Other

This dissertation builds upon and extends theorizing in cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), which is a recent addition to the sociocultural analysis of learning, identity, and history. Drawing largely on longitudinal fieldwork conducted in a salmon hatchery in British Columbia, specifically, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, more generally, the present studies affirm the possibility of learning in mundane work environments as well as discovering what it means to learn and be an expert in the workplace. In addition, the results show how institutions that aspire to be learning organizations have to provide access to participation to all its members. The findings reported here also sensitize workplace researchers to issues of identity inherent during the process of interviewing besides articulating a new, non-dualistic conception of organizational identity and organizational identification. The necessity of examining the cultural-historical dimensions of work activity situates the activity of salmon enhancement in context in a final study. All these different but related investigations of work indicate that unless a strongly dialectical stance is maintained throughout activitytheoretic analysis, cultural-historical theories will not advance. This important methodological and theoretical principle has manifested itself in the following dialectical tensions underlying this dissertation: subject|object, individual|collective, and agency|structure.