Re‐thinking the “thing”

TLDR

Existing dialogue between ANT and CHAT has not yet been broadly compared with complexity theory, which is gaining traction in organizational research. The study compares CHAT, ANT, and complexity theory conceptions of “the thing” in work activity to inform work‑learning researchers and suggest new questions and methods. The authors conduct a theory‑based comparative analysis of CHAT, ANT, and complexity theory within learning research to examine agency, power, difference, and the role of the “thing”. The study finds that while all three theories conceptualize knowledge and capabilities as emerging with identities, policies, practices, and environment, each uniquely highlights different aspects of sociomaterial work‑learning—subjectivity formation, knowledge circulation, and practice reconfiguration—and points to generative possibilities for counter‑configurations and alternative identities.

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare theoretical conceptions that reclaim and re‐think material practice – “the thing” in the social and personal mix – specifically in terms of work activity and what is construed to be learning in that activity. Design/methodology/approach The paper is theory‐based. Three perspectives have been selected for discussion: cultural‐historical activity theory (CHAT), actor‐network theory (ANT), and complexity theory. A comparative approach is used to examine these three conceptual framings in the context of their uptake in learning research to explore their diverse contributions and limitations on questions of agency, power, difference, and the presence of the “thing”. Findings The three perspectives bear some similarities in their conceptualization of knowledge and capabilities as emerging – simultaneously with identities, policies, practices and environment – in webs of interconnections between heterogeneous things, human and nonhuman. Yet each illuminates very different facets of the sociomaterial in work‐learning that can afford important understandings: about how subjectivities are produced in work, how knowledge circulates and sediments into formations of power, and how practices are configured and re‐configured. Each also signals, in different ways, what generative possibilities may exist for counter‐configurations and alternative identities in spaces and places of work. Originality/value While some dialogue has occurred among ANT and CHAT, this has not been developed to compare more broadly the metaphysics and approaches of these perspectives, along with complexity theory which is receiving growing attention in organizational research contexts. The paper purports to introduce the nature of these debates to work‐learning researchers and point to their implications for opening useful questions and methods for inquiry in workplace learning.