Activity U (VIII): Project as a Unit of Activity

A proposal, a case study, and a diagram about Andy Blunden’s project-oriented theoretical approach.

Dialogue in Context (by Oliver Ding)

I am recently working on two frameworks which are both inspired by Activity Theory. The first one is the Life-as-Activity approach, I adopted Yrjö Engeström’s Activity Systems model (1987) which is a popular theoretical approach of Activity Theory and Howard E. Gruber’s Evolving Systems approach to the study of creative work as major theoretical resources for discussing biographical studies. I use trem “life, projects, and events” for Life-as-Activity approach. The term “Projects” is adopted from Gruber’s approach.

The second one is the Platform for Development (P4D) framework, I adopted Andy Blunden’s Project-oriented theoretical approach (2014) which is the newest development of Activity Theory and James Gibson’s Ecological Psychology as major theoretical resources for discussing platform-based activities. Inspired by Ecological Psychology’s concept Affordance, I developed a new concept called Supportance for defining Platform. By adopting the notion of “Project as a unit of Activity”, I defined a nested social structure Platform[Project(People)] as the core of the framework.

The Activity U project has been planned to introduce Andy Blunden’s Project-oriented theoretical approach. This article aims to provide…