TALE: The Deep Analogy Technique for Strategic Thematic Exploration

The Development of Activity Theory

On March 31, 2023, I shared my ideas about the Strategic Thematic Exploration framework for knowledge engagement. On April 21, 2023, I made a diagram to represent a network of several themes. See the diagram below.

In the past four months, I worked on the TALE knowledge center which hosts the Thematic Engagement project. I encourage people to select a primary theme and start their journey of knowledge engagement.

The “Strategic Thematic Exploration” theme refers to a technique of capturing inspired ideas and building a framework for the journey of knowledge engagement. Moreover, it emphasizes the “Early Responses” action, the “Chance-configuration” process, and the formulation of “theme network”.

I also introduced Configurational Theory for exploring possible disciplines. You can find more details in A Possible Theme called “Possible Discipline” and A Possible Discipline called “Platform Ecology”.

Eventually, I realized that the “Strategic Thematic Exploration” framework can be expanded into a toolkit. I can introduce more techniques for this framework.

Today I am going to share a story about a technique called “Deep Analogy” for Strategic Thematic Exploration.

On April 21, 2022, I worked in a room without the Internet. I read a thesis which was written by an activity theorist who is researching design.

From 2020 to 2022, I read many papers and books about Activity Theory. I also wrote two books-in-drafts about Activity Theory and built a website called Activity Analysis.

However, I still can capture a significant insight while I was reading a piece about the historical development of Activity Theory in the thesis.

I started working in my notebook and drew a diagram with the “Deep Analogy” technique. On April 22, 2022, I reproduced the diagram on Milanote. You can find more details on this board.

I used “Challenge — Solution” as a deep structure to reflect on the historical development of Activity Theory.

Activity Theorists tend to use a dual structure to describe the original challenge and use a new concept to expand the original structure into a triadic structure.

For example, Lev Vygotsky’s challenge is the “Stimulus-Response” dualism which refers to behaviorism. His solution is adding the third element “Mediation” to turn the “S-R” into a triad of “S-X-R”. For Vygotsky, the Mediating Action is a whole that includes Stimulus, Mediation, and Response. In this way, Vygotsky established a new approach to psychological science: Cultural-historical psychology.

While Vygotsky’s approach focuses on individual actions, Aleksei N. Leontiev’s approach considers Activity as the basic unit of psychology. For Leontiev, his challenge can be described as the “Individual Actions — Collective Activity” dualism. The solution is the concept of Object-orientedness which refers to the source of Activity. Leontiev claimed that the Object of Activity defines the Activity and the Object refers to the Motive which is the social needs of the collective group.

Traditionally, Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System model is understood as “Double Mediation” of the “Subject — Meditation — Object” model. If we follow the above deep analogy, we can have a new perspective on the model. For Engeström, the challenge is the “Object — Outcome” dual structure and the solution is “System” which refers to “transformation by collective activity system”. It means the “Object — System — Outcome” triad is the core of Yrjö Engeström’s approach.

A major development of Activity Theory during the past decade is Andy Blunden’s account “An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity”. In order to develop the notion of “Project as a unit of Activity” as a theoretical foundation of the new interdisciplinary theory of Activity, Blunden adopts Hegel’s logic and Vygotsky’s theory about “Unit of Analysis” and “Concept” as theoretical resources. The process is documented in four books: An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity (2010), Concepts: A Critical Approach (2012), Collaborative Projects: An Interdisciplinary Study (2014), and Hegel for Social Movements (2019).

“Project as a unit of activity” and “formation of concept is activity” are combined in Blunden’s 2014 book Collaborative Projects: An Interdisciplinary Study which is a collection of twelve research reports with a common theme. What Blunden suggested are that 1) We can use “Project” as a new unit of analysis for Activity Theory, 2) Project should be understood as formulation of the concept, and 3) The archetypal unit of “Project” is two people working together in a common project.

Following the above deep analogy, I consider Andy Blunden’s challenge is the “Practice — Sign” dual structure and the solution is “Concept” which refers to “Activity as Formation of Concept”.

In Jan 2021, I edited a book titled Project-oriented Activity Theory which followed Andy Blunden’s approach and developed “Project Engagement” to expand his initial idea about “Project”.

By using the above deep analogy, I reflected on my work on Project Engagement. I realized that my approach to Activity Theory should be called “Activity as Project Engagement” and my primary theme is “Engagement”, not “Project”.

This is a significant insight because it changes my view on my work: the Project Engagement approach and its toolkit. If you read my 2021 book Project-oriented Activity Theory and will find many diagrams. One set of diagrams looks like the diagram below. I developed these diagrams for the Cultural Projection Analysis method.

If you visit the page about the Project Engagement Toolkit, you can’t find the above diagram there because I didn’t consider it as a primary diagram for the toolkit and the whole approach.

Thus, I didn’t have a clear idea about the concept of “Engagement” when I used the word to name the Project Engagement approach in 2021.

In the past three months, I developed the “Engagement as Projection” principle for the Life-as-Project approach. You can see more details here.

Now I have a new idea for the concept of “Engagement” and it refers to the notion of “Projectivity — Projecting — Projection”.

A project is a container of cultural themes that will attract a person. By participating in the project, the person could enhance his life themes or expand his life themes.

A person is attracted by a project through its identity and his Identity could be shaped by the project. On the other side, the actions of the person also could shape the Identity of the Project.

Thus, The “Engagement as Projection” Principle echoes the “Internalization — externalization” principle of Activity Theory. However, I use “Outside — Inside” to highlight the boundary of social spaces.

For me, the “Outside — Inside” dualism is solved by the third element “Engagement”.

This story was originally introduced in Knowledge Discovery: The “Heuristics — Skills” Mapping.

What can we learn from this story?

The Deep Analogy technique can help us to explore the deep structure of an established knowledge enterprise.

If we consider an established knowledge enterprise as a creative platform or knowledge platform, then the deep structure is the Platform-core.

The term “Platform Core” is part of the “Platform Genidentity” framework. What’s Platform Genidentity? I use the concept of Platform Genidentity to describe a process of keeping the uniqueness of a platform within a long-term duration.

In order to understand the complexity of Platform Genidentity, I developed the following two new concepts:

• Platform Core: a basic unit of a platform. For example, a Tweet, a YouTube video page, a Q&A page on Quora, etc.
• Platform-ba: a platform-based sociocultural field. For example, YouTube-ba is a YouTube-based sociocultural space. You can find more details here.

I also define an operational definition of the concept of Genidentity: A thing’s Genidentity is defined by Essential Differences with Situated Dynamics.

For the development of an established knowledge enterprise, each creator tends to add something new to the platform. Some creators work on Situated Dynamics while other creators work on Essential Differences.

The “Deep Analogy” technique is very useful for understanding the Platform Core and its evolution. Activity theorists share the following pattern for making the Platform Core of Activity Theory.

• The challenge of a dual structure and a new concept as a solution

Though they developed different content for their theoretical approaches, we still can see all these approaches as a meaningful whole of Activity Theory.