Reading :: Mind as Action (supplemental notes)

Mind As Action
By James V. Wertsch

I reviewed this book a long time ago (2003!), but a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. So I'll make some supplemental notes focusing on mediation.

In Chapter 2, Wertsch makes several claims about mediated action:

1. Tension between agency and mediational means. Wertsch again takes up the question of signs and tools, giving the examples of pole vaulting and multiplication, which are both impossible without mediators and that require an analytic strategy to apply mediators to the action at hand (p.30). 
2. The materiality of mediational means. He reminds us that even signs are material: "materiality is a property of any mediational means," including spoken signs (p.31). 
3. Multiple goals of action. Furthermore, mediation is associated with multiple goals, often in conflict (p.32). 
4. Developmental paths. "Mediated action is situated on one or more developmental paths" (p.34).
5. Constraint and affordances. Mediators "constrain or limit the forms of action we undertake," partially because "even if a new cultural tool frees us from some earlier limitation of perspective, it introduces new ones of its own" (p.39). 
6. Transformations of mediated action. "The introduction of novel cultural tools transforms the action" (p.42).
7. Internalization as mastery. An agent masters a cultural tool by using it, developing specialized skills through that use (p.46). 
8. Internalization as appropriation. Beyond mastering a cultural tool, the agent appropriates it, i.e., makes it her or his own (and here Wertsch draws on Bakhtin, p.53). 
9. Spin-off. Cultural tools do not simply result from needs, but are "spun off" from current tools being used for new purposes. Here Wertsch uses the example of fiberglass being developed for military purposes and then being applied to pole vaulting poles (p.59). "Such accidents and unanticipated spin-offs may be the norm rather than the exception when it comes to cultural tools  used in mediated action," implying that "most of the cultural tools we employ were not designed for the purposes to which they are being put" (p.59). Among other examples, he cites David Olson's terrific book on writing systems (p.62). 
10. Power and authority. Mediational means are not "neutral cognitive and communicative instruments" (p.64), and we can examine them not just in terms of the individual agent but also in terms of institutional and societal interests (p.65). Again, Wertsch invokes Bakhtin to explore these angles. 

There's much more to this book, and perhaps I will get into further insights in future supplemental notes! But I'll stop here for now. If you haven't picked up this book, I encourage you to do so!