The 4 Generations of CHAT
A Brief History of the Activity Theory and Lab of Change Generations
Text by Prof. Marco Querol
Activity Theory can be defined as a science that
understands the world as an aggregate of activities This science has approaches
with specific divergences, interests and characteristics (Blunden, 2023). Within the Historical-Cultural Theory of Activity (CHAT),
there is the Scandinavian School or Finnish School of Activity Theory that
originated from the works of Professor Yrjö Engeström of the University of
Helsinki Finland (Engeström & Sannino, 2021). The first studies conducted at the Finnish School of
Activity Theory began in the 1980s and developed from the mid-1990s at the
Center for Research in Activity, Development and Learning (CRADLE[1]) of the University of Helsinki.
The Finnish school differs by using as a unit of
analysis one or more object-oriented activity systems, contradictions as the
driving force of development, and by the theory of expansive learning (Engeström et al., 2005). This school is also known for the development of
interventionist methodologies such as the Work Development Research and the
Change Lab, among others. More recently, the formation of heterogeneous working
coalitions that tackle critical social problems and forge practical
alternatives to capitalism has been promoted (Sannino, 2020).
When presenting the evolution of Activity Theory,
Engeström and Sannino (2020) divide it into four generations. In the Cambridge
dictionary, among other definitions, generation is defined as the action of
causing when existing. According to Sannino (2025), generation is related to
the act of generating something (Sannino, 2025). A new generation uses the features of the previous
generation. This does not mean that one generation is better than the other, or
that the previous generation becomes obsolete. No. Generations coexist side by
side, in a constant tension to survive, each with a different niche, able to
survive in a specific environment, for a specific purpose.
I, Marco Querol, present as an example of the animal
world help us understand the concept of generation. When studying the evolution
of animal intelligence, the emergence of the neuron in the multicellular
organisms that constitute the first animals (polyps and corals) that are
sedentary is used as an initial model (Bennett, 2023). In order to expand the availability of food,
bilateral animals (e.g., nematodes) start to move in the environment. In doing
so, they encounter contradictory stimuli, such as there is food but a predator.
The animal has to make decisions under contradictory stimuli. To solve this
situation, the brain emerges in bilateral animals, a network of neurons capable
of coordinating contradictory stimuli generating an integrated response.
Bilateral animals represent a second generation in relation to sedentary animals.
However, the neuron that arises in sedentary animals does not cease to exist,
but it becomes a fundamental part of the brain of future generations of
animals. The example shows how the structure of one generation becomes the
basis and resource for a next generation, without extinguishing the basic
principle of the previous generation. In the same way, sedentary animals, such
as corals and polyps, do not cease to exist, but cohabit the Earth with future
generations. By applying the structure of the previous generation, in a new
context, the new generation is able to resolve contradictions in the previous
system.
The four generations of THCA proposed by Engeström and
Sannino (2021) have certain fundamental ideas in common, such as that the
analysis of work should be based on object-oriented, instrument-mediated
practice, and that it transforms through its inherent contradictions.
The first generation, according to Engeström and
Sannino (2021) begins with the Russian Lev Semenovich Vygotsky in the 1930s as
an approach to understanding human consciousness and more complex cognitive
functions (Vygotsky, 1997). For Vygotsky, the theoretical unit of analysis was
an action mediated by cultural artifacts (Zinchenko, 1985). The basic idea is that humans use products of
culture such as words, tools, and signs to get things done.
The second generation is introduced by the Russian
Alexei Nikolaevich Leontiev who worked on the concept of activity (Leont'ev, 1978). Leontiev's concept of activity is later represented
by Engeström (1987) in the activity system model, representing the unit of
analysis of second-generation studies.
In 2001, Yrjö Engeström presented a model composed of
two activity systems with a partially shared object, which became the third
generation (Engeström, 2001). These interconnected activity systems may represent
a producer-client relationship, a partnership, a network, an alliance, or some
other pattern of multi-activity collaboration.
More recently, in view of the need to conceptualize
the process of solving complex social problems, called elusive objects (runaway
objects In English), such as climate change, accident prevention,
homelessness, a fourth generation has been proposed, in which the theoretical
unit of analysis is heterogeneous coalitions of labor. These coalitions usually
aim to solve social problems and create alternatives to capitalism (Sannino, 2020; Sannino &
Engeström, 2018)
The first formative intervention carried out by the
researchers of the Finnish School of Activity Theory took place in the early
1980s and focused on the work and thinking of cleaning professionals employed
by a commercial cleaning services company. This type of intervention
corresponds to what we now call the first-generation Change Lab, although, at
the time, it was not yet called this name. In this intervention, a mediated
work action was adopted as the unit of analysis, represented at the top of the
triangle of the activity system, composed of subject, instruments, object and
expected results.
An important limitation of mediated action as a unit
of analysis — pointed out by Engeström and Sannino (2021) — is that it does not
explicitly address social relations or the organizational insertion of work
actions. This can lead to the tendency to attribute explanations for disorders,
problems, innovations, and transformation processes exclusively to the
individual, disregarding the collective and systemic factors that structure the
activity.
From the 1990s onwards, the formative interventions
developed by the Finnish School of Activity Theory began to adopt the activity
system as the unit of analysis. These interventions used the methodology known
as Work Development Research (Developmental Work Research), in which the
historical contradictions present within and between the elements of the
activity system, as well as the disturbances observed in the present, were
analyzed together with the participants (Engeström et al., 2005). Based on this analysis, a new model was designed and
implemented for the system in question.
In 1996, the first experiment formally titled Change
Laboratory was published, carried out in a postal company in Finland, in the
context of postal service activity (Engeström et al., 1996). As with previous
interventions based on the Work Development Survey, the unit of analysis
remained the activity system. This model is what we can call the second
generation of the Change Labs.
At the end of the 1990s, interventions emerged that
began to adopt two or more interrelated systems of activity as the unit of
analysis. This approach, initially called the Boundary Crossing Laboratory,
which we can call the third generation of the Change Labs.
In the last decade, there has been a growing
recognition that the resolution of wicked problems requires the
involvement not only of multiple activities, but, above all, of activities
located at different systemic levels. Interventions with this scope have been
called 4th Generation Change Labs. The unit of analysis in the 4th generation CLs
proposed by Engeström and Sannino (2020) is a coalition of heterogeneous
activity systems, more precisely multiple coalescing cycles of expansive
learning. Such cycles merge, occurring within and between the activities
involved, with relatively independent and, at the same time, interdependent
dynamics. In other words, the unit of analysis must be learning cycles that
converge and merge, going in the same direction, which is the elusive object –
the social problem that is idealized into expected results.
As the reader may notice while reading the book, CL is
not a fixed method, which imposes rules and steps, but principles that can help
in the process of empowering professionals to conceptualize their problems and
build solutions to them. The type of problems dealt with in a CL ranges from
local technical problems aimed at increasing production to larger societal
problems aimed at network transformations of multilevel activity systems.
References
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https://tuni.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=dd57c9b8-332e-4b01-8d75-b07e00d0250e
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