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Chapter 7 - Collective Concept Formation as Creation at Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  aN Invalid Date NaN

Yrjö Engeström
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki
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Summary

Collective concept formation in the wild may be seen as creation of new worlds, condensed or crystallized in a future-oriented concept. In some cases, collective concept formation in the wild seems to move with the name of the concept in the lead, as if in search for contents for the name. In other cases, concept formation seems to move practically in the opposite order, with the embodied and enacted novel pattern of activity in the lead, but not having a name for it. The name may be attached to this novel pattern of activity only much later. This chapter examines these opposite-looking directions of concept formation, with the aim of constructing an explanatory framework for further analyses of the dynamics of collective concept formation as creation. Although the starting points were different in the three cases discussed in this chapter, concept formation in each case moved in a spiral-like way in the same direction. This corresponds to the basic logic of ascending from the abstract to the concrete, or expansive learning. Creativity in these cases appears as practitioners’ and their clients’ collective efforts and struggles to redefine the idea of their activities – to construct and implement qualitatively new concepts to guide and organize the work practice.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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