness and Cognition 15 634 ndash 654

Costall A ( 2007 ) Th e windowless room ldquoMediationismrdquo and how to get over it In J Valsiner and A Rosa (eds) Th e Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psy-chology (pp 109ndash 123) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Costall A and Leudar I ( 2007 ) Getting over ldquothe problem of other mindsrdquo Communication in context Infant Behavior and Development 30 289 ndash 295

Crapanzano V ( 2004 ) Imaginative horizons An essay in literary- philosophical anthropology London University of Chicago Press

Crick F ( 1994 ) Th e astonishing hypothesis Th e scientifi c search for the soul New York Scribner

Crook S ( 2003 ) Change uncertainty and the future of sociology Journal of Sociology 39 ( 1 ) 7 ndash 14

Cross W E Jr ( 1991 ) Shades of black Diversity in African- American identity Philadelphia Temple University Press

Damasio A ( 1999 ) Th e feeling of what happens Body and emotion in the making of consciousness New York Harcourt Brace

Danforth S ( 2006 ) From epistemology to democracy Pragmatism and the reori-entation of disability research Remedial and Special Education 27 ( 6 ) 337 ndash 345

Daniels H ( 2001 ) Vygotsky and pedagogy London Routledge Falmer Daniels H Edwards A Engestroumlm Y Gallagher T and Ludvigsen S eds

( 2009 ) Activity theory in practice Promoting learning across boundaries and agencies London Routledge

Dannefer D ( 1999 ) Freedom isnrsquot free Power alienation and the social conse-quences of action In J Brandstaumldter and R M Lerner (eds) Action and self- development (pp 105 ndash 132 ) Th ousand Oaks CA Sage

Danziger K ( 1990 ) Constructing the subject Historical origins of psychological research New York Cambridge University Press

Danziger K ( 1993 ) Psychological objects practice and history Annals of Th eoretical Psychology 8 15 ndash 47 and 71 ndash 84

Danziger K ( 1997 ) Naming the mind How psychology found its language London Sage

Darling- Hammond L ( 2007 ) Race inequality and educational accountability Th e irony of ldquoNo Child Left Behindrdquo Race Ethnicity and Education 10 245 ndash 260

Dar- Nimrod I and Heine S J ( 2011 ) Genetic essentialism On the deceptive determinism of DNA Psychological Bulletin 137 ( 5 ) 800 ndash 818

Daston L and Galison P ( 1992 ) Th e image of objectivity Representations 40 81 ndash 128 Davis B and Sumara D J ( 1997 ) Enactivist theory and community learn-

ing Towards a complexifi ed understanding of action research Educational Action Research 5 403 ndash 422


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Davis R and Freire P ( 1981 ) Education for awareness A talk with Paulo Freire In R Mackie (ed) Literacy and revolution the pedagogy of Paulo Freire (pp 57 ndash 69 ) New York Th e Continuum Publishing Company

Davydov V ( 1983 ) Leontievrsquos theory of the connection between activity and mental refl ection [Учение Леонтьев о взаимосвязи деятельностии психического отражения] In A Zaporozhets V Zinchenko O Ovchinnikova and O Tikhomirov (eds) A N Leontiev and contemporary psychology [Леонтьев и современная психология] (pp 128 ndash 140 ) Moscow Moscow University

Davydov V V ( 1990 ) Types of generalizations in instruction Reston VA National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Davydov V V ( 1998 ) Th e last talks [Последние выступления] Riga Polet Dawkins R ( 1976 ) Th e selfi sh gene Oxford Oxford University Press Deleuze G and Guattari F ( 1977 ) Anti- Oedipus ( R Hurley M Seem and H R

Lane trans) New York Viking Deleuze G and Guattari F ( 1994 ) What is philosophy New York Columbia University Delgado R and Stefancic J ( 2001 ) Critical race theory An introduction

New York New York University Press Delpit L ( 1995 ) Other peoplersquos children Cultural confl ict in the classroom

New York Th e New Press Derrida J ( 1981 ) Positions Chicago University of Chicago Press Derrida J ( 1994 ) Specters of Marx Th e state of the debt the work of mourning and

the new international ( Peggy Kamuf trans) New York Routledge DeVries R ( 2000 ) Vygotsky Piaget and education A reciprocal assimilation of

theories and educational practices New Ideas in Psychology 18 187 ndash 213 Dewey J ( 1896 ) Th e refl ex arc concept in psychology Psychological Review 3 ( 4 )

357 ndash 370 Dewey J ( 1908 ) Does reality possess practical character In E L Th orndike (ed)

Essays in honor of William James (pp 53ndash 81) New York Longmans Dewey J ( 1910 ) Th e infl uence of Darwinism on philosophy In J Dewey Th e

infl uence of Darwin on philosophy and other essays in contemporary thought (pp 1ndash 19) New York Henry Holt and Company

Dewey J ( 1916 1922) Democracy and education An introduction to the philosophy of education New York McMillan

Dewey J (1920 1948 ) Reconstruction in philosophy (enlarged edition) Boston MA Beacon Press

Dewey J ( 1925 1958) Experience and nature Mineola NY Dover Publications Dewey J ( 1929 1960) Th e quest for certainty A study on the relation between knowl-

edge and action New York G P Putnamrsquos Sons Dewey J ( 1931 ) Science and society From John Dewey Th e later works ( LW ) 1925ndash

1953 (vol 6 1931ndash 1932 ed J A Boydston pp 53ndash 63) Carbondale Southern Illinois University Press

Dewey J ( 1938 ) Progressive organization of subject matter LW (vol 13 1938ndash1939 ed J A Boydston pp 48ndash 60) Carbondale Southern Illinois University Press

Dewey J and Bentley A F ( 1949 ) Knowing and the known Boston Th e Beacon Press

Diamond A Barnett W S Th omas J and Munro S ( 2007 ) Preschool program improves cognitive control Science 318 1387 ndash 1388


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Diggins J P ( 1994 ) Th e promise of pragmatism Modernism and the crisis of knowl-edge and authority Chicago University of Chicago Press

Dixon R A and Lerner R M ( 1999 ) History and systems in developmental psychology In M H Bornstein and M E Lamb (eds) Developmental psy-chology An advanced textbook (4th ed pp 3 ndash 45 ) Mahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Dobzhansky T ( 1962 ) Mankind evolving Th e evolution of the species New Haven CT Yale University Press

Donald M ( 2001 ) A mind so rare Th e evolution of human consciousness New York and London W W Norton and Company

Dreyfus H L and Rabinow P ( 1982 ) Michel Foucault Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics Chicago University of Chicago Press

Dreyfus H L ( 1991 ) Being- in- the- world A commentary on Heideggerrsquos being and time Cambridge MA and London MIT Press

Eagleton T ( 2000 ) Th e idea of culture Malden MA Blackwell Eagleton T ( 2003 ) Kettles boil classes struggle Review of ldquoA defence of

lsquoHistory and class consciousnessrsquo Tailism and the dialecticrdquo by Georg Lukaacutecs ( Esther Leslie trans) Verso June 2002 London Review of Books 25(4) 17 ndash 18

Eagleton T ( 2007 ) I contain multitudes (review of Mikhail Bakhtin Th e word in the world by G Pechey ) London Review of Books 29(12) 13 ndash 15

Eagleton T ( 2011 ) Why Marx was right New Haven CT Yale University Press Edelman G M ( 2006 ) Second nature Brain science and human knowledge New

Haven CT Yale University Press Eisenhart M A and Howe K R ( 1992 ) Validity in educational research In

M D LeCompte W L Millroy and J Preissle (eds) The handbook of qualitative research in education (pp 643ndash 680) San Diego CA Academic Press

Emerson C ( 1996 ) Th e outer word and inner speech Bakhtin Vygotsky and the internalization of language In H Daniels (ed) An introduction to Vygotsky (pp 123 ndash 142 ) New York Routledge

Emirbayer M and Schneiderhan E ( 2013 ) Dewey and Bourdieu on Democracy In P Gorski (ed) Bourdieu and historical analysis (pp 131 ndash 157 ) Durham NC Duke University Press

Emirbayer M and Mische A ( 1998 ) ldquo What is agency rdquo American Journal of Sociology 103 962 ndash 1023

Engels F ( 1873 ndash 1883 1961) Dialectics of nature [Диалектика природы] (includ-ing Chapter ldquoTh e part played by labour in the transition from ape to manrdquo) Collected works of K Marx and F Engels (vol 20 2nd ed pp 339ndash 626) Moscow State Publisher of Political Literature

Engels F ( 1886 ) Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy wwwmarxistsorg archive marx works download Marx_ Ludwig_ Feurbach_ and_ the_ End_ of_ German_ Classical_ Philosoppdf (accessed May 5 2016)

Engestroumlm Y ( 1987 ) Learning by expanding An activity- theoretical approach to developmental research Helsinki Orienta- Konsultit

Engestroumlm Y ( 1990 ) Learning working and imagining Twelve studies in activity theory Helsinki Orienta- Konsultit


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Engestroumlm Y ( 1999 ) Activity theory and individual and social transformation In Y Engestroumlm R Miettinen and R- L Punamaki (eds) Perspectives on activity theory (pp 19 ndash 38 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Engestroumlm Y ( 2001 ) Expansive learning at work Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization Journal of Education and Work 14 ( 1 ) 133 ndash 156

Engestroumlm Y ( 2005 ) Developmental work research Expanding activity theory in practice Berlin Lehmanns Media

Engestroumlm Y and Sannino A ( 2010 ) Studies of expansive learning Foundations fi ndings and future challenges Educational Research Review 5 1 ndash 24

Erikson E ( 2013 ) Formalist and relationalist theory in social network analysis Sociological Th eory 31 219 ndash 242

Fay B ( 1987 ) Critical social science Ithaca NY Cornell University Press Feuer L ( 1959 ) John Dewey and the back to the people movement Journal of the

History of Ideas 20 545 ndash 568 Fine M and McClelland S I ( 2006 ) Sexuality education and desire Still missing

aft er all these years Harvard Educational Review 76 ( 3 ) 297 ndash 338 Fine M Weis L Weseen S and Wong L ( 2000 ) For whom Qualitative research

representations and social responsibilities In N Denzin and Y S Lincoln (eds) Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed pp 107 ndash 132 ) Th ousand Oaks CA Sage

Fish S ( 2010 ) Pragmatismrsquos Gift New York Times Opinionator March 15 http opinionatorblogsnytimescom 2010 03 15 pragmatisms- gift (accessed March 20 2010)

Fivush R Habermas T Waters T E A and Zaman W ( 2010 ) Th e making of autobiographical memory Intersections of culture narratives and identity International Journal of Psychology 46 321 ndash 345

Flyvbjerg B ( 2001 ) Making social science matter Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Foucault M ( 1980 ) Power knowledge Selected interviews and other writings 1972ndash 1977 ( Colin Gordon ed) New York Pantheon

Foucault M ( 1988 ) Th e ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom In J Bernauer and G Rasmussen (eds) Th e fi nal Foucault (pp 1ndash 20) Cambridge MA MIT Press

Foucault M ( 1990 ) An aesthetics of existence In Politics philosophy cul-ture Interviews and other writings 1977ndash 1984 (ed with an introduction by L D Kritzman pp 47ndash 56) New York and London Routledge

Foucault M ( 1993 ) About the beginnings of the hermeneutics of the self Political Th eory 21 (3) 198ndash 227

Fowers B J and Richardson F C ( 1996 ) Why is multiculturalism good American Psychologist 51 609 ndash 621

Fox S Levitt P and Nelson C A ( 2010 ) How the timing and quality of early expe-riences infl uence the development of brain architecture Child Development 81 28 ndash 40

Frankl V E ( 1992 ) Manrsquos search for meaning (4rth ed) Boston MA Beacon Press Fraser N ( 1995 ) False antitheses A response to Seyla Benhabib and Judith Butler

In Feminist Contentions A Philosophical Exchange (pp 59 ndash 74 ) New York and London Routledge


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Fraser N ( 2002 ) Recognition without ethics In S Lash and M Featherstone (eds) Recognition and diff erence Politics identity multiculture (pp 21 ndash 42 ) London Sage

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Frawley W ( 1997 ) Vygotsky and cognitive science Language and the unifi ca-tion of the social and computational mind Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Freund A M and Riediger M ( 2O06 ) Goals as building blocks of personality and development in adulthood In D K Mroszek and T D Little (eds) Handbook of personality development (pp 353 ndash 372 ) Mahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Freire P ( 1970 ) Pedagogy of the oppressed New York Continuum (30th anniver-sary edition published in 2005)

Freire P ( 1982a ) Education as the practice of freedom ( M B Ramos trans) In Education for critical consciousness (pp 1 ndash 84 ) New York Th e Continuum Publishing Company

Freire P ( 1982b ) Extension or communication ( L Bigwood and M Marshall trans) In Education for critical consciousness (pp 93 ndash 164 ) New York Continuum

Freire P ( 1985 ) Th e politics of education Culture power and liberation South Hadley MA Bergin and Garvey

Freire P ( 1994 ) Pedagogy of hope Reliving pedagogy of the oppressed ( R R Barr trans 2004 ed) New York Continuum Publishing Company

Freire P ( 1998 ) Pedagogy of freedom Ethics democracy and civic courage Lanham MD Rowman and Littlefi eld

Frye M ( 1990 ) A response to lesbian ethics Hypatia 5 ( 3 ) 132 ndash 137 Fuchs C and Hofk irchner W ( 2009 ) Autopoiesis and critical social systems the-

ory In R Magalhatildees and R Sanchez (eds) Autopoiesis in organization theory and practice (pp 111 ndash 129 ) Bingley UK Emerald

Gallagher S ( 2009 ) Philosophical antecedents to situated cognition In P Robbins and M Aydede (eds) Th e Cambridge handbook of situated cognition (pp 35 ndash 51 ) Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

Galperin [Galrsquoperin] P Ia ( 1985 ) Methods of instruction and mental develop-ment of the child [Методы обучения и умственное развитие ребенка] Moscow Izdatelstvo MGU

Galperin [Galrsquoperin] P Ia ( 1989 ) Study of the intellectual development of the child Soviet Psychology 27 26 ndash 44 (Originally published in 1969)

Gardiner M ( 2000 ) ldquo A very understandable horror of dialecticsrdquo Bakhtin and Marxist phenomenology In C Brandist and G Tihanov (eds) Materializing Bakhtin Th e Bakhtin circle and social theory (pp 119 ndash 141 ) London Palgrave and MacMillan

Garfi nkel H ( 2006 ) Principal theoretical notions Seeing sociologically Th e routine grounds of social action ( A Rawls ed) (pp 101 ndash 189 ) Boulder CO Paradigm Publishers

Garrison J ( 1994 ) Realism Deweyan pragmatism and educational research Educational Researcher 23 ( 1) 5 ndash 14


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Garrison J ( 2001 ) An introduction to Deweyrsquos theory of functional ldquotrans- actionrdquo An alternative paradigm for activity theory Mind Culture and Activity 8 275 ndash 296

Gergen K J ( 1985 ) Th e social constructionist movement in modern psychology American Psychologist 40 266 ndash 275

Gergen K J ( 2009 ) Relational being Beyond self and community New York Oxford University Press

Gergen K J Josselson R and Freeman M ( 2015 ) Th e promise of qualitative inquiry Th e American Psychologist 70 1 ndash 9

Gibson E J ( 1969 ) Principles of perceptual learning and development New York Appleton- Century- Croft s

Gibson E J ( 1991 ) An odyssey in learning and perception Cambridge MA MIT Press

Gibson J J and Gibson E J ( 1955 ) Perceptual learning Diff erentiation or enrich-ment Psychological Review 62 32 ndash 41

Giddens A ( 1984 ) Th e constitution of society Outline of the theory of structuration Berkeley University of California Press

Giroux H A ( 1983a ) Critical perspectives in social theory Th eory and resistance in education A pedagogy for the opposition New York Bergin and Garvey

Giroux H A ( 1983b ) Ideology and agency in the process of schooling Journal of Education 165 12 ndash 34

Giroux H ( 1994 ) Doing cultural studies Youth and the challenge of pedagogy Harvard Educational Review 64 ( 3 ) 278 ndash 309

Gitlin A ( 2005 ) Inquiry imagination and the search for a deep politic Educational Researcher 34( 3) 15 ndash 24

Glass R D ( 2001 ) On Paulo Freirersquos philosophy of praxis and the foundations of liberation education Educational Researcher 30 ( 2) 15 ndash 25

Glassman M ( 2001 ) Dewey and Vygotsky Society experience and inquiry in educational practice Educational Researcher 30 3 ndash 14

Glenberg A M ( 1997 ) What memory is for Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20 1 ndash 55

Gottlieb G ( 2003 ) On making behavioral genetics truly developmental Human Development 46 337 ndash 355

Gottlieb G ( 2006 ) Developmental neurobehavioral genetics Development as explanation In B C Jones and P Mormegravede (eds) Neurobehavioral genet-ics Methods and applications (2nd ed pp 17 ndash 27 ) New York Taylor and Francis Group

Gottlieb G Wahlsten D and Lickliter R ( 2006 ) Th e signifi cance of biology for human development A developmental psychobiological systems view In W Damon and R M Lerner (eds) Handbook of child psychology Vol 1 Th eoretical models of human development (6th ed pp 210 ndash 257 ) Hoboken NJ Wiley

Gould C C ( 1978 ) Marxrsquos social ontology Individuality and community in Marxrsquos theory of social reality Cambridge MA MIT Press

Gould C C ( 1994 ) Marx aft er Marxism In Artifacts representations and social practice (pp 377 ndash 396 ) Dordrecht Th e Netherlands Springer


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Gould S J ( 1988 ) Th e case of the creeping fox terrier clone Natural History 96 16 ndash 24

Gould S J ( 1993 ) Eight little piggies New York W W Norton Gould S J ( 1995 ) Dinosaur in a haystack New York Harmony Books Gould S J ( 1996 ) Th e mismeasure of man (2nd ed) New York W W Norton and

Company Gouldner A W ( 1982 ) Th e two Marxisms Contradictions and anomalies in the

development of theory New York Oxford University Press Gramsci A ( 1971 ) Selections from the prison notebooks (selected and translated by

Q Hoare and G N Smith ) London Lawrence and Wishart Grant T and Woods A ( 2003 ) Reason in revolt Vol II Dialectical philosophy and

modern science New York Algora Publishing Great Writers of Fairy Tales ( 2006 ) Available at http glinksru gianni- rodarihtml

(accessed June 2 2015) Gredler M E ( 2012 ) Understanding Vygotsky for the classroom Is it too late

Educational Psychology Review 24 ( 1) 113 ndash 131 Greene M ( 1988 ) Th e dialectic of freedom New York Teachers College Press Greene M ( 1995 ) Releasing the imagination Essays on education the arts and social

change San Francisco Jossey- Bass Greene M ( 1997 ) Teaching as possibility A light in dark times Th e Journal of

Pedagogy Pluralism and Practice 1 1 ndash 11 Greene M ( 2000 ) Lived spaces shared spaces public spaces In L Weis and M

Fine (eds) Construction sites Excavating race class and gender among urban youth (pp 293 ndash 304 ) New York Teachers College Press

Greiff enhagen C and Sharrock W ( 2008 ) School mathematics and its every-day other Revisiting Laversquos ldquoCognition in Practice rdquo Educational Studies in Mathematics 69 ( 1 ) 1 ndash 21

Guattari F ( 1984 ) Molecular revolution Psychiatry and politics Harmondsworth UK Penguin

Guba E G and Lincoln Y S ( 1994 ) Competing paradigms in qualitative research In N K Denzin and Y S Lincoln (eds) Handbook of qualitative research (pp 105 ndash 117 ) Th ousand Oaks CA Sage

Guignon C ( 2002 ) Hermeneutics authenticity and the aims of psychotherapy Journal of Th eoretical and Philosophical Psychology 22 83 ndash 102

Guignon C ( 2004 ) On being authentic New York Routledge Gustavsen B ( 2001 ) Th eory and practice Th e mediating discourse In P Reason

and H Bradbury (eds) Handbook of action research Participative inquiry and practice (pp 17 ndash 26 ) London Sage

Gutieacuterrez K D ( 2002 ) Studying cultural practices in urban learning communities Human Development 45 312 ndash 321

Gutieacuterrez K D and Larson J ( 2007 ) Discussing expanded spaces for learning Language Arts 85 69 ndash 77

Gutieacuterrez K D Baquedano- Lopez P and Tejeda C ( 1999 ) Rethinking diver-sity Hybridity and hybrid language practices in the third space Mind Culture and Activity 41 286 ndash 303

Gutieacuterrez R ( 2010 ) Th e sociopolitical turn in mathematics education Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 41 1 ndash 32


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Habermas J ( 1994 ) Struggles for recognition in the democratic constitutional state In C Taylor and A Gutman (eds) Multiculturalism Examining the poli-tics of recognition (pp 107 ndash 148 ) Princeton NJ Princeton University Press

Habermas J ( 2001 ) Th e liberating power of symbols Philosophical essays ( P Dews trans) Cambridge MA MIT Press

Habermas J ( 2003 ) Th e future of human nature Cambridge Polity Press Habermas T and Bluck S ( 2000 ) Getting a life Th e emergence of the life story in

adolescence Psychological Bulletin 126 ( 5 ) 748 ndash 769 Hacking I ( 1995 ) Rewriting the soul Multiple personality and the sciences of mem-

ory Princeton NJ Princeton University Press Hacking I ( 2002 ) Historical ontology Cambridge MA Harvard University

Press Hallward P ( 2006 ) Out of this world Deleuze and the philosophy of creation

London and New York Verso Harding S ( 1992 ) Rethinking standpoint epistemology What is ldquostrong objec-

tivityrdquo In L Alcoff and E Potter (eds) Feminist epistemologies (pp 49 ndash 82 ) New York Routledge

Harding S ( 2004 ) A socially relevant philosophy of science Resources from standpoint theoryrsquos controversiality Hypathia 19 ( 1 ) 25 ndash 47

Harreacute R ( 1986 ) Th e social construction of emotions Oxford Basil Blackwell Harreacute R ( 2002 ) Material objects in social worlds Th eory Culture and Society

19 (5ndash 6) 23 ndash 33 Harreacute R and Moghaddam F M ( 2003 ) Th e self and others Positioning individu-

als and groups in personal political and cultural contexts New York Praeger Harrist S and Richardson F C ( 2012 ) Disguised ideologies in counseling and

social justice work Counseling and Values 57 38 ndash 44 Hartsock N C M ( 1998 ) Th e feminist standpoint revisited and other essays

Boulder CO Westview Press Harvey D ( 1989 ) Th e condition of postmodernity Cambridge Blackwell Harvey D ( 1996a ) Justice nature and the geography of diff erence Oxford Blackwell Harvey D ( 1996b ) Cities or urbanization Cities 1 ndash 2 38 ndash 62 Haslam N ( 2011 ) Genetic essentialism neuroessentialism and stigma Commentary

on Dar- Nimrod and Heine Psychological Bulletin 137 819 ndash 824 Hatfi eld G ( 1995 ) Remaking the science of mind Psychology as natural science In

C Fox R Porter and R Wokler (eds) Inventing human science Eighteenth- century domains (pp 184 ndash 231 ) Berkeley University of California Press

Haug W F ( 2001 ) From Marx to Gramsci ndash from Gramsci to Marx Historical materialism and the philosophy of praxis Rethinking Marxism 13 ( 1 ) 69 ndash 82

Hay C ( 2011 ) Th e obligation to resist oppression Th e Journal of Social Philosophy 42 21 ndash 35

Hedegaard M ( 1990 ) Th e zone of proximal development as a basis for instruction In L Moll (ed) Vygotsky and education Instructional implications and appli-cations of sociohistorical psychology (pp 349 ndash 371 ) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Hedegaard M and Fleer M ( 2013 ) Play learning and childrenrsquos development Cambridge Cambridge University Press


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Heft H ( 2001 ) Ecological psychology in context James Gibson Roger Barker and the legacy of William Jamesrsquos radical empiricism Mahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Hermans H J M ( 2002 ) Th e dialogical self as a society of mind Th eory and Psychology 12 ( 2 ) 147 ndash 160

Heron J and Reason P ( 1997 ) A participatory inquiry paradigm Qualitative Inquiry 3 ( 3 ) 274 ndash 294

Hicks D ( 2000 ) Self and other in Bakhtinrsquos early philosophical essays Prelude to a theory of prose consciousness Mind Culture and Activity 7 227ndash 242

Hill Collins P (1991 2000 ) Black feminist thought Knowledge consciousness and the politics of empowerment New York Routledge

Hirst E W ( 2004 ) Th e diverse social contexts of a second language classroom and the construction of identity In K M Leander and M Sheehy (eds) Space matters Assertions of space in literacy practice and research (pp 39ndash 66) New York Peter Lang

Hodges D C ( 1998 ) Participation as dis- identifi cation with in a community of practice Mind Culture and Activity 5 ( 4 ) 272 ndash 290

Hodkinson P Biesta G and James D ( 2007 ) Understanding learning cultures Educational Review 59 ( 4) 415 ndash 427

Hoslashjgaard L and Soslashndergaard D M ( 2011 ) Th eorizing the complexities of discur-sive and material subjectivity Agential realism and poststructural analyses Th eory amp Psychology 21 338 ndash 354

Holland D and Lave J ( 2009 ) Social practice theory and the historical production of persons Actio An International Journal of Human Activity Th eory 2 1 ndash 15

Holland D Lachicotte W Skinner D and Cain C ( 1998 ) Identity and agency in cultural worlds Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Holquist M ( 1982 ) Bakhtin and Rablais Th eory as praxis Boundary 2 11 5ndash 19 Holquist M and Kliger I ( 2005 ) Minding the gap Toward a historical poetics of

estrangement Poetics Today 26 ( 4) 613 ndash 636 Holzkamp K ( 2013 ) Psychology Social self- understanding on the reasons for

action in the conduct of everyday life In E Schraube and U Osterkamp (eds) Psychology from the standpoint of the subject Selected writings of Klaus Holzkamp (pp 233 ndash 351 ) New York Palgrave Macmillan

Homskaya E D ( 2001 ) Alexander Romanovich Luria A scientifi c biography New York Kluwer Academic Plenum Publishers

Honneth A ( 2004 ) Recognition and justice Outline of a plural theory of justice Acta Sociologica 47 ( 11) 351 ndash 364

Honneth A ( 2003 ) Redistribution as recognition A response to Nancy Fraser In N Fraser and A Honneth Redistribution or recognition A political- philosophical exchange (pp 110 ndash 197 ) New York Verso

Hook D ( 2007 ) Foucault psychology and the analytics of power Basingstoke UK and New York Palgrave Macmillan

Horkheimer M and Adorno T W ( 2002 ) Dialectic of enlightenment Philosophical fragments ( G Noeri ed E Jephcott trans) Stanford CA Stanford University Press

Howe K R ( 2003 ) Closing methodological divides Toward democratic educational research Boston Kluwer Academic


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Howe K R ( 2009 ) Positivist dogmas rhetoric and the education science ques-tion Educational Researcher 38 ( 6 ) 428 ndash 440

Hruby G G ( 2012 ) Th ree requirements for justifying an educational neuroscience British Journal of Educational Psychology 82(1) 1 ndash 23

Hutchins E ( 1995 ) Cognition in the wild Cambridge MA MIT Press Huttenlocher P R ( 2002 ) Neural plasticity Th e eff ect of environment on the devel-

opment of cerebral cortex Cambridge MA Harvard University Press Iljichev L F ( 1983 ) Philosophic encyclopedic dictionary [Философский энциклопе-

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Progress Ilyenkov E V ( 2009 2012 ) Th e dialectic of the ideal Historical Materialism 20(2)

149ndash 193 Ingold T ( 2000 ) Perception of the environment Essays in livelihood dwelling and

skill London Routledge Ingold T ( 2004 ) Learning through doing and understanding in practice CSAP

Project Report Birmingham UK C- SAP Th e Higher Education Academy Subject Network for Sociology Anthropology and Politics wwwc- sap bhamacuk CSAP media com_ projectlog docs 31_ A_ 03pdf (accessed July 2 2016)

Ingold T ( 2007 ) Th e trouble with evolutionary biology Anthropology Today 23 (2) 13 ndash 17

Ingold T ( 2008 ) Bindings against boundaries Entanglements of life in an open world Environment and Planning A 40 1796 ndash 1810

Ingold T ( 2011 ) Being alive Essays on movement knowledge and description Abingdon UK Routledge

Ivic I ( 1994 ) Lev S Vygotsky Prospects Th e Quarterly Review of Comparative Education 24(3ndash 4) 471ndash 485

James W ( 1907 ) Pragmatism A new name for some old ways of thinking www gutenbergorg fi les 5116 5116- h 5116- hhtm (accessed July 10 2016)

James W ( 1890 1950) Th e principles of psychology (vol 1) New York Dover James W ( 1890 ) Th e principles of psychology (vol 2) New York Henry Holt Jameson F ( 1991 ) Postmodernism or the cultural logic of late capitalism Durham

NC Duke University Press Jameson F ( 2006 ) Foreword In Jean Paul Sartre Critique of Dialectical Reason

Vol 2 (A Elkaim- Sartre ed Q Hoare trans pp ixndash xxv) London and New York Verso (Originally published in 1985)

Jaramillo N ( 2011 ) Dialogic action for critical democracy Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 9 72 ndash 94

Johansson L ( 2013 ) Th e occurrence of the not- yet- seen in education ndash linear-ity becoming and diff erence Paper presented at NERA 2013 in Reykjavik March 7ndash 9

Johnson M H Grossmann T and Cohen- Kadosh K ( 2009 ) Mapping functional brain development Building a social brain through interactive specialization Developmental Psychology 45 151 ndash 159

Johnston A ( 2004 ) Against embodiment Th e material ground of the immaterial subject International Journal of Lacanian Studies 2 230 ndash 254


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Johnston A ( 2010 ) Badiou Žižek and political transformations Th e cadence of change Evanston IL Northwestern University Press

Jonathan R ( 1997 ) Illusory freedoms Liberalism education and the market Oxford Blackwell

Jones P E ( 2001 ) Th e ideal in culturalndash historical activity theory Issues and per-spectives In S Chaiklin (ed) Th e theory and practice of culturalndash historical psychology (pp 283 ndash 315 ) Aarhus Denmark Aarhus University

Jones P E ( 2003 ) New clothes for an old emperor ldquoEvolutionary psychologyrdquo and the cognitive counterrevolution Mind Culture and Activity 10 ( 2 ) 173 ndash 180

Jones P ( 2008 ) Language in cultural- historical perspective In B Van Oers W Wardekker E Elbers and R Van der Veer (eds) Th e transforma-tion of learning Advances in cultural- historical activity theory (pp 76ndash 99) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Jones P E ( 2009 ) Breaking away from Capital Th eorising activity in the shadow of Marx Outlines Critical Practice Studies 1 45 ndash 58

Jones P E ed ( 2011 ) Marxism and education Renewing the dialogue pedagogy and culture London Palgrave MacMillan

Kaika M ( 2005 ) City of fl ows New York and London Routledge Kaptelinin V and Nardi B A ( 2006 ) Acting with technology Activity theory and

interaction design Cambridge MA MIT Press Karpov Y V ( 2005 ) Th e neo- Vygotskian approach to child development Cambridge

MA Cambridge University Press Kellner D ( 2004 ) Cultural Marxism and cultural studies wwwgseisuclaedu faculty

kellner essays culturalmarxismpdf (accessed December 12 2010) Kemmis S ( 2010 ) Research for praxis Knowing doing Pedagogy Culture and

Society 18( 1) 9 ndash 27 King M L Jr ( 1965 ) Commencement address for Oberlin College June 1965

Oberlin Ohio wwwoberlinedu external EOG BlackHistoryMonth MLK CommAddresshtml (accessed July 10 2016)

King M L Jr ( 1968 ) Th e role of the behavioral scientist in the Civil Rights move-ment American Psychologist 23 ( 3 ) 180 ndash 186

Kirschner S R and Martin J ( 2010 ) Th e sociocultural turn An introduction and an invitation In S R Kirschner and J Martin (eds) Th e sociocultural turn in psychology (pp 1 ndash 27 ) New York Columbia University Press

Kitchener R F ( 1996 ) Th e nature of the social for Piaget and Vygotsky Human Development 39 243 ndash 249

Knox J E ( 1993 ) Translatorrsquos introduction In L S Vygotsky and A R Luria Studies on the history of behavior Ape primitive and child ( V I Golod and J E Knox eds and trans) (pp 1 ndash 35 ) London Lawrence Erlbaum

Kohn A ( 2000 ) Th e case against standardized testing Raising the scores ruining the schools Portsmouth NH Heinemann

Kolb B and Gibb R ( 2011 ) Brain plasticity and behaviour in the developing brain Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 20 ( 4 ) 265 ndash 276

Kontopodis M ( 2012 ) Neoliberalism pedagogy and human development Exploring time mediation and collectivity in contemporary schools New York Routledge


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Koriat A and Goldsmith M ( 1995 ) Memory metaphors and the real- life labora-tory controversy Correspondence versus storehouse conceptions of memory Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 167ndash 228

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Kucsera J and Orfi eld G ( 2014 ) New York Statersquos extreme school segrega-tion Inequality inaction and a damaged future Los Angeles UCLA Th e Civil Rights Project

Kumpulainen K and Renshaw P ( 2007 ) Culture and learning A special theme issue International Journal of Educational Research 46 ( 3 ndash 4 ) 109ndash 15

Ladson- Billings G ( 2006 ) From the achievement gap to the education debt Understanding achievement in US schools Educational Researcher 35 ( 7 ) 3 ndash 12

Ladson- Billings G and Donnor J ( 2005 ) Th e moral activist role of critical race theory scholarship In Norman K Denzin and Yvonna S Lincoln (eds) Th e Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed pp 279 ndash 301 ) Los Angeles Sage Publications

Langemeyer I ( 2006 ) Contradictions in expansive learning Towards a criti-cal analysis of self- dependent forms of learning in relation to contemporary socio- technological change Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung 7 ( 1 ) Art 12 ndash January wwwqualitative- researchnet fqs (accessed August 5 2015)

Lantolf J ed ( 2000 ) Sociocultural theory and second language learning New York Oxford University Press

Lantolf J and Th orne S ( 2006 ) Sociocultural approach to second language learn-ing New York Cambridge University Press

Lantolf J P and Pavlenko A ( 2001 ) (S)econd (L)anguage (A)ctivity the-ory Understanding second language learners as people In M P Breen (ed) Learner contributions to language learning New directions in research (pp 141 ndash 158 ) Essex UK Pearson Education

Larkin M Eatough V and Osborn M ( 2011 ) Interpretative phenomenological analysis and embodied active situated cognition Th eory and Psychology 21 ( 3 ) 318 ndash 337

Larrain A and Hayes A ( 2012 ) Discursive analysis of experience Alterity posi-tioning and tension Discourse and Society 23 ( 5 ) 596 ndash 601

Lather P ( 2003 ) Applied Derrida (Mis)Reading the work of mourning in educa-tional research Educational Philosophy and Th eory 35 ( 3 ) 257 ndash 270

Lather P ( 2009 ) Getting lost Social science and as philosophy 2007 Kneller Lecture AESA Educational Studies 45 342 ndash 357

Lather P ( 2012a ) Ranciegravere as post- Foucauldian In M Whittaker (Chair) Taking Ranciegravere to school An impossible curriculum Symposium conducted at 2012 American Educational Research Association Vancouver BC Extended abstract retrieved from AERArsquos online repository wwwaeranet (accessed June 5 2016)

Lather P ( 2012b ) Th e ruins of neoliberalism and the construction of a new (scien-tifi c) subjectivity Cultural Studies of Science Education 7 1021 ndash 1025

Latour B ( 1999 ) Pandorarsquos hope Essays on the reality of science studies Cambridge MA Harvard University Press


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Latour B ( 2005b ) Reassembling the social An introduction to actor- network- theory Oxford Oxford University Press

Lave J ( 1988 ) Cognition in practice Boston MA Cambridge University Press Lave J ( 1993 ) Th e practice of learning In S Chaiklin and J Lave (eds)

Understanding practice Perspectives on activity and context (pp 3ndash 32) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Lave J ( 1996 ) Teaching as learning in practice Mind Culture and Activity 3 149ndash 164

Lave J and Wenger E ( 1991 ) Situated learning Legitimate peripheral participation New York Cambridge University Press

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Lee C D Spencer M B and Harpalani V ( 2003 ) ldquoEvery shut eye ainrsquot asleeprdquo Studying how people live culturally Educational Researcher 32 6 ndash 13

Lefebvre H ( 1991 ) Th e production of space ( Donald Nicolson- Smith trans ) Oxford Blackwell

Lehrman D S ( 1953 ) Critique of Konrad Lorenzrsquos theory of instinctive behavior Th e Quarterly Review of Biology 28 ( 4 ) 337 ndash 363

Lehrman D S ( 1970 ) Semantic and conceptual issues in the nature- nurture prob-lem In L R Aronson E Tobach D S Lehrman and J S Rosenblatt (eds) Development and evolution of behavior Essays in memory of T C Schneirla (pp 17 ndash 52 ) San Francisco Freeman

Lemke J ( 1997 ) Cognition context and learning A social semiotic perspective In D Kirshner and J A Whitson (eds) Situated cognition Social semiotic and psychological perspectives (pp 37 ndash 56 ) Mahwah NJ Erlbaum

Lemke J ( 2002 ) Becoming the village Education across lives In G Wells and G Claxton (eds) Learning for life in the 21st century Sociocultural perspectives on the future of Education (pp 34 ndash 45 ) London Blackwell

Leonard S ( 2014 ) Back to utopia Dissent (Winter) 30 ndash 32 Leonardo Z ( 2004 ) Critical social theory and transformative knowledge Th e

functions of criticism in quality education Educational Researcher 33 ( 6 ) 11 ndash 18

Leontiev A A ( 2001 ) Active mind [Деятельный ум] Мoscow Smysl Leontiev [Leontrsquoev] A N ( 1978 ) Activity consciousness and personality Englewood

Cliff s NJ Prentice- Hall (Russian edition published 1975) Leontiev [Leontrsquoev] A N ( 1981a ) Problems of the development of the mind

Moscow Progress Leontiev [Leontrsquoev] A N ( 1981b ) Th e problem of activity in psychology In J V

Wertsch (ed) Th e concept of activity in Soviet psychology (pp 37 ndash 71 ) Armonk NY M E Sharpe


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Lerner R M ( 2002 ) Concepts and theories of human development (3rd ed) Mahwah NJ Erlbaum

Lerner R M ( 2004 ) Diversity in individual- context relations as the basis for posi-tive development across the life span A developmental systems perspective for theory research and application Research in Human Development 1 327 ndash 346

Lerner R M ( 2006 ) Developmental science developmental systems and con-temporary theories of human development In W Damon and R M Lerner (editors- in- chief) and R M Lerner (vol ed) Handbook of child psychology Vol 1 Th eoretical models of human development (6th ed pp 1 ndash 17 ) Hoboken NJ Wiley

Lerner R M and Overton W F ( 2008 ) Exemplifying the integrations of the relational developmental system Synthesizing theory research and applica-tion to promote positive development and social justice Journal of Adolescent Research 23 245 ndash 255

Levinas E ( 1989 ) Th e Levinas reader ( S Hand ed) Oxford Basil Blackwell Lewis M D ( 2000 ) Th e promise of dynamic systems approaches for an integrated

account of human development Child Development 71 36 ndash 43 Lewontin R 1995 Genes environment and organisms In R Silvers ed Hidden his-

tories of science (pp 115- 138) New York New York Review of Books Publishers Li S H ( 2013 ) Neuromodulation and developmental contextual infl uences on neu-

raland cognitive plasticity across the lifespan Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 37 2201 ndash 2208

Lickliter R and Honeycutt H ( 2003 ) Evolutionary approaches to cognitive devel-opment Status and strategy Journal of Cognition and Development 4 459 ndash 473

Lin N ( 2001 ) Social capital A theory of social structure and action New York Cambridge University Press

Linehan C and McCarthy J ( 2001 ) Reviewing the ldquocommunity of practicerdquo meta-phor An analysis of control relations in a primary school classroom Mind Culture and Activity 8 ( 2 ) 129 ndash 147

Liss J E ( 1998 ) Diasporic identities Th e science and politics of race in the work of Franz Boas and W E B Du Bois 1894ndash 1919 Cultural Anthropology 13 ( 2 ) 127ndash 166

Lompscher J ( 2004 ) Lernkultur und Kompetenzentwicklung aus kulturhistoricher Sicht Lernen Erwachsener im Arbeitsprozess [Learning culture and compe-tence development in a culturalndash historical perspective Adult learning in the process of work] Berlin Lehmanns Media

Lorde A ( 1984 ) Sister outsider Trumansburg NY Crossing Loumlvdeacuten M Baumlckman L Lindenberger U Schaefer S and Schmiedek F ( 2010 ) A

theoretical framework for the study of adult cognitive plasticity Psychological Bulletin 136 659 ndash 676

Lubovskij D V ( 2007 ) Introduction into methodological foundations of psychol-ogy [ Введение в методологические основы психологии ] Moscow МОДЭК http lib100com book common_ psychology meth_ foundations_ l html (accessed December 28 2015)


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Luria A R ( 1982 ) Language and cognition New York Wiley Luttrell W ( 1996 ) Becoming somebody in and against school Toward a psycho-

cultural theory of gender and self- making In B A Levinson D E Foley and D C Holland (eds) Th e cultural production of the educated person (pp 93 ndash 117 ) Albany State University of New York

Luttrell W and Parker C ( 2001 ) High school studentsrsquo literacy practices and iden-tities and the fi gured world of school Journal of Research in Reading 24 ( 3 ) 235 ndash 247

Lynch K ( 1999 ) Equality studies the academy and the role of research in emanci-patory social change Th e Economic and Social Review 30 ( 1) 41 ndash 69

Lyotard J ( 1984 ) Th e postmodern condition A report on knowledge Manchester UK Manchester University Press

MacIntyre A ( 1983 ) Aft er virtue A study in moral theory (2nd ed) London Duckworth

MacMurray J ( 1961 ) Th e form of the personal Vol 2 Persons in relation London Faber and Faber

Malik K ( 2001 ) Review of Louis Menand Th e metaphysical club New Statesman October 22 wwwkenanmalikcom reviews menand_ metaphysicalhtml (accessed December 12 2006)

Marcuse H ( 1969 ) Repressive tolerance In R P Wolff B Moore Jr and H Marcuse (eds) A critique of pure tolerance (pp 95 ndash 137 ) Boston Beacon Press

Marcuse H ( 1972 ) Counterrevolution and revolt Boston Beacon Press Margolis J ( 2010 ) Pragmatismrsquos advantage American and European philosophy at

the end of the twentieth century Stanford CA Stanford University Press Markovaacute I ( 2003 ) Dialogicality and social representations the dynamics of mind

Cambridge Cambridge University Press Markovaacute I ( 2012 ) Objectifi cation in common sense thinking Mind Culture and

Activity 19 207 ndash 221 Martin J ( 2004 ) Th e educational inadequacy of conceptions of self in educational

psychology Interchange 35 185 ndash 208 Martin J ( 2005 ) Perspectival selves in interaction with others Re- reading G H

Meadrsquos social psychology Journal for the Th eory of Social Behaviour 35 ( 3) 231 ndash 253

Martin J and McLellan A- M ( 2013 ) Th e education of selves How psychology transformed students Oxford Oxford University Press

Martin J and Sugarman J ( 1999 ) Th e psychology of human possibility and con-straint Albany State University of New York Press

Martin J and Sugarman J ( 2001 ) Interpreting human kinds Beginnings of a her-meneutic psychology Th eory and Psychology 11 193 ndash 207

Martin J Sugarman J and Th ompson J ( 2003 ) Psychology and the question of agency Albany State University of New York Press

Marx K ( 1844 1978a) Economic and philosophical manuscripts In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 66 ndash 125 ) New York Norton


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Marx K ( 1844 1978b) For a ruthless criticism of everything existing In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 12 ndash 15 ) New York Norton

Marx K ( 1845 1978) Th eses on Feuerbach In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 143 ndash 145 ) New York Norton

Marx K ( 1852 1978) Th e eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 594 ndash 617 ) New York Norton

Marx K ( 1891 1978) Wage- labour and capital In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 203 ndash 217 ) New York Norton

Marx K and Engels F (1845ndash 1846 1978 ) Th e German ideology In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 146 ndash 200 ) New York Norton

Marx K and Engels F ( 1848 1978) Manifesto of the Communist party In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 473 ndash 500 ) New York Norton

Massumi B ( 1987 ) Realer than real Th e simulacrum according to Deleuze and Guattari Copyright 1 90 ndash 96

Mattson M and Kemmis S ( 2007 ) Praxis- related research Serving two masters Pedagogy Culture and Society 15 185 ndash 214

McDermott R and Varenne H ( 1995 ) Culture as disability Anthropology and Education Quarterly 26 ( 3 ) 324 ndash 348

McLaren P ( 1994 ) Multiculturalism and the postmodern critique Toward a peda-gogy of resistance and transformation In H Giroux and P McLaren (eds) Between borders Pedagogy and the politics of cultural studies (pp 192ndash 222) New York Routledge

McLaren P and Jaramillo N ( 2007 ) Pedagogy and praxis in the age of empire Towards a new humanism Rotterdam Th e Netherlands Sense Publishers

McLean KC Pasupathi M and Pals J L ( 2007 ) Selves creating stories creating selves A process model of self- development Personality and Social Psychol ogy Review 11 262 ndash 278

McNay L ( 1999 ) Subject psyche and agency Th e work of Judith Butler Th eory Culture Society 16 175 ndash 193

McNay L ( 2000 ) Gender and agency Reconfi guring the subject in feminist and social theory Oxford Blackwell

McQueen K ( 2013 ) Th e terrorist teachers of Lev Vygotsky History of Education Review 42 ( 2 ) 185 ndash 198

Meacham J ( 1997 ) Autobiography voice and developmental theory In E Amsel and K Renninger (eds) Change and development Issues of theory method and application (pp 43 ndash 60 ) Mahwah NJ Erlbaum Associates

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Means A ( 2011 ) Jacques Ranciegravere Education and the art of citizenship Review of Pedagogy Education and Cultural Studies 33 28 ndash 47

Medin D Lee C D and Bang M ( 2014 ) Point of view aff ects how science is done Scientifi c American October 1 wwwscientifi camericancom article point- of- view- aff ects- how- science- is- done (accessed June 16 2015)

Menand L ( 2001 ) Th e metaphysical club A story of ideas in America New York Farrar Straus and Giroux


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Meshcheryakov A ( 1979 ) Awakening to life Forming behaviour and the mind in deaf- blind children Moscow Progress Publishers

Miceli M and Castelfranchi C ( 2002 ) Th e mind and the future Th e (negative) power of expectations Th eory and Psychology 12 335 ndash 366

Miettinen R ( 2001 ) Artifact mediation in Dewey and in culturalndash historical activ-ity theory Mind Culture and Activity 8 ( 4 ) 297 ndash 308

Miller R ( 2011 ) Vygotsky in perspective Cambridge Cambridge University Press Milne C Tobin K and Degenero D eds ( 2014 ) Sociocultural studies and impli-

cations for science education Th e experiential and the virtual Dordrecht Th e Netherlands Springer

Mohanty C T ( 1986 ) Under Western eyes Feminist scholarship and colonial dis-courses Boundary 2 12 ( 3 ) 333 ndash 358

Mohanty S P ( 2001 ) Can our values be objective On ethics aesthetics and pro-gressive politics New Literary History 34 ( 4 ) 803 ndash 833

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Moll L C ed ( 1990 ) Vygotsky and education Instructional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Moran S and John- Steiner V ( 2003 ) Creativity in the making Vygotskyrsquos con-temporary contribution to the dialectic of development and creativity In R K Sawyer V John- Steiner S Moran R J Sternberg D H Feldman J Nakamura and M Csikszentmihalyi Creativity and development (pp 61 ndash 90 ) New York Oxford University Press

Morawski J G ( 2005a ) Moving gender positivism and feminist possibilities Feminism and Psychology 15 408 ndash 414

Morawski J G ( 2005b ) Refl exivity and the psychologist History of the Human Sciences 18 77 ndash 105

Morawski J G ( 2011 ) Our debates Findings fi xing and enacting reality Th eory and Psychology 21 260 ndash 274

Morawski J G ( 2012 ) Th e importance of history to social psychology In A W Kruglanski and W Stroebe (eds) Th e handbook of the history of social psychol-ogy (pp 19 ndash 42 ) New York Psychology Press

Morawski J G ( 1994 ) Practicing feminisms reconstructing psychology Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press


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Morson G S ( 2004 ) Th e process of ideological becoming In A Ball and S W Freedman (eds) Bakhtinian perspectives on language literacy and learning (pp 315ndash 332) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

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Morss J R ( 2004 ) Gilles Deleuze and the space of education Poststructuralism crit-ical psychology and schooled bodies In J D Marshall (ed) Poststructuralism philosophy pedagogy (pp 85 ndash 97 ) Dordrecht Th e Netherlands Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Moss L and Pavesich V ( 2011 ) Science normativity and skill Reviewing and renewing the anthropological basis of critical theory Philosophy and Social Criticism 37 ( 2 ) 139 ndash 165

Mostov J ( 1989 ) Karl Marx as democratic theorist Polity 22 ( 2 ) 195 ndash 212 Moya P and Hames- Garcia M R eds ( 2000 ) Reclaiming identity Realist theory

and the predicament of postmodernism Berkeley University of California Press Mueller U and Carpendale J I M ( 2000 ) Th e role of social interaction in Piagetrsquos

theory Language for social cooperation and social cooperation for language New Ideas in Psychology 18 139 ndash 156

Nasir N S ( 2005 ) Individual cognitive structuring and the sociocultural con-text Strategy shift s in the game of dominoes Th e Journal of the Learning Sciences 14 (1) 5 ndash 34

Nasir N S and Hand V M ( 2006 ) Exploring sociocultural perspectives on race culture and learning Review of Educational Research 76 ( 4 ) 449 ndash 475

Nasir N S and Saxe G B ( 2003 ) Emerging tensions and their management in the lives of minority students Educational Researcher 32 ( 5 ) 14 ndash 18

Nayak S ( 2014 ) Race gender and the activism of black feminist theory Working with Audre Lorde London Routledge

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Neisser U and Winograd E ( 1988 ) Remembering reconsidered Ecological and traditional approaches to the study of memory New York Cambridge University Press

Nelson C A and Luciana M ( 2001 ) Handbook of developmental cognitive neuro-science Cambridge MA MIT Press

Nelson K ( 2007 ) Young minds in social worlds Experience meaning and memory Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Nelson K and Fivush R ( 2004 ) Th e emergence of autobiographical mem-ory A social cultural developmental model Psychological Review 111 486 ndash 511

New London Group ( 1996 ) A pedagogy of multiliteracies Designing social futures Harvard Educational Review 66 60 ndash 92

Newman F and Holzman L ( 1993 ) Lev Vygotsky Revolutionary scientist London Routledge

Newton R G ( 2009 ) How physics confronts reality Hackensack NJ World Scientifi c Publishing


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Nickles T ( 2014 ) Scientifi c revolutions Th e Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer Edition) (Edward N Zalta ed) http platostanfordedu archives sum2014 entries scientifi c- revolutions (accessed November 23 2015)

Niemi W L ( 2011 ) Karl Marxrsquos sociological theory of democracy Civil society and political rights Th e Social Science Journal 48 39 ndash 51 (accessed October 7 2014)

Nisbett R E Aronson J Blair C Dickens W Flynn J Diane F Halpern D F and Turkheimer E ( 2012 ) Intelligence New fi ndings and theoretical develop-ments American Psychologist 67 130 ndash 159

Nissen M ( 2000 ) Practice research Critical psychology in and through practices Annual Review of Critical Psychology 2 145ndash 179

Noeuml A ( 2004 ) Action in perception Cambridge MA MIT Press Noeuml A ( 2010 ) Out of our heads Why you are not your brain and other lessons from

the biology of consciousness New York Hill and Wang Ollman B ( 1993 ) Dialectical investigations New York Routledge Ortner S B ( 2005 ) Subjectivity and cultural critique Anthropological Th eory

5 31 ndash 52 Overton W F ( 1984 ) World views and their infl uence on psychological theory

and research Kuhn- Lakatos- Laudan In H W Reese (ed) Advances in child development and behavior (vol 18 pp 191 ndash 226 ) New York Academic Press

Overton W F ( 2006 ) Developmental psychology Philosophy concepts method-ology In W Damon (series ed) and R M Lerner (vol ed) Th eoretical models of human development Vol 1 Handbook of child psychology (6th ed pp 18ndash 88) Hoboken NJ John Wiley and Sons

Overton W F ( 2008 ) Embodiment from a relational perspective In W F Overton U Mueller and J L Newman (eds) Developmental perspectives on embodi-ment and consciousness (pp 1 ndash 18 ) New York Erlbaum

Overton W F and Ennis M ( 2006 ) Relationism ontology and other concerns Human Development 49 180 ndash 183

Owen W ( 2004 ) Dialectic of the past disjuncture of the future Derrida and Benjamin on the concept of messianism Journal for Cultural and Religious Th eory 5 ( 2 ) 99 ndash 114

Oyama S ( 1985 ) Th e ontogeny of information Developmental systems and evolu-tion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Oyama S ( 2000 ) Evolutionrsquos eye Durham NC Duke University Press Packer M ( 2006 ) Is there Vygotsky aft er Marx wwwmathcsduqedu ~packer

Pubs PDFs Packer20AERA06pdf (accessed August 20 2015) Packer M J ( 2011 ) Th e science of qualitative research New York Cambridge

University Press Packer M J and Goicoechea J ( 2000 ) Sociocultural and constructivist theories

of learning Ontology not just epistemology Educational Psychologist 35 ( 4 ) 227 ndash 241

Parker I ( 1998 ) Realism relativism and critique in psychology In I Parker (ed) Social constructionism discourse and realism (pp 1 ndash 9 ) London Sage

Pasupathi M ( 2001 ) Th e social construction of the personal past and its implica-tions for adult development Psychological Bulletin 127 651 ndash 672

Peirce C S ( 1955 ) Philosophical writings of Peirce New York Dover


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Perret- Clermont A- N ( 1996 ) La construction de lrsquointelligence dans lrsquointeraction sociale (2nd ed) Berne Peter Lang

Phillips D C and Burbules N C ( 2000 ) Postpositivism and educational research New York Rowman and Littlefi eld

Phillips L ( 2002 ) Recontextualizing Kenneth B Clark An Afrocentric perspective on the paradoxical legacy of a model psychologistndash activist In W E Pickren and D A Dewsbury (eds) Evolving perspectives on the history of psychology (pp 575ndash 606) Washington DC American Psychological Association

Phillips L ( 2004 ) Antiracist work in the desegregation era Th e scientifi c activism of Kenneth Bancrof Clark In A S Winston (ed) Defi ning diff erence Race and racism in the history of psychology (pp 233 ndash 260 ) Washington DC American Psychological Association

Piaget J ( 1952 ) Autobiography In E G Boring et al (eds) A history of psychology in autobiography (vol 4 pp 237ndash 256) Worcester MA Clark University Press

Piaget J ( 1971 ) Genetic epistemology New York W W Norton (Originally pub-lished in 1970)

Piaget J ( 1977 ) Foreword to H E Gruber and J Voneche (eds) Th e essential Piaget London (pp xindash xii) New York Basic Books

Piaget J ( 1983 ) Piagetrsquos theory In P H Mussen (ed) Handbook of child psychology (pp 103 ndash 128 ) New York Wiley (Originally published in 1970)

Piaget J ( 1995 ) Sociological studies (L Smith ed L Smith et al trans) London Routledge (Originally published in 1977)

Pick H L ( 1992 ) Eleanor J Gibson Learning to perceive and perceiving to learn Developmental Psychology 28 787 ndash 794

Plekhanov G ( 1940 ) Essays in historical materialism New York International Plumwood V ( 1993 ) Feminism and the mastery of nature London and

New York Routledge Popkewitz T S ( 1998 ) Dewey Vygotsky and the social administration of the

individual Constructivist pedagogy as systems of ideas in historical spaces American Educational Research Journal 35 ( 4 ) 535 ndash 570

Popkewitz T S ( 2004 ) Is the National Research Council Committeersquos report on Scientifi c Research in Education scientifi c On trusting the manifesto Qualitative Inquiry 10 ( 1 ) 62 ndash 78

Popkewitz T S and Brennan M (eds) ( 1998 ) Foucaultrsquos challenge Discourse knowledge and power in education New York Teachers College Press

Port R F and van Gelder T eds ( 1995 ) Mind as motion Cambridge MA MIT Press

Prigogine I ( 1997 ) Th e end of certainty Time chaos and the new laws of nature (in collaboration with Isabelle Stengers) New York Th e Free Press

Prigogine I and Stengers I ( 1984 ) Order out of Chaos Manrsquos new dialogue with nature London Fontana


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Prilleltensky I ( 1997 ) Values assumptions and practices Assessing the moral implications of psychological discourse and action American Psychologist 52 517 ndash 535

Procter J ( 2004 ) Stuart Hall London and New York Routledge Puzyrei A A ( 2007 ) Contemporary psychology and Vygotskyrsquos culturalndash historical

theory Journal of Russian and East European Psychology 45 ( 1 ) 8 ndash 93 Quarshie R ( 2008 ) English for students with diverse backgrounds http iteorguk

ite_ readings english_ for_ pupils_ with_ diverse_ backgrounds_ 20080326pdf (accessed October 1 2011)

Ranciegravere J ( 1991 ) Th e ignorant schoolmaster Five lessons in intellectual emancipa-tion Stanford CA Stanford University Press

Rawls A W ( 2015 ) Respecifying the study of social order ndash Garfi nkelrsquos transition from theoretical conceptualization to practices in details In H Garfi nkel Seeing sociologically Th e routine grounds of social action (edited by A Rawls pp 1 ndash 98 ) Oxon UK and New York Routledge

Reason P and Torbert W R ( 2001 ) Toward a transformational science A further look at the scientifi c merits of action research Concepts and Transformations 6 ( 1 ) 1 ndash 37

Rees T ( 2010 ) Being neurologically human today Life and science and adult cere-bral plasticity American Ethnologist 37 150 ndash 166

Reese H W ( 1991 ) Contextualism and developmental psychology In H W Reese (ed) Advances in child development and behavior vol 23 (pp 187ndash 230) San Diego CA Academic Press

Reese H W and Overton W F ( 1970 ) Models of development and theories of development In L R Goulet and P B Baltes (eds) Life- span developmental psychology Research and theory (pp 115 ndash 145 ) New York Academic Press

Reinhardt U E ( 2010 ) When value judgments masquerade as science Economix Blog New York Times August 27 http economixblogsnytimescom 2010 08 27 when- value- judgments- masquerade- as- science _ r=0 (accessed March 30 2011)

Richardson F Fowers B and Guignon C ( 1999 ) Re- envisioning psychology Moral dimensions of theory and practice San Francisco Jossey- Bass

Richardson J ( 2007 ) A natural history of pragmatism New York Cambridge University Press

Riegel K F ( 1979 ) Foundations of dialectical psychology New York Academic Press Rilke R- M ( 1904 ) Letters to young poet wwwcarrotherscom rilke8htm (accessed

August 5 2015) Robbins P and Aydede M eds ( 2009 ) Th e Cambridge handbook of situated cog-

nition New York Cambridge University Press Robert J S ( 2004 ) Embryology epigenesis and evolution Taking development seri-

ously New York Cambridge University Press Robinson M ( 2010 ) Risk the game On William James Th e Nation December 13

wwwthenationcom article risk- game- william- james (accessed July 27 2015) Rogoff B ( 1990 ) Apprenticeship in thinking Cognitive development in social con-

text Oxford Open University Press Rogoff B ( 2003 ) Th e cultural nature of human development New York Oxford

University Press


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Rooney E ( 1995 ) Better read than dead Althusser and the fetish of ideology Yale French Studies 88 183 ndash 200

Rorty R ( 1979 ) Philosophy and the mirror of nature Princeton NJ Princeton University Press

Rose N ( 1996 ) Inventing our selves Psychology power and personhood Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Rose S ( 1998 ) Lifelines Biology freedom determinism Harmondsworth UK Penguin Press

Rose S ( 2005a ) Th e Future of the brain Th e promise and perils of tomorrows neu-roscience Oxford and New York Oxford University Press

Rose S ( 2005b ) Human agency in the neurocentric age EMBO reports volume 6 issue 11 1001ndash 1005 November 1 2005 http onlinelibrarywileycom doi 101038 sjembor7400566 full

Rose S Lewontin R C and Kamin L J ( 1984 ) Not in our genes Biology ideology and human nature London Penguin

Rosen R ( 1991 ) Life itself A comprehensive inquiry into the nature origin and fab-rication of life New York Columbia University Press

Rosenfi eld I ( 1988 ) Th e invention of memory A new view of the brain New York Basic Books

Roth W- M and Lee Y- J ( 2007 ) Vygotskyrsquos neglected legacy Culturalndash historical activity theory Review of Educational Research 77 ( 2 ) 186 ndash 232

Rowlands M ( 2010 ) Th e new science of the mind From extended mind to embodied phenomenology Cambridge MA MIT Press

Rucker D ( 1969 ) Th e Chicago pragmatists Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Rutherford A Vaughn- Blount K and Ball L C ( 2010 ) Responsible opposition disruptive voices Science social change and the history of feminist psychol-ogy Psychology of Women Quarterly 34 460 ndash 473

Sacks O ( 1987 ) Th e man who mistook his wife for a hat New York Harper and Row Sacks O ( 1995 ) An anthropologist on Mars Seven paradoxical tales New York

Knopf Saumlljouml R ( 2003 ) Epilogue From transfer to boundary- crossing In T Tuomi- Groumlhn

and Y Engestroumlm (eds) Between school and work New perspectives on transfer and boundary- crossing (pp 311 ndash 321 ) Amsterdam Th e Netherlands Pergamon

Said E ( 2000 ) Refl ections on exile and other essays Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Said E ( 2003 ) Orientalism New York Vintage Books (Originally published in 1978)

Saito N ( 2002 ) Pragmatism and the tragic sense Deweyan growth in an age of nihilism Journal of Philosophy of Education 36( 2) 247ndash 263)

Sameroff A J ( 1983 ) Developmental systems Contexts and evolution In W Kessen (ed) Handbook of child psychology Vol 1 History theory and methods (pp 237 ndash 294 ) New York Wiley and Sons

Sameroff A ( 2010 ) A unifi ed theory of development A dialectic integration of nature and nurture Child Development 81 (1) 6 ndash 22


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Sandoval C ( 2000 ) Methodology of the oppressed Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

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Sannino A Daniels H and Gutieacuterrez K (eds) ( 2009 ) Learning and expanding with activity theory Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Sartre J- P ( 1966 ) Th e psychology of imagination New York Citadel Sartre J‐P ( 1968 ) Search for a method New York Vintage Books Sawchuk P ( 2003 ) Adult learning and technology in working- class life

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Sawyer J and Stetsenko A ( 2014 ) Lev Vygotskyrsquos approach to language and speech In P Brooks and V Kempe (eds) Encyclopedia of language develop-ment (pp 663ndash 666) Th ousand Oaks CA Sage

Sawyer R K and Greeno J ( 2009 ) Situativity and learning In P Robbins and M Aydede (eds) Th e Cambridge handbook of situated cognition (pp 347 ndash 367 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Schank R C ( 1990 ) Tell me a story Narrative and intelligence Evanston IL Northwestern University Press

Schneirla T C ( 1957 ) Th e concept of development in comparative psy-chology In D B Harris (ed) Th e concept of development (pp 78 ndash 108 ) Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Scribner S ( 1997 ) Mind and social practice Selected writings of Sylvia Scribner Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Searle J R ( 2010 ) Making the social world Th e structure of human civilization Oxford and New York Oxford University Press

Sechenov I M ( 1947 ) Izbrannye fi losofskie i psikhologicheskie proizvedeniya [Selected philosophical and psychological works] Moscow Gospolitizdat (Originally published in 1871)

Sfard A ( 1998 ) On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one Educational Researcher 27 4 ndash 13

Shaull R ( 1970 2005) Foreword In P Freire Pedagogy of the oppressed New York Continuum (30th anniversary ed pp 29ndash 34)

Sheets- Johnstone M ( 2011 ) Th e primacy of movement (exp 2nd ed) Amsterdam and Philadelphia John Benjamins

Shklovsky V ( 1991 ) Art as device In Th eory of Prose ( Benjamin Sher trans pp 1 ndash 14 ) Elmwood Park IL Dalkey Archive

Shotter J ( 1993 ) Cultural politics of everyday life Social constructionism rhetoric and knowing of the third kind London Sage

Shotter J ( 2006 ) Peripheral vision Understanding process from within An argu-ment for ldquowithnessrdquo thinking Organization Studies 27 ( 4 ) 585 ndash 604

Shoumakova N B ( 1986 ) Research activity in the form of questions at various age periods [Исследовательская активность в форме вопросов в разные


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Simons J ( 1995 ) Foucault and the political New York Routledge Slife B ( 2004 ) Taking practice seriously Toward a relational ontology Journal of

Th eoretical and Philosophical Psychology 24 (2) 157 ndash 178 Smedley A and Smedley B D ( 2005 ) Race as biology is fi ction racism as a social

problem is real American Psychologist 60 16 ndash 26 Smith D E ( 1988 ) Th e everyday world as problematic A feminist sociology

Toronto University of Toronto Press Smith D E ( 1990 ) Th e conceptual practices of power A feminist sociology of knowl-

edge Toronto University of Toronto Press Smith L T ( 1999 ) Decolonizing methodologies Research and indigenous peoples

New York St Martinrsquos Press Smith M B ( 1994 ) Selfh ood at risk Postmodern perils and the perils of postmod-

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strategy Antipode A Radical Journal of Geography 34 (3) 427 ndash 450 Smith R ( 1995 ) Th e language of human nature In C Fox R Porter and R Wokler

(eds) Inventing human science Eighteenth- century domains (pp 88 ndash 111 ) Berkeley University of California Press

Smith- Maddox R and Soloacuterzano D G ( 2002 ) Using critical race theory Paulo Freirersquos problem- posing method and case study research to confront race and racism in education Qualitative Inquiry 8 ( 1 ) 66 ndash 84

Somers M ( 1994 ) Th e narrative constitution of identity A relational and network approach Th eory and Society 23 605ndash 49

Soslashrensen E ( 2012 ) Th e mind and distributed cognition Th e place of knowing in a maths class Th eory and Psychology 22 ( 6 ) 717 ndash 737

Springs J A ( 2007 ) Th e priority of democracy to social theory Contemporary Pragmatism 4 ( 1) 47 ndash 71

Stanley W ( 1992 ) Curriculum for utopia New York SUNY Press Stengers I ( 2002a ) Penser avec Whitehead Une libre et sauvage creacuteation de con-

cepts Paris Gallimard Stengers I ( 2002b ) A ldquocosmo- politicsrdquo ndash risk hope change In Mary Zournasi

(ed) Hope New philosophies for change (pp 240 ndash 272 ) London Lawrence and Wishart

Stengers I ( 2007 ) Diderotrsquos egg Divorcing materialism from eliminativism Radical Philosophy 144 (July August) 7 ndash 15

Stengers I ( 2008a ) Unity through divergence applied process thought Initial explora-tions in theory and research ( Mark Dibben and Th omas Kelly eds pp 119 ndash 136 ) Piscataway NJ Transaction Books

Stengers I ( 2008b ) Introductory notes on an ecology of practices Cultural Studies Review 11 ( 1) 183 ndash 196

Stengers I ( 2011 ) Wondering about materialism In Levi R Bryant Nick Srnicek and Graham Harman (eds) Th e speculative turn Continental materialism and realism (pp 368 ndash 380 ) Melbourne Australia Repress

Stetsenko A ( 1990 ) On the role and status of methodology in contemporary psy-chology [О роли и статусе методологического знания в психологии]


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Stetsenko A ( 1995a ) Th e role of the principle of object- relatedness in the theory of activity Journal of Russian and East European Psychology Special Issue Th e Legacy of A N Leontrsquoev 33 25 ndash 39

Stetsenko A ( 1995b ) Th e psychological function of childrenrsquos drawing Vygotskian perspective In C Lange- Kuttner and G V Th omas (eds) Drawing and look-ing Th eoretical approaches to pictorial representation in children (pp 147ndash 58 ) Hemel Hemstead UK Harvester Wheatsheaf

Stetsenko A ( 1999 ) Social interaction cultural tools and the zone of proxi-mal development In search of a synthesis In M Hedegaard S Chaiklin S Boedker and U J Jensen (eds) Activity theory and social practice (pp 235 ndash 253 ) Aarhus Denmark Aarhus University Press

Stetsenko A ( 2001 ) Commentary Sociocultural activity as a unit of analysis How Vygotsky and Piaget converge in empirical research on collaborative cogni-tion In D Bearison and B Dorval (eds) Collaborative cognition Children negotiating ways of knowing (pp 123 ndash 135 ) Westport CT Ablex Publishing

Stetsenko A ( 2002 ) Th e illusive nature of social change Whence is a change and how does it relate to human development PsycCRITIQUES 47 ( 2 ) 151 ndash 153

Stetsenko A ( 2003 ) Alexander Luria and the cultural- historical activity the-ory Pieces for the history of an outstanding collaborative project in psychology Review of E D Homskaya (2001) Alexander Romanovich Luria A scientifi c biography Mind Culture and Acitivity 10 ( 1 ) 93 ndash 97

Stetsenko A ( 2004 ) Introduction to ldquoTool and Signrdquo by Lev Vygotsky In R Rieber and D Robbinson (eds) Essential Vygotsky (pp 499 ndash 510 ) New York Kluwer Academic Plenum

Stetsenko A ( 2005 ) Activity as object- related Resolving the dichotomy of individual and collective types of activity Mind Culture and Activity 12 ( 1 ) 70 ndash 88

Stetsenko A ( 2007a ) Agency and society Lessons from the study of social change Special issue on Agency and Social Change ( R Silbereisen guest ed) (invited commentary article) International Journal of Psychology 42 ( 2 ) 110 ndash 112

Stetsenko A ( 2007b ) Being- through- doing Bakhtin and Vygotsky in dialogue Cultural Studies of Science Education 2 25 ndash 37

Stetsenko A ( 2008 ) From relational ontology to transformative activist stance Expanding Vygotskyrsquos (CHAT) project Cultural Studies of Science Education 3 465 ndash 485

Stetsenko A ( 2009 ) Vygotsky and the conceptual revolution in developmental sciences Towards a unifi ed (non- additive) account of human development In M Fleer M Hedegaard J Tudge and A Prout (eds) World year book of education Constructing childhood Globalndash local policies and practices (pp 125 ndash 142 ) New York and London Routledge

Stetsenko A ( 2010a ) Standing on the shoulders of giants A balancing act of dialecti-cally theorizing conceptual understanding on the grounds of Vygotskyrsquos project In W- M Roth (ed) Re structuring science education ReUniting psychological and sociological perspectives (pp 53 ndash 72 ) Dordrecht Th e Netherlands Springer


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Stetsenko A ( 2010b ) Teaching- learning and development as activist proj-ects of historical becoming Expanding Vygotskyrsquos approach to pedagogy Pedagogies An International Journal 5 6 ndash 16

Stetsenko A ( 2011 ) Darwin and Vygotsky on development An exegesis on human nature In M Kontopodis Ch Wulf and B Fichtner (eds) Children develop-ment and education (pp 25 ndash 41 ) Dordrecht Th e Netherlands Springer

Stetsenko A ( 2012 ) Personhood An activist project of historical becoming through collaborative pursuits of social transformation New Ideas in Psychology 30 144 ndash 153

Stetsenko A ( 2013a ) Th eorizing personhood for the world in transition and change Refl ections from a transformative activist stance In J Martin and M H Bickhard (eds) Th e psychology of personhood (pp 181 ndash 202 ) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Stetsenko A ( 2013b ) Th e challenge of individuality in cultural- historical activ-ity theory ldquoCollectividualrdquo dialectics from a transformative activist stance Outlines ndash Critical Practice Studies (special issue on transformative social prac-tices edited by I Langemeyer and S Schmachtel) 14 ( 2 ) 7 ndash 28

Stetsenko A ( 2014 ) Transformative activist stance for education Inventing the future in moving beyond the status quo In T Corcoran (ed) Psychology in education Critical theory practice (pp 181 ndash 198 ) Rotterdam Th e Netherlands Sense Publishers

Stetsenko A ( 2015 ) Th eory for and as social practice of realizing the future Implications from a transformative activist stance In J Martin J Sugarman and K Slaney (eds) Th e Wiley handbook of theoretical and philo-sophical psychology Methods approaches and new directions for social sciences (pp 102 ndash 116 ) New York Wiley

Stetsenko A (in press) Putting the radical notion of equality in the service of dis-rupting inequality in education Research fi ndings and conceptual advances Review of Research in Education (special issue on Disrupting Inequalities ed by M Winn and M Souto- Manning)

Stetsenko A P ( 1988 ) Th e diachronic principle in the historical analysis of psychological conceptions [О диахроническом принципе историко- психологического анализа научных концепций] In A Zhdan (ed) Izuchenije traditsij i nauchnih shkol v istorii sovetskoj psihologii [Scientifi c schools and traditions in the history of Soviet psychology] (pp 46 ndash 51 ) Moscow Moscow University Press

Stetsenko A and Arievitch I ( 1997 ) Constructing and deconstructing the self Comparing post- Vygotskian and discourse- based versions of social con-structivism Mind Culture and Activity 4 160 ndash 173

Stetsenko A and Arievitch I ( 2002 ) Teaching learning and development A post- Vygotskian perspective In G Wells and G Claxton (eds) Learning for life in the twenty- fi rst century Sociocultural perspectives on the future of education (pp 84 ndash 87 ) London Blackwell

Stetsenko A and Arievitch I M ( 2004a ) Vygotskian collaborative project of social transformation History politics and practice in knowledge construc-tion Th e International Journal of Critical Psychology 12 ( 4 ) 58 ndash 80


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Stetsenko A and Arievitch I M ( 2004b ) Th e self in cultural- historical activity theory Reclaiming the unity of social and individual dimensions of human development Th eory and Psychology 14 ( 4 ) 475 ndash 503

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Stetsenko A and Ho G ( 2015 ) Th e serious joy and the joyful work of play Children becoming agentive actors in co- authoring themselves and their world through play International Journal of Early Childhood 47( 2) 221 ndash 234

Stetsenko A and Vianna E ( 2009 ) Bridging developmental theory and educational practice Lessons from the Vygotskian project In O Barbarin and B H Wasik (eds) Handbook of child development and early education Research to practice (pp 38 ndash 54 ) New York Guilford Press Available on wwwacademiaedu

Sutton J Harris C B Keil P G and Barnier A J ( 2011 ) Th e psychology of memory extended cognition and socially distributed remembering Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9 521 ndash 560

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Teo T ( 2013 ) Backlash against American psychology An indigenous reconstruction of the history of German critical psychology History of Psychology 16 (1) 1 ndash 18

Teo T ( 2015 ) Critical psychology A geography of intellectual engagement and resistance American Psychologist 70 ( 3) 243 ndash 254

Th arp R G and Gallimore R ( 1988 ) Rousing minds to life Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Th elen E ( 1995 ) Motor development A new synthesis American Psychologist 50 79 ndash 95

Th elen E ( 2000 ) Grounded in the world Developmental origins of the embodied mind Infancy 1 ( 1 ) 3 ndash 28

Th elen E ( 2005 ) Dynamic systems theory and the complexity of change Psychoanalytic Dialogues 15 255 ndash 283

Th elen E and Bates E A ( 2003 ) Connectionism and dynamic systems Are they really diff erent Developmental Science 6 378 ndash 391

Th elen E and Smith L B ( 1994 ) A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action Cambridge MA MIT Press

Th omas D and Brown J S ( 2009 ) Learning for a world of constant change Homo sapiens homo faber and homo Ludens revisited wwwjohnseelybrowncom Learning20for20a20World20of20Constant20Changepdf (accessed July 6 2011)


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Toulmin S ( 1988 ) Th e recovery of practical philosophy Th e American Scholar 57 (3) 337 ndash 352

Ukhtomsky A A (1924 2002 ) Th e dominant Works from 1887ndash 1939 [Dominanta Statji raznih let 1887ndash 1939] Saint Petersburg Peter

Vadeboncoeur J A ( 2006 ) Engaging young people Learning in informal contexts Review of Research in Education 30 239 ndash 278

Vadeboncoeur J A and Collie R J ( 2013 ) Locating social and emotional learning in schooled environments A Vygotskian perspective on learning as unifi ed Mind Culture and Activity 20 201 ndash 225

Vandenberg B ( 1999 ) Levinas and the ethical context of human development Human Development 42 31 ndash 44

van Geert P and Steenbeck H ( 2005 ) Explaining aft er by before Basic aspects of a dynamic systems approach to the study of development Developmental Review 25 408 ndash 442

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a developmental tool in a residential program Saarbruumlcken Germany VDM Verlag Dr Muumlller

Vianna E and Stetsenko A ( 2006 ) Embracing history through transforming it Contrasting Piagetian versus Vygotskian (activity) theories of learning and development to expand constructivism within a dialectical view of his-tory Th eory and Psychology (Special Issue on activity theory edited by Lois Holzman ) 16 (1) 81 ndash 108


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Vianna E and Stetsenko A ( 2011 ) Connecting learning and identity development through a transformative activist stance Application in adolescent develop-ment in a child welfare program Human Development 54 313 ndash 338

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Vianna E Hougaard N and Stetsenko A ( 2014 ) Th e dialectics of collective and individual transformation In A Blunden (ed) Collaborative projects (pp 59 ndash 87 ) Leiden Th e Netherlands Brille Publishers

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Vygodskaya G and Lifanova T ( 1996 ) Lev Semenovich Vygotsky Life activity and portrait outlines [ Lev Semenovich Vygotskij Zhizn dejatelnost i shtrikhi k portrety] Moscow Smysl

Vygotsky L S ( 1987 ) The collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 1 Problems of general psychology ( R W Rieber and A S Carton eds) New York Plenum

Vygotsky L S ( 1993 ) Th e collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 2 Th e fundamen-tals of defectology ( R W Rieber and A S Carton eds) New York Plenum

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Vygotsky L S ( 1997a ) Th e collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 3 Problems of the theory and history of psychology ( R W Rieber and J Wollock eds) New York Plenum

Vygotsky L S ( 1997b ) Th e collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 4 Th e his-tory of the development of higher mental functions ( R W Rieber ed) New York Plenum

Vygotsky L S ( 1997c ) Educational psychology ( R Silverman trans) Boca Raton FL St Lucie Press (Originally published in 1926)

Vygotsky L S ( 1998 ) Th e collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 5 Child psychol-ogy ( R W Rieber ed) New York Plenum

Vygotsky L S ( 1999 ) Th e collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 6 Scientifi c leg-acy ( RW Rieber ed) New York Plenum

Wartofsky M ( 1979 ) Models representation and the scientifi c understanding Dordrecht Th e Netherlands D Reidel

Wartofsky M ( 1983 ) Th e childrsquos construction of the world and the worldrsquos con-struction of the child From historical epistemology to historical psychology In F S Kessel and A W Siegel (eds) Th e child and other cultural inventions (pp 188 ndash 215 ) New York Praeger

Watson M C ( 2014 ) Derrida Stengers Latour and subalternist cosmopolitics Th eory Culture amp Society 31 75 ndash 98

Weber L and Dillaway H ( 2001 ) Understanding race class gender and sexual-ity Case studies New York McGraw- Hill

Wells G ( 1986 ) Th e meaning makers Children learning language and using lan-guage to learn Portsmouth NH Heinemann


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Wells G ( 2000 ) Dialogic inquiry in education In C Lee and P Smagorinsky (eds) Vygotskian perspectives on literacy research Cambridge Cambridge University Press

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Wenger E ( 1998 ) Communities of practice Learning meaning and identity Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Werner C Brown B and Altman I ( 2002 ) Planning and doing transactionally- oriented research Examples and strategies In D Stokols and I Altman (eds) Handbook of environmental psychology II (pp 203 ndash 221 ) New York John Wiley and Sons

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Wertsch J V ( 1998 ) Mind as action New York Oxford University Press Wertsch J V ( 2000 ) Intersubjectivity and alterity in human communication In

N Budwig I C Uzgiris and J V Wertsch (eds) Communication An arena of development (pp 17 ndash 32 ) New York Ablex

Wertsch J V ( 2005 ) Essay review of ldquo Making human beings human Bioecological perspectives on human development rdquo by U Bronfenbrenner British Journal of Developmental Psychology 23 143 ndash 151

Wertsch J V and Sohmer R ( 1995 ) Vygotsky on learning and development Human Development 38 332 ndash 337

West C ( 1989 ) Th e American evasion of philosophy A genealogy of pragmatism Madison University of Wisconsin Press

West C ( 1991 ) Th e ethical dimensions of Marxist thought New York Th e Monthly Review Press

West C ( 1993 ) Th e limits of neo- pragmatism In Keeping faith Philosophy and race in America New York Routledge

West C ( 1999 ) On prophetic pragmatism In Th e Cornel West reader (pp 149 ndash 173 ) New York Civitas Books

Westbrook R B ( 1991 ) John Dewey and American democracy Ithaca NY Cornell University Press

White S H ( 2000a ) Conceptual foundations of IQ testing Psychology Public Policy and Law 6 33 ndash 43

White S H ( 2000b ) Th e social roles of child study Human Development 43 284ndash 288

Whitehead A N ( 1920 ) Th e concept of nature Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

Whitehead A N ( 1929 ) Process and reality An essay in cosmology (corrected ed) D R Griffi n and D W Sherburne (eds) New York Th e Free Press

Williams R ( 1980 ) Problems in materialism and culture Selected essays London Verso

Williams R N and Gantt E E ( 1998 ) Intimacy and heteronomy On grounding psychology in the ethical Th eory and Psychology 8 253 ndash 267


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Wilson R A and Foglia L ( 2011 ) Embodied Cognition Th e Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall ed) (Edward N Zalta ed) http platostanfordedu archives fall2011 entries embodied- cognition (accessed June 30 2015)

Winston A S ( 2004 ) Introduction Histories of psychology and race In A S Winston (ed) Defi ning diff erence Race and racism in the history of psychology (pp 3 ndash 18 ) Washington DC American Psychological Association

Witherington D C ( 2007 ) Th e dynamic systems approach as metatheory for developmental psychology Human Development 50 127 ndash 153

Wood M D ( 2000 ) Cornel West and the politics of prophetic pragmatism Chicago University of Illinois

Young M ( 2008 ) From constructivism to realism in the sociology of the curricu-lum Review of Research in Education 32 1 ndash 28

Young M and Muller J ( 2010 ) Th ree educational scenarios for the future Lessons from the sociology of knowledge European Journal of Education 45 ( 1) 11 ndash 27

Zaporozhets A V ( 1965 ) Th e development of perception in the preschool child In P H Mussen (ed) European research in child development 30 82 ndash 101

Zaporozhets A V ( 1969 1995) Problems in the psychology of activity Journal of Russian and East European Psychology 33 12 ndash 17

Zinchenko P I ( 1939 ) Th e problem of involuntary memorization [Проблема непрозивольного запоминания] Nauchnye zapiski Kharrsquokovskogo peda-gogicheskogo institute inostrannykh iazykov 1 145 ndash 187

Zinchenko P I ( 1961 ) Involuntary memorization [ Непрозивольное запоминание ] Moscow APN RSF Press

Zinchenko V P ( 1985 ) Vygotskyrsquos ideas about units for the analysis of mind In J V Wertsch (ed) Culture communication and cognition Vygotskian perspectives (pp 94 ndash 118 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Zinchenko V P Chzhi- tsin V and Tarakanov V V ( 1963 ) Th e formation and development of perceptual activity Soviet Psychology and Psychiatry 2 3 ndash 12

Zlatev J Racine T P Sinha C and Itkonen E ( 2008 ) Intersubjectivity What makes us human In J Zlatev T P Racine C Sinha and E Itkonen (eds) Th e shared mind Perspectives on intersubjectivity (pp 1 ndash 14 ) Amsterdam Th e Netherlands John Benjamins


411

411

Name Index

Adorno Th eodor W 212 Alaimo Stacy 56 249 Alcoff Linda Martin 81 Allman Paula 74 184 207 Altman Irwin 59 120 Amsler Sarah 67 338 357 Anokhin Peter K 239 Anzalduacutea Gloria E 45 81 228 352 Appadurai Arjun 63 Appiah Kwame Anthony 112 279 246 Apple Michael W 48 67 80 245 Arendt Hannah 9 Arievitch Igor M 7 96 106 115 123 143 184

228 269 272 273 333 337 338 345 349 Asante Molefi Kete 245 Au Wayne 184

Baldwin James A 23 265 Bakhtin Mikhail 2 10 12 16 25 76 107

133 188 209 ndash 211 220 231 232 238 240 244 254 262 282 283 291 295 319 346 347 364

Bakhurst David 57 105 206 Bandura Albert 223 Bannerji Himani 184 Barad Karen 59 204 206 253 254 Barone Th omas E 348 372 Bateson Gregory 76 293 Benhabib Seyla 81 82 248 Bennett Jane 6 59 220 Bergson Henri 279 312 313 315 318 Berman Marshall 254 Bernstein Nikolaj N 127 134 147 239 279 Bickhard Mark 127 Bidell Th omas 76 125 Biesta Gert 79 223 224 261 342

Blackledge Paul 370 371 Bloch Ernst 6 67 228 Bourdieu Pierre 5 67 196 203 209 216 ndash 218

290 293 296 333 Bratus Boris S 107 Bredo Eric 128 129 145 148 149 195 196 Bronfenbrenner Urie 23 76 97 Bronowski Jacob 243 Brown John S 11 Bruner Jerome 75 305 315 Burbules Nicholas C 101 357 Burke Kenneth 191 Burman Erica 44

Cahan Emily 130 153 Cammarota Julio 67 Camus Albert 246 Carpendale Jeremy I M 129 279 Cassirer Ernst 290 Cavanagh Clare 8 163 307 Chaiklin Seth 275 Cheah Pheng 196 ndash 198 295 Chomsky Noam 64 154 160 Christians Cliff ord G 360 Clancey William J 284 304 312 Clark Andy 79 131 193 279 280 311 316 Clark Katerina 133 144 Clark Kenneth B 45 73 Cole Michael 75 142 147 148 153 154 238

275 299 332 Connery Cathrene 348 Costall Alan 53 76 128 132 154 268 290 292 Cross William E Jr 72

Damasio Anthony 279 316 Daniels Harry 75


Name Index412

412

Danziger Kurt 3 43 44 53 Darling- Hammond Linda 48 365 Davydov Vassily V 6 15 105 162 183 268 244 Darwin Charles 26 97 115 123 127 128

132 ndash 134 164 166 168 193 194 209 Deleuze Gilles 64 65 111 198 Delpit Lisa 217 Dannefer Dale 222 Derrida Jaques 31 80 196 ndash 198 200 242 Dewey John 39 40 74 76 88 115 116 120

124 127 ndash 132 135 143 145 ndash 150 152 ndash 156 160 161 164 ndash 166 168 194 ndash 196 222 261 278 279 292 298 299 312 315 318 326

Diggins John P 53 151 161 165 166 Dobzhansky Th eodosius 46 193 Donald Merlin 283 284 Donnor Jamel 73 107 365

Eagleton Terry 220 294 367 ndash 369 371 Edelman Gerald M 303 Emirbayer Mustafa 196 222 ndash 224 Emerson Caryl 188 262 276 347 Engels Friedrich 29 84 166 168 176 178 209

227 242 254 361 Engestroumlm Yrjo 6 66 75 107 148 218 219 333

Fleer Marilyn 75 Flyvbjerg Bent 68 Fine Michelle 67 259 352 Foucault Michel 5 53 64 65 80 216 218 225

229 236 254 350 Frankl Viktor 255 Fraser Nancy 61 81 87 Freire Paulo 5 13 25 30 34 65 ndash 67 107 ndash 108

110 183 184 187 215 225 232 234 246 257 283 332 335 342 348 355 364 365

Frye Marilyn 51 231 287

Gallagher Shaun 312 315 Galperin Peter Ia 15 105 272 344 Gardiner Michael 210 Garrison Jim 39 150 154 164 195 Gergen Kenneth J 68 76 131 Gibson Eleanor J 278 Gibson James J 131 132 160 278 279 292 318 Giddens Anthony 67 217 295 Giroux Henry A 67 81 111 234 Glass Ronald D 65 Glassman Michael 154 Glenberg Arthur M 304 Goicoechea Jessie 285 333 334

Gottlieb Gilbert 119 301 Gould Carol C 184 360 362 370 371 Gould Stephen J 26 43 58 89 Gramsci Antonio 6 13 84 184 Greene Maxine 234 235 Guattari Feacutelix 111 198 Guignon Charles 76 338 Gutieacuterrez Kris D 68 75 Gutieacuterrez Rochelle 68

Habermas Juumlrgen 87 109 203 290 304 Hames- Garcia Michael R 80 Harding Sandra 230 236 259 Harreacute Rom 76 131 204 277 Hartsock Nancy C M 80 Harvey David 55 59 189 Haslam Nick 51 Hedegaard Mariane 75 275 Heron John 59 256 Hekman Susan 56 Hicks Deborah 131 Hill Collins Patricia 72 73 81 Holland Dorothy 30 75 131 333 347 Holquist Michael 133 144 219 290 291 Holzkamp Klaus 6 203 Holzman Lois 6 27 99 Honeycutt Hunter 143 Honneth Axel 88 351 Horkheimer Max 212 Hougaard Naja 335 351 370 Howe Kenneth R 42 44 52 67 259 Hutchins Edwin 316

Ilyenkov Evald V 6 162 206 208 268 279 320

Ingold Tim 58 76 131 143 185 186 292 352

James William 34 45 74 130 ndash 132 145 208 216 256 271 279 318

Jameson Fredric 41 55 99 Jaramillo Nathalia 67 68 232 335 John- Steiner Vera 75 136 275 Johnston Adrian 244 317 320 Jones Peter E 6 58 66 75 103 206

Kaika Maria 189 Kaptelinin Victor 75 Karpov Yriy V 275 Kemmis Stephen 68 203 King Martin Luther Jr 238 257 361 Kirschner Suzanne R 75 ndash 77


Name Index 413

413

Kontopodis Michalis 68 75 Kumpulainen Kristiina 188

Ladson- Billings Gloria 48 73 107 365 Lantolf James P 6 226 275 347 Lather Patti 200 244 245 251 342 Latour Bruno 32 64 186 205 206 225 236 Lave Jean 30 75 78 132 224 256 292

327 333 Lee Carol D 70 75 365 Lefebvre Henri 189 Lehrman Daniel S 126 302 Lemke Jay 75 132 313 ndash 315 Leonard Sarah 6 Leonardo Zeus 23 65 234 Leontiev Alexey A 6 15 162 Leontiev Alexey N 6 15 57 97 136 139

146 ndash 148 162 167 183 186 187 208 228 268 279 308 338

Leontiev Dmitry A 6 Lerner Richard M 116 118 119 121 130 134 Levinas Emmanuel 76 287 288 Lewin Kurt 67 102 107 117 130 138 Lewontin Richard 58 139 185 Lickliter Robert 119 143 Lompscher Joachim 75 Lorde Audre 73 Luria Alexander R 15 136 147 162 278 283

299 ndash 302 Luttrell Wendy 285 336 Lyotard Jean- Francois 53 61

MacIntyre Alasdair 245 Mandelstam Osip E 8 163 303 307 Marcuse Herbert 198 Markovaacute Ivana 76 131 174 297 Martin Jack 69 75 ndash 77 130 224 337 ndash 339 Martin- Baroacute Ignacio 67 Marx Karl 29 30 65 76 84 112 115 147 166

178 180 183 184 192 193 195 197 207 215 227 241 242 244 250 ndash 252 254 272 322 360 ndash 362 364 371

Massumi Brian 198 Mattson Kevin 68 McDermott Ray 208 McLaren Peter 67 81 McLellan Ann- Marie 337 ndash 339 McNay Lois 217 Mead George H 76 130 216 315 Mead Margaret 117 Menand Louis 66 280

Merleau- Ponty Maurice 82 130 131 244 271 278 279 315 318

Mertens Donna M 68 Meshcheryakov Alexandr I 105 Mische Ann 222 ndash 224 Mohanty Chandra Talpade 81 Mohanty Saraju P 80 Mol Annemarie 205 Morawski Jill G 24 43 44 58 63 67 71 97

108 259 Morson Gary S 188 240 262 Moya Paula M L 80 Mueller Ulrich 129

Nardi Bonnie 75 Nasir Narsquoila S 24 67 333 Nayak Suriya 73 Neisser Ulric 278 304 315 Nelson Katherine 3 78 301 304 Nicholson Linda J 61 81 Noeuml Alva 278 279 Nussbaum Martha C 81

Ollman Berthel 194 Overton Willis F 59 116 118 119 122 131

154 278 Oyama Susan 57 118 122 126 152 273

Packer Martin J 66 285 293 333 334 Pasupathi Monisha 304 305 Peirce Charles S 74 131 Phillips Layli 72 73 Piaget Jean 101 115 116 127 ndash 132 135 143 145

146 149 150 152 ndash 161 164 166 168 279 292 315 326

Plekhanov Georgi V 183 Plumwood Val 51 81 82 216 250 271 293

318 361 363 Popkewitz Th omas S 54 62 154 350 Prigogine Ilya R 45 117 Puzyrei Andrey A 106

Ranciegravere Jacques 27 90 342 343 349 Reason Peter 59 256 Reese Hayne W 119 Reinhardt Uwe E 46 Riegel Klaus F 130 Rilke Rainer Maria 240 Robert Jason S 51 52 57 Rogoff Barbara 6 59 75 120 132 148 328 Rorty Richard 53


Name Index414

414

Rose Nikolas 44 Rose Steven 44 185 300 Rosenfi eld Israel 303 Rutherford Alexandra 44

Sacks Oliver 284 Saumlljouml Roger 79 Said Edward 5 6 61 Sameroff Arnold J 119 121 Sampson Edward E 114 159 160 Sandoval Chela 7 72 Sannino Annalisa 75 99 105 219 Sartre Jean- Paul 111 234 348 Sawchuk Peter H 6 68 184 Sawyer Jeremy 104 Saxe Geoff rey B 333 Schneirla Th eodor C 302 Scribner Sylvia 75 Searle John R 267 Sechenov Ivan M 134 144 147 Sfard Anna 78 354 Shaull Richard 356 Sheets- Johnstone Maxine 213 Shklovsky Viktor 290 291 Shotter John 76 196 Shoumakova Natalia B 342 Slife Brent D 121 Smith Dorothy E 81 184 295 Smith Linda B 122 124 150 279 316 Smith Linda Tuhiwai 60 Smith Neil 189 Smith- Maddox Renee 365 Soloacuterzano Daniel G 265 Stanley William B 234 Stengers Isabelle 32 33 45 180 225 250 319 Sugarman Jeff 69 76 Swyngedouw Erik 189

Taylor Charles 181 258 269 288 289 319 338 Teo Th omas 6 67

Th elen Esther 122 258 Th omas Douglas 11 Th orne Steven L 218 Tihanov Galin 220 Tobach Ethel 58 83 249 Todes Daniel 133 134 Tomasello Michael 190 279 Toulmin Stephen E 13 267

Ukhtomsky A A 188

Vadeboncoeur Jennifer 75 289 van Oers Bert 75 Varela Francisco J 131 208 279 316 Varenne Herveacute 208 Vasilyuk Fyodor 6 106 Vianna Eduardo 25 102 153 161 333 335 346

351 370 von Glasersfeld Ernst 159 Vygodskaya Gita L 95 Vygotsky Lev S see subject index

Wartofsky Max 6 277 Wells Gordon 75 275 352 Wenger Etienne 132 256 292 327 333 Wertsch James 3 75 ndash 77 148 153 154 332 West Cornel 33 109 165 166 White Sheldon 47 75 114 130 Whitehead Alfred N 32 76 190 225 281 Williams Raymond 298 Winston Andrew S 56 Witherington David C 118 119 122

Young Michael 62 69 290

Zaporozhets Alexander V 135 139 268 278 279

Zinchenko Pyotr I 311 312 Zinchenko Vladimir P 6 162 278 Žižek Slavoj 244 317


415

415

Subject Index

activism 10 19 33 ndash 34 36 ndash 39 67 72 75 83 85 233 365

knowledge 91 92 331 333 tools of 249 262 340 347

activist transformative agendas 62 63 65 67 71 ndash 73 83 85 91

activist transformative methodology 8 26 27 31 32 37 ndash 40 52 62 63 65 68 ndash 70 72 87 ndash 90 97 ndash 99 103 106 107 109 113 114 334

as a philosophy of practice 100 101 activist transformative projects 19 85 240

305 325 332 337 365 372 comparison to pragmatism 109 110 ethical commitment 88 ndash 91 ideological partiality 70 sought- aft er future 69 88 91 112 Vygotskyrsquos see Vygotskyrsquos project

activist striving 245 254 ndash 258 271 283 286 305 325 329 336 355 357 362 364

beyond experiencing and participating 256 328

beyond ldquoimmediaterdquo reality 257 beyond ldquoundergoingrdquo 256

activity see also practice 5 29 57 74 78 84 85 121 131 132 172 178 ndash 180 183 184 198 202 203 210 231 255 261 268 ndash 273 278 308 360

leading activity 228 338 Leontievrsquos notion of 146 ndash 150 life activity 179 pragmatism 151 ndash 154 temporality 273 274 Vygotskyrsquos notion 97 103 105 138 141 ndash 143

145 ndash 147 152 153 157 ndash 160 162 164 309 actor- network theory 186 204 206

agentive actors 7 11 18 29 31 34 ndash 36 79 82 92 95 112 120 123 131 144 ndash 145 151 171 173 176 181 185 195 200 205 ndash 207 211 214 220 223 ndash 225 248 252 ndash 255 258 ndash 260 262 269 270 297 299 300 313 319 321 327 331 335 343 348 ndash 351 357 365 371 see also agency

as makers of their own history 252 adaptation 27 36 42 47 58 87 89 108 110

138 139 144 171 224 328 versus transformation see activist

transformative stance addressivity 10 238 239 Afrocentric perspectives 44 ndash 46 72 73 agency 2 ndash 4 19 25 28 ndash 31 33 ndash 36 50 57 61

75 ndash 87 92 114 ndash 115 168 171 ndash 173 175 ndash 177 181 ndash 186 188 189 198 ndash 200 220 256 270 319 ndash 321 333 349 ndash 351 371 372

as agentive encounter 253 254 breaking with the immediacy 227 as a capacity for onersquos unique position

stance and voice 248 contribution 225 228 247 ndash 252 cooperative reciprocity 360 dualism of agency and structure (critique

of) 31 215 216 ldquoengaged agencyrdquo 181 269 319 future 223 227 235 historicity temporality 211 222 mattering 204 205 221 230 mentalist conception 224 not as a given 84 practical relevance 228 229 social cognitive perspective (pragmatism)

223 224


Subject Index416

416

togetherness 247 tools of agency see cultural tools transformative (activist) agency 79 225 226

283 337 authoring see co- authoring

becoming 252 254 255 258 281 283 285 286 295 296

activist project 240 308 agentive becoming 283 co- being 288 289 a continuous circuit of 255 as life project see life agenda mutual becoming 213 as ontologically constituted by acts of

transformation 192 as striving see activist striving through changing the world 197 254

258 283 work of becoming 298

being- knowing- doing 281 282 289 330 357 agentive becoming 281 285 286 295 296 co- constitutive of the world 320 ldquocontinuous circuitrdquo 255 future 241 252 330 ndash 332 phenomenological richness 210 struggle of becoming 198 unity of life projects 260

biological reductionism 3 24 49 50 58 60 63 77 83 115 154 217 250 265 302 315

genetic ldquoblueprintrdquo models 302 ldquohard- wiredrdquo inborn dispositions (critique

of) 25 49 Body 59 85 98 144 149 186 266 277 ndash 280

293 298 299 302 310 312 ndash 317 bodily movements 213 256 299 312

brain 26 29 42 49 50 52 56 63 98 134 ndash 136 209 266 267 270 ndash 272 277 280 281 298 ndash 301 306 307 311 313 ndash 316 320 322

change 1 ndash 8 11 14 ndash 21 23 25 30 34 62 66 70 91 109 110 121 122 128 171 ndash 173 175 189 196 ndash 204 368 370

co- constitutive 31 176 194 commitment see commitment and change Darwinrsquos notion 193 Deweyrsquos (pragmatist) notion 40 161

194 ndash 196 224 epigenetic change 273 ethical dimension see ethics and change

future 31 90 236 247 274 305 inevitability 243 244 Marxist- Vygotskian notion 115 132 134 136

138 ndash 142 168 194 197 201 309 Materiality 203 ontologically real 32 192 ndash 194 197 203 260

261 266 269 271 politics 244 practice 191 194 202 striving see human striving transformative act 181 182 192 196 198 211

212 215 218 220 233 234 252 253 257 271 276 331 367

versus adaptation 52 198 219 366 chronotope 188 189 211 co- creator 35 83 173 181 207 249 259 289

320 331 Civil Rights movement 72 80 390 391 co- authoring 7 ndash 9 19 32 36 83 144 213 228

229 248 249 252 262 274 318 321 327 340 344 347 351 371

collaborative project 19 177 194 225 233 285 298 313 319 346 366

commitment 9 ndash 12 26 ndash 28 31 ndash 40 63 69 ndash 73 87 ndash 91 99 113 172 173 185 198 ndash 201 207 231 241 ndash 246 258 277 282 286 ndash 289 329

change 85 230 282 287 330 332 334 346 367 contribution 214 ethics see ethics future see future and commitment pragmatism 166 truth of commitment 111 114 359 Vygotskyrsquos commitment see Vygotskyrsquos

project complementary roots of Dewey Piaget and

Vygotsky 127 ndash 132 143 145 146 149 ndash 155 conceptual revolution 28 42 contrasts among Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky

132 150 156 ndash 161 167 168 constitutive relationism 130 contribution 5 8 11 19 25 35 36 87 171 173

181 182 201 206 210 ndash 216 226 232 234 247 259 260 327 334 361

development 350 352 mind 280 282 318 immediate carriers and constituents 214 irreplaceable role 211 212 participation 11 87 249 328 353 354 realizing connections between individual

and collective 210 211 271 362 recognition 87

agency (cont)


Subject Index 417

417

creativity 234 262 276 286 319 320 versus coping and copying 110 ndash 112 291

crisis of inequality 13 14 17 20 23 ndash 26 42 47 ndash 51 56 58 60 64 68 80 90 107 11 349 ndash 351 364 369 370 372

critical pedagogy 5 28 52 65 ndash 67 107 187 215 230 249 258 336 340 357 363

critical race theory 68 107 365 cultural- historical activity theory (activity

theory) 57 66 68 75 79 173 177 186 ndash 190 198 208 268 270 278 ndash 281 289 299 302 309 ndash 312 318

cultural materialism 298 cultural mediation 5 24 ndash 28 35 51 89 92 96

97 104 105 108 116 156 184 215 219 248 257 267 289 290 295 302 309

materiality of signs 296 memory 309 310 mind as symbolically (semiotically)

mediated activity 291 294 semiotic distance 290 292 294 teaching- learning see teaching- learning

cultural tools 25 29 31 33 35 37 84 92 96 104 141 159 162 167 175 178 179 202 209 214 225 290 299 309 325 326 371

agency see tools of agency future 196 mind see tools of the mind signs 116 294 295 298 tool- and- result 27 108 tools of being- knowing- doing 92

Darwinrsquos theory theory of evolution 115 128 129 132 ndash 134

social Darwinism 90 development

ldquoachievement of togethernessrdquo 25 83 87 391

collaborative ldquowork- in- progressrdquo 233 252 290 325 350

hybrid- type process (critique of) 151 152 notion of 139 ndash 140 143 natural and cultural lines of development

141 ndash 143 146 social situation of 142

developmental contextualism 120 developmental systems perspective (DSP) 118

119 122 127 134 dialogical approaches 76 107 131 174 175 287

297 364

dialogue 11 12 56 76 79 125 128 130 228 232 241 245 253 256 276 297 299 310 322 328 348 358 368

distributed approaches (distributed cognition) 28 29 56 59 75 ndash 77 79 98 193 265 270 280 292 298 299 313 315 ndash 317 321

dynamic systems theory (DST) 59 131 134 136 139 147 160 279

ecological approach 6 29 52 67 76 130 132 145 223 225 261 278 292 293 326

cognitive ecologies 311 embodied- active- situated- cognition 315 317 embodied enacted cognition theories 29 131

279 317 embodiment 28 29 75 79 98 131 151 154 159

161 206 208 265 271 278 279 284 292 293 308 310 311 313 315 ndash 320

emotions 199 253 289 319 338 encounter 20 35 113 158 172 251 253 ndash 259 261

280 295 328 versus experiencing 251 328 with foreign meanings 16 life agendas 282

ldquoend of historyrdquo metaphor (critique of) 17 243

end point 7 33 63 70 90 110 114 165 231 232 237 238 240 246 359

anthropocentrism 250 critique of ldquoteleologyrdquo 63 196 199 200 ethical 231 286 future 249 254 inevitability 87 250 251 non- dogmatic 242 245 ndash 246 open striving 240 ndash 243 246 251 ldquooughtrdquo 200 232 238 240 243 245 327 353

359 364 shift ing lines of possibilities 240 241 242 versus linear directionality 241 242

essentialist thinking (critique of) 28 50 ndash 52 55 80 86 116 151 193 194 219 332

ethics ethical dimensions 66 70 71 73 79 87 88 91 102 110 ndash 114 172 250 285 ndash 289 291 296 328 338

commitment 243 253 329 363 communitarian 370 at the core of reality 199 ethical- normative grounds 38 87 359 ethico- political praxis 63 244 future 231 232 233 Marxist 370


Subject Index418

418

in practice 202 211 231 solidarity see ethos of solidarity and

equality ethos of adaptation (sociobiological or

neo- Darwinin ethos) 13 14 24 49 55 76 79 96 99 176 219 267 291 328 343 349

ethos of solidarity and equality 13 14 26 31 33 36 38 83 87 88 91 96 99 107 109 112 ndash 114 249 251 350 ndash 354

versus ideology of control 88 equality 14 25 26 87 88 113 251 353 361 363

370 371 freedom 84 fundamental premise of 26 27 366 ideal of 65 73 90 95 96 105 328 radical activist agenda of 39 40 quest of achieving equality 33 38 89 91

108 112 195 350 eugenics (danger of) 24 50 experiencing experience 34 53 54 60 69 74

78 80 121 130 150 174 180 184 185 192 209 221 251 ndash 257 276 282 284 291 292 319 338 354

contemplative (spectator) phenomenology 151 210

metaphor of ldquobeing thererdquo (dwelling) 193 252 261

mind see mind and experience pragmatist notion of 150 164 ndash 166 256

Feminist scholarship 5 6 28 53 67 80 81 87 90 228 236 249 259 359

Black feminist theory 72 73 communitarianism 359 epistemology 44 90 230 ecofeminism 58 Marxist 184 materialsim 58 204

freedom autonomy and solidarity 112 113 291 318 350 351 359 ndash 65 371

future 41 50 52 64 75 84 90 112 196 199 214 230 233 234 276 277 285 325

commitment to 32 35 86 179 200 201 207 231 232 239 244 275 327 328

comparison to hope 234 237 ndash 240 future- oriented agendas 233 ndash 237 239 327 invented and realized 18 ndash 20 32 233 235

236 240 363 not predetermined 243 245 250 past and present see interface

in pragmatism 161 166 sought- aft er see sought- aft er future types of 196 vision of a better future 27 83 91 108 111

182 329

general systems theory 117 ldquoGreat Menrdquo tradition (critique of) 7

habitus 217 historicity 29 32 32 84 86 87 113 173 174

189 ndash 191 204 205 207 252 262 286 277 296 299 325 330

communal history 202 historical development of humanity 161 dialectics of transformation and continuity

162 329

identity 28 54 ndash 56 65 68 77 86 228 229 291 305

fundamental paradox of identity 248 ldquoidentity within communityrdquo 82 248 life project 281 284 350 358 loss of 80 ndash 82 211 tools of 347 358

individual- collective (social) 39 195 197 202 211 ndash 219 222 225 ndash 228 235 251 262 317 321 ndash 322 351 367 ndash 370

asymmetry 220 bidirectional co- constitution 214 ldquocollectividualrdquo 214 224 225 239 282 335

336 346 360 365 366 368 372 contra duality 214 216 219 not hyperseparated 82 271 318 343 ontologically commensurate 219 221 power hierarchy 216 truncated reversal of traditional

dualisms 293 infi nite potential 25 26 91 92 325 instrumentalism (critique of) 15 37 49 62 83

109 113 178 197 249 251 305 331 332 ldquointeractionist consensusrdquo (critique of) 57 126

128 151 152 interactive emergence 152 interface of past present and future 29 172

173 190 222 233 237 273 274 284 325 367 368

labor 178 ndash 185 191 198 209 253 257 360 entanglement with nature 208 as ontological process 208

ethics ethical dimensions (cont)


Subject Index 419

419

life agenda 274 280 282 284 286 305 307 334 337 341 358

ldquolived worldrdquo 179 200 203 210 233 actuality 184 arena of struggle and social practice 179

180 191 192 199 200 260 drama of 108 203 225 253 254 258 335 363 lived struggle 179

marginalized (perspectives of) 73 111 247 363 power dynamics and contested sites of

struggle 60 social justice project 244 subordination and passivity 255 supreme objectivity 236 245 ndash 247 truth of the struggle 359 363 364

marketization of science 14 83 materialism

demanding nature 180 matter as designating radical alterity 197 198 negativity 198 ldquonew materialismrdquo 58

matter materiality communal history 202 as existing in mattering 203 human subjectivity (eg goals) 199 impoverished notion 202 intra- activity 204 struggle and active striving 198

Marxism 6 13 65 80 86 99 100 102 107 162 167 168 197 208 359

canonical Marxism 5 7 35 172 175 180 183 208 215 362

commitment and end point 85 88 91 243 244 250 359

inevitability necessity 243 250 251 Darwin 193 Dewey (in comparison with) 195 freedom (ethics of) 360 ndash 362 370 371 Freire 335 364 history 162 252 241 242 history and change 193 194 197 201 261 method 114 ontology 207 open Marxism 84 political 242 243 250 251 struggle 250 251 360 ndash 364 truth 251 utopia 250 Vygotsky (see Vygotskyrsquos Marxist roots and

common legacy )

Marxist philosophy 4 36 66 74 75 85 127 175 299 368

ldquoin order to know the world we have to change itrdquo motto 197 200

ldquomaster narrativesrdquo (critique of ) 37 83 metanarratives metadiscourses 53 77 meaning 289 290 294 ndash 297

as a material productive process 297 power 254 297

mechanistic worldview 24 76 84 115 119 125 128 129 132 145 154 251 339

memory creating novelty and inventing the future

305 307 future- oriented agendas 305 ndash 307 309 ndash 313 identity and becoming 305 307 311 mattering in a world shared with others

305 308 meaningful quest and activist striving 305

307 308 309 313 315 passive view versus active ldquodoingrdquo 303 304

305 310 311 sociocultural and narrative models 304 305

mind action- oriented theories 279 activist striving 317 308 309 authoring 274 automatization and immediacy (critique

of) 290 291 292 emergent quality of collective activity 266

267 270 272 ldquoidealrdquo 272 life agendas and projects 274 280 281

282 286 making up the mind though mattering 258

319 321 mindful acting 272 motor action sensorimotor 278 279 non- dualist and non- mentalist account of

266 267 269 270 271 273 293 294 318 322 ontological status 271 projecting into the future 273 274 276 280

282 290 311 318 refl ection (critique of) 75 sought- aft er future 276 277 285 318 social practice 271 316 318 320 taking up the world from an activist

stance 321 temporality 273 274 282 290 transformative co- authoring and taking up

the world 274 318 ndash 320


Subject Index420

420

neural plasticity 301 302 normativity 36 38 43 44 47 83 333 348 359

of equality see equality ideals and norms 36 64 70 87 113 165 198

349 354 359 363 judgments 222 242 251

objectivity 39 42 ndash 48 54 55 69 83 85 90 109 259

dogmatic version 73 89 180 183 184 359 objectivist canons 42 48 partisanship 39 47 70 71 110 253 ndash 255 259

317 319 330 358 realism 200 s objectivity 192 199 201 202 254 strong objectivity 112 value- neutrality models (critique of) 38 46

47 60 63 64 66 72 87 372

participation 11 34 35 74 78 88 106 125 145 151 171 174 175 182 210 228 247 249 253 256 293 310 311 315 320 ndash 322 326 ndash 329 333 ndash 335 340 344 353 ndash 355 361

versus acquisition 78 ndash 79 participatory democracy 87 166 352 participatory (situated) learning 28 29 52 66

67 261 292 326 ndash 328 play 283 348 plurality perspective pluralism 26 31 38 39

53 55 61 70 81 82 363 pedagogy of daring 353 358 359 364 367 368 pedagogy of hope 232 357 364 perception 275 276 281

active work of seeing 277 278 postuplenine 188 209 210 289 practice see also activity

action potentials 220 arena of social struggle and human deeds

192 200 297 collaborative praxis 156 159 181 communal world and collective forum

181 252 continuous fl ow of 162 culture 298 ldquofabricatedrdquo assembled and circulated 180

204 206 207 labor 158 178 179 183 184 195 198 261 mattering meaning 296 not preexisting 295 ldquoperpetual metabolismrdquo 189 political ecology and geography 189

reality- in- the- making 363 subjectivity 260 taking place on the boundaries 220 transformative 167 171 192 280 ldquoworld- historical activityrdquo 84 202

practical philosophy 13 practice theories 79 185 209 293 327 process ontology 127 129

racialized science 50 ratchet eff ect 190 realism 27 200

ldquogivennessrdquo of the world (critique of) 27 108 176 192 193 198 256 280 284

ldquoplural realismrdquo (critique of) 66 reality

actuality and ldquolived worldrdquo 179 agent- dependent 213 221 arena of human struggle and activist

striving 199 given in the act of taking it up 25 ldquoin the makingrdquo 200 253 open- ended dynamic historicity 86 87

relationality (relationism) 116 ndash 123 125 134 153 173 190 255 287 326

relational worldview 115 123 127 132 133 134 143 145 153 161 163 208

relativism 39 61 63 66 107 109 110 114 260 relativizing relativism 110

social justice 13 23 26 48 65 67 68 70 72 84 88 95 ndash 97 108 109 113 114 195 242 244 350 351 359 363 364 370 371

solidaristic communities 72 82 solidarity see ethos of schooling 13 48 see also teaching- learning

marketization of 83 testing (critique of) 13 44 47 48 52 58

90 275 transmission model (critique of) 49 346

socio- nature 189 sought- aft er future 5 7 11 30 ndash 35 37 69 88

113 200 227 236 239 240 254 269 274 327 364

prolepsis 238 240 situativity situated (approaches and views) 10

38 47 54 ndash 56 73 75 ndash 77 83 104 125 131 153 292 295 299 308 312 315 337 364

beyond situativity 145 150 151 179 181 192 193 226 243 247 294 299 305 317 318 326 328 330


Subject Index 421

421

development 25 28 29 79 80 87 120 dynamics 10 14 37 84 268 284 knowledge 39 43 45 70 236 learning theory 29 292 327 mind cognition 24 28 29 78 79 261 252

266 279 315 ndash 317 ldquomore- than- situatedrdquo 320

standpoint theory and epistemology 5 90 superseding (the notion of) 142 146 162

164 173

teaching- learning 325 ndash 367 activist stance and agenda 328 329 332 ndash 334

337 ndash 339 340 ndash 343 346 ndash 348 352 355 357 ndash 362 365 ndash 371

activist striving 329 335 336 horizon of the ought 330 358 identity 327 330 ndash 339 340 ndash 342 345 347

350 350 meaningful knowledge as based in

commitment 330 passive models of acquisition (critique

of) 329 passive models of transmission (critique of)

10 40 49 66 78 162 326 332 339 341 342 346 347 353

sought- aft er future 329 330 335 351 354 355 358

transformative activist endeavor 331 problem- posing 341

telos see end point theory and practice 99 101

practice- theory- practice cycles 102 tools see cultural tools tools of agency 38 40 227 248 249 262 283

331 337 339 ndash 355 357 361 365 367 368 371 tools of the mind 266 267 271 302 310 316 transactional model 120 transformative activist stance (TAS) 4 7 14

26 32 36 171 174 192 197 200 206 213 ndash 216 225 226 230 ndash 232 235 ndash 239 245 248 256 261 280 285 294 305

ldquoaccessrdquo to the world - 260 261 269 affi rming the future- to- come 233 235 authoring authentic voice and position

248 284 285 335 344 346 becoming 283 305 defi nition of 114 ethics 286 288 289

equality 91 future see sought- aft er future the key constituent of being knowing and

doing 232 knowing 261 327 330 memory 312 314 ndash 319 versus neutrality 235 onto- epistemology 193 198 200 ndash 203 259 openness 246 250 outline of 30 ndash 33 versus subjectivism 259 260 284 teaching- learning see teaching- learning zpd 240 326

truth 44 45 88 107 110 112 114 218 232 246 356 357 363

activism 358 363 as created 110 364 fl agrantly partisan 110 practice 100 109 111 pragmatism 109 166 261 regime of 66 rigid standards 53

unit of analysis 186 ndash 187 universality claims (critique of) 60 utopia 6 33 41 52 91 234 243 250 367

Vygotskyrsquos project collaborative endeavor 95 critical theorist 98 107 ldquodefi cit modelrdquo of dis ability (critique

of) 105 general description of 115 ndash 123 ideological- political ethos and agenda 27 91

96 97 108 109 113 114 language and speech 103 104 Marxist roots 74 85 88 91 109 112

166 ndash 168 175 193 ndash 195 214 250 268 359 363 369

passionate quest for equality and justice 89 105 99 108

rebellious gist 219 representational theory (critique of) 104 unique blend of theory practice ideology

and politics 95 varying interpretations 10 ndash 12

zone of proximal development (zpd) 96 104 139 235 240 275 325 326 353


Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction Setting the Stage The Paradox of Continuity versus Change

Part I

1 Charting the Agenda From Adaptationto Transformation

2 Situating Theory The Charges and Challenges of Theorizing Activism

Part II

3 Vygotskyrsquos Project Methodology as the Philosophy of Method

4 Vygotskyrsquos Project Relational Ontology

5 Vygotskyrsquos Project From Relational Ontology toTransformative Worldview

Part III

6 Transformative Activist Stance Ontology and Epistemology

7 Transformative Activist Stance Agency

8 Transformative Activist Stance Encountering the Future through Commitment to Change

Part IV

9 The Mind That Matters

10 Illustration Memory and Anticipation of the Future

Part V

11 Implications for Education Teaching- Learning and Development as Activist Projects


Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

ii


iii

Th e Transformative Mind Expanding Vygotskyrsquos Approach to

Development and Education

Anna Stetsenko Th e Graduate Center of Th e City University of New York


iv

One Liberty Plaza New York NY 10006 USA

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge

It furthers the Universityrsquos mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence

wwwcambridgeorg Information on this title wwwcambridgeorg 9780521865586

copy Anna Stetsenko 2017

Th is publication is in copyright Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements no reproduction of any part may take place without the written

permission of Cambridge University Press

First published 2017

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Name Stetsenko Anna author

Title Th e transformative mind expanding Vygotskyrsquos approach to development and education Anna Stetsenko

Description New York NY Cambridge University Press 2017 | Includes bibliographical references and index

Identifi ers LCCN 2016024243 | ISBN 9780521865586 (hardback alk paper) Subjects LCSH Vygotskiĭ L S (Lev Semenovich) 1896ndash1934 |

Developmental psychology | Critical theory | EducationndashPhilosophy

Classifi cation LCC BF109V95 S74 2016 | DDC 15092ndashdc23 LC record available at httpslccnlocgov2016024243

ISBN 978-0-521-86558-6 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URL s for external or third- party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is or will remain accurate or appropriate


v

No society has yet lived up to the principle that everybody matters hellip Our defections are particularly scandalous I think because we began with the proposition that wersquore all created equal

Kwame Anthony Appiah 2015

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure hellip Actually who are you not to be hellip Your playing small doesnrsquot serve the world

Nelson Mandela 1994 (quoting Marianne Williamson)


vi


vii

vii

Contents

Acknowledgments page ix

Introduction Setting the Stage Th e Paradox of Continuity versus Change 1

Part I

1 Charting the Agenda From Adaptation to Transformation 23

2 Situating Th eory Th e Charges and Challenges of Th eorizing Activism 41

Part II

3 Vygotskyrsquos Project Methodology as the Philosophy of Method 95

4 Vygotskyrsquos Project Relational Ontology 115

5 Vygotskyrsquos Project From Relational Ontology to Transformative Worldview 156

Part III

6 Transformative Activist Stance Ontology and Epistemology 171

7 Transformative Activist Stance Agency 206

8 Transformative Activist Stance Encountering the Future through Commitment to Change 230


Contents

viii

viii

Part IV

9 Th e Mind Th at Matters 265

10 Illustration Memory and Anticipation of the Future 303

Part V

11 Implications for Education Teaching- Learning and Development as Activist Projects 325

Concluding Remarks Toward Democracy and a Pedagogy of Daring 367

Bibliography 373

Name Index 411

Subject Index 415


ix

ix

Acknowledgments

Given the emphasis on transformative agency and mind as facets of collab-orative projects that are individual and collective at once it is more than fi t-ting to begin with acknowledgments of contributions by many colleagues mentors friends and family members Th e list is too long to mention each and every person who has played a role in the work presented here because it extended across several decades and encompassed several countries and many institutions around the globe First of all my gratitude is to my teachers from Vygotskyrsquos project who have provided invaluable lessons of passion commitment and collaboration ndash especially Alexey A Leontiev Piotr Y Galperin Bluma V Zeigarnik and Vassily V Davydov Th e teachers from this generation of scholars unmatched in their commitment to both rigorous science and deep humanity provided those who knew them with invaluable tools of being knowing and doing Second but no less impor-tantly my gratitude goes to my colleague friend interlocutor addressee and critic Igor Arievitch We had started this book as a joint project which was a natural inclination because we share so much in terms of our back-ground trajectory and thinking We later opted for splitting this project into two parts in view of how large each of our respective contributions has grown to be even though they remain compatible and complementary at many levels Yet Igorrsquos input is ever present in this book albeit that the ulti-mate responsibility for it is mine Th is came about through many amicable and joyful dialogues even as these were coupled with unwavering confron-tations and encounters because we disagree on almost as many points as we share My infi nite gratitude is to my parents Ekaterina and Pavel Stetsenko who have lived through turmoils and struggles that very few people can fathom and yet came to be an amazing inspiration each in their own unique way not just to me but to so many people that listing their names


Acknowledgments

x

x

would take more than the whole volume of this book A surgeon- oncologist and a physics professor who grew up in abject poverty (and by western standards remained poor through their lives) they literally saved the lives of and educated thousands of people across several generations and from many parts of the world and I can only hope to do justice in at least a very modest way to their legacy knowledge courage and wisdom Including the lesson they taught me that there is no such thing as ldquomyrdquo child or ldquomyrdquo book or ldquomyrdquo anything that belongs to one person only Th e sisterly support from Oksana and Elena who share the gift s of our parents and take them to their own new heights and from their ever- growing beautiful families has been felt from across the borders and the oceans My dear personal friends also from all over the world many of whom are friends- colleagues you know who you are your inspiration and friendship are forever with me

My special thanks to those who saw the promise in what I was gradually attempting to develop and provided much- needed support and encourage-ment including in many cases even early in the process (here in no par-ticular order) Alexey A Leontiev Vassily V Davydov Joachim Lompscher Urie Bronfenbrenner Vera John- Steiner Jerome Bruner Alfred Lang Katherine Nelson Ethel Tobach Mariane Hedegaard Eduardo Vianna Chik Collins Peter Jones Robert Rieber James Lantolf Arne Raiethel Bruce Dorval William Cross Jr Yehuda Elkana Peter Sawchuk Susan Kirch Marilyn Fleer Mariolina Bartolini- Bussi Ines Langemeyer Gordon Wells Bonnie Nardi Pedro Pedraza Michalis Kontopodis Bernd Fichtner Maria Benites Alan Amory Kenneth Tobin Azwihangwisi Muthivhi Jack Martin Jeff Sugarman Cathrene Connery Jennifer Vadeboncoeur Lisa Yamagata- Lynch Jean Anyon Ofelia Garcia Michelle Fine Geoff rey Lautenbach Victor Kaptelinin Irina Verenikina Ritva Engestroumlm Jytte Bang Sharada Gade Kristiina Kumpulainen Olga Bazhenova Dmitry Leontiev Maisha Winn Cathrine Hasse Cristiano Mattos and Katerina Plakitsi Many of you created zones of proximal development and spaces for teaching- learning in truly collaborative and productive ways

My thanks also to those who have left their marks if even (in some cases) we had only fl eeting interactions and my wish is for more dialogue and col-laboration ndash Barbara Rogoff James Wetsch Michael Cole Yrjouml Engestroumlm Lois Holzman Vladislav Lektorsky Harry Daniels Jay Lemke Lois Mol Kris Gutieacuterrez Kai Hakkarainen Dimitris Papadopoulos Peter McLaren Anne- Nelly Perret- Clermont Morten Nissen Sunil Bhatia Anne Edwards Karen Barad Jean Lave Dorothy Holland Kenneth Gergen Th omas Bidell Th omas Teo Mikael Leiman Wolff - Michael Roth Annalisa Sannino Sarah


Acknowledgments xi

xi

Amsler Alan Costall Bernard Schneuwly Manolis Dafermos and Alex Levant

In addition my many colleagues at the State Lomonosov University and the Institute of Psychology and Pedagogy in Moscow the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education in Berlin the University of Bern and now the City University of New York who I worked with together in the past and continue to work with now oft en in such a close proximity that it is hard to pause and connect at deeper levels certainly count in many ways

And those in the younger generation of scholars and students who I had the privilege to teach and learn from ndash in Moscow University University of Bern New York University and the City University of New York ndash you have been and continue to be an incredible infl uence in my journeys and a joyful challenge that motivates and inspires Last but certainly not least this book is for my daughter Marusia who grew up in parallel with the writing of it (and one could safely say also under the pressures of this process) to be an unwavering activist with a deep sense of solidarity and equality You are teaching me about passion for social justice and commitment to the future in ways that only someone from your young generation just entering the world stage in joining its struggles and defi nitely not prepared to settle with the status quo ever could You are making and will make an important con-tribution and will realize the future you are seeking together with others 1

1 Note that many quotations from Vygotskyrsquos works have been compared with the origi-nal texts (in Russian) and changes made in cases in which it was necessary to better convey the meaning and correct mistranslations


xii


1

1

Introduction Setting the Stage Th e Paradox of Continuity versus Change

Th is book has been written with an acute sense of a radical change in the many facets expressions and forms that it takes today ndash in the social dynam-ics and political landscapes in patterns of human development and educa-tion in social sciences and critical theories that endeavor to address and sometimes shape these processes For various reasons discussed through-out this book social change became the key theme in theorizing human development and mind Th is conceptual shift toward social change ndash as the central category and the leading premise of the evolving approach to human development and mind ndash was a gradual process that necessitated many changes transformations reconsiderations revisions and signifi cant expansions in concepts and ideas along the way As a result writing has turned into a process of exploration inquiry and discovery ndash rather than a recording or a representation of an already established and fi nalized posi-tion Th is was indeed a journey (to use a clicheacute) and a long one at that of exploring how social change is implicated in human development and what picture results if change and transformation and human agency in instigat-ing and implementing them ndash rather than stability and fi nished orderliness of the world in its status quo to which people passively adapt ndash are taken as the guiding principles and foundational premises

Th e process of writing therefore included many unexpected twists and turns in ideas and argumentation arising every step of the way in the changing dynamics of this project Th ere are still many riddles that remain unsolved and many aspects that demand more consideration ndash and so the most diffi cult task is to fi nd a moment to pause and let the journeyrsquos incomplete products congeal and become reifi ed in this book Yet perhaps no timing will ever be perfect because no journey of this kind is likely to ever be completed instead remaining forever in the making ndash unless it is ldquodone withrdquo and left behind as something that needs neither revision nor



2

continuation Taking to heart Bakhtinrsquos words that ldquonothing conclusive has yet taken place in the world hellip everything is still in the future and will always be in the futurerdquo ( 1984 p 166) the resulting approach is off ered as one of the steps however incomplete in a continuing endeavor of discov-ering what can be as an open- ended quest rather than a fi nal answer set in stone

Why the Mind

Given the emphasis on change and transformation the title of the book Th e Transformative Mind came about quite naturally Th is title admit-tedly is somewhat narrow because the book is not exclusively about the mind instead its focus is on the broader dynamics of human development and social practices of which the mind is an integral part and an inherent dimension Yet the title is chosen to intentionally challenge those increas-ingly powerful approaches that understand the mind in starkly internalist individualist and reductionist terms ndash as a strictly individual possession situated inside the brain of an isolated individual fl oating in a vacuum or as a computer- like device activated by cognitive or brain modules presumed to be shaped in the course of evolution Whereas many critical and socio-cultural approaches have abandoned the topic of mind in a shift away from anything that seems to appeal to isolated individuals the belief here is that it is important to stake a claim to this topic from a position that is explicitly sociocultural historical relational- materialist dynamic situated and dia-lectical Such a position is focused on social dynamics and cultural matri-ces of collaborative practices in their historical ceaseless unfolding through time yet without neglecting what is traditionally understood as the mind agency and human subjectivity more broadly ndash the processes of thinking knowing feeling remembering forming identity making commitments and so on Th at is the strategy is to reclaim the mind ndash in conjunction with agency and other expressions of human subjectivity ndash and expand a ter-ritory for critical and sociocultural approaches to engage this notion and related problematics in opening up the possibility to take up the dialectics between the social and the individual the external and the internal the person and the world the mind and the shared communal practices

Th ough there have been many books published with titles that employ the same descriptive schema of ldquoTh e X Mindrdquo (cf Zlatev Racine Sinha and Itkonen 2008 ) the leading motivation in most of them especially in recent years has been to look ever more deeply into what is presum-ably the mindrsquos internal workings ndash the ldquodepthsrdquo assumed to be contained


Setting the Stage 3

3

in the cortical neuronal structures and other processes within the brain Th ese recent books with the titles such as Inside the Brain or others close in meaning are typically in the mode of thinking that can be summarized (as one journalist did) by the expression ldquothe amygdala made me do itrdquo On the best- seller lists today are works that rely on the new tools (especially brain scans and genetic testing) and aim to prove that the mind and pro-cesses such as self- determination intentionality agency and consciousness play a much less signifi cant role in our lives than we ever realized Th is is the type of approach that the present book is in stark and unequivocal opposition to Instead the book falls within a very diff erent tradition of writings on human development and mind Among works in this tradition for example are Mind in Society by Lev Vygotsky (though not an original title it did become associated with the Vygotskian scholarship across the globe) Voices of the Mind Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action by James Wertsch Language in Cognitive Development Th e Emergence of the Mediated Mind by Katherine Nelson and Naming the Mind How Psychology Found Its Language by Kurt Danziger among others Th is is a line of work that challenges the biological reductionism dichotomous thinking and other traditional premises that decontextualize and individualize the mind Instead these works strive to focus on the social dynamics of context cul-ture history activity and discourse Th is is not to say that the present book replicates these approaches or is in a perfect alignment with them (which is not the case) but rather to indicate a line of work with similar broad inten-tions and goals

The Challenge of Change versus Tradition

As will be discussed in the last section of this introduction change was not an abstract notion for the present author but rather a very tangible aspect in the fi rsthand experiences of moving through the drastically diff erent rapidly changing and not infrequently confl icting and clash-ing contexts ndash politically geographically academically and personally Th is process made salient the challenge of preserving some degree of stability and continuity amidst changes movements and relocations in time and space and across ideological and political ruptures and fault lines Associated with and directly expressing the paradox of continu-ity and change is that while being tailored to the notion of transforma-tion the book is written in continuation of Vygotskyrsquos tradition yet it also critically reassesses and moves beyond this tradition ndash in thus striv-ing to straddle the paradox of change and continuity Th is relates to a



4

motivation to continue this project while preserving its legacy and yet at the same time to critically interrogate and expand it with the new tools of the radically diff erent cultural political and academic contexts and practices

How can tradition be continued without succumbing to indoctrination and traditionalism that require compliance and inevitably limit innovation and imagination Th e grappling with this paradox is intimately connected to the question central to this book If human power and agency to trans-form reality in enacting social change are to be made central in theorizing human development and mind how is this position to be reconciled with the notion that humans are embedded within and shaped by sociocultural contexts and their histories How can people be understood fundamentally as agentive persons choosing and making ldquotheir wayrdquo and at the same time as constituted at the very core of their being and existence by the social forces and structures seemingly beyond themselves

Th e approach in this book which I chose to term the transformative activist stance (TAS) builds off from the dialectical premises of Vygotskyrsquos project and their broader foundations in Marxist philosophy and does so for many reasons Th e main one among them is that this project had pioneered (albeit not in a fully- fl edged form) an explicitly dialectical and more implicitly ideologically non- neutral perspective on the core ques-tions about human development mind and learning No less importantly in a clear contrast with the reigning theories of its time ndash and of today too ndash this project at least initially was not only not detached from historical con-fl icts such as war imperialism discrimination and displacement Instead it was directly produced by precisely such a dramatic historical texture in its most vivid and drastic expressions Even more critically this project was guided by the eff ort to overcome injustices wrought by these forces and contradictions Th is project was intricately and intimately entangled with the revolutionary struggle that was an epic attempt (its no less epic failures especially through the later periods notwithstanding) to overcome con-fl icts and social ills of its time

It is this projectrsquos active participation in and contribution to the gigan-tic historical sociopolitical and ideological transformation of the time that has shaped its major tenets and ideas In this regard Vygotskyrsquos project stands out in the history of psychology in it contrasting with the domi-nant models described by Edward Said ( 2000 ) ndash as produced by minds ldquountroubled by and free of the immediate experience of the turbulence of war ethnic cleansing forced migration and unhappy dislocationrdquo (pp


Setting the Stage 5

5

xxindash xxii) Given the present crisis and turbulences in our societies and the need for new social practices especially in education turning to the legacy of Vygotskyrsquos project albeit in a critical engagement appears to be justifi ed

While fully crediting Vygotsky as a pioneering scholar who charted a truly new chapter in psychology and education the following commentary is warranted Focusing as is the goal herein on the bidirectional nexus of social practices simultaneously realizing human development social life and reality ndash while at the same time placing emphasis on these practices being realized by people contributing to social change at the intersection of individual and collective agency across the time dimensions (and with a particular emphasis on the sought- aft er future) ndash is a shift away from a number of tacit interlocked impasses present in Vygotskyrsquos project and the broader system of canonical Marxism Th ese impasses are in urgent need of being interrogated and addressed Vygotskyrsquos project just as Marxism at large cannot be mechanically employed to develop novel approaches without expansive critique and creative elaboration ndash which of course is very much in the spirit of this project itself with its celebration of critique as a major indispensable premise and a methodological condition with-out which it ceases to exist Th e expansive elaboration of the worldview- level premises that can be used to ground developments in the spirit of this tradition therefore seeks to overcome a number of polarities especially with regards to the status of reality and change in conceptualizing human development the role of human agency in enacting them and the notions of contribution and commitment to the sought- aft er future as central to human ways of being knowing and doing

Th is approach is also congruent with many recent theories that capital-ize on the role of culture mediation and social interaction in development yet it diff ers in its emphasis on human subjectivity (mind agency etc) as a necessary vehicle of collaborative meaningful practices activities of people aimed at purposefully transforming the world in view of the sought- aft er future Th e mind in this approach is understood as a facet (or an emergent property) of a simultaneously social and individual process of contributing to the future- oriented dynamics of transformative shared social practices of communal life in their world- changing and history- making status Many critical and sociocultural approaches employ the notion of social practice activity and transformation ndash for example this is the case in the works by Foucault Bourdieu the feminist and standpoint theories some currents of pragmatism and quite centrally critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire



6

among others Within the scholarship inspired by Vygotsky and his school these ideas can be found for example in Engestroumlm ( 1999 ) Jones ( 2009 ) Lantolf and Th orne ( 2006 ) Newman and Holzman ( 1993 ) Rogoff ( 2003 ) Sawchuk ( 2003 ) Wartofsky ( 1983 ) among others and I will make an eff ort to engage these works Many Russian scholars in Vygotskyrsquos school had also made similar points in earlier works especially in the late 1970s through the 1980s ndash most prominently Alexei N Leontiev Evald V Ilyenkov Vassily V Davydov Alexey A Leontiev and Valdimir P Zinchenko (in his early works) and their followers such as Aleksandr G Asmolov Fedor E Vasilyuk Elena E Sokolova and Dmitry A Leontiev to name a few As I will discuss the ways to fashion and then proceed from such broad premises however can still diff er in many respects Th e major eff ort herein is to undertake an expansive and critical commentary on the basic tenets of Vygotskyrsquos philosophy ontology and epistemology of human development in order to create a context in which they can be critically advanced to more centrally integrate human transformative agency and mind

Understandably this eff ort does not and cannot do full justice to the decades of creative writings by several generations of Marxist and Vygotskian scholars around the globe ndash such as in addition to the ones already mentioned by the feminist ecological and activist scholars the German- Scandinavian critical tradition (especially Klaus Holzkamp and his colleagues on this school see eg Langemeyer 2006 Nissen 2000 Teo 2013 ) earlier works such as by Ernst Bloch Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt school and contemporary works by the French- speaking Marxist writers A continuous critical engagement with this tradition is justifi ed because narrow interpretations continue to persist equating the notion of materiality with ldquoeconomic structures and exchangesrdquo understood ldquoto stand for the materialist perspective per serdquo (Bennett 2010 p xvi) Th e same author is absolutely correct in asking ldquowhy is there not a more robust debate between contending accounts of how materiality matters to politicsrdquo (ibid) and this relates to some of the discussion in the following chapters

In a sense the book is perhaps especially (though not exclusively) ori-ented to an audience such as the one described by Sarah Leonard ( 2014 ) ndash those who have come of age aft er the end of the Cold War and are ldquoless wary of Marxism more willing to be creative in learning from the history of socialist thought and care less about old labels and memories of sec-tarian disputesrdquo (p 31) For this generation in Leonardrsquos words it is clear that ldquoin troubled times utopian impulses fl ourish because the impossible seems more reasonable than the realisticrdquo (ibid p 30) To which I would


Setting the Stage 7

7

add that the seemingly impossible ndash the imagined future if we commit to creating it ndash is indeed more reasonable and even more realistic than what only appears to be the seemingly frozen and stable structures of a presum-ably unalterable and immutable status quo

Whatever else TAS is or can be its starting premise is that every person matters because the world is evoked real - ized invented and created by each and every one of us in each and every event of our being- knowing- doing ndash by us as social actors and agents of communal practices and collective his-tory who only come about within the matrices of these practices through realizing and co- authoring them in joint struggles and strivings Th is posi-tion is a departure from the canonical interpretations of Marxism that tra-ditionally eschew the level of individual processes such as agency mind and consciousness It is also an expanded and critical take on Vygotskyrsquos tradition in which agency was undertheorized for various reasons includ-ing the political ones (for details see Stetsenko 2005 ) Whether the result-ing product presented in this book is ldquoVygotskianrdquo or Marxist for that matter (and I believe it can be cast as such) is a question that has to remain moot ndash in view of the transformative methodology and epistemology that prizes attempts to move (however imperfectly) beyond the given including the canons of previous theories while also anticipating that it too will be hopefully critiqued and transcended in the next rounds of eff orts and works (by others and myself)

One additional note in the spirit of self- refl ection might be needed to conclude this section Th e act of naming the TAS as an original approach might be read as immodest too ambitious or less preferable than a humble following in the footsteps of those who are typically described as ldquogiantsrdquo such as Vygotsky in the all too familiar ldquoGreat Menrdquo tradition (for a cri-tique of this tradition see Stetsenko 2003 2004 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004a ) Also the act of naming always carries the risk of essentializing and setting ideas and approaches in place rather than leaving ldquono- place where everything is possiblerdquo (see Sandoval 2000 p 141 quoting Roland Barthes) Given the transformative gist paramount in this approach how-ever such connotations I believe can be avoided on both counts With the emphasis on change and transformation this approach is open- ended and thus has been and should continue to be subjected to constant amend-ments revisions transformations and stringent critique ndash because it stands for a kind of thinking that never fi nds itself at the end even though it posits an end point of where it strives to arrive and commits to its real-ization Th e TAS does not and is not meant to provide fi nal answers and



8

hopefully would not be read as an attempt at creating a totalizing narra-tive Quite to the contrary the intention is for this approach to be one of the many ways and steps that might be useful in creating theoretical accounts in support of social changes specifi cally at the intersection of development and education which are urgently needed in light of the unfolding crises we all are presently witnessing Th ese steps need to be made by collective eff orts and the approach developed herein critically depends and relies on these In addition even though naming this approach does carry some risks it is a conscious act that echoes the central premise of this book that we all each and every one of us matter and have the right to co- authoring the world shared with others through our agentive authentic and unique contributions

Interpreting Vygotsky through the Non- Neutral Lens of Activist Methodology

In the foregoing discussion it transpires that the goal undertaken in this book is to continue and at the same time to critique and critically expand Vygotskyrsquos uniquely revolutionary and activist (in multiple meanings of this term as discussed later in the book) project Th is is consonant with what has been captured by Osip Mandelstam a poet whose background and predicament shared much in common with those of Vygotsky in an approach that strives to ldquonot merely repeat the past to deliver it intact and unaltered into the presentrdquo (see Cavanagh 1995 pp 7ndash 8) In the words of Mandelstam cited by Clare Cavanagh in her book with an eloquent title Osip Mandelstam and the Modernist Creation of Tradition (note the play of contradictory meanings in this title) ldquoInvention and remembrance go hand in hand hellip To remember means to invent and the one who remembers is also an inventor rdquo (ibid p 8 emphasis added) As Cavanagh further relates to Mandelstam yet in strongly resonating with Vygotsky too he ldquoweaves the upheavals that mark his and his agersquos histories into the fabric of a resilient tradition that draws from the very sources it is intended to combatrdquo (ibid p 11) She further relates Boris Eikhenbaumrsquos comment that Mandelstamrsquos works are fueled by the ongoing ldquobattle with the craft rdquo of other poets In his words those who would wish to learn from this great poet must likewise be prepared to do battle ndash ldquoyou must conquer Mandelstam Not study himrdquo (quoted in Cavanagh ibid p 11)

And so is the goal here too not to uncover what Vygotskyrsquos theory was ldquoreallyrdquo about Rather than pursuing such an antiquarian goal the intent is to reinvigorate the gist of this project by expansively critiquing and


Setting the Stage 9

9

developing its foundational premises while interrogating its relevance and sorting out its conundrums in the context of challenges stemming from the present historical location and under the angle of our own sociopo-litical goals agendas and commitments In this aspect I solidarize with Hannah Arendtrsquos bold assessment which is as relevant today if not more as it was decades ago when she wrote that ldquo[n] one of the systems none of the doctrines transmitted to us by the great thinkers may be convincing or even plausiblerdquo ( 1971 1977 p 12) To be truthful to the legacy of Vygotskyrsquos project it is imperative to move forward and beyond it in a spirit of cri-tique and expansion albeit on the foundation it has provided including through restoring its revolutionary gist and while contesting accounts that have sidestepped its transformative activism and its liberating sociopolitical ethos of empowerment

Th is expansive interpretation of Vygotskyrsquos project is not claimed to be the most accurate or ldquotruerdquo to its ldquooriginalrdquo intentions and ideas Moreover on theoretical and methodological grounds (implicated in the notion of TAS as discussed throughout the book) an assessment of past theories and their ldquotruthfulnessrdquo along these lines is not feasible at all In my view it is not desirable either

Given the fl uidity of Vygotskyrsquos thought as shaped and colored by the brisk pace of his life and career embedded within a tumultuous indeed dramatic historical and political context and events ndash coupled with the many permutations that his works went through in appropriations by his immediate followers and later within the international scholarship (the latter facing many problems of accessibility and translation) and in light of taking any act of understanding to be an activist endeavor ndash the interpreta-tion here is not an attempt to discuss what Vygotsky ldquotruly and really had in mindrdquo

Any interpretation or understanding of a theory is much more than an ldquoextractionrdquo of its meaning putatively contained in or implied by the original instead it is an endeavor loaded with personal political and ethical dimensions just as any act of knowing and understanding Unless the intention is to literally represent a theory (a highly dubious endeavor because in this case one would be better off reading the original) any interpretation is carried out from a historically politically and sociocul-turally unique place position and most critically commitment Any inter-pretation represents an act of authoring and thus an original viewpoint whether this is acknowledged or not Claiming and debating faithfulness to the original in ways that religious dogmas are claimed and debated are impossible and fruitless from the position that accepts that knowledge is



10

not produced ldquofrom nowhererdquo and instead takes positionality and activ-ism as central to it Several authors in surveying modern interpretations of Vygotskyrsquos works have argued that most of these are selective and serve to fortify an authorrsquos perspective rather than to delineate Vygotskyrsquos own ideas based on a careful and extensive reading of his work (eg Gredler 2012 Miller 2011 )

It is certainly true that a careful and extensive reading of Vygotsky is useful and necessary (and I have engaged in such a reading through several decades in various languages including in the original) Th e strategy here however is self- consciously of an activist type At stake in it is what can be done on the grounds of Vygotskyrsquos deep insights (in ways we can make sense of them) for solving problems and addressing issues in our world today including contemporary views and debates and in our present projects and endeavors Th e naiumlve position that the truth of the past ldquoas it really wasrdquo can somehow be discovered (if only one reads Vygotsky a little bit more carefully and cites him a little bit more extensively) needs to be transcended in view of the situated contextual-ized and activist nature of knowing and understanding Th e problem is not with carrying interpretation from onersquos own location and in exten-sion of onersquos position but in leaving such a grounding unexplicated and obscured in thus obscuring and tainting the resulting products Th is is not just a pronouncement of an academic disagreement but an expres-sion of a theoretical position that is central to the whole project under-taken in this book

Th is position goes along the lines of Bakhtinrsquos notion of addressivity as a constitutive dimension of every utterance implying that to make sense of any utterance any word ndash and any theory ndash requires much more than simply extricating their ldquooriginalrdquo meaning and ideas Instead this process involves the full situation in which an act of understanding takes place and in which it is made available to others It also requires an actively respon-sive understanding implying an exchange between the original work the present interpretation and its location and most critically also the future reader to whom interpretation is addressed In my take on these ideas the work of interpretation is unavoidably embedded in meaning making as an activist striving from a position ndash by authors and readers ndash in a chain of historically culturally and ideologically- politically situated understand-ings and struggles that represent an amalgamation of meanings positions contexts and most importantly activist pursuits and commitments Th is position is broadly compatible with the general shift away from the trans-mission model of language and meaning toward active interpretation and



11

moreover participation in the practices of inquiry dialogue and commu-nication As Th omas and Brown ( 2009 ) recently commented using exam-ples from the changing practices of journalism

What we are witnessing now hellip is a second transformation marked by a shift from interpretation to participation [aft er the fi rst transforma-tion from passive reception to interpretation] In just the past ten years we have seen that change happens throughout the world of journalism with news itself fi rst being seen as factual later being seen as interpre-tive and with the emergence of the blogosphere fi nally being seen as participatory

Th omas and Brown (ibid) draw attention to the structural transformations in the ways that communication is carried out in todayrsquos Internet- facilitated contexts such as blogging Th is new communication is as dependent on the text the writer produces as it is on the participants and audiences As these authors state ldquoIn blogging authorship is transformed in a way that recog-nizes the participation of others as fundamentally constitutive of the text It is not an author writing to an audience but instead a blogger facilitating the construction of an interpretive communityrdquo (ibid emphasis added)

Th e theory and methodology in the present book take one step aft er (and beyond) this realization of a participatory nature of communication It builds on the premise that not only communication but all human endeavors including acts of being knowing and doing are participatory In addition and most critically what is suggested by the transformative approach is yet another shift ndash a transition from participation (as derived from the notion of dwelling in the present and adapting to it) to contribution ndash a more active and activist stance implying that all acts of being knowing and doing take place at the sites of ideological struggles and are part and parcel of such struggles

To understand any theory of the past we have to attempt to grasp it from a position we take vis- agrave- vis the present confl icts and challenges that we face Th is requires that we understand these confl icts and challenges but even more importantly that we envision how they can be resolved and commit to changing them engaging in struggles to achieve our goals in pursuit of a sought- aft er future Th is is impossible until we take an active and indeed activist position ndash a stand ndash of concern and care as engaged and activist actors who can never remain passive or neutral Th is is perhaps the deeply seated meaning of the word ldquounderstandrdquo implying that indeed we understand while and by means of taking an activist stand

Paradoxically such an approach indicates that any interpretation neces-sarily moves beyond the initial theory and precisely through this movement



12

beyond becomes meaningful Such ldquomovement beyondrdquo entails entering in dialogue with a given theory through our own active work and struggle that inevitably change the initial meanings under the contextual realities and imperatives of our own currently existing challenges and in accord with the beliefs aspirations and concerns we have in a complex merging of these dimensions Th is also implies a broader view on where meaning can be ldquofoundrdquo ndash namely that meaning inheres not in something already given (such as a theory of the past) but in making the next step on the grounds of what is given including through critiquing expanding and transcending the theory one attempts to understand

Interpretations of the past including theories of the past are always also about the present and the future with the value of understanding laying in making the next step while openly explicating our commitments and embracing the risk of shift ing a given theoryrsquos emphasis and changing its ldquoinitial intentrdquo Th e view that there is one universally fi xed way good once and for all to show what a particular author really meant to say (her or his real intent) or what particular words mean is untenable because words are undetermined and open- ended (as is made abundantly clear at least since the hermeneutical works by Gadamer and Ricoeur and the dialogical writings by Bakhtin) Th e belief that we can understand theories in terms of how they ldquoreally arerdquo is tantamount to an expectation that we can think like computers that extract and juggle quotations to analyze them in search for some formulaic consistencies and crude logistics of word combinations outside of human pursuits (cf Ludlow 2012)

Th is is what is implied in saying that theories are alive ndash in multiple senses including because they are brought alive and real - ized each time anew by each new act of understanding (as I attempted to formulate in my earlier works see Stetsenko 1988 2004 ) Bringing words and theories of others to life through our own pursuits is the work of understanding worth doing in that it goes beyond merely antiquarian purposes and instead weaves this work into the larger projects through which we address our present context construct our future and carry out our struggles in view of our own unique challenges and commitments

Working at the Intersection of Theory and Practice

Although the focus in this book is on theoretical and apparently abstract topics such as the worldview- level assumptions about human development and the mind the ultimate goals are concrete and quite practical Th ese



13

goals have to do with elaborating conceptual tools for research policies and practices especially in education that challenge the currently preva-lent ethos of adaptation to the status quo and its attendant ideals focused on competition for resources and putatively ldquonaturalrdquo hierarchies stratifi ed according to some presumably inherited and unalterable human nature An alternative ethical- political ethos foregrounds theory with an orienta-tion toward social justice and equality and attendant ideals of collaboration solidarity and communality

Th is strategy at the intersection of theory and practice follows a long tradition of simultaneously studying critiquing and striving to provide con-ditions for transforming social institutions Examples of such an approach can be found in the philosophy of praxis developed by Antonio Gramsci Paulo Freire and other scholars in the Marxist tradition It centrally relies on the model off ered by Vygotskyrsquos project that can be expansively inter-preted to belong to the same tradition (as will be discussed throughout the book and especially in Part 2 ) Th is project embraced critical praxis and encompassed a deeply seated ideological orientation refl ective of its authorsrsquo engagement with the revolutionary changes that shaped and infused their work through all of its seemingly ldquopurelyrdquo theoretical levels and concepts

In a more contemporary exposition this strategy aligns with Toulminrsquos suggestion for a recovery of ldquopractical philosophyrdquo ( 1988 p 349) Toulmin shows how the primary locus of discussions regarding the most abstract issues such as causality rationality and mind body interface have to move (and I would add de facto have already moved) out of the ldquopurelyrdquo aca-demic discussions into applied realms such as psychiatric practice crimi-nal courts and end- of- life care In expanding this list it can be argued that the locus of problems pertaining to human development and mind subjectivity and agency belongs in classrooms because every theory of these matters is implicitly a theory of education of teaching and learn-ing in their linkage to development It is especially the schoolroom today that is the scene of a large- scale experiment in social Darwinism with its principles of a natural hierarchy of inborn capacities presumably fi xed by biological inheritance that necessitates constant control and testing Th e schoolroom is also a site of experiments in psychopharmacology with an ever- increasing number of students in the United States now receiv-ing medication for problems supposedly caused by naturally produced chemical imbalances in their brains Th e school reforms are supposed to mitigate the worsening situation including growing inequality by focus-ing on testing and assessing student performance ndash rather than on how to better prepare teachers how to provide equal access to cultural resources



14

for teaching- learning and how to identify develop improve invent and distribute these resources

It is at practical sites such as schools that the failures of the dominant philosophies and theories to capture human development and learning in terms commensurate with their open- ended dialectics and historically situated dynamics and with the challenges that education currently faces are most vividly exposed and have the most pernicious eff ects Developing alternative conceptualizations and methodology are steps needed in the struggle to stave off the assaults of marketization on science and education in order to advance alternative visions and theories that could grasp and support the possibilities of human development and education beyond the status quo Such an approach entails exposing the blindfolds of the neo- Darwinian ethos of adaptation and passivity to instead elevate and capi-talize on human subjectivity and agency for social transformation Th is approach takes an activist stance to be central to doing research and to theorizing both aligned with and premised on agentive and transformative ways of being knowing and doing

Th e crisis of inequality most certainly cannot be resolved at the level of theory only ndash it has wide systemic and structural economic and political causes and it would require radical changes at these levels for progress to be made However neither can this crisis be resolved without challenging the starkly outdated theories including their underpinning philosophies worldviews and ideologies that in eff ect support and perpetuate this cri-sis Developed in and for a world of fi xed hierarchies rigid dichotomies exclusionary practices and impenetrable barriers the presently dominant theories of human development and mind are increasingly out of sync with the current demands of social transformation and with the imperatives of equality and solidarity brought about by the rapidly changing and dynamic world in transition and crisis Unless theoretical gaps and problems in the reigning theories are radically challenged and reworked at all levels includ-ing worldview- level ontological epistemological and ideological assump-tions that underpin them the changes in practices and policies will remain hard to achieve

It is in light of these introductory remarks that the theoretical construc-tions and ideas pursued in this book can be understood as part of a situated struggle for knowledge- and practice- building predicated on a striving for liberation from a dogmatic and stifl ing worldview that embeds conceptions of human development and mind on one hand and from closely associated practices of inequality and injustice especially in education on the other Th is position undoubtedly represents a minefi eld of conceptual practical



15

and ethical conundrums ndash at every step of the way Th ese conundrums need to be explicated and tackled in order to avoid undesirable connotations of individualism instrumentalism and eurocentrism that might be in some interpretations associated with this position Yet I believe that this eff ort is worth the potential costs of failure

A Personal Reflection An Autobiographical Sketch

Th e way to grapple with the paradox of continuity versus change in prefac-ing this book inevitably takes on an autobiographical fl avor A brief per-sonalized account might help illustrate the methodology and the overall approach through presenting a set of broad orientations that had come to guide this work even before I realized they did At one level this book is an attempt to summarize my fi rsthand experiences within Vygotskyrsquos project that have spanned several decades Th ese experiences include fi rst study-ing and then working and teaching as a researcher and instructor at the psychology department of the Moscow State University at the time when it was the hotbed of Vygotskyrsquos approach (from the mid- 1970s through the late 1980s) Th is included interactions and in some cases collabora-tion with several key representatives of this approach including Alexander R Luria Alexey N Leontiev Alexey A Leontiev Piotr Y Galperin Daniil B Elkonin Bluma V Zeigarnik Vassily V Davydov and others

No less importantly these experiences span various geographic loca-tions (across four countries on two continents) relocation (not just once) and with it an entry into new cultures customs and languages (again not just once) Th ese relocations inevitably brought with them experiences of being a newcomer and outsider who must straddle boundaries of oft en col-liding practices traditions and norms while constantly moving between the poles of sameness and diff erence in negotiating new identities and positions resulting from cultural transitions and disruptions Th e starkly ethical- ideological and simultaneously personal navigation and negotiation of what it means to be an outsider and how to continue onersquos own tradi-tion and cultural heritage while integrating new experiences and positions have been a constant personal and professional challenge throughout these experiences

An entry into new cultures as an outsider and immigrant (albeit in a highly privileged position within the academy) spurring the need and desire to carry on with interrupted relationships to space and culture has been challenging in many ways Th e most important one was the challenge



16

of seeing the world through a new lens while learning not only to under-stand new culture(s) but to also see onersquos own culture and oneself from a newly acquired distance Th ese experiences highlighted with striking clar-ity the prescience of Bakhtinrsquos words that ldquoour real exterior can be seen and understood only by other people because they are located outside us in space and because they are othersrdquo whereby ldquo[a] meaning only reveals its depths once it has encountered and come into contact with another foreign meaningrdquo ( 1986 p 7) Th rough the years of relocation and coming in touch with foreign meanings there have been many truly eye- opening encounters leading to profound changes in understandings self- understandings and identity that always remained in a state of fl ux and disequilibrium Th is process of identity change included due to an impossibility of belonging to a single place a heightened need of integrating a dimension of the ldquootherrdquo (and an alternative viewpoint) who provides new oft en foreign meanings that ldquointerruptrdquo the self- evidence of onersquos life and understandings for these meanings to be juxtaposed and clashed with the older ones in the process of creating new connections and ever- unstable synthesis

Th e experiences I am describing have spanned not only the changing geographic locations but also the dramatic historical events that imbued these locations with starkly disparate sociopolitical connotations in condi-tions that spanned distinct historical eras Th is span included entering uni-versity and then making fi rst steps in academia during what is known as the period of political and economic stagnation gradually giving way to a grow-ing openness of the Soviet society and a soft ening of the Cold War climate in what is known as the international movement of deacutetente (the mid- 1970s through the early 1980s) Later on the developments of the fi rst outlines of professional identity coincided with invigorating changes during the short but incredibly intense period of ldquoperestroikardquo at the end of the Cold War in the mid- to- late 1980s and then living through the dramatic disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 Th e experiences aft er that with the move fi rst to western Europe and then the United States motivated by a desire to expand onersquos horizons (literally and metaphorically) both professionally and per-sonally were situated at the temporal and geographic epicenter of what can be considered a unique page (if not a unique era) in history

Th is era (not yet named as such by historians but clearly distinct in my view) is the postndash Cold War period marked by a highly celebratory atmo-sphere in the western world conveyed by the infamous ldquoend of historyrdquo metaphor that set in place aft er 1991 and extended for almost two decades (approximately until the world economic crisis of 2008) During this time



17

history and with it the need for large social projects and political imagi-nation premised on radical possibilities of change and transformation had supposedly come to an end History has been proclaimed to have reached its ostensibly glorious end embodied in ldquothe fi nal triumphrdquo and an unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism (as Fukuyama has notoriously claimed) Th e ldquoend of historyrdquo metaphor conveyed the sense that there was nothing left to imagination and social action by ruling out the possibility to envision a world that is essentially diff erent from the status quo along with the need of committing to changing it Th ese years were rewarding professionally yet infused with feelings of a profound disconnect from this stifl ing ldquoend of historyrdquo mentality along with its discourses normativity and sociopolitical ethos In a remarkable twist of events and contrary to predictions this peculiar historical period has abruptly ended as it ensued in an unprecedented turmoil and crisis in the world economy and politics that is still unfolding today

In this apparently sudden ending of the period of euphoria (perceived as such especially by the elites) it is hard not to see some uncanny parallels to another equally sudden event that too had not been anticipated ndash the collapse and disintegration of the Soviet Union Th is resemblance especially concerns the rising self- awareness and critique the awakening of political consciousness and the emergence of new political imagination and nascent social movements Th e disintegration of the Soviet Union and the tectonic shift s it has spawned (with its eff ects still reverberating today) including shift s toward democracy yet also stark changes in the world balance of pow-ers and the rising global and local strife of national confl icts and inequalities (contrary to predictions of the historyrsquos peaceful ending) played a particu-larly instructive role in my life and scholarship Th at practically no one was able to predict the dramatic indeed earth- shattering events of this mag-nitude that had been brewing and gathering momentum while apparently remaining undetected is a striking lesson I take from these experiences

Yet another lesson of living through a turmoil and then a collapse in 1991 of a giant sociopolitical system that had been deemed stable and immutable by those inside and outside of it on its periphery and at its very center is that this tumultuous change despite appearances was in fact neither sudden nor unprepared Instead in hindsight it becomes clear that this change did not just ldquohappenrdquo as a sudden disruption in an otherwise stable and steady course of events Neither was it imposed by the powerful outside forces as many have assumed In fact this change had been inconspicuously prepared and gradually brought to life by the



18

very unsuspecting people who nonetheless through their seemingly mundane deeds and eff orts however ordinary and minute together made this titanic change and this tectonic shift possible and de facto real-ized it ndash even while not being fully aware of how their lives and deeds including their acts of ldquomerelyrdquo witnessing (which were never ldquomererdquo) and of struggling to live through the diffi cult times had powerfully con-tributed to in no small way and in essence created the dramatic shift s of such a historic magnitude

Perhaps more important is that this lesson is striking not so much in application to the past but rather in what to me is its striking relevance for the present and the future ndash for understanding the presently unfolding highly volatile events and cataclysms that are shaping up with unprece-dented force the rapidly changing and globalizing political and socioeco-nomic landscapes today Th e lesson I was able (and lucky) to learn is that the future is actually always already in the making now in the present and that big changes and shift s might be around the corner even as the present status quo still appears to be immutable and stable Stability might be just an illusion that many are trying to cling to while history is rushing ahead with numbing speed like a moving train without breaks

Th e implications I tend to draw from these experiences are at once conceptual political and personal It is that we all are not just passen-gers on this moving train of history ndash as if we were just gazing outside at the rapidly changing landscape while merely observing coping with and adapting to it Instead the train itself is made to move and to move in a concrete though fl uid and ever- changing direction by the collective eff orts of people who act together yet with each person mattering in individually unique ways at every step of the way at every move of history We are all actors who contribute to social practices bring about their historical realization and contribute to the future that is to come and moreover a future that is always already in the making by us now In this sense a neutral and detached position is truly not within anyonersquos aff ordance because it is impossible to avoid being implicated in the ongoing shift s and transformations and therefore we need and have to take a stance on and stake a claim in the ongoing events and their unfolding key contradictions and struggles

Th is suggests that we all are participating in and contributing to the making of history and of our common future bearing responsibility for the events unfolding today and therefore for what is to come tomorrow Th e social structures and practices exist before we enter them carrying



19

the weight of tradition and the inertia of the past yet it is our action (or inaction) including our work of understanding and knowing that helps to maintain them in their status quo or alternatively to transform and transcend them Th is making of history in the ldquohere and nowrdquo occurs in immediate and powerful albeit oft en inconspicuous and modest ways as is certainly true for most of us and our utterly modest and common indi-vidual biographies and ordinary lives (though no person is really ldquocom-monrdquo and no life merely ldquoordinaryrdquo) through our action or inaction that matter (if only on a small scale) for realties far beyond ourselves Th is is the central theme of this book ndash that human development is a collaborative project of people together changing and co- creating the world Th e world is fully enmeshed with our collective strivings and collaborative projects in a spiral of mutual historical becoming wherein each individual act of being knowing and doing ndash unique authorial and irreplaceable as it is ndash matters Human development is about people together creating our common future in the course of today while enacting history through active and activist projects of co- authoring the history- in- the- making thoroughly contingent on commitments we make to creating the future we seek and deem to be worth struggling for

Th is interpretation I believe is not inconsequential for providing conceptual support for some timely changes in perspective on human development and education For example there has been an upsurge of interest in issues of agency following social upheavals and ensuing polit-ical movements in eastern Europe in the mid- 1980s (cf Ahern 2001 ) that vividly exemplifi ed the power of activism as a human capacity for history- and world- making It is indeed important to discern and learn the lessons from what has been and still is going on in various distant parts of the world But it is the presently unfolding circumstances con-tradictions and confl icts of our own place and time our own present historical- political and geographic location that deserve much scrutiny with regards to how we understand the impact of these changes and what kind of agency and imagination ndash what kind of activist contributions ndash they necessitate and call for

In applying these lessons of an outsider who had lived through a dra-matic historical change I wrote a piece long before the economic crisis of 2008 calling on psychology to make an eff ort to capture not only patterns of social change aft er they had played out their course but also those that are emerging and taking shape right in front of our eyes in oft en tacit yet powerful forms Such eff orts are defi nitely worth making especially if we


Th e Transformative Mind

20

20

do not want to miss out on an opportunity ldquoto discern the impending social changes hellip in our ever- dynamic world that perhaps only appears to be sta-ble and fi xedrdquo (Stetsenko 2002 p 153) A later elaboration on this point is perhaps worth quoting too

By paying attention to continuing inequality and other problems fester-ing in our own societies we can become more attuned to social change not only in its sudden and dramatic expressions such as the fall of the Berlin Wall or the dismantling of the Soviet Union but also to incremen-tal tacit gradual processes building up behind the facades of the seem-ingly stable and immutable contexts and structures It is hellip through such a critical lens that we are best equipped to recognize social change in its various guises and to fi nd ways to deal with it not only aft er the fact but while we are right in the middle of change with its contours and direc-tions just now being shaped and formed Th is may be quite some task at this point in time at the beginning of this new century much social change is to be expected as it unfolds judging by its fi rst years which have already shaken up many of our received notions of society history and democracy (Stetsenko 2007a p 112 emphasis added)

Th e conclusion that can be drawn from this attempt at a personal refl ection is that it makes no sense to try to grasp or understand the world and our-selves ndash including through theories that situate these processes within the status quo ndash as if we could just pause and see them for what they are now at this moment in preparing for the future that we take to somehow just con-tinue in line with the present almost intact and steady Th is is because even as we pause the world and we have already been changed by this very act of pausing by our refl ections questions and above all by how we attempt to grasp and change the world in moving forward as it too grasps and changes us Th is is about a mutual entanglement that relentlessly propels into the future and that we encounter confront and bring into realization if only in small ways and on local scales Th ese themes and how they can be conceptually worked into an account of human development and mind including their educational implications for a pedagogy of daring will be discussed in what follows


2121

Part I


22


23

23

1

Charting the Agenda From Adaptation to Transformation

I am what time circumstance history have made of me certainly but I am also much more than that So are we all

James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son

With the notion of change at the forefront (as discussed in the Introduction) and therefore with an unavoidable sense of incompleteness and unfi nalizability of any project the approach in this book aims to spur dialogues and exchanges on how critical and sociocultural scholarship (in the broad connotation of this term cf Leonardo 2004 ) including Vygotsky- inspired approaches can be expanded and recontextualized for a new and very diff erent world ndash even more volatile unstable and unpredictable ndash than the one in which the pio-neers of these approaches have worked In particular the contemporary acute crisis of inequality including growing disparities in education requires criti-cal engagement with concepts and theories of human development and learn-ing that underpin discriminatory policies and provide them with a seeming legitimacy based in appeals to a presumably fi xed and unalterable ldquohuman naturerdquo and inborn ldquomental architecturerdquo taken as explanations for unequal achievement and social stratifi cation An engagement with broad theories and concepts of human development and mind is necessary because inequality is causing disintegration of social structures and processes that bond individuals and communities and make their development possible To paraphrase Urie Bronfenbrennerrsquos (one of the public intellectuals among psychologists who fought for social justice) stern warning ldquosocial changes taking place in mod-ern industrialized societies may have altered conditions conducive to human development to such a degree that the process of [human beings] making [themselves] human is being placed in jeopardyrdquo ( 2004 p xxvii)

Th e presently reigning theories portray human development as a solo process occurring in an isolated organism understood to be a separate



24

entity equipped with putatively inborn capacities that unfold independently of social cultural and economic supports opportunities and mediations Th ey are increasingly tailored to social (neo- ) Darwinist and mechanistic understandings that assume a static society composed of individuals who are reduced to engaging in survival through competition for resources by having to adapt to a status quo that is presumed to remain stable over time Th e resulting dominant research orientation today can be characterized as ldquothe resurgence of extremist biological determinism laden with mythic gender [and other types of] assumptionsrdquo (Morawski 2005a p 411) Most of all this research is conspicuously in sync with ideology associated with the unquestioned reign of unregulated market economies and their social Darwinist values of competition ldquosurvival of the fi ttestrdquo and struggle for advantage in an unrestricted pursuit of individual self- interest Appealing to innate unalterable and rigid biological mechanisms and determinants of human development while in fact there is no evidence to support such claims serves to supply conditions for rationalizing and justifying inequi-ties of the social order because they are viewed as biological inevitabili-ties In eff ect we are facing a new resurgence of eugenics as a means of social control ndash much in similarity with the 1920s and against the same background of deep economic crisis bitter anti-immigration sentiment and social upheaval (cf Allen 2001 )

Th e reign of views on human nature as predetermined and fi xed on the one hand and the failure of social theories to provide an alternative broad vision that could unhinge ideas of development from the ethos of adapta-tion and control on the other is a serious obstacle that needs to be dealt with to achieve changes in present policies and practices Sociocultural theories of development in particular off er many useful tools for concep-tualizing development and mind as situated in context mediated by cul-tural tools and distributed across ecosystems in which development takes place Yet they have not suffi ciently focused on broad ontological and epis-temological underpinnings in terms of the worldview- level premises about development and mind especially on how these premises are coupled with the sociopolitical ethos including as they relate to inequality and regimes of power One symptom of this for example is a lack of discussion about race and power in sociocultural theories including those in Vygotskyrsquos lineage (cf Nasir and Hand 2006 )

A number of steps for such an alternative approach off ered in this book aim to address the challenges arising especially in the context of the rapidly growing inequality particularly in education Th is approach attempts to continue and expand on the radical theories of Vygotsky and



25

also Bakhtin Freire and other critical and sociocultural scholars while critically engaging and interrogating their ideas expanding on them and grappling with their contradictions Th e key premise in setting up this approach is that human agency in carrying out and realizing changes in the shared communal practices of the social world is a natural part of the material reality and the key dimension of ontology and epistemology of human development and mind At a deeper level the key premise of a political- ideological nature is that all individuals are endowed with equal potential for social achievement intelligence creativity and other capac-ities and faculties Th at is all individuals are truly considered equal not just in their legal and moral rights nor only in opportunity but in their fundamental capacities and abilities ndash albeit only as these can and have to be brought to realization within shared collaborative practices of com-munities through individually unique and authorial contributions and with the support of collectively invented and continuously reinvented cultural mediations and tools

From this perspective no inborn predispositions can be posited to pro-duce let alone legitimize the putatively ldquonaturalrdquo status hierarchies and inequalities including in education Human developmental paths are not predefi ned nor preprogrammed in advance of development situated in context and shaped by the powerful socioeconomic political and cultural forces that position individuals within the material- semiotic practices of their time and place Instead human capabilities and capacities are consti-tuted in and through the process of development ndash as they are brought into realization in the course of people actively engaging in contributing to and transforming collaborative social practices that are culturally mediated socially contextualized and contingent on material resources including critical- theoretical tools (cf Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 ) of agency Th ere are no imposed or rigidly predetermined ldquonaturalrdquo limitations on the pro-cess of development ndash neither genetic nor any other types of ldquohard- wiredrdquo inborn dispositions or modules in the form of evolutionary inheritances that unidirectionally shape development Th is implies that all human beings have unlimited potential ndash and are thus profoundly equal precisely in this infi nity of their potential regardless of any putatively ldquonaturalrdquo endowments and ostensibly ldquointractablerdquo defi cits Th is potential however needs to be actualized by individuals themselves as an ldquoachievementrdquo (with no con-notations of either fi nality or predetermined norms) of togetherness while being supported with access to authoring requisite cultural tools and spaces for their own agency within the collaborative dynamics of shared commu-nity practices



26

Th e argument about humans all having infi nite and therefore equal potential at the start of life ndash not the same as in exactly a replica of each other but equal precisely in its infi nity ndash is supported by scientifi c discov-eries and advances of recent years in various research areas from biology and epigenetics to neuroscience and developmental psychology Th ese dis-coveries and advances testify to the malleability of genetics the practically infi nite plasticity of the brain the vast potential of cultural mediation to propel development forward and the ldquoenormous potencyrdquo (Nisbett et al 2012 p 149) previously unacknowledged of experience environment cul-ture and social interactions in development Even Charles Darwin ndash under the limits of his era and his elitist social status ndash was prescient enough to make a conjecture that ldquoif the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature but by our institutions great is our sinrdquo (cited in Gould 1996 p 19) Today more than 150 years later and aft er decades of research into human development it is well past time to unequivocally acknowledge in the face of the obvious that poverty is not the result of nature and even more importantly that our sins as society are truly great Th at appeals to ldquoinnaterdquo diff erences to justify the social status quo and entrenched power hierarchies continue unabated across broad swaths of society from mass media and everyday beliefs to policy making and social discourses is bor-dering on distorting knowledge and misleading the public to a huge detri-ment of all involved

Th e premise of fundamental equality does not negate that each person is at the same time individually unique How these notions of individual uniqueness and fundamental equality can be reconciled and how educa-tional practices can be based on the principle that all human beings have infi nite potential ndash unidentifi able in terms of any preconceived inborn limi-tations and immeasurable in terms of possible future outcomes ndash will be discussed as one of the major implications of the transformative activist stance (TAS) in continuation of Vygotskyrsquos legacy Th is social justice work can only be done in combination with a recognition and respect for diff er-ence and plurality and an acknowledgment of systemic inequalities power diff erentials and persistent discrimination in society (discussed in more details in Stetsenko in press )

Th is radical notion of equality is used in a dual way serving as both a presupposition for and a product of theory building and research On the one hand this notion is derived from an ethical- political com-mitment to social equality taken as an ideal that is underwriting and guiding theory and explorations into human development On the other hand this notion is arrived at in the course of a systematic study into



27

human development and the concepts that describe it Th is approach does not take the ideal of equality as an abstract notion nor test it in some detached and neutral way Instead it takes a stand on and commits to matters of equality as the fi rst analytical step that leads all other meth-odological strategies conceptual turns and theoretical choices and thus attempts to realize equality in the process of theory- and knowledge- building Th is is about undertaking eff orts to provide conditions for making the assumption of equality true including at the level of sup-portive theoretical constructions as one of the steps in the overall proj-ect of creating equality in society and education (for a related though not identical approach see Ranciegravere 1991 )

Such an approach counterintuitive from the standpoint of traditional objectivist and value- neutral models of science employs methodology premised on TAS and is consistent with some trends in critical and socio-cultural scholarship It centrally builds on Vygotskyrsquos notion that the meth-ods and the objects of investigation are always ldquointimately linked with one anotherrdquo (Vygotsky 1997b p 58) whereby methodology and knowledge products are not ontologically separate but instead indivisibly merged in one process In my interpretation this position implies that methodologi-cal tools strategies and techniques have to be tailored not to and result not in the uncovering of facts ldquoas they arerdquo at the present moment Rather they are about intervening with and co- constructing phenomena and processes that we investigate and grapple with together with others in non- neutral historically situated ways in line with the ontological epistemological and ideological commitments and goals (for a related yet not identical interpre-tation see Newman and Holzman 1993 )

What lies beneath these claims is a deeper- seated layer of commit-ment to and a vision for a better future that is ineluctably social moral and political at once Th at is Vygotskyrsquos method of theory and theory of method ndash and the tool and result of his approach ndash are based in an irrevoca-ble commitment to social equality and justice to the task of building a new psychology for a society in which people have equal rights especially with regards to equal access to education and to social supports and cultural mediations that they need in order to realize their development Th is broad political ethos at the core of Vygotskyrsquos project and its methodology coun-ters principles of adaptation and competition for resources as the central grounding for human development that takes the ldquogivennessrdquo of the world for granted and assumes that individuals have to fi t in with its status quo

Th e approach charted in this book is congruent with several per-spectives that break away from the constraints of maturation- based



28

physiology- driven essentialist individualist and ultimately reduction-ist accounts of human mind and development In particular it draws on a variety of cutting- edge ideas advanced in areas such as critical pedagogy feminist and science studies collaborative situated and distributed cogni-tion theories dynamic systems and actor- network theories participatory learning approaches and theories of embodiment enactment and cultural mediation As such this position is aligned with what is gradually emerging as the key direction sometimes termed the conceptual revolution in social sciences across a number of disciplines Th ese approaches bring across an extraordinarily important message about human development being situ-ated in context while putting emphasis on the relational co- constitution of human beings and the world Several of them in addition focus on the continuously unfolding historically situated and culturally mediated developmental dynamics of human embodied acting in environments

Th e recent developments in critical and sociocultural theories however oft en avoid theorizing agency mind and other processes of human subjec-tivity because these are traditionally associated with the individualist and mentalist tenets of mainstream approaches especially in psychology It is quite understandable especially given the overwhelming power and the disastrous ramifi cations of individualistic assumptions (and not just in sci-ence and education but also in economy and politics as exemplifi ed by the present global crisis) that many critical and sociocultural scholars move as far away as possible from anything to do with the level of individuals and human subjectivity Indeed because human development is generated by people collaborating within historically evolving social practices as the core condition of their existence theories limiting development to universal processes within individuals are shortsighted impoverished and politically hegemonic However excluding processes traditionally associated with the individual levels of functioning ndash such as identity mind agency thinking making decisions and choices forming concepts committing to goals and so on ndash as if they were defi nable only in terms of autonomous solipsistic and self- suffi cient processes ldquoinsiderdquo the person might be a remnant of the dualistic worldview

While building upon and integrating many important insights stem-ming from these perspectives the approach in this book suggests steps to move beyond the notions of human subjectivity including the mind as situated relational contextualized embodied enacted and dynamic Th is is achieved by more directly focusing on human agency and the power of commitment and imagination in highlighting human capacity to transform and transcend the status quo and its artifacts of reifi cation An additional



29

and no less critical specifi cation is that this capacity for agency along with other expressions of human subjectivity are understood to be fully social that is developed and realized in acting collaboratively and cooperatively with the cultural tools and within the communal spaces of the world in its ongoing historicity shared with others

Th is approach requires a number of broad and radical changes in the worldview- level assumptions about human development and mind and about reality itself along the lines of transformative propositions Th is ana-lytical shift can be achieved if instead of privileging one of the poles on the continuum of social versus individual realms of social practices the dichot-omy between these poles is deconstructed with an emphasis on agency at the intersection of individual and collective dimensions of human practices and across the scales of the past present and future Th is in turn is pos-sible if a strong emphasis on the sociocultural embedding and a situated contextualized nature of development is complemented with an eff ort to devise a thoroughly reworked model of mind agency and personhood (ie individuality of persons qua agentive actors of social practices) along with a scrutiny of attendant sociopolitical assumptions

Th is approach strives to avoid the extremes of mentalist views that limit the mind to individual mental constructs neuronal processes in the brain and computation or information processing ndash even if these are acknowledged to be embodied and situated in context and augmented with (or expanded by) external tools However it also attempts to over-come some limitations within the relational approaches ndash including eco-logical dynamic distributed situated and embodied cognition theories and theories of participatory and situated learning ndash that fuse the mind with the context and relatively disregard agency and other forms of human subjectivity Th e intention is to open the way (or at least make some steps in this direction) to advancing a fully non- mentalist situated and dynamic approach to mind and agency while also capitalizing on their transfor-mative role and relevancy in realizing communal forms of social life and human development

Th is interpretation rejects the possibility of quaint epistemology in which the mind is a copy or a refl ection of the world because it rejects fi niteness permanence and stability of social practices and of correspond-ing forms of social life and human development Within the worldview that posits reality as human praxis ndash in the connotation of ldquoworld- historical activityrdquo (Marx and Engels 1845ndash 1846 1978 p 163) or ldquohistory- making actionrdquo that always transcends the status quo through struggles and con-testation ndash the door can be opened for an idea of mind and other forms of



30

human subjectivity as active interventions and transformative forces within the world rather than its somehow accurate picturing Th at is the mind can be understood to be part of the larger practices aimed at making and remaking the world in line with envisioned alternatives and the sought- aft er future Th is is a highly ambitious and diffi cult task that involves many risks (such as of anthropocentrism individualism and mentalism) and it is important to admit at the outset that the book is likely to fall short of at least some of its stated goals

Outline of the Transformative Activist Stance

At its base this book is about critically examining the idea that runs through many works in critical and sociocultural scholarship ndash namely that circumstances change people inasmuch as people change circumstances or in another presentation of the same idea that ldquohistory does not command us history is made by us History makes us while we make it rdquo (Freire 1985 p 199 emphasis added) Tracing its roots to Marx this idea fi nds many expressions and forms For example Holland and Lave ( 2009 p 2) wrote recently

Like activity theorists and students of Vygotsky we share strong com-mitments to the historical material character of social life Th at in turn requires that we begin our inquiries about persons in practice with the ongoing historically constituted everyday world as people both help to make it what it is by their participation in it while they are being shaped by the world of which they are a part

In sharing similar strong commitments I see the need to further explore and probe this idea interrogate and problematize it ndash in the belief that its meaning is far from self- evident and that its depth and implications have not been fully plumbed yet What does it take for human beings and com-munities to make history and be made by it and what kind of theory can account for such a process More importantly in what kind of a world do people have the agency to change it and thus make history while being made by it In addition what does it mean to say that history makes us while we make it ndash what kind of a process actually stands behind this seem-ingly straightforward expression and this deceptively simple conjunction ldquowhilerdquo

Clearly an analytical focus on social structures and processes shaping human development is insuffi cient for adequately framing and addressing



31

issues that arise when considering human subjectivity mind agency and especially human ability to resist and to act in the face of uncertainties and challenges It is also not enough to say that there are active individu-als and an active world or that they are somehow interlinked ndash because this position does not specify the processes behind the ldquolinkrdquo that con-nects the two and oft en still presupposes a dichotomy between them In many approaches people are viewed as if they were removed from the world as outsiders who only construct meanings about and interpret reality or alternatively as fully and seamlessly immersed in the world to such an extent that they lack ability to resist the all- powerful forces of culture history and society Th e ways of working out issues surrounding these conundrums as will be suggested herein is to conceptualize and centrally focus on the nexus of people changing the world and of them being changed in the process of themselves bringing about changes in the world including how the world is changing them In this dialectically recursive and dynamically co- constitutive approach as will be discussed throughout the book people can be said to realize their development in the agentive enactment of changes that bring the world and simultane-ously their own lives including their selves and minds into reality

Th ese transformative processes are situated in shared contexts of communal history enacted by collective practices while relying on their resources tools spaces and collaborative interactivities Yet the active and activist role of people in realizing these processes while acting on commit-ments to a sought- aft er future to what they themselves deem important and worth struggling for cannot be ignored Acting on a commitment to how the world should be ndash instead of merely expecting changes and prepar-ing for them or of imagining them as already in existence ndash amounts to affi rming and creating the future- to- come already in the present Th is is because the present the seemingly indomitable status quo always already is changing and morphing into the future as we attempt to grasp and grapple with it in the acts of our becoming which are always transformative of the present

Moreover affi rming the future in realizing it in the present is coextensive with persons affi rming themselves ndash and not as isolated individuals but as actors and agents of social practices in their ongoing communal historicity ndash along with affi rming others as such actors and agents too in their hetero-geneity and plurality through commitment to solidarity (note some over-laps of this position with Derridarsquos writings on the future see eg Owen 2004 ) Envisioning a diff erent world making a commitment to bringing it about and struggling to realize it by altering and transcending it now is the



32

process of creating the future in the present as a reality in its own right Th is reality is not confi ned to the status quo and instead is always in the pro-cess of being realized in the ldquohere and nowrdquo beyond what it just appears to be ndash because the present encompasses the past (in inevitably continuing it) and always already inaugurates the future in its ongoing historicity Th us this stance is about inventing the future through struggle and contestation an activist striving for a better world ndash and thus about co- creating reality rather than merely expecting or hoping for the futurersquos somehow predes-tined arrival

Importantly the social change and transformation enacted in the move-ment beyond the given is taken to be no less and in fact more real than what is oft en believed is the abstract and neutral ldquobruterdquo reality of the world as it exists now in its status quo and its seemingly unalterable ldquogivensrdquo rei-fi ed in the taken- for- granted states structures circumstances and ldquofactsrdquo Th erefore it is the process of co- creating co- authoring and inventing the future all embodied in the struggle to change the world and the ways in which it is shaping us ndash in the acts of taking a stand staking a claim making a commitment and claiming a position and thus coming to know and to exist while working and laboring to realize them ndash that is rendered founda-tional to human development and subjectivity

In this interpretation an activist stance is understood as part of carry-ing out social communal practices and therefore as part of reality ndash rather than merely a sociocognitive product of abstract calculations by an isolated individual A stance of committing to realizing the future is not a domain of ldquosheerrdquo subjectivity (traditionally understood) but a grasp of reality ndash and in eff ect part of reality Th is is about understanding the event of grasping and taking a stand as something that happens not only in the world but to the world (cf Stengers 2002a in elaborating on Whitehead 1920 cf Latour 2005a ) and importantly also to us From TAS taking up a position and making a commitment are acts that realize the- world- in- the- making ndash and therefore are instances of mattering through making a diff erence in the world ndash acts that are real and productive and even ldquomore than realrdquo (as will be discussed in more detail throughout the book and especially in Part 3 through Part 5) Th e core point is that we come to be and to know in the always non- neutral ndash that is passionate and activist ndash acts of making and working out commitments to a sought- aft er future that are formative of the bidirectional and mutual becoming of ourselves and our world

Th e stances and commitments to a sought- aft er future are not posited as a universal and abstract mental telos that is as some kind of an ideal meta-physical fi xed destination that history presumably aims to reach because



33

of its own inherent logic Instead they are understood in their relevance within concrete and situated activities in the present as a mode of grap-pling with contradictions of the status quo in a quest to overcome them in the furtherance of onersquos path that always contributes to ongoing com-munity practices and thus is never merely individual Th is position aims to undo the boundary not only between the individual and the social (or agency and structure) but also in a related move between the real and the possible (cf Crapanzano 2004 ) specifi cally through a focus on articulating and committing to the sought- aft er future that brings the future into the present within the struggles for alternatives including in creating possibility against probability (cf Stengers 2002b ) In this emphasis there is an affi nity (though not a complete alignment) between commitment and notions such as ldquohope against hoperdquo (cf West 1993 p xi) and ldquohope against probabilityrdquo (Stengers 2002b p 269) Th e commonality across these notions is about persistence in the face of apparently insurmountable obstacles and seem-ingly invincible social ills Th is position strives to avoid extremes of utopian thinking on one hand and gloomy pessimism on the other Importantly it does so while acknowledging the harsh reality that no individual act might be fully suffi cient to enact broad social changes yet highlighting the value of such acts

Th is approach is underpinned by a transformative worldview that encompasses ontology (what reality is taken to be) and epistemology (what the process of knowing about reality is taken to be) that are coupled most critically with a socioethical commitment to radical equality and solidarity Importantly this ethos is not merely added to considerations at the level of foundational assumptions about human development Instead the princi-ples of equality and solidarity are understood to be integral parts of theory whereby theory is devised in ways that can embody and carry out (and hopefully also advance) an ethical social practice ontological vision and epistemological principle in one encompassing logic

Th e transformative ontology and epistemology are both premised on the notion that agency embodied in activist stance is inherent in human development in its interrelated dimensions of being knowing and doing Agency thus understood is associated with and emblematic of people col-laboratively moving beyond the status quo (ie the presently ldquogivenrdquo real-ity) through individual agentive contributions to this process while relying on cultural tools of creating social change predicated on a sought- aft er future Activism conveys the sense that all individuals and communities are immersed within and are always contributing to not just the neutral con-texts or environments that somehow peacefully ldquosurroundrdquo them Instead



34

human development is part and parcel of the unfolding drama and struggle that constitute the world infused with confl icts and contradictions dilem-mas and challenges ndash which even in their daily expressions and everyday contexts are always about the struggle for transformation of the world (cf Freire 1994 )

What is highlighted by the term activism (in contrast to the more neu-tral notions such as experience engagement dwelling or participation) is that development is about participating yet is also and even more critically about contributing to transformative communal practices from one or the other side or position and stance on their dilemmas and contradictions Th is entails persons taking an agentive position within the social processes that are powerfully shaping them ndash taking a stance and staking a claim on what is going on in their context and its community practices ndash in order to change these contexts and practices in line with their own vision and com-mitment to a sought- aft er future Th e related premise is that social change and agency are ubiquitous endemic and immanent in the world under-stood as a realm that not only embeds grounds and gives rise to human development but is co- created by social collaborative practices embodied in individual and communal ways of being knowing and doing Th us human development and the world are viewed as coterminous and coextensive with the ongoing social collaborative practices extending through history and across generations and therefore as also commensurate coterminous and coextensive with each other

Th e emphasis is on the world (reality) and human development being brought into existence ndash that is realized and actualized ndash precisely in and through the process of collaborative transformation that people instigate and carry out as actors of collective practices and agents of communal history Th e dynamic and recursive unending transitions within these continuous bidirectional open- ended and co- evolving circuits of social practices ceaselessly unfolding through time ndash as the nexus of human beings and their world at the interface of collective and individual agency and across the time dimensions ndash are taken to be the constitutive ldquofab-ricrdquo from which the world and human ways of being knowing and doing evolve and which in the same process they bring into realization From this position not only are agency and human subjectivity this- worldly parts of the natural world (as has been claimed already by William James 1907 ) but the world and reality are not some neutral unitary unchanging realms separate from us Instead they are imbued with the human dimen-sions including struggle rupture disputability contestation commitment and imagination



35

Th is orientation is expressed in the notion advanced throughout this book that human development is a collaborative and creative work- in- progress by people acting together in pursuit of their goals while in the pro-cess always moving beyond the status quo and its existing conditions and limitations Th e emphasis is not on people acting under given conditions as in many relational and contextualist accounts and also in the canonical interpretations of Marxism Instead the primary emphasis is on struggle and striving ndash on people encountering confronting and overcoming the circumstances and conditions that are not so much given as taken up by people within the processes of actively grappling with them and thus real-izing and bringing them forth in striving to change and transcend them It is this process of struggle and striving that is ascribed with an ontologi-cally epistemologically and methodologically central signifi cance

While being profoundly social and reliant on cultural supports and mediations and thus comprehensible only against the background of his-torically specifi c collective semiotic- material practices in their communal histories and collaborative dynamics development is understood at the same time to be fully contingent on individually unique contributions to communal social practices in ways that propel them forward Development is therefore enacted and realized by individuals yet by individuals act-ing as social subjects and actors of collective history who are brought into existence by collaborative practices that is as community members and co- creators of their own communal world and collective history In this approach individuals come to be to know and to act only within social practices and while critically relying on access to these practicesrsquo cultural resources and tools indispensable for development and learning Yet these practices are co- created by individuals who in contributing to changes in communal forms of life collaboratively enact and carry out both their own development and the social fabric of their world

Th e notion that people contribute to and thus change the world enacted through social practices (rather than merely participate in them) while struggling for a sought- aft er future that they commit to ndash posited as onto-logically and epistemologically central to development and mind ndash in fact expands and moves beyond Vygotskyrsquos tenets Th ese tenets were centrally focused on the present communal practices and perhaps especially their past history A critical expansion off ered herein concerns the relevance of the forward- looking activist positioning vis- agrave- vis the future and of a com-mitment to social change in order to bring this future into reality Th e criti-cal constituent of human development mind and learning therefore is posited to consist in taking stands and staking claims on ongoing events



36

confl icts and contradictions in view of the goals commitments and aspi-rations for the future ndash the process of making up onersquos mind as literally a process through which the mind comes about and develops

In this view in continuation of Vygotskyrsquos legacy and its underpinnings in Marxist philosophy yet with a number of revisions made to their canonical postulates development does not just somehow happen to people Instead it is creatively and collaboratively carried out organized and performed that is worked out as an ongoing eff ort and a continuous open- ended striv-ing at being knowing and doing in ways that transcend the present Th e goal is to show how activism premises human development understood as a continuous and uninterrupted striving for contribution to communal forms of life that is simultaneously the condition for self- realization and realiza-tion of fellow human beings Th is is about positing the normative ideal of solidarity as the condition for self- determination of each community mem-ber and vice versa positing the ideal of self- determination as the condition for solidarity and interdependence of all

Th ese ideas are advanced as an alternative to the principle of adapta-tion in the role of a broad underpinning for human development and social life Adaptation assumes that human development is shaped by impera-tives of survival and competition for what is typically taken to be limited resources available in the present by individuals acting in solitude each on onersquos own in maximizing individual gains while adjusting to the sta-tus quo Furthermore adaptation is tied up with the sociopolitical ethos of controlling disciplining and regulating public life and individual conduct within established social structures in their existing order and normativ-ity What is highlighted instead by the TAS is that human development is co- constructed by people as agentive actors of communal social practices their own lives and common history In their acts of being knowing and doing people can and always do challenge the taken- for- granted reali-ties and rules ndash while transcending them in collectively moving forward and jointly co- authoring these practices and simultaneously themselves Underlying these notions is a shift away from the ethos of competition and survival to that of collaboration and solidarity

Th is conceptual move opens up ways for a dynamic and dialectical the-ory of human subjectivity mind and agency In particular these phenom-ena can be understood to be possible only within collective practices and solidaristic communities yet at the same time they are posited as legitimate and indispensable dimensions and even constituents and ldquodriversrdquo of these very practices What is acknowledged and strongly emphasized in this con-ception most critically is that solidaristic communities are only possible



37

if activism of each and every person ndash as an ability to form onersquos unique stance position and voice that make contributing to communal practices possible ndash is socially and culturally co- constituted nurtured supported and sustained through collective practices Th is can be achieved by a com-munally organized provision of sociocultural structures mediators shared spaces and cultural tools that individuals can agentively and creatively take up and carry out in novel and authentic ways from their unique positions and stances that are formed in this very process of ldquotaking uprdquo their world

Such a conceptual shift as mentioned previously involves many risks of falling into the traps of individualism instrumentalism mentalism and universalism of dominant ldquomaster narrativesrdquo However by explicitly integrating social change activism and transformation into the very basic descriptions of human development and the world the risks associated with the traditional anthropocentric appeals to humansrsquo role in fashioning their world and development can be avoided Th e framework premised on trans-formative stance by its very defi nitional anchoring in the notions of change instability struggle and contestation is opposed to ideas of a static fi xed ahistorical and universal world and human nature Th e transformative onto- epistemology challenges the key canons of universality and immutability of sameness and fi xed orderliness of the status quo to instead embrace the fl uid dynamic contingent historical and ever- changing nature of human devel-opment and of the world as ldquoawash in the sea of changerdquo

Methodology

Another central thread elaborated in and running through this book is that the notions of activism and transformation are applied not only to concep-tualizing human development and mind Th e same notions are applied to the practices of doing theorizing and research and to associated processes of knowledge production and its practical applications Th ese practices and processes too are highlighted as activist endeavors launched from a posi-tion situated in the present and steeped in the past and thus inevitably continuing and contributing to history ndash rather than as a neutral and value- free processes carried out ldquofrom nowhererdquo (as is widely acknowledged in many strands of critical scholarship) Along with this emphasis on the pres-ent and the past however the added focus is on how knowledge necessarily builds also upon a commitment vis- agrave- vis the sought- aft er future that seeks to transcend the status quo

In solidarity with other critical traditions of activist research still largely marginalized this orientation seeks to establish closer links between



38

research and theory as scientifi c endeavors on one hand and a commit-ment to instigating and supporting social changes at the intersection of theory and practice on the other Th is eff ort is underpinned by a com-mitment to reconceptualizing human mind and development as one step within the larger project that is simultaneously theoretical- conceptual and practical- ideological Th is larger project is a quest to transform current prac-tices especially in education so that they embody and enact ideas and ideals (and ideologies) of radical equality solidarity and freedom Moreover an ethical- normative dimension of this approach is that equality and freedom are achievable with equal access to the requisite tools of agency and self- determination practiced in concert with and for solidarity with others as the major goal of education Th at is though the issues discussed in this book belong to the level of theoretical discussions and arguments (and one could say quite ldquoheavilyrdquo so) the major eff ort is of a practical- ideological nature and (hopefully) import

Th ere have been many important achievements within postmodern-ist sociocultural and critical scholarship of the past decades especially in that it has consistently and successfully demonstrated that knowledge cannot be usefully conceptualized to simply mirror reality in disconnec-tion from social practices and power structures contrary to traditional mainstream ldquocorrespondence to realityrdquo approaches Th is scholarship has revealed with striking clarity that traditional accounts ignore social contingencies and power dynamics inherent in knowledge pro-duction inevitably ending up in an untenable position that there is one true answer to any inquiry and problem ndash typically produced by those in power In place of this ldquoknowledge- as- mirror- refl ectionrdquo canon con-temporary works in critical and sociocultural scholarship have advanced many useful notions and approaches such as situativity and plurality of knowing Especially in its critical gist that resists normativity of estab-lished canons these lines of social theory represent an important anti-dote to reductionist views on human development and knowledge that naturalize them as independent from social practices Whereas theoreti-cal lineages and specifi c positions vary widely across this scholarship the abiding sense of resistance and critique of value- neutrality empiricism and normativity indicates similarities potentially uniting them as allies in one powerful current of thought

However there remain ambiguities and tensions especially pertain-ing to how knowledge claims can be evaluated in terms of accuracy reli-ability and validity Th e continuing conundrum is that on one hand it is clear (aft er decades of work in critical scholarship) that a one- to- one



39

correspondence between reality and knowledge posited by objectivist sci-ence leads to intractable problems On the other hand the position that knowledge is situated within practices organized by discursive resources and therefore contingent contextually relative plural and historically specifi c has come to be associated especially in postmodernism with the view that it is impossible to discern among competing knowledge claims to ground social actions Although groundbreaking and progressive in many respects some strands within postmodernist critical and socio-cultural scholarship lead (or at least are interpreted to lead) to relativ-ism and radical indeterminacy that are ontologically mute and politically indecisive

Th ere also exists a tradition of research with radical activist agen-das of social equality and justice (discussed in more detail in Chapter 2 ) Th is scholarship is oft en accused of partisanship and lack of objectivity Moreover oft en it still grapples with these charges and struggles to come to terms with them not infrequently equivocating on the key premises that can ground activist approaches Th is kind of scholarship can benefi t from more work at the level of broad theories and worldview assumptions that could help to theorize activism and research with transformative agendas in ways that clearly and fi rmly legitimate them One of the tasks is to show how knowledge is always not value- and politics- free and partisan ndash yet there are ways to claim that it can be also at once accurate veridical and even in a sense realist (under the condition that reality is understood in non- traditional ways) Th is is especially important if critical scholarship is to pursue the goals of social change and action beyond those of interpreta-tion and deconstruction

Lewis Feuer observed that Dewey ldquowas the fi rst philosopher who tried to read democracy into the ultimate nature of things and social reform into the meaning of knowledgerdquo (quoted in Garrison 1994 p 13) Th is is a deep insight Yet it is possible to argue that it was Vygotsky working in the con-text of an unprecedented giant social experiment within the crucible of the revolution ndash with its great impulse for and a powerful unleashing of individual and collective agency in the struggle for new social practices and structures (all its tragic failures notwithstanding) ndash who off ered an outline for an even more radical approach Th is approach can be used to read into the ultimate nature of reality and of human development not only the exist-ing models of democracy as Dewey arguably did but the passionate activ-ism ndash a quest for and a commitment to a just and truly democratic society that still needs to be created rather than taken for granted or assumed as being already in existence



40

In addition Deweyrsquos insight that ldquosociety not only continues to exist by transmission by communication but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission in communicationrdquo ( 1916 1922 p 5) can be dialecti-cally expanded based in the legacy of Vygotskyrsquos project From such an expanded viewpoint society exists indeed not by transmission and com-munication ndash and this is in agreement with Dewey However society does not exist in transmission and communication either ndash contrary to what Dewey surmised In moving beyond his insight it is possible to argue that society may fairly be said to exist in transformation ndash in the process of activist change undertaken by individuals and communities based in a solidaristic commitment to creating novel social arrangements and forms of democracy that truly support equality and equal access to resources including the tools of agency for all


41

41

2

Situating Th eory Th e Charges and Challenges of Th eorizing Activism

Are new broad theories of human development mind and learning needed today Th e answer to this question ndash just as to any question about theory and knowledge ndash is not purely theoretical but also historical practical and political It is important to contextualize and situate this question in the unfolding dynamics of the present steeped in history while also project-ing into the future in considering the possibilities of what could and most critically what we think ought to be Such work of contextualizing situat-ing and historizing theoretical questions and inquiries has to stretch across the time scales of the past present and future in order to develop a lens through which knowledge production including theory building and the realities that embed it can be examined

Th rough this lens the present moment can be seen as a peculiar time of an acute crisis that is unfolding since at least the economic collapse of 2008 apparently unexpectedly following what many had seen as the end of history aft er the fall of sociopolitical systems in eastern Europe and on the global scale Indeed preceding the present crisis was a period of time when the general perception of having achieved the desired social ends of liberal democracy had settled in accompanied by what later turned out to be a false sense of certainty fi nality and predictability Not only history had supposedly come to an end With it also the need for broad social projects and related theoretical work that could support such projects had been cast as either unnecessary or impossible ndash and oft en as both Th e time for theory too presumably ended with motivation for radical ideas wan-ing as radical transformation appeared increasingly unwanted and implau-sible even utopian and dangerous Capturing this spirit Fredric Jameson wrote already in the mid- 1980s that the ldquopremonitions of the future cata-strophic or redemptive have been replaced by senses of the end of this or thatrdquo ( 1991 p 1)



42

Th e crisis across all levels and strata of social life ndash from economy and international politics to education and public policy ndash is presently unfold-ing in place of what could have been an era of reconciliation and social transformation aft er the end of the Cold War which had opened pros-pects for a shift away from polarized and hegemonic politics and policies Instead the world has witnessed increasing inequalities growing economic turmoil and an unprecedented global ecological disaster ndash that all had been brewing almost undetected through the euphoria and triumphalism of the 1990s and early in the new millennium With the onset of the crisis how-ever the euphoria and triumphalism not so much slipped away as crashed to the fl oor Now it is the senses of the end of history and of certainty and fi nality that have ended rather abruptly and violently ndash replaced by high anxiety confusion and a realization that everything that appears solid in fact melts in the air Th is is a time of rapid transitions when conceptual and theoretical realizations might be lagging behind the sweeping changes in the world and when new ways of thinking and theorizing might be needed to capture these changes and to support approaches that could steer them in desired directions

Th e ongoing crisis in social economic and political landscapes is accompanied not coincidentally by a no less drastic crisis in approaches to science especially at the intersection with education Th is latter crisis has many reasons dimensions and its own complicated dynamics One of its hallmarks is an enforcement of a crude narrow model of evidence- based disinterested value- neutral science that is devoid of theory and tailored to reductionist views of nature human development education and mind Th ese models prize biological explanations that put human development in service to natural selection and adaptation focus on isolated individu-als as prime units of analysis equate mind with the brain and promote the mantras of neutral evidence all taken as standards of what is claimed to be the only way to do objective science

In place of building off from the many breakthroughs in understanding nature and human development what knowledge is and how science works that have been accumulated throughout the twentieth century ndash in fact amounting to no less than a conceptual revolution ndash there is now a resur-gence of naturalist superstitions that parallel if not outdo the prior forms of supernaturalist orthodoxy While limitations and faults of this latter (and older) orthodoxy are striking the current excesses of pseudo- naturalism and pseudo- objectivity are no less alarming and harmful (cf Howe 2009 ) According to the charge central to this new orthodoxy research is supposed to be based on presumably ldquonakedrdquo evidence composed of ldquorawrdquo facts about



43

ldquoindomitablerdquo nature and ldquopristinerdquo reality (all supposedly residing in bio-logical processes and phenomena) ndash as we fi nd them ldquohere and nowrdquo some-how purged of human dimensions and independent from not only society history and context but even from the more immediately situated processes and practices of knowledge production and research Emblematic of how widely these views are disseminated is that even science textbooks act as egregious purveyors of outdated myths and inaccuracies (Gould 1988 )

Psychology and many approaches in education that oft en follow its suit have been especially susceptible to the pressures to comply with the strin-gent criteria of objectivist and reductionist models supposedly free of nor-mativity and ideals Having emerged during the time of striking advances in natural sciences at the turn of the twentieth century psychologyrsquos pursuit to establish itself as a credible science meant that it emulated methods epis-temologies and models of inquiry predominantly developed in physics and biology taken as the paradigmatic sciences Yet lacking requisite theoretical tools and without much of a philosophical engagement with the cutting- edge advances in these sciences psychologists were taking over outmoded models and methods of scientifi c inquiry

Not surprisingly psychology ended up being shaped by a model of sci-ence and inquiry that had been consolidated at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and abandoned by the twentieth century largely unbeknownst to psychologists in the fl agship disciplines and approaches within natu-ral sciences such as physics and biology Psychologists de facto lagging behind natural sciences just as (and probably because) they aspired to emulate their models moved away from the early psychological concepts and redefi ned their discipline in the name of natural science as being con-cerned with phenomena in their dependence on a physical organism As Jill Morawski ( 2005a ) states objectivity became the banner of the early- twentieth- century experimental psychology when researchers paradoxi-cally discarded with all methodologies but experimentation because of what they saw as their moralism and subjectivism Instead psychologists ordained objective experimentation with its moral order and ethics of disinterestedness and distance (see Danziger 1990 1993 Hacking 2002 Hatfi eld 1995 ) In pursuing ideals of objectivity as ldquoself- commanding triumphing over temptations and frailties of fl esh and spiritrdquo (Daston and Galison 1992 p 83 quoted in Morawski 2005b p 85) by the mid- twentieth century psychology started relying heavily on what it took to be the exclusive staples of scientifi c rigor ndash experimental design signifi -cance testing and classical test theory Th is in turn has directly aff ected education research (which has oft en relied on psychology for its theory



44

and methods) shaping it in similar directions of objectivist normativity purged of human and political dimensions

Today when the neutral ldquoobjectivistrdquo views and models of what is science are imposed through various policies that govern research and even when they are critiqued by scholars who strive to develop alterna-tive positions it is oft en ignored that they actually go against the signal breakthrough developments in the fl agship natural sciences of the twen-tieth century especially in physics and biology and particularly as these developments became refl ected in the philosophy of science and science studies including in feminist epistemology In these works the premise of a uniform pristine empirical foundation for knowledge has been rejected In its place the central insight garnered from various disciplines has been that knowledge is inextricably connected to the situated practices of its produc-tion and therefore is neither theory- neutral nor independent from history and context

Strong critiques of value- neutral models have been developed expos-ing their contradictions mythologies and dead ends to show how the supposedly neutral conduct of science is rooted in history and entangled with cultural and political dimensions (eg Eisenhart and Howe 1992 ) Historians have revealed the contextual and situated ldquoconnectivity of sci-encerdquo as a human endeavor of practical import (eg Danziger 1990 1997 ) including the reciprocal relationships co- constitutions and bindings among evidence methodology normative assumptions political interests instrumentalities variables and models of reality (cf Burman 1994 1997 Rutherford Vaughn- Blount and Ball 2010 ) Th ese works illustrate how sci-ence is about descriptive and normative ldquoacts in the making and sustain-ing of the modern social worldrdquo (Morawski 2012 p 20) In constructing ldquoan artifactual empirical order whose relationship to the natural order is problematicrdquo (Danziger 1993 p 20) research products such as classifi ca-tions and categorizations of individual conduct and mentality are de facto manufactured historical entities that ldquoresult from highly conventionalized constructive activities of psychologistsrdquo (ibid p 21) including nomencla-tures used in aptitude testing (see eg Hacking 1995 2002 Rose 1996 )

Th e critical point for the present discussion is that none of these claims invalidates science and knowledge as is oft en stated by proponents of the positivist value- neutral orthodoxy and sometimes even by critical scholars (albeit less frequently and from a diametrically opposite stance) Instead science and knowledge can and need to be depicted in a diff erent light which entails changes in the notions of objectivity validity reliability and truth rather than obliteration of these notions It is quite telling that this was



45

apparently clear to many scholars already in the early twentieth century who pioneered some of the most signifi cant breakthroughs across humani-ties and sciences For example when William James stated in 1907 quite poetically and prophetically that ldquo[p] urely objective truth hellip is nowhere to be foundrdquo because ldquothe trail of the human serpent is hellip over everythingrdquo (p 60) this position did not imply a rejection of knowledge pursuits and of truth Or when Lev Vygotsky wrote that ldquoeverything described as a fact is already a theoryrdquo ( 1997a p 249) and that ldquopure objectivity in the educator is utter nonsenserdquo ( 1997c p 349) he was not dismissing science and objec-tivity Similarly when Niels Bohr accepted the radical premise that ldquo[i]t is wrong to think that the task of physics is to fi nd out how nature isrdquo (quoted in Newton 2009 p 40) independently of our questions instruments and methodologies this did not imply the impossibility of physics but instead laid grounds for its most signifi cant advances

Th e later developments in sciences have built off from these insights with scholars such as the chemist and system theorist Ilya Prigogine stating for example that ldquothe more we know about our universe the more diffi cult it becomes to believe in determinismrdquo ( 1997 p 155 see also Prigogine and Stengers 1984 ) Remarkable expressions of and deep insights into the con-tingent nature of objectivity came from the Afrocentric perspectives that represented alternatives to traditional scientistic positivism developed by dissenters involved in political struggles of their time As Kenneth B Clark wrote in the Dark Ghetto Dilemmas of Social Power ( 1989 p 78 emphasis added)

Objectivity without question essential to the scientifi c perspective when it warns of the dangers of bias and prejudgment in interfering with the search for truth and in contaminating the understanding of truth too oft en becomes a kind of a fetish which serves to block the view of truth itself particularly when painful and diffi cult moral insights are involved

When James Vygotsky Bohr Prigogine Stengers Clark and many other scholars refused to chase the impossible ideal of a purely objectivist science they were working out alternative models of science rather than abandoning the pursuit of knowledge and objectivity as such What they were arguing against was the notion of objectivity devoid of human dimen-sions the one captured so well by Gloria Anzalduacutea who wrote that ldquo[i] n trying to become lsquoobjectiversquo Western culture made lsquoobjectsrsquo of things and people when it distanced itself from them thereby losing lsquotouchrsquo with themrdquo ( 2006 p 260) Th e point that knowledge is produced (or constructed) within the processes of inquiry that represent human endeavors situated in



46

worldly contexts ndash with their historically culturally and politically shaped discourses intellectual traditions ideologies interests and instruments ndash does not render knowledge impossible or unreliable On the contrary it is an imposition on social sciences and education of models that insist on neutrality ldquorawrdquo objectivity and evidence ldquouncontaminatedrdquo by contin-gencies of practices and contexts in which knowledge is produced that is doing a huge disservice to these fi elds rather than providing any warrants for improvement and progress

Such considerations against the new unbridled pressures of pseudo- objectivism are oft en dismissed as if they were claims against science and warranted knowledge by some obscurantist positions But again note how a leading geneticist of the twentieth century Th eodosius Dobzhansky ( 1962 p 138) whose ideas were far from any Marxist inclinations wrote on these matters

Scientists oft en have a naiumlve faith that if only they could discover enough facts about a problem these facts would somehow arrange themselves in a compelling and true solution Th e relation between scientifi c dis-covery and popular belief is not however a one- way street Marxists are more right than wrong when they argue that the problems scientists take up the way they go about solving them and even the solutions they are inclined to accept are conditioned by the intellectual social and eco-nomic environments in which they live and work

In a similar vein the economist Uwe E Reinhardt ( 2010 ) reveals a far from neutral ldquounderbellyrdquo of a seemingly objective research as it transpires even in the most mundane and supposedly impartial value- free research activi-ties even when they rely on quantifi cation and measurement

a researcherrsquos political ideology or vested interest in a particular theory can hellip enter even ostensibly descriptive analysis by the data set chosen for the research the mathematical transformations of raw data and the exclusion of so- called outlier data the specifi c form of the mathemati-cal equations posited for estimation the estimation method used the number of retrials in estimation to get what strikes the researcher as ldquoplausiblerdquo results and the manner in which fi nal research fi ndings are presented

To emphasize again arguments against objectivist models of science are not a plea from a position that rejects knowledge and science as such Rather these arguments build upon insights into how knowledge production is entangled with its contexts ideologies and practices and therefore how it needs to be redefined away from the orthodoxy



47

of impartiality and neutrality Highlighting the coupling of context history power and knowledge does not entail automatically reducing knowledge to power or rejecting claims to validity and discussions of evidence

When research is supposed to be based on presumably ldquonakedrdquo evidence composed of ldquorawrdquo facts about ldquoindomitablerdquo nature and neutral reality understood under the banner of objectivity as somehow purged of human dimensions we are actually dealing with what is a highly subjective inven-tion of a mythological neverland ndash a virtual reality that is situated nowhere has no history and aims at nothing Th is objectivist doctrine obscures that science is a human historically situated culturally mediated and ultimately practical enterprise carried out by people who have interests and agendas sit-uated in history context and time Most signifi cantly the dominant trends pushing for a narrowly understood objectivity that portrays science as a practice- context- and history- free process of collecting facts conveniently disregards its own practice context and history Such narrowly objectivist ideals are not only outdated Th ey are highly ideologically charged in that they have roots in and are entangled with the practices and ideologies that promote inequality control and asymmetry of power and privilege among social groups In this entanglement with the hegemonic social structures and policies the objectivist model of science is in eff ect starkly ideological and strikingly partisan ndash just as it denies the role of interests and obscures the complicated political and ideological work behind knowledge produc-tion and research practices While claiming value neutrality and normativ-ity of objective standards such as evidence- based research the dominant perspectives in social sciences and education especially those related to intelligence and achievement testing carry with them an old legendry of ldquothe magic science and religion all mixed togetherrdquo (White 2000a p 39) Th is legendry is recently epitomized in the eff orts with boldness not seen in over a century to account for human diff erences in evolutionary and biological terms based in the logic of adaptation by natural selection or in abstractly quantifi able measurements disconnected from theory context and history

The Neo- Darwinian Ethos of Adaptation

Addressing the faults of objectivist models is not a matter of airing idle aca-demic frustrations Much more is at stake Th e enforcement of these models has to be understood within the broader context of current marketization and privatization of science and knowledge along with practically all other



48

spheres of life Th ese trends are especially pronounced in education where recent reforms subordinate it to economic interests and drain it of its aspi-rational goals Th e pressures to conform to the logic of market reforms require education to fulfi ll expectations of a narrowly understood objec-tivity and accountability at the expense of its core obligation to promote engaged and active citizenship while increasing opportunities for social equity and democratic participation for all As part of this highly ideologi-cal agenda under the banner of objectivity a radical expansion of testing in schools reduces education to rote memorization of raw facts disconnected from their human dimensions Th e implementation of this kind of reforms stands in the way of education promoting engaged participation in learning through a passionate quest for and a creative exploration of knowledge and the social world ndash as it is and as it could be

It is not that concerns for objectivity warranted conclusions rigor and accountability are inherently inimical to ideals of democracy and social justice However when educational reforms are centered on developing standardized tests as the sole arbiter of performance and in place of eff orts at improving teachersrsquo preparation while also alleviating systemic poverty and inequality as the background conditions for underachievement these strategies work against their own proclaimed goals of improving education No less importantly such approaches consistently stifl e diversity in disad-vantaging poor and minority students (eg Darling- Hammond 2007 ) for example through disparities in funding compounded by categorically fallacious diagnostic and testing systems (Artiles 2012 ) Th ese systems long since revealed as legitimizing purported ldquodefi ciencyrdquo of minority and poor students under the guise of rationalism (eg Ladson- Billings 2006 ) categorize students based in arbitrary procedures and medical- sounding nomenclature of questionable validity (Apple 1996 Artiles 2012 Kohn 2000 cf Hruby 2012 ) With education funding starkly segregated along racial and social class lines ldquoTh e children who most depend on the public schools for any chance in life are concentrated in schools struggling with all the dimensions of family and neighborhood poverty and isolationrdquo (see Kucsera and Orfi eld 2014 )

Th ese trends in education are parts of the larger shift s in the overall social economic and political- ideological landscape that are associated with the market- driven deregulation competition and stratifi cation ndash as has been discussed in many works by critical and sociocultural scholars What needs to be further emphasized is that this is a highly entangled web in which the ldquoneverlandrdquo version of the supposedly neutral objectivity the biologically reductionist views of human nature and development and the



49

ldquotesting maniardquo spawned by the metric- based reforms in schools are closely related In fact they are directly mirroring and supporting the trends of marketization as well as each other It is as part of this web that research and scholarship are channeled into oft en theoretically impoverished approaches that reduce knowledge building to collecting facts about how the world is It is also part of the same web that the mind is reduced to the brain and indi-viduals to pawns who react to stimuli under control of brain chemistry or who passively process information by means of inborn cognitive modules guided by hardwired genetic programming

Th e attendant models of education follow suit and play into the same dynamics when teaching is reduced to a passive transmission of facts while learning is watered down to processes of mechanically receiving and mem-orizing ldquoneutralrdquo information It is as if the expectation is that learners can be turned into computers ndash controlled and extraneously guided machines that somehow process transmitted neutral information and facts in ways that are disconnected from and devoid of their own interests goals aspira-tions and strivings Implementing these dehumanizing strategies in hopes of improving education to increase market productivity and effi ciency of the labor force is utterly futile even in terms of these narrowly conceived technological instrumentalist and market- driven goals

All of these trends and policies are intertwined and interlocked and they need be tackled as such at once or at least in view of each other ndash while foregrounding one or the other dimension of this entangled web without losing sight of the others Critical to this task as will be elaborated in this book is discerning the neo- Darwinian (aka sociobiological) ethos of competition and survival of the fi ttest under the leading notion of passive adaptation to the status quo that lies at the core of these trends According to this ethos people have intrinsic inborn and largely unalterable abili-ties and traits that become manifested in performances and achievements independently of the social economic and cultural contexts and supports that individuals are provided with or deprived of Th e immediate ldquoobjec-tiverdquo implication is that this proclaimed inborn diff erentiation among peo-ple in their abilities and traits inevitably produces natural social hierarchy supposedly an expression of immutable human nature that rigidly dictates outcomes of development and shapes its paths

Th is sociopolitical ethos of adaptation became dominant especially dur-ing the last approximately three decades along with the waning of orga-nized political movements since the 1980s and especially aft er the end of the Cold War (for various political and historical reasons) It is during this time that social sciences adopted ever more stringently the reductionist



50

and declaratively value- free (though de facto starkly ideological) models of studying human development mind and learning Th e presently reigning ideology is about how it is the powerful outside forces such as genetics and brain chemistry rather than people themselves who are fully in charge Th e reduction of human development to machine- like biologically deter-mined automatic processes is actually clashing even with the proclaimed ideals of individualism central to western democracies let alone with alter-native communitarian ideologies Notions such as nondeliberate conduct and emotions unconscious habits inherited instincts and automaticity of choice ndash all devaluating agency responsibility and even consciousness ndash are reaching crescendo in the broadly disseminated ideas such as that ldquowe are all puppetsrdquo or ldquosurvival machinesrdquo under the control of genetic blueprints brain chemistry or cultural memes

Th e consolidation of these views recently amounts to a powerful global metanarrative and policy that are imposed across the wide spectrum of social practices and discourses perhaps especially relentlessly in education According to Allen ( 2001 ) we are presently facing no less than a new resur-gence of eugenics as a means of social control ndash much in similarity with what was happening in the 1920s and against the same background of deep economic crisis bitter antiimmigration sentiment and social upheaval Other authors echo this assessment in exposing the rise of eugenics across history again in sharp evidence today refl ecting the power of persistent genetic essentialist biases in sciences and societies (Dar- Nimrod and Heine 2011 ) For example as Smedley and Smedley state ( 2005 ) ldquoRecent advances in the sequencing of the human genome and in an understanding of biolog-ical correlates of behavior have fueled racialized science despite evidence that racial groups are not genetically discrete reliably measured or scien-tifi cally meaningfulrdquo (p 16 emphasis added)

Th e dominant and interlocked sociobiological value- neutral and reductionist understandings are underwritten by the core assumption of a static society composed of solitary individuals who are reduced to engaging in survival through competition for limited resources by having to adapt to the status quo in community practices and society at large Along with this the status quo is perceived as invincible and indomitable and thus naively projected to remain stable in continuing unchanged into the future ndash as if mechanically stretching across time in an objective continuum that is fun-damentally linear stable and predictable In this view the future would be like a carbon copy of the present

Th e resulting positions support conservative views of society that empha-size the rule of a presumably inert nature inherent constraints ldquowiredrdquo



51

capacities and rigid limitations somehow imposed on human development and agency of both individuals and communities Remarkably though evi-dence for any ldquowiringrdquo of any capacity is lacking it is widely accepted as an established fact Importantly the neo- Darwinian ethos also prioritizes the notion of individual that goes all the way back to the liberal society of the eighteenth and nineteenth century (eg Smith 1994 ) According to this view individuals are autonomous and solitary beings who develop inde-pendently of societal and cultural contexts mediations and supports and who are responsible each on onersquos own for achieving individualized goals typically selfi sh and self- centered such as surviving and winning in com-petition with others

Most importantly these approaches assume and even insist that indi-viduals and communities cannot and should not try to intervene or remake themselves and their world against the impositions from ldquothe rules of naturerdquo believed to be refl ected in existing social hierarchies inequalities and stratifi ed power structures Appealing to innate and unalterable bio-logical mechanisms and determinants of human behavior and development (accepted as mantras of faith within the new orthodoxy) serves to supply conditions for rationalizing and justifying inequities of the existing social order because they are viewed as biological inevitabilities In Marilyn Fryersquos words it is for the goal of effi cient subordination that the social and natural processes and structures ldquonot only not appear to be cultural artifacts kept in place by human decision or custom but that they appear naturalrdquo (quoted in Plumwood 1993 p 41)

Th is kind of thinking is associated with the almost religious belief in ldquothe imagined essence an underlying nontrivial fundamental naturerdquo (Dar- Nimrod and Heine 2011 p 801) of what are perceived to be natural entities including living organisms and human beings Th is imagined essence typically presumed to be contained in some material substrate is believed to make natural things what they are As Dar- Nimrod and Heine (ibid) convincingly demonstrate with the advances in genetic sciences genes have been taken to be the placeholders for the imagined essence of human individuals and their development Th is essentialist thinking which is widely disseminated in scientifi c and popular discourses oft en evokes neural processes and substrates to explain human development while linking these explanations to genetic forms of essentialism (see also Robert 2004 ) Th e appeals to unalterable genetic underpinnings of human attributes have grave social consequences and negative implica-tions for how people are treated and how social resources are distrib-uted As aptly summarized by Haslam ( 2011 ) the common thread of both



52

neurological and genetic essentialisms is the tendency to deepen social divisions and promote forms of social segregation ldquomaking diff erences appear large unbridgeable inevitable unchangeable and ordained by naturerdquo (p 819) Essentialist thinking attaches he argues to the same social distinctions that are the focus of some of the most troubling forms of prejudice and discrimination along the dimensions of race gender sexuality and mental disorder Th e most pernicious applications include the rationalization of unequal treatment of diff erent groups and segrega-tion of minorities (cf Robert 2004 )

Th e ldquoneverlandrdquo version of reality comprised of the objectivist ortho-doxy reductionist views of human development and test- and- control approaches in schools all frame inquiries in terms of diagnosing and testing what ldquoisrdquo as a fi xed and static given that is not subject to interven-tion and change In this overall approach there is no place for an explo-ration into what could or ldquooughtrdquo to be as per imagination and striving for what is not yet Moreover attempts to change things are perceived as utopian ineff ective and even dangerous Th e core tacit assumption of neo- Darwinian ethos is that how things are at present must be taken as unproblematic (cf Howe 2009 ) and should be accommodated by adapt-ing to the status quo Th is includes teaching students to fi t in with the status quo in preparing for the future ndash which is assumed to continue unchanged in line with what exists today Along the way students are being constantly tested for their presumably wired capacities thought to be realized by brain functions (with fMRI machines in schools to monitor studentsrsquo brains perhaps not far behind in some policy mak-ersrsquo imagination save for the prohibitive costs of such an undertaking) Th e overall import of these models is that individuals are utterly passive and merely adapting to their world as it is thereby lacking in agency and self- determination and in need of being controlled by outside forces Th e overriding implicit message appears to be that individual persons ndash let alone communities because these are typically completely left outside of the purview ndash do not matter that they cannot make or even hope to make a diff erence in the course of events in their communities and the wider world and even in their own lives and development

The End of Theory

Th e leading directions in critical and sociocultural scholarship of recent years including postmodernist pragmatist hermeneutical phenomeno-logical ecological participatory critical pedagogy and psychology and



53

feminist approaches among others have not been fully equipped to counter this entangled web of objectivist models of science biologically reduction-ist views and market- driven reforms Despite its many important break-throughs inspiring discoveries and stellar achievements this scholarship is scattered across diverse fi elds employs disconnected methodologies and disparate assumptions and is typically focused on contingency plurality and indeterminacy of knowledge and development Th e prevalent post-modernist directions and those associated with the interpretive discursive and cultural ldquoturnsrdquo oft en oppose the task of developing broad answers to questions about human mind development and nature including their practical implications such as in terms of reforms in education

Th is lack of engagement with broad issues especially the worldview- level assumptions and the associated gaps in integrating sociocultural critical feminist and other approaches alternative to the mainstream orthodoxy can be attributed in large part to the recently cultivated general suspicion of what is perceived to be old- fashioned ldquograndrdquo theories Th ese theories are viewed as totalizing discourses that dangerously fl atten diff er-ences in points of view impose rigid standards of truth and undermine the politics of diversity ndash as they oft en do especially in the context of the western enlightenment tradition Th is attitude is encapsulated for example in Lyotardrsquos ( 1984 ) postmodernist skepticism toward all metanarratives pragmatismrsquos position that philosophyrsquos chief task is ldquoto keep conversa-tion goingrdquo (Rorty 1979 p 378) rather than to deliver answers Foucaultrsquos notion that no discourse is closer to reality than any of the others the social constructionist view that no theory can be privileged because all theories are ldquolanguage gamesrdquo and the like

Th e skepticism and incredulity about broad (or ldquograndrdquo) theories is by no means new and goes back to early positivism that was striving to purge philosophy from social theory (Connelly and Costall 2000 Costall 2006 Danziger 1997 ) American pragmatism has inherited and strength-ened this skeptical view about philosophical foundations for psychology and education developing an outlook that is many have argued both antiintellectual and politically disempowering (eg Diggins 1994 Malik 2001 ) What pragmatism suggested was a vision of science as a continuous open- ended and de facto endless inquiry in which answers and solutions are always deferred till the next step ndash next round of inquiry next experi-ence next phase of negotiation etc ndash and no foundations can or need to be worked out ahead of inquiry which is infi nite and always contingent on specifi c contexts and circumstances As a result pragmatism oft en portrays inquiries as ldquoan extraordinary form of bootstrappingrdquo (cf Margolis 2010 )



54

whereby all that humans can do is to ldquomuddle throughrdquo leaving nothing else but as one scholar puts in a startling revelation ldquothe pleasure of think-ing about thinking freed from the burdensome expectation that we will fi nally get somewhererdquo (Fish 2010 )

Many sociocultural and critical scholars today are interested in diff er-ence for example addressing complexity and fl uidity of identity and sub-jectivity by focusing on their permeable boundaries infi nite diff erentiation and fl eeting expressions in dispersed networks and multilayered sites Th ey typically focus on diverse phenomenologies of experiencing the world and prioritize situated meaning making and contextualized interpretations ndash while oft en avoiding questions about human condition mind and devel-opment what kind of knowledge matters and what are the possibilities of objectivity and warrants for knowledge claims Th ey are less interested in explicitly addressing broad worldview- level questions about human devel-opment and learning and how these are entangled with certain types of political- ideological ethos Th ese latter questions are typically bypassed or the old traditional answers are sometimes implicitly and unwittingly assim-ilated into the sociocultural and critical frameworks Moreover general skepticism about the value of knowing science and education in general is not uncommon

Given the overriding emphasis on critique many of these approaches document and incisively expose the fl aws of existing realities including in education and in traditional models of science ndash a much- needed work that helps to debunk the many myths of objectivist and positivist science and education Importantly these approaches help to give voice to previ-ously marginalized perspectives scrutinize hidden repressive agendas and hegemonic assumptions and generally democratize inquiries against pres-sures that have traditionally constrained them (eg Th omas 1993 ) Th ese works reveal how traditional models ldquoposture a unifi ed science an axiom that justifi es all axioms and off er a metaphysical nonrational and possibly even a mythical notion of sciencerdquo in a ldquonostalgia for a simple and ordered universe of science that never wasrdquo (Popkewitz 2004 p 62) Th ese develop-ments are hard to overestimate especially in their insights and demonstra-tions about how knowledge is never disinterested and instead is always ideological political and permeated with values and interests

Yet to emphasize again these approaches rarely engage in developing radical alternatives in terms of broad theories about human nature and development learning and mind ndash especially at the level of worldview premises ontologies and epistemologies What oft en dominates in critical and sociocultural perspectives is a focus on deconstructive critique endless



55

variation and plurality of locations and viewpoints Th is is typically cou-pled with pessimism and indecision of an ironic ldquodetachmentrdquo (especially in many versions of postmodernist approaches) Th is tendency follows with the widely shared ldquoend of theoryrdquo sentiment ndash the desire to deprivilege the ldquogrand narrativesrdquo of the past and instead to focus on positionality and provisionality of knowledge Such approaches do not concern themselves with developing premises and foundations for making judgments about truth validity and objectivity Many of them de facto leave concepts and phenomena of human agency identity and mind undertheorized (if not dismissed) along with the broader notions of development nature and progress Furthermore the critical and sociocultural approaches have not suffi ciently challenged the ethos of adaptation and associated premises at the worldview- level about human development mind and learning ndash that is the level of the core ontological and epistemological premises ndash espe-cially in applications to education

Th is lack of interest in broad questions of ontology and epistemology can be connected to the present epoch of global delocalized capitalism in which as many scholars claim the radical impossibility of social totalities and generalizations has to be addressed by focusing on diff erences and non- overlapping contexts practices and situated positions of various subjects and groups As described by many scholars this turn has been spurred by a new stage of technocapitalism ndash ldquoa new regime of capital and social order hellip characterizing a transnational and global capital that valorizes diff erence multiplicity eclecticism populism and intensifi ed consumerism in a new information entertainment societyrdquo (Kellner 2004 see also Harvey 1989 Jameson 1991 )

Th e end of ldquograndrdquo theories coincided with a move away from what many considered to be equally ldquograndrdquo and totalizing politics characterized by what was perceived to be hegemonic ldquomaster plansrdquo such as equality and emancipation In rejecting such plans the shift was toward a micropolitics claimed to be more appropriate to the emerging new social and economic realities of late capitalism

However the expectation that we do not have to deal with the ldquobigrdquo questions of this sort might be naiumlve and politically disempowering because such questions do not and will not go away When they remain unaddressed and undertheorized the door is left open for reductionist and essential-ist premises to sneak right back into critical and sociocultural conceptions and above all into social practices including those in education Because the grounding assumptions are not worked out and oft en even claimed to be undesirable there is a risk to fi nd ourselves on a thin ice of only partially



56

developed conceptualizations and thus in danger of slipping right back into the conventional views As Smith ( 1994 p 408) alerted two decades ago ldquothe fl ow of discourse leaves us bereft of anchors to stabilize a view of self and worldrdquo in approaches that are imbued with radical skepticism

Because no void remains unfi lled this is exactly what happens again and again when for example arguments are made that constructs such as iden-tity mind and gender are the products of cultural constructions negotia-tions and dialogues yet the notion of the biological ldquorealrdquo as a universal given and the motif of nature as prior to social practices are left intact (cf Alaimo and Hekman 2008 ) Even critically mindful works in education still sometimes operate with the notion that students need to be lift ed to their ldquonatural abilitiesrdquo as if these were somehow pregiven and predefi ned from birth Others oft en refer to children being somehow born wired to learn at varying degrees of success with an understandable intention to acknowl-edge the material base of human development and learning in terms of bodies and conditions in which these processes take place However such views disregard the danger that if children are believed to have naturally ldquowired abilitiesrdquo the door is open to speculate that they are also wired for diff erential achievement potential and outcomes and place in society which inevitably even if unintentionally sets the stage for justifying pro-found social and educational inequalities and disparities Or in research on mind and cognition the novel conceptualizations focus on their distributed and situated nature yet a number of traditional assumptions such as that cognition is about information processing realized by brain mechanisms or mental computation oft en remain part of these novel developments (to be discussed in more detail in the following chapters)

Rather than disappearing the same ldquobigrdquo questions continuously reoc-cur under diff erent guises in what seems to be a cyclical pattern that contin-ues to plague social sciences and education For example Winston ( 2004 ) demonstrates how claims of a genetic basis for diff erences in achievement emerged receded and emerged anew across the years with few disputes settled till the present day leaving psychology and other social sciences in a dual relationship with problems of inheritance still involving both racist and antiracist dimensions As Winston (ibid p 3) writes ldquoeven aft er a cen-tury of severe criticism discussions of the size of Black versus White brains still appear in psychology journals race is still treated as a set of distinct biological categories and racial comparisons of intelligence test scores are still presented as meaningful scientifi c questionsrdquo

Th e broad position that humans are products of both nature and nurture and that genes and environment interact and are interdependent which is



57

recently disseminated as the resolution on this topic is certainly progressive and laudable if compared to the one- sided biologically determinist views However this position still oft en hides many important distinctions and conceptual specifi cations that are far from resolved In particular despite the proff ered ldquointeractionist consensusrdquo stating that genes and environ-ments interact in the generation of individual traits it is not uncommon that alongside these statements one fi nds views associated with what has been termed ldquogenomaniardquo (Robert 2004 p xiii see also Oyama 2000 ) further accompanied by beliefs in nature and nurture serving as indepen-dent sources of variation

Yet another eff ect is the disagreement among scholars within the same traditions (such as the one launched by Vygotsky) regarding even the most basic premises of their frameworks including unresolved ten-sions as to whether concepts such as human mind and individual agency have a place in sociocultural approaches at all It is not totally surprising that scholars even those who have worked in Vygotskyrsquos and activity theory tradition for decades and have gained certain authority through this work now confess that they are uncertain and confused One recent statement deserves a direct quote (including for its emotional cri de coeur tone)

I must now be brutally honest and confess that I am much less confi dent that I know what the concept of activity really amounts to I am uncer-tain that there is anything that warrants the name ldquoactivity theoryrdquo or even that there is any stable view of what the ldquoactivity approachrdquo is or might be I wonder if we really know what it means to say of activity that it is a fundamental ldquounit of analysisrdquo or that as Leontiev writes activity is ldquothe substance of consciousness helliprdquo (Bakhurst 2009 p 198)

Bakhurst further suggests that much confusion is evidenced in recent symposia on activity theory where no settled view emerges about the nature and signifi cance of the concept of activity He concludes that ldquothe activity approachrdquo is in crisis ndash the sentiment I share though from a diff erent set of premises and with an important qualifi cation that this is by no means unique to activity theory only and instead is typical across many socio-cultural critical non- reductionist and non- deterministic approaches For example Danforth ( 2006 p 377) in summarizing three decades of special education research and his own important work on the topic observes that ldquothe search for a stable rational epistemological foundation though infor-mative and interesting has yielded more disagreement than consensusrdquo He goes on to propose that this longstanding search is neither practical



58

nor necessary to the ongoing development of knowledge and practice and should be given up for the benefi t of research on more concrete topics

As a result the sociocultural and critical approaches have not been a strong antidote against the pressures of objectivist and especially biologi-cally reductionist trends in sciences and aligned educational strategies steeped in ideology of adaptation control and testing Indeed so far resis-tance to these dogmas on the part of sociocultural and critical scholars has been sporadic and poorly coordinated with the strongest rebuttals off ered mostly from within the biological sciences (eg in works by Stephen Gould Richard Lewontin Ethel Tobach among others for a rare exception in Vygotskyrsquos lineage see Jones 2003 ) It is hard not to share Ingoldrsquos ( 2007 p 17) emotional and forthright statement about being

depressed by the timidity and ambivalence with which [social scholars] have reacted to the challenge if they have reacted at all and by their willingness to reach an accommodation with a pseudo- biological funda-mentalism that compromises everything for which [social scholarship] rightfully stands

Most regrettably in the situation in which the critical and sociocultural approaches lack a coherent theoretical framework to unify or at least coor-dinate their views and positions it might appear as though it is the bio-logical reductionist paradigm that has all the answers grounded in its ldquonew grand synthesisrdquo and its proclaimed universally ldquoobjectiverdquo approach In a sense it is not surprising though highly unfortunate that those working in education and other applied fi elds including policy makers oft en turn to this paradigm for guidance and solutions Th e answers they fi nd are bold and speak in a unifi ed voice ndash including claims to a vision of human nature that purportedly resolves all its complexities with the help of notions such as genetic endowment natural ranking based in putatively inborn abilities innate cognitive modules procreation and mind- as- brain metaphor Th at this vision is closely tied to and continues theories that had been developed to justify racial inequalities and other social injustices and thus inevita-bly sustains essentially the same sociopolitical order is oft en conveniently ignored Th e ldquoresurgence of extremist biological determinism laden with mythic gender [and other types of] assumptionsrdquo (Morawski 2005a p 411) that we are observing today remains in need of stronger rebuttals critique and resistance

Th ere are no doubt exceptions to this trend such as the intellectual movement known as ldquonew materialismrdquo Th is movement includes eco-feminism agentive materialism and feminist materialism which have all



59

off ered critiques of deconstruction and postmodernism and revived inter-est in broad theorizing in an eff ort to bridge the traditional divides such as between body versus mind at the levels of both ontology and epistemol-ogy (eg Barad 2007 Bennett 2010 Coole and Frost 2010 some of these works will be engaged with in this book) Other exceptions (also discussed later on) include works on metatheories and worldviews (eg Altman and Rogoff 1987 Overton 1984 ) competing paradigms for research (eg Guba and Lincoln 1994 Heron and Reason 1997 ) and dynamic systems theory (eg Th elen and Bates 2003 ) among others Yet the prevailing tendency can be characterized in the words of David Harvey ( 1996a ) as corrosive skepticism and cynical fatalism Th e antidote to this according to Harvey is in working out some guiding principles however provisional that are necessary as an adequate basis for the ldquofoundational beliefs that make inter-pretation and political action meaningful creative and possiblerdquo (ibid p 2) Th e task in this approach is no less than to ldquodefi ne a set of workable foundational concepts for understanding space- time place and environ-ment (nature)rdquo (ibid)

Psychology has been remarkably ldquoaheadrdquo of other fi elds in staunchly adhering to and promoting atheoretical ahistorical and decontextualized approaches Th is is strongly conveyed by Esther Th elen ( 2005 ) a develop-mental scholar credited with advancing precisely the ldquogrand theoryrdquo that is now gaining a much- deserved acclaim across developmental sciences Th elen counters common sentiments that the search for a grand devel-opmental theory is futile In the latter view the traditional big issues of developmental theory ndash nature and nurture continuity and discontinuity modularity and distributed processes ndash should be cast aside in favor of the specifi cs of content In responding to this attitude Th elen states

I beg to disagree We surely need the details of content but we also need the big picture We need to grapple with the hard issues at the core of human change hellip We must use as models hellip bold visions to probe deeply into the mystery and complexities of human development and to articu-late general principles that give meaning to so many details (ibid p 256 emphasis added)

Rejection of modernist foundational metadiscourses and ahistorical uni-versalistic claims about mind nature and human development constitutes a genuine advance in sociocultural and critical sciences of recent decades Th is includes rejecting notions that there can be an absolute ldquoobjectiverdquo foundation for knowledge that is neutral and universal as if somehow fi xed once and for all in favor of a position that inquiry and knowledge are never



60

outside of contexts and practices of their production including power dynamics and contested sites of struggle Th e proliferation of new ideas concepts methodologies and insights developed from previously margin-alized locations has opened the doors for much- needed cultural diversity in voices positions and experiences Th e general contrarian and democratiz-ing thrust of these critical directions and their eff ects on social sciences and discourses is hard to overestimate Yet more work is needed at the level of broad theories to counter the all- powerful biological reductionism and the value neutrality models of science that presently are winning in terms of political infl uence and clout

It is important to directly and unambiguously acknowledge (in reiterat-ing the point made in the introduction) that traditionally throughout the history of social sciences and beyond broad theories based on assumptions about human nature and development have been used for purposes far removed from ideals of equality justice and solidarity Moreover they con-tinue to bring about undesirable and even dangerous consequences asso-ciated with dogmatism hegemony and universality claims that disregard diff erences in human experiences As Linda Tuhiwai Smith ( 1999 p 26) wrote ldquoTh e principle of lsquohumanityrsquo was one way in which the implicit or hidden rules could be shaped To consider indigenous peoples as not fully human or not human at all enabled distance to be maintained and justifi ed various policies of either extermination or domesticationrdquo However rather than making the issues of human nature obsolete this painful history demands that they be reconstrued on radically new foundations under-pinned by alternative sociopolitical ethos that overcomes the obstinacy of the colonial legacy Again as explained by Linda Tuhiwai Smith ldquoColonized peoples have been compelled to defi ne what it means to be human because there is a deep understanding of what it has meant to be considered not fully human to be savagerdquo (ibid emphasis added)

Precisely because broad notions at this level such as about human nature and mind have been used for discriminatory purposes they can and should be reclaimed within progressive dialectical approaches rather than left under the purview of ideologies that support discriminatory practices of social hierarchy rigid social stratifi cation and stark inequality Because every social practice operates with and presupposes particular views of human nature that it claims are true (cf Fowers and Richardson 1996 ) any social change in these practices would need to be based upon novel approaches and models at this broad conceptual level too ndash not as a suf-fi cient but a necessary ingredient for moving forward with social change It should be possible to treat questions about human nature and development



61

as a radically open and politically contested turf and within this broad quest to theorize human development and subjectivity ndash including mind self- determination self- regulation and agency ndash on the new grounds Th is position is in agreement with for example Fraser and Nicholson ( 1990 ) who have argued that a ldquocritique needs forswear neither large historical nar-ratives nor analyses of societal macrostructures hellip [as long as theory is] explicitly historical attuned to the cultural specifi city of diff erent societ-ies and periods and that of diff erent groups within societies and periodsrdquo (p 34)

Claims that broad theories and epistemologies were of interest in the colonial epoch but are of no relevance in the present context when what matters is diff erence fl uidity and fl exibility are countered by the postcolo-nial scholarship that resists the stance of political indecision typical of many postmodernist works In Edward Saidrsquos ( 2003 ) words

hellip whereas postmodernism in one of its most famous programmatic statements (Jean- Franccedilois Lyotard) stresses the disappearance of the grand narratives of emancipation and enlightenment the emphasis behind much of the work done by the fi rst generation of post- colonial artists and scholars is exactly the opposite the grand narratives remain even though their implementation and realization are at present in abey-ance deferred or circumvented (p 349 emphasis added)

Also there is the risk of unfortunate parallels between objectivist sci-ence and postmodernism in that both reject generalizations and metatheo-ries even though with an important distinction that the former is focused on neutral (ldquorawrdquo) facts while the latter gives priority to local discourses and points of view Th e eff ects of avoiding broad worldview- level theo-rizing and general principles in sociocultural and critical scholarship can be politically paralyzing because the contrarian biologically reductionist approaches rely on a unifi ed and seemingly powerful albeit deeply fl awed discourse of evidence- based justifi cations and access to ldquoobjectiverdquo data and facts while critical approaches abstain from claims to knowledge beyond plurality of voices and perspectives Because of this lingering rel-ativism and indecision these important and innovative perspectives are oft en perceived as weak (eg by policy makers and practitioners) com-pared to the reductionist explicitly value- neutral approaches that claim that they ldquoknow the factsrdquo ldquohave the evidencerdquo and can deliver answers ndash creating an aura of being ldquomore scientifi crdquo and more reliable (and oft en deemed as such) Furthermore in arguing that there is no basis for knowledge beyond the swirl of discursive constructions within particular



62

communities postmodernism and related currents of sociocultural and critical theory increasingly risk ldquoa wholesale collapse into discourse ideal-ismrdquo (Parker 1998 p 2)

The Charges of Research with Activist Agendas

Central to the predominantly critique- and diff erence- oriented sociocul-tural and critical approaches is that they typically refrain from articulating a stand on how to transform existing practices such as in education in order to change the existing order of things One could say that there has been more explicit work on challenging the status quo in terms of exposing and documenting its contradictions and fl aws and less on developing sug-gestions for changing it in any particular direction taken as a guide for the work of critique Indeed even scholars who have done important work in critiquing the limits of objectivist science oft en express strong reservations about taking a position on one or the other side of political debates and practical reforms as part of their theorizing and research

Th is includes not taking sides in debates about the goals of education reforms which is seen by many as the faulty project of ldquore- engineeringrdquo schools along the lines of instrumentalist concerns that are believed to not qualify as science Such projects for example are strongly dismissed as ldquoterrains where the expectations relate to seers and prophets ndash dispensers of sacraments and revelations that merge the vocation of science with the vocation of politicsrdquo (Popkewitz 2004 p 74) In another telling example as described by Young ( 2008 ) research in the sociology of the curriculum has predominantly delved into how knowledge is entangled with power while critiquing the ldquoknowledge of the powerfulrdquo Th ese works have resulted in many important insights about schools serving the goals of social repro-duction through disciplining students to fi t into an unjust social order Yet in this line of work as Young (ibid) describes relatively little attention has been paid to developing alternatives based in exploring what powerful knowledge actually is and how it can be developed for and with the mar-ginalized groups for their benefi t and for the goals of generally improving education for all

Th ese broad trends grew out and further supported the overall sociopo-litical and cultural developments of the last decades expressed in a skeptical stance vis- agrave- vis the possibilities of broad political changes ndash as epitomized in the infamous ldquoend of historyrdquo and ldquoend of ideologyrdquo metaphors that came along with the ldquoend of theoryrdquo sentiments all coalescing in what some have



63

called ldquothe diet of unrelieved gloomrdquo (Crook 2003 p 13) Th e prolifera-tion of epistemological relativism came about together with a retreat from the ethico- political praxis due to a loss of faith in the capacity of collec-tive action and agency to foment progressive social change (cf Aronowitz and Bratsis 2005 ) Th e belief that there is not much left to imagination and social transformation has settled in ruling out the need to envision a world that is essentially diff erent from the status quo along with the imperative of committing to creating such a world ndash while importantly viewing such commitments as inherent parts of doing science theorizing and conducting research Emblematic of this tendency is that although it is acknowledged that the origins and workings of science are infused with political and moral commitments that impress the entire project of science these commitments are oft en perceived to lie outside scientifi c work (cf Morawski 2011 )

Many critical and sociocultural approaches are reluctant to affi liate themselves with what is perceived to be an old- fashioned and presumably wrong- headed ldquoteleologyrdquo of development ndash that is with explicitly ideolog-ical and sociopolitical goals and end points that express a specifi c orienta-tion and a destination for moving forward with reforms and social changes Such concerns are understandable and justifi ed given the history of science and research in the western world Indeed when constructs of end points and visions are posited as ahistorical timeless universals and transcenden-tal absolutes or as fi xed ontological teloi that are true ldquoonce and for allrdquo (as is the case in positivist science) and that are imposed top- down by ldquomaster narrativesrdquo then this inevitably leads into hegemonic discourses and prac-tices However with the purging of all types of end points and articulations of political vision ndash rather than the ones that are imposed through top- down indoctrination and without regard to historically situated ongoing struggles ndash any grounds on which claims to knowledge can be appraised are abandoned too As Appadurai has observed ldquoTh e importance of value- free research in the modern research ethic assumes its full force with the subtraction of the idea of moral voice or visionrdquo ( 2000 p 11) Th is weak-ens the options for critical researchers to position themselves in claiming authority vis- agrave- vis the contrarian objectivist and biologically reductionist frameworks that do claim that they have ldquoall the answersrdquo typically derived from the studies of brain functioning and genetic programming As Harrist and Richardson ( 2012 p 40) note

Liberal individualism seems to be harmfully embroiled in the paradox of advocating relative neutrality toward all values as a way of promoting



64

certain basic values of liberty tolerance and human rights Individuals hope to protect their rights and prerogatives while ensuring that no one can defi ne the good life for anyone else

As a result in their lack of resolve to take an ideological position and stance beyond deconstructive critique and description many of the postmodern-ist and some of the critical and sociocultural approaches too risk siding with the positivist and biologically reductionist approaches Th at is some of these progressive approaches risk converging ndash in their bordering on neutrality stance that does not explicitly take up value orientation as to what should be done to redress inequalities and other injustices as part of conceptual work and research ndash with the traditional positivist science that is based in fact- value dichotomy and neutrality canons Indeed it so hap-pens that postmodernist approaches sometimes even fl ip sides with their positivist opponents in abstaining from formulating sociopolitical goals and agendas

For example it is highly paradoxical that in the debate between Foucault and Chomsky it is Foucault ndash the critical theorist ndash who insists that no program for the future can or needs to be considered valid for the present theorizing and critique (because no grounds exist for adjudicating among values and positions) while Chomsky ndash the hard- core nativist ndash suggests that we cannot move forward without such a program Chomskyrsquos elegant statement which is hard not to share (though this by no means indicates accepting his nativist theory) is that ldquo[i] t is of critical importance that we know what impossible goals wersquore trying to achieve if we hope to achieve some of the possible goalsrdquo (Chomsky and Foucault 2006 p45) For Foucault engaging such a vision inevitably involves normative ideals and therefore must be seen as inherently oppressive In Foucaultrsquo words ldquoWhen you know in advance where yoursquore going to end up therersquos a whole dimen-sion of experience lackingrdquo ( 1990 p 48)

Th e theme of not knowing onersquos destination and hence the focus on ldquowandering aboutrdquo as the core metaphor continues in later works that insist on relentless empiricism and research as ldquoempirical wanderingrdquo open to surprises (see Watson 2014 ) For example Latour ( 2005b ) elaborates the metaphor of the fi eldworker as an ant poking around refusing to indulge explanations generalizations or critical frameworks In this approach the researcher can do no more than diligently trace the network with the aspiration to produce a good description good account and good map to reterritorialize on the topos of the real (cf Watson 2014 ) As another illus-tration I share the conclusion regarding Deleuze (which I think could be



65

extended also to Foucault and others) that ldquo[f] ew philosophers have been as inspiring as Deleuze But those of us who still seek to change our world and to empower its inhabitants will need to look for our inspirations elsewhererdquo (Hallward 2006 p 164)

Th e working out of broad foundations to legitimate research with rad-ical agendas of social change premised on a clear directionality of such change has been complicated even in critical pedagogy ndash a line of research that inherited its radical inspirations from Marxism In response to cri-tique by alternative postmodernist currents of thought critical pedagogy sometimes can be seen to equivocate in terms of its most radical prem-ises such as about human nature reality and knowledge In an illumi-nating overview of critical theory and pedagogy Leonardo ( 2004 ) states that under recent criticism especially by postmodernist scholars critical pedagogy has been moving in the direction of ldquocomplexifying the search for quality educationrdquo so that now this education ldquois less the search for a particular social arrangement but rather is coterminous with the very process of criticism itself Th at is the forward motion of criticism is part of the good liferdquo (p 15)

Along with this shift and in place of directionality of education and human striving central to Freirersquos works the focus has been shift ing to the values of living with diff erence limitless sense of hope politics of represen-tation production of meaning and the narrative structure of educational processes (cf ibid) In a similar vein it has been suggested (see Glass 2001 ) that the Freirian notion of authenticity entailed in his ideas about ontologi-cal vocation and calling is incompatible with the thoroughly historicized existence that is also central to his works Th e historicized existence in the next step of this interpretation is taken to imply the ldquonaturalrdquo ontological opaqueness of identity associated with epistemic limits and uncertainties Th at is according to Glass because ldquohuman existence cannot transcend its rootedness in particular situations hellip the loss of certainty extends to the emancipatory guarantees Freire hoped for from actions aimed at overcom-ing situational limitsrdquo (ibid pp 20ndash 21 emphasis added) grounded in ideals of humanization

Th e shift of this kind is a reaction to what many perceive to be an elit-ist ldquovanguardismrdquo of Freire (oft en traced back to Marx) ndash the positing of desirable goals and ends for social struggle that envelops education and human development and provides them with rationale and direction as well as grounds identity However such positing of goals for social strug-gle ndash achieving humanization premised on ideals of social justice and equality ndash is arguably at the very heart and the very core of both Freirian



66

and Marxist approaches To eschew this position as a ldquoregime of truthrdquo is to eff ectively dismiss the project of critical pedagogy and theory all together Instead of such a de facto dismissal what might be needed is an elabora-tion of Marxist and Freireian approaches that would not cancel their core premise of a desired directionality of knowing and development yet guard against these notions morphing into a regime of truth that leads into indoc-trination and passive transmission of ideology as is the risk given some of their stated positions Such a work is inevitably highly contentious because it needs to navigate the extremes of relativist epistemic uncertainties that paralyze action on the one hand and of an unquestioned imposed moral certitude based in foundationalist and universal principles that rigidly pre-scribe direction and thus lead into indoctrination on the other

Th e answers provided by postmodernist approaches as to how choices among competing knowledge claims can be justifi ed prioritized and most importantly taken as the guides for social change and action invariably entail relativism or its slightly updated versions represented for example by ldquoplural realismrdquo and perspectivism sometimes modeled on the ques-tionable legacy of the Heideggerian philosophy According to this position reality can be revealed in many ways and none of these ways can be pri-oritized over others that is human beings ldquowork out many perspectives ndash many lexicons ndash and reveal things as they are from many perspectives And just because we can get things right from many perspectives no single per-spective is the right onerdquo (Dreyfus 1991 p 280) However in repudiating the idea that beliefs are true or false and political principles good or bad relativist approaches weaken resolve for social change and undermine the possibility of understanding that is not only about registering how things are but also about how to change them (Menand 2001 cf Malik 2001 )

Th e Vygotskian scholarship of the past two to three decades can be seen as oft en too affi liating with the stance of political neutrality and ideologi-cal uncertainty In cases of explicating political views as part of their con-ceptual work some scholars have sided with Fukuyamarsquos infamous ldquoend of historyrdquo position (Packer 2006 ) Yrjo Engestroumlmrsquos (eg 1987 2001 2005 ) version of activity theory is progressive in many ways and premised on the notion of transformation yet it does not directly address ethical- political commitments and ideological antagonisms as part of this theoryrsquos ldquointer-nalrdquo make up (cf Avis 2007 and for further critique see Jones 2009 )

Furthermore approaches that are structured around notions of ldquocommu-nities of practicerdquo and ldquolearning as participationrdquo do not necessarily explic-itly identify with an equity stance and issues of race and discrimination



67

(cf Nasir and Hand 2006 ) nor do they explicitly take side on social trans-formation as inherent parts of their conceptualizations Similar critique has been raised vis- agrave- vis other approaches such as by Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens that are dynamic and focused on active role of humans and their social relations in society yet are not critical in the full sense of the term (cf Fuchs and Hofk irchner 2009 )

Th is is not to dismiss that many critical and sociocultural approaches share moral and political orientation focused on freedom empowerment emancipation social justice and egalitarianism Indeed a number of frameworks such as especially critical ethnography and critical pedagogy action research ecological performative feminist queer indigenous and participatory approaches have explicitly associated themselves with the goals of advancing social justice and progressive politics In many fi elds such as critical cultural studies political geography critical anthropol-ogy and psychology and critical multiculturalism there is a shift toward developing approaches in line with oppositional politics that strives to reverse the conservative hegemony of the past years Th ere is a growing consensus among those who work in these approaches that moral and political matters enter into and circulate through research programs (cf Morawski 2011 ) Moreover a number of scholars take a radical position that ldquoexploring what should be valued ndash is valu able ndash in human endeavors is at the heart of much scholarship in the humanities An education sci-ence that jettisons this freight also jettisons its compassrdquo (Howe 2009 p 439)

To emphasize again there are many examples of scholars in critical and sociocultural framework openly embracing a political agenda of empower-ment for example speaking for distributive justice in what has been termed affi rmative postmodernism (for a detailed analysis see Prilleltensky 1997 Teo 2015 ) Th ese approaches build on traditions of political consciousness and activism that had been diminished though never completely elimi-nated under the weight of empiricist and objectivist science models In education this research has drawn inspiration from a broadly conceptual-ized ldquopolitics of resistancerdquo and ldquopedagogy of hoperdquo articulated by Paulo Freire (eg Apple 1990 Giroux 1983a McLaren and Jaramillo 2007 ) among others In a more recent strand of works researchers also draw on the philosophy of hope by Ernst Bloch the Frankfurt school and works by political activists (for a recent exposeacute see Amsler 2008 ) Drawing on vari-ous sources such as scholarship of Martin- Baro and Kurt Lewin the partici-patory action research (eg Cammarota and Fine 2008 ) and transformative



68

research (eg Mertens 2003 ) also make important advances in developing ideologically non- neutral approaches

Praxis- related research (Mattson and Kemmis 2007 ) and closely asso-ciated directions of ldquophronetic researchrdquo (Flyvbjerg 2001 ) ldquoeducational research as practical sciencerdquo (Carr 2007 ) and ldquoresearch as practical phi-losophyrdquo (for overview see Kemmis 2010 ) also strive to develop forms of research that might contribute to changes in social praxis rather than contributing to knowledge and theory alone as is the case in conventional research Th is orientation places emphasis on the role of values power and politics in conducting research especially in conjunction with the goals of increasing youth participation and facilitating trajectories toward more equitable futures (eg Gutieacuterrez and Larson 2007 Jaramillo 2011 Penuel and OrsquoConnor 2010 ) In employing these methodologies research-ers shift away from the ldquoobjectivistrdquo experimentation model that dictates that researchers act as disinterested impartial and neutral observers and interpreters of reality

Recent research in Vygotskyrsquos and activity theory tradition has also made eff orts to more centrally integrate issues of power and social inequal-ities (eg Collins 2011 Gutieacuterrez 2002 Gutieacuterrez Baquedano- Lopez and Tejeda 1999 Kontopodis 2012 Sawchuk 2003 among others) It has been strong in research in education in uniting with critical approaches to pedagogy identity agency and power (cf Th orne 2005 ) However that much more work needs to be done is apparent in that researchers inter-ested in social justice and antiracism issues in specialized fi elds such as mathematics education have moved ldquobeyond the sociocultural view to instead espouse sociopolitical concepts and theories highlighting iden-tity and power at playrdquo in turning to conceptual tools from critical race theory and poststructuralism (see Gutieacuterrez 2010 p 1) Th at this task so far has not been fully resolved is further evidenced by equivocations that oft en accompany discussions of these matters A recent important and illu-minating article by Gergen Josselson and Freeman ( 2015 ) for example draws attention to the possibility of doing research with a political agenda yet formulates this point in a tellingly interrogative rather than assertive manner (literally leaving question marks prominently at the center of expressing this position)

Rather than embracing the traditional dictum that science is devoted to understanding ldquowhat is the case rather than what ought to berdquo hellip what might be accomplished if we place ought in the forefront of our endeav-ors How can we as psychological researchers actively build the kind of



69

society in which we wish to live And donrsquot we gain valuable knowledge in our eff orts to bring about change (p 5)

Th ese works represent an important site of struggle against entrenched biases injustices and power diff erentials yet much work still remains to be done in this direction It is highly paradoxical that psychology ndash a science by defi nition about human subjectivities including interests values aspi-rations commitments motives and goals ndash became the mainstay for the ideal of knowledge purged from precisely these human dimensions Th is creates a clash between psychologyrsquos engagement in human welfare versus its accepted models of disengaged and objectivist research conducted in a detachment from the sociocultural historical and political contexts As a result psychology lacks theoretical resources necessary to support not only its status as the social science primarily concerned with an understanding of human experience and action but also its claims with respect to applica-tion and relevance (cf Martin and Sugarman 1999 ) In refl ecting on this contradictory situation Bradley ( 2008 ) writes that psychology

in its passionate desire to mime the natural sciences hellip has taken to exalting a scientistic imagery of objectivity as capturing its primary aim an aim which subordinates its longstanding aim to ldquopromote human welfarerdquo Th is positioning embroils the discipline in a series of hobbling contradictions most notably the contradiction between being at one and the same time value- free scientists with no responsibility for the solution of ldquosocial problemsrdquo hellip and welfare- promoters whose raison drsquoecirctre is pre-cisely the solution of social problems (pp 42ndash 43)

The Challenges of the Sought- After Future

Th e political vision and the sense of possibilities that inspired critical work in earlier decades still capture the imagination of many researchers (cf Young 2008 ) However the question of how the moral and political matters enter into and circulate through research activities and programs remains undertheorized if not unacknowledged Th is is especially so in terms of explaining the inextricable linkages between the moral and political mat-ters on one hand and the methodological and epistemological matters including theory building and conceptual work on the other To establish such links a common broad foundation has to be developed on which matters of politics and ideology could be rendered ontologically compatible



70

with matters of theory methodology epistemology and other dimensions of research practices and knowledge building Without such foundation researchers who accept that values interests and power dynamics perme-ate knowledge are still facing ndash and themselves inevitably grapple with ndash the charges of ideological partiality that is considered to be incompatible with the traditionally understood objective science and moreover with what are believed to be acceptable standards of research

Th e dominant view even by leading critical scholars still typically priori-tizes multiple perspectives that are elevated over what is seen as a ldquobiasrdquo of doing research from a commitment to particular goals and end points To take one example from a recent work whose overall gist I share and salute it is stated that ldquo[t] o the extent that we can remove our biases and learn from multiple perspectives we will understand our world betterrdquo (Medin Lee and Bang 2014 ) As mentioned previously such a position is important and much needed in that it opens doors for the marginalized perspectives and scholars to express voice and make contribution to research that for too long has remained exclusionary and discriminatory Yet to call for the multiplicity of perspectives might not be enough to push through with the social justice and other activist agendas Th is still leaves many scholars who are drawn to a social justice viewpoint feeling that these values are personal or private matters (see Harrist and Richardson 2012 )

To be able to provide strong answers to these charges and for non- neutrality positions and research with activist agendas to hold in general a radically revised ontology and epistemology and a general worldview that embeds and supports them are required and urgently needed Especially challenging is the task of developing a foundation on which the explicitly ideological dimensions and political orientations expressed in end points and ethical- normative goals could be integrated directly into research process and theory building as their inherent components If critical and sociocultural scholarship is to pursue the goals of social change and action beyond those of interpretation critique and deconstruction (which inevi-tably limit the scope of political commitment and action) such scholarship requires a worldview that takes knowledge to be always perspectival situ-ated and even partisan (ie not value- and politics- free) yet the grounds are provided for adjudicating among knowledge claims and for legitimizing how it is possible to form accurate and veridical albeit neither disinterested nor incontestable understandings about and knowledge of the world

Th is is precisely the kind of orientation that has been largely missing With most directions of critical research oriented predominantly toward critique through documenting injustices from positions of pluralism and



71

diversity only very few call for a profound reworking of our understand-ings of ontology and epistemology (cf Morawski 2011 ) and especially of such a reworking in light of an ideological- political ethos that is alternative to neo- Darwinism sociobiology and the attendant free market ideology

Without such a broadly based theoretical work however there remains an unfortunate rift between what some see as a purely ideological and polit-ical legitimation of knowledge and research on one hand and an equally purely epistemological justifi cation of knowledge on the other ndash as if these two types of inquiries were fundamentally disjointed and even incompat-ible In such a dichotomy the former is viewed as de facto outside of the purview of science whereas the latter is cast to be somehow necessarily non- ideological or at least not directly and non- essentially ideological In this dichotomous view the work of critique and claims about knowledge being entangled with political- ideological agendas substitutes for devel-oping epistemological warrants for adjudicating among various positions and knowledge claims Such an approach precludes possibilities to advance critical science that is shot through with values interests and agendas yet does not eschew either ontological or epistemological considerations along with ethical justifi cations for valuing some positions above others and using them as guides for action

An alternative non- dichotomizing and activist critical position would see ontologies of knowledge and epistemological considerations as inher-ently imbued with human interests politics and values without making them unreliable or illegitimate One of the critical steps necessary in such a reworking is to reveal action and knowledge doing and thinking ndash and concomitantly also practice and theory ndash as ontologically compatible and unifi ed (non- disjunctive) dimensions of one and the same process of the semiotically mediated and historically contingent material praxis of science including production of evidence and knowledge Th is is a precondition for revealing how political values and commitments enter research and belong into its ldquoinner workingsrdquo In this case it should be possible to address how any and all dimensions in the process of knowledge production are imbued with values and moreover also embody and enact these values in a com-plex refl exive circuitry whereby moral and political matters enter into and circulate through research programs and activities Moreover it should be possible to demonstrate that such value- based ndash and even partisan ndash approaches are supremely realist in the sense that breaks with the ortho-doxy of what realism means

Again it is not a coincidence that African American scholars and Black activists in particular engaged in struggles against the status quo have been



72

most explicit in establishing the role of values commitments and even moral certitude and guidance against value neutrality of a narrowly objec-tivist science on one hand and of accepting multiplicity of positions as all equally valid typical of postmodernism on the other Th e link between scholarship and political activism was the hallmark of this tradition espe-cially during the Civil Rights movement that spanned the middle decades of the twentieth century (see Phillips 2004 Sandoval 2000 ) Indeed William Cross ( 1991 ) argues that antiracist activism was the key feature of the Black social movement centered on ldquoa relatively coherent and organized agenda for antiracist social changerdquo (quoted in Phillips 2004 p 233) As Layli Phillips further states (ibid)

Th e emblem of this desegregation eff ort was the legal desegregation of public schools and universities but the entire US desegregation move-ment it should be noted was part of a larger international decoloniza-tion movement whose aim was the liberation and humanization of the worldrsquos people of color

According to Chela Sandoval ( 2000 as conveyed in Phillips 2004 p 254) ldquoBlack and other lsquoUS Th ird Worldrsquo women in particular actually pio-neered the prototypical methods of postmodern activismrdquo In this research tradition people of color and others on the margins of the dominant power structures collectively developed progressive methods linked to political activism Much of this scholarship as conveyed by Phillips ( 2002 ) in build-ing on works by Hill Collins ( 2000 ) and Myers (1991) among others has developed ldquoculturally situated alternative to traditional scientifi c positiv-ismrdquo (p 579) In particular

Hill Collins hellip rejected the dichotomy between scholarship and activism thinking and doing for Afrocentric researchers In addition she has included empowerment as a step in the scientifi c process that is she claimed that an Afrocentric scientist cannot rest on her or his scientifi c production but rather must somehow apply it toward the betterment of humankind before the scientifi c process can be considered complete or onersquos role as a scientist can be considered fulfi lled (Phillips 2002 pp 577ndash 578 emphasis added)

Indeed Hill Collins is putting emphasis on the ldquoorganic links between Black feminism as a social justice project and Black feminist thought as its intellectual centerrdquo (Hill Collins 2000 p xi) Th is position directly chal-lenges the binaries of activism of emancipatory struggles on one hand and scholarship and theory as its intellectual center on the other (ibid p 10)



73

Notably such an approach does not shy away from elaborating ldquoauthorita-tive metanarrative claimsrdquo (Nayak 2014 p xiii) ndash in the face of a patriarchy and racism that denies the legitimacy of black women and other marginal-ized voices ndash while accepting that there are no absolute universal grounds for such claims outside of historically situated struggles for equality (eg works by Audre Lorde eg 1984 cf Nayak 2014 ) In place of adhering to existing metanarratives this work is grounded by the dialogical and dialec-tical relationship between practice and scholarship while highlighting the necessity of activist positioning (Hill Collins 2000 p 30 cf Phillips 2002 ) A number of works in education directly speak up for such a position (see eg Ladson- Billings and Donnor 2005 )

Th is approach does not bind theory to practice in a one- way manner and does not reduce knowing to a multiplicity of viewpoints but instead puts emphasis on how activist positioning emerges out of and confronts the oppressions of racism and sexism To quote again Kenneth B Clark ( 1989 )

In the social sciences the cult of objectivity seems oft en to be associated with ldquo not taking sides rdquo When carried to its extreme this type of objectiv-ity could be equated with ignorance hellip It may be that where essential human psychological and moral issues are at stake noninvolvement and noncommitment and the exclusion of feeling are neither sophisticated nor objective but naive and violative of the scientifi c spirit at its best (p 79 emphasis added)

Th is line of work however is still marginalized even in critical directions of scholarship Th e reason for this has at least partly to do with seeing research as an interpretive endeavor rather than an ethical practice that necessitates commitment and activist agendas If research is about interpretation rather than transformative action then indeed taking a stand and committing to one or the other direction of social reforms and movements are neither the essential precondition nor the inherent constituent of doing science and producing knowledge

To reiterate the leading relativist and skeptical uncommitted trends that avoid articulating a worldview in which values and commitments could fi nd their due place as legitimate and inherent dimensions within the basic ontology and epistemology of human development and social prac-tice ndash and therefore within science and research too ndash have dominated even approaches with progressive and emancipatory orientations and inten-tions with few notable exceptions especially exemplifi ed in the Black femi-nist theory Th e result of this is that critical and sociocultural scholarship



74

especially in the postmodernist tradition ldquodoes not provide support for the type of political project that educational transformation must be in addi-tion to the conceptual and empirical problems and paradoxes it containsrdquo (Beyer and Liston 1992 p 393)

Th e line of research that most directly integrates issues of values inter-ests and ideologies with knowledge production traces its philosophical roots to Marxism and sometimes is also associated with the pragmatist tradition of James Peirce and especially Dewey (though the two tradi-tions are strikingly diff erent even though they also share some points in common) Marxist philosophy can be interpreted to be premised on the centrality of human productive activity or praxis for all forms of individual and social life including its highly interrelated economic political ethical intersubjective and psychological (subjective) dimensions Although well established and through the years submitted to varying and sometimes confl icting interpretations this central Marxist premise requires further elaboration (as will be discussed in Part 3 and here only a brief mention is warranted) Th e most commonly accepted position (one could say the canonical one) suggests not only a close correspondence but also a full fusion between action and mind the practical and the subjective ndash all based in the experiential reality of how things are To illustrate from the recent scholarship Paula Allman ( 1999 ) in her thoughtful and perceptive inter-pretation of Marxism representative of the presently ongoing debates (as one of their most powerful expressions) writes that

[i] deas and concepts arise from the relations between people and from relations between people and their material world (the world created by human beings as well as the natural world) hellip [where] we actively and sensuously experience these relations therefore our consciousness is actively produced within our experience of our social material and natural existence (p 37 emphasis added)

In this and similar positions dominant in Marxist philosophy however the ways of knowing (epistemology) on one hand and the ways of being (ontol-ogy) on the other though posited as dialectically connected nonetheless are oft en understood to closely correspond to and even mirror each other If in addition material production and social practice are equated with ldquothe sheer actualityrdquo of what is going on in ldquothe here and nowrdquo then this position closely binds knowing with acting in the present as it exists in its status quo If what we know is conditioned by what we immediately experi-ence or participate in and if thought directly and immediately depends on material reality in its status quo then this approach has profound limiting



75

implications for the problems of social change and agency In leashing the mind to the present the premise in many works in the Marxist and other critical traditions does not leave much space to theorize activism ndash how individuals and communities struggle to transcend the present and instead invent the future However if the full force of Marxist philosophy is linked to the centrality of material productive practices in their immediate existence and status quo of which thought and mind are presumed to be derivative and faithful refl ections then the possibility of social activism and of challenging domination and oppression is curtailed

Theorizing Subjectivity and Mind Progress and Challenges

Th e changes spurred by recent critical and sociocultural approaches have been especially pronounced in shift ing the focus away from isolated indi-viduals to the novel analytics that describe human subjectivity including the mind as socially situated interactively constituted culturally mediated dynamically enacted materially embodied and distributed through the matrices of material- semiotic practices and discourses Signifi cant devel-opments include growing interest in the dynamic intertwining of the psy-chological and the sociocultural realms so that individuals are understood to be constituted through relationships within particular contexts and their interactive dynamics across micro- and macrosocial levels

Th ese developments aim at overcoming a detachment of psychologi-cal accounts from the social historical cultural and political contexts Notable examples in this direction within what has been termed the ldquosec-ond psychologyrdquo (Cahan and White 1992 ) or constitutive sociocultural approach (Kirschner and Martin 2010 ) are the now classical works by Jerome Bruner Michael Cole Sylvia Scribner Barbara Rogoff Vera John- Steiner Jean Lave Dorothy Holland and James Wertsch among others A vast fi eld of research in cultural- historical and activity theory has become prominent around the world (Engestroumlm 1987 Kaptelinin and Nardi 2006 among many others) including and especially in their applications to edu-cation (eg Daniels 2001 Daniels Edwards Engestroumlm Gallagher and Ludvigsen 2009 Hedegaard and Fleer 2013 Jones 2011 Kontopodis 2012 Lee and Smagorinsky 2000 Lemke 1997 Lompscher 2004 Milne Tobin and Degenero 2014 Moll 1990 Roth and Lee 2007 Sannino Daniels and Gutieacuterrez 2009 Vadeboncoeur 2006 van Oers Wardekker Elbers and van der Veer 2008 Wells and Claxton 2002 ) in addition to other works engaged with throughout this book



76

Furthermore overlapping positions can be found in dialogical (eg Hermans 2002 Markovaacute 2003 ) discursive and social- constructionist (eg Gergen 1985 Harreacute and Moghaddam 2003 Shotter 1993 ) phenomenological- hermeneutical (eg Guignon 2002 Martin and Sugarman 2001 Martin Sugarman and Th ompson 2003 Richardson Fowers and Guignon 1999 ) and ecological (eg Bateson 1972 Costall 2006 Ingold 2011 ) frameworks Many of these works trace their roots to Lev Vygotsky while others rely on Mikhail M Bakhtin George H Mead Heinz Werner and John Dewey as well as the philosophical traditions of Hegel Marx Dilthey Wittgenstein Levinas Gadamer Whitehead and others (for a recent review of a broad range of works on this spectrum see Kirschner and Martin 2010 ) Works by Urie Bronfenbrenner can also be seen as belonging to this tradition although his links to the sociocul-tural school have not been well explored (on his roots in and kinship with Vygotsky see Stetsenko 2008 Wertsch 2005 )

In strongly opposing the canons of ldquoobjectivistrdquo science the key import from many of these theories is the notion that social and psychological phe-nomena exist in the realm of relations and interactions ndash that is as pro-cesses that are embedded situated distributed and co- constructed within contexts rather than as isolated private possessions of individuals develop-ing in a vacuum Perhaps the most evident common achievement of recent years across these works is in advancing this relational mode of thinking Its core has to do with overcoming the Cartesian split between the object and the subject the person and the world the knower and the known ndash to off er instead a radically diff erent relational ontology in which processes occur in the realm between individuals and their world Th us the reductionist meta-phor of separation (typical of the mechanistic worldview) is replaced with the metaphor of mutual co- construction co- evolution continuous dia-logue belonging participation and the like all underscoring relatedness and interconnectedness blending and meshing ndash the ldquocoming togetherrdquo of individuals and their world that transcends their separation (cf Bidell 1999 ) With its broad message at the metalevel this perspective has pro-found implications for practically all steps in conceptualizing and studying phenomena in the social world including the self identity mind agency and knowledge as well as human development at large

Yet in spite of signifi cant shift s and advances these novel ideas and insights need to address more fully the traditional worldview- level prem-ises to suffi ciently challenge them along with their ideological connota-tions and underpinnings In particular there remains the task to more resolutely break with the ethos of adaptation that typically comes along



77

with these assumptions Th is is partly because many of these works too oft en share ldquoan aversion to foundational metadiscoursesrdquo (cf Kirschner and Martin 2010 p 16) and reject the need to develop ldquofoundational prop-ositionsrdquo (ibid) In rejecting the search for general laws and principles and opting instead for a focus on particular practices and local contexts how-ever there is a risk of ceding too much conceptual territory to the power-ful movement shaped by biological reductionism objectivist canons and neo- Darwinian ethos

Indeed amid much progress a number of gaps persist with some of the old dualisms remaining unchallenged and the new ones erected along the way such as especially between the distributed social processes and prac-tices on one hand and the phenomena of human subjectivity agency and mind on the other One of the voids is that suffi ciently dialectical notions pertaining to human subjectivity and mind especially in their agentive expressions that are not separate from materiality of social practices remain elusive and contradictory Many critical and sociocultural approaches in overcoming traditional emphasis on solipsistic individuals and instead focusing on collective dynamics of social processes either avoid theorizing mind agency and identity or are satisfi ed with rather generalized descrip-tions focused on their relational distributed and situated character Th e dominant belief appears to be that these notions are remnants of the old dualistic thinking and therefore they must be rejected Th e success in overcoming traditional portrayals of human beings as solipsistic creatures preprogrammed by their evolutionary ancestry and other natural forces outside of society oft en comes at a price of retreating from the issues of subjectivity ethics agency and personhood (albeit with notable exceptions discussed in the next chapters)

For example many developments in sociocultural research includ-ing in Vygotskyrsquos tradition took the route of advancing the notions about distributed processes ndash those beyond the individual level ndash as the major and oft en the exclusive realm of human development in opposition to the notion of development as an individual process understood to be con-fi ned to an internal ldquomentalrdquo realm In many works cognition and mind (including processes such as thinking attention emotion self- regulation and memory) are attributed exclusively to groups rather than individuals Other sociocultural scholars have noticed and commented upon the focus on distributed cognition in place and at the expense of the individual mind For example Wertsch ( 2000 p 20) pointedly though briefl y and with-out taking an evaluative stance has commented that ldquosome recent studies go beyond Vygotskyrsquos claim somewhat in their emphasis on intermental



78

functioning as a stable end point rather than a way station to the intra-mental planerdquo In addition many works acknowledge and demonstrate how the mind is situated ldquoin the midst of actionrdquo or activity and within the context but are less concerned with describing how the mind emerges from action and develops thereaft er In light of these trends I share assessment by Katherine Nelson ( 2007 p 13) that

the mainstream view on cognitive development seems to be that culture is an important conveyor of social knowledge but that it is not a signifi -cant factor in the development of mind hellip On the other end those who write from a cultural perspective oft en emphasize the importance of the cultural contribution to knowledge but are less interested in the work-ings of the individual mind

Furthermore while striving to overcome the old dualisms endemic in positivist science sociocultural theories sometimes tacitly introduce new unwarranted dualisms such as acquisition versus participation continu-ity versus change transmission versus transformation and communal-ity with nature versus agentive change and agency For example even in an important and infl uential scholarship by Jean Lave one can fi nd traces of a residual dichotomizing (cf Greiff enhagen and Sharrock 2008 and note that the focus on Laversquos work is because it represents one of the most signifi cant and strong advances so that its diffi culties are refl ective of the fi eld at large) Th is is transparent in Laversquos juxtaposition between social structures based in ldquoprinciples of production and political organizationrdquo on one hand and how these structures ldquopresent themselves to the experi-ence of individuals in the arenas of everyday action in the worldrdquo as dis-tinct processes on the other ( 1988 p 193 emphasis added) In this take on the social and individual processes the structural and social aspects of the world are seen as diff erent and ontologically independent from individual experiences

Th is is further evident for example in the contrasting of the two root metaphors in educational research ndash learning as acquisition versus learn-ing as participation (for an overview and succinct exposition see Sfard 1998 ) Th at studying acquisition of knowledge and cognitive development more broadly became viewed as contrasting and even incompatible with studying participation dynamics reveals an unfortunate lingering chasm of a dualistic type In this approach the focus on the dynamics of participa-tion whereby learning and learnersrsquo identities are functions of becoming part of a community is taken to somehow automatically exclude the level



79

of cognitive change and development (for later discussions either uphold-ing or questioning this position see eg Hodkinson Biesta and James 2007 Saumlljouml 2003 Stetsenko 2008 ) Th ese and other forms of a residual dichotomizing can be traced back to unresolved tensions and ambiguities at the level of broad ontology and epistemology still lurking in sociocultural activity theory and social practice theories

Other trends that oppose mainstream orthodoxies of traditional cogni-tivism for example in research that has been dubbed ldquoa new science of the mindrdquo (eg Clark 2008 ) do operate with the notions of mind as embodied dynamic situated and distributed yet they rarely engage with the broader underpinnings and philosophies at the level of worldview assumptions about human development Even less oft en are this and other lines of schol-arship including current research in the Vygotskian tradition interested in discussing sociopolitical ethos and ideologies that underpin accounts of human mind and development thus leaving many assumptions of this magnitude intact

Th e important developments in critical and sociocultural scholarship to be viable and strong enough to combat alternative reductionist and posi-tivist approaches need to be placed within a suffi ciently broad historical and methodological framing including political ethical epistemic and ontological stakes that abide in such considerations Otherwise the ramifi -cations associated with the reign of the adaptationist ethos remain insuffi -ciently challenged One of such ramifi cations is that the currently dominant thinking across the spectrum of views ndash from the biologically reduction-ist ones to those that focus on the relational socioculturally situated and contextualized character of human development ndash still largely implies that it is extra- personal forces that guide and shape human development and learning Th ese extra- personal forces are understood either as neurological processes shaped by genetics or alternatively as collective processes such as culture discourse dialogue and power In both cases the emphasis is de facto on the forces beyond agency imagination and human subjectiv-ity in thus eschewing the status of human beings as agentive actors in their own lives and communities and communal history at large What is oft en either neglected or undertheorized by the frameworks on both sides of the spectrum (with some notable exceptions) is the transformative agency of people qua social agents of communities and their histories to shape and essentially create their world their future and their own development while relying on the social and cultural resources that they bring into exis-tence and co- create in each and every act of their lives



80

It is perhaps especially the overall postmodernist zeitgeist typical of the ldquoaft er the subjectrdquo context (to use Kristevarsquos expression) that many socio-cultural and critical theorists understand concepts of identity mind and subjectivity as fl uid indeterminate and even epistemically untenable (cf Moya and Hames- Garcia 2000 ) Th e recognition that human development is profoundly situated and contextualized and that individuals are fun-damentally immersed in the world that shapes their development makes issues of mind identity individuality and subjectivity seem outdated With the understandable thrust to dispel the longstanding myths of solipsistic hyperindividualism hardwired into neoliberal canons in both sciences and broader politics however there comes the risk of losing the individual the subjectivity and the processes at the personal levels altogether As Williams and Gantt ( 1998 ) aptly summarize the spirit of postmodernism consists in ldquo a rejection of individual subjectivity as the fundamental undergird-ing of our humanityrdquo and as the locus and source of both knowledge and identity (p 253 emphasis added) In the next step however the conclu-sion is not infrequently that to consider identity mind agency and other expressions of human subjectivity as being critical to social functioning is to unduly essentialize and naturalize them (cf Mohanty 2001 Moya and Hames- Garcia 2000 )

Th e rejection of individual subjectivity is expressed by postmodern-ism for example in the emphasis on process and fl ux suggesting that the subject is ldquothe contingent accidental eff ect of the play of surfacesrdquo (Morss 2004 p 87) such as power dynamics discourses and community practices Marxism has been interpreted as a ldquotheoretical anti- humanismrdquo (the view fi rst suggested by Althusser and passed on to Derrida and Foucault see Hartsock 1998 ) ndash an account of how individuals are subjected by the pow-erful economic and structural forces beyond their control In this interpre-tation the subjects who matter are not individual persons but exclusively the collective ones such as especially social classes An important contri-bution of this scholarship in highlighting how group locations and collec-tive experiences associated with structural inequalities shape identities and voices however leaves the issue of individual voice and agency unattended to As recently admitted by one of the leading authors in critical and cul-tural theory ldquoTh e concept of agency actually functions as a place marker It refers to a space that one does not yet quite understandrdquo (Apple 2010 p 161)

Even more critically positions advanced in the spirit of ldquothe death of man [ sic ]rdquo have been exposed by feminist scholars to undermine the



81

autonomy and self- refl ective subjectivity as the basis on which commu-nal and progressive politics such as feminist and Civil Rights movements depend For example Fraser ( 1995 ) makes a strong statement that ldquoit is arguable that the current proliferation of identity- dereifying fungible commodifi ed images and signifi cations constitutes as great a threat to womenrsquos liberation as do fi xed fundamental identitiesrdquo (p 71) Other feminist scholars such as Gloria Anzalduacutea Linda Martin Alcoff Seyla Benhabib Patricia Hill Collins Dorothy Smith Linda Nicholson Martha Nussbaum Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Val Plumwood among oth-ers have also critiqued approaches that exclusively focus on diff erence discourse and play of symbolic resignifi cation as the central processes grounding identity subjectivity and gender politics Th e point made in many of these works is that approaches based exclusively in diff er-ence might dull the cutting edge of critical work and make it impossible to develop a common vision of radical transformation In abandoning points of convergence and anchoring groundings especially in theoriz-ing agency and human subjectivity researchers risk to resort to catalogu-ing pluralities without off ering alternatives (cf Giroux 1983a b Gitlin 2005 McLaren 1994 )

To reiterate the success of sociocultural and critical frameworks in overcoming traditional portrayals of human beings as solipsistic individu-als developing outside of the sociocultural world oft en comes at a price of retreating from issues of mind agency subjectivity and personhood Yet the challenge of individuality remains important and even pressing for both theory and practice and especially for educators and others working in practical fi elds who are otherwise left to their own devices and oft en are pressed to turn to reductionist paradigms Th e work of deconstructing the modernist views of human development and subjectivity ndash based as these views are in the hegemony of the solipsistic private self disconnected from society and cultural practices and ontologically privileged as the center of the universe ndash does not need to end up in eschewing the notions of self mind and identity altogether

When human beings are understood ldquoto be fundamentally social always and already living within moral orders in social cultural historical conver-sation among things but with othersrdquo (see William and Gant 1998 p 254) this important insight needs to be complemented by an account of agency self- determination and other phenomena and processes of human subjec-tivity within such non- individualist frameworks It is not enough to say that persons are defi ned by the social cultural systemic and relational contexts



82

in which they interact and live Adding that language and discourse are at the heart of identity does not fully solve the problem either ndash because this view does not suffi ciently specify the processes at the core of human subjectivity in their agentive role and in their relation to the social world of human practices and struggles

Th e alternative solutions need to discriminate between the rejection of liberal individualism and its mythology of solipsistic self- suffi cient indi-viduals versus the loss of models of persons as agentive actors in social community practices Th is is tantamount to making a distinction between hyperseparation that posits atomistic individuals as completely isolated from sociocultural dynamics versus concepts that preserve individual sub-jectivity within a profoundly social communal and shared worldview ndash as ldquoidentity within communityrdquo (to build off from Merleau- Pontyrsquos expression ldquoidentity within diff erencerdquo cf Plumwood 1993 ) Th is theory would need to negotiate in Plumwoodrsquos ( 1993 ) poetic expression

the path between the Desert of Diff erence and the Ocean of Continuity rejecting both merged ideals and the individualist- egoist accounts of self characteristic of liberalism Th e distinction between separation and hyperseparation allows for a concept of community which negotiates a balance between diff erence and community hellip It allows for social but non- fused selves it does not aspire to oppressive unity or to the elimi-nation of otherness in the form of confl ict or of cultural diff erence or attempt to absorb or reduce individuals into social wholes (p 159 emphasis added)

A positive (not positivist) and fundamental (not fundamentalist) under-standing of these processes of human subjectivity is crucial to developing counterhegemonic practices and policies Such broad theories would need to be able to embrace specifi city plurality heterogeneity and particular-ity of everyday experiences and of local knowledges yet also chart con-ceptual spaces where agency mind and other forms of human subjectivity can be understood as inherent dimensions of solidaristic communities (to use Seyla Benhabibrsquos expression) and their shared practices Th e alterna-tives that need to be sought along the lines of this critique are for historized approaches that can show the fl uidity of positions and discourses without the extremes of either reifying phenomena and processes of social life such as identity agency and mind into atomized and static forms on the one hand or of doing away with them as if they were fl eeting and inconsequen-tial epiphenomena on the other



83

Developing Alternatives for Research with Transformative Agendas

What remains undertheorized in many contemporary critical and socio-cultural approaches is the focus on active human persons and communities who can engage in the world as its co- creators imagine a better future and commit to its realization thus bringing it into reality while in the process creating themselves in the mutual process of becoming and co- authoring It is the need to rectify this situation described in the previous section ndash the context of the multiple crises socioeconomically and politically driven at the intersection of theory and practice both in sciences and in education ndash that motivates this book

Arguably what is required today to combat the parallel eff ects of mar-ketization on science and education is an eff ort to advance far- reaching encompassing theories and explanations of human development including processes of human subjectivity agency and mind Such theorizing needs to be attuned to and compatible with the notions of human agency and activism within a framework that does not follow with the dictates of a value neutral normativity and reductionism Imperative at the same time in order to avoid connotations of solipsistic individuals creating themselves in a vacuum is a revision of the notions of objectivity and reality away from ideas of a human- less world Instead to thoroughly reconstrue the notion of agency the world has to be thought of as a human realm composed of meaningful social practices that encompass as their inherent aspects the situated dimensions of culture politics and power along with the ever- shift ing interactivities and subjectivities

Th e key challenge is to capture the power of human transformative agency understood as an individually unique achievement of togetherness ndash while in the process retaining the full scope of critiquing traditional indi-vidualism and rogue instrumentalism that come together with what Ethel Tobach ( 1972 ) called ldquothe four horsemen of racism sexism militarism and social Darwinismrdquo especially in the context of eurocentrism and positiv-ism Above all given the relevance and even the preeminence of sociopolit-ical dimensions in knowledge production especially in social sciences and education this framework needs to be premised on an alternative ethos of collaboration and solidarity while avoiding connotations of master narra-tives focused on pursuits of external power that manipulates and controls

Th e core eff ort is to expand the premises of materialism to capitalize on human agency and activism in ways that do not exclude them from the



84

ldquonaturalrdquo dimensions of the world in its full materiality and historicity Th is diffi cult conceptual move is only possible if the material world is under-stood to be composed of collaborative practices extending through history and transcending the status quo ndash as the ldquoworld- historical activityrdquo (Marx and Engels 1845ndash 1846 1978 p 163) One of the important implications of such an expanded materialism is that it might open ways to bridge the gulf between the principles of essential sociality of human beings with those of freedom and self- determination while reclaiming the latter principles within a materialist and non- dualist approach Th e principles of freedom and self- determination are seen traditionally as the province of the neolib-eral discourse that has appropriated them for far too long as its own and exclusively so supreme territory Th e move to cast the principles of equality and social justice to be not in opposition to those of liberty and freedom is an important task to pursue if only in terms of making preliminary steps in this direction

Th is set of challenges can be addressed as one of the steps by advanc-ing theories that are premised on interrogating the core assumptions at both ontological and epistemological levels implicated in the traditional mechanistic worldview and even in the more advanced relational one Especially critical at the present time is an attempt to move in the direction of what Gramsci termed ldquoopen Marxismrdquo that is founded on the primacy of human agency in the shaping of history while not extricating agency from the situated dynamics of historical practices as these are co- constituted by and co- implicated in the production and transformation of a constantly changing world Th is in turn is only possible if a broader worldview is developed that could also at the same time posit agency not as an auto-matic natural ldquogivenrdquo somehow inherent in the nature of self- contained individuals Instead agency needs to be conceptualized as a situated and collectively formed ability of human beings qua agents of social practices and history to project into the future challenge the existing status quo and commit to alternatives in thus realizing the world and human development Importantly this ability has to be revealed in its contingency on the mastery of cultural tools for transformative action and activism through participat-ing in and contributing to the inherently social processes and practices of human communities

Th e movement in the direction of such an open account premised on the centrality of agency and activism necessitates many changes in the received philosophies and theories of human development and of real-ity that embeds it Th e biggest challenge is to overcome the dichotomies



85

between objectivity (matter) and subjectivity (intentionality) body and mind nature and culture social practice and human agency and commu-nity and individuality Th e alternative approach cannot consist in merely stating that these are non- dichotomous dimensions or that they are inter-related intertwined and interconnected ndash if this is done without suffi cient specifi cations as to how this is possible and what processes ground such interrelations and interconnections

What is needed is a position that determines processes at the level of basic ontological groundings of both reality and human development (at the intersection of development with teaching- learning) in ways that allow for complex and non- dichotomous relationships between these pro-cesses and also among various dimensions within their dynamics What is required is a position that charts a unifi ed (albeit not uniform) ontology of human development and of the world that grounds development and co- evolves with it with no ontological gaps posited between them Th is includes inquiry into the principles and assumptions about no less than what is reality and what is the place of humans in the world ndash a set of highly contested and complex issues that all their complexity and dark legacy not-withstanding cannot be set aside or left unaddressed in developing concep-tions that could support activist projects of social transformation Th e role of such a unifi ed grounding as will be elaborated in this book based on Vygotskyrsquos approach and the broader tradition of Marxist philosophy can be assigned to the social- material collaborative transformative practices that unfold in history while engendering multiple dimensions including subjectivity and intersubjectivity in their productive that is world- forming and history- making and especially world- and history- changing agen-tively transformative roles

Traditionally materialism including in Marxist and by implication in Vygotskyrsquos theory is predicated on the ontological centrality of mate-rial practices Yet this position is coupled in the works by both Marx and Vygotsky with the political commitment to social change based in the notion that human activity is a positive and productive force in the constitution of human nature and reality Th is broad political commitment although not directly explicated by these scholars in terms of its ontological epistemo-logical and methodological status can and needs to be closely examined along these lines

Th e key challenge is to concretely specify the relationship between materiality on one hand and agentive social practices imbued with human subjectivity on the other ndash while viewing both realms as ontologically



86

commensurate co- evolving and coterminous For this position to hold the reality has to be understood in its unfolding and open- ended dynamic historicity where the present is a continuously emergent process tied not only to previous historical and material conditions (the point highlighted by most scholars in the Marxist tradition) but also most critically to future conditions as these are envisioned committed to and acted upon by human beings qua social actors of human collaborative practices and their collec-tive history Th is issue remains a key conundrum for critical and sociocul-tural scholarship Th e challenge to address is how to stay on the grounds of materiality and accept its primacy in engendering and shaping processes of human subjectivity and interactivity yet at the same time to view these lat-ter processes not as separate from materiality but instead as co- implicated and instrumental in social practice in their status of agentive interventions in the course of history and the materiality of the world

It is within such an approach that the challenge can be addressed to simultaneously denaturalize the narrowly reductionist (biologizing) view of nature that renders it immutable and devoid of human dimen-sions while also renaturalizing culture in line with the concept of the natural beyond the narrow focus on extraneous forces that impact and even somehow wire human beings in establishing preprogrammed paths for development A related challenge is to rematerialize human mind and subjectivity in employing an expanded notion of materiality beyond an impoverished mechanistic view that reduces it to tangible things out in the world This in turn can be achieved if yet another concomitant challenge perhaps least addressed so far is also tackled ndash the need to resubjectivize (reenchant) materiality including human bod-ies and material practices on the premise that subjectivity and agency are inherent parts of the natural world if the latter is understood in non- reductionist ways The many attempts undertaken along these lines in the past have typically pursued one of these aspects rather than tackled them in their systemic totality and most critically did so often without addressing the broad worldview- level premises underwritten by an ethos alternative to the one that had spawned these dead- ended dichotomies in the first place

Vygotskyrsquos approach can be regarded as one of the earliest attempts in psychology and social sciences at large and an exceptionally bold one at that (albeit unfi nished and not without remaining substantial contradic-tions and gaps) to address these issues in moving from a relational to a transformative worldview Th is perspective allows for no essentialist or universal foundations for knowledge mind human nature and identity



87

Instead these notions are evoked based in a very diff erent set of premises the guiding ones of which have to do with positing a communal shared historical and situated character of human development Th at is human development is understood as an ldquoachievementrdquo of togetherness ndash resulting from its entanglement with the historically evolving and culturally medi-ated process of self- and world- creation based in collective and collabora-tive dynamics of social material practices in their ongoing historicity

Foregrounding the Ethical

Importantly what is required in working along these lines is a provision of ethical- normative grounds for agency and social change Th is is a highly contested territory where the notions of what is desirable and what ought to be such as in moving forward with education reforms and broader changes in existing social practices need to be worked out at least in broad strokes and contours Th is is in line with the feminist works that suggest alternatives to ideological neutrality in terms of normative ideals and end points of development and ldquoconcede that ethical evaluation is unavoidablerdquo (Fraser 2002 p 23) even though with a full realization that such evaluation is problematic

While deferring normative evaluation Fraser in the end does take a stand in terms of a normative position specifi cally in assessing equality according to the normative ideal of equal access to democratic participa-tion In a move that builds on the centrality of agency and commitment to change as the formative co- constituents of human development and soci-ety in the approach developed herein normative evaluation is regarded as unavoidable in doing research and theorizing In particular the grounds for such evaluation are devised on premises of a profound equality and solidarity that replace those of passive adaptation self- interest and accom-modation to the status quo In this the emphasis is not only on the norma-tive ideal of democratic participation and associated need for recognition both tracing their roots back to Hegel and the politics of consensus building and communication (eg as exemplifi ed in the works by Habermas 1994 ) While not rejecting this position the normative ideal at stake in the discus-sion herein has to do with providing opportunities for authentic contribu-tion by all to a society that needs to be improved changed and co- created rather than taken for granted and adapted to

In approaches premised on the ideals of participation and recognition ldquothe success of achieving equality is to be measured according to the aim of putting all members of society in a position to partake in social participation



88

without disadvantagerdquo (Honneth 2004 p 357) A more radical alternative as suggested herein in line with the Vygotskian- Marxist legacy is that suc-cess of achieving equality is to be judged (rather than measured to avoid undesirable connotations of what is recently an ideology of control) accord-ing to the aim of providing access to all members of society (rather putting them in one or another position to avoid connotations of passive subjuga-tion) to be in a position to contribute to social innovation and transforma-tion (rather than to merely participate) without disadvantage

Th e approach in this book is devised and implemented based on a vision of and a commitment to the sought- aft er future as it can be imagined today while explicating the alternative ethos (and its end point) that are driving each and every step of theorizing and knowledge building In this pursuit the ethical dimension is rendered central to the ontological epistemologi-cal and methodological considerations with an activist commitment bring-ing all these dimensions together as elements of a single approach and logic Th e strategy is to bridge the gap between the narrowly understood natu-ral science and the ideologicalndash critical orientation in the process of theory building In particular the intention is to construct theory closely aligned with ideology ethics and politics of social justice and equality and thus provide conceptual handles for possible practical interventions through radically altering theories employed to shape education as one step on the way to broad social changes in respective social practices Th is entails the need to explicate the ethical- political matters and positions in their relation to the conceptual and methodological ones

Bringing the ethical and the political to the forefront is clearly a con-tested proposition Th erefore it might be useful to remind of the long tradi-tion behind such ethically and politically non- neutral models of research such as expressed already by Dewey who realized long ago that

any inquiry into what is deeply and inclusively human enters perforce into the specifi c area of morals It does so whether it intends to and whether it is even aware of it or not When ldquosociologicalrdquo theory withdraws from consideration of the basic interests concerns the actively moving aims of a human culture on the ground that ldquovaluesrdquo are involved and that inquiry as ldquoscientifi crdquo has nothing to do with values the inevitable con-sequence is that inquiry in the human area is confi ned to what is super-fi cial and comparatively trivial no matter what its parade of technical skills (Dewey 1920 1948 p xxvi emphasis added)

Th e explicit goal is to build a robust theory that makes claims about human nature and development with implications for the notions of



89

truth and progress in order to provide warrants for knowledge claims as foundations for social action Yet this can be done not by embracing postulates of logical empiricism objectivism and positivism according to which events and phenomena are determined by outside forces and mechanical laws in a strong metaphysical sense It is hard to improve on the eminent evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gouldrsquos characterization that ldquoprogress is a noxious culturally embedded untestable nonopera-tional intractable idea that must be replaced if we wish to understand the patterns of historyrdquo ( 1988 p 319) Indeed if fashioned within the doctrine of adaptation along the lines of a mechanical worldview the idea of prog-ress inevitably gives false and conservative ldquocomfort of seeing ourselves hellip as quintessentially lsquorightrsquo at least for our local environments of natural selectionrdquo (Gould 1993 p 369) Instead a viable position is that ldquohumans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress but rather a fortuitous cosmic aft erthought a tiny little twist on the enormously arbo-rescent bush of life helliprdquo ( 1995 p 327) While sharing this position it is also important as also expressed by Gould that ldquo[p] rogress is not intrinsically and logically noxious Itrsquos noxious in the context of Western cultural tradi-tionsrdquo (quoted in Grant and Woods 2003 p 105) Th e idea of progress if fashioned outside of the biases and blinkers of this cultural and sociopo-litical tradition ndash that is not as an impervious dogmatic version of what is right or wrong ndash is needed for a position on the nature of knowing that includes a possibility of adjudicating among competing positions and claims Th e alternative is in developing such a theory while embracing the idea that human beings are fully enmeshed with the dynamics of the world yet also are active agents of their lives communities and society at large ndash and that each individual person matters and makes a diff erence in these processes

Vygotskyrsquos well- known theoretical notions about cultural- historical and social embedding of human development and about cultural mediation as the main pathway for development were combined with and embedded within his social activism and a passionate quest for equality and justice (the point that has been all but ignored in western interpretations of his scholarship) Th is orientation was realized and made possible by Vygotskyrsquos participation in the radical revolutionary project of his time Th e project of immediate relevance to Vygotsky and his colleagues consisted of eff orts at creating a new system of education for society that was in the process of being created and forged practically from scratch rather than taken for granted presupposed and adapted to Taking on from Vygotskyrsquos approach and theorizing his stance of equality and justice as a central component



90

of both theory and methodology (even though it remained implicit in his works) is the core eff ort in the present book

Th e resulting broad framework is developed precisely with an intention for it to be part and parcel of the practices policies and research grounded in ideals alternative to sociobiology with its malignant beliefs in inborn inequalities coupled with a ldquotesting maniardquo in educational strategies steeped in assess- and- control ideology of social Darwinism Th is approach there-fore does not take the ideal of equality as an abstract notion Instead it takes a stand on and commits to matters of equality as the fi rst analytical step that leads all other methodological strategies and theoretical choices and thus attempts to realize equality (cf Ranciegravere 1991 ) in the process of theory- and knowledge- building (with theory and knowledge understood as not opposed to nor separated from the larger social practices and politi-cal projects)

Th e approach that privileges the act of taking a stand on matters of sociopolitical and cultural- historical signifi cance is consistent with the transformative onto- epistemology In this framework the questions about ldquowho is talkingrdquo and the location from which one is talking high-lighted in recent critical scholarship (eg standpoint epistemology and other feminist frameworks) is augmented by the ldquowhat forrdquo question Th is latter and the most crucial question is focused on the purposes and goals the destination and address that scholarship (including theories and all knowledge building processes) aims at achieving in contributing to the future through the changes instigated in the present Th ese ques-tions are embraced in elevating the demand to explicate and refl ect upon the end points and goals of theorizing (which do not have to be fi nal and set in stone yet require explication as provisional horizons of where the research and theory are heading) ndash as a facet of transformative practice a form of doing that contributes to the transformation of the existing status quo

Th e strategy is not to test the assumption of equality in some abstractly neutral detached and ldquoobjectiverdquo sense but instead to undertake eff orts at providing conditions for making this assumption true in particular at the level of theoretical constructions that could support it as one of the steps in the overall project of creating equality in education Th is approach shift s away from the traditional standards of objectivity as a study of ldquonakedrdquo brute facts disconnected from the histories contexts and practices that spawn and give them meaning It also shift s away from understandings of equality as a self- executing ldquogivenrdquo attending instead to the need to bring



91

about equality through continuous eff orts of supporting sustaining and achieving it including eff orts at the level of theories and concepts

Th at is the approach is not so much to prove that all human beings are equal as rather to work out a theory of human development and learn-ing within an explicit quest of achieving equality and creating conditions in which this can be done under the assumption that equality ought and can be achieved Th is strategy epitomizes transformative activist stance in its claim that the taking up a stance (or a stand) on matters of social and political sig-nifi cance is the key onto- epistemological step and an inherent dimension in any investigation ndash and the broader foundational principle for human act-ing knowing and being Th e role of knowledge in this approach is radi-cally recast ndash knowledge and theory- building are deliberately turned into instruments of social practice marked by activism in a pursuit of transfor-mative change In this light research is carried out not with the neutral goal of uncovering what is ldquoout thererdquo in the world that is posited to somehow exist independently from human practices but instead with the goal of moving beyond the status quo in creating and inventing new forms of social practices and human development

Th is method is in line with what can be considered to be the very gist of Vygotskyrsquos project that is the ideological- political ethos (derived from Marxist ideology and philosophy) embedded in this project and shaping all of its layers ndash the passionate egalitarianism premised on the need to create psychology for a society that itself needs to be created rather than merely reproduced or adapted to Th is future society cannot be charted nor pre-dicted in full detail in advance that is it cannot be construed as a utopia in the sense of an abstract idea ndash imagined as something one can simply await in hopes that someday it might arrive Instead this society is imagined through actively carrying out practical steps toward its realization already in the present if even only in nascent and modest forms Th is is only pos-sible based in a commitment to struggling for what ought to be along the lines of a sought- aft er future one takes up as a guiding principle

Th e commitment pursued in this book however incomplete and imperfect its realization might be has to do with the orientation toward the ethical- practical goal of establishing social practices especially in education in which people are not ranked according to some preex-isting natural endowments and putatively inborn capacities and traits Instead such practices need to be based on the principle that all human beings have infi nite potential ndash unidentifi able in terms of any precon-ceived inborn limitations Moreover this potential is only realized in the



92

course of development that does not happen in a vacuum but instead is critically reliant upon sociocultural supports and mediations under-stood as integral parts of development Th is implies that the requisite cultural mediations and supports (broadly understood to include incen-tives artifacts spaces and tools for being knowing and doing) need to be made accessible and available to each individual with an understand-ing that she will agentively and creatively develop and transform them from onersquos own unique stand and position Reconceptualizing human mind and development on these grounds is envisioned as a step on the way to promoting education that is based in egalitarian principles Th e core of these principles is that all children with no exception can learn and develop without any assumptions of preimposed ldquonaturalrdquo limits or ceilings provided that they are given requisite (and individually tailored) access to cultural tools supports spaces and incentives ndash especially for their own agency as actors who contribute to social community prac-tice and co- author their world and development in bringing them into realization Th is means building developmental theory that is based in activism and agency and also dispels the mythology of supposed innate and immutable dispositions associated with rigid social stratifi cation and control dictating predetermined social hierarchies and structures to support them


9393

Part II


94


95

95

3

Vygotskyrsquos Project Methodology as the Philosophy of Method

In many ways Vygotskyrsquos project ndash conceived and implemented in the cru-cible of a radical revolutionary project that unfolded in Russia in the early twentieth century ndash predated many of the later developments in critical cultural sociocultural and postmodernist frameworks In fact this project remains unique in the history of psychology for its clear grounding in dia-lectical materialist philosophy and its commitment to ideals of social jus-tice and equality directly embodied in its theoretical tenets methodology and practical applications Th e profound saturation of Vygotskyrsquos project by these ideals and the sociopolitical ethos of equality and social justice at its core (oft en ignored in contemporary interpretations) make it relevant and applicable within current struggles of great urgency given the current sociopolitical and economic crisis to improve social practices especially in education Th e unique vision on human development mind and teaching-learning developed within the cultural- historical school has radical and quite contemporary implications for theory and methodology that reso-nate with critical scholarship today

In particular this project evolved as a value- laden collaborative endeavor immersed in the revolutionary practices of its time came to embody these practices and ultimately contributed to them through its participantsrsquo civic- scholarly activism Indeed rather than being confi ned to an ldquoivory towerrdquo of purely academic pursuits Vygotsky and his followers were directly engaged in practical endeavors fi rst and foremost in policies of reorganizing the national system of education and devising special programs for the home-less poor and children with special needs (and oft en all of these together) Th is engagement situated Vygotsky and his colleagues directly at the epicenter of highly charged sociopolitical practices of the time as imme-diate participants and actors (Vygodskaya and Lifanova 1996 ) turning their pursuits into a unique blend of theory practice ideology and politics



96

(Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004a ) Participants of this project worked not on abstract ideas but rather on developing theory in the midst of advanc-ing new approaches for a society that itself was in the process of being cre-ated ndash under the aegis of an emancipatory agenda rooted in ideals of social justice and equality (the subsequent retreat from and drastic failures of this agenda notwithstanding) One of the immediate goals was to provide equal access to education for all especially those with special needs and millions from underprivileged backgrounds including homeless children and those impoverished by war and turmoil Th is goal was directly coupled with the stance of solidarity and egalitarianism ndash an unwavering belief in funda-mental human equality that knows no boundaries imposed by nature yet requires cultural supports and mediations interactively provided by others for it to be realized

It is likely the embedding of this project within the highly turbulent con-text of an unprecedented sociopolitical turmoil and transformation ndash span-ning two revolutions World War I and a civil war ndash that opened up the opportunity for its participants to take a uniquely activist stance attuned to immediate realities of human struggles and dramatic expressions of human agency at the nexus with historical change In actively and agentively con-tributing to ongoing social transformation in a direct link to creating new radical alternatives in the conditions of social existence especially educa-tion this project de facto challenged traditional models of science steeped in the ethos of adaptation and solipsism Participants of this project did not explicitly address ideological- political issues and the embedding of their project within transformative social practices of their time nor how their own commitments values and ideology were parts of their theory and methodology

Yet Vygotsky elaborated a number of critical elements for a new model of psychology at the intersection with education and pedagogy pre-mised on activism and the ethos of solidarity and equality Th ese elements included (by way of a brief account) (1) insistence on cultural- historical origins of mind in shared and collaborative culturally mediated activity and on psychological processes being co- constructed by interacting indi-viduals relying on historically evolved cultural resources within the ever- shift ing and dynamic zones of proximal development (2) the notion of dis ability as socially constructed and contingent on access to requisite cultural tools for development and (3) the positing of practice to be the linchpin of knowledge and science

In this conception the mind and its products such as knowledge (and other forms of human subjectivity traditionally understood as an inward



97

ldquomentationrdquo of solo individuals) were conceived of as forms of social activ-ity ndash initially always intersubjective that is carried out as inter actions that only gradually are turned into intrasubjective actions that have their ante-cedents constituents and consequences in material social practice Also remarkable was Vygotskyrsquos non- traditional model of experimentation that eschewed a moral order of disinterestedness and distance central to so- called objective experimentation (cf Morawski 2005b ) Instead of copying reality and striving to disclose it ldquoas it isrdquo this model actively and intention-ally created ldquoartifi cialrdquo conditions to co- construct the very processes under investigation in order to study them in the acts of their co- construction through cultural mediation Th e radical crux of this approach was cap-tured by Leontiev whose words were conveyed by Bronfenbrenner ( 1977 ) a scholar directly and profoundly infl uenced by Vygotskyrsquos project in con-cluding remarks of his infl uential work

It seems to me that American researchers are constantly seeking to explain how the child came to be what she is we [however] hellip are striv-ing to discover not how the child came to be what she is but how she can become what she not yet is (p 528 emphasis added)

Th is approach thus posited a number of principles and above all directly embodied and enacted in its own realization a model of science that does not fi t with the exclusively positivist goal to provide a naturalistic account of human development based on a ldquoview from nowhererdquo Instead its paramount goal can be interpreted to be about overcoming the sepa-ration between scientifi c exploration on one hand and an ideological- critical orientation and emancipatory action on the other In this work theory and methodology were developed in close (though implicit) alli-ance with an ideology and an ethics of social justice and equality in order to make possible a practical intervention into the course of human devel-opment as the pathway to social change Th is project laid the grounds for a novel type of psychology with a new mission Th is was a psychology devoted not to pursuit of knowledge per se but to creating knowledge as part and parcel of larger- scale projects that self- consciously commit to and participate in creating new forms of social life and communal practices

Th e type of methodology theory and worldview at the core of Vygotskyrsquos project are not easy to describe by traditional labels that can be derived from todayrsquos literature Given their novelty (even vis- agrave- vis todayrsquos research) they seem to defy defi nitions in such categories For example Vygotsky is an evolutionary scholar who pays much attention to the Darwinian insights



98

yet his thinking has nothing to do with the recently popular renditions of the theory of evolution in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology that reduce human life to the struggle for survival and essentially reify human nature as fi xed and immutable He is a materialist but his views are world apart from todayrsquos eliminative materialism that reduces the mind to the internal workings of the brain Vygotsky is also clearly focused on discourse and the role of signs and symbols in human development yet he is not a postmodernist or poststructuralist type of a thinker who takes discourse to be the ultimate realm in which human development takes place Vygotsky takes a self- avowedly non- dualist position striving to defy Cartesian splits between the body and the mind the social and the individual the subject and the object yet his thinking is not directly nor fully equivalent (although parallels exist and will be discussed in Chapter 5 and in Part 4 ) with the presently popular situated contextualist embodied and distributed per-spectives Vygotsky is consumed with exploring the biological foundations of development yet he seems to suggest that culture is of a paramount importance in human development Finally he is a critical theorist engaged in a sharp and unyielding critique of practically all extant traditions and approaches to human development and learning of his time ndash calling for a new psychology of a radical sort ndash yet he seems to favor tradition and historicity of knowing including through systematic classroom teaching- learning and scientifi c concepts above all else Th ere is a riddle about Vygtosky perhaps even one that is wrapped in mystery inside an enigma (to paraphrase a famous expression) Th e way to address this riddle is to consider his approach in its entirety based in the core elements of its meth-odology and its worldview

In what follows I discuss in more detail Vygotskyrsquos methodology to pre-cede discussion of his theory ndash as situated in the transition between the relational ontology and the transformative worldview ndash in Chapters 4 and 5 It should be noted at the outset that Vygotsky can be seen as sometimes equivocating between the old and the new approaches views and posi-tions (for details see Stetsenko 2004 2009 ) Th is is by no means unusual or unexpected Like any revolutionary scholar who is creating ideas that are changing the very foundations of a given discipline or fi eld of study (or creating a new discipline all together) he too can be seen as situated on the cusp between the old and the new Th is observation is aligned with interpretations of scientifi c revolutions that reveal how the players in such profound changes from Copernicus to Newton while making break-through advances at the same time had one foot in the old traditions and heavily relied on their predecessors (see Nickles 2014 ) For example as



99

J M Keynes remarked Newton ndash the founder of modern science ndash was the last of the magicians not the fi rst of the moderns (ibid) Th e same meta-phor applies to Vygotskyrsquos works as well in that he too had one foot in the old traditions yet made a radical breakthrough in theorizing human devel-opment mind and teaching- learning

Methodology as the Philosophy of Method

In a powerful statement Fredric Jameson ( 2006 ) has stated that he pre-fers ldquoto grasp Marxism as something rather diff erent than a philosophical system hellip an as yet unnamed conceptual species one can only call a lsquounity of theory and practicersquo which by its very nature and structure stubbornly resists assimilation to the older philosophical lsquosystemrsquo as suchrdquo (p xiii emphasis added) I share this view in a belief that much more needs to be explored and addressed in grasping Marxism as a unique conceptual species Moreover it would be fairly accurate to say that Vygotskyrsquos proj-ect too needs to be grasped as a yet unnamed type of an approach that in inheriting the revolutionary spirit of Marxism moved beyond the old divide between theory and practice and instead embodied their unity in a peculiar blend with distinct philosophical and theoretical underpinnings Th e resulting approach was radically diff erent from traditional canons of positivist objectivist and empiricist models of science

Given this novelty and originality very much is at stake in how we understand and implement Vygotskyrsquos theory and method It takes much conceptual and theoretical eff ort and analysis to articulate explicate and justify this approach (while also critically reassessing some of its gaps and contradictions) so that it can be advanced gain wider recognition and fi nd more implementation across various fi elds and subject domains than has been achieved so far While attempting this kind of analysis the account in this chapter joins ongoing debates on Vygotskyrsquos methodol-ogy (eg Newman and Holzman 1993 Sannino 2011 ) Th e main argu-ment developed herein is that the core of Vygotskyrsquos method is the novel transformative ontology and epistemology coupled with the sociopolitical ethos of equality and justice that challenge ideology of adaptation and con-trol I also draw attention to some of the precursors to the current debates with notable parallels that unfolded within Vygotskyrsquos project as it was advanced in the previous decades especially between the 1960s and 1990s I address what appears to be the most contested issue in this approach ndash how to theorize and account for researchersrsquo agency and commitments



100

in conducting research in line with the transformative worldview and methodology

It is well known as can be found in many comments on Vygotskyrsquos works that he spoke about his desire to fi nd the method for psychology including through learning the whole of Marxist approach and method-ology Th ere is less of a consensus on the type of method that Vygotsky discovered and implemented In my view he found the answers at the inter-section of his theory with practice rather than in theory only In one of his most philosophically grounded works Th e Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology A Methodological Investigation ( 1997a ) Vygotsky stated that

hellip [previously] practice was the colony of theory hellip in no way depen-dent on practice Practice was the conclusion the application the depar-ture beyond the boundaries of science all together an operation that is extra- scientifi c and aft er- scientifi c hellip Now hellip practice enters the deepest foundations in the workings of science and reforms it from the begin-ning to the end practice sets the tasks and serves as the supreme judge of theory as its truth criterion it dictates how to construct the concepts and how to formulate the laws (pp 305ndash 306)

In further highlighting the central role of methodology Vygotsky wrote that ldquoanyone who attempts to skip this problem to jump over methodology in order to build some special psychological science right away will inevi-tably jump over his horse while trying to sit on itrdquo (p 329) One might be tempted to think of these words as a call to develop methods of empirical investigation However Vygotsky is talking about something much broader in scope ndash the notion of methodology as in his expression the philosophy of practice In discussing this notion Vygotsky echoes the epigraph that he chose to open this work with ldquothe principle and philosophy of practice is ndash once again ndash the stone which the builders rejected and which became the head stone of the cornerrdquo (ibid p 306) He clarifi es that ldquo lsquomethodrsquo means lsquowayrsquo [and] we view it as a means of knowledge acquisition But in all its points the way is determined by the goal to which it leadsrdquo (ibid)

Th is broad usage of the term methodology is consistent with how it has been traditionally employed in Russian philosophy and social sciences To take an example from contemporary sources that continue this tradition methodology is defi ned as ldquoa system of principles and ways of organizing and constructing theoretical and practical activities as well as a theory of this systemrdquo (Iljichev 1983 p 365) Th e intricacies of the notion of meth-odology as compared to that of method has been discussed in Stetsenko ( 1990 ) and later included in textbooks on methodology of psychology



101

(eg Lubovskij 2007 ) Th is usage is akin to that in philosophy of science and science studies in the western academic tradition Vygotskyrsquos point in drawing attention to methodology is to critique empiricist- positivist mod-els that understand science as a straightforward process of accumulating and gathering facts and data His critique is aimed at Piaget whose works are ldquoa virtual ocean of factsrdquo that are gushing from the pages as Vygotsky puts it Indeed Piaget made an explicit attempt to deal with direct ldquorawrdquo facts in developing his theory as expressed in his own statement that ldquoall I have attempted has been to follow step by step the facts as given in the experimentsrdquo (quoted in Vygotsky 1987 p 55) While crediting Piaget with seminal discoveries Vygotsky nonetheless faults him for thinking that facts exist on their own and can be described or accepted somehow ldquoas they arerdquo

Piaget attempted to hide behind a protective high wall of facts But the facts betrayed him hellip He who considers facts inevitably considers them in the light of one theory or another Facts and philosophy are inextrica-bly intertwined hellip If one wants to fi nd the key to this rich collection of new facts one must fi rst of all uncover the philosophy of the fact how it is obtained and made sense of Without this the facts will remain mute and dead (ibid)

What Vygotsky asserts in place of empiricist models of science is fi rst the principle of underdetermination of scientifi c data ndash the position later dis-cussed in philosophy of science by Karl Popper and in postpositivist educa-tional research (Phillips and Burbules 2000 ) according to which facts are theory- laden contingent on theoretical assertions and shot- through with values Second Vygotsky speaks not just of methodology of science but of methodology or philosophy of practice Th is expression is non- traditional counterintuitive and even questionable from the point of view of not only empiricist and positivist models but also of postpositivist ones that might agree with Vygotsky on the previous point yet here part ways with his position

In positing philosophy of practice as the pathway and the model for ldquodoingrdquo science Vygotsky is suggesting to overcome in truly radical ways the tradi-tional separation between theory and practice that has permeated sciences from their inception What is a philosophy of practice In my view in using this term Vygotsky is introducing his activist transformative methodology as a metalevel principle at the pinnacle of his whole project and its system of ideas inclusive of both theoretical premises and investigative methods (the latter standing for empirical ldquomethodrdquo of data collection in the traditional



102

usage of this term) Th is stance is not about adding practice to theory as is common in many appeals to fi nd application for theoretical ideas Neither is it only about verifying theoretical ideas in practice as is commonly asserted within the Marxist tradition and in many forms of pragmatism Rather in Vygotskyrsquos approach which is radical even by todayrsquos standards at stake is a novel project as an as yet ldquounnamed conceptual speciesrdquo

What is at stake in my view is an uninterrupted continuum of practice- theory- practice cycles in which ideas concepts and actions forms of knowing and doing and words and deeds belong together in an inseparable blend This blend is constituted by one and the same reality of human praxis albeit in its varied facets and dimensions Importantly praxis is understood in its human relevance ndash as a pro-cess of people producing their life through material expenditure of efforts and creation of recourses that is constitutive of human devel-opment and the reality in which it unfolds (discussed in more detail in Part 3 and see Stetsenko 2010a Stetsenko and Vianna 2009 ) The cycles of praxis include multidirectional movements through and among the layers of ideology broad metatheory (worldview) theo-retical concepts methods and practice One of the most crucial (and often misunderstood) points is that the layers and dimensions in the cycle of praxis dialectically interpenetrate so that each layer is present in all others while all others are present in each one ndash in a dialectical mutual embedding and expansion in a spiral of knowing- being- and- doing that constitutes one composite and unified continuous flow of praxis Thus for example the famous dictum by Kurt Lewin that there is nothing more practical than a good theory has to be expanded by and appreciated simultaneously with the notion that there is nothing more theoretical than a good practice ndash with both dimensions interpenetrat-ing presupposing mutually supporting and bidirectionally infusing each other essentially blending into one composite yet non- additive reality (though in shifting balances of varied dimensions) This simul-taneous appreciation of the theoretical value of practice and practical value of theory highlights the real (not just proclaimed) interpenetra-tion of theory and practice

Implications from this position including the ineluctable saturation of knowledge with ideology ethics politics and practical concerns ndash and the reciprocal saturation of practice with ideology and knowledge including of the most abstract sort (such as the worldview- level assumptions) ndash are discussed in the next section



103

Transformative Methodology

In implementing this approach to the philosophy of practice many tra-ditional ideals and norms of a presumably ldquoobjectiverdquo science understood as a neutral and disinterested pursuit of knowledge came to be challenged by Vygotsky and his colleagues Importantly this included challenging tra-ditional notions about language as a separate mental faculty that mirrors reality and exists in and for individual speakers and about thinking and speech as two independent processes In place of these views and as one component in revising the philosophy of practice Vygotsky proposed to understand language and speech as processes grounded in collaborative practices by people interacting and communicating with each other In his words the chief problem with previous theories was exactly that the ldquoorigin and development of speech and any other symbolic activity was considered as something that had no connection with the practical activity of the child just as if the child were purely a rational subjectrdquo ( 1999 p 13) Vygotsky in contrast regarded the role of speech as ldquofl owing in the process of practical activityrdquo (ibid p 25) insisting on practical relevance of speech in unity with other forms of socially and culturally situated activities as realizing the relations of individuals to themselves to other people and to the world (on language in Vygotskyrsquos works see Jones 2008 )

Th at is Vygotskyrsquos seminal contributions epitomized a shift away from viewing language as an abstract system of signs and speech as an individual and isolated mental process toward understanding them as powerful tools that originate and participate in social collaborative practices undergoing dynamic developments in cultural history and in ontogeny Th e path to explaining language and speech was charted through explorations into their genesis and the role of language and speech in organizing these complex specifi cally human collaborative activities No less importantly speech and thinking were elucidated to be interrelated in dynamic and changing ways Th is point is expressed in Vygotskyrsquos oft en- quoted excerpt from Th inking and Speech ( 1987 note that unfortunately it has been mistranslated from Russian) Th e closest translation appears to be as follows

Th e relationship of thought to word is above all not a thing but a process this relationship is a movement from thought to word and back ndash from word to thought hellip Th e movement of the very process of thinking from thought to word is development Th ought is not expressed but brought into realization [or accomplished sovershaetsja ndash Rus rather than completed] in the word It should be possible therefore to speak of the



104

becoming (unity of being and non- being) of thought in the word (1987 p 250 emphasis added)

Th us in Vygotskyrsquos interpretation that rejected representational theory of mind and language the speech acts and other psychological processes are not fl eeting ephemeral phenomena that merely refl ect the world in the shadow of action but instead are powerful players in carrying out activi-ties that are always social and situated in context (cf Sawyer and Stetsenko 2014 ) His analysis of the evolving ability to speak as representing a natural continuation of the childrsquos practical contacts with the world is very tell-ing in this regard (Vygotsky 1999 ) Th is is what transpires in his powerful statements that ldquolanguage is consciousness that exists in practice for other people and therefore for myself rdquo and that ldquo the word is the end that crowns the deed rdquo ( 1987 p 285 emphasis added) ndash with the latter statement standing out in its force and crowning the whole of Vygotskyrsquos psychology

In addition and no less critically Vygotsky introduced methodology premised on principles of actively co- constructing phenomena and pro-cesses in place of merely observing or registering them as they are Th at is instead of appealing to the objectivist maxim that methods should mir-ror reality as faithfully as possible (as per traditional canons of observa-tion) he argued that ldquothe strength of the experiment is in its artifi ciality rdquo ( 1997a p 320 emphasis added) According to Vygotsky instead of striving to copy reality the researcher should actively and consciously co- create conditions (by necessity artifi cial) together with participants that per-mit to construct and generate objects of investigation in the processes of studying them Th is method moved beyond the limits not only of the classical experimental paradigm but also of descriptivist methods at large Th e staple of Vygotskyrsquos method is an active co- construction of investiga-tive situation including the very objects of investigation with pedagogical practice representing its paradigmatic form ndash such as in teaching- learning experiments where the learner is provided with tools necessary to solve problems

Vygotsky set to explore the course of human development not ldquoas it isrdquo in its status quo as a presumably natural process but instead through aid-ing amplifying and de facto creating it using cultural tools and other forms of mediation Th ese considerations ensued from and formed the basis for Vygotskyrsquos concept of the zone of proximal development and the method of ldquodouble stimulationrdquo that combined experiment observation and peda-gogy in one unifi ed procedure (note that its designation as ldquodouble stimula-tionrdquo is outdated due to behaviorist connotations of the term stimulation )



105

Th erefore he called his approach ldquogeneticrdquo (and sometimes instrumental) ndash to emphasize its contrast with the traditional experiment which taps into behavioral outcomes (completed results) instead of addressing the very process in which psychological phenomena are co- constructed and copro-duced together with participants

Vygotskyrsquos followers most notably Galperin (eg 1985 ) and Davydov (eg 1983 1990 ) focused their eff orts on specifying and further expanding ideas about the relationship between theory and practice while addressing bidirectional links between teaching- learning and development Th e psy-chological research of this type represented a form of practical engagement with educational practice in which disciplinary theoretical and conceptual tools were deployed in a morally grounded search for better practices of education premised on ideals of equality Th e scholars of this direction thus stepped beyond the boundaries of psychology understood in a tradi-tional way as a value- neutral endeavor that can be developed and advanced somehow over and above and prior to educational practice Instead their research and inquiries were coupled with and carried out through active pedagogy steeped in a political commitment to seeing all children as equally (though not uniformly) ldquoendowedrdquo to be successful learners Th at is the far from neutral goal of education as a praxis that endeavors to sup-port development of all children on one hand and the goal of understand-ing and theorizing development on the other were essentially blended into one pursuit

Remarkable were also works by Meshcheryakov ( 1979 for further dis-cussion see Bakhurst and Padden 1991 Sannino 2011 ) organized for the ldquoawakeningrdquo of the mute and blind- deaf children through engag-ing them in culturally mediated and initially material (sensorimotor) shared activity with other people (such as getting dressed and fed in relying on culturally developed tools of such activities) Th e underly-ing approach contrasted with traditional methodologies premised on the ldquodefi cit modelrdquo of dis ability with its core empiricist belief that the solitary processing of information is the primary motor of psychologi-cal development and its associated claim that inborn ldquodefectsrdquo cannot be remedied through social engagement and mediation Based in the premises about cultural- historical origins of the mind in shared cultur-ally mediated activity this research was infused with the optimistic and deeply egalitarian belief that all children any dis abilities notwithstand-ing can be initiated ndash if provided with the requisite cultural tools for act-ing ndash into social participation not constrained by any preset limitations of a biological nature



106

Many works by Russian scholars within Vygotskyrsquos tradition expanded on his insights about the method in psychological research being an active endeavor of co- constructing psychological reality and essentially creating its ldquoobjectsrdquo of investigation For example Puzyrei ( 2007 ) has elaborated on the notion that human development is an artifi cial process that can be cap-tured only under conditions of active engagement in the co- construction of this very process and while deploying special mediating devices ( lovushki ) Th e works by the present author (eg Stetsenko 1990 ) highlighted in the same vein the need to radically reorient psychology away from a contem-plative stance while devising a new conceptual apparatus for it along the lines of an active and even activist enterprise In this shift psychology can be conceived as a discipline with a unique status that aff ords bridging the gap between theory and practice while giving up the notion that knowledge can be achieved in an abstract contemplation and outside of active engage-ment with what it strives to study and understand Th is proposal focused on viewing objects of investigation and knowledge claims as produced by and enmeshed with the valuational and goal- directed investigative practices of an ultimately practical import suggesting that

[p] ositing psychology as a science of a constructive [ie non- contemplative] type means that in explorations of psychological processes mere observation conducted outside of concrete goals of transforming and guiding these processes turns out to have no scientifi c value (ibid p 48)

In this approach ldquothe very formulation of the traditional question of what the psychological processes such as self personality and cognition are like has been changed into the question of how these processes are pos-sible what are the conditions sine qua non that create (construct) them that make them both possible and necessaryrdquo (Stetsenko and Arievitch 1997 p 165) In this work ldquothe method of active co- construction has been granted priority and a special epistemological statusrdquo (ibid) It is ldquothrough actively changing constructing the psychological phenomena that their essence can be grasped and their development understood lsquoUnderstanding through constructing through changingrsquo ndash this has become an epistemo-logical motto beyond the concrete empirical research conducted in the post- Vygotskian frameworkrdquo (ibid)

Th e other direction developed by researchers within Vygotskyrsquos school focused on switching from a position of a neutral observer toward the ldquopar-ticipatory positioningrdquo so that the researcher is willing to take the risk of including oneself ldquoinsiderdquo the realm that is being investigated (Vasilyuk



107

1988 ) Bratus ( 1988 ) insisted that psychology needs to address psychologi-cal mechanisms that mediate processes through which human subjectiv-ity develops and comes into being rather than concern itself with static ready- made outcomes of these processes Th ese scholars along with many others working on methodology (understood as a philosophy of method) took heed of Bakhtinrsquos caution against thinking of identities as stable and bounded and explored methodological implications of this premise Th ey thus followed with Bakhtinrsquos claim that

the genuine life of a person is accessible only through a dialogical pen-etration into it which it responds to while freely disclosing itself Truth about a person that is spoken by someone alien and that is not addressed to her or him dialectically hellip turns out to be a degrading and deadly lie hellip (Bakhtin 1984 p 10)

Th e pioneering work in Vygotskyrsquos project (especially by its so- called fi rst generation see Engestroumlm 2001 ) predated many later developments such as in critical pedagogy and other directions that took Marxism as their guiding principle (eg by Paulo Freire) It has also predated devel-opments in action research including Kurt Lewinrsquos idea of conducting research in the fi eld rather than in the laboratory and his insistence that action research experiment must not only express theory but do so in such a way that the results of the experiment can be fed directly back to the theory (cf Gustavsen 2001 ) Many similarities can be discerned between this approach and those contemporary strands of critical theory that are attuned to social injustices such as critical race theory (eg Delgado and Stefancic 2001 Ladson- Billings and Donnor 2005 ) and those that analyze the role of research in relation to social change such as equality studies (eg Lynch 1999 ) In both of these lines of work it is acknowledged that with-out democratic engagement premised on solidarity there is a danger that research can be used for manipulation and control rather than challenging the injustices and inequalities

Methodologically in contrast with many approaches that till today remain stalled between the two extremes of naiumlve positivism on one hand and an uncommitted laissez- faire relativism on the other Vygotskyrsquos project presented a viable alternative linked to the critical- humanistic liberatory and activist tradition Th is position entailed that science and knowledge that it produces depend on cultural contexts social discourses and their histories and politics ideologies Importantly however instead of focusing on these contingencies and seeking to deconstruct knowledge claims as the ultimate goal of scholarship (though such a goal was by no



108

means ignored let alone rejected) Vygotskyrsquos project charted an alternative path that consisted in devising foundations for a new type of research car-ried out in the form of social praxis grounded in a vision ndash a deeply ideo-logical one ndash of a possible better world based in ideals of social justice and equity Th e set of ideas developed in Vygotskyrsquos project is best viewed as an outline for the renewal of society especially education (cf Ivic 1994 ) rather than an abstract corpus of theoretical principles and ideas

To emphasize again what lies beneath these claims and this methodol-ogy is a deeper- seated layer ndash the layer of commitment and vision for a better future that is ineluctably social moral and political at once Th at is Vygotskyrsquos method of theory and theory of method ndash and the tool and result of his approach ndash are based in an irrevocable commitment to social equality and justice to the task of building a new psychology for a society in which people have equal rights especially with regards to equal access to educa-tion and to social supports and cultural mediations that they need more generally Th is broad political ethos at the core of Vygotskyrsquos project coun-tered principles of adaptation and competition for resources as the core grounding for human development that takes the ldquogivennessrdquo of the world for granted and assumes that individuals have to fi t in with its status quo

Th is approach followed the tradition in social sciences and philosophy to link understandings of human development to value- laden concep-tions about self and society (as was later the case in Freirersquos works) All major ideas and principles developed in this project including its concept of human nature and mind were value- laden tools infused with Vygotskyrsquos (and many of his followers) desire to empower subordinate groups ndash espe-cially through education ndash across divisions of social class ethnicity gender and dis ability Th eir approach and the knowledge they produced were part and parcel of the practical and simultaneously deeply ideological and polit-ical project that came out of drama of life not of ideas only and that also returned to life to transform it Th is knowledge was a product and simul-taneously a vehicle of their collaborative practical engagements with a unique sociohistorical context that presented them with an unprecedented challenge ndash and opportunity ndash to devise a new system of psychology in par-allel with creating a new society

In shift ing away from the ldquoobjective experimentationrdquo with its moral order and ethics of disinterestedness and distance (cf Morawski 2005b ) Vygotskyrsquos project was launched not with the exclusively positivist goal to provide a naturalistic account of human development construed based on a ldquoview from nowhererdquo Instead its paramount (though not directly



109

explicated) goal can be seen as that of overcoming the separation between the narrowly understood natural science on one hand and the ideological- critical orientation and emancipatory action on the other In this work theory and methodology were developed in close (though implicit) alli-ance with ideology ethics and politics of social justice and equality in order to make possible a ldquopractical interventionrdquo into the course of history and human development as the pathway to social change

Th is project can be interpreted as taking up the challenge to formulate a position alternative to both positivist type of modernist realism with its notion of knowledge as a mirror- refl ection of reality and its naiumlve belief in ldquoobjectiverdquo facts disconnected from human practices on one hand and to postmodernist relativism with its uncommitted stance regarding broad ontological questions and values its self- defeating skepticism and its gen-eral avoidance of ldquogrand theoriesrdquo on the other Such a challenge was an enormously diffi cult undertaking and not surprisingly it has not been fi nalized within this project Yet the groundwork that has been laid out in this approach is of great value and can be creatively (and critically) explored and expanded today especially in line with an orientation of further devel-oping psychology with emancipatory potential

Similarly to pragmatism (though only at one level) the Vygotskian approach can be expanded to understand knowledge claims to be sub-ject to valuational judgments not in terms of their abstract metaphysical objectivity and validity nor as based in ldquoagreementrdquo with and correspon-dence to presumably independent objects and realities out in the world Neither can stable consensus among stakeholders (as eg per pragmatists the works by Habermas and even many postmodernist and critical schol-ars) be taken as the yardstick to evaluate knowledge and its claims Instead knowledge claims are subject to scrutiny in terms of their role in resolving problems and injustices that are created and upheld within material- semi-otic practices and therefore are contingent on our own actions and subject to change Within such a radically materialist and historical conception of knowledge the criteria for adjudicating between competing claims are nei-ther purely epistemological nor philosophical but are instead concretely practical yet not in the narrow sense of practical utility or instrumentality Th at is truth is taken to be an essentially practical rather than a purely philosophical matter just as is the case in pragmatism (cf Wood 2000)

However an additional contrast is also crucial For pragmatists too ldquotruthrdquo does not have to do with copying but rather with coping with the world (cf West 1991 ) Within an expanded Marxist- Vygotskian view this



110

position can be accepted but only on a condition that coping with the world is recast away from connotations of adaptation to the status quo (as in cop-ing with what is ldquogivenrdquo) Instead coping is replaced with the notion of social transformative practice as the process through which people actively and deliberately transform circumstances and conditions of their life in simultaneously co- creating their world and themselves It is within this radically revised notion of transformative social practice as the foundation of human existence ndash the very fabric of life development and human sub-jectivity ndash that the problem concerning warrants for knowledge and truth can be addressed Namely these notions can be recast so that truth (which never becomes fi nalized) is not established nor found but instead created in the course of ethical- political endeavors ndash including conceptual endeavors of theory building ndash of concretely realizing socially just conditions of life

Th ere is no place for relativity of truth in this approach ndash truth is not rel-ative even though it is not obtained through a direct correspondence with some putatively independent dehumanized and strictly objective reality Actually truth is not obtained at all because it does not exist ldquoout thererdquo somehow outside of us and our collective practices for it to be somehow simply registered observed or discovered Instead truth is created in and as the process of people together struggling and actively striving in the face of uncertainty yet as guided by the end points to which people are com-mitting (even though these end points might never be achieved) Knowing therefore is about neither copying the world nor coping with it but instead about creating the world and knowing it in the very act of bringing about transformative and creative change ndash in the act of making a diff erence in communal forms of life and collaborative practices and thus mattering in them and through this of us coming to be and to know

Building off from Vygotskyrsquos works there might be a way out of conun-drums spawned by the rigid dichotomy of relativism versus objectivist fun-damentalism and absolutism Instead of this dichotomy the methodology charted on the basis of Vygotskian and other activist scholarship such as Freirersquos suggests how to relativize relativism ndash a fair move given that relativ-ism insists on relativity as the supreme lens and thus should be subjected to its own major prescription In this approach people are ldquofl agrantly par-tisanrdquo (to use Deweyan expression) and so is truth fl agrantly partisan But this does not make truth relative in any traditional sense that is not in the sense of various viewpoints and positions all being equal because they are all ldquoequally relativerdquo that is all partial situated and subjective Instead truth is historically and politically relative if viewed on the scale of infi nite dynamics of human history yet robust and concrete within a historically



111

particular epoch as each defi ned by its specifi c predicaments that are determined in no uncertain terms by concrete sociocultural and political- economic conditions of the status quo and the struggles to overcome their contradictions Th ese conditions are immediately accessible to anyone liv-ing in their midst because these are processes that are carried out by people in their own ongoing struggles and strivings with these activities constitut-ing no less than the fabric of human development and of the world

Th e truth about these contradictions and confl icts is therefore positively (not positivistically) and in historical terms concretely (not universally) determinate Truth is relative vis- agrave- vis practical projects and agendas of resolving existing confl icts and contradictions such as struggles by dis-advantaged groups for equal access to resources Yet within these histori-cally concrete conditions truth is far from relative instead it is strongly determinate and robustly concrete For anybody experiencing fi rsthand or merely sharing and witnessing the struggle of disadvantaged groups and individuals ndash and it is hard not to witness these struggle and plight given their powerful presence for anyone willing to see and feel ndash there is nothing relative about its urgency and truth and not much relative about the need to take a stand and a commitment on one or the other side in the struggle to overcome injustices

Claims to knowledge and its validity are as determinate and robust as it gets though only within the practical- political projects ndash defi ned by goals and visions for a better future ndash that spawn this knowledge to serve their purposes Th is does not make claims to truth and warrants for knowledge any less valid ndash in the sense that this position constitutes not a relativity of truth but on the contrary the truth of the relative (cf Deleuze and Guattari 1994 ) such as the truth of struggling against inequality Th at is while any struggle is always historically and politically specifi c and contingent it is also determinate and concrete within a given historical epoch that each ldquoknowsrdquo its own truth (to use Sartrersquos 1968 expression) Th ere are paral-lels here to considerations such as the one expressed by Giroux ( 1983b ) namely that

[t] he link between ideology and the notion of truth is not to be found in the peddling of prescriptions or in a deluge of endless recipes instead it is located in what Benjamin (1969) has called the distance between the inter-preter and the material on the one hand and the gap between the present and the possibility of a radically diff erent future on the other (p 27)

Th erefore to interrogate knowledge claims in terms of their validity it is imperative to interrogate and validate sociopolitical projects and movements



112

that spawn and necessitate knowledge in the fi rst place Moreover critical in validating knowledge claims is to interrogate it in terms of what kind of a future they contribute to and whether they contribute to creating a society in which individuals are free to create themselves in ways that at the same time open up ways for others to do so too all in pursuit of solidarity equality and possibility for all individuals to be free At the core here is the profound ndash essential and existential ndash solidarity with others as the condition of human development and social life that is not in confl ict with human freedom and the right to self- determination As expressed by Kwame A Appiah

[I] trsquos precisely our recognition that each other person is engaged in the ethical project of making a life that reveals to us our obligations to them hellip If my humanity matters so does yours if yours doesnrsquot neither does mine We stand or fall together ( 2008 p 203)

Truth is still provisional and incomplete in the sense that it has to be proven in practice (Marx 1945 1978 p 144) that is in the unfolding struggles so that only the outcomes of such struggles and their success in bringing about a more just society will ultimately legitimize claims to knowledge and truth Yet this does not absolve one from taking a position and creating truth however provisional and fallible it might be in the present that real-izes the future ndash because taking a position is understood to be an inalien-able part and parcel and the most critical ingredient or the very pivot of doing research and producing knowledge Strong objectivity therefore has to do above all with making onersquos own ideological underpinnings agendas and goals of research transparent so that others can object to them

Central to Vygotsky (as can be imputed from his works) was the ethos of struggling for a society in which individuals would attain their own freedom and autonomy in and through contributing to freedom and autonomy of others thus blending onersquos self- realization with that of others making self- realization and solidarity coordinated and even indistinguishable ndash as both embedded within and making possible the life- forming and life- changing (and therefore also life- sustaining) col-laborative endeavors of carrying out our communal forms of life and our very existence Freedom in the spirit of Vygotskyrsquos approach and in a continuation of the Marxist legacy can be understood to be aligned with the full self- realization of individuals as social actors and agents of history ndash interdependent and acting in solidarity with their fellow human beings within collaborative practices yet each from onersquos unique stance and position Th is is expressed in the ability of people to take own stands and stake own claims on the confl icts and contradictions that they



113

encounter and have to discern and interpret (make sense of) in making a commitment to resolving them while necessarily aiding in the self- realization of fellow human beings Self- realization and freedom there-fore are centrally premised on solidarity ndash people recognizing each other as equal not only in a formal and instrumental way but as ends in them-selves and moreover as inextricably entangled with and reliant upon each other within their unifi ed (albeit not uniform) quests of becoming It is because collaborative practices of carrying out communal forms of life are taken to be at the core of human nature of what ldquomakes humans humanrdquo ndash and not as an abstractly posited eternal realm but instead as a collective endeavor and joint struggle ndash that solidarity and equality can be seen as evaluative criteria for progress and development (to be discussed in more detail in Chapter 11 )

In view of the suggested expansions and amendments the whole force of Vygotskyrsquos project can be seen as depending on it being simultaneously (1) an analysis of how psychological phenomena are co- constructed within social conditions and contexts through the prism of their major contradic-tions and the struggles that derive from these contradictions (2) a histori-cal analysis of how these conditions contexts and contradictions came to be that is how they have been formed through continuous changes strug-gles and transformations in the past and (3) a commitment to a vision of how these present contradictions should be resolved that is an ideological- normative view of how society could and is desired (or ldquooughtrdquo) to be Th e latter is inevitably based in a set of values and political commitments to certain ideologies and concepts of social justice equality and human rights

In addition in the spirit of an expanded Vygotskyrsquos project there is no need to contrast a rigorous causal account of social events with the goals of social transformation Instead constructing an ethically- politically and normatively grounded approach and thus making possible a practical inter-vention in the status quo can be seen as inextricably related to a rigorous causal account of phenomena and processes of development in their histo-ricity and their sociocultural or contextual embedding Th at is all three types of endeavors ndash a theory of human development as a duly historicized account of psychological processes an ethical- political stance achieved within a critical inquiry into socially constructed forms of life knowledge and their history and a practical intervention in the course of social life predicated on a commitment to a sought- aft er future ndash can be seen as all interrelated and presupposing each other

In this sense the proposal is for a method that is neither positivist nor relativist but instead transformativist ndash in line with the calls made



114

by many critical researchers through the years for a new ldquotransforma-tive psychology not of what is but of what may yet berdquo (Sampson 1981 p 730) designed to increase social justice human welfare solidarity and freedom Th is is a strategy in line with the broad orientation of Vygotskyrsquos project More recently similar ideas have been proposed within develop-mental psychology with Sheldon White ( 2000b p 288) insisting on psy-chologistsrsquo responsibilities to ldquopenetrate below the settlements that form the political intelligence governing the cooperative arrangements of our timerdquo and into the ldquopolitical intelligence of the futurerdquo Most of all this methodology is consistent with the Marxist method in which the central task was that

of overcoming the separation between the ldquoisrdquo and ldquooughtrdquo which Kant had established and positivism had reasserted in order to construct a theory of ethics and politics and thus make possible a practical interven-tion in the course of social life based upon something more than subjec-tive caprice hellip (Bottomore 1975 pp 10ndash 11)

To summarize the model of science built on transformative ontology and epistemology developed on the foundation of Vygotskyrsquos project and its exemplary commitments steers a course between detached objectivism with its myopic rejection of human subjectivity and agency and blind faith in ldquonakedrdquo facts on one hand and relativism in which all is interpretation and no claims to validity of knowledge exist on the other Th e transforma-tive activist stance is intentionally and consciously devised ndash hence the term stance ndash in ways that start from a set of values and goals (end points) and proceed to exploration and theory building under commitments to realiz-ing these values and goals as an intervention into the status quo Vygotsky ( 1997a p 342) expressed an important insight when he stated that ldquoOur sci-ence could not and cannot develop in the old society hellip so long as human-kind has not mastered the truth about society and society itselfrdquo In further developing this view from the transformative activist position it can be argued that mastering truth about society and ourselves requires that we fi gure out our stake in the world and its communal practices and commit to changing them


115

115

4

Vygotskyrsquos Project Relational Ontology

At one level Vygotskyrsquos project can be described as premised on a fully relational ontology or a relational worldview In this regard it is akin to conceptual systems developed by Dewey Piaget and many other think-ers of the early to mid- twentieth century At the heart of this ontology is the idea that development is a relational process that connects individuals and their world eliminating the dualism of subject and object the knower and the known Vygotskyrsquos project can be seen as making important steps to refute the core of the mechanistic worldview that had given rise to the two extremes represented by mentalistic psychology on the one hand and brain reductionism on the other ndash with these two polar opposites bearing much similarity (as many extremes do) in that they both eschew human agency from their respective accounts Th is type of relational ontology was worked out by members of Vygotskyrsquos project as a result of them absorbing the key infl uential strands of research and thinking at the start of the twen-tieth century (see Stetsenko 2009 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2010 )

Th ese strands included fi rst the philosophical system developed by Marx (itself assimilating and critically expanding on earlier achievements of the German classical philosophies of Kant and Hegel) with its dialec-tical premise about reality as a unitary (total and indivisible rather than composite) process that is constantly and dynamically in motion transi-tion change and development Th is view replaced commonsense notions of things and entities as the building blocks of reality with notions of dyna-mism process interaction and relation Second Vygotskyrsquos project inte-grated understandings of development worked out in and on the foundation of Darwinrsquos theory that centered on dynamic relations between organisms and their world as the driving force of evolutionary change According to this understanding fully absorbed by Vygotsky all living forms evolve and develop within processes of continuous relations with their surrounds and



116

other living forms rather than as preordained and fi xed ldquoinner essencesrdquo unfolding from some primordial universal source Th ird Vygotskyrsquos proj-ect included many insights from literary theory linguistics and semiot-ics that provided foundations to incorporate processes of sign mediation and symbolization into an account of human development and mind Fourth it assimilated and further advanced insights from critical thinking in education of his time (such as the liberal tradition tracing roots back to Konstantin D Ushinsky see Alexander 2011 ) as a basis to link the processes of teaching learning and development

Conceptualizing human development to be a process based in relation-ships to the world was one of the great achievements of Vygotskyrsquos psychol-ogy likening it to systems of thought developed by Dewey Piaget and many thinkers of his time Th ough far from being widely accepted early in the twentieth century and even today it is this premise that connects Vygotskyrsquos project with many contemporary perspectives based in the notions of rela-tionality (or relationism) of development Th is notion does come across as particularly salient (though with various degrees of explicitness) and potentially unifying across a wide range of approaches It challenges the central essentialist premise about ldquothing- likerdquo entities that exist separately from each other and the rest of the world and are infl uenced in merely extraneous ways by other independently existing entities Delineating and ascertaining this common theme present in many sociocultural and critical theories amounts to establishing relational ontology at the core of human development In fact this idea can be regarded as the chief accomplishment across a range of social sciences in the twentieth century that has become especially evident in the past decades For example Lerner and Overton ( 2008 ) claim that

[o] ver the past 35 years developmental psychology has been transformed into developmental science hellip Today the cutting edge of the study of the human life span is framed by a developmental systems theoretical model one that is informed by a postpositivist relational metatheory that moves beyond classical Cartesian dichotomies ldquoavoids all splitsrdquo and transforms fundamental antinomies into co- equal and indissociable complementarities (p 245 emphasis added)

Th is broad theme of relationality however has many expressions and diverging formulations each stemming from a disparate set of prem-ises and each associated with a unique philosophical tradition and line of historic predecessors Th e diff erences among them are important



117

to discern in order to highlight the original worldview at the heart of Vygotskyrsquos works

The Varying Faces of Relational Approaches

According to one interpretation prominent in recent theorizing the theme of relationality is linked to the ldquogeneral systemsrdquo approach and associated ideas of part- whole relations holism emergence and self- organization (cf Lewis 2000 ) Th is approach is oft en attributed to Ludwig von Bertalanff y although many other scholars such as Rashevsky (who coined the term relational biology see Rosen 1991 ) Prigogine and Wiener have also contributed to its consolidation by the mid- twentieth century From its inception this approach refl ected much of the dynamism that had emerged already in the early twentieth century as captured by the leading linguist of the time Roman Jakobson When reminiscing about that time as a wit-ness and participant Jakobson wrote ldquoEverywhere there appeared a new orientation towards organizing unities structures forms whereby not the multitude or sum of successive elements but the relationship between them determined the meaning of the wholerdquo (quoted in Knox 1993 p 2)

Historically it appears that a series of meetings on interaction and cyber-netics by the ldquoPsychobiology of the Childrdquo study group at the World Health Organization between 1953 and 1956 attended by Bertalanff y together with Eric Erikson Baerbel Inhelder Julian Huxley Konrad Lorenz and Margaret Mead (see Bretherton 1992 ) has played a role in consolidation and dissemi-nation of these ideas One additional source of infl uence might have been Kurt Lewinrsquos ideas that brought the legacy of Gestalt psychology (which pioneered this approach in Europe) to the United States

Th e core premise of the general systems theory and of the structural relationism based in it is that many phenomena can be understood as self- organizing systems each representing a set of elements ndash unifi ed and orga-nized in a particular manner ndash that stand in relations with each other and with the whole to which they belong while deriving their characteristics from these relations In this sense the whole is understood as being non- additive ndash possessing qualities that are not reducible to a mechanical sum of its elements Th us the principle of holism asserts that identities of objects and events derive from the relational context in which they are embed-ded rather than from some outside forces or from acting of isolated enti-ties Th e whole is not an aggregate of discrete elements but an organized



118

and self- organizing system of interrelated and interacting parts each being defi ned by its relations to other parts and to the whole (Overton 1998) Interactions among components that comprise the system sustain the system and lead to new patterns and forms emerging as a result of these interactions in a nonlinear and unpredictable fashion Th e emergence of new patterns does not follow any preprogrammed blueprint or instruction and no design can be defi ned before actual interactions among elements take their course Th e principle of self- organization thus puts emphasis on development in terms of emergent novel forms whereby the system is self- organizing in the sense that through its actions it transforms its organiza-tion in a nonlinear dialectic fashion (Lewis 2000 ) In some interpretations of structural relationism relational means dialectical in character a dia-lectical system is any system that moves toward integration through cycles of paradox (ie contradiction and self- reference) and diff erentiation (see Overton 1998)

Importantly the notions of general systems theory have been largely derived from physics biology and other natural sciences and hence they apply to phenomena existing across a wide spectrum of levels from bio-logical to chemical to social ones It is therefore no accident that the oft en- cited examples of self- organizing systems include hurricanes and chemical reactions in which dramatic varied patterns result from the mixing of basic elements demonstrating how an increasingly complex pattern can emerge from interactions among components in a system in which no instruc-tions or plans for the patterns exist beforehand Th is type of relationality informs a number of approaches that belong to the Developmental Systems Perspective (DSP) having been variously described as the developmental systems frame dynamic systems and developmental systems (Lerner 1991 2006 Oyama 2000 cf Witherington 2007 ) Witherington ( 2007 ) has recently provided a helpful overview of various currents within the DSP showing that this metatheoretical framework currently relies on varied and potentially confl icting ontological premises about the specifi c nature of self- organization even within this line of research with disagreements present among the DSPrsquos proponents over key conceptual issues

In particular (integrating analysis from Witherington ibid) originating in natural sciences one line of works within the DSP relies on mathematical formalisms and modeling of dynamic processes without much specifi ca-tion as to the ontological premises of what constitutes self- organizing sys-tems unique to human development (eg van Geert and Steenbeck 2005 ) As Witherington (ibid) notes other existing versions of DSP are more explicit in terms of their ontological premises in that they are explicitly



119

associated with either organismic or contextualist worldviews Both organ-ismic and contextualist worldviews replace mechanicismrsquos atomistic stance that posits discrete entities exerting infl uences on each other in extraneous ways (like billiard balls) In place of this atomistic stance an organismic worldview posits organisms as irreducible integrated wholes with their development marked by irreversible progressive and qualitative changes in the formal properties of the whole (Meacham 1997 Overton 1984 ) Th e holism criterial to the organismic worldview mandates a contextualization of parts in terms of the whole the meaning of a systemrsquos part is primarily a function of its embedding within the system as a whole (Overton 1984 Sameroff 1983 ) Under a contextualist worldview the particularities of time and context assume paramount importance for understanding develop-ment Rather than appealing to abstract generalizable forms contextual-ism grounds itself in the real- time activities of organisms in specifi c settings and contexts (Overton 1991 Reese 1991 )

A number of works in DSP such as Lernerrsquos ( 2006 ) developmental con-textualism Gottliebrsquos ( 2006 Gottlieb Wahlsten and Lickliter 2006 ) devel-opmental psychobiological systems view and Overtonrsquos ( 2006 Overton and Ennis 2006 ) relational metatheoretical framework have focused on extending organismic worldview to integrate contextualist concerns with intra- and interindividual variability (cf Witherington 2007 ) As Overton ( 1984 p 219) has suggested ldquowhen contextualism combines with organi-cism the integrative plan takes precedence and the category lsquocontextrsquo as well as other contextualist categories serve to specify and articulate the nature of the organic wholerdquo

Both organicism and contextualism (as well as synthetic approaches that integrate the two) focus on relations that exist among components of a sys-tem rather than the components per se as in the mechanistic worldview Both assert the centrality of holism but the holism of organicism is about the parts- whole relations of self- organizing systems while the holism of contextualism is about parts- whole relations of the adaptive act (Overton 1984 ) Because relations among elements within any given system are central to dynamic systems and how they organize and emerge these approaches are oft en referred to as relational To reiterate the idea is that entities exist within certain systems where the relations between the whole and its com-posing parts (inclusive of relations among the parts) co- determine each other and cannot be understood in isolation from each other

Th e idea of holism and part- whole relations as central to development is also prominent in what became termed the transactional worldview associated with the works by John Dewey (see Dewey and Bentley 1949 )



120

Dewey introduced the notion of transaction according to which ldquosystems of description and naming are employed to deal with aspects and phases of action without fi nal attribution to elements or other presumptively detach-able or independent entities essences or lsquorealitiesrsquo and without isolation of presumptively detachable relations from such detachable lsquoelementsrsquo rdquo (ibid p 108) As Altman and Rogoff ( 1987 p 26) state in a similar vein within the transactional worldview ldquoone attempts to discern the nature of the whole without emphasis on antecedent and consequent relationships among variables without analysis of the whole into its elementsrdquo Instead the emphasis is placed on organization in the fl ow of events where multiple levels coalesce Th at is transactional approaches begin with the phenom-enon understood as a confl uence of psychological processes environmen-tal qualities and temporal dimensions Th e transactional view explores the ldquochanging relations among psychological and environmental aspects of holistic unitiesrdquo (ibid p 24) Th is perspective recognizes that individu-als and their psychological processes are situated within their social and physical environments and does not isolate components of the social and physical environments in order to understand phenomena Th e phenom-ena are understood as involving the synthesis of diff erent circumstances that include the changing relationships and elements of the whole system

As further elaborated by Werner Brown and Altman ( 2002 ) the core to this approach is that phenomena should be studied as holistic unities composed simultaneously of people psychological processes physical environments and temporal qualities (with temporal dimensions being integral to phenomena and events not separate from them) Th e notion of relations is accordingly subordinate to the notion of events as holistic unities in that the actions of one person are understood in relations to the actions of other people as well as the spatial situational and temporal circumstances in which the actors are embed-ded Understanding the whole the relationships among its aspects and how they work in combination is the key purpose of a transactional analysis While referring to psychological phenomena these authors provide an example of cel-ebrations and rituals as being composed simultaneously of participants and social context physical environment temporal qualities and psychological processes Additional features of transactional worldview include emphasis on the utility of understanding phenomena from diff erent perspectives

Another approach similar to those just described termed the transac-tional model (Sameroff 2010 p 16) is centrally predicated on the idea that

transactions are omnipresent Everything in the universe is aff ecting something else or is being aff ected by something else In the transac-tional model the development of the child is a product of the continuous



121

dynamic interactions of the child and the experience provided by his or her social settings What is core to the transactional model is the analytic emphasis placed on the interdependent eff ects of the child and environment

Although stated in diff erent terms and tracing its lineage to diff erent sources than the transactional worldview the transactional model too places emphasis on understanding that parts cannot be separated from the whole and that various eff ects on human development are coordinated and combined Th e core type of relationship is not that between the child and the world but rather between the child and the experience provided by the social settings ndash ldquo the interdependent eff ects of the child and environmentrdquo (Sameroff 2010 p 16 emphasis added) In addition in this perspective networks of relationships are posited as constraining or encouraging dif-ferent aspects of individual behavior (which therefore it is said can be interpreted to preexist relationships) rather than viewed as constituting human development thus playing the role of developmental constraints and assets rather than that of formative elements and constituents of development

Lerner (eg 1991 ) has proposed a similar model ndash a variant termed devel-opmental contextualism Th is model stresses that there is no single cause of the individual development Within- person variables (eg the biological and the psychological ones) interpersonal variables (such as peer group or personal relations) and extra- personal variables (such as institutional or environmental ones) are not suffi cient in and of themselves Rather the structure or pattern of relations among these levels of analysis produces behaviors and changes in the form (the confi guration) of these relations produce developmental change (Dixon and Lerner 1999 ) Th e type of the relation at the center of analysis is the relation between the structural and functional characteristics of the organism on the one hand and the fea-tures (eg the demands or presses) of the organismrsquos context on the other (eg Lerner 2002 )

Another meaning of relationality is expressed by Slife ( 2004 ) in his discussion of the radical character of practice understood as engaged and contextually situated activity According to Slife ldquopractices do not exist in an important ontological sense except in relation to the con-crete and particular situations and cultures that give rise to them imply-ing what we might call a relational ontologyrdquo (p 158) In this account the emphasis is placed on relations among practices with practices hav-ing a shared being because they start out and forever remain in rela-tionship with other practices Th e qualities and properties of practices



122

are understood to stem not from what is inherent or ldquoinsiderdquo them but are seen as dependent on how they are related to each other Th e same emphasis on interrelating components of a system can be discerned in this approach as in the ones previously described

The developmental systems and transactional perspectives make many useful and timely arguments critical to understanding human development Significantly they go beyond the simple dichotomy of nature versus nurture or biology versus culture in explaining human development Given their focus on emergence and change in devel-opment they successfully challenge the outdated nativist ideas about preexistent designs and genetic blueprints as purportedly explain-ing developmental change (see also Oyama 2000 Thelen 1995 2005 Thelen and Smith 1994 ) They also reveal faults in preformationist models that explain novel patterns in development by appeal to a single source or mechanism such as genetics

However I agree with Witheringtonrsquos ( 2007 ) claim that such perspec-tives need to more fully articulate their ontological framework in a way that provides a principled and coherent integration rather than focusing on amalgamation that brings with it ldquothe potential for conceptual obfusca-tionrdquo (p 147) Th e core idea for the DSPrsquos metatheoretical framework and many other works employing the notion of relationality in connotations reviewed in this section appears to be the dual emphasis on (1) emergence rather than design as the basis for system development and (2) the rela-tions among components of a system rather than isolated components as the source of development (ibid) Th is leaves relations between organisms and environment to play the role of a subordinate principle In addition the works conducted in DSP and transactional approaches do not suffi -ciently specify their ontological position vis- agrave- vis uniquely psychological phenomena Th is is evident primarily in that there is little specifi cation provided in these frameworks as to how psychological processes such as the mind and the self can be conceptualized while relying on the notion of relations Oft en ldquointernalrdquo mental processes are conceptualized merely in terms of their relations to (or interactions with) the biological processes external activities and sociohistorical processes with no further specifi ca-tion Alternatively the mind is defi ned as emerging from a relational bio-sociocultural activity matrix (Overton 1998) rather than specifi cally from the organism- environment interactions as an ontological realm in which and from which the mind and other psychological phenomena emerge Th e general idea is that ldquomeaning is as much a refl ection of the internal mental states of the subject as it is a refl ection of the external social and physical



123

worldrdquo (ibid p 144) rather than a property of a relational process that con-nects the organism with the world

To summarize there are many diff ering meanings attributed to the notions of relations and relationality in contemporary literature Th ese meanings vary from relations referring to the links of various parts of the organisms among themselves (within one ldquowhole organismrdquo) to those between genes and environment to those between childrsquos characteristics and environmental forces to fi nally those between various factors impact-ing development Th e relations between organisms and their environment let alone specifi c relations between human beings and the communal world of cultural practices shared with others mediated by cultural tools and extending through history are typically not prioritized over other types of relations However the latter has been precisely the core emphasis in Vygotskyrsquos project as discussed in the next section

Relational Worldview The Interface with the World

An alternative take on the topic of relationality to those described in the preceding section ndash albeit not without some signifi cant overlaps ndash origi-nates in the Darwinian ideas of mutualism between organisms and their environments It places the main emphasis on the notion that relations between the organisms and the world constitute the primary and original mode of existence for all forms of life and the source of development for all organisms including development of their morphology behavior the mind and the full range of psychological processes (see Stetsenko 2008 2011 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2010 ) What this amounts to is positing the worldview that is diff erent from both organismic and contextualist world-views and from their synthesis

In the relational worldview of this type the dynamic relations consti-tuted by the processes of reciprocal and bidirectional give- and- take back- and- forth exchanges between the organism and the world (the subject and the object) are taken as an ontologically unique and genetically primary realm that takes precedence over any structural connections such as parts- whole relations or relations among variables and factors acting upon organ-isms Rather than (or perhaps in addition to) an epistemic principle of strategically merging various theoretical and metatheoretical standpoints and positions this approach does posit one foundational (but not founda-tionalist) ontological reality ndash understood precisely as constituted by the organism- world relationality that represents the mode of existence for all



124

living organisms and forms of life Th at is relations between organisms and the world rather than organisms taken in isolation from the world or the world taken in isolation from the organisms are posited as ontologically primary whereby organisms in all of their features forms behaviors and traits are seen as derivative from these relations

Th is core premise has to do with overcoming the Cartesian split between the object and the subject the person and the world the knower and the known ndash to off er instead a radically diff erent relational ontology in which processes occur and phenomena exist in the realm between individuals and their world In this broad metalevel approach organisms and their environment are not seen as separate and self- contained (neither in their origination nor in their functioning) but are posited to have fundamentally shared existence as aspects or facets of one and the same unifi ed reality of relations and relationships Th e object and subject are seen as ontologically (ie in their existential status) coexistent and co- determined through and as composed of relations between them and the world and among them-selves Th e subject and the world appear as mutually constituting whereby the former is fi rmly inseparably immersed in the world (eg Dewey and Bentley 1949 ) Any and all capacities of organisms including psychological processes emerge within and out of relationships between organisms and their world with organisms being assembled in the course of their func-tioning (eg Th elen and Smith 1994 )

To emphasize again the core to relational ontology in this connotation is not that the parts and the whole of a given system or phenomenon relate to each other and need to be understood in their relationship but rather that all phenomena including human subjectivity (mind self motivation experiences emotions etc) are forms of relations between human beings and their world Th at is the key idea is that the phenomena of human life and development (including practices) are posited not as merely standing in relation to some other processes but are relations connecting the organ-ism and the world Th ese phenomena are understood to originate and exist in the realm that stretches beyond the boundaries of isolated entities (or fi xed ldquothingsrdquo) such as organisms and ldquostimulirdquo in the environment and instead comprise the complex network of relations with the world in which organisms are involved and through which they are formed It is the rela-tions between the organisms and the world ndash as a dialogic continuum and a ceaseless process connecting and constituting them ndash that are the primary foundational realm within and out of which human development emerges and ensues All organisms therefore exist in the fl ux of relating to their world as driven by relational processes and their unfolding logic and even



125

more critically as made up of these relational processes and therefore as not being constrained by any rigidly imposed preprogrammed scripts or rules

Th us the reductionist notion of atomism (ie of reality as com-prised of separate entities that exist independently from and only exert extraneous infl uences on each other) whereby organisms are likened to machines upon which extraneous forces act and the metaphor of sepa-ration ndash both typical of the mechanistic worldview ndash are replaced with the notion of all- embracing and dynamic (process- like fl uid continuous and ever- ending) fl ow of relations understood to comprise the primary ontological realm of existence of all living forms Associated with this shift is the metaphor of mutuality and ldquoin- between- uityrdquo that is mutual co- construction co- evolution continuous dialogue belonging participa-tion and interpenetration of forms of life with the world all underscoring relatedness and interconnectedness blending and meshing ndash the ldquocoming togetherrdquo of individuals and their world that transcends their separation Th is is a position at a worldview level ndash a relational one ndash where develop-ment is seen as taking place at the intersection of the organism and the world and where both organism and the world are not only fully perme-able and integrated through their relationships and exchanges but also and most importantly co- constituted and brought into existence within and through these processes Dimensions of reality such as the social and the personal are not separate and self- contained but have a shared exis-tence as diff ering tendencies united within real developing systems Th e thrust of this worldview is that the reductionist metaphor of separation is replaced with the ldquodialectical metaphor of participation rdquo (cf Bidell 1999 p 307)

Analyses of organism- in- environment ndash conceived as a unity that is a complex overarching whole composed of relational processes that enfold both organism and the world ndash substitutes for analyses into separate and independent characteristics of organisms and environments Attempts to understand functioning and development of human beings outside of their profound connection to interrelation with and embedding into the world therefore are seen as futile Human beings as all other organisms are pro-foundly dependent upon enmeshed with situated in and connected to their environment

Th ese various articulations of what constitutes the hallmark of relational ontology are meant to clarify how this ontology contrasts with the similar ideas about relationality of human development that in eff ect are formu-lated based in a substantially diff erent set of premises Statements about gene- environment interactions humans as bio- socio- cultural hybrids the



126

relationship between environmental infl uences and human beings nature and nurture as both playing a role in human development (even to the eff ect that they interpenetrate and cannot be understood without each other) a complementarity of active organism and active environment ndash these and similar statements do not posit relations through which organisms connect to their world as constitutive of development (and instead posit them as merely a source of infl uence that is as merely an amalgam of constraints on and resources for development)

Th is seemingly simple conceptual shift is of a radical sort with a number of important implications At stake is a shift beyond the false ldquointeractionist consensusrdquo about nature and nurture somehow interact-ing with each other to produce development Th at the sources of devel-opment could be assigned to both nature and nurture rather than to one or the other exclusively that developmental resides not in one compo-nent of an interaction such as a genetic makeup but in the interaction of this component with other infl uences such as environmental conditions and factors that endogenous and exogenous infl uences on development interact in numerous ways ndash these statements do not do enough to move beyond traditional ways of thinking and into the relational ontological worldview

In this spirit more than half a century ago Daniel S Lehrman ( 1953 ) wrote that it has become customary to state that the ldquohereditaryrdquo and ldquoenvi-ronmentalrdquo contributions are both essential to the development of the organism the organism could not develop in the absence of either and the dichotomy is more or less artifi cial Lehrman goes on to say that this formulation frequently serves as an introduction to models that fall right back into the pitfalls of dichotomously splitting organisms from the envi-ronment His critique of Lorenzrsquos theory of instinct was an appeal to focus instead on the idea that

[t] he interaction out of which the organism develops in not one as is so oft en said between heredity and environment It is between organism and environment And the organism is diff erent at each diff erent stage (Lehrman 1970 p 20 emphasis added)

Lehrmanrsquos insight is as relevant in todayrsquos context if not more as it was four decades ago As Susan Oyama ( 2000 p 22) has convincingly demonstrated

Even though the distinction between the innate and acquired has been under attack for decades hellip and even though it is routinely dismissed and ridiculed in the scientifi c literature hellip it continues to appear in



127

new guises Th e very people who pronounce it obsolete manage in the next breath to distinguish between a character that is a ldquogenetic prop-ertyrdquo and one that is only ldquoan environmentally produced analoguerdquo hellip Vocabulary and styles of description shift but the conviction remains that some developmental courses are more controlled by the genes than others

The Complementary Roots of the Relational Worldview Dewey Piaget

and Vygotsky

Th is section will briefl y sketch the relational transactional stance of Piaget and Dewey and other conceptual frameworks rooted in Darwinian ideas of mutualism between organisms and their environments I then address in the following section and in more detail the Darwinian roots of rela-tional ontology as represented in Vygotskyrsquos project Th is account has an advantage of reintroducing (rather that splitting off ) Vygotsky ndash and with and through him an important part of the Marxist philosophical lineage of thought and its applications in psychology ndash to the discussions of DSP that typically do not engage this theory and this lineage (although Vygotsky is tacitly present in these discussion in that Nikolaj N Bernstein whose works were in many ways related to Vygotskyrsquos project are at the root of Th elenrsquos works see Th elen 1995 ) Although the primary goal is to address how Vygotskyrsquos worldview builds upon and also departs from the relational worldview in laying grounds for an activist transformative worldview the advantage of drawing comparisons across frameworks is that this might aid the long- term goal of unifying non- reductionist approaches and thus mutually strengthen them

One of the diffi culties of accepting relational ontology in all fullness of its implications is that it is based in ldquoprocess philosophyrdquo rather than in gen-eral systems theory with its emphasis on parts- whole relation Th e process philosophy although it has a long tradition is still hardly accepted in psy-chology because it goes against many habitual ways of thinking dominated by substance and structure ontologies (eg Bickhard 2012 ) As Christopher and Bickhard ( 2007 p 261) have argued

Psychology has yet to develop a generally accepted process ontology One implication of this is that much of psychology is left trying to establish relationships between ldquothingsrdquo that have been reifi ed such as mind and body culture and self inner representations and external realities facts



128

and values hellip Once split by these reifi cations into substantial domains entities or realms of entities however it has proven to be impossible to reintegrate them

One way to capitalize on and strengthen the impact of relational ontology as well as to overcome disconnections that still separate theories grounded in it is to realize that the three key frameworks on human development of the twentieth century ndash those by Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky ndash all embod-ied strong relational thinking and all advanced relational ontology (even though not using the latter term) In their works the goal was to overcome constraints of the mechanical worldview and the subjectndash object dualism by off ering a novel understanding of development as a process in constant dialogue and relation with the world Th eir theories can be viewed as the most articulate attempts to develop psychology based in relational ontol-ogy that replaced the traditional view of independent objects aff ecting each other with the concept of dynamic transaction encompassing objects and the ldquooutside worldrdquo and turning them into mutually interdependent aspects of one unifi ed fl ow of processes and events

Th e distinctive common theme underlying these approaches drew its principal inspiration from evolutionary theory rather than from the systemic approaches developed in physical sciences (cf Bredo 1994 ) as is the case with many contemporary approaches in developmental sys-tems theory (DST) Indeed Darwin can be credited to be one of the most important sources of ideas that paved the way for all of these three scholars Darwinrsquos seminal contribution in the philosophical sense was in placing the notions of change and dynamism at the heart of nature and the evolution of life Th ese notions eff ectively undermined the dual-ism of external and internal as separate forces acting on organisms from afar and of separate essences and entities existing independently of each other Although Darwin never discussed broad philosophical matters such as Cartesianism and dualism of objects and the world his innova-tions de facto off ered novel ways of thinking that undermined the key pillars of Cartesian mechanistic science and mentalistic psychology (cf Costall 2004 ) As Dewey put it in his work Th e Infl uence of Darwinism on Philosophy ( 1910 )

In laying hands upon the sacred ark of absolute permanency in treat-ing the forms that had been regarded as types of fi xity and perfection as originating and passing away the ldquoOrigin of Speciesrdquo introduced a mode of thinking that in the end was bound to transform the logic of knowl-edge and hence the treatment of morals politics and religion (pp 1ndash 2)



129

It is this shift that can be discerned in the works of Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky In this light these works have more in common than meets the eye although there are also profound diff erences among these scholarsrsquo theoretical assumptions Explicating these diff ering assumptions that typ-ify each of the three frameworks however is possible by fi rst taking into account their underlying commonality rooted in their shared view about the process (or the core reality) constituting human development Th is core reality was that of a unifi ed process of organisms- acting- in- environments Indeed all three scholars off ered accounts of human development that were to a large extent motivated by a critique of mechanistic worldview In its place these scholars off ered an approach based on evolutionary assump-tions giving priority to process ontology and the assumption about the primacy of relations rather than isolated entities as a constitutive realm of human development and subjectivity Mind was for them an intrinsic aspect of organisms engaging with their world rather than an illusory side eff ect mirroring spectator or expression of a larger universal mind (cf Bredo 1994 )

In particular Piaget based his theory on the notion of reciprocal inter-dependence between the subject and the object and consistently argued against splitting the two As the key alternative to such splitting he sug-gested that ldquothe substantialist language of whole and part ought to be replaced by a language based on relations between individuals or individu-als in groupsrdquo (Piaget 1995 p 188) Th us Piaget clearly favored a relational point of view according to which ldquothere are neither individuals as such nor society as such Th ere are just interindividual relationsrdquo (ibid p 210) Th e relations between individuals are primary and ldquoconstantly modify indi-vidual consciousnesses themselvesrdquo (ibid p 136) As noted by Kitchener ( 1996 p 245 cf Mueller and Carpendale 2000 p 141) ldquoPiaget hellip can be called a kind of transactionalist Ultimately real are the basic transac-tions between individuals or between individual and environmentrdquo Th e implications of this viewpoint for the study of cognition are enormous According to Piaget ldquothe establishment of cognitive or more generally epistemological relations hellip involve [ sic ] a set of structures progressively constructed by continuous interaction between the subject and the exter-nal worldrdquo ( 1983 p 103)

Perhaps most critically Piagetrsquos insistence that cognition stems from sensorimotor bases that is from the organismsrsquo material actions in the world can be seen as a profoundly relational premise Piagetrsquos theory has a profoundly dynamic feel due to its emphasis on continuous process and emergence ndash including understanding development to entail a balancing



130

between the processes of accommodation and assimilation that leads to continuous and ever- shift ing adaptations and readapations of the subject to its environment As Piaget noted

[A] ll structures are constructed and hellip the fundamental feature is the course of this construction Nothing is given at the start except some lim-iting points on which all the rest is based Th e structures are neither given in advance in the human mind nor in the external world as we perceive or organize it (quoted in von Glasersfeld 1997 p 296 emphasis added)

Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky were not alone to propose relational ontology in accounting for human development For example proponents of what has been termed the ldquosecond psychologyrdquo including William James Kurt Lewin George Herbert Mead and Maurice Merleau- Ponty among others also called for psychology of people in relation to circumstances to comple-ment the fi rst experimental psychology (see Cahan and White 1992 ) Klaus Riegel (eg 1979 ) reviewing dialectical interpretations of developmental processes ndash what he termed ldquopsychology in interaction termsrdquo ndash listed von Uexkullrsquos ecological paradigm of studying organisms in their natural envi-ronments Kurt Lewinrsquos analysis and Kantorrsquos interaction model among such interpretations

Riegel also drew attention to the prominent Russian philosopher and psychologist Sergej Rubinstein (a contemporary of Lev Vygotsky) whose works gave renewed expression to interactive ideas in his notion of constitu-tive relationism according to which every phenomenon is determined and constituted by its relations to all other phenomena Riegelrsquos own works too helped forge psychology that focused on relations between organisms and their environments (cf Lerner 2002 ) Similar themes come across in Meadrsquos understanding of selfh ood as constituted within and through conduct in relation to others (cf Martin 2005 ) ldquoSince organism and environment determine one another and are mutually dependent for their existence it follows that the life- process to be adequately understood must be consid-ered in terms of their interrelationsrdquo (Mead 1934 p 130)

Th e same theme is prominent already in William Jamesrsquos ldquoradical empir-icismrdquondash the idea that knowing is a functional relation in experience between a knower and what is known including relations and objects (cf Heft 2001 ) Indeed James replaced subject- object dualism with the notion that the mind is a process in constant dialogue with the world as captured by his metaphor of ldquothe stream of consciousnessrdquo In describing consciousness James wrote that it ldquolike a birdrsquos life hellip seems to be made of an alternation of fl ights and perchingsrdquo ( 1890 1950 p 243) He went on to lament that ldquoit



131

is very diffi cult hellip to see the transitive parts for what they arerdquo (ibid) and that philosophers had paid attention to the perchings and not the fl ights Moreover James eschewed dualisms of matter and mind physical and mental by postulating the centrality of experience Th e ldquodouble- barreled conceptrdquo of experience depicts something that is both at once objective and subjective thought and thing (cf Overton 1998 p 152) Experience is clearly the function of context (the known) but is also the function of the knowing mind and thus is deeply and profoundly relational In addition people experience the world as being in fl ux as a continuous constantly changing reality that produces equally fl uid and constantly changing con-tinuous fl ow of experiences and consciousness Experience is a realm in which the organism and environment come together in producing conjoint eff ects it is neither a private possession of an individual nor a passive regis-tration of external stimuli

Likewise for Peirce ( 1955 ) the repudiation of the Cartesian starting point in the duality of humans and their world means the recovery of fl esh- and- blood actors who are continuously defi ning themselves through their give- and- take relationships with both the natural world and each other (cf Colapietro 1989 ) Many similar formulations can be also found in the works by Merleau- Ponty according to whom ldquothe self is distinguishable but not separable from others indeed the identity of the self is constituted by its relations to othersrdquo ( 1962 p 456)

In shift ing to an evolutionary view and rejecting a mechanical one Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky all gave priority to activities rather than enti-ties Th eir approach depicted organisms as acting to alter their own envi-ronment rather than being prodded from behind to respond A number of contemporary approaches are fundamentally built on the notion of recipro-cal relations between organisms and the world For example the Gibsonian model that treats perception as a phase of activity of the whole organism through practical bodily engagements in response to environmental con-tingencies (cf Ingold 2000 ) is highly compatible with and falls under the umbrella of action- based relational ontology Th e same applies to theories that focus on enactment (eg Varela Th ompson and Rosch 1991 ) dialogi-cal communication (eg Hicks 2000 Markovaacute 2012 and many continu-ing Bakhtinian approach) some versions of social constructionism (eg Gergen 2009 Harreacute 2002 ) self- in- practice (Holland Lachicotte Skinner and Cain 1998 ) and embodied cognition and dynamic systems approaches (eg Clark 1997 Th elen 1995 ) Th e concepts of self- organization and emergence proposed in connectionism and in dynamic systems theory bear a strong historical relationship to these approaches Situative theories



132

(Lave 1988 1993 ) and theories of apprenticeship (Rogoff 2003 ) emphasize the reciprocal character of the interaction in which human development and learning are socially and culturally constructed In a number of theo-ries interactions with the world are viewed as not only producing meanings about the social world but also as producing identities that is individuals are fundamentally constituted through their relations with the world (see Lemke 1997 Wenger 1999)

Further an action- based or enactivist orientation is grounded in the assertion that people form complex fabrics of fundamentally and inextri-cably intertwined relationships with everything else physically biologically and experientially phenomenologically (eg Davis and Sumara 1997 ) From this viewpoint epistemological beliefs are not primarily or solely cognitive features but are temporarily crystallized enactments in ever- changing webs of mutually defi ning elements Gibsonrsquos approach brought together the functionalist emphasis upon the coordination of animal and environment with the Gestaltist reaction against atomistic analysis (cf Costall 2004 ) In his theory of ldquodirect perceptionrdquo and his overall ecological- relational approach Gibson placed emphasis upon activity of humans and other animals As he put it the visual system has legs (Costall 2004 p 75) and information is actively obtained not imposed

Vygotskyrsquos Relational Ontology

It is important to situate Vygotskyrsquos works as belonging to and play-ing an important role in this vast movement of thought ndash the relational worldview and ontology ndash developed in the twentieth century and now powerfully present in this century Vygotskyrsquos theoretical perspective was grounded in precisely this worldview and as such (in similarity with scholars like James Dewey Piaget and others just reviewed) was pro-foundly indebted to Darwinrsquos ideas of evolution Namely Vygotsky was able to appreciate the revolutionary breakthrough made by Darwin in terms of the very mode of thinking about nature and human develop-ment Vygotskyrsquos theory at its most fundamental subterranean level endorsed the worldview permeated by the Darwinian insight about principled insuffi ciency of the mechanistic worldview in one of its core components ndash the methodology of elementarism According to the lat-ter the universe is composed of separate entities that exist and can be studied in isolation from each other just as a clock or any other machine can be studied by looking at its parts Vygotsky substituted for this the worldview of nature as a process in fl ux and constant change with fl uid



133

and ever- changing open- ended and nonlinear indeterminate (ie nei-ther preordained nor fi xed) dynamic processes linking organisms and their environments at the center As I intend to show in this section Vygotskyrsquos position on human development is deeply relational ndash fully within the relational ontology premises ndash rendering it more complicated and nuanced (though sometimes only in subtle ways and not without some contradictions and gaps) than is typically acknowledged

Vygotsky quoted Darwin throughout his works was extremely attentive to the biological foundations of development (even preoccupied by them at some stages in his work) and highly receptive of the ongoing develop-ments in physiology biology anthropology and other natural sciences of the time At the same time he was striving for and anticipating psychologyrsquos liberation from the thrall of biology typical of a reductionist understanding that all psychological phenomena can be explained by reference to biologi-cal processes (and thus explained away) In this Vygotsky was not alone but shared his orientation with many scholars and thinkers of his time who were striving to wed natural sciences with philosophy As Clark and Holquist ( 1984 ) noted in their book on Mikhail Bakhtin (and this insight fully applies to Vygotsky too) many Russian scholars and intellectuals were infl uenced by biology that had been assigned a privileged status since the 1860s and turned to it to fi nd answers to the traditional philosophical ques-tions as well as to practical problems that plagued Russian society in seek-ing a balance between science and metaphysics

Crucial to Vygotsky and his followers adopting and further elaborat-ing the relational worldview was their acquaintance with and enthusias-tic reception of Darwinrsquos ideas of animate nature as a process imbued with collective relational and historicized dynamics Yet their understanding of evolutionary theory was unique accepting a number of its premises while rejecting others In this Vygotskyrsquos project again followed with the criti-cal ldquodomesticrdquo tradition in which his works were steeped Indeed in the interpretation of many Russian critical thinkers such as Kropotkin Herzen and Chernyshevsky (and writers such as Leo Tolstoy) evolution did not have to be understood through the lens of the ldquostruggle for survivalrdquo and the search for competitive advantage (see detailed analysis in Todes 1989 ) In a critique of what they saw as ldquoa purely English doctrinerdquo these think-ers believed that Darwinrsquos emphasis on overpopulation and ensuing need for intraspecies competition borrowed from Malthus refl ected a false and socially insidious image of nature (cf ibid)

As Vladimir M Bekhterev the leading physiologist of the time put it ldquoIt should be obvious to anyone that what is universal is not the struggle for



134

existence among individuals of the same species or of diff erent species but rather the struggle for the right of life generally for the acquisition of the necessary conditions of existence from surrounding naturerdquo (quoted in Todes 1989 p 118) Th is perception served as a foundation for mutual aid theorists especially Kropotkin who in contrast to Malthus and Huxley (whose views Kropotkin considered to be ldquoatrociousrdquo in terms of their social and political implications see ibid) called attention to cooperation in nature and to its role in evolution According to this theory the role of cooperation in the production of diversity and origination of new species trumps that of struggle among individual organisms of the same species As a result the development of the entire animal kingdom and especially of humankind was posited to be driven not by struggle and competition so much as by mutual aid cooperation and collaboration (cf Todes ibid)

In addition the Darwinian insights have been merged in Vygotskyrsquos project with the growing knowledge about the physiology of the nervous system and the brain (eg Helmholtz Sherrington Sechenov and later Pavlov Ukhtomskij Bekhterev and Bernstein) Following on from these two important strands Vygotsky and his followers viewed processes in the animate world as being in constant fl ux subject to change variation and chance and as having no predestined constraints nor following pre-programmed paths algorithms or putatively ordered stages Most impor-tantly Vygotsky and his followers inherited emphasis on the collaborative communal nature of processes at the core of development (in evolution and ontogeny) from the mutual aid theory by Kropotkin and other Russian scholars (for details see Stetsenko 2011 )

Th is account can help fi ll in the gaps in interpretations of Vygotskyrsquos works such as for example in developmental systems theory (eg Lerner 2002 p 32) where these works are seen as primarily stressing the social and cultural origins of individual development and their role in enabling instrumental activity Added in this interpretation ndash as a separate idea ndash is the concept of the zone of proximal development that is taken to illustrate an emphasis on person- context relations However no further specifi ca-tion is provided for how the relational worldview might have played a role in Vygotskyrsquos theoretical system of ideas Many other accounts within the same overall interpretative frame also give short shrift to the notion of relationality and other ideas in line with the DST in Vygotskyrsquos theory Th erefore it is important to bring Vygotskyrsquos relational ontology to the fore

First Vygotsky clearly was explicitly committed in strong similarity with the DST and DSP to a systemic view of development ndash the notion that any and all parts of a given system can only be understood in their systemic



135

interrelations and their embedding within the system as a whole Th is is evident for example in Vygotsky taking over from Gestalt psychology and stressing ldquothe holistic point of viewrdquo according to which ldquothe signifi cance of the whole which has its own specifi c properties and determines the proper-ties and functions of the parts that constitute it is foremostrdquo ( 1997b p 83) Further examples of this position can be found throughout Vygotskyrsquos works expressed in terms such as ldquothe interconnected dynamic unifi ed wholerdquo ( 1993 p 278) and ldquointegral whole which has its own lawsrdquo (ibid p 151) to describe development Th is position is also evident in Vygotskyrsquos critique of atomistic approach according to which processes such as think-ing and speech or intellect and aff ect are decomposed into elements that do not ldquocontain the characteristics inherent to the wholerdquo ( 1987 p 244) In contrast the unity of perception speech and action (in line with the dia-lectical approach) was the leading theme in Vygotskyrsquos writings and those of his followers (perhaps especially Zaporozhets and Elkonin see details in Chapter 10 )

Th e same idea is stated in the following passage ldquoIn a new environment hellip children display completely diff erent characteristics Such results occur when childrenrsquos characteristics and activities are examined not in isolation but in their relation to the whole in the dynamics of their developmentrdquo (1993 p 38) Vygotsky adds the Latin saying to highlight his meaning ldquo si duo faciunt idem non est idem rdquo (ibid translated as ldquowhen two do the same thing it isnrsquot the samerdquo )

Second Vygotsky clearly and unequivocally rendered the mind a part of nature stressing the unity of psychological and physiological processes exactly in line with Piaget and Dewey as is evident in the following passage

Dialectical psychology has as its point of departure fi rst of all the unity of mental and physiological processes For dialectical psychology mind is not in the words of Spinoza something that is situated outside nature like a kingdom within a kingdom it is a part of nature itself immediately linked to the functions of the highest organized matter of human brain Like the rest of nature it [this part] was not created but evolved in the process of development ( 1997a p 112)

Th e same idea is conveyed in the following passage by Vygotsky

It is absurd to fi rst isolate a certain quality from the integral process and then raise the question of the function of this quality as if it existed in itself fully independently of that integral process of which it forms a qual-ity hellip But until now psychology proceeded in exactly this way It revealed the mental side of phenomena and then attempted to demonstrate



136

that hellip it is entirely unnecessary hellip Already in the very statement of this question resides the false presupposition that mental phenomena may act upon brain phenomena It is absurd to ask whether a given quality can act upon the object of which it forms the qualityrdquo ( 1997a p 114)

Th e notion of systemic organization of psychological function became central to works by many of Vygotskyrsquos co- workers and followers For example Leontiev ( 1978 ) also pursued the notion of systemic organiza-tion of psychological functions and consciousness Alexander Luria (eg 1973 ) made it a cornerstone of his approach to neuropsychology ndash what he termed the principle of ldquothe dynamic- systemic localization of brain func-tionsrdquo (an approach that has a strikingly contemporary relevance) His approach to this day constitutes the cutting edge in neurosciences in that it posits that the brain serves as an instrument for carrying out meaning-ful goal- directed activities and that the brain functions are not prepro-grammed or inborn but instead are formed in development in response to specifi c life demands in the course of activities As such this approach was a precursor to what has been recently widely disseminated as the greatest discovery of the twentieth century namely that brain functioning can be sustained even in very old age and that new brain cells can grow in response to individualrsquos active engagement in activities thus likening the brain to a sort of a ldquomusclerdquo the strength and vitality of which depend on how much it is made use of

In addition to this emphasis on the interrelations among parts and between a given whole structure and the parts that belong to it Vygotsky is also very explicit ndash again in a strong consonance with DST and DSP ndash in his focus on dynamics of development as a nonlinear and ever- changing process characterized by novelty and emergence of new structures (cf Moran and John- Steiner 2003 ) His attention to the dynamics of devel-opment as a nonstatic and ever- evolving process that is shot through with change and novelty is exemplary for his time as is evidenced in the claim that

[t] o study something historically means to study it in motion hellip To encompass in research the process of development hellip in all its phases and changes ndash from the moment of its appearance to its death ndash means to reveal its nature to know its essence (Vygotsky 1997b p 43)

Th ird Vygotskyrsquos principles extend to include the key relational notion that development is a process that overcomes the traditional separation



137

of organism and environment From his early works on (see especially Vygotsky 1997a pp 158 ff ) he insists that organisms and the environ-ment cannot be understood as independently existing ldquothingsrdquo outside their intricate bond and relationship While positing that environment especially the social one is a systematic and powerful infl uence on devel-opment that is omnipresent and ubiquitous Vygotsky qualifi es this idea by saying that the role of the organism cannot be overlooked adding that the organism is part of the environment in so far as it acts in the environ-ment so that the biological organismic structures are always determined by preceding environmental infl uences He concludes that ldquoall this gives us the right to speak of the organism only in interaction with the envi-ronmentrdquo ( 1997a p 159 note that in the English translation the word only is omitted and the meaning is thus distorted) Th e word only plays a critical role here in conveying the core idea that there is no organism as such and no environment as such ndash if these are viewed as somehow independently existing entities ndash because both need to be viewed in their dynamic interplay Furthermore Vygotsky is very clear in his rejection to take outside conditions and internal infl uences ndash as if existing indepen-dently of each other ndash as the prime determinants of development

One of the major impediments to the theoretical and practical study of child development is the incorrect solution of the problem of the envi-ronment and its role in the dynamics of age in which the environment is considered as something external with respect to the child [that is] as a surround (okruzhenie ndash Rus) of development as an aggregate of objec-tive conditions that exist irrespectively of the child and aff ect the child by the mere fact of their existence ( 1998 p 198)

Vygotskyrsquos affi rmation of relational ontology is also evident in his statement that ldquointeraction with the environment stands at the beginning and at the endrdquo of development ( 1993 p 158) Moreover he was explicitly mindful of the diffi culty of affi rming relational premises given that general statements do not always convey the novel way of thinking associated with the rela-tional worldview Vygotsky writes

We admit in words that it is necessary to study the personality and the environment of the child in unity But we should not conceive of this matter in such a way that on one side there is the infl uence of person-ality while on the other side ndash the infl uence of the environment that the one and the other act in a manner of external forces In actuality however it is precisely how this is done frequently wishing to study the



138

unity we fi rst tear it apart and then attempt to link one part with the other ( 1998 p 292)

It is also quite telling that one of the latest works by Vygotsky ndash on early childhood (see 1998 ) begins with a resolute statement about relations rep-resenting the formative level of development

We shall fi rst of all consider the childrsquos relationship to the external reality to the external environment hellip [I] t can be considered a well established fact that the child stands in a unique relation to a given situation in the sense of his behavior and his acting in this environment (p 261)

Vygotsky goes on to give credit to Kurt Lewin for revealing how this rela-tion is unique ndash referring to Lewinrsquos term Feldmassigkeit as a fi eld of human activity considered in relation to the structure of the situation and his notion of Auff orderungscharacter ndash certain imperative character of objects that in eff ect calls actions to life (eg compelling the child to touch or pick up an object within the visual fi eld) Th us much of Vygotskyrsquos eff orts can be read as an attempt to reconceptualize human development based on rela-tional premises that is in terms of an organismndash environment nexus that is ever evolving and constantly changing and in which the two ldquopartsrdquo con-tinuously co- determine each other so that neither one can be conceived or studied independently of the other

Fourth it is important that Vygotsky goes on to spell out implications from these relational premises about organism- environment nexus in line with the ideas of emergence change and novelty as the key characteristics of devel-opment In particular he staunchly argued against fi xed preformist views on development and instead advanced the notion that development exists in fl ux and constant change as a fl uid and ever- changing open- ended dynamic process linking organisms and their environments For example Vygotsky ( 1997b p 100) challenged the dominant and widely accepted at the time view that development could be understood as a set of static predetermined steps that unfold from a preexisting ldquointernal potentialrdquo Such an understanding according to Vygotsky describes not so much a process of development as that of mere growth and maturation In an alternative account that Vygotsky charts development consists in the new stages arising not from the unfolding of potentials enclosed in the preceding stages As he wrote

Child development least of all resembles a stereotypic process shielded from external infl uences here [in child development] in a living adap-tation to the outside milieu is the development and change of the child accomplished In this process ever new forms arise rather than the ele-ments in the preordained chain being simply stereotypically reproduced



139

hellip [I] n the history of cultural development a much greater place is taken by another form another type [of development] which consists in that the new stage arises not out of unfolding of potentials enclosed in the preceding stage but out of an actual confrontation between the organism and the environment and an alive adaptation to the environment (ibid p 100 emphasis added)

In this sense Vygotsky is ndash just as DST and DSP are ndash strongly opposed to the nativist views as is the whole Vygotskian project that from its inception in the early 1920s (including works by Leontiev Zaporozhets and Elkonin among others) championed a resolute critique of nativism and preformism Moreover Vygtosky can be seen to make a seminal attempt to reconcep-tualize the very notion of development especially with regards to human development He clearly expressed his awareness that this notion is in need of a radical reconceptualization as a complex dialectical process Th ese ideas are summarized in what can be regarded as Vygotskyrsquos conclusion on this topic that represents in his own words a ldquoradical changerdquo in studying development Namely development is

a complex dialectical process that is characterized by complex periodic-ity disproportion in the development of given functions metamorpho-ses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others a complex merging of the process of evolution and involution a complex crossing of external and internal factors a complex process of overcoming dif-fi culties and of adaptation ( 1997b p 99)

As ldquothe most proximate conclusionrdquo from this position Vygotsky states that a change in the accepted view on development is needed

Usually all processes of child development are presented as stereotypi-cally occurring processes Th e prototype of development hellip to which all other forms are compared is taken to be the development of an embryo Th is type of development depends the least on external milieu and it is to this type that the word ldquodevelopmentrdquo [ldquoraz- vitierdquo ndash Russian meaning unwinding] in its literal sense can be applied with the stron-gest justifi cation that is as an unfolding of possibilities enclosed in the embryo in a furled from However embryological development cannot be regarded as a model of each and every process of development in a strict sense of the world hellip [because] it is an already steadied completed process that occurs more or less stereotypically ( 1997b p 99)

Th is position is extraordinarily contemporary in both its overall gist and even its literal expression For example Lewontin ( 1995 ) one of the lead-ing contemporary evolutionary biologists comments on exactly the same



140

connotation of the term development suggesting that it implicitly hinges on a static non- dynamic metaphor He writes

Th e technical word for the process of continual change during the life-time of an organism is development whose very etymology reveals the theory that underlies its study Literally ldquodevelopmentrdquo is an unfolding or unrolling a metaphor that is more transparent in its Spanish equiva-lent desarollo and in the German Entwicklung an unwinding In this view the history of an organism is the unfolding and revelation of an already immanent structure (p 121)

Fift h and quite remarkably Vygotsky moved in the direction of concep-tualizing development as a self- organizing system Th is is the point that is least understood in contemporary discussions of Vygotskyrsquos works in its shift beyond the traditional and widely accepted (till today) two- factorial models of development For example Vygotsky ( 1987 p 99) made explicit attempts to move beyond the ldquoprinciple of convergencerdquo according to which external and internal infl uences somehow are added or summed up (through their convergence) to jointly determine the course of develop-ment Th is is evident in that he critiqued William Sternrsquos position according to which development proceeds through a constant interaction of internal dispositions and external conditions Such a position for Vygotsky exem-plifi es a two- factorial (bifurcated in contemporary terms) model of devel-opment Th is is a faulty position because it de facto postulates some type of an ldquoinherent essencerdquo at the root of development that is then putatively somehow shaped by various factors acting on it as alien outside forces (be it from within or from outside the development per se) rather than positing self- organization and emergence as central to development

Relating to William Sternrsquos views that advocated summative (addi-tive) approach Vygotsky states that ldquo[c] onceptualized in this way devel-opment is not a self- movement but a logic of arbitrary circumstancerdquo ( 1987 p 89) He adds that ldquowhere there is no self- movement there is no place for development in the true sense of the wordrdquo (ibid) and the pro-cesses instead are limited to one phenomenon replacing the other rather than emerging from the preceding one Vygotsky explicitly critiques the principle of convergence that insists on the constant interaction of internal dispositions and external conditions including those created by adults as driving development (ibid p 99) Th is principle according to Vygotsky is but a ldquoshibbolethrdquo of a nondialectical approach that errone-ously substitutes for the real work of understanding the complexity of human development Anticipating todayrsquos critique of the two- factorial



141

models of development he suggests that what needs to be studied is not a convergence of various factors in human development but development as a process conditioned by the interaction of organisms and environ-ment (ibid)

Indeed Vygotsky insisted that it is not the presence or absence of some specifi c external conditions but the ldquo internal logic of the process of devel-opment itself rdquo ( 1998 p 192 emphasis added) that determines and drives development It might sound paradoxical that Vygotsky is talking about the ldquointernal logicrdquo of the development as if referring to something inside the organism (ldquounder the skinrdquo) to describe development Th is is not the case however A closer look at Vygotskyrsquos logic (especially in the context of the whole corpus of his writings) suggests an alternative ndash and more dialecti-cal ndash interpretation In particular given Vygotskyrsquos staunch insistence on the importance of culture and environment in development throughout his works (including in his famous ldquogeneral genetic lawrdquo according to which psychological processes emerge from social interactions) his reference to ldquointernal logic of the process of developmentrdquo should be viewed as having to do not with the processes internal to the organism per se but as hinging on a radically diff erent notion of development altogether

In fact Vygotsky is struggling to formulate a radically novel understand-ing of human development as a process sui generis ndash a unitary that is non- additive rather than hybrid process with its own logic that inheres in its own dynamics and contradictions Unlike the alternative hybrid- view of development according to which various infl uences are added and brought together or interlaced and interwoven rather than merged into one sin-gular process as a realm on its own Vygotsky is moving in the direction of overcoming this dual view of development Granted Vygotsky oft en de facto equivocates between this radically new position and the more tradi-tional hybrid- type approach sometimes falling back into asserting that it is the two processes (the natural and the cultural ones) that constitute devel-opment However his main thesis is expressed in no uncertain ndash and quite dramatic ndash terms when he states that

All originality all diffi culty of the problem of the development of higher mental functions of the child consists in that both these lines [biologi-cal and cultural] are merged in ontogenesis and actually form a single although complex process hellip ( 1997b p 15 emphasis added)

[T] he system of activity of the child is determined at each given moment by both the degree of his organic development and the degree of his mastery of tools Th e two diff erent systems develop jointly forming



142

in essence a third system a new system of a unique type (ibid p 21 emphasis added)

Michael Cole has also commented on this particular quote where Vygotsky rejects seeing environment as something external with respect to the child ndash noting Vygotskyrsquos interest in understanding context as not just a mere out-side infl uence on development However Colersquos interpretation again goes in line with a ldquodualrdquo (or hybrid additive) understanding In particular Cole ( 2003 ) states that

For Vygotsky the social situation of development is a relational con-struct in which characteristics of the child combine with the structure of social interactions to create the starting point for a new cycle of developmental changes which will result in a new and higher level of development (and a new relevant social situation of development) (emphasis added)

In the preceding quote the characteristics of the child understood to com-bine with the structure of social interactions are thus portrayed as de facto having a mode of existence independent from social interactions rather than stemming from these interactions as one of their inherent facets or dimensions that belong to the realm of social interaction from the start and therefore do not need to nor can be combined with social interactions An alternative understanding more in line with the gist of Vygotskyrsquos core message is that environment is not something outside of the child that can be added to (or combined with) the childrsquos own ldquointernalrdquo characteristics or to her interactions with the environment Th is alternative position is that the child is seen as included right from the start in the ongoing process of relationships with onersquos environment and it is these relationships (the give- and- take between the child and the world) that constitute the form of life the very mode of existence for the child Th is mode of life ndash an ever- evolving set of relations and activities the child participates in ndash one could argue is an irreducible reality of development in its own right It is this irreducible reality of a developing interactive activity system that represents the ldquothirdrdquo realm of a unique and complex process superseding any juxta-position and any duality of outside and inside infl uences (if understood as somehow existing separately from each other and from the child acting in the environment) In Vygotskyrsquos words

Th e biological and the cultural ndash both in pathology and norm ndash have turned out to be heterogenous distinctive specifi c forms of develop-ment that do not co- exist next to each other or one above another and



143

are not mechanically linked to each other but instead are fused together into a higher synthesis complex though still unifi ed (1997b p 26 emphasis added)

It is from this notion of development as a process sui generis or a realm in its own right that rises above the additive yet separate eff ects of the cultural and the natural infl uences to instead fully absorb them that the following position becomes understandable Namely Vygotsky states that this approach eventually resolves the argument between nativism and empiricism by showing that ldquo everything in personalities is built on a species- generic innate basis and at the same time everything in them is supra- organic contingent [uslovno ndash Rus] that is social rdquo (Vygotsky 1993 pp 154ndash 155) In formulating these apparently contradictory (counterin-tuitive) views Vygotsky directly and even quite literally intuits the DSTrsquos stance according to which development is ldquofully a product of biology and culturerdquo (Lickliter and Honeycutt 2003 p 469) and what counts as ldquobio-logicalrdquo falls entirely within the domain of what counts as ldquoculturalrdquo and vice versa (cf Ingold 2000 )

Sixth and most importantly Vygotsky provides a specifi cation for the ontology of psychological processes from the viewpoint of development as a dynamic relational and self- organizing system of activity Th is system of activity (or behavior as Vygotsky sometimes calls it) is understood as a generic form of organisms relating to their world as a form of their rela-tionship Th is is an important qualifi cation of the notion of activity because it links Vygotskyrsquos project with a much broader set of ideas across research fi elds spanning theory of evolution and biology physiology philosophy and approaches such as DST Just like Dewey and Piaget Vygotsky asserts that the mind is part of the larger process of organisms relating to their world through an integral process of activity

Th is general relational approach sets the stage to attend to questions about the place and role of mind within the broader context of life ndash that is in regulating activities of organisms in their environment ndash rather than in the workings of physiological processes or narrowly defi ned behavior (cf Arievitch and van der Veer 2004 ) In this perspective the prime task has to do with conceptualizing the mind as being a part of this organismndash environ-ment nexus instantiated in activity rather than existing in organisms taken in isolation and merely aff ected by contexts Th us Vygotskyrsquos works can be interpreted as elaborating the dynamic notion of development consistent with the relational worldview and the centrality of activity (bearing much resemblance to Deweyan transactionalism and Piagetian interactionism)



144

In Vygotskyrsquos words the mind plays ldquoan enormous fi rst- order of impor-tance rolerdquo in the system of behavior ( 1997a p 73) Th e terminology here is quite old- fashioned and the new language is not yet worked out leading to much confusion and many misinterpretations by commentators including propensity to see behaviorist inclinations in Vygotsky Th is is understand-able given that Vygotsky oft en speaks of behavior as the prime process to be analyzed

All the uniqueness of dialectical psychology precisely resides in that it attempts to defi ne the subject matter of its study in a completely novel way Th is subject matter is the integral process of behavior [ibid p 114] hellip In reality the mental process exists within a complex whole within the unitary process of behavior hellip [Th is] monistic integral viewpoint is to consider the integral phenomenon as a whole and its parts as the organic parts of this whole hellip [T] his is dialectical psychologyrsquos basic task In the same sense Severtsov (1922) talks about mind as the highest form of ani-mal adaptation (ibid p 115 emphasis added)

Vygotsky comes back again and again to this principle writing for example that ldquothe subject matter of psychology is the integral psychophysi-ological process of behaviourrdquo (ibid p 116) However these language and line of thought rather than falling within a behaviorist perspective need to be interpreted within the larger trends to wed the natural sciences with philosophy that were very powerful in Russia in the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth centuries Biologists such as Sechenov (eg 1947 ) who worked on the physiology of higher nervous system and refl exes were perceived as the prime authority on a broad spectrum of problems at the intersection of science and philosophy- metaphysics (cf Clark and Holquist 1984 ) Th ey laid foundations for seeing the relation of mind and world as a dialogic continuum rather than as an unbridgeable gap In particular

Th e bodyrsquos relation to its physical environment provided a powerful conceptual metaphor for modeling the relation of individual persons to their social environment In both cases the emphasis is on cease-less activity Th e body is seen as a system by which the individual answers the physical world hellip Th e body answers the world by author-ing it hellip Analogously the mind is seen as a system by which the indi-vidual answers the social world (Clark and Holquist 1984 p 175 emphasis added)

What transpires at the core of these views is not a behaviorist stimulus- response schema where human beings are prodded by external infl uences to react in a mechanical way but rather the notion that human beings are



145

actors ( aktivinij dejatel ndash Russian) of their own development and lives In this approach the key subject matter for psychology concerns actors in their ceaseless relationships with the environment as they ldquoactively participate in relations with the environmentrdquo (Vygotsky 1997b p 59) In its emphasis on human active relations to the world as the grounding for development and learning and on knowledge formation as a constructive and active process Vygotskyrsquos project is consistent with several other core theories of develop-ment especially those by Piaget and Dewey as well as with the more recent perspectives advancing constructivist ecological participatory and social- interactive notions of learning Indeed for example the ldquofunctionalrdquo school of psychology begun by James and developed by Dewey focused precisely on human beings as actors and on the uses of mind in acting in the world (cf Bredo 1998 ) In Deweyrsquos words

To see the organism in nature hellip is the answer to the problems which haunt philosophy And when thus seen they will be seen to be in not as marbles are in a box but as events are in history in a moving growing never fi nished process (Dewey 1925 1958 p 295)

Moreover having understood human development as inherently relational all three scholars also moved to the next level of analysis and struggled to answer the question as to how can the mind self identity knowledge and learning be reconceptualized anew within this profoundly relational world-view In making this move their goal was not so much to debunk the ldquosov-ereignty of the individualrdquo ndash indeed a faulty and untenable assumption ndash as to reconceptualize (rather than eschew) the psychological processes while unhinging them from the premises of mechanistic and elementarist world-view It is at this level that these scholars again exhibit remarkable similarity while also ndash at yet another level of analysis ndash revealing profound diff erence in their positions Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky can be said to have begun their analyses with the descriptive metaphysics of the conduct of life start-ing from subjects who need to act in order to be Defi ning subject of activity not as merely situated or embedded in environment but as acting in envi-ronment and thus through this acting coming to be and to know the world was the radical shift in perspective comparable to the Copernican revolu-tion (cf Bredo 1994 on Dewey)

Th ese developmental frameworks are therefore action- centered in that they implicate development including cognitive growth as occurring through an increasing elaboration of actions that is foundational to devel-opment Here Vygotsky Dewey and Piaget converge in that they imply that individuals know and learn by doing ndash through acting in and on their



146

world Importantly activities are neither ancillary nor complementary to development and learning instead they are the very realm that these pro-cesses belong to and are carried out in Moreover activities are the very ldquomatterrdquo that both development and learning are made of with no onto-logical gaps posited between people actively engaging their world on the one hand and their knowing and learning on the other Th is view places these three scholars in opposition to traditional views on mind as a passive container where knowledge is stored and on learning as a mere acquisition of information

It has been argued in the recent Vygotskian scholarship in the West that Vygotsky does not have a concept of activity and hence has no relation with activity theory approach associated with A N Leontievrsquos works (eg Kozulin 1986 ) In this light it is quite remarkable that Vygotsky does refer to the concept of the ldquosystem of activityrdquo and ldquomediated activityrdquo ( 1997b eg pp 20 22 34 108) In Vygotskyrsquos view this concept helps to conceptu-alize the merging of organic and cultural development into a single process a ldquo third system a new system of a unique type rdquo ndash the system of human activ-ity (ibid p 21) It is in light of taking activity as a process that is founda-tional to development that a bold implication about superseding the very distinction between nature and culture makes sense In Vygotskyrsquos words (ibid p 22) ldquoputting lsquonaturersquo and lsquoculturersquo in opposition within psychology of humans is correct only in a very conditional sense [ uslovno Rus]rdquo

Furthermore like Dewey and Piaget Vygotsky too stresses the sensorimotor unity that is ldquothe unity between sensory and motor functionsrdquo ( 1998 p 263) of aff ective and receptive components of activity Th is unity is critical for consciousness and especially evident in early childhood includ-ing the unity of perception and action that at the same time are merged with aff ect (or emotion ibid) Vygotsky goes on to analyze the key types of activity specifi c to the early childhood and singles out Elkoninrsquos interpreta-tion as the most promising one that treated play as a unique activity of the child giving rise to a whole set of psychological processes such as imagina-tion and conceptual development (ibid p 267)

Th at Vygotsky placed activity at the center of development is evident in his ldquogeneral lawrdquo of development which stated that psychological func-tions emerge out of social collective activity ( 1987 p 259) and never com-pletely break away from this activity Th us development is not the result of a broadly (and rather vaguely) understood transfer of mental processes from a social plane to an individual plane of consciousness (as is oft en implied in recent interpretations) but a result of activity transformations Th is theme cuts across many of Vygotskyrsquos works although he struggled to articulate



147

it clearly and sometimes even appeared to waver between a radical new framework and a more traditional mentalist view (cf Stetsenko 2004 ) Th is theme comes out particularly clearly if one considers a unifi ed Vygotsky- Leontiev- Luria school of thought that merged cultural- historical theory with ideas of activity into one composite framework cultural- historical activity theory (or CHAT for details see Stetsenko 2005 and on the history of this term see Cole 1996 )

Th at Vygotsky used the concept of activity should not be surprising given that he was well aware of works by Ivan Sechenov (eg 1947 ) Th is promi-nent physiologist already in the 1860s (eg in his book Th e Physiology of the Nervous System ) developed the theory of self- regulation and feedback which was later advanced by Nikolai Bernstein and subsequently provided the foundation for the dynamic systems theory (Th elen 1995 ) Sechenovrsquos groundbreaking theory established ideas about the role of feedback loops and refl ex circuit ndash in contradistinction to refl ex arc ndash in shaping and regu-lating behavior Th ese ideas were akin to Deweyrsquos ( 1896 ) work on the same topic in that they too rejected the notion that stimulus and response repre-sent separate unrelated entities suggesting instead that they are function-ally related to each other within purposeful activity

Th e centrality of activity for human development became articu-lated in Leontievrsquos works that continued the gist of Vygotskyrsquos approach Fundamental to Leontiev was a reconceptualization of the subject- object relationship as activity along the lines suggested by Marx in his theses on Feuerbach (1846 1978 ) Leontiev lamented that traditionally ldquoactivity is interpreted either within the framework of idealistic conceptions or within directions that are natural- science materialist in their general tendency ndash as a response of a passive subject to external infl uences the response which is conditioned by the subjectrsquos innate organization and learningrdquo ( 1978 p 45) Th is is the infamous ldquotwo- part schemerdquo that ldquofound direct expression in the well- known formula stimulus- reactionrdquo (ibid) that Leontiev found com-pletely unsatisfactory According to Leontiev

Th e inadequacy of this scheme consists of the fact that it excludes hellip the rich [or substantive ndash soderzhatelnij Rus] process in which are realized the real connections of the subject with the objective world [that is] the objective activityrdquo (ibid p 46)

Leontiev staunchly resisted solving this problem by inventing a third ldquomiddle groundrdquo factor such as some type of an intervening variable as suggested in neobehaviorism For him this creates the illusion of having overcome the problem ldquoA simple substitution takes place the world of real



148

objects is replaced by a world of socially elaborated signs and meanings Th us we once again have a two- part scheme S- gtR but now the stimuli are interpreted as lsquocultural stimulirsquo rdquo (ibid p 48) Leontiev concluded that in order to fi nd a real solution to this problem we must replace the two- part scheme of analysis with a fundamentally diff erent one Th is requires a rejection of the old ldquounitsrdquo of stimulus and response in favor of a new unit of analysis namely a unit that captures the dynamics of life and actual exis-tence in the world Th is new unit was represented by the notion of activ-ity that eschewed considerations of separate organisms reacting to outside stimuli on one hand and of extraneously existing stimuli aff ecting subjects on the other In Leontievrsquos defi nition

activity is a molar [substantial and non- divisible] non- additive unit of life of the corporeal material subject hellip It is the unit of life that is medi-ated by mental refl ection Th e real function of this unit is to orient the subject in the objective world In other words activity is not a reaction or aggregate of reactions but a system with its own structure its own internal transitions and its own development (ibid p 50)

In this perspective the mind originates out of transformations in activ-ity leading to ever more sophisticated levels that entail without ontologi-cal breaks what is traditionally and erroneously understood as separately existing mental processes Th is theme cuts across many of Vygotskyrsquos works even though (as mentioned previously) he struggled to articulate it clearly and sometimes even appeared to waver between the radical new framework and the more traditional mentalist view It is no accident that many of the diff erent units of analysis that have been chosen by scholars working in the Vygotskian tradition relate to acting and activity ndash medi-ated action (Wertsch 1991 1998 ) activity or event (Rogoff 1990 2003 ) activity system (Cole and Engestroumlm 1993 ) and activity setting (Th arp and Gallimore 1988 ) Although these researchers defi ne units diff erently there is consistency in that they all refer to activity as the entry point for inquiry and the fundamental unit of analysis (cf Blanton Moormana and Trathen 1998 )

For Dewey too the organism interacts with the world through self- guided activity that coordinates and integrates sensory and motor responses Th e implication for the theory of knowledge was radical ndash the world is not passively perceived and thereby known instead active manipulation of the environment is involved integrally in the process of knowing (and by implication of learning) from the start (cf Bredo 1998 ) Dewey ( 1896 ) sug-gested that the truly ldquoorganicrdquo (ie integrative) process to be studied was



149

that of coordinated action In this view the mind was not to be understood as having to do with passively observing the world but rather as a pro-cess that initiates with a check or obstacle to successful action proceeds to active manipulation of the environment to test hypotheses and issues in a readaptation of organism to environment that serves as the grounds for human action to proceed further in continuous circles of interactions (eg 1896 1916 1922)

Dewey placed complex interrelationships between organisms and envi-ronments at the very foundation of his explanatory schema already in his early works (eg Dewey 1896 1910 ) In Th e Refl ex Arc Concept in Psychology ( 1896 ) Dewey criticized the ldquodisjointed characterrdquo of the prevalent theories of the time (as they focused on the refl ex arc) for their mindndash body dual-ism and rigid distinctions among sensations thoughts and acts Instead Dewey sought explanations of perception and conduct not in separate infl uences of the environment impinging upon sensorial organs and thus unidirectionally ldquocausingrdquo sensations that in turn ldquocauserdquo movement and not in causal effi cacy of the mental taken separately from the whole activity of the organism but in continuous transitions ndash serial steps in coordination of acts in circuits of sensory and motor components Most importantly these acts and components were seen as being parts of adaptive behavior by whole organisms in the environment Th us the self- guided activity of organisms pursuing adaptation and growth was regarded as the founda-tional process from which the mind originates and in which it functions Rather that starting with separate atomic stimulus and response elements as in the refl ex arc theory Dewey started with a ldquocomprehensive or organic unityrdquo ndash the coordinated action in the environment (cf Bredo 1994 )

Positing action and acting as central to human development including development of the mind is characteristic of Piagetrsquos approach too Piaget affi rms repeatedly throughout his works that ldquohuman knowledge is essen-tially active To know is to assimilate reality into systems of transformations hellip knowing an object does not mean copying it ndash it means acting upon itrdquo (Piaget 1971 p 15) An elaborate expression of this position comes in the following form

Actually in order to know objects the subject must act upon them he must displace connect combine take apart and reassemble them From the most elementary sensorimotor action (such as pushing and pulling) to the most sophisticated intellectual operations which are interiorized actions carried out mentally (eg joining together put-ting in order putting into one- to- one correspondence) knowledge is



150

constantly linked with actions or operations that is with transforma-tions (Piaget 1983 p 104)

In this perspective mind and cognition emerge from the same dynamic processes as those governing early cycles of perception and action In con-temporary works such as by Th elen and Smith ( 1994 ) this theme is taken up higher order mental activities including categorization concept forma-tion and language must arise in a self- organized manner from the recur-rent real- time activities of the child just as reaching develops from cycles of matching hand to target And just as hand trajectories are not computed but actively discovered and assembled within the act of reaching so too does thinking arise within the contextual and time- dependent activity (see also Th elen 1995 )

Th ere are diff erences in how explicitly these ideas were expressed by the three scholars with Dewey tackling it perhaps most directly and con-sistently throughout his career In his latest works however Dewey treats all of behavior including most advanced knowing as activities not of the human being alone but as processes of the full situation of organism- environment (cf Garrison 1994 ) In addition Dewey does not draw a line suffi ciently clearly between experience and action and does not describe details of how psychological processes emerge from ongoing actions and experiences (resulting in his overall emphasis on ldquoa world without a withinrdquo see Garrison 2001 p 275) As to Piaget he advocated this idea with partic-ular clarity when he described early stages of development and the origins of practical intelligence in gradual elaboration of individual action struc-tures In describing the later stages of ontogeny he focused on how cogni-tive schemas evolve and transform as ldquoan organizing activity of knowingrdquo rather than an activity of human beings solving practical problems out in the world and how knowing evolves out of such practical activity (in keep-ing up with the Kantian tradition that had a strong infl uence on his views)

Drawing Parallels and Contrasts

Piagetian Deweyan and Vygotskian approaches represent the relational dynamic and contextualized modes of thinking about human development and learning In this they overlap signifi cantly with what is today termed developmental systems theory However these three frameworks diff er in important ways from approaches that take the whole situation of develop-ment ndash ldquothe biosociocultural matrixrdquo ndash encompassing organism and the environment in a combination of variables of diff erent order as formative



151

of development In contradistinction to this holistic approach that typifi es many works in DST the three theorists discussed here understood human action as constitutive of the relations between persons and the world and therefore of development Th e dynamics and developments of embodied human action in its increasingly complex transformations as taking place in the world and not just in the head is considered in all three frameworks to be the origin of psychological phenomena Th e latter appear to be instan-tiations or part and parcel of ongoing actions through which people relate to their world

What this specifi cation entails is a radical break not only with elementa-rism and essentialism of the mechanical worldview but also with the spec-tator stance on development that although challenged is not eliminated by the relational ontology per se According to the spectator stance that characterizes many contemporary works the development ndash though being profoundly relational ndash is not agentive that is it does not have agency of its own Instead phenomena and processes are seen as co- occurring as in the metaphor of ldquobeing togetherrdquo with no agency posited at the fundamental level of existence Relation implicates the ontological centrality of co- being as something that comes about through ldquocopresencerdquo whereby phenomena and processes are situated along each other but their mode of existence is fundamentally inert and passive

In contrast all three frameworks discussed herein have managed to overcome the ldquospectator stancerdquo in the realization that the only access peo-ple have to reality is through active engagement with and participation in it rather than through simply ldquobeingrdquo in the world Th is account resists depicting the mind as a mere eff ect of external or internal causes or a passive spectator gazing at the world Th eirs was a philosophy that focused on con-tinuous activity by agentive actors carried out to solve problems constantly emerging in the course of their life with the mind understood to be fully realizing itself in action thus abolishing the epistemological gap between thought and reality and between the actor and the world (cf Diggins 1994 ) Th e dependence of development upon activity has far- reaching conse-quences for understanding how human beings develop and learn including avoidance of problems inherent in empiricism and nativism

From this position it is in principle insuffi cient to consider infl u-ences (in any combination or hierarchy) on development in order to understand how development comes about and moves forward Infi nite number of factors in an infi nite number of combinations infl uence development at any particular time from the most general and distant ones such as the forces of gravity and solar energy (including fl uctuations



152

in climate changes) to factors such as societal structures access to cul-tural resources infl uences of proximate others biological characteristics of the organism and so forth However no research into these factors and infl uences per se however meticulous and broad in scope would be suffi cient to illuminate development unless attention is paid to the reality of development as a process in its own right While certainly not shielded from external and internal infl uences development can be seen as a pro-cess that arises on its own grounds and proceeds according to its own logic Th e outside sources of infl uence and other factors are not ignored in this case rather they are understood to remain indeterminate as to their eff ects until they are absorbed and reworked by the evolving activi-ties by the child within the dynamics and regularities of these activities It is only through the process of outside infl uences being absorbed into the fabric of activities and subsequently transformed into their dimen-sions or aspects (eg through the process of individuals acting in the world and making sense of these infl uences such as through including them into onersquos life story and life project) that these infl uences are turned into the forces of activities and therefore of development proper

Th is is a move that is much more radical than the popular versions of the bio- socio- cultural co- determinism and views that posit humans are hybrids with biology and culture (nature and nurture) being somehow intertwined in their eff ects on human development Th is latter approach insists on blending biology and culture into a composite (oft en referred to as a hybrid- type) process ndash a progressive step if compared to the narrowly one- sided perspectives that pit biology against culture as two independent forces and then attempt to calculate their relative impact on humans (eg by suggesting that variations in such processes as intelligence are due to both the genetic inheritance and environmental infl uences) However even these progressive co- constructivist approaches do not undertake a suffi -cient revision of the notion of development

Th e ldquocollectiverdquo move by Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky echoes the argu-ments made by Susan Oyama (eg 1985 2000 ) about interactive emergence and gradual construction over time as the pivotal process of development ndash a heterogeneous and causally complex mix of interacting entities and infl u-ences that produces the life cycle of an organism Th e system includes the changing organism because an organism contributes to its own future but it encompasses much else as well

To conclude the mind for Piaget Dewey and Vygotsky is not a container that stores knowledge nor a mirror refl ection of reality rather the mind is a dynamic system formed and carried out in and as actions by individuals



153

who through these actions realize their relations to the world and in this process come to be and to know Active engagement with the world there-fore represents the foundation and the core reality of development and learning mind and knowledge ndash where relationality as co- being and co- existence is dialectically superseded by the more agentive stance of acting in and engaging the world Note that the emphasis on acting does not and is not meant to eliminate the relationality of development and life in fact action is always and irrevocably relational for it entails and encompasses the subject and the object the knower and the known always crossing and essentially eliminating the boundaries between them Th erefore relational-ity entails activity that brings human beings into relations with the world and with each other and that becomes the supreme ontological principle In this more active approach the act is the basic unit of analysis rather than the mechanical part biological organ or abstract idea Th is position was steering a new course diff ering from both the notion that development is a matter of inevitable unfolding of latent powers from within on one hand and the notion that development is externally imposed from without on the other Dewey was prescient in saying that this position ldquois not just a middle course or compromise between the two procedures It is something radically diff erent from eitherrdquo (quoted in Cahan 1992 p 210)

It should be also noted that given all the commonalities among the posi-tions of Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky it is remarkable ndash and highly ironic ndash that the common grounds of their theories have been all but ignored in the extant literature in developmental psychology education and the neigh-boring disciplines For example much has been made of the premise that Vygotsky emphasized the social dimensions of human development and mind whereas Piagetrsquos theory did not attend to these dimensions (although see Cole and Wertsch 1996 Vianna and Stetsenko 2006 ) Yet because of the emphasis on human action as it develops in the world within chang-ing contexts and as a constitutive source of development Piaget Vygotsky and Dewey and with them many versions of contemporary constructivist approaches are de facto contextualist situated and social None of them completely ignores the social dimensions of human development For example social interaction involving cooperation collaborative problem- solving confl ict and communication is important in theories by Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky alike

Viewed from the vantage point of their shared relational worldview and ontology coupled with their emphasis on acting (action activity and engagement in various terminologies) as the source of development including psychological processes Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky are true



154

allies In fact they are united and stand together in a strong opposition to reductionistically innatist (ie Chomsky) biologically determinist or mechanistically mentalist (ie many in the mainstream cognitivism) frameworks Development understood as a contextually embedded process of fully embodied organisms acting in their world ndash actions that come to be constitutive of individuals ndash is not rigidly preprogrammed by anything either ldquoinsiderdquo or ldquooutsiderdquo of the individual before the individual actively engages the world Th erefore innate blueprinted mechanisms are by def-inition inappropriate for tackling the tasks imposed by an emergent and dynamic constantly changing reality of humans acting in contexts

All three scholars can be seen as united in opposing the fallacy of attrib-uting to separately considered components (such as the brains or inborn traits) what can only be ascribed to the whole person ndash as an agent acting in the world Organisms and environment are seen as aspects of a unitary continual process that evolves through time Although a distinction can be made between organism and environment it is a distinction that has to pre-suppose their relation ldquojust as riverbeds and rivers and beaten- paths and walkers imply one anotherrsquos existencerdquo (cf Costall 2004 p 191) Moreover reality in their perspectives appears as a ldquodynamic and self- evolvingrdquo pro-cess that is still in the making rendering human beings ldquoparticipants in an unfi nished universe rather than spectators of a fi nished universerdquo (Garrison 1994 p 8) Th e metaphor that ldquothe mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the worldrdquo (Overton 2006 p 63) especially with an emphasis on the process of ldquomaking uprdquo fully applies to all three scholars

Although these theorists oft en have been presented along the lines of conceptual contrasts among them the more recent analysis has moved in the direction of acknowledging broad similarities across their ideas Th is pertains especially to commonalities between Piaget and Vygotsky (eg Cobb and Yackel 1998 Cole and Wertsch 1996 DeVries 2000 Stetsenko 2001 2008 Vianna and Stetsenko 2006 ) but also though to a lesser degree to commonalities between Dewey and Vygotsky (eg Glassman 2001 Miettinen 2001 Popkewitz 1998 cf Stetsenko 2008 ) Th is new wave of comparative analysis places Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky in opposition to traditional views of mind as a passive container of knowledge and of learn-ing as a process of acquiring fi xed knowledge (facts and information) that are thought to exist independently of human activity Delineating these similarities is important for a number of reasons one of them being that this sets the stage for an analysis that is very diff erent from the one con-ducted when the common grounding of Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky in



155

the notion of organism- acting- in- context as the origin of development and mind is disregarded

No less importantly taking into account this common grounding also allows for a more targeted juxtaposition and ultimately for drawing critical contrasts among these theoretical frameworks Namely this makes it pos-sible to see that all the profound commonalities among Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky notwithstanding the meaning ascribed to the notions of action and environment as well as the explanations of how actions evolve radi-cally diff er across their frameworks Th is results in (and simultaneously stems from) their diverging conceptions of culture history social practice and tools and ultimately of what (or who) develops in human develop-ment Th is is the topic discussed in Chapter 5


156

156

5

Vygotskyrsquos Project From Relational Ontology to Transformative Worldview

All the similarity among frameworks developed by Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky notwithstanding Vygotsky can be seen as making the next and quite radical step aft er establishing and ascertaining the relational ontology at the core of human development and thus moving beyond both Dewey and Piaget in his theoretical insights Th is radical step consists in charting a new path for understanding how the human mind emerges within and out of collaborative practices while seeing these as carried out not by sole individuals but as uniquely human collective material- semiotic activities embedded within and defi ned by the sociocultural world that is as collab-orative historical practices of humanity continuously evolving through time from generation to generation Th ese practices are instantiated in socially interactive joint activities starting from their simple forms such as adult- child social interactions Th ese interactions though seemingly mundane and philosophically unsophisticated are not just a series of simple acts but meaningful and highly organized endeavors that are based in cultural rules and norms mediated by social artifacts and arranged based in complex principles that follow specifi c patterns As such adult- child social interac-tions are instantiations (or enactments) of broad sociocultural practices of parenting on one pole of the process and of growing up as a child on the other In drawing on this notion of collaborative social practice ndash extend-ing through history and saturated with communal and cumulative achieve-ments of people ndash as the driving source of development Vygotsky is unique in the history of psychology It is not that Piagetrsquos or Deweyrsquos approaches do not attend to social infl uences and factors or to the idea that cultural media-tion has an important role in development It is that the notions of the social the historical and the cultural are radically diff erent in Vygotskyrsquos approach compared to the other two seminal developmental theories and with them to much of traditional developmental theorizing that is alive and well today



157

First Vygotsky is taking the social to be the key to human condition that is the essential feature of human nature rather than just one type of infl uence on human development and mind among the others In particu-lar he writes

in what kind of a necessity does the driving forces of development hellip reside To this question there is only one answer in that which repre-sented the fundamental and determining necessity of all human life ndash the necessity to live in a historical social milieu and to transform all organic functions in accordance with the demands posed by this social milieu Only in the capacity of a defi nitive social entity can the human organism exist and function ( 1993 p 155 emphasis added)

Vygotsky is very clear in that he does not agree with Piaget on the meaning of what is social about development and gives a rather prescient critique of Piagetrsquos position in which

there would seem to be hellip an extremely clear recognition of the social factor as a determining force in the development of the childrsquos think-ing Nonetheless hellip [for Piaget] there is a gap between the biologi-cal and the social Piaget thinks of the biological as primal initial and self- contained within the child forming the childrsquos psychological substance In contrast the social acts through compulsion or con-straint as an external force which is foreign to the child as such hellip ( 1987 p 82)

Vygotsky was getting to this understanding gradually expressing it especially clearly on the last pages of his last work ( Th inking and Speech 1987) while again critiquing Piaget

what is missing then in Piagetrsquos perspective is the reality [understood socially] and also the childrsquos relationship to that reality What is missing is the childrsquos practical activity Th is is fundamental Even the socializa-tion of the childrsquos thinking is analyzed by Piaget outside the context of practice (ibid p 87 emphasis added)

In this sense Vygotsky concludes Piaget takes a position that the child is actually and quite ironically ldquoimpervious to experiencerdquo (ibid p 89) ndash if the latter is understood as a collective cumulative experience of humanity enacted in social practices Th is can be understood from Piagetrsquos conjec-ture about ldquoprimitive culturerdquo that Vygotsky also comments on

According to Piaget primitive man [ sic ] learns from experience only in isolated and specialized technical contexts As examples of such rare



158

situations Piaget names agriculture hunting and production Of these he writes ldquoBut this fl eeting and partial contact with reality does not have any impact whatsoever on the overall direction of his thinking Th is applies even more strongly to the childrdquo [quoting Piaget] Production hunting and agriculture however constitute not a passing contact with reality but rather the very basis of existence for primitive man [ sic ] (ibid p 89ndash 90)

In stressing that social practices and clusters of activities such as agriculture form the very basis of human existence Vygotsky concludes with a concise formulation refl ective of a truly novel perspective that is emerging in his very last works

Activity and practice ndash these are the new concepts that have allowed us to consider the function of egocentric speech from a new perspective to consider it in its completeness hellip But we have seen that where the childrsquos egocentric speech is linked to his practical activity where it is linked to his thinking things really do operate on his mind and infl uence it By the word ldquothingsrdquo we mean reality However what we have in mind is not reality as it is passively refl ected in perception or abstractly cog-nized We mean reality as it is encountered in practice (ibid pp 78ndash 79 emphasis added)

Th is is the position that is closely related to a Marxist understanding of practice and reality reminiscent of the famous formulation in the Th eses on Feuerbach (1845 1978) Vygotsky ( 1987 ) further suggests a reversal of argu-ment so that the material practical activity that is the human collabora-tive practice is placed at the forefront thus seeing logic as a refl ection of regularities emerging within practical activities In this he draws on Leninrsquos critique of Hegel ldquoTh e human practice repeated a billion times anchors the fi gures of logic in human consciousnessrdquo (ibid p 88) In its most dra-matic formulation this idea is expressed by Vygotsky in his insistence that in Piagetrsquos approach

Th e child is not seen as a part of the social whole as a subject of social relationships [who] hellip from the very fi rst days participates in the social life of the whole to which he belongs Th e social is viewed as something standing outside [apart from] the child as a force that is alien and distant from the child and that exerts pressure on him and supplants his own characteristic modes of thinking (ibid p 83 emphasis added)

In these quotations what transpires is Vygotskyrsquos insistence on understand-ing that each child develops as a social actor participating in sociocultural



159

practices that is as an active participant in the social situation Th e core premise of Vygotskyrsquos project therefore is that human development is grounded in the social ndash shared or collaborative ndash activities that constitute the primary relations connecting individuals to their world and that give rise to psychological processes (eg cognition self self- regulation and emo-tion) with individuals acting as agents involved in collaborative practices that issue in psychological processes and knowledge construction In this perspective activities are understood to be always embedded in particular social contexts carried out in interaction with other community members according to social rules and norms mediated by cultural tools continu-ously unfolding in history and fully material and embodied Th e mind ndash and all individual subjectivities that is processes such as contemplation goal setting planning understanding feeling thinking and so on ndash are viewed in this perspective as instantiations of collaborative practices

Vygotskyrsquos critique of Piaget accords well with the comments by socio-cultural scholars that Piaget ldquoemphasizes the mentalistic even as he speaks otherwiserdquo (Sampson 1981 p 734) Indeed Piagetrsquos core message appears to be that the world awaits for it to be accommodated to and assimilated by the transforming schemata of the active subject rather than being transformed through collaborative praxis In Sampsonrsquos words ldquoPiagetrsquos interactionism encourages subjectivism even while its terminology speaks of interactions between subject and objectrdquo (ibid) Vygotskyrsquos critique agrees also with the analyses by von Glasersfeld ( 1997 ) Piagetrsquos highly sympathetic follower who wrote

Piaget hellip presented a list of the types of knowledge whose acquisition seems to require social interaction as opposed to those that do not In his view the organization of immediate experience the sensorimotor intelligence that manifests itself in simple action schemes and the basic ability to consider one thing as the symbolic substitute for another are cognitive functions of the child before it has any conception of other people let alone their common social practices Conscious refl ection on the other hand arises for Piaget ndash very much as it does for Humberto Maturana another pioneer of the biology of cognition ndash in the context of interaction or collaboration with others (p 304)

A nuanced critique of the Piagetian assumptions (acknowledging their overall progressive import yet discerning points on which they fall short) is extremely important in order to bring to the fore in a comparative light what is unique in Vygotskyrsquos approach It is notable that the unique and original understanding of the social in Vygotskyrsquos approach has not gone



160

unnoticed in recent scholarship even beyond the sociocultural tradition For example Th elen and Bates ( 2003 ) unequivocally state that ldquoVygotskyrsquos theory is the only one that has taken social interaction seriously as a source of structure in cognitive developmentrdquo (p 387) in direct contrast to Piagetrsquos theory dynamic systems theory and other major developmental frame-works In what I believe is a very perceptive and fair assessment Th elen and Bates (ibid) further write

Chomsky denies that social factors play any important structural role in language development and Gibson does not assign any privileged status to social factors Piaget oft en paid lip- service to the importance of social factors in the construction of mind hellip But it is fair to say that Piagetrsquos emphasis always fell on the child as a lonely architect of mind a small sci-entist working away on physical data Both connectionism and dynamic systems have also neglected social factors as a source of structure in mental behavioral development (p 387 emphasis added)

In contrast what is unique about Vygotsky is not some vague (or indis-criminately broad) idea that human development including that of the mind is a social process Instead his signal contribution is the idea that development including its cognitive aspects is an integral aspect and outcome of the ever- evolving through history material shared collab-orative practice Th e episodes of social interactions (such as between a parent and a child) as well as individual actions comprising these inter-actions are the constitutive parts of these shared collaborative practices whereby none of these parts can be understood in isolation from the whole to which they belong

Th e critical point is that even while Dewey and Piaget fully take recipro-cal interactions into account and so do the more recent interactionist and pragmatist approaches too and even while they emphasize the role that the subject plays in constituting environments and objects they lack the notion of social practice of transforming the world as a socially constituted and his-torically evolving unifi ed realm of which human development is a part and parcel Th is is not an accidental oversight this is a diff erence of a primary signifi cance and import and it has to do with the overall vision of human beings and society ndash as either disconnected and (primarily) in antagonism with each other or as indissolubly enmeshed together through the bonds of belonging communion and solidarity Th ere is likely an ideological under-current at play here ndash as Sampson wrote in expressing a similar position ldquo[a] certain ideological blindness thereby resultsrdquo ( 1981 p 734) It can be added that the same blindness applies to the collectivist and transformative



161

nature of human basic relations to the world embodied and expressed in social material practices

It is in this sense that Vygotsky makes the next step aft er Dewey and Piaget and thus moves beyond the relational worldview in considering human development specifi cally in the context of social and historically evolving reality and in a related move considering history specifi cally in the context of the human social practices Th is especially pertains to the starkly diff ering interpretations of history in these three frameworks Indeed Piaget and Dewey though only implicitly portray history as unavailable in the present (cf Diggins 1994 as this pertains to Dewey) that is as a passeacute that is completed and fi xed ldquodone withrdquo and practically irrelevant for the present and the future For example this transpires in Dewey focusing on consequent phenomena rather than their antecedents One could say that history is understood by Dewey and Piaget as a unidi-rectional process of discrete episodes in which the past and the present are disconnected (cf Perret- Clermont 1996 Vianna and Stetsenko 2006 ) Th is is clear in that the mind for both Piaget and Dewey is a contextual necessity that operates in response to contingencies in the immediate environment in the ldquohere and nowrdquo of problematic situations as they are ldquogivenrdquo to the subject whereby the processes of inquiry assimilation and accommoda-tion and ultimately adaptation are all launched In this conceptualization humans are viewed as responsive rather than deliberative and proactive with the mind understood as a biological organ of adaptation to the ldquogiven circumstancesrdquo rather than an instrument of change especially at the social level of community practices in their historical unfolding

Vygotsky in contrast can be read as positing the past as a ceaseless and continuous collective history of human communities and humanity as a whole ndash ldquo the total process of the historical development of humanityrdquo ( 1997b p 39 emphasis added) ndash while placing it at the center stage of his whole approach Moreover Vygotsky lays foundations for a dialectical view of his-tory as an ongoing fl uid and dynamic process of human collaborative prac-tices that exists in the unending and ever- expanding dynamic layering of social communal practices in which the past and the present interpenetrate each other (cf Vianna and Stetsenko 2006 )

Th ese assumptions of a philosophical level though not directly expli-cated by Vygotsky fi nd their way into his psychological conceptions of mind and knowledge and of learning and development For many progres-sive psychologists and educators capitalizing on the notions of history cul-tural heritage and their role in development is associated with conservative



162

ideas of passive transmission and inculcation of knowledge Indeed if cul-ture is conceived of as a fi xed and inert body of knowledge (a repository of facts and skills) and history as a unidirectional process of discrete episodes in which the past and the present are disconnected then any talk about culture and its tools leads into authoritarian and hegemonic discourses and practices

With this emphasis on culture and history is Vygotsky (and his follow-ers such as Leontiev and Davydov) expounding the authoritarian unidi-rectional approach by putting emphasis again and again on cultural tools and scientifi c concepts as instruments of mind on teachingndash learning as the process that leads development and on internalization as the driving force of development and learning How can these views be reconciled with Vygotskyrsquos freedom- seeking and revolutionary spirit

Th e solution to this apparent paradox can be found if history and cul-ture are conceptualized not as a collection of inert (dead) artifacts and not as a ldquopasseacuterdquo that is left behind and done with but instead as a living continuous fl ow of collective practices that stretch throughout history and are enacted anew by each generation of people and each individual Th is Marxist conceptualization was obviously present in Vygotskyrsquos own writ-ings but pursued with particular rigor by Ilyenkov (eg 1977 ) in his theory of ideal forms and taken up by A N Leontiev and A R Luria (although not without some contradictions in particular due to a lack of focus on individual agency see Stetsenko 1995a 2004 2005 ) and later also by A A Leontiev ( 2001 ) and V P Zinchenko ( 1985 ) Th is perspective can be inter-preted to suggest that the present generations always join in and continue the practices of past generations including transforming (necessarily) and even breaking away from these past practices ndash yet in a continuous and ceaseless process that entails dialectics of transformation and continu-ity Th e present thus is an enactment of the past that always transforms yet also inevitably carries it on while superseding and negating it One related implication has to do with viewing local communities as being not separate entities with clear borders but instead as belonging together and interpenetrating each other on a global scale interacting and infl uencing each other in numerous ways

In this non- traditionalist approach to history and culture and thus to tradition and its transmission across generations Vygotsky is a kindred spirit with other contemporaries who participated in the turbulent move-ment of the early twentieth century unfolding in the world that was on the edge of being ldquoshattered by a train of cataclysmsrdquo and possessing as described by Roman Jacobson



163

[t] he extraordinary capacity hellip to overcome again and again the faded habits of their own yesterdays together with an unprecedented gift for seizing and shaping anew every older tradition or foreign model without sacrifi cing the stamp of their own permanent individuality in the amaz-ing polyphony of ever new creations (quoted in Cavanagh 1995 p 3)

Vygotsky shared with these contemporaries including Osip Mandelstam (as mentioned in the Introduction) not only the historical place and time (and the tragic fate of an early demise) but a unique cultural location fraught with earth- shattering contradictions confl icts and crossovers of many tra-ditions It applies to both of them that ldquoonly a cultural orphan growing up in [Russiarsquos] revolutionary years could possess such an insatiable need for a continuous construction of a gigantic visions of culture meant to compen-sate for the impossibility of belonging to a single placerdquo (Freidin quoted in Cavanagh ibid pp 6ndash 7) As Cavanagh (ibid p 7) observes Mandelstam along with other great artists and scholars of the time to which in my view Vygotsky undoubtedly belonged have been ldquoexcommunicated from his-toryrdquo (Mandelstamrsquos phrase) because of the turmoil and cataclysms of his-tory they witnessed However

[g] ift ed with the capacity to generalize from his own dilemma to convert isolation to connection to turn disruption to his advantage and to use all these skills in the service of an encompassing cultural vision Mandelstam [like Vygotsky] was singularly well equipped to address his own and his epochrsquos paradoxical legacy of disinheritance and he responded with one of the hellip most complex ambitious and challenging visions of tradition (ibid emphasis added)

Th e striking vision of history that Mandelstam and Vygotsky off ered has to do with their ability to blur the boundary between traditions along with the boundary between the past and the present ndash expressed in the deeply dialectical idea (in the words of Mandelstam) that ldquoinvention and remem-brance go hand in handrdquo and that ldquo[t] o remember also means to invent and the one who remembers is also an inventorrdquo (cited in Cavanagh 1995 p 146) Th ese two thinkers weave the upheavals that mark their agersquos histo-ries into the fabric of a broad ever- renewing cultural tradition understood as a process that bridges the gaps between generations while in a supremely dialectical move drawing from the very sources it is struggling to combat (cf ibid)

Th e relational worldview is integral to Vygotskyrsquos approach Yet at the same time Vygotsky moves beyond its principles and notions and thus simultaneously absorbs and overcomes ndash or dialectically supersedes ndash this



164

worldview In its stead he outlines if only implicitly and in very broad strokes a novel worldview as a foundation for a new psychology with a progressive ndash activist and transformative ndash mission Th is psychology can be seen to be predicated on a transformative worldview in which human beings are not merely adapting to the world but instead are creating and inventing it while its novel mission is to help advance a society in which all citizens have equal access to resources and tools critical for their development

Th is diff erence at the worldview level can be attributed to Deweyrsquos and Piagetrsquos roots in the biological mode of thinking that developed on the grounds of the theory of evolution Th is orientation is a whole world apart from Vygotskyrsquos reliance on Darwinism interpreted in light of the Marxist tradition ndash understood as the next important step aft er Darwin (integrating his approach and superseding it with both an important continuity and a stark diff erence between them) in the broad modes of thinking about nature society and human development

Th at Piaget and Dewey are fi rmly grounded in a biological mode of thinking and naturalism postulating the essence of human development in the adaptation to environment is starkly clear on many levels Using the language of Darwinism both Piaget and Dewey insisted that the mind and other psychological functions arise when human beings as biological organisms encounter problematic situations containing obstacles to action (eg contingent and unstable elements) in the environment As Piaget states unequivocally his ldquotwo dominant preoccupations [were] the search for the mechanisms of biological adaptation and the analysis of that higher form of adaptation which is scientifi c thoughtrdquo ( 1977 p xii) Indeed the key commitment that Piaget very explicitly made early in his studies was ldquoto see in biology the explanation of all things and of the mind itself rdquo (Piaget 1952 p 240) Mind and knowledge evolving out of actions through which people adapt to the world are therefore also saturated by the goals mecha-nisms and processes of adaptation

For Dewey too social experience was a continuation of natural expe-rience and existence Dewey ( 1925 1958) insisted that ldquothe interaction of human beings namely association is not diff erent in origin from other modes of interactionrdquo (p 174) As Dewey made clear the processes of inquiry and other types of transactions are carried out in order for individ-ual organisms and the entire species to survive and exalt their existence (cf Garrison 1994 ) Th e specifi c character of social problems and how they may profoundly diff er from natural problematic situations was not in the focus of Deweyrsquos attention Both Piaget and Dewey insisted that it is the state of imbalance in organic organism- environment interactions that explains



165

the genesis of development For both of them people develop learn and achieve knowledge ndash all in the spirit of adapting to existing conditions in order to better ldquofi t inrdquo with these conditions and the world in its status quo

Th is emphasis on biological adaptation in explaining human develop-ment has an ideological component as well As Ernst Gellner suggested Deweyrsquos philosophy refl ected an environment that knew nothing of crisis and radical discontinuity (see Diggins 1994 ) Th is is further supported by comments made by Cornell West ( 1989 ) among others that Dewey had no sense of the tragic (or of the social ldquoevilrdquo ie of the root causes of social injustice and misery for an extended discussion and diverging opinions see eg Saito 2002 Springs 2007 ) due to pragmatismrsquos ameliorative stance and what some see as an ldquoinadequate grasp of the complex operations of powerrdquo (West 1993 p 140) Deweyrsquos faith in the creative potentialities of already existing democracies and in social progress through the ldquosocially planned use of sciencerdquo and the ldquomost eff ective operation of intelligencerdquo (Dewey 1931 1985 p 60) as epitomized in an open- ended inquiry and experimentation coupled with his pragmatist commitment to fallibilism and consequentialism risked his approach being implicated in the very dynamics of power he set out to criticize Although he advocated democ-racy and was more radical than generally assumed (cf Westbrook 1991 ) his emphasis on open- ended boundless and de facto endless quests for new problems and experiences without either predetermined end points or normative criteria of progress came at the expense of insisting on fi nding radical solutions for social ills Th is is exemplifi ed in his views on the goals of education In rejecting his earlier Hegelianism and ldquosetting forth a natu-ralism that excludes any transcendental element in the explanation of manrsquos experiencerdquo (Rucker 1969 p 60) Dewey sees education as fostering growth for the sake of more growth as promoting inquiries in order to open ways for more inquiries and as expanding experiences so that ldquoone experience is made available in giving direction and meaning to anotherrdquo (Dewey 1916 1922 p 401)

Th e overarching purpose thus appears to be about continuous dynam-ics that know no ends and strive in no particular direction epitomized in the naturalistic concept of growth as the capacity for more growth and education ndash as ldquoa constant reorganizing or reconstructing of experiencerdquo (Dewey 1916 1922 p 89) As Dewey writes ldquoIt thus becomes the offi ce of the educator to select those things within the range of existing experience that have the promise and potentiality of presenting new problems which by stimulating new ways of observation and judgment will expand the area of further experiencerdquo ( 1938 p 50) Deweyrsquos theory therefore though



166

linked to and instrumental for broadly defi ned participatory democracy is not grounded in a program of actions with a clear ideological and political direction ndash unlike visions of radical democracy such as by Cornell West that entail grappling with the systemic power that perpetuates forms of marginalization predicated on race class gender and ethnicity

Th e biological vision in works by both Piaget and Dewey seems to be aligned with the stability and continuous social growth at the end of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century perceived as such at least by the members of the highly privileged and fi nancially secure social class to which both scholars belonged However this approach left gaps between epistemological and ontological issues on one hand and ideologi-cal- critical orientation as a possible underpinning for research on the other

It is understandable that both Piaget and Dewey were pursuing the goal just as Darwin before them to explain human development in natural (ie non- transcendental and not supernatural) terms Th is was one of the criti-cal tasks of the time given the ideological and political pressures of the day ensuing from the need to overcome the dictate of narrowly understood religious dogmas and old- fashioned ways of thinking ndash both in offi cial and academic discourse and perhaps even more so in everyday beliefs biases and attitudes Yet this approach left many conundrums pertaining to under-standing specifi cally human development and agency that require solutions at the levels beyond those associated with the notion of biological adaptation

In particular understanding the mind to be directly molded by its immediate context and confi ned to acting in the present implies that it cannot break away from the constrains and aff ordances of this context in its status quo in being able to respond specifi cally and primarily to that context as it exists in the here and now Such an understanding does not fully address human agency in its forward- looking and goal- directed dimensions by excluding human capacities to either envision a future or to act on onersquos commitments to specifi c goals As Diggins ( 1994 p 226) states

To the extent that the thought processes of mind derive from experience thought itself cannot escape the contingences of experience in order to provide regulative principles of knowledge not to mention immutable ideas and universal truths hellip Th is pragmatic resolution raises the ques-tion whether a philosophy that conceives hellip knowledge as control can provide answers to questions that are not so much biological as moral and political

In contrast Vygotsky in following in the footsteps of Marx and Engels capitalizes on the centrality of transformative collaborative practices by



167

people who do not adapt to their world but collectively transform it and through this transformation also change themselves and thus develop with development therefore rendered ineluctably social historical and cultural (ie collaborative and collective) Th is point of view both in Marxism and in Vygotskyrsquos approach was not merely proclaimed but elaborated in great detail and supported by evidence from diverse sources ranging from the study of phylogeny and anthropogenesis to the historical developments of human civilization One of the key mean-ings of what is Marxist in the Vygotskian theory arguably is its empha-sis on the centrality of transformative collaborative practices in human development herein too lies the contribution of Vygotsky and his col-laborators (such as Leontiev 1978 ) to Marxism ndash in the sense of them bringing these ideas to the fore in research on human development and on teaching-learning

Th e dramatic shift at the worldview- level assumptions that Vygotsky likely had in mind (and that had been captured in Marxist theory before him though not in applications to psychology and human development) resides in a novel understanding of what constitutes the very foundation of human life ndash a shift toward what Vygotsky termed ldquoactive adaptationrdquo (eg 1993 pp 103 125 1997a pp 68 154) and what could be more precisely termed active collaborative transformation of the world In this logic the beginning of a uniquely human life in phylogeny (and the advent of the human species as such) is associated with and marked by a shift from adap-tation to a given environment that governs in the animal world to an active and even proactive ndash that is goal- directed and purposeful ndash collaborative transformation of the environment with the help of collectively invented and gradually elaborated from generation to generation cultural tools and modes of social interaction

Much of Vygotskyrsquos Th e History of Development of Higher Mental Functions ( 1997b ) is devoted to charting the foundation for studying human development in new ways He specifi cally calls it ldquoour main ideardquo (ibid p 39) that human development is not about a purely quantitative increase of processes and regularities in the animal world but a new quality Indeed ldquoat its center is a dialectical leap that leads to a qualitative transformationrdquo (ibid) Th erefore

the connection between natural development ndash the behavior of the child based in the maturing of his [ sic ] organic apparatus ndash and those [new] types of development that we are considering is a connection not of evo-lutionary but of revolutionary character hellip Here [in the latter case] in the very beginning we witness development of a revolutionary type or to put



168

it diff erently abrupt and profound changes in the very type of develop-ment in the very driving forces of the process hellip the presence of revolu-tionary changes along with evolutionary ones is not a characteristic that would exclude applying the concept of development to this process (ibid p 110 note that the published translation implies the opposite meaning)

Vygotskyrsquos project lays grounds for a radically diff erent ndash cultural- historical and transformative ndash ontology and epistemology of human development Th at is both Dewey and Piaget (and many of their todayrsquos followers) remained fi rmly within the Darwinian mode of thinking and treated human beings as not much diff erent from other biological organisms ndash thus keeping up with the notion that ldquonature makes no leapsrdquo (a phrase oft en used in biol-ogy since Linnaeus and Darwin ldquonatura non facit saltumrdquo) Vygotsky and his followers however postulated precisely such a leap and turned to explor-ing its implications In doing so these scholars primarily based themselves on the Marxist dialectical materialist view according to which ldquo[the] base for human thinking is precisely man changing nature and not nature alone as such and the mind developed according to how man learned to change naturerdquo (Engels quoted in Vygotsky 1997b p 56 emphasis in the original)

As Vygotsky ( 1997b p 18) stated ldquoIn the process of historical devel-opment the social human being changes the means and modes of own behavior transforms the natural pre- givens and functions works out and creates new forms of behavior ndash the specifi cally cultural onesrdquo It is important that in making this step aft er establishing the relational char-acter of human development Vygotsky nonetheless did not relinquish the anchoring of human development in relationships between people and their world and among people He thus joined in with the great achieve-ments of the relational view and ontology made by Dewey Piaget and many other thinkers of the twentieth century In fact all the insights about the relational ontology are dialectically preserved in the next step made by Vygotsky while they are also creatively transformed whereby they can be seen as included into a novel transformative ontology and epistemology It is this next step wherein the novelty and revolutionary import of Vygotskyrsquos project lies However Vygotsky did not fully articulate this position as an explicit and coherent worldview bound to replace the relational one with drastic implications for notions such as personhood agency and identity and in areas such as education and teaching- learning Th erefore his pro-posal needs to be reconstructed fully explicated and expansively devel-oped especially in view of the challenges that sociocultural perspectives face today and the tasks they need to fulfi ll


169169

Part III


170


171

171

6

Transformative Activist Stance Ontology and Epistemology

Th ere are ways to further develop Vygotskyrsquos project its concepts and ideas and especially its worldview- level premises while building on the notion of contribution to collaborative transformative practice instead of adaptation or participation as the principal grounding for human development mind and learning One of the ways to move forward in this direction while capi-talizing on human agency and social change in their ontologically and epis-temologically primary status can be carried out from the transformative activist stance (TAS) In elaborating specifi cally on the transformative nature of social practices and fully integrating the notions of social change and activist contributions to these practices as the basic onto- epistemological underpinnings of human development at both social and individual levels this perspective off ers broad worldview- level explications for the notions such as subjectivity identity knowledge and mind Taking collaborative transformative practice in the role of the primary onto- epistemological grounding for both the human development and the social dynamics shift s the emphasis away from the rules and constraints of the neo- Darwinian ethos and its notions about humans biologically and socially adapting to their immediate contexts through competition and struggle for survival

Instead in highlighting transformative practice the key premise is that reality is constantly realized changed and recreated through the dialectics and movements of social communal practices embodied in human acts of being knowing and doing ndash all understood as aspects of activist transformative activities that realize and contribute to the ongo-ing social practices Th at is these practices are carried by individuals qua social actors of collaborative practices who in contributing to these practices from their unique positions stances and commitments and therefore inevitably changing them bring these practices ndash and thus their world and themselves ndash into realization Furthermore and most



172

critically these forms of being knowing and doing are understood to be predicated on goal striving and commitments to social change at the intersection of individual and collective agency and across the timescales of the past present and future In this emphasis the TAS suggests that human beings are not antecedent to communal transformative practices that shape them (a premise that is shared with many sociocultural and critical approaches) however in a move that breaks with some of the orthodox notions of canonical Marxism (and many sociocultural and critical approaches) the world is posited as not antecedent to these prac-tices either as if reality was simply ldquothererdquo predefi ned and defi nitively organized before people enact and carry it out in their activist pursuits and strivings and thus bring it and simultaneously themselves into realization

In this approach human agentive purposeful and interconnected processes of being knowing and doing ndash constituted by and constitutive of culturally mediated historically evolving dynamic and collaborative social practices ndash are taken to be a world- forming process that produces the core ontological and epistemological relations in simultaneously cre-ating the world and human beings Th is perspective places human agency understood as a relational and transformative process ndash enacted in trans-actional and collaborative dynamics of social practices in the process of individuals contributing to their realization ndash at the core of human development

Moreover this historically unfolding and constantly changing real-ity of collaborative practices is neither value- neutral nor dispassionate instead it represents a constant struggle and striving in the face of cease-less changes and associated uncertainty indeterminacy and challenges that are created in the meeting of human beings and the world Th ese acts of meeting the world can be understood as encounters and confrontations immersed within social productive relations ndash as a confl ictual mix of relations of domination and solidarity ndash and concerned with the always contested issues of how to be and what to do in order to sustain or chal-lenge these relations of domination It is a terrain of confl ict and contes-tation and of human striving and struggle in the face of uncertainty and unpredictability Because human ways of being knowing and doing are seen from a TAS as all rooted in derivative of and instrumental within a collaborative historical becoming this stance cuts across and bridges the gaps (1) among these three dimensions as well as (2) between individual and social levels of human activities and life and (3) among ontological epistemological and moral- ethical (ideological) facets of activity



173

Ontological Foundations of a Transformative Worldview

Th e critical step in furthering Vygotskyrsquos project consists in highlighting the onto- epistemological specifi cation for the unique type of relations that ground distinctly human processes of development while capitalizing on the notion of collaborative transformative practices in their historicity and materiality Th ese transformative practices are understood to be carried out by collaborating individuals qua agentive actors of society and history that is as co- creators of the world ndash rather than merely products and passive ldquoundergoesrdquo of extraneous infl uences who as subjects are literally subjected by powerful outside forces Instead these processes take place in the form of activist contributions by individuals qua social actors that enact social change at the intersection of collective and individual agency and across the time scales of the past present and future Th is premise entails an emphasis on commitment to and imagination of individuals and communities how the present community practices need can and ought to be changed for the better ndash while building upon and continuing with the historical dynamics of the past

Th is step makes sense if it is understood as fi rmly grounded in and continuing yet also dialectically superseding the notion of relationality (along the lines of interpretation presented in Chapter 5 ) Indeed the prem-ise that human development is grounded in collaborative transformative practices has its roots in the notion of development as a relational self- organizing and dynamic process where relationships among human beings and between human beings and their environments drive all developmental phenomena and processes including the evolution of species through the shift ing dynamics of individual- environment interactions and transactions At the same time the rendition suggested herein in continuation and expli-cation of Vygotskian and activity theoryrsquos legacy maintains that human development cannot be explained by the centrality of relations per se taken as any type of connections that obtain between organisms and their world

Th at is human development is seen as thoroughly relational yet at the same time it is not confi ned to the ontology of relations as such Instead people collaboratively and purposefully transforming their world is under-stood as a special type of a relation that obtains for human development and therefore that can be taken as the central feature and the core grounding for this process Th at is the notion that human development is predicated on and contingent upon people changing their world through collaborative transformative practice rather than merely adapting to it can be construed



174

as the specifi cation of the foundational ontological realm or the core grounding for human existence development and teaching- learning and for associated processes of human subjectivity and interactivity

To emphasize again an important analytical strategy used in laying out this position consists in acknowledging that people are inextricably bonded with and embedded in their world being constituted by relations with it including relations with other people and the whole of humanity Th is allows for a meaningful comparison of the TAS with the recent rela-tional approaches that posit social interactions and relations sometimes understood as dialogical relations at the core of development For example according to Markovaacutersquos ( 2012 ) recent explication of dialogical ontology

interdependence among minds rather than their isolation is deeply rooted in the human nature and it permeates all fundamental faculties like cognizing acquiring knowledge and believing imagining feeling and acting Sociality is so basic that it defi nes the human existence we can call it dialogical ontology (p 211 emphasis added)

It is important to acknowledge that this and other dialogical and relational approaches are compatible with the TAS at one conceptual level though not all in theorizing human development mind and social practices Because human beings come to be and develop in and through the dynamics of their relations with the world including other people the primary ontol-ogy of development is fully relational interactive and dialogical What the TAS highlights at another level however in continuation of the Vygotskian projectrsquos legacy is that the dialogical and other relational ontologies such as those that prioritize discourses experiences and participation are not suffi cient to account for all the diversity of phenomena and processes of specifi cally human development

A stronger conceptual move I suggest is to shift from relational ontol-ogy to a unifi ed (ie indivisible though not homogenous) transformative ontology of collaborative praxis It is an explicit materiality collectivity and historicity of human collaborative practices manifested in their produc-tive and enduring eff ects on the world that make them more suited for the status of originary onto- epistemology than is the relational ontology Th e embodied enactment of social life in and through uninterrupted col-laborative practical activities of humanity unfolding in history is onto-logically and epistemologically primary and supreme vis- agrave- vis dialogical relations discourses and experiences ndash essentially superseding them Th e term superseding used in a dialectical sense denotes a conceptual move that does not eliminate a given phenomenon (or process) and its properties



175

but instead ldquolift srdquo them up and includes them albeit in a subordinate role into a new (typically larger- scale) systemic whole comprised in this case by human collaborative practices Th at is these practices are fully dialogi-cal and relational implying participation and discursive relations as well yet what makes them what they are ndash that is their formative feature and character ndash cannot be reduced to these relations only Instead their forma-tive feature has to do with people collectively and materially changing their world in producing conditions of their existence while along the way nec-essarily interacting dialoguing relating and discoursing with and to each other and the world

What is placed at the center stage in an eff ort to eliminate the Cartesian polarity between human beings and the world is a unifi ed process of people collaboratively transforming circumstances of their life and simultaneously in this very process of people being themselves transformed and brought into realization by their own transformative practices Th is position high-lights a complex relational and dynamic network of continuous processes of material sociohistorical practices as the nexus of people purposefully changing their world while simultaneously being changed by and in this very process of transformational acting Th is dynamic and shift ing nexus of such circular transformative eff ects is posited as an onto- epistemologically primary specifi cally human relation to the world (which is more than just a relation)

Th at people transform their environment while acting together and relying on cultural tools has been a common theme in many Marxist and social practice frameworks and especially in Vygotsky- inspired research (and de facto mandatory during its Soviet- era existence) However what needs to be stressed explicated and ascertained more directly forcefully and consistently is the positing of this process as ontologically and epis-temologically foundational to human development and simultaneously to the world that embeds these processes and co- develops with them (in both its dimensions of agency and structure) Two points need to be highlighted here First the emphasis is not merely on people transforming conditions of their existence (as is in the most common reading of the Marxist philoso-phy) and not on them being transformed as a result ndash as important as these two notions are both focusing on transformative eff ects and processes In a tacit yet critical distinction the emphasis is on people being transformed by their own transformative engagements activities and social practices Th at is the important nuance of this position is that people are changed neither by the world per se nor even by the world as it has been changed by them and their agency but instead on people being transformed in and



176

as the process of transformatively changing the world as it is changing them ndash through the acts of agentive (and even activist as discussed later in this chapter) engagements with the world Second the critical specifi cation consists in positing the ontologically co- constitutive role of transformative practice in fashioning not only human development but also the world in which human development takes place

Th at is the core point is that the two realms of human development and the world come into existence in tandem with each other and through a dialecti-cally mutual coextensive transformative positing of each other ndash as facets of one and the same process that simultaneously brings them both into existence and makes them real It is not suffi cient to simply state that people transform their world and are transformed by it ndash what is needed is a critical interroga-tion of the many meanings and nuances that go together with this premise as well as of the many received notions that this position contests Most critically this entails reclaiming the value and the full scope of activist agency of human beings and communities as social agentive actors who are implicated in social change and co- creation of the world and of their own development

Th e ontological and epistemological status and signifi cance of transfor-mative social practices as well as profound implications of this position for practically all aspects in theorizing human development and social life need to be more fully explored and absorbed Th is is important in order to avoid the coupling of this radical premise as is oft en the case when similar ideas are discussed with the old- fashioned ideas and views such as the notion of adaptation stemming from the traditional mechanical worldview and its ethos Perhaps it is helpful to be reminded of an observation on a similar methodological point (though related to the notion of change) made long ago by Engels who wrote

Th e great fundamental thought that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready made things but as a complex of processes in which the things apparently stable hellip go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away hellip ndash this great fundamen-tal thought has especially since the time of Hegel so thoroughly perme-ated ordinary consciousness that in this generality it is now scarcely ever contradicted But to acknowledge this fundamental thought in words and to apply it in reality in detail to each domain of investigation are two dif-ferent things (1886 emphasis added)

It is especially identifying human existence with the principles of adapta-tion to the world in its presently existing form and status quo in its ldquogiven-nessrdquo and stability in the present ndash which eff ectively brackets off human



177

agency striving for and active engagement with the collaborative projects of changing the world ndash that represents an obstacle to radical reconstruc-tions of worldview and methodology for social sciences and education Even in cultural- historical activity theory the theme of people adapting to the world continues to permeate much theoretical work and needs to be consistently challenged

Critical to this interrogation as the fi rst step is acknowledging that social practice is a relational and transformative process that is neither objective nor subjective in the traditional connotation of these terms Th is is possible if social practice is understood to transcend the separation of human beings from their world in enfolding or blending and meshing them together (in line with the theme common to many works in sociocul-tural and other critical frameworks) Th e core process is understood to be that of a seamless oneness as duo in uno ndash the dynamic matrix and fl ow of continuing never- ending mutual and ceaseless back- and- forth transac-tions transitions exchanges and transformations between human beings and their world Th e emphasis therefore is neither on the external ldquoobjec-tiverdquo world that is somehow neutral and purged of human dimensions and presence nor on the features and characteristics of individuals taken as separate autonomous and self- suffi cient units Instead the emphasis is on the dialectical nexus in which these two poles are brought into one unifi ed and dynamically changing realm with its own history It is this dynamic ongoing and uninterrupted nexus or circuit of continuous relational tran-sitions between human beings and their world as one dynamic and unifi ed (but not homogenous) realm that is posited at the core of human reality and human development in its various forms of being knowing and doing Th at is the ldquoexternalrdquo world on one hand and human development in its incarnations in human ways of being knowing and doing on the other appear as co- evolving through fl uid bidirectional conjoint continuous reenactments in and by transformative practices

Th rough and in this process of social collaborative practices people not only constantly transform and create their environment but they also cre-ate and constantly transform and create their own mode of life consequently changing themselves in fundamental ways while in the process coming into existence becoming individually unique and gaining self- knowledge and knowledge about the world It is the simultaneity or in even stronger terms the unity of human transformative practice on one hand and the processes of becoming (and being) human and of knowing ourselves and the world on the other that is conveyed in this approach Human beings come to be themselves and come to know their world and themselves in the



178

process and as the process of changing and therefore creating their world ndash while changing and being co- created together with it ndash in the midst of this process and as one of its facets rather than outside of or merely in some sort of a connection with it

Th e ontological role that the process of transformative practice plays in human development and social dynamics is premised on Marxrsquos under-standing that human existence is created through human purposive labor ndash a coordinated activity by people who are altering and creating conditions of their life while merging their eff orts together and relying on collectively invented increasingly sophisticated tools and know- how as these are accu-mulated by human communities and passed through generations Th us human beings are self- creating species indirectly producing their actual life and society when they produce their means of subsistence and their conditions of life through activities and practices of labor Th is notion of transformative practice was advanced against the naturalistic understand-ing that only nature aff ects human beings and that only natural conditions determine their historical development Th e naturalistic understanding in both philosophy and natural sciences ldquoneglected studying the infl uence of human activity on manrsquos [ sic ] thinking [forgetting that] the most crucial and proximate basis of human thinking consists exactly in man changing nature rather than nature as such and human mind developed in accor-dance with how humans learned to change naturerdquo (Engels 1873 ndash 1883 1961 p 545)

What human beings are according to Marx coincides with the process of their material production of their own life Th erefore the historically developing means and forms of activities and relations of individuals to the world and to each other that serve to alter existing conditions ndash the sum of productive forces and relations ndash is the driving force of history society and human development Importantly this process can be understood as ldquoa defi nite form of activity a defi nite mode of liferdquo ( Lebensweise [German] obraz zhizni [Russian] see Marx and Engels 1845 ndash 1846 1978 p 150) Th us the notion of material production of life has a broad meaning beyond the commonsense emphasis on acting with instrumental goals to achieve cer-tain results or on producing goods for consumption to support individual existence

Indeed in capitalist society as Marx stated ldquolabour life activity pro-ductive life itself appears to man [ sic ] only as a means for the satisfaction of a need the need to maintain the physical existencerdquo (Marx 1844 1978a pp 75ndash 76) Yet this narrow instrumentalist meaning ignores the broader



179

ontological point that ldquothe productive life is species- life It is life- produc-ing liferdquo (ibid p 76) Th is suggests that labor is a life- producing process and ldquothe practical creation of an objective worldrdquo forming the ontological grounding for development as a life activity ndash because ldquothe whole character of a species its species- character resides in the nature of its life activity and free conscious activity constitutes the species- character of manrdquo (ibid) For Marx in addition ldquothe relations of production in their totality consti-tute what is called the social relations society and moreover a society at a defi nite stage of historic developmentrdquo ( 1891 1978 p 207) and it is their dynamics that determine history and its confl icts Furthermore all forms of consciousness such as ideas beliefs and ideology are understood to be socially and historically determined (but not mechanically so) by the exist-ing material conditions and constituent social relations within a given soci-ety at a given stage of its development

Th e transformative ontology of human practice that can be derived from this position suggests that it is directly through and in the process of (rather than in addition to) constantly transforming and creating their social world and thus moving beyond its status quo that people simultaneously create and constantly transform their very life therefore also changing themselves in fundamental ways while in the process becoming individually unique and gaining knowledge about themselves and the world Taking this premise in its onto- epistemologically foundational role means that human activity ndash material practical and always by necessity social collaborative processes mediated by cultural tools and aimed at transforming the world ndash can be seen as the basic form of human life a mode of existence that is formative of the world and of everything that is human in humans including psy-chological subjective processes such as the mind the self and knowledge produced by people

Th is ontologically primary unifi ed realm can be understood as the ldquolived worldrdquo but not in the sense of people merely being situated or dwelling in it as it exists in its status quo Instead this realm is better designated as the ldquolived strugglerdquo ndash an arena of human historical quests and pursuits enacted as collective eff orts at becoming fraught with contradictions and confl icts ndash infused with dimensions of values interests struggles power diff erentials and intentionality including goals visions and commitments to the future

Because of its grounding in collaborative social practices that is in peo-ple acting and doing things together while producing their life the designa-tion term for this realm I would suggest can be act uality (in its etymology deriving from the term act in many languages ndash Wirk lichkeit [German]



180

d eijstv itelnost [Russian]) Th is is a realm where human activities actions and deeds form the ultimate grounding of their world that is not discov-ered nor merely experienced but instead enacted fabricated and realized (or co- created) by people Th erefore the world is ldquoin needrdquo of people for its very coming into existence just as people are in need of the world and its social structures and supports for their coming into being ndash and not as a static relation but as a dynamic and transformative process Th is point can be seen as relating to in the formulation off ered by Stengers ( 2007 ) a demanding rather than eliminativist nature of such materialism ndash where the connotation of the ldquodemanding naturerdquo has to do with the struggle against social injustices and oppression

Th e human transformative relation to the world precisely as a new form or way of life ndash the dynamic process of sociocultural collaborative transfor-mative practices that unfold and gradually expand through time and across generations ndash is produced by human beings while reciprocally these very practices bring human beings into existence and thus constitute the foun-dation for and the ldquomatterrdquo of which their development in all its expres-sions and facets is composed and comprised

Th is position can be seen as an expansion of the point expressed by Marx in his Th eses on Feuerbach according to which ldquo[t] he chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism hellip is that the thing reality sensuousness is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation but not as human sensuous activity practice not subjectivelyrdquo ( 1845 1978 p 143) While this point has been typically interpreted to emphasize sensuous human activity or practice as the core ldquofabricrdquo of reality and the leading level of analysis which is indeed a crucial implication here the other aspect deserves much attention and explication as well Th is refers to how reality itself is cast in this approach in terms of superseding the narrow notion of objectivity which has been glossed over or even ignored in the canoni-cal Marxism In fact in this approach reality is unequivocally conceived of as a subjective sensuous human activity or practice ndash which impor-tantly doesnrsquot make reality somehow non- objective Th is understanding is counterintuitive from the point of view of the canonical Marxism because the latter typically conceives of the world as an objective reality that exists independently of human beings and social praxis Understanding real-ity as subjective can be made sense of if reality is taken to be an arena of human acting ndash realized in enactments by people transforming conditions and circumstances of their lives Th is arena is where human development and learning not only take place but that is co- constituted within and as human historical praxis



181

Th is approach is about seeing reality as a mutual communal world collaboratively created and transformed through shared social practices extending across generations and enacted in activist contributions to social practices by individuals qua social actors ndash contributions that change ongo-ing practices and in these transformative acts of change bring the world and people into reality Reality thus understood is a unique realm that we not so much dwell or fi nd ourselves situated in but rather that we agen-tively enact as co- creators who come into being through our own ldquoengaged agencyrdquo (cf Taylor 1993 ) understood as the material and historical force that creates the world Th is collective forum of human actions takes the world ldquointo its orbitrdquo and thus absorbs and transforms the world on its own unique grounds while itself being absorbed in and transformed by the world ndash as the two facets of one and the same process

Because human labor ndash as the process through which the life of human species is enacted and produced ndash inevitably entails collective eff orts of peo-ple acting together its development gives rise to increasingly complex social exchanges among people and to individual processes of human subjectivity allowing for these exchanges to be carried out Both forms emerge precisely because they are needed to help regulate the collective material produc-tion of the very lives of individuals and communities Th us human praxis on the one hand produces and engenders intertwined processes of social interactions and attendant forms of intersubjectivity along with agency and psychological processes (or human subjectivity) ndash the latter being a uniquely individual yet also profoundly social dimension of collaborative practice On the other hand ndash at mature stages of development in history and in ontogeny ndash praxis is reciprocally produced by these very interactions and subjectivities that it had spawned and continues to produce

Although these points will be discussed in more detail later on it is important for now to highlight that no ontological gaps are posited to sepa-rate phenomena within this realm of world- forming and history- making collaborative practices whereby human mind and personhood agency and self- regulation mind and cognition are all seen as instantiations (or moments) of human collaborative praxis evolving and expanding through time In this sense human praxis is the foundational reality within which out of which and for which human subjectivity and intersubjectivity ndash knowing and being mind and self ndash emerge and develop with no ontologi-cal gaps among them Once emergent however these dimensions become instrumental and especially at mature stages of development (of both society and individuals) begin to play an indispensable role in organiz-ing shaping and otherwise regulating social life and practices Th at is in



182

the course of history these processes become increasingly and enormously complex and even assume ndash as emergent properties ndash their own levels of quasiontological existence and associated qualities of durability and stabil-ity For example social relations among people become institutionalized in relatively stable forms ranging from the rules of conduct such as rituals and morale to collective forms of life institutionalized in social structures such as state religion schooling family and so on (Stetsenko 2005 )

Th at all phenomena and expressions of human life including subjectiv-ity and agency are grounded in the transformative collaborative practices means that they emerge from social practices constitute their dimensions serve their goals and never completely break away from them in an onto-logical sense No matter how specialized and sophisticated the processes of human subjectivity and intersubjectivity become in the course of devel-opment (historically and ontogenetically) they always bear the mark of participate in contribute to and ultimately return to collaborative practices that represent their ultimate mode of existence

Th ese social practices connect individuals and generations of people as every human being and each new generation enter their continuous fl ow by making a contribution and thus incurring changes in them if even only in modest ways and merely on local scales as is the case especially during the early stages of ontogenetic development Th e core point is that these social transformative practices (or praxis) represent an ontologically non- dualist and unifi ed (though not uniform and not without fractures and confl icts that actually drive this process) indivisible continuum or a dynamic fl ow extending through time and across generations of people Th at is collab-orative social practices can be seen as forming one continuously unfold-ing and seamless stream of historically unfolding communal social life not reducible to a chain of single discrete episodes disconnected elements or isolated dimensions ndash where instead all of these various facets dimensions and moments mutually interpenetrate co- constitute and reciprocally defi ne each other Th is is because of these processes all belonging to par-ticipating in and contributing to the co- constitution of one unifi ed larger- scale process of social praxis in its world- and history- forming status At the same time given the emphasis on transformation this position implies that each generation and each individual not only joins in with what has been achieved in the past but also always transforms these practices on a larger or smaller scale and sometimes quite radically under the challenges of the present historical conditions and in view of the future goals and visions for a better world



183

Th is interpretation to reiterate goes against some of the key tenets of the canonical Marxism In particular the common view is that Marx con-ceived of reality as objectively existing outside of social practice history and human agency and of knowledge as refl ecting independent objective reality However Marx did not hold the view that the world has to be under-stood in such an objectivist (or disenchanted) way Th is is clear already in the quotation about reality conceived subjectively as a sensuous human activity practice He also explicitly questioned the very notion of objective reality ldquoout thererdquo and of pristine nature in a sharp critique of mechanical materialism that treats nature in isolation from society and history Th is comes across for example in Marx writing that ldquothe nature that preceded human history hellip is nature which today no longer exists anywhere (except perhaps on a few Australian coral islands of recent origin)rdquo ( 1845 ndash 1846 1978 p 171) Th e whole sensuous world as it now exists writes Marx ldquois an unceasing sensuous labor and creationrdquo (ibid) In this emphasis nature is understood as a human- made realm in its dynamic historically evolving entanglements with human material practices rather than as an ahistorical and timeless ldquogivenrdquo

However Marx did leave some grounds for ambiguities in understand-ing the world as ldquoobjectiverdquo in the sense of it being stripped of human dimensions and agency Many Marxist scholars advocate the notion that to be a materialist means to acknowledge that consciousness and knowl-edge are refl ections of the independent material world Th is tradition began very early on with Plekhanov (eg 1940 ) ndash who infl uenced generations of Marxist scholars especially in Russia from the very dawn of Marxism ndash arguing for a strictly naturalist and objective understandings of what real-ity is Many strands within critical scholarship have been aff ected by this canonical understanding of Marxism about reality existing independently of human beings and social practices and known through some kind of ldquorefl ectionrdquo in consciousness

Th ese understandings have not been suffi ciently and explicitly chal-lenged by Vygotskyrsquos followers such as Leontiev and Davydov at least in part due to them working under the pressures of a unidirectional top- down ideology (see Stetsenko 2005 2013b ) Among more recent works Paulo Freire seemed to insist that there is a world that exists as ldquoan objec-tive reality independent of oneself capable of being knownrdquo ( 1982a p 3) even though he also suggested that the ldquoobjectivity and the subjectivity are incarnating dialecticallyrdquo (Davis and Freire 1981 p 62) and that conscious-ness is not a pure refl ection of the world Th e resulting views within critical



184

pedagogy today remain confl icted on this score with some scholars inter-preting Freire as rejecting that reality can be directly understood ldquoin itselfrdquo while others associating this interpretation with a Kantian tradition and therefore treating it as unacceptable (see Au 2007 )

Th e recent works by Marxist- feminist scholars and educators make eff orts to chart a reimagined notion of the social as a historically subjec-tive human practice thus more directly connecting human experience social practice and social relations (eg Allman 2007 Bannerji 2005 Carpenter 2012 Smith 1990 ) In particular these works trace the notion of experience to a complicated social reality as constituted by ldquohuman sensuous activityrdquo (Marx 1845 1978 p 143) and suggest that the ways for people to organize their collective life are always bound up in complex forms of human relations Th ese authors stress that the Marxist emphasis on material relations is not an argument for the economic determinism stripped of subjective dimensions because these relations are histori-cal and thus include mutual determination of subjectivity experience and the material production of life Th is approach is closely related to a position explicated within the culturalndash historical activity theory (eg Sawchuk and Stetsenko 2008 Stetsenko 2005 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004b ) endeavoring to reformulate its premises away from the canonical Marxism and toward a more dialectical interpretation that brings together social practice social relations (and the attendant forms of intersubjectiv-ity) and phenomena and processes of human subjectivity and agency ndash as all co- implicated in the processes that produce and are produced by human forms of life

Th e interpretation off ered herein is consonant with Gramscirsquos ( 1971 p 446) notion that praxis signifi es a ldquounifi ed process of realityrdquo ndash a ldquodialec-tical mediation between human beings and naturerdquo In this position nature is exactly not ldquoa beyondrdquo of the practical- historical reality of human beings not something external and alien to human beings (cf Haug 2001 relevant also are works by Carol C Gould 1978 Ollman 1993 among others) As further explicated by Gramsci

the idea of ldquoobjectiverdquo in metaphysical materialism would appear to mean an objectivity that exists even apart from man but when one affi rms that a reality would exist even if man did not one is either speak-ing metaphorically or one is falling into a form of mysticism We know reality only in relation to human being and since human being is his-torical becoming knowledge and reality are also a becoming and so is objectivity (1971 p 446)



185

Th e critical conjecture within the approach developed herein is that transformative collaborative practice (or creative labor) is taken to be a process of actualizing reality whereby no less than the world is transformed and thus real - ized (to borrow this hyphenated expression from Castantildeeda 2002 ) that is made real and brought into existence As a result of the com-plex dynamics of these processes each aspect of the world including objects and individuals as social agents and actors come into existence precisely through being constitutively imbricated into a web of activities practices that not only connect individuals to their world but also act to bring them both into a mutually co- defi ned and ontologically coterminous existence Th is view places practical sensuous activity understood as humanityrsquos ongoing eff ort to transform conditions of our own existence and thus to come into being by bringing forth the world at the center of ontology and epistemology

In insisting that reality is constantly transformed through the dialectics and movements of social practices embodied in human acting (encompass-ing ways of being knowing and doing) predicated on goal striving and commitments to social change it can be suggested that human beings are not antecedent to communal transformative practices that shape them Th is point is acknowledged by many critical sociocultural and social practice theories and by the broader interactionist approaches alike among others However ndash and no less importantly ndash in the interpretation off ered herein the world is not antecedent to human transformative practices either as if it was simply ldquothererdquo predefi ned and defi nitively organized before people collectively take up and transform in agentive in purposeful ways the very social practices that create them in thus de facto creating the world too

Some analogues of this position albeit at the level of addressing living forms at large beyond the topics of human development and agency can be found in biological sciences where living organisms and their trajectories through time and space are understood as lying at the center of life In Steven Rosersquos expression ldquothese trajectories or lifelines far from being determined continually construct their- our- own futures albeit in circumstances not of our own choosingrdquo ( 1998 see also Rose Lewontin and Kamin 1984 ) Or as Ingold ( 2008 ) puts it a world that is merely occupied ldquois furnished with already- existing thingsrdquo whereas one that is inhabited within which we exist as living beings ldquois woven from the strands of [our] continual coming- into- beingrdquo (p 1797) In his other expression of the same idea ldquothe world of our experience is a world suspended in movement that is continually coming into being as we ndash through our own movement ndash contribute to its



186

formationrdquo (Ingold 2000 p 242) Similar themes can be found in the actor- network theory with its notion that ldquo[a] cquiring a body is hellip a progressive enterprise that produces at once a sensory medium and a sensitive worldrdquo (Latour 2004 p 207) Th ese are important insights that can and need to be further expanded to include human agency and transformative activism at the level of analysis that addresses the social dynamics of human life

The Notion of Reality in Activity Theory

Th e notion of social practice or activity in its ontological status of the basic grounding of human life and development was articulated within Vygotskyrsquos project by Alexei N Leontiev (eg 1978 1981a ) though not dis-cussed in suffi cient detail by him (this being one of the causes for many subsequent misunderstandings and misinterpretations even within his own school of thought) Th is articulation can be found in his following (oft en- cited) defi nition

Activity is a molar non- additive unit of life of the corporeal material subject hellip In the more narrow sense that is on the psychological plane it is a unit of life mediated by mental refl ection Th e real function of this unit is to in orientate the subject in the objective world In other words activity is not a reaction or aggregate of reactions but a system with its own structure its own internal transitions and its own development (Leontiev 1978 p 50)

In contemporary works on activity theory this quotation is typically not suffi ciently dwelled upon being instead quickly followed by a discussion of Leontievrsquos three- level scheme of activity- action- operation and its corre-sponding levels of motive- goal- task A lack of discussion of this defi nition of activity which was apparently central to Leontievrsquos theory is puzzling and speaks to the complexity of what this defi nition conveys and more to the point what it fails to convey (due to its brevity and complexity and because its underpinnings in philosophical arguments remained implicit) Indeed the notion that activity is the unit of life has been misinterpreted as a statement about activity being a unit of analysis (a diff erent notion all together namely an epistemological rather than an ontological one the latter implied by Leontiev) that moreover presumably can be somehow complemented by other units of analysis such as action and operation at other levels of analysis Moreover the conclusion has also been some-times drawn that these three levels of analysis must be kept separate from one another Th ese interpretations apparently contradict the very gist of



187

Leontievrsquos appeal to understanding activity as a non- additive unit of life that is as a constituent that forms the core of life and cannot be comple-mented by nor augmented with some ldquoextrardquo constituents components or elements of diff erent ontological order and status

Leontievrsquos defi nition is apparently much broader than just the idea that the notion of activity can be used as a unit of analysis Th is is clear from the context in which this defi nition comes up namely as it is shaped by a question (in the immediately preceding paragraph) about no less than ldquowhat is human liferdquo (ibid) It is in answering this question that Leontiev suggests that ldquolife is the sum- total or more exactly a system of alternating activitiesrdquo (ibid) Th is is further specifi ed in the sense that ldquo[i] n activity a transition of the object into the subjective form into an image takes place while at the same time the transition of activity into its objective results its products also takes place From this perspective activity appears as a process in which mutual transitions between the poles lsquosubject- objectrsquo take placerdquo (ibid)

It is in elaborating this undoubtedly broad ontological idea about the status of processes and phenomena of life (unfortunately expressed very briefl y and cryptically especially to readers not familiar with the Russian philosophical parlance) that Leontiev goes on to suggest that activity is the unit of life Th is implies that activity is primarily and most importantly the core and ultimately constitutive process of which the life of corporeal human beings is composed Th is is what is captured in the notion that activity is the unit of life ndash note not the unit of analysis but the unit of life that is its constituent or its constitutive process Th is defi nition has to do with what is nothing less and nothing more than human life described as a system of consecutive activities revealing the character of life as an activity and a process

Th is interpretation connects activity theory with the works in critical pedagogy Indeed Freire conceived of praxis as a conscious transforma-tive action on the world (Davis and Freire 1981 Freire 1970 1982a 1982b ) which is the core of his epistemology He further explained that ldquo[h] uman beings hellip are being of lsquopraxisrsquo of action and of refl ection Humans fi nd themselves marked by the results of their own actions in their relations with the world and through the action on it By acting they transform by transforming they create a reality which conditions their manner of act-ingrdquo ( 1982b p 102) Freirersquos notion of humanityrsquos eternal striving toward completeness in the context of an ever- changing social and physical world which he used as the basis for his conceptualization of education ( 1970 ) can be applied to characterize praxis too



188

Another line of work that is also consistent with this approach is Mikhail Bakhtinrsquos writings on becoming ( postuplenine see Chapters 7 and 9 ) and chronotope Indeed what transpires in this account is the similarity between the notion of collaborative social practices ndash as the primary onto- epistemological realm that grounds human development as can be derived from Vygotskyrsquos ideas ndash and Bakhtinrsquos ( 1981 ) concept of chronotope (liter-ally time- space) Th e notion of chronotope refers to the space- time matrix (Bakhtin 1981 1986 ) where time and space are deeply interconnected (cf Brown and Renshaw 2006 Kumpulainen and Renshaw 2007 ) In some interpretations the chronotopes are the means by which time is material-ized in space that function as organizing centers for signifi cant narrative events (cf Hirst 2004 ) In a broader sense ldquochronotopes are not so much visibly present in activity as they are the ground for activityrdquo (Morson and Emerson 1990 p 369) ndash they are descriptors of what human reality is ndash the ldquoliving events that are inextricable from existencerdquo Chronotope there-fore can be understood as certain stabilizations of acting that perhaps like energy fi elds are intangible yet powerful in that they organize and regulate aff ord and constrain how we act and therefore how we come to be and to know Th ese time- space arrangements place people in distinct positions regarding access to social resources and agency (or a lack of access) within ongoing dynamics and fl ows of social practices ndash although these positions are not set in stone and instead need to be real ized and negotiated includ-ing through resisting and challenging them

Furthermore the concept of chronotope suggests inseparability of acts of individual agency (taking stances making choices enacting responsi-bility and answerability) and the social- historical context in which these acts take place Chronotopes according to Bakhtin are about intrinsic con-nectedness of temporal and spatial relationships in which ldquotime as it were thickens takes on fl esh becomes artistically visible likewise space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time plot and historyrdquo ( 1981 p 84) Th erefore chronotope can be interpreted to describe the unique realm of human existence composed of human deeds co- constituting and composing social practices as fl exible and dynamic fi elds of acting in which human agency rather than ldquoobjectiverdquo reality independent from human dimensions is implicated Th is is in unison with ideas developed by Alexey A Ukhtomsky ([1875ndash 1942] a physiologist whose works both Bakhtin and Vygotsky greatly admired and relied on) who wrote that

from the point of view of chronotope what exists is not some abstracted points [in time] but alive and indelible irrevocable from existence



189

events [со- бытия in Russian literally co- beings or co- existences] hellip not abstract lines in space but ldquothis- worldlyrdquo lines by which the events of the distant past are connected to the events of the given moment and through them to the events of the disappearing in the distance future (1924 2002 p 342)

In this perspective life (or being) as chronotope is coterminous and coex-tensive with human agentive actions deeds at the intersection of collective and individual agency entailing an integration of past and ongoing actions with yet- to- be- accomplished ones

Similarly complexive and holistic understandings come from political ecology and geography especially in the tradition of Henri Lefebvre ( 1991 ) Th ese approaches take reality (or ldquothingsrdquo) to be hybrids or quasi- objects ndash simultaneously subjects and objects phenomena that are material and discursive natural and social at the same time Moreover political ecol-ogy captures the continuous process of the production of the world as a historical- geographical process of perpetual ldquometabolismrdquo in which social and natural processes combine in a ldquoproduction process of socio- naturerdquo (Kaika 2005 p 22) Th eir outcomes embody chemical physical social economic political and cultural processes in a highly inseparable way (see Harvey 1996b Smith 2002 Swyngedouw and Kaika 2000 ) For example the city is a striking manifestation of human social practices of urbaniza-tion ndash yet there is nothing unnatural about it (Harvey 1996b ) because cit-ies are the natural or socionatural habitat (see Smith 2002 ) Urban life is simultaneously human material natural discursive cultural and organic (Swyngedouw and Kaika 2000 ) ldquoa process of perpetual metabolic socio-ecological change that produces distinct (urban) environmentsrdquo (p 567) Th e myriad of transformations and metabolisms that support and maintain urban life such as dwelling structures water and food supplies transporta-tion and schooling systems entertainment institutions and so on always combine environmental and social processes Th is complex amalgamation of various processes all united within the productive ldquoperpetual metabo-lismsrdquo of social practices echoes the notion of realty as grounded in social- material transformative practices as suggested here

Historicity

Th e foregoing discussion highlights the centrality of history in Vygotskyrsquos project ndash and not as a separate dimension that complements other dimen-sions but rather as an inextricable inherent characteristic of social practices



190

understood as the processes that are realizing history and are history Th is is because through collaborative practices in which individual eff orts are blended together people continuously build on and continue processes and achievements of previous generations and also inevitably expand on these through their own cumulatively evolving eff orts as each new generation and each human being joins in with the ongoing practices and thus con-tinues carries them on yet all the while also resisting challenging and ultimately always changing them too Th is collaborative process involves passing on and gradually elaborating upon across generations the col-lective experiences discoveries and inventions in meeting the challenges posed within the collective life (in what has been termed the ldquoratchet eff ectrdquo see Tomasello 1999 )

In this dialectical process there is always an enduring nexus of rela-tions with the past and future generations because practices in the present inevitably build on and continue previous practices and their complex power dynamics and circulations of interactivity and relationality Th erefore history is understood to be an inalienable dimension of human practices as they continuously unfold through time as one unending ceaseless process Th is intricate link between social practices and history is vividly conveyed by Wade Nobles who wrote that ldquo[t] he experiences of one generation becomes the history of the next generation and the his-tory of several generations becomes the traditions of a peoplerdquo (quoted in Boutte 2016 ) Or as Whitehead ( 1929 ) put it life is an enduring entity that ldquobinds any one of its occasions to the line of its ancestryrdquo (p 104) ndash and it could be added from the transformative approach to the line of future generations too

Th is idea of historicity permeates all of Vygotskyrsquos writings with its central emphasis on continuity and cumulativeness of human develop-ment It can be interpreted in the sense that human activities and social practices never end and can never be completely left behind instead these practices constantly evolve moving forward without breaks so that the past activities and associated experiences are not completely elimi-nated Instead they are carried over into the new forms and structures that emerge on their foundation becoming absorbed into and trans-formed within these new processes and forms In this sense the past is powerfully present in what happens in the ldquohere and nowrdquo and moreover not as some compendium of dead and static remnants but rather in the form of constantly and continuously renewed and transformed condi-tions and resources for acting within the presently unfolding practices



191

and activities New actions continue on the foundation of past actions ensuing from and inevitably building on them (including achievements and practices of previous generations) However these past practices are never exactly copied instead undergoing continuous transformations as they are included into new actions and practices and transformed in accord with their ever- changing dynamics in response to the constantly emerging new challenges and tasks

Th is approach suggests that individuals never start completely from scratch and never completely vanish Instead they enter and join in with social practices as participants who build upon previous accomplishments and also inevitably and forever change (if only in modest ways) the whole social matrix of these practices leaving their own indelible traces in his-tory In this sense social practices are similar with an ongoing unending conversation (Burke 1973 ) except that they extend far beyond the level of conversations and discourses only ndash into the concrete and palpable ldquoworkrdquo of people laboring in co- creating their world Paralleling Burkersquos notion and also expanding it to include actions and deeds it can be said that every human being enters into the stream of what has been going on before ndash a historical arena of social practices composed of actions and deeds of oth-ers as encompassing but not reducible to interactions discourses and communications

Viewed from this perspective any human practice like any discussion and any individual act ndash because it is embedded within the history of social practices ndash is interminable multidetermined and in an important sense without clear limits of a beginning middle or end Again paraphrasing Burke the shared social practices begin long before we enter them and con-tinue aft er we have departed yet not without us leaving traces in them It is this historical fl ow of collaborative practices expanding through time and forming one uninterrupted fl ow of sociocultural history of human civiliza-tion that eff ectively constitutes the very foundational reality in which the development of each individual qua social being that is as an actor and agent of history and society is embedded and that is enacted by each and every human being Th e metaphor of ldquouninterrupted fl owrdquo does not fully convey the agentive nature of social practices in their ontologically primary status as will be discussed in the following sections But this metaphor does help to capture the continuity and historicity of social collaborative practices and therefore of the human realm in which development takes place and with which it co- evolves highlighting it as a unifi ed endeavor of humanity expanding through time and extending across generations



192

The Status of Change

What is central to TAS to return to one of the main points made in the opening part of this chapter is theorizing social practices while capitalizing on their transformative nature as a characteristic that renders these prac-tices material historical and ontologically primary Th is implies highlight-ing the phenomena of change and transformation as the primary mode of existence of these practices and therefore of human development and of social dynamics (agency and structure) as well Th is position entails a radi-cal shift away from the notion of adaptation to that of transformation ndash a shift with profound implications for understanding human development and learning as fi rst formulated by Marx and later developed by Vygotsky

Expanding upon this approach it is important to delineate the status of change as ontologically real Th is shift necessitates that the continuous historical and ever- shift ing transformative dynamics of social practices is understood to be no less and de facto more durable tangible and real than what is traditionally taken to be the ldquotruerdquo (or ldquobruterdquo) reality of things and objects ldquoout in the worldrdquo

Th at is phenomena and processes of social transformation and change are understood to be more material than anything else ndash including literally any thing taken in isolation from human practice Th is is because in the concept of reality as a dynamic fi eld or arena of collective practice reality cannot be seen in any other way but as an ever- shift ing and moving process that is always on the cusp and at the threshold of turning into new forms and shapes transcending the givenness of the present and thus always in the process of becoming ndash rather than frozen and identical to itself across time and even at any given moment In this sense social transformation is more enduring and non- perishing than the seemingly ldquosturdyrdquo and solid things understood as isolated items existing ldquoout in the worldrdquo on their own as static and frozen

In this understanding of social change human ways of being know-ing and doing are ontologically constituted by acts of transformation that contribute to social communal praxis in the connotation of creating change and novelty in moving beyond the given and transcending its status quo Th is position contrasts with the ldquosituationistrdquo and ldquocontextualistrdquo expla-nations focused on development as a process associated with and result-ing from people being situated in their context or environment (the latter understood as that which simply environs or surrounds people as if some extraneous force) that is as merely dwelling in or experiencing the world



193

as in the metaphor of ldquobeing thererdquo (see Clark 1997 ) and in many works in distributed sociocultural and situated cognition theories

Th e analytical import of taking transformative social change to be the core characteristic of human social practices as fi rst suggested (though not fully explicated) by Marx implies a conceptual shift in theorizing human development and society that is arguably no less radical than the import of Darwinrsquos revolution in biological sciences (see Stetsenko 2010a 2011 ) Whereas Darwin introduced the notion of change into what had been static thinking about nature as fi xed and inert the Marxist philosophical- conceptual innovation consisted in overturning the traditional and similarly static modes of thinking about not only nature but human devel-opment and society as well Th e centrality of collaborative transformative practice for human development can be seen on a par with the centrality of evolution in the development of biological systems Just as the noted geneti-cist Th eodosius Dobzhansky ( 1962 ) argued that nothing in biology makes sense without considering evolution an argument can be made from the Marxist and Vygotskian legacy point of view that nothing in human devel-opment makes sense outside considerations of collaborative transformative practices and the changes they bring about

What the traditional modes of thinking about society and human development were tacitly based on during the time of Darwin and Marx and what they continue to be based on today in traditional and even sociocultural accounts is the assumption about the superiority and sov-ereignty of the existent that is of the sociopolitical and cultural status quo Th is status quo is presumed to be somehow static and fi xed immu-table and unchanging existing as a ldquogivenrdquo that can be taken for granted in way of an essentialist reifi cation Similarly to the Darwinian insight yet also moving beyond it the conceptual and analytical shift implied by the transformative onto- epistemology presupposes another profound change in the habitual mode of thinking In this shift the processes such as social practices and their products are not reifi ed at any analytical step in their descriptions Instead the very mode of existence of both individuals and societies (and their products) is characterized as the dynamics of ever- shift ing and moving continuously restructuring and reorganizing movement and fl ow of ceaseless changes transformations transmutations and reassemblages In this perspective the changes and transformations in social communal praxis is what exists and what sub-stitutes for the world in its fi xity status quo permanence and immutable ldquogivennessrdquo



194

Th e change is ontologically primary whereas stability of static forms and structures is derivative of what is the primary reality comprised of ceaseless and ever- shift ing changes and transformations in the unfolding realm of dynamic communal praxis Th is is a radical shift away from the current ide-als of science that are still based in essentialist substance ontologies hold-ing variation and change as anomalies to be eliminated in grasping some presumably static essences and their ahistorical ldquouniversal lawsrdquo Similar views focused on internal relations (eg Ollman 1993 ) rather than enti-ties maintain the ontological primacy of the process of change including its embodiments in products patterns and structures

Moreover the change implied in the Marxist and by extension Vygotskyrsquos approach is of a particular kind It is not a type of change that supposedly just occurs or happens ndash indeed happens to happen ndash out in the world due to some presumably autonomous and universal immanent logic of processes that unfold all on their own to subsequently aff ect peo-ple as extraneous factors and forces that act from the outside (as inputs stimuli and other external infl uences) Instead the notion captured in the Marxist tradition can be interpreted as pertaining to change that is brought about and created by people in their active and activist strivings and struggles in pursuit of their goals Th is type of change takes place because people commit to achieving desired outcomes and also strug-gle to bring them about in transcending the status quo through their own actions and deeds in carrying out collaborative projects of social transformations

Th e diff erence between these types of change is tacit yet critically sig-nifi cant To highlight this diff erence it is useful to turn to alternative for-mulations exemplifi ed in Deweyrsquos works ndash because they capture what many contemporary pragmatist and also postmodernist and social constructivist perspectives stand for Th is position comes very close to the Vygotskian understanding yet stops short at a critical juncture of fully acknowledging human agency and activism

Dewey ( 1910 ) strongly objected to the ldquoassumption of the superiority of the fi xed and fi nalrdquo (p 1) and instead claimed that ldquochange rather than fi xity is now a measure of lsquorealityrsquo or energy of being change is omnipres-entrdquo ( 1920 1948 p 61) He concluded that ldquonatural science is forced by its own development to abandon the assumption of fi xity and to recognize that what for it is actually lsquouniversalrsquo is process rdquo (ibid p xiii) Th at change is a powerful presence in all of organic life has been acknowledged across many fi elds at least since Darwinrsquos works and Dewey was among the fi rst schol-ars to stress its profound signifi cance Evidently the world was undergoing



195

tectonic shift s great turbulence and remarkable changes that did not go unnoticed by Dewey and other scholars of the time Yet the specifi c type of change Dewey was fathoming had to do more with biological and organic dynamics than with changes incurred by collective agency and social move-ments in pursuit of goals such as equality and social justice

One of Deweyrsquos ( 1908 p 81) defi nitions for pragmatism was that it is ldquothe doctrine that reality possesses practical characterrdquo which directly aligns with the Marxist notion that ldquoall social life is essentially practicalrdquo (Marx 1845 1978 p 145) Dewey saw the organism as co- evolving with the environment rather than passively conforming to environmental demands His key insight was that inquiry was a powerful ldquotoolrdquo for transforming the environment Moreover for him inquiry had ontological signifi cance and action was considered to be a means of ontological change (cf Garrison 1994 ) Th e resulting conception presents a much more active view of human development than the one that was and still is common in psychology edu-cation and other social sciences (cf Bredo 1998 ) In this emphasis there is much overlap between Deweyrsquos position and the Marxian- Vygotskian approach yet the diff erence is no less signifi cant It is notable how Dewey formulates his core thesis

Th e words ldquoenvironmentrdquo ldquomediumrdquo denote something more than the surroundings which encompass an individual Th ey denote the specifi c continuity of the surroundings with his [ sic ] own active tendencies hellip the environment consists of those conditions that promote or hinder stimulate or inhibit the characteristic activities of a living being (1916 1922 p 13)

Th e signifi cant import of this quotation is that the environment is taken to be continuous with rather than separate from a living being Yet the environment is understood to be merely continuous with active tenden-cies of organisms rather than directly contingent on actions of human beings qua social actors let alone on productive social communal prac-tices in their world- forming status (the notion that is not salient in Deweyrsquos works) Furthermore environment is taken by Dewey to be active mostly in terms of its correspondence or relational relevance to individual acting Th is understanding though progressive vis- agrave- vis traditional static ontolo-gies (or ontologies of statism) is evidently further limited to considering only ldquowhatever is currently aiding or inhibiting onersquos actionsrdquo (Bredo 1998 p 458) that is limited to considerations of what exists in the immedi-ate present In contrast taking purposive transformation of environment as ontologically primary means that change refers to people ldquodoingrdquo and



196

bringing about change rather than them undergoing change that is to people changing the environment and being changed in this very process of onersquos own transformative acts To put it more directly people actively changing their environment and moreover being brought into existence by and through their own transformative acting is quite diff erent from act-ing in a changing environment Deweyrsquos focus is more on the latter that is on acting in a changing environment even though he does view adaptation as ldquoa dynamic aff air of continually working with the changing tendencies and possibilities in a situation which onersquos own actions alter rather than a matter of achieving a static fi t between one structure and anotherrdquo (Bredo 1998 p 458)

Progressive as it is especially for its time and place Deweyrsquos position is still affi liated with the ethos of adaptation as expressed for example in his core metaphor of organic growth Perhaps the most telling point is that he also insists as Bourdieu will later do too on non- teleological nature of action ndash how action is ldquodirected towards certain ends without being con-sciously directed to these ends or determined by themrdquo (Bourdieu 1990a p 10 cf Emirbayer and Schneiderhan 2013 ) Th at is although Dewey gives full credit to development and mind being active and like ldquoa dance with a partner that acts backrdquo (Bredo 1998 p 458) there is no accounting for how imagination of and commitment to the future plays into the dynamics of development especially in terms of sociopolitical projects of overcoming injustices and power hierarchies

Perspectives that are mindful of the phenomena of change further include Derridarsquos elegant distinction between the types of future in refer-encing two French nouns that each stands for the ldquofuturerdquo ndash ldquole futurrdquo and ldquolrsquoavenirrdquo (the latter literally meaning ldquoto comerdquo ldquoagrave venirrdquo cf Cheah 2008 ) and more recently Shotterrsquos ( 2006 ) eloquent discussion on the topic of change As Shotter writes

Rather than changes taking place within an already fully realized reality instead of changes of a quantitative and repeatable kind ie ordinary changes they are unique irreversible one- off changes novel changes of a qualitative kind ie living changes changes in and of reality itself And as living changes such changes are creative developmental changes changes making something possible that before was impossible Such changes ndash against a Cartesian background ndash strike us as changes that hap-pen unpredictably unexpectedly not according to any laws or principles but capriciously dependent on circumstances (p 599 emphasis added)

While sharing the general thrust of this description it is important to note that it does not fully accord human agency with an ontologically central role



197

ldquoIn order to know the world we have to change itrdquo has been a power-ful and admittedly dangerous idea since Francis Bacon stretching through Marxism and extending to contemporary works in critical approaches Yet its role in casting the grounding ontology of human development has been undertheorized and also substantially limited because it was linked to the narrowly instrumentalist ideas associated with the goals of control over nature and the drive for material gains Th e full force of this premise cannot be fully appreciated outside of a relational- transformative ontology where collaborative human agency and its moral dimensions and entailments is addressed as formative of human development and of the world

Marx formulated this idea in his famous statement that ldquo[t] he philoso-phers have only interpreted the world in various ways the point however is to change itrdquo ( 1845 1978 p 145 emphasis in the original) Importantly this statement draws attention to and has been interpreted only (or mostly) in its epistemic dimension as a maxim that people know the world through changing it or sometimes and erroneously as a premise that rejects the value of knowing and thus heralds the demise of philosophy Th e expan-sion suggested by the TAS however goes beyond the epistemological level (while not relinquishing it either) in stating that while there is no gap between changing onersquos world and knowing it there is also no gap between changing onersquos world and being (becoming) a human being ndash qua unique person who is a social actor and agent of communal practices ndash with both dimensions simultaneously created within the dynamics of collaborative practices

Th ere is no knowledge and no person that exist prior to and can be separated from onersquos transformative engagement with the world includ-ing importantly with other people and oneself Human collective prac-tice is therefore not excluded from the facts phenomena and events in the world but instead included as their constitutive foundation Th rough this conceptual move social change is inserted into the very basis of the onto- epistemology of human development Th e famous epistemic principle ldquowe- know- the- world- as- we- change- itrdquo therefore is supplemented with an ontological emphasis on ldquowe- come- to- be- as- we- change- the- worldrdquo ndash a process that enfolds being knowing and doing

Th e stress on change as a modus vivendi of society and human develop-ment and of reality aligns with the deconstructivist notion of matter as designating radical alterity which is taken to be more real than any other seemingly more ldquosturdyrdquo phenomena or processes According to Derrida ldquonothing is more realist hellip than a deconstructionrdquo (quoted in Cheah 2008 p 147) In suggesting that people indirectly produce their actual material life when they produce means of subsistence through labor as a force of



198

transformation material reality can be understood to be produced by nega-tivity Th is is consistent with how Marx defi ned creative labor as a process of actualization whereby given reality or matter is negated through the imposition of a purposive form (cf Cheah 2008 ) Th is argument is also in line with the notions about the power of negative thinking of the critical questioning of all existing social arrangements and norms by Marcuse (cf Anderson 1993 )

Th is position makes visible that human activity in its capacity to produce change and thus to negate the givenness of the world in its status quo is a force in the constitution of the real that is constantly emerging and moving beyond that which exists in the present Th e transformative ontology dis-places naturalist explanations that exclude human dimensions to instead open ways to theorize and account for human emancipatory agency Again this position is not fully incompatible with some postmodernist interpreta-tions of materialism and reality (cf Cheah 2008 ) For example to return to Derrida it is noteworthy that he makes a remark about his ldquoobstinate inter-est in a materialism without substancerdquo ( 1994 p 212) and further suggests that ldquoif and in the extent to which matter in this general economy desig-nates hellip radical alterity then what I write can be considered lsquomaterialistrsquo rdquo (Derrida 1981 p 64)

Highlighting the process of change and transformation as ontologically and epistemologically basic and primary suggests that the sheer ldquogivennessrdquo of reality is superseded through the ever- changing dynamics of purposive human activity made up of transformative eff orts and struggles carried out by people in pursuit of their goals and commitments It is the material-ity understood as a struggle and active striving that is as a movement of freeing from the givenness of the present and thus of transcending the sta-tus quo ndash through people contributing to collaborative social practices and thus transforming them ndash that counts in and accounts for human reality and development

Th e struggle of becoming against the odds of what is stifl ing together-ness free development and solidarity then can be seen as ontologically and epistemologically primary and foundational that is more- than- real or ldquorealer than realrdquo (to borrow this expression from Massumi 1987 who builds off from Deleuze and Guattari 1977 ) compared to what is tradition-ally taken as ldquoobjectiverdquo or ldquobruterdquo reality Th e hallmark of these activities is that they do not narrowly conform to reality as it exists in the present and do not aim to fi t in with its status quo Instead their goal is to agentively change the world and by implication the persons whereby both of these poles on the continuum of social practices are instantaneously co- created



199

or co- constituted in bidirectional exchanges and interpenetrations (entan-glements) Th erefore importantly the transformative collaborative practice supersedes adaptation and natural selection ndash dialectically negates (without fully eliminating) them Th e notion of ldquosupersedingrdquo conveys the sense of something being taken over by a new process and integrated into its struc-ture so that the former process continues to exist within the new formation yet now in a subordinate role without directly and unilaterally defi ning this overall process or structure now in existence (for details see Stetsenko 2010a )

Reclaiming S Objective Reality

Because reality is understood to be composed of (or constituted by) the historically unfolding and constantly shift ing social practices carried out through individuals acting together in pursuit of their goals and thus enact-ing changes in the world the reality is rendered profoundly material and deeply humanized (or meaningful) at the same time Being purposeful and goal directed that is guided by visions and aspirations for the future the process of transformatively engaging the world posited at the core of human development and learning is an endeavor of a profoundly activist nature Th e goals for the future (how one believes onersquos world and onersquos life should be) and commitments to their realization penetrate reality and infuse it with subjectivity Th us reality is understood as an arena of human struggle and activist striving that is therefore immanently and inherently infused at its core with emotions passions feeling values and interests ndash while not ceasing to be material and practical at the same time

Th is is a radical position even by standards of Marxist philosophy because the world is taken to be fully material yet at the same time ndash because it is understood to be created in the acts of transformation ndash also profoundly humanized and inherently at its core imbued with human values positions interests commitments and goals Most critically these dimensions are not considered to be added as a separate add- on realm onto human conduct nor onto the world in which this conduct takes place Instead communal and individual subjectivity and agency embodied in activist struggles and striving inclusive of values ideologies and ethics are posited right at the center of reality ndash the world in which we exist and which we come to know as we create it while being ourselves created in this very process Th is approach operates with the notions of human goals and pur-poses as fully legitimate and central aspects (or dimensions) of material reality rather than as a separate and ontologically distinct ideational realm



200

of inward ldquomentationrdquo or as information processing and brain functioning Th is implies that the world exists through being continuously recreated in certain ways because people envision the future to be a certain way make commitment to this way and thus bring it into realization (and not just because they are on a path that leads to certain outcomes predetermined in advance as assumed in traditional teleology)

Th is does not imply that later events cause earlier ones but instead and perhaps more radically that later events are created in the present Th e point is that our practices and therefore our reality (taken to be contermi-nous with our lived world) is already shaped by or tailored to a future that is sought aft er and posited as desirable and necessary ndash as an ldquooughtrdquo that one commits to and works to create in the present Th is is consonant with Derridarsquos ( 1994 ) ldquoordeal of undecidabilityrdquo ndash the notion focused on that which ldquois yet to come in excess of our codes but still always already forces already active in the presentrdquo (cf Lather 2009 p 345) Th is position places human agency ndash intentional actions at the intersection of collective and individual levels that change the world according to plans and goals embed-ded in social commitments underpinned by social imagination vision and activist striving ndash at the center of both human development and reality that co- evolve together

According to most common formulations of realism any metaphysi-cal dependence on human subjectivity in accounting for phenomena and processes in the world vitiates claims to reality and objectivity From the TAS position however the values and interests commitments and stances fi rmly belong to reality and form its inextricable constituents yet do so not as an ontologically separate realm that is ephemeral and fl eeting (nor ideal as opposed to real) but instead as an inherent and inalienable dimension of practical material process of social transformation that brings the world into existence

Ontologically the assumption is that the world is not just ldquogivenrdquo in its status quo as a fi xed and static structure ldquoout thererdquo that exists indepen-dently of us and unfolds on its own grounds no matter what we do Instead the world is seen as historically evolving that is continuously changing and constantly moving because of what people do in their collaborative practices and enactments of social life their struggles and strivings Th us the world is understood as being ldquoin the makingrdquo and moreover not on its own but in the making by people that is as composed of collaborative practices to which all individuals qua social actors contribute in their own unique ways Reality therefore is seen as an arena of social practices enacted through individually unique acts and deeds that at the same time are profoundly



201

social A related assumption is that human beings do not preexist social transformative practices to then join in with and adapt to them Instead human beings are ldquoalways alreadyrdquo constituted by social practices that are formative of their lives and development yet by those practices as they are carried out and constantly transformed by people in their own pursuits and eff orts at becoming

Epistemologically the process of knowing is understood to be contingent on activist involvements in and contributions to collaborative transforma-tive practices Th is is in line with the well- known Marxist maxim that in order to know the world we have to change it Th is maxim is extended by highlighting that because change is impossible without an orientation to the future a commitment to a destination of onersquos projects and pursuits indelibly colors the process of knowing in all of its dimensions and expres-sions Th us knowing is fully reliant on how we position ourselves vis- agrave- vis ongoing social practices and their historically evolved structures and con-fl icts (reliant on our knowledge of these practices and their histories) Yet such positioning is only possible in light of how we imagine the future and what we take ldquoought to berdquo

Th is point can be expressed by saying that the world is rendered s objec-tive that is subjective and objective at the same time or rather that the dis-tinction along these lines becomes inapplicable Reality is objective but not in the sense of it being a human- less neutral disenchanted realm purged of human presence and social practices in the fullness of their human dimen-sions At the same time reality is subjective but not in the sense of it being created by the ldquopowerrdquo of the mind wherein the latter is understood to be a possession of solitary individuals creating realities ldquoat willrdquo whichever way they please Neither is it subjective in the Hegelian sense of a self- creating transcendental universal reason existing in disconnection from the dura-bility facticity and materiality of human social practices including impor-tantly their transformative eff ects and products Instead the notion of reality as co- constituted by human collaborative practices in their historical unfolding provides a foundation for transcending the very division between subjective and objective Reality is s objective because it is collaboratively built by people in their everyday lives and strivings ndash composed of a col-lective and fundamentally shared (not individual) practical- material (not ephemerally mental) realm of people acting together in pursuit of chang-ing and thus de facto co- creating the very world that creates them and that they come to know in the process of changing it

Th ese processes are constituted by mundane material actions under-taken within the everyday contexts of our ordinary lives ndash yet this



202

ldquoordinarinessrdquo is belied by the fact that these processes contribute to and essentially constitute no less than the reality of the world and its communal history Th at is the world is invented reinvented and sustained by people collectively and practically in collaborative pursuits and active strivings within the political cultural and moral terrain that frames ndash informs con-strains and supports ndash but does not defi ne their lives and development Th is position suggests amalgamation of subjective and objective dimen-sions whereby knowledge is guided by our subjective attachments and points of view yet these attachments and points of view are in a certain sense ldquoobjectiverdquo because they are situated within and co- constituted by the particulars of ongoing social practices and their conditions ndash in the process of people overcoming and transcending them

Th e fundamental reality and materiality of human practices and deeds imbued with subjectivity ethics and axiology can be established in light of the ceaseless and imperishable (though never permanently fi xed) changes they incur as they always do in the unfolding collaborative practices ndash changes that matter to someone and for something Th at is it is the dura-bility of social practices in their world- changing and thus world- creating role that comes about through the ceaseless and permanent changes they instigate in a world shared with other people In this process people and their world are understood to be coextensive co- evolving interanimated and interdefi nable through the nexus of social practices Th is premise con-trasts with an impoverished notion of materiality that follows a common brand of everyday sense according to which what is real is mostly ldquothingsrdquo that we can touch weigh smell or taste that is what people can come in direct and palpable contact with Also the social practice is not exclusively subjective insofar as it unfolds in collective dynamics and within given con-texts that is under given circumstances albeit in transcending them so that their very status as something that is ldquogivenrdquo is contested

However these contexts and circumstances are understood to be brought into realization by people in the acts of their transformative collec-tive and individual agency extending through generations as an answer to the historically changing challenges these contexts pose and the aff ordances they off er in interaction with other people (both immediately present and distant the latter represented in mediated forms of activity products action potentials patterns and arrangements of social practices) and with the help of collectively invented tools that are recruited from collaborative practices Yet again though carried out within and in response to given conditions and circumstances activity is not ldquoobjectiverdquo in the traditional connotation



203

of this term because it is shaped not solely by the outside contexts and their circumstances per se Instead it is human activity that transforms condi-tions and circumstances and through this process enacts the lived world in the acting by human agents for whom they are circumstances and who co- create them

Taking transformations of the ongoing social practices as ontologically primary moreover suggests that activities are not fully subjective because their mode of existence is contained in the diff erence or change which they produce ldquooutrdquo in the world ndash eff ecting material changes including by creat-ing new objects and patterns of actions as well as by shift ing the overall dynamic landscape composed of changing action potentials (cf Holzkamp 2013 ) or fi elds of possibilities (cf Bourdieu 1998 ) in which novel ways of being knowing and doing can be realized for all the participants Th at is each and every act of being knowing and doing by each and every indi-vidual changes conditions and aff ordances for subsequent activities by the actor and by other people as well Th ese acts are defi ned and legitimized in the fi rst place as enduring and mattering insofar as they are productive that is to the degree that they incur changes in the world of shared prac-tices while leaving traces and making a diff erence in the them Th is process is about contributing to how the stage is set for future activities ndash at once for oneself and for the others because this is about a collective drama of life in which all of us participate Actions and practices transcend subjectiv-ity of an isolated individual (which in any case does not exist) not only in the sense that they always build on actions of others and employ the tools that are oft en not of ldquoour own makingrdquo but also because they ldquoescape our controlrdquo (see Habermas 2003 ) as they become part of a material historical reality of the shared social praxis insofar ldquoas they are spiraling lsquooutrsquo in space and lsquodownrsquo through timerdquo (Kemmis 2010 p 12) while also having unin-tended consequences diff erent from what had been intended expected or hoped for

To reiterate the materiality of social transformation and change thus understood is actually more material than anything else ndash because social dynamics and transformations are more enduring and non- perishing than the seemingly ldquosturdyrdquo and putatively solid things understood as isolated entities existing on their own ldquoout in the worldrdquo A personrsquos actions and even ldquomererdquo presence in the world (which is never mere) through contrib-uting to social collaborative practices as they always do inevitably create new situations by changing the totality of existing circumstances in which this person as well as all others have to and can from now on act in new



204

ways ndash to thus again change these circumstances and conditions in a con-tinuous circuit of ceaseless transformations that constitute the texture of the process at the intersection of the world and human beings Th at is human actions have more direct and more enduring presence than any putatively sturdier more material more tangible things that in fact inevitably always completely vanish and ldquomelt in the airrdquo It is the practices and activities composed of human deeds that transform the world that are really real (to use Harrersquos expression) because they are the most consequential phe-nomena of all ndash comprising no less that ldquothe fabricrdquo of human reality and development

Th is account overlaps in part yet is not identical with the works in femi-nist materialism that understand matter not as a fi xed essence but as ldquoa moving fl ow of substance in its intra- active becoming ndash not a thing but a doing a congealing of agencyrdquo (Barad 2007 p 151) According to what Barad terms ldquoperformative metaphysicsrdquo

the world is an ongoing open process of mattering through which ldquomatteringrdquo itself acquires meaning and form in the realization of dif-ferent agential possibilities Temporality and spatiality emerge in the course of processual historicity Relations of exteriority connectiv-ity and exclusion are reconfi gured Th e changing topologies of the world entail an ongoing reworking of the very nature of dynamics hellip In summary the universe is agential intra- activity in its becoming (ibid p 135)

In Baradrsquos account ontologically central is the ongoing fl ow of a general-ized agency of the worldrsquos matter through which one ldquopartrdquo of the world makes itself diff erentially intelligible to another ldquopartrdquo of the world ndash a process that takes place not in space and time but ldquoin the making of space- time itself rdquo (ibid p 140) Th is is a kind of realism that is not about representation of something substantialized that is already pres-ent but rather about real eff ects of intra- activity as these eff ects become elements in further ongoing and fl uid intra- activities (cf Hoslashjgaard and Soslashndergaard 2011 ) Human beings and their agency however in this account are not privileged vis- agrave- vis the fl uid totality of processes of mat-terrsquos intra- activity that encompasses discourse nature culture technol-ogy and so on Th erefore people are parts of the intra- activities that make up the world but they are not the point of departure because the diff erences (ldquocutsrdquo) in the world ldquoare agentially enacted not by willful individuals but by the larger material arrangement of which lsquowersquo are a lsquopartrsquo rdquo (Barad 2007 p 179) Similarly in the actor- network theory social



205

reality and its components are dynamic and contingent ldquoassemblagesrdquo of wide networks composed by both humans and nonhuman actors and agencies (Latour 2005b Law 2004 Mol 1999 2002 ) Th ese accounts ele-gantly capture the complex fl uidity of processes that make up the world yet they do not conceptualize social practices human agency and histo-ricity of human communities in their eff ects on the world


206

206

7

Transformative Activist Stance Agency

From the discussion in the previous chapter it follows that what fi gures under the designation of the ldquoreal worldrdquo in the transformative worldview is not the world that is merely ldquoidealizedrdquo in already existing forms and processes (as was oft en stated in the Vygotskian tradition such as by Ilyenkov eg 2009 for varying interpretations see Bakhurst 1991 Jones 2001 ) but the world constantly created and recreated invented and reinvented changed and transformed and thus ndash realized by and through human agency which is a this- worldly process of contributing to social changes that bring forth the world Contrary to this tradition that risks reifi cation of the world the metaphor of entering the stream of social collaborative practices through agentive contributions does not imply that individuals fi nd these practices as a preformed and static realm ldquoout thererdquo that is as some kind of a back-ground condition that is always already given to unidirectionally shape and determine human development from the outside Rather these practices are not only dynamic and fl uid contingent and continuous as they are they are of this kind because they are continuously enacted embodied realized ldquofabricatedrdquo and assembled by people in their everyday lives and interactions exchanges relations and above all struggles and strivings In this sense there is similarity to Baradrsquos and Latourrsquos accounts of reality as a fl uid contingent and ever- shift ing process with an emphasis on performa-tivity and production of the world Indeed ldquothere exists no society to begin with no reservoir of ties no big reassuring pot of glue to keep all those ties togetherrdquo (Latour 2005b p 37) Yet in distinction with the performative metaphysics and actor- network theory the transformative activist stance (TAS) suggests that it is human beings who enact perform and carry out these processes

To emphasize again social structures cultural traditions and communal processes exist before each individual person joins them yet not as fi xed



207

inert systems or structures that can be somehow imposed on human beings from outside Th e dynamic fl ow of social practices understood as a continu-ous process of communal becoming and striving cannot be handed down ready- made Instead these practices are perpetually and dynamically circu-lated enacted and reenacted by fully embodied social actors who are acting together in their daily situated interactions ndash yet also always in view of their own commitments and purposes that extend into the future Th erefore not only are individuals not doomed to repetition of the social and power struc-tures into which they are born as is oft en stipulated by scholars who cri-tique Vygotskyrsquos and similar sociocultural views for placing too strong of an emphasis on the role that society and culture play in human development It is exactly the opposite we are doomed (and perhaps blessed) with the impossibility of repeating or reproducing existing social structures (though their powerful eff ects are not thereby denied) instead leaving our mark on these structures every time we act ndash if even only in very modest ways and oft en by ldquomerelyrdquo witnessing and suff ering injustices Th is view is conso-nant with for example Paula Allmanrsquos suggestion that

Marxrsquos ontological vision was for human beings to become the criti-cally conscious creators the ldquomakersrdquo of human history hellip Rather than human nature for better or worse being antecedent to social being preexisting our existence within historically specifi c socioeconomic relations it develops as does humanityrsquos nature within human praxis (2007 p 61)

Th is position is impossible without appreciating the role of human agency in its ontological role and status that is without acknowledging people as agents not only of their own lives but also of the very world they live in and come into realization together with Th e notion of ontological centrality of social practices requires that human beings are portrayed as social actors or agentive co- creators (the Russian word sozidatel literally co- creator conveys this sense in a very direct and unambiguous way) not only of their development but of the world composed of collective prac-tices in their ongoing communal historicity In this sense people and their development including phenomena and processes of human subjectivity are neither products of culture and social practices nor their subjects as is oft en assumed in critical and sociocultural approaches but co- creators of culture and social practices

Th roughout the history of philosophy and social sciences including psy-chology this position has been resisted because it explicitly contradicts both the still- reigning positivist notion of objective reality ldquouncontaminatedrdquo by



208

human presence and the canonical dogmatic version of Marxism that too posits the world independently from human beings and social practices Th e weight of a stringent interpretation of Marxism (sometimes termed ldquoeconomistrdquo or ldquovulgarrdquo) oft en imposed as a dogma according to which the outward independently existing reality dictates consciousness has likely hindered developments of a consistently transformative ontology in the works of Vygotsky and his followers including Ilyenkov Leontiev and other representatives of cultural- historical activity theory (for details see Stetsenko 2013a 2013b )

Many scholars in the pragmatist phenomenological and constructivist perspectives have highlighted the role and the eff ects of human involve-ment in what they oft en describe as a ldquoperceiver- dependentrdquo world (eg Varela Th ompson and Rosch 1991 ) However this position has been oft en framed so as to imply that it is ultimately the human mind ndash variously con-ceptualized as spirit reason or representational thought ndash that is the cre-ative force in the world For example in psychology William James was one of its fi rst and most vocal advocates In his words ldquoTh e world contains con-sciousness as well as atoms ndash and the one must be written down as just as essential as the other hellip Atoms alone or consciousness alone are precisely equal mutilations of the truthrdquo ( 1890 p 336) James insisted that reality philosophically understood must include the human mind and therefore ldquowhat matters in human and subjective terms matters in factrdquo (Robinson 2010 ) In Jamesrsquos eloquent approach the mind has a vote (ibid)

Th ese interpretations formulated as they typically are within the rela-tional worldview that does not acknowledge social practice as ontologi-cally central do not go far enough in accounting for the constitutive role of human goal- directed and purposive collective practice Th e focus on mate-rial collaborative practice in line with Vygotskyrsquos legacy goes beyond these constraints by focusing on actual corporeal incarnated embodied work by people acting and striving together as the grounding of their lives and development Th is work is endowed with this- worldliness and concrete-ness of doing material practices while people are acting and coming into being together Th is is the process in which people are not merely perceiv-ing imagining understanding interpreting or talking about the world (although these processes are by no means excluded) but rather to use the words of McDermott and Varenne ( 1995 ) it is the process of ldquopeople hammering each other [and the world itself] into shape with the well struc-tured tools hellip availablerdquo (p 326 insert added) Th is ldquohammering intordquo (no allusion to Heidegger) or the embodied incarnate fl esh- and- muscle work of creating the world and ourselves including through the down- to- earth



209

mundane and practical processes has been downgraded and ignored by traditional philosophy and by many among contemporary constructivists phenomenologists and postmodernists

It is perhaps associating labor exclusively with manual work for profi t which especially in capitalist society is alienating and dehumanizing that makes it diffi cult to see the extent to which human nature and develop-ment are entangled precisely with work and labor ndash understood as the abil-ity to collaboratively produce the means and the very fabric of existence including through the gradual build- up of know- how skills tools and technology Th us it still appears unfathomable that the roots of human development and mind of the supposedly mysterious human spark might actually have something (and likely everything) to do with the phenom-ena that are typically disregarded and even frowned upon ndash the seemingly mundane processes of human social practices of doing and making things out in the world Th e critique spelled out by Engels more than a century ago still applies

All credit for the fast development of civilization was [traditionally] ascribed to the head to the development and activity of the brain hellip Even the most materialistically minded natural science scholars of the Darwinian school are still unable to formulate a clear idea of the origin of man because under hellip ideological infl uence they cannot recognize the role that labor has played therein (1973ndash 1883 1978 p 493ndash 494)

If the traditional philosophical prejudice against labor is given up in favor of understanding it as a broadly based ontological process of people collec-tively producing their life while co- creating their world and themselves one could see many similarities of this position with works in a diverse set of approaches including social practice theory For example there is a concep-tual overlap with Bourdieursquos core ontological stance In his words ldquoWhat exists is a social space a space of diff erences in which classes exist in some sense in a state of virtuality not as something given but as something to be donerdquo (Bourdieu 1995 p 22)

Th e view of human development and reality as ontologically grounded in individuals purposefully and collaboratively acting in and thus realiz-ing their world and themselves rather than experiencing or contemplating reality in its status quo is supported by Bakhtinrsquos (eg 1993 ) theorizing of human deeds and active becoming ( postuplenie ndash [Russian]) It is the con-crete deed always relational and cognizant of the others and their voices according to Bakhtin that is the axiological center around which no less than our existence revolves and of which it is composed Th e ldquoanswerably



210

performed actsrdquo constitute an architectonic reality of existence that brings together the ldquosense and the fact the universal and the individual the real and the idealrdquo ( 1993 p 29) In bridging the gap between the individual ldquosmall scrap of space and timerdquo and the ldquolarge spatial and temporal wholerdquo the answerable deed allows for bringing the sphere of intimate personal life and the public realm of culture and society into alignment yet without negat-ing the specifi city of each (ibid p 51 cf Gardiner 2004) No less critically this position challenges contemplative phenomenology of the immediate experiencing of the world What it captures instead is a radically diff er-ent reality composed of ldquopractical doingsrdquo in the sense of bringing about eff ects in communal life as the realm that revolves around and is composed of incarnated activities and deeds Th e life- world does not exist before or outside of these deeds (or actual ldquodoingsrdquo) by individuals and communities and instead is entwined with them in an ldquoactual communionrdquo (ibid p 9)

What is at stake here is the unique phenomenological and ontological richness of each and every human deed of each and every act of being knowing and doing When coordinated and pulled together across time scales and contexts as they are in the course of life the deeds form a seam-less stream of life as an active project of what can be described as ldquobecom-ing- through- doingrdquo ( postuplenie ) In Towards a Philosophy of the Act (1993) Bakhtin states that

[e] very thought of mine along with its content is an act or deed that I perform ndash my own individually answerable act or deed [ postupok ndash Rus] It is one of all those acts which make up my whole once- occurrent life as an uninterrupted performing of acts [ postuplenie ] For my entire life as a whole can be considered as a single complex act or deed that I perform I act hellip with my whole life hellip (p 3)

Th is grounding of human life in the activity of becoming- through- doing bears similarity to Vygotskyrsquos position in signifi cant ways His understand-ing of how human subjectivity emerges within and out of shared activi-ties with others to never completely break away from these activities is indicative of the same broad understanding of human development as an active project of becoming that stems from and is constituted by participa-tion in communal shared forms of social practices encompassing all forms of being and knowing

An important conceptual step consists in specifying the process of individual contributions to social practices inevitably transforming these practices rather than merely reproducing them as the concrete process that realizes connections between the individual and the collective levels



211

of shared social practices Th e notion of contribution makes it possible to conceptually take full account of how it is that individuals and collectives are not only and not so much products of society but its producers Human agency is directly implicated in the workings of social structures because these structures are dynamic processes realized by human beings in agen-tive acts (or activist agency) at the same time human agency is impossible outside of or in disconnection from social structures because this agency is realized only within the dynamics of social processes and as one expres-sion or moment of these processes Th e status of individuals specifi cally producing or enacting changes within social practices and thus of them-selves coming into reality in the process of producing these changes ndash that is in the process and as the process of making a diff erence and mattering in these practices ndash provides ontological justifi cation for the material histori-cal and social character of human agency On the other side of the same process it also provides ontological grounding for the humanized ethical and moral- political character of social practices

The Dialectics of Individual- Collective Layers of Social Practices The Centrality

of Contribution

If the world is understood as a collective forum of human practices consti-tuted by interrelated contributions by individuals qua social actors then it follows that each personrsquos actions or better each action of each person and even her or his ldquomererdquo presence in the world (which is never mere) do cre-ate new situations through changing existing circumstances and potentials for acting Th is change comes about as a change in the dynamic fi elds of acting (or chronotopes see Bakhtin 1981 ) within which a person as well as all others can ldquofrom now onrdquo act diff erently within these changed cir-cumstances to thus again change them for the future acting by oneself and others ndash all in a continuous circuit of ceaseless transformations that constitute the texture and dynamics of human development at the nexus with the world

In this view each person simultaneously defi nes oneself and the world and moreover through the process of changing social practices and con-tributing to them in meaningful ways ultimately comes to be oneself ndash a unique individual who has an irreplaceable role to play and a unique mis-sion to fulfi ll within humanityrsquos collaborative ongoing pursuits and common history Th is process therefore is the exact opposite of what is sometimes termed ldquothe loss of individualityrdquo (or ldquothe death of man [ sic ]rdquo) Instead



212

individual uniqueness as the core attribute of personhood is revealed to be forged precisely and singularly in the social arena vis- agrave- vis social matters and within the social events that constitute human historical practices

Th e conceptual advantage of the notion of individual contribution to collaborative practices as ontologically central is that it transcends the dichotomy of social and individual levels of social practices in an unambig-uous and concrete way Clearly contribution is something that individuals do but do only as members and agents of their communities who matter in the workings and realizations of these communities and their practices and who come into being precisely through such mattering Th is notion also highlights that for agency to develop and be eff ectual not only do individu-als need to engage with their society but society also needs to develop the necessary means and spaces to allow for individuals to act as truly agentive participants who are empowered and welcome to make a contribution to society through enacting transformative changes in it (Stetsenko 2007a ) Th e notion of contribution places emphasis on the interface (or nexus) between collective and individual agency and thus avoids reducing human development to either individual processes or alternatively to only the ldquoimpersonalrdquo collective dynamics of social practices understood to some-how automatically eff ace individual levels

Indeed although human transformative practice is carried out by individuals in and through their unique and irreducibly personal (but not a social) contributions from their unique positioning in history and society the collective dimension is taken to be primary ndash because each contribution is inextricably relational representing a nexus of interac-tions with other people and thus with society and its history Th erefore instead of connotations associated with the concept of individual as an ontologically primary sui generis entity what is captured here is the blending of each and every human being with all of humanity and its history ndash due to their profound existential interdependence and to them being mutually co- constituted by social practices that they themselves bring into existence

Th at is while restoring the ineluctable role and importance of each individually unique human actor this shift does not signify a return to the notion of individual as an isolated unit a self- suffi cient autono-mous and independent ldquoentityrdquo that exists prior to and outside of col-laborative practices and the social bonds and interconnections that bind people and these practices together In contrast to the notion of iso-lated individuals (as in the ldquoprototype of the bourgeois individualrdquo see Horkheimer and Adorno 2002 p 35) individually unique human beings



213

are simultaneously ineluctably social ndash because they create their human-ness precisely through participating in contributing to and otherwise co - authoring historical social practices being shaped by these practices through and in the process of shaping these practices in the course of their mutual becoming

Social practices are always collaborative and collective yet they are agent- dependent for their coming into existence and their eff ects Th is position is oft en stated in various approaches yet typically without a specifi cation of how this process is ontologically grounded and concretely realized Such a specifi cation is possible exactly in light of the focus on the processes at the nexus of people transforming their world and being transformed in this very process Th e point about this ontologically central mutually co- constitutive process of social practices inclusive of individual and collec-tive agency can be expressed in saying that social practices form the agent who acts to form these practices ndash as a simultaneous process of their mutual becoming Th is resonates with Maxine Sheets- Johnstonersquos ( 2011 ) eloquent point that ldquo movement forms the I that moves before the I that moves forms movementrdquo (p 119 emphasis in the original) Note that whereas this latter expression theorizes the nexus of bodily movements with the world the TAS is focused on human beings acting as agents of social practices who cannot be reduced to their bodily movements alone (though this important level is not thereby excluded)

Th at is the individual and the social dimensions of collaborative trans-formative practices are seen not as two separate realms but rather as exist-ing in unity ndash as complementary and interrelated aspects or dimensions of one and the same reality composed of social collaborative practices carried out by interacting individuals who bring each other and their word into existence In particular these transformative practices continuously and cumulatively evolve through time constituting the realm of social history and culture while being enacted and carried out by human collectivities through unique contributions by individual actors who come into being and always act as participants in social endeavors (rather than solipsistic and isolated self- suffi cient individuals) Th erefore all individual processes are seen as embedded within shaped by and also instrumental in carrying out transformative collaborative activities Given their grounding in col-laborative social transformations of the world the human ways of being knowing and doing that are carried out in the present always build on and continue past collaborative practices while through this and simultane-ously in so doing they are also setting the stage for future practices and transformations Th is formulation therefore highlights complementarity



214

of individual and social dimensions of collaborative practices while sug-gesting contingency of human social practices on both the past and the present and also most critically on the future

Th is is the point where the duality of and the opposition between the social and the individual planes of activity need to be addressed and con-tested with full force In predicating itself on the ontological primacy of social practices of collaboratively changing the world enacted through indi-vidually unique contributions the TAS suggests that these planes do not exist other than through bidirectional co- constitution and enactment by particular individuals who always act collaboratively as social and agentive actors even when performing seemingly solitary activities such as acts of theoretical refl ection Even in this latter form (as was understood by both Marx and Vygotsky) activity is inevitably and profoundly social commu-nal and collaborative through and through Th is is so for multiple reasons including that even putatively individual forms of being knowing and doing are always carried out with the help of collaboratively created cultural tools and artifacts (eg language literacy writing know- how and technol-ogy) according to social rules and norms (be it either in alliance or contra these norms) motivated by social contexts and circumstances including relations with other people directed at social goals and most critically coming into existence through making a diff erence by contributing to the overall dynamics of shared social practices

Yet again each individual undertakes these activities from onersquos own standpoint with unique goals and commitments to individually authentic agendas that pave the way for each personrsquos irreplaceable contribution to collaborative transformative practices Th ese tools standpoints motives goals and other important constituents of activity while being uniquely individual are not a social either representing instead an amalgamation of the social and the individual in each particular instantiation of social prac-tices refracted through the prism of each human beingsrsquo inimitable role and positioning in history and context as well as his or her irreducible agency and responsibility

In this sense the transformative ontology of collaborative practice ndash with individual contributions understood to be its immediate carriers and constituents ndash supersedes the very distinction between collective and individual levels of human practices What is off ered instead is the notion of one unitary realm or process ndash perhaps in need of a new term to con-vey the amalgamation of the social and the individual such as the ldquo collec-tividual rdquo In this process individuals always act together in pursuits of their



215

common goals and are inescapably bound by communal supports obliga-tions bonds and fi laments In this dialectical approach there is no need to get rid of the concept of individual because there is no such ldquothingrdquo as an isolated individual ndash if the latter is understood as a solitary human being existing in disconnection from other people and outside of collaborative practices their history and paramount social bonds Instead an individual human being is an ensemble of social relations (as Marx famously stated) fi rst formed within and out of these relations (the point underscored espe-cially by Vygotsky) and then (as needs to be emphasized more in distinction from canonical Marxism) coming to embody carry out and expand these relations through onersquos own unique contributions

Individuals are participants in communal practices who are unfi nished without these practicesrsquo formative social relations supports and cultural mediations as is now widely acknowledged in sociocultural and critical scholarship Yet this point needs to be accompanied by the recognition that each individual is a unique irreplaceable actor with an important role to play in communal life and social practices through making unique contri-butions to them that enact and realize these practices Th at is these con-tributions serve as major ontological constituents or building blocks of no less than community practices and reality itself People cannot be fi tted into some larger social systems seen to somehow exist prior to and inde-pendently of participating in and contributing to them Th is view suggests concrete ways to see the interplay between individuals and society human mind and communal practices and agency and structure without collaps-ing one onto the other Th e critical premise grounding these steps away from the dichotomous splits is that all of society ndash and reality itself ndash is understood to be contingent on each and every individual human being and changed as a whole each time individuals act or do not act

Th is approach gives full credit to collaboration and collectivity and moreover to solidarity and communion emphasized in emancipatory approaches such as Freirersquos (eg 1970 ) critical pedagogy without eff acing the role of the individual actor in thus reinstating the initial message con-tained in Vygotskyrsquos overall orientation (though less pronounced in later works of his research project due to the pressures of the top- down regime that did not assign individuals with any signifi cant role in creating their world) Th e dynamics that aff ords and constitutes human development is indelibly collaborative and communal that is profoundly social through and through ndash because human beings always act together and rely on each other including through the use of cultural tools that embody discoveries



216

and inventions of previous generations and shape how we act in and know the world Yet these dynamics are composed of individually unique contri-butions to collaborative practices by community members who each matter in her or his unique way that is who each has an irreplaceable role to play and an indelible mark to leave in carrying out and realizing these practices Th is implies that agency exists at the interface of individual and collective levels or dimensions within the unfolding social practices and therefore opens up ways to move beyond their either unduly strict dichotomy or for-mal alignment

Th is is a deceptively simple point that oft en gets stated without full appreciation of its implications and deep meaning To truly appreciate it and thus to resolutely break away from the dualism of the individual and the social it is important to conceive of each and every individual human being as both individually unique and deeply social ndash that is as represent-ing the totality of history and humanity (in all their complex vicissitudes) carrying them on in contributing to and thus altering their dynamics and ultimately also bearing responsibility for their future in onersquos own original and unique way To see history and society embodied and expressed in and even created through the deeds by communities and generations yet also by each single person ndash regardless of how powerless and oppressed seem-ingly insignifi cant and fragile this one person may appear to others or even to oneself ndash is a truly formidable task that the sociocultural and critical scholars are only beginning to grapple with And because the opposition of society and the individual is intricately connected to power hierarchy and relations of oppression that still dominate our world with all dualisms rep-resenting forms of domination (cf Plumwood 1993 ) this task is not merely theoretical but also practical and ideological

Novelty versus Reproduction

Th e position charted in the previous section is consistent with the works that contest the strict dichotomy of agency and structure individuals and the world as supposedly irrevocably polarized and ontologically indepen-dent Th ere is no lack in this kind of theorizing against the dualist views in social theory Indeed the common theme in many critical cultural and sociological works across the past (at least) one hundred years (eg by James G H Mead Bourdieu Foucault Garfi nkel and Goff man) has been the need to replace what is sometimes termed agency structure dual-ism with a more fl exible account in which there is a commensurability and complementarity between them A prominent theme in these works as



217

expressed for example by Giddens ( 1984 ) is about the bidirectional rela-tions between people and the world so that there are no agents without structured practices and no structured practices without agents

Th is and many similar solutions off ered so far however leave room for improvement especially in terms of accounting for the agentive role of peo-ple together and one at a time in ldquofabricatingrdquo realities of their lives and resisting the impositions of power Th is is evident for example in recent critiques that have exposed an overemphasis in many social theories on how people are constituted as subjects who are formed by forces beyond their control In this critique the attention has been drawn to a sociological reductionism that might be as dangerous as the biological one In this kind of determinism as Delpit ( 1995 ) puts it

Instead of being locked into ldquoyour placerdquo by your genes you are now locked hopelessly into a lower- class status by your Discourse [or social practice] Clearly such a stance can leave a teacher feeling powerless to eff ect change and a student feeling hopeless that change can occur (p 154)

Indeed such determinism leaves little room for conceptualizing human agency and the potential power of individuals for resistance (cf McNay 1999 2000 ) agency and change To take one example a mutual relation-ship between society and social actors rather than unidirectional eff ects of one category onto the other has been central in the works by Pierre Bourdieu Bourdieursquos dynamic and relational position contains much dia-lectics in portraying the bidirectional processes of interchanges between human beings and their social world Indeed Bourdieu insisted that there is

dialectical relationship between the objective structures and the cogni-tive and motivating structures which they produce and which tend to reproduce them hellip [T] hese objective structures are themselves products of historical practices and are constantly reproduced and transformed by historical practices whose productive principle is itself the product of the structures which it consequently tends to reproduce (Bourdieu 1977 p 83 emphasis added)

Yet it is striking that Bourdieu even in his insistence on these relations being bidirectional still displays ambiguity in acknowledging human agency to transform society Th is transpires in his asymmetrical usage of terms when he indicates that objective structures produce cognitive and motivation structures whereas the latter ndash which are termed ldquoincorporated structures of the habitusrdquo ndash merely reproduce society rather than creatively



218

and agentively change and produce it Th e same ambivalence transpires when Bourdieu states that ldquo[t] he social space is indeed the fi rst and last real-ity since it commands the representation that the social agent can have of itrdquo ( 1995 p 22 emphasis added) His ultimate ontological stance is clear in his own words his paramount focus is on the mechanisms that ldquoguarantee the reproduction of social space and symbolic space without ignoring the contradictions and confl icts that can be at the basis of their transformationrdquo ( 1998 p 13 emphasis added)

It is also in this vein that Foucault has been critiqued as a ldquoprophet of entrapmentrdquo (Simons 1995 ) who does not account for agency and resis-tance of individuals and communities In later works Foucault admit-ted that in his earlier studies he ldquoinsisted hellip too much on the question of dominationrdquo (Foucault 1993 p 204) paying only limited attention to agency within historical relations between individuals and what he termed the ldquogames of truthrdquo Th is latter position acknowledged that subjects within social institutions and power relations are ldquofaced with a fi eld of possibili-ties in which several ways of behaving several reactions hellip may be real-izedrdquo (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982 p 221) However even in exploring the issues of the subjectrsquos self- constitution through the technologies of the self Foucault ( 1988 ) makes it clear that these practices are ldquopatterns that he [the subject] fi nds in his culture and which are proposed suggested imposed upon him by his culture his society and his social grouprdquo (p 11 emphasis added) Th e subjects fi nd patterns that are imposed on them rather than co- create these patterns Th us the charge of the ldquohyperdeterminationrdquo of the subject has not been fully resolved in these works

In countering this kind of determinism many scholars studying race class and gender as the major axes of stratifi cation and power suggest that systems of oppression operate simultaneously at the social structural (ie macro) and social psychological (ie micro) levels (eg Weber and Dillaway 2001 ) While emphasizing ldquothe macro- institutional political economic and ideological power arrangements that shape every interac-tion among individuals and our societyrdquo (ibid p xiv) these scholars also pay attention to people experiencing and interpreting these arrangements in diff erent social locations Along similar lines Calhoun LiPuma and Postone ( 1993 ) argue that ldquosocial life hellip must be understood in terms that do justice both to objective material social and cultural structures and to the constituting practices and experiences of individuals and groupsrdquo (p 3 cf Th orne 2005 ) Another approach suggests ldquoswitching between multi-ple viewsrdquo (Engestroumlm 1990 p 171) in order to transcend the dichotomy



219

between the subject and the system such as that the actor takes the system view and the researcher takes the personal view (see also Engestroumlm and Sannino 2010 )

Yet in many cases the specifi c ways in which the processes at the micro- and macrolevels are connected remain undertheorized As a result these and similar positions remain in danger of vacillating between the poles of subjective and objective and of individual and collective dimensions of social practices or falling into the traditional superimposition of one dimension (or pole) over the other Th is happens again and again in spe-cifi c applications of these views and might continue in this vein unless this position is followed with reassessments and concrete formulations that rec-oncile the individual and the social as ontologically commensurate includ-ing through indicating specifi c processes making such commensurability possible and necessary In addition not infrequently the macrolevel pro-cesses come to be associated with social structuresrsquo oppressive character only rather than with their diff erential potential to oppress yet also under certain circumstances promote agency and freedom Th ese negative con-ceptualizations of social processes bear the risk of neglecting the role of cultural mediation in human development and thus result ironically in views that essentialize individuals and human nature with the power of resistance and agency portrayed to be somehow inherently natural

Th e legacy of Vygotskyrsquos project however can be expansively read to suggest a focus not on reproduction of society and its social and symbolic spaces but on their agentive transformation as the core dimension of human being knowing and doing Th e transformative and revolutionary indeed rebellious gist of the historical time and place in which Vygotskyrsquos project emerged and developed cannot be subtracted from its theoreti-cal system even though this gist was not directly articulated but rather implied by it (and gradually squashed with the advancing totalitarianism of his society) Th e resistance to the ethos of reproduction and adaptation and the deep grasp of the realities of social change were inescapable dur-ing the fi rst years of the revolution when all the old structures were swept away along with all the familiar spaces taken- for- granted assumptions constructs notions rules and even ways of everyday life ndash which all truly melted in the air In this situation all persons let alone activist intellectu-als were denied ldquothe luxury of a spectatorrsquos rolerdquo which made it impossible to ldquoopt out of the energies revolution unleashesrdquo (Holquist 1982 p 6)

Many unsurpassed breakthroughs in art architecture literature cinema and poetry all came to embody this energy and rebellious agency Perhaps



220

Bakhtinrsquos scholarship is especially telling in this regard Bakhtinrsquos writings on the genres of novel carnival and satire for example convey the sense of profound and unavoidable confl icts and collisions of discourses All of these genres parody and contest each other while invading subverting framing and dismantling those before and around them Bakhtin there-fore (especially in some of his works such as on Rablais) captures the sense of social practices and discourses that are almost entirely without rules ndash a non- canonical and deconstructive yet also creative force that challenges all the canons without becoming one (cf Eagleton 2007 )

It is in seeing social practices as complex and contested matrices or fi elds of forces comprised of human deeds and action potentials understood to be enacted each time anew by individuals ndash where all the extant rules are changed and challenged rather than faithfully reproduced or imposed ndash that the role of individuals as social actors capable of exercising agency in challenging and contesting the status quo can be ascertained Th is is con-sonant with Bakhtinrsquos understanding of culture not as a fi rmly delineated domain but rather as a constant negotiation over its own boundaries ndash where every cultural act derives its signifi cance from always taking place on the boundaries (cf Tihanov 2000 )

Th at people contribute to bringing social practices into realization while necessarily changing them in the process as well as being themselves changed and realized in the same process does not entail symmetry in these relations It is quite obvious that a person might be powerless to perma-nently and drastically change the circumstances of onersquos life and especially the overall landscape of social practices Yet there is much value in empha-sizing that even seemingly mundane events and acts of life such as when people relocate into racially and economically segregated neighborhoods because of a lack of resources and without an explicit intention to change society are not minor events Instead these are de facto starkly agentive and transformative acts of huge sociohistorical import with tremendous systemic consequences ndash demographically economically ethically and politically (cf Bennett 2010 ) Moreover in many cases there might not be much an oppressed person can do to resist oppression other than through suff ering and recognizing that something is deeply wrong with the situa-tion As Carol Hay ( 2011 ) remarks however such recognition by a person is

in a profound sense better than nothing It means she hasnrsquot acquiesced to the innumerable forces that are conspiring to convince her that shersquos the sort of person who has no right to expect better It means she rec-ognizes that her lot in life is neither justifi ed nor inevitable (p 32)



221

It is possible and necessary to add from a transformative perspective that wit-nessing and recognizing injustice is not only better than nothing but it is not nothing at all Th e act of bearing witness and suff ering injustice is an active and valuational stance that is also a strikingly political act that does make a diff er-ence Th is is resolutely not to justify or acquiesce to oppressive circumstances that cause injustices and suff ering and not to suggest that they represent suf-fi cient forms of resistance Rather this is to acknowledge agency of all people including in the acts of suff ering resisting and bearing witness to injustices

Th is transformative approach opens ways to simultaneously overcome both outdated biases ndash that of seeing the world as composed of static things or structures separate from individuals and that of seeing individuals as separate from the material world of human practices Prioritizing trans-formative practice opens ways to grasp that the apparently outward (and seemingly ldquofi xedrdquo) social phenomena and institutions on the one hand and the apparently ldquolocalrdquo mundane and seemingly insignifi cant every-day processes on the other are not separately existing static phenomena Rather these seemingly ldquosturdyrdquo social institutions and these purportedly mundane and fl eeting activities by individuals and communities (appear-ing to be separate and opposing poles in the traditional mode of thinking) are closely connected ndash representing interrelated moments (more or less fl eeting or durable) of one and the same realm of social human practices enacted by people in their collective pursuits

Th e materiality of the world is revealed as endowed with meaning and relevance though always only for someone that is for an agent who is engaged in and realizes the world And vice versa human subjectivity at the same time stands infused with the materiality of the always tangible human practice (and its artifacts and products) out of which it emerges and through which it exists Th at is the most critical point is that unlike in moral philosophy and in some neo- Marxist interpretations the realms of facts and of human experience are bridged through ascertaining the human relevance of material practice alongside and simultaneously with ascertaining the material practical relevance of human agency including its dimensions of subjectivity and intersubjectivity

Acting to Matter Agency versus Self- Control

Th e emphasis on goals and stances within the transformative world-view that begins with assumptions about social practices forming the



222

ontological core of human development and mind does not assume that goal setting has to do with isolated individuals engaged in ldquomental algebrardquo of cognitively calculating and predicting the future In the latter case the core assumption is that of an omniscient mind computing intricate prob-abilities and utilities (cf Todd and Gigerenzer 2000 ) Such an approach is characteristic of some directions in mainstream psychology that take goals to be the building blocks of personality yet construe personality within what is at its base a cognitivist individualist and adaptationist account of human development In this line of work personal goals are typically defi ned as ldquoconsciously accessible cognitive representations of states an individual wants to attain or avoid in the futurerdquo (Freund and Riediger 2006 p 353) It is further assumed that goals link the person to their contexts while individuals actively shape their development in inter-action with a physical cultural social and historical context However because the ontological groundings of human development and mind are not addressed the explanations focus on individual mental states such as attributions and beliefs ldquoas a causal force and are typically advanced with-out benefi t of thinking about the pattern of relations in which player [ sic ] is involvedrdquo (Burt 1992 p 190 cf Dannefer 1999 ) Other research direc-tions such as social capital theory (eg Burt 1992 Dannefer 1999 Lin 2001 ) are more attuned to the specifi c role of social context in providing individuals with the resources to initiate and maintain their goal pursuits Th e latter theory takes into account how the resources are unequally dis-tributed and not under the individualrsquos control

Emirbayer and Mische ( 1998 ) in their infl uential work on agency place a particular emphasis on temporality that has to do with an ability to ori-ent oneself to the past present and future Th is approach builds upon and captures the pragmatist notion about actorsrsquo capacity to envision alternative possible futures and to pursue them in search of ldquoa fuller and richer issue of eventsrdquo (Dewey 1929 1960 p 215) Practical evaluation involves ldquothe capac-ity of actors to make practical and normative judgments among alternative possible trajectories of action in response to the emerging demands dilem-mas and ambiguities of presently evolving situationsrdquo (Emirbayer and Mische 1998 p 971) In their words ldquoEnds and means develop continu-ously within contexts that are themselves changing and thus always subject to reevaluation and reconstruction on the part of the refl ective intelligence rdquo (ibid pp 967ndash 968 emphasis added) Similar articulations of agency can be found in Somers ( 1994 see recent overview by Erickson 2013 ) who writes that ldquo[p] eople are guided to act in certain ways and not others on the basis of projections expectations and memories derived from a multiplicity but



223

ultimately limited repertoire of available social public and cultural narra-tivesrdquo (p 614)

Th e perspective on agency developed by Emirbayer and Mische ( 1998 ) can be described as an ecological approach that does not treat agency as an individual ldquopowerrdquo but rather as a quality of the engagement of actors with their world within a particular ecology (cf Biesta and Tedder 2007 ) Notable further is that agency is understood to be future oriented in high-lighting ldquothe imaginative generation by actors of possible future trajectories of action in which received structures of thought and action may be cre-atively reconfi gured in relation to actorsrsquo hopes fears and desires for the futurerdquo (Emirbayer and Mische 1998 p 971) In taking up this approach Biesta and Tedder ( 2007 ) further connect agency to learning and empha-size that development of agency depends on the availability of economic cultural and social resources within a particular ecology In their words

this concept of agency highlights that actors always act by means of their environment rather than simply in their environment hellip the achieve-ment of agency will always result in the interplay of individual eff orts available resources and contextual and structural factors as they come together in particular and in a sense always unique situations (Biesta and Tedder 2007 p 137)

Th ese are important developments yet more eff ort needs to be invested in advancing ecological and sociocultural perspectives on agency understood as more than a strictly individual process confi ned to cognition and other processes in the mental realm even though aided by ldquoavailable resources and contextual and structural factorsrdquo (ibid) Such eff orts might include a more resolute demarcation from traditional views such as Bandurarsquos infl u-ential social cognitive perspective (eg 2001 ) that highlights human agency as ldquocharacterized by a number of core features that operate through phe-nomenal and functional consciousnessrdquo (p 1) Although Bandura makes the point that people are producers as well as products of social systems these social systems are understood as a ldquobroad network of sociostructural infl uences rdquo (ibid emphasis added) and as such are posited as ontologically separate from the exercise of agency and from cognition in thus upholding a dichotomous position on human development Most critically the world in this approach is taken for granted and understood as somehow already given and static For Emirbayer and Mische ( 1998 ) too agentic orientation is taken as ldquothe capacity of actors to critically shape their own responsive-ness to problematic situationsrdquo (p 971) and as onersquos ldquo own structuring rela-tionship to the contexts of action rdquo (p 1009 emphasis in original) Th at is



224

although ability to make a diff erence in the world is acknowledged agency is centrally tied to making a change in onersquos own orientations responsive-ness and thinking that apparently are somehow ontologically separate from the world- making agency and activity

Biesta and Tredder ( 2007 ) make a perceptively critical comment that Emirbayer and Mische ( 1998 ) seem to assume that it is the insight by actors about their responsiveness to contexts that will lead to change In contrast Biesta and Tredder ( 2007 ) suggest that we should remain open to the pos-sibility that it is change in peoplersquos lives that will actually lead to insight and understanding Yet even they retain the focus on agency in conjunction with the ways in which people are ldquoin controlrdquo of their responses rather than the ways in which people co- create their world and the very situations that not simply ldquoaff ectrdquo people but co- emerge and co- evolve with them in agentive processes of historical communal praxis

Indeed in most extant approaches including the ones just mentioned individuals are understood to respond to their circumstances and to express their agency by interpreting these circumstances in various ways which in turn aff ects the course of actions individuals take Much less is the empha-sis on acting upon and changing these circumstances ndash so that individuals appear to be free to think howsoever they please and do anything except transform the world Th eories that conceive of agency as a mental process or as responsiveness to ldquogivenrdquo contexts risk impoverishing agency because they sever it from historically situated social- collaborative and material- productive practices out in the world as these are realized by collectividual contributions to these practices Such theories in the last instance risk blam-ing marginalized people for their problems because they begin and end with the individual though oft en nodding at ldquothe socialrdquo or ldquothe environmentrdquo in between (to paraphrase Jean Laversquos ( 1996 ) words on a closely related topic of learning) Th ey are primarily concerned with individual success or failure personal well- being and adaptation to life circumstances ndash and less about how to make sure social structures support and provide space for agency both collective and individual (cf Stetsenko 2007a ) In these accounts ldquowe are all free to dine at the Ritz provided no- one bars the door black South Africans are as free as whites overnight when they acquire formal voting power and the alienated and ignorant are as free as holders of substantial cultural capitalrdquo (Jonathan 1997 p 131 cf Martin 2004 )

To more resolutely shift away from the mentalist conception of agency ndash centered on self- contained subjects primarily concerned with the construction of knowledge as epitomized in the ldquoI thinkrdquo Cartesian motto ndash requires conceptualizing agency at the intersection of social- collective and



225

individual- psychological planes of collaborative practices (rather than focusing on just one of these planes) as well as across time dimensions and also while deconstructing the dichotomies of knowing versus doing and thinking versus acting Moreover it also requires that agency is grasped not only as a quality of acting or of engagement of actors with their world within a particular ldquoecologyrdquo of given contexts but rather as an engagement that takes part in co- creating this ecology and these contexts in the fi rst place Viewed through this lens agency is about activity of agents interven-ing in the conditions of existence and co- creating their world while defi ning what is problematic about it One could say paraphrasing Isabelle Stengers ( 2002a in elaborating on Whitehead 1920 cf Latour 2005a ) that agency is something that happens not only in the world but also to the world Th is is about paying attention to how agency gains its existence and status (its modus vivendi ) through its transformative eff ects out in the world of social practices shared with others

From the TAS position agency is a quality of activity by actors that is contingent on how this activity contributes to and makes a diff erence in the world of social practices It is undertaking projects of changing onersquos own life in conjunction with those of others through contributing to collab-orative projects of social transformation that is formative of agency (with insight and understanding being inseparable from life- changing and world- creating activities) Th is position takes to heart Freirersquos words that ldquohumans fi nd themselves marked by the results of their own actions in their relations with the world and through the action on it By acting they transform by transforming they create a reality which conditions their manner of actingrdquo ( 1982b p 102)

Th e suggestion herein for a conceptual push needed to advance a more ecological sociocultural and activist conception of agency can be illus-trated by applying Foucaultrsquos enigmatic words that ldquopeople know what they do frequently they know why they do what they do but what they donrsquot know is what they do doesrdquo (quoted in Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982 p 187) My suggestion is to understand agency as being precisely about what our actions do in always enacting changes of one sort or another in the social drama of collectividual life (even if only in the negative sense of stifl ing changes) Agency is about changing how the world is changing us ndash in high-lighting the transformative ontology in which we change the world through gaining the resources (always collaborative) of aff ecting changes in how the world is changing us (and thus the world itself) In this light agency is a collaborative and relational (yet not somehow de- individualized) achieve-ment and its development is contingent on gaining the tools of acting at the



226

nexus of shaping the world while being shaped by it and at the intersection of individual and collective agency

Th is means among other things that for agency to develop and be eff ectual not only do individuals need to engage with their society but society also needs to develop the means to engage individuals in ways that allow for them to be truly agentive participants who have opportuni-ties to make a contribution to social life and its practices Th is also means paying more attention to how subjects in their ongoing strivings and struggles are not only situated within but also enact various social- level projects within the broader ongoing confl icts and struggles in societies ndash that is how each person matters not only in and to onersquos own life (though this too) but also in and to the shared world of social collaborative prac-tices Such a transformative view of agency echoes yet also expands upon Lantolf and Pavlenkorsquos ( 2001 ) take on Vygotskyrsquos ideas In particular they write that human agency ldquois about more than performance or doing it is intimately linked to signifi cance Th at is things and events matter to people ndash their actions have meanings and interpretations It is agency that links motivation hellip to action and defi nes a myriad of paths taken by learnersrdquo (pp 145ndash 146)

From the TAS agency is not a strictly individual possession played out in the head of each person isolated from the worldly concerns and socio-political cultural- historical practices ndash as if each person was abstractly cal-culating onersquos options and probabilities for the future within personalized quests for happiness survival and other types of adaptation Instead the primacy is given to social practices and sociohistorical projects that indi-viduals fi nd in place when they come into the world Yet individuals are not automatically worked (or interpellated) into these practices and projects Although subjectsrsquo positions are established within particular social forma-tions including in terms of their class- ethnicity- and gender- related struc-tures of power each person still has to do the work of establishing oneself vis- agrave- vis these structures and positioning while inevitably changing and co- creating them

Th at is each person has to do the work of grappling and struggling with and oft en resisting and withstanding these forces all while drawing on the tools and supports they off er in an active striving for onersquos authenticity and onersquos place in the shared world of communal practices Th is is in line with understanding society not just as a context in which we develop but also as ldquoa critical site of social action and intervention where power relations are both established and potentially unsettledrdquo (Procter 2004 p 2) As



227

Stuart Hall has stated with much precision and passion (in a documentary devoted to his life see Akomfrah 2013 ) ldquoWe always supposed really some-thing would give us a defi nition of who we really were our class position or our national position our geographic origins or where our grandparents came from I donrsquot think any one thing any longer will tell us who we arerdquo

In taking up this approach there is no need to reduce agency to inter-nal cognitive calculation yet there is also no need to eschew the processes that individuals do engage in when evaluating planning imagining and anticipating the future as part of their own becoming It is just that in the transformative worldview these latter processes are not abstract cal-culations disconnected from the world Instead they are practices of self- constitution recognition and refl ection that are also simultaneously constitutive parts of shared social practices at the core of human develop-ment and reality Agency is constituted by activities we perform including the ones in which we anticipate and imagine the future ndash as parts of the larger process of positioning ourselves within these practices that is tak-ing a stand on how one is positioned within social practices and most critically on these practices Agency is about having the tools to change these positionings and therefore and simultaneously the world itself ndash and thus to always transcend both how the world positions us and its status quo Importantly a critical refl ection is only possible from within a chang-ing trajectory of engaging the world as a social actor ndash not as a separate ldquomentationrdquo As suggested herein critical refl ection and critical knowledge are forms of transformative activity out in the world that enact new activ-ity paths as they are already being created here and now if only in nascent forms Th is position attempts to expand on the Marxist logic as expressed in the deeply dialectical statement that ldquo[w] hen people speak of ideas that revolutionize society [and themselves] they do but express the fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been createdrdquo (Marx and Engels 1848 1978 p 489)

Even more critically agency is about having the tools for breaking with the immediacy of the processes through which society is shaping us to instead move beyond its present status quo ndash to thus being shaped not by society and its power structures ldquoas they arerdquo but instead by our own acts in which we challenge and transform these structures from a commitment to a sought- aft er future Th is is not a breakage with society ndash because in these struggles and eff orts at becoming new society and new culture are created if only on a small scale (and especially because the magnitude of such a scale cannot be judged right away) Th is is powerfully captured by



228

Gloria Anzalduacutea ( 2007 ) in her writing about practices through which she challenges oppression

I am cultureless because as a feminist I challenge the collective cultural religious male- derived beliefs of Indo- Hispanics and Anglos yet I am cultured because I am participating in the creation of yet another cul-ture a new story to explain the world and our participation in it a new value system with images and symbols that connect us to each other and to the planet (pp 102ndash 103)

Th is account of agency builds upon and attempts to expand on the old dia-lectical adage that ldquothe process is made by those who are made by the pro-cessrdquo (ldquoprocessus cum fi gures fi gurae in processurdquo cf Ernst Bloch 1954 ) Th e critical albeit tacit expansion is that while human beings make the pro-cess (of their lives their communities and society) and are made by the process ndash it is far more critical that they are made of the process of them-selves making the process out of what the process makes of them Th at is people are shaped by their acts of shaping the world out of ways in which the world is shaping them ndash and thus by making a diff erence in and co- authoring and also de facto co- creating the world Th is position puts the notions of resistance and struggle rather than adaptation and even partici-pation at the forefront of analyzing human development and agency

Agency and identity gain their status and have to be revealed in their practical relevance within material and productive social practices (see Stetsenko 2005 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004b and for further elabora-tion of this position see Burkitt 2008 ) Th at is our agency and how we make sense of ourselves is contingent on how we contribute to the world and make a diff erence no matter how small or big in the social life of our communities Identity is then about the search for this kind of a broadly organizing meaningful activity that can make a diff erence that matters to others and to ourselves and that therefore constitutes the uniqueness of our own selves (see Leontiev 1978 on leading activity for application to iden-tity see Stetsenko 2004 ) Th is means making commitments and working on realizing them to something near and dear to us yet always in light of how this ldquosomethingrdquo matters and makes a diff erence in the larger world of shared social practices and communal lives

One important caveat is that individuals might not always be aware of how exactly their activities contribute to the world or they might be in a constant search for such activities struggling to make sense of their lives through internal dialogues and personal narratives However the lack of awareness and the oft en continuous struggles to fi nd a meaningful leading



229

activity notwithstanding people always do contribute to something that goes on in the world even if only on a small scale and even if by doing nothing (because the latter type of a ldquocontributionrdquo oft en helps to per-petuate the existing status quo and to stifl e changes in society) Th erefore ultimately how the person is positioned by his or her activities to change the world and oneself as part of the world ndash what kind of sociohistorical ethical- political project in the world she or he contributes to ndash is the pivotal question the answer to which reveals the uniqueness and integrity of each individual that is the ldquoselfrdquo Th is is a highly complex matter to be addressed through explorations into what it is that people are actually doing by their acts of being knowing and doing ndash in the sense of contributing something unique to communal social practices and thus to co- authoring and chang-ing the world

It is this message that can be discerned to reiterate in Foucault saying that the important question is about what onersquos ldquodoing doesrdquo More recently Appiah ( 2006 ) refers to ldquoan ethics of identityrdquo and how it plays out in the realm of power dynamics in society Such accounts suggest that identity depends on ldquohow from what by whom and for whatrdquo it is constructed whereby power and identity are inextricably linked (Castells 1997 ) Th ese diff erentiations highlight the need to explore the processes of what it is that our actions discourses and narratives actually ldquodordquo out in the world that is what kind of a diff erence they make in shared actual lives and communal social practices that embed and intersect these lives ndash as the critical way to understand identity and agency


230

230

8

Transformative Activist Stance Encountering the Future through

Commitment to Change

From the position of the transformative activist stance (TAS) persons are agents not only for whom ldquothings matterrdquo but also who themselves matter in history culture and society and moreover who come into being as unique individuals through their activist deeds that is through and to the extent that they take a stand on matters of social signifi cance and commit to mak-ing a diff erence by contributing to changes in the ongoing social practices Th is means that there is no way that we can extract ourselves out of this activist engagement ndash we can never take a neutral stance of disinterested observers uninvolved in what is going on A human being who in order to be needs to act in the social world that is constantly changing and more-over that is changing through our own deeds cannot be neutral or uncertain because such acting (unlike reacting or passively dwelling) presupposes knowing what is right or wrong and which direction one wants and needs to go next for oneself and community practices too

Th at knowledge is always achieved in context and from a position or a location is perhaps the singular most important achievement by critical and sociocultural scholarship of the recent decades ndash in critical pedagogy cultural theory science studies feminist standpoint epistemology and his-torical ontology among others (eg Harding 1992 2004 ) Several amplifi ca-tions and extensions can be added to this position from the TAS Given that transformative engagements with the world are taken as ontologically and epistemically supreme and because transformation can only be achieved from a certain location position ndash culturally socially spatially temporally ndash and simultaneously also vis- agrave- vis the goals and purposes of transformation the dimension of the future is elevated ontologically and epistemologically Transformation cannot be directionless or future- less Th at is because all human activities ndash including interrelated processes of being knowing and doing ndash represent contributions to collaborative transformative practice



231

they inevitably imply a vision for the future in terms of how persons and communities believe the world ought to be and commit themselves to real-izing this vision

In prioritizing transformative activity as an enactment of change the orientation to the future and the value- laden directionality of social prac-tices become critically important Without such visions and commitment meaningful transformative acting is impossible On the one hand a person cannot act without knowing right from wrong that is cannot be an actor without some goal and envisioned orientation embodied in a commitment to a destination of onersquos ldquopostuplenierdquo (Bakhtinrsquos term see Chapter 7 ) and movement forward As Marilyn Frye ( 1990 ) states

Just as walking requires something fairly sturdy and fi rm underfoot so being an actor in the world requires a foundation of ordinary moral and intellectual confi dence Without that we donrsquot know how to be or how to act we become strangely stupid hellip If you want to be good and you donrsquot know good from bad you canrsquot move (p 133)

On the other hand any and all acts deeds entail and carry ldquothe rightrdquo and ldquothe wrongrdquo directly in them because they inevitably change the world for better or for worse for oneself and for others even if a change is some-times not immediately transparent even to the actor herself Th e ethical is therefore a distinctive and inherent characteristic of activity of becoming- through- doing at the intersection of individual and social levels rather than some sort of an extraneous add- on to this process Th e ethical and ideological dimensions are central in and integral to human becoming including subjectivity and intersubjectivity (because they too are acts deeds within shared social practices on the inherent link between subjec-tivity and intersubjectivity in Vygotskyrsquos project see Stetsenko eg 2005 2013a 2013b ) rather than additions that come about in some ldquospecialrdquo cir-cumstances of addressing and solving moral dilemmas Ethical and pur-poseful dimensions are aspects inherent in how we do things in the world in the fi rst place ndash that is they are integral to acting and realizing the world in collaborative transformative practices and therefore to knowing and being as well

What is highlighted in the transformative approach is the activist stance vis- agrave- vis the world embodied in goals and commitments to social transfor-mation as the key constituent of being knowing and doing Th e realiza-tion of this activist stance through onersquos answerable deeds ndash possible only within ongoing collaborative practices ndash forms the path to personhood and knowledge In this perspective the ethical future- oriented goals and end



232

points appear as foundational because they are integral to acting through which we become who we are and also get to know our world ndash all while contributing to collaborative pursuits of social transformation Th is notion expands and moves beyond Vygotskyrsquos and other sociocultural theoriesrsquo tenet that is centrally focused on the present communal practices and their histories In this aspect the transformative ontology of human praxis just like Freirersquos pedagogy of hope builds on the premise that human existence ontologically depends on and even begins with the right and ability as well as the duty and responsibility ldquoto opt to decide to struggle to be politicalrdquo (Freire 1998 p 53) ndash in a move that is similar to critical democracyrsquos model of dialogic action (Jaramillo 2011 ) As Freire ( 1994 ) expressed this notion

I cannot understand human beings as simply living I can understand them only as beings who are makers of their ldquowayrdquo in the making of which they lay themselves open to or commit themselves to the ldquowayrdquo that they make and that therefore remakes them as well (p 83)

Committing oneself to ldquoonersquos wayrdquo moreover is only possible within col-laborative social practices Forming onersquos way and committing oneself to it means fi nding how to be responsible to others within the shared struggles and pursuits of humanness Th is aspect ndash as captured by Bakhtin ( 1990 1993 ) in his notion of dialogue if it is understood broadly as endemic to all acts ndash entails a form of answerability that is morally and ethically respon-sible to unique others Considered outside of such goals orientations and ends the processes of human subjectivity lose their crucial grounding and concreteness that stem from them being bidirectionally realized within col-laborative social practices at the nexus of individual and collective levels of these practices Th at is acting and understanding are bound up in the fi rst place with a sense of direction ndash the posited end points that persons and communities aspire to reach ndash that grounds the notions of value and truth

To reiterate because all human activities (including processes of being knowing and doing) represent contributions to collaborative transforma-tive practice the vision for the future in terms of how persons and com-munities believe the world ought to be (hence the notion of ldquoend pointrdquo) and the commitment to realizing this vision are posited to be the for-mative dimensions of human development In prioritizing transforma-tive activity ndash with its orientation to the future and its ethically concrete value- laden directionality toward the future ndash the emphasis is placed on activist stance vis- agrave- vis the world embodied in goals and commitments to social transformation as the key constituent of being knowing and doing From this perspective development and learning is a collaborative



233

work- in- progress of activist nature not confi ned to people adapting to what is ldquogivenrdquo in the world instead these processes are reliant upon and realized through people forming future- oriented agendas and carrying out social changes in line with these agendas within collaborative projects of social transformation

Th ese commitments to and identifi cations of possible futures provide the frames of horizon within which a person can act Acting is impossi-ble without fi rst envisioning a future determining its shape and commit-ting oneself to bringing it into reality Th e key point is that our practices and therefore our reality (coterminous with our lived world) are already shaped or tailored to a future that is sought aft er and posited as desirable and necessary ndash and not as an abstract notion but rather as something one commits to and struggles to bring into reality Th is horizon of where people strive to get this ldquoyet to comerdquo reality therefore is taken to be no less real than anything going on in the present At the center of human practices and the social reality are human practical material- semiotic activist pursuits ndash intentional actions at both collective and individual levels that change the world according to plans and goals embedded in social commitments underpinned by social imagination vision and activist striving Th erefore our knowledge too being embedded in and derivative of social practices (as is broadly acknowledged in critical scholarship) is at the same time and most critically premised on and constituted by activities not merely in the world ldquohere and nowrdquo in its status quo but at the intersection of the past present and future

Th is requires that we develop a ldquocompassrdquo about our location in the ongoing fl ow of transformative collaborative practices ndash where we are com-ing from where we are now and where we are going and want to be going next What is highlighted is the activist forward- looking stance and there-fore the horizon and the destination of onersquos pursuits as defi ning no less than the foundation for our being knowing and doing in the present To emphasize again this brings activism and with it the ethical- valuational and political power dimensions to the very center of all human endeavors including activities of theorizing and research

Imagining a diff erent world making a commitment to bringing it about and struggling for it amounts to creating the future in the pres-ent ndash affi rming the future- to- come and thus real izing it in the here and now Th is is the process of inventing the future rather than merely expecting or anticipating its ldquoautomaticrdquo arrival And because any move-ment beyond the given is taken to be no less and in fact more real than what is traditionally taken to be the ldquorealityrdquo of the world as it exists in



234

the present in its status quo and its seemingly unalterable forms reifi ed in the taken- for- granted structures and ldquofactsrdquo the process of inventing the future is brought to the fore

Th is is in line with insights sometimes characterized as utopian (cf Leonardo 2004 ) by many critical scholars for example with Freire insisting that

[i] magination and conjecture about a different world than the one of oppression are as necessary to the praxis of historical ldquosubjectsrdquo (agents) in the process of transforming reality as it necessarily belongs to human toil that the worker or artisan first have in his or her head a design a ldquoconjecturerdquo of what he or she is about to make ( 1994 p 30)

A continuation of Freirersquos pedagogy of hope (Freire 1994 see also Giroux 1983a 1994 ) can be found in works that speak of the ldquodialectic of freedomrdquo (Greene 1988 ) and ldquocurriculum for utopiardquo (Stanley 1992 ) and suggest that ldquohope is not a future projection of a utopic society but a constitutive part of everyday liferdquo (Leonardo 2004 p 16) In these various emphases ldquothe idea of utopia is integral to human and educational progress because it guides thought and action toward a condition that is better than current reality which is always a projectionrdquo (ibid)

Th e emphasis on social change and people transcending the status quo through their agentive contributions to social practices implies novelty and creativity as the core characteristics of being knowing and doing Importantly these characteristics can be seen not as some superadded power of consciousness Instead novelty and creativity along with imagi-nation and anticipation can be applied to describe the entirety of human acting ndash inclusive of being knowing and doing ndash as it necessarily projects into the future and through this realizes its freedom As Sartre described this point imagination ldquois the whole of consciousness as it realizes its free-domrdquo ( 1966 p 270) He further suggested a connection of imagination not only with freedom but also with the ability to overcome the status quo In his words ldquothat which is denied must be imaginedrdquo (ibid p 273) and the imaginary serves as a horizon toward which acting strives in its perpetual negation of the given Th is is consonant with Maxine Greenersquos ( 1995 ) insight that captures the nature of imagination

A space of freedom opens before the person moved to choose in the light of possibility she or he feels what it signifi es to be an initiator and an agent existing among others with the power to choose for herself or himself (p 22)



235

Greene ( 1997 ) further conveys the thoughts about the capacity of imagina-tion by Hannah Arendt and Adrienne Rich as

the capacity of human beings to reach beyond themselves to what they believe should be might be in some space they bring into being among and between themselves Th e two remind us (by speaking of an uncer-tain light and of something diff erent) of what it signifi es to imagine not what is necessarily probable or predictable but what may be conceived as possible Imagination aft er all allows people to think of things as if they could be otherwise it is the capacity that allows a looking through the windows of the actual towards alternative realities (pp 1ndash 2)

Th e most critical distinction off ered by the TAS in expanding on these views is that the future is understood not as something we can just prepare ourselves for in awaiting its somehow ldquoautomaticrdquo predestined arrival ndash as if what will happen in the future does not depend on what is being aspired and struggled for in the present Instead the future is understood to be cre-ated in social practices carried out in the present while being profoundly contingent on what is to come which is always already in the course of being formed albeit in incipient forms Th is future- to- come is based in the political imagination and vision of how the world should be including through social transformation that community members espouse and bring into reality through their collective and individual agency within the ever- shift ing zone of proximal development co- created together Th is position recognizes that not only ldquothe past is like a stream in which all of us in our distinctiveness and diversity participate every time we try to understandrdquo (Greene 1997 p 9) but also that the future is changed and created every time we envision it and act on this vision thus powering it into existence

Th e resulting conception is that human acts of being knowing and doing are never about getting ldquoneutralrdquo facts about how things are and never about just getting along with them ndash because things are constantly changing already by the mere act of our presence (especially because our presence is never ldquomererdquo) and even more so by our investigations our pos-ing questions about how things are and envisioning them being otherwise Th us the reality carried out through and in the form of active engagement with the world is infused with human subjectivity tailored to a future ndash with the goals hopes expectations beliefs and commitments Th at is because people always act in pursuit of their goals rather than mechanically react to the world as it ldquoimpingesrdquo on them as if they were passive recipients of external stimuli the production of knowledge is profoundly contingent on what individuals and communities consider should be while actively



236

realizing these commitments in the present Moreover because knowledge is seen as participating in the creation of the world and as one dimension within the ceaseless fl ow of social practices that constitute no less than real-ity itself producing knowledge too is an act of creating reality and inventing the future

It is widely acknowledged in critical scholarship that knowledge is con-textually and historically situated and that only by gaining insight into the kind of historically situated reality to which knowledge is tied can we raise questions about its relevance and validity (eg the point made in the historical ontology of Foucault) To this claim the more recent critical scholarship including feminist writings (eg Harding 1992 ) adds that it is important to include the perspective of the subjugated and their experi-ences of oppression into discussions of how knowledge is produced A fur-ther addition to these important directions is that claims to knowledge and its validity are contingent not only on presently existing conditions and their histories (hence the value of standpoint epistemology and historical ontology) Th ese claims are also and perhaps most critically contingent on the future- oriented projects that aim to overcome existing conditions and their injustices carry out changes in the present community practices and thus enact the future and realize it the present Th is actually makes knowledge from the marginalized perspectives supremely objective in the strongest sense of objectivity (as discussed in Chapter 11 )

What the TAS highlights is precisely how the future ndash embodied and enacted in people envisioning and committing to it ndash powerfully shapes our being knowing and doing in the present Th e central point is that these acts are guided by and intelligible in light of the destination we want to achieve and our commitment to achieving it while not ignoring how this can only be done from onersquos specifi c location and its history Th is requires both a thorough foregrounding of the historically formed locations from which being knowing and doing are launched and a consideration of how the sought- aft er future is playing out within these processes

Latourrsquos ( 1999 ) metaphor describing the process of knowing can be used to illustrate this point In his words ldquoto know is not simply to explore but rather is to be able to make your way back over your own footsteps follow-ing the path you have just marked outrdquo ( 1999 p 74) What the TAS high-lights in a critical expansion of this view is that while it is true that to know is to be able to make your way back over onersquos own footsteps these footsteps are never just onersquos own but instead are always merged with the footsteps of others and thus with communal history In addition and most critically



237

however to know is to make forays not only into the past but also into what is to come making onersquos way into the future in transitions between the past present and future (cf Soslashrensen 2012 ) Th e complex dialectic implied in this premise is that it is impossible to imagine a possible future unless we have located ourselves in our present moment and its history however the reverse is also true in that we cannot locate ourselves in the present and its history unless we imagine the future and commit to realizing it

Th e notions of vision and end point in line with the broad Marxist tradi-tion imply discriminating among several types of possible relations to the future within the broad set of anticipatory processes and phenomena (cf Miceli and Castelfranchi 2002 ) Th ese include phenomena of expectation forecast vision and hope among others Importantly in the context of TAS vision needs to be diff erentiated from fi rm forecast on one hand and from sheer hope on the other A forecast is a belief that a future event (at a personal or communal level) is ldquoprobablerdquo ndash and it is thus akin to a hypoth-esis or a sense and even a calculation about what is likely to happen in the future in the sense of exceeding the intuitive chance threshold (cf ibid) No personal preference interest concern or goal is necessarily involved in a forecast Forecasting the weather is a generic example of such a type of anticipation When the weather prognosis is made it is not related to any form of intentionality In contrast an expectation can be understood as an anticipated event that is both forecasted and desired Th at is an expectation is a forecast plus the wish or desire that certain event obtains (cf ibid)

As to hope it is typically understood to be independent from both an expectation and forecast because in its generic form hope does not appear to rely upon any calculation nor a sense of a probability that the desired events are likely to occur with a given degree of certainty Th is nuance might help to highlight how hope displays a paradoxical combination of strengths and weaknesses ndash a certain ldquolightnessrdquo in the sense of it not being moored to what is presently going on and hence its loose if any connection with obli-gations to undertake actions in a pursuit of hope Th is ldquolightnessrdquo of hope might explain what makes it so enduring ndash when people persist in hoping for some events in the future no matter the reality of the present including its odds and obstacles and most critically with no obligation to do much to achieve what one hopes for

A vision however is diff erent from all other types of anticipations In the use endorsed herein a vision is like a hope in that it too is not based in a calculation of probability and not directly moored to present circum-stances yet vision is much more ldquoburdenedrdquo than hope in that it includes



238

a commitment to working toward reaching certain ends irrespective of whether these ends appear as either likely or easy to obtain In this sense vision does imply a sense of obligation or better a determination and even perhaps a compulsion to act in its pursuit as captured in the related notion of commitment

Th ese conceptual distinctions are not meant to be absolute or fi xed nor do they imply a reliance on some ldquoobjectiverdquo phenomena separated from each other and independent from the descriptions and practices by which they are produced Instead these distinctions are meant to highlight through conceptual contrasts useful within the present discussion what the intended connotations of the concepts of vision commitment and end point are To illustrate a dream such as the one epitomized in Martin Luther King Jrrsquos famous speech can stand for a vision of change a commit-ment to bringing it to life and a hope that it comes to realization thus defy-ing strict boundaries among these notions and phenomena Th is reminds of Marcusersquos ( 1972 ) imperative ndash that ldquo[t] he dream must become a force of changing rather than dreaming the human condition It must become a political forcerdquo (p 102)

Th e notion of activist stance bears some similarity yet is not identical with the notion of prolepsis as a ldquoubiquitous feature of culturally medi-ated thoughtrdquo that draws attention to ldquothe representation of a future act or development as being presently existingrdquo (Cole 1996 p 183) What the TAS accentuates is that rather than focusing on the representation of the future as being presently existing (a concept that does not fully avoid traditional mentalist connotations) human acting is contingent on individuals com-mitting to a certain version of the future and most importantly as ldquoalways alreadyrdquo gradually creating this future through their activist being know-ing and doing in the present Th is allows for a more direct linkage of acting in the present to how individuals enact the world they seek and what they take as an ldquooughtrdquo for the projected futures of community practices and their own lives ndash thus breaking the absolute barrier between the present and the future and highlighting the making of the future in and through the presently ongoing activities and actions

Th at is prolepsis is akin to an expectation that a certain future is impend-ing or likely and thus similar to Bakhtinrsquos notion of addressivity ndash acting with an expectation of a response to onersquos utterance in Bakhtinrsquos works (eg 1990 ) or to onersquos action as is implicated by a broader notion of prolepsis In these approaches the future response although only anticipated mediates the production of the utterances and actions already in the present Th e dif-ference however is that whereas both prolepsis and addressivity are based



239

in the notion that the future is imagined and anticipated while the person is acting as if this future already obtains the TAS notion of human deeds predicated on a commitment to the future ndash as something that one believes ought to be ndash is more agentive and purposive

What the notion of commitment suggests is that a person not so much expects or anticipates the future but rather actively works to bring this future into reality through onersquos own deeds and oft en against the odds that is even if a particular version of what is to come in the future is not antici-pated as likely and instead requires struggle and active striving to achieve it Th is applies in cases when a person struggles for onersquos vision of ldquowhat ought to berdquo in spite of the powerful forces that might be pulling in other directions In this sense the notion of commitment central to the TAS is closer to Nikolai N Bernsteinrsquos (eg 1966 ) notion of ldquothe requisite futurerdquo or ldquothe sought - aft er futurerdquo (the latter I suggest is an accurate translation of the original term potrebnoe budushee ndash [Russian]) rather than to the notions of prolepsis and addressivity

Bernstein (see also related works by P K Anokhin eg 1974 ) posited that individuals base their activity not only in responses to what exists in ldquothe here and nowrdquo but also on what one is anticipating and forecasting will and also projecting what should exist in the future In Bernsteinrsquos ( 1966 ) words

We have by all accounts two connected processes One of them is prob-abilistic forecasting in accordance with the perceived current situation [akin to prolepsis] hellip Alongside this probabilistic extrapolation of the course of surrounding events hellip there is the process of programming of the act that must lead to the realization of the sought- aft er [or needed requisite] future (p 438 emphases added)

Th e latter process of seeking the future and acting based on what one believes should be and what one is seeking can be understood as a con-tinuing struggle to attain change in carrying out goal- directed activities Extending this notion to capture what is unique about humans acting as social actors of community practices as ldquocollectividualsrdquo (rather than what is characteristics of all living organisms as in Bernstein and Anokhinrsquos works) the following specifi cation can be made Th e ldquosought- aft er futurerdquo is the taking up of what one aspires to achieve in the present through acting on the premise of what ought to be created ndash enacted and invented in the present as a realization of the future to come In this emphasis the notion of a commitment to the future accentuates not so much that the future is brought into the present through imagination or



240

representation as in prolepsis but that the future is created and invented in the present

Th e key distinction is precisely between an expectation that something will happen or is likely to happen in the future while preparing oneself for it or acting as if it already exists versus a commitment to the future that a person seeks and believes ldquooughtrdquo to come and thus that she strives to carry out in the present in eff orts to bring this future into reality now thus actively inventing the future ndash rather than merely preparing oneself for it Th is conceptualization is derived from and itself supports the over-all message about development (and teaching- learning too as discussed in Chapter 11 ) as an activist project of historical becoming at the intersection of individual and collective processes in the zone of proximal development understood as that which is being created now in the form of a realization of the future in the present

As is oft en the case it is the poets and novelists who grasp the notions with unusual and as yet not well- established connotations To illustrate the point discussed herein consider how Rainer- Maria Rilke described the future

[T] the future enters us hellip in order to be transformed in us long before it happens hellip [N]othing alien happens to us but only what has long been our own People have already had to rethink so many concepts of motion and they will also gradually come to realize that what we call fate does not come into us from the outside but emerges from us hellip Just as people for a long time had a wrong idea about the sunrsquos motion they are even now wrong about the motion of what is to come Th e future stands still hellip but we move in infi nite space ( 1904 emphasis added)

Focusing on end points and visions for the future as formative of being knowing and doing in the present is not the same as implying that this acting is rigidly and unequivocally defi ned by a preconceived destina-tion Instead there is great value in recognizing as was Bakhtinrsquos idea that human acting is always about an ldquoopen striving in a world of uncertainty and diff erencerdquo (Morson 2004 p 331) Yet the vision of what one believes ought to be no matter what the outcomes might and actually will turn out to be plays an indispensable role in such an open ndash yet not directionless ndash striving Th at is this position in no way negates that intended results of our acting are not always achieved that these results oft en go astray and do not comply with our expectations and predictions and that events can and indeed run in improbable unexpected directions every step of the way Yet even in this fl exibility of end points and goals as ever- shift ing and changing



241

the need to unfl inchingly commit to a destination is not cancelled though it is tempered by the sense of fallibility readiness for dialogues and open-ness to negotiation

Another important distinction is that visions are not like ready- made packages or preformulated values that individuals can simply take on from others or that could be imposed on them top- down from ldquooutsiderdquo In a strong refutation of a paternalistic attitude that could reinforce social hier-archies and reproduce dominant hegemonic agendas the starting point is in acknowledging that people have to develop their own sets of values aims and visions Th at is importantly the end points cannot be imposed from above they have to be worked out as fl exible and shift ing lines of possibili-ties of onersquos own acting and becoming through critical explorations into the presently existing confl icts and contradictions and their histories

Th e centrality of activism and end points in development and teaching- learning does not imply that these processes are either fi xed or static On the contrary developing and adopting end points is a process that is always shift ing and changing because it is embedded in and constituted by the constantly changing and dynamic fl ux of collaborative practices Th at is commitments stands and agendas are always in the process of coming about requiring continuous renewal and contestation in dialogues and relationships with others and while facing up to the newly emerging chal-lenges contradictions and problems that arise every step of the way Th ere is no built- in infl exible linear directionality closure or fi nalism in this process End points are more like shift ing horizons that are changing with the ongoing movements and dynamics of activity in the present ndash just like the real horizon shift s with every step on the way toward it existing in the balance of pursuing far- off goals while making more immediate decisions as to which step to take next right here and right now Th at is though the far- off horizon is changing depending on the immediate moment- to- moment steps and movements that are taken in the present an overall ori-entation or a direction is indispensable in making each and every step each and every decision possible and meaningful

What is implied in the notions of visions and end points then is that there is a dialectical relation between immediate decisions in the present and the striving for the broader goals Th e latter even when they appear to be impossible to reach nonetheless represent a much- needed critical anchoring for our being knowing and doing as these processes are already projecting and stretching into the future Th is corresponds to what many scholars have expressed in various ways in the past For example Marx wrote that the future is not ldquoan ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust



242

itself rdquo instead it is ldquothe real movement which abolishes the present state of thingsrdquo (Marx and Engels 1845ndash 46 1978 p 162)

In a certain sense then end point is not about an ldquoabsolute endrdquo as a fi nal fi nite and preprogrammed destination It is a kind of a fl uid imagina-tion and projecting ndash and of thinking if the latter is understood in its origi-nal Greek connotation of stochasmos which stands for an activity of aiming for a target or stochos (see Richardson 2007 p xiv) Th ese acts of imagina-tion and projecting never fi nd themselves at the end and instead are fl ex-ible and malleable combining a sense of commitment (which is taken as its crucial dimension) with hope promise expectation and desire Forming a vision is also inherently connected to a critical perspective because it always is an indirect questioning of the already existing (cf Johansson 2013 ) Recognizing the possibility and necessity of an overarching direction and end point is not as many sociocultural and postmodernist scholars claim authoritarian On the contrary if understood non- dogmatically it is a necessary condition for critique and social action ndash as the overall frame that provides grounds for the eff ective criticism of the present and its status quo and dogmas Such a non- dogmatic interpretation draws on the politi-cal sense that Derrida ( 1994 ) conveyed in writing that

not only must one not renounce the emancipatory desire it is necessary to insist on it more than ever it seems and insist on it moreover as the very indeconstructibility of the ldquoit is necessaryrdquo Th is is the condition of a re- politicization perhaps of another concept of the political (p 75)

Th is position can be interpreted to suggest that the development of norms and goals fundamentally relies on the critical analysis of existing contro-versies and confl icts while also being tied up with the striving at under-standing how to resolve them through struggles against injustices and distortions Such norms and goals or end points are therefore inextricably related to the ongoing struggle for freedom and social justice serving in the fi rst place to express the direction for such a struggle ndash its ldquocredordquo as it were Th us forming end points and commitments serves as a negative critique of the present that exposes its fault lines yet also charts direction in which we need to move in order to repair these fault lines and overcome limitations imposed by them Th is is in contrast to the types of critique that also strive to expose the confl icts and conundrums in the present yet do not off er alternatives for the future thus lacking a political cutting edge

Making a commitment to a just society is inevitable if the ongoing con-fl icts are revealed for what they are ndash leading ever more rapidly to the destruction of communities and nature and therefore as already implying



243

the need to resolve them and also as already developing means for com-bating them from within these confl ictsrsquo own present dynamics Th e act of making such commitments imperative as it is given that there is no alter-native to developing a just and socially equitable society as the only soci-ety that would be capable of stopping self- and world- destruction is what produces the sense of inevitability Commitments to end points therefore are inescapable and immanent in the dynamics of the present even though they are always subject to revisions as the struggle unfolds Such commit-ments then are like ldquoan unending adventure at the edge of uncertaintyrdquo (Bronowski 1976 p iv) as actually all human endeavors are

Th eorizing the notion of commitment as part of the process of social critique and as an expression of struggle for transformative change expands upon and clarifi es the meaning of inevitability (necessity) in the Marxist tradition ndash while also amending some of its connotations Indeed the point is not that social change is predetermined as nothing is nor can be fully predetermined in advance It is that the present confl icts require and call for in historically concrete ways our activist commitments Th ese com-mitments even if the visions they are anchored in might seem impossible given the uncertainties and contingencies of history are nonetheless indis-pensable for any movement forward Th is movement given its fl uidity and situatedness will inevitably bring about in its own unfolding logic new conditions and therefore continuously will call upon updates and amend-ments along the way

Th erefore this position does not claim either knowledge about a some-how unavoidable future course of history in its presumably essential deter-minations or some privileged insight into the future in the form of a utopia that is fi xed a priori and laid up in advance by some messianic forces In so doing this position refutes the notion of the ldquoend of historyrdquo ndash that his-tory has achieved or will achieve sometime in the future its logical ending in the form of an ideal society that can be fully predicted in the present In this sense this position does not support the illusion that history and society are moving in a steadily progressive direction either Yet some form of an end point akin to but not identical with the notion of utopia ndash as a sought- aft er future ndash needs to be posited as a shift ing horizon against which the present events and phenomena are judged evaluated and most criti-cally grappled with ndash all in light of a visions of and under a commitment to transcending the status quo and its present conundrums and confl icts Moreover that a commitment to such end points and ideals is a necessity for human meaningful (and therefore also ethical) acting can be seen as a hallmark of Marxist and other forms of activist research ndash a watershed



244

criterion that delineates these works from the postmodern currents that abandon ethico- political praxis as part of their theorizing and lack commit-ment to collective action with clear agendas that could foment large- scale progressive social change

Th is approach draws attention to the need to navigate the diffi cult conundrum that change always requires solidarity and some sort of pro-visional consensus regarding goals means and tactics on one hand and that purposive collectivities must be understood as temporary coalitions voluntarily and democratically constituted on the other In such a ldquodialectic without synthesisrdquo (to borrow from Merleau- Ponty) any emancipatory and social justice project cannot claim to be fi nite (as it would be in the spirit of ldquothe end of historyrdquo metaphor) but will only result in unstable open- ended social institutions and practices always amenable to further change As Merleau- Ponty puts it ldquowhether it bears the name of Hegel or Marx a philosophy which renounces the absolute Spirit as historyrsquos motive force which makes history walk on its own feet and which admits no other reason in things than that revealed by their meeting and interaction could not hellip postulate a fi nal synthesis resolving all contradictions or affi rm its inevi-table realizationrdquo ( 1964 p 81 emphasis added)

Other authors in the Marxist tradition such as Žižek have suggested that radical change is inevitable while rejecting the end- of- history meta-phor Yet Žižekrsquos position seems to indicate that a radical change is possible and inevitable mostly and primarily because it had happened before and thus can be expected to happen again What Žižek suggests is that change is what happens rather than what people accomplish and the political strat-egy he suggests is to wait for the arrival of the event act because the subject capable of realizing revolutionary changes only comes about as the eff ect of such changes that is essentially ldquoaft er the factrdquo (see Johnston 2010 )

Th e alternative is in committing to the future even if this entails affi rm-ing what might appear at the moment to be impossible with the full real-ization that these commitments need to be and in actuality will be revised along the way Th is is what perhaps can be expressed as a ldquononalibirdquo in being (to use Bakhtinrsquos term) ndash hereby interpreted as an impossibility of being neutral or uncertain and of the need to take a position even in the face of uncertainty and unpredictability when failure to arrive at a destination is perhaps almost guaranteed A ldquononalibirdquo is about being implicated in what is going on ndash as an open human striving and vulnerability in the face of not knowing what is to come Th is position is in sync with Patti Latherrsquos ( 2003 p 262) call for a praxis ldquoaft er the lsquotrial of undecidabilityrsquo a praxis of apo-ria lsquoas tentative contextual appropriative interventionist and unfi nished



245

eff ort to shift the terrainrsquo rdquo (quoting Rooney 1995 p 195) In Latherrsquos words ldquoTh e goal is to shape our practice to a future that must remain to come in excess of our codes but still always already forces already active in the presentrdquo (Lather 2003 p 262) Lather (ibid) goes on to say that

[p] erhaps a transvaluation of praxis means to fi nd ways to participate in the struggle of these forces as we move toward a future which is unfore-seeable from the perspective of what is given or even conceivable within our present conceptual frameworks

Th is position is shared from the perspective of the TAS however what it attempts to emphasize even more is the urgency of committing to inventing the future within the present ndash not based on a premise that there can be some mystical insight as in ldquopeering into the futurerdquo but rather based in a strug-gle for what one deems ought to be Th is centrally includes critical exami-nation and interrogation of the present and the past while understanding that the ldquooughtrdquo that we take on and realize ourselves is already shaping the future while also changing based on the dynamics of the present and its examinations and interrogations by us Alasdair MacIntyre ( 1983 ) describes this process as a quest that is ldquonot at all hellip a search for something already adequately characterized hellip but always an education both as to the charac-ter of that which is soughtrdquo (p 219) Yet the certainty is in the urgency to take the stand no matter what ndash as Apple has put it ldquoone has no choice but to be committedrdquo (1979 p 166) In the words of Molefi Kete Asante ( 2015 ) ldquoone must claim space or take space intellectually or physically in any situ-ation however diffi cult and dire it may seemrdquo while always ldquobeing on the side of fi ghting for transformation in the societyrdquo on the side of those who are most subjected to injustices and exploitation

Th e danger is not in taking a stance and making a commitment because these acts constitute the core human condition and cannot be avoided To demand otherwise that is that people relate to the world act learn and form knowledge in neutral and ldquoobjectiverdquo ways while in essence forget-ting themselves is actually akin to an expectation that we stop being human and instead act as computers ndash dispassionately neutrally impartially and care lessly Th e danger is in understanding stances and commitments to be fi nite immutable infallible and not subject to negotiation Th e danger is in neglecting the need for constant exploration of movements and processes that are ceaselessly unfolding and changing with each action we take and each question we ask and for continued interrogation and self- critique including through open- ended dialogues with others who have diff erent visions and commitments Th at is the danger is in elevating onersquos own



246

agenda as a rigidly preestablished dogma not amenable to change instead of exposing and critically interrogating it including in self- critique all while probing emerging realities and confl icts and negotiating points of agree-ments and disagreements with others

However a diffi cult dilemma that comes with theorizing activist stance and with making an activist commitment to ideas and visions is that all human actions including their most dogmatic and conservative forms are in a sense also future- oriented Th ey too imply visions and commitments that they struggle for albeit oft en in the form of preserving the status quo Indeed it takes much eff ort to preserve a status quo and the actions that support and upheld it in line with conservative agendas are too activist in a negative sense Th e strength of a commitment and readiness to struggle for it do not suffi ce to justify the end points of this struggle Albert Camus ( 2013 ) clearly evokes this dilemma when he writes

Although it is historically true that values such as the nation and human-ity cannot survive unless one fi ghts for them fi ghting alone cannot jus-tify them (nor can force) Th e fi ght must itself be justifi ed and explained in terms of values One must fi ght for onersquos truth while making sure not to kill that truth with the very arms employed to defend it (p 32 emphasis added)

To emphasize again this makes it imperative to cultivate a persistent criti-cal exploration into the ongoing problems in their leading contradictions and confl icts in order to know how to address and resolve them in line with Freirersquos notion that ldquo[w] hen people lack a critical understanding of their reality apprehending it in fragments which they do not perceive as interact-ing constituent elements of the whole they cannot truly know the realityrdquo (Freire 1970 p 104)

Th is exploration has to be carried out from a position of caring about what is going on in the world especially in terms of the hidden confl icts and contradictions that are only exposed by those who are on the margins of society As Kwame A Appiah states ( 2015 ) ldquoOne thing that I think is absolutely true in Du Boisrsquos remark is the recognition that the oppressed oft en have a deeper understanding of the lives of oppressors than vice versa because they have to make sense of the powerful to surviverdquo I think one could add that the oppressed have a deeper understanding not only of the lives of oppressors and not only because they have to make sense of the powerful to survive Th e oppressed have fi rsthand knowledge and therefore a deeper understanding of the true confl icts contradictions and injustices in our societies that are hidden from those who are privileged



247

because the latter are complicit in the embedded hierarchies of power It is the oppressed who struggle with injustices and face the most brutal contra-dictions in thus enacting the core struggles and dimensions of the world and therefore knowing it better It is the oppressed who ldquohave accessrdquo to what the presently forming fractures and fault lines in society are including its leading confl icts and contradictions while the privileged overlook misdi-agnose and underestimate them Th ese fractures and fault lines are enacted by and cut through the lives of the oppressed on the societyrsquos forgotten and ignored fringes and sidelines ndash conveniently ignored by the powerful elites and those who affi liate with them Yet these fractures and fault lines are already shaping the present in the most powerful ways imaginable (and beyond imagination) ndash indicating what the impending changes and thus also what the future and therefore also the reality itself actually are

Agency as an ldquoAchievementrdquo of Unique Individuality through Togetherness

Human beings are not just situated in the world ndash rather they actively par-ticipate in and contribute to its co- construction and circulation of power while coming into being ontologically exactly through and by these pro-cesses of agentive contribution Th erefore individuals are not predeter-mined in any of their features abilities or characteristics instead their coming into being is constituted by the social dynamics of their own eff orts to contribute to social practice and its movements forward in defying the preestablished categories and deconstructing the taken- for- granted rules and modes of operating while making the familiar seem strange ndash and not as some kind of an intellectual exercise but as a means to open up possibili-ties for new social arrangements and ways of life Th is highlights the co- constitutive and co- evolving enmeshed dynamics of identity development and of the production of power in social interactions

Individuals are co- emergent with social practices of communities and of their historical dynamics whereby each person is interdependent with others rather than separated autonomous and isolated Every per-son is profoundly relying on others and on society at large for onersquos very existence and development including onersquos agency When the notions of individuality and personhood are evoked in this approach this does not imply the conventional meaning of asocial singular autonomous persons for whom acting within and contributing to social practices and relat-ing to other individuals is somehow additional to their being knowing and doing



248

Th e agency of human subjects qua social actors of community practicesrsquo transformations is central to this account of activism and social change and to the attendant transformative worldview However the critical point from the position of the TAS is that agency cannot be taken for granted as some metaphysical property that somehow inherently ldquobelongsrdquo to an individual Instead agency and the capacity to be social actor have to develop (and be developed) within a solidaristic community and with the help of cultural mediations and tools of its social practices Th ese collective cultural prac-tices and their mediations are not inherently constraining and hegemonic but have both an oppressive and a liberational power the latter consisting in these practicesrsquo potential to open up ways for human agency to be devel-oped Agency in this sense is not a preexisting entity or trait it is continu-ally co- constructed (or debilitated) and realized as a qualitative function and an emergent property of collaborative social practices and activities

Seyla Benhabib ( 2001 ) wrote that ldquo[a] s opposed to the postmodernist vision of the fragmentary subject hellip the human subject is a fragile needy and dependent creature whose capacity to develop a coherent life- story out of the competing claims upon its identity must be cherished and protectedrdquo (p 37) What needs to be added to this important insight is that this capac-ity to develop a coherent life story depends upon a more primary capacity to have onersquos own unique position stance and voice onersquos authentic indi-viduality and agency Moreover and most critically this capacity to have a unique stance and authentic voice must be not only protected and cher-ished (though this is of utmost importance) Because it cannot be taken for granted as if it could develop and come about automatically on its own this capacity has to be formed within the nexus of collaborative social practices out of these practicesrsquo fabric and while relying on their tools within soli-daristic communities and social interactions

What transpires in this description is what can be termed a fundamental paradox of identity ndash that the individuals who can realize social practices in co- authoring while also necessarily transcending them have themselves to be shaped by these very practices that is have to arise from ndash and together with ndash these practices Th e ways to acknowledge and move past this para-dox is to conceive of human beings as truly agentive actors of social prac-tices who are ldquoalways alreadyrdquo in the process of authoring these practices (at fi rst in nascent forms of an action potential) always in the process of becoming As Benhabib ( 1999 p 230) writes ldquofurthering onersquos capacity for autonomous agency is only possible within a solidaristic communityrdquo and it could be added the one that provides the tools and spaces to form and sustain identity ndash and not only through listening to one and allowing one



249

to listen to others but through providing spaces where individuals can act freely and in solidarity with each other in co- authoring community prac-tices and contributing to their ceaseless transformations

Th is position elevates the importance of education of teaching and learning as one of the spaces and pathways for individuals to acquire the cultural tools that allow for their participation in and contribution to social practices and thus the pathway to becoming individually unique actors of communities with inalienable agency and rights In this view education is not about transmitting and acquiring knowledge for the sake of know-ing but a project of providing conditions and tools for persons to become agentive actors and co- creators of society culture and history Th is posi-tion goes together with many ideas articulated in critical pedagogy What is added is that the project of education is about providing the tools for agency and activism ndash the tools for students to develop their own activist pursuits premised on stances and end points vis- agrave- vis a sought- aft er future that they learn to envision and commit to Th is will be the topic in Chapter 11 of this book

Addressing the Risks of ldquoAnthropocentricrdquo Positions and

ldquoTeleologyrdquo

Th e conceptual position of the TAS is formulated with the full awareness of the dangers and pitfalls associated with focusing on material collaborative practices and thus on the role of humanity in the world as having the key ontological signifi cance Traditional approaches that have operated with such anthropocentric notions across the project of modernity and into the present are closely tied up with the western hubris in its generic combina-tion of in the words of Ethel Tobach ( 1972 ) ldquothe four horsemen of racism sexism militarism and social Darwinismrdquo (p 3) Th ere is understandable resistance to possible dangers of dogmatism ideology of control and per-nicious instrumentalism that can be and de facto oft en are associated with positions fashioned on anthropocentric notions

Th ese dogmatic positions have portrayed nature to ldquobe the inert ground for the exploits of Man [ sic ]rdquo (Alaimo and Hekman 2008 p 4) in the unabashedly racist and sexist traditions (with their tarnished political underbelly oft en conveniently ignored in contemporary works) ndash as gen-erations of critical and feminist scholars have demonstrated Th e prevailing powers practices and interests of western cultures have determined and in eff ect appropriated even colonized the meanings and implications of



250

positions that take human agency as central just as they also have appro-priated the values of reason and the logic of progress (cf Plumwood 1993 ) However as Plumwood suggests ldquoto reject this classical structure of reason does not imply the rejection of all attempts to structure or systematize rea-son but rather the rejection of those which promote dualistic accounts of othernessrdquo (ibid p 42) In a similar vein to reject the traditional notions of anthropocentrism does not imply the need to reject the goal of working out the notion of social practice inclusive of human subjectivity agency and mind in its world- forming status without connotations of control hierar-chy dominance and otherness

Th e need to grasp ethical issues that are not fully accounted for in social practice and actor- network theories agential realism and other relational and posthumanist approaches is presently pressing more than ever before ndash in light of the growing power of those frameworks that are tailored to the ethics of social Darwinism biological reductionism and attendant market ideology Th is challenge is especially urgent if psychology and other social sciences are to develop perspectives that not only describe reality but also help develop the guides for progressive action Th is position is shared with Isabelle Stengers ( 2007 ) who suggests that ldquoactively eliminating every-thing about lsquousrsquo that cannot be aligned with [posthumanist] conception of what matter is all aboutrdquo (p 7) separates materialism from its relations with struggle and thus puts it in danger of losing its meaning In Stengerrsquos words ldquothe demands of materialism cannot be identifi ed in terms of knowl-edge alone scientifi c or other Rather just like the Marxist concept of class materialism loses its meaning when it is separated from its relations with strugglerdquo (ibid)

In another strand of critique Marx and by implication Vygotsky have oft en been accused of positing a rigid telos that history (and human development) must presumably somehow arrive at on iron rails Indeed Marx can be read as suggesting that the demise of capitalism is unavoid-able and inevitable Yet his position is much more nuanced especially given that Marx defi ned his approach in opposition to utopian thinkers and their fantasy predictions of the future in the form of predetermined ends and predefi ned blueprints Th e Marxist position on this matter can be expansively interpreted as implying a non- traditional sense of inevi-tability wherein what is inevitable is neither some inherently predeter-mined course of history nor its somehow predestined outcome Instead the non- traditional sense of inevitability has to do with the unavoidabil-ity of taking a stance on and of committing to one or the other direction of onersquos own and broader societal developments Th at is inevitability has



251

to do with the unavoidable need to commit to one or the other goal or vision and end point not as a dogma but as a contingent horizon that grasps present injustices and social confl icts in striving to overcome them As Marx ( 1844 1978b) stated

I am hellip not in favor of setting up any dogmatic fl ag hellipTh e critic can hellip start out by taking any form of theoretical and practical consciousness and develop from the unique forms of existing reality the true reality as its norm and fi nal goal hellip [W] e shall confront the world not as doctri-naires with a new principle ldquoHere is the truth bow down before itrdquo We develop new principles to the world out of its own principles We do not say to the world ldquoStop fi ghting your struggle is of no account We want to shout the true slogan of the struggle at yourdquo We only show the world what it is fi ghting for and consciousness is something that the world must acquire like it or not (pp 13ndash 15)

Attempts to account for an undoubtedly growing power of human civiliza-tion to shape the world ndash and now also to destroy it ndash can be made while rejecting implications that promote divisive patriarchical dualistic hege-monic and mechanistic accounts Th e ghosts of the dogmatic past ndash and their aggressive resurrections today ndash need not make it impossible to reclaim these notions within a radically diff erent onto- epistemology of reality (mat-ter) as a dynamic continuous open- ended and ever- shift ing process while taking human collective and individual agency premised on solidarity and equality fully into account Th e political challenges and crisis in social sci-ences and society at large make it imperative to reappropriate reconstrue and reconfi gure ldquoanthropocentricrdquo notions while resisting temptations to eliminate them in order ldquoto ward off rdquo instrumentalism and authoritarian-ism To paraphrase Lather ( 2012a 2012b ) this is an eff ort to harness the powers of agency without (and against) the subsequent controlling forces of modernity that work to limit reasoning by connecting it to a number of restricting modern ldquoinventionsrdquo including the rule of private property the ldquonaturalnessrdquo of the nation- state and ndash as can be added from the Vygotskian perspective ndash the notion of a presumed natural predetermined and inert hierarchy of individual abilities and associated unequal social standing

ldquoEncounteringrdquo versus Experiencing the World

Th e point that the transformative onto- epistemology brings across is that development is not a process that somehow happens to people so that they



252

merely can and sometimes do transform conditions of their existence ndash through ostensibly supplementary eff orts at changing their surrounds and themselves in addition to their overall (somehow presumably exter-nally driven) existence Instead human development from this perspec-tive can be conceptualized as a sociohistorical project and a collaborative accomplishment ndash that is a continuously evolving ldquowork- in- progressrdquo an ongoing collaborative eff ort at historical becoming by people as active agents (or agentive actors) who together change their world and in and through this process come to be and to know this world and themselves In this perspective our engagement in realizing the world and inventing the future through co- authoring community practices and contributing to their ceaseless transformations is at one and the same time also the process of our own becoming that encompasses the processes of being knowing and doing

Th ese creative eff orts and acts (as all human acts essentially are) do not just take place in the world as the notions of situated and embedded cognition and the metaphor of ldquobeing thererdquo suggest rather these creative human acts of being knowing and doing bring forth the world and the reality essentially co- constituting the world as a collective forum of human deeds a drama played out in and through individually unique contribu-tions to collaborative practices in their continuous collective historicity

Th is approach implicates a radical shift away from seeing human devel-opment and the mind as processes of solo individuals developing in a social vacuum and outside of the world separately from other people and com-munities that is as entities that are antecedent to constitutive communal practices Yet the role of individual human beings is ascertained as central to their own and their communitiesrsquo development and ultimately to the historical process of realizing the world Th e Marxist conjecture that ldquomen make their own history but not of their own free will not under circum-stances they themselves have chosen but under the given and inherited circumstances with which they are directly confrontedrdquo (Marx 1852 1978 p 595) has been typically taken in support of the notion that people do not make history whichever way they please Th is is an important implication at stake in this quotation However another meaning that is more affi rma-tive of human agency is equally if not more important ndash namely that peo-ple do make their own history In addition in strengthening the ontological argument implied by this premise it can be suggested that people act and create history not so much under the given and inherited circumstances (as Marx can be interpreted) but more importantly they do so in the process



253

of actively grappling with struggling against and generally striving to overcome these circumstances while inevitably changing them in moving beyond the status quo

Th at is while acting is always taking place under the given conditions within the present its dynamics can neither be explained nor reduced to the eff ects of these conditions as if they were some outside forces acting on pas-sive individuals subjected to extraneous eff ects of the world Instead these conditions are changed and transformed along the way in the acts of our being knowing and doing in their continuous unfolding because these acts are contributing to and co- emerging with the ongoing social practices Th e given conditions are never just ldquogivenrdquo ndash they are not just simply ldquoout thererdquo as if presented to us in a ready- made form to be experienced understood mirrored copied and ultimately reacted and adapted to Instead these con-ditions are met by people halfway (to borrow this expression though not the full viewpoint from Barad 2007 ) in an active work that meeting the world and coming together with it requires

Such meeting halfway or better such creative en counter with the world is an active work and eff ort at becoming a coming face- to- face also with ourselves because we are simultaneously co- created in and through such encounters Note that the key emphasis is on active work because meeting the world and becoming a partner in such a meeting requires more than passively ldquobeing thererdquo as if merely waiting for the meeting to happen in order for the other (the world) to encounter us Instead meeting with the world requires that we actively relate to participate in dialogue with and ultimately do the work or the labor of carrying out our encounters with the world Th is process is about facing the world even con fronting it in what is an active and passionate striving in the face of challenges and dilemmas

Th e active nature of such bidirectional (and multidirectional) encoun-ters entails that we simultaneously greet and are greeted by the world appraise it and get appraised by it deal with and are dealt with by it ndash wherein therefore both poles on this transitional continuum are continu-ously and constantly mutually reconstrued refashioned and recalibrated Th is process also involves as the other facet of the same continuous co- creation and active production of the world the work of active co- creation and production of our own contingent and continuous subjectivities ndash our minds selves identities knowledges beliefs biases and so on Th is cen-trally involves forming values- based passionate and even partisan ethical stands and stances that ground human active pursuits in the world includ-ing toward others as actors in the same collective process or drama of



254

communal life and collective history In Bakhtinrsquos approach ldquoevery utter-ance is like an eff ort toward solving the impasse in one way or another favoring in diff erent possible ways one interest or anotherrdquo (Larrain and Hayes 2012 p 599) Th is notion can be expanded beyond the bounds of discourse to suggest that every human act even a seemingly neutral and mundane one such as an act of perceiving or remembering is part of our overall uninterrupted striving our eff orts at achieving broader goals of becoming ndash through bringing about changes in a world shared with oth-ers ndash while addressing and solving inevitable impasses and conundrums that we experience at every step of the way

Th e emphasis on en counter and con frontation suggests that this is not an ethically neutral meeting nor an unproblematic interpellation of agency and structure Th e transformative onto- epistemology of encountering the world in the process of activist striving dialectically supplants the relational onto- epistemology and agential realism (Barad 2007 ) with the notion that collaborative purposeful and activist transformation of the world steered in certain direction aligned with imagined horizons of a sought- aft er future or end points is the core unifi ed realm of development that is subjective and objective at the same time indeed s objective (see Chapter 6 )

Th e notion of encountering the world as an active and passionate striv-ing in the face of uncertainty and challenges and therefore as a process full of drama collision and challenges is not meant to convey that this pro-cess is always somehow antagonistic or openly confrontational although it more than oft en is Indeed very little in our encounters with the world is unproblematic and uncontested which is especially true for those on the margins of society It is no accident that for example Foucault did not shy away from using the metaphor of history as war when he wrote that ldquo[t] he history which determines us has the form of a war rather than that of language relations of power not relations of meaningrdquo ( 1980 p 114) A similar sentiment is expressed by Marshall Berman ( 1983 ) in his poignant description of modern life ldquoas a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal of struggle and contradiction of ambiguity and anguish hellip a uni-verse in which as Marx said lsquoall that is solid melts into airrsquo rdquo (p 15 note that this quote is actually from Marx and Engels 1848 1978 p 476)

Yet another broad connotation of development as an activist striving is that it is about an inevitably non- neutral passionate partial partisan and thus de facto creative and authorial character of this process Th is puts emphasis on the ubiquity and the everlasting presence of challenges and dilemmas conundrums and confl icts ndash including especially those



255

associated with power diff erentials ndash that persons inevitably need to deal with and actively address in their own unique ways rather than merely experience and apprehend or passively undergo Th is is in contrast to tra-ditional psychologyrsquos premise that people act because they are impinged by stimuli from the ldquooutsiderdquo world and thereby are prodded to act in response to these infl uences At the same time the reverse is again perhaps true ndash that we as human beings present a challenge to the universe as in humanly caused geopolitical catastrophes to which the world reacts back

Th ese descriptions account for the confl uence of a mutually co- defi ned fl ow of our collective acting and becoming in the world on one hand and of the world acting on and reacting to our presence on the other Th is is ldquoa continuous circuitrdquo or circulation and iteration of cycles encompassing processes of ldquobeing- knowing- doingrdquo on one hand and of the world coming into being as a facet of the same process on the other In this exposition practical activity (social practice) at the core of human existence cannot be separated from human relationships because they are coextensive belong-ing together and sustaining co- defi ning each other

Th is view immediately presupposes that any contact with the world any encounter with it has a form not of a neutral relationality and rationality but of active striving and struggle Th at is these encounters and confron-tations are only possible based in people playing partial (even ldquopartisanrdquo) roles and occupying non- neutral positions directly implicating issues of power and social antagonism but also and equally importantly issues of belonging and care In this sense reality is not ldquogivenrdquo ndash rather it is taken by persons as social actors that is as community members who are simul-taneously creating themselves and the world ndash always in collaboration with others and with the tools that communities provide Or perhaps more pre-cisely one could say that reality is given in the act of taking it

Extreme forms of subordination such as political violence persecution and social deprivation can be interpreted to present exceptions that lead to extreme passivity and dehumanization of both individuals and communi-ties however available fi rsthand accounts by people who were submitted to the most unimaginable and inhumane conditions and treatments testify to the extraordinary strengths and resilience of human beings even under such duress Th is is powerfully exemplifi ed in Viktor Franklrsquos amazing tes-timony of surviving the Holocaust and persisting with his humanist and activist striving in spite of utmost inhumane events and circumstances (see Allport 1992 ) Nelson Mandelarsquos life feat serves as a further example of how not even a life sentence can condemn a person to abandon meaningful life



256

pursuit and social mission and perhaps can sometimes even facilitate onersquos strength and resolve Th e emphasis on human agency does not equal belief that personal behavior can completely countervail structural oppression yet it acknowledges the value of struggle and striving in the face of chal-lenges and strife

Th is view challenges positions premised on the notion of experience as central to human ways of being knowing and doing such as that our ldquoexperiential encounter with the presence of the world is the ground of our being and knowingrdquo (Heron and Reason 1997 p 2) Th e emphasis on experience has become ubiquitous across critical and sociocultural schol-arship in recent years with its roots going back to the pragmatist tradition of William James and John Dewey Its appeal is understandable in light of its anchoring in the bodily processes and the immediacy associated with its ldquogivennessrdquo and accessibility Th e popularity of the notion of experience might have to do with the palpable need to account for material daily and authentic realities of human life

Yet the notion of experience might not be fully suitable to provide an adequate epistemological basis to understand the processes of being know-ing and doing in their direct connections to social transformative prac-tices Th is is because experience is fully and inevitably immersed in the immediacy of the present it is clearly about ldquoundergoingrdquo that which exists in the present Th at is by insisting on human experience as the starting point of analysis a suffi cient engagement with activism that has to do with the future- oriented dimensions of human practices is not fully exercised Th e premise that development and learning are rooted in experiential presence in or experiential encounter with the world does not completely avoid connotations of adapting to the status quo To be sure the notion of experience and related notions of interpretation dialogue and situativ-ity of knowing have been important in challenging traditional ldquoobjectivistrdquo models and accounts Yet these notions require further critical elaboration to more resolutely break away from the idea that individuals need to adapt to what is ldquogivenrdquo in the present in order to develop and learn Th e notion of participation as the basis for development and learning (eg Lave and Wenger 1991 ) only partly revoke this adaptationist connotation because it is premised on similar dynamics of learners being situated in community practices as they exist in the present rather than on learners transforming and transcending these practices in creating a diff erent future

From the TAS position people do not just fi nd themselves within the conditions and circumstances of the world Instead we always have to and



257

de facto do actively grapple with these conditions and circumstances ndash including through understanding making sense of and interpreting them yet most importantly while taking stands and staking claims on these con-ditions and circumstances while acting to change them thus taking part in transforming the status quo It is this process of grappling and striving of struggling and actively dealing with the given conditions and circum-stances in eff orts to transcend and transform them ndash rather than adapt to the status quo ndash that counts in and accounts for our coming into being and development Th e process of active striving of grappling with and changing conditions and circumstances of our lives (which are always communal) is the ldquoimmediaterdquo reality we live in Th ese processes therefore consist in a dynamic transformation or ldquodecompositionrdquo of immediately present reality rather than in experiencing a somehow ldquogivenrdquo metaphysical world as it is In this sense the defi nition of art as the ldquogreat refusalrdquo and the protest ldquoagainst the established realityrdquo (Marcuse 1969 ) ndash can be expanded to describe the broader processes of human development and human reality Th is position importantly is in line with Martin Luther King Jrrsquos ( 1968 ) insistence on maladjustment as the central dimension of human development

Freire famously wrote that ldquo[h] uman beings are not built in silence but in word in work in action- refl ectionrdquo ( 1970 p 88) Th is position can be strengthened and fully justifi ed especially against the challenges of reduc-tionist and positivist views if the notion of reality is reconceived and elabo-rated based in the notions of ldquoactivist encounterrdquo with the world in meeting and shaping its challenges as ontologically central and even foundational And Freire says as much too ldquoIt is thus possible to explain conceptually why individuals begin to behave diff erently with regard to objective real-ity once that reality has ceased to look like a blind alley and has taken on its true aspect a challenge which human beings must meetrdquo (Freire 1970 pp 105ndash 106)

In following with Vygotskyrsquos tradition human development can be understood to be a matter of collaborative eff ort and work of craft sman-ship artisanship and invention of making up the mind by people acting ndash essentially laboring and striving ndash together within the sites of historical struggles while always moving beyond the status quo Development there-fore does not just happen to people ndash it is a collaborative and creative accomplishment a process that comes down to work and eff ort within and through collective social practices and their aff ordances and mediations as well as obstacles and contradictions as these are created by people collabo-rating in together agentively enacting these very practices



258

Though non- traditional and somewhat counterintuitive this notion finds resonance in recent research outside of Vygotskyrsquos and sociocul-tural traditions especially in works attuned to the dynamics and nonlin-earity of human development This is expressed for example by Esther Thelen ( 2005 p 263 emphasis added) who wrote that ldquo[d] evelopment is thus the product of the childrsquos everyday and continual efforts to make things happen in the world rdquo rather than a process that is prede-termined and preprogrammed by any initial conditions at the start of development

ldquoMake up your mindrdquo ndash a common expression that is typically taken to mean that people form opinions and positions in addition to the oth-erwise somehow neutral ndash impartial and passionless ndash mental activities and psychological processes might actually be interpreted in a much broader light as a general stipulation that the minds are quite literally made up An activist engagement has to do with positioning oneself and acting within the ongoing circumstances and events of communal prac-tices and their unfolding collective dynamics in their historic drama of struggles and striving from a stance ndash because these dynamics are always composed of challenges and dilemmas facing actors in these practices Th e critical constituent of human development and learning therefore consists in taking stands and staking claims ndash making up onersquos mind ndash on ongoing events in view of the purposes goals commitments and aspira-tions for the future

A radical implication of this view as expressed in many works in criti-cal pedagogy phenomenology and moral philosophy is that a ldquopersonal interpretation enters into the very defi nition of the phenomenon under studyrdquo (Taylor 1985 p 121) Yet in a more radical vein it can be stated that a personal interpretation (or better a personal stake stand and commit-ment) enters not only into our defi nitions but into the objects and phe-nomena themselves Furthermore it is more than our interpretation that enters these phenomena and processes ndash it is we ourselves in the fullness of our becoming in the world our modes of life and our active striving to change the status quo that enter into the very defi nition of the world that we encounter and deal with inclusive of its phenomena and processes Th is suggests that we are coterminous with the co- construction or co- real ization of the world that we come into contact with while changing it it is our positionality and biases related to our needs wants hopes capaci-ties and above all our forward- looking stands and visions inclusive of our past histories and future- oriented perspectives (who we are where we come from and who we want to become) that enter into any interpretation any



259

utterance and any aspect of the world shaped through our engaged acts of being knowing and doing

We can never take a neutral stance of a disinterested observer unin-volved in what is going on in the world Th is point has been expressed in various ways in critical and feminist scholarship (eg Fine Weis Weseen and Wong 2000 Harding 1992 Howe 2003 Morawski 1994 ) What the TAS adds to this is the specifi cation at the level of the basic onto- epistemology ndash namely that we can never take a neutral stance of a disinterested observer uninvolved in what is going on in the world because what is going on in the world is a process in which we are directly implicated as agentive actors and co- creators through our activist con-tributions that always matter (if only on a small scale and typically in modest ways) and moreover that make up the world and us in one and the same process Th at is what is added is the worldview- level ground-ing to legitimize the point that knowing is always not only situated and perspectival but also ineluctably partial passionate and partisan which however does not make it less objective than the one based in any puta-tively ldquofactualrdquo and ldquopurerdquo evidence disconnected from human struggles and striving

Objectivity ndash in the old connotation of this term as describing passion-less impartial neutral and disinterested knowledge of ldquobruterdquo facts ndash is therefore truly not within our aff ordance because of how the world is and how we are by our very ldquonaturerdquo Any time we try to deal with the world around us we fi nd ourselves (oft en without directly acknowledging or real-izing this) involved in actively changing the status quo through interpreta-tions and negotiations valuations and judgments choices and actions in search for answers and alternatives ndash all from within our activist strivings and struggles that are formative of the world understood as the process of a ceaseless becoming Th e saturation with values interests and biases ndash the fl agrant partisanship ndash is the very fi rst principle that organizes human activities and endeavors and therefore the human world Th is theme comes through in works by various philosophers and critical scholars although so far it has hardly become widely accepted in developing epistemology and methodology of social sciences and the present chapter can be seen as a call for its elaboration legitimation and stronger recognition

In Conclusion

Th e position of the TAS is not a revival of the old subjectivism nor a ver-sion of the presently fashionable human- less materialism but a distinctive



260

alternative to both Th e basis of this alternative is that human subjectivity is understood not as merely refl ecting reality but instead as a critical dimen-sion of historical praxis and moreover as an enactment of this praxis by agentive actors who are created by these very practices in the process and as the process of people creating them Such enactments always bring about changes in the world thus making a diff erence and therefore mattering and thereby becoming real or real ized ndash as a process that actually contributes to the constitution of reality and thus gains its ontological status and its actu-ality precisely through making a diff erence out in the social world

In the transformative worldview this position does not lead to relativ-ism and uncertainty of knowing Because reality is understood as an arena of human deeds co- created by human actors who themselves bring the world into existence as acts of their own becoming across dimensions of time our knowing- through- changing the world cannot but constitute (or give us) an immediate and reliable ldquoaccessrdquo to the world Th at is because the acts of changing ldquothe circumstancesrdquo of what exists now constitute no less than the reality in its mutual becoming the world cannot but be reliably known albeit only in the act of changing it And because the act of changing the world is taken as coextensive and synonymous with the act of realizing or bringing it forth the validity and veracity of activist knowing and of its claims are not undermined but instead strongly ascertained and acknowl-edged albeit only through the anchoring of knowledge in the processes of agentive change and transformation

An important specifi cation from the TAS is that our acts of knowing are constitutive of the world yet not on their own not as separate mental faculties (as posited by many versions of constructivism) but instead as dimensions in the carrying out of our overall projects of becoming in their unity of being knowing and doing that is ontologically realized as a contribution to social practice at the intersection of individual and collective planes of human praxis Th erefore we can and do know the world ndash yet not ldquoas it isrdquo in some abstractly objective way but as it is con-tinuously co- created by ourselves in collaborative pursuits of changes in social practices In this sense at stake is more than ldquoaccessingrdquo the world because the world constituted in the process of our own acting does not need to be accessed Instead the world is immediately present in the very act of changing qua creating it It is in this sense to reiterate that the world is not given ndash instead the world is taken or rather the world is given ndash and reliably known ndash in the act of agentively taking it up from a commitment to change



261

Th is approach represents a signifi cant shift beyond the pragmatist ecological situated and participatory approaches (that all de facto share the core premises of pragmatism) that also evoke notions of knowing as a practical engagement with the world Pragmatism too posits acting at the core of onto- epistemology and thus too does not separate knowing from acting Yet pragmatism implies that people gain knowledge not about the world but about the relations between our actions and their consequences in a particular situation ndash the realm that somehow is bracketed from the world ldquoas it isrdquo As Biesta ( 2007 ) argues in voicing the Deweyan position ldquo[A] ccording to Deweyrsquos transactional framework this is the one and only way in which the world will ever lsquoappearrsquo to us hellip In neither case how-ever do we learn truths about a world lsquoout therersquo rdquo (pp 15ndash 16) Th is view very progressive in many ways still allows for an onto- epistemological gap between the acts of knowing and doing (and by implication of being) on one hand and the world in its full reality ldquoas it isrdquo on the other ndash by leav-ing space to speculate about the gap between how the world appears to us and how it ldquoreallyrdquo is ldquoout thererdquo Th e TAS position however suggests that our acting is a way of knowing the world itself because the world and our acting are not ontologically separate ndash because this acting contributes to co- creating the world and ourselves Th is is an activist notion of being and knowing in and as the act of changing the world in line with the stipulation that the world is not given but instead that it is taken up contested and realized by each person qua social actor in each act of onersquos being knowing and doing ndash as the act of actively encountering and creating the world that is in the constant process of coming into being through collective practices and struggles in which everyone matters and makes a diff erence

Th is is an extension on the famous Marxist tenet that ldquothe coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self- change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionizing practicerdquo (1845 1978 p 144) What the TAS extension suggests is to stress the coinci-dence not only of the changing of circumstances with the ldquohuman activity or self- changerdquo but also the coincidence of these processes with reality ndash with both brought about in and through social practice that is always transcend-ing the status quo and thus is always transformative and revolutionary at least potentially

Th ese creative eff orts and acts of human activity ndash our ways of being knowing and doing ndash do not just take place in the world as the notions of situated and embedded cognition and the metaphor of ldquobeing thererdquo sug-gest Rather these creative acts bring forth the world and reality essentially



262

co- constituting the world as a collective forum of human deeds or as a drama played out in and through collaborative practices in their continu-ous collective becoming and communal historicity Th is approach impli-cates a radical shift away from seeing human development and the mind as processes of solo individuals developing in a social vacuum and outside of the world separately from other people and communities that is as enti-ties that are antecedent to constitutive communal practices Yet the role of individual human beings qua actors of social practices and agents of his-tory is ascertained as central to their own and their communitiesrsquo develop-ment and ultimately to the historical process of realizing and actualizing the world and our common humanity

Development is a process of genuine work of creating novelty of eff ort at making and inventing new ways of being knowing and doing and of inventing new realities within the always non- neutral pursuits and activist strivings ndash rather than just of refl ecting on interpreting making sense of acquiring or transmitting what already exists Th is is the work that each and every person is engaged in throughout onersquos life as we join in with the shared practices of becoming It is therefore completely understandable that Bakhtin could come up with a stunning formulation that ldquocreation is genu-ine making and the most ordinary thing in the worldrdquo (see Morson and Emerson 1990 p 215) All of these processes are collaborative and collec-tive even though personal agency and commitment are centrally involved in them as nothing is accessible to individuals isolated from the world and other people Hence the responsibility is on society on all of us to provide conditions and supports for all people to have access to the tools of activism and agency ndash of taking part in realizing the world through co- authoring it in thus coming to be oneself


263263

Part IV


264


265

265

9

Th e Mind Th at Matters

Th ough we do not wholly believe it yet the interior life is a real life and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible eff ect on the world

James Baldwin Nobody Knows My Dream

Within the expansive transformative approach to human development dis-cussed in the preceding chapters the concept of mind can be reconstrued in ways that resolutely break away from the Cartesian and other types of traditional dualisms In this chapter a number of steps in this direction is outlined in an attempt to directly align the mind with the social world of human collaborative practices through a developmental account pre-mised on the centrality of activist agency in pursuit of social transforma-tion through contribution to collective social practices and their communal history Th e motivation is to do justice to psychological processes being dynamic contextually situated distributed embodied and socioculturally mediated while not losing sight of their unique qualities and phenomenol-ogy To achieve this goal it is useful to go to the roots and restore the initial proposal by Vygotsky and other scholars of his project while expansively reconstructing it and addressing some of its remaining gaps and conun-drums Th eir proposal can be interpreted to suggest that the mind (and other forms of human subjectivity such as the self and identity) is inher-ent in human collaborative and transformative practices ndash emerging out of these practices not just within these practices as well as implicated and instrumental in these practicesrsquo historical dynamics at the intersection of collective and individual agency In this account the workings of the mind are rendered commensurate with the realities of human collective practices rather than an ephemeral and separate mental realm an epiphenomenal by- product of brain functioning or alternatively an inconsequential side eff ect of collective processes such as discourses and activities



266

At the center of Vygotskyrsquos approach is the idea (though not explicated by him in a fully fl edged form) that human development including the development of psychological processes can be captured by positing a unifi ed dynamics of human collaborative and transformative practices instantiated through individual contributions to these practices as the core ontological foundation Based on this assumption it is possible to eschew dividing human development into disconnected parts and realms Instead the traditional dichotomies such as those of mind versus body ideality ver-sus materiality subject versus object knowing versus doing and the like can be transcended by focusing on the inherent dynamics of social practices and their emergent transformations as a unique and indivisible (though not homogenous) realm that gives rise to human development and subjectivity while it itself is realized by people acting together in pursuit of their goals and agendas

Ontologically the mind is understood to be constructed from the same ldquofabricrdquo as all other human cultural practices and activities ndash that is from the ldquofabricrdquo of collaborative (shared) purposeful activities and as a particu-lar type of such activities Th e faculties of the mind come about as human acting undergoes complex processes of development associated with the growing sophistication of interactivity and meditational means employed in acting ndash culminating in unique ways of acting characteristic of human subjectivity Importantly these changes take place within an ontologically seamless process ndash albeit not without fractures confl icts and contradic-tions ndash of activity expansively developing and growing in complexity (ie becoming more interactively coordinated structured and organized) in ontogeny Th at is development of the mind is conceptualized as the gradual transformation of socially shared culturally mediated fully embodied and contextually situated activities into psychological (ldquointernalizedrdquo or men-tal) processes without positing any ontological breaks between internal ver-sus external individual versus collective and practical versus mental types of processes and phenomena

Th e mind in this non- dualist and dynamic account is neither a purely neuronal process inside the brain nor a separate and shadowy realm of mental representations in some mysterious inner theater ldquounder the skullrdquo Instead the mind is an instantiation of this- worldly activities by embodied intentional agents ndash acting together within complex matrices of social prac-tices bound to the materiality of these practicesrsquo structuration and tempo-rality including their cultural conventions and cultural tools (meditational means) as instruments of symbolization and interaction In this account the myths about the mind as a by- product of brain processes or a separate



267

reality of internal representations (ie pictures in the mind) existing on their own and developing according to some idiosyncratic rules and regu-larities is emphatically rejected However the developmental approach at the same time aims to reveal how the continuously evolving forms of cul-tural mediation and social interaction and the respective seamless develop-mental transitions across activity levels engender increasingly sophisticated processes that have been traditionally associated with a somehow separate ldquomental realmrdquo of the mind Th is account opens the door to understand phenomena of perception memory deliberation imagination planning goal setting reasoning and the like without any mentalist individualist and solipsistic connotations

Vygotskyrsquos most critical step toward a dialectical understanding of human development personhood and subjectivity was in him insisting that they come into existence in the form of initially always intersubjective processes carried out as inter actions that only gradually are turned into intrasubjective actions that have their antecedents constituents and consequences in social practices that is in collaborative acting Th is position entails understand-ing the workings of the mind including its imaginative and transformative powers without evoking traditional mentalist biologically reductionist and individualist connotations such as in the form of preexistent representational structures or inborn brain modules Vygotskyrsquos account of how the psycho-logical processes evolve within the dynamics of joint activities mediated by cultural tools was de facto a great leap away from the traditional Cartesian view that had long since dominated ndash and continues to dominate ndash cogni-tive mentalist and biologically reductionist approaches

In these traditional approaches the emergence of intrinsic intention-ality and consciousness begins in the biological brain proceeds with its maturation results in language capacity as a natural outgrowth of biologi-cal process and concludes with the mechanisms of social institutions and ldquothe foundation for all institutional ontologyrdquo created by language- use (eg Searle 2010 pp 61ndash 63) Th us the whole of social life from individual development to social institutions is fundamentally owed to the essentially biological individual processes inside the organism In Steven Toulminrsquos ( 1979 ) elegant expression our minds in such an account operate according to the ldquono exitrdquo principle ndash because people are portrayed ldquolike prisoners who are born live and die in permanent deadlockrdquo One could add that not only the mind but the whole of social life in this account is in permanent deadlock of ldquointrinsic naturalismrdquondash exactly in line with the ethos of adapta-tion and its celebration of the status quo that is taken to be immutable and invincible



268

One of the pillars of Vygotskyrsquos project is its focus on the richness and com-plexity of human acting due to its culturally mediated and contextually situated collaborative dynamics and its immersion in and attunement to the worldly processes of social life and its shared practices in their ongoing historicity Th is dialectical understanding of human activity and acting stands in stark contrast with the oft en- impoverished views inherited from the traditional philosophy committed to the dualisms of doing and knowing being and acting behavior and mind As Costall and Leudar ( 2007 p 292) described

Modern psychology has taken over from neo- behaviourism an offi cial conception of behaviour which disenchants behaviour and equates it instead with ldquocolourless movementrdquo ultimately separable from any wider ldquocontextrdquo and devoid of inherent meaning and value hellip Given this dualistic conception of behaviour the mental could only be relegated to a hidden realm concealed behind behaviour and related to it in an arbitrary rather than constitutive way

An important part of Vygotskyrsquos position has been aptly summed up by Evald Ilyenkov a philosopher who collaborated with many scholars in Vygotskyrsquos school (A N Leontiev A V Zaporozhets V V Davydov and others) In describing the phenomena of mind and consciousness and in following with the Marxist and Vygotskian premises Ilyenkov ( 2009 ) sug-gests that the mind is

an entirely real process specifi cally inherent to human life- activity the process by which the material life- activity of social man [ sic ] begins to produce not only a material but also an ideal product begins to produce the act of idealisation of reality (the process of transforming the ldquomaterialrdquo into the ldquoidealrdquo) and then having arisen the ldquoidealrdquo becomes a critical component of the material life- activity of social man and then begins the opposite process ndash the process of the materialisa-tion (objectifi cation reifi cation ldquoincarnationrdquo) of the ideal (p 158)

In building off from this position the account that follows provides fur-ther specifi cations explications and clarifi cations from the transformative activist stance (TAS) including critically revising a number of remaining conundrums and contradictions

A Focus on Activity

In the transformative worldview all major ontological and epistemologi-cal positions on human development and the nature of reality in which



269

it unfolds are radically disassociated from the notion of adaptation and accompanying ideas about a static and unchanging world and an equally static and immutable nature in which people are presumably situated and that they have to ultimately somehow adjust and adapt to Instead the emphasis is on the world in a continuous transformation that is instantiated and enacted in human collaborative practices understood as a collective forum of human deeds and struggles In this emphasis there is a shift away from accounts of the agent- world relations as contemplative passive and essentially ldquodisengagedrdquo (cf Taylor 1993 ) Th at is the shift is away from see-ing human beings as merely dwelling in the world ndash as situated in shaped by and connected to it ndash to a focus on active and activist type of a transfor-mative engagement with the world guided by a sought- aft er future Th is is a step in a continuation of Vygotskyrsquos and activity theory position

In the transformative worldview reality is reconceived as being con-stantly transformed by persons acting together as members of social com-munities and moreover as agentive actors who co- create these communities and their social practices while in the same process being co- created by these very acts of enacting and realizing changes in social practices It is in view of this nexus that the Cartesian gulf between the conscious mind-ful human sphere and the putatively mindless clockwork natural universe can be eff ectively contested Th at is if reality is conceived as being real-ized and co- created by people acting together in communities then there is no need to posit a specialized separate mental realm that portrays (or refl ects) reality and provides representations through which the world can be accessed In the transformative worldview reality does not need to be accessed ndash because human beings are always already in reality and not as simply immersed in it but as fully implicated in its historical dynamics because of their central role in co- creating and enacting the world of shared social practices Th is position lays the grounds for overcoming other dual-isms endemic to traditional approaches

In focusing on an engaged agency of human actors who together co- create their world and themselves in meeting it halfway the mind can be understood non- mentalistically (cf Arievitch 2003 ) Namely it can be understood to not merely refl ect or describe the world nor to perform operations of storing and otherwise dispassionately processing informa-tion ndash putatively about abstract facts ldquoout thererdquo dissociated from human pursuits of being knowing and doing Instead the mind can be conceived as part and parcel of individuals actively realizing their world ndash and not through just any acting in or relating to the world but rather through acting



270

that contributes to shared collaborative practices and makes a diff erence in them Th e most critical specifi cation (including vis- agrave- vis the tenets of Vygotskyrsquos and activity theory) is the emphasis on the transformative nexus of people changing the world while being changed by and in this very pro-cess of enacting their transformative agency Th is implies that while inevi-tably making a diff erence in collaborative practices by contributing to their unfolding dynamics individuals are transforming these practices as part of their own continuous striving and eff ort at becoming In this approach the mind ndash including each act of getting to know the world and oneself ndash inevi-tably interferes in the materio- semiotic networks of the world and brings it into realization and therefore is itself an act of existential and practical import Moreover the mind is also an act of bringing forth not only the world but also the human actor herself ndash in what is a simultaneous and bidirectional spiral of mutual becoming

Th e mind and other psychological processes can be understood non- mentalistically and non- individualistically if human beings are posited to be agentive and striving actors who enact social life and its community practices ndash that are therefore constantly evolving and changing as they are made and remade by these very actors ndash rather than some solitary entities passively dwelling in a stable world of the status quo each on onersquos own in pursuit of individual survival and other self- contained outcomes and self- centered gains Th e mind can be assigned its due place in this- worldly reality of material social practices and processes if both this reality and the human acting are reconceived away from passive and static connotations typical of the ethos of adaptation

Based on this position it is possible to consistently implement a collec-tive distributed and ldquoexternalistrdquo approach to mental phenomena and at the same time acknowledge their important role and grant them effi cacy Th e mind and all forms of human subjectivity can be conceived not as an internal ldquomental theaterrdquo or epiphenomenal by- products of brain activity instead they are cast as a meaningful activity (or a facet of it) out in the world through which people participate in and contribute to its transfor-mations ndash an activity with the same ontological status as all other human social collaborative activities Th is position secures a central place within the world not only to human collaborative practices but also by implica-tion to their subjective and intersubjective dimensions Th e mind in this perspective can be understood as an inalienable dimension of social prac-tices and therefore as a material and full event in the world that partakes in its realization by making a diff erence in it Th is position is made viable not



271

by claiming some singular importance of the mind per se as is the case in many traditional frameworks (such as the one developed by William James and in many versions of contemporary constructivism) but by underscor-ing the transformative agency of human activist striving that is cotermi-nous with people co- creating collaborative human practices and therefore bearing a central ontological signifi cance

Th ese seemingly opposing phenomena and processes are viewed as interrelated poles (separate but not hyperseparated that is not disjunctive cf Plumwood 1993 ) on a continuum of one unifi ed reality of human collab-orative social practices composed of individually unique but interactively co- created and sustained contributions to them What substitutes for the traditional views is the notion of subjectivity in its practical relevance (or radical ldquofacticityrdquo see Merleau- Ponty 1962 ) ndash as a process that is involved and implicated in changes and transformations in collaborative practices that take place out in the social world understood as a forum of shared strivings and human deeds Human subjectivity and mind gain ontological status through their role and place within social transformative practices ndash as contingent on and determined by how they matter in the larger realms of communal social life and its ongoing transformations Th e practical relevance of human subjectivity can be ascertained by duly acknowledg-ing materiality of human social practices and their constitutive deeds ndash established precisely in light of the ceaseless and permanent changes that they incur (as they always do) in the world that unfolds as a continuous stream of social practices in which we and our world are co- created and interanimated

To reiterate the mind is a unique dimension of carrying out purposeful activities within the matrix of social- material collaborative practices medi-ated by cultural tools and continuously expanding through history Th is process entails highly elaborated acting on the ldquointernal (or mental) planerdquo that aff ords effi cient organizing planning coordination and evaluation of actions and activities Most critically and most emphatically the expression ldquointernal planerdquo does not connote ldquoinside the headrdquo or ldquoinside the brainrdquo of an individual Instead this expression points to a complex structure of activities that encompass various layers of multiple actions being ldquobuilt intordquo or bracketed within each other and the larger fl ow of activity process What is unique about this form of acting is that it is carried out in abbrevi-ated compressed (or condensed) forms because it relies on various sorts of shortcuts for acting that are embodied in signs and symbols including concepts and words



272

Th us the mind is ldquosimplyrdquo a form of acting that is mind ful and meaningful in the sense that it allows human beings to mind the course of their con-tinued processes of being knowing and doing within communal practices shared with others at the intersection of collective and individual levels Yet the mind still belongs to the realm of this- worldly (and therefore in a sense objective and practical or productive) activities performed in the carry-ing out of relations with and transformations of the world other people and oneself Th e mental therefore is the quality of action that a person performs in coordination with others and within the matrices of social practices ndash the degree of its generalization and abbreviation and how well it takes into account and relies on relevant features of phenomena as they matter within the course of a certain activity It is this quality of acting that diff erentiates the ldquoexternalrdquo and directly observable material activity from its incarnations that are typically described as mental Th is point has to do with distinguishing acting in its mental ndash or ideal ndash form from the material one based in the most common colloquial connotation of the term ideal (oft en overlooked in philosophical discussions though traceable to Marx) Ideal most directly means ldquothe bestrdquo ndash the most relevant and suitable vis- agrave- vis current circumstances and goals ndash form or expression of some phenom-ena process and so on An ideal action is action that is ldquobetterrdquo compared to others as more suited for the purposes and goals of ongoing activities Th e ideal action is one informed by or imbued with the ldquobetter suitedrdquo (and therefore ideal) know- how and grasp of what needs to be done and how it can be done

In the latter aspect this account builds on the works by Piotr Galperin (eg 1985 1989 ) and by other members of Vygotskyrsquos project who specifi -cally focused on exploring the intricacies of acting on the ldquointernal planerdquo without implying any mentalist or Cartesian connotations In summarizing and expanding on this line of work Igor Arievitch ( 2003 2008 Arievitch and Haenen 2005 Arievitch and Stetsenko 2000 2014 Arievitch and van der Veer 1995 2004 ) has provided many useful specifi cations In his inter-pretation mental processes are not some mysterious ldquopsychicalrdquo faculties nor are they a refl ection of brain processes Instead they are object- related actions in the outer world that proceed according to this- worldly dynamics and regularities Th e critical feature of these actions however is that they are carried out in a specifi c form namely without physical execution As this position is further described

mental actions just like all hellip actions deal with the properties of exter-nal objects and processes and are performed in compliance with specifi c



273

characteristics of these objects and processes Th ey have the same objec-tive content as the relevant material actions hellip When we transform the situation physically say rearrange the furniture of our room we have to take into consideration relevant properties of things we are acting upon ndash the size of the room of pieces of furniture their shapes hellip [T] he same holds true when we are just planning the changes only transform-ing the situation mentally hellip [N]othing of some other ldquopsychicalrdquo or ldquointernalrdquo nature is involved hellip ndash no matter whether we are standing in the center of the room and looking around ie performing the transfor-mations on the perceptual plane or are doing this just in our imagina-tion away from the immediate spot (Arievitch and van der Veer 1995 p 119 emphasis added)

Temporality

Most critically the complex dynamics of activity that is implicated in human subjectivity includes developmental temporality Th at is each action within activities builds upon and continues those performed in the past each time in novel ways under presently given conditions and importantly in view of the future goals of activity Each of these actions can bracket ndash by way of mutually embedded layers like in a Russian doll ( matryoshka ) ndash the pre-vious and the future actions within its own present patterns thus bring-ing together the past present and future Th is view is consistent with the dynamic principles that describe epigenetic nature of change As Esther Th elen ( 2005 p 263) puts it epigenetic means

ldquoone thing follows anotherrdquo development happens not because of either a genetic program or imperatives from the environment but by a seamless interweaving of events in time both internal and exter-nal Oyama Griffi ths and Gray (2001) call these the ldquocycles of contin-gencyrdquo because the ensemble literally creates itself through reiterative activity

Th ere is an additional specifi cation to this notion of temporality that is cru-cial to a non- dualist transformative account Th e human mind ndash embedded in derivative of and instrumental in collective social practices ndash although fi rmly located in the present as it carries on and continues the past (and thus contains history in it) is at the same time and most critically pre-mised on and constituted by a projection into the future Th at is the mind is constituted by our activities not merely in the ldquohere and nowrdquo but at the intersection of the past present and future and in always projecting into and planning for what is to come



274

In this way no action completely ends or vanishes instead past actions accumulate and are preserved in the present ndash in the form of them becom-ing embedded and enacted within the order and structure of the present acting which is carried out in view of the future In such a process of mutual embedding within the present activities of the past acting and of acting that is imagined and projected into the future the past is continuously regenerated reassembled and changed in light of ongoing and impend-ing changes and challenges In this sense the mind is a human capacity of acting in ways that convert that which has already passed into the present acting while making it attuned to what a person is striving toward as a pro-jection into the future For this reason ndash and not only metaphorically ndash to act mindfully is to relive the past yet not in mechanically repeating it but rather in converting it into what can be applied to the conditions in the present and most critically to these conditions as seen through the prism of the sought- aft er future

Th e mind thus understood is about purposefully acting in the world in pursuit of onersquos goals and aspirations in way of a continuous activist and meaningful striving rather than about processing information inde-pendently of what the person is engaged in and caring about and most importantly what she or he is committing to and aiming toward Th is is not a recording of what is ldquooutrdquo in the world but instead a form of taking up and authoring the world ndash always in collaboration with others even when individuals are seemingly acting alone Th e mind can be said to serve as an instrument of carrying out our continuous and ever- changing pursuits of a fl exible and constantly updated long- term perspective embodied in life agendas and projects Th e mind is about acting mind fully in an active engagement with some tasks in the here and now (which themselves come to be actively defi ned by the actor) yet while continuing the past engage-ments in view of the present challenges as these are coordinated with the sought- aft er future It is not just a reenactment of the past but a continuous carrying out of the past under the present challenges and conditions and in view of the meaningful goals of activity that is transcending the ldquogivenrdquo status quo

In this approach human relations to the world are always on the cusp between what has been what is and what is about to be ndash in the gap between what exists in the present as the present continuously carries on the past and what is sought out in the future To relate to the world in activist ways then means to act in light of its ongoing continuous and ever- shift ing challenges opportunities problems and aff ordances



275

while always focusing on what is coming about and is to be done next as per onersquos imagination and striving Relating to the world therefore is critically contingent on fi guring out who to become and how to act in the next moment within what is being shaped in the present and only bound to happen yet is always already embodied in our eff orts even though not yet fully realized nor made actual before the person acts and takes a stand

Even ldquosimplerdquo acts of seeing are passionate acts of striving contingent on taking stands and committing to a sought- aft er future Th ey are deeply personal and fi lled with signifi cance and meanings that stem from how the person relates to what she perceives and what is ldquoin itrdquo for her as an actor of social practices striving for and seeking something in the future Th e acts of perception are about the future more like anticipating what is to come rather than reacting to or recording ldquowhat isrdquo In fact perceiving or reacting to ldquowhat isrdquo right at this moment what exists in front of us in ldquothe here and nowrdquo would be a useless endeavor because the world is constantly mov-ing and changing being transformed already by our presence and in the very act of us perceiving it A purely passive neutral and reactive mode of perceiving ldquowhat isrdquo even if such a process were possible (which it is not) would not serve any meaningful purpose and would not be useful for the person who has to deal with things that are to come and are already coming about even if not yet in fully realized forms Th e person does not act merely in the present because acting in the present always already cre-ates the future- in- the- present In this sense even seemingly ldquosimplerdquo acts of perception are only meaningful to the extent that they help the person to orient in the constantly changing and dynamic reality that is help to fi gure out what to do and who to be next while sharing the world with others

Th is set of ideas can be characterized as a broad expanded understand-ing of Vygotskyrsquos famous concept of the ldquozone of proximal developmentrdquo Th is notion has been typically used in a rather restricted sense in research on achievement testing and evaluation to refer to the diff erence between what learners can do independently of social supports versus what they can do with the help from a more experienced partner (although a number of works have moved past this connotation eg see Chaiklin 2003 Cole 1985 Hedegaard 1990 Karpov 2005 Lantolf 2000 Moran and John- Steiner 2003 Wells 2000 ) A broader connotation in expanding the notion of the ZPD to capture the whole spectrum of human activities and functions is that the human mind is always operating within and helping to co- create the zone of proximal development at the threshold of what exists and what



276

is yet to come and moreover coming about precisely through creating such zones of what is possible as a fl exible orientation to the future Th is is in tune with Vygotskyrsquos emphasis on for example intelligence as not an ldquoaccu-mulation of already mastered skillsrdquo but as a ldquodialogue with onersquos own future and an address to the external worldrdquo (cf Emerson 1996 p 132)

Knowing as all forms of human pursuits and activities therefore can be understood to be ontologically determined by acts of transformation in the connotation of creating novelty and moving beyond the given of tran-scending the status quo rather than by passive processes of people being situated merely dwelling in or experiencing the world (as implied by the ethos of adaptation) Forming knowledge is a creative endeavor in a very direct sense ndash because it is an act of change and transformation of what exists ndash albeit not on its own not as an isolated cognitive process ldquoin the headrdquo but as a dimension of acting in pursuit of this- worldly and always collaborative activities projects and goals that co- constitute the world communities and the persons themselves Knowing is about neither copy-ing the world nor coping with it but instead about creating the world and knowing it ndash and oneself ndash in the very act of bringing about transformative and creative change that is in the act of making a diff erence in communal forms of life and thus mattering in them and through this of coming to be and to know

The Sought- After Future Seeing as Acting

Th e goals and the sought- aft er future are elevated as the most critical dimensions of being knowing and doing because they are central to acting by agents of community practices who do not (and cannot) adapt to the status quo but are in pursuit of changing and transcending it In moving beyond what exists in the present human beings cannot mechanically react to the world as it ldquoimpingesrdquo on them ndash as if they were passive recipients of outside stimuli Instead the mind and the production of knowledge are profoundly contingent on what individuals and communities project into the future and consider should be while actively realizing these commit-ments in the present by moving beyond it

Th e challenge is to describe how we can fully immerse ourselves into the present confl icts and contradictions of ongoing struggles yet not stay confi ned to the status quo and instead project and move into the future through committed actions based in the sought- aft er future Th is does not imply that imagination and related phenomena of hope anticipation pro-jection and the like are somehow separate from acting in the present In the



277

transformative worldview it is possible to not only posit that new realities and other versions of the social world can be imagined (as is the assump-tion in a number of sociological approaches) Rather given the dialectics of how the future is always shaping the present in its ongoing historicity these new realities are inherent in the transformative practices in their movement that is overcoming the status quo already in the present ndash specifi cally in the form of a commitment to bringing the sought- aft er future into reality Th e critical constituent of human development and learning therefore consists in taking stands and staking claims ndash making up onersquos mind ndash on ongoing events in view of the purposes goals commitments and aspirations for the future I will return to this idea at the end of this chapter

Th e activist positioning and taking a stand are dimensions present already at the level of processes that are traditionally and quite errone-ously considered to be elementary passive and value- neutral such as perception ndash to continue with the same example Th e classical represen-tational theory asserts that perception is built out of sensations that result of stimuli impinging on the body (eg on the eye retina) A causal rela-tion is supposed to obtain between any given stimulus and a sensation In the next step the sensation is supposed to be reworked in the brain or in some cognitive process to yield an image and a mental awareness of it Foundational to no less than four centuries of perception theory is the notion that ldquopercepts are cognitively transformed sensations and the basis of perception is an awareness of states of the brain that are the remote eff ects of physical causesrdquo (Harreacute 1986 p 155) Th is is a fundamentally passive process of ldquoundergoingrdquo the eff ects of the external world and reg-istering its stimuli in a process that is abstracted from who is perceiving from what perspective why and most critically for what purposes and from what commitment

Moreover the traditional account makes invisible the active work involved in perceiving that is neither eff ortless nor passive What is con-cealed is that perceiving is an active and creative endeavor ndash an agentive deed colored by and infused with the dimensions of the past present and especially future that is with goals desires hopes and commitments vis- agrave- vis matters of concern and care to us Th is point has been well captured by Max Wartofsky ( 1979 p 115) who wrote that ldquothe sensation I have the thought I think the desire I express the action I perform as a human being is hopelessly infected with my personal biography my species- history my social and historical past and present and future rdquo (emphasis added)

Th e apparent ease and automaticity of perception is actually deeply deceptive as illustrated in patients who gain vision aft er surgery to repair



278

sight and thereaft er struggle in learning how to do the work of seeing (Luria 1973 ) It is in this sense that seeing needs to be conceived of as an active process of looking ndash the point articulated by many philosophers and schol-ars such as Dewey Gibson and Merleau- Ponty among others Dewey was able to establish this already in his early writings especially his classical paper Th e Refl ex Arc (1986) Th e notions pertaining to how perception is an activity out in the world and descriptions of ldquothe learning to perceiverdquo process can be found in Eleanor and James Gibsonrsquos ecological approach (eg Gibson 1969 1991 Gibson and Gibson 1955 ) Th is view was also elaborated in great detail by activity theorists such as especially Alexander Zaporozhets a close colleague of Vygotsky Signifi cant parallels between the activity theory position on perception as an active process of explora-tion and orientation in the world on one hand and the works by (espe-cially) Eleanor Gibson on the other are not coincidental as she explicitly credited research by Zaporozhets as the source of her insights As Herbert Pick has documented ( 1992 )

Gibson followed in detail a body of Soviet research in the late fi ft ies and early sixties which searched for commonalities between hand move-ments and eye movements in children (Zaporozhets 1965 Zinchenko Chzhi- Tsin and Tarakanov 1963 ) hellip she found a distinction the Soviets made between executive and investigatory movements quite appealing (p 791)

Indeed one of E Gibsonrsquos most stunning conclusions directly indebted to Zaporozhets as she attests to was that ldquoperception is action but it is explor-atory action not executive action in the sense of manipulating the environ-mentrdquo (Gibson 1969 p 120)

Th e active nature of perception was also highlighted by Merleau- Ponty ( 1962 ) who wrote that vision and perception are forms of action Neisser (eg 1975 ) too insisted that images are anticipatory schemata built as a phase in active cyclic interactions with the world In more recent approaches the mind is explicitly connected to the practical motor action ndash ldquothe key to [the enactive theory] is the idea that percep-tion depends on the possession and exercise of a certain kind of practi-cal knowledgerdquo (Noeuml 2004 p 33) Similar themes are present in recent accounts premised on the notion of embodiment As Overton ( 2008 p 5) states ldquoa body actively engaged in and with the world necessitates that not only cognition and learning but emotions and motivations and all psychological functions are co- constituted by the sociocultural and envi-ronmental contextrdquo



279

More generally there exists a long and now vibrant tradition of action- oriented theories of mind extending back at least to James Dewey Bergson Merleau- Ponty Piaget Gibson and Wittgenstein (among others) and con-tinuing in current research by psychologists philosophers developmental biologists linguists and cognitive scientists who seek to understand how the mind is situated embodied and enacted (eg Carpendale and Lewis 2004 Clark 1997 Damasio 1999 Noeuml 2004 2010 Th elen 1995 Th elen and Smith 1994 Tomasello 1999 Varela Th ompson and Rosch 1991 ) Th e many layers of what such an approach implicates however are still in need of more discussions and explorations One of its common (though still oft en misunderstood) applications today ndash in dynamic systems theory post- Piagetian and embodied enacted cognition theories ndash is that we per-ceive know and understand the world not with an abstract intellect but with our actual acting and sensory- motor capacities Th ese bodily sensa-tions and activities are not complementary to cognition but instead are their very source and fabric As Ether Th elen ( 2000 ) powerfully expressed this point

It is precisely the continuity in time of the embedded and coupled dynamic systems essential for fl uid adaptive behavior that gives mean-ing to the notion of an embodied cognition Th ere is no point in time when these dynamic processes stop and something else takes over Th us there are good reasons to believe in not only the sensorimotor origins of cognition but in the intimate and inextricable mesh between think-ing and acting throughout life Th inking begins in perceiving and acting and retains the signatures of its origins forever Th e goal of development is not to rise above the mere sensorimotor but for cognition to be at home within the body (p 8 emphasis added)

Th is conceptualization was central to Vygotskyrsquos project too most explicitly so in the second generation of activity theory represented in the works by Leontiev Elkonin Zaporozhets and others (Th elen 2005 acknowledges this indirectly in her tribute to Nikolai Bernstein a virtual coparticipant of Vygotskyrsquos project) For example this was succinctly expressed by Ilyenkov who wrote in summarizing this theoretical position that ldquo[t] hinking is not the product of an action but the action itself rdquo ( 1977 p 35 emphasis in the original)

Th e other and closely related connotation is that in Noeumlrsquos words ldquothe mind reaches ndash or at least can reach sometimes ndash beyond the limits of the body out into the worldrdquo (2004 p 221 emphasis in the original) One of the highly received (and considered by many to be quite radical) approaches that combines ideas of embodiment and the notion of contextual embedding



280

of the mind has been developed by Andy Clark ( 1997 ) Th e premise is that there is

no general fracture between cognition the agentrsquos bodily experience and real- life contexts Here the body is viewed as constraining distributing or regulating cognitive processing Specifying how the body performs these functions in particular environments raises the prospect that cog-nition itself is neither bounded by the brain nor perhaps even by the body itself (Wilson and Foglia 2011 )

In this approach therefore the mind is no longer assumed to be ldquoonlyrdquo in the individual rather it is in the individual yet it is also distributed across the environment and augmented by artifacts

Yet another common implication is that the mind and its various incar-nations such as ideas and memories are for acting Th is follows in line with what Louis Menand characterized as the core of pragmatism ndash its position that ldquoideas are not lsquoout therersquo waiting to be discovered but are tools ndash like forks and knives and microchips ndash that people devise to cope with the world in which they fi nd themselvesrdquo (Menand 2001 p xi)

As important as these premises are they leave many connotations about what it means that the mind is action unattended to Oft en left aside in particular is the focus on the collective dynamics of meaningful shared activities extending through history ndash as a unifi ed ongoing and continuous praxis constituted by individual contributions to these dynamics stretch-ing through generations ndash in the workings of the mind Missing is that the activity and the ldquodoingsrdquo of the mind are indelibly colored by what the per-sons qua social agents of collaborative practices are striving for in their situ-ated pursuits and life agendas out in the social world shared with others grounded in social values positions and interests

From the TAS rather than being a passive refl ection of reality perception and all other faculties of the human mind are implicated in and implicate collaborative transformative contributions as parts of collective and shared practices Moreover and quite critically being transformative the mind is a sort of action that is always attuned to the future to what is not yet Th is is to say that perception is always anticipatory that is it is a sort of acting that is stretching beyond the present and transcending the givenness of the status quo Perception is an activity of encountering the world as part of and in light of onersquos own active positioning struggle and striving toward the future ndash what one wants to achieve where one wants to go next and who one wants to become Th is implies that simply undergoing or being exposed to ldquostimulirdquo is not enough (and not meaningful per se) and that



281

instead a person has simultaneously to do the work of seeing and the work of understanding evaluating assessing and interpreting ndash as the always intertwined facets of one and the same process of being- knowing- doing

In this sense seeing and all other acts of being- knowing- doing are not some neutral process of fi guring out the ldquoorder of thingsrdquo in itself as if this order was already in existence and could be taken for granted understood and appraised as such Instead perception is about grasping what is going on in light of what we consider will and should be going on as per our own convictions commitments expectations (including hopes and fears) and activist stands Th is also means that we see things as per what it is that we want to do with them ndash specifi cally how we want to and actually always already are changing them and with them also changing ourselves already in the present

As the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead ( 1920 ) wrote to see is to take hold of what is there in front of us to grasp its precise application to discover what we see (Gouldner 1982 p 382) What can be added to this from the TAS is that discovering what we see is possible in the process of also and simultaneously discovering ourselves in what we see and what we want to see Th at is seeing is contingent on what we want to achieve in and by the act of seeing as part of our meaningful activities out in a world shared with others Seeing is not just ldquodoing the workrdquo of seeing in discover-ing what we see but also and simultaneously discovering ourselves in the act of seeing ndash with this act being contingent on where we come from how we are positioned in the present and where we are heading ndash in moving along the path of our continuous becoming which is a process of contributing to how we want ourselves and our world to be

Life- Long Pursuits of Agentive Becoming

Th e mind understood as an elaborate mind ful acting far from being a soli-tary mental theater in the head or a self- driven neuronal activity played out in the brain of an individual instead represents a continuous hierarchi-cal enactment of a ceaseless and uninterrupted life- long pursuit and striv-ing at becoming by each person qua social actor of communal practices Th e mind is attuned to and commensurate with each personrsquos evolving and ever- changing long- term agenda or life project inclusive of identity dimensions such as interests goals passions and motivations Th ese agen-das and projects ndash as broad quests to understand who one is and who one wants to become through changing oneself and the world ndash are always in the process of coming about as they are continuously worked and reworked



282

by each person in the course of life within collaborative social practices Th ey are not a fi xed predetermination but a constantly reworked and fl ex-ible orientation to the future Such projects are updated every step of the way and attuned to the challenges demands and aff ordances of the world as they have emerged from the past (hence the relevance of history) and are dynamically unfolding in the present while also ndash and most critically ndash being premised on the sought- aft er future and what actions we believe need to be carried out to achieve this future In this process the past is brought into and enacted in the present through purposefully acting under pres-ently given conditions

At the same time these conditions are not just ldquoout thererdquo to be expe-rienced as they are Instead they are actively engaged and grappled with by the person ndash and therefore changed fabricated recreated and real-ized from each personrsquos unique standpoint ndash along the lines of what one considers ldquoought to berdquo that is in light of onersquos commitments to changing these conditions in aiming for the future in projecting forward in the furtherance of onersquos life project in thus connecting the past present and future Life projects are not preexisting structures Instead they develop along with and through the developments and dynamics of collabora-tive activities realized through onersquos own evolving contributions to these activities practices Th is means that each new encounter with the world and each new act of being knowing and doing are not just inserted into the somehow preexistent life pursuits and agendas Rather these new encounters and acts are absorbed into life agendas and reworked on their own grounds so as to modify and transform these agendasrsquo ever- unfolding stream by reorienting reorganizing and channeling it in new directions

Th ese agendas or life pursuits are deeply personal yet also indelibly social because they are always embedded within mediated by and tailored to the collective projects of transformative changes ndash being realized through per-sons contributing to these ineluctably collective projects In this sense the mind begins in social collaborative practices and never breaks away from them thus always remaining social and collaborative (or better collectivid-ual) even in its utmost private expressions

Th e notions of life project and life agenda capture what is oft en referred to as ldquobecomingrdquo and what Bakhtin termed postuplenie [Russian] Th is term refers to a ceaseless and open- ended quest for onesrsquo unique role and place within the communal world shared with others that all people embark on and pursue throughout their lives ndash within the fullness of each personrsquos



283

ldquoonce- occurrentrdquo answerable life (Bakhtin 1993 ) Note the richness of Bakhtinrsquos idiosyncratic term postuplenie Although literally meaning ldquoenter-ingrdquo ldquoentryrdquo or ldquojoiningrdquo and oft en translated in the English versions of Bakhtinrsquos works as ldquodeedrdquo or ldquoactrdquo due to etymological similarity to ldquopostu-pokrdquo (literally meaning ldquodeedrdquo) postuplenie also derives from ldquopostuprdquo Th e latter means ldquostepping forwardrdquo (with a connotation of solemnity as in a measured tread) and also ldquocommitting oneself to somethingrdquo and even ldquosac-rifi cingrdquo or ldquosurrenderingrdquo Postuplenie conveys the sense of a process- like continuous (uninterrupted) and dynamic (ever- changing and cumulative) unfolding of onersquos life as a becoming- through- doing It also captures the unitary character of this process as one seamless continuous fl ow under-standable only in its totality as not reducible to a chain of single discrete episodes (Bakhtin 1990 1993 for interpretation see Stetsenko 2007b )

Th is totality of life is what makes each and every deed count as something that irreversibly and irrevocably forever changes the whole life and the whole world What is at stake here is the unique phenomenological richness of each and every human deed of each and every act of being knowing and doing When pulled together across the time scales as they are deeds form a seamless stream of onersquos life as an active project of postupleine ndash a ldquocoming forward through doingrdquo Th is process begins already early in child-hood and draws on a vast repertoire of tools including narratives and play for example Th e playrsquos hallmark features are that it creates the space for imagination creation of novelty in transcending the given and projection into the future ndash and thus the space for transformative agency (for details see Stetsenko and Ho 2015 )

Freire utilizes a similar notion when he ldquoaffi rms men and women as beings in the process of becoming ndash as unfi nished uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfi nished realityrdquo ( 1970 p 84) From the TAS becom-ing can be cast as a process of becoming- through- changing- the- shared- world to convey the value of each personrsquos unique role and participation in community practice a ldquononalibirdquo (to use Bakhtinrsquos term) in them ndash a sense that each and every act of being knowing and doing by each and every person inevitably changes not only this personrsquos life (as it does) but also the world itself by leaving irreversible and unique traces in it

Th e notion of the mind that anchors it within the life- long pursuits and projects fi nds support in many studies on the mind and related phenom-ena of awareness and consciousness for example as surveyed by Merlin Donald ( 2001 ) As he summarizes in relying among others on Alexander Luriarsquos works the human mind is occupied more with longer- term



284

planning and self- assembly than with immediate sensation and responses to what is given in experiencing the world in a merely refl ective and reac-tive mode In this vein clinical studies suggest that executive functions are not some separate faculties but a high- level ldquosupervisionrdquo of onersquos lifespan activities ndash a process of placing oneself in the immediate moment itself understood to be situated within a larger context of onersquos entire life (ibid) Along these lines Oliver Sacks ( 1987 1995 ) described how conventional neurological tests and pathology diagnostics traditionally reduce patients to an inventory of defi cits while instead the patientsrsquo own experiences and self- understandings develop through a compensatory reorganizing process aimed at preserving and reestablishing continuous identity through the life span (cf Clancey 2009 )

Th ese considerations have profound implications for the notions of mind and consciousness Th ough typically understood to be focused on the inter-mediate time frame within which people act and think ldquo[t] he entity that clinicians call consciousness constructs and maintains our working mod-els of the world and the course that the individual takes over its lifetime rdquo (Donald 2001 p 70 emphasis added) Th is does not imply that we carry around conscious images of our embodied selves or clear- cut life agendas in our heads but rather that we engage in an active work of maintaining and developing our identities across the time scales of the past present and future Yet the critical point from the TAS is that this work of identity devel-opment is not separate nor separable in principle from the work of prac-tically doing things out in the world ndash contributing to its transformative changes and precisely through this fi nding onersquos authentic voice and onersquos unique place in the world Th is is what grounds identity and human subjec-tivity at large ndash these processes of making a diff erence and thus mattering in the materiality of human communal life and its collective practices

Th ese matters and our identities are never settled and never terminated as if there could be some fi nal defi nitive resolution on them and some fi nal defi nitive answer to questions about our role and place in a world shared with others In actuality this place and this role can and do constantly change along with our understandings of them perhaps even till the very last days of life (as attested to by many poets and novelists)

In this sense the psychological processes ndash however localized and fl eet-ing they might appear to be ndash are always reaching beyond the givenness of the present moment in meeting the need for us to fi gure out and decide who we are and who we want to be next how we are positioned and posi-tion ourselves vis- agrave- vis our world including other people and what we



285

want can have to and hope to do next within the communal world shared with others Th at is this is the work of fi guring out not only an answer to the question ldquowho am Irdquo (as suggested by many authors eg Luttrell 1996 Packer and Goicoechea 2000 ) but also to the questions ldquowho am I becom-ingrdquo and even more to the point ndash ldquowho do I want to becomerdquo and ldquowhat do I want my world to becomerdquo Th e specifi c emphasis in the TAS is that the latter two questions are interconnected and presuppose each other and can only be answered in light of each other ndash as both contingent on explor-ing what it is that one can and should do to bring about the sought- aft er future into reality

To emphasize again the mind is not about merely refl ecting represent-ing recording or experiencing the world instead it is about actively carry-ing out onersquos ways of being doing and knowing in one unifi ed (though not uniform) and continuous (though not without contradictions) process of becoming from onersquos unique position and in light of onersquos goals and aspira-tions in the world that we share with others As such this process does not consist of separate episodes and cannot be broken into distinct components or isolated parts Instead the mind is cumulative and evolving in one seam-less movement (or uninterrupted fl ow) of deeds that all interpenetrate and interconnect with each other thus co- evolving together and co- defi ning each other

In this light the psychological processes of perception cognition thinking memory and so on are not independent modules or gadgets in the service of partial isolated self- standing and discrete goals ndash such as cognitive understanding problem solving memorization or information processing ndash as if they were disconnected from the overall course of life itself somehow sheltered from social and collective processes and practices Instead because the mind is posited as but one dimension in the realiza-tion of the entirety of life of each person qua social actor of community practices and their collaborative projects every act of being knowing and doing is a stepping- stone in this process Th at is every act is a stepping- stone in carrying out a unitary and unique (though dynamic and constantly changing) seamless and ceaseless path of becoming an individually unique person with an authentic voice unique individuality and a distinct role among other people through making a diff erence in the communal world of social practices and their collective history (see Stetsenko 2010a ) Th e psychological processes are part and parcel of each personrsquos continuous and unifi ed ndash though at the same time fl exible dynamic and ever- changing ndash postuplenie as an eff ort at becoming someone and getting somewhere while



286

actively struggling to fi nd onersquos place and role in the communal world and its history always shared with others

Th e direct implication of this position is that each aspect or dimension (facet) in the workings of the mind and each act of being knowing and doing are understandable in light of each other and can be interpreted against the background of them belonging to the overarching process of becoming and its constituent life projects and agendas within the com-munal world shared with others Th e mind is a sort of acting that tran-scends the immediacy of the present including contingencies of social practices and discourses as they are in the ldquohere and nowrdquo and instead moves beyond the status quo in creating novelty and inventing the future Realized through the creative powers of transformative practices the acts of mind just as material doings too are transformative processes that pro-duce ontological relations inclusive of the persons and the world who are co- created together through world- making and self- making actions as one unifi ed (though not uniform and instead fraught with contradictions) process

The Ethical Dimensions

Th is position puts the ethical dimensions of being knowing and doing squarely at the forefront Because becoming has to do with fi nding onersquos place and role in community practices in their ongoing historicity and while contributing to them from this unique place each dimension and facet of this process has an evaluative quality including even the more ldquoelemen-taryrdquo processes of perception and memorization Th is does not mean that life agendas and commitments have to do with abstract contemplation and strictly inward mentation on moral dilemmas that are imposed in a top- down fashion from outside the developing person Rather from the TAS moral and ethical dilemmas and conundrums ldquonaturallyrdquo and inevitably arise within the course of our daily journeys Th is is because these journeys are about active strivings and struggles rather than abstract contempla-tion and information processing ndash in which there are decisions to be made every step of the way in light of demands and aff ordances engendered by the dynamics of collaborative social practices and the struggle to contribute to them It is the activist character of the process posited to ground human life and development ndash the continuous becoming through activist contribution to collaborative social practices ndash that makes the ethical directly visible and palpably present and even imperative within all acts of being knowing and doing Th is is why it is highly ironic that most conventional methodologies



287

and accounts of the mind designed to register achievements on disparate tasks such as problem solving memorization concept formation and so on fi nd ways to leave the ethical dimensions behind and render them invisible

Th e ethical (and ideological) dimension is central in and integral to human being and becoming including subjectivity and intersubjectivity because acting in ways that contribute to social practices requires ethical deliberation every step of the way rather than only in some ldquospecialrdquo cir-cumstances where the need to solve moral dilemmas putatively arises On the one hand a person cannot act without knowing right from wrong (cf Frye 1990 ) cannot be an actor without some goal and envisioned orienta-tion some commitment to a destination of onersquos becoming (or postuple-nie) On the other hand any and all acts deeds entail and carry the ethical (ldquothe rightrdquo versus ldquothe wrongrdquo) in them because they inevitably change the world and life ndash for better or worse for oneself and others ndash even if this change is sometimes neither self- evident nor immediately clear even to the actor Th e ethical is therefore a distinctive and inherent characteristic of being knowing and doing rather than a separate ingredient that is just somehow added to human life and becoming

Th is suggestion overlaps with and also expands on many philosophi-cal works ndash such as by Emmanuel Levinas (eg 1989 ) and by many in the tradition of Russian philosophy (which Levinas was familiar with and relying upon for example through Dostoevsky) that have challenged the ldquoepistemology- fi rstrdquo cognition- focused outlook of western philosophy Whereas the traditional philosophy disconnects knowing and being from evaluative concerns the motto of Levinas is that ldquoethics precedes ontologyrdquo Indeed instead of the thinking ldquoIrdquo epitomized in the Cartesian ldquoI think therefore I amrdquo Levinas began with the ethics of interconnectedness as the fi rst reality in which human existence unfolds For him the self is possi-ble only with the recognition of ldquothe Otherrdquo along with the moral ldquooughtrdquo that carries responsibility toward what is irreducibly diff erent In Brian Vandenbergrsquos ( 1999 ) interpretation of Levinasrsquos works

Ethics does not simply arise from ldquomoral dilemmasrdquo that force diffi cult decisions Moral choices do not leap out of a fl at epistemic landscape in moments of crisis Rather our daily in this moment journey is a moral one every action a decision about how to comport ourselves in the face of ethical demands engendered by being [as well as acting and knowing too] with others (p 34)

In the works by Levinas and in other dialogical- relational philosophies one can grasp the phenomenology of relationality with its centrality of



288

mutuality relatedness and interconnectedness of each person with all oth-ers On this view our being is essentially always a co- being because we are never alone in whatever we do and whoever we become In this co- being the relationships are fi rst and foremost that is relationships precede individuals (while entailing them) and never disappear from the fabric of human life in any of its expressions such as processes of subjectivity And because all relationships are ineluctably fraught with ethics and ideology ndash confl ict and power responsibility and commitment ndash these dimensions turn out to be fi rst too

Th e notion that the ethical considerations and concerns permeate the stream of everyday activities and inhere in these activities rather than are merely added to them as some ldquoextra ingredientsrdquo is highly relevant in the context of the ongoing discussion However there is a diff erence too in that Levinas seems to shun or at least is not concerned with the realm of social practices and the socially productive character of con-sciousness and mind resulting from their affi liation with these practices as expressed in the TAS To illustrate this diff erence it is useful to refer to the infl uential works by Charles Taylor (eg 1989 1993 ) who expressed the relevant critical point in strikingly vivid ways Taylor ( 1989 ) views a ldquofundamental moral orientation as essential to being a human interlocu-torrdquo (p 29) In his words

because we cannot but orient ourselves to the good and thus determine our place relative to it and hence determine the direction of our lives we must inescapably understand our lives in narrative form as a ldquoquestrdquo But one could perhaps start from another point because we have to deter-mine our place in relation to the good therefore we cannot be without an orientation to it and hence must see our life in story From whichever direction I see these conditions as connected facets of the same reality inescapable structural requirement of human agency (ibid pp 51ndash 52)

From the Vygotskian position and the TAS it would be more precise to say that we cannot do or be without acting together with others and hence without fi guring out our place and the place of our doings and agentive acts within the social practices and among other people and their doings ndash that is without fi guring out what is needed necessary and possible within the space of these collaborative ldquodoingsrdquo or practices It is in the context of life and development unfolding within and as part of social ndash that is shared joint interrelational interactive and communal ndash practices that working through the ethical issues is necessary and central including sorting out of the dialectics of ldquoisrdquo and ldquooughtrdquo It is these inherent (ie ldquonaturalrdquo rather



289

than metaphysical) attributes of our acting together with others in real-izing our communal world of social practices ndash taken as the fundamen-tal condition of human existence ndash that can be called morality Hence an orientation to the good is necessary and inescapable in such collaborative acting together in changing and inventing the world Fact and value ldquoisrdquo and ldquooughtrdquo are dialectically interrelated and even inseparable because a fundamental moral orientation is essential to not only ldquobeing a human interlocutorrdquo as Taylor has suggested but also and more originary to our acting as social agents and co- creators of a communal world that we share with others

As such the mind has to do not only with matters of cognitive compu-tation or information processing in the abstract but also ndash simultaneously and even primarily ndash with the moral ethical issues of commitment choice value worth accountability meaning and responsibility Th is is what is meant by statements by many scholars in the cultural- historical activity theory that processes such as aff ect motivation and emotion (beyond the cognitive and computational ones) are situated at the very core of human subjectivity and the mind Th is follows with Vygotskyrsquos ( 1987 ) insistence on the unity of aff ective and intellectual processes along with the unity of social cognitive and emotional experiences (Vygotsky 1994 for a recent elaboration see Vadeboncoeur and Collie 2013 ) As Vygotsky eloquently stated this position ldquoaff ect is the alpha and omega the fi rst and last link the prologue and epilogue of all mental developmentrdquo (Vygotsky 1998 p 227) Th is statement can be interpreted to suggest not the special role of emotions and aff ect taken as one ldquouniquerdquo and somehow discrete type of psycho-logical processes but rather the centrality of personal striving and struggle at becoming ndash inclusive of emotions cognitions feelings and so on ndash as grounding all psychological processes in one unifi ed process

Mediation and Meaning Making

One of the implications that follow from the concept of becoming- (inclu-sive of knowing and doing)- through- changing- the- world through contri-butions to shared social practices (ie through answerable deeds) is that it helps to put human subjectivity and specifi cally meaning back into the world ndash yet not by ldquoobjectivizingrdquo them and not in elevating them to a sta-tus of a separate realm or isolated activity Instead this task is approached by recognizing how deeds directly connect human beings with others and their environment through immediate agentive engagements that have the eff ects of blending and meshing the ldquoinsiderdquo and the ldquooutsiderdquo just like



290

walking connects persons to the surface on which they walk and de facto realizes their inseparability with their surround through a relationship of ldquoa circular ontological complicityrdquo (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992 p 128)

However the use of signs and other symbolic (semiotic) devices and tools from words to narrative forms and genres of speech opens up dis-tance between ourselves and the immediate contexts in which we act Th is opening up of a distance can be interpreted not as a process that breaks with the world and puts us outside of our engagements with it ndash as is oft en assumed by scholars who question the value of mediation and decontex-tualization (eg see Costall 2007 ) Instead the signs opening the distance between ourselves and the context in which we act can be interpreted as a diff erent way of acting that is less tied to the present and more attuned to temporalities of the past and the future Th is is not a minor aspect of human development but rather as Vygotsky so vividly expressed its fundamental achievement and major milestone Th is achievement (which is a continu-ous work- in- progress) takes work and eff ort ndash and other people who can supply cultural tools necessary to succeed in this task

Th ere exists a long tradition elaborating on the concept of distance as achieved by the use of signs For example Aby Warburg has stated that ldquo[t] he conscious creation of distance between oneself and the external world may be called the fundamental act of civilizationrdquo (cited in Young 2008 p 5) Th is is related to ideas by Ernst Cassirer according to whom as con-veyed by Habermas ldquothe objectifying force of symbolic mediation breaks the animal [ sic ] immediacy of nature which impacts on the organism from within and without it thereby creates that distance from the world which makes possible a thoughtful refl ectively controlled reaction to the world on the part of subjects who are able to say lsquonorsquo rdquo (Habermas 2001 p 7)

Th is point was also powerfully captured in the literary scholarship con-temporaneous with Vygotsky ndash which likely directly infl uenced him given that his career was launched from the fi eld of literary studies For example Victor Shklovskyrsquos position expressed in his essay Art as Device ( 1991 origi-nally written in 1917) was that the problem is not that we are too alienated from the world It is rather that we are not alienated enough that we are too closely immersed and too quickly fi nd ourselves indistinguishable from our surroundings (cf Holquist and Kliger 2005 ) and I would add with an illusion of being comfortably adapted to it For Shklovsky the routines of everyday life and practices oft en lead to automatization and familiarity that conceal the meanings and nature of things As he puts it automatization ldquoeats away at thingsrdquo whereby ldquo[t] he object passes before us as if it were



291

prepackagedrdquo (Shklovsky 1991 p 5) Holquist and Kliger ( 2005 ) interpret Shklovskyrsquos position in the sense that

we come to identify with our world too quickly and thoughtlessly to believe that things must be as they are Automatization is stronger than estrangement like entropy it happens all by itself inexorably unless eff ort is made to resist it Like entropy it has as its endpoint the ulti-mately undiff erentiated state (p 629 emphasis added)

Shklovsky insisted that it is specifi cally art and literature that are called upon to inaugurate and sustain the gap between us and the immediacy of our environments and experiences ndash to make familiar strange and thus to reveal for example how the ldquostone is stonyrdquo Otherwise there is no place for understanding things not only as they are but also how they can be changed to be otherwise In a sense I would suggest that in case of an abso-lute blending with what is present in the ldquohere and nowrdquo there is no place for understanding at all As Bakhtin ( 1986 p 7) suggested ldquoIn order to understand it is immensely important for the person who understands to be located outside the object of his or her creative understanding ndash in time in space in culturerdquo

Th is is directly relevant to the present discussion because to tie acting and thinking to context while not parting with the ethos of adaptationism and narrow naturalism bears the danger of losing sight of human capacity to transcend the immediacy of the given In particular positing acting and thinking to be inextricably fully and faithfully related to and fused with context in which they take place ndash as in mirroring the world and copying it as it is ndash wipes out the possibility of persons taking distance from the world and with this the possibility of changing the world Th at is such equalizing of the mind with adaptively and faithfully acting erases the space for choice individual identity and ethical deliberation

Th e strength of Vygotskyrsquos approach especially if taken as a multigenera-tional project was in making the attempt (however incomplete) to under-stand the mind as a form of symbolically (semiotically) mediated activity out in the world that is profoundly immersed in the world and in tune with it yet not faithfully copying it and instead leaving space for freedom and self- determination Th at is it was an attempt to understand the mind while pos-iting no ontological gaps between knowing and doing the knower and the known the external and the internal (and other traditional dichotomies) ndash yet at the same time not suggesting full equivalence between these poles either in particular at levels other than their core ontological groundings



292

Rather than celebrating the spontaneity of immediate experiencing and acting that is supposed to be completely merged with the fl ow of life in a totally faithful and non- distanced (ldquonon- alienatedrdquo) form Vygotsky was focused fi rst and foremost on symbolic relations and activities that are mediated by words and tools as exactly providing the space of distance and therefore for freedom self- determination and choice His immersion in the literary scholarship and arts of his time might have played a tremen-dously important role in this

In this emphasis one can see the originality of Vygotskyrsquos approach in contrast to the recently infl uential ecological embodied enacted situ-ated dynamic and distributed theories of the mind Th ese theories have advanced the extraordinarily important message about the contextual and situated nature of mind and cognition Some even went further to establish that the mind is inextricably connected to individuals acting in the environ-ment and as a facet or a dimension of such acting Th e critically important implication from these works (eg by Dewey and Piaget and those who continue in their traditions) is that the world is not passively perceived and known but that instead we have access to the world through acting in it with active manipulation being integral to knowing from the start To know something deeply is to understand it through our embodied engagement Scholars working in and elaborating on works by Dewey and Gibson (eg Costall 2007 Ingold 2008 ) suggest that cognition is relational instead of representational It is not a property of the individual but of the individualrsquos relation with the environment

Yet acting that brings forth the mind is oft en portrayed in these tradi-tions in ways that are confi ned to the immediacy of the present In this approach the mind and subjectivity are not considered to have power but rather are either excluded as epiphenomenal or viewed as ecological func-tions that mirror material interrelatedness of the mind with the environ-ment For example as Ingold ( 2011 p 6) writes the ldquoessence of production lies hellip in the attentional quality of the action ndash that is in its attunement and responsiveness to the task as it unfolds ndash and in its developmental eff ects on the producerrdquo (emphasis added) In another statement he suggests that ldquo[t] he perceptually astute organism is one whose movements are closely tuned and ever responsive to environmental perturbationsrdquo (Ingold 2000 p 260)

Similarly in ethnomethodology (eg Garfi nkel 2006 ) and studies of sit-uated and participatory learning (eg Lave and Wenger 1991 ) knowledge is not primarily conceptual or cognitive but rather an embodied knowledge



293

that comes only from engaging and participating in practices ldquoin concerted co- presence with othersrdquo (to use this expression from Rawls 2015 p 5) Th is is also captured in Gregory Batesonrsquos ( 1972 1979 ) notions about the ldquoecol-ogy of mindrdquo as the fundamental unity of the human self and the broader system of ecological organization Similar positions are further exempli-fi ed in many practice theories (such as by Pierre Bourdieu) and in similarly orientated sociocultural approaches (implicitly or explicitly) Th e key con-structs used in these approaches are everyday practical understandings and know- how embodied skills and habits and instrumentalities of conduct as they are shaped by tools and technologies ndash all of these connoting custom-ary practical propensities of a typically routine conduct in coping with the everyday world (see Packer 2011 ) Much less at the forefront are creativity and goal pursuits resistance and struggle projectivity and ability to move beyond the given

In such approaches there is a danger of what can be called a truncated reversal of traditional dualisms including the Cartesian one between the body and the mind (cf Plumwood 1993 ) In the truncated reversal the original dualism is not eliminated but rather and quite ironically affi rmed through a reduction of one pole on the dichotomy to the other which is de facto in line with the assumption that this dichotomy is legitimate in the fi rst place Th is happens when the novel notions meant to substitute for the traditional ones in rejecting Cartesian dualisms are construed under the premises inherited from the very Cartesianism they purport to reject Fully and completely reducing the mind to practical acting (or to embodi-ment and participation) without assigning either specifi c phenomenology or uniqueness to the workings of the mind tacitly affi rms the Cartesian view that the mind per se cannot fi nd its place within an account of how humans engage their world in embodied ways Th at is the stipulation is that the mind cannot be understood in any way other than in opposition to the bodily and practical acting in the world ndash exactly in line with what Descartes had surmised To consider processes of the mind to not be part of acting in the world (because the mind is presumably disembodied acon-textual and internal in some mystical ways etc) ndash and therefore on these grounds to reject the mental ndash is not to dismantle the dualistic position but to merely modify it

In this way the opposition of external versus internal of mind versus body of knowing versus doing is tacitly upheld even though one of the poles on each of these pairs is eliminated Th at is to reduce one of the poles on a given dichotomy to the other one is to nonetheless follow through with



294

the fundamental assumptions of this dichotomy instead of dismantling it by not accepting any of its premises in the fi rst place In this the sociocul-tural approaches inadvertently join in with the traditional conceptions that also eschew human mind and agency for example by reducing the mind to the brain (as in neuroscience) to bodily behavior (as in behaviorism) to social discourses (as in postmodernism) or to complex organizational machine states (as in functionalism)

Th e Vygotskian project attempted a diff erent and more complex route than just eliminating what seems to be if we operate on the premises of the Cartesian worldview an ephemeral realm of the mind Namely the attempt was to fi rst establish that the mind is immersed in how people are posi-tioned and situated in the world in how they are acting in and engaging it ndash initially (in developmental terms) in a full union with other people and then in more self- reliant ways In the second step however the attempt was to explore and reveal how the mind and psychological processes develop in ways that allow a person to act from a distance ndash and therefore with self- determination and freedom It is to this point that the TAS adds one specifi cation ndash that to act mindfully is to act from a distance created by onersquos stance on and commitment to the future that one seeks rather than in ways that faithfully refl ect mirror and adapt to what is in existence in front of us

Creating a distance from the reality in which we act and even from our own acting is an ability uniquely achieved by the use of symbolic tools and other cultural artifacts that release us from the ldquoprison- house of our sensesrdquo (Eagleton 2000 p 219) Th ere is nothing unnatural about this act of taking a distance ndash it is still an act in the world albeit also to it that is an act that does not faithfully bow to reality but is anchored in the process of changing it Eagleton ( 2000 ) provides an eloquent summary of this point

It is because our entry into the symbolic order ndash language and all it brings in its wake ndash puts some free play between ourselves and our deter-minants that we are those internally dislocated non- self- identical crea-tures known as historical beings History is what happens to an animal so constituted as to be able within limits to determine its own determi-nations What is peculiar about a symbol- making creature is that it is of its nature to transcend itself It is the sign that opens up that operative distance between ourselves and our material surroundings which allows us to transform them into history (p 219)

Th e semiotic processes of symbolic structuration signifi cation and mean-ing making have been taken as the ontological grounding for human devel-opment and social dynamics in many sign- centric and discourse- based



295

perspectives Th ese semiotic processes are indeed fundamentally important as this has been amply demonstrated through the recent decades of discur-sive narrative and linguistic ldquoturnsrdquo predicated on the notion that humans are self- interpreting beings who as this approach suggests partially create themselves on the basis of their own self- interpretations (Giddens 1984 ) Th ere is much truth in that human reality is discursively structured by lan-guage discourses meanings genres of talk and texts insofar as it is even made up and woven as text ile (cf Cheah 2008 )

Yet the role of signs needs to and can be further specifi ed in their ontological status if they are assigned with such a prominent role In the tradition of Vygotsky and Bakhtin (and also Vološinov) signs can be understood to be embedded within and constituted by a unifi ed realm of social collaborative practices in their particular historical forms and dynamics Th at is they are not separate entities but aspects of socially situated and dynamically unfolding living social practices What tran-spires in this case is that meaning making and sign mediation are not separate from ldquoour participation in disjointed social relationsrdquo along the ldquofault linerdquo of dissonance in praxis (Dorothy E Smith 1988 ) Th is sug-gests moving away from understanding ldquothe ideas images and symbols in which our experience is given social form hellip as that neutral fl oating thing called culturerdquo (ibid p 54) Instead cultural mediation of human ways of being doing and knowing (including emotions and identities) are co- constituted by and co- evolving with the sociocultural ethnic gendered and above all political and ideological dimensions of produc-tive practices expressing power relations that are socially and historically constituted

Th ese processes take place within the preexisting cultural and socio-political fl ow of practices and their order including structures and mean-ings that are enacted to organize sustain reproduce and also transform society and human development Yet these practices are preexisting indi-viduals not in the sense of these practices just statically ldquolyingrdquo outside of each individual who presumably has to establish connections with them somehow in addition to onersquos otherwise individual solo existence Instead our very existence begins with and is constituted by our active engagement in and encounters with these practices by us ldquoalways alreadyrdquo dealing and grappling with and also enacting and bringing forth these practices as the starting point of the uninterrupted fl ow of our being and becoming

Th e mindful and meaningful acting is not about interpretation or mean-ing making as a separate semiotic or mental process Th at is meanings are neither physical events nor some supranatural properties of a private



296

mental sphere disconnected from social practices and what human beings do in their lives Instead the mind and its meaning making and imaginative capacities are directly inherent in the dynamics of social practices ndash their continuous unfolding uninterrupted transformations interactive dynam-ics and ceaseless changes ndash based in the material- semiotic events that are interactional and transformative and thus not reducible to isolated entities

Th e meaning obtains in acting collaboratively with and building upon actions of other people and thus mattering to them and to oneself Th at is it obtains in acting together with or in view of others (even if compet-ing with resisting or struggling against each other) including those who are immediately present and those from a distant past ndash who are present through the indelible traces they have left in the balances and shift ing dynamics of continuously unfolding uninterrupted social practices In thus contributing to and making a diff erence in the overall dynamics of commu-nal acting by changing conditions of acting for oneself and others people make their actions intelligible and comprehensible (meaningful) to oneself and to others Th erefore the process of signifi cation and meaning making comes about through changes in material practices predicated on human beingsrsquo unavoidable togetherness as the prime condition of their existence ndash while individuals are positioned and position themselves and each other as a defi ning condition of their communal acting

Th is is the process of taking into account actions of others in each occa-sion of onersquos own acting (in its unity of being knowing and doing) ndash or stated from the other side of the same process of making onersquos own act-ing to be occasions for acting by everybody else now and in the future Such positionality is impossible without a complex process of fi guring out diverse and oft en diverging interests and conditions while also considering possible consequences and outcomes of onesrsquo actions for oneself and for the others Th is togetherness makes social practices inherently meaningful and ethical thus escaping objectivism of action understood as a mechani-cal reaction ldquowithout and agentrdquo on one hand and the subjectivism that portrays action as a free project of a conscience pursuing its own ends and maximizing its utility through rational computation (cf Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992 ) on the other

Furthermore the materiality of signs and meaning making can be estab-lished in light of them being inherent parts and enactments of social prac-tices ndash due to the durability historicity and facticity of these practices that is their more or less persistent mattering across time and space Actions are intelligible to others precisely because of how they shape communal spaces



297

and grounds for each instance of being knowing and doing It is in this sense that people can be said to endow things with signifi cance and mean-ings Th is is the materiality not of economic or social structures and mate-rial things ldquoout thererdquo taken on their own independently of human beings and their acting (ie when things are presumed to be somehow ldquoendowedrdquo with meanings independently and apart from the unfolding dynamics of collaborative practices) Instead this is the materiality of human practices in their expressions in dense and vital interrelations among persons act-ing together while co- creating the world and in resulting durable structures that endure through time as the grounds for acting in the next cycles of communal social practices

Th e emphasis on discursive structuring of sociocultural practices has to be coupled with revealing how reality is permeated with human struggle that is not only interpretive but also existential and productive in that it constitutes an arena on which persons act in constructing their lives and conditions of existence and through this also create and invent themselves and their world Th us it is important to emphasize that these discursive practices do not emerge in an independent process of meaning making only Instead they need to be revealed as a material productive process con-stituted brought into existence (rather than merely shaped infl uenced or limited) by social forces and power dynamics beyond discourse conversa-tion and textual realm ndash that is by the dynamics of collaborative transfor-mative practices in their history- making and world- creating role

Th e categories of discourses and acts of meaning making then are not merely means and ways of reinterpreting or reinscribing reality and mak-ing sense of it (as implied by many sociocultural and discursive perspec-tives) and not merely a matter of dialogues with the world and others (as in many dialogical approaches eg Markovaacute 2003 ) Rather discourses and meanings stories and narratives signs and acts of making sense of reality can be understood as inherent characteristics of human collabora-tive practices realized through individually unique contributions to them Th ese processes occur in the realms of power because human beings qua social actors strive to be know and act in contexts that are not only sites of but themselves struggles permeated with class ethnic racial and or gender confl icts In this sense the emphasis on signs and other cultural forms is fully legitimized yet under a condition that these cultural forms are fi rst understood to be ontologically derivative of and intertwined with the grounding realm of material practices in their productive role that is in these practicesrsquo status of a world- creating ontology Th e cultural forms



298

co- implicated as they are with other modes of productive social practices are therefore productive and ultimately even ldquomore than realrdquo in this world- changing and world- creating role of theirs Such a view is consistent with the ldquocultural materialismrdquo or ldquoculturalismrdquo that takes productive material practices to be foundational to human development and social life links the production of meanings to specifi c social formations and regards language and communication as formative social forces while focusing on interac-tions among institutions forms of social relationships and cultural tools (see Williams 1980 ) It is not an accident therefore that as Williams stated he has ldquoreached but necessarily by this route [of fi rst accepting the notion of productive social practices as foundational] hellip a theory of culture as a (social and material) productive process and of specifi c practices of lsquoartsrsquo as social uses of material means of productionrdquo (ibid p 243)

Mind and Brain

Th e work of becoming ndash and all acts of being knowing and doing con-stitutive of this process ndash stretch far beyond neuronal processes in the brain computations and mental representations in the cognitive appa-ratus Th is is not only because the mind is stretched or distributed across the body and the external resources drawn upon to support its workings Th is is because the work of the mind is done not by the brain or separate organs or processes (ie mental gadgets) and not even by the body organism taken as a whole Instead it is the work carried out but by the person herself as she is coming about and constantly evolving within the entirety of her life and in her role as an active agent or agentive actor who is acting in and on the social world of communal practices and collaborative projects ndash and mattering in them Th is position can be seen as building on yet also transcending what John Dewey wrote many years ago

To see the organism in nature the nervous system in the organism the brain in the nervous system the cortex in the brain is the answer to the problems which haunt philosophy And when thus seen they will be seen to be in not as marbles are in a box but as events are in history in a mov-ing growing never fi nished process (Dewey 1925 1958 p 295)

If this insightful view is shift ed away from the purely organic and natu-ralistic connotations of organisms acting ldquoin naturerdquo in adapting to it ndash toward a more sociocultural and transformative understanding in the spirit of Vygotskyrsquos school ndash then the following modifi cation is possible It



299

can be said that the mind is in the brain but only if it is also said at once that the brain is in the whole body that importantly is always engaged and active in the world Th at is the body is not simply situated in the world but is ceaselessly carrying out back- and- forth exchanges with the world Th ese relational activities represent the core modus vivendi and the foundational ontology of all forms of life including bodily processes and brain activities So far this reformulation is close in meaning to what Dewey and other pragmatists had surmised too Importantly and in dis-tinction with pragmatism however for humans these are not just any activities of the organism body but collective and transformative activities as they constitute dimensions of socially shared practices in their histori-cal temporality mediated by cultural tools and supports and carried out through interactivities dialogues and social interactions and above all through productive actions that make a diff erence in the world and tran-scend its status quo Th ese are activities by social actors and co- creators of communal practices in their ongoing historicity All of this has to be said at once with saying that the mind is in the brain if one wants to use this latter expression at all

As such the human mind is not the quality of acting merely by an organ-ism navigating its environment typically alone in the process of adapting to it Instead it is the quality of collaborative acting by social actors of com-munity practices ndash which they do not cease being even when acting alone ndash as they bring these practices and themselves into reality

Th e role of brain processes in this approach is not neglected but rather situated within a dialectical- systemic communal relational situated and transformative process at the foundation of human development It has been a common point in Marxist philosophy and explicitly in activity theory that it is not the brain that thinks or feels but that it is people who think and feel including with the aid or through the medium of their brains and other resources In these works the focus in studying the mind was on human activity out in the world as it shaped and determined the processes in the brain (rather than the other way around) in countering the biologically reductionist views that focus on the brain alone as if it was isolated from the rest of the body and from the person acting in the world together with other people It is based in this broad philosophical position that Alexander Luria (1902ndash 1977) the preeminent neuropsychologist and one the founders of this discipline was able to develop principles of brain functioning that are still at the forefront and even ahead of the most recent advancements in neurosciences such as his notion of dynamic- systemic and distributed localization of brain functions (eg Luria 1973 see also Cole Levitin and



300

Luria 2010 Homskaya 2001 for a brief outline of Luriarsquos contribution to cultural- historical theory see Stetsenko 2003 )

As Steven Rose ( 2005a ) observed the dominant position on the role of the brain in psychological processes today still largely echoes Th omas Huxleyrsquos (the nineteenth- century scholar) view that the mind is to the brain as the whistle is to the steam train ndash a mere epiphenomenon Th is leads to an endless number of conundrums and dead ends including misguided eff orts to reform education through the means of neuroscience and to iden-tify mental illness as a purely biological phenomenon (to name just two examples with grave practical implications) Without dismissing the value of brain research it is important to warn of overstretching claims to its util-ity in purporting to explain all of human development and encroaching on the territory where explanations in purely (and narrowly) biological and organic terms do not work

Broad questions of how human beings develop act learn and come to understand their world and themselves as persons and actors ndash rather than assemblies of ldquosubpersonalrdquo parts who are nothing but packs of neurons (Crick 1994 ) and carriers of selfi sh genes (Dawkins 1976 ) ndash require theo-ries and methods that are commensurate with the broad level of analysis that does justice to complexities of human development To paraphrase Bennett and Hacker ( 2003 ) it is the person who thinks and acts rather than their various parts as vitally required as these parts may be One should add that persons think and act not in a vacuum but in the social world fi lled with obligations and expectations contradictions and challenges tasks and demands constraints and aff ordances Th is social world and its constitutive activities and practices imbued with complex dimensions require persons to act at commensurate levels of complexity Examples of a judicious atti-tude to carefully determining the type of questions that can be answered through brain and genetic research is to be found in works of neurosci-entists mindful of theory and philosophy such as Steven Rose ( 2005b ) In his words

[T] o understand and hopefully to treat Alzheimerrsquos disease we need to know about the biochemistry of the amyloid precursor protein but it would be folly to try to explain the causes of the invasion of Iraq in 2002 in terms of fl uctuations in transmitter levels in US President Bushrsquos brain

Th is position echoes earlier insights by Alexander Luria who (in building on Vygotskyrsquos ideas) stated that the mysteries of human psychology cannot be resolved by looking into either ldquothe loft y realms of the mind or the depths of the brainrdquo (1982 p 25) Instead as Luria suggested to fi nd these answers



301

one has to abandon the confi nes of an isolated organism and instead seek ldquothe sources of human conscious activity in the external conditions of life in the fi rst place in the external conditions of communal social life in the social- historical forms of human existence hellip Th e idealist approach of the phenomenologists is as hopeless as the positivist approach of the natural-istsrdquo (ibid)

Luriarsquos unique take on the problem of how the mind and the brain are related was based in the application of Vygotskyrsquos and activity theory prin-ciples Th is included ideas that brain processes (1) serve the purposes of carrying out meaningful goal- directed activities that (2) are situated in con-texts formed in the life course of development in response to the demands of these contexts and (3) are shaped in important ways by cultural artifacts such as language Th ese ideas de facto signifi ed a new path for studying the old mysteries of the mind enabling Luria to make a whole array of important discoveries about how the brain works and to formulate many groundbreaking principles of its development

Th ere is a plethora of works in neuroscience that are moving in truly radical ways beyond many of the traditional assumptions in opening new horizons in research and theorizing about the brain For example recent research shows that contrary to the longstanding stereotypes brain struc-tures are neither rigidly preformed (ldquowiredrdquo) nor unidirectionally driven by maturation Instead brain structures and patterns of neural activation appear to be constructed within development dynamics and in relation to individual experiences and learning (eg Gottlieb 2003 2006 ) In a related vein many researchers recently caution against disregarding that the brain is not a separate organ but is part and parcel in activities of organisms as a whole (eg Bremner and Slater 2003 Fox Levitt and Nelson 2010 Nelson and Luciana 2001 )

Neural plasticity in particular is used to refer to processes that involve major connectional changes of the nervous system in response to experience (eg Huttenlocher 2002 Kolb and Gibb 2011 Li 2013 Loumlvdeacuten Baumlckman Lindenberger Schaefer and Schmiedek 2010 ) Whereas the traditional view throughout the twentieth century was that the adult human brain is organized in fixed and immutable function- specific neural circuits the discovery of the profound plasticity of the brain in the late 1990s has overturned this canon (cf Rees 2010 ) This work highlights the property of neural circuits to potentially acquire nearly any function depending on vicissitudes of individual ontoge-netic development This is aligned with the notions of neuroconstruc-tivism or ldquointeractive brain specializationrdquo that put emphasis on the



302

activity- dependent nature of brain development (Johnson Grossmann and Cohen- Kadosh 2009 )

Some researchers link neuroplasticity to an evolved under - specialization of brain circuits in humans at birth (following a long tradition of thought that goes back to at least Herderrsquos philosophy see Moss 2006 Moss and Pavesich 2011 ) that is absence of their close ties to specifi c sensory or motor functions As a result the brain appears to be able to acquire a wide range of non- innate skills linked to the use of tools interacting with oth-ers and learning from others during ontogeny (eg see works that use the Tools of the Mind approach by Bodrova and Leong 2007 eg Diamond Barnett Th omas and Munro 2007 ) long past the supposedly critical fi rst years of life Th e idea of brain plasticity and the associated premise that the growth of neural connections across the life span (though especially in childhood) is highly contingent on individual experiences of acting in the world cultural mediation social exchanges and learning was the singularly important hallmark of Luriarsquos ( 1973 ) approach

Th is signifi cant shift in neuroscience parallels developments in biol-ogy and genetics that are now also moving past the impasses of biological reductionism As recently expressed by Charney ( 2012 ) for example

[t] he science of genetics is undergoing a paradigm shift Recent dis-coveries hellip are challenging a series of dogmas concerning the nature of the genome and the relationship between genotype and phenotype According to three widely held dogmas DNA is the unchanging tem-plate of heredity is identical in all the cells and tissues of the body and is the sole agent of inheritance (p 331)

In dispelling these longstanding stereotypes Charney draws on a vast literature to show how ldquo[r] ather than being an unchanging template DNA appears subject to a good deal of environmentally induced change Instead of identical DNA in all the cells of the body somatic mosaicism appears to be the normal human condition And DNA can no longer be considered the sole agent of inheritancerdquo (ibid) Th ese works advance a critique of genetic ldquoblueprintrdquo models of development in taking on from the works dating as far back as the 1950s including by Schneirla ( 1957 ) and Lehrman ( 1953 1970 ) Similar critique of genetic determinism was present as one of its hallmark themes in Vygotskyrsquos cultural- historical and activity theory


303

303

10

Illustration Memory and Anticipation of the Future

Invention and remembrance go hand in hand hellip To remember means to invent and the one who remembers is also an inventor

Osip Mandelstam

Th e principles presented in the previous chapter can be addressed using an example of how memory works ndash not because of a special status of memory but for illustrative purposes (the special or distinct status of memory oft en claimed by those who study it is thereby neither disputed nor asserted because this point is not directly relevant for the present discussion) Most extant theories and models in cognitive psychology artifi cial intelligence and brain research explicitly endorse the view that memory is about storage and retrieval of discrete traces from the past in a process of forming neuro-nal constellations connections or circuits in the brain Th is understanding of memory as ldquoa storehouserdquo has shaped much of the history of memory research (Koriat and Goldsmith 1995 ) while relying in large part on the study of item memorization such as random lists of words or sequences of meaningless stimuli

Th ere have been many developments even within the mainstream cog-nitive sciences that challenge this passive view of memory as merely a stor-age of information and facts For example neurobiologist Gerald Edelman ( 2006 ) has suggested that the passive view of memory is mistaken because ldquothe brain does not operate by logical rulesrdquo (p 21) Edelman describes how instead of having fi xed memories we invent what we remember Th at is we creatively recategorize what we have learned in the past depending on present circumstances and ongoing situations Furthermore according to Edelman the brain draws up maps of its own activities and not only of exterior stimuli Along similar lines Rosenfi eld ( 1988 ) has argued against the commonplace view that human memory is a kind of a fi ling cabinet



304

or database dedicated to storing permanent records that are then retrieved upon demand In his view every new perception or behavior is a generaliza-tion composed of past perceptions and behaviors (a claim associated with Vygotskyrsquos position) Current neural organizations are thus related to those constructed in the past without rigid diff erentiation of memory into index-ing retrieval and matching processes (cf Clancey 1991 ) In this approach perception categorization and memory are not treated as separate systems but believed to share common underlying mechanisms

One distinct line of research especially relevant to the ongoing dis-cussion situates the working of memory within the functional context of organismsrsquo active interactions with the environment Prominent in this line are works by Neisser (eg Neisser and Winograd 1988 ) who insisted that memory is a form of ldquodoingrdquo and focused on the social functions of memory in everyday life More recently Glenberg ( 1997 ) goes into great detail to develop an account of memory based in its function of serving goal- directed thought and action Most memory theories presuppose that memory is for memorizing Glenbergrsquos alternative proposal is that memory evolved in service of perception and action in a three- dimensional envi-ronment and that memory is embodied to facilitate interaction with the environment In a similar vein Anderson ( 1997 ) stressing the contribution of memory to the formation of value judgments (eg attitudes) opts for a ldquovalue metaphorrdquo in which memory involves online construction of values and their integration in the context of activities

Further works highlight how memory processes overlap and interlink with sociocultural activities and contexts For example Schank ( 1990 ) sug-gests that conceptual memory requires that we relate memories to ourselves and to others through telling stories about past events More recent research has confi rmed that telling stories and listening to other peoplersquos stories shape memories in signifi cant ways Th e sociocultural model of autobio-graphical memory (Nelson and Fivush 2004 ) describes the role of social interaction language and narrative in the development of autobiographical memories Th is model is focused on how social cognitive skills for tempo-ral understanding and causal reasoning allow autobiographical memories to be integrated into an overarching life narrative that defi nes emerging identity (Fivush Habermas Waters and Zaman 2010 ) Habermas and Bluck ( 2000 ) use the term autobiographical reasoning to illustrate how the dynamic process of thinking about the past links memory processes to the self McLean Pasupathi and Pals ( 2007 ) use the term situated stories ldquoto emphasize the fact that any narrative account of personal memory is



305

created within a specifi c situation by particular individuals for particular audiences and to fulfi ll particular goalsrdquo (p 262) Th ese works continue in line with Jerome Brunerrsquos ( 1987 1990 ) proposal that memory enacted through autobiographical narratives enables individuals to structure their experiences and thus facilitates making sense of life and identity develop-ment (Pasupathi 2001 )

From the transformative activist stance (TAS) a number of steps can be made to further challenge the passive reductionist solipsistic and neu-tral portrayals of memory to instead connect it with identity development meaning making and the agentive processes of becoming of persons as agents of social practices In commonality with the preceding approaches an argument can be made that memory cannot be understood as a mental storage of past events that are piled up somewhere within the depths of the brain as constellations of neurons fi xed in traces that are catalogued and preserved intact and unchanged ndash until they are retrieved upon demand in some willful act of recollection Instead memory serves goal- directed thought and action Moreover memory not only serves goal- directed action but also ndash and this is an additional critical specifi cation to the extant accounts ndash human memory is a form of action by persons who are not only situated and embedded in environments but also are acting as agents of communal practices who realize and change them in a constant personally meaningful quest and striving for a sought- aft er future

From this additional specifi cation all acts of remembering the past are actually never just about the past Instead memory is determined by goals and commitments and thus by an orientation to the future and an activ-ist striving to change the present (and the past too as it is extending into and enacted within the present) in furthering onersquos life agenda predicated on a commitment to a sought- aft er future Remembering is the work of keeping things alive of continuously recreating the past and recruiting its resources in the service of onersquos becoming that is of achieving something out in the world (in a non- instrumentalist sense) and thus of mattering in a world shared with others Th is includes a continuous process of developing onersquos own identity as a social actor of community practices while inevitably changing these practices ndash by constantly moving beyond the past and pres-ent into the future Th at is memory is a tool of creating novelty and invent-ing the future including reimagining what is possible and who one wants to be within the overall work of identity development and becoming ndash viewed as activist projects situated in and constitutive of the communal world of shared social practices Rather than a neutral and merely cognitive process



306

memory is an aspect of activist struggles of being knowing and doing across the time scales and at the intersection of individual and collective levels ndash as persons are continuously striving to meet (in also co- defi ning) the shift ing challenges of their lives while projecting into and de facto also inventing the future

Th is position can be illustrated with an example from the hypotheti-cal everyday life scenario such as the case of remembering someone from the distant past of onersquos autobiography From the position of TAS it can be argued that a person does not remember someone from onersquos past say an acquaintance from long ago simply by ldquostoringrdquo a mental image of this particular person ndash as a fi xed inert and separate entity (or a memory trace) that is put away and passively preserved in the form of a mental or neuro-nal constellation with stable boundaries Rather to have a memory of an acquaintance is to perform the active work of continuing and thus keeping alive actions and pursuits associated with this particular person and our engagements with her or him Th is process is not about putting memories and mental images away to be hidden in the depths of the brain or inside our cognitive apparatus

Instead we remember a person (if we do at all) in the sense that this particular person or something associated with her or him has persisted through time because it constitutes a relatively distinctive part or layer more or less signifi cant of who we are and what we do in the world now in the present and especially of where we want to go next as we continu-ously engage with and carry out our future- oriented agendas of becoming through mattering in community practices Th is particular acquaintance and the way he or she has engaged us and we have engaged her or him (in always mutually reciprocal and relational patterns of activity) have per-sisted through time within our continuous activities composing one uni-fi ed unfolding life trajectory of our becoming that stretches from the past into the future ldquoHave persistedrdquo through time means that something asso-ciated with this particular person has made a diff erence for us and in us and thus has continued to be present in how we have since engaged with other people and the world and how we continue these engagements and activities in the present while also most critically projecting into the future

In this sense the fact that we remember an acquaintance from the past means that she or he has not ceased to be relevant (even if only implicitly) to something meaningful to us ndash to who we have been who we are now and especially who we are striving to be Memory of the past only exists if this past is relevant (and therefore also meaningful) to the present and



307

the future ndash with memory being a continuous work of keeping past activi-ties and actions alive through ongoing and unending enactments across the time scales of the past the present and the future in the furtherance of onersquos meaningful projects and life agendas In this sense nothing is ever forgot-ten to then be resurrected from the brain molecules or modules in some kind of a mysterious process of memory retrieval Th ings and memories are not stored away Th ey are kept alive if kept at all within what we con-tinue to do and how we continue to be in the world ndash in our ways of being knowing and doing ndash especially as these are grounded in our strivings for a sought- aft er future that uniquely keeps things alive

In this sense memories can be said to persist without completely vanishing within our uninterrupted becoming and thus to endure in its dynamic ldquobodyrdquo that is in the ongoing dynamic stream of our evolv-ing deeds struggles and strivings within a shared world of communal practices Memories are layers within the complex hierarchical systems and multilayered reality of continuous acting (the composite process of being- knowing- doing) that constitutes the core of human development Memory then is contingent upon what we are doing now in the present as we continuously carry out actions building on the past and as these actions are also always stretching into the future ndash with no interruption among these time dimensions and no ontological breaking down of this process of actively engaging with the world while striving to achieve our goals in co- creating and inventing it One could say then that to remem-ber means to never forget ndash to never completely leave behind what it is that we remember in keeping it alive within the fabric of our ever- renewing and active projects of becoming Th is is consonant with Mandelstamrsquos pre-scient words that ldquo[i] nvention and remembrance go hand in hand hellip To remember means to invent and the one who remembers is also an inven-torrdquo (cited in Cavanagh 1995 p 8)

Th is does not mean that memories cannot fade be hidden away or even lost ndash they can but again not in the sense of them being hidden in the brain parts that passively store information like in some kind of a fi le cabinet to be sometimes mechanically erased from this storage or to automatically fade away on their own Memories are oft en ldquokept beyond the surfacerdquo and do fade but only in the sense of them receding to more implicit layers within the multilayered reality of a continuous acting becoming across the time dimensions Th at is memories can be and oft en are delegated to the deeper layers of activity of what it is we are enacting in the present within our continuous becoming and therefore linked to



308

the presently active levels of this process in more tacit and more medi-ated ways than the other more immediately relevant levels of activity that carry on memories

Th is is again consistent with the principle of the Russian doll ( matry-oshka ) in which there are multiple layers of acting that are present within onersquos ongoing life activity of becoming in the fullness and entirety of this process Th ese layers are mutually embedded enacted within the overarch-ing process and structures of an activity of becoming ndash except that a matry-oshka is static and frozen whereas activity is alive and ongoing dynamically fl uid ever- changing and open- ended In this sense perhaps one could say that forgetting is also not something that simply happens to us and to our memories Instead forgetting is also an active process an active work of organizing and coordinating the layers (and goals) within our activities of becoming arranging them in a hierarchical order while prioritizing some and relegating the others to minor roles ndash all in view of what is going on now and where we want to move next in terms of changing ourselves and the world while shift ing some of these layers deeper within the overall activity structure of our becoming

Th is is a process that implicates the whole person ndash who is embodied situated and above all acting in a world shared with others while pursuing onersquos place in it by means of making a diff erence (mattering) ndash rather than simply ldquopossessingrdquo a memory gadget for an independent cognitive faculty to ldquosolverdquo problems in the ldquohere and nowrdquo Memory is therefore (as any other psychological process) at once material cognitive aff ective intentional and deeply personal Memory is intricately personal and moreover indica-tive of who we have been who we are becoming and where we are heading In activity theory A N Leontiev ( 1978 ) captured this in saying that the past (such as facts of onersquos biography) can be and is constantly reevaluated so that it plays a diff erent role in the present depending on onersquos personal-ity (the self) as it has since become Th is is an expression for Leontiev of the major psychological fact that the person enters into a relationship with onersquos past that therefore becomes integrated into the present in vari-ous ways depending on this relationship rather than being mechanically carried over or brought up in a purely cognitive recollection As Leontiev (ibid) aptly conveys Tolstoyrsquos advice relevant to this point ndash pay attention to what you remember and what you do not remember by these manifesta-tions you will get to learn about yourself about who you are and (I would add) about who you are striving to become

All of these processes furthermore happen not in a vacuum of individ-uals sorting out their own self- enclosed pursuits somehow disconnected



309

from the social world and its collaborative practices On the contrary each and every step and each and every act within these processes including acts of memory are part and parcel of a socially historically contextually and ideologically- politically situated striving to sort out onersquos place and role among other people Th is centrally includes sorting out how one can be contributing to what is going on in the world while committing to a sought- aft er future of how one aspires this communal world should be through social transformation of the status quo Th is process even at the individual level is nonetheless profoundly fully and inescapably social through and through

In Vygotskyrsquos present- day scholarship the tenet that psychological pro-cesses are profoundly and essentially social at their very base and core is oft en associated with the notion of cultural mediation by the tools and arti-facts of culture Th is tenet was indeed central to Vygotskyrsquos whole approach and perhaps especially in its application to memory His position was that

the fi rst use of auxiliary [mediating] devices the transition to mediat-ing activity radically [at the root ndash v korne Rus] restructures the whole mental operation just as the use of a tool modifi es the natural [organic] activity of the [bodily] organs and broadens immeasurably [or limit-lessly bezmerno ndash Rus] the system of activity of mental functions ( 1997b p 63)

Th is principle is specifi cally illustrative in its application to memory devel-opment Vygotsky writes that inventing an artifi cial object to support and guide memory such as in tying a knot to be later reminded of what one must do is an operation that is ldquoexceptionally complex and instructive hellip [I] ts appearance heralded the approach of humanity to the boundaries that separated one epoch of its existence from anotherrdquo (ibid p 50) In this example Vygotsky reveals how the act of signifi cation creates a temporary link between the present and the future and thus helps to ldquoobjectifyrdquo mem-ory (ie make it practically relevant to what is going on in onersquos life) In such acts of signifi cation the person moves beyond the power of immediate stimulation to shape activities and instead gains capacity to control onersquos own acts of memorization Vygotsky writes that through this the person ldquochanges the environment with his [ sic ] external activity and in this way aff ects his own behavior subjecting it to his own authorityrdquo (ibid p 212)

In a broader sense however the mind is social for additional reasons as well In particular the mind ndash as a mindful activity ndash takes place in the social world where everything a person does aff ects other human beings while what others are doing or have done in the past even the distant past



310

aff ects each personrsquos life now and in the future if only through the traces they have left in the world (eg when ideas notions technology know- how etc invented by others become an integral part of shared acting and becoming in the present) Not only that but everything a person does is motivated and regulated at its core by onersquos position in and relations to the social world of others ndash based in the social interests contacts contracts obligations expectations aspirations rules norms and sanctions typically not fully of onersquos own solo making Furthermore memory for example is social in the sense that it uses the tools and artifacts of culture invented by others and creatively taken up by each individual person Th ese tools range from cultural objects infused with meanings and recruited for the purpose of remembering such as various memorabilia and souvenirs to norma-tive patterns of being knowing and doing as these are embodied in rituals skills and habitual forms of participation ndash and all the way to the tools of language narrative and discourse that structure shape and organize memory

In all of these aspects memory relies on materializing the process of remembering in objects and patterns of activities is contingent on social rules norms conventions inputs supports and sanctions off ered and oft en imposed by others and is carried out through the medium of social inter-activities and relations (including dialogues narratives and discourses) in tandem and close coordination of onersquos actions with those of others Memory in other words is fully immersed in and intimately enmeshed with social practices and collaborative activities inclusive of interactions and relationships ndash arising in and out of them Yet memory is enacted in ldquothe doingsrdquo by the individual person who as the agent of these shared practices brings them into realization and thus is neither asocial nor sepa-rated from other people

All of these descriptions are premised on the notion that persons are always acting in collaborative ways (even when acting alone) while engaging in a world shared with others Bodily processes are directly involved too as they are put in the service of meaningful activities by persons For example memories can become literally embodied in direct and obvious forms ndash the marks on the body such as stretches wrinkles and tattoos the way we walk and dress and so on Speaking in an accent (an embodied and materialized process) is a powerful reminder ndash a form of memory ndash that one comes from a diff erent culture the memory of which cannot be erased Monuments are also forms of materializing memory of the past history that communities choose to elevate and



311

celebrate due to their relevance to the struggles taking place in the pres-ent and stretching into the future

Overall a whole variety of resources both internal and external ndash includ-ing bodily material social technological and even institutional ones all with their own histories and dynamics ndash are parts of memory processes and their ldquocognitive ecologiesrdquo In these ecologies the ldquoexpertise is spread across a heterogeneous assembly of brains bodies artifacts and other external structuresrdquo (Clark 1997 p 77 and see also Sutton Harris Keil and Barnier 2011 ) And yet the point to emphasize again is that the work of memory is carried out not by ldquobrains bodies artifacts and other external structuresrdquo even if they are understood to be heterogeneously assembled It is the work that is carried out by the person qua agent of social practices ndash in the fullness of onersquos embodiment and interactivity and even more importantly in the entirety of onersquos life project premised on participation and especially contri-bution to social practices out in the world Th is is in contrast to understand-ing the work of memory and the mind as carried out by or as a phase of the primarily bodily movements and actions of the organism or of the dynam-ics of discourses outside of productive processes of social practices

Comparison to Other Approaches

Th is account in its various parts is consonant with many works and approaches in psychology and beyond ndash both the relatively old ones and those that are just recently emerging across a number of fi elds Yet a num-ber of points highlighted by the TAS appear to tap into what has been rela-tively neglected and therefore in need of further elaboration especially in terms of an emphasis on the transformative- agentive and future- orientated nature of the mind including as illustrated herein the memory processes

In terms of the older approaches this account continues important works on memory in the activity theory tradition especially those of P I Zinchenko Th ese works date back to the 1930s and then were carried out through several decades (eg Zinchenko 1939 1961 ) Zinchenkorsquos works were conducted within the tradition of Vygotskyrsquos school and made an important contribution to its transformative developments Th e core of his approach is that memory is understood to be an active process of carrying out life activity by a person being itself precisely an action rather than an isolated mental faculty In Zinchenkorsquos words memory has to do with ldquoa selective consolidation of individual experience and in its further usage hellip in concrete conditions of the subjectrsquos life in his [or her] activityrdquo ( 1961



312

p 134) Th is view builds upon Vygotskyrsquos approach to memory and develop-ment more broadly according to which

psychological laws including laws of memorizing cannot be found out-side of research into the real meaningful activity of the subject in rela-tion to his surrounding reality Th ese laws express nothing other than the development of this activity in the course of which the consciousness is formed and restructured for it to then determine the subjectrsquos activity the life itself (Zinchenko 1939 p 147)

Th e account of memory from the TAS perspective also overlaps with the important works by the French philosopher Henri Bergson (eg 1911 ) and is particularly resonant (though not equivalent) with his view that memory accumulates in the body as a set of responses to a complex set of solicita-tions from the world (cf Gallagher 2009 ) In Bergsonrsquos words the body retains

from the past only the intelligently coordinated movements which repre-sent the accumulated eff orts of the past and it recovers those past eff orts not in the memory- images which recall them but in the defi nite order and systematic character with which the actual movements take place In truth it no longer represents our pasts to us it acts it and if it still deserves the name memory it is not because it conserves bygone images but because it prolongs their useful eff ect into the present moment (Bergson 1911 p 3)

Th is account is also consistent with Deweyrsquos ideas As elaborated for exam-ple by Clancey ( 1997 2009 ) Deweyrsquos classical work on the refl ex arc ( 1896 ) laid foundations for a concept of ldquoconstructive memoryrdquo Th is concept too highlights temporal dimensions of the mind and of memory in par-ticular because as illustrated by Clancey ( 1997 pp 95ndash 96) ldquoSequences of acts are composed such that subsequent experiences categorize and hence give meaning to what was experienced beforerdquo In this account as Clancey shows memory is not laid down in a fi xed form at the time of the original experience but is a function quite counterintuitively of what comes later on Th is is in contradistinction to traditional views of the mind including memory as being unrelated to either temporal situativity of experiences or to its application in and relevance to later activities

In expanding upon these insights while radically shift ing beyond a focus on organisms as biological entities acting in their natural habitat in pursuit of adaptation the TAS puts premium on more than bodily move-ments that accumulate as organisms carry on their dynamic relations with



313

the world While accepting this description as extremely apt and relevant at the level of biological explanations of how organisms function it is impor-tant to note that there is a diff erent level of explanation at which persons are understood as social and agentive actors of collaborative practices In the latter case the emphasis is on the activist striving by persons as social actors to be someone and to achieve something meaningful in the world by contributing to its unfolding collective dynamics and thus on meaning-ful social acts that each makes a diff erence in the world of collaborative practices and is meaningful precisely in light of making such a diff erence To paraphrase Bergson in a more radical activist way then the social actor ldquoretainsrdquo the past by way of continuously carrying it out in the present by means of coordinating onersquos past social acts with those in the present and in light of the sought- aft er future embedded in collaborative projects of social transformation Past actions therefore are retained precisely because they are continuously carried out in ldquothe here and nowrdquo while expansively accu-mulating eff orts of the past and in addition while being amalgamated with those that embody enact the sought- aft er future

In this sense the person does not need to recover past eff orts from the ldquodepths of memoryrdquo stored away somewhere in the brain ndash because these eff orts and acts are preserved if at all in the ldquofabricrdquo of them being con-tinuously carried out and enacted in activities stretching across the dimen-sions of the past present and future in one continual and uninterrupted process of becoming at the nexus of changing oneself through changing the world (and vice versa) Th e eff orts of the past are preserved as Bergson surmised ldquoin the defi nite order and systematic characterrdquo of activities in the present ndash yet in the order and character not only of actual bodily move-ments as such but rather in the defi nite order and systematic character of an ongoing ceaseless continuous and ever- evolving meaningful striving at becoming through changing our shared world Th e process of becoming supersedes the level of bodily movements per se that is lift s them up by integrating them into a diff erent (ie social situated and transformative) level of activities

Furthermore this account overlaps in a number of ways yet again also contrasts in other ways with how the process of memory has been presented within the recently emerging and increasingly infl uential research direc-tions that oppose narrowly conceived cognitivism ndash namely the situated embodied distributed and dynamic approaches A detailed description of memory that captures several aspects of these perspectives can be borrowed from Jay Lemke ( 2002 ) who gave a detailed description precisely of this process (which necessitates a lengthy quote from his work for illustrative



314

purposes) Lemke evokes the example of memory in a section of his book chapter titled ldquoMemory as Re- enactmentrdquo and in the context of discussing broader questions as to what binds one experience to another At the start just as in the preceding discussion of memory from the TAS perspective Lemke critiques the traditional notion that treats memory from the view-point of the individual organism in disregard of ldquothe activities in which we participate and all the people places and things around us that help make memory workrdquo (ibid p 39) Lemke further provides a highly helpful and detailed account from an alternative approach by drawing on an everyday example He writes

When I return to a distant city I have not visited for years each new vista evokes memories that I could never have recalled otherwise [suggest-ing] that memory is not something stored like a map or picture in my brain but is a partial re- creation of my perceptions and actions of a prior experience of being in a place and moving through it Remembering is a process that takes place in a system that includes both me and some parts of my physical environment Re- tracing my steps from years ago with recognition of the streets is one aspect of the whole complex activ-ity of ldquowalking- thererdquo in which my brain my muscles my eyes and the streetscape itself are all participants Memory is not autonomous within the organism it is an interactive process of engagement with an environment that re- evokes past similar engagements (ibid pp 39ndash 40 emphasis added)

In further extending this example to the case of reading a text with onersquos own pencil marks made in the past Lemke suggests that

[m] eaningful material objects shaped in one momentrsquos activity can pro-vide the link to another related activity in a later moment of time And the result is the construction of continuity on a longer timescale than that of each momentary activity Th e human body is itself such a meaningful material object that is shaped by time and bears the traces of our past activity (ibid p 40 emphasis added)

Lemke concludes that ldquoour memories are hellip in our muscle tone in the chemistry of our blood in every physiological part of us that lsquoremem-bersrsquo or persists for times long compared to the time of the events that change them A string on our fi nger a cut on our skin the twinge of an old injury hellip meet the requirements for binding us across timerdquo (ibid) Th is vivid description taps into many important dimensions of how memory works along the lines of the new approaches that successfully dispel the myths about memory as merely an internal and passive storage



315

of information by a solo individual In particular Lemke captures the dynamic embodied distributed temporal and situated character of memory and how it is comprised of much more than an individual brain (or mind) instead including objects and activities in the physical envi-ronment and the involvement of the whole body in remembering Th is account also hints at the active participatory and co- constructive char-acter of remembering

However a number of additional aspects especially associated with an in- depth understanding of who does the process of remembering why and for what purpose and within which (if any) meaningful pursuit this process takes place ndash all of this remains less articulated and even neglected Th is is not surprising given that the new approaches are focused on some but not all dimensions in describing the workings of the mind and Lemkersquos illustrative description is symptomatic of some gaps in these approaches in general In particular the emphasis on the person ndash qua actor in social practices that realize the world ndash doing the work of memory as part of the larger quest of and striving at becoming in the world shared and co- created with others as highlighted from the position of the TAS complements the extant sociocultural accounts

Summing Up Drawing More Parallels and Contrasts

Th e account presented in the preceding section to reiterate overlaps with a number of new advances in the study of the mind that directly contest its traditional cognitivist portrayals and thus too are useful in working out the non- reductionist dialectical alternatives Th ese recent approaches increas-ingly converge on the idea that the mind is inextricably related to persons being situated within contexts and therefore is embodied situated dis-tributed and dynamic Described as a new phase in the cognitive science revolution or ldquothe new science of the mindrdquo (Rowlands 2010 ) these recent approaches share a number of signifi cant similarities captured by the term ldquothe Embodied- Active- Situated- Cognitionrdquo (or EASC see Anderson 2003 Larkin Eatough and Osborn 2011 ) Th ese approaches build on various philosophical and psychological legacies of Dewey Wittgenstein Vygotsky Piaget Mead Merleau- Ponty and Bergson among others (cf Gallagher 2009 ) A signifi cant role in developing these approaches was played by the pioneering works of scholars who had launched cognitive science yet later came to denounce some of its core premises such as its reductionism and physicalism (eg Bruner 1990 Neisser 1995)



316

Th e EASC ldquomovementrdquo includes psychologists philosophers devel-opmental biologists linguists researchers in communication and science studies and cognitive scientists among others who seek to develop new understandings of the mind Among most widely known works within this movement are those by Clark ( 1997 ) Damasio ( 1999 ) Hutchins ( 1995 ) Th elen ( 1995 ) Th elen and Smith ( 1994 ) Varela (1992) Varela Th ompson and Rosch ( 1991 ) and others Th e editors of a recent authoritative and com-prehensive Th e Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (2009) sum up the core premises of this movement in the following way

First cognition depends not just on the brain but also on the body (the embodiment thesis) Second cognitive activity routinely exploits struc-ture in the natural and social environment (the embedding thesis) Th ird the boundaries of cognition extend beyond the boundaries of individual organisms (the extension thesis) (Robbins and Aydede 2009 p 3)

Th ese are important and innovative insights and the editorsrsquo assessment that they refl ect core advances in the fi eld is quite fair However these very insights also reveal that the developments so far mostly upgrade and amplify the notion of the mind by suggesting additional layers in its ways of operating rather than off ering a more substantive overhaul of views about what the mind fundamentally ndash and ontologically ndash is Th e majority of works within the EASC movement while contesting many traditional assumptions nonetheless still directly connect the mind to the brain and consider it to be a by- product (or an emergent property) of a cortical neuro-nal activity albeit interlinked with the broader bodily (non- neuronal) pro-cesses augmented by cultural tools and situated in context Th e premise that cognition is an internal mental process ldquoin the headrdquo ndash one that may be distributed out in the world embodied and augmented by its tools and objects as well as infl uenced by the surrounding context in various ways ndash yet one that is at its root internal (Sawyer and Greeno 2009 ) is still guiding many developments in this research movement Th at is the challenges to equating the mind with the brain or with something ldquoin the headrdquo even if the mind is not understood to be completely ldquoskull- boundrdquo still oft en do not go far enough Th is leaves intact the basic premise of the brain as pro-cessing information through computations or producing mental represen-tations or giving rise to the mind as a mere epiphenomenon of its activities An explicit position on the ontological status of the mind requires further elaborations especially in ways that directly connect it to the social world of collective material practices yet does not eschew the mind as a unique dimension of these processes



317

Many of the most advanced among dynamic and non- reductionist approaches to the mind and human subjectivity still relatively neglect or bypass the realm of social practices at the intersection of collective and indi-vidual agency instead anchoring subjectivity in the discourses bodily pro-cesses or aff ectivity understood as felt experience For example Johnston ( 2004 ) succinctly summarized this position (relying on the philosophical works by Slavoj Žižek) in the following formulation

Th e subject is emergent in relation to the body ndash that is to say such ldquoimmaterialrdquo (or more accurately more- than- material ) subjectivity immanently arises out of a material ground hellip Cogito- like subjectivity ontogenetically emerges out of an originally corporeal condition as its anterior ground although once generated this sort of subjectivity there-aft er remains irreducible to its material sources hellip subject conditions immanently arise out of a series of confl icts and tensions internal to the foundational embodied condition of human nature a nature inherently destined for denaturalization (p 231 emphasis added)

Th is is a very helpful account that overcomes many of the entrenched dual-isms in psychology and philosophy Yet it is clear that the social reality of human collaborative practices and of human agency in co- creating these practices are not at the forefront with prime attention given to the ldquothe corporeal conditionrdquo that is the body

Th ese important insights along the lines of the relational ontology (inclusive of the perspectives of distributed situated embodied and enacted cognition) can be expanded using the TAS perspective in the fol-lowing ways First in this perspective the emphasis is not only (although it is too) on people as beings with bodies versus some abstractly reason-ing Cartesian egos It is also not only (although it is too) about individ-uals being situated in the world and connecting to it by acting in ways that involve tools and objects beyond the bounds of the body Instead in positing an activist striving of people together realizing their world and themselves in one unifi ed process as ontologically primary the world is understood to be neither merely occupied nor inhabited ndash but rather real-ized and brought into existence by people in the acts of agentively trans-forming their communal practices Second this implies that the process of knowing is made possible not only by being in contact or in touch with the world and not even by acting in the world if the latter is limited to adapt-ing to the status quo but instead by being proactive and even ldquopartisanrdquo committed to and caring about what is going on and most critically what should come next



318

From the position of TAS in expanding upon Vygotskyrsquos approach the mind is composed of material and productive social practices ndash embodied enacted in individual contributions to these practices ndash inclusive of social relations entailed and generated by these practices whereby human beings acting together are realizing themselves through collaboratively bringing forth and co- authoring and in a very direct sense taking up the world Th e mind and broader processes of human subjectivity are immanently emerg-ing and immediately arising both ontogenetically and phylogenetically out of these collaborative practices of people acting together in pursuit of a sought- aft er future In serving the role of constituents in these material collaborative and transformative practices the human subjectivity inclusive of mental ldquofacultiesrdquo such as memory fi nds its status and due place in the world as ldquofully realrdquo processes of guiding social practices and furthering their ceaseless dynamics

Th is account does not foreclose but instead opens up the space to conceptualize the agency of the subject ndash who is understood to be indi-vidually unique and distinct and in this sense relatively independent yet not hyperseparated (cf Plumwood 1993 ) from society and instead coming into being through processes predicated on interactivity includ-ing struggles for individuality as well as solidarity and kinship Th is view radically reshapes what agency stands for based in reshaping the basic ontology of the world and of human development as processes that are co- implicated and co- realized Th is is a biologically and physically non- reductive yet at the same time non- mentalist and non- transcendental account of human mind in its productive world- forming and history- making role In place of a quaint epistemology according to which the mind copies or refl ects the world in some ontologically separate inte-rior space the mind is understood ndash along with the process of under-standing itself ndash to be an active transformative intervention into the course of collaborative social practices co- constitutive of reality and its transformations

To emphasize again this position follows in the tradition of Vygotsky and activity theory and also overlaps with many themes in the works by James Dewey Merleau- Ponty Bergson Gibson and those contemporary research directions that build on their insights However while building on and integrating many important insights stemming from these perspec-tives the TAS suggests steps to move beyond the notions of the mind as situated relational contextualized embodied and dynamic while integrat-ing them within a transformative onto- epistemology Th is is achieved by



319

more directly focusing on human agency and on the power of imagination and commitment in highlighting human capacity to transcend the status quo and its artifacts of reifi cation Perhaps the most critical specifi cation is that this capacity for agency is understood to be a fully social and continu-ous ldquoachievementrdquo of togetherness possible only in a world shared with others

What is central to conceptualizing the mind from the position of the TAS is the focus on the process of how the mind comes about ndash in per-sons making it up and doing so as actors of social practices who come to be and to know in the process of making a diff erence (mattering) in these practices always together with others In this sense the expression ldquomake up your mindrdquo (to reiterate the point made in previous chapters) has to be taken literally as describing what is at the core of our being knowing and doing

In following with the Vygotskian tradition the TAS highlights that fi rst the mind is always made in co- acting together with other people in shared collaborative activities that are part and parcel of wider social practices and collaborative projects Already the organism is the achieve-ment of togetherness (cf Stengers 2002a ) Th e human mind is ndash as all human ways of being knowing and doing are ndash a continuous ldquoachieve-mentrdquo of togetherness in even more striking ways Second and perhaps most importantly the embodied and enacted mind is always partial emo-tional and passionate even biased and partisan ndash implying that it has to be made up by taking a position or a stand Th e mind is a process that is primarily about interests motives hopes expectations and above all commitments to what the person deems is needed ndash what she or he believes ought to be Th e features of objects and experiences are artic-ulated against this backdrop of ldquoengaged agencyrdquo (cf Taylor 1993 ) and more critically the agentive ndash that is striving and activist ndash mode of act-ing in the world that gives rise to equally striving and action- performing consciousness (to borrow this expression from Bakhtin 1993 p 20) Th at is we experience the world because and insofar as we act in the world as engaged non- neutral actors who care and are concerned about what is going on and what should be Forming knowledge is a creative endeavor in a very direct sense ndash because it is an act of creation and change albeit not on its own not as an isolated cognitive action ldquoin the headrdquo but as a dimension of acting in pursuit of this- worldly ndash and always collabora-tive ndash activities projects and goals that co- constitute the world and the person herself



320

Th e mind thus understood is not only more- than- material (cf Johnston 2004 ) it is also more- than- embodied and more- than- situated though it is embodied and situated too Th is is due to the ldquonaturerdquo of the foundational realm out of which the mind arises and which it enacts and serves namely the social practices that fi rstly encompass human forms of being know-ing and doing (including as these are sedimented in objects in spatial and temporal arrangements in rules and concepts as expressed by Ilyenkov and Vygotsky) and that secondly are constituted by an ongoing continu-ous and ceaseless fl ow that each actor participates in but also agentively takes up transforms and thus brings forth Th is process of continuous cycles of being- knowing- doing not only takes place in the world but is co- constitutive of the world Th erefore this process literally is worldly and fully material yet not in the impoverished sense of materiality as relating only to a mechanical dehumanized entity- like and tangible ldquosubstantive- nessrdquo of things and objects Th e mind relies on embodiment (including the brain) tools of culture objects and discourses ndash yet it cannot be reduced to these levels only because human beings act productively creatively and authorially as agents and co- creators of communally shared and histori-cally evolving social practices Th e mind is a process that while fully rely-ing on practices and doings is ldquomore- than- materialrdquo ldquomore- than- situatedrdquo and ldquomore- than- embodiedrdquo because it is interactively coordinated socially shared culturally mediated historically unfolding and above all produc-tive creative authorial and therefore meaningful in its transformative impact on the world

Th is approach upholds yet also expands upon Vygotskyrsquos insight about the origin of the mind in social relations between and among people In Vygotskyrsquos words

Th e structures of higher mental functions represent a cast [or mold ndash slepok in Russian] of collective social relations between people Th ese structures are nothing other than a transfer into the personality of an inner relation of a social order that constitutes the basis of the social structure of the human personality Th e nature of human personality is social ( 1998 p 169ndash 170)

In expanding upon Vygotskyrsquos insight the added emphases in the perspec-tive developed herein draw on fi rst the dynamic fl uid and ever- changing nature not just of social relations but also of the broader overarching realm of productive life- and world- forming social practices encompassing these relations Second the added emphasis is also on the centrality of human



321

agency in enacting and bringing forth these practices processes and rela-tions rather than on people merely undergoing their eff ects or on people being situated and participating in these practices From this position to paraphrase Vygotsky the higher mental functions are nothing other than a process of authorially taking up social practices in contributing to changing them by actors of society and history in always creative novel agentive and transformative ndash that is activist ndash ways

Th is process takes place in the form of individuals contributing to the ever- changing collective unfolding of social life realized in and through productive and transformative communal practices In this process each person agentively co- authors social practices in individually unique ways by contributing to their social dynamics and thus themselves coming into realization in and through this process in each and every act of onersquos being knowing and doing ndash while taking responsibility for these practicesrsquo par-ticular instantiations at a given time and location in history as it propels into the future Th is formulation avoids the notion of a passive top- down transfer as merely an acquisition and reproduction of socially established knowledge and practices by the individual (which inevitably carries author-itarian and dogmatic connotations) At the same time it also breaks away from the notions of persons and their agency along the lines of individual-ist connotations that posit them as isolated atomistic entities to instead emphasize that each individual comes into being through actively continu-ing and creatively transforming what is going on in the world

Th e suggested interpretation is that the mind and other forms of human subjectivity are not something within the individual but are the ways of doing by the persons as they have been transformed by their own activi-ties of transforming social practices Th at is rather than merely ldquohavingrdquo (or possessing) minds or ldquoundergoingrdquo perceptions and experiences (and memories) people are always in the process of making them up ndash because the minds are literally ldquomaderdquo in the collaborative practices and pursuits as their dimensions and also because they are formed and enacted in the process and as the process of taking activist positions and stands It is the taking and carrying out of an activist stance that is necessary in order to be able to be act know and understand indeed to under stand

Th erefore it is not that the mind can no longer be posited to be in the individual to instead be understood as something beyond the individual distributed across the environment the person and the tools of activity A more radical position is that what is ldquoin the individualrdquo can be con-ceived in radically diff erent terms because the individual is understood



322

non- individualistically which in turn aff ords an understanding of the mind non- mentalistically If individuals are understood as social actors who bring forth the world ndash itself viewed as always unsettled ambivalent and ldquoin- the- makingrdquo ndash in their acts of being knowing and doing at the nexus with collective agency through contributing to social practices then the concept of the mind can be reconstrued without any mental-ist and individualist connotations If an individual is truly seen as pro-foundly agentive and social that is as ldquoan ensemble of social relationsrdquo (as Marx surmised all along) ndash rather than as an isolated autonomous and self- contained entity ndash then what the individual does even in utmost private and intimate moments is not a process that is solipsistic driven by internal regularities in passively refl ecting or representing the world (as in acts of contemplation or introspection withdrawn from social struggles and their conditions supports mediations challenges and aff ordances)

Instead the human mind can be seen as ldquoan endeavor of existential importrdquo that ceases to be an internal mentation and instead participates in and above all contributes to realizing the world of human social practices and human subjectivities in one bidirectional spiral of a mutual becoming Th is dialectical account in continuation of Vygotskyrsquos project challenges both the conventional cognitivist approaches that focus on lonely individu-als processing information or on neuronal activities in the brain on one hand as well as those sociocultural views that dissolve the individual mind in the processes of collective practices exchanges and communication dia-logues and discourses on the other


323323

Part V


324


325

325

11

Implications for Education Teaching- Learning and Development

as Activist Projects

You cannot aff ord to think of being here to receive an education you will do better to think of yourselves as being here to claim one hellip [to claim is] to take a rightful owner to assert in the face of possible contradiction hellip Th e diff erence is that between acting and being acted upon and for women it can literally mean the diff erence between life and death

Adrienne Rich 1977

Th e central and radical claim of Vygotskyrsquos project in the expanded inter-pretation off ered in the previous chapters is that human development is a collaborative and creative ldquowork- in- progressrdquo by people agentively and collaboratively realizing their shared worlds in pursuit of their goals aligned with a sought- aft er future each from a unique standpoint agenda and commitment In the course of these open- ended yet not directionless pur-suits people enact changes in their own lives their communities and the world at large ndash in thus themselves coming to be and to know through these agentive enactments of reality in their transformative eff ects that matter and realize the world in its ongoing historicity In these pursuits people rely on each other and draw on collectively invented cultural mediators tools and supports within collectively created zones of proximal development at the intersection of the past present and future Development represents a collaborative and continuous ldquowork- in- progressrdquo by people as agents of social change who struggle for their unique authorship and contribution to social practices in a world fundamentally shared and co- created with oth-ers Th ere are no imposed or predetermined ldquonaturalrdquo limitations on this process (no ldquoprewiringrdquo) implying that all human beings have unlimited infi nite potential ndash and are thus profoundly equal precisely in this infi nity of their potential ndash regardless of any putatively ldquonatural endowmentsrdquo and ldquointractable defi citsrdquo if provided with access to requisite cultural tools and



326

supports within collaborative spaces and interactivities of shared commu-nity practices

In one aspect namely in its emphasis on active relations to the world as the grounding for development and learning and on knowledge forma-tion as an active process of co- construction co- creation and discovery rather than passive transmission Vygotskyrsquos approach is broadly consis-tent albeit only at one level with several other core theories of develop-ment and learning including by Dewey and Piaget and especially with the more recent perspectives advancing ecological participatory situ-ated and social- interactive notions of learning All of these frameworks overcome the ldquospectator stancerdquo in acknowledging that the only access people have to reality is through active engagement with and participa-tion in it rather than simply this access being a matter of people ldquobeingrdquo in the world Th e connotation common to Vygotsky and these approaches is that the mind develops not a container that stores knowledge nor a mirror refl ection of reality Instead active engagement with the world represents the foundation and the core reality of development and learn-ing mind and knowledge ndash where relationality is dialectically superseded by the more agentive stance of engaging the world (for further discussion of these commonalities see Stetsenko 2008 2010b ) Th is common view presents a strong challenge to traditional conceptions of teaching and learning as a passive top- down transmission acquisition and processing of inert information

Th ese similarities notwithstanding the hallmark of Vygotskyrsquos project that distinguishes it from other action- centered and situated perspectives is that it directly and centrally predicates development and learning on joint collaborative endeavors extending through generations For him these processes are about collectively invented and collaboratively implemented cultural mediation of shared social practices through historically evolved and interactively implemented cultural tools Mediation in this light is the key fact and an indispensable characteristic present in all aspects of human life including and quite centrally in teaching learning and development Th e grounding of development in socially mediated and communally orga-nized cultural- historical collaborative social practices means that the recip-rocal processes of teaching and learning take the center stage as the major gateway for development ndash the emergence of psychological processes and the growth of knowledge mind and identity within the zones of proxi-mal development Th is is so because teaching- learning constitutes precisely the pathway according to Vygotsky that individuals take in acquiring the cultural tools that allow for participation in historically and culturally



327

contingent community practices and thus no less than the pathway to their own becoming

In this way his theory provides a foundation on which to overcome the traditional gulf that separates development from teaching- learning and individuals from society history and culture and instead views all these processes as representing facets of one and the same continuous dynam-ics of collaboratively and continuously (through history) engaging with and acting upon the world Th is position can be further elaborated from the transformative activist stance (TAS)

Expanding Vygotskyrsquos Approach to Learning and Development from a

Transformative Activist Stance

In expanding Vygotskyrsquos position from the perspective of TAS the pro-cesses of development and teaching- learning are understood to be collab-orative processes of an activist nature in which individual contributions play a central role and that are not confi ned to people adapting to what is ldquogivenrdquo in the world in its status quo Instead these processes are under-stood to be reliant upon learners forming and carrying out their own activ-ist that is goal- directed and future- oriented agendas of contributing to and making a diff erence within ongoing community practices in their historical unfolding Th ese agendas pressupose and centrally involve taking an activ-ist stance grounded in a vision or ldquoend pointrdquo on how community mem-bers believe present practices can be changed and what kind of future ought to be created in common pursuits of a sought- aft er future

In this perspective teaching- learning can be considered to be the path-way to exploring and creating onersquos self and identity ndash yet only if these are understood not as an inherently individual possession of solipsistic indi-viduals (as discussed in the following sections) Th is view highlights the unity of being- knowing- doing as well as the unity of teaching- learning and development ndash all merged on the grounds of a transformative stance and its central motif of persons being social actors and creative agents who are agentively contributing to collaboratively changing and ultimately autho-rially co- creating (or co- authoring) a world that is always unsettled con-tested and unfi nalized

Th is conceptualization gives full credit to the historicized profoundly social and relational character of teaching- learning and development In this there is a clear overlap with the recently infl uential participatory learning and communities of practice theories (eg Lave and Wenger 1991



328

Rogoff 2003 and many works that build on their foundation) In a thrust similar to these theories the perspective suggested herein also considers it imperative to develop an alternative to todayrsquos mainstream views that naturalize learning as a purely cognitive process taking place within an iso-lated individual However in expanding on these theories the TAS puts more emphasis not only on participation in community practices but also on contribution to these practices ndash a more active purposive and goal- directed process ndash and not just to the practices of local communities in the ldquohere and nowrdquo but also to the unfolding social practices of humanity taken as a whole and stretching through history as a continuum of interrelated praxis extending across generations and always projecting into the future

An important strategy implicated in this approach is to critically interrogate and strongly contest the currently leading theme in theoriz-ing human development and learning especially prevalent in psychology (since long allied with the narrowly understood theory of evolution in its sociobiological incarnations) and spilling into theories and research mod-els in education Th is theme pertains to the notion of adaptation Taken as a broad underpinning principle of human development adaptation pictures individuals as compelled in order to survive to fi t in with what is given in the present ndash what exists in the world in its sociocultural economic and political status quo By extrapolation it is taken for granted that learners must prepare themselves for a future that is somehow expected to arrive no matter what they do and how they contribute to social practices in their communities Many of the grounding assumptions in current mod-els of educational research underwritten by political ideals of equality and justice very progressive and groundbreaking in many ways do not suf-fi ciently challenge this theme of adaptation and its oft en implicit connota-tions including political- ethical implications of passivity uncertainty and quietism

For example the premise that development and learning are rooted in experiential presence or experiential encounters with the world central in most participatory approaches does not completely avoid connotations of adapting to the status quo Th ese and related notions of interpretation dia-logue participation and the situativity of knowing have been seminal in challenging traditional ldquoobjectivistrdquo and solipsistic models and accounts of learning and development (as was discussed in Part 3 ) Yet these notions require further critical elaboration to more resolutely break away from the idea that individuals need to adapt to what is ldquogivenrdquo in the present in order to develop and learn By shift ing the emphasis from participation



329

to contribution the value of learners developing their own knowledge of both the present situations in their communities and of the history of these communities (ie how things are and how they came to be) is highlighted as a springboard from which contribution can be made based in a vision of what one believes ought to be and what kind of a future is imagined as worth struggling for and is therefore sought aft er

In this sense this conceptualization avoids unnecessarily stark oppo-sition between knowledge acquisition and transformation (the latter inclusive of participation as a ldquosubsidiaryrdquo dimension of transformation) between deference to the past (history and tradition) and the need to inno-vate and come up with novel solutions to ever- emerging and oft en unpre-dictable challenges In avoiding this opposition knowledge of the past is understood to constitute the necessary baseline from which people are able to critique challenge and transform the past while using this critique as a gateway for imagining innovating and de facto inventing a diff erent future through the social transformation of present communities and their prac-tices Th at is knowing of the past and the present ndash and the cultural tools necessary for this ndash is seen on certain conditions as the prerequisite to and even an initial form of transforming reality in a struggle for a new vision of the future and for novel social arrangements needed to achieve this future (see Stetsenko 2008 2010b )

Equally important is the reverse premise ndash that the commitment to transform the world or any of its aspects (including concepts and theories) based in the vision of where learners want to get and what they want to achieve is the condition sine qua non for understanding the world around us in its present forms and its history From this perspective to be able to understand the present and its history is only possible from within an activist striving and a desire to change and transcend the present A passive uninvolved understanding and knowing from ldquonowhererdquo that is outside of active strivings and struggles for a better future is humanly (and humanely) impossible ndash or at least incomplete transient a - meaningful and perhaps above all irrelevant Knowing then rather than being merely cognitive is a deeply personal passionate and ethically evaluative process achieved from a position of struggle care and concern ndash a desire to move forward and beyond the present in transcending its status quo Th is process represents an amalgamation of interests goals emotions desires hopes and commit-ments themselves formed within and as an active and activist engagement with a world shared with others across the dimensions of the past present and future



330

Th at is in order to know in meaningful and lasting ways we fi rst need to want to change something about things to be known in other words we need to be in pursuit of meaningful goals agendas and projects grounded in visions and imagination of a sought- aft er future It is these pursuits and activist struggles that come to enact knowing they are the overarching pro-cess within which meaningful understanding and knowing are uniquely possible Th e cornerstone of learning and knowing is formed by a commit-ment to social transformation that uniquely positions learners ndash and teach-ers alike ndash to see what is through the prism of how the present situations and conditions came to be and also in light of the imagined and sought- aft er future ndash of what they believe ought to be In this the historicity and situativity of knowledge are ascertained alongside the focus on its ineluc-table fusion with an activist stance as an orientation toward the future

Th e complex dynamics highlighted by the transformative approach is the following It is impossible to imagine and create the future and to embark on change and transformation unless we have located ourselves in and understood our present moment and location in the ldquohere and nowrdquo ndash which presumes that we grasp how these moments and locations have emerged and came to be historically that is presumes knowledge of history and the shift ing dynamics of the present However the reverse is also true in that we cannot locate ourselves in and understand the present and its history unless we have imagined the future and committed ourselves to cre-ating this future Th at is the present and the past can only be grasped and understood from a position that extends into the future ndash which implies persons locating themselves vis- agrave- vis ldquothe horizon of the oughtrdquo ndash of where they want to be and how they want the world to become as something that they fi gure out themselves In this dialectics the past present and future are rendered not only intricately connected but coextensive de facto interanimating and co- creating each other in one interrelated and multi-faceted process Importantly ldquothe oughtrdquo is not understood to be some-how delivered from high on up by some authority but instead has to be discovered and created by learners themselves In this ldquothe oughtrdquo is also not separate from desires hopes or strivings either Instead all of these various components (or dimensions) of being- knowing- doing are integral to personsrsquo overarching pursuits of life projects and therefore identities through contribution to community practices Th e process of knowing thus understood is profoundly imaginative and creative passionate and partisan as well as deeply personal and authorial because it involves the work of self- understanding and identity development ndash and it cannot be



331

otherwise unless knowledge is reduced to a mechanical data processing as performed by computers

Th e role of knowledge is therefore radically shift ed away (rather than eliminated) from viewing it as a compendium of inert information to be processed and stored into a dynamic personal and relational process that is moreover an instrument of activism and transformative change Importantly in this interlinking of the past present and future the call is for education to be not about preparing students for a future that can be expected to somehow arrive irrespective of what they do in the pres-ent Instead the key focus is on how teaching- learning and gaining knowl-edge including through critique contributes to creating ndash by teachers acting together with learners as equal participants and through the tools that expand their common agency and horizons ndash the very future that is to come through their own collaborative activist deeds and continuous eff orts at mutual becoming through struggle and contestation

In this conceptualization there is a place both for transformatively and critically engaging with the world in ways that contribute to transcending its status quo on the one hand and for continuing past practices includ-ing through acquiring knowledge though never in a passive and value- free manner that is not as a disengaged reproduction of transmitted ldquopurerdquo facts on the other Th is is possible on the condition that knowledge is understood as a non- contemplative practically relevant and personally meaningful transformative activist endeavor ndash in line with the radical reconstrual of the notions of mind and human development as has been attempted throughout this book Th us the emphasis is placed on the dialec-tical linkage between understanding onersquos world and critiquing transform-ing it ndash in the unity of being- knowing- doing constitutive of an ontologically continuous (ie non- additive although oft en ruptured and contradictory) becoming ndash as interrelated layers of one and the same process through which people are engaging with their world as social actors and agents as co- creators of their communities and our common history

Th is outline of development and teaching- learning can ground an unequivocal critique of the traditional narrowly instrumentalist models of education in expanding other critical and sociocultural approaches Th ese traditional models typically focus on teaching skills and knowledge includ-ing dominant discourses and power- genres of communication outside of the goals of providing the tools for agency and activism As such these mod-els can and oft en do carry politically conservative connotations of teaching to fi t in with the existing hierarchical power structures and to uncritically



332

accept knowledge that supports these structures Yet the teaching- learn-ing of skills and knowledge does not need to be conceived along the lines of such instrumentalist goals Instead the teaching- learning of skills and knowledge can gain a very diff erent status if this process is included within the broader ndash novelty- seeking creative and future- oriented ndash activist proj-ects that connect learning with the goals of social transformation includ-ing authorship through contribution to social practices In this rendition teaching needs to aff ord and be about learning that opens up possibili-ties for forming and discovering active social positioning voice and stance including critical appraisal of confl icts in current community practices the forming of a vision for what needs to be changed and a commitment to this vision that implicates carrying out the future in the present In such an approach teaching and learning are brought together whereby both teachers and students teach each other and learn from each other ndash as one process of teaching- learning (or obuchenie for history of this term in its Vygotskian connotation see Cole 2009 Wertsch and Sohmer 1995 )

From this position it is not surprising that so many pioneering schol-ars who struggled for emancipatory education such as Vygotsky W E B DuBois and Freire also advocated for and struggled to provide subor-dinate groups with access to what they saw as powerful forms of knowl-edge including through formal education In their placing such a strong emphasis on knowledge and education these scholars have been critiqued for supposedly promoting the traditional modern rational subject and abstract knowledge that serves the goals of the status quo ndash which would be a questionable endeavor indeed as has been highlighted by many in the critical scholarship However the quest of these progressive scholars is arguably not about traditional rationality and subjectivity Rather their quest can be seen to be about harnessing the power of knowledge and rea-son not in support of but instead against the dominant controlling and hegemonic forces that impoverish and dehumanize learning and knowl-edge by l imiting their goals to those of adaptation and reproduction of the status quo

Th is emphasis on the value and power of knowledge therefore does not have to mean a return to narrowly instrumentalist and rationalist models associated with the passive transmission of knowledge that inevitably go hand in hand with the container metaphor of the mind the individualist and self- centered construals of identity development and essentialist beliefs in immutable and hierarchically organized human nature ndash all coupled with the ethos of adaptation to society in its status quo In the alternative dialec-tical and transformative approach the teaching- learning of knowledge on



333

the one hand and the practice of critique including the grasp of possibili-ties for social change on the other are seen not as opposed nor as merely additional but as coextensive and dialectically constitutive of each other if they are premised on assumptions of transformation and activism

Th e ideological dangers of epistemological prescriptivism and master narratives endemic to most formal schooling settings is real and ever pres-ent associated with the brutally present ldquosymbolic violencerdquo (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977 ) as an important dimension alongside political and eco-nomic subordination which is no less harmful in its eff ects However in emphasizing the role of the learnersrsquo own agency stance and voice along with cultural mediation in teaching- learning and development as processes of collaborative becoming that realize the world in changing its status quo from an expanded Vygotskian position there is a way to avoid these and other ldquoemancipatory modernistrdquo traps (Pennycook 2001 ) present in the models that advocate for disciplinary knowledge and skills as the route toward a more equitable society yet supplant one form of domination with another (cf Th orne 2005 ) Th is includes among other steps a need for a renewed attention to the problematic of identity and learning and of the goals of education as discussed in the following sections

Identity and Learning

Th e strong ties and connections between learning and identity have been long since highlighted in sociocultural scholarship suggesting that learning involves the construction of identities ndash a process whereby learning creates identity and identity creates learning (eg Lave and Wenger 1991 Nasir and Saxe 2003 Packer and Goicoechea 2000 Stetsenko 2013b Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 Wenger 1998 ) Furthermore in expanding these ideas several researchers have noted that participation in community practices is not without tensions and costs (eg Hodges 1998 Linehan and McCarthy 2001 Packer and Goicoechea 2000 ) and that participation should not be reduced to a process of complying with the normativity of community rules and roles Th is line of research overlaps to some extent with a broader cri-tique of overreliance in sociocultural research on processes of internaliza-tion and appropriation at the expense of understanding participantsrsquo own agency that challenges and resists community practices (Engestroumlm 1999 Holland Lachicotte Skinner and Cain 1998 Stetsenko 2005 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004b Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 )

For example Packer and Goicoechea ( 2000 ) have made a number of useful suggestions about the ontological and epistemological underpinnings



334

of sociocultural theories Th eir resulting proposal is for non- dualist ontol-ogy in which it can be revealed how ldquothe sociocultural perspectiversquos notion of learning ndash gaining knowledge or understanding ndash is an integral part of broader ontological changes that stem from participation in a commu-nityrdquo (ibid p 234) Along these lines these authors maintain that ldquolearn-ing involves becoming a member of a community constructing knowledge at various levels of expertise as a participant but also taking a stand on the culture of onersquos community in an eff ort to take up and overcome the estrangement and division that are consequences of participationrdquo (ibid p 227 emphasis added) In this account however what learners take a stand on refers primarily to how community membership has positioned them and how they are seeking to overcome alienation

Th us the core ontological process involved in identity and learning is portrayed by Packer and Goicoechea as the learnersrsquo striving to come to terms with how community practices position them and thus concerns most of all individual conundrums and feelings stemming from experi-ences of participation including its negative aspects such as alienation rather than a stand on the overall dynamics and politics of community as a social institution Th at is the notion of ldquotaking a standrdquo is understood in Packer and Goicoechearsquos paper ( 2000 ) diff erently than in the TAS Although these authors acknowledge that ldquo[l] earning entails transformation both of the person and of the social worldrdquo (p 227) an activist transformation of what goes on in community practices along the lines of onersquos commitment to the future is not considered as the core direct ontological dimension of both learning and identity Th us the ontology discussed in Packer and Goicoechea ( 2000 ) is primarily the ontology of individuals as persons (ie in the consideration of what it means to be a person in the sense of being rather than just knowing) especially as they participate in communities in their status quo

Th e critical specifi cation to these lines of research off ered by the trans-formative onto- epistemology of individual contributions to social practices if placed at the core of both identity and teaching- learning implies that tak-ing a stand concerns positioning ourselves on how communities as social institutions need and should be changed for the better (rather than merely a stand on how communities position us) Th at is it includes imagining a future worth struggling for and making a commitment to carrying out this struggle and therefore this future within the present Th us learning and identity in the transformative approach are seen as coextensive with and only possible through the charting of a life agenda premised on a vision for social change in community practices enacted through collaborative



335

transformative practice and onersquos own contribution to this practice (for details and empirical illustrations see Vianna Hougaard and Stetsenko 2014 Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 ) In this respect the TAS is akin to the critical democracyrsquos model of dialogic action (Jaramillo 2011 ) tracing its roots to the Marxist- Freirian critical framework that begins with an under-standing that human existence depends on the ldquoright and the duty to opt to decide to struggle to be politicalrdquo (Freire 1998 p 53)

Th at is from the TAS perspective the key process at the interface of teaching- learning and identity has to do with the learnersrsquo active and activ-ist engagement with events and practices circumstances and conundrums and contradictions and predicaments of social practices that they not only partake in but also actively create and contribute to Moreover these engage-ments are understood in their contingency on the personal stake we claim and the activist stand we take vis- agrave- vis the overall dynamics confl icts and power diff erentials of these practices ndash that is vis- agrave- vis the social drama of human communities and their histories in which we are active agents rather than passive subjects or merely neutral participants and observers Yet to emphasize again these personal stakes and stands are never ldquojustrdquo personal ndash instead teaching- learning and identity development coalesce when and to the extent that we break away from concerns only about ldquoour-selvesrdquo only about how we are individually positioned treated by commu-nities and so on ndash as if we were isolated entities independent of others Th e meaningful stake in events then is about an active ndash indeed activist ndash process of becoming agentive actors and active agents of a world that is shared with others which is enacted through our past present and future ldquocollectividualrdquo deeds that co- create the world we live in together Th us learning becomes truly personally meaningful when it is put in the service of making sense of ldquowho I amrdquo and ldquowho I want to becomerdquo ndash with these processes being contingent on and only possible through fi guring out how one can contribute to what we want our world and its community practices to become

From the perspective of the TAS teaching- learning can be considered to be the pathway to creating onersquos identity and authentic voice by fi nd-ing onersquos unique place in community practices and among other people through gradually constructing a way to contribute to what is going on in the world ndash the continuous fl ow of sociocultural community prac-tices in their ceaseless transformations and ongoing struggles Th at is learning can be portrayed as a project of constantly striving not only to join in with historically evolving transformative practices of humanity but also to fi nd a way to make a diff erence in these practices and through



336

this to realize a project of a personal becoming that at the same time is always ineluctably social Th is is because personal becoming is construed as deeply and profoundly social due to its grounding and role in one unifi ed collectividual dynamics of shared struggles quests and pursuits Th is project is about becoming oneself ndash a unique human being who rep-resents a distinctive and irreplaceable instantiation of humanness with a capacity to uniquely contribute to and make a diff erence in the world of communal social practices that are profoundly shared and collective through and through

In this view education is not about acquiring knowledge for the sake of knowing but an active project of becoming human inclusive of eff orts to answer the central question of identity ndash ldquoWho am Irdquo (cf Luttrell 1996 Luttrell and Parker 2001 ) and even more centrally as can be added ldquoWho do I want to becomerdquo Th is is the process that drives identity development at the intersection with teaching- learning and makes it possible very much in line with the critical pedagogy stance What is added by TAS however is that this project needs to be understood as grounded in onersquos activist pur-suits premised on the activist striving to make a diff erence in the world ndash to achieve social change that one envisions and commits to in asking the question ldquoHow do I want my world to berdquo and ldquoHow can I contribute to thisrdquo to thus become myself

In this process the knowing of oneself and of the world needs to be understood as inextricably connected even unifi ed facets of one and the same process of becoming an agent and actor of historically unfolding com-munity practices and through this of becoming a unique person with an irreplaceable role position and voice in the world Th e learner getting to know and understand oneself (in answering the ldquowho I amrdquo question) is the critical basis for learning It is the ground from which and based on which the learner can do the broad work of meaningfully understanding the world in its confl icts and its historical becoming Th is work of understanding is always personally meaningful emotional partial and non- neutral as it has to do with fi guring out what one cares for and feels passionate about Th e knowing of oneself is therefore not an added layer onto the broader work of understanding and making sense of the world Rather the pursuit of the ldquowho I amrdquo question is the primary tool and a lens through which any knowledge and any meaningful understanding and action ndash any form of being knowing and doing ndash are possible

Yet again and most critically knowing ldquowho I amrdquo is dialectically inter-related with and impossible without an understanding of the world around



337

us in its historically unfolding practices ndash wherein we are agentive actors who shape them while being shaped by them at our very core Th erefore this work of broad understanding and knowing about the world (includ-ing through acquisition of knowledge that relies on cultural mediation and historical continuity) provides the necessary baseline and the tools that are indispensable for fi nding out ldquowho I amrdquo and what the person cares about commits to and struggles for

Th is inextricable connection is established and legitimated because the notion of identity is recast away from traditional connotations related to intrinsic individual properties and features (as in most traditional self- centered approaches to identity that view the self as an isolated solipsis-tic entity) in line with many sociocultural and situated perspectives (for a recent exposition see Martin and McLellan 2013 and for more details see Stetsenko 2012 2013a 2015 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004b ) In addi-tion and no less critically identity is broadened as compared to situated perspectives that focus on learners being members of communities who are shaped by the processes of participation As an expansion of this posi-tion identity is understood to be an ongoing activist project of forming and carrying out a purposeful life agenda aimed at contributing to social practices in ways that contest and transform these practices in pursuits of social change and innovation

Th at is teaching- learning appears as an important pathway to develop-ing onersquos identity and each act of learning and understanding is transforma-tive of our identity Yet this is possible only when knowledge and facts are authored that is revealed by the learners in their relevance to themselves to their evolving life projects that moreover are always more than about themselves Th e learnersrsquo identities are posited to be reliant on membership in community practices as well as also and critically on their own trans-formative agency that realizes and brings about changes to these practices

In this vein ldquoconceptual developmentrdquo is not about bits and pieces of information being drawn up piecemeal into an individualrsquos preexist-ing and somehow independent logical- conceptual system that henceforth becomes augmented with ldquonewrdquo additional information Instead it is about change in the full trajectory of onersquos development that is change in how individualsrsquo ndash qua actors of social practices ndash ways of being- knowing- doing are organized and carried out within their meaningful life projects To take a mundane example even learning a multiplication table is not just an addi-tion of new knowledge about numbers to a personrsquos preexisting conceptual knowledge Instead it is a change in the personrsquos whole trajectory of life



338

agenda as a way of being and becoming ndash so that what the person is doing in the present and what the person can and aspires to achieve in the future is changed together with and in every act of knowing and understanding including even knowing seemingly separate and mundane things like a multiplication table

Th e meaningful life projects (in what can be understood as a lead-ing activity see Leontiev 1978 and for an expansion see Stetsenko and Arievitch 2004b ) are invariably fl exibly organized by being constantly shaped and constructed fi gured and refi gured across the time scales of the past present and future in each act of being knowing and doing To learn something new in a meaningful way means to rearrange and reas-semble onersquos life project (who one is and who one wants to be) in light of new realities and possibilities for being doing and knowing that are opened up by each act of learning and understanding To learn means to be changed as a person ndash this is an important insight well known and widely acknowledged by many sociocultural and critical scholars (though far from self- evident in traditional education) What is added to this position from the TAS is an expanded understanding of what it means to be changed as a person Based in the idea that people are makers who are made by their own making of social community practices the notion of personhood identity is specifi ed in stating that to be changed as a person is only pos-sible through the process of taking a stand on what is going on in the world and instigating changes in it ndash and thus in oneself as a social actor Th is is indicative of an understanding that is deeply personally meaningful and always contingent on a stand one takes ndash as is hinted at by the word ldquounder- stand rdquo Importantly this is not about moving beyond cognitive rationality and toward the psychological emotional and ethical experiences as is oft en assumed (cf Amsler 2008 ) but rather about revealing how cognitive ratio-nality is always merged with psychological emotional and ethical experi-ences ndash unless special eff orts are taken to turn meaningful understanding and knowing into a mechanical dehumanized computer- like tossing of neutral ldquofactsrdquo and mental schemas

It has been noted by critical scholars (Guignon 2004 Taylor 1989 and for a recent exposition see Martin and McLellan 2013 ) that the ancient Socratic dictum ldquoknow thyself rdquo can be interpreted as an injunction to turn ourselves ldquoinward in order to get clear about our own most personal feel-ings and desiresrdquo (Guignon 2004 p 13) However other readings highlight instead that for Socrates individuals were considered fi rst and foremost to be parts of a ldquowider cosmic contextrdquo Th is connotation suggests that the best that a person could do for Socrates and other ancient philosophers was to



339

know her or his place within the cosmic order As Martin and McLellan ( 2013 pp 34ndash 35) further summarize

Not only did these ancient philosophies caution that the self only could be understood in relation to the cosmos but they also held more specifi cally that relations within a community of social others were fundamental to any notion of selfh ood hellip In consequence the severing of self- interest from social interest and the good of com-munities hellip was neither theoretically nor practically feasible in much ancient thought

Evoking the ldquoknow thyself rdquo dictum has an even more radical import in the transformative worldview where there is no isolated ldquothyself rdquo that can be known in a separate process of cognitive comprehension and moreover where personal and identity dynamics are seen to be fully immersed and implicated in activist pursuits of social change and transformation Th e ldquoknow thyself rdquo principle then in a transformative approach can be seen as possible only as a process of fi nding out ldquohow thyself matters out in the worldrdquo ndash what it is that one can and always already does bring about into the world by changing something in it including in other people and in oneself

In placing the issue of identity at the forefront there is potentially a danger of casting education as a process that is withdrawn from worldly matters and social realities and turned instead into a self- centered and self- absorbed intellectual enterprise Yet this danger arises out of the traditional dichotomous assumptions typical of the mechanistic world-view that dictates that issues of knowledge and identity of teaching and learning of transmission and transformation be polarized and rendered incompatible Th e alternative is to consider identity as fully social and individual at the same time as existing at the intersection of personal and collective dynamics ndash as can be suggested in line with the Vygotskian dialectics

The Tools of Activist Agency and Identity

Th e key suggestion by the TAS concerns the need to put a stronger empha-sis on agentive identity embodied in an activist stance as an important and indeed indispensable part of teaching- learning ndash while emphasiz-ing the contingency of agency on cultural tools and mediations that are made available to and become realized by (always in novel and creative ways) each person acting within and contributing to community practices



340

Because many critical and sociocultural theories are oft en predominantly focused on social dynamics such as participation in community practices the processes of how individual selves agency and self- determination come about remain relatively neglected taken- for- granted ndash or left behind under the purview of traditional approaches that unduly psychologize and individualize them

Th e point that can be drawn from Vygotskyrsquos project expanded in the TAS is that teaching- learning is the path for learners and teachers to together explore enact and realize the process of co- creating their unique identi-ties through co- creating and co- inventing something novel in our shared world Th is necessitates providing learners with access to cultural tools for these to be made into the tools of their own agency selfh ood authoring and activism In this case the emphasis is on learners gaining access to the means and tools necessary to develop their own interests motives goals and most critically their own activist stances inclusive of positions on how the world ought to be according to them Th is is about the process of learn-ers forming and fi nding their own original and unique voice and role in a world shared with others

In this light the educational principle that puts premium on the need to tailor teaching to studentsrsquo own interests goals and identities can be revealed to be insuffi cient Although commonly accepted in both con-structivist and critical pedagogy and now in even many mainstream approaches this principle does not problematize enough what these interests goals and identities are and how they come about instead tak-ing them for granted Contrary to these accepted positions however learnersrsquo selves and identities cannot be assumed to come from nowhere and just be ldquoalready thererdquo ndash as some kind of individualrsquos own idiosyn-cratic possessions or inherent traits Th e position in line with Vygotskyrsquos project is that these processes are not formed on their own in an individ-ual and autonomous self- development that is somehow automatic prede-termined and guaranteed in abstraction from community practices and their tools Instead these motivational and identity processes interests and goals agency and stances fi rst have to be developed and formed by students themselves yet within the matrix of community practices rather than simply assumed as already in existence In this emphasis the TAS suggests going beyond the learner- centered inquiry- based pragmatist and constructivist education models that are focused on making teaching and learning relevant to learners Instead of pedagogy trying to fi nd a way to be in rapport with learnersrsquo interests motivations and needs (which though desirable in principle is oft en unattainable and insuffi cient) the



341

focus is shift ed to an active and agentive exploration facilitation and support for learnersrsquo own quests in developing their identities and selves through their activist life agendas and therefore interests needs motiva-tions and so on

An additional and related specifi cation from the position advocated throughout this book consists in expanding on the epistemological focus that is oft en used to underpin contemporary models that strive to break away from the stifl ing constraints of transmission- based education Tracing its roots to traditional philosophy this common epistemological focus cen-ters on how ideas are used in solving problems posed in real life in con-trast to studying ideas and facts somehow developing in a vacuum through an isolated purely cognitive information processing While important and valuable however this focus relatively disregards the problem- posing aspect of knowledge construction Th e alternative from the TAS perspec-tive is to focus not only on problem solving but also and in the fi rst place on problem posing understood as part of an identity- and passion- spurring process contingent on taking activist stances staking claims and making commitments Th e problem solving is about fi nding solutions to existing problems ndash oft en the ones that are abstract and removed from the learn-ersrsquo own interests and at best in the pragmatist position the ones that stem from the learnersrsquo own lives as these are taking place ldquoin the here and nowrdquo within the confi nes of the present and its status quo In both of these cases however these problems are taken for granted that is assumed to be defi ned and specifi ed in advance rather than immersed in the ongoing quests of becoming and social transformation tailored to the future Th at is these problems are typically assumed to be independent of the learnersrsquo evolving identities and instead posed by those in authority or somehow emerging on their own due to some ldquologic of thingsrdquo and lives immersed in the status quo

Instead the focus in transformative teaching- learning is on identity spurring as the driving force of problem posing on learners fi nding out questions and issues that require solutions and are meaningful to them as something that they care about as actors of community practices that tran-scend the present in projecting into the future Th is focus highlights that the processes of fi nding and posing problems are not automatic mechani-cal or routine instead these processes and the status of what qualifi es as a problem need to be problematized and revealed as inherently com-plex and contingent on the overall quests and struggles that each person engages in and develops throughout life Posing a problem requires a great deal of work involving judgment evaluation meaning making and above



342

all deliberating on and fi nding out what onersquos concerns interests stakes and commitments are or could be Deliberating not only on how to solve problems but also on what problems require solutions in the fi rst place necessitates the work of identity building through positioning oneself vis- agrave- vis the ongoing collaborative practices and importantly fi nding onersquos own stake in them From this lens the critical step in teaching- learning and in knowledge production in general is developing the tools that aff ord the ability to grasp and determine the issues that need to be addressed and problems that need to be solved Th is step might be counterintuitively the most diffi cult one in all teaching- learning practices as expressed in the say-ing (conveyed in various forms by many thinkers) that to fi nd and pose the right question is infi nitely more diffi cult and yet also immeasurably more valuable than to fi nd solutions to an already established question or prob-lem Th e emphasis in this approach is on the bidirectional and coextensive status of problem posing and of identity development ndash because fi nding out problems that require solutions is impossible without seeking the future in fi nding out what one strives for cares about and commits to Th is approach is in line with Freirersquos ( 1994 ) problem- posing methodology and other works (eg some parallels can be found in Shoumakova 1986 ) In addition it explicitly integrates the level of agency and identity by highlighting the role of an activist stance and activist strivings in knowledge construction and problem posing

Many critical scholars have argued that education cannot consist in the transmission of knowledge from teachers to students ndash an excellent and thoroughly valid point (and fully in sync with Vygotskyrsquos approach) For example according to Jacques Ranciegravere ( 1991 cf Biesta 2012 Lather 2012a Means 2011 ) education is a question at the intersection of indeterminate processes of attention and exploration ndash the becoming of each individu-alrsquos capacity as a creative and equal subject in communion with others As Ranciegravere ( 1991 ) puts it ldquoTh e student must see everything for himself [ sic ] compare and compare and always respond to a three- part question what do you see what do you think about what do you make of it And so on to infi nityrdquo (p 23)

Th ere is here a congruency with the famous dictum ldquoHave the cour-age to use your own understanding [Sapere aude]rdquo Th is again is highly compatible with the TAS position Indeed it is the active and deeply per-sonal work of learners ndash their making sense of what is going in their world and their communities and their taking on a position and courage to form onersquos own opinion on dilemmas and confl icts always inherent in these



343

processes ndash that ultimately counts for and accounts for genuine teaching- learning as the path of becoming One specifi cation that can be made from the TAS position to that of Ranciegraverersquos is that the ability to make sense of the world and fi nd meaningful goals for oneself to ldquomake something of itrdquo to use Ranciegraverersquos expression is a capacity that needs to form and develop ndash as well as be aff orded and supported ndash rather than assumed or taken for granted Th is capacity does not stem from anything inside the person alone and instead is developed relationally and dynamically in interacting with the world and other people through the cultural tools of mediation and within interactivities in space and time ndash rather than given by nature or developed idiosyncratically by each individual in solitude and abstraction from society and its practices

In placing the responsibility of making onersquos own decisions on the learn-ers in abstraction from questions of how this ability comes about ndash in thus assuming that people automatically somehow by nature possess or come to form an ability to take on such a responsibility ndash might be ironically a reversal back to an individualist outlook Namely this can be a reversal to presumptions about individuals as solitary beings who are inherently endowed with various capacities including agency and thus who are self- suffi cient and independent from society in their ldquoabsolute sovereigntyrdquo Th e emphasis on learners making up their own minds and deciding for them-selves important and progressive as it is (and discussed as central through-out this book too) needs to be complemented with and balanced by the notion that learners have to and do thoroughly rely on social resources and cultural tools for this very capacity to make up their minds and positions to become agentive actors of social practices and to take responsibility for them Otherwise there is a danger of reverting back into discourses and practices premised on natural ldquogivensrdquo idiosyncratic selves and inherent abilities that ultimately risk being de facto affi liated with positions that legitimize the status quo and its hierarchies in line with the sociobiological ethos of adaptation

Th e alternative suggested by the TAS is to navigate the intricate balance between the two pitfalls on the opposite sides of the spectrum of views on teaching- learning and development ndash the pitfall of narrowly understood individualism versus the pitfall of understanding social context and culture to be independent outside forces that unidirectionally act as an imper-sonal exteriority on individuals who are mere subjects of social forces Both of these pitfalls can be avoided if the emphasis is placed on the intersection or nexus (as suggested throughout this book) of individuals creating social



344

practices of their communities out of the process of themselves being cre-ated by these practices

In stressing this intersectional process the learners can be understood in their full authenticity yet without any individualist connotations that is not as isolated entities but rather as actors co- constituted by community practices and moreover as developing through the process of transcend-ing themselves and the ldquogivenrdquo realities of the world (which are never just given) while partaking in and especially contributing to these practices in thus inevitably changing them In focusing on the nexus of these processes the polarity of the social and the individual dimensions of social practices can be dialectically transcended avoiding the danger of either unidirec-tionally imposing on learners the dominant forms of knowledge that sub-vert their own creativity and agency versus the equally one- sided emphasis on individuals developing their abilities and forming their selves all on their own in isolation from or merely in participation in society and its extant structures

What makes such navigation possible again is the focus on education providing learners with the tools of their own becoming and of their own identities as agents of social change and as ineluctably social beings ndash rather than on education providing any preconceived answers and notions even the progressive and critical ones Th ese tools are sociocultural in their origin and mode of functioning and are always based in communicative collaborative activities with others yet they have to be taken up by indi-viduals in an active process of authoring and co- constructing these tools while individuals expand their abilities to partake in and contribute to the world in co- authoring communal practices Such cultural tools ndash social ways of being knowing and doing ndash do not by themselves shape maintain or extend the boundaries of individual processes and capacities including identities (as is oft en assumed) Instead these tools have to be taken up rediscovered advanced and creatively employed by learners acting as agen-tive social actors who co- author and co- constitute the cultural tools at the same time as they are co- constituted by these tools and the social practices that these tools embody

Vygotskyrsquos pedagogy has been pursued by his followers such as research groups by Piotr Galperin (eg 1985 ) and Vassily Davydov (eg 1990 ) Th eir approach was to immerse students in meaningful sociocultural practices whereby they are introduced to knowledge as cultural tools for solving problems encountered in these practices Th us knowledge was introduced not as isolated bits of information but as practical valuable tools applicable



345

and therefore meaningful in particular sociocultural practices For exam-ple the concept of number was taught through introducing the practices from which this concept had emerged and in which its meaning inheres One related point that further expands this position is that knowledge needs to be introduced to students not only as a tool that has emerged from and makes sense within certain practice but as embodying activity and rep-resenting abbreviated templates for action (see Stetsenko 1999 Stetsenko and Arievitch 2002 ) In this approach rendering concepts meaningful through revealing practices ldquohiddenrdquo behind them makes knowledge tan-gible and practical while simultaneously making it truly theoretical Th is kind of learning allows students to grasp the oft en ostensibly abstract utmost theoretical generalities within a given subject domain through (1) understanding how knowledge ldquocomes to berdquo as a tool of practices and therefore (2) simultaneously grasping how this knowledge can be applied in practice Viewing knowledge as a form of practice did not entail merely hands- on manipulation Instead it brought about a focus on practical rel-evance and on origins of concepts as a way to reveal their most general theoretical aspects Understanding concepts in this theoretical way in turn entailed knowing the utmost practical ways of solving problems involv-ing these concepts Th eory thus was seen not as a separate way of knowing that was disconnected from practice but as a form of practice that encap-sulates the most effi cient ways of acting In this type of teaching- learning knowledge has to be actively reconstructed by students in their own activ-ity Th e active appropriation (or creative reconstruction) of cultural tools essentially bridged the gap between direct instruction entailing provision of cultural tools on one hand and independent discovery entailing learnersrsquo active reconstruction of these tools on the other ndash in a systemic- theoretical approach to teaching- learning (Arievitch and Stetsenko 2000 )

In this approach teaching- learning needs to integrate knowledge while revealing it (1) as stemming out of social practice ndash as its constituent tools (2) through social practice ndash where students need to rediscover these tools through their own active pursuit eff orts and inquiry and (3) for social practice ndash where knowledge and ldquofactsrdquo are rendered meaningful in light of their relevance to activities signifi cant to students that is to activities engendered by and engendering their identities (Stetsenko 2010b ) Th e latter aspect highlights that the learners are always on a path of discov-ering themselves as the process that embeds knowledge in co- creating their world and their own identities In this emphasis teaching- learning can be understood as serving the purpose of providing critical- theoretical



346

tools (see Vianna 2009 Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 2014 ) necessary for learners to position themselves and take a stand vis- agrave- vis current com-munity practices and their histories while developing activist commit-ments to how these practices can and ought to be changed in view of what is sought aft er by learners Th e purpose of education from this position is not to transmit knowledge but rather to provide access to cultural tools that facilitate learnersrsquo taking their own activist stance vis- agrave- vis their world and its confl icts ndash a stance geared toward creating their own futures in a society that itself needs to be created rather than merely reproduced or adapted to

Teaching- learning and knowledge construction are as can be high-lighted based in TAS intrinsic to projects of becoming unique individuals with an authentic voice and position ndash a process that comes about through contributions to collaborative projects of realizing and transforming societ-ies and communities Knowledge therefore cannot be extracted from such projects of meaningful deeply personal and simultaneously supremely social quests In fact it requires ldquospecialrdquo work and eff ort to dissociate knowledge from such meaningful ldquocollectividualrdquo projects at the intersec-tion of individual and social quests and struggles for transformation Such decoupling of knowledge from personal- social transformations (and thus from meaning relevance and human signifi cance) results in knowledge being turned into a mechanical dehumanized juggling of reifi ed informa-tion that is subject to a ldquohead- to- headrdquo transmission of meaningless ldquodatardquo abstracted from the living realities dramas and identities of learners ndash and teachers too Ironically it is precisely this type of work that is carried out so ldquosuccessfullyrdquo by existing practices of formal education leaving many learners (and not infrequently teachers too) with little faith in the value of knowledge and education Hence the decades of valuable critique by pro-gressive critical scholars and educators of existing education and knowl-edge production exposing their drastic limitations and their hegemonic and oppressive nature are extremely important and impossible to over-estimate Th ese scholars have revealed and drawn attention to symbolic violence top- down impositions and the hegemonic power of master nar-ratives and knowledge transmission models that subdue and disempower both students and teachers

Scholars working in the Vygotskian and Bakhtinian traditions have always emphasized that persons can act and speak only by invoking media-tional means that are available in the ldquocultural tool kitrdquo provided by soci-ety and discourses in which we operate Yet this process is not a passive



347

transmission of knowledge For example as succinctly formulated by Quarshie ( 2008 )

the curriculum cannot be a matter of jumping through hoops of othersrsquo devising What is to be explored found out has to be jointly negotiated by teacher and students in a way that is unique to those particular indi-viduals in that particular setting Th e process of exploration involves the challenge for students to go beyond themselves and achieve things that matter [to them]

In making a similar point from a Vygotskian position Lantolf and Pavlenko ( 2001 p 145) write that ldquolearners actively engage in constructing the terms and conditions of their own learningrdquo While fully agreeing with these and similar positions the TAS draws attention to the need for learners to fi rst and foremost gain the tools that aff ord the capacity to engage in constructing the terms and conditions of their own learning Th ese tools are eff ectively the tools of identity development whereby new interests and meaningful social goals of contributing to community practices ndash and therefore identi-ties ndash are spurred by experiences and engagements across the vast array of social collaborative activities and practices and their cultural tools

In this vein Bakhtinrsquos notion of authoring can be employed in expanding the Vygotskian emphasis on cultural mediation (on the broad compatibil-ity of their frameworks see Stetsenko 2007b Stetsenko and Ho 2015 and works by Dorothy Holland and Caryl Emerson) According to Bakhtinrsquos perspective voices and positions are orchestrated within the dynamics of community practices for example when people take on an ldquoauthorial stancerdquo as an internally persuasive discourse that over time helps priori-tize particular voices or orchestrate the new ones (Bakhtin 1981 1986 cf Holland Lachicotte Skinner and Cain 1998 ) In this argument the link between identity development and the authoring process is highlighted as follows

Th e self is a position from which meaning is made a position that is ldquoaddressedrdquo by and ldquoanswersrdquo others and the ldquoworldrsquorsquo (the physical and cultural environment) In answering (which is the stuff of existence) the self ldquoauthorsrdquo the world ndash including itself and others (Holland et al 1998 p 173)

In focusing on the tools of agency and activism as being at the core of identity development (and by implication of all development including its so- called cognitive dimensions) the TAS augments this position by high-lighting that the task of education is to work on developing learnersrsquo own



348

agency as actors of social transformation by providing them with access to the tools that aff ord such agency

One of the tools of this kind might be imagination and play (especially in early childhood see Connery John- Steiner Marjanovic- Shane 2010 Stetsenko 1995b Stetsenko and Ho 2015 ) and art throughout the life span especially as understood in the radical tradition of Bertolt Brecht Herbert Marcuse Jean- Paul Sartre and Stuart Hall Based in this tradition Barone ( 2006 ) has provided an excellent framework in which the role of art in spurring agency and activism is illuminated In reviewing the works by many progressive art- based educators he writes that the indispensable role of art is to open up the ldquoreaders and viewers to the multiplicities of experi-ence in the lives of young people hellip [with] a corresponding responsibility of the recipient of the work to assert him- or herself in the actualization of its potentialrdquo (p 226) He highlights the importance of the learner fi nding his or her own voice and vision through art forms in countering the estab-lished normativity and familiar schema and thus acting as ldquoa revolutionary readerrdquo (ibid) Importantly this sort of education is akin to an invitation that ldquorefuses to reach toward indoctrinationrdquo (ibid p 227) and acts instead non- authoritatively through moving learners aff ectively into critique skep-ticism of established canons and interrogation Th is is because as Barone suggests

we can never strictly speaking change minds We must believe that people within genuine dialogue change [make up] their own minds So instead we move to artfully coax them into collaborative interroga-tion of stale tired taken- for- granted facts of the educational scene (ibid)

In the spirit of such an artful and tentative approach critical to education is the task of supporting exploring notions of or at least posing questions about if not an active affi rmation right from the start what learners believe ldquoought to berdquo and where they want to go in critically self- refl ecting on their own situation (and getting to know about its history) through empathy compassion and solidarity as Freirersquos approach so vividly illustrated To emphasize again to avoid indoctrination into master narratives this work can be done ldquonot by proferring a new totalizing counternarrative but by luring an audience into an appreciation of an array of diverse complex nuanced images and partial local portraits of human growth and possibil-ityrdquo (Barone 2006 p 222) How to combine such an approach with calls for and invitations to passionate and daring activism is a topic that deserves much exploration



349

Returning to the three- part question formulated by Ranciegravere ( 1991 ) as central to the work of learning ndash ldquowhat do you see what do you think about what do you make of itrdquo ndash are all answerable only if this ldquoyourdquo the person is already there as a social actor and agent capable of positioning oneself within the ongoing social practices ndash while making decisions tak-ing a stance staking a claim and caring about their consequences Th is ldquoyourdquo however embodied and enacted in the personhood of individuals as social actors and agents of community practices cannot be simply assumed or taken for granted It has to arise in learnersrsquo own quests and in solidarity with others Th erefore although agency humanity and unique individual-ity can never be denied including from the fi rst days of life and in cases of any imputations of dis ability (which Vygotsky was resolute to reveal to be a matter of sociocultural co- construction and interactive dynamics) this does not eff ace the need for their evolving trajectories to be fostered supported and nurtured in interactions with others Even young babies are already on the path to becoming agents and actors of social practices and shared pursuits who reciprocally interact with others from the very start ndash within the shared distributed fi elds of co- being (for details see Arievitch and Stetsenko 2014 ) Yet if agency ndash as all human development ndash is acknowledged as a continuous work in progress and an evolving struggle for a unique contribution to a world shared with others then recognizing our incompleteness and the need for us all to learn and become more fully agentive throughout the life span and together with others opens up pos-sibilities for teaching- learning with a pedagogical stance without connota-tions of defi ciency or inferiority in need of correction

Th is is where much conceptual work still needs to be done to detach the goal of promoting individual development agency and self- determination from the constraints inherent in the traditional models with their notions of isolated and self- suffi cient individuals narrowly understood individual autonomy and the ethos of adaptation In the tradition premised on the sociobiological neo- Darwinist ethos of inborn inequalities competition and adaptation to the status quo and quite ironically in many postmod-ernist approaches too discourses of individual autonomy and freedom are oft en closely linked with freedom from social norms and obligation (or sometimes dismissed) In traditional models indeed freedom is taken to mean breaking away from social allegiances and used to advance the notion of citizens as client- consumers (cf Campbell and Pedersen 2001 ) As such this tradition relies on and inevitably results in narrow views of individuals as autonomous and self- suffi cient entities isolated from communities and taken for granted



350

From an alternative Vygotsky- inspired perspective on human develop-ment as a collaborative work- in- progress through individual and authorial contributions coupled with the ethos of social justice and solidarity the path to autonomy and freedom lies not in developing privatized and indi-vidualized identities focused on personal gains and competition Instead the path to autonomy and freedom lies in an ever- increasing community participation and contribution to social practices that are importantly still in the making and in need of radical transformation Th is goal cannot be accomplished without taking an activist position on contradictions and confl icts within these practices such as social inequalities from within an overall quest and pursuit of justice and equality Th erefore in this project personal autonomy is achieved not through freedom from society but in an ever- growing alignment and solidarity with society yet not with society as it exists in its status quo Instead this process is about creating a new society through contestation because society still is and will always remain in the making by us in solidarity with our fellow human beings

Th at is a personrsquos life path and unique identity develop through onersquos ever- growing ldquosocialityrdquo and based on its tools including knowledge ndash yet on the condition that society is not taken for granted but instead is chal-lenged and contested Th is relates back to the ontologically central notion of struggle ndash realized in the process of contributing to social practices in their ever- changing and open- ended dynamics of transformation from onersquos authentic stance aligned with onersquos unique own vision and commitment to a sought- aft er future Th is position has various implications for example implying a shift away from an assimilationist model of citizenship toward the model of activist citizenship Th is latter model would seek to bridge the gap between the need for all of us to develop as autonomous and personally responsible actors of communal practices and the need to resolve inequali-ties and eliminate disadvantages with the two endeavors premised on and necessary for each other

Th e need for such conceptual bridging is supported by the notion that power operates at all levels of social relations (eg Foucault 1980 ) which although well established needs to be more fully conceptualized Individual levels and the goals of identity development cannot be excluded from con-ceptualizing power dynamics It is risky to lose sight ldquoof the subtleties in which power operates in multiple arenas and social practicesrdquo (Popkewitz and Brennan 1998 p 18) including at individual levels of these practices as suggested herein Th is is so even though there is a clear and persistent danger in focusing on individual levels of agency only as if they were suffi -cient for social transformation However if the struggle against oppression



351

and inequalities is not embodied at individual levels of social processes and not embraced by individuals as their own meaningful pursuits then there is little hope that the large- scale liberational projects of social justice can be successful either (cf Vianna Hougaard and Stetsenko 2014 )

Within the traditional approaches that still operate with models of human development premised on social Darwinism and its principles of individual autonomy competition and social hierarchy the task of bridg-ing goals of solidarity and social justice with those of individual develop-ment and freedom is impossible Th is is because these approaches do not off er conceptual space to simultaneously understand individuals as fully social while also grasping social practices as developing only through being co- constituted by individuals qua social agents Th e way out of this conun-drum can be premised on realizing that both processes represent facets of one and the same historical transformative endeavor ndash at the nexus of indi-vidual and social agency and across the time dimensions of the past present and future ndash whereby each individual matters and can form this ability to matter in accessing and authoring the tools of agency Th is model does not assume an a priori inner nature of isolated individuals Instead as discussed throughout this book it implies a wholesale rejection of any independent interiority that is merely ldquoshapedrdquo by extraneous social forces acting on individuals (typically in a top- down fashion) Instead the emphasis is on co- constitutive and bidirectional dynamic processes of active and activist strivings and struggles as formative of both social actors and the world

Furthermore it has been argued that building radical alternatives to tra-ditional models requires a robust theorization of the social preconditions of individual autonomy (cf Honneth 2003 ) and this is consistent with the Vygotskian notion of a fundamentally shared ndash collective and collaborative ndash human development as a process reliant on solidarity social resources spaces tools and mediations At the same time however what is suggested in the present conceptualization is that building suffi ciently dialectical models also requires an equally robust theorization of individual precondi-tions of social life and community practices Th is can be achieved based on a diff erent cultural model of personhood ndash a non- individualistically under-stood person- qua- social- agent who co- creates oneself and the world and whose ability for authorship in realizing social practices is fully ascertained acknowledged and provided for

Again the point in question here and throughout this book is about the need to conceive of personhood without either reifying it into atomized and static forms on one hand or doing away with it as if it were unneces-sary altogether on the other Th e path toward alternative models as has



352

been acknowledged by many critical scholars demands paying attention to the need to celebrate and accept diff erence along with solidarity while also acknowledging the role of emotions imagination hopes and desires powerfully expressed for example in the notions of ldquomestiza conscious-nessrdquo (Anzalduacutea 1990 ) desire (eg Fine and McClelland 2006 ) agency as structures of feelings (Abu Lughod 1993 ) and intentions within a matrix of subjectivity (Ortner 2005 ) Th e TAS can be seen as off ering steps in explor-ing and advancing such positions in line with the notion of authentic and authorial contribution to collaborative pursuits in the spirit of Vygotskyrsquos project and its dialectical emphasis on communality and solidarity Table 1 summarily presents some of the ideas related to these steps in highlighting the notion of contribution to shared communal practices (in comparison to models focused on acquisition and participation see p 353)

Problematizing What Education Is For

Th e considerations discussed in the previous sections tap into the question about the purposes and goals of education Th is is a highly contested terrain where positions vary and oft en clash For example Tim Ingold ( 2004 ) in refl ecting on what he terms ldquoa fundamental insight of anthropological stud-ies of learningrdquo ndash and one could add also of many critical and sociocultural studies of learning ndash writes that

it is that knowledge is not transmitted across generations as a ready- made corpus of information but rather undergoes continual regeneration in the contexts of learnersrsquo practical engagement with their surroundings Th us the contribution that each generation makes to the next lies in shaping the contexts or providing the scaff olding within which learners develop their own understandings

Indeed major insights from many sociocultural theories of learning do focus on exactly these points In addition researchers in the Vygotskian tradition have worked to articulate the specifi c goals and purposes of edu-cation based on principles off ered by this theory For example Wells ( 2000 ) has concluded that

[t] he Vygotskyan theory hellip calls for an approach to learning and teach-ing that is both exploratory and collaborative It also calls for a recon-ceptualization of curriculum in terms of the negotiated selection of activities that challenge students to go beyond themselves towards goals that have personal signifi cance for them hellip Th ese activities should also be organized in ways that enable participants to draw on multiple sources


353

Table 1 Transformative activist stance Implications for a pedagogy of daring (in comparison to the key metaphors of acquisition and participation)


Key process of teaching- learning

Information process-ing obtaining knowledge indi-vidual process ldquoin the headrdquo

Becoming a member of community the permanence of having given way to the constant fl ux of doing

Co- authoring the world Contributing to col-laborative practices and knowledge cre-ation in collectividu-ally realizing the world and ourselves

Key words Knowledge facts contents acquisi-tion internaliza-tion transmission attainment accumulation

Community of prac-tice apprenticeship situatedness con-textuality cultural embeddedness dis-course communica-tion cooperation

Transformation change tools of agency end point vision direc-tionality commit-ment activist stance sought- aft er future daring

Stress on Th e individual mind and what goes into it test and control of acquisition outcomes

Th e evolving bonds between the indi-vidual and others dynamics of partici-pation and social interaction

Dialectics of continu-ity and transforma-tion tradition and innovation

Knowledge for and as daring to create novelty teaching- learning- as- change

Ideal Individualized learning

Mutuality and com-munity building

Free development for all in co- creating the world in solidarity with others premised on equality and justice

Role of the teacher

Delivering convey-ing inculcating clarifying

Facilitator mentor Expert participant preserver of prac-tice discourse

Activist open to collabo-ration and dialogue in co- creating zones of proximal development and tools of agency together with learn-ers simultaneously teacher and learner

Nature of knowing

Having possessing facts and skills

Belonging participat-ing communica ting

Co- authoring the world from a unique posi-tion and stand know-ing through claiming a position and taking a stand

(continued)



354


Time line Carrying out past experiences into the present future is irrelevant

Focus on the presently evolving patterns of participation

Interface of the past the present and the future the past and the present are known through onersquos activist pursuits of the future

Agency No agency for social change

Collective agency Nexus of co- evolving individual and collec-tive agency intersec-tion of solidarity and self- determination

Who develops

Individual learner Community and its practices

Learners- through- community and community- through- learners

Where is mind

In the head In patterns of participation

In contributing to a continuous fl ow of transformative prac-tices through making a diff erence in them and therefore mattering to oneself and others

Key goals of teaching-

learning

Knowledge of facts and skills

Ability to communi-cate in the language of community and act according to its norms

Co- creating the tools of agency for each learnerrsquos unique voice and stance in co- authoring a world shared with others Co- creating visions for the future from which the past and the present can be known and transformed

Note Descriptions of acquisition and participation models are partly based on Sfard ( 1998 ) and Collis and Moonen ( 2001 )

Table 1 (continued)



355

of assistance in achieving their goals and in mastering the means needed in the process hellip this means reconstituting classrooms and schools as communities of inquiry (p 61 emphasis added)

Th ese are important points and they convey much of what is unique about the Vygotskian pedagogy and education Th e stress on enabling participants to draw on multiple sources of cultural supports in achieving their goals and in mastering the means needed in this process is the hallmark of peda-gogy built on Vygotskyrsquos principles What the TAS highlights in expanding this approach is that multiple sources and supports are needed for students not only in achieving their goals but also and in the fi rst place in formulat-ing and developing their goals and meaningful pursuits Th e very process of forming goals including the goals ldquoto go beyond ourselvesrdquo is thus prob-lematized as well as drawn attention to and accounted for in a pedagogical stance For learners to move toward the goals that have personal signifi -cance to them is far from automatic because personal signifi cance is not a default ldquonaturalrdquo condition that is inherent to individuals Instead this process too is a collective ldquoachievementrdquo that has to be collaboratively sup-ported fostered organized and provided for by social means tools spaces and interactivities

Further a group of sociocultural scholars (see New London Group 1996 ) has directly addressed the need to defi ne the mission of education and conveyed what is central to many authors working in this tradition In refl ecting on the mission of education they wrote that

its fundamental purpose is to ensure that all students benefi t from learn-ing in ways that allow them to participate fully in public community and economic life Pedagogy is a teaching and learning relationship that creates the potential for building learning conditions leading to full and equitable social participation (p 66)

Th ere is space to move in the direction of seeing education in a more radi-cal light as preparing students not only for ldquofull and equitable social par-ticipationrdquo which can be interpreted as participating in adapting to and sustaining the status quo Instead in line with the approach discussed throughout this book the goal of education is to join with and support students in together seeking and realizing unique and authorial contribu-tions to transformative changes that constitute society- in- the- making in ways that co- create and invent society rather than accommodate or adapt to it Th is suggestion is in unison with Freire whose radical view on the



356

mission of education was conveyed by Richard Shaull in the foreword to the Pedagogy of the Oppressed ( 1970 )

Th ere is no such thing as a neutral educational process Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integra-tion of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it or it becomes the ldquopractice of freedomrdquo the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world (p 34)

Th is implies in a dialectical fashion that teachers too explore and develop their own identities positions and stances while embarking on an open- ended quests and explorations together with students Th is is a dialogical process in which no one delivers knowledge or truth from high- on up as sets of ldquofi nishedrdquo prepackaged facts and instead in which everything is open for contestation problematization creativity and invention and the task is to develop new knowledge and new truths as parts of co- creating new ways of being- knowing- doing and a new society itself

Another way to formulate this conjecture is to say that education must begin (and never stop doing so thereaft er) with learners and teachers together exploring refl ecting on and learning about ndash and thus develop-ing and expanding ndash their relationship with the world and how they can together and each at a time (which still is always non- solipsistic) contribute to changing it in light of and as the path of developing their own evolving commitments stances positions and identities Most certainly in this case the term learner has to apply to teacher as well and vice versa because every-body learns from everybody else throughout life and everybody teaches oth-ers also throughout life In this the emphasis is on learners and teachers mutually becoming at once teachers- learners whereby no one is inferior to anybody else and each person has unlimited potential yet there is much to learn from others constantly and throughout life Perhaps the metaphor of ldquostanding on the shoulders of othersrdquo conveys this meaning in suggesting that we need such shoulders to stand on yet even in such a standing there is a great need for our own authorial work of moving forward

Th is view does not privilege abstract knowledge analysis critique and refl ection over other forms of being- knowing- doing such as passions desires hopes and so on yet it does not exclude either one of these dimen-sions Th at is this approach leaves space for example for the identifi cation and demystifi cation of ldquofalse consciousnessrdquo ndash in which operations of power



357

are revealed and exposed ndash but only on the condition that such conscious-ness is not attributed to some groups only and instead is accepted as a default condition of us all Th is is because our condition is highly imperfect given our open- ended polyphonic and contradictory world in which there is always a need to learn more and to understand better while drawing on the tools experiences and (even) expertise of others because so much is done by elites to conceal operations of power and to produce ignorance and false consciousness

In this the emphasis is on the integral processes of being- knowing- doing as inclusive of learning understanding desires aspirations emotions and hopes ndash all premised on a unifi ed (ie overarching albeit contradictory and unsettled) deeply personal ndash and therefore fully social ndash quest constituted by the struggle of becoming agentive and individually unique actors of social practices in the world shared and co- created with others in moving beyond the status quo Th erefore the defi nition of critical pedagogy can be expanded to be about not only an ability to recognize injustice but also and at once about the hope and desire to change it as a project of onersquos own making of oneself through contributing to the making of a shared world and thus of being ldquomoved to change itrdquo (to use expression from Burbules and Berk 1999 p 50 quoted in Amsler 2008 ) In this there is no denying emotions aff ects or desires What is denied is that they are somehow sepa-rate from or merely parallel to cognition signifi cation motivation and other processes that together make up the stuff of being- knowing- doing and becoming

On these grounds the ldquopedagogy of hoperdquo can be merged with rather than replaced by the recently emerging ldquoeducation of desirerdquo (for an over-view and analysis of these recent approaches see Amsler 2008 ) Th e critical suggestion developed herein is fi rst that this move can be done without positing any immanent preexisting needs or longings somehow hidden in the interiority of subjectivity as if they were separate from onersquos fully social projects of becoming agents of the shared world of community practices Instead what is posited is that all human beings are unique individuals within a world shared with others who develop through their own quests to matter Second and quite critically this move does not cancel the truth- claims of critical pedagogy and the need to take a stand on what is going on in the world (unlike in some recent approaches see discussion in Chapter 2 ) Quite on the contrary the need to take a stand is taken to be inherent in and central to all forms of human being- knowing- doing including knowl-edge production and teaching- learning which in this case is turned into a



358

pedagogy of daring A number of conceptual provisions are required for this position to hold however as discussed throughout this book

In particular to reiterate the approach charted by the TAS does not exclude but instead centrally implicates the process of activist position-ing by both teachers and students alike ndash and therefore the need to take a stance and even stake a claim in the truth about what is going on in the world Although highly contested even in many critical (and more so in sociocultural) approaches this is taken in the TAS to be a condition sine qua non for any project of social and self- development Th is is because teachers and students already by virtue of being human always act from within their evolving (sometimes nascent and virtual yet always real and present) life agendas and visions for the future Th ey are thus activists who cannot and should not try to avoid developing exposing and nego-tiating their beliefs and commitments (and sometimes biases) tailored to notions of what is good or bad right or wrong Th ese beliefs and com-mitments to reiterate are inevitably critically embodied in every act of speaking and knowing

Th is stance exposes the naiumlveteacute and the political expedience of a peda-gogical position with drastic sociopolitical implications in wide circulation today according to which it is possible and desirable that teachers merely deliver ldquofactsrdquo and leave their personal beliefs behind classroom doors Th is traditionalist position states that the teacherrsquos job is to guide students in the acquisition of factual information in ldquopurerdquo intellectual inquiries rather than ldquosneak inrdquo their partisan preferences behind the backs of unsuspecting students thus indoctrinating them toward some undeclared and unwanted political goals From the TAS however the error is not in teaching tied to ideals and ideologies beliefs and commitments passions and interests Rather the error is in demanding that students share positions that teachers advocate instead of teachers engaging in open- ended dialogues with dispa-rate visions with students bringing in their own beliefs and commitments and a desire to develop them to all discussions and inquiries Th e error is in elevating a teacherrsquos ideology and agenda as the preestablished and immutable frame not amenable to change instead of bringing this agenda and agendas of students to light and critically interrogating them all while negotiating points of agreements and confl icts Developing knowledge and understanding from this position does not cease to be the major goal of teaching- learning yet this goal is included into the larger open- ended and ever- developing pursuits and meaningful life agendas centered around quests to contribute to collaborative social transformations and thus around identity development



359

Critical thinking and positioning oneself vis- agrave- vis ongoing struggles and confl icts in society as we contribute to them are absolutely central to educa-tion from this position Th is point was part of Vygotskyrsquos project in inher-iting the commitments of Marxism even though it oft en gets glossed over in interpretations of his pedagogy or when noticed is perceived as ldquoalarm-ingrdquo (McQueen 2013 ) Indeed for Vygotsky ldquoeducation always arise[s] out of lsquodiscontentrsquo out of troubles from discordrdquo (Vygotsky 1997c p 349) and is most meaningful when rebellion is in the air Th erefore according to him it is of utmost importance for teachers not to instill obedient conformity because ldquoobedience itself lacks all power of moral instruction inasmuch as it supposes in advance an unfree and servile attitude towards things and towards deedsrdquo (ibid p 232) Hence as Vygotsky writes ldquopure objectivity in the educator is utter nonsenserdquo (ibid) and good education cannot be politically indiff erent Good education ldquois never and was never politically indiff erent since willingly or unwillingly it has always adopted a particular political linerdquo (ibid p 348)

Solidarity and Freedom

A pedagogy of daring poses the diffi cult problem of addressing at least in broad strokes the normative grounds and end points of development ndash as wayward stations and horizons of possibility rather than fi xed and rigid determinations ndash on which commitments and stances can be compared argued for validated adjudicated and contested If this is not done then education with a pedagogical stance ndash and actually all projects of becoming as they presuppose teaching- learning from and with others ndash is not only directionless but impossible In the unsettled and ever- changing world that we co- create together with others while being co- created by it and that therefore is always ldquoon the gordquo and in the making ndash open- ended ambiva-lent contested confl icted and unfi nalizable though impossible without fl exible orientations to the future ndash there is no place for truth or normativ-ity in any static transcendental and universalistic sense Yet there is a place for the truth of the struggle contingent as it is on the quests for social justice and equality and predicated on the communality of both human develop-ment and teaching- learning

Although space does not permit a detailed account the premise of com-munality and the resulting need for solidarity as a condition of truth has sig-nifi cant parallels with feminist communitarianism where ldquosince the relation of persons constitutes their existence as persons hellip morally right action is [one] which intends communityrdquo (MacMurray 1961 p 119 and for a recent



360

illuminating discussion see Christians 2005 ) Premised on social ontology of human development feminist communitarianism suggests ldquoan entirely new model of research ethics in which human action and conceptions of the good are interactiverdquo (Christians 2005 p 158) Th e TAS provides an account along the lines of the core ideas developed in Vygotskyrsquos projects of how human beings are essentially related and interdependent for their very existence within the integrated ontology of shared social practices

An important connection also has to be established between solidar-ity and freedom in showing that this connection is possible in view of a profound communality of human development as a collectividual process Such a connection can be explicated based on Carol C Gouldrsquos ( 1994 ) contribution that in its turn expands on the Marxist notion about condi-tions of domination versus those of freedom Given his focus on economic aspects of productive practices Marx understood domination to be a mat-ter of unequal ownership and control over means of production and ensu-ing economic exploitation of labor For Marx in contradistinction with concepts of negative freedom as simply connoting absence of constraints there is a conception of positive freedom as agency that requires access to means of production such as tools and technology

Gould expands the notion of domination to include ldquoa matter of control hellip over the conditions of agenc y that is of those things that are required in order for persons to carry out their activitiesrdquo (Gould 1994 p 382) Th us the critique of domination includes an emphasis on the subjective and psy-chological conditions namely freedom of choice (traditionally included in liberal conceptions but eschewed in Marxist scholarship) as also necessary for the exercise of freedom Th ese two emphases in construing the notion of freedom ndash based on choice and on conditions ndash are combined in Gouldrsquos approach In her words

if freedom as self- development is to emerge whether in the society of the future or in the life of an individual then it presupposes agency or free choice as a capacity for such self- development Freedom in this sense remains abstract without access to the conditions necessary for the real-ization of choices but such realization must be based on the intentional activity or choices which only agents can make and which further hellip is what characterizes human beings as human (ibid p 388)

Gould adds emphasis on cooperative reciprocity that represents the rela-tion among individuals engaged in common joint activity deliberately coordinated around common tasks and goals in which each person is rec-ognized as participating in this activity Th is is complemented by the notion



361

of reciprocity as mutuality in which each agent not only recognizes the oth-errsquos freedom equality and concrete individuality but also chooses to act to enhance the otherrsquos development (as in the ethics of care)

Th e TAS provides ways to more directly connect these forms of coop-erative reciprocity and of reciprocity as mutuality with solidarity and free-dom Th e move is to bridge the notion of solidarity with the notion of freedom based in a dual emphasis on fi rst the essential communality of human development and second the need for access to conditions and tools of agency beyond access to choice as an ability to have a unique agen-tive positioning from which to contribute to collective and collaborative endeavors Persons are understood to come into being and to realize them-selves through contributing to collaborative endeavors in which participa-tion and contribution by others is an essential condition of carrying out these common collaborative endeavors Th at is a person comes about and can realize herself only through collective pursuits in which othersrsquo contri-butions to common projects through which personal becoming is possible are no less essential than onersquos own as the condition of mutual becoming

Given this emphasis mutuality can be understood as an enhancement of otherrsquos contributions to common endeavors and hence to onersquos own development Th is is so because in this view onersquos own development is impossible without and intertwined with (or fully interdependent with) the development of others In this case othersrsquo development is part of a common endeavor and therefore is as important as onersquos own ndash a con-dition of personal freedom that becomes possible only within a commu-nity Th erefore instead of opportunities for individual development being obtained in competition with and oft en at the expense of others in a truly free and democratic society ldquothe free development of each is a condition for the free development of allrdquo (Marx and Engels 1848 1973 p 491) Th at is given that conditions and opportunities for development of all individu-als are essentially interconnected and mutually co- constitutive a personrsquos deliberate enhancement of other personsrsquo fl ourishing for their sake does not at all mean abandoning onersquos own interests and needs Th is is because in pursuing the interests and needs of others one also pursues by implication and necessity that is non- accidentally onersquos own Th is essential interde-pendency has been since long understood by philosophers social schol-ars and activists (see Plumwood 1993 ) Th is was eloquently expressed by Martin Luther King Jr

All Irsquom saying is simply this that all mankind is tied together all life is interrelated and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality



362

tied in a single garment of destiny Whatever aff ects one directly aff ects all indirectly For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be ndash this is the interrelated struc-ture of reality John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms No man is an Island entire of itself every man is a piece of a conti-nent a part of the main hellip (1965)

Furthermore the principle of solidarity can be derived from considerations of the essentially social collaborative and simultaneously agentive nature of human development as a process that is directly contingent on social inter-actions and supports whereby individuals constitute themselves through and are bound by relations with others ndash all the while playing an agen-tive role in bringing about changes in communal practices Th is approach overcomes the unnecessary strict division between on the one hand the emphasis on community and collaboration (as in traditional Marxist dis-courses where solidarity can and has been interpreted as the subjection to social forces cf Gould 1994 ) and on the other the exclusive focus on individual agency and freedom for its own sake (taken as the sole principle of democracy by the traditional liberal thought) In the TAS individual agency is understood as supremely social constituted by onersquos contribution to collaborative processes contingent on social supports and thus ineluc-tably enmeshed with these processes (though distinguishable from them) while these social relations in their turn are constituted by agentive con-tributions by uniquely positioned individuals and thus impossible without individuals acting in pursuit of their goals Th erefore the full development of individuality requires the full development of societal relations (as Marx surmised) and mediations while ndash reciprocally ndash the full development of society as needs to be added no less importantly requires the full develop-ment of individuality qua social agency and the activism of all community members

In this approach the criterion of freedom can be understood as societyrsquos ability to provide conditions for self- development (agency and activism voice and position ie an ability to take a stand) to all of its members who thereby also develop a capacity to strive for and provide the conditions for a society that further provides for self- development of oneself and others all in a dynamic spiral of mutual becoming at the intersection of individual and collective dimensions of social practices Th is recursive position highlights the nexus of self- development as premised on agentive activism (ability to take a stand) on one hand and solidarity as the interconnectedness and



363

equality of individuals within the ethical quest for social justice for all on the other Th erefore in this account though it is profoundly communal the traditional norms of self- development and self- realization are not excluded but instead reconceived in a shift away from connotations of individuals as stand- alone autonomous and isolated entities driven by narrowly under-stood self- interests to instead highlight agency aimed at solidarity with oth-ers Importantly this position on solidarity freedom and social justice does not reject the plurality of knowledge because these ideals can be achieved and specifi ed in each concrete historical situation only by self- realizing individuals and communities in their own individually unique ways that do not repeat those of others

One fi nal specifi cation is that a necessary condition for truly free acts of being- knowing- doing is solidarity with and learning from and with those who are marginalized ndash on the fringes and the ldquolosing endsrdquo of society It is from the position of the marginalized and excluded that the most critical contradictions and confl icts in society ndash understood as a collective drama of life carried out and realized in struggles for a sought- aft er future ndash can be discerned identifi ed resisted and struggled against To expansively use Val Plumwoodrsquos ( 1993 p 1) expression ldquoit is usually at the edges where the great tectonic plates of [societal confl icts] meet and shift that we fi nd the most dramatic developments and upheavalsrdquo And it can be added because contradictions confl icts and struggles defi ne no less than the very core of reality- in- the- making in the process of transcending itself through contri-butions by communities and individuals these struggles are also more than real Th ese contradictions and these struggles by those marginalized and on the fringes of society are actually at the epicenter of what is to come It is at this epicenter that the world gets unstuck runs into impasse and incoher-ence and thus being unsettled in the extreme propels into the future as the process of its real ization In joining these struggles and thus learning about their contradictions through seeking to overcome them therefore the stage is set for co- creating truth in teaching- learning together from and with the marginalized

Any emancipatory project and any pedagogy in this sense still need to rely on truth about oppression and how to overcome it and even about what real human existence looks like (in contradistinction with those who take the critical edge out of critical pedagogy) From a Marxist- Vygotskian position there is truth about oppression and the struggle of overcoming it Th is truth is not given however and instead it has to be co- created by learners and teachers and all of us both together and one at a time in



364

coordinated pursuits guided by a sought- aft er future (which needs to be continuously rediscovered) of bringing forth and realizing what is imag-ined into the present through collective struggles and strivings Th is pro-cess entails knowledge craft smanship apprenticeship learning and also and at the same time rebellion and resistance ndash as integral parts of such pursuits that are essentially about daring to be to know and to act Th at is truth is created in and as the process of struggle and active striving in the face of uncertainty guided by the end points to which we are committing (even though it might never be achieved nor settled) Knowing therefore is about neither copying the world nor coping with it but instead about daring to co- create the world while knowing it in the very act of bringing about transformative and creative change ndash in the act of making a diff erence in communal forms of life and thus mattering in them and through this of us coming to be and to know

Truth is about what matters in the world as it now unfolds and comes unstuck right in front of our eyes in drastic forms and expressions with powerful confl icts and struggles now brewing beneath ndash and increasingly above ndash the surface of the supposedly stable and seemingly still indomi-table status quo A determination of what exactly these confl icts are is a product and a process of struggles and because history is in no sense preordained (as Marx Vygotsky and Freire all affi rmed) activist educa-tors do not own truth but engage in co- creating it with others And so we are compelled to defi ne what matters in joining in with the struggle for social justice be it in the form of attempting to build new radical theo-ries of human development or of joining with social movements such as Black Lives Matter (the two forms of activism not being separate) It is in this sense that mastering truth about society and ourselves to para-phrase Vygotsky requires that we fi gure out our stake in the world and its communal practices and commit to changing them in thus claiming our truth

All of the preceding discussion throughout this book can be seen as an attempt to join in with and hopefully off er support for critical and socio-cultural scholarship with activist agendas that address systemic marginal-ization and social inequalities Th ese include approaches at the intersection of education and human development in Freirian pedagogy of hope the more recently developed pedagogy of desire and imagination indigenous pedagogy and the pedagogy in Vygotsky- and Bakhtin- inspired sociocul-tural and dialogical approaches ndash especially as they focus on imagination and vision about a diff erent world than the one of oppression and inequality ndash as being necessary for the praxis of transformative change



365

As an illustration parallels can be drawn with Freirersquos methodology as it has been taken up in critical race theory (CRT eg Delgado and Stefancic 2001 ) to focus on preparing all teachers to acquire the knowledge skills and dispositions necessary to teach diverse learners (eg Darling- Hammond 2007 ) and to become culturally competent (eg Ladson- Billings and Donnor 2005 ) For example as discussed by Smith- Maddox and Soloacuterzano ( 2002 ) the methodology aligned with CRT challenges the traditional paradigms and methods by simultaneously foregrounding race and rac-ism in the curriculum focusing on the racialized and gendered experi-ences of communities of color and off ering a liberatory and transformative method when examining racial gender and class discrimination Th e TAS approach is or at least aspires to be aligned with these perspectives What it off ers is a conceptually grounded rationale for activism ndash in both research practice and theory ndash as a legitimate central and in fact the only way to conduct them Th is is about theorizing activism through recognizing the irreducible centrality of collective human struggles and quests for equal-ity and justice enacted through collectividual contributions to them ndash with these processes posited as the key ontological and epistemological ground-ings at the intersection of human development with teaching- learning Th e proposals developed herein hopefully could be used also in works where the purpose is ldquothe integration of cultural socialization and identity devel-opment processes into learning as a goal of educational research in order to improve educational outcomes for racial and ethnic minority youth and youth facing persistent intergenerational povertyrdquo (Lee Spencer and Harpalani 2003 p 7)

To summarize the position expressed throughout this book highlights fi rst the collectividual ldquonaturerdquo of human development and teaching- learn-ing through individual and authorial contributions to the open- ended ambivalent contested unstable ever- shift ing and evolving struggles by activist actors agents who dare to bring the world and themselves into reality through collective activist projects Second it highlights the role of cultural supports tools and mediations necessary for persons in their trajectories of becoming agentive actors of transformative social practices From this position education is truly vital in the full sense of the word as an endeavor that is life producing society realizing and history making Th at is education is existentially indispensable continually through life and for all persons in their continuous ndash ongoing and unending ndash quests for becom-ing Th is position asserts that we are all life- long learners and teachers at the same time with knowledge being of vital importance to this endeavor However this can be claimed only if teaching- learning are not about merely



366

adding abstract knowledge to cognitive tool kits (which in any event do not exist as separate ldquothingsrdquo) but about open- ended quests to develop as fully empowered agents of transformative social practices ndash a process that entails unity of agency identity motivation hope desire and cognition all merged within overall activist quests and pursuits

How to break away from the constraints of rigid and stifl ing models of education without losing what is absolutely essential and vital about it con-tinues to be an important challenge One element in meeting this challenge is realizing that teaching- learning and knowledge building radicalized as they are within the transformative worldview as endeavors that aff ord us all to become agentive actors who uniquely and authorially contribute to communal social practices and their confl icts and struggles are valu-able and indispensable resources for a free and full self- development by individuals who in solidarity with others together realize themselves and their fully free communities Th is is the process that can be described as an open- ended continuous dialectical spiral of a simultaneously individual and communal collective (ldquocollectividualrdquo) development premised on the notion of change instead of adaptation and on the fundamental equality of all society members who each matter in how the world is realized Th e criti-cal component of this dialectics is that being- knowing- doing is possible only from within an engagement in collaborative projects of social transfor-mation ndash the ones that attempt to transcend the status quo and transform key confl icts of the world ldquoin the makingrdquo ndash and while aiming to contribute to these projects in taking charge of these confl icts taking a stand on them and laying claim to our own position and stake on how the world is and how it could and ought to be


367

367


It is when radicals are decried as Jeremiahs by liberals and as starry- eyed utopianists by conservatives that they know they have got it more or less right

Terry Eagleton

Th e discussion throughout this book has centered on the processes of being- knowing- doing and those of development and teaching- learning as activist endeavors premised on commitments to contributing to a sought- aft er future in a world shared with others ndash and therefore as simultane-ously deeply personal and profoundly social quests ndash because people are co- creating the world and are ldquoin itrdquo that is in this process together Th e transformative activist stance (TAS) is fundamentally about the belief that change is possible and that social practices and structures are not only not beyond the scope of intervention and transformation but are always already in the process of being transformed and changed by people at the intersec-tion of individual and collective agency and across dimensions of the past present and future ndash both collectively and one at a time and each impossi-ble without the other Th e core assumption is that people always contribute in one way or another on a smaller or larger scale to such transformative changes in each and every act of their being knowing and doing as social agents of history and community practices ndash that is as activists who are co- creating and realizing their own communities and our common humanity in projecting into the future Yet this is not an inherent capacity somehow ldquogivenrdquo by human nature and automatically endemic to each individual as if coming about on its own Th e role of education is indispensable in pro-viding the tools of activism and agency that make these acts and ensuing transformative social changes and thereby also the free development of individuals and society possible



368

Th e TAS also stresses that ultimately we only know the world through actively and agentively engaging ndash always collaboratively yet in individually unique and authorial ways ndash in transforming the existing status quo while being ourselves transformed in the process It also highlights that achiev-ing critical consciousness and agency are made possible through teaching- learning that provides learners (ie all of us) access to tools of their own authorial and authentic activism and agency and opens up ways for us all to grasp the power to be agents of social change who are capable of chal-lenging and changing our own limit situations and oft en oppressive cir-cumstances ndash and to thus be able to further challenge and change ourselves

Th e resulting call for a pedagogy of daring which could complement pedagogies of hope and desire is perhaps the shortest expression of what can be drawn from the discussion as the main conclusion Yet in the spirit of the transformative stance where the world is understood to project itself into the future through our collectividual action and where nothing is settled permanent or fi nalized it is important to consider next steps in working along the lines suggested so far It is also important to bring in voices of others to dialogue argue about and contest whatever points have been made In any event there can be nothing conclusive about ldquofi nish-ingrdquo the project such as this book ndash it is up to others to critique and argue with it and through this to take up whatever ideas they fi nd meaningful and relevant or objectionable in realizing their own quests and pursuits As Gianni Rodari an Italian activist journalist and writer remarked (see Great Writers of Fairy Tales 2006 ) ldquo[E] very reader who is not satisfi ed with the ending can change it as she pleases adding one or two chapters Perhaps all thirteen of them Never let yourself be scared with the words lsquothe endrsquo rdquo

One of the diffi cult matters to grapple with is that the focus on agency ndash especially in highlighting that every person matters and makes a diff erence in a communal world shared with others ndash apparently shift s away from important considerations of economic conditions related to social class diff erentiations (the traditional core matter in Marxism) and other social divisions along the axes of race gender and so on Th is is the conundrum that is recently captured by Terry Eagleton ( 2003 ) who in reviewing a book by Georg Lukaacutecs (non- coincidentally because Lukaacutecs grappled exactly with this conundrum) wrote

How far is change up to us and how far is it constrained by objective conditions Pushed too far the former keels over into voluntarism and the latter into determinism Th e combination of these two heresies is the preserve of middle- class society which believes politically speaking



369

in self- determination and economically speaking that the individual is merely a pawn in the marketplace Th e voluntaristic doctrines of capital-ism ndash the skyrsquos the limit never say never you can crack it if you try ndash are a convenient screen for the ldquotruthrdquo of its determinism the fact that the human subject is shunted around by random economic forces

Th is is a diffi cult charge Indeed the human ldquosubjectrdquo is shunted around by economic forces that are increasingly brutal and impersonal It would be naiumlve to disregard this by insisting on human agency as if it was an omnipo-tent and limitless power and it is my hope that this is not the message to be inferred from this book In fact the intention throughout was to acknowl-edge the power of societal forces and dynamics to then ndash on the foundation of positing social practices (inclusive of their economic determinations) at the core of human development and social dynamics ndash draw attention to processes at the nexus of human agency and the world Th is is an intri-cate balancing act and it is up to others to judge whether it was successful at least to some degree In emphasizing agency embodied in the activist stance the point is not to ignore the power of social forces but to acknowl-edge that ndash specifi cally in the transformative worldview where noting is settled or taken for granted ndash there is space for our agency too and a central one at that Th is is because the world comes through social collaborative practices ndash constituted by collective struggles and agentive quests made up of individual contributions ndash that realize simultaneously the world and human beings In this emphasis I depart from Eagletonrsquos and other extant positions on realism conformism and what it means to be a revolutionary According to Eagleton ldquoIf the romantic conforms the world to his desire and the realist conforms his mind to the world the revolutionary is called on to do both at oncerdquo (ibid) In the TAS there is no conforming to either desires or to the world either separately or at once because there is no place for conforming in an ongoing and simultaneous co- constitutive transfor-mation of the world in activist quests that continuously transcend reality without pausing or adapting

Th en again it goes without saying in any discussion grounded in Vygotskyrsquos project and given its fi rm rooting in Marxism that the neces-sary conditions for freedom require critical resolution of inequalities in economic and political spheres including in terms of economic exploita-tion unequal access to power and means of production and class- race- dis ability- gender- based and other types of domination and discrimina-tion Th erefore as Eagleton ( 2003 ) also expressed in his characteristically eloquent manner ldquothe problem is how to give voice to the importance of



370

the subject without giving comfort to bourgeois idealists who are fond of hearing that injustices can be put right with a bit more willpower and that a change of heart is always more deep- seated than a mere change in property relationsrdquo

Th is is exactly the provision that has been made directly and consis-tently in applications of TAS for example within a project carried out in a group home for underprivileged (and oppressed in the extreme) adoles-cents in an impoverished community in one of New Jersey metropolitan areas and another project in a community college for underprivileged stu-dents (with Eduardo Vianna working as the lead investigator in both proj-ects) In describing this work (see Vianna Hougaard and Stetsenko 2014 Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 2014 ) we wrote about systemic and structural issues such as inequality and poverty that are implicated in the staggering number of about half a million children (Childrenrsquos Defense Fund 2008 cf Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 ) presently living in out- of- the- home arrange-ments in the United States Among other points we insisted that wide and far- reaching systematic policy changes are urgently needed at many levels from the child welfare system to broad economic policies However as this work also dramatically illustrated

individual transformation is part and parcel of social change with both processes spurring and necessitating each other While personal transformation is not enough to bring about lasting and profound social change it is nevertheless an indispensable level in the struggle for social justice and equality that cannot result from changes imposed in a top- down fashion from the structural level onto individuals [Th e participantsrsquo] agency and personal transformation was a critical catalyst in changing [their] residential program Th rough [their] contribution [they] did make a diff erence both in [their] own life and in social prac-tices [they were] part of bringing about an important message about how individual and social transformations are part of one complex dialectical process of change and development (Vianna and Stetsenko 2011 p 336)

If the struggle against oppression and inequalities is not enacted at indi-vidual levels of social processes and not embraced by individuals as their own meaningful pursuits then there is little hope that the large- scale libera-tional projects of social justice are successful either Th is is in congruence with some of the recent interpretations of the Marxist ethics For exam-ple Blackledge ( 2008 ) provides an excellent analysis of this topic (see also Gould 1994 Mostov 1989 Niemi 2011 ) In this interpretation the central



371

theme of Marxrsquos moral theory is how to realize human freedom For Marx ldquofreedom evolves over time through a process of collective struggles that are best understood against the background of the development of human-ityrsquos productive forcesrdquo (quoted in Blackledge 2008 ) Th is position does not suggest however that freedom can be reduced to economic justice at the society- wide level only Instead it can be interpreted to suggest that ldquoalthough an individual cannot become free in isolation from others none-theless it is only individuals who are freerdquo (Gould 1978 p 108)

Th is conception of freedom emphasizes the need for broad political and economic structures that provide equal opportunities for all rather than these opportunities being predetermined by individual social roles or some presumably inborn endowments Yet the necessary conditions for freedom also include political democracy and a democratized civil society as Marx insisted all along as an eff ective activity of equal citizens (see Niemi 2011 ) For such activity individuals must have opportunities as added by the TAS to develop their own agency to be social actors who are co- creating and real izing society and themselves Th erefore in my take on these issues the classical stress on the provision of economic conditions for creating society without oppression and exploitation (which is understandably beyond the scope of the present book) is not a self- standing imperative Rather this position has to be interlinked with the ideal of creating a society that allows for freedom solidarity and equality all realized by self- developing self- realizing and self- determining individuals as agentive and activist actors of society and history

Th is latter point draws attention to the need to create social structures and practices such as especially in education which can support and ascer-tain the provision of cultural tools and collaborative spaces for learners who in authoring these tools and spaces develop their own agentive positioning and activist stances so that they as social actors can ldquotake uprdquo and develop their communities and themselves from their unique positions In stating this point the attention is drawn to the need to admit that not only is there no contradiction between freedom and solidarity but that in addition an elaborate and carefully devised system of social structures and institutions supports and mediations for agency and activism is absolutely necessary for the achievement of freedom and justice because they are intrinsic to both human development and society

In conclusion the main thrust of the foregoing discussions in this book is to argue for the use of research and theory as a means of advocating and supporting social change in the direction of equality and social justice Such



372

a possibility has oft en been dismissed by those who ldquocontinue to support the hierarchies of facts over values political neutrality over political per-suasion and the recording of history over the making of historyrdquo (Barone 2009 p 593) Th e claim of a fundamental somehow ldquonaturalrdquo inequality of human beings has also been used as part of this logic that the present book strives to contest Th is eff ort is spurred not by an ldquoidealistrdquo belief that collectividual agency and transformative mind are all that is needed in the struggle for equality Quite on the contrary the eff ort is motivated by a real-ization of the depth of crisis we are facing where as Terry Eagleton advises ldquoeither we act now or capitalism will be the death of us allrdquo ( 2011 p 237) In any case to what extent activist agency and transformative mind can be realized ndash as the capacity to transform reality and to co- create history and ourselves ndash is a dilemma that is moot if we understand theorizing not as descriptions of what is but as an activist project of daring to pursue what could and must be


373

373

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Ahern L M ( 2001 ) Language and agency Annual Review of Anthropology 30 109 ndash 137

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Allman P ( 2007 ) On Marx An introduction to the revolutionary pedagogy of Karl Marx Rotterdam Th e Netherlands Sense

Allport G ( 1992 ) Preface In Viktor Frankl Manrsquos search for meaning (4rth ed pp 7 ndash 11 ) Boston Beacon Press

Altman I and Rogoff B ( 1987 ) World views in psychology Trait interactional organismic and transactional perspectives In D Stokols and I Altman (eds) Handbook of environmental psychology (vol 1 pp 7 ndash 40 ) New York Wiley

Amsler S S ( 2008 ) Pedagogy against ldquodis- utopiardquo From conscientization to the education of desire In H F Dahms (ed) No social science without critical theory (Current Perspectives in Social Th eory vol 25 pp 291 ndash 325 ) Bingley UK Emerald Group

Anderson K ( 1993 ) On Hegel and the rise of social theory A critical apprecia-tion of Herbert Marcusersquos reason and revolution fi ft y years later Sociological Th eory 11 ( 3 ) 243 ndash 267


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Anzalduacutea G ( 1990 ) La conciencia de la mestiza Toward a new consciousness In G Anzalduacutea (ed) Making face making soul Haciendo caras Creative and critical perspectives by women of color (pp 377ndash 89 ) San Francisco Aunt Lute

Anzalduacutea G ( 2006 ) Entering into the serpent In D Gilb (ed) Hecho en Tejas An anthology of Texas- Mexican literature (pp 253 ndash 261 ) Southwestern Writers Collection Series Albuquerque University of New Mexico Press and the Southwestern Writers Collection Texas State University

Anzalduacutea G ( 2007 ) Borderlands La frontera Th e new mestiza (3rd ed) San Francisco Aunt Lute Books

Appadurai A ( 2000 ) Grassroots globalization and the research imagination Public Culture 12 (1) 1 ndash 19

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Appiah K A ( 2006 ) Cosmopolitanism Ethics in a world of strangers London Allen Lane Penguin

Appiah K A ( 2008 ) Experiments in ethics Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

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data with social theoryrdquo Educational Researcher 39 ( 2) 160 ndash 161 Arendt H ( 1971 1977) Th e life of the mind San Diego CA A Harvest Book

Harcourt Arievitch I M ( 2003 ) A potential for an integrated view of development and

learning Galperinrsquos contribution to sociocultural psychology Mind Culture and Activity 10 278 ndash 288

Arievitch I M ( 2008 ) Exploring the links between external and internal activity from a cultural- historical perspective In B van Oers W Wardekker E Elbers and R van der Veer (eds) Th e transformation of learning Advances in cultural- historical activity theory (pp 38 ndash 58 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Arievitch I M and Haenen J P P ( 2005 ) Connecting sociocultural theory and educational practice Galperinrsquos approach Educational Psychologist 40 (3) 155 ndash 165

Arievitch I M and Stetsenko A ( 2000 ) Th e quality of cultural tools and cog-nitive development Galperinrsquos perspective and its implications Human Development 43 69 ndash 93


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Arievitch I M and Stetsenko A ( 2014 ) Th e magic of signs Developmental tra-jectory of cultural mediation In A Yasnitsky R van der Veer and M Ferrari (eds) Th e Cambridge handbook of cultural- historical psychology (pp 217 ndash 244 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Arievitch I M and van der Veer R ( 1995 ) Furthering the internalization debate Galperinrsquos contribution Human Development 38 113 ndash 126

Arievitch I M and van der Veer R ( 2004 ) Th e role of non- automatic processes in activity regulation From Lipps to Galperin History of Psychology 7 ( 2 ) 154 ndash 182

Aronowitz S and Bratsis P ( 2005 ) Situations manifesto Situations 1 (1) 7 ndash 14 Artiles A J ( 2012 ) Toward an interdisciplinary understanding of educational

inequity and diff erence Th e case of the racialization of ability Educational Researcher 40 ( 9 ) 431 ndash 445

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Au W ( 2007 ) Epistemology of the oppressed Th e dialectics of Paulo Freirersquos the-ory of knowledge Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 5 ( 2 ) wwwjceps com pageID=articleamparticleID=100 (accessed September 15 2013)

Avis J ( 2007 ) Engestroumlmrsquos version of activity theory A conservative praxis Journal of Education and Work 20 ( 3) 161 ndash 177

Bakhtin M ( 1981 ) Th e dialogic imagination Four Essays ( C Emerson and M Holquist trans M Holquist ed) Austin University of Texas Press

Bakhtin M ( 1984 ) Problems of Dostoevskyrsquos poetics ( C Emerson trans and ed) Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Bakhtin M ( 1986 ) Speech genres and other late essays ( V McGee trans C Emerson and M Holquist eds) Austin University of Texas Press

Bakhtin M ( 1990 ) Art and answerability Early philosophical essays by M M Bakhtin (M Holquist and V Liapunov eds V Liapunov trans and notes K Brostrom supplement trans) Austin Texas University Press

Bakhtin M ( 1993 ) Toward a philosophy of the act ( V Liapunov trans V Liapunov and M Holquist eds) Austin University of Texas Press

Bakhurst D ( 1991 ) Consciousness and revolution in Soviet philosophy From Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Bakhurst D ( 2009 ) Refl ections on activity theory Educational Review 61 197 ndash 210

Bakhurst D and Padden C ( 1991 ) Th e Meshcheryakov experiment Soviet work on the education of deafb lind children Learning and Instruction 1 201 ndash 215

Baldwin J ( 1955 1984) Notes of a native son Boston Beacon Books Baldwin J ( 1961 1993) Nobody knows my dream New York Vintage books Bandura A ( 2001 ) Social cognitive theory An agentic perspective Annual Review

of Psychology (vol 52 pp 1 ndash 26 ) Palo Alto CA Annual Reviews Bannerji H ( 2005 ) Building from Marx Refl ections on class and race Social

Justice 32 ( 4 ) 144 ndash 160 Barad K ( 2007 ) Meeting the universe halfway Quantum physics and the entangle-

ment of matter and meaning Durham NC and London Duke University Press Barone T ( 2006 ) Making educational history Qualitative inquiry artistry and the

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Bateson G ( 1972 ) Steps to an ecology of mind San Francisco Chandler Bateson G ( 1979 ) Mind and nature A necessary unity New York Bantam Books Benhabib S ( 1999 ) Sexual diff erence and collective identities Th e new constella-

tion In M A OrsquoFarrell and L Vallone (eds) Virtual gender Fantasies of subjec-tivity and embodiment (pp 217 ndash 243 ) Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press

Benhabib S ( 2001 ) From identity politics to social feminism In A M Melzer J Weinberger and M R Zinman (eds) Turn of the century (pp 27 ndash 41 ) Lanham MD Rowman and Littlefi eld

Bennett J ( 2010 ) Vibrant matter A political ecology of things Durham NC Duke University Press

Bennett M R and Hacker P M S ( 2003 ) Philosophical foundations of neurosci-ence Malden MA Blackwell Publishing

Bergson H ( 1911 ) Matter and memory ( N M Paul and W S Palmer trans) London George Allen and Unwin

Berman M ( 1983 ) All that is solid melts into air Th e experience of modernity (2nd ed) London and New York Verso

Bernstein N N ( 1966 ) Essays on the physiology of movement and physiology of activity [ Oчерки по физиологии движения и физиологии активности ] Moscow Nauka Press

Beyer L E and Liston D P ( 1992 ) Discourse of moral action A critique of post-modernism Educational Th eory 42 ( 4) 371 ndash 393

Bickhard M H ( 2012 ) A process ontology of persons and their development In J Martin and M H Bickhard (eds) Th e new psychology of personhood [Special Issue] New Ideas in Psychology 28 107 ndash 119

Bidell T ( 1999 ) Vygotsky Piaget and the dialectic of development In Peter Lloyd and Charles Fernyhough (eds) Lev Vygotsky Critical assessments vol 1 (pp 261 ndash 281 ) London Routledge

Biesta G ( 2007 ) Why ldquowhat worksrdquo wonrsquot work Evidence- based practice and the democratic defi cit in educational research Educational Th eory 57 ( 1 ) 1 ndash 22

Biesta G J J ( 2012 ) Doing emancipation diff erently Transgression equality and the politics of learning Civitas Educationis Education Politics and Culture 1 ( 1 ) 15 ndash 30

Biesta G J J and Tedder M ( 2007 ) Agency and learning in the lifecourse Towards an ecological perspective Studies in the Education of Adults 39 132 ndash 149

Blackledge P ( 2008 ) Marixsm and ethics International Socialism A Quarterly Review of Socialist Th eory 120 October 6 http isjorguk marxism- and- ethics 120blackledge58 (accessed September 23 2015)

Blanton E W Moorman G and Trathen W ( 1998 ) Telecommunications and teacher education A social constructivist review Review of Research in Education 23 235 ndash 275

Bloch E ( 1954 ) Th e principle of hope (vol 1) Cambridge MA MIT Press Bodrova E and Leong D J ( 2007 ) Tools of the mind Th e Vygotskian approach to

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University Press Bourdieu P ( 1990 ) Th e logic of practice ( Richard Nice trans) Stanford CA

Stanford University Press Bourdieu P ( 1995 ) Physical space social space and habitus Talk delivered at

the University of Oslo Norway May 15 1995 http archiveslibraryillinois edu erec University20Archives 2401001 Production_ website pages StewardingExcellence Physical20Space20Social20Space20and20Habituspdf (accessed July 12 2016)

Bourdieu P ( 1998 ) Practical reason On the theory of action Stanford CA Stanford University Press

Bourdieu P and Passeron J C ( 1977 ) Reproduction in education society and cul-ture London Sage

Bourdieu P and Wacquant L J D ( 1992 ) An invitation to refl exive sociology Chicago University of Chicago Press

Boutte G S ( 2016 ) Educating African American students And how are the children New York Routledge

Bradley B S ( 2008 ) Commentary Th e Vygotskian family in the supreme court of practice Culture and Psychology 14 37 ndash 44

Bratus B S ( 1988 ) Abnormalities of personality Moscow Mysl Bredo E ( 1994 ) Reconstructing educational psychology Situated cognition and

Deweyian pragmatism Educational Psychologist 29 ( 1 ) 23 ndash 35 Bredo E ( 1998 ) Evolution psychology and John Deweyrsquos critique of the refl ex arc

concept Th e Elementary School Journal 98 ( 5 ) 447 ndash 466 Bremner J G and Slater A ( 2003 ) Th eories of infant development Malden

MA Blackwell Publishers Bretherton I ( 1992 ) Th e origins of attachment theory John Bowlby and Mary

Ainsworth Developmental Psychology 28 759 ndash 775 Bronfenbrenner U ( 1977 ) Toward an experimental ecology of human develop-

ment American Psychologist 32 513 ndash 532 Bronfenbrenner U ( 2004 ) Making human beings human Bioecological perspectives

on human development Th ousand Oaks CA Sage Bronowski J ( 1976 ) Th e ascent of man Boston Little Brown Brown R and P Renshaw ( 2006 ) Positioning students as actors and authors

A chronotopic analysis of collaborative learning activities Mind Culture and Activity 13 ( 3 ) 247ndash 59

Bruner J ( 1987 ) Life as narrative Social Research 54 11 ndash 32 Bruner J S ( 1990 ) Acts of meaning Cambridge MA Harvard University Press Burbules N and Berk R ( 1999 ) Critical thinking and critical pedagogy Relations

diff erences and limits In T Popkewitz and L Fendler (eds) Critical theo-ries in education Changing terrains of knowledge and politics (pp 45ndash 65) New York Routledge

Burke K ( 1973 ) Th e philosophy of literary form (3rd ed) Berkeley University of California Press

Burkitt I ( 2008 ) Social selves Th eories of self and society (2nd ed) London Sage Burman E ( 1994 ) Deconstructing developmental psychology New York Routledge


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Burman E ( 1997 ) Minding the gap Positivism psychology and the politics of qualitative methods Journal of Social Issues 53( 4) 78 ndash 101

Burt R S ( 1992 ) Structural holes Th e social structure of competition Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Cahan E D ( 1992 ) John Dewey and human development Developmental Psychology 28 205 ndash 214

Cahan E D and White S H ( 1992 ) Proposals for a second psychology American Psychologist 47 224 ndash 235

Calhoun D LiPuma E and Postone M ( 1993 ) Bourdieu Critical perspectives Chicago University of Chicago Press

Cammarota J and Fine M ( 2008 ) Youth participatory action research A peda-gogy for transformational resistance In J Cammarota and M Fine (eds) Revolutionizing education Youth participatory action research in motion (pp 1 ndash 12 ) New York Routledge

Campbell J L and Pedersen O K eds ( 2001 ) Th e rise of neoliberalism and insti-tutional analysis Princeton NJ Princeton University Press

Camus A ( 2013 ) Algerian chronicles Cambridge MA Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (Originally published in 1958)

Carpendale J I M and Lewis C ( 2004 ) Constructing an understanding of mind Th e development of childrenrsquos social understanding within social inter-action Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 79 ndash 151

Carpenter S ( 2012 ) Centering Marxist- feminist theory in adult learning Adult and Education Quarterly 62 ( 1 ) 19 ndash 35

Carr W ( 2007 ) Educational research as a practical science International Journal of Research and Method in Education 30 271 ndash 286

Castantildeeda C ( 2002 ) Figurations Child bodies worlds Durham NC Duke University Press

Castells M ( 1997 ) Th e power of Identity Malden MA and Oxford Blackwell Cavanagh C ( 1995 ) Osip Mandelstam and the modernist creation of tradition

Princeton NJ Princeton University Press Chaiklin S ( 2003 ) Th e zone of proximal development in Vygotskyrsquos analysis of

learning and instruction In A Kozulin B Gindis V S Ageyev and S M Miller (eds) Vygotskyrsquos educational theory in cultural context (pp 39 ndash 64 ) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Charney E ( 2012 ) Behavior genetics and post genomics Behavioral and Brain Sciences 35 ( 6 ) 331 ndash 410

Cheah P ( 2008 ) Nondialectical materialism Diacritics 38 ( 1ndash 2 ) 143 ndash 157 Chomsky N and Foucault M ( 2006 ) Th e Chomsky- Foucault debate on human

nature New York and London Th e New Press Childrenrsquos Defense Fund ( 2008 ) State of Americarsquos children wwwchildrensdefense

org childresearch- data- publications data state- americas- children- 2005- chpt5- child- welfarehtml

Christians C ( 2005 ) Ethics and politics in qualitative research In N K Denzin and Y S Lincoln (eds) Handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed pp 139 ndash 164 ) Th ousand Oaks CA Sage

Christopher J C and Bickhard M H ( 2007 ) Culture self and identity Interactivist contributions to a metatheory for cultural psychology Culture and Psychology 13 ( 3 ) 259 ndash 295


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Clancey W J ( 1991 ) Review of Rosenfi eldrsquos ldquoTh e Invention of Memoryrdquo Artifi cial Intelligence 50 ( 2 ) 241 ndash 284

Clancey W J ( 1997 ) Situated cognition On human knowledge and computer repre-sentations Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Clancey W J ( 2009 ) Scientifi c antecedents of situated cognition In P Robbins and M Aydede (eds) Th e Cambridge handbook of situated cognition (pp 11 ndash 34 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Clark A ( 1997 ) Being there Putting mind body and world together again Cambridge MA MIT Press

Clark A ( 2008 ) Supersizing the mind Embodiment action and cognitive extension New York Oxford University Press

Clark A and Chalmers D ( 1998 ) Th e extended mind Analysis 58 10 ndash 23 Clark K and Holquist M ( 1984 ) Mikhail Bakhtin Cambridge MA Harvard

University Press Clark K B ( 1989 ) Dark ghetto Dilemmas of social power (2nd ed) Middletown

CT Wesleyan University Press Cobb P and Yackel E ( 1998 ) A constructivist perspective on the culture of the

mathematics classroom In F Seeger J Voigt and U Waschescio (eds) Th e culture of the mathematics classroom (pp 158 ndash 190 ) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Colapietro V M ( 1989 ) Peircersquos approach to the self A semiotic perspective on human subjectivity Albany SUNY Press

Cole M ( 1985 ) Th e zone of proximal development Where culture and cogni-tion create each other In J V Wertsch (ed) Culture communication and cognition Vygotskian perspectives (pp 146 ndash 161 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Cole M ( 1996 ) Cultural psychology A once and future discipline Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Cole M ( 2003 ) Vygotsky and context Where did the connection come from and what diff erence does it make http communication ucsdedu lchc People MCole lsvcontexthtm (accessed December 14 2014)

Cole M ( 2009 ) Th e perils of translation A fi rst step in reconsidering Vygotskyrsquos theory of development in relation to formal education [Editorial] Mind Culture and Activity 16 ( 4 ) 291 ndash 295

Cole M and Engestroumlm Y ( 1993 ) A cultural- historical approach to distrib-uted cognition In G Salomon (ed) Distributed cognitions (pp 1 ndash 46 ) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Cole M Levitin K and Luria A R ( 2010 ) Th e autobiography of Alexander Luria A dia-logue with the making of mind New York and London Psychology Press

Cole M and Wertsch J V ( 1996 ) Beyond the individual- social antinomy in dis-cussions of Piaget and Vygotsky Human Development 39 250 ndash 256

Collins C ( 2011 ) Refl ections on CHAT and Freirersquos participatory action research from the West of Scotland Praxis politics and the ldquostruggle for meaningful life rdquo Mind Culture and Activity 18 98 ndash 114

Collis B and Moonen J ( 2001 ) Flexible learning in a digital world Experiences and expectations London Kogan Page

Coole D and Frost S eds ( 2010 ) New materialisms Ontology agency and poli-tics Durham NC and London Duke University Press


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Connelly J and Costall A ( 2000 ) R G Collingwood and the idea of an historical psychology Th eory and Psychology 10 147 ndash 170

Connery C M John-Steiner V P and Marjanovic-Shane A (eds) (2010) Vygotsky and creativity A cultural-historical approach to play meaning mak-ing and the arts New York Peter Lang

Costall A ( 2004 ) From Darwin to Watson (and cognitivism) and back again Th e principle of animal- environment mutuality Behavior and Philosophy 32 179 ndash 195

Costall A ( 2006 ) ldquo Introspectionismrdquo and the mythical origins of scientifi c psy-chology Consciousness and Cognition 15 634 ndash 654

Costall A ( 2007 ) Th e windowless room ldquoMediationismrdquo and how to get over it In J Valsiner and A Rosa (eds) Th e Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psy-chology (pp 109ndash 123) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Costall A and Leudar I ( 2007 ) Getting over ldquothe problem of other mindsrdquo Communication in context Infant Behavior and Development 30 289 ndash 295

Crapanzano V ( 2004 ) Imaginative horizons An essay in literary- philosophical anthropology London University of Chicago Press

Crick F ( 1994 ) Th e astonishing hypothesis Th e scientifi c search for the soul New York Scribner

Crook S ( 2003 ) Change uncertainty and the future of sociology Journal of Sociology 39 ( 1 ) 7 ndash 14

Cross W E Jr ( 1991 ) Shades of black Diversity in African- American identity Philadelphia Temple University Press

Damasio A ( 1999 ) Th e feeling of what happens Body and emotion in the making of consciousness New York Harcourt Brace

Danforth S ( 2006 ) From epistemology to democracy Pragmatism and the reori-entation of disability research Remedial and Special Education 27 ( 6 ) 337 ndash 345

Daniels H ( 2001 ) Vygotsky and pedagogy London Routledge Falmer Daniels H Edwards A Engestroumlm Y Gallagher T and Ludvigsen S eds

( 2009 ) Activity theory in practice Promoting learning across boundaries and agencies London Routledge

Dannefer D ( 1999 ) Freedom isnrsquot free Power alienation and the social conse-quences of action In J Brandstaumldter and R M Lerner (eds) Action and self- development (pp 105 ndash 132 ) Th ousand Oaks CA Sage

Danziger K ( 1990 ) Constructing the subject Historical origins of psychological research New York Cambridge University Press

Danziger K ( 1993 ) Psychological objects practice and history Annals of Th eoretical Psychology 8 15 ndash 47 and 71 ndash 84

Danziger K ( 1997 ) Naming the mind How psychology found its language London Sage

Darling- Hammond L ( 2007 ) Race inequality and educational accountability Th e irony of ldquoNo Child Left Behindrdquo Race Ethnicity and Education 10 245 ndash 260

Dar- Nimrod I and Heine S J ( 2011 ) Genetic essentialism On the deceptive determinism of DNA Psychological Bulletin 137 ( 5 ) 800 ndash 818

Daston L and Galison P ( 1992 ) Th e image of objectivity Representations 40 81 ndash 128 Davis B and Sumara D J ( 1997 ) Enactivist theory and community learn-

ing Towards a complexifi ed understanding of action research Educational Action Research 5 403 ndash 422


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Davis R and Freire P ( 1981 ) Education for awareness A talk with Paulo Freire In R Mackie (ed) Literacy and revolution the pedagogy of Paulo Freire (pp 57 ndash 69 ) New York Th e Continuum Publishing Company

Davydov V ( 1983 ) Leontievrsquos theory of the connection between activity and mental refl ection [Учение Леонтьев о взаимосвязи деятельностии психического отражения] In A Zaporozhets V Zinchenko O Ovchinnikova and O Tikhomirov (eds) A N Leontiev and contemporary psychology [Леонтьев и современная психология] (pp 128 ndash 140 ) Moscow Moscow University

Davydov V V ( 1990 ) Types of generalizations in instruction Reston VA National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Davydov V V ( 1998 ) Th e last talks [Последние выступления] Riga Polet Dawkins R ( 1976 ) Th e selfi sh gene Oxford Oxford University Press Deleuze G and Guattari F ( 1977 ) Anti- Oedipus ( R Hurley M Seem and H R

Lane trans) New York Viking Deleuze G and Guattari F ( 1994 ) What is philosophy New York Columbia University Delgado R and Stefancic J ( 2001 ) Critical race theory An introduction

New York New York University Press Delpit L ( 1995 ) Other peoplersquos children Cultural confl ict in the classroom

New York Th e New Press Derrida J ( 1981 ) Positions Chicago University of Chicago Press Derrida J ( 1994 ) Specters of Marx Th e state of the debt the work of mourning and

the new international ( Peggy Kamuf trans) New York Routledge DeVries R ( 2000 ) Vygotsky Piaget and education A reciprocal assimilation of

theories and educational practices New Ideas in Psychology 18 187 ndash 213 Dewey J ( 1896 ) Th e refl ex arc concept in psychology Psychological Review 3 ( 4 )

357 ndash 370 Dewey J ( 1908 ) Does reality possess practical character In E L Th orndike (ed)

Essays in honor of William James (pp 53ndash 81) New York Longmans Dewey J ( 1910 ) Th e infl uence of Darwinism on philosophy In J Dewey Th e

infl uence of Darwin on philosophy and other essays in contemporary thought (pp 1ndash 19) New York Henry Holt and Company

Dewey J ( 1916 1922) Democracy and education An introduction to the philosophy of education New York McMillan

Dewey J (1920 1948 ) Reconstruction in philosophy (enlarged edition) Boston MA Beacon Press

Dewey J ( 1925 1958) Experience and nature Mineola NY Dover Publications Dewey J ( 1929 1960) Th e quest for certainty A study on the relation between knowl-

edge and action New York G P Putnamrsquos Sons Dewey J ( 1931 ) Science and society From John Dewey Th e later works ( LW ) 1925ndash

1953 (vol 6 1931ndash 1932 ed J A Boydston pp 53ndash 63) Carbondale Southern Illinois University Press

Dewey J ( 1938 ) Progressive organization of subject matter LW (vol 13 1938ndash1939 ed J A Boydston pp 48ndash 60) Carbondale Southern Illinois University Press

Dewey J and Bentley A F ( 1949 ) Knowing and the known Boston Th e Beacon Press

Diamond A Barnett W S Th omas J and Munro S ( 2007 ) Preschool program improves cognitive control Science 318 1387 ndash 1388


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Diggins J P ( 1994 ) Th e promise of pragmatism Modernism and the crisis of knowl-edge and authority Chicago University of Chicago Press

Dixon R A and Lerner R M ( 1999 ) History and systems in developmental psychology In M H Bornstein and M E Lamb (eds) Developmental psy-chology An advanced textbook (4th ed pp 3 ndash 45 ) Mahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Dobzhansky T ( 1962 ) Mankind evolving Th e evolution of the species New Haven CT Yale University Press

Donald M ( 2001 ) A mind so rare Th e evolution of human consciousness New York and London W W Norton and Company

Dreyfus H L and Rabinow P ( 1982 ) Michel Foucault Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics Chicago University of Chicago Press

Dreyfus H L ( 1991 ) Being- in- the- world A commentary on Heideggerrsquos being and time Cambridge MA and London MIT Press

Eagleton T ( 2000 ) Th e idea of culture Malden MA Blackwell Eagleton T ( 2003 ) Kettles boil classes struggle Review of ldquoA defence of

lsquoHistory and class consciousnessrsquo Tailism and the dialecticrdquo by Georg Lukaacutecs ( Esther Leslie trans) Verso June 2002 London Review of Books 25(4) 17 ndash 18

Eagleton T ( 2007 ) I contain multitudes (review of Mikhail Bakhtin Th e word in the world by G Pechey ) London Review of Books 29(12) 13 ndash 15

Eagleton T ( 2011 ) Why Marx was right New Haven CT Yale University Press Edelman G M ( 2006 ) Second nature Brain science and human knowledge New

Haven CT Yale University Press Eisenhart M A and Howe K R ( 1992 ) Validity in educational research In

M D LeCompte W L Millroy and J Preissle (eds) The handbook of qualitative research in education (pp 643ndash 680) San Diego CA Academic Press

Emerson C ( 1996 ) Th e outer word and inner speech Bakhtin Vygotsky and the internalization of language In H Daniels (ed) An introduction to Vygotsky (pp 123 ndash 142 ) New York Routledge

Emirbayer M and Schneiderhan E ( 2013 ) Dewey and Bourdieu on Democracy In P Gorski (ed) Bourdieu and historical analysis (pp 131 ndash 157 ) Durham NC Duke University Press

Emirbayer M and Mische A ( 1998 ) ldquo What is agency rdquo American Journal of Sociology 103 962 ndash 1023

Engels F ( 1873 ndash 1883 1961) Dialectics of nature [Диалектика природы] (includ-ing Chapter ldquoTh e part played by labour in the transition from ape to manrdquo) Collected works of K Marx and F Engels (vol 20 2nd ed pp 339ndash 626) Moscow State Publisher of Political Literature

Engels F ( 1886 ) Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy wwwmarxistsorg archive marx works download Marx_ Ludwig_ Feurbach_ and_ the_ End_ of_ German_ Classical_ Philosoppdf (accessed May 5 2016)

Engestroumlm Y ( 1987 ) Learning by expanding An activity- theoretical approach to developmental research Helsinki Orienta- Konsultit

Engestroumlm Y ( 1990 ) Learning working and imagining Twelve studies in activity theory Helsinki Orienta- Konsultit


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Engestroumlm Y ( 1999 ) Activity theory and individual and social transformation In Y Engestroumlm R Miettinen and R- L Punamaki (eds) Perspectives on activity theory (pp 19 ndash 38 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Engestroumlm Y ( 2001 ) Expansive learning at work Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization Journal of Education and Work 14 ( 1 ) 133 ndash 156

Engestroumlm Y ( 2005 ) Developmental work research Expanding activity theory in practice Berlin Lehmanns Media

Engestroumlm Y and Sannino A ( 2010 ) Studies of expansive learning Foundations fi ndings and future challenges Educational Research Review 5 1 ndash 24

Erikson E ( 2013 ) Formalist and relationalist theory in social network analysis Sociological Th eory 31 219 ndash 242

Fay B ( 1987 ) Critical social science Ithaca NY Cornell University Press Feuer L ( 1959 ) John Dewey and the back to the people movement Journal of the

History of Ideas 20 545 ndash 568 Fine M and McClelland S I ( 2006 ) Sexuality education and desire Still missing

aft er all these years Harvard Educational Review 76 ( 3 ) 297 ndash 338 Fine M Weis L Weseen S and Wong L ( 2000 ) For whom Qualitative research

representations and social responsibilities In N Denzin and Y S Lincoln (eds) Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed pp 107 ndash 132 ) Th ousand Oaks CA Sage

Fish S ( 2010 ) Pragmatismrsquos Gift New York Times Opinionator March 15 http opinionatorblogsnytimescom 2010 03 15 pragmatisms- gift (accessed March 20 2010)

Fivush R Habermas T Waters T E A and Zaman W ( 2010 ) Th e making of autobiographical memory Intersections of culture narratives and identity International Journal of Psychology 46 321 ndash 345

Flyvbjerg B ( 2001 ) Making social science matter Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Foucault M ( 1980 ) Power knowledge Selected interviews and other writings 1972ndash 1977 ( Colin Gordon ed) New York Pantheon

Foucault M ( 1988 ) Th e ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom In J Bernauer and G Rasmussen (eds) Th e fi nal Foucault (pp 1ndash 20) Cambridge MA MIT Press

Foucault M ( 1990 ) An aesthetics of existence In Politics philosophy cul-ture Interviews and other writings 1977ndash 1984 (ed with an introduction by L D Kritzman pp 47ndash 56) New York and London Routledge

Foucault M ( 1993 ) About the beginnings of the hermeneutics of the self Political Th eory 21 (3) 198ndash 227

Fowers B J and Richardson F C ( 1996 ) Why is multiculturalism good American Psychologist 51 609 ndash 621

Fox S Levitt P and Nelson C A ( 2010 ) How the timing and quality of early expe-riences infl uence the development of brain architecture Child Development 81 28 ndash 40

Frankl V E ( 1992 ) Manrsquos search for meaning (4rth ed) Boston MA Beacon Press Fraser N ( 1995 ) False antitheses A response to Seyla Benhabib and Judith Butler

In Feminist Contentions A Philosophical Exchange (pp 59 ndash 74 ) New York and London Routledge


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Fraser N ( 2002 ) Recognition without ethics In S Lash and M Featherstone (eds) Recognition and diff erence Politics identity multiculture (pp 21 ndash 42 ) London Sage

Fraser N and Nicholson L J ( 1990 ) Social criticism without philosophy An encounter between feminism and postmodernism In L J Nicholson (ed) Feminism postmodernism (pp 19 ndash 38 ) New York Routledge

Frawley W ( 1997 ) Vygotsky and cognitive science Language and the unifi ca-tion of the social and computational mind Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Freund A M and Riediger M ( 2O06 ) Goals as building blocks of personality and development in adulthood In D K Mroszek and T D Little (eds) Handbook of personality development (pp 353 ndash 372 ) Mahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Freire P ( 1970 ) Pedagogy of the oppressed New York Continuum (30th anniver-sary edition published in 2005)

Freire P ( 1982a ) Education as the practice of freedom ( M B Ramos trans) In Education for critical consciousness (pp 1 ndash 84 ) New York Th e Continuum Publishing Company

Freire P ( 1982b ) Extension or communication ( L Bigwood and M Marshall trans) In Education for critical consciousness (pp 93 ndash 164 ) New York Continuum

Freire P ( 1985 ) Th e politics of education Culture power and liberation South Hadley MA Bergin and Garvey

Freire P ( 1994 ) Pedagogy of hope Reliving pedagogy of the oppressed ( R R Barr trans 2004 ed) New York Continuum Publishing Company

Freire P ( 1998 ) Pedagogy of freedom Ethics democracy and civic courage Lanham MD Rowman and Littlefi eld

Frye M ( 1990 ) A response to lesbian ethics Hypatia 5 ( 3 ) 132 ndash 137 Fuchs C and Hofk irchner W ( 2009 ) Autopoiesis and critical social systems the-

ory In R Magalhatildees and R Sanchez (eds) Autopoiesis in organization theory and practice (pp 111 ndash 129 ) Bingley UK Emerald

Gallagher S ( 2009 ) Philosophical antecedents to situated cognition In P Robbins and M Aydede (eds) Th e Cambridge handbook of situated cognition (pp 35 ndash 51 ) Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

Galperin [Galrsquoperin] P Ia ( 1985 ) Methods of instruction and mental develop-ment of the child [Методы обучения и умственное развитие ребенка] Moscow Izdatelstvo MGU

Galperin [Galrsquoperin] P Ia ( 1989 ) Study of the intellectual development of the child Soviet Psychology 27 26 ndash 44 (Originally published in 1969)

Gardiner M ( 2000 ) ldquo A very understandable horror of dialecticsrdquo Bakhtin and Marxist phenomenology In C Brandist and G Tihanov (eds) Materializing Bakhtin Th e Bakhtin circle and social theory (pp 119 ndash 141 ) London Palgrave and MacMillan

Garfi nkel H ( 2006 ) Principal theoretical notions Seeing sociologically Th e routine grounds of social action ( A Rawls ed) (pp 101 ndash 189 ) Boulder CO Paradigm Publishers

Garrison J ( 1994 ) Realism Deweyan pragmatism and educational research Educational Researcher 23 ( 1) 5 ndash 14


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Garrison J ( 2001 ) An introduction to Deweyrsquos theory of functional ldquotrans- actionrdquo An alternative paradigm for activity theory Mind Culture and Activity 8 275 ndash 296

Gergen K J ( 1985 ) Th e social constructionist movement in modern psychology American Psychologist 40 266 ndash 275

Gergen K J ( 2009 ) Relational being Beyond self and community New York Oxford University Press

Gergen K J Josselson R and Freeman M ( 2015 ) Th e promise of qualitative inquiry Th e American Psychologist 70 1 ndash 9

Gibson E J ( 1969 ) Principles of perceptual learning and development New York Appleton- Century- Croft s

Gibson E J ( 1991 ) An odyssey in learning and perception Cambridge MA MIT Press

Gibson J J and Gibson E J ( 1955 ) Perceptual learning Diff erentiation or enrich-ment Psychological Review 62 32 ndash 41

Giddens A ( 1984 ) Th e constitution of society Outline of the theory of structuration Berkeley University of California Press

Giroux H A ( 1983a ) Critical perspectives in social theory Th eory and resistance in education A pedagogy for the opposition New York Bergin and Garvey

Giroux H A ( 1983b ) Ideology and agency in the process of schooling Journal of Education 165 12 ndash 34

Giroux H ( 1994 ) Doing cultural studies Youth and the challenge of pedagogy Harvard Educational Review 64 ( 3 ) 278 ndash 309

Gitlin A ( 2005 ) Inquiry imagination and the search for a deep politic Educational Researcher 34( 3) 15 ndash 24

Glass R D ( 2001 ) On Paulo Freirersquos philosophy of praxis and the foundations of liberation education Educational Researcher 30 ( 2) 15 ndash 25

Glassman M ( 2001 ) Dewey and Vygotsky Society experience and inquiry in educational practice Educational Researcher 30 3 ndash 14

Glenberg A M ( 1997 ) What memory is for Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20 1 ndash 55

Gottlieb G ( 2003 ) On making behavioral genetics truly developmental Human Development 46 337 ndash 355

Gottlieb G ( 2006 ) Developmental neurobehavioral genetics Development as explanation In B C Jones and P Mormegravede (eds) Neurobehavioral genet-ics Methods and applications (2nd ed pp 17 ndash 27 ) New York Taylor and Francis Group

Gottlieb G Wahlsten D and Lickliter R ( 2006 ) Th e signifi cance of biology for human development A developmental psychobiological systems view In W Damon and R M Lerner (eds) Handbook of child psychology Vol 1 Th eoretical models of human development (6th ed pp 210 ndash 257 ) Hoboken NJ Wiley

Gould C C ( 1978 ) Marxrsquos social ontology Individuality and community in Marxrsquos theory of social reality Cambridge MA MIT Press

Gould C C ( 1994 ) Marx aft er Marxism In Artifacts representations and social practice (pp 377 ndash 396 ) Dordrecht Th e Netherlands Springer


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Gould S J ( 1988 ) Th e case of the creeping fox terrier clone Natural History 96 16 ndash 24

Gould S J ( 1993 ) Eight little piggies New York W W Norton Gould S J ( 1995 ) Dinosaur in a haystack New York Harmony Books Gould S J ( 1996 ) Th e mismeasure of man (2nd ed) New York W W Norton and

Company Gouldner A W ( 1982 ) Th e two Marxisms Contradictions and anomalies in the

development of theory New York Oxford University Press Gramsci A ( 1971 ) Selections from the prison notebooks (selected and translated by

Q Hoare and G N Smith ) London Lawrence and Wishart Grant T and Woods A ( 2003 ) Reason in revolt Vol II Dialectical philosophy and

modern science New York Algora Publishing Great Writers of Fairy Tales ( 2006 ) Available at http glinksru gianni- rodarihtml

(accessed June 2 2015) Gredler M E ( 2012 ) Understanding Vygotsky for the classroom Is it too late

Educational Psychology Review 24 ( 1) 113 ndash 131 Greene M ( 1988 ) Th e dialectic of freedom New York Teachers College Press Greene M ( 1995 ) Releasing the imagination Essays on education the arts and social

change San Francisco Jossey- Bass Greene M ( 1997 ) Teaching as possibility A light in dark times Th e Journal of

Pedagogy Pluralism and Practice 1 1 ndash 11 Greene M ( 2000 ) Lived spaces shared spaces public spaces In L Weis and M

Fine (eds) Construction sites Excavating race class and gender among urban youth (pp 293 ndash 304 ) New York Teachers College Press

Greiff enhagen C and Sharrock W ( 2008 ) School mathematics and its every-day other Revisiting Laversquos ldquoCognition in Practice rdquo Educational Studies in Mathematics 69 ( 1 ) 1 ndash 21

Guattari F ( 1984 ) Molecular revolution Psychiatry and politics Harmondsworth UK Penguin

Guba E G and Lincoln Y S ( 1994 ) Competing paradigms in qualitative research In N K Denzin and Y S Lincoln (eds) Handbook of qualitative research (pp 105 ndash 117 ) Th ousand Oaks CA Sage

Guignon C ( 2002 ) Hermeneutics authenticity and the aims of psychotherapy Journal of Th eoretical and Philosophical Psychology 22 83 ndash 102

Guignon C ( 2004 ) On being authentic New York Routledge Gustavsen B ( 2001 ) Th eory and practice Th e mediating discourse In P Reason

and H Bradbury (eds) Handbook of action research Participative inquiry and practice (pp 17 ndash 26 ) London Sage

Gutieacuterrez K D ( 2002 ) Studying cultural practices in urban learning communities Human Development 45 312 ndash 321

Gutieacuterrez K D and Larson J ( 2007 ) Discussing expanded spaces for learning Language Arts 85 69 ndash 77

Gutieacuterrez K D Baquedano- Lopez P and Tejeda C ( 1999 ) Rethinking diver-sity Hybridity and hybrid language practices in the third space Mind Culture and Activity 41 286 ndash 303

Gutieacuterrez R ( 2010 ) Th e sociopolitical turn in mathematics education Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 41 1 ndash 32


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Habermas J ( 1994 ) Struggles for recognition in the democratic constitutional state In C Taylor and A Gutman (eds) Multiculturalism Examining the poli-tics of recognition (pp 107 ndash 148 ) Princeton NJ Princeton University Press

Habermas J ( 2001 ) Th e liberating power of symbols Philosophical essays ( P Dews trans) Cambridge MA MIT Press

Habermas J ( 2003 ) Th e future of human nature Cambridge Polity Press Habermas T and Bluck S ( 2000 ) Getting a life Th e emergence of the life story in

adolescence Psychological Bulletin 126 ( 5 ) 748 ndash 769 Hacking I ( 1995 ) Rewriting the soul Multiple personality and the sciences of mem-

ory Princeton NJ Princeton University Press Hacking I ( 2002 ) Historical ontology Cambridge MA Harvard University

Press Hallward P ( 2006 ) Out of this world Deleuze and the philosophy of creation

London and New York Verso Harding S ( 1992 ) Rethinking standpoint epistemology What is ldquostrong objec-

tivityrdquo In L Alcoff and E Potter (eds) Feminist epistemologies (pp 49 ndash 82 ) New York Routledge

Harding S ( 2004 ) A socially relevant philosophy of science Resources from standpoint theoryrsquos controversiality Hypathia 19 ( 1 ) 25 ndash 47

Harreacute R ( 1986 ) Th e social construction of emotions Oxford Basil Blackwell Harreacute R ( 2002 ) Material objects in social worlds Th eory Culture and Society

19 (5ndash 6) 23 ndash 33 Harreacute R and Moghaddam F M ( 2003 ) Th e self and others Positioning individu-

als and groups in personal political and cultural contexts New York Praeger Harrist S and Richardson F C ( 2012 ) Disguised ideologies in counseling and

social justice work Counseling and Values 57 38 ndash 44 Hartsock N C M ( 1998 ) Th e feminist standpoint revisited and other essays

Boulder CO Westview Press Harvey D ( 1989 ) Th e condition of postmodernity Cambridge Blackwell Harvey D ( 1996a ) Justice nature and the geography of diff erence Oxford Blackwell Harvey D ( 1996b ) Cities or urbanization Cities 1 ndash 2 38 ndash 62 Haslam N ( 2011 ) Genetic essentialism neuroessentialism and stigma Commentary

on Dar- Nimrod and Heine Psychological Bulletin 137 819 ndash 824 Hatfi eld G ( 1995 ) Remaking the science of mind Psychology as natural science In

C Fox R Porter and R Wokler (eds) Inventing human science Eighteenth- century domains (pp 184 ndash 231 ) Berkeley University of California Press

Haug W F ( 2001 ) From Marx to Gramsci ndash from Gramsci to Marx Historical materialism and the philosophy of praxis Rethinking Marxism 13 ( 1 ) 69 ndash 82

Hay C ( 2011 ) Th e obligation to resist oppression Th e Journal of Social Philosophy 42 21 ndash 35

Hedegaard M ( 1990 ) Th e zone of proximal development as a basis for instruction In L Moll (ed) Vygotsky and education Instructional implications and appli-cations of sociohistorical psychology (pp 349 ndash 371 ) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Hedegaard M and Fleer M ( 2013 ) Play learning and childrenrsquos development Cambridge Cambridge University Press


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Heft H ( 2001 ) Ecological psychology in context James Gibson Roger Barker and the legacy of William Jamesrsquos radical empiricism Mahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Hermans H J M ( 2002 ) Th e dialogical self as a society of mind Th eory and Psychology 12 ( 2 ) 147 ndash 160

Heron J and Reason P ( 1997 ) A participatory inquiry paradigm Qualitative Inquiry 3 ( 3 ) 274 ndash 294

Hicks D ( 2000 ) Self and other in Bakhtinrsquos early philosophical essays Prelude to a theory of prose consciousness Mind Culture and Activity 7 227ndash 242

Hill Collins P (1991 2000 ) Black feminist thought Knowledge consciousness and the politics of empowerment New York Routledge

Hirst E W ( 2004 ) Th e diverse social contexts of a second language classroom and the construction of identity In K M Leander and M Sheehy (eds) Space matters Assertions of space in literacy practice and research (pp 39ndash 66) New York Peter Lang

Hodges D C ( 1998 ) Participation as dis- identifi cation with in a community of practice Mind Culture and Activity 5 ( 4 ) 272 ndash 290

Hodkinson P Biesta G and James D ( 2007 ) Understanding learning cultures Educational Review 59 ( 4) 415 ndash 427

Hoslashjgaard L and Soslashndergaard D M ( 2011 ) Th eorizing the complexities of discur-sive and material subjectivity Agential realism and poststructural analyses Th eory amp Psychology 21 338 ndash 354

Holland D and Lave J ( 2009 ) Social practice theory and the historical production of persons Actio An International Journal of Human Activity Th eory 2 1 ndash 15

Holland D Lachicotte W Skinner D and Cain C ( 1998 ) Identity and agency in cultural worlds Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Holquist M ( 1982 ) Bakhtin and Rablais Th eory as praxis Boundary 2 11 5ndash 19 Holquist M and Kliger I ( 2005 ) Minding the gap Toward a historical poetics of

estrangement Poetics Today 26 ( 4) 613 ndash 636 Holzkamp K ( 2013 ) Psychology Social self- understanding on the reasons for

action in the conduct of everyday life In E Schraube and U Osterkamp (eds) Psychology from the standpoint of the subject Selected writings of Klaus Holzkamp (pp 233 ndash 351 ) New York Palgrave Macmillan

Homskaya E D ( 2001 ) Alexander Romanovich Luria A scientifi c biography New York Kluwer Academic Plenum Publishers

Honneth A ( 2004 ) Recognition and justice Outline of a plural theory of justice Acta Sociologica 47 ( 11) 351 ndash 364

Honneth A ( 2003 ) Redistribution as recognition A response to Nancy Fraser In N Fraser and A Honneth Redistribution or recognition A political- philosophical exchange (pp 110 ndash 197 ) New York Verso

Hook D ( 2007 ) Foucault psychology and the analytics of power Basingstoke UK and New York Palgrave Macmillan

Horkheimer M and Adorno T W ( 2002 ) Dialectic of enlightenment Philosophical fragments ( G Noeri ed E Jephcott trans) Stanford CA Stanford University Press

Howe K R ( 2003 ) Closing methodological divides Toward democratic educational research Boston Kluwer Academic


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Howe K R ( 2009 ) Positivist dogmas rhetoric and the education science ques-tion Educational Researcher 38 ( 6 ) 428 ndash 440

Hruby G G ( 2012 ) Th ree requirements for justifying an educational neuroscience British Journal of Educational Psychology 82(1) 1 ndash 23

Hutchins E ( 1995 ) Cognition in the wild Cambridge MA MIT Press Huttenlocher P R ( 2002 ) Neural plasticity Th e eff ect of environment on the devel-

opment of cerebral cortex Cambridge MA Harvard University Press Iljichev L F ( 1983 ) Philosophic encyclopedic dictionary [Философский энциклопе-

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Progress Ilyenkov E V ( 2009 2012 ) Th e dialectic of the ideal Historical Materialism 20(2)

149ndash 193 Ingold T ( 2000 ) Perception of the environment Essays in livelihood dwelling and

skill London Routledge Ingold T ( 2004 ) Learning through doing and understanding in practice CSAP

Project Report Birmingham UK C- SAP Th e Higher Education Academy Subject Network for Sociology Anthropology and Politics wwwc- sap bhamacuk CSAP media com_ projectlog docs 31_ A_ 03pdf (accessed July 2 2016)

Ingold T ( 2007 ) Th e trouble with evolutionary biology Anthropology Today 23 (2) 13 ndash 17

Ingold T ( 2008 ) Bindings against boundaries Entanglements of life in an open world Environment and Planning A 40 1796 ndash 1810

Ingold T ( 2011 ) Being alive Essays on movement knowledge and description Abingdon UK Routledge

Ivic I ( 1994 ) Lev S Vygotsky Prospects Th e Quarterly Review of Comparative Education 24(3ndash 4) 471ndash 485

James W ( 1907 ) Pragmatism A new name for some old ways of thinking www gutenbergorg fi les 5116 5116- h 5116- hhtm (accessed July 10 2016)

James W ( 1890 1950) Th e principles of psychology (vol 1) New York Dover James W ( 1890 ) Th e principles of psychology (vol 2) New York Henry Holt Jameson F ( 1991 ) Postmodernism or the cultural logic of late capitalism Durham

NC Duke University Press Jameson F ( 2006 ) Foreword In Jean Paul Sartre Critique of Dialectical Reason

Vol 2 (A Elkaim- Sartre ed Q Hoare trans pp ixndash xxv) London and New York Verso (Originally published in 1985)

Jaramillo N ( 2011 ) Dialogic action for critical democracy Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 9 72 ndash 94

Johansson L ( 2013 ) Th e occurrence of the not- yet- seen in education ndash linear-ity becoming and diff erence Paper presented at NERA 2013 in Reykjavik March 7ndash 9

Johnson M H Grossmann T and Cohen- Kadosh K ( 2009 ) Mapping functional brain development Building a social brain through interactive specialization Developmental Psychology 45 151 ndash 159

Johnston A ( 2004 ) Against embodiment Th e material ground of the immaterial subject International Journal of Lacanian Studies 2 230 ndash 254


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Johnston A ( 2010 ) Badiou Žižek and political transformations Th e cadence of change Evanston IL Northwestern University Press

Jonathan R ( 1997 ) Illusory freedoms Liberalism education and the market Oxford Blackwell

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Jones P E ( 2003 ) New clothes for an old emperor ldquoEvolutionary psychologyrdquo and the cognitive counterrevolution Mind Culture and Activity 10 ( 2 ) 173 ndash 180

Jones P ( 2008 ) Language in cultural- historical perspective In B Van Oers W Wardekker E Elbers and R Van der Veer (eds) Th e transforma-tion of learning Advances in cultural- historical activity theory (pp 76ndash 99) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Jones P E ( 2009 ) Breaking away from Capital Th eorising activity in the shadow of Marx Outlines Critical Practice Studies 1 45 ndash 58

Jones P E ed ( 2011 ) Marxism and education Renewing the dialogue pedagogy and culture London Palgrave MacMillan

Kaika M ( 2005 ) City of fl ows New York and London Routledge Kaptelinin V and Nardi B A ( 2006 ) Acting with technology Activity theory and

interaction design Cambridge MA MIT Press Karpov Y V ( 2005 ) Th e neo- Vygotskian approach to child development Cambridge

MA Cambridge University Press Kellner D ( 2004 ) Cultural Marxism and cultural studies wwwgseisuclaedu faculty

kellner essays culturalmarxismpdf (accessed December 12 2010) Kemmis S ( 2010 ) Research for praxis Knowing doing Pedagogy Culture and

Society 18( 1) 9 ndash 27 King M L Jr ( 1965 ) Commencement address for Oberlin College June 1965

Oberlin Ohio wwwoberlinedu external EOG BlackHistoryMonth MLK CommAddresshtml (accessed July 10 2016)

King M L Jr ( 1968 ) Th e role of the behavioral scientist in the Civil Rights move-ment American Psychologist 23 ( 3 ) 180 ndash 186

Kirschner S R and Martin J ( 2010 ) Th e sociocultural turn An introduction and an invitation In S R Kirschner and J Martin (eds) Th e sociocultural turn in psychology (pp 1 ndash 27 ) New York Columbia University Press

Kitchener R F ( 1996 ) Th e nature of the social for Piaget and Vygotsky Human Development 39 243 ndash 249

Knox J E ( 1993 ) Translatorrsquos introduction In L S Vygotsky and A R Luria Studies on the history of behavior Ape primitive and child ( V I Golod and J E Knox eds and trans) (pp 1 ndash 35 ) London Lawrence Erlbaum

Kohn A ( 2000 ) Th e case against standardized testing Raising the scores ruining the schools Portsmouth NH Heinemann

Kolb B and Gibb R ( 2011 ) Brain plasticity and behaviour in the developing brain Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 20 ( 4 ) 265 ndash 276

Kontopodis M ( 2012 ) Neoliberalism pedagogy and human development Exploring time mediation and collectivity in contemporary schools New York Routledge


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Koriat A and Goldsmith M ( 1995 ) Memory metaphors and the real- life labora-tory controversy Correspondence versus storehouse conceptions of memory Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 167ndash 228

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Kucsera J and Orfi eld G ( 2014 ) New York Statersquos extreme school segrega-tion Inequality inaction and a damaged future Los Angeles UCLA Th e Civil Rights Project

Kumpulainen K and Renshaw P ( 2007 ) Culture and learning A special theme issue International Journal of Educational Research 46 ( 3 ndash 4 ) 109ndash 15

Ladson- Billings G ( 2006 ) From the achievement gap to the education debt Understanding achievement in US schools Educational Researcher 35 ( 7 ) 3 ndash 12

Ladson- Billings G and Donnor J ( 2005 ) Th e moral activist role of critical race theory scholarship In Norman K Denzin and Yvonna S Lincoln (eds) Th e Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed pp 279 ndash 301 ) Los Angeles Sage Publications

Langemeyer I ( 2006 ) Contradictions in expansive learning Towards a criti-cal analysis of self- dependent forms of learning in relation to contemporary socio- technological change Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung 7 ( 1 ) Art 12 ndash January wwwqualitative- researchnet fqs (accessed August 5 2015)

Lantolf J ed ( 2000 ) Sociocultural theory and second language learning New York Oxford University Press

Lantolf J and Th orne S ( 2006 ) Sociocultural approach to second language learn-ing New York Cambridge University Press

Lantolf J P and Pavlenko A ( 2001 ) (S)econd (L)anguage (A)ctivity the-ory Understanding second language learners as people In M P Breen (ed) Learner contributions to language learning New directions in research (pp 141 ndash 158 ) Essex UK Pearson Education

Larkin M Eatough V and Osborn M ( 2011 ) Interpretative phenomenological analysis and embodied active situated cognition Th eory and Psychology 21 ( 3 ) 318 ndash 337

Larrain A and Hayes A ( 2012 ) Discursive analysis of experience Alterity posi-tioning and tension Discourse and Society 23 ( 5 ) 596 ndash 601

Lather P ( 2003 ) Applied Derrida (Mis)Reading the work of mourning in educa-tional research Educational Philosophy and Th eory 35 ( 3 ) 257 ndash 270

Lather P ( 2009 ) Getting lost Social science and as philosophy 2007 Kneller Lecture AESA Educational Studies 45 342 ndash 357

Lather P ( 2012a ) Ranciegravere as post- Foucauldian In M Whittaker (Chair) Taking Ranciegravere to school An impossible curriculum Symposium conducted at 2012 American Educational Research Association Vancouver BC Extended abstract retrieved from AERArsquos online repository wwwaeranet (accessed June 5 2016)

Lather P ( 2012b ) Th e ruins of neoliberalism and the construction of a new (scien-tifi c) subjectivity Cultural Studies of Science Education 7 1021 ndash 1025

Latour B ( 1999 ) Pandorarsquos hope Essays on the reality of science studies Cambridge MA Harvard University Press


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Latour B ( 2005b ) Reassembling the social An introduction to actor- network- theory Oxford Oxford University Press

Lave J ( 1988 ) Cognition in practice Boston MA Cambridge University Press Lave J ( 1993 ) Th e practice of learning In S Chaiklin and J Lave (eds)

Understanding practice Perspectives on activity and context (pp 3ndash 32) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Lave J ( 1996 ) Teaching as learning in practice Mind Culture and Activity 3 149ndash 164

Lave J and Wenger E ( 1991 ) Situated learning Legitimate peripheral participation New York Cambridge University Press

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Lee C D Spencer M B and Harpalani V ( 2003 ) ldquoEvery shut eye ainrsquot asleeprdquo Studying how people live culturally Educational Researcher 32 6 ndash 13

Lefebvre H ( 1991 ) Th e production of space ( Donald Nicolson- Smith trans ) Oxford Blackwell

Lehrman D S ( 1953 ) Critique of Konrad Lorenzrsquos theory of instinctive behavior Th e Quarterly Review of Biology 28 ( 4 ) 337 ndash 363

Lehrman D S ( 1970 ) Semantic and conceptual issues in the nature- nurture prob-lem In L R Aronson E Tobach D S Lehrman and J S Rosenblatt (eds) Development and evolution of behavior Essays in memory of T C Schneirla (pp 17 ndash 52 ) San Francisco Freeman

Lemke J ( 1997 ) Cognition context and learning A social semiotic perspective In D Kirshner and J A Whitson (eds) Situated cognition Social semiotic and psychological perspectives (pp 37 ndash 56 ) Mahwah NJ Erlbaum

Lemke J ( 2002 ) Becoming the village Education across lives In G Wells and G Claxton (eds) Learning for life in the 21st century Sociocultural perspectives on the future of Education (pp 34 ndash 45 ) London Blackwell

Leonard S ( 2014 ) Back to utopia Dissent (Winter) 30 ndash 32 Leonardo Z ( 2004 ) Critical social theory and transformative knowledge Th e

functions of criticism in quality education Educational Researcher 33 ( 6 ) 11 ndash 18

Leontiev A A ( 2001 ) Active mind [Деятельный ум] Мoscow Smysl Leontiev [Leontrsquoev] A N ( 1978 ) Activity consciousness and personality Englewood

Cliff s NJ Prentice- Hall (Russian edition published 1975) Leontiev [Leontrsquoev] A N ( 1981a ) Problems of the development of the mind

Moscow Progress Leontiev [Leontrsquoev] A N ( 1981b ) Th e problem of activity in psychology In J V

Wertsch (ed) Th e concept of activity in Soviet psychology (pp 37 ndash 71 ) Armonk NY M E Sharpe


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Lerner R M ( 2002 ) Concepts and theories of human development (3rd ed) Mahwah NJ Erlbaum

Lerner R M ( 2004 ) Diversity in individual- context relations as the basis for posi-tive development across the life span A developmental systems perspective for theory research and application Research in Human Development 1 327 ndash 346

Lerner R M ( 2006 ) Developmental science developmental systems and con-temporary theories of human development In W Damon and R M Lerner (editors- in- chief) and R M Lerner (vol ed) Handbook of child psychology Vol 1 Th eoretical models of human development (6th ed pp 1 ndash 17 ) Hoboken NJ Wiley

Lerner R M and Overton W F ( 2008 ) Exemplifying the integrations of the relational developmental system Synthesizing theory research and applica-tion to promote positive development and social justice Journal of Adolescent Research 23 245 ndash 255

Levinas E ( 1989 ) Th e Levinas reader ( S Hand ed) Oxford Basil Blackwell Lewis M D ( 2000 ) Th e promise of dynamic systems approaches for an integrated

account of human development Child Development 71 36 ndash 43 Lewontin R 1995 Genes environment and organisms In R Silvers ed Hidden his-

tories of science (pp 115- 138) New York New York Review of Books Publishers Li S H ( 2013 ) Neuromodulation and developmental contextual infl uences on neu-

raland cognitive plasticity across the lifespan Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 37 2201 ndash 2208

Lickliter R and Honeycutt H ( 2003 ) Evolutionary approaches to cognitive devel-opment Status and strategy Journal of Cognition and Development 4 459 ndash 473

Lin N ( 2001 ) Social capital A theory of social structure and action New York Cambridge University Press

Linehan C and McCarthy J ( 2001 ) Reviewing the ldquocommunity of practicerdquo meta-phor An analysis of control relations in a primary school classroom Mind Culture and Activity 8 ( 2 ) 129 ndash 147

Liss J E ( 1998 ) Diasporic identities Th e science and politics of race in the work of Franz Boas and W E B Du Bois 1894ndash 1919 Cultural Anthropology 13 ( 2 ) 127ndash 166

Lompscher J ( 2004 ) Lernkultur und Kompetenzentwicklung aus kulturhistoricher Sicht Lernen Erwachsener im Arbeitsprozess [Learning culture and compe-tence development in a culturalndash historical perspective Adult learning in the process of work] Berlin Lehmanns Media

Lorde A ( 1984 ) Sister outsider Trumansburg NY Crossing Loumlvdeacuten M Baumlckman L Lindenberger U Schaefer S and Schmiedek F ( 2010 ) A

theoretical framework for the study of adult cognitive plasticity Psychological Bulletin 136 659 ndash 676

Lubovskij D V ( 2007 ) Introduction into methodological foundations of psychol-ogy [ Введение в методологические основы психологии ] Moscow МОДЭК http lib100com book common_ psychology meth_ foundations_ l html (accessed December 28 2015)


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Luria A R ( 1982 ) Language and cognition New York Wiley Luttrell W ( 1996 ) Becoming somebody in and against school Toward a psycho-

cultural theory of gender and self- making In B A Levinson D E Foley and D C Holland (eds) Th e cultural production of the educated person (pp 93 ndash 117 ) Albany State University of New York

Luttrell W and Parker C ( 2001 ) High school studentsrsquo literacy practices and iden-tities and the fi gured world of school Journal of Research in Reading 24 ( 3 ) 235 ndash 247

Lynch K ( 1999 ) Equality studies the academy and the role of research in emanci-patory social change Th e Economic and Social Review 30 ( 1) 41 ndash 69

Lyotard J ( 1984 ) Th e postmodern condition A report on knowledge Manchester UK Manchester University Press

MacIntyre A ( 1983 ) Aft er virtue A study in moral theory (2nd ed) London Duckworth

MacMurray J ( 1961 ) Th e form of the personal Vol 2 Persons in relation London Faber and Faber

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Marcuse H ( 1972 ) Counterrevolution and revolt Boston Beacon Press Margolis J ( 2010 ) Pragmatismrsquos advantage American and European philosophy at

the end of the twentieth century Stanford CA Stanford University Press Markovaacute I ( 2003 ) Dialogicality and social representations the dynamics of mind

Cambridge Cambridge University Press Markovaacute I ( 2012 ) Objectifi cation in common sense thinking Mind Culture and

Activity 19 207 ndash 221 Martin J ( 2004 ) Th e educational inadequacy of conceptions of self in educational

psychology Interchange 35 185 ndash 208 Martin J ( 2005 ) Perspectival selves in interaction with others Re- reading G H

Meadrsquos social psychology Journal for the Th eory of Social Behaviour 35 ( 3) 231 ndash 253

Martin J and McLellan A- M ( 2013 ) Th e education of selves How psychology transformed students Oxford Oxford University Press

Martin J and Sugarman J ( 1999 ) Th e psychology of human possibility and con-straint Albany State University of New York Press

Martin J and Sugarman J ( 2001 ) Interpreting human kinds Beginnings of a her-meneutic psychology Th eory and Psychology 11 193 ndash 207

Martin J Sugarman J and Th ompson J ( 2003 ) Psychology and the question of agency Albany State University of New York Press

Marx K ( 1844 1978a) Economic and philosophical manuscripts In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 66 ndash 125 ) New York Norton


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Marx K ( 1844 1978b) For a ruthless criticism of everything existing In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 12 ndash 15 ) New York Norton

Marx K ( 1845 1978) Th eses on Feuerbach In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 143 ndash 145 ) New York Norton

Marx K ( 1852 1978) Th e eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 594 ndash 617 ) New York Norton

Marx K ( 1891 1978) Wage- labour and capital In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 203 ndash 217 ) New York Norton

Marx K and Engels F (1845ndash 1846 1978 ) Th e German ideology In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 146 ndash 200 ) New York Norton

Marx K and Engels F ( 1848 1978) Manifesto of the Communist party In R C Tucker (ed) Marx Engels reader (2nd ed pp 473 ndash 500 ) New York Norton

Massumi B ( 1987 ) Realer than real Th e simulacrum according to Deleuze and Guattari Copyright 1 90 ndash 96

Mattson M and Kemmis S ( 2007 ) Praxis- related research Serving two masters Pedagogy Culture and Society 15 185 ndash 214

McDermott R and Varenne H ( 1995 ) Culture as disability Anthropology and Education Quarterly 26 ( 3 ) 324 ndash 348

McLaren P ( 1994 ) Multiculturalism and the postmodern critique Toward a peda-gogy of resistance and transformation In H Giroux and P McLaren (eds) Between borders Pedagogy and the politics of cultural studies (pp 192ndash 222) New York Routledge

McLaren P and Jaramillo N ( 2007 ) Pedagogy and praxis in the age of empire Towards a new humanism Rotterdam Th e Netherlands Sense Publishers

McLean KC Pasupathi M and Pals J L ( 2007 ) Selves creating stories creating selves A process model of self- development Personality and Social Psychol ogy Review 11 262 ndash 278

McNay L ( 1999 ) Subject psyche and agency Th e work of Judith Butler Th eory Culture Society 16 175 ndash 193

McNay L ( 2000 ) Gender and agency Reconfi guring the subject in feminist and social theory Oxford Blackwell

McQueen K ( 2013 ) Th e terrorist teachers of Lev Vygotsky History of Education Review 42 ( 2 ) 185 ndash 198

Meacham J ( 1997 ) Autobiography voice and developmental theory In E Amsel and K Renninger (eds) Change and development Issues of theory method and application (pp 43 ndash 60 ) Mahwah NJ Erlbaum Associates

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Means A ( 2011 ) Jacques Ranciegravere Education and the art of citizenship Review of Pedagogy Education and Cultural Studies 33 28 ndash 47

Medin D Lee C D and Bang M ( 2014 ) Point of view aff ects how science is done Scientifi c American October 1 wwwscientifi camericancom article point- of- view- aff ects- how- science- is- done (accessed June 16 2015)

Menand L ( 2001 ) Th e metaphysical club A story of ideas in America New York Farrar Straus and Giroux


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Meshcheryakov A ( 1979 ) Awakening to life Forming behaviour and the mind in deaf- blind children Moscow Progress Publishers

Miceli M and Castelfranchi C ( 2002 ) Th e mind and the future Th e (negative) power of expectations Th eory and Psychology 12 335 ndash 366

Miettinen R ( 2001 ) Artifact mediation in Dewey and in culturalndash historical activ-ity theory Mind Culture and Activity 8 ( 4 ) 297 ndash 308

Miller R ( 2011 ) Vygotsky in perspective Cambridge Cambridge University Press Milne C Tobin K and Degenero D eds ( 2014 ) Sociocultural studies and impli-

cations for science education Th e experiential and the virtual Dordrecht Th e Netherlands Springer

Mohanty C T ( 1986 ) Under Western eyes Feminist scholarship and colonial dis-courses Boundary 2 12 ( 3 ) 333 ndash 358

Mohanty S P ( 2001 ) Can our values be objective On ethics aesthetics and pro-gressive politics New Literary History 34 ( 4 ) 803 ndash 833

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Mol A ( 2002 ) Th e body multiple Ontology in medical practice Durham NC Duke University Press

Moll L C ed ( 1990 ) Vygotsky and education Instructional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Moran S and John- Steiner V ( 2003 ) Creativity in the making Vygotskyrsquos con-temporary contribution to the dialectic of development and creativity In R K Sawyer V John- Steiner S Moran R J Sternberg D H Feldman J Nakamura and M Csikszentmihalyi Creativity and development (pp 61 ndash 90 ) New York Oxford University Press

Morawski J G ( 2005a ) Moving gender positivism and feminist possibilities Feminism and Psychology 15 408 ndash 414

Morawski J G ( 2005b ) Refl exivity and the psychologist History of the Human Sciences 18 77 ndash 105

Morawski J G ( 2011 ) Our debates Findings fi xing and enacting reality Th eory and Psychology 21 260 ndash 274

Morawski J G ( 2012 ) Th e importance of history to social psychology In A W Kruglanski and W Stroebe (eds) Th e handbook of the history of social psychol-ogy (pp 19 ndash 42 ) New York Psychology Press

Morawski J G ( 1994 ) Practicing feminisms reconstructing psychology Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press


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Morss J R ( 2004 ) Gilles Deleuze and the space of education Poststructuralism crit-ical psychology and schooled bodies In J D Marshall (ed) Poststructuralism philosophy pedagogy (pp 85 ndash 97 ) Dordrecht Th e Netherlands Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Moss L and Pavesich V ( 2011 ) Science normativity and skill Reviewing and renewing the anthropological basis of critical theory Philosophy and Social Criticism 37 ( 2 ) 139 ndash 165

Mostov J ( 1989 ) Karl Marx as democratic theorist Polity 22 ( 2 ) 195 ndash 212 Moya P and Hames- Garcia M R eds ( 2000 ) Reclaiming identity Realist theory

and the predicament of postmodernism Berkeley University of California Press Mueller U and Carpendale J I M ( 2000 ) Th e role of social interaction in Piagetrsquos

theory Language for social cooperation and social cooperation for language New Ideas in Psychology 18 139 ndash 156

Nasir N S ( 2005 ) Individual cognitive structuring and the sociocultural con-text Strategy shift s in the game of dominoes Th e Journal of the Learning Sciences 14 (1) 5 ndash 34

Nasir N S and Hand V M ( 2006 ) Exploring sociocultural perspectives on race culture and learning Review of Educational Research 76 ( 4 ) 449 ndash 475

Nasir N S and Saxe G B ( 2003 ) Emerging tensions and their management in the lives of minority students Educational Researcher 32 ( 5 ) 14 ndash 18

Nayak S ( 2014 ) Race gender and the activism of black feminist theory Working with Audre Lorde London Routledge

Neisser U ( 1975 ) Perceiving anticipating and imagining In W Savage (ed) Perception and cognition Issues in the foundations of psychology (pp 89ndash 105) Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Neisser U and Winograd E ( 1988 ) Remembering reconsidered Ecological and traditional approaches to the study of memory New York Cambridge University Press

Nelson C A and Luciana M ( 2001 ) Handbook of developmental cognitive neuro-science Cambridge MA MIT Press

Nelson K ( 2007 ) Young minds in social worlds Experience meaning and memory Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Nelson K and Fivush R ( 2004 ) Th e emergence of autobiographical mem-ory A social cultural developmental model Psychological Review 111 486 ndash 511

New London Group ( 1996 ) A pedagogy of multiliteracies Designing social futures Harvard Educational Review 66 60 ndash 92

Newman F and Holzman L ( 1993 ) Lev Vygotsky Revolutionary scientist London Routledge

Newton R G ( 2009 ) How physics confronts reality Hackensack NJ World Scientifi c Publishing


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Nickles T ( 2014 ) Scientifi c revolutions Th e Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer Edition) (Edward N Zalta ed) http platostanfordedu archives sum2014 entries scientifi c- revolutions (accessed November 23 2015)

Niemi W L ( 2011 ) Karl Marxrsquos sociological theory of democracy Civil society and political rights Th e Social Science Journal 48 39 ndash 51 (accessed October 7 2014)

Nisbett R E Aronson J Blair C Dickens W Flynn J Diane F Halpern D F and Turkheimer E ( 2012 ) Intelligence New fi ndings and theoretical develop-ments American Psychologist 67 130 ndash 159

Nissen M ( 2000 ) Practice research Critical psychology in and through practices Annual Review of Critical Psychology 2 145ndash 179

Noeuml A ( 2004 ) Action in perception Cambridge MA MIT Press Noeuml A ( 2010 ) Out of our heads Why you are not your brain and other lessons from

the biology of consciousness New York Hill and Wang Ollman B ( 1993 ) Dialectical investigations New York Routledge Ortner S B ( 2005 ) Subjectivity and cultural critique Anthropological Th eory

5 31 ndash 52 Overton W F ( 1984 ) World views and their infl uence on psychological theory

and research Kuhn- Lakatos- Laudan In H W Reese (ed) Advances in child development and behavior (vol 18 pp 191 ndash 226 ) New York Academic Press

Overton W F ( 2006 ) Developmental psychology Philosophy concepts method-ology In W Damon (series ed) and R M Lerner (vol ed) Th eoretical models of human development Vol 1 Handbook of child psychology (6th ed pp 18ndash 88) Hoboken NJ John Wiley and Sons

Overton W F ( 2008 ) Embodiment from a relational perspective In W F Overton U Mueller and J L Newman (eds) Developmental perspectives on embodi-ment and consciousness (pp 1 ndash 18 ) New York Erlbaum

Overton W F and Ennis M ( 2006 ) Relationism ontology and other concerns Human Development 49 180 ndash 183

Owen W ( 2004 ) Dialectic of the past disjuncture of the future Derrida and Benjamin on the concept of messianism Journal for Cultural and Religious Th eory 5 ( 2 ) 99 ndash 114

Oyama S ( 1985 ) Th e ontogeny of information Developmental systems and evolu-tion Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Oyama S ( 2000 ) Evolutionrsquos eye Durham NC Duke University Press Packer M ( 2006 ) Is there Vygotsky aft er Marx wwwmathcsduqedu ~packer

Pubs PDFs Packer20AERA06pdf (accessed August 20 2015) Packer M J ( 2011 ) Th e science of qualitative research New York Cambridge

University Press Packer M J and Goicoechea J ( 2000 ) Sociocultural and constructivist theories

of learning Ontology not just epistemology Educational Psychologist 35 ( 4 ) 227 ndash 241

Parker I ( 1998 ) Realism relativism and critique in psychology In I Parker (ed) Social constructionism discourse and realism (pp 1 ndash 9 ) London Sage

Pasupathi M ( 2001 ) Th e social construction of the personal past and its implica-tions for adult development Psychological Bulletin 127 651 ndash 672

Peirce C S ( 1955 ) Philosophical writings of Peirce New York Dover


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Perret- Clermont A- N ( 1996 ) La construction de lrsquointelligence dans lrsquointeraction sociale (2nd ed) Berne Peter Lang

Phillips D C and Burbules N C ( 2000 ) Postpositivism and educational research New York Rowman and Littlefi eld

Phillips L ( 2002 ) Recontextualizing Kenneth B Clark An Afrocentric perspective on the paradoxical legacy of a model psychologistndash activist In W E Pickren and D A Dewsbury (eds) Evolving perspectives on the history of psychology (pp 575ndash 606) Washington DC American Psychological Association

Phillips L ( 2004 ) Antiracist work in the desegregation era Th e scientifi c activism of Kenneth Bancrof Clark In A S Winston (ed) Defi ning diff erence Race and racism in the history of psychology (pp 233 ndash 260 ) Washington DC American Psychological Association

Piaget J ( 1952 ) Autobiography In E G Boring et al (eds) A history of psychology in autobiography (vol 4 pp 237ndash 256) Worcester MA Clark University Press

Piaget J ( 1971 ) Genetic epistemology New York W W Norton (Originally pub-lished in 1970)

Piaget J ( 1977 ) Foreword to H E Gruber and J Voneche (eds) Th e essential Piaget London (pp xindash xii) New York Basic Books

Piaget J ( 1983 ) Piagetrsquos theory In P H Mussen (ed) Handbook of child psychology (pp 103 ndash 128 ) New York Wiley (Originally published in 1970)

Piaget J ( 1995 ) Sociological studies (L Smith ed L Smith et al trans) London Routledge (Originally published in 1977)

Pick H L ( 1992 ) Eleanor J Gibson Learning to perceive and perceiving to learn Developmental Psychology 28 787 ndash 794

Plekhanov G ( 1940 ) Essays in historical materialism New York International Plumwood V ( 1993 ) Feminism and the mastery of nature London and

New York Routledge Popkewitz T S ( 1998 ) Dewey Vygotsky and the social administration of the

individual Constructivist pedagogy as systems of ideas in historical spaces American Educational Research Journal 35 ( 4 ) 535 ndash 570

Popkewitz T S ( 2004 ) Is the National Research Council Committeersquos report on Scientifi c Research in Education scientifi c On trusting the manifesto Qualitative Inquiry 10 ( 1 ) 62 ndash 78

Popkewitz T S and Brennan M (eds) ( 1998 ) Foucaultrsquos challenge Discourse knowledge and power in education New York Teachers College Press

Port R F and van Gelder T eds ( 1995 ) Mind as motion Cambridge MA MIT Press

Prigogine I ( 1997 ) Th e end of certainty Time chaos and the new laws of nature (in collaboration with Isabelle Stengers) New York Th e Free Press

Prigogine I and Stengers I ( 1984 ) Order out of Chaos Manrsquos new dialogue with nature London Fontana


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Prilleltensky I ( 1997 ) Values assumptions and practices Assessing the moral implications of psychological discourse and action American Psychologist 52 517 ndash 535

Procter J ( 2004 ) Stuart Hall London and New York Routledge Puzyrei A A ( 2007 ) Contemporary psychology and Vygotskyrsquos culturalndash historical

theory Journal of Russian and East European Psychology 45 ( 1 ) 8 ndash 93 Quarshie R ( 2008 ) English for students with diverse backgrounds http iteorguk

ite_ readings english_ for_ pupils_ with_ diverse_ backgrounds_ 20080326pdf (accessed October 1 2011)

Ranciegravere J ( 1991 ) Th e ignorant schoolmaster Five lessons in intellectual emancipa-tion Stanford CA Stanford University Press

Rawls A W ( 2015 ) Respecifying the study of social order ndash Garfi nkelrsquos transition from theoretical conceptualization to practices in details In H Garfi nkel Seeing sociologically Th e routine grounds of social action (edited by A Rawls pp 1 ndash 98 ) Oxon UK and New York Routledge

Reason P and Torbert W R ( 2001 ) Toward a transformational science A further look at the scientifi c merits of action research Concepts and Transformations 6 ( 1 ) 1 ndash 37

Rees T ( 2010 ) Being neurologically human today Life and science and adult cere-bral plasticity American Ethnologist 37 150 ndash 166

Reese H W ( 1991 ) Contextualism and developmental psychology In H W Reese (ed) Advances in child development and behavior vol 23 (pp 187ndash 230) San Diego CA Academic Press

Reese H W and Overton W F ( 1970 ) Models of development and theories of development In L R Goulet and P B Baltes (eds) Life- span developmental psychology Research and theory (pp 115 ndash 145 ) New York Academic Press

Reinhardt U E ( 2010 ) When value judgments masquerade as science Economix Blog New York Times August 27 http economixblogsnytimescom 2010 08 27 when- value- judgments- masquerade- as- science _ r=0 (accessed March 30 2011)

Richardson F Fowers B and Guignon C ( 1999 ) Re- envisioning psychology Moral dimensions of theory and practice San Francisco Jossey- Bass

Richardson J ( 2007 ) A natural history of pragmatism New York Cambridge University Press

Riegel K F ( 1979 ) Foundations of dialectical psychology New York Academic Press Rilke R- M ( 1904 ) Letters to young poet wwwcarrotherscom rilke8htm (accessed

August 5 2015) Robbins P and Aydede M eds ( 2009 ) Th e Cambridge handbook of situated cog-

nition New York Cambridge University Press Robert J S ( 2004 ) Embryology epigenesis and evolution Taking development seri-

ously New York Cambridge University Press Robinson M ( 2010 ) Risk the game On William James Th e Nation December 13

wwwthenationcom article risk- game- william- james (accessed July 27 2015) Rogoff B ( 1990 ) Apprenticeship in thinking Cognitive development in social con-

text Oxford Open University Press Rogoff B ( 2003 ) Th e cultural nature of human development New York Oxford

University Press


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Rooney E ( 1995 ) Better read than dead Althusser and the fetish of ideology Yale French Studies 88 183 ndash 200

Rorty R ( 1979 ) Philosophy and the mirror of nature Princeton NJ Princeton University Press

Rose N ( 1996 ) Inventing our selves Psychology power and personhood Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Rose S ( 1998 ) Lifelines Biology freedom determinism Harmondsworth UK Penguin Press

Rose S ( 2005a ) Th e Future of the brain Th e promise and perils of tomorrows neu-roscience Oxford and New York Oxford University Press

Rose S ( 2005b ) Human agency in the neurocentric age EMBO reports volume 6 issue 11 1001ndash 1005 November 1 2005 http onlinelibrarywileycom doi 101038 sjembor7400566 full

Rose S Lewontin R C and Kamin L J ( 1984 ) Not in our genes Biology ideology and human nature London Penguin

Rosen R ( 1991 ) Life itself A comprehensive inquiry into the nature origin and fab-rication of life New York Columbia University Press

Rosenfi eld I ( 1988 ) Th e invention of memory A new view of the brain New York Basic Books

Roth W- M and Lee Y- J ( 2007 ) Vygotskyrsquos neglected legacy Culturalndash historical activity theory Review of Educational Research 77 ( 2 ) 186 ndash 232

Rowlands M ( 2010 ) Th e new science of the mind From extended mind to embodied phenomenology Cambridge MA MIT Press

Rucker D ( 1969 ) Th e Chicago pragmatists Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Rutherford A Vaughn- Blount K and Ball L C ( 2010 ) Responsible opposition disruptive voices Science social change and the history of feminist psychol-ogy Psychology of Women Quarterly 34 460 ndash 473

Sacks O ( 1987 ) Th e man who mistook his wife for a hat New York Harper and Row Sacks O ( 1995 ) An anthropologist on Mars Seven paradoxical tales New York

Knopf Saumlljouml R ( 2003 ) Epilogue From transfer to boundary- crossing In T Tuomi- Groumlhn

and Y Engestroumlm (eds) Between school and work New perspectives on transfer and boundary- crossing (pp 311 ndash 321 ) Amsterdam Th e Netherlands Pergamon

Said E ( 2000 ) Refl ections on exile and other essays Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Said E ( 2003 ) Orientalism New York Vintage Books (Originally published in 1978)

Saito N ( 2002 ) Pragmatism and the tragic sense Deweyan growth in an age of nihilism Journal of Philosophy of Education 36( 2) 247ndash 263)

Sameroff A J ( 1983 ) Developmental systems Contexts and evolution In W Kessen (ed) Handbook of child psychology Vol 1 History theory and methods (pp 237 ndash 294 ) New York Wiley and Sons

Sameroff A ( 2010 ) A unifi ed theory of development A dialectic integration of nature and nurture Child Development 81 (1) 6 ndash 22


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Sandoval C ( 2000 ) Methodology of the oppressed Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

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Sannino A Daniels H and Gutieacuterrez K (eds) ( 2009 ) Learning and expanding with activity theory Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Sartre J- P ( 1966 ) Th e psychology of imagination New York Citadel Sartre J‐P ( 1968 ) Search for a method New York Vintage Books Sawchuk P ( 2003 ) Adult learning and technology in working- class life

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theory Exploring intersections and complementarities Mind Culture and Activity 15 ( 4 ) 339 ndash 360

Sawyer J and Stetsenko A ( 2014 ) Lev Vygotskyrsquos approach to language and speech In P Brooks and V Kempe (eds) Encyclopedia of language develop-ment (pp 663ndash 666) Th ousand Oaks CA Sage

Sawyer R K and Greeno J ( 2009 ) Situativity and learning In P Robbins and M Aydede (eds) Th e Cambridge handbook of situated cognition (pp 347 ndash 367 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Schank R C ( 1990 ) Tell me a story Narrative and intelligence Evanston IL Northwestern University Press

Schneirla T C ( 1957 ) Th e concept of development in comparative psy-chology In D B Harris (ed) Th e concept of development (pp 78 ndash 108 ) Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Scribner S ( 1997 ) Mind and social practice Selected writings of Sylvia Scribner Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Searle J R ( 2010 ) Making the social world Th e structure of human civilization Oxford and New York Oxford University Press

Sechenov I M ( 1947 ) Izbrannye fi losofskie i psikhologicheskie proizvedeniya [Selected philosophical and psychological works] Moscow Gospolitizdat (Originally published in 1871)

Sfard A ( 1998 ) On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one Educational Researcher 27 4 ndash 13

Shaull R ( 1970 2005) Foreword In P Freire Pedagogy of the oppressed New York Continuum (30th anniversary ed pp 29ndash 34)

Sheets- Johnstone M ( 2011 ) Th e primacy of movement (exp 2nd ed) Amsterdam and Philadelphia John Benjamins

Shklovsky V ( 1991 ) Art as device In Th eory of Prose ( Benjamin Sher trans pp 1 ndash 14 ) Elmwood Park IL Dalkey Archive

Shotter J ( 1993 ) Cultural politics of everyday life Social constructionism rhetoric and knowing of the third kind London Sage

Shotter J ( 2006 ) Peripheral vision Understanding process from within An argu-ment for ldquowithnessrdquo thinking Organization Studies 27 ( 4 ) 585 ndash 604

Shoumakova N B ( 1986 ) Research activity in the form of questions at various age periods [Исследовательская активность в форме вопросов в разные


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Simons J ( 1995 ) Foucault and the political New York Routledge Slife B ( 2004 ) Taking practice seriously Toward a relational ontology Journal of

Th eoretical and Philosophical Psychology 24 (2) 157 ndash 178 Smedley A and Smedley B D ( 2005 ) Race as biology is fi ction racism as a social

problem is real American Psychologist 60 16 ndash 26 Smith D E ( 1988 ) Th e everyday world as problematic A feminist sociology

Toronto University of Toronto Press Smith D E ( 1990 ) Th e conceptual practices of power A feminist sociology of knowl-

edge Toronto University of Toronto Press Smith L T ( 1999 ) Decolonizing methodologies Research and indigenous peoples

New York St Martinrsquos Press Smith M B ( 1994 ) Selfh ood at risk Postmodern perils and the perils of postmod-

ernism American Psychologist 49 405 ndash 411 Smith N ( 2002 ) New globalism new urbanism Gentrifi cation as global urban

strategy Antipode A Radical Journal of Geography 34 (3) 427 ndash 450 Smith R ( 1995 ) Th e language of human nature In C Fox R Porter and R Wokler

(eds) Inventing human science Eighteenth- century domains (pp 88 ndash 111 ) Berkeley University of California Press

Smith- Maddox R and Soloacuterzano D G ( 2002 ) Using critical race theory Paulo Freirersquos problem- posing method and case study research to confront race and racism in education Qualitative Inquiry 8 ( 1 ) 66 ndash 84

Somers M ( 1994 ) Th e narrative constitution of identity A relational and network approach Th eory and Society 23 605ndash 49

Soslashrensen E ( 2012 ) Th e mind and distributed cognition Th e place of knowing in a maths class Th eory and Psychology 22 ( 6 ) 717 ndash 737

Springs J A ( 2007 ) Th e priority of democracy to social theory Contemporary Pragmatism 4 ( 1) 47 ndash 71

Stanley W ( 1992 ) Curriculum for utopia New York SUNY Press Stengers I ( 2002a ) Penser avec Whitehead Une libre et sauvage creacuteation de con-

cepts Paris Gallimard Stengers I ( 2002b ) A ldquocosmo- politicsrdquo ndash risk hope change In Mary Zournasi

(ed) Hope New philosophies for change (pp 240 ndash 272 ) London Lawrence and Wishart

Stengers I ( 2007 ) Diderotrsquos egg Divorcing materialism from eliminativism Radical Philosophy 144 (July August) 7 ndash 15

Stengers I ( 2008a ) Unity through divergence applied process thought Initial explora-tions in theory and research ( Mark Dibben and Th omas Kelly eds pp 119 ndash 136 ) Piscataway NJ Transaction Books

Stengers I ( 2008b ) Introductory notes on an ecology of practices Cultural Studies Review 11 ( 1) 183 ndash 196

Stengers I ( 2011 ) Wondering about materialism In Levi R Bryant Nick Srnicek and Graham Harman (eds) Th e speculative turn Continental materialism and realism (pp 368 ndash 380 ) Melbourne Australia Repress

Stetsenko A ( 1990 ) On the role and status of methodology in contemporary psy-chology [О роли и статусе методологического знания в психологии]


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Stetsenko A ( 1995a ) Th e role of the principle of object- relatedness in the theory of activity Journal of Russian and East European Psychology Special Issue Th e Legacy of A N Leontrsquoev 33 25 ndash 39

Stetsenko A ( 1995b ) Th e psychological function of childrenrsquos drawing Vygotskian perspective In C Lange- Kuttner and G V Th omas (eds) Drawing and look-ing Th eoretical approaches to pictorial representation in children (pp 147ndash 58 ) Hemel Hemstead UK Harvester Wheatsheaf

Stetsenko A ( 1999 ) Social interaction cultural tools and the zone of proxi-mal development In search of a synthesis In M Hedegaard S Chaiklin S Boedker and U J Jensen (eds) Activity theory and social practice (pp 235 ndash 253 ) Aarhus Denmark Aarhus University Press

Stetsenko A ( 2001 ) Commentary Sociocultural activity as a unit of analysis How Vygotsky and Piaget converge in empirical research on collaborative cogni-tion In D Bearison and B Dorval (eds) Collaborative cognition Children negotiating ways of knowing (pp 123 ndash 135 ) Westport CT Ablex Publishing

Stetsenko A ( 2002 ) Th e illusive nature of social change Whence is a change and how does it relate to human development PsycCRITIQUES 47 ( 2 ) 151 ndash 153

Stetsenko A ( 2003 ) Alexander Luria and the cultural- historical activity the-ory Pieces for the history of an outstanding collaborative project in psychology Review of E D Homskaya (2001) Alexander Romanovich Luria A scientifi c biography Mind Culture and Acitivity 10 ( 1 ) 93 ndash 97

Stetsenko A ( 2004 ) Introduction to ldquoTool and Signrdquo by Lev Vygotsky In R Rieber and D Robbinson (eds) Essential Vygotsky (pp 499 ndash 510 ) New York Kluwer Academic Plenum

Stetsenko A ( 2005 ) Activity as object- related Resolving the dichotomy of individual and collective types of activity Mind Culture and Activity 12 ( 1 ) 70 ndash 88

Stetsenko A ( 2007a ) Agency and society Lessons from the study of social change Special issue on Agency and Social Change ( R Silbereisen guest ed) (invited commentary article) International Journal of Psychology 42 ( 2 ) 110 ndash 112

Stetsenko A ( 2007b ) Being- through- doing Bakhtin and Vygotsky in dialogue Cultural Studies of Science Education 2 25 ndash 37

Stetsenko A ( 2008 ) From relational ontology to transformative activist stance Expanding Vygotskyrsquos (CHAT) project Cultural Studies of Science Education 3 465 ndash 485

Stetsenko A ( 2009 ) Vygotsky and the conceptual revolution in developmental sciences Towards a unifi ed (non- additive) account of human development In M Fleer M Hedegaard J Tudge and A Prout (eds) World year book of education Constructing childhood Globalndash local policies and practices (pp 125 ndash 142 ) New York and London Routledge

Stetsenko A ( 2010a ) Standing on the shoulders of giants A balancing act of dialecti-cally theorizing conceptual understanding on the grounds of Vygotskyrsquos project In W- M Roth (ed) Re structuring science education ReUniting psychological and sociological perspectives (pp 53 ndash 72 ) Dordrecht Th e Netherlands Springer


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Stetsenko A ( 2010b ) Teaching- learning and development as activist proj-ects of historical becoming Expanding Vygotskyrsquos approach to pedagogy Pedagogies An International Journal 5 6 ndash 16

Stetsenko A ( 2011 ) Darwin and Vygotsky on development An exegesis on human nature In M Kontopodis Ch Wulf and B Fichtner (eds) Children develop-ment and education (pp 25 ndash 41 ) Dordrecht Th e Netherlands Springer

Stetsenko A ( 2012 ) Personhood An activist project of historical becoming through collaborative pursuits of social transformation New Ideas in Psychology 30 144 ndash 153

Stetsenko A ( 2013a ) Th eorizing personhood for the world in transition and change Refl ections from a transformative activist stance In J Martin and M H Bickhard (eds) Th e psychology of personhood (pp 181 ndash 202 ) Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Stetsenko A ( 2013b ) Th e challenge of individuality in cultural- historical activ-ity theory ldquoCollectividualrdquo dialectics from a transformative activist stance Outlines ndash Critical Practice Studies (special issue on transformative social prac-tices edited by I Langemeyer and S Schmachtel) 14 ( 2 ) 7 ndash 28

Stetsenko A ( 2014 ) Transformative activist stance for education Inventing the future in moving beyond the status quo In T Corcoran (ed) Psychology in education Critical theory practice (pp 181 ndash 198 ) Rotterdam Th e Netherlands Sense Publishers

Stetsenko A ( 2015 ) Th eory for and as social practice of realizing the future Implications from a transformative activist stance In J Martin J Sugarman and K Slaney (eds) Th e Wiley handbook of theoretical and philo-sophical psychology Methods approaches and new directions for social sciences (pp 102 ndash 116 ) New York Wiley

Stetsenko A (in press) Putting the radical notion of equality in the service of dis-rupting inequality in education Research fi ndings and conceptual advances Review of Research in Education (special issue on Disrupting Inequalities ed by M Winn and M Souto- Manning)

Stetsenko A P ( 1988 ) Th e diachronic principle in the historical analysis of psychological conceptions [О диахроническом принципе историко- психологического анализа научных концепций] In A Zhdan (ed) Izuchenije traditsij i nauchnih shkol v istorii sovetskoj psihologii [Scientifi c schools and traditions in the history of Soviet psychology] (pp 46 ndash 51 ) Moscow Moscow University Press

Stetsenko A and Arievitch I ( 1997 ) Constructing and deconstructing the self Comparing post- Vygotskian and discourse- based versions of social con-structivism Mind Culture and Activity 4 160 ndash 173

Stetsenko A and Arievitch I ( 2002 ) Teaching learning and development A post- Vygotskian perspective In G Wells and G Claxton (eds) Learning for life in the twenty- fi rst century Sociocultural perspectives on the future of education (pp 84 ndash 87 ) London Blackwell

Stetsenko A and Arievitch I M ( 2004a ) Vygotskian collaborative project of social transformation History politics and practice in knowledge construc-tion Th e International Journal of Critical Psychology 12 ( 4 ) 58 ndash 80


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Stetsenko A and Arievitch I M ( 2004b ) Th e self in cultural- historical activity theory Reclaiming the unity of social and individual dimensions of human development Th eory and Psychology 14 ( 4 ) 475 ndash 503

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Stetsenko A and Ho G ( 2015 ) Th e serious joy and the joyful work of play Children becoming agentive actors in co- authoring themselves and their world through play International Journal of Early Childhood 47( 2) 221 ndash 234

Stetsenko A and Vianna E ( 2009 ) Bridging developmental theory and educational practice Lessons from the Vygotskian project In O Barbarin and B H Wasik (eds) Handbook of child development and early education Research to practice (pp 38 ndash 54 ) New York Guilford Press Available on wwwacademiaedu

Sutton J Harris C B Keil P G and Barnier A J ( 2011 ) Th e psychology of memory extended cognition and socially distributed remembering Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9 521 ndash 560

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Teo T ( 2013 ) Backlash against American psychology An indigenous reconstruction of the history of German critical psychology History of Psychology 16 (1) 1 ndash 18

Teo T ( 2015 ) Critical psychology A geography of intellectual engagement and resistance American Psychologist 70 ( 3) 243 ndash 254

Th arp R G and Gallimore R ( 1988 ) Rousing minds to life Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Th elen E ( 1995 ) Motor development A new synthesis American Psychologist 50 79 ndash 95

Th elen E ( 2000 ) Grounded in the world Developmental origins of the embodied mind Infancy 1 ( 1 ) 3 ndash 28

Th elen E ( 2005 ) Dynamic systems theory and the complexity of change Psychoanalytic Dialogues 15 255 ndash 283

Th elen E and Bates E A ( 2003 ) Connectionism and dynamic systems Are they really diff erent Developmental Science 6 378 ndash 391

Th elen E and Smith L B ( 1994 ) A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action Cambridge MA MIT Press

Th omas D and Brown J S ( 2009 ) Learning for a world of constant change Homo sapiens homo faber and homo Ludens revisited wwwjohnseelybrowncom Learning20for20a20World20of20Constant20Changepdf (accessed July 6 2011)


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Toulmin S ( 1988 ) Th e recovery of practical philosophy Th e American Scholar 57 (3) 337 ndash 352

Ukhtomsky A A (1924 2002 ) Th e dominant Works from 1887ndash 1939 [Dominanta Statji raznih let 1887ndash 1939] Saint Petersburg Peter

Vadeboncoeur J A ( 2006 ) Engaging young people Learning in informal contexts Review of Research in Education 30 239 ndash 278

Vadeboncoeur J A and Collie R J ( 2013 ) Locating social and emotional learning in schooled environments A Vygotskian perspective on learning as unifi ed Mind Culture and Activity 20 201 ndash 225

Vandenberg B ( 1999 ) Levinas and the ethical context of human development Human Development 42 31 ndash 44

van Geert P and Steenbeck H ( 2005 ) Explaining aft er by before Basic aspects of a dynamic systems approach to the study of development Developmental Review 25 408 ndash 442

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a developmental tool in a residential program Saarbruumlcken Germany VDM Verlag Dr Muumlller

Vianna E and Stetsenko A ( 2006 ) Embracing history through transforming it Contrasting Piagetian versus Vygotskian (activity) theories of learning and development to expand constructivism within a dialectical view of his-tory Th eory and Psychology (Special Issue on activity theory edited by Lois Holzman ) 16 (1) 81 ndash 108


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Vianna E and Stetsenko A ( 2011 ) Connecting learning and identity development through a transformative activist stance Application in adolescent develop-ment in a child welfare program Human Development 54 313 ndash 338

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Vianna E Hougaard N and Stetsenko A ( 2014 ) Th e dialectics of collective and individual transformation In A Blunden (ed) Collaborative projects (pp 59 ndash 87 ) Leiden Th e Netherlands Brille Publishers

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Vygodskaya G and Lifanova T ( 1996 ) Lev Semenovich Vygotsky Life activity and portrait outlines [ Lev Semenovich Vygotskij Zhizn dejatelnost i shtrikhi k portrety] Moscow Smysl

Vygotsky L S ( 1987 ) The collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 1 Problems of general psychology ( R W Rieber and A S Carton eds) New York Plenum

Vygotsky L S ( 1993 ) Th e collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 2 Th e fundamen-tals of defectology ( R W Rieber and A S Carton eds) New York Plenum

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Vygotsky L S ( 1997a ) Th e collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 3 Problems of the theory and history of psychology ( R W Rieber and J Wollock eds) New York Plenum

Vygotsky L S ( 1997b ) Th e collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 4 Th e his-tory of the development of higher mental functions ( R W Rieber ed) New York Plenum

Vygotsky L S ( 1997c ) Educational psychology ( R Silverman trans) Boca Raton FL St Lucie Press (Originally published in 1926)

Vygotsky L S ( 1998 ) Th e collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 5 Child psychol-ogy ( R W Rieber ed) New York Plenum

Vygotsky L S ( 1999 ) Th e collected works of L S Vygotsky Volume 6 Scientifi c leg-acy ( RW Rieber ed) New York Plenum

Wartofsky M ( 1979 ) Models representation and the scientifi c understanding Dordrecht Th e Netherlands D Reidel

Wartofsky M ( 1983 ) Th e childrsquos construction of the world and the worldrsquos con-struction of the child From historical epistemology to historical psychology In F S Kessel and A W Siegel (eds) Th e child and other cultural inventions (pp 188 ndash 215 ) New York Praeger

Watson M C ( 2014 ) Derrida Stengers Latour and subalternist cosmopolitics Th eory Culture amp Society 31 75 ndash 98

Weber L and Dillaway H ( 2001 ) Understanding race class gender and sexual-ity Case studies New York McGraw- Hill

Wells G ( 1986 ) Th e meaning makers Children learning language and using lan-guage to learn Portsmouth NH Heinemann


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Wells G ( 2000 ) Dialogic inquiry in education In C Lee and P Smagorinsky (eds) Vygotskian perspectives on literacy research Cambridge Cambridge University Press

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Wenger E ( 1998 ) Communities of practice Learning meaning and identity Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Werner C Brown B and Altman I ( 2002 ) Planning and doing transactionally- oriented research Examples and strategies In D Stokols and I Altman (eds) Handbook of environmental psychology II (pp 203 ndash 221 ) New York John Wiley and Sons

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Wertsch J V ( 1998 ) Mind as action New York Oxford University Press Wertsch J V ( 2000 ) Intersubjectivity and alterity in human communication In

N Budwig I C Uzgiris and J V Wertsch (eds) Communication An arena of development (pp 17 ndash 32 ) New York Ablex

Wertsch J V ( 2005 ) Essay review of ldquo Making human beings human Bioecological perspectives on human development rdquo by U Bronfenbrenner British Journal of Developmental Psychology 23 143 ndash 151

Wertsch J V and Sohmer R ( 1995 ) Vygotsky on learning and development Human Development 38 332 ndash 337

West C ( 1989 ) Th e American evasion of philosophy A genealogy of pragmatism Madison University of Wisconsin Press

West C ( 1991 ) Th e ethical dimensions of Marxist thought New York Th e Monthly Review Press

West C ( 1993 ) Th e limits of neo- pragmatism In Keeping faith Philosophy and race in America New York Routledge

West C ( 1999 ) On prophetic pragmatism In Th e Cornel West reader (pp 149 ndash 173 ) New York Civitas Books

Westbrook R B ( 1991 ) John Dewey and American democracy Ithaca NY Cornell University Press

White S H ( 2000a ) Conceptual foundations of IQ testing Psychology Public Policy and Law 6 33 ndash 43

White S H ( 2000b ) Th e social roles of child study Human Development 43 284ndash 288

Whitehead A N ( 1920 ) Th e concept of nature Cambridge MA Cambridge University Press

Whitehead A N ( 1929 ) Process and reality An essay in cosmology (corrected ed) D R Griffi n and D W Sherburne (eds) New York Th e Free Press

Williams R ( 1980 ) Problems in materialism and culture Selected essays London Verso

Williams R N and Gantt E E ( 1998 ) Intimacy and heteronomy On grounding psychology in the ethical Th eory and Psychology 8 253 ndash 267


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Wilson R A and Foglia L ( 2011 ) Embodied Cognition Th e Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall ed) (Edward N Zalta ed) http platostanfordedu archives fall2011 entries embodied- cognition (accessed June 30 2015)

Winston A S ( 2004 ) Introduction Histories of psychology and race In A S Winston (ed) Defi ning diff erence Race and racism in the history of psychology (pp 3 ndash 18 ) Washington DC American Psychological Association

Witherington D C ( 2007 ) Th e dynamic systems approach as metatheory for developmental psychology Human Development 50 127 ndash 153

Wood M D ( 2000 ) Cornel West and the politics of prophetic pragmatism Chicago University of Illinois

Young M ( 2008 ) From constructivism to realism in the sociology of the curricu-lum Review of Research in Education 32 1 ndash 28

Young M and Muller J ( 2010 ) Th ree educational scenarios for the future Lessons from the sociology of knowledge European Journal of Education 45 ( 1) 11 ndash 27

Zaporozhets A V ( 1965 ) Th e development of perception in the preschool child In P H Mussen (ed) European research in child development 30 82 ndash 101

Zaporozhets A V ( 1969 1995) Problems in the psychology of activity Journal of Russian and East European Psychology 33 12 ndash 17

Zinchenko P I ( 1939 ) Th e problem of involuntary memorization [Проблема непрозивольного запоминания] Nauchnye zapiski Kharrsquokovskogo peda-gogicheskogo institute inostrannykh iazykov 1 145 ndash 187

Zinchenko P I ( 1961 ) Involuntary memorization [ Непрозивольное запоминание ] Moscow APN RSF Press

Zinchenko V P ( 1985 ) Vygotskyrsquos ideas about units for the analysis of mind In J V Wertsch (ed) Culture communication and cognition Vygotskian perspectives (pp 94 ndash 118 ) New York Cambridge University Press

Zinchenko V P Chzhi- tsin V and Tarakanov V V ( 1963 ) Th e formation and development of perceptual activity Soviet Psychology and Psychiatry 2 3 ndash 12

Zlatev J Racine T P Sinha C and Itkonen E ( 2008 ) Intersubjectivity What makes us human In J Zlatev T P Racine C Sinha and E Itkonen (eds) Th e shared mind Perspectives on intersubjectivity (pp 1 ndash 14 ) Amsterdam Th e Netherlands John Benjamins


411

411

Name Index

Adorno Th eodor W 212 Alaimo Stacy 56 249 Alcoff Linda Martin 81 Allman Paula 74 184 207 Altman Irwin 59 120 Amsler Sarah 67 338 357 Anokhin Peter K 239 Anzalduacutea Gloria E 45 81 228 352 Appadurai Arjun 63 Appiah Kwame Anthony 112 279 246 Apple Michael W 48 67 80 245 Arendt Hannah 9 Arievitch Igor M 7 96 106 115 123 143 184

228 269 272 273 333 337 338 345 349 Asante Molefi Kete 245 Au Wayne 184

Baldwin James A 23 265 Bakhtin Mikhail 2 10 12 16 25 76 107

133 188 209 ndash 211 220 231 232 238 240 244 254 262 282 283 291 295 319 346 347 364

Bakhurst David 57 105 206 Bandura Albert 223 Bannerji Himani 184 Barad Karen 59 204 206 253 254 Barone Th omas E 348 372 Bateson Gregory 76 293 Benhabib Seyla 81 82 248 Bennett Jane 6 59 220 Bergson Henri 279 312 313 315 318 Berman Marshall 254 Bernstein Nikolaj N 127 134 147 239 279 Bickhard Mark 127 Bidell Th omas 76 125 Biesta Gert 79 223 224 261 342

Blackledge Paul 370 371 Bloch Ernst 6 67 228 Bourdieu Pierre 5 67 196 203 209 216 ndash 218

290 293 296 333 Bratus Boris S 107 Bredo Eric 128 129 145 148 149 195 196 Bronfenbrenner Urie 23 76 97 Bronowski Jacob 243 Brown John S 11 Bruner Jerome 75 305 315 Burbules Nicholas C 101 357 Burke Kenneth 191 Burman Erica 44

Cahan Emily 130 153 Cammarota Julio 67 Camus Albert 246 Carpendale Jeremy I M 129 279 Cassirer Ernst 290 Cavanagh Clare 8 163 307 Chaiklin Seth 275 Cheah Pheng 196 ndash 198 295 Chomsky Noam 64 154 160 Christians Cliff ord G 360 Clancey William J 284 304 312 Clark Andy 79 131 193 279 280 311 316 Clark Katerina 133 144 Clark Kenneth B 45 73 Cole Michael 75 142 147 148 153 154 238

275 299 332 Connery Cathrene 348 Costall Alan 53 76 128 132 154 268 290 292 Cross William E Jr 72

Damasio Anthony 279 316 Daniels Harry 75


Name Index412

412

Danziger Kurt 3 43 44 53 Darling- Hammond Linda 48 365 Davydov Vassily V 6 15 105 162 183 268 244 Darwin Charles 26 97 115 123 127 128

132 ndash 134 164 166 168 193 194 209 Deleuze Gilles 64 65 111 198 Delpit Lisa 217 Dannefer Dale 222 Derrida Jaques 31 80 196 ndash 198 200 242 Dewey John 39 40 74 76 88 115 116 120

124 127 ndash 132 135 143 145 ndash 150 152 ndash 156 160 161 164 ndash 166 168 194 ndash 196 222 261 278 279 292 298 299 312 315 318 326

Diggins John P 53 151 161 165 166 Dobzhansky Th eodosius 46 193 Donald Merlin 283 284 Donnor Jamel 73 107 365

Eagleton Terry 220 294 367 ndash 369 371 Edelman Gerald M 303 Emirbayer Mustafa 196 222 ndash 224 Emerson Caryl 188 262 276 347 Engels Friedrich 29 84 166 168 176 178 209

227 242 254 361 Engestroumlm Yrjo 6 66 75 107 148 218 219 333

Fleer Marilyn 75 Flyvbjerg Bent 68 Fine Michelle 67 259 352 Foucault Michel 5 53 64 65 80 216 218 225

229 236 254 350 Frankl Viktor 255 Fraser Nancy 61 81 87 Freire Paulo 5 13 25 30 34 65 ndash 67 107 ndash 108

110 183 184 187 215 225 232 234 246 257 283 332 335 342 348 355 364 365

Frye Marilyn 51 231 287

Gallagher Shaun 312 315 Galperin Peter Ia 15 105 272 344 Gardiner Michael 210 Garrison Jim 39 150 154 164 195 Gergen Kenneth J 68 76 131 Gibson Eleanor J 278 Gibson James J 131 132 160 278 279 292 318 Giddens Anthony 67 217 295 Giroux Henry A 67 81 111 234 Glass Ronald D 65 Glassman Michael 154 Glenberg Arthur M 304 Goicoechea Jessie 285 333 334

Gottlieb Gilbert 119 301 Gould Carol C 184 360 362 370 371 Gould Stephen J 26 43 58 89 Gramsci Antonio 6 13 84 184 Greene Maxine 234 235 Guattari Feacutelix 111 198 Guignon Charles 76 338 Gutieacuterrez Kris D 68 75 Gutieacuterrez Rochelle 68

Habermas Juumlrgen 87 109 203 290 304 Hames- Garcia Michael R 80 Harding Sandra 230 236 259 Harreacute Rom 76 131 204 277 Hartsock Nancy C M 80 Harvey David 55 59 189 Haslam Nick 51 Hedegaard Mariane 75 275 Heron John 59 256 Hekman Susan 56 Hicks Deborah 131 Hill Collins Patricia 72 73 81 Holland Dorothy 30 75 131 333 347 Holquist Michael 133 144 219 290 291 Holzkamp Klaus 6 203 Holzman Lois 6 27 99 Honeycutt Hunter 143 Honneth Axel 88 351 Horkheimer Max 212 Hougaard Naja 335 351 370 Howe Kenneth R 42 44 52 67 259 Hutchins Edwin 316

Ilyenkov Evald V 6 162 206 208 268 279 320

Ingold Tim 58 76 131 143 185 186 292 352

James William 34 45 74 130 ndash 132 145 208 216 256 271 279 318

Jameson Fredric 41 55 99 Jaramillo Nathalia 67 68 232 335 John- Steiner Vera 75 136 275 Johnston Adrian 244 317 320 Jones Peter E 6 58 66 75 103 206

Kaika Maria 189 Kaptelinin Victor 75 Karpov Yriy V 275 Kemmis Stephen 68 203 King Martin Luther Jr 238 257 361 Kirschner Suzanne R 75 ndash 77


Name Index 413

413

Kontopodis Michalis 68 75 Kumpulainen Kristiina 188

Ladson- Billings Gloria 48 73 107 365 Lantolf James P 6 226 275 347 Lather Patti 200 244 245 251 342 Latour Bruno 32 64 186 205 206 225 236 Lave Jean 30 75 78 132 224 256 292

327 333 Lee Carol D 70 75 365 Lefebvre Henri 189 Lehrman Daniel S 126 302 Lemke Jay 75 132 313 ndash 315 Leonard Sarah 6 Leonardo Zeus 23 65 234 Leontiev Alexey A 6 15 162 Leontiev Alexey N 6 15 57 97 136 139

146 ndash 148 162 167 183 186 187 208 228 268 279 308 338

Leontiev Dmitry A 6 Lerner Richard M 116 118 119 121 130 134 Levinas Emmanuel 76 287 288 Lewin Kurt 67 102 107 117 130 138 Lewontin Richard 58 139 185 Lickliter Robert 119 143 Lompscher Joachim 75 Lorde Audre 73 Luria Alexander R 15 136 147 162 278 283

299 ndash 302 Luttrell Wendy 285 336 Lyotard Jean- Francois 53 61

MacIntyre Alasdair 245 Mandelstam Osip E 8 163 303 307 Marcuse Herbert 198 Markovaacute Ivana 76 131 174 297 Martin Jack 69 75 ndash 77 130 224 337 ndash 339 Martin- Baroacute Ignacio 67 Marx Karl 29 30 65 76 84 112 115 147 166

178 180 183 184 192 193 195 197 207 215 227 241 242 244 250 ndash 252 254 272 322 360 ndash 362 364 371

Massumi Brian 198 Mattson Kevin 68 McDermott Ray 208 McLaren Peter 67 81 McLellan Ann- Marie 337 ndash 339 McNay Lois 217 Mead George H 76 130 216 315 Mead Margaret 117 Menand Louis 66 280

Merleau- Ponty Maurice 82 130 131 244 271 278 279 315 318

Mertens Donna M 68 Meshcheryakov Alexandr I 105 Mische Ann 222 ndash 224 Mohanty Chandra Talpade 81 Mohanty Saraju P 80 Mol Annemarie 205 Morawski Jill G 24 43 44 58 63 67 71 97

108 259 Morson Gary S 188 240 262 Moya Paula M L 80 Mueller Ulrich 129

Nardi Bonnie 75 Nasir Narsquoila S 24 67 333 Nayak Suriya 73 Neisser Ulric 278 304 315 Nelson Katherine 3 78 301 304 Nicholson Linda J 61 81 Noeuml Alva 278 279 Nussbaum Martha C 81

Ollman Berthel 194 Overton Willis F 59 116 118 119 122 131

154 278 Oyama Susan 57 118 122 126 152 273

Packer Martin J 66 285 293 333 334 Pasupathi Monisha 304 305 Peirce Charles S 74 131 Phillips Layli 72 73 Piaget Jean 101 115 116 127 ndash 132 135 143 145

146 149 150 152 ndash 161 164 166 168 279 292 315 326

Plekhanov Georgi V 183 Plumwood Val 51 81 82 216 250 271 293

318 361 363 Popkewitz Th omas S 54 62 154 350 Prigogine Ilya R 45 117 Puzyrei Andrey A 106

Ranciegravere Jacques 27 90 342 343 349 Reason Peter 59 256 Reese Hayne W 119 Reinhardt Uwe E 46 Riegel Klaus F 130 Rilke Rainer Maria 240 Robert Jason S 51 52 57 Rogoff Barbara 6 59 75 120 132 148 328 Rorty Richard 53


Name Index414

414

Rose Nikolas 44 Rose Steven 44 185 300 Rosenfi eld Israel 303 Rutherford Alexandra 44

Sacks Oliver 284 Saumlljouml Roger 79 Said Edward 5 6 61 Sameroff Arnold J 119 121 Sampson Edward E 114 159 160 Sandoval Chela 7 72 Sannino Annalisa 75 99 105 219 Sartre Jean- Paul 111 234 348 Sawchuk Peter H 6 68 184 Sawyer Jeremy 104 Saxe Geoff rey B 333 Schneirla Th eodor C 302 Scribner Sylvia 75 Searle John R 267 Sechenov Ivan M 134 144 147 Sfard Anna 78 354 Shaull Richard 356 Sheets- Johnstone Maxine 213 Shklovsky Viktor 290 291 Shotter John 76 196 Shoumakova Natalia B 342 Slife Brent D 121 Smith Dorothy E 81 184 295 Smith Linda B 122 124 150 279 316 Smith Linda Tuhiwai 60 Smith Neil 189 Smith- Maddox Renee 365 Soloacuterzano Daniel G 265 Stanley William B 234 Stengers Isabelle 32 33 45 180 225 250 319 Sugarman Jeff 69 76 Swyngedouw Erik 189

Taylor Charles 181 258 269 288 289 319 338 Teo Th omas 6 67

Th elen Esther 122 258 Th omas Douglas 11 Th orne Steven L 218 Tihanov Galin 220 Tobach Ethel 58 83 249 Todes Daniel 133 134 Tomasello Michael 190 279 Toulmin Stephen E 13 267

Ukhtomsky A A 188

Vadeboncoeur Jennifer 75 289 van Oers Bert 75 Varela Francisco J 131 208 279 316 Varenne Herveacute 208 Vasilyuk Fyodor 6 106 Vianna Eduardo 25 102 153 161 333 335 346

351 370 von Glasersfeld Ernst 159 Vygodskaya Gita L 95 Vygotsky Lev S see subject index

Wartofsky Max 6 277 Wells Gordon 75 275 352 Wenger Etienne 132 256 292 327 333 Wertsch James 3 75 ndash 77 148 153 154 332 West Cornel 33 109 165 166 White Sheldon 47 75 114 130 Whitehead Alfred N 32 76 190 225 281 Williams Raymond 298 Winston Andrew S 56 Witherington David C 118 119 122

Young Michael 62 69 290

Zaporozhets Alexander V 135 139 268 278 279

Zinchenko Pyotr I 311 312 Zinchenko Vladimir P 6 162 278 Žižek Slavoj 244 317


415

415

Subject Index

activism 10 19 33 ndash 34 36 ndash 39 67 72 75 83 85 233 365

knowledge 91 92 331 333 tools of 249 262 340 347

activist transformative agendas 62 63 65 67 71 ndash 73 83 85 91

activist transformative methodology 8 26 27 31 32 37 ndash 40 52 62 63 65 68 ndash 70 72 87 ndash 90 97 ndash 99 103 106 107 109 113 114 334

as a philosophy of practice 100 101 activist transformative projects 19 85 240

305 325 332 337 365 372 comparison to pragmatism 109 110 ethical commitment 88 ndash 91 ideological partiality 70 sought- aft er future 69 88 91 112 Vygotskyrsquos see Vygotskyrsquos project

activist striving 245 254 ndash 258 271 283 286 305 325 329 336 355 357 362 364

beyond experiencing and participating 256 328

beyond ldquoimmediaterdquo reality 257 beyond ldquoundergoingrdquo 256

activity see also practice 5 29 57 74 78 84 85 121 131 132 172 178 ndash 180 183 184 198 202 203 210 231 255 261 268 ndash 273 278 308 360

leading activity 228 338 Leontievrsquos notion of 146 ndash 150 life activity 179 pragmatism 151 ndash 154 temporality 273 274 Vygotskyrsquos notion 97 103 105 138 141 ndash 143

145 ndash 147 152 153 157 ndash 160 162 164 309 actor- network theory 186 204 206

agentive actors 7 11 18 29 31 34 ndash 36 79 82 92 95 112 120 123 131 144 ndash 145 151 171 173 176 181 185 195 200 205 ndash 207 211 214 220 223 ndash 225 248 252 ndash 255 258 ndash 260 262 269 270 297 299 300 313 319 321 327 331 335 343 348 ndash 351 357 365 371 see also agency

as makers of their own history 252 adaptation 27 36 42 47 58 87 89 108 110

138 139 144 171 224 328 versus transformation see activist

transformative stance addressivity 10 238 239 Afrocentric perspectives 44 ndash 46 72 73 agency 2 ndash 4 19 25 28 ndash 31 33 ndash 36 50 57 61

75 ndash 87 92 114 ndash 115 168 171 ndash 173 175 ndash 177 181 ndash 186 188 189 198 ndash 200 220 256 270 319 ndash 321 333 349 ndash 351 371 372

as agentive encounter 253 254 breaking with the immediacy 227 as a capacity for onersquos unique position

stance and voice 248 contribution 225 228 247 ndash 252 cooperative reciprocity 360 dualism of agency and structure (critique

of) 31 215 216 ldquoengaged agencyrdquo 181 269 319 future 223 227 235 historicity temporality 211 222 mattering 204 205 221 230 mentalist conception 224 not as a given 84 practical relevance 228 229 social cognitive perspective (pragmatism)

223 224


Subject Index416

416

togetherness 247 tools of agency see cultural tools transformative (activist) agency 79 225 226

283 337 authoring see co- authoring

becoming 252 254 255 258 281 283 285 286 295 296

activist project 240 308 agentive becoming 283 co- being 288 289 a continuous circuit of 255 as life project see life agenda mutual becoming 213 as ontologically constituted by acts of

transformation 192 as striving see activist striving through changing the world 197 254

258 283 work of becoming 298

being- knowing- doing 281 282 289 330 357 agentive becoming 281 285 286 295 296 co- constitutive of the world 320 ldquocontinuous circuitrdquo 255 future 241 252 330 ndash 332 phenomenological richness 210 struggle of becoming 198 unity of life projects 260

biological reductionism 3 24 49 50 58 60 63 77 83 115 154 217 250 265 302 315

genetic ldquoblueprintrdquo models 302 ldquohard- wiredrdquo inborn dispositions (critique

of) 25 49 Body 59 85 98 144 149 186 266 277 ndash 280

293 298 299 302 310 312 ndash 317 bodily movements 213 256 299 312

brain 26 29 42 49 50 52 56 63 98 134 ndash 136 209 266 267 270 ndash 272 277 280 281 298 ndash 301 306 307 311 313 ndash 316 320 322

change 1 ndash 8 11 14 ndash 21 23 25 30 34 62 66 70 91 109 110 121 122 128 171 ndash 173 175 189 196 ndash 204 368 370

co- constitutive 31 176 194 commitment see commitment and change Darwinrsquos notion 193 Deweyrsquos (pragmatist) notion 40 161

194 ndash 196 224 epigenetic change 273 ethical dimension see ethics and change

future 31 90 236 247 274 305 inevitability 243 244 Marxist- Vygotskian notion 115 132 134 136

138 ndash 142 168 194 197 201 309 Materiality 203 ontologically real 32 192 ndash 194 197 203 260

261 266 269 271 politics 244 practice 191 194 202 striving see human striving transformative act 181 182 192 196 198 211

212 215 218 220 233 234 252 253 257 271 276 331 367

versus adaptation 52 198 219 366 chronotope 188 189 211 co- creator 35 83 173 181 207 249 259 289

320 331 Civil Rights movement 72 80 390 391 co- authoring 7 ndash 9 19 32 36 83 144 213 228

229 248 249 252 262 274 318 321 327 340 344 347 351 371

collaborative project 19 177 194 225 233 285 298 313 319 346 366

commitment 9 ndash 12 26 ndash 28 31 ndash 40 63 69 ndash 73 87 ndash 91 99 113 172 173 185 198 ndash 201 207 231 241 ndash 246 258 277 282 286 ndash 289 329

change 85 230 282 287 330 332 334 346 367 contribution 214 ethics see ethics future see future and commitment pragmatism 166 truth of commitment 111 114 359 Vygotskyrsquos commitment see Vygotskyrsquos

project complementary roots of Dewey Piaget and

Vygotsky 127 ndash 132 143 145 146 149 ndash 155 conceptual revolution 28 42 contrasts among Dewey Piaget and Vygotsky

132 150 156 ndash 161 167 168 constitutive relationism 130 contribution 5 8 11 19 25 35 36 87 171 173

181 182 201 206 210 ndash 216 226 232 234 247 259 260 327 334 361

development 350 352 mind 280 282 318 immediate carriers and constituents 214 irreplaceable role 211 212 participation 11 87 249 328 353 354 realizing connections between individual

and collective 210 211 271 362 recognition 87

agency (cont)


Subject Index 417

417

creativity 234 262 276 286 319 320 versus coping and copying 110 ndash 112 291

crisis of inequality 13 14 17 20 23 ndash 26 42 47 ndash 51 56 58 60 64 68 80 90 107 11 349 ndash 351 364 369 370 372

critical pedagogy 5 28 52 65 ndash 67 107 187 215 230 249 258 336 340 357 363

critical race theory 68 107 365 cultural- historical activity theory (activity

theory) 57 66 68 75 79 173 177 186 ndash 190 198 208 268 270 278 ndash 281 289 299 302 309 ndash 312 318

cultural materialism 298 cultural mediation 5 24 ndash 28 35 51 89 92 96

97 104 105 108 116 156 184 215 219 248 257 267 289 290 295 302 309

materiality of signs 296 memory 309 310 mind as symbolically (semiotically)

mediated activity 291 294 semiotic distance 290 292 294 teaching- learning see teaching- learning

cultural tools 25 29 31 33 35 37 84 92 96 104 141 159 162 167 175 178 179 202 209 214 225 290 299 309 325 326 371

agency see tools of agency future 196 mind see tools of the mind signs 116 294 295 298 tool- and- result 27 108 tools of being- knowing- doing 92

Darwinrsquos theory theory of evolution 115 128 129 132 ndash 134

social Darwinism 90 development

ldquoachievement of togethernessrdquo 25 83 87 391

collaborative ldquowork- in- progressrdquo 233 252 290 325 350

hybrid- type process (critique of) 151 152 notion of 139 ndash 140 143 natural and cultural lines of development

141 ndash 143 146 social situation of 142

developmental contextualism 120 developmental systems perspective (DSP) 118

119 122 127 134 dialogical approaches 76 107 131 174 175 287

297 364

dialogue 11 12 56 76 79 125 128 130 228 232 241 245 253 256 276 297 299 310 322 328 348 358 368

distributed approaches (distributed cognition) 28 29 56 59 75 ndash 77 79 98 193 265 270 280 292 298 299 313 315 ndash 317 321

dynamic systems theory (DST) 59 131 134 136 139 147 160 279

ecological approach 6 29 52 67 76 130 132 145 223 225 261 278 292 293 326

cognitive ecologies 311 embodied- active- situated- cognition 315 317 embodied enacted cognition theories 29 131

279 317 embodiment 28 29 75 79 98 131 151 154 159

161 206 208 265 271 278 279 284 292 293 308 310 311 313 315 ndash 320

emotions 199 253 289 319 338 encounter 20 35 113 158 172 251 253 ndash 259 261

280 295 328 versus experiencing 251 328 with foreign meanings 16 life agendas 282

ldquoend of historyrdquo metaphor (critique of) 17 243

end point 7 33 63 70 90 110 114 165 231 232 237 238 240 246 359

anthropocentrism 250 critique of ldquoteleologyrdquo 63 196 199 200 ethical 231 286 future 249 254 inevitability 87 250 251 non- dogmatic 242 245 ndash 246 open striving 240 ndash 243 246 251 ldquooughtrdquo 200 232 238 240 243 245 327 353

359 364 shift ing lines of possibilities 240 241 242 versus linear directionality 241 242

essentialist thinking (critique of) 28 50 ndash 52 55 80 86 116 151 193 194 219 332

ethics ethical dimensions 66 70 71 73 79 87 88 91 102 110 ndash 114 172 250 285 ndash 289 291 296 328 338

commitment 243 253 329 363 communitarian 370 at the core of reality 199 ethical- normative grounds 38 87 359 ethico- political praxis 63 244 future 231 232 233 Marxist 370


Subject Index418

418

in practice 202 211 231 solidarity see ethos of solidarity and

equality ethos of adaptation (sociobiological or

neo- Darwinin ethos) 13 14 24 49 55 76 79 96 99 176 219 267 291 328 343 349

ethos of solidarity and equality 13 14 26 31 33 36 38 83 87 88 91 96 99 107 109 112 ndash 114 249 251 350 ndash 354

versus ideology of control 88 equality 14 25 26 87 88 113 251 353 361 363

370 371 freedom 84 fundamental premise of 26 27 366 ideal of 65 73 90 95 96 105 328 radical activist agenda of 39 40 quest of achieving equality 33 38 89 91

108 112 195 350 eugenics (danger of) 24 50 experiencing experience 34 53 54 60 69 74

78 80 121 130 150 174 180 184 185 192 209 221 251 ndash 257 276 282 284 291 292 319 338 354

contemplative (spectator) phenomenology 151 210

metaphor of ldquobeing thererdquo (dwelling) 193 252 261

mind see mind and experience pragmatist notion of 150 164 ndash 166 256

Feminist scholarship 5 6 28 53 67 80 81 87 90 228 236 249 259 359

Black feminist theory 72 73 communitarianism 359 epistemology 44 90 230 ecofeminism 58 Marxist 184 materialsim 58 204

freedom autonomy and solidarity 112 113 291 318 350 351 359 ndash 65 371

future 41 50 52 64 75 84 90 112 196 199 214 230 233 234 276 277 285 325

commitment to 32 35 86 179 200 201 207 231 232 239 244 275 327 328

comparison to hope 234 237 ndash 240 future- oriented agendas 233 ndash 237 239 327 invented and realized 18 ndash 20 32 233 235

236 240 363 not predetermined 243 245 250 past and present see interface

in pragmatism 161 166 sought- aft er see sought- aft er future types of 196 vision of a better future 27 83 91 108 111

182 329

general systems theory 117 ldquoGreat Menrdquo tradition (critique of) 7

habitus 217 historicity 29 32 32 84 86 87 113 173 174

189 ndash 191 204 205 207 252 262 286 277 296 299 325 330

communal history 202 historical development of humanity 161 dialectics of transformation and continuity

162 329

identity 28 54 ndash 56 65 68 77 86 228 229 291 305

fundamental paradox of identity 248 ldquoidentity within communityrdquo 82 248 life project 281 284 350 358 loss of 80 ndash 82 211 tools of 347 358

individual- collective (social) 39 195 197 202 211 ndash 219 222 225 ndash 228 235 251 262 317 321 ndash 322 351 367 ndash 370

asymmetry 220 bidirectional co- constitution 214 ldquocollectividualrdquo 214 224 225 239 282 335

336 346 360 365 366 368 372 contra duality 214 216 219 not hyperseparated 82 271 318 343 ontologically commensurate 219 221 power hierarchy 216 truncated reversal of traditional

dualisms 293 infi nite potential 25 26 91 92 325 instrumentalism (critique of) 15 37 49 62 83

109 113 178 197 249 251 305 331 332 ldquointeractionist consensusrdquo (critique of) 57 126

128 151 152 interactive emergence 152 interface of past present and future 29 172

173 190 222 233 237 273 274 284 325 367 368

labor 178 ndash 185 191 198 209 253 257 360 entanglement with nature 208 as ontological process 208

ethics ethical dimensions (cont)


Subject Index 419

419

life agenda 274 280 282 284 286 305 307 334 337 341 358

ldquolived worldrdquo 179 200 203 210 233 actuality 184 arena of struggle and social practice 179

180 191 192 199 200 260 drama of 108 203 225 253 254 258 335 363 lived struggle 179

marginalized (perspectives of) 73 111 247 363 power dynamics and contested sites of

struggle 60 social justice project 244 subordination and passivity 255 supreme objectivity 236 245 ndash 247 truth of the struggle 359 363 364

marketization of science 14 83 materialism

demanding nature 180 matter as designating radical alterity 197 198 negativity 198 ldquonew materialismrdquo 58

matter materiality communal history 202 as existing in mattering 203 human subjectivity (eg goals) 199 impoverished notion 202 intra- activity 204 struggle and active striving 198

Marxism 6 13 65 80 86 99 100 102 107 162 167 168 197 208 359

canonical Marxism 5 7 35 172 175 180 183 208 215 362

commitment and end point 85 88 91 243 244 250 359

inevitability necessity 243 250 251 Darwin 193 Dewey (in comparison with) 195 freedom (ethics of) 360 ndash 362 370 371 Freire 335 364 history 162 252 241 242 history and change 193 194 197 201 261 method 114 ontology 207 open Marxism 84 political 242 243 250 251 struggle 250 251 360 ndash 364 truth 251 utopia 250 Vygotsky (see Vygotskyrsquos Marxist roots and

common legacy )

Marxist philosophy 4 36 66 74 75 85 127 175 299 368

ldquoin order to know the world we have to change itrdquo motto 197 200

ldquomaster narrativesrdquo (critique of ) 37 83 metanarratives metadiscourses 53 77 meaning 289 290 294 ndash 297

as a material productive process 297 power 254 297

mechanistic worldview 24 76 84 115 119 125 128 129 132 145 154 251 339

memory creating novelty and inventing the future

305 307 future- oriented agendas 305 ndash 307 309 ndash 313 identity and becoming 305 307 311 mattering in a world shared with others

305 308 meaningful quest and activist striving 305

307 308 309 313 315 passive view versus active ldquodoingrdquo 303 304

305 310 311 sociocultural and narrative models 304 305

mind action- oriented theories 279 activist striving 317 308 309 authoring 274 automatization and immediacy (critique

of) 290 291 292 emergent quality of collective activity 266

267 270 272 ldquoidealrdquo 272 life agendas and projects 274 280 281

282 286 making up the mind though mattering 258

319 321 mindful acting 272 motor action sensorimotor 278 279 non- dualist and non- mentalist account of

266 267 269 270 271 273 293 294 318 322 ontological status 271 projecting into the future 273 274 276 280

282 290 311 318 refl ection (critique of) 75 sought- aft er future 276 277 285 318 social practice 271 316 318 320 taking up the world from an activist

stance 321 temporality 273 274 282 290 transformative co- authoring and taking up

the world 274 318 ndash 320


Subject Index420

420

neural plasticity 301 302 normativity 36 38 43 44 47 83 333 348 359

of equality see equality ideals and norms 36 64 70 87 113 165 198

349 354 359 363 judgments 222 242 251

objectivity 39 42 ndash 48 54 55 69 83 85 90 109 259

dogmatic version 73 89 180 183 184 359 objectivist canons 42 48 partisanship 39 47 70 71 110 253 ndash 255 259

317 319 330 358 realism 200 s objectivity 192 199 201 202 254 strong objectivity 112 value- neutrality models (critique of) 38 46

47 60 63 64 66 72 87 372

participation 11 34 35 74 78 88 106 125 145 151 171 174 175 182 210 228 247 249 253 256 293 310 311 315 320 ndash 322 326 ndash 329 333 ndash 335 340 344 353 ndash 355 361

versus acquisition 78 ndash 79 participatory democracy 87 166 352 participatory (situated) learning 28 29 52 66

67 261 292 326 ndash 328 play 283 348 plurality perspective pluralism 26 31 38 39

53 55 61 70 81 82 363 pedagogy of daring 353 358 359 364 367 368 pedagogy of hope 232 357 364 perception 275 276 281

active work of seeing 277 278 postuplenine 188 209 210 289 practice see also activity

action potentials 220 arena of social struggle and human deeds

192 200 297 collaborative praxis 156 159 181 communal world and collective forum

181 252 continuous fl ow of 162 culture 298 ldquofabricatedrdquo assembled and circulated 180

204 206 207 labor 158 178 179 183 184 195 198 261 mattering meaning 296 not preexisting 295 ldquoperpetual metabolismrdquo 189 political ecology and geography 189

reality- in- the- making 363 subjectivity 260 taking place on the boundaries 220 transformative 167 171 192 280 ldquoworld- historical activityrdquo 84 202

practical philosophy 13 practice theories 79 185 209 293 327 process ontology 127 129

racialized science 50 ratchet eff ect 190 realism 27 200

ldquogivennessrdquo of the world (critique of) 27 108 176 192 193 198 256 280 284

ldquoplural realismrdquo (critique of) 66 reality

actuality and ldquolived worldrdquo 179 agent- dependent 213 221 arena of human struggle and activist

striving 199 given in the act of taking it up 25 ldquoin the makingrdquo 200 253 open- ended dynamic historicity 86 87

relationality (relationism) 116 ndash 123 125 134 153 173 190 255 287 326

relational worldview 115 123 127 132 133 134 143 145 153 161 163 208

relativism 39 61 63 66 107 109 110 114 260 relativizing relativism 110

social justice 13 23 26 48 65 67 68 70 72 84 88 95 ndash 97 108 109 113 114 195 242 244 350 351 359 363 364 370 371

solidaristic communities 72 82 solidarity see ethos of schooling 13 48 see also teaching- learning

marketization of 83 testing (critique of) 13 44 47 48 52 58

90 275 transmission model (critique of) 49 346

socio- nature 189 sought- aft er future 5 7 11 30 ndash 35 37 69 88

113 200 227 236 239 240 254 269 274 327 364

prolepsis 238 240 situativity situated (approaches and views) 10

38 47 54 ndash 56 73 75 ndash 77 83 104 125 131 153 292 295 299 308 312 315 337 364

beyond situativity 145 150 151 179 181 192 193 226 243 247 294 299 305 317 318 326 328 330


Subject Index 421

421

development 25 28 29 79 80 87 120 dynamics 10 14 37 84 268 284 knowledge 39 43 45 70 236 learning theory 29 292 327 mind cognition 24 28 29 78 79 261 252

266 279 315 ndash 317 ldquomore- than- situatedrdquo 320

standpoint theory and epistemology 5 90 superseding (the notion of) 142 146 162

164 173

teaching- learning 325 ndash 367 activist stance and agenda 328 329 332 ndash 334

337 ndash 339 340 ndash 343 346 ndash 348 352 355 357 ndash 362 365 ndash 371

activist striving 329 335 336 horizon of the ought 330 358 identity 327 330 ndash 339 340 ndash 342 345 347

350 350 meaningful knowledge as based in

commitment 330 passive models of acquisition (critique

of) 329 passive models of transmission (critique of)

10 40 49 66 78 162 326 332 339 341 342 346 347 353

sought- aft er future 329 330 335 351 354 355 358

transformative activist endeavor 331 problem- posing 341

telos see end point theory and practice 99 101

practice- theory- practice cycles 102 tools see cultural tools tools of agency 38 40 227 248 249 262 283

331 337 339 ndash 355 357 361 365 367 368 371 tools of the mind 266 267 271 302 310 316 transactional model 120 transformative activist stance (TAS) 4 7 14

26 32 36 171 174 192 197 200 206 213 ndash 216 225 226 230 ndash 232 235 ndash 239 245 248 256 261 280 285 294 305

ldquoaccessrdquo to the world - 260 261 269 affi rming the future- to- come 233 235 authoring authentic voice and position

248 284 285 335 344 346 becoming 283 305 defi nition of 114 ethics 286 288 289

equality 91 future see sought- aft er future the key constituent of being knowing and

doing 232 knowing 261 327 330 memory 312 314 ndash 319 versus neutrality 235 onto- epistemology 193 198 200 ndash 203 259 openness 246 250 outline of 30 ndash 33 versus subjectivism 259 260 284 teaching- learning see teaching- learning zpd 240 326

truth 44 45 88 107 110 112 114 218 232 246 356 357 363

activism 358 363 as created 110 364 fl agrantly partisan 110 practice 100 109 111 pragmatism 109 166 261 regime of 66 rigid standards 53

unit of analysis 186 ndash 187 universality claims (critique of) 60 utopia 6 33 41 52 91 234 243 250 367

Vygotskyrsquos project collaborative endeavor 95 critical theorist 98 107 ldquodefi cit modelrdquo of dis ability (critique

of) 105 general description of 115 ndash 123 ideological- political ethos and agenda 27 91

96 97 108 109 113 114 language and speech 103 104 Marxist roots 74 85 88 91 109 112

166 ndash 168 175 193 ndash 195 214 250 268 359 363 369

passionate quest for equality and justice 89 105 99 108

rebellious gist 219 representational theory (critique of) 104 unique blend of theory practice ideology

and politics 95 varying interpretations 10 ndash 12

zone of proximal development (zpd) 96 104 139 235 240 275 325 326 353


Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction Setting the Stage The Paradox of Continuity versus Change

Part I

1 Charting the Agenda From Adaptationto Transformation

2 Situating Theory The Charges and Challenges of Theorizing Activism

Part II

3 Vygotskyrsquos Project Methodology as the Philosophy of Method

4 Vygotskyrsquos Project Relational Ontology

5 Vygotskyrsquos Project From Relational Ontology toTransformative Worldview

Part III

6 Transformative Activist Stance Ontology and Epistemology

7 Transformative Activist Stance Agency

8 Transformative Activist Stance Encountering the Future through Commitment to Change

Part IV

9 The Mind That Matters

10 Illustration Memory and Anticipation of the Future

Part V

11 Implications for Education Teaching- Learning and Development as Activist Projects


Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

the transformative mind: expanding vygotskyâ€™s approach to development and education

Documents