Homo prostheticus: problematizing the notions of activity and computermediated interaction

Abstract

Computer-mediated interaction poses new challenges for theories and models of social interaction concerned with relationships between humans and tools. This article discusses deaf signers using sign language in computer-mediated space, a case in which a new technological ‘tool’ is integrated into existing practices and conventions, but also requires new innovations. An influential model for studying humans, tool use, and social interaction is Activity Theory. However, in analyzing procedures deaf signers use in learning how to manage communication in computer-mediated space, key notions of Activity Theory, notably the ‘mediation’ properties of tools and the categories of subject and tool, are found to be insufficient. I propose adding to the concept of mediation and characterizing the relationship between subjects and new tools in interaction as one in which tools are ‘prostheses’ which interactants learn to inhabit. Based on looking at people learning to use a new technology, I argue, a key process in activities with new tools is a process where interactants learn how to enhance and constrain, extend and transform properties of the human body.

Keywords

Activity Theory American Sign Language computer-mediated communication cyborg human computer interaction Internet prosthesis

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Baker, C. and Padden, C. (1978) American Sign Language: A Look at its History, Structure, and Community. Silver Spring, MD: T.J. Publishers .

Baudrillard, J. (1983) Simulations, trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. New York: Semiotext(e) .

Baudrillard, J. (1988) The Ecstasy of Communication, trans. Bernard Schutze and Caroline Schutze. New York: Semiotext(e) .

Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

Clark, A. (2003) Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press .

Clynes, M. and Kline, N. ([1960] 1995) ‘Cyborgs and Space’, Astronautics September: 26–7, 74–75, reprinted in C. Gray, S. Mentor and H. Figueroa-Sarriera (eds) The Cyborg Handbook, pp. 29–34. New York: Routledge.

Cole, M. and Engestr^m, Y. (1993) ‘A Cultural-Historical Approach to Distributed Cognition’, in G. Salomon (ed.) Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations, pp. 1–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

Cole, M. , Engstr^m, Y. and Vasquez, O. (1997) ‘Introduction’, in Mind, Culture, and Activity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

Derrida, J. (1984) Of Grammatology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press .

10.

Duranti, A. (1992) ‘Language and Bodies in Social Space: Samoan Ceremonial Greetings’ , American Anthropologist 94: 657–691 .

11.

Duranti, A. (2004) ‘Agency in Language’, in A. Duranti (ed.) A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Malden, MA: Blackwell .

12.

Engestr^m, Y. (2004) ‘Activity Theory and Individual and Social Transformation’, http://www.education.miami.edu/blantonw/mainsite/Componentsfromclmer/Component1/engestrom.html (accessed 15 February 2004).

13.

Fineman, M. (1999) ‘Ecce Homo Prostheticus’ , New German Critique 76: 85–114 .

14.

Goody, J. (1977) The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

15.

Haraway, D. (1985) ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s’ , Socialist Review 15(2): 149–181 .

16.

Haraway, D. (1989) Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge .

17.

Hutchins, E. (1995) Cognition in the Wild. Boston: MIT Press .

18.

Jain, S. (1999) ‘The Prosthetic Imagination: Enabling and Disabling the Prosthesis Trope’ , Science, Technology and Human Values 24(1): 31–54 .

19.

Keating, E. and Mirus, G. (2003) ‘American Sign Language in Virtual Space: Interactions between Deaf Users of Computer-Mediated Video Communication and the Impact of Technology on Language Practices’ , Language in Society 32: 693–714 .

20.

Leont’ev, A. (1981a) ‘The Problem of Activity in Psychology’, in J. Wertsch (ed.) The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology, pp. 37–71. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe .

21.

Leont’ev, A. (1981b) Problems of the Development of the Mind. Moscow: Progress .

22.

Lyotard, J-F. (1979) The Post-modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press .

23.

Mather, S. (1991) ‘The Discourse Marker OH in Typed Telephone Conversations among Deaf Typists’, unpublished PhD thesis, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

24.

Mauss, M. (1935) ‘Les Techniques du Corps’, Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique 39: 271–93.

25.

Minick, N. (1997) ‘The Early History of the Vygotskian School: The Relationship between Mind and Activity’, in M. Cole , Y. Engstr^m and O. Vasquez , Mind, Culture, and Activity, pp. 117–127. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

26.

Ochs, E. and Capps, L. (2001) Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .

27.

Ochs, E. and Schieffelin, B. (1984) ‘Three Developmental Stories and their Implications’, in K. Schweder and R. Levine (eds) Culture Theory, pp. 277–320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

28.

Schegloff, E. (1968) ‘Sequencing in Conversational Openings’ , American Anthropologist 70(6): 1075–1095 .

29.

Smith, R. (1990) ‘In Pursuit of Synthesis: Activity as a Primary Framework for Organizational Communication’, PhD dissertation, University of Southern California.

30.

Stone, A. (1995) The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .

31.

Vygotsky, L. (1978) Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Mental Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .

32.

Vygotsky, L. (1981) ‘The Genesis of Higher Mental Functions’, in J. Wertsch (ed. and trans.) The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe .