Toward a Grammar of Collaboration

Inspired by Susan Leigh Star’s work, we propose a conceptual grammar for analyzing and comparing culturally and historically different kinds of collaboration. Drawing on cultural-historical activity theory and Bakhtin’s theorizing, the grammar is tested and concretized with the help of the macroscale case of different types of social movements and the microscale case of different types of collaboration in home care encounters. There is no direct mapping across these scales, but the conceptual lens seems to work at both. This is seen as a first step toward a grammar of collaboration that allows some continuity of movement across the levels.