Culture as Process: A Tribute to Jaan Valsiner PDF
Preview Culture as Process: A Tribute to Jaan Valsiner
Brady Wagoner Bo Allesøe Christensen Carolin Demuth Editors Culture as Process A Tribute to Jaan Valsiner Culture as Process Brady Wagoner Bo Allesøe Christensen • Carolin Demuth Editors Culture as Process A Tribute to Jaan Valsiner Editors Brady Wagoner Bo Allesøe Christensen Communication and Psychology Communication and Psychology Aalborg University Aalborg University Aalborg, Denmark Aalborg, Denmark Carolin Demuth Communication and Psychology Aalborg University Aalborg, Denmark ISBN 978-3-030-77891-0 ISBN 978-3-030-77892-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77892-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Foreword Jaan Valsiner, A Quest for the Whole Characterizing Jaan Valsiner’s academic endeavor as a quest for the whole, may at first glance seem a bit too easy, casual, or even trifled. For is such characterization not reached by merely combining phrases from the titles of some of Jaan’s co- authored works, more exactly from Striving for the whole (Diriwächter & Valsiner, 2008) and A quest for synthesis” (Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991)? But, nonetheless, we actually think this kind of bricolage captures the essence of Jaan’s pursuit, not only as a researcher, but also as a colleague and – not least – as a human being. As several testimonials in this book attest, Jaan has adamantly pursued the whole for the last many years. There is really nothing easy or superficial about quests. As a matter of fact, the quest is one of the seminal motives in world literature as well as in modern fiction (e.g., computer games). La queste is at the heart of the Arthurian epos, most notably in Chrétien de Troyes’ unfinished Perceval ou le Conte de Graal (ca. 1180 1190) – and the anonymous Les aventures ou la queste del Saint Graal (Busby, 1993; Sommer, 1913). But this motive is older and much more widespread than medieval France. The adventures of Ulysses in Homer’s Odysseus, the longings of Vergil’s Aeneas for a place to call his own, Jason and his Argonauts searching for the Golden Fleece, but also the Bildungsroman (e.g., Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister) and the tale of Beren and Lúthien (Tolkien, 1977), these are all captivating stories of quests addressing some deep strata in the human mind, while reveiling the protagonist’s personality, morals, successes, and perils. A quest is a striving, and synthesis aims for the whole. These phrases replicate one another, but being used almost 20 years apart, they also indicate continuities in Jaan’s academic career. It has been and still is a quest. Every quest has an object, and this object – the Grail – is precious but hard to obtain. It is either hidden or has been lost, or can, at its worst, even be unobtainable. The “Whole” is such an object. Jaan’s two books, that we have alluded to, are precursors in this quest. And this points to one important feature of Jaan’s own project or quest if you will: his v vi Foreword insistence on the value of tradition and his instruction to recognize and respect this value by studying, emulating, and elaborating on it. This demand may seem curi- ously at odds with present standard practices in academia with its tendency to treat older contributions as obsolete and outdated. But is not striving for synthesis in itself at odds with the academic urge to specialize? Narrowing your field of research may further your career, but it also contributes to fragmenting the field into innu- merable sub-fields, apparently unrelated to one another. Cultural psychology, the vessel of Jaan’s quest, is instrumental in repairing what has been splintered and re-discovering what has been lost – the whole. Cultural psychology is not yet another sub-field of psychology, related to, for example, developmental psychology (as a sub-discipline) or to cross-cultural psychology. Instead, it is a significant, rather radical broadening of the field, well beyond the confines of modern psychology. Because Jaan is also insistent when it comes to integrating psychology with other disciplines: with anthropology, sociology, lin- guistics, semiotics, history, philosophy, you name it. The aim of cultural psychology is radical. It is to understand the condition of human existence in its totality. In that sense the quest is a search for the meaning of the whole. Going against the grain of mainstream psychology is hazardous. In addition to being difficult, quests are also dangerous. They are full of obstacles, of dragons, sirens, and other hideous monsters. It takes courage, will, and enormous intelli- gence – and perhaps also a dose of luck – to avoid these trappings. It also takes the help of others: of fellow travelers, fellow searchers, and researchers. Quests are always prolonged, going on for years, decades, forever. And they may lead the hero to unforeseen places in faraway lands. Jaan and his ideas have travelled the world during this long search, and along the road he has found many scholars willing to follow him on his journey. This journey has become a collective enterprise, which is evident when reading the contributions in this volume. It is an endeavor, shared by a group of colleagues that have turned into a group of friends. Actually, the most apt designation for this group might probably be that of a globally extended family, united not at some court’s mythical Round Table but at one of the most familiar, humble but nonetheless affective places of all: i.e., in the “kitchen,” collectively sharing, probing, and developing ideas – operating as a tightly knit unit, a whole. It is not only because of his eminent scholarship nor by some unusual oratorical skills that Jaan has been able to assemble this “family.” It is very much due to his personality. Jaan is as curious about ideas as he is about people. About the perspec- tives, opinions, and experiences of others. And he is interested in developing and propagating the ideas of others, not less than his own ones. He invites ideas and encourages curiosity, and while doing so he invites the bearers of these ideas into his world. To many of us, he may serve as a mentor, but he has also – and more impor- tantly – become a friend and thereby he has made us part of his extended family. In 2013 it was our good fortune that the vessel of Cultural Psychology – probably quite unforeseen by Jaan himself – landed in Denmark, at Aalborg University. Jaan went ashore, and with him a constant flow of fellow cultural psychologists from near and afar followed. Since then, we have benefited tremendously from Jaan’s preoccupation with “the whole.” It has given us a much broader outlook. It has Foreword vii increased our productivity and strengthened our international reputation. Most sig- nificantly for us, though, Jaan’s arrival has given us a friend and made us part of his “family.” For those fortunate enough to be part of the family, most have experienced Jaan’s hospitality, curiosity, and mild-mannered persistent side. His hospitality is well known – from his travels he brings gifts and things he believes others will enjoy or find as amusing as he does. But Jaan also expects much from his family, but that is only because of his genuine interest in others. As such family members have even found themselves the objects of his articles and books; this is where one tends to rely on his own sentiment, that he is “not that kind of psychologist.” While the hero of most quests relies on strength, strong morals, and intelligence, many heroes also rely on luck and on trusting other people. We will not be the judges of whether Jaan has been lucky or not, but we can certainly testify that his trust in others is immense. As an avid believer in the potential of others, Jaan will do his upmost to help promote and develop these capacities. This is probably one of the finest sides of any research leader. A quest is a noble endeavor. The word quest is derived from medieval French la queste, itself derived from the Latin verb quaerere, meaning to ask (cf. question) or to search. A quest is thus at the core of research understood as a persistent search by perpetually asking questions, whose definite answers might very likely be indefi- nitely postponed. The aim of academia is not to find unequivocal answers or clear solutions, but rather to embark on difficult, sometimes dangerous and always pro- longed searches for a precious object and to undertake such journeys not for the sake of the (re)searcher but for humanity as a whole. Jaan Valsiner’s greatest contri- bution to academia during his long and impressive career is therefore to show us what conducting academic life might otherwise make us forget: the nobility of the quest and its goal. In Jaan’s case this goal is “the whole,” not only in a theoretical but first and foremost in a profoundly human sense. Aalborg, Denmark Christian Jantzen Mikael Vetner References Diriwachter, R., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (2011). Striving for the whole: Creating theoretical synthe- ses (Vol. 1). Transaction Publishers. Keith Busby, K. (1993). Le roman de Perceval ou le conte du Graal: Edition critique d'après tous les manuscrits. Niemeyer. Sommer, H. O. (1913). The Vulgate version of the Arthurian romances: Les aventures ou la queste del Saint Graal. Le mort le roi Arthur. Carnegie Institution. Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977). The Silmarillion. George Allen & Unwin. Van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (1991). Understanding Vygotsky: A quest for synthesis. Blackwell Publishing. Contents The Mind of a Persistent Innovator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Brady Wagoner, Carolin Demuth, and Bo A. Christensen Part I Reimagining the History of Psychology Jaan Valsiner: A Ganzheitspsychologist? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Rainer Diriwächter Rising up to Humanity: Towards a Cultural Psychology of Bildung . . . . . 29 Svend Brinkmann The Self Inside of Us: Biologism, Internalization, Quantification, and Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Martin Dege Valsiner and Van der Veer: A Case of Intellectual Interdependency . . . . . 49 Rene van der Veer Part II D evelopmental Science in the Making The Dynamics of Agency and Context in Human Development: Holism Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Nancy Budwig The Trajectory of Jaan Valsiner’s Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 James V. Wertsch Forever Feeding Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Tania Zittoun Cultural Processes from the Inside: What Happens During and After a Movement? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Boulanger Dany ix x Contents The Bounded Indeterminacy of Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Lívia Mathias Simão Part III The Semiotic Mind A Stroll Through the Birthplace of Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Carlos Cornejo Expansive and Restrictive Semiosis: Exploring the Process of Cultural Guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Alex Gillespie Hypergeneralized Affective-Semiotic Fields: The Generative Power of a Construct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Angela Uchoa Branco Unfolding Semiotics: The Field of Mediated Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Marie-Cécile Bertau Interpersonal Psychoanalysis as a Culturally Unique Field: A Semiotic Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Philip J. Rosenbaum Part IV Cultural Transmission and Transformation Culture as a Creative Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Vlad P. Glăveanu The Carnivalesque Pedagogy: Jaan as a Pedagogist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Kyoko Murakami Overcoming the Binary Logic in Biculturalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Elke Murdock The Sense of Belonging in the Context of Migration: Meanings and Developmental Trajectories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Isabelle Albert and Stephanie Barros Political Plasticity and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Fathali M. Moghaddam Part V Aesthetics in Culture and Mind Aesthetic Notes on Ornamented Lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Robert E. Innis Pleromatization: Bringing Cultural Psychology Closer to Human Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Sven Hroar Klempe and Olga Lehmann Contents xi The Vorbild in Donor Portraits and Cultural Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Lucas B. Mazur Intimacy in Irreversible Time: Poetic Genesis as a Special Case of Boundary Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Emily Abbey and Ana Cecília Bastos The Fabric of (Faked) Behavior Shows in Theatre Rehearsals: An Exploration on How Body Movements Turn into Signs for Experiencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Alberto Rosa Part VI P sychology as a Global Science Local Ideas for a Global Science: The Journey from Indian Psychology to Cultural Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 Nandita Chaudhary The Collective Making of a General Psychology of Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Jakob W. Villadsen and Pernille Hviid The Relationalism of Jaan Valsiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 Danilo Silva Guimarães Jaan Valsiner, a Keen Perceiver and Creator of Cultural Ecology . . . . . . . 327 Shuangshuang Xu, Aruna Wu, and Xiaowen Li Part VII Epistemological Foundations of Psychology The Science of Psyche: Jaan Valsiner’s Way at the Frontiers . . . . . . . . . . . 339 Aaro Toomela Ideas and Challenges for Cultural Psychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 Sergio Salvatore Action-Theoretical Cultural Psychology and the Decentred Subject . . . . 363 Jürgen Straub Valsiner on Facts: Making Culture Explicit? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 Bo A. Christensen Bridging: Some Personal Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389 Jens Mammen Part VIII Innovating Methodology Developing Dynamic Methodologies: Jaan Valsiner’s Influence on the Methodological Thinking in Cultural Psychology and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401 Mariann Märtsin
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