Activity Analysis Network #5: Zone, Camp, and Project

Last updated on 16 Nov 2025

This is the 5th issue of the Activity Analysis Center's newsletter

by Oliver Ding

Hi, and welcome to Activity Analysis Network, a newsletter hosted by the Activity Analysis Center.

Each issue is organized around the "Flow - Focus - Center - Circle" schema, the primary model of the World of Activity Toolkit (v1, 2025).

As a biweekly newsletter, I'll share summaries of new articles from the Activity Analysis Center, along with updates on related activities, including some of my own published work elsewhere.

In this issue (#5), three new articles explore the Ecological Camp Framework, its meta-diagram Tripartness, and the story behind it. I also published a long article about the Creative Identity Engagement Framework, which is part of the Project Engagement Approach (version 3.1).

Flow

The historical development of the Activity Analysis Center and my experience of daily life

In my ongoing series, "Appropriating Activity Theory," I share a crucial theoretical bridge I discovered while engaging with Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT).

This turning point came not only from Michael Cole's inspiring empirical research on the diagnosis and remediation of children's reading difficulties, but also from exploring the connection to Roger Barker's Behavior Settings Theory.

The Roger Barker Connection:

1. A Shared Starting Point:

CHAT and Ecological Psychology share important affinities, growing out of a common starting point: the ecology of everyday human activities. Pioneer ecological-developmental psychologists like Barker and Herbert Wright documented the principles of Behavior Settings through early fieldwork focused on children, such as One Boy's Day.

2. Bridging the Levels:

Michael Cole encouraged considering ecological psychologists' views, recognizing that Barker's theory addresses higher-order, extra-individual social activity.

This provided the impetus to develop a new analytical layer—the Ecological Camp Framework—designed to bridge Gibson's Affordance Theory and Barker's Behavior Settings Theory.

The Lesson from Our Teachers:

To demonstrate the framework's analytical power, I used a case study featuring three children—Leo, Alex, and Maya—during a family trip. The analysis focused on how Language influenced their shared activity (discussing Minecraft in the car) as an 'Ecological Force'.

The story showed how one child, Maya, successfully navigated a negative experience by requesting a language change, shifting the conversation focus, and demonstrating complex situational dynamics. This anecdote about children's interactions in a naturally occurring social setting explicitly resonates with the research of Cole and Barker on children conducted many years ago.

Our youngest subjects, through their natural, everyday interactions, reveal profound theoretical patterns and ecological dynamics!

How do you gain theoretical insights from the "little teachers" in your life?

Appropriating Activity Theory #5: Kids are Our Teachers (2018)

Focus

The Thematic Foci of the Activity Analysis Center

In the past two weeks, my focus has been on the hierarchical structure of activity and enterprise.

Traditionally, Activity Theory features a hierarchy—“Operation — Action — Activity”—originally developed by Leontiev. In more recent developments, Activity Theorists have introduced the concept of an “Activity Network” as an additional level, resulting in a four-level hierarchical structure:

Operation
Actions
Activity (Activity System)
Activity Network

There are several different ways in which Leontiev’s original three-level model has been expanded into a four-level hierarchy. My own models also use four levels; however, their internal structure differs from Leontiev’s version. The structure is as follows:

Action / Task
Project
Journey / Landscape / Anticipatory Activity System
Activity / Enterprise

Below the Project level is a lower tier that corresponds to Action, or what Gruber calls Task. Above the Project level, there are several ways to organize a series of Projects into a meaningful whole.

At a more abstract and universal level, the totality of these three levels can be understood as Activity and Enterprise. As mentioned above, the former emphasizes an objective perspective, while the latter focuses on a subjective one.

Thus, Activity and Enterprise are two sides of the same coin: the cultural–historical process of Project Engagement.

I also published three articles about the Ecological Zone Framework, the Ecological Camp Framework, and its meta-diagram: the Tripartness Meta-Diagram.

Back in January 2021, while developing Project-oriented Activity Theory, I proposed the concept of the “Zone of Project” to understand the internal structure and dynamics of a project.

As an important step in expanding Project-oriented Activity Theory, the concept of the Zone of Project emerged from a process of conceptual curation inspired by both the Ecological Zone Framework and Project-oriented Activity Theory. The theoretical resources behind these two frameworks are the ecological approach and the cultural-historical approach. The diagram below illustrates the deep connection between these approaches and how they support the new concept of the Zone of Project.

Here we see two hierarchical structures:

Zone → Camp → Project
Ecological Camp Framework → Tripartness Meta-Diagram

For further details, see the articles linked below:

CENTER

The Core of the Activity Analysis Center

Currently, the Activity Analysis Center hosts two major theoretical enterprises:

The Life-as-Activity Approach (the Project Engagement Approach is part of this family)
The World of Activity Approach

On November 11, 2025, I updated the Life-as-Activity Approach with two changes.

The current version, v3.2, incorporates the Self-Referential Activity model at the individual subjective level. In the previous version, v3.1, this level was represented by the World of Activity model. Since the World of Activity Approach functions as an independent framework, it has been removed from v3.2.

Additionally, the Weave-the-Life Framework has been updated to v2.0, reflecting refinements and expansions of the original model.

On November 11, 2025, I also designed a new abstract diagram to represent the deep structure of the Weave-the-Life Framework.

The new model integrates four dimensions: Subjective, Objective, Part, and Whole. The Subjective–Objective dimensions capture diachronic aspects of life, while the Part–Whole dimensions capture synchronical aspects. Together, these dimensions weave individual and collective life within an evolving structural, cultural, and historical landscape.

The model defines four Weave-Points, where one synchronical dimension intersects with one diachronic dimension. Concepts from v1.0 are positioned at these points: Self, Enterprise, Project, and Activity.

At the Part dimension, the Self–Project connection represents "Project Engagement," where an individual participates in a specific project.
At the Whole dimension, Activity refers to the aggregation of individual projects, while Enterprise encompasses a series of self-directed actions that extend beyond immediate projects.

The distinction between Subjective and Objective reflects the dual aspects of life: individual experience versus collective existence. The Part–Whole distinction reflects the structural depth of life. These four dimensions are continuously interwoven in lived experience, forming the fabric of both personal biography and social reality.

The framework operates bidirectionally. In the forward direction, individual actions crystallize into enterprises that transcend personal will. In the reverse direction, social structures and historical events enter individual life through activities and projects. This bidirectional dynamic illuminates both individual agency and structural constraints, demonstrating how otherness—aspects of social reality beyond immediate intersubjective negotiation—becomes incorporated into personal life.

By incorporating the concept of Enterprise, the Weave-the-Life Framework emphasizes the subjective dimension of social life: a long-term, self-determined trajectory of actions.

I also published a long article about the Creative Identity Engagement Framework, which is part of the Project Engagement Approach (version 3.1).

After publishing the article, I began considering whether it was time to edit a new book draft titled Developmental Projects: The Project Engagement Approach to Adult Development. Over the past several months, I have written multiple long articles exploring themes, identity, and enterprise, all deeply related to adult development. I have also conducted several case studies on gap projects, discovering several patterns. It is now time to curate these articles together to present these new developments.

CIRCLE

The Context of the Activity Analysis Center

Over the past several years, I worked on several theoretical projects, such as the Ecological Practice Approach, Curativity Theory, Creative Life Theory, and Thematic Space Theory.

Inspired by creativity researcher Howard Gruber's idea of "Network of Enterprises," I used the "Knowledge Center" approach to manage this large knowledge system. Each knowledge center hosts one or two related theoretical approaches.

CALL (Creative Action Learning Lab): the Ecological Practice Approach and Creative Life Theory
Curativity Center: Curativity Theory
TALE (Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement): Thematic Space Theory
Frame for Work: A theory about Knowledge Frameworks

Within the past two weeks, CALL released a new book draft, Ecological Formism: A Meta-Framework of Meta-Frameworks, on November 7, 2025.

The Ecological Formism Framework (v2.0) applies the “Variant — Quasi-invariant — Invariant — Invariant Set” schema across twelve units of analysis.

I also wrote several new articles to support this project. See the links below:

World

Me, You, and We

My name is Oliver Ding. I am the founder of the Activity Analysis Center. I am based in Houston, Texas, US.

Where are you?

v1.0 - November 15, 2025 - 1620 words