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... The current social and environmental challenges facing our societies require profound transformations ; Lotz-Sisitka et al., Chapter 10 of this volume; Querol, 2011), which can be facilitated by such pedagogical tools as the theory of transformative agency by double stimulation (TADS) (Sannino & Engeström, 2017;Sannino, 2022, Chapter 2 of this volume;Vänninen et al., 2021). Double stimulation has been widely used in formative interventions, such as the Change Laboratory (CL), to promote transformative agency, understood here as intentional collective and individual actions that aim to transform an activity (Bal and Bird Bear, Chapter 8 of this volume; Virkkunen & Newnham, 2015; Chapter 11 of this volume; , Vänninen et al., 2015. ...
Understanding and promoting agency are crucial to addressing urgent social problems of our time. Through agency, we can take transformative steps toward the future that ought to be. This book shows how contemporary conceptualizations from cultural-historical activity theory can inform research and practice that fosters positive change. At the core of this book's novel approach to agency and transformation are three motifs: motives, mediation, and motion. These take inspiration from the original work of Vygotsky and subsequent generations of scholarship, enabling us to understand agency in ways that recognize the social and cultural aspects of agency without losing sight of individuals' contributions to changing their own lives and the lives of others. Referring to connections between learning, pedagogy, and agency, the chapters address power, freedom, and the future in contexts including adolescence, school exclusion, children's activism, Indigenous communities, environmental activism, homelessness, childbirth, and young people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
... As contradições são forças opostas entre os elementos do SA que criam distúrbios, conflitos e anomalias na atividade de trabalho. Elas podem ser compreendidas através de análise histórica das mudanças na estrutura do sistema de atividade 22,23 . Segundo Engeström 21 , as contradições se subdividem em quatro níveis: primárias, decorrentes do valor de uso e valor de troca das mercadorias, intrínsecos ao sistema capitalista, resolvidas temporariamente pela criação de inovações; secundárias, decorrentes das tensões internas entre os elementos do SA; terciárias, quando ocorrem entre o objeto da atividade anterior e novo objeto expandido, "o novo que se impõe e o velho que resiste"; e quaternárias, entre a atividade central e as que integram a comunidade, impondo outras regras, outros sujeitos participantes ou novos instrumentos. ...
Resumo Introdução: transformações ocorridas na prestação do serviço de Reabilitação Profissional (RP) pelo Instituto Nacional do Seguro Social (INSS) fizeram emergir contradições entre seus resultados e o que se espera de uma política pública de inclusão social. Objetivo: compreender como tais transformações afetaram a atividade de trabalho e como o serviço de RP está lidando com as mudanças e problemas decorrentes. Métodos: realizada análise histórica das contradições entre elementos do sistema de atividade da RP em serviço do INSS localizado no interior do estado de São Paulo. Foram utilizados dados etnográficos e discursivos de intervenção baseada no método Laboratório de Mudança. Resultados: evidenciou-se que o objeto da RP foi historicamente reduzido à orientação e capacitação profissional. Foram identificadas dificuldades do sistema de atividade da RP em lidar com determinações judiciais, além da diminuição da capacidade instalada e acúmulo de tarefas que impactam no atendimento aos trabalhadores. Conclusão: a redução administrativa do objeto da RP, bem como o sistema de atividades apoiado em ações de atores externos à Previdência Social, sem articulação institucional e protocolos de cooperação entre os serviços, demonstra o descompasso entre o desmonte histórico da RP no INSS e a demanda social dos trabalhadores com incapacidades para o trabalho
... Although improvement in biogas technology has been achieved through various means: type and combination of substrates or feedstock [15], [17] and [21]; Feed pattern or/and rate [21]; scaling up; application of economy of scale; and optimization of the system parameters and operating conditions (e.g. temperature, pH, substrate concentration, Total Organic Carbon (TOC) content, optimum particle size, Total Solids (TS), Total Volatile Solids (TVS)) [5], [11], [2], [6], [10]; sustainability of supply of this biomass in the needed quantity, time and location has been a major issue of concern in biogas technology [12], [3] and [27]. Despite the huge potentialities and biomass resources for anaerobic digestion in Africa, [7] noted that the dissemination rate of biogas in Africa is struggling to meet biogas market demand. ...
Cow dung, which is a by-product of grass-eating, digestion and excretion by cow, is often hard to find in some places. This situation has therefore created a yawning gap for the use of mechanical and biochemical processes to mimic grass-eating, digestion and excretion of dung as an alternative way to provide the needed sustainable feedstock for biogas production. This research seeks to convert efficiently grass; elephant grass (pennisetum purpureum) in particular, to biogas. The purpose of the research is to provide a sustainable alternative to cow dung. Elephant grass was obtained, crushed with pulverizer, pre-treated with native potash (as to enhance pH) and inoculated with predetermined quantity of liquid mixture of cow dung from already running digester. After a retention time of 3 to 4 days, copious quantity of biogas started forming. There were however other trials involving the use of: grass and native potash alone, inoculated grass alone, and raw grass only, none of which produced flammable gas, except CO2 only. Our results confirm that biogas of high methane content (64.3%) can be produced from elephant grass using the above stated method. It's therefore also confirmed that grass-to-gas conversion is realizable.
... Also, Patrick, Abdullahi and Bello (2013), among some other challenges facing the biogas production in Nigeria, highlighted the issue of sustainability over a long period of time to meet industry requirements. This was also highlighted by Marco (2011), in his dissertation on learning challenges in biogas production for sustainability -an activity theoretical study of a network from a swine industry chain. Mshandete and Parawira (2009) in their review of Biogas technology research in selected sub-Saharan African countries made a clarion call on African scientists to carry out research in biogas technology to locally demonstrate the feasibility, application, and adaptation of this technology, to help improve the quality of energy supply in their respective countries. ...
... The actions that compose an activity may also lead to undesirable outcomes, which may compromise the activity concerning the achievement of the desirable outcomes. Such undesirable outcomes are called here disturbances (Querol, 2011;Querol and Seppänen, 2012). For example, garbage thrown in an inappropriate bin is a disturbance (an undesirable outcome), as it may generate extra costs and compromise the quality of the recycling waste. ...
Dilemmas, conflicts, disturbances, and contradictions are constantly manifested in organisational environments, which stimulate changes and learning. In order to comprehend the historical and systemic origins of these events, it is necessary to research theoretical and methodological frameworks aiming at avoiding the misunderstanding of them as individual, shortsighted and superficial. This study's objective is to identify and analyse disturbances and contradictory manifestations in organisational management. The development of this method is based on the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, which was empirically applied in the activity of solid waste management of a university hospital. It was possible to analyse the existent disturbances between the ideal disposals of hospital residues and how the community has been discarding them. Therefore, it is necessary to understand that the analysis of the disturbances needs to precede the identification of the main hypothesis that causes the contradictions through the recuperation of the main historical changes occurred.
... Contradiction is positioned as a driving force for change and transformation (Il'enkov 1977) and enables a new object of activity to be identified and new activity conceptualised. Consequently, the concepts of the 'contradiction' and the 'object' have been a central focal point of a number of studies inspired by CHAT (Engeström and Sannino 2011;Martínez-Roldán 2015;Pereira Querol 2011;Vainio 2012). ...
Open education, including the use of open educational resources (OER) and the adoption of open education practice, has the potential to challenge educators to change their practice in fundamental ways. This paper forms part of a larger study focusing on higher education educators’ learning from and through their engagement with OER. The first part of the study was a quantitative survey investigating educators’ learning behaviour when they learned to use OER in their practice. The second part of the study explored qualitatively how educators engaged with OER and how they conceptualised their learning. Data were gathered through interviews with 30 higher education educators. This paper reports the analysis of these interviews. The analysis draws on the theory of self-regulated learning and cultural–historical activity theory to explore the challenges adult education practitioners encounter when changing their practice. The study tests the application of a framework that traces the discursive manifestations of contradictions, exploring how this framework can be used to examine different aspects of self-regulated learning as educators learn how to use OER. We have identified three distinct tensions in higher education educators’ practice: tensions between the emerging needs of the individual (as he or she adopts new forms of practice) and organisational policies; between the transfer of responsibilities from educators to students as new practice is embedded and institutional accountability; and between cost efficiency and learning objectives. The framework for the discursive manifestations of contradictions was a useful tool used to surface these apparent tensions.
... There is proliferation of backyard pig producers which dominate the country's swine industry. About 68.15% of the total fattener stocks were raised in The concept of sustainability usually refers to the long term, and sustainable swine production was described by Querol (2011) as involving minimization of the environmental degradation, local water resources pollution and GHG emission while generating income for farmers. In this study, sustainability of backyard pig production is described as the continuous raising of fattening pigs for at least six production cycles within 3 years. ...
... The findings of the study and identified conflicting situations can be further explored with an activity system within the framework of developmental work research (Engeström (1987). Notable here is that since the objective of this study was to explore the concept of customer, and the analysis focused on the question of 'what a public sector customers is', conflicts and tensions were not analysed in this study as such (see, for example, Engeström & Sannino, 2011, Pereira-Querol, 2011, and Vainio, 2012. Instead, conflicting situations were identified when analysing the concept of customer and changes in the concept with a variety of analytical tools. ...
In the public sector, an emphasis on a customer approach has spread to a number of fields of work in Finland. This thesis investigates the conveyance and development of the concept of customer in four Finnish public organisations. The point of departure for the study is the marketisation of the public sector and the New Public Management (NPM) ideology, which emphasise the benefits of business models in public sector practices. The introduction of the concept of customer is an example of such benefits, and the development of the concept is examined in this particular cultural and historical context. Previous international studies have raised challenges related to customer thinking in the public sector and concerns over official discourses that seem to simplify the fundamental societal implications produced by the customer approach. The theoretical framework of my study is cultural-historical activity theory. The data comprises interviews (53) and documents (42) from each organisation. The studied organisations represent fields of elderly care, children s day care, road management, and academic library work. The findings in the document analysis suggest that in all the studied organisations, the use of the concept of customer has increased along with the introduction of the NPM doctrine. One interesting finding is the variety of conflicting situations which the interviewees experienced regularly in their service encounters. These conflicting situations are related to dominating old organisational structures and practices, which have not developed sufficiently with regard to customer thinking. In addition to these conflicting situations, another interesting finding was shared discourses which were related to the customer approach. My interpretation in this study is that at the core of the concept of the public sector customer are the opposing forces of the private sector s understanding of human beings as responsible individuals with free choice and the public sector s emphasis on collective citizenship and the public good. The opposing forces produce not only a variety of conflicting situations, but also possibilities for the development of the concept. This thesis theoretically opens up the background ideology behind the concept of customer in the public sector and thus increases the understanding of larger ongoing societal changes. The study provides new openings in regard to empirical studies on customer thinking from the perspective of employees. Such research objectives have been limited in number in the Finnish context. One important contribution of this study in regard to studies of working life is its explanation of the origin of conflicting situations from systemic tensions instead of trying to trace their origins to the behaviour of individuals.
... A recent study has analysed the historical contradictions and developmental phases of BP in the 3S Program (10,11). These studies propose that BP was part of Sadia's attempt to deal with environmental problems arising from by swine production. ...
When implementing innovations, disturbances are very likely to take place. Disturbances are undesirable because they can lead to unwanted outcomes, such as economic losses and work overload to workers. However, they can be powerful opportunities for learning and re-designing innovations. Here, we will present activity theoretical tools for analyzing disturbances in a way that they could be used as learning opportunities. We illustrate the proposed tools by analyzing a disturbance that took place during the implementation of a project of biogas production. By interpreting the disturbance process with a network of activity systems, we found that on-farm disturbances were formed as ruptures, innovations and asynchronies originated in other activity systems. This finding suggests that disturbances are outcomes of the functioning of networks, rather than simple results of failure of individuals or technical devices. The proposed tools could be used in interventions to help practitioners and ergonomists to recognize the systemic and networked nature of problems, and therefore, realize that they may require the collaboration of actors from different activities. In this sense, disturbances may be turned into opportunities for learning and developing innovations. We conclude by discussing how the method could be used in ergonomic design and intervention.
Understanding and promoting agency are crucial to addressing urgent social problems of our time. Through agency, we can take transformative steps toward the future that ought to be. This book shows how contemporary conceptualizations from cultural-historical activity theory can inform research and practice that fosters positive change. At the core of this book's novel approach to agency and transformation are three motifs: motives, mediation, and motion. These take inspiration from the original work of Vygotsky and subsequent generations of scholarship, enabling us to understand agency in ways that recognize the social and cultural aspects of agency without losing sight of individuals' contributions to changing their own lives and the lives of others. Referring to connections between learning, pedagogy, and agency, the chapters address power, freedom, and the future in contexts including adolescence, school exclusion, children's activism, Indigenous communities, environmental activism, homelessness, childbirth, and young people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
