Why did I coin the new term “Thematic Engagement”?
I want to highlight the abstract aspect of social practices: Concepts or Themes.
On July 20, 2022, I started writing an introduction to the Project Engagement approach (v2.0) in Chinese. The thesis was finished on July 30, 2022.
It’s a 116-page file with the following three keywords: Significance, Complexity, and Genidentity. You can find a summary in Project Engagement (v2.1) as an Innovation Approach.
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The thesis was organized into the following five parts:
- Part 1: Project, Projecting, and Activity
- Part 2: Significance
- Part 3: Complexity
- Part 4: Genidentity
- Part 5: Rethinking Activity Theory
Part 5 of the thesis is the outcome o re-learning Activity Theory. I discovered the following pairs of keywords for discussions:
- Concepts and Themes
- Project and Platform
- Culture and History
- Context and Settings
Finally, I made a “meta-framework” for the Project Engagement approach (v2.1). See the picture below.
The meta-framework is formed with two sets of keywords:
- Activity, Concept, Culture: this set of keywords is discovered from Andy Blunden’s approach.
- Actor, Settings, Society: this set of keywords is discovered from the Project Engagement approach.
I also highlight nine theoretical concepts of the Project Engagement approach (v2.1).
I use the picture below as a metaphor for the Project Engagement Approach (v2.1).
- Balloon: Concepts or Themes. It refers to the abstract aspect of social practices.
- Chair: Materials. It refers to the concrete aspect of social practices.
Both the “Project Engagement” approach and the “Themes of Practice” approach emphasize the abstract aspect of social practices: Concepts or Themes.
- Traditional craftsmen only focus on the concrete aspect of social practices: materials.
- Contemporary knowledge workers have to deal with a web of concepts or themes.
Since my primary focus is Contemporary knowledge workers, I coined the new term “Thematic Engagement” to highlight the abstract aspect of social practices.
