Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Caroline Howarth
everyday
The generalised other
culture
Dialogical self
(cross-)
cultural
differences The self in
a
globalised
world
If culture produces the self:
What happens when
culture transforms?
Theoretical frameworks:
Self as the outcome of social interaction
– George Herbert Mead
Evidence from:
- primate psychology
- wild children
- Social psychology
Harlow (1958)
The conversation of
gestures is the social
matrix out of which mind
and awareness of self as
an object in the social world
of others emerges both
phylogenetically and
ontogenetically.
Wild Child BBC documentary
b) Taking the role of other:
in games
Play Games
What goes on in the game goes on in the life of the child all the
time. He is continually taking on the attitudes of those around
him, especially the roles of those whom in some sense control
him and on whom he depends.
2. Participating in games
But …
The production of self is constrained by social norms
and expectations.
But
There is an unsocialised component of the self that
drives the individual into and out social interactions and
sometimes leads the individual to react against social
norms.
Institutionalisation and agency
Does this:
Liberate us as we invent new aspects of our selves?
Or
Expand the technologies of surveillance and the
mechanisms of induced self-regulation?
“An individual deprived of social stimulation and support would not develop agency
just as she would not develop psychological functions” (Ratner, 2000).
Theories of self in social research
Culture
– Understanding the psychological impact of migration and mixed identities
• Bhatia and Ram (2001); Hale and de Abreu (2010).
Organisations
– The importance of reflexivity and taking the perspective of the other in
professional contexts
– Schon (1983); Schwartzman (1993).
Communication
– Cross-cultural differences in communication; dialogues with virtual selves
– Banlund (1975); Turkle (1996; 2011)
everyday
culture
(cross-)
cultural
differences
The self in
a
globalised
world
Limited by relations of
power and ideologies of
difference Possibilities for agency and
social change