Understanding Human Activity on the Basis of “Lived Experience”

This introductory article situates the study of lived experience within situated, embodied, and distributed approaches to cognition. It reviews the history of methods for investigating lived experience and the articulation of intrinsic and extrinsic perspectives across different levels of description of activity. The authors present the contributions of articles in this thematic issue, highlighting their multi-method and multi-level articulations. They argue that such articulatory methodological approaches are particularly relevant for addressing transformative issues and for investigating objects rooted in an embedded, embodied, extended, and enacted conception of cognition.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This introductory article begins by situating the study of lived experience within situated, embodied and distributed approaches to cognition. It then reviews the history of the development of methods for investigating lived experience, as well as the articulation of intrinsic and extrinsic perspectives and different levels of description of activity. These positions make it possible to present the various articles in this thematic issue, highlighting their contribution to 'multi-method' and 'multi-level' articulations. Finally, this introduction shows that articulatory methodological approaches appear to be particularly relevant for tackling transformative issues and investing certain objects rooted in a embedded, embodied, extended and enacted conception of cognition.