A contribution to discussions of agency and change from the perspective of cultural-historical activity theory consists of findings on transformative agency by double stimulation (TADS). Aspects of these discussions revolve around the hidden, unrecognized and often suppressed power of hybrid coalitions coming together contribute to making a more just and sustainable world. This chapter presents a theoretical argument supported by empirical examples showing that TADS is intrinsically a power-sensitive conceptualization of agency. The chapter engages in dialogue with and expands on the proposition of power in the sociology of real utopias, arguing that, despite the strong dialectical and progressive stance it adopts, this perspective is still predominantly based on accounts and critiques of how power is played out. A chronological account of two subsequent studies on eradicating homelessness helps construct an expanded proposition in which TADS can serve a key generating and mediating function of power.

In cultural-historical activity theory, the move from orientation to action is connected to the experiencing of contradictions as personally significant conflicts of motives. Our study builds on the theory of transformative agency by double stimulation (TADS). We conducted a Change Laboratory intervention with adolescents to support them to work on their motive conflicts and to construct and implement projects they found significant. With the help of Sannino’s model, we analyse the evolution of students’ projects as efforts to move from mental future orientation to practical and material future-making. In our data, the conflict of motives and the creation of second stimuli emerged as the most critical steps in the TADS process. We argue that it is time to make the shift from studying young people’s future orientations as private mental phenomena to fostering and analysing future-making as material public actions that generate use-value and have an impact beyond the individual.

In this chapter we articulate how transformative agency via double stimulation in cultural-historical activity theory can be a form of emancipatory agency from below among those most historically excluded and marginalised. Generated in a six-year-long formative intervention focussing on African land restitution, we show that the emergence of emancipatory transformative agency involves responsive mediation in which second stimuli, suitable to arising contradictions and conflict of motives, need to be co-developed as the formative intervention process unfolds. Emancipatory transformative agency by double stimulation (ETADS) pathways involve complex and parallel forms of movement over time that are not necessarily linear. The chapter reveals that ETADS pathways emerge as communities take ethical-political ownership of co-directing the emancipatory direction of their own development in the formative intervention process. In the process they challenge deep-seated oppressions of longue durée, transform power relations, build intergenerational solidarity and make decisions that advance the common good.

This chapter expands discussion of how to promote transformative agency by double stimulation during a Change Laboratory intervention. The intervention was conducted in an agroecological association, geared toward environmental preservation and social inclusion by strengthening family farming and developing agroforestry systems. The chapter analyzes how motives, movement, and mediation interact in the formation of transformative agency. The results show that through double stimulation, participants transformed the way they understood the origin of their problems. The intervention created a space for reflection in which, with the support of auxiliary instruments, the participants were able to produce a transformative movement, analyzing and understanding the structure of their activity, identifying conflicts of motives, and building a new orientation for the future of the activity. This intervention led to a novel concept of the coordination of the association based on the principle of shared responsibilities, as well as to the construction of a proposal to develop the organization.

Children’s agency is the process through which children intentionally act and transform the current situation they live in and themselves. In this chapter, the life experiences of three Chinese children (six to twelve years old) during the first peak of the COVID-19 pandemic from February to May in 2020 are used as empirical examples to illustrate the unfolding of children’s agency. Adopting cultural-historical activity theory as a theoretical framework, this study argued that despite the constraints on physical movement imposed by the pandemic, these children responded with strong manifestations of agency by relying on a wide range of mediational means. The results support Vygotsky’s dialectical claim, according to which social crises may trigger creative human development. The study contributes to the Vygotskian literature on agency, with the Chinese cases demonstrating that human agency, as a process of undertaken efforts, is aimed at finding equilibrium in times of uncertainty.

The first half of this chapter outlines key concepts in cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), including implicit and explicit mediation and double stimulation. The nature of contradictions within CHAT is described as a springboard for development in workplace practices. The chapter then describes how these concepts have been operationalized in the work of Yrjö Engeström and colleagues through the formative interventionist methodology known as Change Laboratory. Change Laboratories are collaborative settings in which contradictions are brought to conscious awareness and worked on to redesign workplace artefacts, norms, and labor arrangements. As contradictions are resolved through new concretizations of practice, participants in the workplace increase their capacity to develop their working world and, therefore, themselves.