Identity Development in the Lifecourse pp 23-51 | Cite as
Identity Development in a Semiotic Cultural Key
- 222 Downloads
Abstract
How can identity be thought of as a process that is always changing and evolving, yet also provides a sense of sameness and continuity across time and space? This chapter is guided by this question, as it provides an overview of the key conceptual tools that informed the research presented in this book and were developed through the case studies. Building on contemporary semiotic cultural psychology, the chapter introduces the idea that identity construction can be understood as part of our ongoing meaning-making process and identity can be seen as a field of hyper-generalised meta-signs about who we are, have been and are becoming that emerges as a by-product of this process and becomes activated in moments of rupture.
Keywords
Identity construction Meaning-making Sign Rupture Transition Semiotic cultural psychologyReferences
- Abbey, E. (2004). Circumventing ambivalence in identity: The importance of latent and overt aspects of symbolic meaning. Culture & Psychology, 10(3), 331–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Abbey, E. (2007a). At the boundary of me and you: Semiotic architecture of thinking and feeling the other. In L. M. Simão & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Otherness in question. Labyrinths of the self (pp. 73–92). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
- Abbey, E. (2007b). Perpetual uncertainty of cultural life: Becoming reality. In J. Valsiner & A. Rosa (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (pp. 362–372). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Abbey, E., & Valsiner, J. (2004). Emergence of meanings through ambivalence [58 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research [Online Journal], 6(1), Art 23.Google Scholar
- Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
- Bastos, A. C. (2017). Shadow trajectories: The poetic motion of motherhood meanings through the lens of lived temporality. Culture & Psychology, 23(3), 408–422. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X16655458CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bergson, H. (1907). Loov evolutsioon [Creative evolution] (M. Ott & H. Sahkai, Trans.). Tallinn: Imamaa.Google Scholar
- Bertau, M.-C. (2007). Encountering objects and others as a means of passage. Culture & Psychology, 13(3), 335–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bühler, C., & Massarik, F. (Eds.). (1968). The course of human life. A study of goals in the humanistic perspective. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
- Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology. A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
- Costall, A. (2007). The windowless room: ‘Mediationism’ and how to get over it. In J. Valsiner & A. Rosa (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (pp. 109–123). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Crafter, S., Maunder, R., & Soulsby, L. (2019). Developmental transitions: Exploring stability and change through the lifespan. London and New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Daniels, H. (2001). Vygotsky and pedagogy. London and New York: Routledge Falmer.Google Scholar
- Diriwächter, R., & Valsiner, J. (2005). Qualitative developmental research methods in their historical and epistemological contexts [53 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research [Online Journal], 7(1), Art 8.Google Scholar
- Dodds, A. E., Lawrence, J. A., & Valsiner, J. (1997). The personal and the social: Mead’s theory of the ‘generalized other’. Theory & Psychology, 7(4), 483–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Edwards, A. (2005). Relational agency: Learning to be a resourceful practitioner. International Journal of Educational Research, 43(3), 168–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Español, A., Marsico, G., & Tateo, L. (2018). Maintaining borders: From border guards to diplomats. Human Affairs: Postdisciplinary Humanities & Social Sciences Quarterly, 28(4), 443–460. https://doi.org/10.1515/humaff-2018-0036CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Falmagne, R. J. (2004). On the constitution of ‘self’ and ‘mind’. Theory & Psychology, 14(6), 822–845.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Fuhrer, U. (2004). Cultivating minds. Identity as meaning-making practice. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Gibson, J. J. (1986). The ecological approach to visual perception. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.Google Scholar
- Gillespie, A. (2005). GH Mead: Theorist of the social act. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 35(1), 19–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Greco, M., & Stenner, P. (2017). From paradox to pattern shift: Conceptualising liminal hotspots and their affective dynamics. Theory & Psychology, 27(2), 147–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354317693120CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Holland, D., & Lave, J. (Eds.). (2001). History in person. Enduring struggles, contentious practice, intimate identities. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
- Josephs, I. E. (2002). ‘The hopi in me’: The construction of a voice in the dialogical self from a cultural psychological perspective. Theory & Psychology, 12, 161–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kloep, M., & Hendry, L. B. (2011). A systemic approach to the transitions to adulthood. In J. J. Arnett, M. Kloep, L. B. Hendry, & J. L. Tanner (Eds.), Debating emerging adulthood: Stage or process? (pp. 53–76). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kress, G. R. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Lawrence, J. A., & Valsiner, J. (1993). Conceptual roots of internalization: From transmission to transformation. Human Development, 36(1), 150–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Lawrence, J. A., & Valsiner, J. (2003). Making personal sense. An account of basic internalization and externalization processes. Theory & Psychology, 13(6), 723–752.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Levine, D. N. (Ed.). (1971). Georg Simmel on individuality and social forms. Selected writings. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
- Marková, I. (2003). Constitution of the self: Intersubjectivity and dialogicality. Culture & Psychology, 9(3), 249–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Marsico, G. (2016). The borderland. Culture & Psychology, 22(2), 206–215. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X15601199CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Marsico, G., & Tateo, L. (2017). Borders, tensegrity and development in dialogue. Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science, 51(4), 536–556. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-017-9398-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Märtsin, M. (2010). Identity in dialogue: Identity as hyper-generalized personal sense. Theory & Psychology, 20, 436–450. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354310363513
- Märtsin, M. (2018). On the possibility of becoming otherwise. In B. Wagoner, I. Bresco, & S. Zadeh (Eds.), Memory in the wild (p. TBC). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.Google Scholar
- Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
- Motzkau, J. F., & Clinch, M. (2017). Managing suspended transition in medicine and law: Liminal hotspots as resources for change. Theory & Psychology, 27(2), 270–289. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354317700517CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Peirce, C. S. (1932). On sign. In C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss (Eds.), Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Volume II). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
- Rosa, A. (2007). Dramaturgical actuations and symbolic communication. Or how beliefs make up reality. In J. Valsiner & A. Rosa (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (pp. 293–317). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Roth, W. M. (2007). The ethico-moral nature of identity: Prolegomena to the development of third-generation cultural-historical activity theory. International Journal of Educational Research, 46(1–2), 83–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Salvatore, S. (2015). Psychology in black and white: The project of a theory-driven science. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
- Salvatore, S. (2018). Culture as dynamics of sense-making. A semiotic and embodied framework for socio-cultural psychology. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 35–48). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Sawyer, R. K. (2002). Unresolved tensions in sociocultural theory: Analogies with contemporary sociological debates. Culture & Psychology, 8(3), 283–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Shotter, J. (2003). ‘Real presences’: Meaning as living movement in a participatory world. Theory & Psychology, 13, 435–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Shotter, J. (2008). Conversational realities revisited: Life, language, body and world. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute.Google Scholar
- Sonesson, G. (2010). Here comes the semiotic species: Reflections on the semiotic turn in the cognitive sciences. In B. Wagoner (Ed.), Symbolic transformation. The mind in movement through culture and society (pp. 38–58). London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Stenner, P. (2017). Liminality and experience. A transdisciplinary approach to the psychosocial. London: Palgrave.Google Scholar
- Stetsenko, A. (2005). Activity as object-related: Resolving the dichotomy of individual and collective planes of activity. Mind, Culture and Activity, 12(1), 70–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Stetsenko, A., & Arievitch, I. M. (2004). The self in cultural-historical activity theory. Theory & Psychology, 14(4), 475–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Szakolczai, A. (2015). Liminality and experience. Structuring transitory situations and transformative events. In A. Horvath, B. Thomassen, & H. Wydra (Eds.), Breaking boundaries: Varieties of liminality (pp. 11–38). New York: Berghahn Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Szakolczai, Á. (2017). Permanent (trickster) liminality: The reasons of the heart and of the mind. Theory & Psychology, 27(2), 231–248. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354317694095CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Tateo, L., & Marsico, G. (2013). The self as tension of wholeness and emptiness. Interaccoes, 9(24), 1–19.Google Scholar
- Valsiner, J. (1998). The guided mind. A sociogenetic approach to personality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
- Valsiner, J. (2001). Process structure of semiotic mediation in human development. Human Development, 44, 84–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Valsiner, J. (2002). Forms of dialogical relations and semiotic autoregulation within the self. Theory & Psychology, 12(2), 251–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Valsiner, J. (2005). Scaffolding within the structure of dialogical self: Hierarchical dynamics of semiotic mediation. New Ideas in Psychology, 23(3), 197–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Valsiner, J. (2007a). Culture in minds and societies: Foundations of cultural psychology. New Delhi: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
- Valsiner, J. (2007b). Human development as migration: Striving toward the unknown. In Otherness in question: Labyrinths of the self (pp. 349–378). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
- Valsiner, J. (2007c). Semiotic autoregulation: Dynamic sign hierarchies constraining the stream of consciousness. Sign System Studies, 35(1/2).Google Scholar
- Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Valsiner, J. (2017). From methodology to methods in human psychology. Cham: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Valsiner, J., & Diriwächter, R. (2008). Conclusion: Returning to the whole—A new theoretical synthesis in the social sciences. In Striving for the whole: Creating theoretical synthesis (pp. 211–237). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
- Valsiner, J., & Van der Veer, R. (2000). The social mind: Construction of the idea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Van der Veer, R. (1994). Pierre Janet’s relevance for a socio-cultural approach. In A. Rosa & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Explorations in socio-cultural studies. Vol. 1. Historical and theoretical discourse (pp. 205–209). Madrid: Fundación Infancia y Aprendizaje.Google Scholar
- Van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (1991). Understanding Vygotsky: A quest for synthesis. Cambridge: Blackwell.Google Scholar
- Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
- Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, volume I. Problems of general psychology. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
- Vygotsky, L. S. (1989). Concrete human psychology. Soviet Psychology, 27(2), 53–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Wartofsky, M. (1979). Models—Representations and the scientific understanding. Dodrecht and Boston: Reidel.Google Scholar
- Zittoun, T. (2004). Symbolic competencies for developmental transitions: The case of the choice of first names. Culture & Psychology, 10(2), 131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Zittoun, T. (2007a). Dynamics of interiority. Ruptures and transitions in the self development. In L. M. Simão & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Otherness in question. Labyrinths of the self (pp. 187–214). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
- Zittoun, T. (2007b). Symbolic resources in dialogue, dialogical symbolic resources. Culture & Psychology, 13(3), 365–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Zittoun, T. (2007c). The role of symbolic resources in human lives. In J. Valsiner & A. Rosa (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (pp. 343–361). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Zittoun, T. (2012). Life-course: A socio-cultural perspective. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 513–535). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- Zittoun, T., Duveen, G., Gillespie, A., Ivinson, G., & Psaltis, C. (2003). The use of symbolic resources in developmental transitions. Culture & Psychology, 9(4), 415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar