Clay Spinuzzi discusses his extensive research on workplace studies and the complexities of applying activity theory (AT) to various disciplines, including entrepreneurship and writing theory. He highlights the evolution of AT through historical concepts and emphasizes its relevance in understanding collective activities and social engagement. The document also suggests potential interdisciplinary applications of his work in fields like professional writing and human-computer interaction.

1. What’s wrong with
CHAT?
Clay Spinuzzi
University of Texas at Austin

2. What’s wrong with
“What’s Wrong with
CHAT?”?
Clay Spinuzzi
University of Texas at Austin

3. A quick word about
what I’ve been up to
for the last 20 years

4. Field studies of workplaces

5. Field studies of...
Software developers
Traffic safety workers
Telecommunications workers
Office workers
Freelancers
Search engine optimization
specialists
Coworkers (in coworking spaces)
Innovators learning to be
entrepreneurs

6. Common threads
in these studies
Multiple, often quotidian texts
Composed and assembled
innovatively, sometimes
idiosyncratically
Yielding solutions that balance
stability and flexibility
(centripetal/centrifugal)
Within bounded cases (bounded by a
relatively stable, mutually defined
activity)

7. Activity theory

8. Activity theory...
… and Bakhtinian genre theory (Tracing Genres, 2003)
… and actor-network theory (Network, 2008)
… and organizational networks (All Edge, 2015)
AT is overly complicated. We can talk about it if you want...

9. Choose your own adventure!
“Your conceptual
framework”: Basics of AT?
“Your methodology and
methods”: AT and
methodology?
“The conclusions you are
drawing”: Rhetorically
pivoting AT?
“[How] your work could
speak to or be used by
scholars from a different
discipline”

10. “Your conceptual
framework”

11. Stimulus-response (this is how animals live!)
S R

12. Mediation through physical or psychological tools (ex: egocentric speech)
S r
m

13. Mediation at the social level (cyclically repeated labor)
(also handy for bounding case studies of work)
Subject (actor/s) object(ive)
(material,
projective)
Mediating artifact(s)
Community
(stakeholders)
outcome
Rules Division of labor

14. Levels of activity: To explain learning and development in collective activities
Level of activity Characteristics
Activity (Macro level)
Culture, history; objectives and outcomes; usually
unconscious
Action (Meso level) Actions and goals; conscious
Operations (Micro
level) Habits and reactions; unconscious

15. “Your methodology
and methods”

16. Field research in case studies
(not ethnographies)
Observations
Interviews
Artifact analysis (including textual analysis)
Others as they might be useful
Cf. Topsight (2013)

17. “The conclusions
you are drawing”

18. “I’m using a Soviet theory
to study entrepreneurship.”
— me, 2014

19. “Generations” of AT, with historical accretions of concepts*
* An ANT-based translation analysis
1GAT
2GAT
3GAT
mediation, internalization, proximal development
activity system, structure of activity
activity networks, contradictions, rules

20. 3GAT was
applied to design
research
And consequently changed in
fundamental ways
From research subjects to
participants
From individual to collective
subjects
From prediction to description (and
deliberation)
From individual activities to
networked activities

21. 1GAT
2GAT
3GAT
4GATRhetorical pivots—as assumptions and
justifications reach their shelf life

22. The next pivot?
A “rough draft”
Application: Apply AT to
sociocognitive, not just social,
research into writing
Theory: Rebuild activity theory
around dialogism
Phenomenon: Understand the
object(ive) as multiple
Development: Theorize interfering
cycles of development

23. “[How] your work
could speak to or be
used by scholars
from a different
discipline”

24. Applications in...
Professional writing
Technology studies
Human dimensions of organizations
Studies of work
HCI/CSCW
wherever AT has spread.