Center
The Core of the Activity Analysis Center
by Oliver Ding
The evolution of the Activity Analysis Center reveals a pattern I call dual-center structure: Knowledge Curation vs. Knowledge Creation. It also refers to two types of actions:
- Create: Making concrete things to represent abstract knowledge
- Curate: Organize pieces of knowledge-related experience into a meaningful mental element
Knowledge Curation
On August 10, 2020, I wrote an article titled The Landscape of Activity Theory. If you want to know the outcome of the Activity U project, you can check the last section of the article.
It was the starting point of the Activity U project (2020 to 2022). You can check out a board on Milanote to explore the three-year journey.
I will keep going in the direction of Knowledge Curation. But, I will expand the scope from Activity Theory to other social practice theories. It means the Activity Analysis Center is not only about Activity Theory, but also about other social practice theories.
Since 2001, a group of philosophers, sociologists, and scientists have rediscovered the practice perspective and used it as a lens to explore and examine the role of practices in human activity. Researchers called it The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. As Schatzki pointed out, “there is no unified practice approach”(2001, p.2). Davide Nicolini introduces the following six different ways of theorizing practice in his 2013 book Practice Theory, Work, & Organization:
- Praxeology and the Work of Giddens and Bourdieu
- Communities of Practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991)
- Activity Theory / Cultural-historical activity theory (the Marxian/Vygotskian/Leont’evian tradition)
- Ethnomethodology (Harold Garfinkel, 1954)
- The Site of Social (contemporary developments of the Heideggerian/Wittgensteinian traditions, by Theodore R. Schatzki)
- Conversation Analysis / Critical Discourse Analysis (the Foucauldian tradition)
Nicolini also pointed out, “Practice theories are fundamentally ontological projects in the sense that they attempt to provide a new vocabulary to describe the world and to populate the world with specific ‘units of analysis’; that is, practice. How these units are defined, however, is internal to each of the theories, and choosing one of them would thus amount to reducing the richness provided by the different approaches.” (2012, p.9)
The above diagram represents the mission of the Activity Analysis project: Modeling Social Practices. We aim to connect THEORY and PRACTICE by curating theoretical knowledge, designing service programs, and building a learning community.
Activity Analysis Center will work together with Curativity Center which is a knowledge center for developing Curativity Theory.
Knowledge Creation
This section refers to my own knowledge creations such as the “Project Engagement” approach, the “Anticipatory Activity System” framework, the “Life-as-Project” approach, the “Creative Work Study” project, the “Activity Circle” model, etc.
The diagram below illustrates a curated overview of my creations related to Activity-focused frameworks. It features five knowledge frameworks I developed between 2017 and 2021, and six book drafts I authored between 2021 and 2024.
The Life as Activity approach featured the following five knowledge frameworks:
- The Activity as Project Engagement Framework
- The Activity Circle Model
- The SET Framework
- The Developmental Project Model
- The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) Framework
The following sections will offer more details.
Activity as Project Engagement
The concept of Project Engagement was first introduced in my 2021 book titled Project-oriented Activity Theory (draft).
The book is inspired by Andy Blunden's approach to the interdisciplinary Theory of Activity. To establish 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 theories on “Unit of Analysis” and “Concept” as key 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).
In my book, I introduced the model below to integrate Andy Blunden's approach and Yrjö Engeström's Activity System Model.
More details can be found in the Project Engagement Toolkit (v1, 2022).
While the concept of "Project Engagement" aligns with Andy Blunden' notion of "Project as a Unit of Activity," I also developed the idea of "Engagement as Projection" in 2022. This notion refers to refer to "Projectivity - Projecting - Projection."
In April 2022, I used a “Challenge—Solution” framework as a deep structure to reflect on the historical development of Activity Theory. Activity Theorists often describe an initial challenge using a dual structure, then introduce a new concept to expand it into a triadic structure.
For example, Lev Vygotsky addressed the “Stimulus-Response” dualism inherent in behaviorism. His solution was to introduce the third element, Mediation, transforming the dualism into the triadic structure S-X-R. For Vygotsky, the mediating action integrates Stimulus, Mediation, and Response, establishing a new approach to psychological science: Cultural-historical psychology.
Using this analogy, I see Andy Blunden’s challenge as the dual structure of “Practice—Sign,” with the solution being Concept, which embodies the idea of “Activity as the Formation of Concept.”
Reflecting on this framework, I applied it to my work on Project Engagement. I recognized that my approach to Activity Theory should be described as Activity as Project Engagement. The challenge I address is the “Outside—inside” dualism of social spaces.
The principle of Engagement as Projection echoes the Internalization—Externalization principle of Activity Theory. Additionally, this principle provides a framework to resolve the “Outside—Inside” dualism of social spaces, emphasizing the mutual shaping of individuals and the projects they engage with.
More details can be found in The Genidentity of Activity Theory.
The Activity Circle Model
The Project Engagement approach (v3.1) is grounded in an activity-based perspective, where I emphasize activity, practice, context, and situation as crucial elements for discussing topics and issues. The “Activity Circle” model exemplifies this approach.
My approach to improving communication and enhancing understanding centers around two key concepts: Activity and Relevance.
- Activity: What are people doing? What tools are they using?
- Relevance: What is the relationship between these people? What are their motivations and abilities?
Activity Theory introduces the important concept of Mediation, which involves both psychological and technical tools. In the Activity Circle model, I refer to this concept as “Thing,” representing both types of tools.
The Activity Circle model emphasizes the relationships between Self, Other, Thing, and Think, making it ideal for discussing objects with dual properties — both material and mental. This idea is inspired by cultural-historical psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s distinction between two types of mediating tools: technological and psychological.
More details can be found in The Activity Circle (Oliver Ding, 2017).
The SET Framework
The SET Framework was initially called the Ecological-Activity Hybrid Approach and was developed between 2017 and 2020 during my work on various projects centered around a new type of social action platform.
Traditionally, Activity Theory uses the “Subject — Mediation — Object” model as the fundamental unit of analysis. This was later expanded in the Activity System model to include “Subject — Mediation — Object — Rules — Community — Division of Labor.” However, I noticed a gap between Activity Theory and the design of intersubjective social systems.
For example, from 2017 to 2018, I worked on a one-to-one video talk product, followed by other projects that utilized Structured Engagement as a design pattern. These projects had several common characteristics:
- Host: A distinct type of actor responsible for hosting the overall activity.
- Structured Engagement: Human-to-human interactions following a clearly defined, structured process.
- Environment: The environment plays an integral role in shaping the design and execution of the activity.
Through these projects, I realized that the Activity System model, widely used in Activity Theory, was not ideal for capturing the dynamics of intersubjective social actions. In 2019, I developed the Ecological-Activity Hybrid Approach by integrating concepts from Activity Theory and Ecological Psychology. In 2020, I renamed this approach SET, which stands for Structured Engagement Theory.
More details can be found in The SET Framework [Hybrid Approach].
The Developmental Project Model
The Developmental Project Model is a core component of the Project Engagement approach. The diagram below illustrates the standard Developmental Project Model, which outlines eight elements that describe a developmental project:
- Purpose: Why do you want to initiate or join the project?
- Position: What is the social structure of the project?
- Program: Does the project follow formal organizational processes?
- Social: How do you connect with others through your participation?
- Content: What new information and knowledge do you acquire by joining the project?
- Action: What concrete actions do you take in the project?
- Theme: Do you discover new and interesting themes for your life development?
- Identity: How does your perception of your identity change before and after joining the project?
“Theme” and “Identity” are two key elements of the Developmental Project Model. Between 2021 and 2024, I developed several knowledge frameworks focused on themes, identity, and related concepts.
Your identity is shaped by how others view “what you do” and “who you are,” but it’s also a part of your self-knowledge. From the perspective of the Project Engagement approach, identity is a core element of the Developmental Project Model and is deeply interconnected with the other elements.
Every time you join or leave a project, your identity evolves. This ongoing evolution is what I refer to as the Microdynamics of Identity.
Life is a chain of projects, it is also a projection of social life. By adopting the Developmental Project Model, we gain a structured way to reflect on the development of both personal and social life, allowing us to connect psychology, sociology, and other disciplines in a single unit of analysis.
More details can be found in the Developmental Project Model and World of Activity #4: The Thematic Identity Curation Framework.
The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) Framework
The Developmental Project Model is about the "Project" level. At the higher level of multiple projects, we can use different models to explain the complexity, such as Chain, Network, System, etc.
The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework is inspired by Activity Theory, Anticipatory System theory, Relevance theory, and other theoretical resources. The framework models a specific structure: “Self, Other, Present, Future.”
An Anticipatory Activity System is composed of two parts: First-order Activity and Second-order Activity.
At a lower level, both First-order Activity and Second-order Activity can be understood as Projects. In this way, the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework integrates with the Project Engagement approach as a hierarchical system.
On September 29, 2020, I published an article titled Activity U (VI): The Hierarchy of Human Activity and Social Practice. The article is part of the Activity U project. A side product of the article is a universal hierarchy of activity and practice.
Human activity and social practice are extremely complex, the hierarchy serves as a useful thinking tool for understanding them. Based on perspectives from activity theorists and other researchers, I found an eight-level hierarchy of activity and practice. The six middle levels are adapted from activity theorists, the top level is adopted from anthropologist Morris Opler (1945), and the low level is adopted from ecological psychologist James J. Gibson (1979).
This hierarchy places the Activity System model at Level 5 and the Activity Network at Level 6.
The Project Engagement approach’s Developmental Project Model fits into Level 4. In fact, it aligns with the Activity System Model at the same level, as seen in the Project Engagement toolkit. Therefore, we should merge Level 4 and Level 5.
The “Project Network” Model belongs to Level 6.
Where should the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework be placed?
It should also be placed in Level 6 because its sub-level consists of Projects.
In other words, both the “Project Network” Model and the AAS Framework operate at a higher level and can be used to organize multiple projects.
v1.0: 1997 words - September 4, 2025