Public higher education as the knowledge industry: An activity-theoretical proposal for veterinary, animal, and health sciences
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14295/bjs.v5i5.850Keywords:
activity theory, higher education, veterinary education, knowledge production, instrumental genesisAbstract
This article proposes public higher education as an “industry of knowledge” understood not as a market analogue but as a socially organized, democratically accountable form of collective work that produces knowledge objects and develops the human capacities required to satisfy shared needs. Using cultural-historical activity theory, the university is modeled as an activity system oriented to transforming modes of life through the satisfaction chain of mode of life, need, object, want, motive, and activity. The proposal emphasizes the development of activity-system elements rather than the exclusive optimization of products: the collective subject, the object, and the community, mediated by tools, a persuasion tool, and a cooperative division of labor. In veterinary medicine, animal husbandry, and health sciences, this model reframes professional and research formation as a developmental project that strengthens communicative, transformative, and evaluative competence while cultivating socialization, individuation, and personhood. The paper articulates ethical constraints on persuasion, foregrounds instrumental genesis and catachresis in tool development, and specifies how knowledge objects such as definitions, descriptions, explanations, justifications, and narratives become actionable contributions to material, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of need. Implications are offered for curriculum design, internships, research training, and community-engaged knowledge governance.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Federico de la Colina Flores, Heriberto Rodríguez Frausto, Paul Alexis de la Colina García, Tzitzi de la Colina García
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