The Concept of Attachance (A list of articles)
I coined the term Attachance by combining Attach and Chance in 2018 to discuss some ideas related to Affordance, a core idea of Ecological Psychology.
Affordance means potential action opportunities offered by environments. I want to highlight the meaning and value of actual action itself, however, the term Affordance only refers to potential actions. Thus, I coined the term Attachance to emphasize the potential opportunities offered by actual actions, especially the attaching act and the detaching act.
In 2019, I started working on my own theoretical account of the Ecological Practice approach after finishing a book titled Curativity. The 2019 version of the approach is a curated toolkit version. The concept of Attachance is part of the toolkit. In May 2020, I wrote a book titled After Affordance: The Ecological Approach to Human Action in which I proposed several new theoretical ideas for expanding ecological psychology to the modern digital environment. The primary theme of After Affordance is the concept of Attachance.
The concept of Attachance is planned to develop as 1) an ecological practice concept for practice studies such as interaction design and startup innovation, and 2) a philosophical concept for developing a social theory.
The book After Affordance only achieves the first goal and it focuses on the following acts:
- Attaching to an environment
- Detaching from an environment
- Attaching to an object
- Detaching from an object
I use the concept of Attachance in many ways.
- The Attachance Perspective refers to its philosophical meaning. You can find more details in D as Diagramming: The Attachance Perspective.
- The theoretical concept of “Attachance” for the Ecological Practice Approach. It refers to what I explored in the 2020 book After Affordance. For example, I used it and Affordance together for discussing creative actions. You can find more details in Creative Actions: Second-order Affordance and Attachance.
- The word “Attachance” is for informal discussions. I often discuss some stories or topics from the perspective of Attachance. You can find an example in Possible Practices: Attach, Detach, and Opportunities.
In 2022, the development of Attachance was tied to the development of Thematic Space which refers to a specific type of container: cognitive container. You can find more details in [Slow Cognition] The Development of the concept of “Thematic Spaces”.
On March 10, 2023, I wrote a short post about the development of “Attachance” on Linkedin.
In order to highlight this significant insight, I made a new possible theme called “Mental Moves”.
On March 24, 2023, I wrote a long post about the theme of “Mental Moves” and designed a plan for the “Mental Moves” knowledge project:
I am going to curate more examples about “Moving between Thematic Spaces” and edit a possible book titled Mental Moves: The Attachances of Moving Mental Elements.
You can find more details in the following links:
- TALE: A Possible Theme called “Mental Moves”
- Creative Action: The Chance-configuration Theory and Beyond
- Creative Action: The Attachance of Moving Mental Elements
This article continues the journey and collects my articles about the concept of Attachance.
2020
2021
- Sept 17, 2021 — D as Diagramming: The Attachance Perspective
- Sept 27, 2021 — Possible Practices: Attach, Detach, and Opportunities
- Dec 28, 2021 — Diagram Blending: Building Diagram Networks (Table of Contents)
Chapter 2: The Attachance of Diagram…(Added on May 2, 2023)
2022
- Jan 5, 2022 — The Notion of Thematic Spaces
- Jan 14, 2022 — Thematic Space: Sparks In, Status Out
- Jan 17, 2022 — Thematic Space: The Art of Continuous Discovery
- Jan 21, 2022 — Mapping Thematic Space #3: The “Platform” Thematic Space
This is not a simple top-down path. In the beginning, I wanted to apply the ecological practice approach to study platform. Then, I discovered the concept of Supportance in order to find a concept for explaining “platform — platformba”. Later, I detached the concept of Supportance from the “platform” thematic space and attached it to the Ecological Practice approach.
I’d like to use my own term Attachance to describe it. You just need to attach mental focus to a container at a particular time and detach it from the container at the other time. A creative life is always about attaching and detaching. The Attachance perspective emphasizes the value and meaning of the attaching acts and the detaching acts, especially the cross-boundary actions. My passion behind the Attachance perspective is:
I want to encourage people to practice the detaching acts and the attaching acts.
This is the only way to remove the boundary between your life and the world. A new theory should give people hope and help.
…(Added on August 3, 2023)
- Jan 25, 2022 — Thematic Space: A “Strategy-as-Curation”Weekend
Attachance leads to Sense of Boundaryless because actions of Attaching and Detaching reduces the boundary’s impact to a person…(Added on August 3, 2023)
- Feb 13, 2022 — Life Discovery: The Life-as-Project Approach
- March 6, 2022 — Lifesystem: Theory-based Reflection
- April 13, 2022 — Lifesystem: The Notion of Affordance Analysis
- May 19, 2022 — Knowledge Discovery (Book)
…There are six movements between these three states and each movement refers to a specific type of Attachance…(Added on May 1, 2023)
- May 24, 2022 — Slow Cognition: It takes a village to raise a creative mind
- May 29, 2022 — Platform Genidentity: The Movements of Unfolding Uniqueness
- June 7, 2022 — #TalkThree 04: How Does Collective Learning Work? — “Project Network” > “Knowledge Network”
- June 11, 2022 — Creative Actions: Second-order Affordance and Attachance
- June 22, 2022 — Slow Cognition: How did I develop Curativity Theory?
Part 4: Reflections
4.1 Attachance 1: “Bagging as Curation” to “Curation Theory”
4.2 Attachance 2: “Curation Theory” to “Curation as Practice”
4.3 Attachance 3: “Curation as Practice” to “Practice as Curation”
4.4 The Final Words
(Added on August 2, 2023)
On July 2, 2022, I just realized that I didn’t mention Project-oriented Activity Theory in the following paragraph. I used the “theme” of “Life Discovery”, not the “concept” of “Life Discovery”.
…
Why didn’t I apply Project-oriented Activity Theory to the Life Discovery Project since I am the author of Project-oriented Activity Theory?
Because I intended to develop a new approach called “Project-centered Approach” which detaches from Project-oriented Activity Theory.
However, what I did with the concept of “Life Discovery” is described by Project-oriented Activity Theory. (Added on June 9, 2023)
- July 7, 2022 — Life Strategy: Moving between Thematic Spaces
- July 2022 — [Project Engagement] The Model of “Project Network” — (Linkedin post)
- July 19, 2022 — [Slow Cognition] The Development of the concept of “Thematic Spaces”
- July 20, 2022 — [Slow Cognition] The Project Engagement Approach (v2, 2022) — (Linkedin post)
- July 24, 2022 — [Project Engagement] The Version 0.1 of the Project Engagement Approach — (Linkedin post)
- July 30, 2022 — [Ecological Practice] Creative Attachance and Moving between Thematic Space — (Linkedin post)
- August 2, 2022 — [Activity Analysis Center] Project Engagement as an Innovation Approach — (Linkedin post)
- August 5, 2022 — [Ecological Practice Design] A Typology of Perspectives — “Points of Observation” — (Linkedin post)
- August 28, 2022 — Slow Cognition: The Development of AAS (August 21, 2021 — August 26, 2022) — “Theme U”
- Sept 9, 2022 — The Attachance Framework (2018) and Thematic Engagement
- Sept 15, 2022 — The Thematic Engagement Toolkit (v1.0) — “The Attachance of Thematic Engagement”
- Sept 29, 2022 — [CALL] The Attachance Approach to Creative Journey
- Nov 1, 2022 — [Life Strategy Center] Attchance: Moving between Thematic Spaces — (Linkedin post)
- Nov 3, 2022 — Life Strategy: Kinds of Project Engagement
- Nov 4, 2022 — [Life Strategy] The Complexity of Life Strategy Activity — (Linkedin post)
- Nov 10, 2022 — [Activity Analysis] The Activity Circle (Oliver Ding, 2017) — Redisovery — (Linkedin post)
- Nov 17, 2022 — Life Strategy: A Five-space Model for Strategic Curation
Now we can use the Five-space model to map the dynamics of Strategic Curation…There are 14 types of possible moves between five spaces! (Added on May 22, 2023)
- Dec 8, 2022 — Life Strategy: Ecological Strategic Cognition
Based on the Strategic Curation model, we can claim that Strategic Cognition is a process of moving between five thematic spaces in order to master strategy-related thinking and doing.
- Dec 31, 2022 — Appropriating Activity Theory (Book)
2023
- Jan 27, 2023 — TALE: Possible Configurations of A Theme Network
- Feb 4, 2023 — [Thematic Space] Design as Moving between several Thematic Spaces (Linkedin post)
- Feb 12, 2023 — TALE: A Possible Theme called “Product as Thing”
- Feb 16, 2023 — TALE: A Possible Theme called “Continuous Curation”
- Feb 28, 2023 — TALE: Product, Langue, and Speech
… The Attachance framework for “attach” and “detach” is inspired by William James’ relation theory.
…Inspired by this relation theory, I discover the following five types of product speech. (Added on June 9, 2023)
- March 4, 2023 — Creative Action: The Chance-configuration Theory and Beyond
- March 8, 2023 — Creative Action: The Attachance of Moving Mental Elements
- March 10, 2023 — [Knowledge Engagement] How to develop a concept called “Attachance”?
- March 10, 2023 — #TalkThree 19: The Art of Semantic Awareness
- March 23, 2023 — The Knowledge Engagement Framework (v4)
- March 24, 2023 — TALE: A Possible Theme called “Mental Moves”
- March 23, 2023 — TALE: The “Strategic Thematic Exploration” Framework
Moves between Knowledge Centers. (Added on May 22, 2023)
- March 30, 2023 — TALE: A Possible theme called “Life Coordinate”
The collaboration between CALL and TALE refers to the “Concept — Theme” Attchance. (Added on June 9, 2023)
After curating the above list, I found the initial post about the significant insight “Attachance: Moving between Thematic Spaces”. See the screenshot below:
It is a comment!
Yes!
On July 24, 2022, I wrote a short post to reflect on my experience of writing a thesis titled Project Engagement (v2.1) on Linkedin. See the screenshot below.
After publishing the post, I got the insight “Attachance: Moving between Thematic Spaces” and wrote the comment.
In fact, I had the idea of “Attachance: Moving between Containers” in 2020. See the diagram below. It was introduced in my 2020 book (draft) After Affordance.
However, the concept of “Thematic Spaces” was born in 2022. Originally, it was used to develop the Knowledge Discovery Canvas. Later, I turned it into a theoretical concept for the Project Engagement approach. See the post [Slow Cognition] The Development of the concept of “Thematic Spaces”.
Wow!
I actually used the idea of “Creative Attachance as Moving between Thematic Spaces” as the subtitle of the post.
It means that “the new insight” I made within the common is not new.
- The comment was made on July 24, 2022
- The post was published on July 19, 2022
Though these two insights use the same words, their context is different.
On July 19, 2022, I reviewed the development of the concept of “Thematic Spaces” and mentioned two types of Attachances:
- Social Attachance: “This is a fantastic Social Attachance. I attached my mind to the newest Lifezone which offers me a new opportunity to improve my theoretical frameworks from the perspective of a meta-theory of theoretical sociology.”
- Thematic Attachance: “Also, there is a Thematic Attachance. The connection between ‘Project Engagement’ and ‘Themes of Practice’ can be understood as an attaching action which means I attached the notion of ‘Themes of Practice’ to the ‘Project Engagement’ approach.”
On July 24, 2022, I reviewed the thesis about Project Engagement (v2.1) and the moves between the “Project” thematic space and the “Platform” thematic space.
- “In 2020, I moved from the ‘Project’ thematic space to ‘Platform’ thematic space and attached the concept of ‘Project’ to the Platform for Development framework.”
- “In 2022, I moved back from the ‘Platform’ thematic space to the ‘Project’ thematic space. This time, I detached the concept of ‘Platform’ and ‘Platform Genidentity’ framework from the Platform Ecology approach and attached them to the Project Engagement approach (v2.0).”
- “We can use the notion of ‘Moving between Thematic Spaces’ to explain my creative actions.”
Now it is easy to use the model of “Container [Configuration (Mental Elements)]” to visualize the above post.
All examples of “Moving between Thematic Spaces” can be represented with the above model of “Container [Configuration (Mental Elements)]”.
