Cultural psychology is a theoretical approach that treats human beings as intimately intertwined ... more Cultural psychology is a theoretical approach that treats human beings as intimately intertwined with the surrounding social world, which is filled with meanings conveyed through signs. It is based on the axiom that cultural contexts and psychological phenomena are assumed to be mutual, inseparable, and co-constructive. This focus fits the general scientific status of all open systems, which exist only due to the continuous exchange of materials with the environment. Cultural psychology is an integrated approach to psychology rather than a separate branch, as is sometimes believed, since psychology and culture “make each other up.” This involves constructive internalization (intra-mental construction of personal meanings) and equally constructive externalization (changing the environment in the direction specified by the internal meanings). As a collaborative, multidisciplinary perspective, cultural psychology is closely linked with disciplines like anthropology, sociology, linguistics, literature, and others. Cultural psychology focuses on the study of cultural—sign-mediating—processes within the mind. A common misconception relates to the fact that the term “cultural” refers to the study of similarities and differences between various communities. Rather than focusing on static comparisons, meaning-making and dynamic organization of personal and collective reality are studied. Differences between societies are important only as illustrations of the possible patterns of human psychological variation as they emerge in a particular time-space coordinate. Thus, another important axiom is that there can be no psychology without culture. Culture is constructed by goal-oriented human actions and involves continuous thought, action, and emotion in the face of uncertainty. Thus, the centrally important feature of cultural psychology is the inclusion of personal, interpersonal, and collective processes as they make up the different layers of meaning in irreversible time. Culture is both inside a person’s mind, as a personal manifestation, and also a shared system or collective set of customs. Cultural psychologists tend to treat the person as a whole rather than as separate different domains of activity because a comprehensive and multidimensional approach to a person within context is believed to be the key to meaning. Cultural psychology attempts to bring the notion of context into the central focus in psychology and the notion of person back into ethnography, as these are believed to be constructive. Context is viewed in two ways—as inevitably and inseparably linked with the phenomenon and as external social setting (e.g., home, school) in which human activities take place. Another important feature is that “cultural psychology is inherently a developmental discipline and developmental psychology is inherently cultural” (Shwartz, et al. 2020, p. 2). All levels of culturally organized human ways of living—persons, communities, societies—are constantly developing systems.
There has been an alarming rise in suicide attempts among indigenous people in Brazil leading to ... more There has been an alarming rise in suicide attempts among indigenous people in Brazil leading to national concerns about the provision of psychosocial care and professional support. In this study, we make an attempt to understand the perspectives of professionals in assisting indigenous people from a specific group, the Iny, and identify the specific challenges of addressing issues through the mental health care system, related specifically to suicide prevention. Using a qualitative approach with participant observation and semi-structured interviews, the research included indigenous and their families assisted by three public institutions, and the professionals that work in the public psychosocial assistance. For this paper we examined the tensions, conflicts and challenges of the health care professionals at one of these institutions, a Psychosocial Care Center in the state of Goiás/Brazil. For the analysis of data, a sociocultural protocol was built to identify dialogical tension...
Poetics has long been considered the preserve of the extraordinary person, one gifted enough to t... more Poetics has long been considered the preserve of the extraordinary person, one gifted enough to transcend everyday existence through his or her imagination. In its most limited sense, poetry is language in verse, and in its broadest, an approach to life itself. In this chapter, we will be using the latter meaning, exploring “poetic instants”, moments where words can fail to provide adequate expression to emotions through interviews with participants from India, mostly living in New Delhi. The findings of the survey indicate that cultural meanings, personal drive, interpersonal affiliation and life-course significance were common ingredients of emotional arousal which heightened particular experiences for people. Through this meaning-making, specific events were encapsulated in lived time, but they also stood outside of it, illustrating the subjective dimension of temporality.
This book has integrated the realms of poetics in diverse ways. For instance, Octavio Paz’s (La C... more This book has integrated the realms of poetics in diverse ways. For instance, Octavio Paz’s (La Casa de la Presencia. Barcelona: Galaxia-Gutenberg, 1956/1999) masterful differentiation between poetic instants, poems, poets and poetry can serve as a platform for these variations. Some of the chapters deal with the poetic quality of specific events, objects or experiences, and discuss how and why people relate to the ineffable intensity of the aesthetics embedded in poetic instants in their everyday lives (see Chaudhary, Chawla, & Sindhu, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Dazzani & Marsico, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Lordelo, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Murakami, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Valsiner, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Other chapters search for the meaningfulness of existence by writing poems or imprinting them into liminal spaces such as musical pieces or the human body (see Abels, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Arguello Manresa & Glăveanu, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Leao & Guimaraes, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Lehmann & Klempe, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Watzlawik, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). In addition, other texts of the book have embraced the quest of bringing in the poet within the scientist, questioning the boundaries between arts and science in itself (Abbey & Bastos, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Abels, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Freeman, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Lastly, three commentaries tried to wrap up the realms of poesis along the diverse themes of the manuscripts in a critical way (see Rabinovich, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Uriko, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Zittoun, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
The interventions have ranged between benevolent exchanges to powerful influences as well as mili... more The interventions have ranged between benevolent exchanges to powerful influences as well as military domination. Although interpersonal and group influence has been an important domain of study in Social Psychology, we propose to take a fresh look at these phenomena from the specific orientations provided by the discipline of Cultural Psychology. In this perspective, meaning making processes becomes a key for understanding the everyday experiences of the receivers and agents of intervention. In this volume, we see how attending to meaning-making processes becomes crucial when researching or intervening within cultural encounters and global everyday life. It is through listening to the foreign other, to attend to their immediate experiences, as well as exploring how meaning may be mediated and co-constructed by them in everyday life through organizational structures, informal pee
This Element explores multi-faceted linkages between feeding and relationship formation based on ... more This Element explores multi-faceted linkages between feeding and relationship formation based on ethnographic case studies in Morocco, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Costa Rica. Research demonstrates that there are many culturally valued ways of feeding children, contradicting the idea of a single universally optimal feeding standard. It demonstrates further that in many parts of the world, feeding plays a central role in bonding and relationship formation, something largely overlooked in current developmental theories. Analysis shows that feeding contributes to relationship formation through what we call proximal, transactional, and distal dimensions. This Element argues that feeding practices can lead to qualitatively distinct forms of relationships. It has important theoretical and practical implications, calling for the expansion of attachment theory to include feeding and body-centered caregiving and significant changes to global interventions currently based on 'respon...
Ending epistemic exclusion: toward a truly global science and practice of early childhood development, 2023
The science and practice of Early Childhood Development (ECD) rely heavily on research from the E... more The science and practice of Early Childhood Development (ECD) rely heavily on research from the Euro-American middle class—a minority of the world’s population—and research in or from the majority world is severely under-represented. This problem has been acknowledged in ECD, an applied field aiming to assess and improve child development globally, and in the related fields of global health and developmental sciences. Thus, now is the time to search for effective pathways towards global representation. To date, most calls for change within ECD and related fields have focused on various aspects of knowledge production and publication. Although more majority world research is certainly needed, we should work equally on the reception of existing research. A large body of research on childhood in the majority world already exists (eg, in anthropology, cultural psychology, and indigenous psychology), but majority world research is almost entirely absent in ECD. The under-representation of majority world research in ECD cannot simply be blamed on the scarcity of research, however. This under-representation is also perpetuated by the exclusion of existing, accessible, and highly relevant majority world research from the dominant academic discourses—in other words, by epistemic exclusion. If epistemic exclusion in the field of ECD continues, the existence of more majority world research will not reduce the current minority world biases in ECD research. Ending epistemic exclusion is therefore an essential step towards a truly global ECD practice.
Cultural psychology is a theoretical approach that treats human beings as intimately intertwined ... more Cultural psychology is a theoretical approach that treats human beings as intimately intertwined with the surrounding social world, which is filled with meanings conveyed through signs. It is based on the axiom that cultural contexts and psychological phenomena are assumed to be mutual, inseparable, and co-constructive. This focus fits the general scientific status of all open systems, which exist only due to the continuous exchange of materials with the environment. Cultural psychology is an integrated approach to psychology rather than a separate branch, as is sometimes believed, since psychology and culture “make each other up.” This involves constructive internalization (intra-mental construction of personal meanings) and equally constructive externalization (changing the environment in the direction specified by the internal meanings). As a collaborative, multidisciplinary perspective, cultural psychology is closely linked with disciplines like anthropology, sociology, linguistics, literature, and others. Cultural psychology focuses on the study of cultural—sign-mediating—processes within the mind. A common misconception relates to the fact that the term “cultural” refers to the study of similarities and differences between various communities. Rather than focusing on static comparisons, meaning-making and dynamic organization of personal and collective reality are studied. Differences between societies are important only as illustrations of the possible patterns of human psychological variation as they emerge in a particular time-space coordinate. Thus, another important axiom is that there can be no psychology without culture. Culture is constructed by goal-oriented human actions and involves continuous thought, action, and emotion in the face of uncertainty. Thus, the centrally important feature of cultural psychology is the inclusion of personal, interpersonal, and collective processes as they make up the different layers of meaning in irreversible time. Culture is both inside a person’s mind, as a personal manifestation, and also a shared system or collective set of customs. Cultural psychologists tend to treat the person as a whole rather than as separate different domains of activity because a comprehensive and multidimensional approach to a person within context is believed to be the key to meaning. Cultural psychology attempts to bring the notion of context into the central focus in psychology and the notion of person back into ethnography, as these are believed to be constructive. Context is viewed in two ways—as inevitably and inseparably linked with the phenomenon and as external social setting (e.g., home, school) in which human activities take place. Another important feature is that “cultural psychology is inherently a developmental discipline and developmental psychology is inherently cultural” (Shwartz, et al. 2020, p. 2). All levels of culturally organized human ways of living—persons, communities, societies—are constantly developing systems.
There has been an alarming rise in suicide attempts among indigenous people in Brazil leading to ... more There has been an alarming rise in suicide attempts among indigenous people in Brazil leading to national concerns about the provision of psychosocial care and professional support. In this study, we make an attempt to understand the perspectives of professionals in assisting indigenous people from a specific group, the Iny, and identify the specific challenges of addressing issues through the mental health care system, related specifically to suicide prevention. Using a qualitative approach with participant observation and semi-structured interviews, the research included indigenous and their families assisted by three public institutions, and the professionals that work in the public psychosocial assistance. For this paper we examined the tensions, conflicts and challenges of the health care professionals at one of these institutions, a Psychosocial Care Center in the state of Goiás/Brazil. For the analysis of data, a sociocultural protocol was built to identify dialogical tension...
Poetics has long been considered the preserve of the extraordinary person, one gifted enough to t... more Poetics has long been considered the preserve of the extraordinary person, one gifted enough to transcend everyday existence through his or her imagination. In its most limited sense, poetry is language in verse, and in its broadest, an approach to life itself. In this chapter, we will be using the latter meaning, exploring “poetic instants”, moments where words can fail to provide adequate expression to emotions through interviews with participants from India, mostly living in New Delhi. The findings of the survey indicate that cultural meanings, personal drive, interpersonal affiliation and life-course significance were common ingredients of emotional arousal which heightened particular experiences for people. Through this meaning-making, specific events were encapsulated in lived time, but they also stood outside of it, illustrating the subjective dimension of temporality.
This book has integrated the realms of poetics in diverse ways. For instance, Octavio Paz’s (La C... more This book has integrated the realms of poetics in diverse ways. For instance, Octavio Paz’s (La Casa de la Presencia. Barcelona: Galaxia-Gutenberg, 1956/1999) masterful differentiation between poetic instants, poems, poets and poetry can serve as a platform for these variations. Some of the chapters deal with the poetic quality of specific events, objects or experiences, and discuss how and why people relate to the ineffable intensity of the aesthetics embedded in poetic instants in their everyday lives (see Chaudhary, Chawla, & Sindhu, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Dazzani & Marsico, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Lordelo, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Murakami, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Valsiner, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Other chapters search for the meaningfulness of existence by writing poems or imprinting them into liminal spaces such as musical pieces or the human body (see Abels, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Arguello Manresa & Glăveanu, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Leao & Guimaraes, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Lehmann & Klempe, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Watzlawik, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). In addition, other texts of the book have embraced the quest of bringing in the poet within the scientist, questioning the boundaries between arts and science in itself (Abbey & Bastos, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Abels, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Freeman, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Lastly, three commentaries tried to wrap up the realms of poesis along the diverse themes of the manuscripts in a critical way (see Rabinovich, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Uriko, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Zittoun, Poetry and imagined worlds: Creativity and everyday experience. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
The interventions have ranged between benevolent exchanges to powerful influences as well as mili... more The interventions have ranged between benevolent exchanges to powerful influences as well as military domination. Although interpersonal and group influence has been an important domain of study in Social Psychology, we propose to take a fresh look at these phenomena from the specific orientations provided by the discipline of Cultural Psychology. In this perspective, meaning making processes becomes a key for understanding the everyday experiences of the receivers and agents of intervention. In this volume, we see how attending to meaning-making processes becomes crucial when researching or intervening within cultural encounters and global everyday life. It is through listening to the foreign other, to attend to their immediate experiences, as well as exploring how meaning may be mediated and co-constructed by them in everyday life through organizational structures, informal pee
This Element explores multi-faceted linkages between feeding and relationship formation based on ... more This Element explores multi-faceted linkages between feeding and relationship formation based on ethnographic case studies in Morocco, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Costa Rica. Research demonstrates that there are many culturally valued ways of feeding children, contradicting the idea of a single universally optimal feeding standard. It demonstrates further that in many parts of the world, feeding plays a central role in bonding and relationship formation, something largely overlooked in current developmental theories. Analysis shows that feeding contributes to relationship formation through what we call proximal, transactional, and distal dimensions. This Element argues that feeding practices can lead to qualitatively distinct forms of relationships. It has important theoretical and practical implications, calling for the expansion of attachment theory to include feeding and body-centered caregiving and significant changes to global interventions currently based on 'respon...
Ending epistemic exclusion: toward a truly global science and practice of early childhood development, 2023
The science and practice of Early Childhood Development (ECD) rely heavily on research from the E... more The science and practice of Early Childhood Development (ECD) rely heavily on research from the Euro-American middle class—a minority of the world’s population—and research in or from the majority world is severely under-represented. This problem has been acknowledged in ECD, an applied field aiming to assess and improve child development globally, and in the related fields of global health and developmental sciences. Thus, now is the time to search for effective pathways towards global representation. To date, most calls for change within ECD and related fields have focused on various aspects of knowledge production and publication. Although more majority world research is certainly needed, we should work equally on the reception of existing research. A large body of research on childhood in the majority world already exists (eg, in anthropology, cultural psychology, and indigenous psychology), but majority world research is almost entirely absent in ECD. The under-representation of majority world research in ECD cannot simply be blamed on the scarcity of research, however. This under-representation is also perpetuated by the exclusion of existing, accessible, and highly relevant majority world research from the dominant academic discourses—in other words, by epistemic exclusion. If epistemic exclusion in the field of ECD continues, the existence of more majority world research will not reduce the current minority world biases in ECD research. Ending epistemic exclusion is therefore an essential step towards a truly global ECD practice.
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