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Triangles and Tribulations

Translations, Betrayals, and the Making of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

Part of Acting with Technology

Author Clay Spinuzzi

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The MIT Press

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On sale Jun 17, 2025 | 316 Pages | 9780262552172

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Nonfiction > Science & Technology

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How the sociology of translation can help us understand a social science framework—cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT)—as a set of uneasy settlements that both further and betray their original intentions.

How do social science frameworks get taken up and spread? In Triangles and Tribulations, Clay Spinuzzi uses the sociology of translation to reread the history of one such framework, cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). CHAT originated in the 1920s and 1930s work of Soviet psychologists in the Vygotsky Circle, with its key insight—mediation—depicted in a simple triangular diagram drawn by Lev Vygotsky. From there, CHAT was developed and popularized by international scholars, including Finnish researcher Yrjö Engeström, who used Vygotsky's triangle as a basis for his own. Through this progressive development, CHAT carried on the work of its forebears, building on their foundations—or so we are sometimes encouraged to understand these transformations.

But each such translation, Spinuzzi argues, is also a betrayal: Each innovation opens new possibilities for CHAT but also disrupts a previous settlement. Examining specific points in CHAT's history, Spinuzzi reviews how CHAT has been applied to different domains, in service to different projects, and evaluated through different trials, undergoing rhetorical transformations. These translations, sedimented as a series of settlements, have allowed it to persist as a social science approach and develop as a framework for workplace studies. But they have also involved accumulating concepts and terms from various social sciences, yielded radical changes in scope, and led to ongoing disputes about what constitutes its unit(s) of analysis. In examining CHAT's triangles, Spinuzzi considers how social science frameworks live through practice and dialogue so that they can continue becoming meaningful to others.

Clay Spinuzzi is a Professor of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. His books include Tracing Genres through Organizations (MIT Press), Network, and All Edge.

Clay Spinuzzi View titles by Clay Spinuzzi

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• Sri Lanka

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Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
Part I: Method and Research Object
2 Translations and Betrayals
3 CHAT’s Generations—or Strands, or Waves?
Part II: Translations of CHAT
4 Vygotsky’s CHAT: Marxist Psychology Before the Great Terror
5 Leontiev’s CHAT: Marxist Psychology After the Great Terror
6 Westernized CHAT in 1987: An Interventionist Design Approach
7 Interlude: CHAT as a Sociocognitive Base for North American Writing Studies
8 Engeström’s “Third-Generation” CHAT: An Organizational Sociology
9 Engeström’s “Fourth-Generation” CHAT: An Implementation of Public Policy
Part III: Translations of Scope
10 The Scope of the Expanding Object
11 The Scope of the Unit of Analysis
12 The Diffusion and Translation of CHAT
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Photos

About

Author

Clay Spinuzzi is a Professor of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. His books include Tracing Genres through Organizations (MIT Press), Network, and All Edge.

Clay Spinuzzi View titles by Clay Spinuzzi

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Available for sale exclusive:

• Afghanistan

• Aland Islands

• Albania

• Algeria

• Andorra

• Angola

• Anguilla

• Antarctica

• Antigua/Barbuda

• Argentina

• Armenia

• Aruba

• Australia

• Austria

• Azerbaijan

• Bahamas

• Bahrain

• Bangladesh

• Barbados

• Belarus

• Belgium

• Belize

• Benin

• Bermuda

• Bhutan

• Bolivia

• Bonaire, Saba

• Bosnia Herzeg.

• Botswana

• Bouvet Island

• Brazil

• Brit.Ind.Oc.Ter

• Brit.Virgin Is.

• Brunei

• Bulgaria

• Burkina Faso

• Burundi

• Cambodia

• Cameroon

• Canada

• Cape Verde

• Cayman Islands

• Centr.Afr.Rep.

• Chad

• Chile

• China

• Christmas Islnd

• Cocos Islands

• Colombia

• Comoro Is.

• Congo

• Cook Islands

• Costa Rica

• Croatia

• Cuba

• Curacao

• Cyprus

• Czech Republic

• Dem. Rep. Congo

• Denmark

• Djibouti

• Dominica

• Dominican Rep.

• Ecuador

• Egypt

• El Salvador

• Equatorial Gui.

• Eritrea

• Estonia

• Ethiopia

• Falkland Islnds

• Faroe Islands

• Fiji

• Finland

• France

• Fren.Polynesia

• French Guinea

• Gabon

• Gambia

• Georgia

• Germany

• Ghana

• Gibraltar

• Greece

• Greenland

• Grenada

• Guadeloupe

• Guam

• Guatemala

• Guernsey

• Guinea Republic

• Guinea-Bissau

• Guyana

• Haiti

• Heard/McDon.Isl

• Honduras

• Hong Kong

• Hungary

• Iceland

• India

• Indonesia

• Iran

• Iraq

• Ireland

• Isle of Man

• Israel

• Italy

• Ivory Coast

• Jamaica

• Japan

• Jersey

• Jordan

• Kazakhstan

• Kenya

• Kiribati

• Kuwait

• Kyrgyzstan

• Laos

• Latvia

• Lebanon

• Lesotho

• Liberia

• Libya

• Liechtenstein

• Lithuania

• Luxembourg

• Macau

• Macedonia

• Madagascar

• Malawi

• Malaysia

• Maldives

• Mali

• Malta

• Marshall island

• Martinique

• Mauritania

• Mauritius

• Mayotte

• Mexico

• Micronesia

• Minor Outl.Ins.

• Moldavia

• Monaco

• Mongolia

• Montenegro

• Montserrat

• Morocco

• Mozambique

• Myanmar

• Namibia

• Nauru

• Nepal

• Netherlands

• New Caledonia

• New Zealand

• Nicaragua

• Niger

• Nigeria

• Niue

• Norfolk Island

• North Korea

• North Mariana

• Norway

• Oman

• Pakistan

• Palau

• Palestinian Ter

• Panama

• PapuaNewGuinea

• Paraguay

• Peru

• Philippines

• Pitcairn Islnds

• Poland

• Portugal

• Puerto Rico

• Qatar

• Reunion Island

• Romania

• Russian Fed.

• Rwanda

• S. Sandwich Ins

• Saint Martin

• Samoa,American

• San Marino

• SaoTome Princip

• Saudi Arabia

• Senegal

• Serbia

• Seychelles

• Sierra Leone

• Singapore

• Sint Maarten

• Slovakia

• Slovenia

• Solomon Islands

• Somalia

• South Africa

• South Korea

• South Sudan

• Spain

• Sri Lanka

• St Barthelemy

• St. Helena

• St. Lucia

• St. Vincent

• St.Chr.,Nevis

• St.Pier,Miquel.

• Sth Terr. Franc

• Sudan

• Suriname

• Svalbard

• Swaziland

• Sweden

• Switzerland

• Syria

• Tadschikistan

• Taiwan

• Tanzania

• Thailand

• Timor-Leste

• Togo

• Tokelau Islands

• Tonga

• Trinidad,Tobago

• Tunisia

• Turkey

• Turkmenistan

• Turks&Caicos Is

• Tuvalu

• US Virgin Is.

• USA

• Uganda

• Ukraine

• Unit.Arab Emir.

• United Kingdom

• Uruguay

• Uzbekistan

• Vanuatu

• Vatican City

• Venezuela

• Vietnam

• Wallis,Futuna

• West Saharan

• Western Samoa

• Yemen

• Zambia

• Zimbabwe

Triangles and Tribulations

Translations, Betrayals, and the Making of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

Part of Acting with Technology

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Triangles and Tribulations

Translations, Betrayals, and the Making of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

Part of Acting with Technology

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About

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Table of Contents

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About International Sales USA

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